John Simkin

monty python bruce sketch

and more in keeping with what goes on here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb_qHP7VaZE

Of course, Terry Jones, who wrote this scene, is a conspiracy theorist.

Theodore Draper wrote in The Roots of American Communism (1957):

Minor is a study in extremes. A truly gifted and powerful cartoonist, he renounced art for politics. He made this gesture of total subservience to politics after years as an anarchist despising and denouncing politics. But he could not transfer his genius from art to politics. The stirring drawings were replaced by boring and banal speeches. He had none of the gifts of the natural politician, his stock in trade was limited to platitudes and slogans. The wild man, tamed, became a political hack. If as an anarchist he had believed that politics was a filthy business, as a Communist he still seemed to believe it was - only now it was his business.

Sandor Voros was with Minor during the Spanish Civil War. He wrote in his book, American Commissar (1961):

Finally I was able to reconstruct fairly closely what had actually happened (the sinking of the Ciudad de Barcelona). There were over 500 volunteers on that boat out of whom nearly half had perished: those trapped in the hold when the torpedo struck, and those who couldn't swim or stay afloat until rescue arrived. None of them knew how many Americans had actually boarded that boat; checking their stories one against another my best estimate came to between 130-135 volunteers of whom only forty-six had escaped. Once I learned those casualty figures I also lost my penchant for objectivity and retired into a corner with my fistful of notes to cable the story to the Daily Worker. Although I had not intended to continue to write for it, this story was too hot, the details too sensational; the party could make real political capital out of it. After working on it for about fifteen minutes at top speed I became aware that the volunteers were all rushing in one direction, forming a tight ring around somebody. I followed them and to my delight found that he was Robert Minor, the representative of the American Central Committee to the Communist Party in Spain. Minor was also a member of the Daily Worker editorial staff; we had known each other for years.

Bob Minor was a tall, imposing figure, with a heavy frame and silvery white hair framing his massive, bald head. He was a famous cartoonist before he turned Communist and he carried himself with dignity and poise. I had a few messages of a confidential nature for him from the Central Committee, to be delivered orally, concerning individuals some of whom were on their way to Spain and some of whom were to report back immediately to the States. I had been given only the first names; I did not know who the people were, nor was it any of my business.

I noted an indefinable change in Minor's face since the last time I had seen him in New York, about a half-year earlier, and I was puzzled about it. Minor stood impassively in the center, listening to the American volunteers crowding about him without saying a word; but to my eyes he only appeared to be listening, I had the feeling he was not paying attention. I knew he was somewhat deaf but not sufficiently so not to have heard that clamor.

I stood aside and waited until the excitement subsided, then went up to him and greeted him. He regarded me as if he had never seen me before, cold and disinterested. Realizing that my haggard face and tattered clothes after those rugged days of climbing the Pyrenees must have changed my appearance considerably, I told him my name and who I was. He cut me short abruptly; he knew very well who I was and why was I bothering him, didn't I see he was busy? I was quite taken aback by that unexpected response. I told him I had a few messages for him from the Ninth Floor and took him aside to deliver them. He cocked his ear close to my mouth and I realized he was even more hard of hearing than I suspected. I had to repeat my message twice and louder before he nodded his head that he had understood. I then told him I already had all the facts about the sinking of the Ciudad de Barcelona, the names of the American survivors, their home towns, etc., that my story was already organized, all I needed from him was a typewriter so I could knock it out in a hurry for the Daily Worker.

Minor became livid with anger.

"Give me those notes," he shouted at me and grabbed them out of my hand.

"Not a word of this must be permitted to leak out in America, do you hear? What are you trying to do, demoralize the people back home?"

Something was wrong with that man.

"Bob, this is news, sensational news, the best propaganda we could wish for to arouse the American people," I expostulated. "With the details I have, this story will be picked up by the wire services. Every home town newspaper where a local boy was involved will feature it as: Local boy killed or escapes with life from boat torpedoed by Fascists!"

