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Rocket fired toward US Embassy in Iraq injures child

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 09:30:39 GMT

Thomas Pynchon Predicted the Pandemic in ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’—Now Aren't You Sorry You Didn't Read It?
Recently an editor at the website Jezebel titled her essay on quarantine reading “You Don't Have to Read Gravity's Rainbow During Self-Isolation.” She instead recommended “trash” or books one had read as a child. Others in lit biz were quick to recommend Camus’ The Plague, and a recent piece in The New York Times suggested Moby-Dick, mostly for its finale of nature—the White Whale—exacting revenge on Ahab and the rest of the humans (except for Ishmael) on the Pequod. Depending on how long the pandemic lasts, I, too, would recommend Moby-Dick—as a precursor of and as a warm-up for Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, where the killer whale becomes the killer rocket. If it’s fiction you want these shut-in days, Pynchon’s is the American novel that offers the most profound understanding of how the pandemic is killing hundreds of thousands across the globe. Granted, each of us is most concerned that the virus doesn’t kill us, but you still might like to know Pynchon’s analysis—in 1973—of why you might die. And although Gravity’s Rainbow has a very pessimistic diagnosis of human history, that diagnosis might inspire the cognitive shift necessary for regeneration after the pandemic eases, if it does. Plenty of op-ed writers have offered cultural analyses and future prescriptions, but Pynchon’s fiction is further reaching, more imaginative, and more affecting.Gravity’s Rainbow is also notoriously long and recalcitrant. But if you recognize its Brechtian “epic theater” as decidedly relevant to our current situation, reading it could be a good investment of your entertainment hours because the novel is an encyclopedia of humor, what scholars call “the carnivalesque.” Pynchon includes a Huck Finn-like Innocent Abroad as protagonist, a large gallery of fools and frauds, slapstick chase scenes, movie parodies, Catch-22 absurdities and Monty Python stupidities, as well as bawdy songs, Proverbs for Paranoids, and word play worthy of Nabokov, with whom Pynchon studied. I should also mention plenty of sex scenes to please just about every taste (and tastelessness). But be not fooled: the hurdy-gurdy carnival is present to conduct you into the big tent, where gravity-defying high-wire acts of human rocketry occur.Thomas Pynchon: A Brief Encounter With the Elusive NovelistAlso, be not afraid. You can finish Gravity’s Rainbow, as I told students to whom I assigned it, if you just keep going forward. Don’t loop back to get every joke and resolve every ambiguity. The multiple story lines will cohere—and diffuse again at the end. By then you should be moved by the novel’s emotional heart, presented in scores of variations: children away from home and threatened in the night, Hansels and Gretels without, unfortunately, their happy ending. For decades, Pynchon the prodigal prodigy has been criticized for his lack of affect, but readers who aren’t exhausted by the book’s generous excesses should ultimately feel Pynchon’s disgust with and pity for the human virus: "`Fathers are carriers of the virus of Death, and sons are the infected.’"“Humans are the virus” is apparently a slogan Reddit Eco-Fascists use to rail against immigration and overpopulation. Pynchon’s viral tail and tale are much longer, summarized near the end of the novel: The “World just before men,” Pynchon writes, was “Too violently pitched alive in constant flow ever to be seen by men directly. They are meant only to look at it dead, in still strata, transputrefied to oil or coal. Alive, it was such a threat: it was Titans, was an overpeaking of life so clangorous and mad, such a green corona about Earth’s body that some spoiler had to be brought in before it blew the Creation apart. So we, the crippled keepers, were sent out to multiply, to have dominion. God’s spoilers. Us. Counter-revolutionaries. It is our mission to promote death. The way we kill, the way we die, being unique among the Creatures.” For Pynchon, humans are the “carriers of the virus of Death” because of two unique features: first is our foreknowledge that we will die. Because of this, and here Pynchon seems to be following Norman O. Brown’s Life Against Death, we desperate humans used our intelligence (that gave us foreknowledge) to invent ways of protecting ourselves and killing others, both human others and the threatening “green corona” of nature, the planet-wide other.To dramatize the consequences of this anthropological and ecological vision, Pynchon sets Gravity’s Rainbow at the end of World War II in the killing “Zone” of border-broken Europe. Characters from all inhabited continents gather in this Zone to hunt the special rocket 00000 created by Nazi scientists, some of whom would soon move to the U.S. There are also glimpses of concentration camps and a reference to the atomic devastation of Hiroshima. Although about the 20th-century’s murderous past, as well as human prehistory, the novel and its rocketry really predict the future, our present in which death can surprise us from the sky, flying in from very far away—from nuclear weapons launched by North Korea or from a virus launched by a diseased bat in China. Gravity’s Rainbow may be the first globalized novel, one that understands that the technologies that we humans devised to keep ourselves alive and distant from others can be superspreaders of mass death. For Pynchon, rockets are not just weapons or carriers but symbols of all industrialism that mines the coal and pumps the oil (mentioned in the earlier quote) to build towers and fuel machines that seem to promise rising above the “living critter” planet Earth. When 00000 is fired in the novel, the rocket is both an act of murder and an act of suicide, for a youth rides within it to “no return.” Humans have been committing murder for millennia. It’s the suicide that our industries have now enabled on a planetary scale that is new. For Pynchon, World War II was just an accelerated incident in humans’ long-running global war on nature. If this seems a truism to all but Republican lawmakers in 2020, remember please that Pynchon was writing his environmental novel 50 years ago.At the beginning of Gravity’s Rainbow, German rockets are raining down on London. At the end of the novel, rocket 00000 seems to be coming down in Los Angeles. On a globalized Earth, no populated place is safe. A character in The Matrix makes explicit, some 26 years after Gravity’s Rainbow, the effect of superspreading humans:“You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.”Perhaps cancer is a more precise analog for humans’ relation to nature, since viruses are not really alive. In any event, both can destroy their host, bringing about the very death humans wanted to avoid as they depleted much of the natural world and then abandoned it to live in a megalopolis that Pynchon calls the “Raketen-Stadt,” the Rocket City. The coronavirus rocket came down in New York City and other densely populated centers. In the novel, children are moved out of London to protect them from the V-2 rockets. In New York City, the rich fled to their country homes. The rest of us were left behind and to our own devices like the abused and murdered children in Pynchon’s Zone.Pynchon knew about the rich, the elite, the “They” who control technology, economics, and politics, who promise security to us, whom he calls the “preterite,” the unchosen: “'Can They keep us from even catching cold? From lice, from being alone? from anything? Before the Rocket we went on believing, because we wanted to. But the Rocket can penetrate, from the sky, at any given point. Nowhere is safe.’” Pynchon even knew somehow about Trump and his administration, our current “They”: “'They have lied to us. They can’t keep us from dying, so They lie to us about death.’”Symbols of globalism, industrialism, and monopolism, rockets also represent the human desire for transcendence, for death-denying immortality in the heavens that rockets pierce. Pynchon sees the rocket prefigured in the pointed steeples of American Christian churches that promise souls’ return “home” to God. But “no return” is the constant refrain in Gravity’s Rainbow. Like the ancient organisms that gave us petroleum, we die here and return only to the earth. One of the novel’s last lines is a call to bring “the Towers low”—the rocket towers, the megalopolis towers, the sacred towers. After the bubonic plague in Europe, some cities built “plague towers” to memorialize the dead and thank God for “saving” the cities. The tallest is in the Czech Republic, the most famous in Vienna. Will towers of fealty and thanks be erected after the current pandemic? Or will humans come around to Pynchon’s position that no salvation exists in the heavens, that no He—or They—exists to deliver humans from a pandemic or from our suicidal destruction of our only home?Student of cybernetics, artist of control and chaos, user of inherited words going back to the Puritans, Pynchon implicates himself as semiotician with a late reference to William Burroughs, who thought language, enabler of restrictive codes and official lies, was the destructive human virus, so he cut up sentences and fragmented texts. Before quoting from Naked Lunch, Pynchon says, “I know what your editors want, exactly what they want. I am a traitor. I carry it with me. Your virus. Spread by your tireless Typhoid Marys.” Though diffuse, sometimes obscene, and obsessed with addiction like Naked Lunch, Gravity’s Rainbow does not as radically attack as Burroughs did the death-dealing language virus, the carrier of cultural repetition and repression. Pynchon gives editors and readers more of what he believes they want—more amusement and a more consistent argument about planetary life and death. Those features are why he speaks to us still. The last words of Gravity’s Rainbow are a hopeful song, followed by the singalong request: “Now everybody—"Our children need not be told—now—Pynchon’s version of human history, but if there is to be a cognitive supershift—to prevent future superspreading—perhaps we should tell them the outlines of Pynchonian history and, when they are old enough, put Gravity’s Rainbow in their hands. I was persuaded by Pynchon’s alarm in 1973 and have lived with the possibility of apocalypse since then. I had not stocked face masks and toilet paper, but I was also not surprised by the virus rushing across global skies much faster than Melville’s nature-avenging mutant whale could move through water. It is only now, when deaths have abated where I live in Brooklyn, that I feel I can write this “Pynchon told us so”—just as Melville did in more ambiguous terms in Moby-Dick. The tragedy of Ahab is classical personal hubris. The tragedy in Gravity’s Rainbow is species hubris. That hubris is with us still, with us in our political leaders who refuse to accept that America is not exceptional, with anyone who refuses to accept that humankind is not transcendent but contingent and fragile, subject to agents that can be seen only through a microscope. There is no pot of gold at the end of Pynchon’s Rainbow. But there is possibly enriching human humility. We will need it in our Pynchonian future.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 09:30:30 GMT

