Wednesday, November 5, 2008
By Jim Popkin, NBC News Senior Investigative Producer
July 24, 2008
excerpt:
The hunt for Obama’s senior “thesis” began with a throwaway line in a newspaper article last October. The New York Times story, on Obama’s early New York years, mentioned in passing that the presidential contender had majored in political science at Columbia and had spent his time “writing his thesis on Soviet nuclear disarmament.”
Journalists began hounding Columbia University for copies of the musty document. Conservative bloggers began wondering if the young Obama had written a no-nukes screed that he might come to regret. And David Bossie, the former congressional investigator and “right-wing hit man,” as one newspaper described him, took out classified newspaper ads in Columbia University’s newspaper and the Chicago Tribune in March searching for the term paper.
Bossie came up dry, but said the effort was well worth it:
“A thesis entitled Soviet Nuclear Disarmament, written at the height of The Cold War in 1983, might shed some light upon what Barack Obama thought about our most pressing foreign policy issue for 40-plus years (U.S.-Soviet Relations),” he wrote in an e-mail to NBC News.
http://deepbackground.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/07/24/1219454.aspx
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Here is the passage from the New York Times that the above article refers to:
"He barely mentions Columbia, training ground for the elite, where he transferred in his junior year, majoring in political science and international relations and writing his thesis on Soviet nuclear disarmament. He dismisses in one sentence his first community organizing job — work he went on to do in Chicago — though a former supervisor remembers him as 'a star performer.'"
[snip]
"he [Obama] declined repeated requests to talk about his New York years, release his Columbia transcript or identify even a single fellow student, co-worker, roommate or friend from those years.
'He doesn’t remember the names of a lot of people in his life,' said Ben LaBolt, a campaign spokesman."
Obama’s Account of New York Years Often Differs From What Others Say
By JANNY SCOTT, October 30, 2007:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/us/politics/30obama.html?ex=1351396800&en=631bf83f428647f9&ei=5089&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss
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From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org:
Profile: Institute For Policy Studies (IPS)
IPS’s [Institute For Policy Studies] Washington, DC headquarters quickly became a resource center for national reporters and a place for KGB agents from the nearby Soviet embassy to convene and strategize. Cora Weiss headed one of the IPS's most successful forays -- into Riverside Church in Manhattan. She was invited there in 1978 by the Reverend William Sloane Coffin to run the church's Disarmament Program, which sought to consolidate Soviet nuclear superiority in Europe -- in the name of "peace." In 1982 Weiss helped organize the largest pro-disarmament demonstration ever held. Staged in New York City, the rally was attended by a coalition of communist organizations. During her decade-long tenure at Riverside, which became home to the National Council of Churches, Weiss regularly received Russian KGB agents, Sandinista friends, and Cuban intelligence agents. Weiss became infamous for her role in the psychological warfare conducted against U.S. prisoners of war held in the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" during the Vietnam War.
The Liberation News Service, which is a news source for hundreds of "alternative" publications nationwide (with antiwar, Marxist-oriented perspectives), was founded in 1967 with IPS assistance."
[lots more at link...]
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6991
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From the website of Riverside Church...
The Riverside Church
490 Riverside Drive
New York, New York 10027
212-870-6700
The Riverside Church is located on Manhattan’s Upper West Side near Columbia University.
http://www.theriversidechurchny.org/about/?directions
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"She was invited there in 1978 by the Reverend William Sloane Coffin to run the church's Disarmament Program, which sought to consolidate Soviet nuclear superiority in Europe -- in the name of 'peace.'
In 1982 Weiss helped organize the largest pro-disarmament demonstration ever held. Staged in New York City, the rally was attended by a coalition of communist organizations."
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6991
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From the Columbia University website...
"Obama attended Columbia College from 1981 to 1983"
Source:
http://news.columbia.edu/home/1260
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Bill Ayers' education:
1987 - Ed.D, Columbia University, Curriculum & Instruction
1987 - M.Ed, Teachers College, Columbia University, Early Childhood Education
1984 [he completed degree in '84] - M.Ed, Bank Street College, Early Childhood Education
1968 - B.A., University of Michigan, American Studies
http://education.uic.edu/directory/faculty_info.cfm?netid=bayers
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Bank Street College
Where We Are and How to Get Here:
Bank Street College is located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan at 610 West 112th Street, between Broadway and Riverside Drive.
Bank Street College is located in a bustling family and university neighborhood four blocks from Columbia University
http://www.bankstreet.edu/aboutbsc/visiting.html
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Why Won’t Obama Talk About Columbia?
The years he won’t discuss may explain the Ayers tie he keeps lying about:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjY4YzdhMDBkZGQ3ZmU2MTUzYjdkMzc5ZjUzYmViZWM=
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From the New York Times...
Obama's 1983 College Magazine Article
["Breaking the War Mentality"]
"In 1983, at the height of the cold war, Barack Obama, then a senior at Columbia University, wrote in a campus newsmagazine about the vision of "a nuclear free world." The article in the Sundial profiled two campus groups: Arms Race Alternatives and Students Against Militarism."
http://documents.nytimes.com/obama-s-1983-college-magazine-article#p=1
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Barack Obama '83 Becomes First College Alumnus To Win Presidency
Barack Obama '83 became the first College alumnus to be elected President of the United States. On November 4, Obama defeated his Republican challenger, Sen. John McCain P'07, ending a marathon campaign that saw Obama rise from a first-term senator to the nation's first African-American president.
Obama, who was profiled in Columbia College Today in January 2005 when he burst upon the national political scene, transferred to Columbia from Occidental prior to his junior year.
In one of their few joint appearances, the candidates were interviewed in Roone Arledge Auditorium on September 11 at the Service Nation Presidential Candidates Forum.
This year's Presidential election had four candidates with strong College ties on the ballot. In addition to Obama being an alumnus, McCain's daughter, Meghan, is a 2007 College alumna; Wayne Allyn Root '83 was the Libertarian Party Vice-Presidential nominee running with Bob Barr; and Matt Gonzalez '87 ran as an independent candidate on the same ticketas Ralph Nader.
http://www.college.columbia.edu/news/barack-obama-83-becomes-first-college-alumnus-to-win-presidency
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"Columbia College is the oldest undergraduate college at Columbia University, situated on the university's main campus of Morningside Heights in the Borough of Manhattan in the City of New York."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_College,_Columbia_University
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About the College: Columbia College
http://www.college.columbia.edu/about