"Not a word of this must leak out, you understand?" Minor roared at me.

"See here, Comrade Minor, this torpedoing has already been reported in the Valencia papers. It must have been cabled to the United States and published there already. This story will be the follow-up, it will fill in the missing details and shake up those people back home who still do not believe what Fascism really is. This is the propaganda we want, where the facts speak for themselves: Americans torpedoed and drowned on the open seas by Fascists!"

"You're not to mention a word about this to anyone, do you hear! This is an order!" With that he stalked away from me, called the Americans together, and made a speech.

He told us that we were all anti-Fascists who had come to Spain to fight Fascism. He told us Fascism was the last desperate attempt of qapitalist imperialism in its death throes to drown in blood the inevitable rise of the working class and that Fascism would meet its tomb in Spain.

He rambled on and on like a Daily Worker editorial on the glory of the Soviet Union and finally told us that we had already met the baptism of fire heroically and come out victorious. He then admonished us on our honor as anti-Fascists, as the bravest flowers of the revolutionary working class, not to let a word of that torpedoing leak out, we mustn't even discuss it among ourselves any further because that would only lend aid and comfort to the Fascists who had ears all over, who were listening everywhere, and it would also demoralize our comrades, the other volunteers in Spain.

"That is an order!" he added for emphasis, then walked briskly away.

That speech had its effect. The comrades immediately fell to discussing how they mustn't talk about the torpedoing any more, first in hushed tones, later arguing with each other loudly, citing and inventing gory incidents to prove how easily such news could demoralize comrades less firm in their anti-Fascists beliefs than they.

I was to meet Minor again a few months later, on my way back from the Cordoba front. By then I had heard enough stories about him to make me even more cynical about our top leadership. Minor had been assigned by the American Central Committee to co-ordinate the propaganda efforts of the American and Spanish Communist Parties and, incidentally, also to represent before the Comintern the interests of the American volunteers in Spain. However, Minor had also caught the bug like other leading Communists, he became convinced that he was a master strategist and a military genius. He spent his time in Spain devising military campaigns and giving unsolicited military advice to the Spanish Communist Party. At that second meeting, after listening for a whole evening to his military theories, I realized he was oblivious of the political and military developments around him and that he was becoming senile. It was this Minor who reported on Spain to the American Party from his hotel in Valencia, and when we read his analyses in the Daily Worker we wondered how such naive concepts could be advanced by anyone who had ever set foot in Spain, much less a high-ranking Party leader with access to inside information.

''This song was created by the prisioners of Concentration Camp of Bogermor, Nazi Germany.

Most of prisioner were communists, socialists and other groups considered as dangerous for Hitler.

The Nazi Germany eliminated most of communists from the country, till it was defeated and liberated by the Red Army, when a new and democratic country arose, the Democratic Republic of Germany(DDR).

This song, originally in German, is here sung by Paul Robeson, a famous athlete, activist, intellectual, singer and actor (exiled) from the United States.'' Swordman85 (with a bit of edit)

Thank you for this. Do you know the work of Charlie Haden and the Liberation Music Orchestra?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-kCoy4e6Ik

For a righteous spanking - well deserved by the Voodoo author - see:

http://www.shortsshortsshorts.com/2009/09/...%80%9D-edition/

It's six months old, but not yet stale, unlike the book it demolishes.

Thank you for that link. It is a great article. As Robin Ramsay of Lobster magazine, who has spent half his life investigating what Aaronovitch has not, said in his review of the book:

“Because his knowledge of recent history is limited, his ‘plausibility threshold’ falsely categories events as beyond plausibility – ‘conspiracy theories’. There’s no mystery here: he hasn’t read the evidence. Nor, as a mainstream journalist and broadcaster, can he afford to do so. And so his account of the Kennedy assassination (and other assassinations) here is inadequate; as is his account of the Israeli assault on the USS Liberty in 1967, as is his account of America’s entry into World War 2, as is…. I can’t be bothered going through the whole thing in that kind of detail.”

