John Simkin
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Does anyone know if Walter Lippmann wrote about the assassination of JFK?
I don't know if this will answer your question: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/170338-1
Also, Lippmann wrote a tribute to Kennedy in Newsweek, January 21, 1963, pp. 24-29
Thank you for that. The reason I ask is that Lippmann was trained by Lincoln Steffens, the "godfather" of investigative journalism.
I did find this 2002 article, JFK: HOW THE MEDIA ASSASSINATED THE REAL STORY, by Robert Hennelly and Jerry Policoff:
http://www.assassinationresearch.com/v1n2/...assination.html
Meanwhile, Life's sister publication, Time, did its best to swat away any and all conspiracy talk. Time countered the ground swell of conspiracy rumors in Europe with an article in its June 12, 1964, issue. Entitled "J.F.K.: The Murder and the Myths," the article blamed the speculation on "leftist" writers and publications seeking a "rightist conspiracy." Proponents of further investigation suffered fates similar to that of Thomas Buchanan, who in 1964 wrote the first book critical of the Warren Report, Who Killed Kennedy. Buchanan's thesis was groundless, Time argued, because he had allegedly been "fired by the Washington Star in 1948 after he admitted membership in the Communist party."
By late 1966, however, it was getting harder for the media to hold the line. Calls for a reexamination of the Warren report now came from former Kennedy aides Arthur Schlesinger and Richard Goodwin, The Saturday Evening Post, the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore, Walter Lippmann, Cardinal Cushing, William F. Buckley, and the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. It was in this climate that the New York Times initiated its first independent investigation of the assassination. By 1966 the Times seemed to be moving away from its stance of unquestioning support for the Warren report. In a November 1966 editorial, the paper acknowledged that there were "Unanswered Questions."
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Does anyone know if Walter Lippmann wrote about the assassination of JFK?
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David Lifton asked me to post this:
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Well, we'll see who caused it. The most important thing is to stop it happening again.
Exactly the reason why it is imperative to see who caused Dealey Plaza, so it can be kept from happening again.
But you won't get them and they will attack again.
BK
We solved the problem before by banning their IP address. However, that does not stop them from using a different computer.
This is one of the latest postings from this website that might be linked to the thread started by Evan Burton on Israel.
NPR’s All Things Considered had an interesting segment yesterday on the 9 slain Turkish “activists” from the Mavi Marmara. There are new details in here about their backgrounds, and it’s almost comical to listen as reporter Julia Rooke keeps trying throughout the segment to avoid drawing the obvious conclusion that all of these activists belonged to radical Islamic sects. She characterizes them as “very religious,” “very conservative,” etc. She describes the scene at the funerals, with children calling their fathers “martyrs,” and vowing to become martyrs themselves, without giving any sense that this might be a little … odd.
Finally Robert Siegel asks Rooke if she thinks it would be fair to describe them as extremely religious, and she manages to say the word “radical” at the end of the discussion.
It took a real effort, but even NPR now admits that the passengers who rioted and attacked IDF soldiers might just possibly sorta kinda maybe be called “radical Islamists.” Ya think?
Then there is this:
In an interview with Don Imus, Ron Paul calls for the US to abandon Israel, calls Gaza a “concentration camp,” and recites a litany of anti-Israel talking points, including the canard that Israel is starving the people of Gaza.
One of the biggest influences on the modern Republican Party sounds just as loony as the most radical leftist writing for Counterpunch. Loonier.
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Don't bring a knife to gun fight...
Are you making some sort of moral statement with this comment?
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The Education Forum website was hacked today, resulting in a redirection to the hacker's website. We were forced to use the backups of the Forum, and therefore some postings may have been lost.
We apologise for the inconvenience and are taking steps to help prevent it happening in future.
The hacker's website does not appear to contain any malware or malicious code, but if you were redirected to that site it would be advisable to run your anti-virus / anti-malware software and scan your computer. Please remember to update your virus / malware definition files before doing so.
I have just got back from holiday to find the Forum hacked. It has now been sorted out. I had to smile at the large number of emails I received commenting on who they thought was responsible. I suspect it was none of those people.
My only comment on this was the last time this happened was when members of the Forum attacked the state of Israel. We traced this attack to a US based pro-Israeli website.
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The Education Forum website was hacked, resulting in a redirection to the hacker's website.
We were forced to use the backups of the Forum, and therefore some postings may have been lost.
We apologise for the inconvenience and are taking steps to help prevent it happening in future.
The hacker's website does not appear to contain any malware or malicious code, but if you were redirected to that site it would be advisable to run your anti-virus / anti-malware software and scan your computer. Please remember to update your definition files before doing so.
I have just got back from holiday to find the Forum hacked. It has now been sorted out. I had to smile at the large number of emails I received commenting on who they thought was responsible. I suspect it was none of those people.
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So someone posted a COMMENT and you reject a site on that basis? This is nice
reflection of the shallow thought of many on forums like this one. I can't believe
anyone would take someone like you seriously when you are so superficial. And
tell me which other sites have the integrity to follow the evidence about the perps
of 9/11? But then, I am quite sure you don't need to bother with evidence, either.
