Today I emailed a letter to Congressman Ryan and I thought I'd share it with you. Writing your representatives is a great idea. You can find your representatives by searching at the US House website, or the US Senate website.

Congressman Ryan:

While I am at odds with you on some issues, I see a genuineness in you that seems to be rare in the federal government and I have the utmost faith that you truly care about people. I lived in your district for a few years and I have seen you in action. That is why I write to appeal to you, to address the issue of the 9/11 investigation.

Several of your colleagues, including Congressmen Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, have publicly stated that they would support a new, independent investigation into the attacks of September 11, 2001. Much information has come to light in the last seven years to suggest that things did not occur the way it was portrayed to the American people.

There is a large and growing grassroots movement for 9/11 truth, started by the victim's family members and first responders, which is being portrayed in the media as an "anarchist group" by Geraldo Rivera. Morning Joe's Willie Geist said of a 9/11 truth protester, "the man [was] led away in handcuffs and hopefully taken to one of those secret prisons in Eastern Europe, never to be heard from again... I hope we have a special prison for 9/11 conspiracy theorists."

Michael Reagan said of Mark Dice's organization, which sends 9/11 truth information to the troops in theater, "we ought to find the people who are doing this, take them out, and shoot them... You take them out, they are traitors to this country, and you shoot them... But anybody who would do that doesn't deserve to live... I'll pay for the bullet... How about you take Mark Dice out and put him in the middle of the firing range, tie him to a post, don't blindfold him, let it rip and have some fun with Mark Dice."

All of this for simply petitioning our government for a redress of grievances. The US Government has done a total of ten investigations into the attack on Pearl Harbor, but the mere idea of asking for a second investigation into this attack on our country makes us traitors who deserve to be shot. I thought this was America. I thought it was patriotic for the people, who supposedly are the government, to ask questions and exercise oversight over our elected representatives. Is this not still a republic?

The notion that the official story, asserted by the 9/11 Commission, is not the full truth is certainly not a patent absurdity, nor is the theory that perhaps members of our own government had prior knowledge or involvement in the attacks of 9/11. US Government involvement in false flag attacks is, of course, nothing new. We have a history of staging attacks to start wars. A declassified NSA report confirms that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was a staged attack and that Vietnamese boats weren't even present on the 4th of August. In March of 1963, a plan was submitted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, which describes plans to stage false flag terror attacks as a pretext to illegally invade Cuba. These plans included staging the assassinations of Cubans living in the United States, developing a fake "Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington,"including "sink[ing] a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated)," faking a Cuban airforce attack on a civilian jetliner, and concocting a "Remember the Maine" incident by blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and then blaming the incident on Cuban sabotage. The United States was condemned by the World Court for international terrorism in Nicaragua. Even recently, Seymour Hersh exposed an idea by Vice President Cheney which he described in the following words: "Why don't we build, we, in our shipyard, build four or five Iranian boats, that look like Iranian PT boats, put Navy Seals on them, with a lot of arms, and the next time one of our boats goes through the Strait of Hormuz, start a shoot-up." This is all eerily reminiscent of Hitler's Reichstag fire.

So there is plenty of precedent for this alternate theory, but is there any evidence? It turns out that there is a plethora of evidence to disprove the official 9/11 Commission conclusion.

Dr. Steven E. Jones, retired professor of Physics at BYU, examined metal samples from the World Trade Center towers and found evidence of sulfur (which would indicate that thermate, a military grade steel cutting material, was present) and performed a study of the collapse of the towers and WTC Building 7, which was not hit by a plane, and was completely omitted from the 9/11 Commission report. Jones helped establish an organization dedicated to independent, expert research of the 9/11 attacks using the scientific method. The organization now has over 500 members with backgrounds ranging from engineering to physics to aviation and has a wealth of information available to the public.

Simple common sense would indicate many problems with the official story. The 9/11 Commission claims that the jet fuel burnt long and hot enough to melt enough core columns in both towers to cause the floors to "pancake" down. This is obviously not true, as we would have seen a stack of pancaked concrete floor slabs after the collapse. The Law of Conservation of Momentum tells us that the collapse would slow as it progressed, as each successive floor would absorb more and more momentum, but in all videos, all three WTC buildings collapse at near free-fall speed. This would indicate that support, i.e. resistance, had been removed from under the collapsing floors. In a pancaking collapse, there would not have been enough energy to pulverize the concrete into the enormous clouds of dust we all witnessed. A pancaking collapse could not explain the embedding of a large chunk of one of the towers into WTC7, over 300 feet away. There is evidence of first responders, time and again, reporting secondary and tertiary explosions, explosions in the ground floor lobby, explosions in the elevator, explosions in the basement. NIST's recent report on the collapse of WTC7 admits that these three buildings, all on one day, became the only tall, steel-frame buildings in history to collapse as a result of fire. In October 2005, New Civil Engineer called into question NIST's computer models for the collapse of the Twin Towers.

A tape was released of firefighters just seven minutes before the collapse on the 78th floor, saying there were only two pockets of fire, and Chief Orio Palmer said, "we should be able to knock it down with two [hose] lines". Firefighter Brian Becker, Engine 28, stated, "So I think that the building was really kind of starting to melt. We were - like, the melt down was beginning. The collapse hadn't begun, but it was not a fire any more up there. It was like - it was like that - like smoke explosion on a tremendous scale going on up there." Firefighter Ed Cachia, Engine 53: "It actually gave at a lower floor, not the floor where the plane hit, because we originally had thought there was like an internal detonation explosives because it went in succession, boom, boom, boom, boom, and then the tower came down."

An FBI document, 199-Eye W.F. 213 589, stifled the FBI's investigation of two of bin Laden's relatives and their ties to terrorist organizations. In fact, the FBI's own website, on Usama bin Laden's Most Wanted Terrorist page, does not even claim he is responsible for the 9/11 attacks. BBC reported in September 2001, "Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October."

Congressman, I could continue on with more and more evidence, and if you are interested in other leads and other facts, I will be happy to collate and provide them. However, I assume you have greater resources than I to gather such information. I will conclude this by simply requesting that you investigate this issue and imploring you to help fight so the victims of 9/11 can learn the truth and justice can be served.

I also hope the Congress will very soon embrace the idea of impeachment, not necessarily to pursue removal from office, but at least as a duty to history to get the lies and crimes of this administration in the Congressional record with an official inquiry. President Clinton was impeached for far less than what this President has done.

As a final thought, I have a question about your party's nominee for President in the 2008 election. Barack Obama's Foreign Policy Advisor is Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski was National Security Advisor to President Carter. During Brzezinski's term, we saw the transition of Iran to an anti-Western Islamic state and the arming of the mujaheddin in Afghanistan. He admitted that it was a lie when he claimed we started helping the mujaheddin after the Soviet invasion, and that it was designed to provoke such an invasion to cause a Vietnam-style war for them. Brzezinski is very hawkish, especially with Russia. How can we reconcile our want for the War in Iraq to end with voting for someone who has this guy as a Foreign Policy Advisor? Senator Obama has also called for sending troops into Pakistan. Obama also proposed a "civilian national security force", larger and more well-funded than the military. That sounds like an admission that the plan is a larger economic black hole than the War in Iraq. On top of this, he has voted to renew the Patriot Act, voted for FISA domestic surveillance, and voted to fund the war in Iraq. How can we trust and support such a candidate, a candidate from the party that campaigned two years ago on ending the War in Iraq, lowering gas prices at the pump, and holding the administration accountable, none of which has happened. I see you stand up continuously and admonish the administration, but as a whole the entire Congress has failed the American people in all these regards. We got a minimum wage increase, but with the dollar being debased by the Fed and the resulting economic downturn and price increases, we are generally in a much worse position than in 2006. Obviously we cannot support John McCain, a continuation of the abhorrent Neo-Conservative movement (who, ironically, lists Zbigniew Brzezinski's son as a campaign worker) that has been the Bush administration. I think the two party system has failed to produce a worthy candidate and it is time for those stand-up members of Congress, of which I count you as a member, to break with their party affiliations and become independent voices. What are your views on this stance and also on Chuck Baldwin as a presidential candidate?

Thank you for your time. I look forward to your reply.

The promo tagline for the final issue of this incarnation of the G.I. Joe core book from Devil's Due reads as such:

"This is it! It's all been leading to this issue! The war finally brings the G.I. Joe team and Cobra face-to-face! Every feud, every drop of bad blood, all the history between these two groups finally meet on the battlefield for THE knock-down, drag-out fight of G. I. Joe comics! Twenty-five years of payoff happens here!"

Bullshit!

This has to be one of the biggest disappointments of a series finale I have ever read.  Period.  Maybe not as bad on how Marvel once wrapped up Doom 2099 by letting the artwork go to hell as if to say to the reader "We gave up on this series, so enjoy the contractually obligated crap we have to churn out in the meantime".  Well G.I. Joe, especially with the resurgence of many of the hot 80's properties and current film adaptation underway deserved a much better send off.

I was actually surprised when I learned issue 36 would be the last.  It seems just a few years ago, the G.I. Joe universe was gaining momentum once again after that lackluster Image mini-series somewhat earlier.  Granted it would never approach the Joe heyday's it had under Marvel with scribe Larry Hama, but it was exciting again.  Devils Due scaled somewhat back on the character roster, I can't blame them...there were so many Joe's and Cobra's....it was impossible to keep track of who's who and where are they with only book.

I thought they were doing well when they announced a Storm Shadow ongoing series (though the artwork is a bit off for my tastes), a few various one-shots, and Special Missions and Declassified books kept me going.

It was great to see the gloves come off with Cobra, and I enjoyed the 'Coil' arc, the introduction of Wraith, the hunt for The Baroness all happening in the core title of 'America's Elite'.  I was very excited to hear about the 12 issue arc World War III. 

The first few issues seemed 'okay', as if were about to ramp up the excitement factor, but sadly it just never got there for me.  It was only around issue 34 (part 10 of 12) did I learn that the series was coming to and end, and I had no explanation as to why it was ending.  With two issues left, I really began to worry as it just seemed like the story was stalling, or at least the elements concerning Cobra Commander.  By the end of issue 35 the Commander was headed to the Appalachian mountains were we were left to believe he was going to make his final, epic stand.

Issue 36 is a double sized issue.  Double sized of rushed plotlines, forgotten characters, tangential flashbacks, and very little pay off.  Of course the Joe's win the battle, but my word, it was the cheapest and simpleton way to wrap up the series and hardcore fans should be as upset as I am.  Poor Larry Hama, I don't care what he has to say in public...putting on a good game face for scribe Mark Powers, but Mr. Powers was able to drain any sort of epic adventure and character excitement out of the series in the last few issues that Larry spent so many years crafting and enter twining over at Marvel and Joe continuity.

So Recondo and some ex-Cobra schlep named Rourke have more face time than Snake Eyes?  Than the Baroness?  Destro goes to jail in one panel?  Alexander is shot and killed in two panels?

