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{{Short description|American journalist}}
{{Short description|American journalist}}
'''Claire Sterling''' ([[née]] '''Neikind'''; October 21, 1919 – June 17, 1995) was an American author and journalist whose work focused on crime, political assassination, and terrorism.<ref name="nyt">{{cite news | title = Claire Sterling, 76, Dies | url = https://www.nytimes.com/1995/06/18/obituaries/claire-sterling-76-dies-writer-on-crime-and-terror.html | author = Eric Pace | work = The New York Times | date = 1995-06-18}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Claire Sterling and the C.I.A. |work=The Nation|date=1985-08-01|author=Bird, Kai |author2=Holland, Max}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Politics, Paradigms, and Intelligence Failures|author=Seliktar, Ofira |page=108|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lYApu5aBVboC&pg=PA108|publisher=M.E. Sharpe | isbn=978-0-7656-1464-3|year=2004 }}</ref> Her theories on Soviet bloc involvement in international terrorism and the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II, presented in ''[[The Terror Network]]'' and ''The Time of the Assassins'', respectively, were politically influential and controversial.
'''Claire Sterling''' ([[née]] '''Neikind'''; October 21, 1919 – June 17, 1995) was an American author and journalist whose work focused on crime, political assassination, and terrorism.<ref name="nyt">{{cite news | title = Claire Sterling, 76, Dies | url = https://www.nytimes.com/1995/06/18/obituaries/claire-sterling-76-dies-writer-on-crime-and-terror.html | author = Eric Pace | work = The New York Times | date = 1995-06-18}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Claire Sterling and the C.I.A. |work=The Nation|date=1985-08-01|author=Bird, Kai |author2=Holland, Max}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Politics, Paradigms, and Intelligence Failures|author=Seliktar, Ofira |page=108|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lYApu5aBVboC&pg=PA108|publisher=M.E. Sharpe | isbn=978-0-7656-1464-3|year=2004 }}</ref> Her theories on Soviet bloc involvement in international terrorism and the attempted assassination of [[Pope John Paul II]], presented in ''[[The Terror Network]]'' and ''The Time of the Assassins'', respectively, were politically influential and controversial.


==Life==
==Life==
Sterling was born in Queens, New York. She earned a bachelor's degree in economics at [[Brooklyn College]], worked as a union organizer.<ref name="nyt" /><ref>{{cite news | title = The Politics of Fear | newspaper =[[The Washington Post]] | date = 1981-04-11}}</ref> After receiving a master's degree in journalism from [[Columbia University]] in 1945, she became the Rome correspondent of "a fly-by-night American news agency."<ref name="nyt" /> When it folded, she joined ''[[The Reporter (magazine)|The Reporter]]'', which she wrote for until it ceased publication in 1968.<ref name="nyt" /> Sterling began writing her second book after losing her job at ''The Reporter''; it was published in 1969.<ref name="nyt" /> She also wrote for various newspapers and magazines, including ''[[The New York Times]]'', ''[[The Washington Post]]'' and ''[[Reader's Digest]]''.<ref name="nyt" />
Sterling was born in [[Queens]], [[New York City]]. She earned a bachelor's degree in economics at [[Brooklyn College]], worked as a union organizer.<ref name="nyt" /><ref>{{cite news | title = The Politics of Fear | newspaper =[[The Washington Post]] | date = 1981-04-11}}</ref> After receiving a master's degree in journalism from [[Columbia University]] in 1945, she became the Rome correspondent of "a fly-by-night American news agency."<ref name="nyt" /> When it folded, she joined ''[[The Reporter (magazine)|The Reporter]]'', which she wrote for until it ceased publication in 1968.<ref name="nyt" /> Sterling began writing her second book after losing her job at ''The Reporter''; it was published in 1969.<ref name="nyt" /> She also wrote for various newspapers and magazines, including ''[[The New York Times]]'', ''[[The Washington Post]]'' and ''[[Reader's Digest]]''.<ref name="nyt" />


