John Simkin
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The current edition of History Today has just been published:
http://www.historytoday.com/frontpage.aspx
It includes the following:
The Call of the Crusades (Jonathan Phillips traces the long history of the concept of Crusade, a potent and enduring medieval idea.)
Genius Eclipsed: Robert Boyle (He was one of the great pioneers of the scientific revolution, yet Boyle's renown is still low. Michael Hunter explains why.)
Atomic Medicine (Alison Kraft examines how stem cell research and other new technologies were born of the post-war atomic age.)
The Rise of Women in Ancient Greece (Michael Scott takes account of how a crisis led to dynamic changes for the women of the Classical world.)
Between the Lines (Anthony Fletcher reads the poignant letters home by British soldiers during the First World War.)
What Does the Staffordshire Hoard Mean to Historians? (Justin Pollard asks whether the hype and headlines are justified.)
The Kennedy Dynasty (Tim Stanley)
Dutch Liberalism (Melanie Abrams)
Sarkozy Vs Academia (Martin Evans)
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This thread has been started as a result of a debate here about conspiracy theories:
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=14899
I hope that the debate can concentrate on the evidence rather than any comments on the intellectual abilities of the poster.
The problem with a great deal of this is that many of the 'conspiracies' listed (some of which John doesn't believe in and some he does) are so weak that a 5 year really ought to be able to see through them without too much cerebal activity.I find this statement offensive. However, that seems to be your style of argument. To say that I believe in conspiracies that a “5 year really ought to be able to see through them without too much cerebal (sic) activity” is of course a ridiculous statement.
I consider myself to be a serious historian and I am willing to debate the evidence with you. Please make it clear which conspiracies fall into this category and I will supply the evidence to show you why some historians believe that there is great doubt about the official story.
Sorry you have chosen to be offended but I am sure my average 5 year old could make short shrift of the following;
9/11, Diana, Marilyn, NHS doctor assassins, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Apollo, Hilda Murrell, David Kelly.
Where would you like to start?
Of those you list the only one I said I believed in was the death of David Kelly. Is that the one you think the "average 5 year old could make short shrift of"?
Which might suggest you were premature to take offence. All of them have featured here at one time and another from people you have invited onto this forum. I cannot be expected to be able to guess which ones you happen to believe or not.
And yes I do think the conspiracy stuff surrounding the death of David Kelly is nonsense.
Here is a list of reasons why people who have investigated the death of Dr. Kelly believe that it was likely that he was murdered rather than committed suicide.
(1) Although he was under intense pressure, he was known to be a strong character and belonged to the Baha'i faith, which prohibits suicide.
(2) Those closest to him (such as his sister), and even neighbours he met on his last walk, said that on the day he died he had shown no signs of depression.
(3) Dr Kelly's body had been moved from its original prone position on the ground, and propped up against a tree. Items said to have been found near his body had not been seen by the paramedics who first found him. This is supported by the medical findings of livor mortis, which indicates that Kelly died on his back, or at least was moved to that position shortly after his death. A logical explanation is that Dr. Kelly died at a different site and the body was transported to the place it was found.
(4) Police documents show that the investigation into Dr. Kelly’s death (Operation Mason) began at 2:30pm on the 17th, about one hour before Dr. Kelly left the house on his final walk.
(5) The search-team that found Dr. Kelly reported the find to police headquarters, Thames Valley Police (TVP) and then left the scene. On their way back to their car, they met three 'police' officers, one of them named Detective Constable Graham Peter Coe. Coe and his men were alone at the site for 25-30 minutes before the first police actually assigned to search the area arrived and took charge of the scene from Coe. Five witnesses, including the two paramedics, called to the scene, said in their testimony that two men accompanied Coe. Yet, in his testimony, Coe maintained there was only one other beside himself. He was not questioned about the discrepancy. It would seem that the presence of the “third man” could not be satisfactorily explained and so was being denied.
(6) Dr. Nicholas Hunt, who performed the autopsy, testified there were several superficial scratches or cuts on the wrist and one deep wound that severed the ulnar artery but not the radial artery. The fact that the ulnar artery was severed, but not the radial artery, strongly suggests that the knife wound was inflicted drawing the blade from the inside of the wrist (the little finger side closest to the body) to the outside where the radial artery is located much closer to the surface of the skin than is the ulnar artery.
(7) It is extremely unusual for someone to kill themselves by slitting his ulnar artery. For example, Kelly was the only one in Britain to kill himself in that way during that year. This is hardly surprising since this is just about the most improbable way to commit suicide, made even more difficult by the inappropriate knife that Dr Kelly is said to have used. It has been pointed out that a second person situated to the left of Kelly who held or picked up the arm and slashed across the wrist would start on the inside of the wrist severing the ulnar artery first. In fact, a complete autopsy report would state in which direction the wounds were inflicted.
(8) Medical specialists have argued that they did not believe the official finding that Dr Kelly died either from haemorrhaging from a severed ulnar artery in his wrist, or from an overdose of coproxamol tablets, or a combination of the two. Such an artery, they said, was of matchstick thickness and severing it would not lead to the kind of blood loss that would kill someone. They also pointed out that, according to the ambulance team at the scene, the quantity of blood around the body was minimal.
(9) Although Dr Kelly was said to have swallowed 29 coproxamol tablets, only one-fifth of one tablet was found in his stomach, and the level found in his blood was far less than a fatal dose.
(10) The behaviour of the coroner was extremely unusual in the case of Dr. Kelly. The normal practice in such circumstances would be for the coroner to issue a temporary death certificate pending the official inquiry into such a death. But in this case, the coroner issued an unprecedented full death certificate, just one week after the inquiry started into the circumstances of Dr Kelly's demise and after the coroner had held a meeting with Home Office officials.
(11) Many of the above points surfaced in evidence to the Hutton inquiry. However, this evidence was not investigated as Lord Hutton pointed out that his brief was simply to inquire into “the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly” rather than the death itself.