The biggest travesty in my opinion was the treatment, or lack of treatment of Cobra Commander.  The whole reason G.I. Joe was brought back into existence was the result of the formation of Cobra and its mysterious leader Cobra Commander.  After what seemed to be a promise at the end of issue 35, we barely see the Commander at all in the finale.  And to be taken out by a tackle by a crippled Joe wearing a jetpack at the end was horrific to the fans.

No last show down? Not a tense stand-off?  No last defiant speech or last ditch action on the Commanders behalf?  No face reveal after all these years?  WHAT THE F____??  I cannot and refuse to believe that Cobra Commander was simply tackled, knocked out, and hauled away.

The last two pages shows an unmasked Commander (we don't see his face however) in an orange prison jumpsuit sitting in a chair making some last declaration that Cobra will survive...and it's revealed that this isolation room is at the bottom of the ocean.  Oh, fuck me.  This is so bad. 

I can only hope...and pray...that Devil's Due had to give up on the comic license with the film be launched next year...and maybe will be re-launched again at that time with a new number one that gives the fans some sort of payoff.  Maybe it will go back to Marvel?  I don't know....but to tell me that 25 years...YEARS..of G.I. Joe and Cobra comic adventures is reduced to Cobra Commander sitting in an underwater prison because he was simply tackled and all the world is all apple pie after this is complete bullshit.

BOOOOO!

This extension interfaces with the underlying operating system (SELinux for now) to determine your security level and, if possible, that of your correspondants. If you attempt to send an e-mail to some recipient whose security level is inferior to yours, Thunderbird will warn you that a declassification is going to happen.

The next step will be to provide that server-side treatment, as a procmail script. Stay tuned for more information.

Here's more proof that my theory on the sexual paradigm has shifted. The stereotype dictates that men are sex-crazed animals and can't live without it... I submit this to you, especially the account that, "the woman picked up the family's 20-pound dog and threw it at the deputy.":

Unsatisfying sex life causes woman's meltdown

Sure I enjoy jello. Sure I enjoy breasts. If only there were a way to combine my love of both. Thank you Japan:

Hello Kitty Jello Titty

Women can pretend that farts aren't funny all they want... but if you put a hidden camera in the ladies room and give Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly a microphone and a fart machine... you'll find out that they think it's just as funny as we do:

Cagney & Lacey fun in the ladies room

Just as there is an art to taking a good photograph... there is an art to ruining one:

Photobombing

I've walked the walk of fame, and I have to say they missed several more questionable ones than these:

10 Most questionable stars on the walk of fame

Remember that photographer who took the nightmare photos? These trump that in terms of overall creepiness. Aside from making my soul hurt, this article also taught me the interesting tidbit that the 'living room' of your house... yeah, that used be called the 'death room.':

Memorial photography

Here's my ish (short for issue.. I'm being hip) with this... Megan's Law is brilliant... I'm glad it exists... but it is kinda creepy that I can find out if the guy next door touched a kid, but I guess I never need know if he brutally murdered a priest... you see where I'm going with this. Anyway... if you want to (like I did) find out that a guy 2 blocks from you has a prior conviction for touching an 8 year old and see his picture so you can scowl at him in the deli... just type in your zipcode and click away to see mugshots and conviction records for all the registered sex offenders in your neighborhood:

Sex Offender Registry

In the same vein, I wonder if this guy is required to register:

Woman raped over the telephone

In case those 3 links didn't depress you. Does anyone reading this blog not have a healthy fear of their government? Really? Let me help instill that for you:

Top 10 Declassified Secrets

It takes a pretty spectacular commercial for me to link to it... this is one such advertisement:

Coca-Cola: The Movie

Okay... I want to hang out with John Mayer... he's pretty cool... and Kristen Bell is in this clip... that's all I need:

John Mayer's song writing process

I will see you all tomorrow... I'm almost finished the post so I should get it up first thing in the morning.

Get ready for tomorrows Big Summer Movie post!

The entries from this Blog come from my daily journal of what happened on some of our more interesting projects. Confidentiality agreements mean i can't talk about the projects when we're working on them, but once they're released they can all go up on the blog. Sometimes we get things right here, and sometimes we don't. I hope you enjoy this intimate look into my studio.

New York - Reporters from WeAreChange.org and Infowars.com confronted high ranking officials from FEMA on the agency's involvement in misinformation on 9/11 as well as the existence of many hundreds of FEMA camps across the country and in most major cities-- something officials obviously didn't want to discuss.

One such official, Henry Jackson, was working in WTC Building 7 up until its collapse on 9/11. He currently serves as Deputy Commissioner for Technology and spoke at the public event.

FEMA officials briefed the audience on hazard plans for covering "most scenarios," including operations to corral media into centralized reporting locations, monitoring media feeds and "controlling information." That includes informing the public about ongoing emergency situations.

The FEMA chieftan also discussed evacuation on 9/11 and spoke about FEMA's prime role in providing updates on the situation throughout the crisis. Hundreds of police and fire fighters, as well as former Mayor Giuliani were told beforehand that Building 7 would be 'coming down.' Additionally, several media stations, including the BBC and CNN reported the improbable collapse of WTC7 more than twenty minutes before the building actually fell. FEMA explained in its presentation that one of its chief duties is providing information to the media, as well as monitoring and correcting, if necessary, reports by the media.

These occurences of prior knowledge about Building 7 have become a smoking gun in the case for 9/11 as an inside job because no steel buildings have ever before or since collapsed from fire and there was no reason to believe Building 7 would collapse.

Based on the briefing by FEMA officials, it is probable that this kind of information flow came from FEMA on that day, and routinely would have in most emergency situations-- but whether FEMA was the source of prior information about the WTC7 collapse is, of course, not clear and certainly not admitted to.

Reporter Nate Evans questioned FEMA's Henry Jackson about the use of FEMA camps during crisis situations, as Jackson discussed the use of school buildings and other public facilities as make-shift locations. Jackson denied knowledge of more than 800 FEMA camps across the country which could hold more than 20 million people collectively.

Henry Jackson seemed to have a memory refresh when Evans explained that the camps where discussed under the Rex-84 plan, at which point Jackson became uneasy and asked that the camera not be used to record because the Deputy Commissioner of Technology was "shy."

Reporters agreed stop discussion of Rex-84, but refused to stop filming when Jackson asked for a business card, hinting at identification.

WeAreChange.org and Infowars.com reporters then confronted Henry Jackson outside the building about the impossible collapse of WTC7. Jackson was warned by a fellow employee that he was being filmed and both remained silent and started to leave amidst vocal reminders that 9/11 crimes would continue to be pursued and eventually prosecuted.

Like so many other entrenched government and media officials, Henry Jackson cowered in silence and ran away from reporters, despite Jackson's own explanation that FEMA had played such a central role on September 11, particularly in the control of information.

The truth will come out about 9/11 and public servants can't hide forever. The guilty will be prosecuted and the republic will be restored.

The CIA will declassify hundreds of pages of long-secret records detailing some of the intelligence agency's worst illegal abuses -- the so-called "family jewels" documenting a quarter-century of overseas assassination attempts, domestic spying, kidnapping and infiltration of leftist groups from the 1950s to the 1970s, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said yesterday.

The documents, to be publicly released next week, also include accounts of break-ins and theft, the agency's opening of private mail to and from China and the Soviet Union, wiretaps and surveillance of journalists, and a series of "unwitting" tests on U.S. civilians, including the use of drugs.

"Most of it is unflattering, but it is CIA's history," Hayden said in a speech to a conference of foreign policy historians. The documents have been sought for decades by historians, journalists and conspiracy theorists and have been the subject of many fruitless Freedom of Information Act requests.

In anticipation of the CIA's release, the National Security Archive at George Washington University yesterday published a separate set of documents from January 1975 detailing internal government discussions of the abuses. Those documents portray a rising sense of panic within the administration of President Gerald R. Ford that what then-CIA Director William E. Colby called "skeletons" in the CIA's closet had begun to be revealed in news accounts.

A New York Times article by reporter Seymour Hersh about the CIA's infiltration of antiwar groups, published in December 1974, was "just the tip of the iceberg," then-Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger warned Ford, according to a Jan. 3 memorandum of their conversation.

Kissinger warned that if other operations were divulged, "blood will flow," saying, "For example, Robert Kennedy personally managed the operation on the assassination of [Cuban President Fidel] Castro." Kennedy was the attorney general from 1961 to 1964.

Worried that the disclosures could lead to criminal prosecutions, Kissinger added that "when the FBI has a hunting license into the CIA, this could end up worse for the country than Watergate," the scandal that led to the fall of the Nixon administration the previous year.

In a meeting at which Colby detailed the worst abuses -- after telling the president "we have a 25-year old institution which has done some things it shouldn't have" -- Ford said he would appoint a presidential commission to look into the matter. "We don't want to destroy but to preserve the CIA. But we want to make sure that illegal operations and those outside the [CIA] charter don't happen," Ford said.

Most of the major incidents and operations in the reports to be released next week were revealed in varying detail during congressional investigations that led to widespread intelligence reforms and increased oversight. But the treasure-trove of CIA documents, generated as the Vietnam War wound down and agency involvement in Nixon's "dirty tricks" political campaign began to be revealed, is expected to provide far more comprehensive accounts, written by the agency itself.

The reports, known collectively by historians and CIA officials as the "family jewels," were initially produced in response to a 1973 request by then-CIA Director James R. Schlesinger. Alarmed by press accounts of CIA involvement in Watergate under his predecessor, Schlesinger asked the agency's employees to inform him of all operations that were "outside" the agency's legal charter.

This process was unprecedented at the agency, where only a few officials had previously been privy to the scope of its illegal activities. Schlesinger collected the reports, some of which dated to the 1950s, in a folder that was inherited by his successor, Colby, in September of that year.

But it was not until Hersh's article that Colby took the file to the White House. The National Security Archive release included a six-page summary of a conversation on Jan. 3, 1975, in which Colby briefed the Justice Department for the first time on the extent of the "skeletons."

Operations listed in the report began in 1953, when the CIA's counterintelligence staff started a 20-year program to screen and in some cases open mail between the United States and the Soviet Union passing through a New York airport. A similar program in San Francisco intercepted mail to and from China from 1969 to 1972. Under its charter, the CIA is prohibited from domestic operations.

Colby told Ford that the program had collected four letters to actress and antiwar activist Jane Fonda and said the entire effort was "illegal, and we stopped it in 1973."

Among several new details, the summary document reveals a 1969 program about CIA efforts against "the international activities of radicals and black militants." Undercover CIA agents were placed inside U.S. peace groups and sent abroad as credentialed members to identify any foreign contacts. This came at a time when the Soviet Union was suspected of financing and influencing U.S. domestic organizations.