They Marched in America’s First Prides in 1970. They’re Still Out, Loud, and Proud.
The 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City was marked in June 2019. This year saw the 50th anniversary of the city’s first Pride march, known as the Christopher Street Liberation Day March. But on June 27 and 28, 1970, one year after the riots, New York City wasn’t making history alone. That weekend there were also the first Pride marches in Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco—although in their first iteration “Pride” was not in their names.To organize and attend those marches was brave; this was an era in which being LGBTQ and being out brought considerable personal risk. But the Stonewall genie was out of the bottle; being out and visible at marches and demonstrations was the LGBTQ rights movement’s most public statement.Below, participants and organizers of America’s first ever dedicated LGBTQ marches in 1970 talk to The Daily Beast about the era, why they marched, the drama and color of the day, how they feel the movement has evolved since, what they would like to see in the future—and what advice they have for the next generation of activists.New York’s 50th LGBTQ Pride March Should Be as Political as PossibleNEW YORK CITY: Victoria CruzVictoria Cruz is a longtime trans activist and LGBTQ campaigner, and a senior domestic violence counselor and advocate for the Anti-Violence Project (AVP). She was present at the Stonewall Riots in 1969, the 1970 Christopher Street Liberation Day March, and was a close friend of Sylvia Rivera. Cruz is 73, and lives in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, and appeared in David France’s 2017 documentary, The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, trying to solve the mystery of Johnson’s 1992 death. In 2012, Cruz received the National Crime Victim Service Award from then-Attorney General Eric Holder.What was it like being at Stonewall?I was 22, and identifying as butch/femme drag queen back then. As a bar, Stonewall was a release. You could go there and be yourself and dance with whoever you wanted. The music was fantastic. There were very few clubs around and most of them used to get raided. The night of the Stonewall Riots, people were fed up: the abuse, the verbal abuse, the physical abuse, the pushing, the shoving, the name calling. People couldn’t take it any more, so they fought back.What do you remember feeling and seeing?It was a very warm, humid night. There was a stillness in the air. Judy Garland had just been buried. There was a full moon. It was the calm before the storm. I saw the paddy wagons pull up at the Stonewall and thought it was another raid. But I could see the cops were from another precinct. I was out front. We heard bottles breaking and mirrors smashing. People starting coming out, the cops were beating up a lesbian (some say this was Stormé DeLarverie, but accounts vary). The crowd threw pennies at them and called them “pigs.” Then all hell broke loose. Someone threw a brick, and cracked the windows. People used parking meters to bang on the doors. The crowd grew. More cops came. They weren’t used to us fighting back. I think they were more astonished than we were.What happened to you next?When more cops came, they started chasing protesters. We went north on Seventh Avenue, then on to 10th Street, then back to Waverly Place, then back to the Stonewall again. The cops were chasing us, then we were chasing the cops. It ended up like a Keystone comedy. Then we saw people with Molotov cocktails setting cars on fire and I thought, “This is getting too much.” My then-boyfriend Frankie was illegal here, from Canada. He was a bouncer at the Stonewall. He didn’t want to get arrested, and get sent back to Canada. It got more and more rowdy. There were more bricks, cops, and batons. We got the train home. When we got there, it was already on TV.Did you go back the next two nights?The bar called Frankie to go in the next day. The place was destroyed. He brought back a Stonewall bar sign with the prices of drinks. I still have it. People reorganized, and we went back on the second night and it was more violent. The third night I didn’t go. I thought, “I don’t need any of this.”You went to the first Pride march the following year in 1970?Yes, it was so interesting. I remember at first around 50 people gathering at Bleecker and Christopher Streets. Then we marched up Sixth Avenue. They gave us half the street, and we marched all the way up to Central Park. As we were marching, more and more people joined the parade. We got to Central Park. It was like a spectacle. We were so happy, free, and liberated. It was a different feeling. Nobody was ashamed to be out and be themselves. It was just an uplifting feeling of freedom. Frankie and I stayed together another six months. He didn’t want me to be in drag, he wanted me in regular-guy clothes. I said, “No, this is not me.” He met me in a mini-skirt, and tried to change me. I wouldn’t go for that. I had already let my hair loose, and taken hormones and said, “This is what I want to be.” I transitioned before Stonewall during high school. I had found out there were doctors experimenting with black market hormones. My doctor was a real pioneer.How was your family about you being trans?I was one of 11 children, and third from the eldest. (Cruz was born in Guánica, Puerto Rico, and moved as a young child with her family to Red Hook, Brooklyn.) My parents both worked, so I had to take care of my brothers and sisters. They always knew. I never hid myself, never hid in the closet. They were very supportive. I was one of the family, one of them. I was my mother’s child. My mother was my dressmaker, my father was my friend. I could sit on the bench and talk the breeze with my father about anything. It’s very important when you’re accepted.That sounds a very positive experience.Most of the time trans people weren’t that visible. I told my mother, “This is the way I feel.” She didn’t fight me. Once I started my transition she saw the difference. I went to school, and had a job. I passed. It was always difficult at work because when they found out employers would fire me, or make my life so miserable I didn’t want to go back to work. Being trans was taboo back then. I modeled. Once they found out, I lost those jobs.I took up hairdressing and cosmetology, thinking it would make life easier. In some ways it was more accepting and tolerant. But in those days trans people were not visible. Many people hadn’t met a trans person. They had perhaps heard of Christine Jorgensen (whose gender reassignment surgery in 1952 had made headlines). How accepting in those days was the mainstream gay rights movement to trans people?I felt in the first march they wanted us to go to back of the parade, and we said, “Hell no.” We were up front rebelling. We mixed through the whole crowd. That’s why you don’t see a separate trans contingent. We wouldn’t go to the back. It hasn’t changed much. We haven’t been fully accepted, period. You get all these corporations and banks with their boy-toys and fancy floats. How many of those corporations ever hire trans women? How many banks hire trans women as tellers? How many offer medical coverage? We have to depend on government handouts. We are still third-class citizens. Then there are the murders of trans women of color. People look around and find someone who is vulnerable to bully.Have you had experience of this yourself?I started at AVP as a survivor of sexual assault and rape. I had been raped before by men. I was working at a nursing home in 1996 and was assaulted by female nurses. It was more physical and hateful. I got through it with the help of AVP. They were arrested. I was never alone in court for the whole year the case went on (two of the accused were found guilty of harassment, the others were acquitted). Someone from AVP was always with me. I wanted to give something back to them, and I have been there for the last 20 years. How impactful was STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries), which was set up in 1970 to feed and house homeless queer youth?Sylvia and Marsha (P. Johnson) founded STAR House. It was a youth center in the East Village for two years. There were not enough funds coming in, and it broke apart. The girls took the copper piping plumbing, sold it, and bought food for the street kids. Sylvia had that on her mind all the time, to help people. Marsha would say, “We have to be good to one other.” Those were her favorite words. I used to call Sylvia, Rusty (Mae Moore) and Chelsea (Goodwin, who ran Transy House in Brooklyn from 1995 to 2008) to help girls who couldn’t find shelters. They did not once say no. They welcomed them with open arms.In 1973, Sylvia gave her famous speech in Washington Square Park to Pride protesters, talking about trans people being raped and beaten, and being ignored by the gay community. “I will no longer put up with this shit.”Sylvia went home slashed herself after that. Marsha found her, and took her to the hospital. Otherwise she’d have been dead. Sylvia felt the movement had abandoned her, and other trans people. She left the movement, and she moved to Westchester.How was the rest of the 1970s marches?The marches during that time featured gay bars and clubs who rented out floats and buggies and horses. The second and third march were more organized. Gay bars, with mainly men, at that time sometimes wouldn’t let you in if you didn’t know someone, so we went to trans bars.Did the mainstream movement become more trans-inclusive?It got more inspirational, but trans people were still at the bottom of the barrel. Unless you do something out of the ordinary it’s still not as accepted that much. The mainstream movement sidelined us. I always speak my mind. Don’t tolerate us. accept us. I say that to heterosexual people too. Accept me just as I accept you. It’s acceptance, not toleration.What do you think of the Trump administration?That draft dodger who uses the excuse of heel spurs? If Marsha and Sylvia were around today, Marsha would ask what kind of heels he had been wearing. He’s a liar. The Russians have got something on him.Today, they would be upfront marching with the rest of the crowd. Marsha seemed gullible, but she always knew what the prize was. She would give you that naiveté but always knowing what she wanted and how to get it. Sylvia was in your face and aggressive, where Marsha wasn’t. They made a good pair.Tell me about your friendship with Sylvia.Myself and Sylvia, we were enemies. You know how girls are! A friend of hers was seeing Frankie, so I was all pissed off about that. It was a rivalry. After I started with AVP, Sylvia and I became friends. When we first met after 25 years, it was at a meeting. She said, “I know you.” I said, “I know you too.” Just then a Marsha button popped off her blouse, and rolled over to my feet. A sister came and picked it up. Sylvia said, “Give it to her, she’s one of us.” Ever since then, we started working together for the community.She became my best friend. I was with her at St. Vincent’s (the former New York hospital) the day before she died (in February 2002). I used to go at lunchtime. I was feeding her. She told me, “Victoria, sit down. I have to speak to you.” She called me “Victoria,” so I knew it was serious. She said, “You have to keep the community together because we can be our worst own enemy, and there’s power in numbers, and we do have the numbers with our allies.” And I said, “I’ll try.” The next day I found out that Sylvia was dead. I really miss her. There was something supernatural in that Marsha button popping off, and Sylvia and I making amends and working together.What are you proudest of?I am most proud of my counseling work at AVP, around domestic violence, hate crime, rape, police misconduct, bias assaults, without and within the community. Also, the gratitude I get from old clients. When I see them they tell me, “You saved my life,” or “You gave me a roof over my head,” or “You gave me my self-esteem back.” To me, that’s reward enough. I found that my life came to a standstill when I was in relationships. When I would break up I would move forward. Relationships got in the way of what I wanted to do, which was to be free and be an activist. When I was on my own, I went to college. When I was on my own, I worked. One relationship caused me to be a crack addict. Then I worked for AVP, and I progressed. Aging is a process. You age gracefully. I’m still growing up. I hope what I am doing now will be my legacy as an activist and a person, working to ensure all marginalized persons are accepted as human beings. Trans rights are always human rights.Do you think the trans movement has reached a positive turning point?I think the trans movement has moved a little further forward, especially with shows like Pose. I can’t identify Caitlyn Jenner. She has never walked in my shoes, and I never walked in hers. I can’t identify with her because she’s always had what she wanted, whereas I had to hustle and struggle to get what I wanted—and work for it. It just didn’t come on a silver platter. Most of the girls have to work hard for it. Pose is brilliant, and reflects the lives of real trans women. Will & Grace and other shows are comedies. Pose is real life.‘Pose’ Made History. Now It’s More Important Than Ever.Are you optimistic about the future?I am optimistic because I feel the movement coming now will be about change. Now it’s the youth and all races fighting these injustices. George Floyd’s killing was a 21st-century lynching. As long as there’s injustice, brown children being put in cages, people have to stand up for what is right. And this is all wrong.How do you feel about Black Lives Matter, and Black Trans Lives Matter?Fantastic. It’s time we bring these things out in the open, because the wider world doesn’t hear much about it. We only hear about it in our community. I know “all lives matter,” but picking on marginalized groups is a systemic thing in this country, and that system has to break down. We need to break it down.Marsha, Sylvia… many trans people aren’t around from back then. You survived, and did so much work and activism.In a way I am honored, and in a way I am humbled. We have won many battles, but the war keeps on with this administration. What is your advice to younger activists?Get educated—because once you’re educated, nobody can take that from you.* * *LOS ANGELES: Karla JayKarla Jay, author of Tales of the Lavender Menace: A Memoir of Liberation, was an early member of the Gay Liberation Front and a founding member of Radicalesbians. She helped organize the first Los Angeles Pride march—known as the Christopher Street West parade—on June 28, 1970.How does this 50-year span of LGBTQ history feel?It is kind of funny to think it was a mid-century ago. Sometimes it feels like that, sometimes it does seem like yesterday. It is quite strange. I think in terms of social history the progress in general we have made is extraordinary. There were four of those first Pride marches in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco, with fewer than 10,000 people. Last year, there was an estimated 5 million people in New York City, attending or in the March. Now there are Prides in many countries around the world. That is an extraordinary development in the last 50 years.You helped organize the LA march?I helped plan some of the New York march, then went out to Los Angeles at the end of May to help them get ready too. The major obstacles to the marches were the police departments, which remains very relevant today. The police wouldn’t give us permits to march because they saw us as felons, who really shouldn’t be out on the street, let alone marching in broad daylight.It was really very difficult for us to pull off these marches because police departments would throw up things like overtime, bail bonds, and huge sanitation bills which we couldn’t afford. In Los Angeles we raised ,000 for bail money, which would have bailed out 10 people back then for “disturbing the peace.”The then-police chief in Los Angeles, Edward M. Davis, tried to stop the march. He had refused to give us a permit, saying that if he did he would have to allow thieves and burglars to march the following week. He said we would “discommode” the public if we marched. (In a forthcoming interview, the Reverend Troy Perry, one of the key L.A. march organizers and founder of the Metropolitan Community Church, talks about having to take the police to court to get the march greenlit.)The march was eventually allowed to go ahead. What was the day itself like?We started out at McCadden Place, right off Hollywood Boulevard, and marched one mile to Hollywood and Vine. It was hot during the day, so we set off at 7 p.m. Most people in LA are not used to walking, let alone marching long distances, so we kept it short. How was the atmosphere?Really kind of amazing. We didn’t know what would happen. We encouraged people to come in festive clothing. A number of people came in Halloween costumes. It was really quite entertaining, and also served as a way to disguise the marchers. They were kind of tentative.I walked with the Gay Liberation Front banner, and I liked to walk in the middle of the street in case people threw things. People used to throw bottles from the sidelines. But none of that happened in this particular march. There were people lined up, 10-deep, watching to the side. The atmosphere was extremely festive.We were shouting, “Out of the closets, into the streets,” “2-4-6-8, How do you know your grandmother’s really straight?”—things like that. We used to sing a song, “If it was good enough for Sappho it was good enough for me,” although you could take Sappho’s name out and add whatever name you liked to the chorus.Was it well attended?A guy counted 1,169 people using one of those little counters. It probably wasn’t exactly accurate, but fairly accurate. We didn’t know we were making history. We were walking in the sunshine, showing our faces. And, in those days, we were risking losing a lot to do that: risking losing our apartments, homes, careers, you could be thrown out of school. We knew that once we took that step over the starting line that we couldn’t go back. Not many people have taken a step like that. For so many people to say, “Here I am, look at me.” That was making history—to be visible. That’s the biggest challenge still. Every day there are so many people in our community who still invisible in various ways. If everyone came out, they (anti-LGBTQ politicians) wouldn’t be able to do to us what they’re doing today.What are your strongest memories of the day itself?I remember holding my breath, just as we stepped off on the march I didn’t know if people would cheer or boo. Suddenly I heard people cheering. I didn’t know if I was going to cry, I was so excited and breathless that people were cheering for us, for something that we had been hatred for for our entire lives. At that moment we knew we had made history. We didn’t know how many people would show up, certainly more than we expected. Afterwards we went to bar called Satan’s and heard from the activist Morris Kight that activists including Troy Perry, who founded the Metropolitan Community Church, had gotten arrested. (Perry will speak about his arrest, his night in jail, and much more in his forthcoming interview with The Daily Beast.) An argument ensued about whether we should go to the police station or wait to get them out in the morning as we would not be able to get them out at that hour. Finally, it turned into not quite a fight, but some people wanted Morris to shut up and poured beer over him. It was kind of like the wild west. One guy said to Morris, covered in beer, “Morris you’re all washed up.” That was our gay liberation night.What happened in the morning? They got out. Then we did a sit-in for 10 days at the Federal Building. Davis was looking for an excuse to arrest us, but the cops couldn’t arrest us because it was a federal plaza. We sat there for 10 grueling days trying to get civil rights and marriage equality. Some people were fasting. Some protesters said they had met with police and gotten concessions. I don’t think they did, but sometimes people said that to stop something that had become fruitless with no winner. We got publicity and now it was the July 4th weekend, everyone was gone, and really it was time to go home.This was 50 years ago. Has the LGBTQ movement delivered what you expected?In some ways I never thought back then that we would have marriage equality. l remember one of the early Gay Liberation Front meetings in New York, where we sat in a circle and talked about what we wanted. One woman said she wanted to get married. We all laughed at her. We thought she was crazy. Back then we couldn’t even hold hands in public without getting beaten up. We thought that was really “far out,” as we called it back then. We weren’t interested in marriage, imitating what we saw as heterosexual failed relationships. We really thought we as outlaws could change straight society. We used to say, “We’ll never go straight until you go gay.” We had a more ambitious image of transforming heterosexual culture to be more androgynous and be able to give up on the idea of monogamy and the patriarchal system. Marriage hadn’t worked out so well for heterosexual people. We had a very different idea. It makes me very sad that we left out non-conforming people of all sorts.Marriage equality movement threw gender non-conforming and trans people under the bus, and didn’t cherish people who wanted to live a different kind of life—people who wanted to live as single people or sleep with everyone in town or live as a “throuple.” We wanted to see what could be done, not to have what has already been done. That was our ambition then as radicals. I was a feminist, I certainly didn’t want a traditional coupledom.What did you want, or still want?I’d also like to see more protections for LGBTQ families, and in particular an end to violence against transgender women of color. It’s an epidemic. There were a lot of transgender women in the movement back then, and except for Sylvia (Rivera) and Marsha (P. Johnson) these women have been forgotten. That’s sad. It’s disgraceful now to see some feminists attacking trans women, at a time when the right wing are attacking us. We should embrace one another. I fully support my trans brothers and sisters. I think to deny trans people their full humanity and right to exist is awful. I just don’t have strong enough words for LGB people and feminists spending their time attacking trans people in this political environment.What should the LGBTQ movement do now?One of the things we were adamant about back then was being intersectional, although we didn’t have that word. In 1969 and 1970, we formed alliances with the Black Panthers and other left-wing groups. Today, I would like for these organizations that are mostly focused on just the LGB community—and too little on the T—to think more broadly about really aligning in more meaningful ways with other organizations; really to mean it when they say that Black Lives Matter. It’s easy to talk the talk but those organizations that don’t walk the walk need to step aside and let those from the POC and BIPOC communities to lead us. This is the next step.How do you see the Trump administration’s LGBTQ animus, and importance of the November election? I think this election is the most critical election we’ve ever faced. Trump has done incredible damage by appointing 200 federal judges to the courts. We can’t begin to fathom the amount of damage we’re facing going forward. if we don’t get Trump out of there and don’t flip the Senate we are in for tremendous trouble in the future. I would have hoped for a better, stronger, more forward-thinking Democrat candidate, but I would be willing to vote for a cabbage over Trump if it were running.