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The problem with a great deal of this is that many of the 'conspiracies' listed (some of which John doesn't believe in and some he does) are so weak that a 5 year really ought to be able to see through them without too much cerebal activity.
I find this statement offensive. However, that seems to be your style of argument. To say that I believe in conspiracies that a “5 year really ought to be able to see through them without too much cerebal (sic) activity” is of course a ridiculous statement.
I consider myself to be a serious historian and I am willing to debate the evidence with you. Please make it clear which conspiracies fall into this category and I will supply the evidence to show you why some historians believe that there is great doubt about the official story.
Sorry you have chosen to be offended but I am sure my average 5 year old could make short shrift of the following;
9/11, Diana, Marilyn, NHS doctor assassins, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Apollo, Hilda Murrell, David Kelly.
Where would you like to start?
Of those you list the only one I said I believed in was the death of David Kelly. Is that the one you think the "average 5 year old could make short shrift of"?
Which might suggest you were premature to take offence. All of them have featured here at one time and another from people you have invited onto this forum. I cannot be expected to be able to guess which ones you happen to believe or not.
And yes I do think the conspiracy stuff surrounding the death of David Kelly is nonsense.
Here is a list of reasons why people who have investigated the death of Dr. Kelly believe that it was likely that he was murdered rather than committed suicide.
(1) Although he was under intense pressure, he was known to be a strong character and belonged to the Baha'i faith, which prohibits suicide.
(2) Those closest to him (such as his sister), and even neighbours he met on his last walk, said that on the day he died he had shown no signs of depression.
(3) Dr Kelly's body had been moved from its original prone position on the ground, and propped up against a tree. Items said to have been found near his body had not been seen by the paramedics who first found him. This is supported by the medical findings of livor mortis, which indicates that Kelly died on his back, or at least was moved to that position shortly after his death. A logical explanation is that Dr. Kelly died at a different site and the body was transported to the place it was found.
(4) Police documents show that the investigation into Dr. Kelly’s death (Operation Mason) began at 2:30pm on the 17th, about one hour before Dr. Kelly left the house on his final walk.
(5) The search-team that found Dr. Kelly reported the find to police headquarters, Thames Valley Police (TVP) and then left the scene. On their way back to their car, they met three 'police' officers, one of them named Detective Constable Graham Peter Coe. Coe and his men were alone at the site for 25-30 minutes before the first police actually assigned to search the area arrived and took charge of the scene from Coe. Five witnesses, including the two paramedics, called to the scene, said in their testimony that two men accompanied Coe. Yet, in his testimony, Coe maintained there was only one other beside himself. He was not questioned about the discrepancy. It would seem that the presence of the “third man” could not be satisfactorily explained and so was being denied.
(6) Dr. Nicholas Hunt, who performed the autopsy, testified there were several superficial scratches or cuts on the wrist and one deep wound that severed the ulnar artery but not the radial artery. The fact that the ulnar artery was severed, but not the radial artery, strongly suggests that the knife wound was inflicted drawing the blade from the inside of the wrist (the little finger side closest to the body) to the outside where the radial artery is located much closer to the surface of the skin than is the ulnar artery.
(7) It is extremely unusual for someone to kill themselves by slitting his ulnar artery. For example, Kelly was the only one in Britain to kill himself in that way during that year. This is hardly surprising since this is just about the most improbable way to commit suicide, made even more difficult by the inappropriate knife that Dr Kelly is said to have used. It has been pointed out that a second person situated to the left of Kelly who held or picked up the arm and slashed across the wrist would start on the inside of the wrist severing the ulnar artery first. In fact, a complete autopsy report would state in which direction the wounds were inflicted.
(8) Medical specialists have argued that they did not believe the official finding that Dr Kelly died either from haemorrhaging from a severed ulnar artery in his wrist, or from an overdose of coproxamol tablets, or a combination of the two. Such an artery, they said, was of matchstick thickness and severing it would not lead to the kind of blood loss that would kill someone. They also pointed out that, according to the ambulance team at the scene, the quantity of blood around the body was minimal.
(9) Although Dr Kelly was said to have swallowed 29 coproxamol tablets, only one-fifth of one tablet was found in his stomach, and the level found in his blood was far less than a fatal dose.
(10) The behaviour of the coroner was extremely unusual in the case of Dr. Kelly. The normal practice in such circumstances would be for the coroner to issue a temporary death certificate pending the official inquiry into such a death. But in this case, the coroner issued an unprecedented full death certificate, just one week after the inquiry started into the circumstances of Dr Kelly's demise and after the coroner had held a meeting with Home Office officials.
(11) Many of the above points surfaced in evidence to the Hutton inquiry. However, this evidence was not investigated as Lord Hutton pointed out that his brief was simply to inquire into “the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly” rather than the death itself.
So that we do not get distracted from other aspects of this thread I have started a new thread where we can discuss this case.
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This subject has been debated at length and at some detail here:
Not in any meaningful sense of the word 'debate' has it!
Not one shread of evidence has been presented there which undermines the conclusions of the Hutton Inquiry. There is a great deal of 'intuition ' and badly informed and wild speculation at play masquerading as both analysis and evidence but no actual evidence.
There are also some quite hilarious errors - Norman Baker is presented as a 'well respected MP' for instance when it is quite clear that the man is a crank. A number of posters also reveal a profound ignorance of suicide as a phenomenon - thanks for pointing out that thread because it confirms so many of my reservations about conspiracy theory outlined here
To describe Norman Baker as a crank is ridiculous. He is a personal friend and is a man of great integrity. In 1997 he became Lewes's first non-Conservative MP since 1874. In his first three months in the House of Commons, he asked more questions than Tim Rathbone, the former MP, had asked in 23 years. Most of his questions concern government corruption. It was his questions and research that resulted in Peter Mandelson's second resignation from government.
