Conspiracy You Can Believe In

In 1973, the democratically elected socialist government of Chile under Salvador Allende was toppled by a far-right coup. What followed was 17 years of oppression under a reactionary, sadistic military dictatorship. Through decades of investigations, court cases, and declassification of records, we know now how the Pinochet regime came to power: through the CIA and the U.S. State Department.

SOURCES:

The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability by Peter Kornbluh

https://thenewpress.com/books/pinochet-file

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein

https://naomiklein.org/the-shock-doctrine/

The True Verdict on Allende by E. Bradford Burns

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/true-verdict-allende/

The ‘Chicago Boys’ in Chile: Economic Freedom’s Awful Toll by Orlando Letelier

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-chicago-boys-in-chile-economic-freedoms-awful-toll/

Giant Rally Marks Allende Anniversary by Jonathan Kandell

https://www.nytimes.com/1973/09/05/archives/giant-rally-marks-allende-anniversary-professional-workers-strike.html

In 1957, Ghana became one of the first countries in Africa to free itself from European rule. As the country's leader, Kwame Nkrumah, began to advocate for a pan-African confederation, US intelligence services would close in. The CIA and the old colonial rulers would try to sabotage independence movements across the continent.

SOURCES

White Malice: The CIA and the Covert Neocolonization of Africa by Susan Williams: https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/susan-williams/white-malice/9781541768284/

The Assassination of Lumumba by Ludo de Witte: https://www.versobooks.com/books/792-the-assassination-of-lumumba

Who Killed Hammarskjöld?: The UN, the Cold War and White Supremacy in Africa by Susan Williams: https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/who-killed-hammarskjold-2/

The Intelligence Coup of the Century by Greg Miller of the Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-security/cia-crypto-encryption-machines-espionage/

On November 11, 1975, Gough Whitlam was removed from office as Prime Minister of Australia. He was dismissed by his own Governor-General, John Kerr, a man who held what was largely believed to be a ceremonial position as the representative of the British Crown. The Dismissal would spark decades of debate in Australia. But recently unearthed records show that Kerr did not act on his own. He had the full support of the country's conservative establishment, encouragement from US and Australian intelligence, and advice from Buckingham Palace.

https://scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/books/the-palace-letters-9781922310248

The Dismissal: 40 years on by Paul Daley

https://dismissed.moadoph.gov.au/hashtag-dismissal-1975.html

The Dismissal - 10th Anniversary by Australia Channel 9

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm8HFJ9ZC8U

The Kerr Palace Letters - National Archives of Australia

https://www.naa.gov.au/explore-collection/kerr-palace-letters

In the 1970s, a Soft Coup Removed Australia’s Left-Wing Prime Minister by Guy Rundle

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/07/gough-whitlam-dismissal-letters-john-kerr-australia

Gough Whitlam’s Government Was the Victim of a Right-Wing Coup by Conor Flynn

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/06/gough-whitlam-australian-labor-party-right-wing-coup-john-kerr

Rundle: proving the CIA-backed conspiracy that brought down Whitlam by Guy Rundle

https://www.crikey.com.au/2015/11/25/rundle-proving-the-cia-backed-conspiracy-that-brought-down-whitlam/

CIA, Kerr, Barwick and 1975 by Humphrey McQueen

https://labourhistorycanberra.org/2016/07/cia-kerr-barwick-and-1975/

Australian House of Representatives Debates - 4 May 1977

http://historichansard.net/hofreps/1977/19770504_reps_30_hor105/

CIA Issue Enters Australian Crisis by Fox Butterfield special to the New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/1975/11/06/archives/cia-issue-enters-australian-crisis-whitlam-says-an-opposition-chief.html

How Australia Won Universal Healthcare - and How Workers Saved it with a General Strike by Anthony O'Donnell

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/08/australia-universal-health-care-whitlam-administration-medibank-medicare-alp-actu-strike

During this bonus episode, we'll give a condensed history of the Spanish Civil War: the major players, what caused the conflict, the course of the war, and the consequences of Franco's victory.

SOURCES

Spain in our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 by Adam Hochschild

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/spain-in-our-hearts-adam-hochschild?variant=39936156172322

The Spanish Civil War by Hugh Thomas

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/309382.The_Spanish_Civil_War

The Spanish Republic and the Civil War 1931-39 by Gabriel Jackson

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/308404.The_Spanish_Republic_and_the_Civil_War_1931_39

Spain, 1936: After the the left-wing Popular Front coalition achieved victory at the polls, a confederacy of right-wing generals plotted to defeat it on the battlefield. Francisco Franco and his fascist allies in Italy and Nazi Germany would eventually defeat the democratically elected government of Spain. But they did it with plenty of support from an American oil company--Texaco.

SOURCES

Spain in our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 by Adam Hochschild

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/spain-in-our-hearts-adam-hochschild?variant=39936156172322

The Spanish Civil War by Hugh Thomas

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/309382.The_Spanish_Civil_War

The Spanish Republic and the Civil War 1931-39 by Gabriel Jackson

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/308404.The_Spanish_Republic_and_the_Civil_War_1931_39

Oil: Exit Rieber, Time Magazine

https://web.archive.org/web/20101014080648/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,764502,00.html

On November 13, 1974, a nuclear lab technician named Karen Silkwood was reported dead in a single-car accident just outside Oklahoma City. Silkwood was on her way to meet a reporter from the New York Times to deliver evidence that her employer, Kerr-McGee, was hiding records of defective nuclear fuel rods. This evidence has never been found. Shortly after the crash, Karen's friends and co-workers began to question the official record of her car accident. Further investigation would reveal that her death might not have been an accident after all.

