Free Namibia (1978)

A moving documentary showing the terrible living conditions and racism under which the black majority lived in Namibia and the growing resistance in the 1970s to white rule imposed by South African troops.

John Stockwell on the CIA's Biggest War: Afghanistan (1989)

Former CIA official John Stockwell in this program analyzed the CIA in relationship to George Bush and world affairs. Bush's history with the CIA is presented, and his attitudes toward handling affairs of state with covert actions abroad and curtailing dissent at home are assessed. John then reviewed the CIA covert actions which were in progress around the world. He also evaluated the devastating effects which the war in Afghanistan had on that country and its people, leaving the country in political turmoil and destruction which doomed it to many years of further bloodshed.

John Stockwell on the CIA, Double Agents and Foreign Spies (1986)

Former CIA officer John Stockwell relates how the CIA treats defecting foreign agents, and how it gets rid of its own people who have been discovered to be double agents. Includes a discussion of the Vitaly Yurchenko case.

George Seldes on the American Press, Spanish Civil War, the First and Second World War (1983)

Although George Seldes was one of the giants in the history of American journalism, particularly in the field of press criticism, he was neglected and blacklisted by the mainstream press. This program presents the U.S. TV debut of Seldes, who was a foreign correspondent from 1917-1939 and who published the alternative newspaper "In Fact" in the 1940s and l950s. Seldes wrote over 20 books and was the model and inspiration for activists and muckrakers like Ralph Nader, I.F. Stone and Jack Anderson. Seldes recalled the World War I "battle" of Saint-Mihiel, which was no battle at all; his interview with Lenin; and his many talks with Mussolini, who later tried to have him killed. He analyzed press coverage of the events, showing the lies, distortions and machinations which occurred and the people and institutions involved in them. In this 1983 interview, Seldes told of post-World War I Germany and the rise of Nazism through his eyes. He vividly recalled his talks with President General von Hindenburg, his meeting with Hitler, the huge Nazi rallies in Nuremberg and Hitler's hypnotic spell over the people. Seldes described the destruction of the Weimar Republic by the wealthy German capitalists who not only exploited and helped ruin the German economy, but also supported Hitler. Seldes pointed out the pro-Nazi segments of the American press, particularly the "Readers' Digest" and William Randolph Hearst, who accepted a "bribe" to print pro-Nazi stories. Next, he related his experiences as a reporter during the Spanish Civil War and exposed the gross censorship, distortions and lies in the press about the tragic struggle. Seldes then related his experiences as a press muckraker in the 1940s and 1950s. He recalled his coverage of the war in Mexico and the machinations of the American press there. He told of starting his newsletter, "In Fact," which had a nationwide circulation of almost 176,000, and which exposed the material ignored and distorted in the regular press. Seldes explained why he was blacklisted in the press, even though he had written over 20 books, some of which were bestsellers. Finally, he recalled his experience of being called up to testify before the infamous McCarthy Committee in the Senate and how the Red Scare eventually destroyed his newspaper.

John Stockwell on the CIA Documentary: On Company Business - Inside the CIA (1980)

This program examines the Central Intelligence Agency's use of U.S. labor organizations, overthrow of legitimate governments, providing arms to favored groups, covert use of the American mass media, U.S. torture schools and CIA torture supervisors abroad -- all resulting in great human suffering and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and in the maintenance of repressive regimes. Sections of the meticulously documented, award-winning film On Company Business are interspersed with the comments of ex-CIA officer John Stockwell, and Molly Dougherty, who worked on the film. John also comments about the pending legal action against him by the CIA, and a fundraiser for his legal defense fund, held at the University of Texas.

Stephen Colbert, Ken Burns, Khaled Hosseini, and Lisa See at Book Expo America (2007)

At the Saturday Book and Author Breakfast at Book Expo America in June 2007, Ken Burns talked about his book and the PBS series The War, a documentary on World War II. Lisa See talked about her personal history and her book Peony in Love: A Novel and the role of women in China. Khaled Hosseini, author of A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Kite Runner, talked about the lives of two Afghani women as they lived through political changes in Afghanistan. The moderator was Stephen Colbert, author of I Am America (and So Can You!).

