Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II by William Blum. Black Rose Books, Montreal, Canada. $19.99 (Canadian). £12.99 in UK, pp. 458. 1998
BIum hasn’t a clue as to what kind of society existed in the former Soviet Union, or eastern Europe. or what exists in China or Cuba today. And this is annoying to this socialist reader. Nevertheless, Killing Hope has much to recommend it, as a work of reference and an exposé of American policy in general, and the CIA in particular, since the end of World War II.
Blum’s account, and exposé, covers the entire world. He mentions that within days of the Japanese defeat in China they were being used by the Americans against Mao’s Red Army; how the U.S. influenced the Italian election of 1948; how they, together with Britain, supported the monarchists, and Nazi collaborators in Greece, even before the end of the war in Europe. Interference in the internal affairs of Albania, Germany, Cuba, most Latin American countries, Angola, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and many more, are all detailed. Even the CIA’s involvement in the ousting of Gough Whitlam’s Labour government in Australia in 1975 is described in considerable detail – all in the interest of American capitalism, and its quest for world hegemony, which it has largely achieved. Truly a sordid business.
Blum’s account is particularly useful, because every important statement is reliably sourced.
Peter E. Newell
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