Alexander Cockburn

Columnist

Alexander Cockburn, The Nation's "Beat the Devil" columnist and one of America's best-known radical journalists, was born in Scotland and grew up in Ireland. He graduated from Oxford in 1963 with a degree in English literature and language.

After two years as an editor at the Times Literary Supplement, he worked at the New Left Review and The New Statesman, and co-edited two Penguin volumes, on trade unions and on the student movement.

A permanent resident of the United States since 1973, Cockburn wrote for many years for The Village Voice about the press and politics. Since then he has contributed to many publications including The New York Review of Books, Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly and the Wall Street Journal (where he had a regular column from 1980 to 1990), as well as alternative publications such as In These Times and the Anderson Valley Advertiser.

He has written "Beat the Devil" since 1984.

He is co-editor, with Jeffrey St Clair, of the newsletter and radical website CounterPunch(http://www.counterpunch.org) which have a substantial world audience. In 1987 he published a best-selling collection of essays, Corruptions of Empire, and two years later co-wrote, with Susanna Hecht, The Fate of the Forest: Developers, Destroyers, and Defenders of the Amazon (both Verso). In 1995 Verso also published his diary of the late 80s, early 90s and the fall of Communism, The Golden Age Is In Us. With Ken Silverstein he wrote Washington Babylon; with Jeffrey St. Clair he has written or coedited several books including: Whiteout, The CIA, Drugs and the Press; The Politics of Anti-Semitism; Imperial Crusades; Al Gore, A User's Manual; Five Days That Shook the World; and A Dime's Worth of Difference, about the two-party system in America.

 

 

Why They Hated Gary Webb Why They Hated Gary Webb

Few spectacles in journalism in the mid-1990s were more disgusting than the slagging of Gary Webb in the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times.

Dec 16, 2004 / Column / Alexander Cockburn

Politicize the CIA? You’ve Got to Be Kidding! Politicize the CIA? You’ve Got to Be Kidding!

No alien penetration or treachery of double agents has ever done nearly as much damage to the CIA as the infighting consequent upon the arrival of each new director, charged by h...

Dec 2, 2004 / Column / Alexander Cockburn

The Poisoned Chalice The Poisoned Chalice

At least when Duffy's Circus left Youghal there'd be piles of dung from the elephant and the horses.

Nov 18, 2004 / Column / Alexander Cockburn

Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You

"Why Is He Losing?" was the title I initially gave my last column here two weeks ago, and my Nation editor, Roane Carey, worried that this was maybe too pessimistic, amid suppose...

Nov 4, 2004 / Column / Alexander Cockburn

You Can’t Blame Nader for This You Can’t Blame Nader for This

Let's hedge this with all the usual qualifiers. Kerry could pull it out. The spread's within the margin of error. Respondents to polls are lying out of fear of John Ashcroft.

Oct 21, 2004 / Column / Alexander Cockburn

‘There Are No Innocents’ ‘There Are No Innocents’

An oppressive and beleaguered empire, a terrorist international, a storm raging in the world press about torture, right-wing Christians on the march against moral decline and the...

Oct 7, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Alexander Cockburn

C’mon Ralph, You’ve Nothing to Lose C’mon Ralph, You’ve Nothing to Lose

If I were Ralph Nader (and given the number of people screaming at me about stabbing Kerry in the back, I sometimes think I am), I'd get on the plane to Palestine and Baghdad and...

Sep 23, 2004 / Column / Alexander Cockburn

Swatting at Flies Swatting at Flies

Who would you rather have in your corner, Sasso or Baker?

Sep 9, 2004 / Column / Alexander Cockburn

Letters Letters

PLUMB TUCKERED

Arlington, Va.

Sep 9, 2004 / Alexander Cockburn, Eric Alterman, and Our Readers

Zombies for Kerry Zombies for Kerry

Didn't John Kerry ever read about rope-a-dope? Karl Rove must be kicking his heels with merriment at the way the horse-faced son of Boston is tangling himself up in the Swift Boa...

Aug 26, 2004 / Column / Alexander Cockburn

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