Let me also recommend a 9/11 web site that has the courage to confront evidence of Israeli complicity in 9/11, which is http://rediscover911.com. I recommend it to everyone who has a serious interest in the truth about 9/11.
Interesting site. I read the article "Introduction: Israel and 9/11," along with the one comment, posted a week ago, in which the commentator refers to Obama as "our Nappy headed Jew boy."
I have a "serious interest" in 9/11, but I don't think I'll be going back to that site, for all of its "courage," for information.
You will win very few friends with your crazy attacks on Ron Ecker. He is one of the most respected members of this forum. Can't you see the constant damage you do to yourself?
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I've previously supported Israeli actions as defending themselves in a hostile region, but over the last decade they have lost the moral high ground. They have increasingly changed from defending themselves to being the class bully. They have security concerns, but that does not give them the right to commit wanton acts of violence.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/israel-fends-o...00602-wzv4.html
Israel lost the moral high-ground long ago. This case will reveal how much the current president of the US is under the control of the Israel lobby.
This article suggests that some of the aid workers were executed:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/0...autopsy-results
Israel was tonight under pressure to allow an independent inquiry into its assault on the Gaza aid flotilla after autopsy results on the bodies of those killed, obtained by the Guardian, revealed they were peppered with 9mm bullets, many fired at close range.
Nine Turkish men on board the Mavi Marmara were shot a total of 30 times and five were killed by gunshot wounds to the head, according to the vice-chairman of the Turkish council of forensic medicine, which carried out the autopsies for the Turkish ministry of justice today.
The results revealed that a 60-year-old man, Ibrahim Bilgen, was shot four times in the temple, chest, hip and back. A 19-year-old, named as Fulkan Dogan, who also has US citizenship, was shot five times from less that 45cm, in the face, in the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back. Two other men were shot four times, and five of the victims were shot either in the back of the head or in the back, said Yalcin Buyuk, vice-chairman of the council of forensic medicine.
The findings emerged as more survivors gave their accounts of the raids. Ismail Patel, the chairman of Leicester-based pro-Palestinian group Friends of al-Aqsa, who returned to Britain today, told how he witnessed some of the fatal shootings and claimed that Israel had operated a "shoot to kill policy".
He calculated that during the bloodiest part of the assault, Israeli commandos shot one person every minute. One man was fatally shot in the back of the head just two feet in front him and another was shot once between the eyes. He added that as well as the fatally wounded, 48 others were suffering from gunshot wounds and six activists remained missing, suggesting the death toll may increase.
The new information about the manner and intensity of the killings undermines Israel's insistence that its soldiers opened fire only in self defence and in response to attacks by the activists.
"Given the very disturbing evidence which contradicts the line from the Israeli media and suggests that Israelis have been very selective in the way they have addressed this, there is now an overwhelming need for an international inquiry," said Andrew Slaughter MP, a member of the all party group on Britain and Palestine.
Israel said tonight the number of bullets found in the bodies did not alter the fact that the soldiers were acting in self defence. "The only situation when a soldier shot was when it was a clearly a life-threatening situation," said a spokesman for the Israeli embassy in London. "Pulling the trigger quickly can result in a few bullets being in the same body, but does not change the fact they were in a life-threatening situation."
Protesters from across the country will tomorrow march from Downing Street to the Israeli embassy to call for Israel to be held to account for its actions.
Earlier this week, William Hague, the foreign secretary, said the government would call for an inquiry under international auspices if Israel refuses to establish an independent inquiry, including an international presence.
The autopsy results were released as the last of the Turkish victims was buried.
Dr Haluk Ince, the chairman of the council of forensic medicine in Istanbul, said that in only one case was there a single bullet wound, to the forehead from a distant shot, while every other victim suffered multiple wounds. "All [the bullets] were intact. This is important in a forensic context. When a bullet strikes another place it comes into the body deformed. If it directly comes into the body, the bullet is all intact."
He added that all but one of the bullets retrieved from the bodies came from 9mm rounds. Of the other round, he said: "It was the first time we have seen this kind of material used in firearms. It was just a container including many types of pellets usually used in shotguns. It penetrated the head region in the temple and we found it intact in the brain."
An unnamed Israeli commando, who purportedly led the raid on the Mavi Marmara, today told Israeli news website Ynet News that he shot at a protester who approached him with a knife. "I was in front of a number of people with knives and clubs," he said. "I cocked my weapon when I saw that one was coming towards me with a knife drawn and I fired once. Then another 20 people came at me from all directions and threw me down to the deck below …
"We knew they were peace activists. Though they wanted to break the Gaza blockade, we thought we'd encounter passive resistance, perhaps verbal resistance – we didn't expect this. Everyone wanted to kill us. We encountered terrorists who wanted to kill us and we did everything we could to prevent unnecessary injury."
Tonight the Rachel Corrie, an Irish vessel crewed by supporters of the Free Gaza movement, remained on course for Gaza. Yossi Gal, director general at the Israeli foreign ministry, said Israel had "no desire for a confrontation" but asked for the ship to dock at Ashdod, not Gaza.
"If the ship decides to sail the port of Ashdod, then we will ensure its safe arrival and will not board it," he said.
