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On August 16, 1953, the same day the Shah of Iran fled to Baghdad after a failed attempt to oust Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, the agitated monarch spoke candidly about his unsettling experience to the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. In a highly classified cable to Washington, the ambassador reported: "I found Shah worn from three sleepless nights, puzzled by turn of events, but with no (repeat no) bitterness toward Americans who had urged and planned action. I suggested for his prestige in Iran he never indicate that any foreigner had had a part in recent events. He agreed." Despite the passage of more than six decades, fundamental questions persist about Mosaddeq's overthrow, including who was responsible for this milestone event in Iranian history. The above cable, which was previously published but with these key passages excised for secrecy reasons, is one of several important pieces of evidence pointing to the United States role. Nevertheless, the question of how important the U.S. and British were in the events of 1953 has recently come under intensified scrutiny. An article in the July/August 2014 issue of Foreign Affairs by noted Iran analyst Ray Takeyh is the latest in a series of analyses by respected scholars who conclude Iranians, not the CIA or British intelligence, were fundamentally responsible.

In the course of explaining "What Really Happened in Iran," however, the piece spotlights some of the risks of writing about such sensitive historical events, particularly when they involve covert intelligence operations. In particular — how do you know when to trust your sources? Today's brief posting is by no means a full assessment or refutation of this argument. (In the interests of disclosure, the author believes the evidence shows that both the CIA — with British help — and Iranians themselves were critical in their own ways to the end result[1]). Instead, the posting mainly points out one of the peculiar challenges confronting historians of 1953, especially on the question of the U.S. and British roles. The challenge is simply that U.S. and British reporting about the coup cannot be taken strictly at face value. The main reason is secrecy. President Eisenhower underscored the need for confidentiality in a diary entry from the time. Dated October 8, 1953, but referring back to August 19, Eisenhower notes: "Another recent development that we helped bring about was the restoration of the Shah to power in Iran and the elimination of Mossadegh. The things we did were 'covert.' If knowledge of them became public, we would not only be embarrassed in that region, but our chances to do anything of like nature in the future would almost totally disappear." (See Document 1)

Tellingly, till writing this story, the latest stories about the assassination of Pakistan's first Prime Minister were not denied by Washington.

Not surprisingly, August 1953 the CIA staged a coup against the Iranian nationalist Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh to safeguard the west's oil interests in the country. In April 1951 Iranians democratically elected the head of the National Front party, Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh, as prime minister. Mossadegh moved quickly to nationalize the assets in Iran of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (the forerunner of today's BP) a step that brought his government into confrontation with Britain and the US. Britain's MI6 military intelligence then teamed up with the CIA and carried out a coup that ousted Mossadegh in August 1953 and returned Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to power. In August 2013, 60 years after the coup, the CIA admitted staging a coup against Mossadegh though at least two US Presidents, Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama, have publicly acknowledged the US role in the Iranian coup.

"The military coup that overthrew Mossadegh and his National Front cabinet was carried out under CIA direction as an act of US foreign policy, conceived and approved at the highest levels of government," reads a previously excised section of an internal CIA history titled The Battle for Iran. The declassified documents, under the US Freedom of Information Act, related to CIA's TPAJAX operation that sought regime change in Iran through the bribery of Iranian politicians, security and army high-ranking officials, and massive anti-Mossadegh propaganda that helped to instigate public revolt in 1953. Mossadegh was replaced with Iranian general Fazlollah Zahedi, who was handpicked by The CIA and M16. Mossaddegh was later sentenced to death, but the Shah never dared to carry out the sentence. Mossadegh died in his residence near Tehran in 1967. The Shah's pro-Western dictatorship continued for 27 years and ended with the Islamic Revolution of 1979, which paved the way for today's Iran, where anti-American sentiments remain strong. The 1953 coup still casts a long shadow over Iranian-US relations.

The U.S. Department of State has blocked the publication of a long-awaited documentary history of U.S. covert action in Iran in the 1950s out of concern that its release could adversely affect ongoing negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. The controversial Iran history volume, part of the official Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series, had been slated for release last summer. (“History of 1953 CIA Covert Action in Iran to be Published,” Secrecy News, April 16, 2014). But senior State Department officials “decided to delay publication because of ongoing negotiations with Iran,” according to the minutes of a September 8, 2014 meeting of the Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation that were posted on the Department of State website this week. Dr. Stephen P. Randolph, the Historian of the State Department, confirmed yesterday that the status of the Iran volume “remains as it was in September” and that no new publication date has been set. The subject was also discussed at an Advisory Committee meeting this week.

