Peter Dale Scott: A Biography

Peter Dale Scott, poet, was born and raised in Montreal, Canada, in January of 1929. He received a strong international education at institutions such as McGill and Oxford Universities. In the 1950s, he worked as an ambassador for his home country Canada, and the 1960s saw him work for the University of California, Berkeley, as a professor of speech and literature. At the root of his poetry and prose are concerns such as his childhood in Montreal, loved ones and community, his international lifestyle, and his polemical relationship with the United States.

Scott has produced three works of poetry between the 1950s and 1980s before releasing the work that was to introduce him to a much larger audience and proclaim him as a very important poet. That collection of poems was entitled Coming to Jakarta: A Poem About Terror, published in 1988. Critics hailed the poetic style of Coming to Jakarta as a hearkening back to Ezra Pound, and the work dealt with the extinguishing of more than one million residents of Indonesia in the mid-1960s: a massive annihiliation that was at that point not well known. 

When speaking of Peter Dale Scott's work in prose, the author's work is referred to as "parapolitics;" this choice of diction hints at Scott's distrust in the topical aspects of various governments and also indicates his obsession to get at the heart of the matter of various political affairs that have been typified as conspiracies or cover-ups. One only needs to glance at the titles of a few of his "parapolitics" prose works to understand this idea at work: The War Conspiracy (1972); The Assassinations: Dallas and Beyond (1976); and Crime and Cover-Up: The CIA, the Mafia, and the Dallas-Watergate Connection (1977). Other controversial titles of his prose include works such as The Iran-Contra Connection (1987), Cocaine Politics (1991), and Deep Politics and the Death of JFK (1993).

His prose work is frequently noted for the comprehensive and thorough footnotes; the pouring over of which is required to fully understand Scott's mind at play and his perception of the distrust that various governmental activities foster in the public. Scott has also composed a work about the tragedies of September 11, 2011, entitled The Road to 9/11. Most recently in 2010, Scott released his latest volume called American War Machine: Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection, and the Road to Afghanistan. 

Anyone merely glancing at Scott's collective oeuvre can intuit the strong responses that his literature has elicited from both supporters and detractors of his work. However, Scott has remained completely open and transparent about his work and his stance on the various issues that he tackles. A visit to his official website (a link for which is posted below) will allow you to personally email the author or read samples of some of his most acclaimed work. 

Additional Resources

• Peter Dale Scott. This is the official homepage for the poet. You can glance at his resume and also at his activities involving politics, 9/11, etc.
• Electrics Politics. This site offers up a podcast interview that Peter Dale Scott gave in 2008. It focuses on his book, The Road to 9/11.
• Words Without Borders Interview. Peter Dale Scott gives a thorough and intriguing account in this interview. Learn a lot from the horse's mouth here.
• 9/11 Accountability. This link provides a series of video interviews that Mr. Dale Scott gave for an Accountability Conference back in 2007.  
• JFK and 9/11. This video link is subtitled "Insights Gained From Studying Both." In this video, Peter Dale Scott goes into detail about his beliefs in the comparison of 9/11 with the assassination of JFK.