The program included "information on the domestic activities" of the organizations and led to the accumulation of 10,000 American names, which Colby told Silberman were retained "as a result of the tendency of bureaucrats to retain paper whether they needed it or acted on it or not," according to the summary memo.

CIA surveillance of Michael Getler, then The Washington Post's national security reporter, was conducted between October 1971 and April 1972 under direct authorization by then-Director Richard Helms, the memo said. Getler had written a story published on Oct. 18, 1971, sparked by what Colby called "an obvious intelligence leak," headlined "Soviet Subs Are Reported Cuba-Bound."

Getler, who is now the ombudsman for the Public Broadcasting Service, said yesterday that he learned of the surveillance in 1975, when The Post published an article based on a secret report by congressional investigators. The story said that the CIA used physical surveillance against "five Americans" and listed Getler, the late columnist Jack Anderson and Victor Marchetti, a former CIA employee who had just written a book critical of the agency.

"I never knew about it at the time, although it was a full 24 hours a day with teams of people following me, looking for my sources," Getler said. He said he went to see Colby afterward, with Washington lawyer Joseph Califano. Getler recalled, "Colby said it happened under Helms and apologized and said it wouldn't happen again."

Personal surveillance was conducted on Anderson and three of his staff members, including Britt Hume, now with Fox News, for two months in 1972 after Anderson wrote of the administration's "tilt toward Pakistan." The 1972 surveillance of Marchetti was carried out "to determine contacts with CIA employees," the summary said.

CIA monitoring and infiltration of antiwar dissident groups took place between 1967 and 1971 at a time when the public was turning against the Vietnam War. Agency officials "covertly monitored" groups in the Washington area "who were considered to pose a threat to CIA installations." Some of the information "might have been distributed to the FBI," the summary said. Other "skeletons" listed in the summary included:
· The confinement by the CIA of a Russian defector, suspected by the CIA as a possible "fake," in Maryland and Virginia safe houses for two years, beginning in 1964. Colby speculated that this might be "a violation of the kidnapping laws."
· The "very productive" 1963 wiretapping of two columnists -- Robert Allen and Paul Scott -- whose conversations included talks with 12 senators and six congressmen.
· Break-ins by the CIA's office of security at the homes of one current and one former CIA official suspected of retaining classified documents.
· CIA-funded testing of American citizens, "including reactions to certain drugs."

The CIA documents scheduled for release next week, Hayden said yesterday, "provide a glimpse of a very different time and a very different agency."

Barred by secrecy restrictions from correcting "misinformation," he said, the CIA is at the mercy of the press. "Unfortunately, there seems to be an instinct among some in the media today to take a few pieces of information, which may or may not be accurate, and run with them to the darkest corner of the room," Hayden said.

Hayden's speech and some questions that followed evoked more recent criticism of the intelligence community, which has been accused of illegal wiretapping, infiltration of antiwar groups, and kidnapping and torturing of terrorism suspects.

"It's surely part of [Hayden's] program now to draw a bright line with the past," said National Security Archive Director Thomas S. Blanton. "But it's uncanny how the government keeps dipping into the black bag." Newly revealed details of ancient CIA operations, Blanton said, "are pretty resonant today."

Vice President Cheney's office has refused to comply with an executive order governing the handling of classified information for the past four years and recently tried to abolish the office that sought to enforce those rules, according to documents released by a congressional committee yesterday.

Since 2003, the vice president's staff has not cooperated with an office at the National Archives and Records Administration charged with making sure the executive branch protects classified information. Cheney aides have not filed reports on their possession of classified data and at one point blocked an inspection of their office. After the Archives office pressed the matter, the documents say, Cheney's staff this year proposed eliminating it.

The dispute centers on a relatively obscure process but underscores a wider struggle waged in the past 6 1/2 years over Cheney's penchant for secrecy. Since becoming vice president, he has fought attempts to peer into the inner workings of his office, shielding an array of information such as the names of industry executives who advised his energy task force, costs and other details about his travel, and Secret Service logs showing who visits his office or official residence.

The aggressive efforts to protect the operations of his staff have usually pitted Cheney against lawmakers, interest groups or media organizations, sometimes going all the way to the Supreme Court. But the fight about classified information regulation indicates that the vice president has resisted oversight even by other parts of the Bush administration. Cheney's office argued that it is exempt from the rules in this case because it is not strictly an executive branch agency.

"He's saying he's above the law," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which released a series of correspondence yesterday outlining the situation. "It just seems to me this is arrogant and shows bad judgment."

Cheney's office declined to discuss what it called internal matters. "We are confident that we are conducting the office properly under the law," said spokeswoman Megan McGinn.

The Justice Department confirmed yesterday that it is looking into the issue. "This matter is currently under review in the department," said spokesman Erik Ablin, who declined to elaborate.

The handling of classified information by Cheney's office has been a sensitive issue in the past. The vice president's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in March in a case stemming from the leak of a CIA agent's identity. Libby testified during the investigation that Cheney instructed him to leak intelligence on Iraq, telling him Bush had declassified the information.

The standoff disclosed yesterday stems from an executive order establishing a uniform, government-wide system for safeguarding classified information. The order was first signed by President Bill Clinton in 1995 and was updated and reissued by President Bush in 2003. Under the order, an "entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information" must report annually how much it is keeping secret.

Cheney's office filed annual reports in 2001 and 2002 describing its classification activities but stopped filing in 2003, according to internal administration letters released yesterday. Cheney's office made the case that it is not covered because the vice president under the Constitution also serves as president of the Senate and therefore has both legislative and executive duties.

In 2004, the Archives' Information Security Oversight Office, a 25-member agency responsible for securing classified information, decided to conduct an on-site inspection of Cheney's office to see how sensitive material was handled. The vice president's staff, according to a letter Waxman sent Cheney, blocked the inspection.

After the Chicago Tribune reported last year that Cheney failed to report classification data, the Federation of American Scientists filed a complaint. J. William Leonard, director of the Archives' oversight office, sent two letters to Cheney's chief of staff, David S. Addington, requesting compliance with the executive order but received no replies. Leonard then wrote Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales in January asking him to render a legal ruling on whether the vice president is violating the order. Gonzales has not replied.

In an interview yesterday, Steven Aftergood, who directs the federation's Project on Governmental Secrecy, said the dispute concerns "a very narrow bit of information" but indicated a broader disregard for following the same rules observed by the rest of the executive branch. "By refusing to comply with these trivial instructions, the vice president undermines the integrity of the executive order," he said. "If it can be violated with impunity on a trivial point, then it can also be violated on more important matters."

Leonard may have angered Cheney's office with his persistence. The administration is conducting a review of the executive order, and Leonard told Waxman's staff that Cheney aides proposed amending the order in a bid to abolish the Archives oversight office and explicitly exempt the vice president from its requirements. The elimination of the office has been rejected, Waxman said.

Leonard did not return phone messages yesterday. Susan Cooper, a spokeswoman for the National Archives, said: "In carrying out the responsibilities of the National Archives Information Security Oversight Office, we will continue to be responsive to the concerns of all governmental parties." Cheney's press office refused to comment on the changes proposed for the executive order.

An edited extract from Unpeople: Britain’s Secret Human Rights Abuses

In July 1957 an uprising in central Oman brought about a collapse in the Sultan's authority in the area and threatened control of the country as a whole. Various tribes defecting from the Sultan joined forces with another tribal leader, Talib, who had landed in the country with an unusual combination of arms supplied from Saudi Arabia and backing from Nasser's Egypt. On 18 July Britain decided on air action against the rebels and the following month ground troops were despatched to join the fighting.

Just after Britain had begun its military intervention, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan explained to President Kennedy that 'we believe that the Sultan is a true friend to the West and is doing his best for his people'. As Macmillan would surely have been aware, this was being somewhat economical with the truth. Indeed, it would be hard to discover a more oppressive regime to whose defence Britain leapt than that of the Omani Sultan's at this time. Literally all resources and political power were in the Sultan's hands, who kept hundreds of slaves at his palace, which he rarely left. There was no development to speak of and the main city did not even have a public electricity supply until 1971. There were hardly any schools or health care, and diseases were rampant. 

'There is quite a lot to be said for a reasonably efficient feudalism', Britain's political resident in the Gulf, Sir Bernard Burrows, had commented a few months before the uprising, referring to the Gulf generally where Britain supported similar regimes.
Burrows also noted three days after the British decision to intervene that there had been: 'a noticeable swing of general opinion throughout the Sultanate in favour of Talib, who is becoming more and more recognised as the local exponent of Arabism, and against the Sultan, whose popularity is at a very low ebb now'.

Burrows was also aware that 'it was fear of the British that kept' the tribes in the Sultanate on the Sultan's side 'and only the thought that we were coming back which kept them from joining the rebels now'. Thus Britain ruled the country with terror and force in the name of the Sultan.

Also instructive are the views of Burrows' replacement, George Middleton. After 18 months of war by the British against the rebels, he told the Foreign Office that 'this is yet another instance of our appearing to back an unpopular, undemocratic and selfish potentate'. He added: 'The condition of the people is miserable, the Sultan is unpopular, there is no central administration… and, under the present regime, not a great deal of hope for the future… What surprises me, is not that there is still a rebellion' in the central areas 'but that there are not half a dozen similar uprisings in other parts of the country'.

However, Middleton's views were countered by his political master Julian Amery, the Colonial Minister. Amery said that the Sultan's record is 'on the whole a good one' since 'he has been loyal to the policy of cooperation with Britain' and has given Britain 'important facilities to the RAF at Masirah and Salalah', towns in Oman. Also, he was an opponent of Arab nationalism and 'the only Arab ruler who gave public support to the Suez expedition' just over two years earlier. Then, as now, these were qualities that ensured that the mediaeval Sultan be seen as one of Whitehall's kind of chaps.

Britain had to intervene since 'successful defiance of the Sultan… is likely to have a snowball effect' throughout Oman and other parts of the Gulf, the Foreign Office stated. Bombing would 'prevent the infection spreading' elsewhere in the Gulf 'by showing our friends there that we mean business'.

Defending the regime at all should be considered as morally repugnant, but actual British actions in the war surpassed even this, involving sheer terror and apparent war crimes. Officials in Bahrain, Britain's key diplomatic post in the region, noted that the purpose of British 'air action' in support of the Sultan was 'to show the population the power of weapons at our disposal' and to convince them that 'resistance will be fruitless and lead only to hardship'. The aim was 'to inflict the maximum inconvenience on the population so that out of discomfort and boredom they will turn' against the rebels.

The British bombed water supplies and agricultural gardens - thus civilian targets that are clearly war crimes. In a memo written on 21 July 1957, Charles Gault in in Bahrain noted that the Sultan had agreed to air attacks on date gardens which, with attacks from cannon fire, 'would deter dissident villages [sic] from gathering their crops'. He also noted that 'it also appears possible to damage water supply to certain villages by air attack on wells'. This was later described as 'denial of water supply to selected villages by air action'.

