Bio
Melvin A. Goodman is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington, DC, and an adjunct professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins University. His 42-year government career included tours at the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of State, and the Department of Defense’s National War College, where he was a professor of international security. His books on international security include “A Whistleblower at the CIA: The Path of Dissent;” “National Insecurity: The Cost of American Militarism;” “Bush League Diplomacy: How the Neoconservatives are Putting the World at Risk;” “The Wars of Eduard Shevardnadze;” “The Phantom Defense: America’s Pursuit of the Star Wars Illusion;” “The End of Superpower Conflict in the Third World,” and “Gorbachev’s Retreat: The Third World.”
He has written numerous articles and opeds that have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, Foreign Policy; Harper’s Magazine; the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists; and the Foreign Service Journal. His TV appearances include the PBS Newshour; the Amy Goodman Show; NBC; and CBS. He has lectured at college campuses all over the country as well as to numerous chapters of the World Affairs Council, the Council on Foreign Relations, and various veteran organizations. In 1991, he testified before the Senate intelligence committee in order to block the confirmation of Robert M. Gates as director of the CIA.
Recent News and Latest Book
We Must Reduce the American Role in the Middle East
The U.S. preoccupation with the Middle East over the past six decades has been a costly endeavor with little benefit. The traditional twin pillars of U.S. policy in the region have been relations with Israel and Saudi Arabia. Relations with Israel have been complicated due to domestic pressures on U.S. administrations that prevent a forthright approach to dealing with Israel. As a result, the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty in the 1960s was handled duplicitously by the administration of Lyndon Johnson. Relations with Saudi Arabia are dependent on U.S. energy requirements, and Saudi influence in the OPEC arena. As a result, Saudi’s responsibility for the killing of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, war crimes in Yemen, and the brutalization of Ethiopian migrants on the Saudi-Yemeni border have been ignored.
More Evidence Regarding Henry Kissinger’s Lies About Chile
Our 240 years of history have not produced a more controversial secretary of state than Henry A. Kissinger. There are enormous achievements associated with Kissinger, including the Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 1972; the step-by-step agreements in 1974 between Israel and Egypt as well as between Israel and Syria; and the opening of a substantive political dialogue with China that began with his secret diplomacy in 1971. Conversely, Kissinger will be remembered for the wiretapping of his senior aides; the secret bombing of Cambodia; the outrageous “tilt” toward Pakistan in 1971 in order to protect his opening toward China; the secret arms supplies to the Shah of Iran, who was supporting a Kurdish rebel faction in Iraq; the profound lies associated with the Vietnam War and the U.S. role in the bloody military coup in Chile fifty years ago. The evidence of his lies regarding Chile continue to mount.
