When Nelson Mandela died, a New York Times video recalled what Mandela wore to his trial–but not the US role in bringing him there. (image: New York Times)
In 1990, FAIR (Extra!, 3-4/90) noted that in all the coverage of Nelson Mandela’s release from 27 years of prison, virtually no one mentioned the role of the CIA in his capture. In August 1962, according to 1986 reports in the South African press, Mandela was traveling, disguised as a chauffeur, to a top-secret meeting with the US vice consul in Durban—Donald Rickard, a diplomat reputed to be a CIA officer. Rickard tipped off the South African authorities to the meeting, allowing Mandela to be apprehended.
When Mandela died in 2013 (FAIR Media Advisory, 12/10/13), we asked, “Can the Story Be Told Now?” The answer was still no. When it was mentioned in big media, it was by the sort of folks you don’t often see: Amy Goodman mentioned it on Melissa Harris Perry’s MSNBC show (12/7/13), and Cornel West mentioned it to Jake Tapper at CNN (12/6/13).
Former US spy Donald Rickard, quoted in the London Daily Mail (5/15/16) calling Nelson Mandela “the world’s most dangerous communist outside of the Soviet Union.”
Now we have news, from the Sunday Times of London (5/15/16), that shortly before his recent death, Donald Rickard himself admitted it, and proudly. It was righteous because Mandela was believed to be a Communist, Rickard told a British filmmaker. “Mandela had to be stopped. And I put a stop to it.”
So what about now? Can US media now acknowledge the US role in imprisoning for decades a man they would subsequently herald as a world leader of human rights? Could they maybe think about that in terms of present-day US involvement with rights movements around the–oh, forget it, the answer is no.
The New York Daily News (5/15/16) referred to Rickard’s “bombshell admission,” but for a bombshell it was pretty quiet. We did get a Washington Post article (5/16/16), not in the paper, just on the blog, that said that Rickard’s statement that he facilitated Mandela’s arrest had “reignited” “speculation” that he had facilitated Mandela’s arrest.
In Mandela’s New York Times obituary (12/6/13), former Times Johannesburg correspondent (and later Times executive editor) Bill Keller explained that he wasn’t convinced of allegations of CIA involvement in his arrest — evidently it wasn’t as compelling as the evidence for Iraq’s WMDs, which did convince him, but the paper ran a letter to the editor from an historian named Stephen Ellis. Ellis noted that Keller had written about Mandela’s membership in the South African Communist Party, which Ellis’s research had found, but that neither the Times nor the US government had acknowledged the CIA role in his capture, which his research also noted.
“It was a long time ago,” Ellis wrote, “but the truth still counts.”
Janine Jackson is FAIR’s program director and the producer and host of CounterSpin.
The corporate media cannot print “the truth” without the permission of the government. We are so propagandized. Congress can’t even publish the 28 pages of the potential (and likely) involvement of the Saudi’s in 9/11. The government has to protect itself from the governed or loose their trust, become accountable, maybe even go to jail, oh that would be wonderful.
Its all connected, rigged and will only get worse.
Quite the reverse, for was it government that gave
Obama over $4 billion to finance his two elections?
Look at the facts, what did Mandela do to improve the money dictatorship known as South Africa? Nothing, absolutely nothing, for no wealth changed hands and the white-wealthy power structure has not changed in the slightest.
The CIA’s role in Africa during this period is still poorly known. Its involvement in the murder of Patrice Lumumba (against the wishes of president-elect Kennedy) seems pretty clear, but the death of Dag Hammarskjold remains a question, though it is likely the Agency has some of his blood on its hands. Granted it was a different time–many of the new African states were leaning left and it was easy to simplistically imagine they would become Soviet puppets. Foolish and shortsighted, but that’s the thinking that led right into Vietnam. The thing is, the US and its loathsome agencies may have learned nothing from that period; today a vast military expansion is occurring in Africa to meet Islamic unrest caused, in fair measure, by moronic US policies in Iraq and Libya. This time around the long-term results are unlikely to be any better.
All thanks to a Trojan Horse called Obama, for until Obama took office the governments of Africa were so fed up with all of the CIA coup disasters, that not one military base could be found in all of the Africa Continent.
The CIA is on a huge PR push as of late. There’s this, there is their “We Won’t Waterboard Even If Ordered” (“anymore” is left out) grandstanding. There’s the new Twitter account. My nephews won’t stop talking about the CIA since they visited the “Spy Museum” which I find especially gross, considering they’re getting to children who can’t possibly understand the laundry list of crimes they’ve been involved in (anyone who looks at the Church Committee Reports alone knows enough to make you sick, forget about all the journalistic investigations).
This is just the latest. A substanceless PR move. A phony “Truth and Reconciliation” move that offers neither Truth nor Reconciliation.
Noam Chomsky feels that today’s GOP qualifies as the most dangerous organization on earth. For sure. But I would say that that’s the case going back many years (I’ve been reading a lot of history) and I would broaden the category to include the entire business party with 2 factions. Dangerous and nuts.