QUOTE: "Today the world faces a single man armed with weapons of mass destruction, manifesting an aggressive, bullying attitude, who may well plunge the world into chaos and bloodshed if he miscalculates. This person, belligerent, arrogant, and sure of himself, truly is the most dangerous person on Earth. The problem is that his name is George W. Bush, and he is our president."
Jack M. Balkin,
Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Ammendment,
Yale Law School, September 22, 2002
Thursday, February 23, 2006
News from INDEPENDENT WORLD TELEVISION
I'm extremely pleased to tell you I was recently able to interview three important media players in India and Africa: Ferial Hafferjee, Editor of South Africa's Mail and Guardian; N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, which has over 3 million readers daily; and Indian Journalist and News Anchor Sashi Kumar. Their enlightening comments on the state of the media in their countries underline the necessity of a "real news" network that presents the world as it is.
Watch the interviews now and tell us what you think.
Ferial Hafferjee : http://www.iwtnews.com/videoplayer/ferial
N. Ram : http://www.iwtnews.com/videoplayer/nram
Sashi Kumar : http://www.iwtnews.com/videoplayer/sashikumar
On another note, January has been quite exciting for us at IWT. Support for IWT grows stronger each day -- your words of encouragement and generous contributions clearly show that the world can't wait for the first independent news network to become a reality.
This ever-growing enthusiasm made us think of ways we could bring the essence of IWT to you even before the launch of our first show, IWT News Nightly.
Hence, we are now in the midst of creating a brand-new website, with new and original video content to boot. Dynamic, user-friendly and rich in new video content, the website will become the centre of the movement to make this independent television news network a force that will break the media monopoly on information.
An expanded video section will feature exclusive T.V. news analysis that deconstructs headlines to get to the real story, interviews and debate with notable personalities with something to say, and a video blog from Iraq that will bring viewers there through a firsthand account of the war's true impact.
Over the next few months, the IWT team will be fully dedicated to the development of the new website and video content. Although it will be updated less frequently, the current website (www.IWTnews.com) remains the best place to get information and to watch interviews with journalists and personalities who have endorsed the IWT plan and vision.
We encourage you to tell your friends about us and invite them to subscribe to our email updates. Our members will be the first to know when we launch our new website and video later this spring!
Needless to say, we're very excited about the months ahead and can't wait to show you our new website and video. Keep sending us your comments and suggestions -- and stay tuned.
Thanking you once more for helping us make Independent World Television a reality.
Best regards,
Paul Jay, Chair
Independent World Television
www.IWTnews.com
P.S. : Haven't seen our newly-cut 2-minute version of the Birth of a Network video?
Go to www.IWTnews.com!
I'm extremely pleased to tell you I was recently able to interview three important media players in India and Africa: Ferial Hafferjee, Editor of South Africa's Mail and Guardian; N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, which has over 3 million readers daily; and Indian Journalist and News Anchor Sashi Kumar. Their enlightening comments on the state of the media in their countries underline the necessity of a "real news" network that presents the world as it is.
Watch the interviews now and tell us what you think.
Ferial Hafferjee : http://www.iwtnews.com/videoplayer/ferial
N. Ram : http://www.iwtnews.com/videoplayer/nram
Sashi Kumar : http://www.iwtnews.com/videoplayer/sashikumar
On another note, January has been quite exciting for us at IWT. Support for IWT grows stronger each day -- your words of encouragement and generous contributions clearly show that the world can't wait for the first independent news network to become a reality.
This ever-growing enthusiasm made us think of ways we could bring the essence of IWT to you even before the launch of our first show, IWT News Nightly.
Hence, we are now in the midst of creating a brand-new website, with new and original video content to boot. Dynamic, user-friendly and rich in new video content, the website will become the centre of the movement to make this independent television news network a force that will break the media monopoly on information.
An expanded video section will feature exclusive T.V. news analysis that deconstructs headlines to get to the real story, interviews and debate with notable personalities with something to say, and a video blog from Iraq that will bring viewers there through a firsthand account of the war's true impact.
Over the next few months, the IWT team will be fully dedicated to the development of the new website and video content. Although it will be updated less frequently, the current website (www.IWTnews.com) remains the best place to get information and to watch interviews with journalists and personalities who have endorsed the IWT plan and vision.
We encourage you to tell your friends about us and invite them to subscribe to our email updates. Our members will be the first to know when we launch our new website and video later this spring!
Needless to say, we're very excited about the months ahead and can't wait to show you our new website and video. Keep sending us your comments and suggestions -- and stay tuned.
Thanking you once more for helping us make Independent World Television a reality.
Best regards,
Paul Jay, Chair
Independent World Television
www.IWTnews.com
P.S. : Haven't seen our newly-cut 2-minute version of the Birth of a Network video?
Go to www.IWTnews.com!
LETTER FROM BRITAIN-VIETNAM FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY
Secretary: Len Aldis.
Flat 2, 26 Tomlins Grove, London E3 4NX UK
Tel & Fax: 44+ 20 8980 7146.
Mobile: 0779 657 1017
Vietnam and the Presidency
A two-day conference
10th and 11th March 2006,
Boston, USA.
To the moderator of the above conference, Mr Brian Williams.
Dear Mr Williams,
Many will welcome this important conference and look forward to hearing the comments from guests, many of whom were deeply involved in the war that ended over thirty years ago. As one unable to participate, will you allow me to raise some points for consideration by your guests?
In the introduction to the conference it is recalled that the American War on Vietnam was the longest waged by the United States, and resulted in the deaths of 58,000 Americans and over 3,000,000 Vietnamese. Unfortunately, not mentioned was the number of those injured and maimed, on all sides, an important statistic that is often ignored in the aftermath of war.
