Roll Over, Cat Stevens

Forget about the former folk-rock star; forget about Phil Donohue; forget about Jane Fonda! Our blessed American innocence is now being threatened by a far more sinister evil. The State Department has denied a visa to Dora Maria Tellez, who was last year appointed Robert F Kennedy visiting professor in Latin American studies in the divinity department at Harvard University. Yup, you guessed it - she's a TERRORIST!

Her crime? Having had the audacity to take part in the overthrow of Nicaragua's Anastasio Somoza dictatorship 26 years ago. Hey, Somoza may have been a bastard, but like Saddam Hussein, Pinochet, and the Shah, he was OUR bastard. As usual, the State Department refused to give details about the refusal to grant her a visa.

"I have no idea why they are refusing me a visa," said Ms Tellez from Managua. "I have been in the US many times before - on holidays, at conferences, on official business."

There is a related issue in the news, the appointment of Mr. Short-Term Memory himself, John Negroponte, as Boy Bush's intelligence chief, whom you may remember as a prime architect of US-sponsored terrorism against Nicaragua. I will deal with that in a future column.

In the meantime, read all about this latest case of academic censorship in the Guardian.