David Aaronovitch, a former member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (not an unusual background for NeoCons), became a cheerleader for Tony Blair after he received £6.5 million from the group of Jewish businessmen to help him in his campaign to become leader of the Labour Party. From that point on, along with Melanie Phillips, another left-winger who has moved sharply to the right over the last few years, Aaronovitch became the leading apologist for Israel's foreign policy.

Aaronovitch is still the leading spokesman for the invasion of Iraq. He was on Newsnight last week defending the legality of the invasion. It was pointed out that Aaronovitch was not a lawyer but the BBC was unable to find any international lawyer willing to argue that the war was legal. Aaronovitch was of course keen to argue that despite all the evidence that has emerged during the Chilcot Inquiry, there was no Bush-Blair conspiracy to invade Iraq. After all, according to Aaronovitch, political conspiracies don't take place.

Well that's that book rubbished without a word being read

Of course it is impossible to read every book published. One therefore has to take into consideration the background of the writer. David Aaronovitch’s New Labour propaganda activities means that I would never buy his books. However, as I pointed out to Mike Tribe, I have purchased Margaret Macmillan’s book, as I consider her a serious historian. What is more, I will read the book and will discuss it on the Forum with Mike.

Whilst I'm sure this is true, I doubt that it would be a consideration in the case of such a prominent and widely respected historian as Margaret Macmillan. I strongly recommend the book to anyone interested in the importance of history and historians.

I have just ordered the Margaret Macmillan's book on Amazon. Maybe we can discuss it on the forum.

Have you read David Kaiser's Road to Dallas?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Road-Dallas-Assass...6579&sr=1-9

He is also a much respected historian (his book on post-1945 foreign policy, American Tragedy, is a classic). I met him in Dallas in 2007. At the time he intended to write a book about how Oswald was not part of a conspiracy. We had a debate on this forum about how the sources that historians should use when writing books about the recent past. At the time he was very much an anti-conspiracy theorist. However, after researching the subject in great detail, he changed his mind and concluded that there was a conspiracy to kill JFK.

Have you read the articles by Sparky Satori and Jefferson Morley? If so, what is it about their views that you disagree with?

Message from a researcher:

"I was wondering if you might be able to identify any material from Education Forum in which someone specifically asserts that George HW Bush cannot recall where he was on Nov. 22 1963 - and, more importantly, cites any specific occasions on which Bush was asked about this? I’m trying to track down possible multiple occasions where this occurred."

Have you read Macmillan's book, John? What did you think?

No, I haven't.

I had an email yesterday from a leading investigative journalist who in his younger years wrote about the assassination of JFK. The contents of the email explains why historians and journalists are unwilling to investigate government corruption.

I hate to ask this, and please don't take it wrongly, but is there anyway you could take down my bio for just a few weeks? The reason is that have been encouraged to apply for the editorship of Foreign Affairs, the house organ of the Council on Foreign Relations, and I am not sure the search committee there would appreciate me being linked in any with certain lines or schools of thought that are notcompletely main-stream, orthodox, and officially received wisdom, especially in asmuch as the Council itself has been the object ofconsiderable interest by conspiracy theorists. I think you and I understand each other here. So I am just asking this as a favor from you, because the first thing anyone is going to do is google me, and you are the second hit, after my own web site. I am fairly certain that I will not become editor of Foreign Affairs, but while I am in the middle of this I think disecretion the better part of valor, etc.

For a righteous spanking - well deserved by the Voodoo author - see:

http://www.shortsshortsshorts.com/2009/09/...%80%9D-edition/

It's six months old, but not yet stale, unlike the book it demolishes.

Thank you for that link. It is a great article. As Robin Ramsay of Lobster magazine, who has spent half his life investigating what Aaronovitch has not, said in his review of the book:

“Because his knowledge of recent history is limited, his ‘plausibility threshold’ falsely categories events as beyond plausibility – ‘conspiracy theories’. There’s no mystery here: he hasn’t read the evidence. Nor, as a mainstream journalist and broadcaster, can he afford to do so. And so his account of the Kennedy assassination (and other assassinations) here is inadequate; as is his account of the Israeli assault on the USS Liberty in 1967, as is his account of America’s entry into World War 2, as is…. I can’t be bothered going through the whole thing in that kind of detail.”

