Ray McGovern

Those unaware of Dan Ellsberg’s 2002 Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers may think the leak of the Pentagon Papers was Dan’s first unauthorized disclosure. Not so. Arguably, his first such leak, in March 1968, was even more consequential. After the Viet Cong shocked most observers by mounting a countrywide offensive in … Continue reading “Daniel Ellsberg’s First Leak Helped Prevent War With China”

Danger: President Joe Biden’s sophomores running U.S. foreign policy today live in a dream world on the verge of becoming a nightmare. The nightmare – military confrontation with both Russia and China – now looms. It is scary enough that Biden seems to be out of it. Scarier still is the reality that his advisers … Continue reading “The Banality of Biden’s ‘Exceptional’ Elite Advisers”

NOTE: The following is “back-story” to yesterday’s post, which I was tempted to title “All You Ever Wanted to Know About the Attack on Iraq and Now Want to Forget.” I do encourage you to give that posting a look before reading what follows. The attack was launched 20 years ago today. In late February … Continue reading “Epitaph for a ‘Cake Walk’: An Iraq Case Study”

A New York Times Magazine article in July 2020 focused on then Secretary of State Powell and his U.N. speech of Feb. 5, 2003 and the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) upon which it is largely based. A lot of the detail in the article may have been new to many readers, but not to Veteran … Continue reading “Iraq 20 Years: The Uses and Abuses of National Intelligence Estimates”

Bombshell No. 1: Seymour Hersh’s Feb. 8 report that President Joe Biden authorized the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines built to carry cheap Russian gas to Europe. Bombshell No. 2: The Washington Post today ended the Establishment media embargo on Hersh’s damning report, mentioning its findings and even including a link to his article. … Continue reading “Washington Post Lets Hersh’s Dangerous Cat Out of the Bag”

A year ago today (on Dec. 30, 2021) U.S. President Joe Biden, in a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, assured him that "Washington had no intention of deploying offensive strike weapons in Ukraine.” Against that backdrop, bilateral talks in Geneva to start on January 9, 2022 seemed off to a promising start. The … Continue reading “Biden Reneged – Now Russian Army Will Talk”

Russian President Vladimir Putin stated Friday that Russia is considering changing its nuclear doctrine to allow for preventive – not just retaliatory – use of nuclear weapons. Such a change would align Russia’s nuclear posture with Washington’s own strategic doctrine and, at one stroke, make the world far more dangerous. Putin’s highly unusual remarks leave … Continue reading “Putin Makes REAL Nuclear Threat; US Yawns”

Five years ago today, Congress learned from sworn, horse’s-mouth testimony that there is no technical evidence that Russia (or anyone else) hacked the DNC emails showing how the DNC had stacked the deck against Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton’s rival for the Democratic nomination. I can almost hear readers new to this website cry out in … Continue reading “Americans Dumbed Down on Russia”

On Nov. 17 a Dutch Court sentenced two Russians and one Ukrainian (all three in absentia) to life in prison. They were accused of playing supporting roles in the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, killing all 298 aboard. MH17 was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was downed over eastern Ukraine on … Continue reading “Dutch Genuflect to US, Convict Russians for Downing MH17”

When China’s President XI Jinping meets with President Joe Biden Monday in Indonesia, he better bring a whiteboard and some simple handouts. For it is beyond the ability, or the intention, of Biden’s elitist advisers to give him an accurate picture of the extremely close strategic relationship between China and Russia – and between XI … Continue reading “Biden Has a Date With Xi, Putin’s ‘Main Squeeze’”