West-Bloc Dissident - by William Blum (Paperback)

About the Book

In the 1960s, after four years with IBM and two more with the U.S. State Department, William Blum became a radical dissident. As an insider in two worlds, he is well suited to assess the people, events, and ideology of both the "bourgeois" and "radical" cultures. In West-Bloc Dissident, Blum brings unexpected wit and insight to his portrayals of both sides of the ideological fence. He draws unsparing portraits of his movement comrades Jerry Rubin, Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, and others. An anti-war activist, he takes on the CIA, FBI, State Department, and police. Also included are firsthand accounts of everything from the underground press to Salvador Allende's Chile.

Book Synopsis

In the 1960s, after four years with IBM and two more with the U.S. State Department, William Blum became a radical dissident. As an insider in two worlds, he is well suited to assess the people, events, and ideology of both the "bourgeois" and "radical" cultures. In West-Bloc Dissident, Blum brings unexpected wit and insight to his portrayals of both sides of the ideological fence. He draws unsparing portraits of his movement comrades Jerry Rubin, Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, and others. An anti-war activist, he takes on the CIA, FBI, State Department, and police. Also included are firsthand accounts of everything from the underground press to Salvador Allende's Chile.

About the Author

William Blum left the State Department in 1967, abandoning his aspiration of becoming a Foreign Service Officer, because of his opposition to what the United States was doing in Vietnam. A journalist and author, he became one of the founders and editors of the Washington Free Press, the first "alternative" newspaper in the capital. He was one of the recipients of Project Censored's awards for "exemplary journalism" for writing one of the top ten censored stories of 1998, an article on how, in the 1980s, the United States gave Iraq the material to develop a chemical and biological warfare capability. He died in 2012.