Most importantly, in January 2005 he began the campaign to force disclosure of the details of MPs' expenses under the Freedom of Information Act, finally succeeding in February 2007. It is only because of Baker that this scandal was exposed. If he is a crank I wish we had more of them.
I will deal with the Dr. Kelly case later.
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The problem with a great deal of this is that many of the 'conspiracies' listed (some of which John doesn't believe in and some he does) are so weak that a 5 year really ought to be able to see through them without too much cerebal activity.
I find this statement offensive. However, that seems to be your style of argument. To say that I believe in conspiracies that a “5 year really ought to be able to see through them without too much cerebal (sic) activity” is of course a ridiculous statement.
I consider myself to be a serious historian and I am willing to debate the evidence with you. Please make it clear which conspiracies fall into this category and I will supply the evidence to show you why some historians believe that there is great doubt about the official story.
Sorry you have chosen to be offended but I am sure my average 5 year old could make short shrift of the following;
9/11, Diana, Marilyn, NHS doctor assassins, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Apollo, Hilda Murrell, David Kelly.
Where would you like to start?
Of those you list the only one I said I believed in was the death of David Kelly. Is that the one you think the "average 5 year old could make short shrift of"?
This subject has been debated at length and at some detail here:
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From this I can deduce that you do not believe 9/11 or Diana conspiracy theories - you also mention a few that you find persuasive.
Am I to now infer that you reject all other conspiracy theories?
It is impossible to reject all "conspiracy theories" without looking at the evidence available.
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Which might suggest you were premature to take offence. All of them have featured here at one time and another from people you have invited onto this forum. I cannot be expected to be able to guess which ones you happen to believe or not.
And yes I do think the conspiracy stuff surrounding the death of David Kelly is nonsense.
I find it impossible to follow your logic. I started this thread with an explanation why I agreed with certain conspiracies. I listed these conspiracies.
No you didn't. You mentioned two you didn't agree with. The rest we are left to guess about.
You started this thread mentioning my name in your first sentence, decided to take offence when I replied and now 'can't follow my logic'.
However if you wish to engage in discussion about any substantive point in any individual conspiracy theory I suggest you start separate threads as appropriate. I would also value your views on the actual content of my first reply.
Yes, I did. Here is the contents of my first posting:
I am what Andy Walker would call a “conspiracy theorist”. That is not to say that I think everything is a conspiracy. For example, I do not believe Diana was murdered by Prince Philip or that 9/11 was organized by George Bush. However, I do believe that we are not allowed to know the true facts about major events. There is a simple truth behind my beliefs. The ruling elite will do what it can to protect its power. Sometimes they have to do things that would be totally unacceptable to democratic opinion. This therefore has to be covered-up.Since the early days of the 20th century the ruling elite have used the intelligence services to deal with people who pose a threat to their power. Recently I have written about the way MI5 have dealt with the peace movement during the First World War (the Alice Wheeldon Case), the overthrow of the first Labour Government in 1924 (Zinoviev Letter) and the attempted overthrow of the Harold Wilson government (the Wilson Plot).
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/CRIwheeldonA.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUzinoviev.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRwilsonHa.htm
I also believe that the FBI/CIA have played a similar role in the USA. That is that they were involved in the assassinations of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King and the overthrow of Richard Nixon.
This situation continues today. The Iraq War is just one of the latest examples of how governments and intelligence services have joined forces to persuade the general public to be in favour of war. The killing of Dr. David Kelly is another example (one conspiracy often leads to other conspiracies in order to protect the original conspiracy).
I know that to believe these things I will be accused of being a paranoid conspiracy theorist. So be it, but it will not stop me from trying to expose these abuses of power and the corruption of our democratic system.
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Which might suggest you were premature to take offence. All of them have featured here at one time and another from people you have invited onto this forum. I cannot be expected to be able to guess which ones you happen to believe or not.
And yes I do think the conspiracy stuff surrounding the death of David Kelly is nonsense.
I find it impossible to follow your logic. I started this thread with an explanation why I agreed with certain conspiracies. I listed these conspiracies. You replied with an attack on me for believing conspiracies I do not believe. You now say that you cannot be expected to be able to guess the ones that I believe in. Maybe it would be a good idea to read what I say before making the attack. After all, that is what historians do. They study the evidence rather than making things up.
You also seem to be suggesting that I am responsible for the postings of all other members as: "All of them have featured here at one time and another from people you have invited onto this forum." I have no more invited them to be members than you have. They have joined and then they were free to say what they believed in.
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The problem with a great deal of this is that many of the 'conspiracies' listed (some of which John doesn't believe in and some he does) are so weak that a 5 year really ought to be able to see through them without too much cerebal activity.
I find this statement offensive. However, that seems to be your style of argument. To say that I believe in conspiracies that a “5 year really ought to be able to see through them without too much cerebal (sic) activity” is of course a ridiculous statement.
I consider myself to be a serious historian and I am willing to debate the evidence with you. Please make it clear which conspiracies fall into this category and I will supply the evidence to show you why some historians believe that there is great doubt about the official story.
Sorry you have chosen to be offended but I am sure my average 5 year old could make short shrift of the following;
9/11, Diana, Marilyn, NHS doctor assassins, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Apollo, Hilda Murrell, David Kelly.
Where would you like to start?
Of those you list the only one I said I believed in was the death of David Kelly. Is that the one you think the "average 5 year old could make short shrift of"?
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The problem with a great deal of this is that many of the 'conspiracies' listed (some of which John doesn't believe in and some he does) are so weak that a 5 year really ought to be able to see through them without too much cerebal activity.
I find this statement offensive. However, that seems to be your style of argument. To say that I believe in conspiracies that a “5 year really ought to be able to see through them without too much cerebal (sic) activity” is of course a ridiculous statement.
I consider myself to be a serious historian and I am willing to debate the evidence with you. Please make it clear which conspiracies fall into this category and I will supply the evidence to show you why some historians believe that there is great doubt about the official story.