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In 1936 Sinclair Lewis published his novel, "It Can't Happen Here". The book is about Berzelius Windrip, who is elected President of the United States on a populist platform. He promises to restore the country to prosperity and greatness. Once in power, however, he becomes a dictator; outlawing dissent, putting his political enemies in concentration camps, and creating a paramilitary force called the Minute Men who terrorize the citizens. As Windrip dismantles democracy, most Americans either support him or reassure themselves that fascism "can't happen" in America.
1982 director–producer Kenneth Johnson wrote an adaptation of "It Can't Happen Here" entitled Storm Warnings. The script was presented to NBC, for production as a television mini-series, but the NBC executives rejected the initial version, claiming it was too "cerebral" for the American viewer. To make the script more marketable, the American fascists were re-cast as man-eating extraterrestrials. The new, re-cast story was the mini-series V, which premiered on May 3, 1983.
When he was a young struggling writer, Sinclair Lewis, a member of Upton Sinclair's Helicon Home Colony, a socialist community at Eaglewood, sold the plot of a novel, "The Assassination Bureau", to Jack London. The story is about a secret assassination agency based in the United States. London wrote 20,000 words before dying leaving the novel unfinished.
In 1963, Robert L. Fish, decided to complete London's novel. However, he made a few changes, including moving the Assassination Bureau to the Soviet Union. The plot follows Ivan Dragomiloff, who, in a twist of fate, finds himself pitted against the secret assassination agency he founded.
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I still haven't got a full handle on how this blogger thing works, so I can edit the thing, and need some technical advice, or as has been said, "I do request someone to come forward and give me technical assistance."
Bill, my blog has a pencil symbol at the bottom. If you click that you can edit your posts.
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The "Godfather" of American investigative journalism is Lincoln Steffens. He was born in San Francisco, California, on 6th April, 1866. The son of a wealthy businessman, he studied in France and Germany before graduating from the University of California, where he developed radical political views.
In 1892 Steffens became a reporter on the New York Evening Post. Later he became editor of McClure's Magazine, where he became associated with the style of investigative journalism that became known as muckraking. One of Steffen's major investigations involved exposing local government corruption.
A collection of Steffen's articles appeared in the book The Shame of the Cities (1904). This was followed by an investigation into state politicians, The Struggle for Self-Government (1906). He praised some politicians such as Robert La Follette and Seth Low for their honesty.
In 1906 Steffens joined with the investigative journalists, Ida Tarbell and Ray Stannard Baker to establish the radical American Magazine. He continued to write about corruption until 1910 when he went with John Reed to Mexico to report on Pancho Villa and his army. He became a strong supporter of the rebels and during this period developed the view revolution, rather than reform, was the way to change capitalism.
Steffens was also a great teacher. Journalists who he supported from a young age included John Reed and Walter Lippmann.
Steffens biggest mistake involved his views on communism. Steffens visited Russia in 1919 and in 1921 and when he returned to the United States he said to Bernard Baruch, "I have seen the future and it works." He admitted that "it was harder on the real reds than it was on us liberals. Emma Goldman, the anarchist who was deported to that socialist heaven, came out and said it was hell. And the socialists, the American, English, the European socialists, they did not recognize their own heaven. As some will put it, the trouble with them was that they were waiting at a station for a local train, and an express tore by and left them there. My summary of all our experiences was that it showed that heaven and hell are one place, and we all go there. To those who are prepared, it is heaven; to those who are not fit and ready, it is hell."
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In my opinion... The story starts with JFK accepting the suggestion to choose LBJ as VP. If you can help sum up the story in a neat, made for mass consumption manner - I for one would be happy to help spread the word
As a new member you might not be aware of this thread.
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The Sensitive Man
A woman meets a man in a bar. They talk; they connect; they end up leaving together.. They get back to his place, and as he shows her around his apartment, she notices that one wall of his bedroom is completely filled with soft, sweet, cuddly teddy bears. There are three shelves in the bedroom, with hundreds and hundreds of cute, cuddly teddy bears carefully placed in rows, covering the entire wall! It was obvious that he had taken quite some time to lovingly arrange them and she was immediately touched by the amount of thought he had put into organizing the display. There were small bears all along the bottom shelf, medium-sized bears covering the length of the middle shelf, and huge, enormous bears running all the way along the top shelf.
She found it strange for an obviously masculine guy to have such a large collection of Teddy Bears and is quite impressed by his sensitive side, but doesn't mention this to him.
They share a bottle of wine and continue talking and after awhile, she finds herself thinking, "Oh my God! Maybe, this guy
could be the one! Maybe he could be the future father of my children?" She turns to him and kisses him lightly on the lips. He responds warmly. They continue to kiss, the passion builds, and he romantically lifts her in his arms and carries her into his bedroom, where they rip off each other's clothes and make hot, steamy love. She is so overwhelmed that she
responds with more passion, more creativity, more heat than she has ever known.
After an intense, explosive night of raw passion with this sensitive guy, they are lying there together in the afterglow.
The woman rolls over, gently strokes his chest and asks coyly, "Well, how was it?"
The guy gently smiles at her, strokes her cheek, looks deeply into her eyes, and says: "Help yourself to any prize from the middle shelf."
