John Rees (journalist)

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John Rees is a British right wing journalist resident in the United States of America.^[1] Based out of Baltimore, Maryland, he was active during the 1970s and 1980s. He ran a network of private informants on college campuses in the United States, that Political Research Associates referred to as often having better placed infiltrators among campus groups than the FBI's own agents ran.^[2] The network would pass information along to John Rees, who would in turn forward it to the director of intelligence at FBI headquarters, from there it would be forwarded to field offices. These activities were part of a network of private right wing groups that the FBI used to gather intelligence on government critics and people opposed to the Reagan Administration's foreign policy stance in Central America.^[3]

Rees also criticized Lyndon LaRouche and the LaRouche movement saying the organization has "taken on the characteristics more of a political cult than a political party," and a cult-like "blind obedience."^[4] Among the publications he was associated with are Review of the News and American Opinion, published by the John Birch Society, with which Rees was an active collaborator.^[5] His own Information Digest reported on extremist movements on both the liberal and conservative ends of the political spectrum. In addition, he worked with the Birch Society's late Congressman Larry McDonald in the activities of the Western Goals Foundation.^[2]

[edit] References

^ "The 'Information Digest' Ploy" Levin, Hillel The Nation October 7, 1978
^ ^a ^b "The Hunt for Red Menace" Chip Berlet Political Research Associates February 2 1993
^ "GROUPS GIVE FBI DATA ON FOES OF US LATIN POLICIES" Ross Gelbspan Boston Globe March 15, 1988
^ "Ideological Odyssey: From Old Left to Far Right" John Mintz Washington Post January 14, 1985
^ http://rightweb.irc-online.org/gw/2817