An issue that I hope will be discussed is that of the type of weapons used in the Vietnam War, in particular, chemicals. Here I refer to the one commonly known as Agent Orange that was mixed with Dioxin the world’s most dangerous poison.
Some, if not all, of the conference participants will know that Agent Orange was sprayed over a period of ten-years – which is without precedent in any war prior or since. Research carried out by various scientists, including American, give the amount of chemicals used as being within the range of 82 to 90 million litres.
The massive destruction to the forests of South Vietnam - a war crime in itself, as forests are vital to the environment of any country - through the use of Agent Orange is on record from research carried out by scientists of international repute, amongst them the team headed by the Stellman’s of Columbia University. Their excellent report appeared in the Nature Magazine of 17th April 2003.
Also extremely destructive was the tonnage of bombs dropped on North Vietnam.
Both weapons, chemicals and bombs, have left a legacy to the land and people of Vietnam to this very day in the 31st year of the ending of the war.
One of your guests is former Secretary of State Henry Kissenger.
Mr Kissenger as the U.S. National Security Advisor, played an important part in the Paris talks on "Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam."
Let me quote a small but vitally important section of the agreements:
Extracts from the
Le Duc Tho – Kissinger Negotiations in Paris.
Chapter VIII
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM AND THE UNITED STATES.
Article 21:
The United States anticipates that this agreement will usher in an era of reconciliation with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as with the peoples of Indochina. In pursuance of its traditional policy, the United States will contribute to healing the wounds of war and to postwar reconstruction of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and throughout Indochina.
Extracts from the
Message from the President of the United States to the Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
(February 1, 1973):
The President wishes to inform the democratic republic of Vietnam of the principles which will govern United States participation in the postwar reconstruction of North Vietnam. As indicated in Article 21 of the Agreement On Ending The War and Restoring Peace In Vietnam signed in Paris on January 27, 1973, the United States undertakes this participation in accordance with its traditional polices. These principles are as follows.
The government of the United States of America will contribute to post-war reconstruction in North Vietnam without any political conditions.
Preliminary United States studies indicate that the appropriate programs for the United States contribution to post-war reconstruction will fall in the range of $3.25 billion of grant aid over five years. Other forms of aid will be agreed upon between the two parties. This estimate is subject to revision and to detailed discussion between the Government of the United States and the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
End of quote.
It would be of interest if Mr Kissinger would comment on the above extracts from the documents with particular reference to the non-payment of the $3.5 billion noted in article 21.
Although the agreements were signed by the then U.S. Secretary of State William P. Rogers on behalf of the United States, it was Mr Kissinger who for three years, carried out the negotiations.
Mr Williams, in this the final point to the conference I would like to comment on the effects that Agent Orange has continued to have on the people of Vietnam.
I am not aware if Ambassador Pete Peterson - another guest at the conference - during his term as Ambassador to Vietnam took the opportunity to visit the International Friendship Village in the suburbs of Hanoi. If he had he would have seen youngsters and veterans with illnesses and disabilities related to the use of Agent Orange.
The village was the idea of an American veteran George Mizo, who sadly died shortly after the Village was opened. He too, along with other American, Australian, Sth Korean veterans, was a victim of Agent Orange. It was a truly international effort to build the Village with support coming from former ex-servicemen and women from France, Germany, Japan, United States and Britain.
I would hope that in his visits to Ho Chi Minh City, Ambassador Peterson would have called at the Tu Du Hospital. There he would have seen a number of tragic youngsters with terrible disabilities caused by Agent Orange.
In war when a bullet or shell is fired, a bomb is dropped, the target – be it man, women or a child - is killed or injured. With Agent Orange the chemical has travelled down the years into the third generation. Children are being born with severe disabilities thirty-five years after the spraying of Agent Orange was stopped in 1972.
Never has a country been faced with such a legacy to its people, and without an apology or compensation from the Government that ordered the use of chemicals as a weapon upon the people of Vietnam.
Let me end with two quotes from a speech made by President Clinton in the White House May 28th 1996 before an audience of American Vietnam veterans.
"This is an important day for the United States to take further steps to ease the suffering our nation unintentionally caused its own sons and daughters by exposing them to Agent Orange in Vietnam. For over two decades Vietnam veterans made the case that exposure to Agent Orange was injuring and killing them long before they left the field of battle, even damaging their children."
After stating that compensation would be made to those affected by Agent Orange including their children President Clinton continued:
"These actions show that our country can face up to the consequences of our actions; that we will bear responsibility for the harm we do, even when the harm is unintended; that we will continue to honour those who served our country and gave so much."
End of quotes
Unfortunately, throughout his speech President Clinton made no mention of the sons and daughters of the Vietnamese.
Today in Vietnam there are over 3,000,000 living Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange. Despite many discussions, appeals etc., the United States continues to ignore the plight of these tragic victims, forcing the Vietnamese to take the issue to the U.S. Courts.
In the month that this conference is held, the appeal for Justice by the Vietnamese will be heard in a New York Court. Millions around the world are hopeful that at long last Justice for the Vietnamese Victims of Agent Orange will prevail.
Yours sincerely
Len Aldis
Secretary
...............................
News Release
National Archives and Presidential Libraries to Host Historic Two-Day Conference on Vietnam and the Presidency-- Kissinger, Haig, Sorensen, Rather, Halberstam Among Participants --
For Immediate Release: January 10, 2006
Press Contact: Brent Carney (617) 514-1662;
http://au.f306.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=Brent.Carney@JFKLFoundation.org
Due to the overwhelming public response, the conference is now closed as we have reached capacity.