The suppression of this history has been a source of frustration for decades, at least since the Department published a notorious 1989 volume on U.S. policy towards Iran that made no mention of CIA covert action. But the latest move is also an indirect affirmation of the enduring significance of the withheld records, which date back even further than the U.S. rupture with Cuba that is now on the mend. It seems that the remaining U.S. records of the 1953 coup in Iran are not only of historical interest but they evidently hold the power to move whole countries and to alter the course of events today. Or so the State Department believes. “The logic, as I understand it, is that the release of the volume could aggravate anti-U.S. sentiment in Iran and thereby diminish the prospects of the nuclear negotiations reaching a settlement,” said Prof. Richard H. Immerman, a historian at Temple University and the chair of the State Department Historical Advisory Committee. “I understand the State Department’s caution, but I don’t agree with the position,” he said. “Not only is the 1953 covert action in Iran an open secret, but it was also a motive for taking hostages in 1979. The longer the U.S. withholds the volume, the longer the issue will fester.”

It is alleged that some of the bail money that released Sturgis and the other Watergate burglars was drug money from the CIA asset turned drug trafficker, Manuel Artime, and delivered by Artime’s money-launderer, Ramón Milián Rodríguez. After the Iran-Contra scandal went public, Milián Rodríguez was investigated by a congressional committee – not for Watergate, but because, in support of the Contras, he had managed two Costa Rican seafood companies, Frigorificos and Ocean Hunter, that laundered drug money.6

In the 1950s Wall Street was a dominating complex. It included not just banks and other financial institutions but also the oil majors whose cartel arrangements were successfully defended against the U.S. Government by the Wall Street law firm Sullivan and Cromwell, home to the Dulles brothers. The inclusion of Wall Street conforms with Franklin Roosevelt’s observation in 1933 to his friend Col. E.M. House that “The real truth … is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.”18 FDR’s insight is well illustrated by the efficiency with which a group of Wall Street bankers (including Nelson Rockefeller’s grandfather Nelson Aldrich) were able in a highly secret meeting in 1910 to establish the Federal Reserve System – a system which in effect reserved oversight of the nation’s currency supply and of all America’s banks in the not impartial hands of its largest.19 The political clout of the quasi-governmental Federal Reserve Board was clearly demonstrated in 2008, when Fed leadership secured instant support from two successive administrations for public money to rescue the reckless management of Wall Street banks: banks Too Big To Fail, and of course far Too Big To Jail, but not Too Big To Bail.20

since its outset, the CIA has always had access to large amounts of off-the books or offshore funds to support its activities. Indeed, the power of the purse has usually worked in an opposite sense, since those in control of deep state offshore funds supporting CIA activities have for decades also funded members of Congress and of the executive – not vice versa. The last six decades provide a coherent and continuous picture of historical direction being provided by this deep state power of the purse, trumping and sometimes reversing the conventional state. Let us resume some of the CIA’s sources of offshore and off-the-books funding for its activities. The CIA’s first covert operation was the use of “over $10 million in captured Axis funds to influence the [Italian] election [of 1948].”25 (The fundraising had begun at the wealthy Brook Club in New York; but Allen Dulles, then still a Wall Street lawyer, persuaded Washington, which at first had preferred a private funding campaign, to authorize the operation through the National Security Council and the CIA.)26 Dulles, together with George Kennan and James Forrestal, then found a way to provide a legal source for off-the-books CIA funding, under the cover of the Marshall Plan. The three men “helped devise a secret codicil [to the Marshall Plan] that gave the CIA the capability to conduct political warfare. It let the agency skim millions of dollars from the plan.”27

In an unusual move, the U.S. Department of Justice has filed a motion to make a private lawsuit simply disappear. While the U.S. Government is not a party to this defamation lawsuit—Victor Restis et al. v. American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc.—filed July 19, 2013, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Attorney General Eric Holder is concerned that the discovery being undertaken might jeopardize our national security.

