William Blum is an author and critic of United States foreign policy. A former State Department employee, he left in 1967 due to his opposition to the Vietnam War. His work devotes substantial attention to CIA interventions and assassination plots. Blum describes himself as a socialist and has supported Ralph Nader’s presidential campaigns. From 1972 to 1973 Blum was in Chile, where he reported on the Allende government’s « socialist experiment ». In the mid-1970s, he worked in London with ex- CIA and KGB agent Philip Agee and his associates. Agee wrote a scathing critique of CIA operations in his book Inside the Company: CIA Diary. (See wikipedia).
He writes: If you flip over the rock of American foreign policy of the past century, this is what crawls out … invasions … bombings … overthrowing governments … suppressing movements for social change … assassinating political leaders … perverting
elections … manipulating labor unions … manufacturing « news » … death squads … torture … biological warfare … depleted uranium … drug trafficking … mercenaries … It’s not a pretty picture. It is enough to give imperialism a bad name … (See this on his Homepage).
William Blum – USA
« It was in the early days of the fighting in Vietnam that a Vietcong officer said to his American prisoner: « You were our heroes after the War. We read American books and saw American films, and a common phrase in those days was ‘to be as rich and as wise as an American’. What happened? » An American might have been asked something similar by a Guatemalan, an Indonesian or a Cuban during the ten years previous, or by a Uruguayan, a Chilean or a Greek in the decade subsequent. The remarkable international goodwill and credibility enjoyed by the United States at the close of the Second World War was dissipated country by country, intervention by intervention. » William Blum. (See Third World Traveler).
See also: Biography and more.
William 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 Vietnam. He then became one of the founders and editors of the Washington Free Press, the first « alternative » newspaper in the capital. In 1969, he wrote and published an exposé of the CIA in which was revealed the names and addresses of more than 200 employees of the Agency. He has been a freelance journalist in the United States, Europe and South America. His stay in Chile in 1972-3, writing about the Allende government’s « socialist experiment » and its tragic overthrow in a CIA-designed coup, instilled in him a personal involvement and an even more heightened interest in what his government was doing in various parts of the world. In the mid-1970’s, he worked in London with former CIA officer Philip Agee and his associates on their project of exposing CIA personnel and their misdeeds. The late 1980s found Mr. Blum living in Los Angeles, teaching and pursuing a career as a screenwriter. Unfortunately, his screenplays all had two (if not three) strikes against them because they dealt with that thing which makes grown men run screaming in Hollywood: ideas and issues. William Blum is currently living in Washington, DC again, using the Library of Congress and the National Archives to strike fear into the hearts of US government imperialists. Blum maintains his own Web Site and also maintains the Foreign Policy Watch section of ZNet.
One of his Books:
About Rogue State – A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower, by William Blum, Common Courage Press, 320pp – $26.00: This book is perhaps one of the best readers on the U.S.’s insatiable lust for political, economic, and military hegemony over the rest of the world, divorced from any moral considerations. Whatever we think we know about U.S. foreign policy, Rogue State makes it clear that we don’t know nearly enough. Learn about decades of ubiquitous U.S. cruelty, kept – remarkably – from penetrating world consciousness or shocking world conscience. Though President Clinton calls America « the world’s greatest force for peace », William Blum shows that the U.S. is really a marauding Western brute. « The footnoted information between these covers is enough to make any awake reader want to scream with rage. This is a truly subversive book because it demolishes the foundations of basic illusions about the United States of America as a world power. » – Norman Solomon, winner of the George Orwell award.. (See turning.ca).
And: From 1945 to the end of the century, the United States attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements struggling against intolerable regimes… In the process, the U.S. caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair. » And « No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine. (See wikipedia).
Another book: Killing Hope – US Military and CIA, Interventions Since World War II, by William Blum. (See members.aol.com, but also killinghope.com).
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