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Bill, thank you for publishing this excellent account of the NHS.
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I am what Andy Walker would call a “conspiracy theorist”. That is not to say that I think everything is a conspiracy. For example, I do not believe Diana was murdered by Prince Philip or that 9/11 was organized by George Bush. However, I do believe that we are not allowed to know the true facts about major events. There is a simple truth behind my beliefs. The ruling elite will do what it can to protect its power. Sometimes they have to do things that would be totally unacceptable to democratic opinion. This therefore has to be covered-up.
Since the early days of the 20th century the ruling elite have used the intelligence services to deal with people who pose a threat to their power. Recently I have written about the way MI5 have dealt with the peace movement during the First World War (the Alice Wheeldon Case), the overthrow of the first Labour Government in 1924 (Zinoviev Letter) and the attempted overthrow of the Harold Wilson government (the Wilson Plot).
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/CRIwheeldonA.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUzinoviev.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRwilsonHa.htm
I also believe that the FBI/CIA have played a similar role in the USA. That is that they were involved in the assassinations of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King and the overthrow of Richard Nixon.
This situation continues today. The Iraq War is just one of the latest examples of how governments and intelligence services have joined forces to persuade the general public to be in favour of war. The killing of Dr. David Kelly is another example (one conspiracy often leads to other conspiracies in order to protect the original conspiracy).
I know that to believe these things I will be accused of being a paranoid conspiracy theorist. So be it, but it will not stop me from trying to expose these abuses of power and the corruption of our democratic system.
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As usual, a very expensive and, no doubt, thoroughly well conducted review, tells them what any group of experienced classroom teachers could have told them now and ten years ago. oh, well As usual here in Oz we are just about to start having League Tables. We'll probably have one of these reviews in 10 years' time.
Agreed. A report that is immediately rejected by the two leading parties. It just seems impossible for Labour and the Tories to realise that they have mucked up our education system over the last 20 years.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/o...tical-of-labour
Schoolchildren should not start formal lessons until they turn six, and Sats should be scrapped to relieve the damaging pressure England's young pupils face, the biggest inquiry into primary education for 40 years concludes today.
In a damning indictment of Labour's education record since 1997, the Cambridge University-led review accuses the government of introducing an educational diet "even narrower than that of the Victorian elementary schools".
It claims that successive Labour ministers have intervened in England's classrooms on an unprecedented scale, controlling every detail of how teachers teach in a system that has "Stalinist overtones". It says they have exaggerated progress, narrowed the curriculum by squeezing out space for history, music and arts, and left children stressed-out by the testing and league table system.
The review is the biggest independent inquiry into primary education in four decades, based on 28 research surveys, 1,052 written submissions and 250 focus groups. It was undertaken by 14 authors, 66 research consultants and a 20-strong advisory committee at Cambridge University, led by Professor Robin Alexander, one of the most experienced educational academics in the country.
Last night the review's conclusions were backed by every education union in England, but rejected by ministers, who were immediately accused of rejecting independent rigorous research.
The report sets out an analysis of the problems and recommends:
• Delaying formal lessons until after a child turns six, to allow them to focus on play-based learning, so those who struggle at the age of four or five are not put off for life. The government currently plans to bring forward the school starting age from five to four.
• Scrapping Sats and league tables and replacing them with teacher assessments in a wider range of subjects than just the 3Rs, to encourage primaries to focus on the broader curriculum.
• Reviewing the system of general primary teachers to introduce more specialist teachers in history, music and languages. Funding should be increased to match that spent in secondaries on extra staffing. Teachers should have two years post-graduate training, instead of one.
The researchers are highly critical of politician's decision-making processes, saying: "The report notes the questionable evidence on which some key educational policies have been based; the disenfranchising of local voice; the rise of unelected and unaccountable groups taking key decisions behind closed doors; the 'empty rituals' of consultations; the authoritarian mindset, and the use of myth and derision to underwrite exaggerated accounts of progress and discredit alternative views."
It accuses the Labour government of reaching ever deeper into the "recesses of professional action and thought". The government's standards agenda has not only been unpopular, but "less successful and more problematic than government is willing to admit", it says.
That standards agenda includes Labour's literacy and numeracy hours, which instruct how primaries teach the 3Rs, as well as the use of Sats to judge pupils' progress, rate schools in league tables and provide a verdict on the rate of improvements in the system.
Alexander said: "We do argue for a rolling back of the powers of the state and reversal of the centralisation of how teachers teach ... In respect to day-to-day teaching, government should step back."
The report says there is a growing "pervasive anxiety" about children's lives, with teachers and parents concerned about the pressures children face from Sats and the damaging effect of starting formal lessons at four on children, particularly boys, who are not ready to learn to read and write.
It notes that other countries do not start academic lessons until children are six or seven, and most overtake England in performance at some point as the children grow older.
Gillian Pugh, the chairwoman of the review, warns: "If you introduce a child to too formal a curriculum before they are ready for it, then you are not taking into account where children are in terms of their learning, and their capacity to develop.
"If they are already failing by the age of four and a half or five, it's going to be quite difficult to get them back into the system again."
But the review also stresses that fears about the decline in the state of childhood have been exaggerated in some cases – children report being happier than their parents think they are.
The biggest problem children face is the link between educational underachievement and poverty, it argues, concluding: "What is worrying is the persistence of a long tail of severely disadvantaged children whose early lives are unhappy, whose potential is unrealised and whose future is bleak."
Vernon Coaker, schools minister, said the government was already reforming the curriculum and testing, and accused Alexander's report of suggesting a "woolly" accountability system.
"It's disappointing that a review which purports to be so comprehensive is simply not up to speed on many major changes in primaries. The world has moved on since this review was started. If every child making progress and reaching their potential is what matters, then Professor Alexander's proposals are a backward step," he said.
The Conservative shadow schools minister, Nick Gibb, said: "We agree that the wave of bureaucracy over the past decade has been deeply damaging and we must trust teachers more.