* * *NEW YORK CITY: Mark SegalMark Segal, then 18, participated in the Stonewall Riots in New York City, and was one of the original founders of the Gay Liberation Front. He was a marshal at the first New York Pride march—the Christopher Street Liberation Day March—in 1970. He is the founder and publisher of Philadelphia Gay News, and author of And Then I Danced: Traveling the Road to LGBT Equality.What do you remember about that day in 1970? For me, it’s one of the most memorable days of my life. There are few days you remember—my wedding first, of course, but this is up there because that day I knew would be the start of a substantial movement for equality. We had created something. First had come Stonewall. From the ashes of Stonewall had come the Gay Liberation Front. The Gay Liberation Front changed everything for the LGBT community, or at that time the gay community, in terms of what it ever thought of itself and what we will be. What was that era like?There was no LGBT community before the Gay Liberation Front. The only places where LGBT people could go were private parties, or where they met in parks, or the few illegal gay bars there were and they were only in the major cities. And there were some small gay organizations like the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis, which did small demonstrations. They might have had meetings, but very few people showed up because they were scared the police would raid them.At Stonewall, it was a riot. No one was expecting anything to come from it, with the exception of (activist) Marty Robinson. Three things about Stonewall stand out. First of course there was the violence of police. Personally I had never witnessed this before, and the police, and their behavior, represented the oppression each and every one of us had been going through our entire lives.I remember standing across the street from the Stonewall and saying to myself, “This is 1969. Women, Black people and Latino people are fighting for their rights. What about us?” That moment was when I decided to devote my entire life to this movement.You don’t think in the middle of a riot whether it will be historic. You think, “Will I be safe?” and there was also a lot of joy. Some of the depictions of Stonewall are false. While there were people throwing things at the bar and chaos, there was a sense of joy. We were fighting back for the very first time, fighting as a unit, and there was power in numbers. There were a lot of people running around having fun. It was probably the most joyous riot you have ever seen, because the heavy weight of oppression lifted that night. We felt that that oppression was being lifted by our very actions.What happened after the first night of rioting?Somewhere during all this Marty Robinson (a noted gay activist, who died in 1992) came up and gave me a piece of chalk to write on the streets and walls up and down Christopher Street: “Christopher Street, Tomorrow Night.” That created the second night of Stonewall. On the third night, the people who later became the Gay Liberation Front were leafleting on the streets. That act of leafleting was an act of defiance because it was illegal for us to be doing it. We were literally saying to the police, “Screw you, you cannot stop us any more.”Three weeks after the Riots came the first march that Martha Shelley and Marty Robinson organized. It was not a Pride march. It was from Washington Square Park to Christopher Street. This was against the police. We were saying, “Take back the streets.”Remember, at this time there was no “gay community.” The only thing we had was taking back our streets and creating pride. Later the Gay Liberation Front created community. We created everything we could to help build an inclusive and diverse community. We created the first trans youth organizations, medical alerts, legal alerts; we created the first gay community center. We distributed newspapers on the streets.And then the first march was created, a year to the day of the Riots.The first march was to celebrate three things—to mark the occasion of Stonewall obviously; to celebrate the fact of our pride in what we had created and pride in ourselves; and the most important part of that pride: that we were out, loud, proud, and in your face. That’s called visibility. That’s what the march was all about.How easy was it to organize the first march?It was organized by the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee. We didn’t know what was going to happen. We congregated at Seventh Avenue and Christopher Street. We marched down Christopher Street, then up Sixth Avenue to Sheep Meadow in Central Park. We were leaving what was our ghetto to walk across town in public. Thousands of LGBT people had never done this before. We were defying the world to come after us. We didn’t know what was going to happen. We gave civil disobedience classes. I was a marshal. I didn’t know how many people would be brave enough to come with us. I didn’t know the magnitude of community we’d created that first year. On the morning-of, we thought a few hundred people might show up. What’s your outstanding memory of that first New York march?The area of Seventh and Christopher was so crowded it made lining people up very difficult. It was chaotic. It was an occasion overflowing with joy, seeing how many people were there. I hadn’t realized how many people were there until I climbed a pole at 17th Street and looked back and could still see people coming out of Christopher Street. I felt a chill at that moment I don’t think I would ever have again in my life. At that moment I knew we had created a movement for equality that would exist for a long time. The LGBTQ rights movement is one the best export gifts America has given to the world. How do you see the 50-year span of LGBTQ history since then?If you look at just the United States we’ve come an incredible way. Remember, in 1969 I was an outlaw just because of who I was. Who would ever have thought that that kid standing outside the Stonewall at 18 years old would be invited by President Obama to dance with his husband at the White House (in 2014, at a White House Pride reception)? That’s huge. Who would have thought we would have had a viable out presidential candidate, gays in the military, marriage equality, the recent non-discrimination-in-employment decision by the Supreme Court? These are all things we in the GLF laid the groundwork for. Everything we have in the LGBT community today is founded on the shoulders of the Gay Liberation Front. Before the GLF, those activists had been very brave, but not been able to form a massive movement as we did. I blame the LGBT organizations that came after us for ignoring the trans community. If they had embraced trans people, we would be further down the line on trans issues. They are embracing transgender people and issues now, but it’s relatively recent and they have a long way to go in that area.What do the Trump administration’s attacks, particularly on trans people, mean?There will always be cycles in civil rights movements. I think we will survive Trump I don’t know if he will survive us. What I mean is history will record him as wrong. As far as trans rights go he will be considered the George Wallace standing in the doorway. Every single public opinion poll shows that the American public is far ahead of Trump and his administration. Trump is an outlier.What advice do you have for the next generation of activists?When there is an issue go to the streets. When there is an issue don’t be afraid of getting arrested. When there is an issue, do outrageous acts, but make sure they are non-violent. And during all of it, try and keep a little joy in your life.You talk about joy a lot.Joy is very important when dealing with a tough subject. During my 51 years of working on this, I always told those I have worked with in the allied community, or those I was trying to make allies, “This is going to be difficult for you. The only way to get through it is if we have some fun doing it.” I have worked with governors, presidents, mayors, you name it. Some weren’t always friendly. You can only do that if you’re willing to talk and have communications and dialog. I don’t think someone will remain an enemy forever. I cannot express how many politicians were opposed to marriage equality who now embrace it fully.* * *NEW YORK CITY: Alston GreenAlston Green, 69, is a client of SAGE, the advocacy organization for LGBTQ elders. A creative consultant and fabric and graphic designer (including leading the design initiative for “Mahogany,” Hallmark’s African-American card brand), he lives in New York City, and attended the Christopher Street Liberation Day march in 1970.What was the 1970 New York march like?It was rather quiet. It didn’t have a parade permit. It wasn’t really huge. But the congregation that happened at Sheep Meadow in Central Park afterwards attracted a large crowd. I was 19 years old, and it was all kind of new to me, because I had only recently come out. I didn’t realize the full impact of what had happened at Stonewall. I grew up in Philadelphia, I had moved to New York City to go to school (Parsons School of Design) two months after the riots.How did the march feel?A combination of the celebratory and the political. There were a lot of hippies, and a lot of people were stoned. I was pretty political. The Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam situation were at the top of my list. At the time I could have been drafted. There was a lottery back then, but I wasn’t called to go. I knew people who had moved to Canada to avoid it. We had no business being in that war. It destroyed a lot of men, who either died or came back with PTSD, or drug addiction. It was a really awful, painful time, and we didn’t treat them right.The first march was typical of that thing that happens with white gay men who wanted to exclude trans people—and they were the ones who helped start the riots! I think it’s wonderful they’re erecting those monuments to Sylvia (Rivera) and Marsha (P. Johnson). I’m not surprised Sylvia went off at the protesters in 1973. I don’t blame her.I’m African-American. In that era the bar scene was very segregated. Several bars we could not get into—although the Stonewall itself accepted everybody. My first experiences of going out here were at parties attended by a consistent group of gay men—and a few lesbians, but not that many—in Harlem, the Bronx, and Brooklyn. We have all this technology now. Who knows how we did it back then, but we did it. We had our own little family.The first bar that opened in Manhattan that welcomed people of color was a block away from the U.N. on the East side. At that time it was not really a mixed neighborhood. Then everything changed in the mid-’70s, the Village became very popular. The world was your oyster, it really was. You could really be, say, and do whatever you wanted. I was young, I didn’t go crazy, but I certainly enjoyed myself. I wasn’t out in my job at the time.How has George Floyd’s killing, and everything that has come from it, affected you?I was devastated when I saw the video. That is what we call a televised lynching. Listen to the last line of Gil Scott Heron’s 1971 song “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”: “The revolution will be live.” What happened was awful, but I’m glad it inspired young people to get off their asses. I have been cynical about millennials, but it’s great to see them so involved. What do you think when you consider that 50-year span of history?It feels good to have helped us get to where we are now. We still have problems, but it’s good the movement is more diverse now. Where we are now is two steps forward, two steps back. I was sad to hear about the altercation at the Queer Liberation March at the weekend. I tell young people: it’s your turn now.I also want young people to know about gay history. What we are seeing in this country is very disturbing and frightening. A lot of people don’t want to realize how the country is built. As people of color we know. We see it every day. White America is now being forced to look at the ugliness that built this country. This country was built on systemic racism. We have lived it every day of our lives as Black people. We know it. Slavery ended, and then the penal system was built for free labor.What advice would you give to younger activists?To know history. You need to understand history in order to be able to move forward. I’m not knocking young people. I 100 per cent didn’t feel it was important to me until I was 25/26. That’s when started I reading about the Mattachine Society. It’s important for all LGBTQ people to know their history.How do you feel about the future?My biggest disappointment right now is how impatient people are, and how many are not paying attention. I can’t believe so many people have a problem wearing masks, when they help save other people’s lives. My generation went through the AIDS crisis. We knew the importance of safer sex. A lot of people had difficulties with that. I went to three or four funerals a week, which was too much for me to deal with. We were forced to learn how to take care of each other. We lost so many male leaders, lesbians stepped up to the plate. In the early 1980s everyone was burnt out from people dying. Drag became very popular. We became more comfortable with gender flexibility.I’m optimistic. I hope the younger generation are learning from what is happening now. I can’t believe there are shows like Pose, featuring trans and non-binary people on TV. It’s pretty awesome to see. I never thought I would get to this point. I don’t watch RuPaul’s Drag Race, but so many straight people do!* * *SAN FRANCISCO: Peter FiskePeter Fiske is a Stonewall veteran, and has been an activist for over 50 years. He was at the first Gay Freedom Day march in San Francisco on June 27, 1970, and at the following day’s “Gay-In” picnic in Golden Gate Park. He is a Leather person, and “a proud ally for people of color, trans people, and Black Lives Matter.”What happened on June 27 and 28, 1970, in San Francisco?There was a parade on Saturday, and a picnic which we called a “gay-in” in Golden Gate Park on the Sunday. We called it Gay Freedom Day. It hadn’t really found the name “Pride” yet. I’m a Stonewall veteran, but I’m a veteran of the bar, not the Riots. It was my hangout in 1968 and 1969. I had come to New York for seven-and-a-half months. I had taken a lot of drugs in San Francisco and wanted to clean myself up. I went to the Stonewall 50, 60 times, and I was in there three times when the police raided it in 1969. What I saw turned me into a lifelong activist. What was it like being in the Stonewall when a police raid happened?I was in there the last time the cops raided it before June 28, 1969. You’d get no notice of a raid. The first evidence was the music being turned off, and the lights turned on. It was about 1 in the morning when it happened that final time before Stonewall itself. The cops would come in, and you would have to line up and show them your ID. If you were not wearing three items of clothing that matched what they deemed to be your gender, or if you were underage, you were arrested. They called us “queers” and “fags.” They were mean and bullying. If your ID was OK, they let you leave, and the bar reopened afterwards. That last raid before the one the night of the riots, people were angry and muttering. Stonewall was a street bar. There were hustlers, street people, homeless people, poor people, and also suburban people, people of color, leather folks. I was one of them. I used to go there after going to the two leather bars New York had in those days.You weren’t there for the riots themselves?I left New York the Tuesday before the riots. I was not a very political gay person before what I saw at the Stonewall. I had drag queen friends, and was at the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot in San Francisco in 1966. There was a lot of police brutality in San Francisco. It was not a tolerant city until the 1970s. That night at Compton’s, the cops beat everybody, the queens fought back, and a bunch were taken to jail. In those days, people’s names got printed in the newspaper. It was awful for them. That was part of the oppression.When I came back to San Francisco after Stonewall, I went to GLF meetings. I didn’t get extremely politically active immediately. That came during the AIDS crisis. After Stonewall, GLF expanded wildly in San Francisco. Gay people were moving into the Polk Street neighborhood, the first “gayborhood” in San Francisco; the Castro was still mixed back then. New bars were opening all the time.How was the march? A lot of people at the time were afraid to be in a gay march. I would say the crowd had around 800 to 1200 people on it, which was a lot. I was happily surprised when I got there. People had come out, dressed mostly hippie-ishly. It was very colorful. There were a lot of drag queens. People didn’t do drag in the streets normally. I wore a leather vest and leather chaps. There were speakers at the march. The route started at Polk and Sutter, near to one of the biggest gay business of that time, the Town Squire, known as the Squire. We walked down Polk Street, and as the street got un-gayer and un-gayer, I thought there would be catcalls, but people waved. We walked all the way to North Beach, and had a picnic at Aquatic Park. Everyone smoked marijuana. The next day, in Golden Gate Park, there were a lot of drugs being done. I believe I took a small dose of LSD for that one. What happened next in the city?Suddenly the city seemed full of activists, and we were starting to find our way. I remember us picketing Pacific Bell who wouldn’t hire homosexuals. Eventually, the they gave in. The city changed throughout the 1970s. By 1978, this little parade had become one with 3-400,000 people, marching against the Briggs Initiative, which was aimed at stopping LGBTQ people from teaching in Californian schools. Harvey Milk made his career fighting it. I knew him to say hello to. I used to see him and his then-partner Scott Smith at the bath-house. I remember him being assassinated and the White Night Riots that followed (when his assassin, Dan White was given a lenient sentence). There was a lot of anger that day. Our march that afternoon snaked through the streets. We chanted, “He got away with murder. He got away with murder.” The demonstrators burned around 6 police cars; and the cops beat up patrons at some Castro gay bars in retaliation.You also lived through the AIDS era in San Francisco.AIDS brought me my partner and love of my life, Coulter Thomas. He was International Mr. Leather in 1983. We met in 1983 at an AIDS benefit. He was with someone else, and when that person died he moved to San Francisco, we got together. We had a wonderful time together for four and a half years, until, in September 1992, AIDS also took him away. He was the most beautiful man I ever saw in my life, and he was also a really kind and sweet man.He introduced me to a group of friends who were transitioning from female to male, and I got to know them and they are still very close to me now. Because of that, later on, I campaigned to get the leather community and leather events to accept transgender men and women. It took a long time, but we did it.Do you think mainstream gay activism has done enough for trans people?I don’t think we have done enough. That’s why I am so glad to see so much going on with Black Lives Matter, and Trans Lives Matter and Black Trans Lives Matter. I’m still an activist. I was glad about the Supreme Court ruling. The first and only time I was arrested was in 2009, when Proposition 8 (banning same-sex marriage in California) was ruled constitutional. (It was finally overturned in 2013.) There was a sit-down protest. Because of my age I was told I would be arrested with the clergy. When I was arrested and they pulled out plastic handcuffs, I joked I would prefer metal ones. My cop friends found that very funny. The charges were dropped the next day.What does LGBTQ activism mean to you today?I didn’t dream of marriage equality. In 1969, we were fighting not to be oppressed. That was what Stonewall was about. I think we have come further than I could have ever dreamed. There is still some way to go, of course. We’re not done yet. They could take it all way away again if the country continues to go down the dark road it’s been on for the last three years.What advice would you give to young activists?Sometimes you have to get angry to get action. Sometimes you have to demand rather than ask. And keep going. If you’re angry enough about it, channel that anger into creative action. I’m proud to be part of the Stonewall generation of activists. I did it because we wanted the world to be better for the ones coming after me. I also did because I was damn angry, especially in the 1980s during the height of AIDS when the government didn’t just not care but it actively wanted us dead. We were frightened for a time they would put us in camps. It’s been a long, wonderful road and I’m not going to stop. I can’t physically go to demonstrations for Black Lives Matter, but I would be there if I wasn’t at high risk for COVID. I have emphysema, I’m 75, and I have lung problems—chronic pulmonary disease. I can be there in spirit. I’m so proud of the young right now. They have really done something that reminds me of the time around Stonewall and the time around the start of AIDS, and they’re doing it for LGBTQ people, women, people of color, trans people. And they’re confronting and exposing our own racist history.You left San Francisco to move to Palm Springs?Yes, in 2011. Palm Springs is gay leather heaven! Half the leather community in San Francisco has moved here. There are 3 bars, several clubs, and a couple of leather resorts. 