Distant Voices (73 page)

26
The
Evening Standard
, March 26, 1992; the
Daily Mail
, April 2, 1992.

27
The
Sun
, April 7, 1992.

28
Cited by Michael Ignatieff, the
Observer
, October 13, 1991.

29
Letter from Julian Nettel to Harriet Harman, MP, September 23, 1991.

30
As told to the author.

31
Ibid.

32
Ibid.

33
Camberwell Community Health Council ‘Casualty watch' report, May 1991.

34
South London Press
, March 13, 1992.

35
As told to the author.

36
Ibid.

37
Ibid.

38
Today
, April 22 and 23, 1991.

39
The
Guardian
, April 7, 1990.

40
Letter from Malcolm Alexander to William Waldegrave, December 20, 1990; radio interview with Malcolm Alexander, LBC, January 3, 1991.

41
George Orwell,
The Road to Wigan Pier
, Penguin, London, 1989.

42
Report of Department of Health and Social Security appeals tribunal, cited in the
Daily Mirror
, July 31, 1984.

43
The
Sunderland Echo
, October 17, 1992.

44
Correspondence with the National Union of Mineworkers.

45
Cited by Easington District Council, correspondence, February 11, 1993.

46
Easington Colliery
, a brochure produced by North East Coal, Sunderland.

47
The advertisements, featuring several miners, appeared in the national press in January, February and March, 1992. Arnie Makinson's photograph was published in the northern editions of the
Daily Mirror.

48
‘
Safety of British Nuclear Weapons Designs: US Nuclear Weapon Safety: The implications for the United Kingdom?
' BASIC Report 91.2, 1991.

49
Washington Post
1990 report, cited in the
Guardian
, April 22, 1992.

50
The
Guardian
, April 23, 1991.

51
The Problems of the Trident Programme
, Greenpeace, July 1991.

52
With thanks to John Ross.

53
Poll carried out by On-Line Telephone Surveys, London, between February 24 and March 1, 1992. 1,405 people were asked: ‘Currently the UK is proposing to increase its sea-based nuclear weapons capabilities with the Trident nuclear missile system, at a cost of £10.5 billion. How strongly do you agree with this proposal?' Agreed: 28%. Neither agreed nor disagreed: 8%. Disagreed: 56%. Didn't know: 8%.

II DISTANT VOICES OF DISSENT

1
Walter Lippmann,
Public Opinion
, 1921; cited by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky in
Manufacturing Consent
, Pantheon Books, New York, 1988, p. xi. See also
Manufacturing Consent
for Chomsky's analysis, repeated and amplified in his many other works.

2
John Pilger,
Heroes
, Jonathan Cape, London, 1986, p. xv.

3
Paul Gordon and David Rosenburg,
Daily Racism: The Press and Black People in Britain
, Runnymede Trust, London, 1989, p. 69.

4
Independent on Sunday
, February 4, 1990.

5
The
Observer
, February 4, 1990.

6
Channel 4 News
, London, during the week January 28–February 4, 1990.

7
Edwin R. Bayley,
Joe McCarthy and the Press
, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1981.

8
Cited in the
Independent
, October 28, 1988.

9
Milan Kundera,
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
, Penguin, London, 1983, p. 5.

10
The
Guardian
, November 8, 1991.

11
John Clark,
For Richer for Poorer
, Oxfam, Oxford, 1986, Appendix 1, pp. 90–1.

12
Third World Resurgence
, published by Third World network, Penang, Malaysia, Issue no. 12, ‘Manufacturing Truth. The Western Media and the Third World'.

13
Study cited in
Third World Resurgence
, Issue no. 12.

14
Ibid.

15
Ibid.

16
Ibid.

17
Ibid.

18
See
Heroes
, Chapter 15, ‘History as Illusion'.

19
Cited by Michael Albert,
Z Magazine
, April 1991.

20
Third World Resurgence
, Issue no. 12.

21
The
Daily Mail
, July 15, 1984.

22
Maurice Edelman,
The Mirror: a political history
, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1966, p. 1.

23
This account is from
Heroes
, Chapter 42, ‘You Write. We Publish'.

24
Audit Bureau of Circulation figures cited in
Media Week
, July 19, 1985; and the
Guardian
, October 28, 1985 and January 27, 1986.

25
Marketing Week
, January 31, 1986.

26
Richard Belfield, Christopher Hird and Sharon Kelly,
Murdoch: The Decline of an Empire
, Macdonald, London.

27
The
Sunday Mirror
, December 5, 1991.

28
See Roger Bolton,
Death on the Rock and other stories
, W. H. Allen, London, 1990.

29
The
Guardian
, September 5, 1990.

30
The
Independent on Sunday
, March 4, 1990.

31
See
Heroes
, pp. 535–7.

32
Ibid., pp. 526–31.

33
Ibid., pp. 517–20.

34
Edward Said,
Culture and Imperialism
, Chatto & Windus, London, 1993.

35
Letter from Deirdre English, editor of
Mother Jones
, cited by Christopher Hitchens,
New Statesman
Diary, April 17, 1981.

36
Noam Chomsky,
Year 501: The Conquest Continues
, South End Press, Boston, 1993.

37
The
Independent
, May 15, 1989.

38
Letter to the
Guardian
, 1987.

39
Reagan used this term many times, perhaps for the first time at a veterans' rally during the election campaign in 1979. Bush used the second term on the eve of the Gulf War, January 1991.