"We agree that we need more specialist training for primary teachers, as we have been saying, and which the government unfortunately has opposed. However, we do not agree with all its proposals for changing the curriculum, or that politicians should end school for four to six year olds."
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Of course, there are so many more oddities and inexplicable denials, omissions, inactions and incomplete lines of enquiry regarding Diana's death, convenient for some?
Here's an inconvenient fact for you - had she been wearing her seatbelt (like her bodyguard was) she would have probably have survived. What kind of conspiracy falls on the ability of the victim to save herself in such a simple manner?
Maybe he undid her safety-belt just before the crash.
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I have updated my individual pages on the political parties to include recorded speeches and television political broadcasts that date back to William Gladstone in the 19th century:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Pconservative.htm
Thank you John. Would you consider a mutual link to my pages on the ideologies underpinning each party?
http://www.educationforum.co.uk/sociology_2/socialism.htm
http://www.educationforum.co.uk/sociology_2/conservatism.htm
I have done that. Do you have anything on fascism and communism?
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I have updated my individual pages on the political parties to include recorded speeches and television political broadcasts that date back to William Gladstone in the 19th century:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Pconservative.htm
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My reply to the email:
I fully believe Thelma Tyson's story. Jimmy Carter's popularity was badly damaged in November, 1979, when student militants in Iran seized the United States embassy in Teheran and took 52 hostages. The students demanded that the hostages would be held until the Shah, the country's former leader, who was in the United States for medical treatment, was handed over to the government of Iran. Carter imposed economic sanctions on Iran and when that failed to work, ordered an armed rescue, Operation Eagle Claw, on April 24, 1980, which resulted in a failed mission, the crash of two aircraft and the deaths of eight American servicemen. I agree that this operation was sabotaged by CIA figures who supported Ronald Reagan. Carter's approval rating now slumped to 21 per cent, the lowest figure ever recorded by a president.
During the 1980 presidential campaign Ronald Reagan was informed by the CIA that Jimmy Carter was attempting to negotiate a deal with Iran to get the American hostages released. This was disastrous news for the Reagan campaign. If Carter got the hostages out before the election, the public perception of the man might change and he might be elected for a second-term. As Michael Deaver later told the New York Times: "One of the things we had concluded early on was that a Reagan victory would be nearly impossible if the hostages were released before the election... There is no doubt in my mind that the euphoria of a hostage release would have rolled over the land like a tidal wave. Carter would have been a hero, and many of the complaints against him forgotten. He would have won."
According to Barbara Honegger, a researcher and policy analyst with the 1980 Reagan/Bush campaign, William J. Casey and other representatives of the Reagan presidential campaign made a deal at two sets of meetings in July and August at the Ritz Hotel in Madrid with Iranians to delay the release of Americans held hostage in Iran until after the November 1980 presidential elections. Reagan’s aides promised that they would get a better deal if they waited until Carter was defeated.
On 22nd September, 1980, Iraq invaded Iran. The Iranian government was now in desperate need of spare parts and equipment for its armed forces. Jimmy Carter proposed that the US would be willing to hand over supplies in return for the hostages.
Once again, the Central Intelligence Agency leaked this information to Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. This attempted deal was also passed to the media. On 11th October, the Washington Post reported rumors of a “secret deal that would see the hostages released in exchange for the American made military spare parts Iran needs to continue its fight against Iraq”.
A couple of days before the election Barry Goldwater was reported as saying that he had information that “two air force C-5 transports were being loaded with spare parts for Iran”. This was not true. However, this publicity had made it impossible for Carter to do a deal. Ronald Reagan on the other hand, had promised the Iranian government that he would arrange for them to get all the arms they needed in exchange for the hostages.
In the election Reagan easily defeated Jimmy Carter by 44 million votes to 35 million. The Republican Party also won control of the Senate for the first time in 26 years. According to Mansur Rafizadeh, the former U.S. station chief of SAVAK, the Iranian secret police, CIA agents had persuaded Khomeini not to release the American hostages until Reagan was sworn in. In fact, they were released twenty minutes after his inaugural address.
Reagan appointed William J. Casey as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In this position he was able to arrange the delivery of arms to Iran. These were delivered via Israel. By the end of 1982 all Regan’s promises to Iran had been made. With the deal completed, Iran was free to resort to acts of terrorism against the United States. In 1983, Iranian-backed terrorists blew up 241 marines in the CIA Middle-East headquarters.
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I have had this email from someone living in Dallas, Texas (he has supplied a name and telephone number).
I was given some information in about 1979 that maybe you would be interested in, that has influenced my opinions about our government ever since:
I bought some real estate then from a woman named Thelma Tyson. Her mama had owned this apartment house, had died, and Thelma sold it to me. Thelma's husband was Jim Tyson, a County Commissioner here in Dallas.
I was young, about 26 then, when I bought the property, and Thelma and I talked from time to time about politics. She was every involved in every aspect of the Democratic Party. I, in fact, really did like Jimmy Carter.
So as Jimmy Carter pranced through his presidency, then came along the the Iran/hostage crisis.
Then there was the rescue attempt that failed, where we were told the helicopters couldn't see well at night, ran into each other, and 23 of our soldiers died. How sad, how unfortunate.
So, one night, for some reason or another about the real estate I had bought from Thelma, we were talking. I said this: that our military was horrible, and so disorganized and so forth, to plan such a stupid rescue attempt only to run into each other in the night. I was putting down the whole rescue plan, and our military.
I didn't think they were that good if things like that happen. Stupid things like that happen to stupid plans, and they start with the stupid planners. Good planners don't make mistakes. So, in the midst of my condemnations, she interupted me. She said, "NO, NO NO!! That's not what happened at all!!"
I first thought that maybe I had not heard the news right, that maybe there was something missing from what I had heard, but no, she knew something that most did not know, apparently not even the news media.