She married Thomas Sterling, a novelist, in 1951.<ref name="nyt" /> After spending their honeymoon in Italy the two moved there, living in Rome for several decades.<ref name="nyt" /><ref name="independent">{{cite news | title = Obituary: Claire Sterling| url = https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-claire-sterling-1588401.html | author = Wolfgang Achtner | work = The Independent | date = 1995-06-26}}</ref> They had two children.<ref name="independent" /> She died of cancer at age 75, in a hospital in [[Arezzo]].
She married Thomas Sterling, a novelist, in 1951.<ref name="nyt" /> After spending their honeymoon in Italy the two moved there, living in Rome for several decades.<ref name="nyt" /><ref name="independent">{{cite news | title = Obituary: Claire Sterling| url = https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-claire-sterling-1588401.html | author = Wolfgang Achtner | work = The Independent | date = 1995-06-26}}</ref> They had two children.<ref name="independent" /> She died of cancer at age 75, in a hospital in [[Arezzo]].


==Work as an author==
==Work as an author==
Her first book, titled ''Our Goal was Palestine'', was published by [[Victor Gollancz]] under her [[maiden name]] Claire Neikind in 1946, it is described as 'an American journalist writes of her experiences in a refugee ship.' She was at this time reportedly 'the Rome correspondent of the Overseas News Agency',<ref>[http://www.fishburnbooks.com/catalogs/FinalVersionZionistCatalogue.pdf Jonathan Fishburn Catalogue Five: ZIONISM 1000 Items of History, Politics, Literature, Art and Ephemera from Pre-Mandate Palestine to the Founding of the State of Israel. Fishburn Books]</ref> which was a covert British [[propaganda]] operation run by [[British Security Co-ordination]], set up in [[New York City]] by the British Secret Intelligence Service ([[MI6]]) upon the authorisation of Prime Minister [[Winston Churchill]].<ref>[[William Boyd (writer)|William Boyd]]: [https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/aug/19/military.secondworldwar William Boyd on the largest covert operation in UK history], The Guardian, 19 August 2006</ref>
Her first book, titled ''Our Goal was Palestine'', was published by [[Victor Gollancz]] under her [[maiden name]] Claire Neikind in 1946, it is described as 'an American journalist writes of her experiences in a refugee ship.' She was at this time reportedly 'the Rome correspondent of the [[Jewish Telegraphic Agency|Overseas News Agency]]',<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.fishburnbooks.com/catalogs/FinalVersionZionistCatalogue.pdf |title=Jonathan Fishburn Catalogue Five: ZIONISM 1000 Items of History, Politics, Literature, Art and Ephemera from Pre-Mandate Palestine to the Founding of the State of Israel. Fishburn Books |access-date=2017-02-03 |archive-date=2017-02-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170204004636/http://www.fishburnbooks.com/catalogs/FinalVersionZionistCatalogue.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> which was a covert British [[propaganda]] operation run by [[British Security Co-ordination]], set up in [[New York City]] by the British Secret Intelligence Service ([[MI6]]) upon the authorisation of Prime Minister [[Winston Churchill]].<ref>[[William Boyd (writer)|William Boyd]]: [https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/aug/19/military.secondworldwar William Boyd on the largest covert operation in UK history], The Guardian, 19 August 2006</ref>


