Judgment on the ‘Hitler Diaries’

As the full story of the forged ‘Hitler Diaries’ unfolded, the euphoria of the far right soon evaporated.     

‘Revisionists’ at odds

Two leading Jewish defence agencies were at loggerheads over the constitutionality of a statute permitting ‘religious corporations’ to discriminate on the basis of religion in all their hiring.     

Review essay: Provincialising ‘geo‐politics’

Critical Geopolitics: The Politics of Writing Global Space. G. Ó Tuathail, 1996. London: Routledge. 315 pp.; £15.99 paperback. ISBN: 0 415 15701 3 paperback     

‘Grow your own’: cold war intelligence and history supermarkets

Most of the records of the three British secret services relating to the Cold War remain closed. Nevertheless, the Open Government initiative in the UK and the Clinton Executive Order of 1995 have resulted in some disclosures, often from consumer agencies who were in receipt of intelligence material. There have also been limited releases from other countries. Against that background, this essay considers two questions: First, how far has the study of intelligence affected the broad context of Cold War history during the last decade? And second, how effective have we been in probing the institutional history of secret services during the Cold War? The essay concludes that while some secret services are breaking new ground by recording their own oral history, academic historians have been less than enterprising in their investigations and tend towards a culture of archival dependency.     

‘Toys’ and ‘Whispers’ in ‘16‐land’: SOE and Ireland, 1940–1942

This article explores SOE plans to organise stay behind parties in neutral Ireland in cooperation with Irish army officers, in anticipation of a successful German invasion, as well as efforts to prepare for sabotage operations and to plant rumours through its agent Roddy Keith, and later through the British press attache John Betjeman. SOE's ambitions were opposed both by MI5 and SIS. MI5 wished to protect its own links with Irish intelligence, while SIS feared for the security of its covert Irish networks (which in fact were already penetrated). The consequent rows drew in C, Sir Frank Nelson, and other senior figures. They were resolved by Churchill, who felt that to provide the Irish with war material would only encourage them in their neutrality policy. His verdict was taken as an instruction to SOE to quit Ireland.     

The Asian‐Pacific ‘Geese’: Flying or floundering?

The Western Pacific: Challenge of Sustainable Growth, by Alan Burnett. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 1992. 272 pp. £45. ISBN 1–85278–367–2.

Driven by Growth: Political Change in the Asia‐Pacific Region, edited by James W. Morley. M. E. Sharpe, Armonk NY, 1992. 345 pp. £42. ISBN 1–56324–013–0.

The West Pacific Rim, by Rupert Hodder. Belhaven Press, London, 1992. 153 pp. £35. ISBN 1–85293–210–4.

The East‐West Pendulum, by Robert Lloyd George. Woodhead Faulkner. Cambridge, 1992. 142 pp. £27.50. ISBN 0–85941–753–0.

People and Power in the Pacific, by Walden Bello. Pluto Press, London, 1993. 146 pp. £7.50 paperback. ISBN 0–7453–0698–5.     

‘The dead are coming’: acts of citizenship at Europe’s borders

This article combines the research agenda of the acts of citizenship literature with reflections on emancipatory theatre. I examine the Centre for Political Beauty’s activity-based artwork ‘The dead are coming’ which problematizes the cruelties of the European border regime in symbolically charged spaces in the German public. Focusing particularly on the roles available to ‘actors’ and ‘spectators’, and the directionality of the message conveyed through the artwork, I examine how the performance subverts the ‘sites’ and ‘scales’ of citizenship. My analysis indicates that the artwork’s subversive potential emerges not only from the political vision conveyed by the artist collective, but also from the way in which others become involved in the performance. Acts of political beauty thus most extensively challenge instituted citizenship’s orientalist anchoring, reverse status-based role allocations and subvert the structural violence of borders when the performance enables the enactment of novel forms of political agency and solidarity.     

Neo‐Nazis see the ‘protocols’ fraud

A neo‐Nazi intellectual finds the ‘Protocols’ to be ‘far removed from reality’.     