Download the Conference Brochure (Requires free Adobe Acrobat Reader)
On March 10 and 11, 2006, the National Archives and the nation’s Presidential Libraries will host an unprecedented two-day conference examining the history of the Vietnam War and the American presidency. The conference, which is free and open to the public, will be held at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.
"Vietnam and the Presidency" is the first national conference sponsored by all the Presidential Libraries – from Hoover to Clinton – and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Leading historians, key policymakers of the era, and journalists who covered the war will examine the antecedents of the war, presidential decision-making, media coverage, public opinion, lessons learned and the influence of the Vietnam experience on subsequent U.S. foreign policy.
Among those participating in the historic two-day conference will be General Alexander Haig; Secretary of State Henry Kissinger; Special Counsel to President Kennedy Theodore Sorensen; Special Assistant to President Johnson Jack Valenti; Senator Chuck Hagel; New York Times columnist Bob Herbert; Ambassador Pete Peterson; General Wesley Clark; professors George Herring, Robert D. Schulzinger, Timothy Naftali, and Marilyn Young; journalists Steve Bell and Dan Rather; Pulitzer Prize-winning authors David Halberstam and Frances Fitzgerald; and historians David Kaiser and Jeffrey Kimball. Former President Jimmy Carter will speak via video and NBC Nightly News anchorman Brian Williams will moderate all of the second day’s sessions.
The Vietnam War was the longest and most controversial war that the United States ever fought. It claimed the lives of more than 58,000 Americans and over three million Vietnamese. From the arrival of the first U.S. military advisors in the 1950s to the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, U.S. involvement in Vietnam was central to the Cold War foreign policies of Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford. The war has continued to affect the policies of subsequent presidents and its legacy is particularly relevant today during America’s war on terror.
"It is our hope and expectation that this conference will reveal a wealth of new information on the history of the Vietnam War and its impact on the office of the President," said Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein. "As keepers of the nation’s official history, the National Archives and the Presidential Libraries are uniquely positioned to provide a forum for examining the effect of the war in Vietnam on our nation, and its citizens."
Reservations for "Vietnam and the Presidency" are no longer available. The conference is fully subscribed. The program is subject to change due to speakers’ schedules. For more information, and an updated schedule of the conference, access the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum’s Web site at www.jfklibrary.org.
"Vietnam and the Presidency" is sponsored by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum; Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute; Harry S. Truman Library Institute; Eisenhower Foundation; John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum; John F. Kennedy Library Foundation; Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum; Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace; Gerald R. Ford Foundation; Jimmy Carter Library and Museum; Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation; George Bush Presidential Library Foundation; William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum; and the Foundation for the National Archives.
Conference Schedule as of January 9, 2006:
Speakers for the "Vietnam and the Presidency" Conference
Friday, March 10 and Saturday, March 11, 2006
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
Columbia Point, Boston, MA 02125
Friday, March 10
How We Got In: The United States, Asia, and Vietnam
1:00 – 2:30 p.m.
Professor George Herring, Alumni Professor of History, University of Kentucky, author of America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975.
Professor Robert D. Schulzinger, Professor of History, University of Colorado, Boulder, author of A Time for War: The United States and Vietnam, 1941-1975.
Professor Marilyn Young, Professor of History, New York University, author of The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990.
Moderator, Allen Weinstein, Archivist of the United States.
Vietnam and Presidential Tapes
2:45 – 4:45 p.m.
On Kennedy: Professor David Kaiser, Professor of Strategy and Policy, Naval War College, author of American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson, and the Origins of the Vietnam War.
On Nixon: Professor Jeffrey Kimball, Professor of History, Miami University, author of The Vietnam War Files: Uncovering the Secret History of Nixon-Era Strategy.
On Tapes: Professor Timothy Naftali, Associate Professor and Director of the Presidential Recordings Program at the University of Virginia's Miller Center for Public Affairs
Moderator, Sharon Fawcett, Assistant Archivist for Presidential Libraries.
Keynote Speaker
5:00 - 5:30 p.m.
David Halberstam, Pulitzer Prize-winner for his coverage of the Vietnam War for The New York Times; author of The Best and The Brightest, the acclaimed critical history of how and why the United states went to war in Vietnam.
Saturday, March 11
Moderator, Brian Williams, Anchor and Managing Editor, NBC Nightly News
9:00 to 9:30 a.m.
Interview with President Jimmy Carter and Brian Williams (Video presentation)
9:30 to 11:30 a.m.
Inside the White House
Alexander Haig, Military Assistant to National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger; White House Chief of Staff for President Nixon; Secretary of State under President Reagan
Henry Kissinger, National Security Advisor to President Nixon; Secretary of State under President Ford
Theodore Sorensen, Special Counsel to President Kennedy
Jack Valenti, Special Assistant to President Johnson
11:30 to 12: 30 p.m.
LUNCH
12:45 to 2:15 p.m.
The Media and the Role of Public Opinion
Steve Bell, ABC News war correspondent in the 1960s
Frances Fitzgerald, Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award-winning author for Fire In the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam
Dan Rather, CBS News war correspondent in the 1960s
2:30 to 4:30 p.m.
Lessons Learned
Wesley Clark, decorated Vietnam veteran and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander
Chuck Hagel, decorated Vietnam veteran and Nebraska's Senior Senator
Bob Herbert, veteran who served in Korea in the 1960s and New York Times columnist
Pete Peterson, decorated Vietnam veterand and first American Ambassador appointed to Vietnam after the war.
Closing Remarks
John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library - Columbia Point - Boston, Massachusetts 02125
Tel: 1-866-JFK-1960
Fax: 617-514-1652
Email: http://au.f306.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=kennedy.library@nara.gov
John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library Foundation - Columbia Point - Boston, Massachusetts 02125
Tel: 617-514-1550
Fax: 617-436-3395
Email: http://au.f306.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=Foundation@JFKLFoundation.org
Secretary: Len Aldis.