David Aaronovitch, a former member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (not an unusual background for NeoCons), became a cheerleader for Tony Blair after he received £6.5 million from the group of Jewish businessmen to help him in his campaign to become leader of the Labour Party. From that point on, along with Melanie Phillips, another left-winger who has moved sharply to the right over the last few years, Aaronovitch became the leading apologist for Israel's foreign policy.

Aaronovitch is still the leading spokesman for the invasion of Iraq. He was on Newsnight last week defending the legality of the invasion. It was pointed out that Aaronovitch was not a lawyer but the BBC was unable to find any international lawyer willing to argue that the war was legal. Aaronovitch was of course keen to argue that despite all the evidence that has emerged during the Chilcot Inquiry, there was no Bush-Blair conspiracy to invade Iraq. After all, according to Aaronovitch, political conspiracies don't take place.

On 30th May 1937 the Ciudad de Barcelona, that was transporting over 500 members of the Iinternational Brigades, was torpedoed by an Italian submarine, twenty miles north of Barcelona. As Cecil D. Eby, the author of Comrades and Commissars: The Lincoln Battalion in the Spanish Civil War (2007), pointed out: " For weeks the fishermen of Malgrat salvaged unidentified bodies from a thick beach scum of oil, hemp, and lumber. An opaque curtain immediately dropped over the Barcelona disaster."

It was not until 1961 that the full story came out. The reason being is that Robert Minor, the leading official of the American Communist Party and the Comintern in Spain, came to the conclusion that the event would stop people from volunteering to join the International Brigades. Therefore, the story was never published. Eventually the steamship company admitted that the vessel had been torpedoed but declared that it had carried no passengers - only a cargo of fish, bread, and vegetables for Spain.

...corruption scandal...corrupt activities...corruption investigations..."stank" of corruption...corrupt activities...

"It … sends the message that large enough corporations are able to pay their way out of trouble."

That last line is, unfortunately, the depressing truth of the matter. MIC still running things. One rule for the rich and another for the richer.

Blair, Thatcher, Brown, Bush are all just names; it's not their fault and there is nothing they can do. They could say no but then they would lose their position of power and influence, they could resign and make a public pronouncement warning - beware the MIC...but that wouldn't work either...so what should they do?

I have just been phoned by a BBC 4 drama producer. They are currently working on a play about the way MI5/CIA get control of politicians. Apparently, the writer is getting information from my website to write the play. While she was on the phone I gave her some inside information on Blair's relationship with MI5. She was fascinated by the information but was experienced enough not to get involved in plays about current figures so she will concentrate on Profumo.

Over the last 20 years Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair have been involved in a massive corruption scandal. Not only have they been receiving payments via BAE but they have used their influence as prime minister to make sure these corrupt activities were not exposed. Thank goodness, the Department of Justice in Washington decided to get involved.

Yesterday BAE agreed to pay out almost £300m in penalties, as it finally admitted guilt over its worldwide conduct, in the face of long-running corruption investigations. BAE said it would plead guilty to charges of false accounting and making misleading statements, in simultaneous settlement deals with the Serious Fraud Office in the UK and the department of justice in Washington.

The admissions in the US covered BAE's huge £43bn al-Yamamah fighter plane sales to Saudi Arabia that took place under Thatcher and enabled her son to make millions. In the UK, the admissions cover a highly controversial sale of a military radar to poverty-stricken Tanzania, which the development secretary Clare Short said at the time "stank" of corruption, but which the then prime minister, Tony Blair, forced through the cabinet.