Ideas,identity, and institution‐building: From the ‘ASEAN way’ to the ‘Asia‐Pacific way'?

Abstract

This article examines the extent to which the development of multilateral institutions in the Asia‐Pacific region may be viewed as an exercise in identity‐building. It argues that institution‐building in this region is more of a ‘process‐orientated’ phenomenon, rather than simply being an outcome of structural changes in the international system (such as the decline of American hegemony). The process combines universal principles of multilateralism with some of the relatively distinct modes of socialization prevailing in the region. Crucial to the process have been the adaptation of four ideas: ‘cooperative security’, ‘open regionalism’, ‘soft regionalism’, and ‘flexible consensus’. The construction of a regional identity, which may be termed the ‘Asia‐Pacific Way’ has also been facilitated by the avoidance of institutional grand designs and the adoption of a consensual and cautious approach extrapolated from the ‘ASEAN Way’. The final section of the article examines the limitations and dangers of the Asia‐Pacific Way. It concludes with the assertion that while the Asia‐Pacific Way is an over‐generalised, instrumental, and pragmatic approach to regional cooperation, and there remain significant barriers to the development of a collective regional identity that is constitutive of the interests of the actors, it has helped introduce the concept and practice of multilateralism into a previously sceptical region and might have ‘bought’ enough time and space for regional actors to adapt to the demands of multilateralism.     

‘Appointment with history’: The referenda on the Stormont peace agreement,May 1998

The Emergence of Democracy, By Tatu Vanhanen. Helsinki: The Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters, 1984. Pp. 168. N.P.

Contemporary Democracies. By G. Bingham Powell, Jr. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1982. Pp. xi + 279. £7 (paperback).

Democracy, East and West. By Howard P. Kainz. London: Macmillan, 1984. Pp. 152. £20.

Electoral Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies: Realignment or Dealignment? Edited by Russell J. Dalton, Scott C. Flanagan and Paul Allen Beck. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985. Pp.xvi + 513. £59.20 (hardback), £12.60 (paperback).

The Place of Ideology in Political Life. By D.J. Manning and T.J. Robinson. London: Croom and Helm, 1985. Pp. 128. £17.95 (hardback).

Against Socialist Illusion: A Radical Argument. By David Selbourne. London: Macmillan, 1985. Pp. vii + 327. £25 (hardback), £8.95 (paperback).

Socialism, The State and Public Policy in France. Edited by Philip G. Cerny and Martin A. Schain. London: Frances Pinter, 1985. Pp. vi + 298. £17.50 (hardback).

Wohlfahrtsstaatliche Politik unter bürgerlichen und sozialdemokratischen Regierungen: ein internationaler Vergleich. By Manfred G. Schmidt. Frankfurt/New York: Campus Verlag, 1982. Pp. 258. DM 45.00 (paperback).

Vom Armenhaus zum Wohlfahrtsstaat: Analysen zur Entwicklungder Sozialversiche‐rungin Westeuropa. By Jens Alber. Frankfurt/New York: Campus Verlag, 1982. Pp. 280. DM 45.00 (paperback).

Western Europe and Japan Between the Superpowers. By Wolf Mendl. London: Croom Helm 1984. Pp. 181. £15.95.

Economic Summits and Western Decision‐making. Edited by Cesare Merlini. London: Croom Helm, in association with EIPA, 1984. Pp. 212. £15.95.

From Dictatorship to Democracy. Coping with the Legacies of Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism. Edited by John H. Herz. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1982. Pp. xii + 311.

Die Neue Freiheit: 1945–1961. By Erich Mende. Munich and Berlin: Herbig, 1984. Pp. 491. DM 44.

West German Lay Judges: Recruitment and Representativeness. By John P. Richert. Tampa: University Presses of Florida, 1983. Pp. ix + 223. $19.00 (hardback).

The Politics of Public Enterprise: Oil and the French State. By Harvey B. Feigenbaum. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985. Pp. 194. £26.90 (hardback) £7.40 (paperback).

The View From Inside: A French Communist Cell in Crisis. By JANE Jenson and George Ross. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pp. x + 346 (no index or bibliography). £29.95 (hardback).