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In 1902 Lenin published a pamphlet, “What Is To Be Done?”, where he argued for a party of professional revolutionaries dedicated to the overthrow of Tsarism. He continued to argue the case for a small party of activists with a large fringe of non-party sympathizers and supporters at the Second Congress of the Social Democratic Labour Party held in London in 1903.
His long-time friend, Jues Martov, disagreed believing it was better to have a large party of activists. Martov won the vote 28-23 but Lenin was unwilling to accept the result and formed a faction known as the Bolsheviks. Those who remained loyal to Martov became known as Mensheviks.
Lenin’s main critic was the Marxist philosopher, Rosa Luxemburg, who was based in Germany. In 1904 she published “Organizational Questions of the Russian Democracy”, where she argued: "Lenin’s thesis is that the party Central Committee should have the privilege of naming all the local committees of the party. It should have the right to appoint the effective organs of all local bodies from Geneva to Liege, from Tomsk to Irkutsk. It should also have the right to impose on all of them its own ready-made rules of party conduct... The Central Committee would be the only thinking element in the party. All other groupings would be its executive limbs." Luxemburg disagreed with Lenin's views on centralism and suggested that any successful revolution that used this strategy would develop into a communist dictatorship.
Lenin and Luxemburg came into conflict again on the outbreak of the First World War. Luxemburg, were opposed to Germany's participation in the war. In December, 1914, she joined with Karl Liebknecht, Leo Jogiches, Paul Levi, Ernest Meyer, Franz Mehring and Clara Zetkin to establish an underground political organization called Spartakusbund (Spartacus League).
In 1915 Luxemburg wrote about the war in her highly influential pamphlet, “The Crisis in the German Social Democracy”. Luxemburg rejected the view of the Social Democratic Party leadership that the war would bring democracy to Russia: "It is true that socialism gives to every people the right of independence and the freedom of independent control of its own destinies. But it is a veritable perversion of socialism to regard present-day capitalist society as the expression of this self-determination of nations. Where is there a nation in which the people have had the right to determine the form and conditions of their national, political and social existence?"
Luxemburg also pointed out that Germany was also fighting democratic states such as Britain and France: "Germany certainly has not the right to speak of a war of defence, but France and England have little more justification. They too are protecting, not their national, but their world political existence, their old imperialistic possessions, from the attacks of the German upstart." To Luxemburg, this was an imperialist war, not a war of political liberation.
In the pamphlet Luxemburg quoted Friedrich Engels as saying: “Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism.” She added: "A look around us at this moment shows what the regression of bourgeois society into barbarism means. This world war is a regression into barbarism.... The world war today is demonstrably not only murder on a grand scale; it is also suicide of the working classes of Europe. The soldiers of socialism, the proletarians of England, France, Germany, Russia, and Belgium have for months been killing one another at the behest of capital. They are driving the cold steel of murder into each other’s hearts. Locked in the embrace of death, they tumble into a common grave."
Luxemburg argued that it was important to stop the First World War through mass action. This brought her into conflict with Lenin who had argued that "the slogan of peace is wrong - the slogan must be, turn the imperialist war into civil war." Lenin believed that a civil war in Russia would bring down the old order and enable the Bolsheviks to gain power. Luxemburg and Leo Jogiches took the side of the Mensheviks in their struggle with the Bolsheviks. As a result Lenin favoured the Polish section led by Karl Radek over those of Luxemburg.
On 1st May, 1916, the Spartacus League decided to come out into the open and organized a demonstration against the First World War in Berlin. Several of its leaders, including Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were arrested and imprisoned. While in prison, Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia. Luxemburg, like most leading Marxists, condemned Lenin’s actions. While in prison Luxemburg wrote “The Russian Revolution”, where she criticized Lenin for using dictatorial and terrorist methods to overthrow the government in Russia. "Terror has not crushed us. How can you put your trust in terror."
Once again this work showed that she was opposed to the activities of the Bolsheviks. She quotes Leon Trotsky as saying: "As Marxists we have never been idol worshippers of formal democracy.” She replied that: "All that that really means is: We have always distinguished the social kernel from the political form of bourgeois democracy; we have always revealed the hard kernel of social inequality and lack of freedom hidden under the sweet shell of formal equality and freedom – not in order to reject the latter but to spur the working class into not being satisfied with the shell, but rather, by conquering political power, to create a socialist democracy to replace bourgeois democracy – not to eliminate democracy altogether."
Luxemburg went onto argue: "But socialist democracy is not something which begins only in the promised land, after the foundations of socialist economy are created; it does not come as some sort of Christmas present for the worthy people who, in the interim, have loyally supported a handful of socialist dictators. Socialist democracy begins simultaneously with the beginnings of the destruction of class rule and of the construction of socialism. It begins at the very moment of the seizure of power by the socialist party. It is the same thing as the dictatorship of the proletariat. Yes, dictatorship! But this dictatorship consists in the manner of applying democracy, not in its elimination, but in energetic, resolute attacks upon the well-entrenched rights and economic relationships of bourgeois society, without which a socialist transformation cannot be accomplished. But this dictatorship must be the work of the class and not of a little leading minority in the name of the class – that is, it must proceed step by step out of the active participation of the masses; it must be under their direct influence, subjected to the control of complete public activity; it must arise out of the growing political training of the mass of the people."