The following year Burrows was noting that 'shelling of mountain villages continues intermittently and is having success in denying the use of the village [sic] and cultivation'. He also noted a recent 'air attack on water supply' of villages in the plains around Saiq and Sharaijah, two Omani towns at the foothills of the Jebel mountain, saying that 'shelling has already rendered cultivation… hazardous' in these areas.
Burrows gave a further interesting insight into some of the concerns of planners at this time. He noted that he had advised against similar attacks against the villages of the plains in this area last summer 'on the grounds of adverse political effect' since 'such attacks would have become widely known'. But now 'circumstances have somewhat changed since then'. Villages on top of the mountain of Jebel Akhdar 'are in a somewhat different position' since 'what happens there does not necessarily become widely known throughout the country'. Therefore, Burrows approved of an 'attack on water supply at Said and Sharaijah' and argued for 'rocket attacks on water channel and tanks'.

In April 1958 the files reveal that Macmillan approved British 'attacks by rocket on water supplies' although he failed to approve a proposal from the Defence Minister to bomb 'cultivated areas'. In August 1957 the Foreign Secretary had approved air strikes without needing to give warning. At the same time, the Foreign Office noted that 'we want to avoid the RAF killing Arabs if possible, especially as there will be newspaper correspondents on the spot'.

By October 1957, British and local troops had recaptured the main centres of population and Talib and about 50 rebels then climbed the Jebel Ahkdar mountains and mustered the support of some of the hill tribesmen. At this time the Foreign Office was saying that Burrows, the political resident in Bahrain, 'has recommended that the three villages concerned… should be warned that unless they surrender the ringleaders of the revolt, they will be destroyed one by one by bombing'.

Yet the government initially decided against bombing the villages on the mountain since 'world opinion at that time was very flammable'. Instead, an alternative was approved in February 1958. The British commander in Oman noted in a later report that the British forces leant two 'medium guns' to the Sultan's forces and 'with these, manned by his own men, he could blast the top of the mountain where and when he pleased, without publicity or odium affecting HMG'. However, this strategy failed owing to the guns doing 'insufficient damage' due to the 'daily rate of fire' being restricted by cost and availability of ammunition.

So in March 1958 Britain authorised 'the rocketing and bombing of suspected rebel hideouts' on the mountain and the main routes leading up the mountain. This soon involved air attacks on supply routes, gunning the mountain top and 'air attacks to deny waterways and proscribe cultivation outside inhabited areas', according to the British Commander.

Fighting continued through the summer and the rebels on the Jebel mountain remained undefeated. In November 1958 it was agreed to deploy the SAS to take the mountain - an episode that has entered legend as proving the superhumanness of the SAS and which has received somewhat more attention than the British commission of systematic war crimes in this conflict (which have received none that I am aware of). However, it is partly the result of the infliction of terrible violence by the British beforehand, including these war crimes, that explains the ‘success’ of the SAS.

Interestingly, the assault on the mountain began after British officials had recognised that Talib and another rebel leader wished 'to have peace to live in their villages' and that, even though British officials could not be sure of the leaders' seriousness to negotiate a peace, their conditions 'would at least represent the basis for negotiation'. Not for the last time in the Middle East, Britain instead pushed for the military solution and in January 1959 the rebels were quickly defeated. The SAS had been deployed without the agreement of the Sultan (and the Sultan was barely consulted on British operations in the war generally) showing that it was really a British as much as an Omani war.

The British commander's report at the end of the war noted that 'great pains were taken throughout the Command to keep all operational actions out of the press' - a strategy that was aided by the Sultan's complete ban on visas for reporters. 'Throughout the whole campaign', the report noted, 'a game of bluff and deceit was carried out, which at times was far from pleasant'. It seems that little has changed in the pursuit of British wars in the Middle East.

Neither did the war solve much. As the Foreign Office noted in July 1959, there was no political settlement in the interior and the crushing of the rebellion 'provided no more than a breathing space' for the Sultan. The 'long term problem' lay in the 'continued disaffection of large parts of the interior towards the Sultan' which he was not interested in addressing. The Sultan 'spends nearly all his time inaccessibly' at his palace while 'hardly any of his ministers can be regarded as even moderately competent'.

Five years later, though, little had changed when a rebellion broke out in the province of Dhofar. The rebels proclaimed the liberation of Dhofar in 1965 and were later to receive the support of Egypt, Iraq and South Yemen (once the British had been forced out of Aden in 1967) while renaming themselves the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf (PFLOAG). In response, the British embarked upon another military intervention that lasted until 1974.

The Dhofar uprising was 'an indigenous rebellion against the repression and neglect' of the Sultan, the Foreign Office noted later. Even by 1970 it was forbidden to smoke in public, to play football, to wear glasses, shoes or trousers, to eat in public or to talk to anyone for more than fifteen minutes. The Sultan's response to the rebels was not an alternative programme but simply the use of even greater force.

The poverty and repression that lay at the root of the uprising here, as with those in North Yemen and Aden, were well recognised by British officials. Bill Carden, the British Consul General in Muscat, for example, noted that 'apart from the few who work for the RAF, for the American oil company and for the Sultan, Dhoafris have no means of earning a reasonable livelihood in their country'. Meanwhile, the many who go abroad see 'the unfavourable comparisons between the great amount which is done for the people there and the very little done for them in Dhofar'. Carden noted that 'the Sultan has for too long had too many repressive measures' such as forbidding people to buy bicycles or radios without permission.

Oil was the key issue and by August 1967 Oman was exporting around 10 million barrels a year, with prospects to massively increase this level. The manager of Oman's Petroleum Development Corporation (PDO) was British, and probably the second most powerful man in the country after the Sultan. Shell had an 85 per cent interest in Omani oil and with almost all of Oman's income generated from oil, the revenues were paid directly to the Sultan who released a proportion for the exchequer. Resources were thus in the correct hands.

'If the Omani rebel movement were to succeed', Britain’s political resident in Bahrain noted, and if 'the territory where the oilfield lie were to be separated constitutionally from the coastal area near Muscat where the terminal is situated, the oil company might find itself in great difficulty'.  

By 1972 Foreign Office Minister Patrick Jenkin was saying that 'success in Dhofar is essential for the Sultan' (ie, Britain): 'If he fails there and loses his throne as a result, there is little doubt that stability in the Gulf area would be seriously affected, with consequent risk to our substantial commercial interests'.

Britain crushed the Dhofar rebellion and also removed the Sultan, who had by then become a liability, in a coup in 1970. The files on this coup remain completely censored – no doubt since the beneficiary, the Sultan’s son, Qaboos, remains in power today as Britain’s leading ally in the Gulf.

By Mark Curtis

An edited extract from Unpeople: Britain’s secret Human Rights Abuses

In September 1962, the Imam of North Yemen was overthrown in a popular coup. Imam al-Badr had been in power for only a week having succeeded his father who had presided over a feudal kingdom where 80 per cent of the population lived as peasants and which was controlled through bribery, an arbitrary and coercive tax system and a policy of divide and rule. The coup was led by Colonel Abdullah al-Sallal and a pro-Nasser, Arab nationalist group within the Yemeni military, which proclaimed the Yemen Arab Republic. The Royalist forces supporting the Imam took to the hills and began an insurgency, supported by Saudi Arabia and Jordan, against the new Republican regime, while Nasser's Egypt deployed troops in North Yemen to shore up the new Republican government.

Britain soon resorted to covert action to undermine the new Republican regime, in alliance with the Saudis and Jordanis. The declassified files are interesting in showing that British officials were completely aware that they were - by any standards of moral behaviour, which were irrelevant to British planners in this case as in others - supporting the 'wrong' side. For example, Christopher Gandy, who was Britain's top official in Taiz in North Yemen and Britain's top official there, noted shortly after the revolution that the rule of the previous Imam 'has made the Imamate unpopular with large elements and those in many ways the best'. The 'monopoly of power' was 'much resented' and was exploited by the new, Republican government by appointing into office people from 'classes, regions and sects previously neglected in the distribution of power'. Gandy described the Imam's rule as 'an arbitrary autocracy' while the Republicans were acting collectively through a new government, and were 'much more open to contact and reasoned argument'. Gandy actually recommended recognition of the new Yemeni regime, saying that it was interested in friendly relations with Britain and that this was 'the best way to prevent an increase' in Egyptian influence. But he was overruled both by his political masters in London and by officials in neighbouring Aden, Britain's then colony. One of Gandy's arguments was that if the Royalists were to restore themselves in power they would now have to make themselves popular, which would 'in its turn embarrass us in Aden and the Protectorate' - where Britain was supporting similarly feudal elements against strong popular, nationalist feeling.

After Britain's covert campaign in Yemen was well under way, an official in the Prime Minister's office noted that Egyptian President Nasser had been:

'… able to capture most of the dynamic and modern forces in the area while we have been left, by our own choice, backing the forces which are not merely reactionary (that would not matter so much) but shifty, unreliable and treacherous'.

Prime Minister Harold Macmillan himself admitted that it was:

'repugnant to political equity and prudence alike that we should so often appear to be supporting out-of-date and despotic regimes and to be opposing the growth of modern and more democratic forms of government'.

The Foreign Secretary, Alec Douglas-Home, also conceded that the Republicans' 'attraction for the average Yemeni will be greater' than the Imams', and this would 'cause us a great deal of trouble'.

Against the irrelevances of popular, more democratic elements were set the important virtues of British Interests, in fact imperial policy. The big issue was retaining the military base at Aden. This was the cornerstone of British military policy in the Gulf region, in which Britain was then the major power, directly controlling the sheikhdoms of the Persian Gulf and with huge oil interests in Kuwait and elsewhere. The coastal city of Aden was surrounded by what Britain had forged into a 'protectorate' of the Federation of South Arabia, a set of feudal fiefdoms presided over by autocratic leaders similar to that just overthrown in Yemen, and kept sweet by British bribes.

It was feared that a progressive, republican, Arab nationalist Yemen would serve as an example to the feudal sheikhdoms throughout the Gulf and the wider Middle East as well as in Aden itself. Foreign Secretary Douglas-Home stated shortly after the Republican coup that Aden could not be secure from 'a firmly established republican regime in Yemen'. A ministerial meeting similarly concluded that if Britain were forced out of Aden it would be 'a devastating blow to our prestige and authority' in the region. Even to recognise the new Yemeni regime might lead to 'a collapse in the morale of the pro-British rulers of the protectorate', putting 'the whole British position in the area… in jeopardy'.

The threat, as outlined by Sir Kennedy Trevaskis, the High Commissioner in Aden, was that the Yemeni republicans 'could expect to win massive support in both' Aden and the federation where 'pro-Republican feeling is strong'. The Republican regime was likely to encourage 'some of our own friends among the rulers' in the protectorate to 'defect and come to terms with the Yemen government'. 'Many would be attracted by' the regime, Trevaskis noted.

