Peter Dale Scott's meticulously documented investigation uncovers the secrets surrounding John F. Kennedy's assassination. Offering a wholly new perspective - that JFK's death was not just an isolated case, but rather a symptom of hidden processes - Scott examines the deep politics of early 1960s American international and domestic policies. Scott offers a disturbing analysis of the events surrounding Kennedy's death, and of the 'structural defects' within the American government that allowed such a crime to occur and to go unpunished. In nuanced readings of both previously examined and newly available materials, he finds ample reason to doubt the prevailing interpretations of the assassination. He questions the lone assassin theory and the investigations undertaken by the House Committee on Assassinations, and unearths new connections between Oswald, Ruby, and corporate and law enforcement forces. Revisiting the controversy popularized in Oliver Stone's movie JFK, Scott probes the link between Kennedy's assassination and the escalation of the U.S. commitment in Vietnam that followed two days later. He contends that Kennedy's plans to withdraw troops from Vietnam - offensive to a powerful anti-Kennedy military and political coalition - were secretly annulled when Johnson came to power. The split between JFK and his Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the collaboration between Army Intelligence and the Dallas Police in 1963, are two of the several missing pieces Scott adds to the puzzle of who killed Kennedy and why. Scott presses for a new investigation of the Kennedy assassination, not as an external conspiracy but as a power shift within the subterranean world of American politics. "Deep Politics and the Death of JFK" shatters our notions of one of the central events of the twentieth century.

In this new edition of a cult classic, Henrik KrÜger and Jerry Meldon have added new material and provided updates of the investigations   Danish investigative author Henrik KrÜger set out to write a book about Christian David, a French criminal with a colorful past, and wound up writing a book—originally published in 1980—that spans all continents and names names all the way up to Richard Nixon. The Nixon administration and CIA wanted to eliminate the old French Connection and replace it with heroin from the Golden Triangle, partly in order to help finance operations in Southeast Asia. The book delves into the relationships between French and U.S. intelligence services and organized crime probing into the netherworld of narcotics, espionage, and international terrorism. It uncovers the alliances between the Mafia, right-wing extremists, neo-fascist OAS and SAC veterans in France, and Miami-based Cuban exiles. It lifts the veil on the global networks of parafascist terrorists who so frequently plot and murder with impunity, thanks to their relationships and services to the intelligence agencies of the so-called “free world.� In short, this updated edition tells a story which our own media have systematically failed to tell.

