Contemporary History & Politics

A 1999 BBC programme as part of Reputations series, narrated by Peter Capaldi. Ireland's leader for 21 years, Eamon de Valera was loved and hated in equal measure. A revolutionary, he became president of Sinn Fein in 1918, but his fight for independence led to civil war and he was seen as the scourge of the IRA. This film probes the contradictory, complex character of the prime minister who styled himself as the embodiment of the Irish nation.

A 1998 History Channel Documentary, narrated by Harlan Saperstein. Documentary on Josip Broz Tito who took control of fractious Yugoslavia after World War II and brought it under the banner of Communism. However, Tito refused to bow to Stalin's Moscow, creating the first serious rift among Soviet bloc countries.

A 2006 BBC Three-part Documentary Series, narrated by Michael Pennington. The story of the Suez Crisis, how Britain invaded Egypt 50 years ago, making President Nasser a national hero and British prime Minister Anthony Eden a national disgrace. This BBC Two series tells the story of Suez using dramatic reconstructions and interviews with participants and witnesses to the crisis. Episode 1: The Suez Canal in Egypt was a symbol of western dominance. France and Britain were the major shareholders in the company that ran the canal and British troops occupied its banks. When Gamal Abdul Nasser came to power in 1954, his main objective was to remove the British from Egypt. The British Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, did not understand that the world had changed. Archive material, interviews, and dramatisations provide an insight into to the Suez crisis of 1956; the Egyptian uprising that brought Gamal Abdul Nasser to power and marked the end of British Empire. Episode 2: https://rumble.com/v70wq76-suez-a-very-british-crisis-conspiracy-episode-2.html

Episode 2: This episode provides an insight into the way in which Eden secretly plotted with France and Israel, behind the USA's back, not only to seize back the Suez Canal but to remove Nasser. The plan was for Israel to invade Egypt, its neighbor, allowing Britain and France to issue an ultimatum to each side to stop fighting or they would intervene to "save" the canal. Episode 3: https://rumble.com/v70wrn2-suez-a-very-british-crisis-war-episode-3.html

Episode 3: In the final episode, Anthony Eden takes the country to war in Suez. The invasion took place as planned. But Eden had not informed the Americans. When they found out, they were concerned about wider relations with the Arab world and refused to back the operation. Desperately short of funds and without financial support from the Americans, the British were forced to pull out of Suez by December 1956.

A 2023 Documentary Film by Kenichi Watanabe. Audio in French with subtitles in English, Italian and Spanish (click on CC for subtitles). A Franco-Belgian couple who settled in Japan in the 1920s witnessed a remarkable moment in history: The rapid industrialisation and adoption of western customs as well as the militarisation of the country over two decades, from its conquests in Asia to its terrible defeat in 1945. Their story is a gripping journey through Japan at a time of rapid change, war, and ultimately the end of an empire.

A 1971 Documentary Film by Patricio Guzmán. Audio in French with subtitles in English, Italian and Spanish (click on CC for subtitles). A focus on the first year of the Popular Unity government in Chile, where Salvador Allende was elected as President in September 1970.

A 2025 Documentary directed by Johanna Becker and Johannes Preuß. Audio in German with subtitles in; English, Italian, French, Spanish and German (click on CC for sutitles) Stockholm, 24 April 1975. Six individuals armed with pistols, machine guns, grenades and explosives, infiltrate the West German embassy. They called themselves the "Holger Meins Commando", named after the member of the Red Army Faction (RAF) who had died in prison a few months earlier... German Embassy siege in Stockholm, Sweden, was a hostage standoff initiated by the Red Army Faction (RAF) on 24 April 1975. Collectively, the attackers referred to themselves as Kommando Holger Meins, after Holger Meins, a RAF member who had died of starvation during a (collective) hunger strike in Wittlich Prison on 9 November 1974. The RAF group carried out the attack with the goal of forcing the release of RAF members and others from prison in West Germany. During the siege they stated: "The Holger Meins Commando is holding members of the embassy staff in order to free prisoners in West Germany. If the police move in, we shall blow the building up with 15 kilos of TNT." The group consisted of six members: Karl-Heinz Dellwo, Siegfried Hausner, Hanna-Elise Krabbe, Bernhard Rössner, Lutz Taufer and Ulrich Wessel. They entered the embassy, took thirteen embassy officials hostage (or twelve officials, according to some sources), including ambassador Heinz Dietrich Stoecker, and then proceeded to occupy the upper floors of the building. Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, having experienced another hostage crisis just weeks before, was not prepared to negotiate with them. In response, economic attaché Hillegaart was made to stand at a window, and was then shot three times. With the murder of Hillegaart, the attackers announced they would execute one hostage every hour until their demands were met. Part 2: https://rumble.com/v6zie3a-stockholm-1975-terror-at-the-embassy-the-bomb-part-2-multisub.html

Part 2: Red Army Faction terrorists have occupied the West German embassy in Stockholm for seven hours. They have already killed one member of staff and are threatening to kill a hostage every hour if their demands are not met.