These concerns were shared by the arch-mediaeval kingdom in the region, Saudi Arabia, which feared the spread of the overthrow of monarchies by Arab nationalist forces. It was recognised by British planners that after the Saudis had begun arming the Royalists in Yemen they 'were not greatly concerned about the form of government to be established in the Yemen, provided that it was not under the control of' Egypt - any other government would do. 

This threat heightened as Nasser and new Yemeni leader al-Sallal gave diplomatic and material support to anti-British republican forces in Aden and the federation and conducted a public campaign urging the British to withdraw from their imperial possessions. One reason for this was that Britain was conspiring from the federation to undermine the new Yemeni government. Interestingly, Trevaskis also noted that if the Yemenis were to secure control of Aden 'it would for the first time provide the Yemen with a large modern town and a port of international consequence'. Most importantly, 'economically, it would offer the greatest advantages to so poor and ill developed a country' – a consideration, though, which was again an irrelevance in planning.

So Britain decided to engage in a covert campaign to promote those forces recognised as 'shifty', 'treacherous' and 'despotic' to undermine those recognised as 'popular' and 'more democratic' in order to ensure that the threat of the former did not spread. Crucially, they did so in the knowledge that their clients did not stand a chance of winning. The campaign was undertaken simply to cause trouble for the Republicans, and the Egyptians, in Yemen, while they were known to hold the overwhelming majority of the country and the centres of population.

The Yemenis were simply unpeople, a tool to be used in British strategy - similar, therefore, to the Kurds of Iraq used to pressure regimes in Baghdad and the dissident colonels in Indonesia secretly supported by Britain in the 1950s to destabilise the government in Jakarta. The files are crystal clear on this point. Harold Macmillan noted in February 1963 that 'in the longer term a republican victory was inevitable'. He told President Kennedy that:

'I quite realise that the Loyalists [sic] will probably not win in Yemen in the end but it would not suit us too badly if the new Yemeni regime were occupied with their own internal affairs during the next few years'.

What Britain wanted, therefore, was 'a weak government in Yemen not able to make trouble'. A note to the Prime Minister similarly states that:

'All departments appear to be agreed that the present stalemate in the Yemen, with the Republicans and Royalists fighting each other and therefore having no time or energy left over to make trouble for us in Aden, suits our own interests very well'. 

The Prime Minister’s foreign policy adviser, Philip de Zulueta, noted that 'our interest is surely to have the maximum confusion in the tribal areas on the Aden frontier' with Yemen.

The covert campaign

Piecing together a brief chronology of British covert action is difficult in light of the wide censorship of the files. But the task is aided by MI6 expert, Stephen Dorril's analysis in his comprehensive book, MI6, produced mainly from secondary sources and interviews, an analysis that provides an excellent antidote to the silence of the academics.
Shortly after the September 1962 coup Jordan's King Hussein visited London where he met Air Minister Julian Amery and urged the British government not to recognise the new Yemeni regime. They both agreed that MI6 asset Neil 'Billy' McLean, a serving Conservative MP, tour the area and report back to the Prime Minister. MI6's former vice chief, George Young, now a banker with Kleinwort Benson, was approached by Mossad to find a Briton acceptable to the Saudis to run a guerilla war against the republicans. Young then introduced McLean to Dan Hiram, the Israeli defence attache who promised to supply arms, money and training, which the Saudis eagerly grasped.

Two days after the coup Price Hassan, uncle of Iman al-Badr, who had been in New York for the past several years, called on Douglas-Home for help to get him to the Yemeni frontier where he would make a bid for power. The files indicate that British officials could not provide any overt help but by mid-October Hassan is reported to have 'plenty of money and arms'.

In October Britain also considered direct military intervention in Yemen when Prime Minister Macmillan called on the Chiefs of Staff 'to consider our military resources should we be driven to adopt an overt policy'. Covert operations were decided on instead, perhaps for the reason later given by Foreign Secretary Rab Butler, who wrote that 'if this had happened a generation ago', we should have used 'North-West frontier' tactics ‘which would probably have been effective'. Unfortunately, 'there are severe limitations on the use of such methods in the world as it is today, and we trust that any repetition can be avoided'.

In October McLean visited Saudi Arabia as a personal guest of the King, who called on Britain to provide aid to the Royalists, especially 'air support… if possible openly, but if this is not possible, then clandestinely'. McLean also visited Yemen to meet with the Royalists, including Prince Hassan at his headquarters, to assess the situation and delivered a report of his visit to Defence Minister Peter Thorneycroft. By early November, Saudi arms and money were flowing to the Royalists and by mid-November the Foreign Office had produced a policy paper outlining the options open to the government, including covert aid.

In early December, McLean again visited Yemen and the Imam's forces who informed him of the need for arms and ammunition. On returning to London, McLean met the Foreign Secretary, urged British aid and began canvassing the Cabinet for support. McLean was carrying a letter from al-Badr to the Prime Minister asking for support to the Royalists who were disappointed with the lack of aid so far forthcoming from Britain. At the same time, the High Commissioner in Aden said that 'we ought now to be considering definite steps to reinsure ourselves with' the Royalists.

When the British ambassador to Egypt, Sir Harold Beeley, met Egyptian President Nasser's personal adviser, Mohammed Heikal, the latter accused Britain of several aspects of involvement in the fighting in Yemen, notably supplying fighter aircraft to Jordan after the outbreak of the fighting for use in Yemen. Heikal told Beeley that McLean was advising the Royalists, that he had visited the Kings of Saudi Arabia and Jordan, both of whom were now intervening in Yemen. He also said that the Jordanian Air Force Commander who had defected to Egypt 'asserted that his orders, which involved attacking targets in the Yemen, had been given to him personally by King Hussein in the presence of a British Air Advisor'.

Foreign Secretary Douglas-Home was initially against backing the Royalists. On 7 January 1963, McLean's intelligence report was assessed by the Cabinet's Overseas and Defence Committee, which advised the Cabinet not to recognise the new regime, and arguing that Britain could not give direct support to the Royalists and that any operation had to be at arms length.

In late February British positions in the Federation of South Arabia were attacked by Yemeni tribesmen and at the same time Egyptian troops began an offensive into the royalist-held mountains in Yemen. Colonial Secretary Duncan Sandys and Julian Amery urged retaliation and Macmillan appointed Amery his Minister for Aden with a remit to covertly organise British support for the Royalists, working from his office at the Ministry of Aviation.

McLean visited Yemen for a third time on 1 March 1963. Shortly afterwards a royalist delegation visited Israel, following which unmarked Israeli planes made flights from Djibouti to drop arms over royalist areas. By early March, the files confirm that Britain was already involved in supplying arms to the Royalists, via Sherif bin Hussein, the tribal leader in Beihan in the federation.

On 1 March the Governor in Aden, Sir Charles Johnstone, had proposed withholding arms supplies for two to three weeks since there was now the danger that any arms supplied would fall into Republican hands and could be 'attributed to British support'. He also berated his political masters in London for having refused repeated requests for 'additional supplies to Royalists made by me' in November, December and February. If these supplies had been granted, he added, 'the Royalists would never have got to their present low ebb' in the fighting.

In mid-April 1963, McLean asked the Foreign Secretary for immediate support, and the Saudis stepped in with a small supply of arms and ammunition. According to Dorril, several million pounds worth of light weapons, including 50,000 rifles, were secretly flown out from an RAF station in Wiltshire. To mask their true origin, they were landed in Jordan for onward transportation via Beihan. By the end of the month, the Royalists had regained some of their lost territory.

At a meeting in late April 1963 - involving MI6 chief Dick White, McLean, SAS founder David Stirling, ex-SAS officer Brian Franks, Douglas-Home and Amery - Stirling and Franks were told there could be no official SAS involvement and were asked to recommend someone who could organise a mercenary operation. According to Dorril, they approached Jim Johnson, recently retired commander of 21 SAS, and Lt Col John Woodhouse, commander of 22 SAS. McLean, Johnson and Stirling were introduced by Amery to the royalist Foreign Minister, Ahmed al-Shami, who wrote out a cheque for the operation for £5,000. The SAS men operated through Stirling's Television International Enterprises company, which set up a cover organisation, Rally Films. The Saudi prince Sultan financed the project with gold bullion. French mercenaries were also recruited along with SAS volunteers given temporary leave from official SAS duties.

The office of the adjutant of 21 SAS volunteers (TA) in London was used as a clearing ground for the British mercenaries, who, according to the organiser, were paid £150 a month by the Foreign Office and the MoD. In Aden, Tony Boyle, the aide-de-camp to the Aden Governor, evolved a system for passing mercenaries through Customs while Sherif Hussein organised a network of safe houses in Beihan from which operations into the Yemen could be launched. As the traffic increased, officers were seconded to the staff of the Federal Regular Army.

The proposed Yemen operation was the subject of fierce debate in Whitehall but the Prime Minister was eventually persuaded to support the operation and instructed MI6 to aid the Royalists. An MI6 task force was set up which then coordinated the supply of weapons and personnel. This was organised by John da Silva, formerly head of MI6’s station in Bahrain.

In October Macmillan resigned to be replaced by Douglas-Home as Prime Minister, which temporarily put plans on hold since the new Foreign Secretary, Rab Butler, was opposed to covert support for the Royalists. By December 1963, the new Prime Minister that Egypt had so far suffered 10,000-12,000 casualties in Yemen.

British actions continued as SAS officer Jonny Cooper engaged in intelligence activities against Egyptian forces and his team trained the Royalist army. In February 1964 Cooper and his men prepared for their first clandestine night air-drop of supplies, codenamed MANGO, with the discreet backing of MI6 and the CIA. Arms and ammunition were parachuted into drop zones manned by Cooper's team, who guided the planes in by radio.

In a memo to the Prime Minister in March 1964 Butler noted that the Egyptian and Yemeni:

'… assertion that supplies for the Royalists are being introduced from the Beihan area [in the federation] has been mentioned in the latest report to the Security Council by U Thant and we have not been able to give an effective reply since we know that this is in fact true'.

Butler drew the distinction between aiding the Royalists in Yemen on the one hand - which Britain should not support, in his view - and, on the other hand, aiding activities in the federation and 'across the Yemen border' to prevent subversion in the federation. He supported the High Commissioner in Aden's calls for 'a selective system of unattributable retaliation in the Yemeni frontier area for sabotage, mine-laying and so on in the federation'.

Defence Secretary Thorneycroft called for Britain to organise 'tribal revolts' in the frontier areas, 'deniable action… to sabotage intelligence centres and kill personnel engaged in anti-British activities', including the Egyptian Intelligence HQ at Taiz, and 'covert anti-Egyptian propaganda activities in the Yemen'. He also argued for 'further assistance' to the Royalists including 'either money, or arms or both'.