She said that the helicopters did not in fact bump into each other. It was a double-agent sabotage deal. She said she had talked to Jimmy Carter the night after it happened. Thelma said she knew Jimmy even before he was elected Governor. They were very close, and Thelma was very active in the Democratic Party.
She said that our CIA agent was actually a double agent, and since he knew of the rescue plan, he took part in sabotaging the effort, which resulted in thwarting the rescue attempt and killing a number of our soldiers. She said that Jimmy told her that "it's okay, though, he's been taken care of".
So there, from that point, I realized that our government does not tell us the truth. I believed Thelma totally. There was no reason for her to lie to me. The lie has been implanted into the public brain by the media.
Does the media know the truth? I think so. It's all a stage. All the big wigs up there know what really happened. It's all a game, and part of the game is to keep the truth from the American people, probably in our own best interests.
If enough anger is built up, perhaps the American people would have wanted a big war against Iran, which we were not prepared to implement. I thought that maybe we had a bigger plan;, and we didn't want to disturb the bigger picture. Or maybe we didnt' want to show the ineptitude and inefficiency of our biggest spy agency, the CIA, and show the world our embarrassment of having an Iranian agent infiltrate our top spy plans enough to sabatoge them and kill our soldiers. How embarrassing.
I don't know, but I also know that if the President wants you "taken care of", I'm pretty sure something can be done to you, or me, or anyone he pegs.
To make a larger point, I think that in the larger scope of things, maybe the government just isn't telling us everything. After all, exposing our plans to the public would also expose them to the enemy on the other side.
I have often thought of the ingenius plan to attack Iraq after Afghanistan. What did it do? Well, with all the media attention on Iraq, it took the camera off of Afghanistan for a long while. Every Islam radical in the world headed to Iraq to fight the Americans. From every corner of the globe, even some in America, headed to Iraq to fight for their cause, and that's just what we wanted them to do. In that way we could make easier gains in Afghanistan. With less Taliban to fight there, it would be easier for us there. Also, why have all the terrorists scattered around the globe? It's harder to fight them there. Let's get them all in one place, the battle of all battles, so we can wipe as many of them out as we can. Great plan, but we can't let the other side know the psychology of it all. It's a secret.
Now that we've gained the upper hand in Iraq, and giving control more and more to the Iraqi police, instead of us, the attention is on Afghanistan. Now we have the cooperation of the Pakistani government, and for the first time in history, tribal factions in the Pakistani mountains are slowly being wiped out and put under their government control. Now we want all the attention there, where we can gather all the radicals up in one place where we can better take them out. Can't let the world know the psychology of it, but the less attention Iraq gets nowadays the better. Let the terrorists all head to Afghanistan to fight us, there, where we can more easily put them in one place and take 'em out. Soon, there will be less and less violence in Iraq, and we can brag about how our efforts there have actually worked.
The government can't actually let the public know the plan, without exposing it to the enemy.
The Dallas Cowboys can't actually tell the media what they're REALLY going to do Sunday, or the other side will be waiting for us. We have to tell a lie.
Perhaps the American government is just printing more money, a no-no, and they don't want the world to know. With the demand for cash, it won't hurt, and they're just printing millions, loaning to people who won't pay it back, but we know it's going into the economy to give us a boost. I don't know, but I don't trust the media a second, not that they're lying to us, but that they really don't know the master plan.
I hope I'm right, or we're really in deep trouble. Do you really think our government is really that stupid to send our economy to China?
I've thought that if you're planning a big scrap with somebody, then right before you start swingin, it's good to owe them a lot of money. Especially if you can show everyone that it was their fault, they started it, and now you don't have to pay back the money you borrowed. Perhaps the best plan for peace with China is to owe them a lot of money. They have to be nice to us then, cause otherwise we won't pay it back. Haha.
I have some tenants renting from me that are behind on their rent. If I kick them out, I'll never get the money.
I have to be nice to them and try to work it out, and maybe they won't get further behind, and maybe I'll be able to recover my money in the future.
The U.S. is right where we want to be, and the media is in place to make the other side think just exactly what we want, and then we can gain better control, and hopefully peace.
Maybe that's the master plan. Maybe it's best to hide the fact that our soldiers were killed, the CIA messed up this one, and the families were not told the truth. It doesn't matter, just the fact that we are on a plan of peace, not war, and that makes it necessary to hide the truth from the American public.
I believe that that is where our democracy has evolved.
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V.T. Lee was African American, was at the same apartment house with Richard Gibson (also African American) at 37 1/2 St. Mark's Place in 1962. The reason I bring all this up is because V.T. Lee's history is very hard to put together - a newspaper article about his life is included in the above SISS article but that's not terribly reliable...what happened to him after his spin with the Workers World Party in 64 or 65? There's a reference about him in 1966 that had Richard Helms clearly unglued. I haven't spoken to anyone who interviewed him after that date except on the phone...
...More to the point, I want to interview Lee, Gibson, and Taber and hear their side of the story. Can anyone help me find them? I think Gibson is still alive, I'm not so sure about Lee or Taber.
When William Sullivan resigned from the FBI on 28th August 1971, he pointed out to J. Edgar Hoover that he estimated that about half of the current membership of the American Communist Party were being paid by the FBI. I imagine something similar happened with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Probably, 50% were FBI agents. Some of those would have got to the top of the organization. I have been reliably informed that Tony Blair joined the Labour Party and CND when he was at university as a MI5 spy (I think this partly explains why he went along with Bush’s invasion of Iraq).
The use of African-Americans as FBI spies also makes sense as it could then be used to discredit the civil rights movement.
I suspect Robert Taber is still alive. The War of the Flea is a very important book and I am sure he would have got an obituary in newspapers like the Guardian.
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You can hear William Gladstone's voice here:
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A couple of goals for the U21's against Macedonia the other night. All very encouraging.