Luxemburg was not released until October, 1918, when Max von Baden granted an amnesty to all political prisoners. In Germany elections were held for a Constituent Assembly to write a new constitution for the new Germany. As a believer in democracy, she assumed that her party would contest these universal, democratic elections. However, other members were being influenced by the fact that Lenin had dispersed by force of arms a democratically elected Constituent Assembly in Russia. Luxemburg rejected this approach and wrote in the party newspaper: "The Spartacus League will never take over governmental power in any other way than through the clear, unambiguous will of the great majority of the proletarian masses in all Germany, never except by virtue of their conscious assent to the views, aims, and fighting methods of the Spartacus League."
On 1st January, 1919, at a convention of the Spartacus League, Luxemburg was outvoted on this issue. As Bertram D. Wolfe has pointed out: "In vain did she (Luxemburg) try to convince them that to oppose both the Councils and the Constituent Assembly with their tiny forces was madness and a breaking of their democratic faith. They voted to try to take power in the streets, that is by armed uprising. Almost alone in her party, Rosa Luxemburg decided with a heavy heart to lend her energy and her name to their effort."
The Spartakist Rising began in Berlin. Friedrich Ebert, the leader of the Social Democrat Party and Germany's new chancellor, called in the German Army and the Freikorps to bring an end to the rebellion. By 13th January, 1919 the rebellion had been crushed and most of its leaders were arrested. This included Rosa Luxemburg who was arrested with Karl Liebknecht and Wilhelm Pieck on 16th January. Luxemburg and Liebknecht were murdered while be taken to the prison. It is interesting that Pieck was spared. He was a Lenin loyalist. He was released and in 1918 he helped to establish the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). The KPD was completely under the control of Lenin and later Stalin. After the Red Army occupied Eastern Germany at the end of the Second World War, Pieck was appointed President of the newly-established German Democratic Republic (GDR).
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSluxemburg.htm
Is it possible that Lenin was working with the German authorities in order to get rid of his difficult German Marxists? It would not be the first time he worked with the secret service to get rid of his enemies. See my posting on Roman Malinovsky and the Russian Secret Service (1912-1918).
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=15973
On the 1st March, 1917, the Tsar Nicholas II abdicated leaving the Provisional Government in control of the country. Lenin was now desperate to return to Russia to help shape the future of the country. The German Foreign Ministry, who hoped that Lenin's presence in Russia would help bring the war on the Eastern Front to an end, provided a special train for Lenin and 27 other Bolsheviks to travel to Petrograd. This move benefited both parties. Lenin took over the government and he then withdrew the Russian Army on the Eastern Front.
We also know that Lenin used whatever methods necessary in order to maintain his position as dictator of the Soviet Union. Unlike Stalin, he was willing to arrange the deaths of women. After the revolution Lenin was having difficulty with Angelica Balabanoff, the secretary of the Comintern. She was complaining about the way that Lenin was dealing with his critics in the Communist Party. A document was recently released that showed that in 1922 Lenin was planning to send Balabanoff to Turkestan, “where cholera was raging”. This never happened because she sensibly decided to resign and escape to Western Europe.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSbalabanoff.htm
John Reed was not so lucky. In 1917 Reed was a journalist in Russia during the Bolshevik uprising. Reed's experiences in Russia were recorded in his book, Ten Days That Shook the World (1919). Lenin later claimed it was the best book written about the Russian Revolution.
Reed returned to America and in 1919 helped form the Communist Party of the United States. Reed returned to Russia in 1920 and attended the Second Congress of the Communist International in Moscow. According to the author of Strange Communists I Have Known (1966): "The order of business for the Second Congress had been determined by Lenin. Having concluded that the great push for world revolution had failed, and with it the attempt to smash the old socialist parties and trade unions, Lenin set it as the task of all revolutionaries to return to or infiltrate the old trade unions. As always, Lenin took it for granted that whatever conclusion he had come to in evaluation and in strategy and tactics was infallibly right. In the Comintern, as in his own party, his word was law."
Reed and other members of the Communist Party of the United States and the Communist Party of Great Britain disagreed with this policy and tried to start a debate on the subject. To do so, they needed to add English to the already adopted German, French and Russian, as an official language of debate. This idea was rejected. Reed became disillusioned with the way Lenin had become a virtual dictator of Russia. His friend, Angelica Balabanoff later recalled: "When he came to see me after the Congress, he was in a terrible state of depression. He looked old and exhausted. The experience had been a terrible blow."
Lenin arranged for Reed to visit Baku after the conference that was suffering from an outbreak of typhus. Reed caught the disease and died on 19th October, 1920.
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In 1912 Lenin met Roman Malinovsky for the first time at a party conference in Prague. Lenin was impressed with Malinovsky and invited him to join the Bolshevik Central Committee. Some party members opposed this move, claiming that there were rumours that Malinovsky was an Okhrana agent. He refused to believe the charges and advocated that Malinovsky should also be a Bolshevik candidate for the Duma. After being elected in October, 1912, Malinovsky became the leader of the group of six Bolshevik deputies. Malinovsky became known as an eloquent and forceful orator. Before making his speeches he sent copies to Lenin and S. P. Beletsky, the director of Okhrana.