By April 1964 the British had already authorised mine-laying (called Operation Eggshell), issuing arms and ammunition to tribesmen in the frontier area (Operation Stirrup) and sabotage in the frontier area (Operation Bangle). A plan 'for the instigation of a revolt in the Beidha area’, just inside the Yemen border, had been approved at least by July, the files show. Three hundred thousand pounds was released for this purpose but by July it had not got off the ground owing to Egyptian counter action.

Acts of 'subversion in Yemeni territory against individual targets' were being carried out, however, 'under the control of British officers within the federation', according to an MoD memo. These officers 'can hand out arms and money in installments according to the local situation and in proportion to the successes achieved'. Operation Rancour was the codeword given to 'current covert operations to exploit [sic] dissident tribes up to 20 miles into Yemen to neutralise Egyptian subversive action against Aden'.

An extraordinary top secret document in the government files went even further in considering the options open to Britain. Entitled 'Yemen: The range of possible courses of action open to us', it considers 'assassination or other action against key personnel' involved in subversion in the federation, 'especially Egyptian Intelligence Service officers'. It also outlines 'action to stimulate a guerilla campaign' in the frontier area by supplies of arms and money and 'non-retaliatory sabotage' including in Sana'a. It suggests 'closing our eyes' to Saudi arms supplies to the Royalists and undertaking '"black" pamphleteering' in Republican-controlled areas of Yemen and '"black" radio broadcasts' from the federation.

Foreign Secretary Butler gave this paper to the Prime Minister, commenting that 'I should perhaps say' that some of the options 'may involve more political risk' than others:

'For instance, the assassination of Egyptian intelligence officers would no doubt involve a greater chance of discovery and retaliation than supplying the Royalists with money'.  

As these options were being debated in private, on 14 May 1964 Prime Minister Douglas-Home lied to Parliament that:

'Our policy towards the Yemen is one of non-intervention in the affairs of that country. It is not therefore our policy to supply arms to the Royalists in the Yemen'.

In July Thorneycroft recommended that Britain should, together with Saudi Arabia, be 'sustaining the Royalists during the coming months' by providing arms and money to the 'Royalist tribes'. At the time, the Saudis were asking Britain for £2 million over one year, a quarter of which was for arms. The files also refer to the need for a British decision on whether to agree 'to another proposal to supply rifles' to two tribes for attacks inside Yemen. A detailed plan was submitted to the British in July by Sherif Hussein and Royalists in Yemen calling on Britain to supply 11,000 rifles and £600,000.

At the end of July Ministers took the decision to promote 'further measures' to support the Royalists, meaning to 'give all necessary facilities' to the Saudis to secure arms from Britain. Britain's ambassador to Saudi Arabia then met Prince Feisal and told him of Britain's willingness to provide arms to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen but said London could not provide overt aid directly to the Royalists.

In the summer of 1964, Prime Minister Douglas-Home was faced with opposition from his Foreign Secretary to direct aid to the Royalists, while the Defence Secretary and others argued for precisely that. According to Dorril, Dick White, the head of MI6, won over the new Prime Minister to supporting a 'clandestine mercenary operation' and the go-ahead for full support for the Royalists was sanctioned in the summer of 1964.

In 1964, 48 ex-servicemen were being employed as mercenaries, including a dozen former SAS men. MI6 officers provided intelligence and logistical support, while GCHQ pinpointed the location of republican units. MI6 operatives also coordinated the crossing of tribesmen over the border from the federation into Yemen where they tracked Egyptian army officers. 'In what turned out to be a dirty war, MI6 officers "manipulated" the tribesmen and helped "direct the planting of bombs" at Egyptian military outposts along the frontier, while garrison towns were "shot up" and political figures "murdered"', Dorril notes.

One letter in the government files was written in August 1964 by a mercenary, Colonel Michael Webb, who says he recently retired from the army, to Julian Amery. Webb says that he has been fighting with the Imam's forces for the past few weeks and his cover was as a freelance journalist. He had kept the British embassy 'fully informed of my movements and given them all the information I have obtained'. 

The following month a note to the Prime Minister recommended the supply of bazookas and ammunition to the Sherif of Beihan 'for use by a dissident group in Taiz', ie Yemen. At the same time, Stirling, Boyle and royalist Foreign Minister al-Shami met in Aden where they were joined by an MI6 officer and drew up plans for establishing a regular supply of arms and ammunition to the Royalist forces which would be undertaken either by parachute or overland from Saudi Arabia and Beihan, or via the Yemen coast.

In October 1964, the election of the Labour government of Harold Wilson does not seem to have noticeably upset the covert operation. Dorril notes secret RAF bombing in retaliation for Egyptian attacks on camel trains supplying weapons to French and British mercenaries. As part of an arms deal with Saudi Arabia, Britain agreed a contract worth £26 million with a private company, Airwork services, to provide personnel for the training of Saudi pilots and ground crew. Airwork also recruited former RAF pilots as mercenaries to fly operational missions against Egyptian and Republican targets along the Yemeni border.

By 1965 MI6 was chartering aircraft with discreet pilots and had obtained the agreement of Israel to use its territory for mounting operations. These operations continued into 1967, according to the files. A Foreign Office note of March 1967 states that the British pilots were recruited by Airwork to fly the five Lightnings and five Hunters already supplied by Britain and that 'we have raised no objection to their being employed in operations, though we made it clear to the Saudis that we could not publicly acquiesce in any such arrangements'.

Following a ceasefire declared in August 1965 the British-backed mercenaries reverted to supplying medical aid and maintaining communications. By late 1966 the war had restarted and the fighting had reached a stalemate 'but the British were still running an extensive mercenary operation in Yemen with those recruited said to be paid £10,000 per annum' by a mysterious centre in London run by Stirling.

After Egypt's defeat by Israel in the 1967 war, Nasser decided to pull troops out of Yemen, and in November Britain withdrew from Aden. Yet files of March 1967 refer to ongoing 'covert operations in South Arabia' and to 'Rancour II operations' - although most files related to this have been censored. One exception is a June 1967 paper saying that 'Rancour operations in the Yemen have been extremely successful' in driving the Egyptians back from parts of the frontier and tying them down. It then recommends that these operations should continue after the independence of South Arabia. These could be undertaken 'using as a cover the military mission' for South Arabia, or 'alternatively the new embassy could provide the cover'.

Despite the Egyptian withdrawal the civil war in Yemen continued. In 1969, two mercenaries from the private firm, Watchguard, were killed while leading a band of royalist guerillas in the North. Al-Badr had fled to England where he died and in March 1969 the Saudis cut off their supplies to the Royalists, following which a treaty was signed ending hostilities with the country reborn as North Yemen. 200,000 had died.
          

By Mark Curtis

An edited extract from Unpeople: Britain’s Secret Human Rights Abuses
The declassified British files on the Vietnam war are little short of a revelation. They show that Britain totally backed the US at virtually every stage of military escalation, and also played its own important secret role in the war.
 During the war the US used 15 million tons of munitions, twice as much as in World War Two. Between 2-3 million, and perhaps more, are estimated to have died. The wholesale destruction of villages and killing of innocent people was a permanent feature of the US war from the beginning, as was widespread indiscriminate bombing.

Background to the war

After France had been defeated in 1954 in its brutal eight year attempt to reconquer Vietnam, the Geneva Accords temporarily divided Vietnam between North and South at the 17th parallel and envisaged elections in 1956 that were meant to lead to unification. The northern half of the country was under the control of the Communist Party. What the US subsequently confronted in South Vietnam was a liberation movement - the Viet Minh, designated 'Viet Cong' by the US - calling for reunification with the North, a foreign policy of neutrality, major land reform to benefit the rural poor, the overthrow of the US-backed regime of Ngo Dinh Diem and abolition of the US economic monopoly and bases in the South.
According to Gabriel Kolko, author of perhaps the most comprehensive history of the Vietnam war, the history of Vietnam after 1954 'was only incidentally that of a civil war'. Rather, 'it was essentially a struggle between a radicalised Vietnamese patriotism, embodied in the Communist party, and the United States and its wholly dependent local allies'.
Land reform lay at the root of the war. By the time of the Geneva Accords, the Communists in the South controlled at least 60 per cent of the territory and had begun a major transformation of the land system affecting most of the population in one way or another. This revolution by the Viet Minh movement had redistributed huge areas of land to previously landless peasants and those who had supported the resistance to the French, much of it transferred at the expense of French and the largest Vietnamese landowners. In the North, land reform, which had mobilised the poorer peasants in opposition to the French, had enabled the landless and poor peasants to improve their position radically. The transformed land system was 'essentially equitable' in the North, Kolko comments.
 The land measures begun by the Diem regime in South Vietnam which in 1955 were essentially a counter-revolution aimed at abolishing the Viet Minh reforms and returning to the traditional peasant-landlord structure to disenfranchise the poor. At the root of the war in South Vietnam lay both this land reform programme and the sheer repression and terror of the Diem regime which killed thousands of people in the late 1950s.
By 1961 hundreds of thousands of hectares of land had been taken back by the Diem regime. The Communist Party in the North backed the creation of the National Liberation Front (NLF) in South Vietnam for achieving unification and for promoting its political programme through the whole country. By the early 1960s large-scale upheavals in the rural areas of the South increased as Communist Party members began to take over many villages, mobilising people and calling for land for the peasants. The NLF's land reform programme was immensely successful in engaging a large percentage of the peasantry to participate directly in the process of land distribution and giving them a stake in the success of the revolution. This helps explain the widespread popularity of the NLF.
  The US' major concern was the fear that the revolution in Vietnam would spread, threatening US security and business interests elsewhere in the region. 'The fall of Indochina would undoubtedly lead to the fall of the other mainland states of Southeast Asia', the US Joint Chiefs of Staff had argued in 1950. 'Major sources of certain strategic materials' as well as communications routes were at stake. If Vietnam 'fell', the 'principal world source of natural rubber and tin, and a producer of petroleum and other strategically important commodities' would also be lost in Malaya and Indonesia.
That the US and South Vietnam had violated the Geneva accords - which required nationwide elections to be held in 1956 - was clearly recognised by British officials. The Foreign Office noted in private that:

'The United States government… supported and encouraged the efforts of the South Vietnamese government to ignore the political provisions of the Geneva Agreements and to consolidate an anti-communist regime in the South'.