The government’s argument for intervening in this lawsuit is technical and thin.

The strongest precedent in the government’s brief in the current case is the 1985 case of Fitzgerald v. Penthouse Intern., Ltd. Fitzgerald had sued Penthouse Magazine for an allegedly libelous article, but the U.S. Navy moved to intervene on the ground that the government had a national security interest which would not be adequately protected by the parties, so the government requested the action be dismissed, after invoking the state secrets privilege. The federal district court granted the motions and dismissed the case, which the U.S. Court of Appeals for Fourth Circuit affirmed. So there is precedent for this unusual action by the government in a private lawsuit, but the legitimacy of the state secrets privilege remains subject to question.

Noteworthy new products of the Congressional Research Service that Congress has withheld from online public distribution include the following. Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2014, September 15, 2014

Proposed Train and Equip Authorities for Syria: In Brief, September 16, 2014

The No Fly List: Procedural Due Process and Hurdles to Litigation, September 18, 2014

We noted in 2011: – You are 17,600 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist attack – You are 12,571 times more likely to die from cancer than from a terrorist attack — You are 11,000 times more likely to die in an airplane accident than from a terrorist plot involving an airplane — You are 1048 times more likely to die from a car accident than from a terrorist attack –You are 404 times more likely to die in a fall than from a terrorist attack — You are 87 times more likely to drown than die in a terrorist attack – You are 13 times more likely to die in a railway accident than from a terrorist attack –You are 12 times more likely to die from accidental suffocation in bed than from a terrorist attack –You are 9 times more likely to choke to death on your own vomit than die in a terrorist attack –You are 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist –You are 8 times more likely to die from accidental electrocution than from a terrorist attack – You are 6 times more likely to die from hot weather than from a terrorist attack Let’s look at some details from the most recent official statistics.

The U.S.  Department of State reports that only 17 U.S. citizens were killed worldwide as a result of terrorism in 2011. That figure includes deaths in Afghanistan, Iraq and all other theaters of war. In contrast, the American agency which tracks health-related issues – the U.S. Centers for Disease Control – rounds up the most prevalent causes of death in the United States:

(Keep in mind when reading this entire piece that we are consistently and substantially understating the risk of other causes of death as compared to terrorism, because we are comparing deaths from various causes within the United States against deaths from terrorism worldwide.)

Instances of the United States overthrowing, or attempting to overthrow, a foreign government since the Second World War. (* indicates successful ouster of a government) China 1949 to early 1960s Albania 1949-53 East Germany 1950s Iran 1953 * Guatemala 1954 * Costa Rica mid-1950s Syria 1956-7 Egypt 1957 Indonesia 1957-8 British Guiana 1953-64 * Iraq 1963 * North Vietnam 1945-73 Cambodia 1955-70 * Laos 1958 *, 1959 *, 1960 * Ecuador 1960-63 * Congo 1960 * France 1965 Brazil 1962-64 * Dominican Republic 1963 * Cuba 1959 to present Bolivia 1964 * Indonesia 1965 * Ghana 1966 * Chile 1964-73 * Greece 1967 * Costa Rica 1970-71 Bolivia 1971 * Australia 1973-75 * Angola 1975, 1980s Zaire 1975 Portugal 1974-76 * Jamaica 1976-80 * Seychelles 1979-81 Chad 1981-82 * Grenada 1983 * South Yemen 1982-84 Suriname 1982-84 Fiji 1987 * Libya 1980s Nicaragua 1981-90 * Panama 1989 * Bulgaria 1990 * Albania 1991 * Iraq 1991 Afghanistan 1980s * Somalia 1993 Yugoslavia 1999-2000 * Ecuador 2000 * Afghanistan 2001 * Venezuela 2002 * Iraq 2003 * Haiti 2004 * Somalia 2007 to present Libya 2011* Syria 2012 Q: Why will there never be a coup d’état in Washington? A: Because there’s no American embassy there.

