William Blum - Interview 10-30-2015 - Final
Channel: Washington, D.C. Lessons of the Sixties
Date: 2019-08-20

William Blum (1933-2018)  left the State Department in 1967, abandoning his aspiration of becoming a Foreign Service Officer because of his opposition to the U.S. war in Vietnam. He then became one of the founders and editors of the Washington Free Press, the first “alternative” newspaper in the capital. Beginning in the early 1970s, Bill was a freelance journalist in the United States, Europe and South America.  His stay in Chile in 1972-1973, writing about the Allende government’s “socialist experiment” and its overthrow in a CIA-designed coup, led him to a heightened interest in what his government was doing in various parts of the world. In the mid-1970’s, he worked in London with former CIA officer Philip Agee and his associates on their project of exposing CIA personnel and their misdeeds. His book on U.S. foreign policy, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, first published in 1995 and updated since, received international acclaim.  Noam Chomsky called it “far and away the best book on the topic.” Blum, who died in late 2018, was also the author of four other books, the last one being America’s Deadliest Export: Democracy — The Truth About U.S. Foreign Policy and Everything Else (2013). His books have been translated into more than 15 languages. Bill’s lifelong work was to educate the American public about the reality of US foreign policy and its global impacts. In this interview, Bill recollects his early work in founding Washington Free Press, and his subsequent work as author and journalist in US, Europe and Chile, his Viet Nam War opposition, State Department, hippies, LSD, CIA informer Sal Ferrara,1967 Pentagon March, abortion advice, Philip Agee, IPS, CIA surveillance on WFP & Blum, Liberation News Service, Bill’s book,“Killing Hope”as international best-seller, Quicksilver Times, CIA interventions since World War II. Washington Free Press (WFP), Blum’s work in State Department, Vietnam War opposition, Washington D.C. Committee to End the War in Vietnam, Counterculture – hippies/marijuana/LSD, FBI and CIA spying on WFP and Blum, CIA informant Salvatore (Sal) Ferrera, WFP/Blum abortion advice, Abortion doctor Milan Vuitch, Antiwar March on the Pentagon 1967, CIA whistleblower agent Philip Agee, Institute for Policy Studies, Liberation News Service/Ray Mungo/Marshall Bloom, Berkeley Barb, Quicksilver Times, Blum’s major book: “Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Intervention Since World War II.