The American Power Structure video compilation

A three-part series on the nature of the U.S. power structure. The program contains relevant portions of previous programs from Alternative Views with the following people and films:

• Dr. Noam Chomsky, radical intellectual and author
• Dr. William Domhoff, author of many books on the power structure
• Ramsey Clark, former US Attorney General
  
• Ron Paul, Congressman
• Dr. Tom Ferguson, professor of govt. and co-author of "Right Turn"
• Arthur Miller, playwright, seen in a documentary by Emile de Antonio
• Dr. Al Slivinske, professor of economics
• Ronnie Dugger, author of biographies of LBJ and Reagan
• John Stockwell, ex-CIA officer and author of "In Search of Enemies"
• Dr. Gary Kline, professor of government

This compilation looks at the ruling class institutions of power such as the Council on Foreign Relations, Bilderbergers and Trilateral Commission. We see how their personnel and policies dominate the U.S. economic and political system, regardless of administration--Democrat or Republication.

Tale of Two Cities: The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1946)

Film created by the U.S. War Department showing how the atomic bomb destroyed the people and cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.

Kerry Committee II Day 1: Manuel Noriega, the CIA, and Drug Trafficking (1988)

The subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations led by Senator John Kerry began hearings to assess international narcotics control programs for Panama. Witnesses included Robert M. Morgenthau (district attorney, New York County, NY), Paul Gorman (retired U.S. Army General), a pilot for Eastern Air Lines (witness to drug trafficking in Panama and Miami, FL), and a drug trafficker serving a 30-year sentence for drug-related offences.

John Stockwell and Louis Wolf on the CIA and the Covert Action Information Bulletin (1982)

This program, featuring former CIA official John Stockwell and Louis Wolf, co-editor of Covert Action Information Bulletin, begins with an overview of the general nature and activities of the CIA. The two then discussed how the "Intelligence Identities Protection Act" and the Reagan executive order on intelligence agencies would promote media self-censorship and thus repress public scrutiny and criticism of intelligence (including FBI) activities -- including assassination plots, destabilization of foreign governments, and assorted "dirty tricks." John Stockwell explained how this legislation in effect amends the First Amendment by abridging freedoms of speech and press -- without having gone through the constitutional amendment process. The focus is on specific covert and overt activities of U.S. intelligence agencies and their surrogates: the instruction in torture techniques to Salvadoran army troops by U.S. Green Berets; the attempted coup in the Seychelles Islands; the Argentine torture squads; the South African wars in Angola and Namibia; the attempted Klan coup in Dominica; and attempts to destabilize the Mozambique government -- all of which are reported in Louis Wolf's Covert Action Information Bulletin, which the U.S. government wanted to put out of business. The guests also discussed how CIA "disinformation" tactics manipulate public opinion by planting stories in the press and by financing and supporting right-wing newspapers. In the concluding segment the guests discussed CIA operations in Central America, including covert operations and "disinformation" campaigns directed against the government of Nicaragua.

Harvey Wasserman on October Surprise and the Media (1988)

Author and journalist Harvey Wasserman examined the "October Surprise" in this interview recorded November 7, 1988. The central activity of this effort was the clandestine arrangement of the prime movers in the Reagan campaign of 1980 with the Iranian government to hold the American hostages in the embassy until after the elections in return for arms to be shipped to Iran after Reagan assumed office. Wasserman wrote stories about this in the alternative press as well as some mainstream newspapers.

Gary Shaw and John Stockwell on the JFK Assassination Conspiracy and Cover Up (1989)

This program features Gary Shaw, assassination expert and author of Cover-Up, and former CIA official John Stockwell. The first part of the program focuses on the nature of the complex conspiracy to shoot the president and on how many individuals and organizations fit into the puzzle: Oswald, Ruby, the CIA, Mafia, FBI, Secret Service, Navy and civilian medical personnel, local police, the Cuban exiles, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, and Fidel Castro. In the last part of the series John Stockwell and Gary Shaw discuss the cover-up of the assassination. They claim this took two forms. The first was part of the conspiracy of the actual shooting. The second was that carried out by the American ruling establishment as indicated by the activities of the Warren Commission, FBI, other organizations and individuals of the federal government, and the mass media. Additionally, they review the many new books which had been written at the time about the assassination.

Gary Shaw on JFK Assassination Conspiracy Theories (1988)

Author of Cover-Up, Gary Shaw goes step by step through the shooting of John F. Kennedy and the subsequent cover-up. The show is documented with the use of films, slides, pictures and diagrams which Shaw claimed thoroughly discredited the Warren Commission Report and proved that there was an elaborate conspiracy with many people and multiple gunmen. Shaw reconstructed a scenario of the conspiracy to kill JFK and who was involved. He showed in detail the interlocking relationships with elements of the FBI, CIA, the Mafia, Cuban exiles, Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby, international narcotics trafficking, and an international assassin.