BBC reports that – in 1957 – the British and American leaders approved the use of Islamic extremists and false flag attacks to topple the Syrian government: Nearly 50 years before the war in Iraq, Britain and America sought a secretive “regime change” in another Arab country… by planning the invasion of Syria and the assassination of leading figures.   Newly discovered documents show how in 1957 [former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom] Harold Macmillan and President Dwight Eisenhower approved a CIA-MI6 plan to stage fake border incidents as an excuse for an invasion by Syria’s pro-western neighbours, and then to “eliminate” the most influential triumvirate in Damascus.   ***   Although historians know that intelligence services had sought to topple the Syrian regime in the autumn of 1957, this is the first time any document has been found showing that the assassination of three leading figures was at the heart of the scheme. In the document drawn up by a top secret and high-level working group that met in Washington in September 1957, Mr Macmillan and President Eisenhower were left in no doubt about the need to assassinate the top men in Damascus.

Kermit Roosevelt had a proven track record in this sort of thing.  According to the New York Times, he was the leader of the CIA’s coup in Iran in 1953, which – as subsequently admitted by the CIA - used false flag terror to topple the democratically elected leader or Iran. BBC continues: More importantly, Syria also had control of one of the main oil arteries of the Middle East, the pipeline which connected pro-western Iraq’s oilfields to Turkey.   ***   The report said that once the necessary degree of fear had been created, frontier incidents and border clashes would be staged to provide a pretext for Iraqi and Jordanian military intervention. Syria had to be “made to appear as the sponsor of plots, sabotage and violence directed against neighbouring governments,” the report says. “CIA and SIS should use their capabilities in both the psychological and action fields to augment tension.”   ***   The plan called for funding of a “Free Syria Committee” [hmmm ... sounds vaguely familiar], and the arming of “political factions with paramilitary or other actionist capabilities” within Syria. The CIA and MI6 would instigate internal uprisings, for instance by the Druze [a Shia Muslim sect] in the south, help to free political prisoners held in the Mezze prison, and stir up the Muslim Brotherhood in Damascus.

In 1982, a prominent Israeli journalist formerly attached to the Israeli Foreign Ministry allegedly wrote a book expressly calling for the break up of Syria: All the Arab states should be broken down, by Israel, into small units ….   Dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run. In any event, it is well-documented that – in 1996 – U.S. and Israeli Neocons advocated: Weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria ….

The Story of Bush 41 the Establishment Won’t Publish

A particular memo caught his eye, and he leaned in for a closer look. Practically jumping off the screen was a memorandum from FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, dated November 29, 1963. Under the subject heading “Assassination of President John F. Kennedy,” Hoover reported that, on the day after JFK’s murder, the bureau had provided two individuals with briefings. One was “Captain William Edwards of the Defense Intelligence Agency.” The other: “Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency.”

McBride shook his head. George H.W. Bush? In the CIA in 1963? Dealing with Cubans and the JFK assassination? Could this be the same man who was now vice president of the United States? Even when Bush was named CIA director in 1976 amid much agency-bashing, his primary asset had been the fact that he was not a part of the agency during the coups, attempted coups, and murder plots in Iran, Cuba, Chile, and other hot spots about which embarrassing information was being disclosed every day in Senate hearings.

A bid to slap Iran with a new round of economic sanctions appears to have stalled in the Senate, after leading Democrats amplified concern about the threat such a move poses to a fragile diplomatic process. Early in the week, reports that a bill introduced by Republican Mark Kirk and Democrat Robert Menendez was within striking distance of a veto-proof majority cast a shadow over news that negotiators had finalized a temporary agreement to freeze Iran’s nuclear program, beginning Monday. New sanctions would likely kill negotiations for a final deal, the White House warned lawmakers, and increase the chances of an armed conflict with Iran. But Senate majority leader Harry Reid has given no indication that he will bring the bill up for a vote, and the pressure to do so is falling now that top Democrats have intensified opposition to the proposed legislation. The Kirk-Menendez bill gained no new endorsements this week, and even one supportive senator admitted Wednesday to a break in momentum.

