| William Blum | |
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William Blum in 2007 |
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| Born | 1933 (age 78–79) |
| Occupation | Accounting, Government worker, Journalist |
| Genres | Political Journalism, History |
| Notable work(s) | The CIA: A Forgotten History (1986) Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower (2000) Killing Hope (2003) |
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www.killinghope.org |
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William Blum (born 1933) is an American author, historian, and critic of United States foreign policy. He studied accounting in college. Later he had a low-level computer-related position at the United States Department of State in the mid-1960s. Initially an anti-communist with dreams of becoming a foreign service officer, he said he became disillusioned by the Vietnam War. He lives in Long Beach, New York.[1]
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He left the Department in 1967. He then became one of the founders and editors of the Washington Free Press, the first "alternative" newspaper in the capital. In 1969, he wrote and published an exposé of the CIA in which was revealed the names and addresses of more than 200 employees of the Agency. He has worked as freelance journalist in the United States, Europe and South America. From 1972 to 1973 Blum worked as a journalist in Chile, where he reported on the Allende government's "socialist experiment". In the mid-1970s, he worked in London with ex-CIA agent Philip Agee and his associates "on their project of exposing CIA personnel and their misdeeds".[2] He supports himself with his writing and speaking engagements on college campuses.[1]
In his writing, Blum devotes substantial attention to CIA interventions and assassination plots. He has supported Ralph Nader's presidential campaigns.[3] He currently circulates a monthly newsletter by email called "The Anti-Empire Report". Blum has described his life's mission as: "If not ending, at least slowing down the American Empire. At least injuring the beast. It's causing so much suffering around the world."[1]
In early 2006, Blum briefly became the subject of widespread media attention when Osama bin Laden issued a public statement in which he quoted Blum and recommended that all Americans read Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower. As a result of the mention sales of his book skyrocketed. "I was quite surprised and even shocked and amused when I found out what he'd said," Blum said. "I was glad. I knew it would help the book's sales and I was not bothered by who it was coming from. If he shares with me a deep dislike for the certain aspects of US foreign policy, then I'm not going to spurn any endorsement of the book by him. I think it's good that he shares those views and I'm not turned off by that."[4] On the Bin Laden endorsement Blum stated "This is almost as good as being an Oprah book."[1]
Blum has described the September 11th, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington DC. as "an understandable retaliation against US foreign policy."[5] However, he has also written that there are "serious contradictions and apparent lies in the Official Government Version" of the September 11 attacks and that the New York skyscrapers apparently "collapsed essentially because of a controlled demolition". Blum has suggested elements of the US government "let it happen" using the events as a justification for the war on terror.[6]