The CIA, Tupamaros, Torture and Dan Mitrione

Iran-Contra Hearings Day 19: Fawn Hall Testimony (1987)

Oliver North's secretary Fawn Hall testified further concerning the changing of documents. Rep. Lee Hamilton then concluded the first phase of the Iran-Contra hearings by reviewing the revelations of the testimony to date.

John Stockwell on the CIA, Terrorism, Drug Trafficking, and Secret Operations (1981)

Former CIA case officer John Stockwell gave an interview in 1981 to discuss activities of the Central Intelligence Agency. Particular emphasis was placed on the congressional bill and the executive order which remove previous restraints on the intelligence services and make it a felony to reveal their activities and personnel, resulting in the first official secrets act in the history of the United States. Other topics include his novel Red Sunset, the CIA training terrorists, freedom of speech, business connections, corruption, CIA heroin trafficking in Southeast Asia, Afghanistan, Hungary, Cuba, and the South African invasion in Angola.

The CIA's Mind Control Project MKULTRA: Secret Human Experimentation with Drugs

Various interview clips and archival footage concerning the Central Intelligence Agency's mind control research program and experimentation on unwitting U.S. citizens with drugs. The first interview deals with the widespread covert germ and chemical warfare experiments carried out since the 1950s by the CIA and the Army over various areas in the U.S., particularly in cities.

Integration Report - Civil Rights Movement Documentary (1960)

Documentary showing the civil rights movement in 1959 and 1960: sit-ins, marches, boycotts and rallies in Montgomery, Alabama, Brooklyn, New York, and Washington, D.C. Features a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. Directed by Madeline Anderson.

South Africa Under Apartheid - Raw Documentary Film Footage (1957)

This 1957 documentary film explores South Africa's apartheid policy, focusing on issues such as race relations, political practices, and segregated dwellings. The footage includes several interviews with black leaders.

The Making of "Mr. Hoover and I" (1989)

In his last film, avant-garde filmmaker Emile De Antonio discussed filmmaking with his friend, musician John Cage, but chiefly explored the myth and reality of the former Director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover. During his lifetime, Hoover was idolized as a paragon of decency and someone who unfailingly upheld quintessential American values. After his death, the story that was revealed was considerably darker and more complex. In Mr. Hoover and I, De Antonio had a lot of harsh things to say about the man and the federal agency he led, and used as examples his huge (and often silly) FBI files, released under the Freedom Of Information Act.

The Making of "Painters Painting: The New York Art Scene 1940-1970" (1989)

Painters Painting: The New York Art Scene 1940-1970 is a 1972 documentary directed by Emile de Antonio. It covers American art movements from abstract expressionism to pop art through conversations with artists in their studios. Artists appearing in the film include Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Helen Frankenthaler, Frank Stella, Barnett Newman, Hans Hofmann, Jules Olitski, Philip Pavia, Larry Poons, Robert Motherwell, and Kenneth Noland.

The Making of "In the King of Prussia" (1989)

In the King of Prussia is a 1982 film directed and written by Emile de Antonio. The film reconstructs the events of the 1980s "Plowshares Eight." The group of anti-war activists were charged with the September 1980 destruction of nose cones designed for nuclear warheads at the Re-Entry Division of the General Electric Space Technology Center in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. The members of the Plowshares Eight, including Daniel Berrigan and Philip Berrigan, played themselves while actors played the roles of jurors, lawyers and police; Martin Sheen played the role of the judge in this shot-on-video feature.

The Making of "Underground" (1989)

Underground is a 1976 documentary film about the Weathermen, founded as a militant faction of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), who fought to overthrow the U.S. government during the 1960s and 1970s. The film consists of interviews with members of the group after they went underground and footage of the anti-war and civil rights protests of the time. It was directed by Emile de Antonio, Haskell Wexler and Mary Lampson, later subpoenaed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in an attempt to confiscate the film footage in order to gain information that would help them arrest the Weathermen.

