rn: Bill Blum, author of _Killing Hope_

1999-06-21

Jan Slakov

Dear RN list,        June 21

While some of you have undoubtedly known of Bill Blum for some time, I have
only recently realized how important his work is and very much appreciate
his contributions to both this list and our parent list, the cyberjournal.

Bill Blum left the State Department in 1967, abandoning his aspiration of
becoming a Foreign Service Officer, because of his opposition to what the
United States was doing in Viet Nam.

Below are comments and excerpts from a book review of _Killing Hope: U.S.
Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II_ (1995), revised and
updated from _The CIA, A Forgotten History_ (1986).

Far and away the best book on the topic.
                                - Noam Chomsky

The single most useful summary of CIA history.
                                - John Stockwell, former CIA officer & author
Each chapter I read makes me more and more angry.
                                - Helen Caldicott (featured in Canada's
National Film Board film, _If You Love This Planet_, banned by the Ronald
ReAgan govt.)

A very valuable book. The research and organization are extremely impressive.
                                - A.J. Langguth, author & former New York Times
                                                        bureau chief

excerpts from a book review by Silvia McFayden-Jones (Canadian activist)

_Killing Hope_, common courage Press, 1995
Copies can be oredered at <•••@••.•••> or Covert Action, 15000
Massachusetts Ave. #732, NW, Washington DC 20005

A culmination of over twenty years of observations, research, recordings and
analysis, William Blum gives us a book that is a definite source and
valuable reference of US foreign policy.

As a journalist [Blum] developed a keen interest and ability in
investigating and exposing what the US
military-industrial-intelligence-complex (M.I.I.C.) and their supporters in
Congress were doing in various parts of the world.

A detailed account of interventions in 55 countries by the US military and
CIA describes the horrors that William Blum understandably calls "the
American holocaust".

The author proposes that the "victory of WWII" caused the US to become a
"security state" under the control of the M.I.I.C. Answerable to no one,
demanding extra-constitutional actions from the government, exempt from
congressional oversight, secret from the American people, and above the law.
In other words: a Super Power!

The Super Power has its MIIC, the World Bank, the IMF, the NAFTA and the NATO. 
They are dictating the economic, political and social development all over
the "Third World" and Eastern Europe. The UN's Code of Conduct on
Transnational Corporations, 15 years in the making, is dead. Social justice
is dead. The world is safe for the transnational corporations.
"Does that mean a better life and more regard for the common folk? asks
Blum. We are reminded of the well-known and frequently warmed up version of
the "trickle down theory", the principle that the poor, who must subsist on
the talble scraps dropped by the rich, can best be served by giving the rich
bigger meals...