Flat 2, 26 Tomlins Grove, London E3 4NX UK
Tel & Fax: 44+ 20 8980 7146.
Mobile: 0779 657 1017
Vietnam and the Presidency
A two-day conference
10th and 11th March 2006,
Boston, USA.
To the moderator of the above conference, Mr Brian Williams.
Dear Mr Williams,
Many will welcome this important conference and look forward to hearing the comments from guests, many of whom were deeply involved in the war that ended over thirty years ago. As one unable to participate, will you allow me to raise some points for consideration by your guests?
In the introduction to the conference it is recalled that the American War on Vietnam was the longest waged by the United States, and resulted in the deaths of 58,000 Americans and over 3,000,000 Vietnamese. Unfortunately, not mentioned was the number of those injured and maimed, on all sides, an important statistic that is often ignored in the aftermath of war.
An issue that I hope will be discussed is that of the type of weapons used in the Vietnam War, in particular, chemicals. Here I refer to the one commonly known as Agent Orange that was mixed with Dioxin the world’s most dangerous poison.
Some, if not all, of the conference participants will know that Agent Orange was sprayed over a period of ten-years – which is without precedent in any war prior or since. Research carried out by various scientists, including American, give the amount of chemicals used as being within the range of 82 to 90 million litres.
The massive destruction to the forests of South Vietnam - a war crime in itself, as forests are vital to the environment of any country - through the use of Agent Orange is on record from research carried out by scientists of international repute, amongst them the team headed by the Stellman’s of Columbia University. Their excellent report appeared in the Nature Magazine of 17th April 2003.
Also extremely destructive was the tonnage of bombs dropped on North Vietnam.
Both weapons, chemicals and bombs, have left a legacy to the land and people of Vietnam to this very day in the 31st year of the ending of the war.
One of your guests is former Secretary of State Henry Kissenger.
Mr Kissenger as the U.S. National Security Advisor, played an important part in the Paris talks on "Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam."
Let me quote a small but vitally important section of the agreements:
Extracts from the
Le Duc Tho – Kissinger Negotiations in Paris.
Chapter VIII
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM AND THE UNITED STATES.
Article 21:
The United States anticipates that this agreement will usher in an era of reconciliation with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as with the peoples of Indochina. In pursuance of its traditional policy, the United States will contribute to healing the wounds of war and to postwar reconstruction of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and throughout Indochina.
Extracts from the
Message from the President of the United States to the Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
(February 1, 1973):
The President wishes to inform the democratic republic of Vietnam of the principles which will govern United States participation in the postwar reconstruction of North Vietnam. As indicated in Article 21 of the Agreement On Ending The War and Restoring Peace In Vietnam signed in Paris on January 27, 1973, the United States undertakes this participation in accordance with its traditional polices. These principles are as follows.
The government of the United States of America will contribute to post-war reconstruction in North Vietnam without any political conditions.
Preliminary United States studies indicate that the appropriate programs for the United States contribution to post-war reconstruction will fall in the range of $3.25 billion of grant aid over five years. Other forms of aid will be agreed upon between the two parties. This estimate is subject to revision and to detailed discussion between the Government of the United States and the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
End of quote.
It would be of interest if Mr Kissinger would comment on the above extracts from the documents with particular reference to the non-payment of the $3.5 billion noted in article 21.
Although the agreements were signed by the then U.S. Secretary of State William P. Rogers on behalf of the United States, it was Mr Kissinger who for three years, carried out the negotiations.
Mr Williams, in this the final point to the conference I would like to comment on the effects that Agent Orange has continued to have on the people of Vietnam.
I am not aware if Ambassador Pete Peterson - another guest at the conference - during his term as Ambassador to Vietnam took the opportunity to visit the International Friendship Village in the suburbs of Hanoi. If he had he would have seen youngsters and veterans with illnesses and disabilities related to the use of Agent Orange.
The village was the idea of an American veteran George Mizo, who sadly died shortly after the Village was opened. He too, along with other American, Australian, Sth Korean veterans, was a victim of Agent Orange. It was a truly international effort to build the Village with support coming from former ex-servicemen and women from France, Germany, Japan, United States and Britain.
I would hope that in his visits to Ho Chi Minh City, Ambassador Peterson would have called at the Tu Du Hospital. There he would have seen a number of tragic youngsters with terrible disabilities caused by Agent Orange.
In war when a bullet or shell is fired, a bomb is dropped, the target – be it man, women or a child - is killed or injured. With Agent Orange the chemical has travelled down the years into the third generation. Children are being born with severe disabilities thirty-five years after the spraying of Agent Orange was stopped in 1972.
Never has a country been faced with such a legacy to its people, and without an apology or compensation from the Government that ordered the use of chemicals as a weapon upon the people of Vietnam.
Let me end with two quotes from a speech made by President Clinton in the White House May 28th 1996 before an audience of American Vietnam veterans.
"This is an important day for the United States to take further steps to ease the suffering our nation unintentionally caused its own sons and daughters by exposing them to Agent Orange in Vietnam. For over two decades Vietnam veterans made the case that exposure to Agent Orange was injuring and killing them long before they left the field of battle, even damaging their children."
After stating that compensation would be made to those affected by Agent Orange including their children President Clinton continued:
"These actions show that our country can face up to the consequences of our actions; that we will bear responsibility for the harm we do, even when the harm is unintended; that we will continue to honour those who served our country and gave so much."
End of quotes
Unfortunately, throughout his speech President Clinton made no mention of the sons and daughters of the Vietnamese.