The Serious Fraud Office said in its announcement yesterday that some of the £30m penalty BAE was to hand over in the UK would be "an ex gratia payment for the benefit of the people of Tanzania". Another $400m (£257m) would be paid in penalties to the US authorities. BAE will not face international blacklisting from future contracts, because it has only admitted false accounting, not bribery.

In 2006, under pressure from Blair, SFO's own extensive inquiry into the al-Yamamah deal was shut down. The then attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, cited national security when he announced the inquiry was being abandoned. Blair said he took full responsibility for the decision.

Although BAE Systems has confessed to being involved in corrupt activities, nobody has been brought to account. The main reason for this is that both Tory and Labour governments were involved in this scandal. Both major parties are involved in this cover-up. As Vince Cable of the Liberal Democrats has pointed out: "The British government was up to its neck in this whole business. Government ministers were almost certainly fully aware of what was happening."

Richard Alderman, director of the SFO, called the deal "pragmatic". It later emerged that the only prosecution of an individual by the SFO – Count Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly – was being dropped. Alderman added: "This brings to an end the SFO's investigations into BAE's defence contracts."

Yesterday's announcement in Washington focused on BAE's acceptance of guilt of the Saudi deals, and described secret shell offshore companies for making covert payments, and specific payments into a Saudi intermediary's Swiss account. It also identified £19m secretly paid to lubricate Czech and Hungarian weapons deals. BAE admitted writing an untrue letter to US authorities in 2000, denying it was paying any secret commissions.

Sue Hawley of the Cornerhouse NGO, and the former South African ANC MP Andrew Feinstein – said they reacted to the deal, under which no trials will take place, with "dismay". They said it "betrays the people of Tanzania, South Africa, the Czech Republic and Romania, who have the right to know the truth about corruption in their countries perpetrated by British and other companies. It … sends the message that large enough corporations are able to pay their way out of trouble."

Over the last 20 years Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair have been involved in a massive corruption scandal. Not only have they been receiving payments via BAE but they have used their influence as prime minister to make sure these corrupt activities were not exposed. Thank goodness, the Department of Justice in Washington decided to get involved.

Yesterday BAE agreed to pay out almost £300m in penalties, as it finally admitted guilt over its worldwide conduct, in the face of long-running corruption investigations. BAE said it would plead guilty to charges of false accounting and making misleading statements, in simultaneous settlement deals with the Serious Fraud Office in the UK and the department of justice in Washington.

The admissions in the US covered BAE's huge £43bn al-Yamamah fighter plane sales to Saudi Arabia that took place under Thatcher and enabled her son to make millions. In the UK, the admissions cover a highly controversial sale of a military radar to poverty-stricken Tanzania, which the development secretary Clare Short said at the time "stank" of corruption, but which the then prime minister, Tony Blair, forced through the cabinet.

The Serious Fraud Office said in its announcement yesterday that some of the £30m penalty BAE was to hand over in the UK would be "an ex gratia payment for the benefit of the people of Tanzania". Another $400m (£257m) would be paid in penalties to the US authorities. BAE will not face international blacklisting from future contracts, because it has only admitted false accounting, not bribery.

In 2006, under pressure from Blair, SFO's own extensive inquiry into the al-Yamamah deal was shut down. The then attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, cited national security when he announced the inquiry was being abandoned. Blair said he took full responsibility for the decision.

Although BAE Systems has confessed to being involved in corrupt activities, nobody has been brought to account. The main reason for this is that both Tory and Labour governments were involved in this scandal. Both major parties are involved in this cover-up. As Vince Cable of the Liberal Democrats has pointed out: "The British government was up to its neck in this whole business. Government ministers were almost certainly fully aware of what was happening."

Richard Alderman, director of the SFO, called the deal "pragmatic". It later emerged that the only prosecution of an individual by the SFO – Count Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly – was being dropped. Alderman added: "This brings to an end the SFO's investigations into BAE's defence contracts."