40-50 per cent of the town is gay. It used to be Republican and racist until the 1990s, but that changed when the queers moved in.* * *NEW YORK CITY: Ellen BroidyEllen Broidy was an early member of the Gay Liberation Front. She was president of the NYU Student Homophile League, a founder of Radicalesbians, and, in fall 1969, presented the resolution creating the Christopher Street Liberation Day March at the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations. A Californian since 1971, she completed her doctorate in U.S. History at UC Irvine. She has worked as a librarian, faculty member, and Writing Specialist at UCI, UCLA, and UCSB. Ellen and her partner of 41 years live in Santa Barbara where she remains active in progressive causes, with a particular focus on racial and immigration justice.What did you do to help make the march happen?I was one of four people who wrote one of the initial statements saying we should have this kind of march. I made the proposal at the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations on Nov. 2, 1969. (The statement, written by Broidy, Craig Rodwell, Fred Sergeant, Linda Rhodes, proposed there should be an annual march, the last Saturday in June, to mark the 1969 Riots, and not just in New York City but across America.) We wanted it to be on the Saturday, but it ended up being Sunday. Chicago had theirs on the Saturday and beat New York. I was 23 when I made the proposal, 24 at the time of the march, and 74 now.How was coming out for you?All the struggles were in my head. They did not exist with family at all, which was quite unusual at that time. I was 23 when I finally told my mother that I was a lesbian. She looked across the table at me and said, “I’ve known since you were 6.” I said, “Why didn’t you tell me?” She said, “I didn’t think it was any of my business and you’d come to it on your own.” She’d been an activist all her life in civil rights, and worked at the National Urban League.How was the march itself?There was a great appetite to have one, and a cohesive group of activists looking to organize it. It took on a life of its own. Demonstrations in New York City are not easy to mount because of police and permits and all of that. There were thousands of people at the march, so it clearly hit a nerve. What Stonewall was was a moment. What GLF needed to do was turn that moment into a movement, and the June 1970 march was a pivotal turning point in that movement.We did not call the march “Stonewall.” We called it the Christopher Street Liberation Day March. Talking about not what happened in the bar but on the street may be a difference without a distinction, but I think it’s important. All those debates around who threw the first stone and pennies has taken on an interesting mythology of its own. But what happened in the street wasn’t mythology. And what happened with the march wasn’t either. It was tangible and real.Did it feel like a moment in history?Through my 24-year-old eyes it sure felt like a turning point, like we had joined the revolution, and not only joined the revolution but joined it in our own names which was significant. I’ve been disappointed until now these last 50 years because we were supposed to have a revolution. I was gratified to see this year’s Dyke March in New York alongside Black Lives Matter. These revolutionary forces are coming together in a way that probably could not have happened 50 years ago.Visually, what do you remember from the 1970 march in New York?One really strong picture in my mind were the numbers of people looking out from their windows and fire escapes. We were calling out, “Off the sidewalks, into the streets.” And damn it, people did that.What was your emotional trajectory that day?“Trajectory” is a good word because I probably started off feeling a great deal of anxiety and trepidation. We had no idea whether the crowds were there to support us or do us harm. We had no idea what the reaction of the police would be—if something went amiss, would they let it happen, facilitate it, or intervene? When I saw the crowd numbers, that trepidation and fear dissipated, and was replaced with a kind of elation. If someone was asked to describe me, “elation” would not be a word they would choose. I’m sort of dour. But that day I felt elation, great cheer and joy, just to be there.How do you feel about the span of time since the first marches?If you asked me this question last year at Stonewall 50, I probably would have given a somewhat negative response. This year, everything happening with Black Lives Matter feels much more positive. I had felt pretty negative for the last 49 years. In our youth—I was 24 years old at the time of the first Pride march—we really thought we were on the cusp of revolution. Before we had a word for it, we thought we knew something about intersectionality and crossing borders. But we all came together and what we ended up “doing” was Donald Trump.Has the movement achieved what you hoped?Marriage equality, serving in the military: as a member of GLF 50 years ago, these weren’t even on my list. But things like the recent anti-discrimination Supreme Court decision, yeah, that’s wonderful. I never served in the military. I married, and I’m very grateful that happened, but it was not something on my mind or the minds of my colleagues when we were marching in 1970.As I have said before, we weren’t out for a piece of the pie, we were out to blow up the bakery. We were out to start the whole thing again.What do you think of the LGBTQ movement now?It has gone the way it needed to go which is not to say I necessarily recognize it. The issues are different. In some ways it’s far more dramatic because we’re dealing with the murders of trans women of color. Our moment is over, although I do wish my younger colleagues have a stronger sense of history and they did not wake up one morning and invent the whole thing. They are standing on other people’s shoulders. But then, reflecting back, I was quite dismissive of the homophile movement that came before gay liberation. The only thing I regret is the sense that lesbians in some ways have disappeared from the face of the movement and I mourn that.What has the movement achieved in the last 50 years?What isn’t revolution is reform. Those are two pretty distinct concepts. We have a degree of equality, but we still don’t have liberation. We have equality as has been given to us by the courts. We are still not in a position of being a liberated community that can demand in its own name this and that. This is reform, not revolution; and it’s a kind of equality, not liberation. The fact that the Supreme Court had to make that decision is clear that this is an equality that can be taken away and that is terrifying, as was the fact that the good citizens in the state of California were able to vote on my rights when it came to Proposition 8.What’s your advice to the next generation of activists?Keep doing it, keep on keeping on. Don’t let the pressure off. Don’t deny why you are in this movement. Keep going and then occasionally turn around and look over your shoulder and remember us. Know your history. Acknowledge the fact that you did not invent this struggle. You can move it forward in new and important ways, but you didn’t invent it. I say that with a great deal of self-criticism, given my own completely dismissive behavior towards the people who came before me, like the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis, the mainstream homophile organizations of that time. And really they were incredibly brave people. They didn’t participate in the struggle in the way I thought they should have, but at 23 you think you know everything.Do you think LGBTQ equality will ever be settled, or will always be a struggle?You know what they say: freedom is a struggle. 50 years ago we thought this struggle was for lesbians and gay men. Now it’s lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender and intersex people. I don’t see an end to any of these struggles, as much as I would like to see an end to white supremacy, heterosexism, homophobia, and racism. We have got to keep moving forward.* * *CHICAGO: Gary ChichesterGary Chichester, 73, has provided more than 50 years of commitment and work to the LGBTQ communities—including marching in the inaugural Gay Liberation March of June 27, 1970. In 1971, Chichester co-founded the Chicago Gay Alliance, which created Chicago’s first gay and lesbian community center. He has served on the Chicago Commission on Human Relations’ Advisory Council on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues, and sat on the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame Committee from its inception in 1991 (co-chairing it since 1992).What do you remember about the planning of the march?It was organized by Gay Liberation Front student group at the University of Chicago. A month or so prior to it, we created a symbol of two sets of male and female symbols under a proud fist. Around 200 people participated. We wanted to march over to Michigan Avenue to show people there were angry queers around. We marched to Daley Plaza for a rally. The atmosphere was noisy, and jubilant for the most part. We shouted for people to come out of their closets and join us. Then we danced around as hippies did in the day.I remember people’s jaws dropping. They had never seen anything like that. People in the march felt the same: a lot of them had never marched before.Were you political before the march?I had come from a conservative suburban background. Two years prior, we had the 1968 Democratic National Convention here. I spent weeks going to demonstrations, and saw the police beating up protesters. I was even hit by a teargas canister on Michigan Avenue.In 1969, my then-partner Richard and I were at home one Saturday night, and got a call from a friend of Richard’s who was living in New York City, who said, “You’ll never guess what’s going on here,” and told us about the Stonewall Riots.Groups like GLF started forming on Chicago campuses. There were social events and dances. Bars started allowing dancing. The vice department didn’t care; their attitude was “Get them off the streets.”What was it like, being LGBTQ in Chicago at that time?If you don’t have something, you don’t miss it when don’t have it. I was pretty open about my sexuality. It didn’t bother me to be gay, and I had a pretty good relationship with my family. But during the 1968 Convention the cops raided gay bars. There was a lot of street cruising. I spent a lot of time in a 24-hour restaurant drinking a lot of coffee. That’s how you met up with people. Some of the bigger bars were racist, and didn’t let Black gay people drink in them, but we eventually worked through that.How do you see the last 50 years of LGBTQ history?Knowing your history and heritage gives you power. I’ve been posting on Facebook throughout June about LGBTQ history, which people liked. I was mad because I came to New York City for the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, and there was so much, celebrating Sylvia (Rivera) and Marsha (P. Johnson) and events and exhibits. There wasn’t anything like that in Chicago, and it upset me. There was a memorial at the Stonewall commemorating the Pulse massacre, but Chicago didn’t touch on that.What happened after the 1970 march?I was part of the Chicago Gay Alliance. In 1971, we thought we should get a permit for the march. My signature is on the first permit given to an LGBTQ parade. You think people will say no, but I’ve found if you walk in and act like you know what you want, you get it. We got everything we wanted. The only thing we didn’t get was the approved closure of streets and removal of parked cars, so it was a little tight on the sidewalks in 1971. I’m so happy Chicago elected Lori Lightfoot, our first African-American lesbian mayor. Pete Buttigieg is just down the road in Indiana. I never thought I’d see the day when a gay man would run for President of the United States.What advice would you give younger activists today?I really appreciate when the kids go out now. I think they need to know that what they have today wasn’t just here for them. There were a lot of people fighting to get where we are today, and a lot of fighting to go. Learn your history, learn your heritage. It’s where you’ll get your power from.* * *NEW YORK CITY: Martha ShelleyMartha Shelley, 76, was born in Brooklyn. She is one of the founders of the New York City chapter of the Gay Liberation Front, and author of numerous poems, essays, and a historical trilogy which takes place in the ancient Middle East. She also writes a blog.What do you remember of the 1970 New York march?That 1970 march was not the first march. I helped organize the one we did one month after Stonewall. We called it a protest march. There were around 400 people there. It was the first time people were prepared to step outside in the sunshine, and let the world know they were gay. I was scared before the march. I had been in Harlem when Martin Luther King was killed. I knew the government would have no hesitation in killing us, or beating the crap out of us and throw us in vans.But once it started, I wasn’t scared. I was angry. We ended up in Christopher Park, opposite Stonewall. Marty Robinson made a speech. I made a speech, and asked people to leave peaceably, because this wasn’t an end, but a beginning and we would be back. And we were: as the Gay Liberation Front. One of my memories of the 1970 march is that I was totally blown away by numbers. Whatever sexuality you were, you were part of us. We ended up in Central Park. It was a lovely, lovely afternoon.Did that era feel like a turning point?I knew it was a historical moment, but I didn’t know how fast it would spread.I had passed by the Stonewall Riot on the Saturday night, and thought it was an anti-war demonstration. I knew we had to seize the day. I called the head of (lesbian activist group) the Daughters of Bilitis and said we should have a protest march. I had joined it as 1967, and served briefly as treasurer and president. I didn’t have skills to do that job, but I was articulate, so became its speaker because I was unafraid of speaking in public.Where did that fearlessness come from?I wasn’t brought up to be fearless. Some of my family were Holocaust survivors, some had emigrated before the Holocaust. I always asked myself what I would have done in Germany or Poland—if I had been a non-Jewish German or Pole—in that moment of history. Would I have had the courage to oppose to the regime, to fight back, to stand up for what I knew was right? That troubled me. You can’t go back in history, so I knew at this moment this was something I had to do. I had been on anti-war protests and was very much aware of segregation. I was too young to have gone on the freedom marches in the South, but my mother had been sympathetic to all those movements.Was she OK about you being gay?No, she wanted me to be straight. It was the same with all the other stuff I did. She wanted me to be safe and protected—the idea of finding a man who makes a comfortable living, to be married. She was never comfortable with who I was, but she loved me. She had gone through poverty, the Depression, she never crossed a picket line. She had socialist principles. I learned early which side I was on.What is the legacy of GLF? Did lesbians face sexism in it?Very powerful. I don’t think the GLF was so sexist. I think there were an awful lot of men who were anti-sexist. The problem came up with dances. There would be mixed GLF dances, where sometimes straight men came and harassed and groped the women. The gay guys were too busy looking into each other’s eyes to do anything. We realized we needed all-women dances. Personally, I think it was a mistake to split into so many different groups. GLF ended in 1972. If we could have maintained an umbrella organization, it might have lasted longer, but maybe it wouldn’t because how politics changed.How do you feel about Pride’s growth over the years?For a while I was really impressed with the participation. Then I got kind of disgusted with all the corporations who use Pride for advertising. Last year, I addressed both an event held by the organizers of the big march, then went on the first Queer Liberation March on Sunday. The pressing issues for me now are climate change, and the concentration of wealth among the very few. Our rights—as LGBTQ people, as women, as Black people, as trans people—don’t mean anything if we cease to exist as a species, or if we have to work three jobs to make our rent.Where do you think LGBTQ rights are now? I think we’ve made some progress, but mostly in western countries. We’re not safe everywhere. There is an awful lot of rights people want to tale away, specifically Trump, Pence, and all their followers, and evangelicals. I have mixed feelings about the recent Supreme Court victory; on the one hand we can wipe the sweat off our brows, but on the other we don’t know long this will last, especially is Trump is re-elected. Or if he gets another chance to pick another Supreme Court justice. We can’t rely on the courts. We need to be continually on our guard and ready to fight for our freedoms. There are always people who want to take it away. Intersectionality is not new. It started back in 1969/1970, when Gay Liberation Front members attended the Black Panther conference in Philadelphia and made alliances. I’m glad it’s continuing now.What’s your advice for the next generation?Don’t give up, and don’t expect that everything is going to be won in your lifetime. There is something that we say at Passover: “In every generation, there will be a pharaoh that arises to oppress us.” The corollary is that in every generation we have to fight back. It’s not won, once and for all. I’m astonished at the progress we did make. I have benefited from marriage equality, but I am not terribly impressed by gays-in-the-military. I was never interested in going to Vietnam and killing Asian people to benefit our corporations. I don’t want my adopted children and grandchildren to be made to go to Iraq and kill more people to benefit more corporations. I want to get rid of the military, not serve in it.Right now, because of my age and medical condition and my wife Sylvia’s age and her medical conditions we cannot go out, so I write my blog and do interviews like this. So, my other advice is to make connections with other oppressed people all around the world.* * *NEW YORK CITY: Joe NegrelliJoe Negrelli is a former applications programmer, and longtime activist. He was present at the Stonewall Riots, and the first New York City march in 1970. He is a client of SAGE, the advocacy organization for LGBTQ elders.You were at Stonewall, and also the first march?Yes, I was 18 years of age in 1970. I had been at the Stonewall riots the year before. I was 17 at the time of the Stonewall Riots. I had lived in New York since 1957. I was very happy. It was a riot, tremendous civil disobedience. I was very impressed, very happy, and a lot of the rioting was done by non-homosexuals who just understood that gay people had had enough. And it was that time in the history of New York when lots of groups—women’s liberation, Black liberation, anti-war anarchists—were all in the West Village area. They were very sympathetic and very kind to help gay people.What do you remember of the riots?I remember seeing the smashing of the plate glass window at the Stonewall, the garbage cans set on fire. All trash cans and bottles were made of glass then. Police barricaded themselves in the bar. Someone started a fire. Believe me, it was a small fire but it scared the police and I’m very happy it scared the police.What was your mood like?I was really enraged, very angry. I remember that there were about 50 to 75 people there at the beginning, and then by 4 a.m. there were at least a thousand people throughout the Village causing anarchy. Places that specifically discriminated against gay clientele were particularly targeted for vandalism. In the 51 years since, the police haven’t figured out how to be nicer to people who they initiate hostility with. And that night the hostility came from police, not gay people. If it wasn’t for the police there wouldn’t have been a riot. If they had just arrested people there wouldn’t have been a riot, but they had to try and humiliate gay peopleHow was the first march a year later?I was stunned. There had been homosexuals who had hidden out on the first three days of Stonewall. No one knew what would come from this thing. One year later homosexuals did get the message. I was deeply moved by all the people who showed up. These are the people who hid the year before, afraid to lose their jobs, their apartments, their standing in the community. Now they were coming forward. I felt great deal of pride, and a great deal of liberation. At least, if nothing more, one year later people understood what we were talking about.How do you feel about activism now?Last Sunday I marched at the Reclaim Pride/Queer Liberation March, and I was exceedingly proud and happy, and proud of the young people. There were very few people my age there! I was really happy, and happy they were defiant. I don’t agree with all they say. I agree with them about the corporations who make money off gay people and give very little. I’m unhappy about the exclusion of LGBTQ police officers. But I know that it’s complicated, and I’m proud of young people taking the initiative to get their voices heard. I was happy about the recent Supreme Court ruling, but there are still some states where LGBTQ people are not so free and safe. We’re getting there. I still wear pink and yellow, and that’s how I want people to remember me—as bright and sunny, and not some bitter old queen like I used to meet 50 years ago. What advice for young activists do you have?I would like them to carry on the banner of what happened a few days ago. I would ask other gay people in other cities to be civilly disobedient towards the government. I should not have to beg for the right to live. I don’t not need your permission to breathe. I am a human being and a citizen of this country. I’m not going to beg for that, or beg to get married, or have health insurance, or beg to have equality in the place I was born and raised. I’ve been in New York for 63 years. I have no reason to beg to be treated normally, like any other citizen.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 09:14:58 GMT