The British recognised in private the 'historical distortion' that the US was putting on the Geneva agreements in public. British policy, like the US, was to back a divided Vietnam and to oppose what it recognised as Ho Chi Minh's call for 'free general elections throughout the country'.
It was also recognised by British planners that the liberation movement in the South was popular, certainly much more so than the Diem regime. The British ambassador, Harry Hohler, said that the greatest rival to President Diem was the President of North Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh: 'more than any other, he commands the following and respect which could give him power in South Vietnam'. Foreign Office official Edward Peck confirmed the British opposition to democracy in the country by writing that 'the most sinister alternative [to rule by Diem] is of course the probably still popular appeal of Ho Chi Minh'.
The British military attache wrote in a report in February 1963 of the contrast between security arrangements between Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi and Diem in Saigon. 'When Ho Chi Minh travels no extra precautions are observed and he mingles freely with crowds as he wishes. A strange contrast to Saigon, with several armed police always on each corner'. 
In May 1961 a British embassy official was told by the US ambassador that one problem that would be posed by introducing full democracy in the South was that 'fully elected village councils if introduced now might merely facilitate the transfer of control to the Communists'. It was understood by early 1962 that the Viet Cong were in control of the 'majority of villages in South Vietnam' and that they were winning 'the battle for minds of the peasantry'.
 Another crucial issue was to extent to which the Southern liberation movement was controlled from the North. In public, British (and of course US) leaders continually said that Hanoi was simply directing the 'communist insurgency' in the South, refusing to concede the fact that this was primarily an indigenous liberation movement. But what planners understood in private provides a more accurate picture. In June 1961, for example, Edward Peck noted that 'our current assessment is that most of the insurgents come from inside South Vietnam itself and that there are only relatively few contacts with the North'. Another official said that Britain lacked 'any real proof that the trouble in S.Vietnam is directed from N.Vietnam'. However, 'on the other hand, US intervention in S.Vietnam is open for all the world to see'.
 By November 1961, Peck was noting that 'undoubtedly, some supplies, propaganda and cadres come down through the country [from North Vietnam] but the idea of a thickly populated line of communication is nonsense'.
This date is important since it coincides with the US intervention in South Vietnam. It shows that at this time, British officials did not view the 'insurgency' as directed from outside, but more logically as an indigenous rebellion. In public, however, this was never conceded throughout the long years of the Vietnam war. British officials consistently backed the line that the US was simply fighting externally-backed 'aggression', which was itself an important source of diplomatic support to Washington and helped the US to falsely frame the conflict.
 As for whether it was really the Soviet Union and China which was behind the uprising in South Vietnam, the Foreign Office noted in June 1962 simply that 'the Russians do not welcome a war in Indo China and we do not believe that the Chinese would intervene unless they felt that the security of North Vietnam was directly threatened'.
South Vietnamese President Diem was recognised as being dictatorial and unpopular and received the strong backing of the British as well as US governments. 'The Diem regime lacks popular support’, the Foreign Office said in July 1961. It was 'a clumsy and heavy-handed dictatorship which is conspicuously lacking in popular appeal'. Numerous files refer to Diem's 'rigid and autocratic rule', 'authoritarian and uncompromising nature' and his 'extreme over-centralisation' of power.
Even more extreme was Diem’s brother and right-hand man, Nhu who 'attaches every bit as much importance to the apparatus of a police state as the most enthusiastic advocate of the social order of "1984"', as the British ambassador put it. It was Nhu who, according to a Foreign Office briefing paper, was 'primarily responsible for the authoritarian and quasi-fascist tendencies of the Vietnamese government'.
The April 1961 elections won by Diem were recognised as being 'certainly rigged' while by 1962 there was 'growing corruption at every level, the inevitable result of prolonged foreign subsidy' - by Britain's key ally, that is. Overall, British planners well knew that 'the regime here is absolutely dependent upon the Americans for survival'.
 In fact, the Diem regime was responsible for inflicting sheer terror on the population. A 1972 study prepared for the Pentagon, for example, states that:

'There can be no doubt that innumerable crimes and absolutely senseless acts of suppression against both real and suspected communists and sympathising villagers were committed. Efficiency took the form of brutality and a total disregard for the difference between determined foes and potential friends'.

It is estimated that over 10,000 had been killed by the Diem regime by 1957 and about 66,000 killed between 1957 and 1961.
 'We are committed to backing Diem to the end', the British embassy noted in July 1961, reflecting British public statements which strangely did not mention the frank admission in the files as to Diem’s dictatorial and repressive features. The reason was that the British, and the Americans, apparently believed that Diem was the only counter to 'communist intervention'.
 In December 1961 Ambassador Hohler sent an extraordinary letter to Foreign Secretary Alec Douglas Home, saying that:

'We should not be too greatly moved by complaints that the Vietnamese authorities are holding large numbers of individuals in detention camps. At the worst period in Malaya we had over 10,000 people in detention without trial'.

He recommended that the Diem regime should improve its 'information services' and that Britain should help. One Foreign Office official noted that Hohler's despatch was 'largely an apology for President Diem' who has surrounded himself with 'evil and powerful advisers'. At this time British officials were aware that there were around 30,000 political prisoners in South Vietnam.
British and US support for Diem only lessened when it became clear that Diem was refusing to accept US (and British) advice on how to win the war (see below). He thus became a liability who eventually had to be overthrown, which occurred in the US-backed coup of November 1963.

Support for US intervention

The major British interest in backing the US was not only to support its major ally; the fear was also that the ‘fall’ of South Vietnam 'would be disastrous to British interests and investments in South East Asia and seriously damaging to the prospects of the Free World containing the Communist threat'. Britain's commercial interests in Vietnam itself were very modest with exports averaging only around £2 million a year in the early 1960s.
Britain welcomed the US 'counter-insurgency' plan submitted to Diem in February 1961, partly since it was based on proposals by Britons, Robert Thompson and Field Marshall Gerald Templar, both 'counter-insurgency' experts who had plied their trade with ferocious effect in the war in Malaya. This plan called for an increase in the South Vietnamese army of 20,000 troops to deal with the insurgency.
But the first major escalation was the US intervention of November 1961 when the Kennedy administration sent helicopters, light aircraft, intelligence equipment and additional advisers for the South Vietnamese army. Soon after this the US air force began combat missions.
'The administration can count on our general support in the measures they are taking', Foreign Secretary Douglas Home said. It was clearly understood in various memos by British ministers and officials that this intervention was a complete violation of the 1954 Geneva Accords which put limits on the number of US military forces acceptable in Vietnam and which was now being superceded.
Britain had a particular responsibility to uphold this international accord since it was a co-chair of the Geneva Agreements, with the Soviet Union. But the British connived with the US and promised not to raise the issue. 'As co-chairman, Her Majesty's Government are prepared to turn a blind eye to American activities', the Foreign Office secretly stated. Douglas Home wrote to Secretary of State Dean Rusk to tell him 'to avoid any publicity for what is being done', ie, in the November intervention. He 'assured Mr Rusk that he will turn a blind eye to what goes on'.
British planners had hoped that the US would not openly commit combat troops to South Vietnam for fear of the international repercussion of Vietnamese being killed by Americans, and that the reaction in Vietnam itself would be 'unfavourable'. But they immediately acquiesced. 'The United States government is determined to prevent the fall of South Vietnam to the Communists and this policy is supported by HMG', the Foreign Office noted in March 1962.
In February, Ambassador Hohler said that 'we must clearly give the sorely tried Americans all the support that we can for the courageous action they have taken here' and counsel patience for the US 'clamour for results'. He said that he thought the British role should be to urge the US 'to avoid unnecessary provocation in an increasingly dangerous situation' while 'we should do our best to make it clear to them that we are on their side'. 
By mid-1962, Hohler was saying that as regards military intelligence, 'this embassy now enjoys closer relations with the Americans than ever before’. The military attache was receiving weekly US military reports and he enjoyed ‘excellent working relations’ with US military officials. 'Though there are, inevitably, differences of emphasis', Hohler added, 'I would not say that there are any basic disagreements between us'. A Foreign Office brief similarly noted that 'there are no major differences of view [between Britain and the US] about the measures needed to defeat the Viet Cong'.
 It is plausible to argue that if the British had acted at this stage in their role as guarantor of the Geneva Agreements, they just might have been able to prevent the US intervention, or at least undermine it in some way. They could have at least made it more difficult for the US by stressing the stipulations in the accords for elections and limits on military involvement. But there was no question of Britain acting in this way since, as noted above, London had a similar analysis to Washington of what should be done. Indeed, it is important to realise that, as the files clearly show, Britain backed the military not the diplomatic option.
'Surely we should aim to divert and not to focus international attention on our actions in Vietnam while we get on with the task of defeating the Viet Cong', Foreign Secretary Douglas-Home wrote in November 1961. (The use of 'we' here is interesting, showing the extent to which British ministers regarded the war as their struggle also).
Thus the Foreign Office made clear, in private, its opposition to a UN or other international conference on Vietnam, saying that 'until the insurgency is mastered and the South Vietnamese are in a position to negotiate on an equal footing with the North, a conference could achieve nothing useful'. Translated from diplo-speak: the war must continue since the South Vietnamese regime lacks any popular support and is bound to lose out in any deal. The fear, indeed, was that 'the West would be faced with… proposals for the reunification and neutralisation of Vietnam'. 
In May 1962 Prime Minister Harold Macmillan sent a personal letter to President Diem saying that 'we have viewed with admiration the way in which your government and people have resisted' North Vietnamese attempts to 'overthrow the freely established regime in South Vietnam', adding 'we wish you every success in your struggle'.
Other files show the British fear of a North Vietnamese peace offensive and the danger that 'if a Communist campaign for international discussions gets under way it will receive a great deal of support'. The 'neutral countries' were bound to support such a campaign and 'in many countries of the West it might also be thought quite reasonable that we should try for a peaceful negotiation over Vietnam'. But not in British government circles. Instead, since the US 'have overall relative military superiority and are ready for a real trial of strength', then 'this must not be bargained away'.
Hohler also said in November 1961 that he agreed with the US ambassador, Nolting, that 'this was not the time for the political reform' of the Diem regime. Foreign Office official Fred Warner agreed, saying that 'this is not the time to talk about liberalisation [of the Diem regime, meaning to push for democratic reform]. Military measures must be given priority'.
 Throughout 1962 and 1963 the US poured money and military equipment into South Vietnam while US 'advisers' 'daily accompanied the Vietnamese forces into battle', Ambassador Hohler commented. Seventeen months into the war - in April 1963 - the Foreign Office stated that 'it would be a mistake to abandon present policies of going all out for a military victory'. It noted that 'the communists' might soon press for a negotiated settlement based on neutrality for South Vietnam. 'We remain strongly against giving this any encouragement'.
This continuing British support for war rather than diplomacy is easily explained - throughout the first half of the 1960s, Britain thought the US could win. Hohler's recognition that 'people are horribly tired of a war' did not shake his preference, or that of his bosses in London, for the military option.
 The effect on ordinary Vietnamese was an irrelevance. My research for this chapter involved looking at most of the British planning files for over a decade between 1961-72, involving hundreds of documents. As in the other episodes considered in this book, there is simply no concerns expressed in any of these files for the lives of the people on the receiving end of Anglo-American policy. British officials were perfectly aware of what was happening to ordinary Vietnamese. In December 1962, for example, Ambassador Hohler noted the South Vietnamese forces’ 'indiscriminate air activity' and the killing of innocent villagers. The only concern expressed was that this would have an adverse 'psychological impact' and is 'grist to the mill of local communist propaganda'.
 By December 1962 US State Department intelligence was reporting that 'indiscriminate bombing in the countryside is forcing innocent or wavering peasants towards the Viet Cong and that over 100,000 Montagnards have [where does quote end?]  fled Viet Cong-controlled areas due in part to 'the extensive use of artillery and aerial bombardment and other apparently excessive and indiscriminate measures by GVN [ie, South Vietnamese] military and security forces'. This had 'undoubtedly killed many innocent peasants and made many others more willing than before to cooperate with the Viet Cong'.
 January 1962 is the first mention in the British files that I have seen of a 'chemical substance used for clearing strips of jungle vegetation'. In March the following year, Foreign Office official Fred Warner wrote that 'there is no doubt the Americans have used toxic chemicals' and that 'we believe that these chemicals are a legitimate weapon' to destroy the insurgents' cover. He noted that the Soviet government had officially requested to the International Control Commission (ICC) of the Geneva Accords, which Britain co-chaired, to mount an investigation. But Warner said this was simply a matter for the ICC, not Britain. Again, British officials protected the US, and the consequences were horrific.
 Over a nine year period beginning in late 1961, 20 per cent of Vietnam's jungles and 36 per cent of its mangrove swamps were sprayed by the US, with 42 per cent of the spraying allocated to food crops. In 1963 the US began to study the dioxin in the major defoliant being used - Agent Orange - suspecting it might cause cancer, birth defects and other grave problems. This fear was confirmed by 1967 but never affected policy in any way.
 At the same time, British officials also knew that napalm was being used. Ambassador Hohler rejected the idea of a complaint, saying that the war in Vietnam 'is a very ruthless one and there is little to choose between the two sides when it comes to cruelty'. An appeal against the use of napalm might 'satisfy some tender consciences', Hohler noted, but 'the net result would probably be to draw attention to a practice that has hitherto been largely overlooked'.
When the subsequent Wilson government raised its concerns to the US about the latter's use of gas and napalm in Vietnam it was always in the context of 'difficulties' that this caused with the presentation of policy to the public. There is no evidence that British officials were motivated by anything else – ie, that they might actually be opposed to the use of such weapons because of the effect they had on people. 
 
