Webster Tarpley

Education

Tarpley was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in 1946. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University in 1966, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, he became a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Turin, Italy. He later earned a Master of Arts in humanities from Skidmore College and a Ph.D. in early modern history from the Catholic University of America.

Career

In 1971, Tarpley was on the editorial board of The Campaigner, a National Caucus of Labor Committees' journal, according to its masthead. In 1986, Tarpley attempted to run on Lyndon LaRouche's U.S. Labor Party platform in the New York State Democratic Party primary for the U.S. Senate, but was ruled off the ballot because of a defect in his nominating petitions. In 1992, Tarpley co-authored with Anton Chaitkin George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, published by LaRouche's Executive Intelligence Review.

Since March 2006, Tarpley has had a weekly online talk show called World Crisis Radio, hosted by GCNLive.com. Tarpley is a member of the "world anti-imperialist conference" Axis for Peace, of Scholars for 9/11 Truth and of a research Netzwerk of German 9/11 authors founded in September 2006. Tarpley has also expounded the "Versailles Thesis" laying the blame for the great wars of the 20th century on intrigues by Britain to retain her dominance.

9/11 and terrorism analysis

Tarpley maintains that the September 11 attacks were engineered by a rogue network of the Military–industrial complex and intelligence agencies as a false flag operation.

On November 21, 2011, while traveling to Syria, Tarpley told Syria's Addounia TV that the Syrian Civil War was a NATO-CIA ploy to destabilize Syria using mercenaries and death squads against the population and the Syrian government.

On April 2, 2012, C-SPAN aired 9/11, False Flags, and Black Ops: An Evening of Debate, in which Tarpley debated his critic Jonathan Kay on conspiracy theories, specifically the truth behind the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

On June 7, 2012, interviewed for the NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation) regarding the 2011 Norway attacks, Tarpley said, "I believe that the evidence points to a private network, or even a NATO network, within the police that contributed the long time delay until they stormed the Island."

Tarpley told Press TV on June 18, 2013 that revelations about the National Security Agency by their former computer system administrator Edward Snowden outlining global and domestic spying by US intelligence agencies might be seen as a "CIA limited hangout operation," that is, to publicize minor public manipulation operations to conceal greater covert misdeeds such as promoting war in the Middle East. He claimed such "gullibility" operations could be traced from Daniel Ellsberg to Julian Assange's WikiLeaks, with a legacy in perfidious politics and governance since the 17th century.

Criticism

Critics of Tarpley note that he still sells copies of the book on the Bush family he co-authored while working for Lyndon LaRouche. The book was criticized by author David Neiwert, who noted:

Like most Larouche texts, the Bush "biography" is a mélange of fact and distortion, written in a highly suppositional style that makes numerous leaps of logic and asserts connections where there is no real evidence to support it, at other times omitting exculpatory or contrary information that reveals a more complete picture. Sifting through it requires a great deal of work, but there are nuggets of fact woven into their text that are substantiated and which deserve proper consideration.

Melania Trump libel suit

In February 2017, he agreed to settle a libel suit brought by U.S. First Lady Melania Trump for publishing a "false and defamatory" report In August 2016 alleging that the First Lady had been a "high-end escort" prior to meeting President Donald Trump. Terms of the settlement included providing a public apology in writing and paying a "substantial sum".