Israel, Palestinians face new restrictions amid virus surge
Israel ordered thousands of people into quarantine after a contentious phone surveillance program resumed as Palestinians in the West Bank returned to life under lockdown after both areas saw surges in coronavirus cases. A statement Sunday from Israel’s Health Ministry said “many” messages had been sent to Israelis following the renewed involvement of the Shin Bet domestic security agency. The Israeli daily Haaretz reported that more than 30,000 people were notified they must enter quarantine since Thursday.

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 07:49:35 GMT

Crunch, crunch: Africa's locust outbreak is far from over
The crunch of young locusts comes with nearly every step. The worst outbreak of the voracious insects in Kenya in 70 years is far from over, and their newest generation is now finding its wings for proper flight. The livelihoods of millions of already vulnerable people in East Africa are at stake, and people like Boris Polo are working to limit the damage.

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 07:22:41 GMT

France-Turkey spat over Libya arms exposes NATO's limits
The festering dispute between France and Turkey over a naval standoff in the Mediterranean Sea has shone a glaring searchlight on NATO’s struggle to keep order among its ranks and exposed weaknesses in a military alliance that can only take action by consensus. The dispute has also revealed NATO’s limits when its allies are or are perceived to be on different sides of a conflict — in this case in Libya — especially when a major nuclear ally like France has lamented the “brain death” at the world’s biggest security organization due to a lack of American leadership. France said it was acting on intelligence from NATO that the civilian ship could be involved in trafficking arms to Libya.

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 06:45:28 GMT

Israeli leader's son takes center stage in corruption sagas

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 05:34:42 GMT

1 of 2 protesters hit by car on closed Seattle highway dies
A car drove onto a closed freeway early Saturday and struck two people in a crowd protesting against police brutality, killing one and critically injuring the other, authorities said. Summer Taylor, 24, of Seattle died in the evening at Harborview Medical Center, spokesperson Susan Gregg said. Taylor and Diaz Love, 32, of Portland, Oregon, were hit by the car that barreled through a panicked crowd of protesters on Interstate 5 early Saturday morning, officials said.

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 04:53:54 GMT

Japan floods leave up to 34 dead, many at nursing homes
Deep floodwaters and the risk of more mudslides that left at least 34 people confirmed or presumed dead hampered search and rescue operations Sunday in southern Japan, including at elderly home facilities where more than a dozen died and scores were still stranded. Helicopters and boats rescued more people from their homes in the Kumamoto region. Large areas along the Kuma River were swallowed by floodwaters, with many houses, buildings and vehicles submerged almost up to their roofs.

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 03:37:18 GMT

Columbus statue toppled by Baltimore protesters
Baltimore protesters pulled down a statue of Christopher Columbus and threw it into the city's Inner Harbor on Saturday night. Demonstrators used ropes to topple the monument near the Little Italy neighborhood, news outlets reported. Protesters mobilized by the death of George Floyd at the hands of police have called for the removal of statues of Columbus, Confederate figures and others.

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 02:12:48 GMT

Katsina: The motorcycle bandits terrorising northern Nigeria
Insecurity has worsened in the north-west as kidnapping for ransom becomes a lucrative trade.