Yesterday's announcement in Washington focused on BAE's acceptance of guilt of the Saudi deals, and described secret shell offshore companies for making covert payments, and specific payments into a Saudi intermediary's Swiss account. It also identified £19m secretly paid to lubricate Czech and Hungarian weapons deals. BAE admitted writing an untrue letter to US authorities in 2000, denying it was paying any secret commissions.

Sue Hawley of the Cornerhouse NGO, and the former South African ANC MP Andrew Feinstein – said they reacted to the deal, under which no trials will take place, with "dismay". They said it "betrays the people of Tanzania, South Africa, the Czech Republic and Romania, who have the right to know the truth about corruption in their countries perpetrated by British and other companies. It … sends the message that large enough corporations are able to pay their way out of trouble."

I've ordered "The Rare and the Beautiful: The Lives of the Garman Sisters" from Amazon so will let you know what it's like when I've read it.

I visited Lorna Garman's house on Saturday. It was miles from anywhere and maybe her sexual activity was related to not having to deal with nosey neighbours.

What do I have to do to become a major player? After all, I pay the bills. (I have always been told: "to follow the money")

doesn't that make him a MAJOR PAYER?

Let us hope we can continue to concentrate on the humour of the situation.

Kathy...you misunderstand. All I have done is post a listing of the forum's MAJOR PLAYERS.

As far as I know it is not against any forum rules to designate anyone a MAJOR PLAYER.

Any inference you draw from this list is ALL IN YOUR MIND. This is like a playbill at a theater

which identifies the ACTORS. This list does not discriminate. Anyone can be named to the

list by simply becoming a MAJOR PLAYER.

Newcomers here need a program to help them quickly identify the leading actors.

What do I have to do to become a major player? After all, I pay the bills. (I have always been told: "follow the money")

When Blair appeared before the Chilcott Inquiry on Friday he claimed a humanitarian justification for the war. He stated that between 2000 and 2002 “Iraq had a child mortality rate of 130 children per 1,000… Now the figure is 40 child deaths per 1,000.” What Blair does not tell us is the child mortality rate for the period before Saddam Hussein gained power. In fact, for all his faults, he dramatically reduced child mortality rates. The problem was that between 2000 and 2002 the UN imposed a blockade on Iraq that resulted in such a high child mortality rate. It was the policies of Bush and Blair towards Iraq that was mainly the cause for the high rate of young children dying in Iraq between 2000-2002.

When Blair appeared before the Chilcott Inquiry on Friday he claimed a humanitarian justification for the war. He stated that between 2000 and 2002 “Iraq had a child mortality rate of 130 children per 1,000… Now the figure is 40 child deaths per 1,000.” What Blair does not tell us is the child mortality rate for the period before Saddam Hussein gained power. In fact, for all his faults, he dramatically reduced child mortality rates. The problem was that between 2000 and 2002 the UN imposed a blockade on Iraq that resulted in such a high child mortality rate. It was the policies of Bush and Blair towards Iraq that was mainly the cause for the high rate of young children dying in Iraq between 2000-2002.

Oh, those wicked Bloomsbury's, how I love them. Has anyone written a book about these sisters? If so I haven't come across it and I am an avid biography reader of that era. Just finished "Uncommon Arrangements - Six Marriages in LiteraryLondon". Included is Virginia Woolf, H G Wells, Ottoline Morrell, the Bells, Garnetts etc etc. All very uncommon arrangements indeed.

I have just had an email from Sebastian Garman (the son of Mavin Garman). He is very unhappy with my portrayal of his family. He says it makes them look vulgar. The point is, that if they had not behaved in this way, historians would not be interested in them. I visited Lorna Garman's family home yesterday. It was miles from anywhere. I suspect the sex was an escape from boredom.

Blair also receives about £2m for an advisory and representative role with US investment bank JP Morgan, and another half a million from Zurich Financial Services.

JP Morgan have won the contract to run Iraq's banking system. Was this decided by Bush and Blair before the invasion?