The gorilla in the room is the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, which has been calling for new sanctions for months. Of the 16 Democrats who have endorsed the Kirk-Menendez legislation, several are up for re-election in closely contested states; Senator Kirk himself suggested Tuesday that a vote for new sanctions would be an opportunity for lawmakers to shore up support from the powerful lobby. “The great thing, since we represent a nationwide community — the pro-Israel community is going to be heavily present in most states — this is a chance for senators to go back and tell them, ‘I’m with you,’” Kirk said. Other Democrats pushing for the bill have close ties with the group, particularly Chuck Schumer and Cory Booker. Tellingly, the Kirk-Menendez bill states that if Israel takes "military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran's nuclear weapons program,” the US "should stand with Israel and provide…diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence." The language is nonbinding, but it raises flags about whose interests the legislation would truly serve.

Dianne Feinstein addressed this point more directly than perhaps any other politician so far. “While I recognize and share Israel’s concern, we cannot let Israel determine when and where the US goes to war,” she said. “By stating that the US should provide military support to Israel should it attack Iran, I fear that is exactly what this bill will do.” Such outspokenness about the relationship between US policymaking in the Middle East and Israeli interests is remarkable. But other lawmakers are signalling that they too are shrugging off the lobby: Democratic Representative Debbie Wasserman-Shultz, normally a high-profile ally for AIPAC, reportedly argued against the Kirk-Menendez bill at a White House meeting attended by several dozen of her colleagues on Wednesday night. How things play out in the next week, and in the duration of the talks with Iran, will be a good test of AIPAC’s influence, which seemed diminished when Congress considered military strikes in Syria last year. Progressives claimed a victory when diplomacy prevailed then; as Peter Beinart points out, the current debate presents a real opportunity for the anti-war left to reassert itself, not only to punish lawmakers who start wars, but to set new expectations for a diplomacy-first approach.

Since World War II – and extending well into the Twenty-first Century – the United States has invaded or otherwise intervened in so many countries that it would be challenging to compile a complete list. Just last decade, there were full-scale U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, plus American bombing operations from Pakistan to Yemen to Libya. So, what is one to make of Secretary of State John Kerry’s pronouncement that Russia’s military intervention in the Crimea section of Ukraine – at the behest of the country’s deposed president – is a violation of international law that the United States would never countenance?

Kerry decried the Russian intervention as “a Nineteenth Century act in the Twenty-first Century.” However, if memory serves, Sen. Kerry in 2002 voted along with most other members of the U.S. Congress to authorize President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, which was also part of the Twenty-first Century. And, Kerry is a member of the Obama administration, which like its Bush predecessor, has been sending drones into the national territory of other nations to blow up various “enemy combatants.” Are Kerry and pretty much everyone else in Official Washington so lacking in self-awareness that they don’t realize that they are condemning actions by Russian President Vladimir Putin that are far less egregious than what they themselves have done?

And, what do Hiatt and other neocons at the Washington Post say about confronting the Russians over the Ukraine crisis, which was stoked by neocon holdovers in the U.S. State Department, such as Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland,  and the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy, which was founded in 1983 to replace the CIA in the business of destabilizing targeted governments? [See Consortiumnews.com’s “What Neocons Want from Ukraine Crisis.”] The Post is demanding a new Cold War with Russia in retaliation for its relatively non-violent interventions to protect pro-Russian provinces of two countries that were carved out of the old Soviet Union: Georgia where Russian troops have protected South Ossetia and Abkhazia since 2008 and in Ukraine where Russian soldiers have taken control of Crimea. In both cases, the pro-Russian areas felt threatened from their central governments and sought Moscow’s assistance. In the case of Ukraine, a neo-Nazi-led putsch – representing the interests of the western part of the country – overthrew the democratically elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, who came from the eastern region. Then, under the watchful eye of the neo-Nazi storm troopers in Kiev, a rump parliament voted unanimously or near unanimously to enact a series of draconian laws offensive to the ethnic Russian areas in the east and south.

