News Archive - Dec 2005
Columnist Jack Anderson Dies
Dec 19, 2005: Columnist Jack Anderson died on Saturday, Dec 17 at the age of 83 (see Associated Press obituary). Anderson, author of the syndicated Merry-Go-Round column, hailed from the "muckracking" tradition of journalism and broke ground in uncovering various scandals over several decades. Anderson took over the column from his partner and mentor Drew Pearson upon Pearson's death in 1969. Anderson wrote a piece on March 7, 1967, which published information about "a reported CIA plan in 1963 to assassinate Cuba's Fidel Castro." This column was what prompted President Johnson to direct CIA Director Richard Helms to prepare the Inspector General's Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro. The Anderson piece relayed the claim - which the Church Committee later found had originated with Johnny Roselli and others - that "Senator Robert Kennedy may have approved an assassination plot which then possibly backfired against his late brother." A later Anderson column in January 1971 added more details to the story. For more information, see the Church Committee's Book V, p. 80, and Peter Dale Scott's Deep Politics II, Chapter 6.
NSA Declassifies Tonkin Gulf Documents
Dec 2, 2005: The National Security Agency (NSA) on 30 Nov 2005 released documents relating to the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident, which provided the trigger for escalation of the Vietnam conflict. Author John Prados discusses these on the website of the National Security Archive, a George Washington University-based non-profit institution devoted to providing public access to government information. Prados notes that "the American people have long deserved to know the full truth about the Gulf of Tonkin incident. The National Security Agency is to be commended for releasing this piece of the puzzle. The parallels between the faulty intelligence on Tonkin Gulf and the manipulated intelligence used to justify the Iraq War make it all the more worthwhile to re-examine the events of August 1964 in light of new evidence."
New Website: Judge for Yourself: www.judgeforyourself.com
Dec 1, 2005: John Judge, co-director of the 9-11 CitizensWatch and organizer for the COPA conferences, has launched a new website. www.judgeforyourself.com presents Judge's writings and talks on political assassinations, 9/11 and terrorism, American foreign and domestic policy, covert action, and other topics. Many essays and other written materials are freely available on the website; most audio recordings are available to download at low cost.