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 00:31:43 GMT

Vladimir Putin trashes U.S. Embassy for flying rainbow flag during Pride Month
Russian president Vladimir Putin scoffed at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on Friday as the embassy continued flying the rainbow flag in support of LGBT rights, Reuters reported. At a press conference, Putin said the flag “revealed something about the people that work there,” according to Reuters, in reference to their sexual orientation. The embassy began flying the flag from a window on June 25, though it could not officially put it on a flagpole because the Trump administration has shut down such requests since June 2019.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 22:56:01 GMT

Iran and North Korea: The Real Axis of Evil (As in Missile Allies?)
Iran's close relationship with the DPRK extends to missile development.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 21:00:00 GMT

Amid furor over monuments, Trump seeks `garden' of US heroes
President Donald Trump has a vision for his second term, if he wins one, of establishing a “National Garden of American Heroes” that will pay tribute to some of the most prominent figures in U.S. history, a collection of “the greatest Americans to ever live.” The group of 30-plus features Founding Fathers and presidents, civil rights pioneers and aviation innovators, explorers and generals. Absent from Trump’s initial list are any Native American, Hispanic or Asian-American individuals.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 19:10:15 GMT

Chlorine gas leak at plant sickens 70 in southeast Iran

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 18:02:29 GMT

WHO halts hydroxychloroquine, HIV drugs in COVID trials after failure to reduce death

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 17:31:33 GMT

Coronavirus in South Africa: Deciding who lives and dies in a Cape Town township
Without enough supplies of oxygen or staff, health workers in South Africa are making some difficult decisions.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 17:26:41 GMT

US holiday weekend adds to virus worries as case counts grow
Florida and Texas reported record daily increases in confirmed coronavirus cases Saturday, the latest sign that the virus is surging in many parts of the United States, casting a pall over Fourth of July celebrations. Officials and health authorities warned people to take precautions or simply stay home on Independence Day, as confirmed cases are climbing in dozens of states. The U.S. reported more than 50,000 confirmed cases on Saturday for the third day in a row, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 17:01:13 GMT

Egypt's top court upholds 15-year-sentence for activist

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 16:35:42 GMT

Egypt sets August election dates for restored Senate

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 15:56:06 GMT

Turkey: Fireworks factory employees detained after explosion
Turkey’s official news agency says three people have been detained in connection to a massive explosion at a fireworks factory that left at least four people dead. Anadolu news agency reported Saturday that a manager and two supervisors were detained following Friday’s explosion in northwestern Sakarya province. Television footage on Friday showed a large, mushroom-shaped cloud of smoke rising from the factory amid sounds of explosions.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 15:51:42 GMT

Russia Denies Paying Bounties, but Some Say the U.S. Had It Coming
MOSCOW -- Three years into a grinding war in eastern Ukraine, the Trump administration, in a sharp break with Obama-era policy, proposed providing the Ukrainian army with potent American weapons, Javelin anti-tank missiles, to aid its struggle with Russian-backed separatists.President Vladimir Putin of Russia responded with an ominous warning, saying weapons in the separatist regions could easily be sent "to other zones of conflict" -- which many took to mean Afghanistan.Russia's grievances against what it sees as American bullying and expansion into its own zones of influence have been stacking up for decades, starting with the CIA's role in arming mujahedeen fighters who, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, delivered a fatal blow not only to the invading Red Army but the entire Soviet Union.A deep well of bitterness created by past and current conflicts in Afghanistan, Ukraine and more recently Syria, where U.S. forces killed scores of Russian mercenaries in 2018, help explain why Russia, according to U.S. intelligence officials, has become so closely entangled with the Taliban. In Ukraine, the Trump administration did send Javelins but with the stipulation that they not be used in the war.Russian officials and commentators reacted with fury to a report last week in The New York Times that U.S. intelligence officials had concluded that Russia's military intelligence agency had gone so far as to pay bounties to the Taliban and criminal elements linked to it to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.Intercepted electronic data showed large financial transfers from Russia's military intelligence agency, known as the GRU, to a Taliban-linked account, according to U.S. officials. Officials also identified an Afghan contractor as a key middleman between the GRU and militants linked to the Taliban who carried out the attacks.Russian officials have scoffed at the idea they would hire killers from a radical Islamist group that is banned in Russia as a "terrorist" outfit and that shares many views of the Afghan fighters who killed so many Red Army soldiers, and those of Islamic militants who caused Moscow so much pain in Chechnya during two wars there.In remarks to a state news agency Monday, Zamir Kabulov, Putin's special envoy for Afghanistan and a former ambassador in Kabul, dismissed the Taliban bounties report as "outright lies" generated by "forces in the United States who don't want to leave Afghanistan and want to justify their own failures."Amid a torrent of outraged denials, however, there have been pointed reminders that, in Russia's view, the U.S., because of its overreach overseas, deserves to taste some of its own medicine.Speaking during a talk show on state television dominated by conspiracy theories about plots by President Donald Trump's Democratic rivals, Alexei Zhuravlyov, a member of the Russian parliament, reminded viewers that as far as Russia was concerned, the U.S. has long had it coming.Recalling Operation Cyclone, the CIA's secret program to arm Moscow's enemies in Afghanistan during the 1980s, Zhuravlyov said the U.S. had spent billions of dollars on weapons that "killed thousands and thousands" of Russians. "This is a medical fact."While dismissing reports of Russian bounties for American scalps as "fake news," he said, "Let's suppose we paid," the Taliban, and then asked how many Americans had perhaps been killed as a result. "At most 22," he responded.There is no evidence to date that Putin signed off on any program to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, and even independent experts say they strongly doubt he would have done so.Yet, Russia under Putin has for years throbbed with real and imagined pain from hurt inflicted by the U.S., notably the collapse of the Soviet Union, and a desire to make it pay.Andrei Serenko, an expert at the Center for the Study of Contemporary Afghanistan in Moscow, said Russia has no real desire to see the U.S. leave Afghanistan and revels in America's agonies from an endless conflict he described as a "sore blister for the United States."All the same, he said, Russia has been preparing for an eventual pullout by cultivating ties to the Taliban as well as to various Afghan warlords. It has done this with money and other inducements in the hope of shaping future Afghan events and securing a useful instrument to poke Washington.The Taliban, like many other Afghan groups, he added, has a long record of running protection rackets and taking cash from foreigners, including Russians, Americans and Chinese. "This is what they do," he said. "They are Afghanistan's most successful business."Russia, he said, "decided that if we can create lots of problems for Americans in Afghanistan, they will create fewer problems for us in Ukraine and Syria."Moscow has been reaching out to the Taliban for years, starting in 1995 when Kabulov traveled to Kandahar, a Taliban stronghold in the south, to negotiate the release of Russian pilots who had been taken hostage.The pilots eventually got away with their aircraft in what was described at the time as a daring escape. But what really happened is unclear. One thing that seems certain, however, is that this first Russian negotiation with the Taliban revolved around money."Everything was based on money," Vasily Kravtsov, a former KGB officer during the Soviet war and until 2018 a Russian diplomat in Kabul, recalled of the hostage talks.Kravtsov denied Russia had since paid the Taliban bounties for the deaths of coalition soldiers, even as he recalled that Soviet soldiers had been killed in large numbers by American arms supplied to the mujahedeen. He said he himself had been wounded twice by weapons "bought with American funds."Igor Yerin, who fought in Afghanistan as a young Red Army conscript in the 1980s, said he never saw any Americans on the battlefield but "they were everywhere because of their Stingers."Stingers were anti-aircraft missiles provided to mujahedeen fighters by the U.S. as part of a covert CIA program. They enabled the mujahedeen to shoot down hundreds of Soviet planes and helicopters, turning the tide in the decadelong war.Now the curator of a small museum in Moscow commemorating the inglorious Afghan war, Yerin showed off a display of land mines and other weapons sent to kill Russians as part of the CIA program.Putin has for years played on this and other sources of Russian pain.Soon after coming to power two decades ago, he pledged support for President George W. Bush in his "with or against us" war on terrorism in 2001 and cooperated with America's drive to oust the Taliban. But he quickly soured on the idea that Washington could be a reliable partner and began blaming it for most of the world's problems.Bristling with wounded pride, Putin in a fiery speech in Munich in 2007 denounced what he said was a "world of one master, one sovereign" and complained that the "United States has overstepped its national borders, in every area."He has been settling scores ever since, often with help from the GRU, which even before Putin took power had won its spurs putting the U.S. in its place. Since he took office, the military intelligence agency has been accused of involvement in widespread mischief-making, from a bungled 2016 coup attempt in Montenegro aimed at preventing the Balkan nation's entry into NATO, to meddling the same year in the U.S. presidential election.In a rare recent interview, the former head of the GRU, Valentin Korabelnikov, told state television how his officers had in 1999 organized a frantic dash by Russian troops and armor to Kosovo to occupy the airport in the capital, Pristina -- just hours before the arrival of NATO forces. The stunt, he said, was "about the prestige of our state" and showing that Russia could not be ignored.Speaking in his former office at the headquarters of the GRU in Moscow, Korabelnikov said that his agency had organized many other secret operations but that those could not be revealed."The vast majority of operations carried out both by us and our brothers," he said, referring to Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service and the Federal Security Service, known as the FSB and headed in the late 1990s by Putin, "are completely closed, and only the small tip of the iceberg sometimes appears."Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russia's security apparatus who wrote a doctorate on Moscow's disastrous Afghan war, said "some old war horses" in the GRU could have hatched a scheme to kill Americans as payback for Russians killed with U.S. weapons in Afghanistan. But he said he doubted that such a plan would have been approved by the Russian leadership or executed without approval as a "maverick operation."Even Yerin, the former conscript who lost friends in Afghanistan, recalled that during his tour there, spent mostly near the northern city of Kunduz, he never believed political commissars in his unit who explained the 1979 Soviet invasion was necessary to keep the U.S. from moving into Russia's backyard."Today, I believe them," said Yerin. "Afghanistan is our next-door neighbor," he said, stabbing with his finger the southern border of the former Soviet Union on a big wall map, "What happens here is our business, not the Americans'."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 14:28:24 GMT

Somalia restaurant attack: Six killed by al-Shabab
Militant group al-Shabab said it carried out the bomb explosion in the town of Baidoa.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 14:24:51 GMT

Trump's `strong wall' to block COVID-19 from China had holes
President Donald Trump has repeatedly credited his February ban on travelers from mainland China as his signature move against the advance of the coronavirus pandemic -- a “strong wall” that allowed only U.S. citizens inside, he boasted in May. Exempted were thousands of residents of the Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macau. Efforts to track U.S. residents returning from mainland China were riddled with errors and broken communications.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 14:01:01 GMT

Fire flares at Iranian power plant, latest in series of incidents

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 13:47:12 GMT

As monuments fall, Confederate carving has size on its side
Some statues of figures from America's slave-owning past have been yanked down by protesters, others dismantled by order of governors or city leaders. Stone Mountain's supersized sculpture depicting Gen. Robert E. Lee, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson mounted on horseback has special protection enshrined in Georgia law. An old photo shows a worker on scaffolding just below Lee's chin barely reaching his nose.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 13:42:30 GMT

'People aren’t stupid': Pence's virus spin tests credibility
Vice President Mike Pence has long played the straight man to Donald Trump, translating the president's bombast into more measured, calming language. As coronavirus cases spike across large parts of the country despite months of lockdown, Pence has spent the past week trying to convince the American public that things are going very well, even though they're not. “Make no mistake about it, what you see today is that America is going back to work and the American people are finding a way every day to put this coronavirus farther in the past," he told CNBC the same day the country reported more than 55,000 new virus cases, a daily record.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 13:09:06 GMT

In troubled times: Independence Day in a land of confusion
On Independence Day, we Americans — if there is in fact a “we” in American life — celebrate the anniversary of a time when a lot of people, feeling really angry and scared, decided to do something about it that changed the world forever. A national conversation — loud, enraged and anguished — about the place that a history blemished by ugliness should hold in the present. Irritable, overstressed, buffeted by invisible forces and just plain worn out, the United States of America on its 244th birthday is a land of confusion.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 13:08:53 GMT

Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia return to talks over disputed dam
Three key Nile basin countries will continue on Saturday their latest round of talks to resolve a years-long dispute over the operation and filling of Ethiopia’s giant hydroelectric dam on the Blue Nile, Egypt's irrigation ministry said. Officials from Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia resumed their negotiations through video conference Friday, aiming to bridge the gaps and finalize a deal on the contentious mega-project within two to three weeks, Sudan's irrigation ministry said. The current round of talks came after negotiations last month failed to produce a deal, prompting Egypt and Sudan to appeal to the United Nations Security Council to intervene in the dispute.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 12:21:37 GMT

North Korea dismisses chance of 'face to face' U.S. nuclear talks ahead of election
"The U.S. is mistaken if it thinks things like negotiations would still work on us," said North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 12:16:00 GMT

Mississippi could drop Jim Crow-era statewide voting process
Mississippi just ditched its Confederate-themed state flag. Later this year, the state's voters will decide whether to dump a statewide election process that dates to the Jim Crow era. The amendment would simplify elections for governor and other statewide officials by erasing an Electoral College-type provision from Mississippi's 1890 constitution — one that was written to dilute Black voting power and maintain white control of state politics.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 12:10:28 GMT

North Korea says it has no plans for talks with U.S.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 12:09:11 GMT

Governors stress 'personal responsibility' over virus orders
Earlier this week, as Tennessee registered what then was its highest single-day coronavirus case increase, Gov. Bill Lee held a news conference and issued a stern response. “When we have people dying in this state as a result of this virus, we should be taking personal responsibility for this,” the Republican governor said. It was the same message Lee issued in late March as the COVID-19 disease was beginning to spread.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 12:05:09 GMT

Iran imposes new curbs as coronavirus toll rises

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 10:41:49 GMT

Police: 2 women hit by car on Seattle highway amid protest
A 27-year-old man drove a car onto a closed freeway in Seattle early Saturday and barreled through a panicked crowd of protesters, critically injuring two women, officials said. Dawit Kelete of Seattle drove the car around vehicles that were blocking Interstate 5 and sped into the crowd about 1:40 a.m., according to a police report released by the Washington State Patrol. Summer Taylor, 24, of Seattle, was in critical condition while Diaz Love, 32, of Portland, Oregon, was upgraded to serious condition in the intensive care unit, Harborview Medical Center spokeswoman Susan Gregg said.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 10:29:48 GMT

US envoy forges ahead with troubled Taliban peace deal
Washington's envoy to Afghanistan on Saturday emphasized the economic benefits of the peace deal with the Taliban, forging ahead with an agreement that has run into new political obstacles in the U.S. and the region. Zalmay Khalilzad was wrapping up a week-long trip that included stops in Uzbekistan, Pakistan and the Gulf state of Qatar, where Taliban negotiators are headquartered. Accompanying Khalilzad for the first time was an economic development team led by U.S. International Development Finance Corporation Chief Executive Officer Adam Boehler.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 10:17:41 GMT