Sterling's second book revisited the 1948 death of [[Jan Masaryk]], the Czechoslovak foreign minister, which she blamed on Soviet or Czechoslovak Stalinists.<ref name="nyt" /> More controversial were her books ''[[The Terror Network]]'' (1981) and ''The Time of the Assassins'' (1984). In the former book, which was translated into 22 languages, she claimed that Soviet Union was a major source of backing behind terrorist groupings around the world. The book was read and appreciated by [[Alexander Haig]] and [[William Casey]], but its arguments were dismissed by the CIA's Soviet analysts; [[Lincoln Gordon]] one of three members of a senior review panel at the CIA charged with bringing non-intelligence professional and academic review to the agency discovered comparing CIA intelligence reports and the book at Casey's request that at least some of Sterling's claims had come from stories that the CIA itself had planted in the Italian press.<ref>{{cite book |last=Woodward |first=Bob |authorlink=Bob Woodward |title=Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA |publisher=Simon & Schuster |date=1987 |pages=124–129 |isbn=0-671-65543-4 }}</ref>
Sterling's second book revisited the 1948 death of [[Jan Masaryk]], the Czechoslovak foreign minister, which she blamed on Soviet or Czechoslovak Stalinists.<ref name="nyt" /> More controversial were her books ''[[The Terror Network]]'' (1981) and ''The Time of the Assassins'' (1984). In the former book, which was translated into 22 languages, she claimed that Soviet Union was a major source of backing behind terrorist groupings around the world. The book was read and appreciated by [[Alexander Haig]] and [[William Casey]], but its arguments were dismissed by the CIA's Soviet analysts; [[Lincoln Gordon]] one of three members of a senior review panel at the CIA charged with bringing non-intelligence professional and academic review to the agency discovered comparing CIA intelligence reports and the book at Casey's request that at least some of Sterling's claims had come from stories that the CIA itself had planted in the Italian press.<ref>{{cite book |last=Woodward |first=Bob |authorlink=Bob Woodward |title=Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA |publisher=Simon & Schuster |date=1987 |pages=124–129 |isbn=0-671-65543-4 }}</ref>
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==Books==
==Books==
*[https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/31696 ''Our Goal Was Palestine''.] London: [[Victor Gollancz]] (1946).
*''Our Goal Was Palestine'' (1946) (a 20-page pamphlet, published under her maiden name)<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vTs8AAAAMAAJ|title=Commonweal|last=Williams|first=Michael|date=1946-01-01|publisher=Commonweal Publishing Corporation|language=en}}</ref><ref>https://books.google.com/books?id=qYhZGwAACAAJ&dq=Our+Goal+Was+Palestine&client=opera {{Dead link|date=February 2022}}</ref>
::A 28-page pamphlet published as Claire Neikind.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vTs8AAAAMAAJ|title=Commonweal|last=Williams|first=Michael|date=1946-01-01|publisher=Commonweal Publishing Corporation|language=en}}</ref><ref>Neikind, Claire (1946). [https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/31696 ''Our Goal Was Palestine''.] London: [[Victor Gollancz|Victor Gollancz LTD]].</ref>
*[[iarchive:masarykcase0000unse|''The Masaryk Case'']] (1969)
*[[iarchive:masarykcase0000unse|''The Masaryk Case'']]. New York: [[Harper & Row]] (1969). {{LCCN|70083623}}.
*''The Terror Network'' (1981)
*[[iarchive:terrornetwork00clai|''The Terror Network: The Secret War of International Terrorism.'']] New York: [[Berkley Books|Berkley]] (1981). {{ISBN|978-0425053409|0425053407}}.
*''The Time of the Assassins'' (1984)
*''The Time of the Assassins''. New York: [[Holt, Rinehart, and Winston]] (1984). {{ISBN|978-0030635540|0030635543}}.
*''Octopus: The Long Reach of the International Sicilian Mafia'' (1990)
*[[iarchive:octopuslongreach0000ster|''Octopus: The Long Reach of the International Sicilian Mafia'']]. New York: [[Simon & Schuster]] (1990). {{ISBN|0671734024}}.
*''Thieves' World: The Threat of the New Global Network of Organized Crime'' (1994) (published in the UK as ''Crime Without Frontiers''<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/wagesofcrime00rtna|url-access=registration|title=Wages of Crime: Black Markets, Illegal Finance, and the Underworld Economy|last=Naylor|first=R. T.|date=2004-01-01|publisher=Cornell University Press|isbn=0801489601|language=en}}</ref>)
**UK ed.: ''[[iarchive:mafialongreachof0000ster_t2p4|The Mafia: The Long Reach of the International Sicilian Mafia]]''. London: [[Hamish Hamilton]] (1990).
*[[iarchive:thievesworldthre00ster|''Thieves' World: The Threat of the New Global Network of Organized Crime''.]] New York: [[Simon & Schuster]] (1994). {{ISBN|978-0671749972|0671749978}}.
**UK ed.: [[iarchive:crimewithoutfron0000ster|''Crime Without Frontiers''.]] London: Warner (1995).<ref>Naylor, R. T. (Jan. 2004). [[iarchive:wagesofcrime00rtna|''Wages of Crime: Black Markets, Illegal Finance, and the Underworld Economy'']]. Ithaca: [[Cornell University Press]]. {{ISBN|0801489601}}.</ref>


