It was in Freedom in 1986 that Judge Jim Garrison, immortalised in Oliver Stone’s “JFK” film, broke his media silence of many years after having been persecuted for exposing alleged U.S. intelligence agency involvement in President Kennedy’s murder. Freedom published U.S. Air Force Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty’s revelations in articles that provided the substance for the dramatic movie scene between actors Kevin Costner (as Jim Garrison) and Donald Sutherland (as Fletcher Prouty).

Freedom’s investigations into testing of biochemical substances on unwitting populaces have been similarly heralded. Following its series of probes into germ warfare—U.S. military testing in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, government neglect of Vietnam War veterans exposed to Agent Orange in the 1980s, and official denial of the existence of “Gulf War Illness” in the wake of the Persian Gulf War in the 1990s—Freedom issued its “Lives in the Balance” (1996) and “Ill Wind” (2003) investigative reports. They encompassed more than a decade of research into the health effects on U.S. and British troops who were exposed to chemical and biological weapons during the first Persian Gulf conflict.

Today, evidence shows that Gulf War Illness has affected many tens of thousands of Gulf War veterans—in the U.S. and Europe—with a variety of long-lasting ailments. Prior to Freedom’s investigations, however, the disease had been falsely represented by government psychiatrists as “psychological”.

Of this exposé, David Irvine, today a brigadier general in the U.S. Army Reserve, wrote, “Thank you for your interest in a story which breaks my heart to again visit. ... I do not understand how the senior leadership of DOD can close eyes all around to the symptomatology you chillingly detail. ... The universal unwillingness to investigate and provide adequate care is just criminal.... Thank you for your effort, and I wish the story might finally prod someone to start asking questions without a scripted answer.”