English pubs reopen but little normal elsewhere in the world
Pubs, hair salons and movie theaters across England reopened Saturday as part of Britain’s biggest step toward post-outbreak normal, while South Africa and other parts of the world signaled anything but — reporting another day of record confirmed coronavirus cases. Many people relished the easing of restrictions on public life that had shuttered U.K. restaurants and bars, although a trade group estimated that only about half of England's pubs elected to open on the first possible day. “Let’s not blow it now,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said as some in England rushed to restaurants or barbers for the first time in more than three months.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 10:02:03 GMT

Virus spike in Spain reveals plight of seasonal farm workers
In the 20 years since he left his native Senegal, Biram Fall has never slept in the streets. This week, when he ran out of savings after failing to find work in northern Spain’s peach orchards, he still refused to do so. As part of an army of cheap labor that follows the ripening of different crops across the country, the 52-year-old responded in May to an urgent call for workers in Lleida, a major gateway to surrounding fertile farmland.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 09:35:42 GMT

UK executed more European Arrest Warrants than any EU country for four years in a row
Britain carried out more than eight times as many European Arrest Warrants than were executed on its behalf by EU police forces in the last decade and arrested more suspects than any other EU country for four years in a row. Tory MPs said that the “justice deficit” meant the EU should drop demands in Brexit negotiations over a new extradition treaty for a role for the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and a UK pledge to stay in the European Convention on Human Rights. The UK will leave the European Arrest Warrant system (EAW) at the end of the Brexit transition period on December 31. British and EU negotiators will resume talks over a replacement treaty when trade negotiations resume in London on Monday. “Since the European Arrest Warrant came into force in the UK, we have surrendered over 10,000 individuals to face trial or serve sentences in EU Member States,” a Home Office spokesperson said. “That is why we are seeking fast track extradition arrangements based on the EU’s existing agreement with [non-EU countries] Norway and Iceland.” “I can tell you we are not far from an agreement but we have some fundamental problems for the operationality and implementation of this objective because in some areas we need a clear reference to the Court of Justice,” Michel Barnier told the Sunday Telegraph. “When the interpretation of the EU law is concerned, we must and we will refer to the Court of Justice,” the EU’s chief negotiator said. “The EU is going to have to swallow its pride on this one. Quite clearly the UK contribution to the EAW system is considerably more than any of the EU member states,” said David Jones, a former minister at the Department for Exiting the European Union. “It does highlight how important the UK is to the system of criminal law enforcement in the EU. So it is clearly in Brussels’ interest to replicate the EAW with something that doesn’t require ECJ oversight,” the MP for Clwyd West said.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 08:21:43 GMT

Hachalu Hundessa: 'My friend the hero who was gunned down'
The BBC's Amensisa Ifa was close to Ethiopian protest singer Hachalu Hundessa, who was shot dead on Monday.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 07:20:46 GMT

Sex workers lack food for taking HIV drugs during COVID-19
As the coronavirus spreads in Africa, it threatens in multiple ways those who earn their living on the streets — people like Mignonne, a 25-year-old sex worker with HIV. The lockdown in Rwanda has kept many of her customers away, she said, so she has less money to buy food. “Yet it’s equally dangerous when you don’t take the drug,” Mignonne said in an interview.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 07:02:52 GMT

Families of Syria detainees hope for news amid US sanctions
Alaa Arnous and his family found the photo of his father Mohammed online last week, the first proof of his fate since he was seized by Syrian government forces seven years ago. The elder Arnous was among thousands of Syrians who, since their country’s civil war began in 2011, went missing into Syrian government prisons. Anguished relatives are poring over photos of torture victims from Syrian prisons, posted online by activists after the United States imposed heavy new sanctions on the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad last month.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 06:21:21 GMT

Will Erdogan Turn Hagia Sophia Back Into a Mosque?
ISTANBUL—As Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan looks for an issue to fire up his Islamic and nationalist voter base amid declining poll numbers, he is moving closer to turning Istanbul's ancient Basilica of the Hagia Sophia, a world heritage site and a powerful symbol for both Christians and Muslims, from a museum into a mosque.Built 1,500 years ago as the main church of the Byzantine Empire, Hagia Sophia (which means holy wisdom) was the most important house of worship in Christianity for almost a thousand years. The Ottomans declared the building a mosque after conquering Constantinople, today’s Istanbul, in 1453. But modern Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, decreed in a 1934 cabinet decision that the massive building in the heart of Istanbul’s historic center be used as a museum, banning religious worship there. The U.N. cultural organization UNESCO declared Hagia Sophia a world heritage site in 1985.Islamists have campaigned for years to turn Hagia Sophia, or Ayasofya, back into a mosque, and they are now closer than ever to getting what they want. Once dismissive of their demands, but always conscious of his core Islamist base, Erdogan has signaled his support for the initiative. He told a television interviewer last year that Hagia Sophia might be known as “Hagia Sophia Mosque” in the future. Erdogan’s justice minister, Abdulhamit Gul, told the state news agency Anadolu last month that “it is our joint wish to break the Hagia Sophia’s chains and open it for prayers.”Turkey Is Now the Most Dangerous Player in the Middle EastTurkey’s top administrative court, the Council of State, on Thursday took up the issue after an association calling for the change asked the judges to declare Ataturk’s decision null and void. The hearing lasted just 17 minutes, and the court said it would issue a verdict within 15 days.Turkish media reports say the court is expected to reject the demand to annul Ataturk’s decree but stress that the government has the right to decide about the status of a building like Hagia Sophia. Such a decision would pave the way for Erdogan to go ahead. Some reports say the president is aiming to hold the first Muslim prayer there on July 15, the anniversary of the 2016 coup attempt against his rule.Not everybody in Turkey is happy with this turn of events. Opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu said Erdogan is using religious issues for political ends. The Istanbul-based spiritual leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians worldwide also criticized the plan. Bartholomew, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, said turning Hagia Sophia into a mosque would turn Christians against Muslims.Since its construction in the sixth century, Hagia Sophia has awed everyone who enters the huge building. “Solomon, I have surpassed you,” Byzantine Emperor Justinian I said when he walked into Hagia Sophia for the first time after having it built. Mosaics depicting Jesus, Mary, emperors and saints glitter in the sunlight that filtered in through the windows. The main attraction remains the giant cupola that rises 56 meters (184 feet) above ground and spans 31 meters (102 feet), appearing to float in the air thanks to 90 windows in its base.Some mosaics were painted over after the Ottoman conquest because Islam prohibits the depiction of human features, but the depredations often were overstated by Christian hostile to Sublime Port.The aristocratic 18th century writer Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of Britain’s ambassador to Constantinople, cajoled her way into Hagia Sophia in 1718, noting that the mosaics of many saints were still visible, their dilapidation merely a factor of neglect. “It is absolutely false, what is so universally asserted, that the Turks defaced all the images that they found in the city.” But the vast mosaics on the ceiling were crumbling and falling to the floor. “The composition seems to me a sort of glass, or the paste with which they make counterfeit jewels,” she wrote.In many places the gem-like brilliance of the mosaics remains or has been restored. Work in 2010 uncovered the face of a seraph angel that had been hidden under plaster, and more recent archeology has turned up significant finds, including a disk where the Emperor Justinian once stood. But some of the most striking features are the enormous medallions of Arabic calligraphy put high on the walls in the 19th century which give the sense in the museum of today that Islam and Christianity can share the space. At the apse the glistening mosaic of the Madonna and Child is flanked by the medallions of Muhammad and Allah.The Orthodox patriarch noted that the basilica, the "Temple of the God of Wisdom," as he called it, "has been a place for the worship of God for 900 years for Christians and 500 years for Muslims" and "makes believers of both religions meet and admire its greatness."But the venerable building has become a pawn in the mean game of Turkish politics. Polls show Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is losing support because of ongoing economic problems, which are made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic, and a perception of growing corruption. The AKP lost control of major cities like Istanbul and the capital Ankara in local elections last year. Turkey’s opposition parties speculate the president may call early elections before things get even worse for him.Howard Eissenstat, a Turkey expert at Saint Lawrence University in New York, said it was not sure whether Erdogan would really go ahead with changing Hagia Sophia’s status.“It remains to be seen whether he will take the plunge,” Eissenstat told The Daily Beast by email. “Promising to convert Hagia Sophia to a mosque is a perennial event in Turkey. It is easy enough to move forward, make some headlines, and then back down.”But Eissenstat added that two developments mean chances are higher now than at other times when the issue has come up. “First, the twin crises of the coronavirus and the economy have further undermined the AKP’s popularity,” he said. “A big, culturally significant act like this would both highlight the AKP’s cultural brand and elicit angry responses abroad… which in turn allow Erdogan to ‘stand tall’ against foreign pressures. This type of cultural politics is a preferred strategy of Erdogan and one which he has gone back to again and again.”“The second reason is that the economic fallout is likely to be slight… the Turkish tourism economy is already in shambles because of coronavirus. If some countries call for a boycott, it isn’t going to do any further damage because tourists already are staying away. In the interim, Turkey would likely take steps to ensure that tourists could still view Hagia Sophia outside of prayer hours.”Having tourists in working mosques would not be new for Istanbul. The 17th century Blue Mosque, just a couple of hundred feet away from Hagia Sophia, is open for visitors except for prayer times. Women are asked to cover their hair when entering the building. There is no question of Christian prayers in other mosques, however, and there might well be in Hagia Sophia.But even if Hagia Sophia is kept open after turning it into a mosque, the move is still likely to trigger international criticism. Turkey’s neighbor Greece, which regards Hagia Sophia as a symbol of the Byzantine past and Orthodox Christianity, has strongly criticized the plan to turn the building into a mosque.U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo urged Turkey “to continue to maintain the Hagia Sophia as a museum, as an exemplar of its commitment to respect Turkey’s diverse faith traditions and history, and to ensure it remains accessible to all.” Turkey rejected Pompeo’s statement, reminding the secretary that “Hagia Sophia is the property of Turkey, like all our cultural assets located on our land.”Eissenstat said that for all the controversy around Hagia Sophia, domestic and international repercussions of changing the building’s status were likely to be limited.“This is a nice piece of symbolism for Erdogan’s base, but its domestic importance can be grossly overstated,” Eissenstat said. “It isn’t like the AKP will gain or lose a tremendous amount of votes either way.”“On the diplomatic front, it will likely reinforce concerns about Turkey’s direction for some Western countries and will likely result in some angry statements and headlines,” he added. But, provided Turkey preserves the Hagia Sophia’s treasures, “I think its overall effect will be minor and relatively short lived.”Omer Lacin, a Turkish tourist from the southern city of Antalya who visited Hagia Sophia this week in the middle of the debate swirling around the building, said the better part of wisdom would be to leave the museum alone.“It’s not good that this issue has been put on the political agenda,” Lacin said. “I think it’s better not to touch history.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 05:37:46 GMT

