Thursday, January 24, 2008

Ramparts Project--Green Light

The Ramparts project is under way--I haven't signed the contract but have accepted the terms--so my next book will be on the history and influence of the San Francisco muckraker.

Just in time, the Wall Street Journal is helping out. A book review today mentions the 1967 Ramparts article that exposed the CIA's covert funding for anticommunist organizations and "set off (in the words of one CIA veteran) 'a drumfire of editorial denunciation.'" The article goes on to say that the Ramparts article "arguably harmed the cause of anticommunism."

Well, yes. That can happen when an agency designed to collect intelligence abroad decides to fund student organizations at home. And things get stickier when it illegally spies on the Americans who exposed its illegal activities abroad.

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