Underground combines interviews with and archival footage of the Weathermen to provide a picture of this group, their opinions on American society, and their hopes for the future. The filmmakers use the material from their interactions with the Weathermen Bill Ayers, Kathy Boudin, Bernadine Dohrn, Jeff Jones and Cathy Wilkerson to structure its exploration of the formation and direction of the group. The film begins by presenting images and words that describe the Weathermen’s process of being radicalized in the 1960s through the Civil Rights Movement, the anti-war movement, and communist revolutionary struggles in Cuba, Russia and China, as well as historical struggles in the United States over Native American Rights and labor issues. The film moves on to discuss the Weathermen’s analysis of American society, addressing those who have inspired them, and further explaining the reasons behind their militancy, while also introducing the issue of tactics. The final section of the film addresses the group’s use of property destruction as a way to bring about change and destabilize the current, and in their view, corrupt system. They state that “no revolution can take place successfully without an armed confrontation with the state.” While the radicals themselves are reluctant to discuss the specifics of their bombings due to their unstable position as underground fugitives, the filmmakers provide us with a list of actions which they have undertaken. Underground provides an intimate look at the inner workings of the Weather Underground, and we see their discomfort with being filmed, their strong internal collective identity, and their isolation from society at large. The filmmakers do not use the interviews and juxtaposed images to promote the group or support their actions, and it is apparent that their motives for the film differ from those of the subjects that they are presenting. In the end this film provides an unprecedented look at how a bunch of middle-class Americans became self-styled militant revolutionaries, raising questions not only about the merits of their struggle, but also about past and future radical actions.

Christopher Hitchens and Byron York on Washington Journal (1996)

In the newspaper roundtable, Mr. Hitchens and Mr. York discussed the morning headline stories including the plane crash in Croatia which killed Commerce Secretary Ron Brown. Other topics included India, Pakistan, intelligent design, creationism, Iranian arms for Bosnia, Michael Lewis, David Irving, Bob Dole, Bill Clinton, voting, gun control, the U.S. electoral college, Ken Starr, religion, Ayn Rand, Alan Greenspan, media bias, bipartisanship, and politics.

The Making of "America Is Hard to See" (1989)

America Is Hard to See is a documentary film by Emile De Antonio on the events of watershed year of 1968 from the perspective of Eugene McCarthy's presidential campaign. The Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy assassinations and the disaster at the Chicago Democratic Convention are depicted as byproducts of American groupthink.

The Making of "Millhouse: A White Comedy": A Film on Richard Nixon (1989)

Millhouse: A White Comedy is a 1971 documentary by Emile de Antonio following Richard Nixon's political career from his election to the House of Representatives in 1946 to his election as President of the United States in 1968.

The film begins with Nixon's "last press conference" in 1962 after his loss in the race for Governor of California in which he famously said, "You won't have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore." Then a collage of videos show Nixon's trajectory from his House campaign to his involvement in the Alger Hiss case, election the Senate in 1950, election as Vice President in 1952 including the full Checkers speech, campaign for the presidency in 1960, campaign for Barry Goldwater's presidential candidacy in 1964, and his triumphant election as President in 1968 as the "New Nixon."

The Making of "In the Year of the Pig" (1989)

In the Year of the Pig is a 1969 documentary film about the origins of the Vietnam War, directed by Emile de Antonio. It was nominated for an Academy award for best documentary.

The film, which is in black and white, contains much historical footage and many interviews. Those interviewed include Harry S. Ashmore, Daniel Berrigan, Philippe Devillers, David Halberstam, Roger Hilsman, Jean Lacouture, Kenneth P. Landon, Thruston B. Morton, Paul Mus, Charlton Osburn, Harrison Salisbury, Ilya Todd, John Toller, David K. Tuck, David Werfel, and John White.

Produced during the Vietnam War, the film was greeted with hostility by many audiences, with bomb threats and vandalism directed at theaters that showed it.

De Antonio cites the film as his personal favorite. It features the ironic use of patriotic music, portrays Ho Chi Minh as a patriot to the Vietnamese people, and asserts that Vietnam was always a single country rather than two.

The Making of "Rush to Judgment": A Film on the JFK Assassination (1989)

Rush to Judgment is a book about the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy written by Mark Lane and published in 1966. The book takes issue with the conclusions of the Warren Commission and suggests that there was a conspiracy to assassinate John F. Kennedy.

The following year it was made into a documentary film about the JFK assassination, directed by Emile de Antonio and hosted by Lane. A black and white film, it runs 122 minutes long. It has also been shown on BBC TV as part of the much longer (300 minutes) film entitled The Death of Kennedy.

Included are several video clips showing Dealey Plaza how it existed in 1963 and 1966, clips of Lee Harvey Oswald, Dallas Chief of Police Jesse Curry, Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade, Jack Ruby, and his defense attorney Melvin Belli.

Some of the assassination witnesses who present their observations on-camera include Abraham Zapruder, James Tague, Charles Brehm, Mary Moorman, Jean Hill, Lee Bowers, Sam Holland, James Simmons, Richard Dodd, Jessie Price, Orville Nix, Patrick Dean, Napoleon Daniels, Nancy Hamilton, Joseph Johnson, Roy Jones, and Cecil McWatters.