Meet the Russian Spies Who Inspired ‘The Americans‘
Donald Heathfield, like his wife, had been born in a cemetery, a ghost rising from the dead. A baby boy had been born on Feb. 4, 1962, in Canada, the third of four children of Howard and Shirley. Six weeks later, on March 23, Shirley found little Donald lying still, a tiny arm sticking out of the side of his crib. Her child had died. Tracey Lee Ann Foley was born on Sept. 14, 1962, in Montreal, the first child of Edward and Pauline Foley. Seven weeks old and just a few days after she had smiled at her mother for the first time, she developed a fever. Within hours, she died of meningitis. As with the Heathfields, the pain of the loss of a child so young never left the family. But then a quarter of a century later, Heathfield and Foley were suddenly there again, brought back to life by Directorate S.The twin tragedies had not gone unnoticed. A KGB officer serving in Canada had observed them. He would steal something from these two families who had already lost something irreplaceable—their children’s identities. KGB officers had the macabre job of strolling around cemeteries looking at graves for likely candidates, a process known as “tombstoning.” The ideal situation was a child who died away from the country in which they were born, with few close relatives, reducing the documentary and witness trail to the death. Once a candidate was found, the next step might be to destroy any documentary evidence of the death. This could be as simple as bribing someone for access to a church registry book and then ripping out the pages. Then came the key—requesting a new birth certificate (a technique that relied on there being no central registry of births and deaths). “It was considered a big success for us when Department 2 managed to obtain children’s birth certificates after a whole family died in a traffic or other kind of accident,” explains one former member of Directorate S. A birth certificate meant a child could be born again as an illegal.Directorate S was broken up into departments. Department 2 was the storytellers. Their job was to create a fictional life and to make it plausible enough to stand up to scrutiny from a discerning critic by building “legends” and providing backstories. Officers of the department would draw up paragraphs in two columns. On one side would be the supposed detail of a person’s life—Donald Heathfield was Canadian and born in Montreal. On the other side would be the made-up evidence supporting that claim—starting with a birth certificate. If there was a claim that did not have documentation, then there would be a plausible story why. It was painstaking work. If there was any doubt, an entire identity would be discarded. Roughly one in ten attempts would create something considered sustainable against checks by Western security services. Each illegal had a “kurator”—literally a curator of the false identity who would supervise their training and act as a handler once they were in the field.The Hick From Indiana Who Nailed Master Spy Kim PhilbyThe Operational Technical section of Department 2 includes a team of highly skilled forgers. What does a French passport issued five years ago look like? What does a Finnish driver’s license look like? They study which inks, papers, glues, and even staples are used in target countries so they can be faked or—if blanks can be stolen—doctored with a new identity inserted. A laboratory works on how to replicate the different types of paper and ink and how to artificially age a document in a special oven so a passport can be filled with the backstory of visas and trips and made to look old when it is in fact new. So why not just create entirely fake personas for the spies? A proper check into someone’s background would raise too many questions and if fake documents are spotted then it is game over. For long-term penetration, the strong preference was always to get hold of real documents rather than rely on fakes. This meant becoming a “dead double”—stealing an identity of someone deceased and then using it to build a set of genuine documents. That was the route for Heathfield and Foley. They might arrive in Canada and start with a birth certificate. This could be used as the stepping-stone to contact public bodies and obtain other identity documents. Ultimately this would eventually lead you to a real passport, helping create what was called an “iron legend.”So who was the resurrected Donald Heathfield? His real name was Andrey Bezrukov. He was born on August 30, 1960, in Kansk, in remote Siberia, a small town near the route of the Trans-Siberian Railway, home to a MiG fighter base. His parents were often away for work and so he was an independent child, self-contained with a strong inner confidence. Bezrukov traces his family tree back to the Russian conquest of Siberia under Ivan the Terrible in the sixteenth century, when his distant relatives had first come to the region. “For me to forget this is to be left with nothing,” he later said. Remembering your roots was important when you were pretending to be someone else. Patriotism would sustain him in his long years far away from home.In 1978, at the age of 18, Bezrukov went to Tomsk State University. His study of history gave him a sense of the uniqueness of Russia’s story, a country engaged in what he calls an “endless, painful search for herself between East and West.” And it was while a student that he was talent-spotted. Universities are the classic recruiting ground for illegals. Department 3 of Directorate S is in charge of the intense selection process. An ideal candidate is in their early twenties. When a person was younger than that you could not be sure they had what it took to survive. By thirty, they were no longer malleable enough to be shaped into a new person. Spotters looked for those who might have the right set of skills—an aptitude for languages was vital, so was intelligence, patience, adaptability, an ability to cope with stress, and a sense of patriotism. Careful psychological assessments were undertaken. Someone who was volatile or looked like they might drink too much or have too much of an eye for the opposite sex was not suitable. This was all initially done at a distance before a move was made—perhaps, as often in the West, on the recommendation of a professor. Somewhere among the stream of students carrying books to and from class and flirting with each other, the KGB had spotted Bezrukov.Bezrukov was not recruited alone. The fact that illegals were selected in their twenties posed a problem—relationships. An illegal was destined to spend decades living undercover. It was unrealistic to think they would not engage in relationships. But this posed a danger. If you fell for a local, you would either have to constantly try to hide the truth from them or risk telling them you were not who you said you were. Worse, you might place love over duty and give up your spying career. Anatoli Rudenko, a 1960s illegal, worked in West Germany and London before ending up in the United States as a piano tuner to the rich and powerful—including the governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller. Rudenko’s career ended when he was forced to reveal he had defied orders by secretly marrying a hairdresser in Germany and taking her with him. Plans to use him to penetrate the United Nations and think tanks—including by seducing lonely young women—had to be shelved. It was an example of why human relationships were the key to an illegal prospering or failing.And so the preference became to send out couples. Marriages were sometimes arranged and manufactured by Directorate S (its officials could even officiate in order to maintain secrecy). An arranged marriage would not just avoid the danger of falling in love but also offer a partner in undercover work. “You would not have to waste your time chasing after girls and risk falling into bed with the wrong one,” one illegal was told during the Cold War when a partner was offered to him. “You would not have to explain your absences. [Y]our partner would be a trained agent who could help with communications, photography, drops—with everything. You would not be alone behind the lines.” Not all marriages worked. Yelena Borisnovna and Dimitry Olshevsky were sent to Canada under the identity of two dead babies, Laurie and Ian Lambert. Their relationship hit the rocks out in the field. Dimitry moved in with a local woman, while Yelena began to date a British-born doctor. Canadian intelligence arrested them in 1996. The pair were deported, landing on a stormy night in Moscow to be whisked away in a blacked-out van straight from the runway.Andrey Bezrukov’s marriage, though, was no fake. This was an adventure that two young people set out on together. Elena Vavilova was a fellow history student at the university. She had been born in November 1962 in Tomsk, where her parents were academics. She was a cheerful, outgoing child who enjoyed figure skating, ballet, and acting. At university she played the violin as she studied for her degree. There she met Bezrukov. There was a confidence to him and also a sense he might take her out of the well-ordered world she had grown up in. “Andrey offered me something out of the ordinary, an adventure,” she later said. The young couple spent the night together in the university library, sneaking in before closing time and staying among the book-lined shelves. But they were caught by the director the next morning. There was a telling off but no punishment. Perhaps it was this spirit of adventure and the willingness to take risks together that got them noticed.The young couple was approached by a man who had an unusual proposal. Did they want to serve their country? She was only 21. “I wondered what would happen to our relationship,” Vavilova thought. “I believe if we were selected separately, each of us could have refused the proposal,” Vavilova later explained to me. “However, since we were already romantically involved, it was more beneficial to have us as a couple for the training.” She would later reflect that love marriages among illegals were better than arranged ones because of the trust that was always there. Their first curator sat down with them and in long conversations began to see if they were suitable—their recruiter talked to them about their backgrounds, their lives, their friendships, and their studies, carefully probing them to make sure they had what it took. The strains of the life they were to live drove others apart but, in their case, it would bring them even closer together.Why did Elena Vavilova agree to become a spy? “The concept of the Motherland—an amalgamation of everything that is important to you,” was her explanation later. Vavilova and Bezrukov were still living in the era of communism when they were approached by the KGB, but it was always as much defending Mother Russia as spreading communism that had motivated them. “For me the main motive that made me agree and accept this job was the desire to prevent another terrible war, like the Great Patriotic War,” Vavilova later said, using the Russian name for World War II. “As a teenager, all the films about the war and the suffering the people had to go through and the high price we had to pay for victory, all of this fostered in me a wish to be part of whatever could be done to prevent it from happening again.” This was the driving force for many Russian spies from the Cold War generation—the sense of threat to their country and the story of their near defeat at the hands of the Nazis before a victory that came at an enormous cost (one which many feel is rarely acknowledged in the West). Almost every family had lost someone in that brutal war. The illegals’ mission was to prevent it happening again by acting as a warning system. The early eighties, when the couple was approached, were years when the need for such warning seemed all too real. In Washington, there was an American president calling the Soviet Union “the evil empire” and who, Moscow feared, might be gearing up for confrontation and perhaps even a first nuclear strike. And at the same time, young men from the Soviet Union, including fellow students from Tomsk, were heading off to fight in a brutal conflict in Afghanistan.In the West, the word spy refers to both heroes—the James Bonds—and villains—traitors like the Kim Philbys. But in Russia they separate the two concepts with different words—a spy is a betrayer of secrets. Meanwhile, their word for heroic intelligence officers translates more closely in English to “scouts”—in the sense of someone who is working behind enemy lines to scout ahead and report back, providing advance warning. The separating of the two ideas makes it easier in Russia to lionize the heroes and demonize the villains. It also explains how the illegals saw themselves as operating behind enemy lines in order to protect the motherland. They were the “soldiers of the invisible front.”Soon after, the couple was married. Bezrukov’s parents came to the modest reception in Elena’s parents’ house. A few years later they would be married for a second time, this time as Donald Heathfield and Ann Foley (she chose to use her new middle name rather than Tracey). “The gap between our weddings was short, a few years, but those years were very intense,” Vavilova later explained. There was no honeymoon the first time. Instead, Bezrukov and Vavilova simply vanished from the life of friends and family as they headed to Moscow. Despite the excitement of being in the nation’s capital and the luxury of a two-bedroom apartment, this period was challenging. “The years before we left were quite taxing physically, psychologically, and intellectually,” she would say. By the end of every week, they would be exhausted. They had to learn all the traditional “tradecraft” involved in being a spy—out on the Moscow streets they practiced brush-pass contacts, where one person hands over items to another surreptitiously—and tested on whether they could spot surveillance. Inside, they learned martial arts, how to shoot a gun, and how to evade a polygraph lie-detector test. But there was much more to the creation of an illegal than attending regular spy school. For a start, the training was provided to them as a couple by a small group of tutors. They did not mix with other recruits to protect their identity. But it also involved going much deeper. Each illegal required a staggering investment—around four years and by some estimates a million dollars. This compares to CIA and MI6 training for new officers, which is measured in months, not years. “It was not a mass production,” one head of the KGB said. “You do not train illegals… in the classes. It’s a piecemeal operation. You work with an individual, one on one. And only in such a way, we can make them look like an Englishman or a Spaniard or a German.”As the Moscow snows came and went, Bezrukov and Vavilova’s education involved former illegals educating them in the history of the elite spies whose ranks they were to join. Moscow had developed its specialty in illegals after the 1917 revolution. Many countries did not have diplomatic relations with the communist Soviet Union so diplomatic cover was not an option. In those early years, there had also been a pool of ideologically committed communists of various nationalities who were willing to spy for Moscow. This led to the heyday of the illegals in the 1930s and 1940s. Richard Sorge operated undercover in Japan, moving in the highest diplomatic circles to provide vital intelligence about Tokyo’s relationship with Nazi Germany. In Europe, illegals recruited people who were students, and some would slowly work their way into positions of power and influence. Some, like Kim Philby and the Cambridge spies in the United Kingdom, would reach the highest echelons of Western intelligence agencies. In America, illegals worked with the atomic spies who stole the most sensitive secrets imaginable, which proved vital in allowing the Soviet Union to avoid defeat in the early Cold War. Many of these early international illegals were rewarded with execution in Stalin’s purges.In the mid-1950s, the KGB began a push for a new generation of homegrown illegals. They never quite matched their predecessors, although there were some successes. Among the best known was Konon Molody, who turned into Canadian Gordon Lonsdale. He came to London and ran a spy ring stealing naval secrets. Molody had previously worked as an understudy in the United States for another of the great illegals—Rudolf Abel, a remarkably talented individual who had been born in Britain and served in World War II on the front lines before embedding himself in New York. These were the footsteps Bezrukov and Vavilova were to follow in.The illegals were treated as heroes in the Soviet Union, far more than their spy counterparts in the United States or Britain. There were stories of their daring undercover operations in World War II. The most fabled was Nikolai Kuznetsov. Films and books were based on his time posing as a member of the German occupying army in Ukraine during which he killed six senior Nazis. The accounts of World War II illegals were a central part of Soviet popular culture promoted by the KGB. One fictional work was turned into a 1973 TV series called Seventeen Moments of Spring. It featured a deep-cover illegal, a Soviet version of James Bond, who posed as a German aristocrat to infiltrate the Nazi SS and who prevented the Nazis from negotiating a peace deal with America. The series was a massive hit, reaching up to 80 million viewers, and was constantly repeated, embedding itself in the popular mind. Vladimir Putin was 21 when the series was first shown, and he became desperate to sign up for the KGB. One of his first jobs in East Germany in the 1980s, he would later boast, was to work with illegals.Excerpted from the book Russians Among Us by Gordon Corera. Copyright 2020 by Gordon Corera. From William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 05:23:07 GMT

North Korea says it has no plans for talks with US
North Korea on Saturday reiterated it has no immediate plans to resume nuclear negotiations with the United States unless Washington discards what it describes as “hostile” polices toward Pyongyang. The statement by North Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui came after President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, told reporters in New York Thursday that Trump might seek another summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as an “October surprise” ahead of the U.S. presidential election.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 05:23:03 GMT

N.Korea says no need to sit down with US for talks

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 05:14:28 GMT

At Mount Rushmore, Trump digs deeper into nation's divisions
At the foot of Mount Rushmore and on the eve of Independence Day, President Donald Trump dug deeper into America's divisions by accusing protesters who have pushed for racial justice of engaging in a “merciless campaign to wipe out our history.” The president, in remarks Friday night at the South Dakota landmark, offered a discordant tone to an electorate battered by a pandemic and seared by the recent high-profile killings of Black people. Four months from Election Day, his comments amounted to a direct appeal to the political base, including many disaffected white votes, that carried him to the White House in 2016.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 05:10:03 GMT

Critics of US-Taliban deal say militants can't be trusted
Intelligence that Afghan militants might have accepted Russian bounties for killing American troops did not scuttle the U.S.-Taliban agreement or President Donald Trump’s plan to withdraw thousands more troops from the war. It did give critics of the deal another reason to say the Taliban shouldn’t be trusted. The bounty information was included in Trump's president's daily intelligence brief on Feb. 27, according to intelligence officials, and two days later, the U.S. and Taliban signed an agreement in Qatar.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 04:57:27 GMT

For nation's birthday, Trump stokes the divisions within US
On a day meant for unity and celebration, President Donald Trump vowed to “safeguard our values” from enemies within — leftists, looters, agitators, he said — in a Fourth of July speech packed with all the grievances and combativeness of his political rallies. Trump watched paratroopers float to the ground in a tribute to America, greeted his audience of front-line medical workers and others central in responding to the coronavirus pandemic, and opened up on those who “slander” him and disrespect the country's past.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 04:47:08 GMT

Heavy rain floods southern Japan; over a dozen presumed dead
Heavy rain in southern Japan triggered flooding and mudslides on Saturday, leaving more than a dozen people presumed dead, about 10 missing and dozens stranded on rooftops waiting to be rescued, officials said. More than 75,000 residents in the prefectures of Kumamoto and Kagoshima were urged to evacuate following pounding rains overnight. NHK footage showed large areas of Hitoyoshi town in Kumamoto inundated in muddy waters that gushed out from the Kuma River.

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 03:45:35 GMT

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