==Footnotes==
==Footnotes==
Line 41: Line 44:
[[Category:Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alumni]]
[[Category:Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alumni]]
[[Category:Brooklyn College alumni]]
[[Category:Brooklyn College alumni]]
[[Category:Anti-Bulgarian sentiment]]
[[Category:Non-fiction writers about the French Connection]]
[[Category:Non-fiction writers about the French Connection]]
[[Category:20th-century American historians]]
[[Category:20th-century American historians]]

Latest revision as of 16:39, 23 December 2024

Claire Sterling (née Neikind; October 21, 1919 – June 17, 1995) was an American author and journalist whose work focused on crime, political assassination, and terrorism.[1][2][3] Her theories on Soviet bloc involvement in international terrorism and the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II, presented in The Terror Network and The Time of the Assassins, respectively, were politically influential and controversial.

Life

[edit]

Sterling was born in Queens, New York City. She earned a bachelor's degree in economics at Brooklyn College, worked as a union organizer.[1][4] After receiving a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University in 1945, she became the Rome correspondent of "a fly-by-night American news agency."[1] When it folded, she joined The Reporter, which she wrote for until it ceased publication in 1968.[1] Sterling began writing her second book after losing her job at The Reporter; it was published in 1969.[1] She also wrote for various newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and Reader's Digest.[1]

She married Thomas Sterling, a novelist, in 1951.[1] After spending their honeymoon in Italy the two moved there, living in Rome for several decades.[1][5] They had two children.[5] She died of cancer at age 75, in a hospital in Arezzo.

Work as an author

[edit]

Her first book, titled Our Goal was Palestine, was published by Victor Gollancz under her maiden name Claire Neikind in 1946, it is described as 'an American journalist writes of her experiences in a refugee ship.' She was at this time reportedly 'the Rome correspondent of the Overseas News Agency',[6] which was a covert British propaganda operation run by British Security Co-ordination, set up in New York City by the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) upon the authorisation of Prime Minister Winston Churchill.[7]

Sterling's second book revisited the 1948 death of Jan Masaryk, the Czechoslovak foreign minister, which she blamed on Soviet or Czechoslovak Stalinists.[1] More controversial were her books The Terror Network (1981) and The Time of the Assassins (1984). In the former book, which was translated into 22 languages, she claimed that Soviet Union was a major source of backing behind terrorist groupings around the world. The book was read and appreciated by Alexander Haig and William Casey, but its arguments were dismissed by the CIA's Soviet analysts; Lincoln Gordon one of three members of a senior review panel at the CIA charged with bringing non-intelligence professional and academic review to the agency discovered comparing CIA intelligence reports and the book at Casey's request that at least some of Sterling's claims had come from stories that the CIA itself had planted in the Italian press.[8]

