Sailing to Siberia

In May 1946 17 year old Tage Söderström and a friend started sailing from Helsinki to Stockholm. They passed Porkkala Bay close to Helsinki and didn’t think of the fact that Porkkala at that time was a Soviet naval base. The trip that was planned for Stockholm ended in Siberia where Söderström stayed several years in the GuLag of Stalin. Today Mr Söderström is retired an lives in Stockholm. He tells Contra “all about it”.

Leo Strauss –
a neo-conservative?
by Bertil Häggman

The German-Jewish professor Leo Strauss (1899–1973) has in the beginning of the 21st century been more highly esteemed as a philosopher than before. To go deeper into the thinkings of Mr Strauss there is a new bibliography: Leo Strauss and His Legacy – A Bibliography. It comprises 15,000 titles (books and magazines) by 800 authors from 1921 to 2005. Bertil Häggman discusses the work of Mr Strauss.

Climate hysteria – science or humbug
by C G Holm

The climate has moved into focus of public debate and the campaigns are very tough – and onesided. Contra does not claim to know the full scientific truth, in opposite to the campaigners that claim that they will ”save the world”, in spite of the fact that they do not know if there actually is a crisis, and if so, what is the proper thing to do about it. Before billions and billions are invested of the limited resources of mankind it is reasonable ta take time for reflection. Not least as solutions suggested would move us into a society with restrictions and controls hardly experienced before. We do not give a full analysis of the climate development, but we give the opposite views that you will not see in major media. We leave to the reader to make his or her own conclusions.

Milton Friedman RIP
A discussion with the Nobel Prize Laureate on Free to Choose

Nobel Prize Laureate Milton Friedman died November 16 2006. Contra has during the years many times looked into the works of Professor Friedman. In this issue we publish a transcript of a discussion between Hillsdale College president Larry Arnn and Milton Friedman. The discussion was held at a panel May 22 2006 in connection with the 25th anniversary of the publishing of the boook “Free to Choose”, written by Milton and Rose Friedman. (We also publish a copy of a handwritten letter from Professor Friedman positively commenting on Contra magazine).

Golda Meir created a land
by Tomas Ibsen Göransson

Golda Meir was not only a politician who dared to stand up for what she thought was right. She was also a fantastic woman starting as a poor Ukrainian Jew at the bottom of society and moving up to Prime Minister in the only Jewish country in the world. In here autobiography My Life she tells about her career, her private life and the history of Israel.

Philip Agee – leftist icon on the sliding plane
by Tommy Hansson

Who remembers the leftist hero of the 1970s Philip Agee? The defector from the CIA who disclosed a lot of secrets in his thick book which was published in 27 languages. He revealed the names and/or codenames of a total of 250 CIA employess. Contra looks at the treacherous activities of Mr Agee, who now lives in Cuba.