Malinovsky had a long prison record and while he was in prison in 1910 he agreed to become an undercover agent for the Russian secret police. For 100 roubles a month Malinovsky supplied reports on Bolshevik members, locations of party meetings and storage places for illegal literature.
In 1911 Malinovsky began working for S. P. Beletsky the head of Okhrana. Beletsky later admitted that: "Malinovsky was given the order to do as much as possible to deepen the split in the Party. I admit that the whole purpose of my direction is summed up in this: to give no possibility of the Party's uniting. I worked on the principle of divide et impera." Beletsky ordered Malinovsky to "attach himself as closely as possible to the Bolshevik leader (Lenin)". Beletsky later testified that, in view of this important mission, he freed his agent at this time "from the further necessity of betraying individuals or meetings (though not from reporting on them), as arrests traceable to Malinovsky might endanger his position for the more highly political task."
After being elected to the Duma in October, 1912, Malinovsky became the leader of the group of six Bolshevik deputies. Lenin argued: "For the first time among ours in the Duma there is an outstanding worker-leader. He will read the Declaration (the political declaration of the Social Democratic fraction on the address of the Prime Minister). This time it's not another Alexinsky. And the results - perhaps not immediately - will be great."
Malinovsky was now in a position to spy on Lenin. This included supplying Okhrana with copies of his letters. In a letter dated 18th December, 1912, S.E. Vissarionov, the Assistant Director of Okhrana, wrote to the Minister of the Interior: "The situation of the Fraction is now such that it may be possible for the six Bolsheviks to be induced to act in such a way as to split the Fraction into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. Lenin supports this. See his letter (supplied by Malinovsky)".
Rumours began to circulate that Malinovsky was a spy working for Okhrana. This included an anonymous letter sent to Fedor Dan about Malinovsky's activities. When Elena Troyanovsky was arrested in 1913 her husband wrote a letter claiming that if she was not released he would expose the double agent in the leadership of the Bolsheviks. Beletsky later testified that when he showed this letter to Malinovsky he "became hysterical" and demanded that she was released. In order that he remained as a spy Beletsky agreed to do this.
According to Bertram D. Wolfe in 1913: "He (Malinovsky) was entrusted with setting up a secret printing plant inside Russia, which naturally did not remain secret for long. Together with Yakovlev he helped start a Bolshevik paper in Moscow. It, too, ended promptly with the arrest of the editor. Inside Russia, the popular Duma Deputy traveled to all centers. Arrests took place sufficiently later to avert suspicion from him... The police raised his wage from five hundred to six hundred, and then to seven hundred rubles a month."
Another Bolshevik leader, Nikolai Bukharin, became convinced that Malinovsky was a spy. David Shub, a member of the Bolsheviks, has argued: "There was a wave of arrests among the Bolsheviks in Moscow. Among those rounded up was Nikolai Bukharin... Bukharin, then a member of the Moscow Committee of the Bolshevik Party, had distrusted Malinovsky from the start, despite the latter's assiduous attempts to win his confidence. For Bukharin had noticed several times that when he arranged a secret rendezvous with a party comrade, Okhrana agents would be waiting to pounce on him. In each case Malinovsky had known of the appointments and the men whom Bukharin was to meet had been arrested."
Bukharin wrote to Lenin claiming that when he was hiding in Moscow he was arrested by the police just after a meeting with Malinovsky. He was convinced that Malinovsky was a spy. Lenin wrote back that if Bukharin joined in the campaign of slander against Malinovsky he would brand him publicly as a traitor. Understandably, Bukharin dropped the matter.
Nadezhda Krupskaya later explained: "Vladimir Ilyich thought it utterly impossible for Malinovsky to have been an agent provocateur. These rumors came from Menshevik circles... The commission investigated all the rumors but could not obtain any definite proof of the charge." Instead of carrying out an investigation into Malinovsky, Lenin launched an attack on Julius Martov and Fedor Dan, who he accused of acting like "gossipy old women".
In June 1914 Lenin published an article in Prosveshchenie: "We do not believe one single word of Dan and Martov.... We don't trust Martov and Dan. We do not regard them as honest citizens. We will deal with them only as common criminals - only so, and not otherwise... If a man says, make political concessions to me, recognize me as an equal comrade of the Marxist community or I will set up a howl about rumors of the provocateur activity of Malinovsky, that is political blackmail. Against blackmail we are always and unconditionally for the bourgeois legality of the bourgeois court... Either you make a public accusation signed with your signature so that the bourgeois court can expose and punish you (there are no other means of fighting blackmail), or you remain as people branded... as slanderers by the workers."
On the outbreak of the First World War Malinovsky resigned from the Duma and against the orders of the Bolsheviks he joined the Russian Army. He was wounded and captured by the Germans in 1915 and spent the rest of the conflict in a prisoner of war camp. Surprisingly, in December 1916, the Bolshevik newspaper, Sotsial Demokrat, reported that Malinovsky had been "fully rehabilitated" for his past crime of "desertion of his post".
