Operation Hidden Agenda
“Operation Hidden Agenda” playing cards designed by Kathy Eder, USA, 2003.
Published by Liberty Playing Card Company and designed by Kathy Eder in July 2003 in San Jose, California. Eder, a high school teacher, deplored the "messages of hate" contained in the cards of the Iraqi Most Wanted pack produced by the US Dept of Defense, so decided to make her own pack, which features photos of members of the Bush administration beneath which are ironic comments relating to the precise motives for and conduct of the US-led coalition invasion and occupation of Iraq. The quotes are factual and mostly from attributed journalists and other media questioning the rationale for the US-led war. The pack contains 54 cards plus an extra card which details the photo credits on one side, and on the other side, Eder’s reasons for producing the pack. The back of the cards shows a 1983 photo of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussain.
Above: “Operation Hidden Agenda” playing cards designed by Kathy Eder and published by Liberty Playing Card Company, USA, 2003.
Further Reference
By Peter Burnett
United Kingdom • Member since July 27, 2022
I graduated in Russian and East European Studies from Birmingham University in 1969. It was as an undergraduate in Moscow in 1968 that I stumbled upon my first 3 packs of “unusual” playing cards which fired my curiosity and thence my life-long interest. I began researching and collecting cards in the early 1970s, since when I’ve acquired over 3,330 packs of non-standard cards, mainly from North America, UK and Western Europe, and of course from Russia and the former communist countries.
Following my retirement from the Bodleian Library in Dec. 2007 I took up a new role as Head of Library Development at the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) to support library development in low-income countries. This work necessitated regular training visits to many sub-Saharan African countries and also further afield, to Vietnam, Nepal and Bangladesh – all of which provided rich opportunities to further expand my playing card collection.
Since 2019 I’ve been working part-time in the Bodleian Library where I’ve been cataloguing the bequest of the late Donald Welsh, founder of the English Playing Card Society.
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