Today in Vietnam there are over 3,000,000 living Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange. Despite many discussions, appeals etc., the United States continues to ignore the plight of these tragic victims, forcing the Vietnamese to take the issue to the U.S. Courts.
In the month that this conference is held, the appeal for Justice by the Vietnamese will be heard in a New York Court. Millions around the world are hopeful that at long last Justice for the Vietnamese Victims of Agent Orange will prevail.
Yours sincerely
Len Aldis
Secretary
...............................
News Release
National Archives and Presidential Libraries to Host Historic Two-Day Conference on Vietnam and the Presidency-- Kissinger, Haig, Sorensen, Rather, Halberstam Among Participants --
For Immediate Release: January 10, 2006
Press Contact: Brent Carney (617) 514-1662;
http://au.f306.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=Brent.Carney@JFKLFoundation.org
Due to the overwhelming public response, the conference is now closed as we have reached capacity.
Download the Conference Brochure (Requires free Adobe Acrobat Reader)
On March 10 and 11, 2006, the National Archives and the nation’s Presidential Libraries will host an unprecedented two-day conference examining the history of the Vietnam War and the American presidency. The conference, which is free and open to the public, will be held at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.
"Vietnam and the Presidency" is the first national conference sponsored by all the Presidential Libraries – from Hoover to Clinton – and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Leading historians, key policymakers of the era, and journalists who covered the war will examine the antecedents of the war, presidential decision-making, media coverage, public opinion, lessons learned and the influence of the Vietnam experience on subsequent U.S. foreign policy.
Among those participating in the historic two-day conference will be General Alexander Haig; Secretary of State Henry Kissinger; Special Counsel to President Kennedy Theodore Sorensen; Special Assistant to President Johnson Jack Valenti; Senator Chuck Hagel; New York Times columnist Bob Herbert; Ambassador Pete Peterson; General Wesley Clark; professors George Herring, Robert D. Schulzinger, Timothy Naftali, and Marilyn Young; journalists Steve Bell and Dan Rather; Pulitzer Prize-winning authors David Halberstam and Frances Fitzgerald; and historians David Kaiser and Jeffrey Kimball. Former President Jimmy Carter will speak via video and NBC Nightly News anchorman Brian Williams will moderate all of the second day’s sessions.
The Vietnam War was the longest and most controversial war that the United States ever fought. It claimed the lives of more than 58,000 Americans and over three million Vietnamese. From the arrival of the first U.S. military advisors in the 1950s to the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, U.S. involvement in Vietnam was central to the Cold War foreign policies of Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford. The war has continued to affect the policies of subsequent presidents and its legacy is particularly relevant today during America’s war on terror.
"It is our hope and expectation that this conference will reveal a wealth of new information on the history of the Vietnam War and its impact on the office of the President," said Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein. "As keepers of the nation’s official history, the National Archives and the Presidential Libraries are uniquely positioned to provide a forum for examining the effect of the war in Vietnam on our nation, and its citizens."
Reservations for "Vietnam and the Presidency" are no longer available. The conference is fully subscribed. The program is subject to change due to speakers’ schedules. For more information, and an updated schedule of the conference, access the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum’s Web site at www.jfklibrary.org.
"Vietnam and the Presidency" is sponsored by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum; Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute; Harry S. Truman Library Institute; Eisenhower Foundation; John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum; John F. Kennedy Library Foundation; Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum; Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace; Gerald R. Ford Foundation; Jimmy Carter Library and Museum; Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation; George Bush Presidential Library Foundation; William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum; and the Foundation for the National Archives.
Conference Schedule as of January 9, 2006:
Speakers for the "Vietnam and the Presidency" Conference
Friday, March 10 and Saturday, March 11, 2006
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
Columbia Point, Boston, MA 02125
Friday, March 10
How We Got In: The United States, Asia, and Vietnam
1:00 – 2:30 p.m.
Professor George Herring, Alumni Professor of History, University of Kentucky, author of America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975.
Professor Robert D. Schulzinger, Professor of History, University of Colorado, Boulder, author of A Time for War: The United States and Vietnam, 1941-1975.
Professor Marilyn Young, Professor of History, New York University, author of The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990.
Moderator, Allen Weinstein, Archivist of the United States.
Vietnam and Presidential Tapes
2:45 – 4:45 p.m.
On Kennedy: Professor David Kaiser, Professor of Strategy and Policy, Naval War College, author of American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson, and the Origins of the Vietnam War.
On Nixon: Professor Jeffrey Kimball, Professor of History, Miami University, author of The Vietnam War Files: Uncovering the Secret History of Nixon-Era Strategy.
On Tapes: Professor Timothy Naftali, Associate Professor and Director of the Presidential Recordings Program at the University of Virginia's Miller Center for Public Affairs
Moderator, Sharon Fawcett, Assistant Archivist for Presidential Libraries.
Keynote Speaker
5:00 - 5:30 p.m.
David Halberstam, Pulitzer Prize-winner for his coverage of the Vietnam War for The New York Times; author of The Best and The Brightest, the acclaimed critical history of how and why the United states went to war in Vietnam.
Saturday, March 11
Moderator, Brian Williams, Anchor and Managing Editor, NBC Nightly News
9:00 to 9:30 a.m.
Interview with President Jimmy Carter and Brian Williams (Video presentation)
9:30 to 11:30 a.m.
Inside the White House
Alexander Haig, Military Assistant to National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger; White House Chief of Staff for President Nixon; Secretary of State under President Reagan
Henry Kissinger, National Security Advisor to President Nixon; Secretary of State under President Ford
Theodore Sorensen, Special Counsel to President Kennedy
Jack Valenti, Special Assistant to President Johnson
11:30 to 12: 30 p.m.
