Manual Indices and digital pathways: Developments in United States intelligence bibliography

Neal H. Petersen (comp. and ed.), American Intelligence, 1775–1990: A Bibliographical Guide, The New War/Peace Bibliography Series, 2 (Claremont, CA: Regina Books, 1992). Pp.xvi + 406. $49.95.

The Electronic Database of the Russell J. Bowen Collection of Works on Intelligence, Security and Covert Activities, National Intelligence Book Center, Lock Mail Unit 18757, Washington DC 20036–8757. 1992. $400.

CIABASE, PO Box 5022, Herndon, VA 22070. Cumulative. 1992. $99.00.

NameBase, Public Information Research, Box 5199, Arlington, VA 22205. Cumulative. 1992. $79.00.     

In search of a textbook: Recent overviews of United States intelligence history since the days of the founding fathers

Charles D. Ameringer, U.S. Foreign Intelligence: The Secret Side of American History (Lexington: D.C. Heath, 1990). Pp. xix + 458. US $24.95.

Nathan Miller, Spying for America: The Hidden History of U.S. Intelligence (New York: Paragon House, 1989). Pp. xi + 482. US $24.95.

Ernest Volkman and Blaine Baggett, Secret Intelligence: The Inside Story of America's Espionage Empire (London: W.H. Allen, 1989). Pp. xxi + 265. £16.99 (paperback).     

The myth of recovered innocence in US intelligence history

David E. Murphy, Sergei A. Kondrashev and George Bailey, Battleground Berlin: CIA vs KGB in the Cold War (New Haven, Conn. and London: Yale University Press, 1997). Pp. 530, index. £19.95. ISBN 0–300–07233–3.

James G. Blight and Peter Kornbluh (eds.) Politics of Illusion: The Bay of Pigs Invasion Reexamined (Boulder, Colo, and London: Lynne Rienner, 1998). Pp. 284, index. £35.95. ISBN 1–55587–783–4.     

Governing buyers of sex in the People's Republic of China

Abstract

This paper examines the developing body of Chinese prostitution law, and the nature of its implementation, with reference to mainstream media controversy surrounding the case of a male academic penalized as a buyer of commercial sexual services in late 2004. It argues that the protagonist's highly public ‘fall from grace’ may owe more to the Chinese media's new capacity to act as part of a disciplinary apparatus that extends beyond the purview of the Party-state – via its claim to promote freedom of information – than the presumed repressive ethos of the Chinese Communist Party.     

Identification of the skeletal remains of Josef Mengele by DNA analysis.

There has been considerable controversy over the identity of the skeletal remains exhumed in Brazil in 1985 and believed to be those of Dr Josef Mengele, the Auschwitz 'Angel of Death'. Bone DNA analysis was therefore conducted in an attempt to provide independent evidence of identity. Trace amounts of highly degraded human DNA were successfully extracted from the shaft of the femur. Despite the presence of a potent inhibitor of DNA amplification, microsatellite alleles could be reproducibly amplified from the femur DNA. Comparison of the femur DNA with DNA from Josef Mengele's son and wife revealed a bone genotype across 10 different loci fully compatible with paternity of Mengele's son. Less than 1 in 1800 Caucasian individuals unrelated to Mengele's son would by chance show full paternal inclusion. DNA analysis therefore provides very strong independent evidence that the remains exhumed from Brazil are indeed those of Josef Mengele.     

The application of minisatellite variant repeat mapping by PCR (MVR-PCR) in a paternity case showing false exclusion due to STR mutation

A boy and a girl with their mother brought a paternity suit against an alleged but deceased father. We tested six conventional genetic markers, the AmpliType PM+ DQA1 and twelve STR loci the children and mother together with the alleged paternal grandparents. We also DNA typed the bloodstain found later in the alleged father's medical record. Only the result at D3S1358 in a nineplex STR system excluded the alleged father from parentage of the boy, whereas all markers were inclusive for the girl. Accordingly, we performed sequence analysis at D3S1358 to confirm the presence of a paternal exclusion or mutation. The sequence analysis indicated that the boy's allele 17 could have originated from either of the alleged father's allele 16 or 18 by a single-step mutation associated with slippage mutation in STR loci. We carried out minisatellite variant repeat mapping by PCR (MVR-PCR) at loci D1S8 (MS32) and D7S21 (MS31A) and mapped allele haplotypes of all individuals except the deceased alleged father. The MVR-PCR analysis showed that the boy has no inconsistency with the relationship between the alleged grandparents, and was very effective at increasing the paternity index (PI) value. We conclude that there is biological relationship between not only the girl but also the boy and the alleged father.