Industrial Policy and the Motor Industry. By Stephen Wilks. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984. Pp. xviii + 318. £18.95.

L'état britannique. By CLAUDE Journes. Paris: Publisud, 1985. Pp. 267. N.P.

No Pope of Rome: Militant Protestantism in Modem Scotland. By Steve Bruce. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing Co., 1985. Pp. 270. £12.95 (hardback).

Socialism and Abundance. Radical Socialism in the Danish Welfare State. By John Logue. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983. Pp. XX11 + 353. $35.     

Hŭngnam revisited: the ‘secret’ nuclear history of a North Korean city

Abstract

This article critically examines allegations that H?ngnam, North Korea, served as a transwar site of nuclear weapons research conducted first by Imperial Japan during World War II, then by the Soviet Union in the postwar period, and subsequently by North Korea itself. Rumors of ‘nuclear research’ being conducted there likely derived from and were conflated with reports of secretive efforts by these parties to prospect for, to mine, and to dress uranium-bearing ores in the surrounding area. The article presents new information from recently declassified CIA records and current Russian research.     

Collection ‘management by crisis’: strategic targeting and interrogation at Guantanamo Bay

This article examines human intelligence collection in wartime, and offers a methodology to help determine the relative success or failure of the detainee interrogation mission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (GTMO). It surveys the relevant background on GTMO, a brief history on interrogations during World War II and Vietnam, and draws comparisons among them to be considered in potential future mass-interrogation missions. Drawing from documentary research and two dozen original interviews, it argues that, to the extent an intelligence mission was one of the purposes of transferring detainees to GTMO, the relevant metric of success is whether collectors were able to obtain more or ‘better’ intelligence from the detainees than they would have been able to in-theater. At the strategic level, then, GTMO’s value to intelligence collectors is to be assessed at the margins, rather than the absolute value of the information educed.     

Barack Hussein Obama: the use of history in the creation of an ‘American’ president

ABSTRACT

From the time of his nomination as the Democratic Party's 2008 presidential candidate onwards, Barack Obama was the target of a panoply of political attacks. Conservatives, Republicans and even some Democrats played on his alterity in a way that previous non-white political hopefuls, particularly the Reverend Jesse Jackson, had not had to endure. If the intricate twists and turns of Obama's past did not make those attacks particularly surprising, the way in which he chose to deal with them was. In what stands as a deliberate pre-emptive attack, Obama used two substantive texts, Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope, to create and shape a historical narrative of his own past in such a way as to present himself to the US voting public as a truly American figure, worthy of the presidency. By the time he was running for high office, therefore, Obama had already used his knowledge of the discipline of history to create a usable past with which he and his supporters could denude many of those political attacks of their potency, whether they were focused on the years of his upbringing in an Islamic state, his familial ties to Kenya, his religious background or his purported links to radicalism.     

‘I am an American’: protesting advertised ‘Americanness’

How are citizenships and nationalisms constructed, connected, and contested in the post-9/11 USA – performatively, affectively, and visually – and how do their relationships figure ‘Americanness’? This article takes up this question (1) by tracking how Americanness was advertised in the American Ad Council's ‘I am an American’ campaign and (2) by introducing the multimedia project ‘I am an American’: Video Portraits of Unsafe US Citizens, which engages the Ad Council's campaign as a practice-based protest of the Ad Council's advertised ‘Americanness’. The article traces how the Ad Council's campaign advertises what Evelyn Alsultany calls ‘diversity patriotism’. It also constructs a complex, mobile system of differentiation that marks some citizens as ‘safe’ and others as ‘unsafe’, which runs counter to the idealized notion of a unified ‘Americanness’ that it advertises. The article then examines how the practice-based protest project ‘I am an American’ takes these ‘unsafe citizens’ – US citizens who either will not or cannot make their differences normatively conform to the national ideal of the ‘One’ composed of the ‘Many’ propagated by the Ad Council's campaign – as its point of departure to reflect upon how citizenship protests function for and against citizenship, nationalisms, and various figurations of Americanness.