SOURCES:

The Killing of Karen Silkwood: The Story Behind the Kerr-McGee Plutonium Case by Richard Rashke

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1193179.The_Killing_of_Karen_Silkwood

Karen Silkwood: The Case of the Activist's Death by Howard Kohn

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/karen-silkwood-the-case-of-the-activists-death-52287/

Karen Silkwood Remembered 1946--1974 by Tony Mazzocchi, BMWE Journal, November/December 1999 

https://www.bmwe.org/journal/1999/12dec/b04.htm

Paper in Nashville Dismisses Writer Linked to the F.B.I. by David Burnham, New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/1976/05/08/archives/paper-in-nashville-dismisses-writer-linked-to-the-fbi-newspaper-in.html

In the 1890s, the two-party system in Alabama nearly cracked open. A brutal economic depression and a rising wave of labor agitation and agrarian unrest helped create a viable new party: The People's Party. Learn how the Populists nearly took power in Alabama, why they failed, and what their legacy means for the modern South. To support the striking UMWA miners of Warrior Met Coal, visit https://umwa.org/news-media/news/support-umwa-miners-on-strike-at-warrior-met/

SOURCES:

Populism to Progressivism by Sheldon Hackney

http://uapress.ua.edu/product/978-0-8173-8532-3-Populism-to-Progressivism-In-Alabama,4881.aspx?skuid=2200

Birmingham Coal District Strike of 1908 by Encyclopedia of Alabama

http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/Article/h-1478

Arsenal for Democracy - American Money: Part IV The Cross of Gold

http://arsenalfordemocracy.com/2021/10/04/american-money-part-iv-the-cross-of-gold-arsenal-for-democracy-ep-398/

Subtreasury Plan by James L. Hunt, NCpedia

https://www.ncpedia.org/subtreasury-plan

Ambushed in Eufaula: Alabama's forgotten race massacre by Kyle Whitmire

https://www.al.com/news/2022/01/ambushed-in-eufaula-alabamas-forgotten-race-massacre.html

In 1901, 155 delegates gathered in Montgomery, Alabama to create the dumbest constitution in American history, then ratify it through a sham election. This is the story of Alabama's state constitution, still in use to this day.

SOURCES:

Alabama's Shame: The Historical Origins of the 1901 Constitution by Wayne Flynt

https://www.law.ua.edu/pubs/lrarticles/Volume%2053/Issue%201/Flynt.pdf

http://uapress.ua.edu/product/978-0-8173-8532-3-Populism-to-Progressivism-In-Alabama,4881.aspx?skuid=2200

Reconstruction Constitutions - Encyclopedia of Alabama

http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-4192

The less you make, the more you pay: Alabama’s taxes remain upside down by Chris Sanders of Alabama Arise

https://www.alarise.org/news-releases/the-less-you-make-the-more-you-pay-alabamas-taxes-remain-upside-down/

Harvard is the oldest university in the United States--with the largest endowment fund in the world. With an investment portfolio of over $40 billion, Harvard is no stranger to financial scandals in its recent past.

SOURCES:

Right on the Money: The George Bush Profile by Charles Lewis

https://publicintegrity.org/politics/right-on-the-money-the-george-w-bush-profile/

Bush, Harken, and the Public's Right to Know by the Center for Public Integrity 

https://publicintegrity.org/environment/bush-harken-and-the-publics-right-to-know/

A Brief History of Bush, Harken, and the SEC by John Dunbar

https://publicintegrity.org/environment/a-brief-history-of-bush-harken-and-the-sec/

https://publicintegrity.org/environment/harkens-ivy-league-underwriter/

Bush Cautioned on Harken Sale by Peter Behr

https://old.post-gazette.com/nation/20021103bushharken1103p5.asp

Bush Baggage in His Business Past? by Chris Bury

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=87043&page=1

Securities and Exchange Commission Documents by Center for Public Integrity

https://web.archive.org/web/20071022061753/http://www.publicintegrity.org/report.aspx?aid=206

How Harvard Lost Russia by David McClintick

https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b150npp3q49x7w/how-harvard-lost-russia

The Tragedy of Russia's Reforms by Peter Reddaway and Dmitri Glinski

https://www.usip.org/publications/2001/02/tragedy-russias-reforms

The Harvard Boys Do Russia by Janine R. Wedel

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/harvard-boys-do-russia/

IKEA's Forest Recall by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project

https://www.occrp.org/en/investigations/4990-ikea-s-forest-recall

‘Timber Mafia’ threatens the future of Romania’s ancient forests by Glenn Ellis

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/11/26/romania-disappearing-forests

Investigation: Thousands of trees illegally felled to build IKEA’s flat pack empire by Alex Thomson

https://www.channel4.com/news/investigation-thousands-of-trees-illegally-felled-to-build-ikeas-flat-pack-empire

In the years following President Jean-Bertrande Aristide's second removal from power in 2004, everyday Haitians experienced a brutal military occupation, two devastating earthquakes, and a degradation of the democratic society they tried to build through the Lavalas movement. 

SOURCES:

Damming the Flood: Haiti and the Politics of Containment by Peter Hallward https://www.versobooks.com/books/524-damming-the-flood

A Glittering Industrial Park in Haiti Falls Short by Jonathan M. Katz http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/9/10/a-glittering-industrialparkfallsshortinhaiti.html

Haitian Leader's Power Grows as Scandals Swirl by Frances Robles https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/world/americas/haitian-president-tightens-grip-as-scandal-engulfs-circle-of-friends.html

Haiti's Eroding Democracy by Jake Johnston https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/02/haiti-election-democracy-neoliberal-clinton-jovenel-moise-martelly-aristide-preval-duvalier/

Haiti's Fatally Flawed Election by CEPR https://cepr.net/documents/publications/haiti-2011-01.pdf