Sterling was the first to claim (in a September 1982 article in Reader's Digest) that the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John II had been ordered by the Bulgarian Secret Service, a theory that became known as the "Bulgarian Connection"[9][10] She was one of three journalists who developed and published details supporting the theory - the others were Paul Henze, a propaganda expert and former CIA station chief in Turkey, and Michael Ledeen, associated with the Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, a right-wing think tank. Ledeen had strong connections with a faction of the Italian secret service (SISMI) linked to the Propaganda Due secret masonic lodge, which first revealed the fraudulent proposed attack on the Pope by the Soviet Minister of Defence Dmitry Ustinov.[11] The three journalists wrote articles and appeared on television and her and Henze's books were enthusiastically reviewed. Individually, or as a team, the two were repeatedly invited as guests on to the three principal American networks and programmes on British television. They insisted that no expert who supported a contrasting view be interviewed with them on the same programme and, in most cases, the producers obliged. The Sterling-Henze duo was almost able to monopolise coverage of the story. In the American media, for a certain time, it became almost impossible to express a different view and anyone who did was considered unpatriotic at best. The "Bulgarian Connection" theory has also been, in detail, refuted and attributed to bias by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky in Manufacturing Consent.[12] The Time of the Assassins dealt with the assassination attempt and advanced this now-discredited theory.[13] Her last two books dealt with the Sicilian Mafia and post-Communist globalized organized crime, respectively.[1]

Books

[edit]
A 28-page pamphlet published as Claire Neikind.[14][15]
  • The Masaryk Case. New York: Harper & Row (1969). LCCN 70-83623.
  • The Terror Network: The Secret War of International Terrorism. New York: Berkley (1981). ISBN 978-0425053409, 0425053407.
  • The Time of the Assassins. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston (1984). ISBN 978-0030635540, 0030635543.
  • Octopus: The Long Reach of the International Sicilian Mafia. New York: Simon & Schuster (1990). ISBN 0671734024.
  • Thieves' World: The Threat of the New Global Network of Organized Crime. New York: Simon & Schuster (1994). ISBN 978-0671749972, 0671749978.

Footnotes

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Eric Pace (1995-06-18). "Claire Sterling, 76, Dies". The New York Times.
  2. ^ Bird, Kai; Holland, Max (1985-08-01). "Claire Sterling and the C.I.A.". The Nation.
  3. ^ Seliktar, Ofira (2004). Politics, Paradigms, and Intelligence Failures. M.E. Sharpe. p. 108. ISBN 978-0-7656-1464-3.
  4. ^ "The Politics of Fear". The Washington Post. 1981-04-11.
  5. ^ a b Wolfgang Achtner (1995-06-26). "Obituary: Claire Sterling". The Independent.
  6. ^ "Jonathan Fishburn Catalogue Five: ZIONISM 1000 Items of History, Politics, Literature, Art and Ephemera from Pre-Mandate Palestine to the Founding of the State of Israel. Fishburn Books" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-02-04. Retrieved 2017-02-03.
  7. ^ William Boyd: William Boyd on the largest covert operation in UK history, The Guardian, 19 August 2006
  8. ^ Woodward, Bob (1987). Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA. Simon & Schuster. pp. 124–129. ISBN 0-671-65543-4.
  9. ^ Robert D. Kaplan (1993). Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History. Pan Macmillan. pp. 208–. ISBN 978-0-312-42493-0.
  10. ^ Raymond Garthoff (26 July 2000). The Great Transition: American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War. Brookings Institution Press. pp. 92–. ISBN 978-0-8157-9144-7.
  11. ^ The Independent: Obituary: Claire Sterling, 26 June 1995
  12. ^ Herman, Edward S.; Chomsky, Noam (2011-07-06). Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 9780307801623.
  13. ^ Kakutani, Michiko (1983-12-30). "Books Of The Times". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-04-18.
  14. ^ Williams, Michael (1946-01-01). Commonweal. Commonweal Publishing Corporation.
  15. ^ Neikind, Claire (1946). Our Goal Was Palestine. London: Victor Gollancz LTD.
  16. ^ Naylor, R. T. (Jan. 2004). Wages of Crime: Black Markets, Illegal Finance, and the Underworld Economy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0801489601.

References

[edit]
  • Bart Barnes (1995-06-18). "Claire Sterling, Investigative Writer, Dies". The Washington Post.
[edit]
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