"Scott's brilliantly perceptive account of the underpinnings of American governmental authority should be made required reading. The book vividly depicts the political forces that have pushed this country toward an abyss, threatening constitutional democracy at home and world peace abroad. Its central message can be understood as an urgent wake-up call to everyone concerned with the future of America."--Richard Falk, author of "The Great Terror War"
"Peter Dale Scott is one of that tiny and select company of the most brilliantly creative and provocative political-historical writers of the last half century. "The Road to 9/11" further secures his distinction as truth-teller and prophet. He shows us here with painful yet hopeful clarity the central issue of our time--America's coming to terms with its behavior in the modern world. As in his past work, Scott's gift is not only recognition and wisdom but also redemption and rescue we simply cannot do without."--Roger Morris, former NSC staffer
""The Road to 9/11" is vintage Peter Dale Scott. Scott does not undertake conventional political analysis; instead, he engages in a kind of poetics, crafting the dark poetry of the deep state, of parapolitics, and of shadow government. As with his earlier work "Deep Politics and the Death of JFK," Scott has no theory of responsibility and does not name the guilty. Rather, he maps out an alien terrain, surveying the topography of a political shadow land, in which covert political deviancy emerges as the norm. After reading Scott, we can no longer continue with our consensus-driven belief that our so-called 'liberal' order renders impossible the triumph of the politically irrational."--EricWilson, Senior Lecturer of Public International Law, Monash University, and co-editor of "Government of the Shadows"
"Peter Dale Scott exposes a shadow world of oil, terrorism, drug trade and arms deals, of covert financing and parallel security structures-from the Cold War to today. He shows how such parallel forces of the United States have been able to dominate the agenda of the George W. Bush Administration, and that statements and actions made by Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld before, during and after September 11, 2001, present evidence for an American 'deep state' and for the so-called 'Continuity of Government' in parallel to the regular 'public state' ruled by law. Scott's brilliant work not only reveals the overwhelming importance of these parallel forces but also presents elements of a strategy for restraining their influence to win back the 'public state', the American democracy."--Ola Tunander, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo
"A powerful study of the historic origins of the terrorist strikes of September 11, this book offers an indispensable guide to the gluttonous cast of characters who, since Watergate and the fall of Nixon, fashioned an ever more reckless American empire. By exposing the corrupt U.S. 'deep state'-transfer of public authority to America's wealthy and to the nation's unaccountable secret intelligence agencies-Peter Dale Scott's "The Road to 9/11" illuminates the path toward a more democratic and inclusive republic."--David MacGregor, King's University College at the University of Western Ontario
""The Road to 9/11" provides an illuminating and disturbing history of the American government since World War II.Scott's account suggests that the 9/11 attacks were a culmination of long-term trends that threaten the very existence of American democracy, and also that there has been a massive cover-up of 9/11 itself. This book, which combines extensive research, perceptive analysis, and a fascinating narrative, will surely be considered Scott's magnum opus."--David Ray Griffin, author of "Debunking 9/11 Debunking"
"'The America we knew and loved. Can it be saved?' That question opens this book, and getting to the answer called for the honed intellect of a scholar and the sensitivity of a poet. Peter Dale Scott has both, in spades, and here gives us much, much more than a book about 9/11. In a time of fear, he speaks for sanity and freedom."--Anthony Summers, author of "The Arrogance of Power"

Now in a new edition updated through the unprecedented 2016 presidential election, this provocative book makes a compelling case for a hidden "deep state" that influences and often opposes official U.S. policies. Prominent political analyst Peter Dale Scott begins by tracing America's increasing militarization, restrictions on constitutional rights, and income disparity since World War II. With the start of the Cold War, he argues, the U.S. government changed immensely in both function and scope, from protecting and nurturing a relatively isolated country to assuming ever-greater responsibility for controlling world politics in the name of freedom and democracy. This has resulted in both secretive new institutions and a slow but radical change in the American state itself. He argues that central to this historic reversal were seismic national events, ranging from the assassination of President Kennedy to 9/11. Scott marshals compelling evidence that the deep state is now partly institutionalized in non-accountable intelligence agencies like the CIA and NSA, but it also extends its reach to private corporations like Booz Allen Hamilton and SAIC, to which 70 percent of intelligence budgets are outsourced. Behind these public and private institutions is the influence of Wall Street bankers and lawyers, allied with international oil companies beyond the reach of domestic law. Undoubtedly the political consensus about America's global role has evolved, but if we want to restore the country's traditional constitutional framework, it is important to see the role of particular cabals-such as the Project for the New American Century-and how they have repeatedly used the secret powers and network of Continuity of Government (COG) planning to implement change. Yet the author sees the deep state polarized between an establishment and a counter-establishment in a chaotic situation that may actually prove more hopeful for U.S. democracy.

Ecstatic Pessimist is a timely book about the Central and Eastern European experience of the mid 20th century, as told through the poetry and experiences of Czeslaw Milosz, Nobel Laureate for literature, who wrote on the horrors of war and the human experience. Written by a colleague and friend of the poet, it is part literary criticism and part memoir. This biography/memoir of Czeslaw Milosz is a first hand account of the poet's life and his relationship to the author, beginning in the 1960s. Milosz was a Polish-American poet, prose writer, translator, and diplomat. Regarded as one of the great poets of the 20th century, he won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature. In its citation, the Swedish Academy called Milosz a writer who "voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts".

When the San Jose Mercury News ran a controversial series of stories in 1996 on the relationship between the CIA, the Contras, and crack, they reignited the issue of the intelligence agency's connections to drug trafficking, initially brought to light during the Vietnam War and then again by the Iran-Contra affair. Broad in scope and extensively documented, "Cocaine Politics" shows that under the cover of national security and covert operations, the U.S. government has repeatedly collaborated with and protected major international drug traffickers. A new preface discusses developments of the last six years, including the Mercury News stories and the public reaction they provoked.