40
Susan George,
The Debt Boomerang
, Pluto Press, London, 1993.

III THE QUIET DEATH OF THE LABOUR PARTY

1
Labour Party, Breaches of Constitutional Rules III (4); also Constituency Rules Clause IV (5).

2
Letters from Jean Calder to the author and the
New Statesman
, August 1, 1992 and September 28, 1992.

3
Ibid.; also Report by Joyce Gould to the NEC on The Friends of Brighton, September 25, 1991.

4
Letter from Jean Calder to John Smith, August 21, 1992.

5
Report cited in the
Guardian
and correspondence with the author.

6
Correspondence with the author.

7
Richard Heffernan and Mike Marqusee,
Defeat from the Jaws of Victory
, Verso, London, 1993.

8
Ibid.

9
The
Socialist Worker
(from the
Financial Times
), September 1993.

10
The
Green Left Weekly
, Sydney, November 17, 1993.

11
The
Independent on Sunday,
March 28, 1993.

12
Ibid.

13
Ibid.

14
I am grateful to Chris Lamb for this analysis in the
Guardian
(letters), March 31, 1994.

15
The
New Statesman and Society,
January 21, 1994.

16
The
Daily Telegraph,
February 4, 1994.

17
Panorama,
BBC Television, September 20, 1993.

18
The
Guardian,
October 1, 1993.

19
Ibid., January 28, 1993.

IV MYTHMAKERS OF THE GULF WAR

1
Cited by Phillip Knightley,
The First Casualty: From the Crimea to the Falklands: The War Correspondent as Hero, Propagandist and Myth Maker,
Pan Books, London, 1989, p. 109.

2
Ibid., p. 81.

3
BBC Radio 4, December 30, 1990.

4
These press comments appeared during the second half of December, 1990.

5
The
Observer,
November 30, 1990.

6
Ian Lee,
War in the Gulf: A Medical, Environmental and Psychological Assessment,
Medical Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons, December 14, 1990.

7
As told to the author.

8
Ibid.

9
Ibid.

10
The
Independent,
December 28, 1991.

11
Michael Klare, the
Nation,
June 8 and October 15, 1990 and February 11, 1991; United States Army,
A Strategic Force for 1990/2 and Beyond,
January 1990.

12
Christopher Hitchens,
Harpers Magazine,
January 1991.

13
Ralph Schoenman,
Iraq and Kuwait: A History Suppressed
, October 1990, p. 12.

14
Santa Barbara News-Press,
September 24, 1990 and Philip Agee,
Z Magazine,
November 1990.

15
Philip Agee, as above.

16
New York Daily News,
September 29, 1990.

17
Ralph Schoenman,
Iraq and Kuwait
, p. 13.

18
See Knut Royce,
Newsday,
August 29 and 30, 1990 and January 3 and 21, 1991.

19
The
Observer
, December 30, 1990.

20
Cited by Phillip Knightley, p. 7.

21
The
Guardian
, January 24, 1991.

22
Arming Saddam: The Supply of British Military Equipment to Iraq 1979–1990
, Campaign Against the Arms Trade, February 1991.

23
The
Guardian
, January 24, 1991.

24
See
Ropes of Sand
, by former CIA operations officer Wilbur Crane Evelard, cited by Jeff McConnell,
Boston Sunday Globe
, September 9, 1990.

25
The
Independent
, February 6, 1991.

26
The
Independent
, February 11, 1991.

27
The
Observer
, February 10, 1991.

28
BBC Television News, February 11, 1991.

29
Ibid.

30
Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation Gulf Digest
, February 1991.

31
The
Guardian
, February 5, 1991.

32
John Pilger,
Heroes
, p. 263.

33
The
Daily Mirror
, February 8, 1991.

34
Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation Gulf Digest
, February 1991.

35
As told to the author.

36
The
Weekend Guardian
, January 12–13, 1991.

37
Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation Gulf Digest
, February 1991.

38
Ibid.

39
The
Observer
, February 10, 1991.

40
Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation Gulf Digest
, February 1991.

41
Heroes
, pp. 113–14.

42
As told to the author.

43
Martha Gellhorn,
The Face of War
, Virago, London, 1986, p. 254.

44
‘The South Supplement',
New Statesman and Society
, October 11, 1991.

45
Ibid. I am grateful to Carlos Gabetta for his analysis.

46
The
Independent
, February 28, 1991.

47
Ibid.

48
Ibid.

49
Ibid.

50
The
Guardian
, March 1, 1991;
The Times
and
Daily Telegraph
, March 1, 1991.

51
The
Daily Telegraph
, March 2, 1991.

52
The
Daily Mirror
, March 2, 1991.

53
BBC Radio 4, FM ‘Gulf reports' frequency, March 1, 1991.

54
BBC Television News, March 1, 1991.

55
Jeremy Bowen was questioned by Peter Sissons on BBC Television News, February 14, 1991.

56
The
Observer
, March 3, 1991.

57
The
Sunday Times
, March 3, 1991. Robert Harris subsequently wrote to me, enclosing what he described as ‘a letter of apology' to be forwarded to Bobby Muller. Muller found no apology; Harris merely regretted not using his words differently.

58
The
Guardian
, February 21, 1991.

59
Stanley Karnow,
Vietnam: A History
, Viking Press, New York, 1983. Cited by Noam Chomsky in
Manifesto: Vietnam Retrospectives
, April 21, 1985.

60
Neal Acherson, the
Independent on Sunday
, March 10, 1991.

61
The
Observer
, March 10, 1991.

62
The
International Herald Tribune
, February 23–24, 1991.

63
Into the Media War
, a study by the Glasgow University Media Group: Greg Philo, Frank Masson, Greg McLaughlin, March 1991.

64
BBC and Independent Television News, January 15, 1991.

65
BBC Television Gulf War coverage, January 18, 1991.

66
Michael Ignatieff, the
Observer
, March 31, 1991.