Gordon Stewart – författare

HIV and Aids teaching is compulsory in British schools but the content is not prescribed. Should teaching in such a difficult field, where there are disputes among experts, be left to secondary school teachers with no specialist knowledge? And is it right that the subject should be compulsory? These awkward issues are confronted in this controversial paper which examines the materials being used by schools in HIV/Aids teaching and how teachers are approaching the subject. The authors conclude that, because of material provided by pressure groups, teachers are exaggerating the Aids problem and failing to stress the extent to which the risk of infection depends on behaviour. Rent-seeking by vested interests results in a serious distortion of the views presented to children. Their conclusion about Britain is that HIV/Aids teaching should no longer be compulsory. Either the law should be repealed or schools should simply drop the subject.

Dundee had an interesting role to play in the jute trade, but the main player in the story of jute was Calcutta. This book follows the relationship of jute to empire, and discusses the rivalry between the Scottish and Indian cities from the 1840s to the 1950s and reveals the architecture of jute's place in the British Empire. The book adopts significant fresh approaches to imperial history, and explores the economic and cultural landscapes of the British Empire. Jute had been grown, spun and woven in Bengal for centuries before it made its appearance as a factory-manufactured product in world markets in the late 1830s. The book discusses the profits made in Calcutta during the rise of jute between the 1880s and 1920s; the profits reached extraordinary levels during and after World War I. The Calcutta jute industry entered a crisis period even before it was pummelled by the depression of the 1930s. The looming crisis stemmed from the potential of the Calcutta mills to outproduce world demand many times over. The St Andrew's Day rituals in Calcutta, begun three years before the founding of the Indian Jute Mills Association. The ceremonial occasion helps the reader to understand what the jute wallahs meant when they said they were in Calcutta for 'the greater glory of Scotland'. The book sheds some light on the contentious issues surrounding the problematic, if ever-intriguing, phenomenon of British Empire. The jute wallahs were inextricably bound up in the cultural self-images generated by British imperial ideology.

Germany was the epicenter of the Cold War. Across the Iron Curtain, hundreds of thousands of soldiers faced each other, and if World War III were to break out, contemporaries feared, surely it would happen here. The country’s frontline status made it an El Dorado for spies, who gathered information on military targets, penetrated political parties, and trained partisans for stay-behind operations. For the Americans, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) came to take the lead in this silent – and sometimes not so silent – contest. In the heyday of the Cold War, the agency’s German station employed nearly two thousand officers – in addition to countless spies and informants. Ultimately, this covert empire reported to the CIA station chief in West Germany and his deputy. And for many years, either of those positions was held by Gordon Matthews Stewart. Gordon Stewart was well prepared for this assignment. He studied German history and literature during the 1930s and lived in Munich and Hamburg as a visiting student. Here, he personally witnessed the Nazi takeover, even catching a glimpse of Adolf Hitler at one of his notorious rallies. When the United States entered the war in 1941, the newly established Office of Strategic Services (OSS) recruited him as a specialist on German affairs. In the summer of 1945, he arrived in Germany with an OSS detachment. Eventually, the OSS morphed into the CIA, and Gordon Stewart would run the agency’s espionage organization in Germany for some twenty years. 　 From CIA headquarters in Heidelberg, Karlsruhe, Frankfurt, and eventually, Bonn, Mr. Stewart directed all intelligence operations in central Europe. Initially, he hunted down Nazi war criminals, but the Cold War compelled him to bend his efforts toward the Soviet bloc. During the 1950s, Mr. Stewart directed espionage operations against East Germany, organized the training of Ukrainian partisans at U.S. bases in Bavaria, and participated in a scheme to dig a tunnel into East Berlin to eavesdrop on Soviet and East German communications. He also recruited and handled sources inside the West German government, including the chief of the Bundesnachrichtendienst, Reinhard Gehlen; the highest-ranking West German military officer, General Adolf Heusinger; and top policy-makers of the Christian and social democratic parties. 　　 Mr. Stewart’s memoirs, introduced by renowned intelligence scholar Thomas Boghardt, offer not only a fascinating look inside the CIA’s largest overseas station; they also tell the story of a deeply conscientious and highly accomplished intelligence officer, whose experience, intellect, and moral compass shaped American policy toward Germany and Europe during the turbulent years of the early Cold War.

Germany was the epicenter of the Cold War. Across the Iron Curtain, hundreds of thousands of soldiers faced each other, and if World War III were to break out, contemporaries feared, surely it would happen here. The country’s frontline status made it an El Dorado for spies, who gathered information on military targets, penetrated political parties, and trained partisans for stay-behind operations. For the Americans, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) came to take the lead in this silent – and sometimes not so silent – contest. In the heyday of the Cold War, the agency’s German station employed nearly two thousand officers – in addition to countless spies and informants. Ultimately, this covert empire reported to the CIA station chief in West Germany and his deputy. And for many years, either of those positions was held by Gordon Matthews Stewart.

Gordon Stewart was well prepared for this assignment. He studied German history and literature during the 1930s and lived in Munich and Hamburg as a visiting student. Here, he personally witnessed the Nazi takeover, even catching a glimpse of Adolf Hitler at one of his notorious rallies. When the United States entered the war in 1941, the newly established Office of Strategic Services (OSS) recruited him as a specialist on German affairs. In the summer of 1945, he arrived in Germany with an OSS detachment. Eventually, the OSS morphed into the CIA, and Gordon Stewart would run the agency’s espionage organization in Germany for some twenty years. 　

From CIA headquarters in Heidelberg, Karlsruhe, Frankfurt, and eventually, Bonn, Mr. Stewart directed all intelligence operations in central Europe. Initially, he hunted down Nazi war criminals, but the Cold War compelled him to bend his efforts toward the Soviet bloc. During the 1950s, Mr. Stewart directed espionage operations against East Germany, organized the training of Ukrainian partisans at U.S. bases in Bavaria, and participated in a scheme to dig a tunnel into East Berlin to eavesdrop on Soviet and East German communications. He also recruited and handled sources inside the West German government, including the chief of the Bundesnachrichtendienst, Reinhard Gehlen; the highest-ranking West German military officer, General Adolf Heusinger; and top policy-makers of the Christian and social democratic parties. 　　

Mr. Stewart’s memoirs, introduced by renowned intelligence scholar Thomas Boghardt, offer not only a fascinating look inside the CIA’s largest overseas station; they also tell the story of a deeply conscientious and highly accomplished intelligence officer, whose experience, intellect, and moral compass shaped American policy toward Germany and Europe during the turbulent years of the early Cold War.