NAD Interview : Professor Peter Dale Scott, Canadian Poet Observing the Deep State Conspiracy

Excerpted: The New American Dream


PETER DALE SCOTT, 80, is a Canadian poet and former English professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

He is known for his anti-war stance and his criticism of U.S. foreign policy dating back to the Vietnam War. He lives in Berkeley, California.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Dale_Scott


NAD:

So, were you a poet first, and professor by necessity, or how does that all line up — in that, how well have your passions survived the bill collector over the decades?

PETER DALE SCOTT:

I started writing poetry at age eight, and first published as an undergraduate. But I always had other interests, chiefly political.

Until I was fifty I would say that I wrote poetry, but refused to define myself as a poet.

Then, hospitalized for two weeks with acute hepatitis, I decided to be a poet first of all. Soon afterwards I began to write "Coming to Jakarta." University tenure spared me money concerns, until recently.

NAD: How, why did you oppose the Vietnam War?

PETER DALE SCOTT:

In Warsaw from 1959 to 1960, it was my chore as the youngest Canadian diplomat to read the prodigiously long cables to the Embassy about Laos.

In Berkeley in 1961 I retained nothing of their content except a sense of the controversiality of US maneuvers, and the risks of a new Indochina War.

So I started circulating anti-war petitions in 1962 and began speaking in 1965.

NAD:

You write these days about the "deep state," and conspiracy — right?

How long have you been aware of the deep state and conspiracy? Do they exist in other nations as well?

PETER DALE SCOTT:

My concern about US involvement in Vietnam led to questions in my first book (1966) about the murders of Diem in Vietnam and JFK in the US, at a time when both were thought to be contemplating negotiations towards peace.

My next book in 1972, "The War Conspiracy," had several chapters about the JFK assassination which the publisher dropped, but I circulated privately.

I have only written about a “deep state” intervening covertly in our politics since 2006 (see The Road to 9/11), and am still refining my thoughts in Internet publications.

I would say that every developed state develops a deep state; but deep states become a major problem only in alleged democracies which assume an unpopular and thus undemocratic imperial role.

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