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| Name: | John Perkins | |||
| Birth: | January 28 1945 | |||
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John Perkins (b. 28 January 1945 in Hanover, New Hampshire) is an activist and author. His best known book is Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, an insider's account of exploitation or neo-colonization of Third World countries by a cabal of corporations, banks, and the United States government. His 2007 book, The Secret History of the American Empire, makes further claims about the negative impact of global corporations on the economies and ecologies of poor countries, as well as offering suggestions for making corporations behave more like good citizens.
Perkins attended Tilton Boys School for high school, Middlebury College, and Boston University during the 1960s. He spent the 1970s working for the consulting firm Chas. T. Main, where he claims he was employed after being screened by the National Security Agency (NSA) and subsequently hired by Einar Greve, a member of the firm (and alleged NSA liaison, a claim which Greve has denied). He claims to have been trained early in his career by a beautiful, older woman who was armed with the psychological profile gathered about him by the NSA after many days of pre-employment screening, as one of many "economic hit men" advancing the cause of corporate hegemony.
As a former chief economist at Boston strategic-consulting firm Chas. T. Main, Perkins says that he "was an 'economic hit man' for 10 years, helping U.S. intelligence agencies and multinational corporations cajole and blackmail foreign leaders into serving U.S. foreign policy and awarding lucrative contracts to American business.
However, after several years struggling internally for the role he was playing crippling foreign economies, he quit his consulting job. For the 1980s Perkins founded and directed a successful independent energy company. In the book, Perkins states that he suspects the success of his company was due to 'coincidences' orchestrated by those appreciative of his silence about the work he did as an EHM. He then sold the energy company in the late 1980s. Since then he has been heavily involved with non-profit organizations in Ecuador and around the world. He continues this work today, in addition to his writing. One of his organizations, Dream Change, is dedicated to shifting consciousness and promoting sustainable lifestyles for the individual and global community.
Controversy
The U.S. State Department posted a criticism of Confessions, and of Perkins himself, on its "Identifying Misinformation" site, calling his allegations "a total fabrication" and pointing out the "recent initiative to cancel the debt of many heavily indebted poor countries." The Department questions Perkins' repeated claim that his activities were directed by the National Security Agency; the book itself does not cite a single instance of an NSA agent giving him written or verbal directions. The Department argues that economic manipulation is beyond the purview of the NSA, and Perkins' only connection to the Agency appears to be a job interview he conducted in 1968.
