January 25, 1974
In a major breakthrough for the socialist suit against
Watergating, the U.S. government has admitted conducting a
broad spy operation against the Socialist Workers Party dating
back to 1945, and more recently, against the Young Socialist
Alliance.
While conceding the truth of some of the charges against the Nixon gang, the U.S. attorney claims the spy actions are justified because the SWP and YSA are "subversive."
The government admissions were made public at a Jan. 10 news conference in New York by the Political Rights Defense Fund (PRDF). The PRDF is organizing publicity and fund raising for the suit against the government filed last July by the SWP and YSA.
The suit charges Nixon and other present and past federal officials with wiretapping, mail tampering, burglary, bombing, and other harassment against members and supporters of the SWP and YSA. Noted constitutional lawyer Leonard Boudin is representing the plaintiffs in the case.
The existence of the "SWP Disruption Program" was established by FBI documents obtained by NBC newsman Carl Stern last month. The documents described COINTELPRO, a broad counterintelligence program that included the SWP disruption project.
January 24, 1949
The announcement of the Chiang Kai-shek dictatorship Jan.
19 that its government headquarters will be shifted from the
capital of China at Nanking to the southern city of Canton
sounds the death knell of Chiang's hated regime. Chiang himself
is evidently preparing to move to the island of Formosa, his
last hope now apparently being to save standing for himself as
a local warlord. He will be fortunate if he escapes the fate of
Mussolini.
Chiang's defeat at the hands of the Chinese people is also a major defeat for the foreign policy of American imperialism. Wall Street calculated on using this despotic regime as a puppet government to give preference to American investment over the needs of the Chinese people.
Washington considered Chiang as an ally in the projected war on the Soviet Union. For these reasons American imperialism gave this butcher full support in the civil war, sending him some $2 billion worth of supplies and military aid.