Especially as he was a second-half substitute. I saw the goals on Sky News. Not difficult chances but he took them well. I hope Zola keeps him in the side and does not do a "Sears" on him.
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Therefore to summarize, the Cambridge Spy Ring was arguably the finest and most thorough penetration of any country’s government in living memory. It remains such a supreme and elegant example of an intelligence operation that it must surely be compulsory reading for intelligence services and historians worldwide. However it would be wrong for Oxford University aficionados and fans, to foolishly believe that Oxford did not produce its own share of traitors during this time period. An Oxford Spy Ring did exist at the same time. Members included Phoebe Pool (a courier for the Oxford Ring and a colleague of Blunt’s at the Courtauld Institute), Peter Floud (Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum), Bernard Floud (a senior Labour MP), Jenifer Hart (who joined the Civil Service and married an MI5 officer), Sir Andrew Cohen (a senior diplomat), and Arthur Wynn (who was active in trade union circles and joined the Civil Service).
I am afraid you are wrong to suggest Bernard Floud was a Soviet spy. Nor was Jenifer Hart a spy. Peter Wright named Floud and Hart as spies in his book, Spycatcher (1987):
Floud's attitude, when I began the interview, was extraordinary. He treated the matter as of little importance, and when I pressed him on Jennifer Hart's story he refused to either confirm or deny that he had recruited her.
"How can I deny it, if I can't remember anything about it?" he said repeatedly.
I was tough with him. I knew that his wife, an agoraphobic depressive, had recently committed suicide, but Floud was eager to conclude the interview, presumably lured by the scent of office. I explained to him in unmistakable terms that, since it was my responsibility to advise on his security clearance, I could not possibly clear him until he gave a satisfactory explanation for the Hart story. Still he fell back lamely on his lack of memory. The session ended inconclusively, and I asked for him to attend a further interview the following day. I did not make any progress with him, he maintaining that he had no recollection of recruiting Jennifer.
The next morning I got a message that Floud had committed suicide, apparently with a gas poker and a blanket.
Bernard Floud, the son of Sir Francis Floud, the High Commissioner to Canada, was born on 22nd March, 1915. Educated at Wadham College, Oxford, he became a secret member of the Communist Party.
Floud qualified as a lawyer but on the outbreak of the Second World War Floud joined the Intelligence Corps. Later he worked in the Ministry of Information (1942-45) and the Board of Trade (1945-51).
After the war Floud became an open member of the party and was active in the "Civil Servants Communist Group". Informed that he would never receive promotion as a civil servant because of his political views he resigned and became a farmer in Ongar. He joined the Labour Party and was a member of the Kelvedon Hatch Parish Council (1952-61). In 1955 Floud was employed by Granada as a television programme company executive.
Floud was elected to the House of Commons in October 1964. Soon afterwards Floud began asking questions about the case of Commander Lionel Crabb, an underwater sabotage expert, who had disappeared in April 1956 while on a secret mission to investigate the Russian cruiser Ordkhonikidze. This created a diplomatic row as the ship had brought over Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin on a goodwill mission to Britain. Floud seemed well-informed about the case and appeared to have obtained this information from MI6.
In 1964 Anthony Blunt was identified as a Soviet agent. Blunt confessed to his crimes in return for his immunity from prosecution. According to Peter Wright he named several other agents including Floud and Hart. Nothing was done about this allegation until Harold Wilson became prime minister. MI5 told Wilson that several Labour MPs were Soviet spies. This included Bernard Floud, John Diamond (Chief Secretary of the Treasury), John Stonehouse (parliamentary secretary, Aviation), Barnett Stross (parliamentary secretary, Health), Judith Hart (Under-Secretary of State for Scotland), Stephen Swingler (parliamentary secretary, Transport), Niall MacDermot (Financial Secretary, Treasury), Tom Driberg (National Executive of the Labour Party) and Will Owen (MP for Morpeth). As David Leigh points out in The Wilson Plot: "With the exception of the insignificant Will Owen, the spying allegations were all false."
As Leigh points out: "Of those who became secret members of the Communist Party in the 1930s, quite a few refused to do any spying in later life - Michael Straight, the rich American, for example, or the civil servants Bernard Floud and Jenifer Hart... His (Floud) profile was not that of an active underground mole at all. He had been an open supporter of Communism after the war. As a consequence, he had been 'purged' from Harold Wilson's Board of Trade in 1948 under the blacklisting procedure for civil servants. And if he had only pretended to leave the British Communist Party subsequently, his name would have been on the 55,000 files looted by MI5 from the CPGB under operation PARTY PIECE in 1955."
The naming of these left-wing MPs as Soviet spies was an attempt to undermine the 1964 Wilson government. In 1967 Harold Wilson decided to appoint Floud as a junior minister and MI5 was asked to provide him with a security clearance. Floud was interviewed by Peter Wright. After being interrogated he returned home and committed suicide on 10th October, 1967.
Floud was just another victim of MI5's dirt tricks. Floud's son, Professor Sir Roderick Floud, contacted me and pointed out that Wright was also wrong to suggest that his mother had committed suicide. She in fact died from a long-standing lung disease.
Christopher Andrew has just published "The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5". It received a very interesting review in The Guardian from David Leigh, the author of "The Wilson Plot":
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/oct/1...f-the-realm-mi5
This is a strange and rather suspect production. Inside its more than 1,000 pages, there seem to be two different volumes. The first is a ripping read and just the kind of work one would hope for from a well-qualified academic who has been given the run of MI5's treasure trove of files. It is scrupulously documented, covering both the glory days of war, when MI5's deception operations outsmarted Hitler, and the later nightmare penetrations by the double agent Kim Philby and friends, in which the KGB thoroughly outsmarted the British.
Book two, however, is a different matter. This covers more sensitive occasions when MI5 officers have been accused of batty behaviour, including the persecution of "subversives", deranged denunciations of one another, and the targeting of the Labour prime minister Harold Wilson.