Ecstatic Pessimist is a timely book about the Central and Eastern European experience of the mid 20th century, as told through the poetry and experiences of Czeslaw Milosz, Nobel Laureate for literature, who wrote on the horrors of war and the human experience. Written by a colleague and friend of the poet, it is part literary criticism and part memoir. This biography/memoir of Czeslaw Milosz is a first hand account of the poet's life and his relationship to the author, beginning in the 1960s. Milosz was a Polish-American poet, prose writer, translator, and diplomat. Regarded as one of the great poets of the 20th century, he won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature. In its citation, the Swedish Academy called Milosz a writer who "voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts".

A study at many levels of Scott's long poem Coming to Jakarta, a book-length response to a midlife crisis triggered in part by the author's initial inability to share his knowledge and horror about American involvement in the great Indonesian massacre of 1965. Interviews with Ng supply fuller information about the poem's discussions of: a) how this psychological trauma led to an explorations of violence in American society and then, after a key recognition, in the poet himself; b) the poem's look at east-west relations through the lens of the yin-yang, spiritual-secular doubleness of the human condition; c) how the process of writing the poem led to the recovery of memories too threatening at first to be retained by his normal presentational self, and d) the mystery of right action, guided by the Bhagavad Gita and the maxim in the Gospel of Thomas that "If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you." Led by the interviews to greater self-awareness, Scott then analyses his poem as also an elegy, not just for the dead in Indonesia, but "for the passing of the Sixties era, when so many of us imagined that a Movement might achieve major changes for a better America." Subsequent chapters develop how human doubleness can lead to an inner tension between the needs of politics and the needs of poetry, and how some poetry can serve as a non-violent higher politics, contributing to the evolution of human culture and thus our "second nature." The book also reproduces a Scott prose essay, inspired by the poem, on the U.S. involvement in and support for the 1965 massacre. It then discusses how this essay was translated into Indonesian and officially banned by the Indonesian dictatorship, and how ultimately it and the poem helped inspire the ground-breaking films of Josh Oppenheimer that have led to the first official discussions in Indonesia of what happened in 1965.

This provocative, thoroughly researched book explores the covert aspects of U.S. foreign policy. Prominent political analyst Peter Dale Scott marshals compelling evidence to expose the extensive growth of sanctioned but illicit violence in politics and state affairs, especially when related to America's long-standing involvement with the global drug traffic. Beginning with Thailand in the 1950s, Americans have become inured to the CIA's alliances with drug traffickers (and their bankers) to install and sustain right-wing governments. The pattern has repeated itself in Laos, Vietnam, Italy, Mexico, Thailand, Nigeria, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Panama, Honduras, Turkey, Pakistan, and now Afghanistan-to name only those countries dealt with in this book. Scott shows that the relationship of U.S. intelligence operators and agencies to the global drug traffic, and to other international criminal networks, deserves greater attention in the debate over the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. To date, America's government and policies have done more to foster than to curtail the drug trade. The so-called war on terror, and in particular the war in Afghanistan, constitutes only the latest chapter in this disturbing story.

If the past hundred years will be remembered as a century of war, Asia is surely central to that story. Tracing the course of conflicts throughout the region, this groundbreaking volume is the first to explore systematically the nexus of war and state terrorism. Challenging states' definitions of terrorism, which routinely exclude their own behavior, the book focuses especially on the nature of Japanese and American wars and crimes of war. The authors also assess significant acts of terror instigated by other Asian nations including China, Cambodia, and Indonesia. Offering a rare comparative perspective, the authors consider how state terror leads to massive civilian casualties, crimes of war, and crimes against humanity. In counterbalance, they discuss anti-war and anti-nuclear movements and international efforts to protect human rights, and the interwoven issues of responsibility, impunity, and memory. Interdisciplinary and deeply informed by global perspectives, this volume will resonate with readers searching for a deeper understanding of an epoch that has been dominated by war and terror.

