About William Blum
William Henry Blum (; March 6, 1933 – December 9, 2018) was an American author and journalist and a critic of United States foreign policy. == Early life == Blum was born at Beth Moses Hospital (now part of Maimonides Medical Center) in Brooklyn, to Ruth (née Katz) and Isidore Blum, who were Polish Jewish immigrants. His father was a machinist. He was a graduate of Erasmus Hall High School and gained a degree in accountancy in 1955 from the City College School of Business and Civic Administration, which later became Baruch College of the City University of New York. Blum worked as a computer programmer for IBM and later the U.S. State Department. He had the ambition of becoming a foreign service officer to, as he explained, "take part in the great anti-Communist crusade" but was later disillusioned by the Vietnam War. Blum became involved in anti–Vietnam War activism and was pressured to resign his government post in 1967. By then he had already taken part in anti-war protests and become a founder and editor of the Washington Free Press, an alternative bi-weekly newspaper. == Journalism == Blum worked as freelance journalist in the United States, Europe and South America. In 1972–1973, Blum worked as a journalist in Chile where he reported on the Allende government's "socialist experiment" before the U.S backed coup and the regime of Augusto Pinochet.
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