A 1992 Observer Film Company production for BBC Television, created by Allan Francovich, narrated by John Rowe. Part 2: https://rumble.com/v6z5xcs-operation-gladio-the-puppeteers-part-2.html A 3-part series revealing the crucial role the CIA has played in manipulating the political affairs of post-war Europe through the Gladio. The film features extensive interviews with Vincenzo Vinciguerra, from his jail cell in Italy, Libero Gualtieri, who headed up The Italian Parliamentary Inquiry into Operation Gladio, and around 40 other people involved with Operation Gladio. Vinciguerra supports Federico Umberto D'Amato's claim that he founded the Club de Berne. D'Amato was an Italian secret agent, who led the Office for Reserved Affairs of the Ministry of Interior of Italy, from the 1950s till the 1970s, when the activity of the intelligence service was undercover and not publicly known. D'Amato was born in Marseille, and during World War II he worked for the US Office of Strategic Services. After the end of the conflict he was at the head of the North Atlantic Treaty Special Office, a link between NATO and the United States. In 1974, two days after the Piazza della Loggia bombing, he was removed from the position and assigned to the boundary police, although he kept a strong influence on the office until the 1980s. D'Amato was a member of Propaganda 2 (P2), a secret masonic lodge involved in numerous political and economical scandals in the 1970s. The Club de Berne (CdB) is a deep state milieu described as "a preferred platform for exchange" between secret services, an operational structure that grew out of personal contacts, practically without democratic supervision. Members include the intelligence agencies of the 28 states of the European Union (EU), Norway, Switzerland and Israel, and the US intelligence agencies enjoy “observer status”. Other participating services include Australian ASIO and Canadian CSIS. The Counter Terrorism Group (CTG) is an offshoot of the Club and shares terrorism intelligence. Operation Gladio is the codename for clandestine "stay-behind" operations of armed resistance that were organized by the Western Union (WU) also referred to as the Brussels Treaty Organisation (BTO), and subsequently by NATO and the CIA, in collaboration with several European intelligence agencies. The operation was designed for a potential Warsaw Pact invasion and conquest of Europe. Although Gladio specifically refers to the Italian branch of the NATO stay-behind organizations, "Operation Gladio" is used as an informal name for all of them. Stay-behind operations were prepared in many NATO member countries, and some neutral countries. During the Cold War, right-wing armed groups engaged in the harassment of left-wing parties, torture, terrorist attacks, and massacres in countries such as Italy. The role of the CIA and other intelligence organisations in Gladio—the extent of its activities during the Cold War era and any responsibility for terrorist attacks perpetrated in Italy during the "Years of Lead" (late 1960s–early 1980s)—is the subject of debate. In 1990, the European Parliament adopted a resolution alleging that military secret services in certain member states were involved in serious terrorism and crime, whether or not their superiors were aware. The resolution also urged investigations by the judiciaries of the countries in which those armies operated, so that their modus operandi and actual extension would be revealed. To date, only Italy, Switzerland and Belgium have had parliamentary inquiries into the matter. The three inquiries reached differing conclusions as regarded different countries. Guido Salvini, a judge who worked in the Italian Massacres Commission, concluded that some right-wing terrorist organizations of the Years of Lead: La Fenice, National Vanguard and Ordine Nuovo were the trench troops of a secret army, remotely controlled by exponents of the Italian state apparatus and linked to the CIA. Salvini said that the CIA encouraged them to commit atrocities. The Swiss inquiry found that British intelligence secretly cooperated with their army in an operation named P-26 and provided training in combat, communications, and sabotage. It also discovered that P-26 not only would organize resistance in case of a Soviet invasion, but would also become active should the left succeed in achieving a parliamentary majority. The Belgian inquiry could find no conclusive information on their army. No links between them and terrorist attacks were found, and the inquiry noted that the Belgian secret services refused to provide the identity of agents, which could have eliminated all doubts. A 2000 Italian parliamentary report from the left wing coalition Gruppo Democratici di Sinistra l'Ulivo reported that terrorist massacres and bombings had been organised or promoted or supported by men inside Italian state institutions who were linked to American intelligence. The report also said the United States was guilty of promoting the strategy of tension. Operation Gladio is also suspected to have been activated to counter existing left-wing parliamentary majorities in Europe. The US State Department published a communiqué in January 2006 that stated claims the United States ordered, supported, or authorized terrorism by stay-behind units, and US-sponsored "false flag" operations are rehashed former Soviet disinformation based on documents that the Soviets forged. Part 1: Reveals the origins of Operation Gladio in Italy. Teams of secret operatives have bombed and murdered innocent civilians to keep control of Europe for their political masters. Developed from "Stay-behind" - CIA, NATO and SIS clandestine networks at the end of World War 2 to resist the communist threat - this secret network changed from being defenders of state security into attackers of the established political order. It's only since the Gladio's existence was acknowledged in 1990 that the impact of its shadowy role in post-war Europe has emerged.