Alfred W. McCoy

Alfred W. McCoy
Born	Alfred William McCoy (1945-06-08)June 8, 1945 Concord,Massachusetts,U.S.
Occupation	Educator
Parent	Margarita Piel
Academic background
Alma mater	Columbia University(BA) University of California, Berkeley(MA) Yale University(PhD)
Thesis	Yloilo: Factional Conflict in a Colonial Economy, Iloilo Province, Philippines, 1937-1955(1977)
Doctoral advisor	Harold C. Conklin
Academic work
Discipline	Historian
Institutions	Yale University University of New South Wales University of Wisconsin–Madison
Doctoral students	Temario Rivera(1994)
Main interests	History of the Philippines Foreign policy of the United States European colonisation of Southeast Asia Illegal drug trade Central Intelligence Agencycovert operations
Notable works	The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia(1972)

Alfred William McCoy(born June 8, 1945) is an American historian and educator. He is the Fred Harvey Harrington Professor of History at theUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison.He specializes in thehistory of the Philippines,foreign policy of the United States,European colonisation of Southeast Asia,illegal drug trade,andCentral Intelligence Agencycovert operations.

Career

Born inConcord, Massachusetts,to Alfred Mudge McCoy, Jr. andMargarita Piel,anurban planner,educator, and descendant of the originators ofPiels Beer,McCoy graduated from theKent Schoolin 1964, where he earnedvarsity lettersinfootball,rowing,andwrestling.He earned aBachelor of Artsin European History fromColumbia Universityin 1968, aMaster of Artsin Asian Studies from theUniversity of California, Berkeleyin 1969, and aDoctor of Philosophyin Southeast Asian History fromYale Universityin 1977. His dissertation, advised byHarold C. Conklinwas entitledYloilo: Factional Conflict in a Colonial Economy, Iloilo Province, Philippines, 1937-1955,which examined the region ofIloilo.

McCoy began his teaching career as a lecturer at Yale while he was still a doctoral student (1976-1977). He spent the next academic year as a research fellow at theAustralian National University.McCoy remained in Australia at theUniversity of New South Walesas a lecturer (1978-1981), senior lecturer (1981-1985), and was eventually promoted to associate professor (1985-1989). He returned to the United States in 1989 as a full professor of history at theUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison,where he has since spent his career. McCoy has been given two endowed chairs during his tenure:John R.W. Smail(2004-2015) andFred Harvey Harrington(2015-present).

Congressional testimony

As a Ph.D candidate inSoutheast Asian historyat Yale, McCoy testified before theUnited States Senate Committee on Appropriationsforeign operations subcommittee on June 2, 1972, and "accused American officials of condoning and even cooperating with corrupt elements in Southeast Asia's illegal drug trade out of political and military considerations".One of his major charges was thatSouth Vietnam's PresidentNguyễn Văn Thiệu,Vice PresidentNguyễn Cao Kỳ,and Prime MinisterTrần Thiện Khiêmled a narcotics ring with ties to theCorsican mafia,theTrafficante crime familyin Florida, and other high level military officials in South Vietnam,Cambodia,Laos,andThailand.Those implicated by McCoy included Laotian GeneralsOuane RattikoneandVang Paoand South Vietnamese GeneralsĐặng Văn QuangandNgô Dzu.He told the subcommittee that these military officials facilitated the distribution ofherointo American troops in Vietnam and addicts in theUnited States.According to McCoy, theCentral Intelligence AgencycharteredAir Americaaircraft and helicopters in northern Laos to transportopiumharvested by their "tribal mercenaries".He also accusedUnited States Ambassador to LaosG. McMurtrie Godleyof blocking the assignment ofBureau of Narcoticsofficials to Laos in order to maintain the Laotian government's cooperation in military and political matters.A spokesman for theUnited States Department of Stateresponded to the allegations: "We are aware of these charges but we have been unable to find any evidence to substantiate them, much less proof."

Documenting the Marcos dictatorship

McCoy's work onthe administration of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcoshas influenced not only the academic documentation regarding the dictatorship, but in some cases had a direct impact on the actual events - such as the publication in the New York Times of his investigation on Marcos' "fake medals", just week before the1986 Philippine presidential electionand Marcos' eventual ouster during thePeople Power Revolution.