Most of the articles I have read so far about the death of Zinn mention his criticisms of the Kennedy Administration for not going fast enough in advancing the Civil Rights Movement. Fair enough, but what is noteworthy to me is how, once again, the US """"left""""", when they hear anything at all of Kennedy's policies, only hear him described as a conservative. This is true not only from Zinn but for many other writers that are perceived as """"left"""" in the U.S. The employable and broadcastworthy leftists of the U.S. always seem to leave out the more progressive aspects of JFK's administrtion, whether it pertains to domestic or foreign policy.

Now this might surprise some older members especially who live outside the U.S. but we are clearly no longer living in the days of Camelot, in which it is alledged, that the press was fawning at JFK's feet. IMO, no other president has received worse treatment from the US Corporate Press AND EVEN SO CALLED ALTERNATIVE PRESS than has JFK. I offer this generalization about the last 25 years or so.

I am wondering if people know of any other comments of Zinn re: the Kennedy Administration. How does it compare to his treatment of the Johnson Administration? As we know the Civil Rights Movement is complicated when trying to discern cause and effects involving both grass roots developments and the specific policies of presidents. 1960 was very different from 1964, and in addition there was the whole Boston-Austin thing going no within the democratic party. Yet so often what I read from TODAY'S SO CALLED LEFTISTS in the U.S. fails to take this into consideration.

I was also wondering what readers might consider some of the key developments of Kennedy's civil rights policies, including especially those that might be lesser known thesedays, whether they be "progressive" or conservative in nature.

This is a very important point that is rarely addressed on the forum. I became very interested in politics during the period when JFK was president. I was a socialist and saw JFK as a right-wing politician. Left-wing students in the UK at the time were especially critical of his attitude towards civil rights and his cold war warrior foreign policy. We were sympathetic to Castro (as we were to all political leaders who were attempting to gain freedom from the political empires created by the Americans, Soviets, British and the French – Battle of Algiers was my favourite film at the time).

I suspect the political viewpoint of Howard Zinn was very similar to my own. We felt especially strongly about the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 as we feared JFK’s policies would end-up with a nuclear war.

Liberals will point out the pro-civil rights speeches that JFK made to Congress on 28th February 1963 and on television on 11th June 1963. However, these were just speeches. We knew that JFK had been elected with the support of the racist Democratic Party in the Deep South. (Just before his death, Robert Kennedy admitted that it had been his job before the 1960 election to reassure leaders of the racist wing of the party, that JFK would not introduce civil rights legislation if he became president).

Therefore, when JFK was assassinated, most people on the left, failed to see that he had been killed as a part of some sort political conspiracy. Of course, at the time, we knew nothing about the secret diplomacy that JFK had been involved in as regards Cuba in 1963. Nor did we know about the deal concerning nuclear weapons being removed in Turkey and Italy.

It is true that books like "American Tragedy" by David Kaiser have shown that JFK was trying to develop a more “liberal” foreign policy after the Bay of Pigs. However, most of this was done in secret, and most people, including left-wing historians, are unaware of this.

Many people on the left like Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky still see JFK as a “conservative”. Given his actual record in government, it is difficult to argue otherwise. It is only by examining the “secret” JFK that you can start to see that if he lived, he might well have turned into the radical president that America so desperately needed in the 1960s.

There must be a way to settle it. I can understand - and support - keeping records confidential from every Tom, Dick or Harry.

On the other hand, a suspicious death followed by a verdict of suicide, and then they say no-one can see anything for 70 years? It hardly inspires confidence that everything is above board.

This is why conspiracy theories develop. If it had been a genuine case of suicide, the authorities would have been keen to publish all the details. When they have something to hide they always resort to either the “national security” argument or that disclosure will cause pain for the relatives (the reason given for keeping the details of the JFK autopsy secret).

Howard Zinn was active in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. His political activities resulted in him losing his job at Spelman College in 1963. The novelist, Alice Walker, was one of his students at the time: "He was thrown out because he loved us, and he showed that love by just being with us. He loved his students. He didn’t see why we should be second-class citizens. He didn’t see why we shouldn’t be able to eat where we wanted to and sleep where we wanted to and be with the people we wanted to be with. And so, he was with us. He didn’t stay back, you know, in his tower there at the school. And so, he was a subversive in that situation."