Over the objections of government attorneys, a federal judge said yesterday that he would require in camera review of documents that the government says are protected by the state secrets privilege. The issue arose in the case of Gulet Mohamed v. Eric Holder, challenging the constitutionality of the “no fly” list. The government had argued that it is “inappropriate” for a court to review such records to verify that they are validly privileged, and that instead the court should grant dismissal of case on the basis of official declarations. (Gov’t Resists Court Review of State Secrets, Secrecy News, August 27). The government moved for reconsideration of an August 6 order to produce the records for in camera review. Yesterday, Judge Anthony J. Trenga of the Eastern District of Virginia granted the government’s motion for reconsideration, but he said that having reconsidered the matter, he determined that he had been right the first time around. “Upon reconsideration of its Order, however, the Court finds that none of [the] objections justifies vacating the Order, as the defendants request. The Court therefore affirms its Order.” “This case involves complex and unsettled issues pertaining to the respective roles of the legislative, executive and judicial branches,” Judge Trenga wrote. “One central issue is the extent to which the War on Terrorism may expand the ability of the executive branch to act in ways that cannot otherwise be justified.”

Over the objections of government attorneys, a federal judge said yesterday that he would require in camera review of documents that the government says are protected by the state secrets privilege. The issue arose in the case of Gulet Mohamed v. Eric Holder, challenging the constitutionality of the “no fly” list. The government had argued that it is “inappropriate” for a court to review such records to verify that they are validly privileged, and that instead the court should grant dismissal of case on the basis of official declarations. (Gov’t Resists Court Review of State Secrets, Secrecy News, August 27). The government moved for reconsideration of an August 6 order to produce the records for in camera review. Yesterday, Judge Anthony J. Trenga of the Eastern District of Virginia granted the government’s motion for reconsideration, but he said that having reconsidered the matter, he determined that he had been right the first time around. “Upon reconsideration of its Order, however, the Court finds that none of [the] objections justifies vacating the Order, as the defendants request. The Court therefore affirms its Order.”

“This case involves complex and unsettled issues pertaining to the respective roles of the legislative, executive and judicial branches,” Judge Trenga wrote. “One central issue is the extent to which the War on Terrorism may expand the ability of the executive branch to act in ways that cannot otherwise be justified.” The Court “understands its limited institutional competence to assess claims of national security and its obligation not to extend its review of claims of state secrets beyond what is necessary for the Court to perform its institutional role,” Judge Trenga wrote. Nevertheless, under current circumstances “the Court concludes that it is necessary for the Court to review at this stage certain of the underlying documents as to which the state secrets privilege is asserted.” “This case involves the extraordinary exercise of executive branch authority to operate a program [the "no fly" procedure] that results in the deprivation of basic liberties according to secret executive branch decision making, without pre-deprivation judicial review…. [Therefore,] the Court has a particularly strong and heightened institutional responsibility in these circumstances to review and assess the propriety of such executive branch activity since to dismiss this case as the defendants request would, in essence, judicially sanction conduct that has far-reaching implications.”

During the Cold War, the British Government used the general public as unwitting biological and chemical warfare guinea pigs on a much greater scale than previously thought, according to new historical research.In more than 750 secret operations, hundreds of thousands of ordinary Britons were subjected to ‘mock’ biological and chemical warfare attacks launched from aircraft, ships and road vehicles.Up until now historians had thought that such operations had been much less extensive. The new research, carried out by Ulf Schmidt, Professor of Modern History at the University of Kent, has revealed that British military aircraft dropped thousands of kilos of a chemical of ‘largely unknown toxic potential’ on British civilian populations in and around Salisbury in Wiltshire, Cardington in Bedfordshire and Norwich in Norfolk.Substantial quantities were also dispersed across parts of the English Channel and the North Sea. It’s not known the extent to which coastal towns in England and France were affected.

The research reveals, for the first time, that around 4600 kilos of the chemical, zinc cadmium sulphide (now thought to be potentially carcinogenic, on account of its cadmium content) were dispersed from ships, aircraft and moving lorries between 1953 and 1964.Professor Schmidt’s  investigation – published on 9 July as a book, Secret Science – has revealed that commuters on the London underground were also used as guinea pigs on a substantially larger scale than previously thought.

In recognition of a career distinguished by meticulously researched investigations, intrepid questioning and reporting that has challenged both conventional wisdom and mainstream media, the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard will present journalist Robert Parry with the 2015 I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence during a ceremony in Cambridge, Mass., on Oct. 22, 2015.