Britain’s support for Diem

Britain provided considerable direct support to the Diem regime and US military in support of the US war. British aid to Diem was formally provided in the British Advisory Administrative Mission (BRIAM). BRIAM was agreed in July 1961 and began work in Saigon two months later with a small team of experts in ‘counter-subversion’, intelligence and ‘information’, its activities being meant to complement US advisers. The head of BRIAM, Robert Thompson, quickly became one of, if not the most, important of Diem's foreign advisers.
The British government's claim that BRIAM had a purely civilian (and not military) role, maintained in various parliamentary answers and debates, was a complete lie. The memo proposing the establishment of BRIAM says that training was to be provided 'over the whole counter-insurgency field'. Ambassador Hohler said in June 1962 that Diem had ratified 'proposals for the conduct of the war put forward by the highly-experienced Advisory Mission (BRIAM)'. Around 300 Vietnamese soldiers were trained in 'counter-insurgency' in Malaya in 1962/3 alone. By August 1963 the Diem regime was described as 'most appreciative of the type of training and of the assistance' provided by the British.
 I found other examples of British military cooperation with the Diem regime and the US during this time:

- In late 1962 a team of 20 British technicians, all given American Service identity cards, installed and began to operate a navigation system for US warplanes. This was described as 'invaluable for pin-pointing targets for straffing [sic], bombing, supply dropping and dropping parachutists’.
- In November 1962 the British government agreed to loan the US two Ferret armoured cars to be tested in Vietnam. This followed a US military official's inspection of Ferrets in action with the British army in Malaya, with which he 'was most impressed'.
- In late 1962 a British Lieutenant-General was allowed to accept a US invitation to take part in the work of the US' Advanced Research Projects Agency in Bangkok, in the course of which he was required to operate 'in the forward areas of South Vietnam'. He was described as a Combat Research Officer.

 The major British contribution to the war, however, was Robert Thompson's counter-insurgency programmes, based on (extremely brutal) measures in Malaya, which led to the 'Delta Plan' and the 'strategic hamlets' programmes in Vietnam. US military officials, it was reported, were much impressed by Thompson and 'were most anxious' that the 'valuable experience we had gained in Malaya [be] put to the best possible use in South Vietnam'.
At the Diem regime's invitation, Thompson, then a senior official in the colonial Malayan government, visited South Vietnam in April 1960 and produced a report on 'anti-terrorist operations'. This report 'impressed the Vietnamese government', the Foreign Office later noted, and provided the basis for the US counter-insurgency plan of February 1961.
 In late 1961, Thompson produced a draft of 'a campaign on Malayan lines' that was to be known as the Delta Plan. The aim, according to the Foreign Office, was 'to dominate, control and win over the population, particularly in the rural areas, beginning in the delta' region. The proposal involved establishing curfews and prohibited areas to control movement on all roads and waterways to 'hamper the Communist courier system', along with 'limited food control' in some areas.
'If the system works successfully', the Ambassador noted, 'this provides the main opportunity for killing terrorists'. As and when the areas are declared 'white', ie free of 'terrorists', social improvement would follow along with the relaxing of controls. According to the Foreign Office, 'Thompson considers that the struggle will last some five years and that the campaign must be conducted on methodical lines with the country being cleared area by area'.
In February 1962 the Diem regime asked Thompson to put the Delta Plan into practice, but implementation by Vietnamese forces was 'ineffective', partly due to the poor application of the strategic hamlets programme, according to the Foreign Office. Largely based on the Delta Plan, the US produced a further 'counter-insurgency' programme for operations in the Delta.
Thompson's Delta Plan was also the basis for the US 'strategic hamlets' programme, devised by Roger Hilsman at the US State Department. 'Hilsman's basic concept owes a great deal to Thompson', one British official in the Washington Embassy commented. According to the State Department:

'The strategic hamlet is essentially a fortified hamlet… A fence of bamboo and barbed wire is built around the entire hamlet, and a ditch or moat is dug around the fence; the ditch or moat, in turn, is encircled by an earthen mound. The area immediately around the village is cleared to permit fields of fire and to avoid giving guerillas and terrorists hiding places close to the hamlet'. 

 The programme began in late 1961 and became national policy in April 1962, with such ‘strategic hamlets’ soon established all over the country.
In February 1963, Ambassador Hohler told the Foreign Secretary that with the building of 'strategic hamlets' and 'resettlement' 'there are new burdens to be borne' by the Vietnamese peasants. 'The benefits of the hamlets programme have, for the most part, yet to be seen', he added. Strange, then, that Edward Heath, then Lord Privy Seal, should say in answer to a parliamentary question just two months later that:

'The "strategic hamlet" programme is giving improved security to villagers and a chance to build up again the traditional system of Vietnamese village councils and communal activity. We hope this improvement can be maintained'.

In reality, the 'strategic hamlets' programme was extremely brutal and the fortifications were often little different than concentration camps. Peasants were ordered to abandon their homes and land for new sites in often quite distant locations, while the cash and building materials they were allocated were inadequate. They were also compelled to give much of their labour to building stockades. The South Vietnamese officials governing this process were there 'to loot, collect back taxes, reinstall landlords and conduct reprisals against the people', according to one US marine 'pacification' expert quoted by Gabriel Kolko. Above all, the programme failed to address land redistribution, which explained the popularity of the National Liberation Front.
By the end of 1963 Thompson had become critical at the ineffectiveness of the Vietnamese and US in implementing ‘strategic hamlets’, saying that they had been created in a haphazard way and that military operations were not designed to support the programme. To 'save' the programme he said 'the government must be absolutely determined and, if necessary, ruthless'. He advised that when the 'strategic hamlets' were being constructed no house should be left outside the perimeter and all should be persuaded 'and forced if necessary' to move their houses inside. 'In constructing the hamlets, peasants should be required to give their labour, preferably during off-seasons, free', Thompson urged. 'Dusk to dawn curfews outside the hamlet should be imposed and enforced'.
Reiterating that the government must be prepared to be ruthless, Thompson adds:

'Just as an example of a ruthless measure, I quote the case of a village in Malaya (Jenderam) of about three thousand inhabitants. This was a very bad area and the village itself was a centre of support and supply for a large unit of communist terrorists when most of the other areas around it had been cleared. Having given the inhabitants a choice between the Government and the communists and having failed too make any headway by appealing to or persuading them to cooperate we moved in several battalions at dawn one morning and moved the whole village out. Everyone in it, men, women and children, went into detention for two years. All the houses were razed to the ground. Surprisingly, this did not cause a public outcry and the effectiveness of the result, by leading to the elimination of the communist terrorist unit concerned, silenced all criticism. When the area was finally cleared of terrorists the people were allowed to return and the restoration of the village was then heavily subsidised by the government. It is now peaceful and prosperous…. There is no easy way if victory is to be achieved. A price has to be paid now by the population to prevent a much heavier price being paid later.'

The Foreign Office stated in January 1964 that Thompson's 'main contribution' to BRIAM's operations had been 'to convince the Vietnamese authorities of the usefulness of strategic hamlets'. At the same time, Britain's new ambassador in Saigon, Gordon Etherington-Smith, was recognising the reality of the programme as implemented. He said that it was 'widely unpopular' and that the new government - which had just overthrown Diem - 'have no intention of incurring the same unpopularity by forcing the peasants into hamlets against their will'. The programme had become 'discredited' and the programme as originally envisaged by Diem was no longer being carried out. It had also been pushed forward 'too fast' and not enough had been done, he said, to ensure that 'communist influence was effectively removed' from the hamlets.
 The British government has never admitted that British forces fought in Vietnam. Yet the files confirm that they did, even though several remain censored.
In August 1962, the Military Attache in Saigon, Colonel Lee, wrote to the War Office in London attaching a report by someone whose name is censored but who is described an advisor to the colonial Malayan government. This advisor proposed that an SAS team be sent to Vietnam, which Lee said was unacceptable owing to Britain's position as Co-Chair of the Geneva Agreement. Then Lee writes:

'However, this recommendation might be possible to implement if the personnel are detached and given temporary civilian status, or are attached to the American Special Forces in such a manner that their British military identity is lost in the US Unit. However the Americans are crying out for expert assistance in this field and are extremely enthusiastic that [one inch censored] should join them. He really is an expert, full of enthusiasm, drive and initiative in dealing with these primitive peoples and I hope that he will be given full support and assistance in this task'.

'These primitive peoples' is a reference to the Montagnards in the highlands of the central provinces of Vietnam. Lee continues:

'It is …clear that there is enormous scope for assistance of a pr