Our Hidden History: Archival Interviews & Original Research

Dennis Bernstein interviews Jack Terrell, a former Contra military trainer and mercenary who worked with Enrique Bermudez in Honduras. Terrell, who went to Honduras for what he calls patriotic reasons, discovered upon arrival a criminal enterprise engaged in drug dealing, slave trading, and mass rape. Disgusted by these revelations, Terrell subsequently turned whistle-blower.

The CIA… is the covert action arm of the President's foreign policy advisers… it overthrows or supports foreign governments while reporting 'intelligence' justifying those activities… Disinformation is a large part of its covert action responsibility, and the American people are the primary target audience of its lies.

An All-American football player at Notre Dame, Ralph McGehee worked for the CIA from 1952 to 1977. He is the author of Deadly Deceits: My 25 Years in the CIA, which Alexander Cockburn called "one of the outstanding books written by a former CIA agent."

Keynote address by Michael Tabor on the history of the United States and the political objectives of the Black Panthers.

Speech by Black Panther Commander Huey P. Newton on the political objectives of the Black Panthers.

An examination of the hidden life of a famous cold war-era human rights lawyer, Luis Kutner. Pieced together from recently declassified documents.

Hugo Turner is a writer and a researcher specializing in the history of anti-imperialism. In this interview he discusses Sullivan & Cromwell, the infamous US corporate law firm that launched the careers of the Dulles brothers.

Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez wrote about the Cuban internationalists and their travels to the battlefront of the war in Angola.

Prosecutors in Dallas have said for years, "Any prosecutor can convict a guilty man: it takes a great prosecutor to convict an innocent man.

Joseph McBride is an accomplished professor, journalist, film historian, and author. He is the author of 20 books, including a new book, which came out in June entitled, How Did Lubitsch Do It? about Ernst Lubitsch, a famed Hollywood comedic film director. He's also the author of Into the Nightmare: My Search for the Killer of President John F. Kennedy and Officer J.D. Tippit.

Mr. McBride became prominent nationally in 1988 for uncovering an FBI document from J. Edgar Hoover listing George H.W. Bush as a member of the CIA in contact with anti-Castro Cubans at the time of the Kennedy assassination, a finding that has been basically like an earthquake in changing the way that people understand the history of the Bush family.

Rev. Bill Davis speaking on the real Iran-Contra scandal, beyond the arms-for-hostages and petty bribery to the drug dealing, the private intelligence operators, the assassinations, and the congressional cover-up.

Originally posted at Kennedys and King: "In this remarkable Pacifica interview from the Sixties, Mort Sahl reveals how his career was ruined, as he lost two broadcast programs in Los Angeles and he was blackballed—not due to ratings, which were good, but because he would not be quiet about the JFK assassination."

Jack Blum was special counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and he was Chief Investigator for the Kerry Committee (The Senate Subcommittee on Narcotics, Terrorism and International Operations) which investigated, among other things, the CIA-Contra drugs connection. In 1996, he was the lead witness during hearings before the Senate Select Intelligence Committee about the Contra/Cocaine connection which were prompted by the series of articles authored by Gary Webb that appeared in The San Jose Mercury News.

Former CIA case officer Philip Agee discusses his experiences with the CIA, his book, his persecution, and his exile. John Marks is the author of The Search for the Manchurian Candidate and co-author of The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence.

Lou Wolf, one of the founders of Covert Action Information Bulletin along with Philip Agee, James and Elsie Wilcott, and Ellen Ray and Bill Schaap, talks about the magazine's relaunch, the history of CAIB, Gina Haspel, Obama, Trump and more. Visit: http://COVERTACTIONMAGAZINE.COM

James DiEugenio, author of The JFK Assassination: The Evidence Today discusses the latest evidence in the J.D. Tippit case.

Read more about this in Jim's detailed article on Kennedys and King, The Tippit Case in the New Millennium. 

Author and researcher Lisa Pease discusses CIA's cold war counterintelligence chief James Angleton and his role in the events surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Jim DiEugenio, publisher and editor of Kennedysandking.com, discusses the true history behind the exposure of The Pentagon Papers, reviews the Hanks-Spielberg film The Post, and talks about the passing of journalist Robert Parry.