Parry established the website, consortiumnews.com in 1995 as the first investigative news magazine on the Internet. He continues to edit the site and notes that a founding idea behind the project was the belief that “a major investment was needed in journalistic endeavors committed to honestly informing the American people about important events, reporting that truly operated without fear or favor.” Parry is known for breaking many of the stories related to the Iran-Contra affair while working at The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. He received the George Polk Award for National Reporting in 1984 for his work on Iran-Contra at the AP, where he broke the story that the CIA had provided a manual to the Nicaraguan Contras (“Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare”) that outlined ways to build support for the Contra cause and carry out political assassinations.

In 1985, he was the first to report on Oliver North’s involvement in the affair and along with his AP colleague Brian Barger, was the first to describe the Contras’ role in cocaine trafficking in the United States – stories that led to an internal investigation and a congressional inquiry. Parry also was a 1985 Pulitzer finalist for his work. In the early 1990s, Parry made several documentaries for PBS’s Frontline on the October Surprise allegations about a plot to influence the outcome of the 1980 presidential election between incumbent Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. He continued to report on the topic and published two related books: “Trick or Treason: The October Surprise Mystery” (1993) and “The October Surprise X-Files: The Hidden Origins of the Reagan-Bush Era” (1996). Parry’s other books include “America’s Stolen Narrative: From Washington and Madison to Nixon, Reagan and the Bushes to Obama” (2012), “Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush” (2007), “Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq” (2004), “and “Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth’” (1992).

The CIA recently admitted after more than 60 years that they were responsible for Iran’s coup in 1953. The following illustrated guide, which ran in Slate in 2012, tells the story of Syria’s coup, which occurred four years before Iran’s. This change of power set in motion decades of political turmoil that have led to Bashar al-Assad’s position as the current leader of the Syrian regime. The Obama administration is threatening military action against Assad after Syria’s alleged use of chemical weapons, so here’s a look back at what was possibly the United States’ last attempt at regime change in Syria.

Almost before the votes were counted in the recent Greek elections, battle lines were being drawn all over Europe. While Alexis Tsipras, the newly elected Prime Minister from Greece’s victorious Syriza Party, was telling voters, “Greece is leaving behind catastrophic austerity, fear and autocratic government,” Jens Weidmann, president of the German Bundesbank, was warning the new government not to “make promises it cannot keep and the country cannot afford.”   On Feb. 12 those two points of view will collide when European Union (EU) heads of state gather in Brussels. Whether the storm blowing out of Southern Europe proves an irresistible force, or the European Council an immovable object, is not clear, but whatever the outcome, the continent is not likely to be the same after that meeting.   The Jan 25 victory of Greece’s leftwing Syriza Party was, on one hand, a beacon for indebted countries like Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland. On the other, it is a gauntlet for Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, and the “troika”—the European Central bank, the European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)—the designers and enforcers of loans and austerity policies that have inflicted a catastrophic economic and social crisis on tens of millions of Europeans.

The troika’s policies were billed as “bailouts” for countries mired in debt—one largely caused by the 2008 financial speculation bubble over which indebted countries had little control—and as a way to restart economic growth. In return for the loans, the EU and the troika demanded massive cutbacks in social services, huge layoffs, privatization of pubic resources, and higher taxes.   However, the “bailouts” did not go toward stimulating economies, but rather to repay creditors, mostly large European banks. Out of the $266 billion loaned to Greece, 89 percent went to investors. After five years under the troika formula, Greece was the most indebted country in Europe. Gross national product dropped 26 percent, unemployment topped 27 percent (and over 50 percent for young people), and one-third of the population lost their health care coverage.   Given a chance to finally vote on the austerity strategy, Greeks overwhelmingly rejected the parties that went along with the troika and elected Syriza.

Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein—now the third largest party in the Irish Republic—hailed the vote as opening “up the real prospect of democratic change, not just for the people of Greece, but for citizens right across the EU.” Unemployment in Ireland is 10.7 percent, and tens of thousands of jobless young people have been forced to emigrate.   The German Social Democrats are generally supportive of the troika, but the Green Party hailed the Syriza victory and Die Linke Party members marched with signs reading, “We start with Greece. We change Europe.”   Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi—who has his own issues with the EU’s rigid approach to debt—hailed the Greek elections, and top aide Sandro Gozi said that Rome was ready to work with Syriza. The jobless rate in Italy is 13.4 percent, but 40 percent among youth.