A devastating revelation of violence, exploitation, and corrupt politics, Coming to Jakarta derives its title from the role played by the CIA, banks, and oil companies in the 1965 slaughter of more than half a million Indonesians.

A study at many levels of Scott’s long poem Coming to Jakarta, a book-length response to a midlife crisis triggered in part by the author’s initial inability to share his knowledge and horror about American involvement in the great Indonesian massacre of 1965. Interviews with Ng supply fuller information about the poem’s discussions of: a) how this psychological trauma led to an explorations of violence in American society and then, after a key recognition, in the poet himself; b) the poem's look at east-west relations through the lens of the yin-yang, spiritual-secular doubleness of the human condition; c) how the process of writing the poem led to the recovery of memories too threatening at first to be retained by his normal presentational self, and d) the mystery of right action, guided by the Bhagavad Gita and the maxim in the Gospel of Thomas that "If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.� Led by the interviews to greater self-awareness, Scott then analyses his poem as also an elegy, not just for the dead in Indonesia, but “for the passing of the Sixties era, when so many of us imagined that a Movement might achieve major changes for a better America.� Subsequent chapters develop how human doubleness can lead to an inner tension between the needs of politics and the needs of poetry, and how some poetry can serve as a non-violent higher politics, contributing to the evolution of human culture and thus our “second nature.� The book also reproduces a Scott prose essay, inspired by the poem, on the U.S. involvement in and support for the 1965 massacre. It then discusses how this essay was translated into Indonesian and officially banned by the Indonesian dictatorship, and how ultimately it and the poem helped inspire the ground-breaking films of Josh Oppenheimer that have led to the first official discussions in Indonesia of what happened in 1965.

Peter Dale Scott's brilliantly researched tour de force illuminates the underlying forces that drive U.S. global policy from Vietnam to Colombia and now to Afghanistan and Iraq. He brings to light the intertwined patterns of drugs, oil politics, and intelligence networks that have been so central to the larger workings of U.S. intervention and escalation in Third World countries through alliances with drug-trafficking proxies. This strategy was originally developed in the late 1940s to contain communist China; it has since been used to secure control over foreign petroleum resources. The result has been a staggering increase in the global drug traffic and the mafias associated with it a problem that will worsen until there is a change in policy. Scott argues that covert operations almost always outlast the specific purpose for which they were designed. Instead, they grow and become part of a hostile constellation of forces. The author terms this phenomenon parapolitics the exercise of power by covert means which tends to metastasize into deep politics the interplay of unacknowledged forces that spin out of the control of the original policy initiators. We must recognize that U.S. influence is grounded not just in military and economic superiority, Scott contends, but also in so-called soft power. We need a "soft politics" of persuasion and nonviolence, especially as America is embroiled in yet another disastrous intervention, this time in Iraq."

“Our most provocative scholar of American power� reveals the forces behind the assassination of JFK—and their continuing influence over our world (David Talbot, Salon).   On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas by Lee Harvey Oswald. Shortly after, Oswald himself was killed. These events led many to believe there was a far greater plan at work, with a secret cabal of powerful men manipulating the public and shaping US policies both at home and abroad for their own interests.   But no one could imagine how right they were.   Beneath the orderly façade of the American government, there lies a complex network, only partly structural, linking Wall Street influence, corrupt bureaucracy, and the military-industrial complex. Here lies the true power of the American empire. This behind-the-scenes web is unelected, unaccountable, and immune to popular resistance. Peter Dale Scott calls this entity the deep state, and he has made it his life’s work to write the history of those who manipulate our government from the shadows. Since the aftermath of World War II, the deep state’s power has grown unchecked, and nowhere has it been more apparent than that day at Dealey Plaza.   In this landmark volume, Scott traces how culpable elements in the CIA and FBI helped prepare for the assassination, and how the deep state continues to influence our politics today.   As timely and important as ever in the current chaotic political climate, Dallas ’63 is a reality-shattering, frightening exposé not of those who govern us—but of those who govern those who govern us.