On 2nd November, Malinovsky crossed the Russian border and turned up in Petrograd. He visited the Smolny Institute, the Bolshevik headquarters, on three days running, demanding to be taken to see Lenin. On the third day, Gregory Zinoviev saw him and ordered his arrest. He was taken to Moscow for trial and Nikolai Krylenko was appointed as prosecutor.
At his trial Malinovsky admitted he had been a spy and commented: "I am not asking for mercy! I know what is in store for me. I deserve it." After a brief trial was found guilty and executed that night. The historian, Bertram D. Wolfe, has asked the following questions: "How much did Lenin know of Malinovsky's past? Why did Lenin exonerate Malinovsky in 1914, against the evidence and against the world? Why did he rehabilitate him in 1916? Why did Malinovsky return to Russia when Lenin was in power? Did he count on Lenin? Why did Lenin then not lift a finger to save him?"
Malinovsky clearly returned to Petrograd because he believed Lenin would protect him. Lenin clearly knew that Malinovsky was working for Okhrana. Lenin used Malinovsky to get rid of Bolsheviks who opposed his dictatorship of the party. This was encouraged by S. P. Beletsky as he thought this would weaken the Bolsheviks as a revolutionary movement. All it did was remove the moderate elements and made Lenin’s work easier.
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I see David Talbot is involved in Pulp History, a new series of illustrated history books.
http://talbotplayers.com/pulphistory.html
The series, which is being published by Simon & Schuster, will debut in fall 2010 with Devil Dog: The Amazing, True Story of the Man Who Saved America. Written by David Talbot and illustrated by legendary cartoonist, Spain Rodriguez, Devil Dog will tell the explosive story of General Smedley Darlington Butler, the most decorated U.S. Marine of his day. After a long, illustrious military career, Butler denounced war as a “racket” – and later helped thwart a Wall Street plot to overthrow President Franklin Roosevelt.
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I see David Talbot is involved in Pulp History, a new series of illustrated history books.
http://talbotplayers.com/pulphistory.html
The series, which is being published by Simon & Schuster, will debut in fall 2010 with Devil Dog: The Amazing, True Story of the Man Who Saved America. Written by David Talbot and illustrated by legendary cartoonist, Spain Rodriguez, Devil Dog will tell the explosive story of General Smedley Darlington Butler, the most decorated U.S. Marine of his day. After a long, illustrious military career, Butler denounced war as a “racket” – and later helped thwart a Wall Street plot to overthrow President Franklin Roosevelt.
I wonder if they will publish a book on the assassination of JFK?
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When they buried the dead from the May 4, 1970 Kent State University antiwar protest, they also buried the illusion that American TRULY have a right to protest the actions of the government. Since 9/11/2001, it has been far easier to get onto a terrorist watchlist as an American citizen than it is to conduct an effective protest in any reasonable proximity to any government building. And the PATRIOT Act allows American citizens to be declared "enemy combatants" and to be imprisoned indefinitely, which IMHO is in clear violation of the Constitution. And if nothing else works, the IRS can place bogus tax-evasion charges against a citizen, and bankrupt him defending himself against the charges.
So I would have to answer that, for the most part, Americans ARE afraid fo their government...and for good reason. Since 9/11, there is a far greater chance of a Tianemen Square event occurring in the United States than at anytime in the nation's history. The '68 Democratic Convention in Chicago is no longer merely an historic event; it's now a warning to citizens.
I used to protest against the British government in the 1960s with no fear at all (except for charging police horses). It all changed during Margaret Thatcher's period in government. It was leaked that files were being kept by MI5 and private organizations of active trade unionists, members of CND, etc. These files were used to try and blacklist people from working. When activists discovered they were not getting jobs they were qualified for, they began to believe these stories. So did university students who feared these files would prevent them from doing well in their chosen careers. With unemployment increasing rapidly in the 1980s, Britain saw a dropping off of left-wing political activity. Despite the economic boom years, the 1960s and 1970s level of political activity has never returned. It will be interesting how the masses react after the cuts take place in public services during the next few months.
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Dusty Springfield - Going Back
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In a CIA document dated 23rd August, 1957, Priscilla Johnson McMillan was described as being born in Stockholm, Sweden, on 23rd September 1922. It also stated that during the Second World War she was "utilized by OSO (Office of Special Operations) in 1943 and 1944". John M. Newman has speculated that Johnson was being given a cover story of someone who had a "good security record".
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With news that Texas plans to rewrite its textbooks to change "capitalism" with "free enterprise" I thought it would be a good idea to look at another story that you are unlikely to find in school textbooks.
In 1919 Woodrow Wilson appointed A. Mitchell Palmer as his attorney general. Palmer had previously been associated with the progressive wing of the party and had supported women's suffrage and trade union rights. However, once in power, Palmer's views on civil rights changed dramatically.
Soon after taking office, a government list of 62 people believed to hold "dangerous, destructive and anarchistic sentiments" was leaked to the press. This list included the names of Jane Addams, Lillian Wald, Oswald Garrison Villard and Charles Beard. It was also revealled that these people had been under government surveillance for many years.