Dark Alliance author Gary Webb gave a fascinating talk on the evening of January 16, outlining the findings of his investigation of the CIA's connection to drug trafficking by the Nicaraguan contras. Approximately 300 people, crowded into the First United Methodist Church in Eugene, Oregon, listened with rapt attention as Webb detailed his experiences. Webb's riveting speech was followed by an intense question-and-answer session, during which he candidly answered questions about the "Dark Alliance" controversy, his firing from the San Jose Mercury News, and CIA/contra/cocaine secrets that still await revelation. ORIGINAL: http://www.whale.to/b/webb10.html

Author and researcher James DiEugenio breaks down the history of US involvement in Vietnam. He discusses the differences in policy between Eisenhower and Dulles, JFK, Johnson, and finally Nixon and Kissinger. We also cover the pivitol year of 1968:\u00a0Tet, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr and Bobby Kennedy, the Chicago Police riot, and the election of Richard Nixon. Both audio and transcript are available.

This transcript first appeared at http://kennedysandking.com in two parts: part 1 & part 2

El autor Christopher Simpson discute su libro titulado Blowback: America's Recruitment of Nazis and its Effect on the Cold War (Retroceso: El Reclutamiento de Nazis por Parte de los Estados Unidos y su Efecto en la Guerra Fría). El interés de Simpson sobre el tema, inició durante el juicio de deportación de Otto Van Bolschwing, quien argumentó contra su deportación de los Estados Unidos al señalar que la CIA lo había introducido en los Estados Unidos.

Simpson ha obtenido información a través de las demandas de la Ley de Libertad de Información de que Estados Unidos buscó a todos y cada uno de los agentes para combatir el “expansionismo” soviético al final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. El servicio exterior comenzó a reclutar en los Interrogatorios de Prisioneros de Guerra, y ayudó a muchos criminales a evadir los juicios por crímenes de guerra. Simpson concluye que el servicio exterior, creó la Guerra Fría para asegurar el presupuesto del Pentágono después del final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial.

...no one can look and not see this evidence. And yet it was not seen. It was not considered. I have to think that this failure to see and this failure to consider was deliberate.

William Turner, a former FBI agent and staff writer for Ramparts magazine, and Hal Verb, a reporter for the Berkeley Barb and instructor at San Francisco State Experimental College, discuss the problems with the Warren Commision Report. They speak on developments in New Orleans, and the inadequacy of the investigation itself.

Author Christopher Simpson discusses his book entitled Blowback: America's Recruitment of Nazis and its Effect on the Cold War.

Simpson's interest in the topic started during the deportation trial of Otto Van Bolschwing, who argued against his deportation from the US by noting that the CIA had brought him into the US. Simpson has attained information through the Freedom of Information Act lawsuits that the United States sought any and all operatives to combat Soviet "expansionism" at the end of World War II. The foreign service began recruitment during POW debriefings, and helped many criminals avoid war crimes trials. The foreign service, Simpson concludes, created the Cold War to insure the Pentagon budget following the end of World War II

…if this is truth then black is white, night is day, and war is peace. This is not truth. [The Warren Report] is a false document.

Sylvia Meagher examines the activities of Lee Harvey Oswald in the Soviet Union and the United States prior to President Kennedy's assassination. She goes on to explain how this information refutes the findings of the Warren Commission.

Steve Smith and CIA-linked Medical Experimentation at Oak Ridge Hospital, Penetanguishine, Canada

Black Op Radio #21 The full audio is available as part of Black Op Radio's Season 1 / year 2000 - one of 26 interviews available via direct download for $10.

Black Op Radio's full guest list

In 1968, as a young photographer, Scott Enyart found himself snapping photos of Presidential Candidate Senator Robert F. Kennedy at the moment of his assassination. In this 2000 Black Op Radio interview, Mr. Enyart discusses that moment and his decades long efforts to get his crime-scene photos back from the Los Angeles Police Department - including a high-profile case against one of the LA's most ruthless lawyers.