Christopher Andrew's book has been sanitised in "an extensive clearance process involving other departments and agencies". The present head of MI5, Jonathan Evans, writes that information has been censored not only for "national security" but also "if its publication would be inappropriate for wider public interest reasons". So readers are asked to take much on trust as they plough through reams of uncheckable footnotes merely labelled "security service archives" or "recollections of a former security service officer".
When it comes to the Wilson affair, Andrew's scholarship appears to slip. He repeats insistently the MI5 party line that there never was misbehaviour against Wilson or his ministers by "the Service", and that it was all mere conspiracy theories. Yet he withholds the fact that the cabinet secretary Lord Hunt authoritatively confirmed the central allegation. Hunt, who conducted a secret inquiry, said in August 1996: "There is absolutely no doubt at all that a few, a very few, malcontents in MI5 . . . a lot of them like Peter Wright who were rightwing, malicious and had serious personal grudges – gave vent to these and spread damaging malicious stories about that Labour government."
Separately, Andrew is silent on the well-documented case in which Wilson's treasury minister, Niall McDermot, was driven from office in 1968 when Patrick Stewart of MI5 accused his Russian-born wife of having KGB contacts. It was a most unpleasant miscarriage of justice.
Andrew does, however, write his own chapter on Wilson. He calls it "The 'Wilson Plot'". Puzzled readers may conclude that he is seeking, bu using those quotation marks, to explode the 1988 book of that title, written by this reviewer who coined the phrase. Yet no references at all follow in the footnotes or bibliography. It has become an Un-book, and the reader is not able to consider its countervailing evidence.
Nonetheless, it turns out in the end that Andrew must be using a sort of code. To one's surprise, underneath the MI5-approved bluster against "conspiracy theories", there lurks the real story in obscure footnotes and cryptic mentions. Andrew has in fact substantiated the thesis of the "Wilson plot", and more besides. It transpires that there is even more damning material in the MI5 files than was ever realised.
For example, the Labour MP Bernard Floud was indeed bullied with false allegations that he was a communist while in a state of grief after his wife's death. Thanks to the files, Andrew exonerates him and confirms that Peter Wright lied about the relevant dates of interrogations to try to make Floud look guilty. Dramatically, it is confirmed that there was indeed a secret Wilson MI5 file, under the pseudonym "Worthington". (One of my own errors is corrected. It was "Norman" not "Henry" Worthington.) The file was opened in 1947, when a communist civil servant spoke approvingly about Wilson on a tapped phone. It detailed Wilson's postwar trips to Moscow working for a timber firm (which we knew of) and his secretly observed encounters in London around 1955 with an undercover KGB man called Skripov (which we didn't).
There is more. Wilson's Lithuanian manufacturer buddy Joe Kagan was indeed discovered in 1971 to be hanging out with another undercover KGB officer, Richardas Vaygauskas, and the prime minister's friendships were indeed put under prolonged MI5 scrutiny, just as has been alleged. And finally it transpires that a KGB defector, Anatoliy Golitsyn, could have seen the file the Russians once temporarily opened on Wilson. "Golitsyn . . . claimed . . . that Wilson was a Soviet mole. When [the Labour leader Hugh] Gaitskell died suddenly in 1963, Golitsyn developed the . . . theory that he had been poisoned by the KGB to enable Wilson to succeed him . . . Sadly a minority of British and American intelligence officers . . . among them Angleton [head of CIA counter-intelligence] and Wright [MI5 assistant director] . . . were seduced by Golitsyn's fantasies."
So, apparently, the "Wilson plot" was true enough after all. It just seems to be impermissible for an official author to say so too loudly.
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I have added several political broadcasts (1929-1987) to my page on the Labour Party. Students might find the change in style interesting:
also the change in substance - very useful this John thank you
I will do one on the Conservative Party. In the meantime here is one on Margaret Thatcher:
You will find the History of the Conservative Party here:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Pconservative.htm
The first Conservative Party broadcast I can find dates back to 1931.
The Death of Dr. David Kelly
in Political Conspiracies
Posted
Part 1
The Bahai faith is very specific about the subject of suicide. The “Lights of Guidance” states: “Suicide is forbidden in the Cause. God who is the author of all life can alone take it away, and dispose of it in the way He deems best. Whoever commits suicide endangers his soul, and will suffer spiritually as a result in the other Worlds Beyond.”
Clearly, you have not read her testimony to Hutton. When asked about his mood on the day of her husband’s death, she told Hutton that he was “tired, subdued, but not depressed.”
Dr. Kelly’s body was found in the wood at around half-past eight by Louise Holmes and Paul Chapman. Holmes testified that Kelly’s body was “sitting with his back up against a tree” and Chapman testified that he was “slumped back against the tree”. Chapman phoned the police but about two minutes Graham Coe and DC Shields of the Thames Valley CID arrived, plus another man who has never been identified, arrived. They claimed they did not know the body had been found and were just part of another search-party. Holmes and Chapman were sent away.
According to Coe’s testimony to Hutton, the three men were alone with the body for over 25 minutes. The testimony of the next people to arrive on the scene, PC Andrew Franklin PC Martin Sawyer, and the two paramedics, Dave Bartlett and Louise Holmes, all make clear that Kelly was on his back by a large tree. This was also confirmed by Dr. Nicholas Hunt, the pathologist, who arrived at the scene.
You clearly have not read what I said. “Police documents show that the investigation into Dr. Kelly’s death (Operation Mason) began at 2:30pm on the 17th, about one hour before Dr. Kelly left the house on his final walk.” In other words, the operation began before he went missing. That is indeed very unusual.
Thames Valley Police have been unable to explain why they recorded in the “TVP Tactical Support Major Incident Policy Book” that the investigation into Dr. Kelly’s death should be called Operation Mason, nearly one hour before he left the house on his final walk.
It is also known that newspapers received several letters and telephone calls reporting that their were men in black clothes on the hill where Kelly was found early in the morning, long before the body was found.