LUNCH
12:45 to 2:15 p.m.
The Media and the Role of Public Opinion
Steve Bell, ABC News war correspondent in the 1960s
Frances Fitzgerald, Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award-winning author for Fire In the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam
Dan Rather, CBS News war correspondent in the 1960s
2:30 to 4:30 p.m.
Lessons Learned
Wesley Clark, decorated Vietnam veteran and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander
Chuck Hagel, decorated Vietnam veteran and Nebraska's Senior Senator
Bob Herbert, veteran who served in Korea in the 1960s and New York Times columnist
Pete Peterson, decorated Vietnam veterand and first American Ambassador appointed to Vietnam after the war.
Closing Remarks
John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library - Columbia Point - Boston, Massachusetts 02125
Tel: 1-866-JFK-1960
Fax: 617-514-1652
Email: http://au.f306.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=kennedy.library@nara.gov
John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library Foundation - Columbia Point - Boston, Massachusetts 02125
Tel: 617-514-1550
Fax: 617-436-3395
Email: http://au.f306.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=Foundation@JFKLFoundation.org
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Following Orders Is No Excuse
"A hoax on the American people, the international community, and the United Nations Security Council."
By Paul Craig Roberts
If Powell had refused three years ago to deliver the Speech of Lies, we would not now be watching an identical duplicity being rolled out against Iran.
The ultimate cost of the deception now being practiced over Iran will dwarf the terrible price that has already been paid.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11817.htm
"A hoax on the American people, the international community, and the United Nations Security Council."
By Paul Craig Roberts
If Powell had refused three years ago to deliver the Speech of Lies, we would not now be watching an identical duplicity being rolled out against Iran.
The ultimate cost of the deception now being practiced over Iran will dwarf the terrible price that has already been paid.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11817.htm
Palestinian vote jolts U.S. imperialists
By Michael Kramer
U.S. imperialist policy and its plans for the Middle East have been in more disarray and failing at a faster rate with every explosion and guerrilla ambush in Iraq.
Now every election in Palestine is adding to the misery in the Bush administration and all its generously funded government think-tanks and pseudo-research institutions full of recycled State Department bureaucrats, retired Pentagon officers and right-wing academics.
By Michael Kramer
U.S. imperialist policy and its plans for the Middle East have been in more disarray and failing at a faster rate with every explosion and guerrilla ambush in Iraq.
Now every election in Palestine is adding to the misery in the Bush administration and all its generously funded government think-tanks and pseudo-research institutions full of recycled State Department bureaucrats, retired Pentagon officers and right-wing academics.
DEPLETED URANIUM
Poison DUst’ issued as DVD
A documentary video that opened many eyes to the criminal use by the Pentagon of depleted uranium (DU) in modern weapons has just been reissued as a DVD.
“Poison DUst” has been made into an 84-minute DVD by Lightyear Entertainment.
Poison DUst’ issued as DVD
A documentary video that opened many eyes to the criminal use by the Pentagon of depleted uranium (DU) in modern weapons has just been reissued as a DVD.
“Poison DUst” has been made into an 84-minute DVD by Lightyear Entertainment.
450,000 NGOs in Russia
U.S. finances opposition
By Sara Flounders
A struggle is developing in Russia over legislation regulating non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that is due to go into effect in April. The new law was passed by both houses of the Russian legislature, called the Duma, and signed by President Vladimir Putin on Jan. 10.
Resistance to it has opened a window on the level of Western and especially U.S. intervention in Russia today.
U.S. finances opposition
By Sara Flounders
A struggle is developing in Russia over legislation regulating non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that is due to go into effect in April. The new law was passed by both houses of the Russian legislature, called the Duma, and signed by President Vladimir Putin on Jan. 10.
Resistance to it has opened a window on the level of Western and especially U.S. intervention in Russia today.
Pentagon covers up widespread sexual abuse
Fear of rape has led to deaths of women GIs in Iraq
By Kathy Durkin
The Pentagon is hiding a shocking secret: the rampant sexual harassment and abuse of women soldiers within the ranks of the U.S. military in Iraq. This sexual violence has even led to deaths, the causes of which have been deliberately concealed.
Fear of rape has led to deaths of women GIs in Iraq
By Kathy Durkin
The Pentagon is hiding a shocking secret: the rampant sexual harassment and abuse of women soldiers within the ranks of the U.S. military in Iraq. This sexual violence has even led to deaths, the causes of which have been deliberately concealed.
HALLIBURTON & the Australian connection.
Just what is this controversial company up to?
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Business/A-profit-powerhouse/2005/02/28/1109546795449.html
Just what is this controversial company up to?
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Business/A-profit-powerhouse/2005/02/28/1109546795449.html
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Blair in Secret Plot with Bush to Dupe U.N.
By Simon Walters
A White House leak revealing astonishing details of how Tony Blair and George Bush lied about the Iraq war is set to cause a worldwide political storm.
A new book exposes how the two men connived to dupe the United Nations and blows the lid off Mr. Blair's claim that he was a restraining influence on Mr. Bush.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11703.htm
Beating Around the Bush By the Bourse
By Ingmar Lee
Only the uninformed believed Bush when he said it was WMD's that made him attack, invade, occupy and massacre Iraq.
Most of us thought it was to steal Iraq's oil, but we were only partly right.
What totally terrorized the tyrranical Texan tycoon was when Saddam played the oil bourse card in November, 2000.
When Saddam started selling Iraqi oil in euro's, he jeopardized the U.S. dollar's hegemony as the world's supreme foreign exchange transaction currency.
The oil grab is a sideshow.
The main feature is the oil bourse.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11704.htm
By Simon Walters
A White House leak revealing astonishing details of how Tony Blair and George Bush lied about the Iraq war is set to cause a worldwide political storm.