Black Op Radio #5 April Oliver and CNN's Operation Tailwind Story

The full audio is available as part of Black Op Radio's Season 1 / year 2000 - one of 26 interviews available via direct download for $10.

Black Op Radio's full guest list

In 1968, when he was just a teenager, Steve found himself pulled into the justice system in Canada, and as happens all too often the system sort of took over and Steve, though he was brought in for a very minor crime, eventually ended up at a maximum security mental hospital for the criminally insane called Penetanguishene Mental Hospital, Oak Ridge Division. There he was subjected to a really bizarre series of "treatments". Canadian judge has recently ruled these treatments should be more rightly called torture.

Our Hidden History discussed the murder of Dallas Police officer JD Tippit with attorney and author Bill Simpich. Bill breaks down the shooting of Tippit, the arrest of Oswald, and role of specific Dallas Police officers in the events surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

We also discussed the upcoming mock trial of Lee Harvey Oswald, scheduled for November 16th and 17th, 2017 in Houston, Texas. More information about the mock trial can be found at capa-us.org.

Black Op Radio #848Veteran author and researcher James DiEugenio interviewed filmmaker and television personality John Barbour on Black Op Radio. John has made three films about the JFK assassination and conducted a rare series of interviews during the 1980s with Jim Garrison, Mark Lane, and witnesses to the events in Dealy Plaza.

James DiEugenio is a veteran author and researcher lately focusing on JFK's foreign policy. He's the author of Reclaiming Parkland and Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case, now in its second edition. He's a regular guest on Len Osanic's Black Op Radio, he writes for Robert Parry's Consortium News, and he's the principal behind one of the most active and important assassination websites, www.KennedysAndKing.com, which is constantly updated with new articles, book reviews, and important news about the assassinations of both JFK, RFK, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., among a lot of other interesting items.

We covered the ebb and flow of the public perception of the case as it played out in the media and in official investigations. It's a good look at the 50 years of the long-term cover up in the press and in officialdom, and on efforts of people such as the early researchers and others - like Jim Garrison, and Oliver Stone - to bring the facts of the case to light. We look too at what some of the official investigations uncovered - like the House Select Committee and the board created by the 1993 JFK Act - and assessed their impact, if any, on the story being put out by the US press. We end by seeing what the 2017 releases might mean and whether or not the press and official story will ever fully grapple with the facts of the murder of John F. Kennedy.

Bill Simpich is an attorney and anti-war activist. He's been practicing law for 35 years now. He's worked on several important political cases. He's been in court against both the FBI and the CIA, against the FBI in a case where two political activists were the victims of a car bombing, and against the CIA for their involvement in the Nicaraguan Contra drug trafficking. He's also been involved in cases against the Bush administration for their civil liberties clampdown during the "War on Terror."

He's worked on cases of police shootings in the Bay Area, and most recently, cases to make sure the votes were counted properly in the California Democratic Primaries in 2016. He's also written on political assassinations during the 1960s, such as the murder of Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, CIA attempts on the life of Fidel Castro, and a whole lot, including a book and a series of articles on the Kennedy assassination. His book, called State Secret, is available for free on the Mary Ferrell site.

In 1977 to 1978, Dan Hardway was a researcher for the US House of Representatives. He worked on a committee that sought to determine the facts of the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Along with his fellow researcher, Ed Lopez, Dan produced a 500-plus page report looking into the CIA's story surrounding Oswald's trip to Mexico City. The report was so revealing that the CIA fought to keep it hidden and were successful in that effort for almost two decades. The report, 'Oswald, The CIA and Mexico City', is widely regarded as one of the most important documents to be released through the work of the JFK Act.

Worse than this suppression of the report is the fact that Dan and Eddie and the Committee were the target of a CIA covert operation. We know today that this operation successfully prevented the Committee from looking into the CIA's relationship with the Cuban exile group known as the DRE.