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAzinn.htm

This might have something to do with it:

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=555...mp;postcount=16

John, you understand UK laws. Is this a normal procedure or is it indeed something extraordinary and suspicious?

You have to remember that the medical records of someone who has died in suspicious circumstances is of great interest to people investigating the death. The case caused such controversy that the government eventually agreed to hold an inquiry under Lord Hutton, a man who had been completely compromised by his work in Northern Ireland. It was of course a whitewash. Lord Hutton then secretly asked for all medical reports and photographs in the case to be classified. Lord Butler has now admitted that he should not have done this and has published the following statement:

"I requested that the postmortem report should not be disclosed for 70 years as I was concerned that the publication of that report would cause Kelly's daughters and his wife further and unnecessary distress. I consider that the disclosure of the report to doctors and their legal advisers for the purposes of legal proceedings would not undermine the protection which I wished to give."

It is unlikely that you have every heard of John Holms. There is nothing on the web about him. Most of his friends thought that he had the potential to be one of the best writers of the 20th century.

The poet, Edwin Muir, argued: "John Holms was the most remarkable man I ever met. His mind had a majestic clarity and order... Though his sole ambition was to be a writer, the mere act of writing was another enormous obstacle to him: it was as if the technique of action were beyond his grasp, a simple, banal, but incomprehensible mystery. He knew his weakness, and it filled him with the fear that, in spite of the gifts which he knew he had, he would never be able to express them; the knowledge and the fear finally reached a stationary condition and reduced him to impotence."

Peggy Guggenheim, his partner for several years agreed that Holms had the potential to be a great writer: "Since no one else shared his extraordinary mental capacity, he was exceedingly bored when talking to most people. As a result, he was very lonely. He knew what gifts he had and felt wicked for not using them. Not being able to write, he was unhappy, which caused him to drink more and more. All the time that I was with him I was shocked by his paralysis of will power. It seemed to grow steadily, and in the end he could hardly force himself to do the simplest things." Peggy had to admit: "John had written only one poem in all the years he was with me. I had done nothing but complain about his indolent life."

Emma Goldman said in January 1929: "The main trouble is that John (Holms) is weak and ineffectual, a drifter unable to make one single decisive step. He wants to eat the pie and keep it at the same time." Emily Coleman added that his "incapacity to shoulder responsibility through some inexplicable paralysis of the will." William Gerhardie said of Holms: "In every age... there are men who while achieving nothing give an impression of greater genius than the acknowledged masters of the day."

In the summer of 1933 John Holms fractured his wrist, riding on Dartmoor with Peggy. Despite being reset, the bones had never realigned correctly, and he had been advised to have a simple operation. Holms was a heavy drinker and on the morning of the operation on 19th January, 1934, he had a terrible hangover. Holms died under the anaesthetic.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPholmsJ.htm

After leaving university Edward Wishart established a new publishing house, Wishart & Company. Garman went to work for his friend and along with Edgell Rickword, published a quarterly literary review, Calendar of Modern Letters. It included the work of Robert Graves, E. M. Forster, Aldous Huxley, A. E. Coppard, L. P. Hartley, Cecil Gray, Hart Crane, T. F. Powys, Allen Tate, Roy Campbell, John Holms, Edmund Blunden, Percy Wyndham Lewis, Siegfried Sassoon, D. H. Lawrence, Bertrand Russell and Edwin Muir.

Wishart merged his company with the publishing house of Martin Lawrence in 1935. Moving to Red Lion Square, Lawrence and Wishart became the press of the Communist Party of Great Britain. The company concentrated on publishing books on economics, working-class history and the classics of Marxism. Wishart also published New Writing, a twice-yearly anthology, that included the work of W.H.Auden, Ralph Fox, Christopher Isherwood and Cecil Day Lewis.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPwishartE.htm