Worried by the revolution that had taken place in Russia, Palmer became convinced that Communist agents were planning to overthrow the American government. His view was reinforced by the discovery of thirty-eight bombs sent to leading politicians and the Italian anarchist who blew himself up outside Palmer's Washington home. Palmer recruited John Edgar Hoover as his special assistant and together they used the Espionage Act (1917) and the Sedition Act (1918) to launch a campaign against radicals and left-wing organizations.
Mitchell Palmer claimed that Communist agents from Russia were planning to overthrow the American government. On 7th November, 1919, the second anniversary of the Russian Revolution, over 10,000 suspected communists and anarchists were arrested. Palmer and Hoover found no evidence of a proposed revolution but large number of these suspects were held without trial for a long time. The vast majority were eventually released but Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Mollie Steimer, and 245 other people, were deported to Russia.
In January, 1920, another 6,000 were arrested and held without trial. These raids took place in several cities and became known as the Palmer Raids. Palmer and Hoover found no evidence of a proposed revolution but large number of these suspects, many of them members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), continued to be held without trial. When Palmer announced that the communist revolution was likely to take place on 1st May, mass panic took place. In New York, five elected Socialists were expelled from the legislature.
James Larkin, an Irish trade unionist who was on a lecture tour, was charged with "advocating force, violence and unlawful means to overthrow the Government". Larkin's trial began on 30th January 1920. He decided to defend himself. He denied that he had advocated the overthrow of the Government. In fact, he was a Christian Socialist, and an advocate of peaceful change. However, he admitted that he was part of the long American revolutionary tradition that included Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. He also quoted Wendell Phillips in his defence: "Government exists to protect the rights of minorities. The loved and the rich need no protection - they have many friends and few enemies."
The jury found Larkin guilty and on 3rd May 1920 he received a sentence of five to ten years in Sing Sing. In prison Larkin worked in the bootery, manufacturing and repairing shoes. Despite his inability to return to Ireland, he was annually re-elected as general secretary of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union.
When the May revolution failed to materialize, attitudes towards Mitchell Palmer began to change and he was criticised for disregarding people's basic civil liberties. Some of his opponents claimed that Palmer had devised this Red Scare to help him become the Democratic presidential candidate in 1920.
Here is part of James Larkin's speech in court:
What does all this mean for the freedom of thought and inquiry? Why Einstein and men like him would not be allowed to function, would not be allowed to think. You would have no field of activity either in religion, in art or in science. State functionaries are going to put a steel cap on the minds of the people of this country and they are going to screw it down until they make you all one type.
I have been a man who has always abhorred violence, because I have been brutally abused by this organized force. Who used force and violence? 'Is it the strong that use force? Is it the strong that use violence?' It is always the weak, the cowardly, those who can only live by conservatism and force and violence. It has always been down the ages the weak, the bigoted, those who lack knowledge, that have always used force and violence against the advancement of knowledge.
Gentlemen, some day you in America will be told the truth. In the meantime we who have been on the housetops telling the truth have to suffer. We have to go down the dark days and the dark nights, but we go there with the truth in our eyes and our hearts, and no lie upon our lips.
I have read Wendell Phillips since I was a boy. Wendell Phillips says, "Government exists to protect the rights of minorities. The loved and the rich need no protection - they have many friends and few enemies."
The ways of the broad highways have been my ways and I have never been encompassed by walls, and so it may be tomorrow - you may decide that in the interest of this great Republic of 110,000,000 people, this individual will have to be put away for five or ten years.
I do not object to your doing it. I say you have a right in honor and truth, if you believe this man has ever been guilty of any crime against your country, stand by your country, live by its people, live always in its interest. I have always done that with my country, and that is the reason I stand practically without anybody of my own people standing with me except the poor and unfortunate. I have got Irishmen, and Irishmen in this country, who believe in me and who will see to it that I have got a decent chance; and to those who belong to me at home they have always known me, always known what I stood for, and my wife and children will be looked after.
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Does anyone know how the assassination of JFK is dealt with in US school textbooks?
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The new social studies revisions include:
• an "America is exceptional" theme;
• changes in the Middle East curriculum;
• broad use of terms like free enterprise and expansionism instead of capitalism and imperialism, respectively;
• a requirement to "analyze any unintended consequences" of 1960 reforms such as affirmative action;
• inclusion of information about "communist infiltration in the U.S. government," vindicating Senator Joseph McCarthy;
• use of the term "constitutional republic" rather than "democratic" or "representative democracy" in reference to the U.S. form of government;
• de-emphasis on the history of the civil rights movement and on the concept of separation of church and state;
• emphasis on the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms;
• use of traditional date references as B.C. and A.D. rather than B.C.E. and C.E.;
• removal of the term "Enlightenment ideas" from reference to political revolutions;
• exclusion of art work involving nude figures; and
• analysis of devaluation of the dollar since the inception of the Federal Reserve and abandonment of the gold standard.
Walter Lippmann and the JFK Assassination
in JFK Assassination Debate
Posted
Thanks. I assume this was in "Walter Lippmann and the American Century" by Ronald Steel?