June 24, 1996
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina — Arsonists burned down a portion of an historic Black church here June 6. This is one of more than 30 fires set in Black churches in the South since early 1995. The attacks have intensified calls for effective federal investigation and prosecution of those responsible.
The list of 30 Black southern churches that are victims of this wave of arson attacks includes five in southern Alabama in the last six months, and it is far from complete.
Rev. Mac Charles Jones reported to a recent board meeting of the National Council of Churches that investigators have often focused their probes against the victims of the attacks. “Rather than investigating the perpetrators of the church bombings and fires,” said Jones, “the agents are questioning pastors and their congregants as though they are responsible for the disasters.”
June 25, 1971
The New York Times’ publication of top-secret Pentagon documents on the origins of the war in Vietnam has precipitated a major crisis for the Nixon administration. This crisis will not be alleviated by Nixon’s moves in federal courts to block completion of the series.
This attempt by the federal government to impose direct censorship on a major capitalist newspaper underlines the depth of the divisions in the ruling class itself.
Such papers are sometimes revealed years after the incidents and after they have been prepared for public consumption by government censors and apologetic historians. But this study was prepared specifically for the highest layers of government only. It shows that every major escalation of the war was deliberately prepared months in advance and that all top U.S. officials lied repeatedly to the public about their plans.
June 22, 1946
Brazenly violating repeated promises to refrain from military intervention in China and to withdraw its armed forces from that country, the United States government is using its armed might on a continually growing scale to support the reactionary regime of the Kuomintang in the civil war that is now raging in China.
What is occurring is full-scale American intervention short of actual participation in the fighting by American soldiers. Already heavily committed to a policy of intervention in line with its predatory imperialist aims, the U.S. government has no intention of withdrawing its armed forces from China.
Chiang Kai-shek’s rotten and reactionary regime is universally hated by the masses. Only the military might of American imperialism prevents the insurgent nation from settling scores with the regime of reaction and oppression.