The DRE is the group that Oswald had his famous scuffle with in New Orleans. More importantly, it was the group which, immediately after the assassination, launched a campaign trying to blame the assassination on Castro and Cuba. The same CIA officer who, in 1963, was running the operations of the DRE - Mr. George Joannides - was the officer sent in to halt the HSA investigation. This is a topic that journalist and author Jefferson Morley has made the focus of his work and his lawsuit against the CIA.

Our Hidden History spoke with Mr. Hardway about all of this and more.

We have now entered the final decade on the way to 1984. Weary of scandal or not, we must never become weary of being vigilant. We dare not shrink from another redemptive investigation. Learning where we stand can spell the difference between arriving nine years hence at the doorstep of the Orwellian nightmare or awakening with sublime relief in the knowledge that we have, through perseverance today, confounded that dark dream of tomorrow.

Journalist Jefferson Morley, editor of JFKFacts.org and author of Our Man in Mexico, discusses the the JFK Assassination and its connections to CIA psychological warfare operations that came before and after it.

The following is an interview with Hugo Turner, a researcher with a passion for studying the covert operations of the 70's and 80's. We discussed his four part series on the history of the Iran-contra scandal. They can be found at his blog here: part I, part II, part III, part IV. This interview first appeared on his blog.

Peter Dale Scott, author of The War Conspiracy, discusses the Central Intelligence Agency and Pentagon backed conspiracies to misinform the White House about the Vietnam War and its extension into Cambodia.

This is a transcript from the 2011 Coalition on Political Assassinations Conference. Douglas Valentine, author of Strength of the Pack discusses the nexus of CIA drug trafficking and the JFK Assassination. Original video of the talk can be found on COPA's ustream channel here.

These things kill people. 800,000 in Indonesia alone according to CIA's estimate, 12,000 in Nicaragua, 10,000 in the Angolan operation that I was sitting in Washington, managing the task force. They add up. We'll never know how many people have been killed in them. Obviously a lot. Obviously at least a million. 800,000 in Indonesia alone. Undoubtedly the minimum figure has to be 3 million. Then you add in a million people killed in Korea, 2 million people killed in the Vietnam war, and you're obviously getting into gross millions of people…

I'd like to see the people who killed Jack Kennedy, the killers of the dream, and Bob Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, who are the same people and that can be proved I would like to see them hanged, and then I'd like to see capital punishment abolished in the United States and I'd like to see my kids to grow up in school and learn from their civics teacher that the last people executed in America were the people who tried to kill the men of peace.

The gist to what I'm getting to is this: I received a lot of documentation, which I'll provide you here today, that indicates the strong possibility that Jonestown and the People's Temple, was in reality, a mass mind control experiment conducted by the CIA as a follow-up to something called MKULTRA which they conducted from the early 50s through 1974.

Speech by Commander Fidel Castro, First Secretary of the Socialist Revolution and Prime Minister of the revolutionary government in the memorial ceremony of November 27th, held at the stairway of the University of Havana, November 27th, 1963.

Fidel Castro's first speech on the assassination, from the day after the assassination, is available here.

The following is the text of a speech/commentary delivered by Fidel Castro on Cuban radio and television, Saturday evening, November 23, 1963, one day after the assassination of President Kennedy. The speech gives the reader insight into the immediate analysis of the assassination which a political expert such as Castro was able to make.

Fidel Castro's second speech on the assassination, from the following Wednesday, is available here.

I want to unequivocally state that Maurice Bishop was [CIA case officer] David Atlee Phillips… I traveled to Dallas at the end of August or beginning of September of 1963 to meet with Maurice Bishop, my CIA handler. We had agreed to see each other in the lobby of a downtown Dallas bank. There, I observed Bishop with a young man I later identified without a doubt as Lee Harvey Oswald.

In 2014, the Assassination Archives and Research Center held a conference on the occassion of the 50th Anniversary of the release of the Warren Commission Report. The highlight of the conference was a statement by Cuban exile leader Antonio Veciana.

Kennedy advisor Paul Schrade and Congressman Allard Lowenstein interviewed on KPFA by Jim Berland. They discuss the 1968 assassination of Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy in Los Angeles, particularly focusing upon the need to reopen the case to uncover the real events.