CIA
1972-1974: Watergate
Howard Zinn's history of the scandal which forced the resignation of President Nixon after he was caught spying on the Democratic party.
Background
1958-1990: Operation Gladio, Italy
The history of the secret neo-fascist army in Italy set up ostensibly to resist Soviet invasion, but in reality to be used in the event of the working class growing too strong once again.
Following the end of World War II, the Italian workers’ movement was rapidly gaining strength. In some towns the fascists had been kicked out by Resistance forces (as before the war, these were usually led by socialists and anarchists), and embryonic workers’ councils were governing.
1986: The Iran-Contra Affair
Chomsky's brief account of the US selling arms to Iran via Israel in order to fund far-right paramilitary contras in Nicaragua.
The major elements of the Iran/contra story were well known long before the 1986 exposures, apart from one fact: that the sale of arms to Iran via Israel and the illegal contra war run out of Colonel Oliver North's White House office were connected.
1970-1987: The contra war in Nicaragua
Noam Chomsky's account of the US-backed “contra” counter-insurgency in Nicaragua against the left-wing government brought to power on the back of a popular mass movement from below.
It wasn't just the events in El Salvador that were ignored by the mainstream US media during the 1970s. In the ten years prior to the overthrow of the Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979, US television - all networks - devoted exactly one hour to Nicaragua, and that was entirely on the Managua earthquake of 1972.