Awards

• 1985 -Philippine National Book Award
• 1995 -Philippine National Book Award
• 1998 -Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad
• 2001 -Philippine National Book Award
• 2001 -Association for Asian Studies,Grant Goodman Prize
• 2004 -University of WisconsinGraduate School, J.R.W. Smail Chair in History
• 2011 -Association for Asian Studies,George Kahin Prize
• 2012 -Yale Graduate SchoolAlumni Association,Wilbur Cross Medal
• 2012 -University of Wisconsin-Madison,Hilldale Award for Arts and Humanities

Filmography

Film credits include:

Year	Film	Role
2003	Plan Colombia: Cashing In on the Drug War Failure	Self
2007	Ghosts of Abu Ghraib	Self
2007	Taxi to the Dark Side	Self
2011	War on Terror	Self
2019	Clean Torture: An American Fabrication	Self

Television credits include:

Year	Television show	Role
2009-2022	Democracy Now!	Self
2017	On Contact	Self

Bibliography

Books

• Laos: War and Revolution,with Nina S. Adams. New York:Harper & Row(1970).
• The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade.New York:Harper & Row(1972).
• Priests on Trial: Father Gore and Father O'Brien Caught in the Crossfire Between Dictatorship and Revolution.New York:Penguin Books(1984).
• Closer Than Brothers: Manhood at the Philippine Military Academy.New Haven:Yale University Press(1999).
• A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror.New York:Metropolitan Books(2006).ISBN978-0805082487.
• Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State.Madison, Wis.:University of Wisconsin Press(2009).
• Colonial Crucible: Empire in the Making of the Modern American State.Madison, Wis.:University of Wisconsin Press(2009).
• An Anarchy of Families: State and Family in the Philippines.Madison, Wis.:University of Wisconsin Press(2009).
• Torture and Impunity: The U.S. Doctrine of Coercive Interrogation.Madison, Wis.:University of Wisconsin Press(2012).
• Endless Empire: Spain's Retreat, Europe's Eclipse, America's Decline.Madison, Wis.:University of Wisconsin Press(2012).
• Beer of Broadway Fame: The Piel Family and Their Brooklyn Brewery.SUNY Press(2016).
• In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power.Chicago:Haymarket Books(2017).
• To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change.Chicago:Haymarket Books(2021).
• War On Drugs: Studies in the Failure of U.S. Narcotics Policy.Routledge(2021).

Articles

• "Flowers of Evil: The CIA and the Heroin Trade."Harper's Magazine(July 1972), pp. 47–53.
• "A Correspondence with the CIA."New York Review of Books,vol. 19, no. 4 (Sep. 21, 1972).
• "The Afghanistan Drug Lords."Convergence(Fall 1991), pp. 11–12, 14.
• "Lord of Drug Lords: One Life as Lesson for US Drug Policy."Crime, Law and Social Change,vol. 30, no. 4 (Nov. 1998), pp. 301–331.
• "Science in Dachau’s Shadow: Hebb, Beecher, and the Development of CIA Psychological Torture and Modern Medical Ethics."Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences,vol. 43, no. 4 (Fall 2007), pp. 401–417.doi:10.1002/jhbs.20271.
• "Searching for Significance among Drug Lords and Death Squads: The Covert Netherworld as Invisible Incubator for Illicit Commerce."Journal of Illicit Economies and Development,vol. 1, no. 1 (Jan. 14, 2019), pp. 9–22.doi:10.31389/jied.8
• "Nuclear reaction: how an article about the H-bomb landedScientific Americanin the middle of the Red Scare ".Scientific American.323(3): 71. September 2020.

Interviews

• "Alfred McCoy Interviewed."Interview byNelson Benton.CBS Morning News(Aug. 8, 1972).
• "An Interview with Alfred W. McCoy."Interview by Frank McGee.Today Show(NBC) (Aug. 15, 1972).
• "Name: Alfred McCoy, Occupation: Author."Interview byJohn Stapleton.The Tagg File(1980), pp. 5, 7–8, 10–11.Full transcript.
• "The Future of the American Empire."Interview by Nick Turse.The Nation(Nov. 24, 2017).
• Alfred McCoy's interviewsonDemocracy Now!

See also

• Allegations of CIA drug trafficking

External links

• Curriculum Vitae
• Alfred W. McCoyatLibrary of Congress
• University of Wisconsin-Madison profile
• Full-text publicationsatResearchGate