A new book exposes how the two men connived to dupe the United Nations and blows the lid off Mr. Blair's claim that he was a restraining influence on Mr. Bush.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11703.htm
Beating Around the Bush By the Bourse
By Ingmar Lee
Only the uninformed believed Bush when he said it was WMD's that made him attack, invade, occupy and massacre Iraq.
Most of us thought it was to steal Iraq's oil, but we were only partly right.
What totally terrorized the tyrranical Texan tycoon was when Saddam played the oil bourse card in November, 2000.
When Saddam started selling Iraqi oil in euro's, he jeopardized the U.S. dollar's hegemony as the world's supreme foreign exchange transaction currency.
The oil grab is a sideshow.
The main feature is the oil bourse.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11704.htm
US military planning to fight the Internet
The document calls on DoD to enhance its capabilities in five key Information Operations (IO) areas: Electronic Warfare (EW), Psychological Operations (PSYOP), Operations Security (OPSEC), Military Deception and Computer Network Operations (CNO).
http://tinyurl.com/7h6fe
"The US military seeks the capability to knock out every telephone, every networked computer, every radar system on the planet," wrote Adam Brookes, BBC Pentagon correspondent.
The document calls on DoD to enhance its capabilities in five key Information Operations (IO) areas: Electronic Warfare (EW), Psychological Operations (PSYOP), Operations Security (OPSEC), Military Deception and Computer Network Operations (CNO).
http://tinyurl.com/7h6fe
"The US military seeks the capability to knock out every telephone, every networked computer, every radar system on the planet," wrote Adam Brookes, BBC Pentagon correspondent.
Nearly half of Iraqis support attacks on U.S. troops, poll finds: Seventy percent of Iraqis favor setting a timetable for U.S. forces to withdraw, with half of those favoring a withdrawal within six months and the other half favoring a withdrawal over two years.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11732.htm
Most Iraqis Doubt US Will Ever Leave :
Large majorities of Iraqis believe that the United States has no intention of ever withdrawing all its military forces from their country and that Washington's reconstruction efforts have been incompetent at best, according to a new survey released here Tuesday. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11735.htm
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11732.htm
Most Iraqis Doubt US Will Ever Leave :
Large majorities of Iraqis believe that the United States has no intention of ever withdrawing all its military forces from their country and that Washington's reconstruction efforts have been incompetent at best, according to a new survey released here Tuesday. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11735.htm
The Farcical Definition at the Heart of the War on Terrorism
By James Bovard
More people died as a result of the U.S.-backed invasion of East Timor (250,000)than were killed by international terrorists in the subsequent 30 years.
According to the U.S. State Department, between 1980 and 2005 fewer than 25,000 people were killed in international terrorist incidents around the globe.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11737.htm
By James Bovard
More people died as a result of the U.S.-backed invasion of East Timor (250,000)than were killed by international terrorists in the subsequent 30 years.
According to the U.S. State Department, between 1980 and 2005 fewer than 25,000 people were killed in international terrorist incidents around the globe.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11737.htm
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
‘Belafonte told the truth’
WW interview with Black historian/activist
Click on the heading above to read the full story
Tony Van Der Meer, a professor of Africana Studies, says:
God bless Harry Belafonte, may he live a long life for telling the truth.
Essentially Belafonte is saying what Martin Luther King Jr. said about the U.S. government being “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.”...
Harry Belafonte, while in Venezuela Jan. 8, said,
“No matter what the greatest tyrant in the world, the greatest terrorist in the world, George W. Bush says, we’re here to tell you: Not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of the American people ... support your revolution.”
Thomas Powers on
Spying, Lying, and Saying No
From: TomDispatch
On the day that Ayman al-Zawahiri appeared in his nine thousandth video from -- assumedly -- the remarkably technologized wilds of the Afghan-Pakistan border region, mocking President Bush for a botched Predator-drone missile attempt on his life, another article caught my eye.
In a piece in the Los Angeles Times, headlined CIA Expands Use of Drones in Terror War, Josh Meyer reported:
"Despite protests from other countries, the United States is expanding a top-secret effort to kill suspected terrorists with drone-fired missiles as it pursues an increasingly decentralized Al Qaeda, U.S. officials say."
These high-tech, long-distance "targeted killings" from the air -- they used to be called assassinations and Chris Dickey of Newsweek files them away under the rubric of "boys with toys" -- turn out, like acts of torture, to be staggeringly counterproductive. This one, which reportedly killed a number of women and children, shook the regime of Pakistani military strong man and U.S. ally Pervez Musharraf.
Like National Security Agency warrantless spying on U.S. citizens, the waterboarding of captives, and so many other actions of this administration, such assassination attempts rely on the shakiest and most dubious of legal findings produced more or less out of thin air.
In fact, thanks to a recent Newsweek investigative piece, Palace Revolt by Daniel Klaidman, Stuart Taylor Jr. and Evan Thomas, we know a good deal more about just how thin that air was.
As they report, with the President, Vice President, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and CIA director George Tenet convinced that the 9/11 attacks "and the threat of more and worse to come -- were perfect justification for unleashing the CIA and other long-blunted weapons in the national security arsenal," all that was needed was "legal cover, so [the CIA] wouldn't be left holding the bag if things went wrong."
Here's where what we now know as the "unitary executive theory," the idea of an unfettered presidency in which George Bush would be commander-in-chief not just of the military but of all us, came into play. As the three reporters describe the process, David Addington, then the Vice President's legal counsel (now his chief of staff), fearing opposition within the bureaucracy, "came up with a perfect solution: cut virtually everyone else out." Thus, a legal cabal supported the Rumsfeld/Cheney "cabal" former Colin Powell Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson has written about so vehemently.
