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   Vol.64/No.29            July 24, 2000 
 
 
25 and 50 years ago
 
 
July 25, 1975
Newly released CIA documents on the Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialist Alliance, dating back to 1950, prove conclusively that the Rockefeller commission report on the CIA covered up major aspects of the agency's illegal spy operations.

The documents show that the two socialist groups have been the targets of a massive spy campaign by the CIA virtually since the inception of the agency itself.

Several files concerning the YSA also reveal that CIA spying against dissident groups in the United States did not end when the Rockefeller report said it did, and most likely continue to this day.

The documents were released here by the Political Rights Defense Fund, which is supporting a suit filed by the SWP and YSA against government harassment. The CIA, one of the defendants in the suit, has turned over the documents under court order. The suit was filed in July 1973 by constitutional attorneys Leonard Boudin and Herbert Jordan.

One of the items released by the CIA, for example, is a clipping from a 1950 New York Times on the SWP's campaign for New York governor. Another report, dated January 26, 1953 states: "Farrell Dobbs polled 10,306 voted in seven states as against Dobbs' 1948 total of 13,613 in twelve states." Dobbs was the SWP's candidate for president in both 1948 and 1952.  
 
July 24, 1950
"The stern days ahead." These are the symbolic last words of Truman's radio talk on his new war bill. They are an ominous forecast of what the American people face in the program Truman outlined on July 19 for the prosecution of his undeclared war in Korea and the tremendous expansion of the U.S. military machine.

Truman made clear that a new stage has been entered in American capitalism's preparations for World War III. America is to be put on a permanent war footing. Everything else will be subordinated to the single aim of mobilizing speedily and fully for global war.

Thus the authoritative N.Y. Times bluntly described Truman's program as "a long and firm step toward complete mobilization for total war." Arthur Krock, Times columnist with a direct pipe-line to Truman said that the President's Congressional and radio messages are "grim confirmations" that the stage of the "cold war" is "ended."

The "good times" are over--except for the war profiteers. The war machine is to take immediately another $10 billion to be paid by higher taxes. Rising prices and shortages are on the order of the day. Housing, health facilities, schools, automobiles, television sets--all the things the people need and want--are to be sacrificed to the war program.  
 
 
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