In this way, a wide-ranging legal justification for the President's right to do whatever he cared to do as long as we were "at war" burst from the fevered brows of a few top officials and a small group of administration lawyers.
From the point of view of my own fevered brow, a single institutional law seems to apply to the administration's subsequent efforts: Always expand. All programs involving the secret powers of the president -- to torture, imprison, create global prison networks, assassinate, spy on citizens and others, or generally involve the military in civilian life -- started from modest seeds and simply grew and grew without bounds or even any particular relationship to their efficacy.
Take the Pentagon's three year old Counterintelligence Field Activity or CIFA. Initially a small office charged with "protecting military facilities and personnel," it now has nine directorates, a staff of 1,000, a large secret budget, and its own full-scale secret spying program, code-named Talon, that reported as a "national security threat" ten peace activists "who handed out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches outside Halliburton's headquarters in Houston in June 2004."
The same could be said of CIA secret prisons, NSA domestic spying operations, or the new U.S. Northern Command that the administration set up in 2002.
Thomas Powers, author of Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to al-Qaeda, explores the meaning of the recent NSA spying scandal below in fascinating detail and the abject failure of Congress (or the American public) to rein in this administration.
As he writes trenchantly, "In public life as in kindergarten, the all-important word is no."
It's clear that the expansion of secret (and not so secret) "war-time" powers proved a heady, addictive experience for top officials of this administration. (Where's Nancy Reagan and her "just say no" program when we need them most?) Powers' superb essay will be running in the February 23 issue of the New York Review of Books just now heading toward the newsstands. It appears here as an on-line exclusive thanks to the kindness of that magazine's editors.
Tom
The Biggest Secret
By Thomas Powers
A Review of State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration by James Risen.
Click here to read more of this dispatch.
Spying, Lying, and Saying No
From: TomDispatch
On the day that Ayman al-Zawahiri appeared in his nine thousandth video from -- assumedly -- the remarkably technologized wilds of the Afghan-Pakistan border region, mocking President Bush for a botched Predator-drone missile attempt on his life, another article caught my eye.
In a piece in the Los Angeles Times, headlined CIA Expands Use of Drones in Terror War, Josh Meyer reported:
"Despite protests from other countries, the United States is expanding a top-secret effort to kill suspected terrorists with drone-fired missiles as it pursues an increasingly decentralized Al Qaeda, U.S. officials say."
These high-tech, long-distance "targeted killings" from the air -- they used to be called assassinations and Chris Dickey of Newsweek files them away under the rubric of "boys with toys" -- turn out, like acts of torture, to be staggeringly counterproductive. This one, which reportedly killed a number of women and children, shook the regime of Pakistani military strong man and U.S. ally Pervez Musharraf.
Like National Security Agency warrantless spying on U.S. citizens, the waterboarding of captives, and so many other actions of this administration, such assassination attempts rely on the shakiest and most dubious of legal findings produced more or less out of thin air.
In fact, thanks to a recent Newsweek investigative piece, Palace Revolt by Daniel Klaidman, Stuart Taylor Jr. and Evan Thomas, we know a good deal more about just how thin that air was.
As they report, with the President, Vice President, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and CIA director George Tenet convinced that the 9/11 attacks "and the threat of more and worse to come -- were perfect justification for unleashing the CIA and other long-blunted weapons in the national security arsenal," all that was needed was "legal cover, so [the CIA] wouldn't be left holding the bag if things went wrong."
Here's where what we now know as the "unitary executive theory," the idea of an unfettered presidency in which George Bush would be commander-in-chief not just of the military but of all us, came into play. As the three reporters describe the process, David Addington, then the Vice President's legal counsel (now his chief of staff), fearing opposition within the bureaucracy, "came up with a perfect solution: cut virtually everyone else out." Thus, a legal cabal supported the Rumsfeld/Cheney "cabal" former Colin Powell Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson has written about so vehemently.
In this way, a wide-ranging legal justification for the President's right to do whatever he cared to do as long as we were "at war" burst from the fevered brows of a few top officials and a small group of administration lawyers.
From the point of view of my own fevered brow, a single institutional law seems to apply to the administration's subsequent efforts: Always expand. All programs involving the secret powers of the president -- to torture, imprison, create global prison networks, assassinate, spy on citizens and others, or generally involve the military in civilian life -- started from modest seeds and simply grew and grew without bounds or even any particular relationship to their efficacy.
Take the Pentagon's three year old Counterintelligence Field Activity or CIFA. Initially a small office charged with "protecting military facilities and personnel," it now has nine directorates, a staff of 1,000, a large secret budget, and its own full-scale secret spying program, code-named Talon, that reported as a "national security threat" ten peace activists "who handed out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches outside Halliburton's headquarters in Houston in June 2004."
The same could be said of CIA secret prisons, NSA domestic spying operations, or the new U.S. Northern Command that the administration set up in 2002.
Thomas Powers, author of Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to al-Qaeda, explores the meaning of the recent NSA spying scandal below in fascinating detail and the abject failure of Congress (or the American public) to rein in this administration.
As he writes trenchantly, "In public life as in kindergarten, the all-important word is no."
It's clear that the expansion of secret (and not so secret) "war-time" powers proved a heady, addictive experience for top officials of this administration. (Where's Nancy Reagan and her "just say no" program when we need them most?) Powers' superb essay will be running in the February 23 issue of the New York Review of Books just now heading toward the newsstands. It appears here as an on-line exclusive thanks to the kindness of that magazine's editors.
Tom
The Biggest Secret
By Thomas Powers
A Review of State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration by James Risen.
Click here to read more of this dispatch.
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