- published: 04 Dec 2015
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Coordinates: 51°27′48″N 0°07′13″W / 51.4633°N 0.1204°W / 51.4633; -0.1204
Stockwell is a district in inner south London, England, located in the London Borough of Lambeth.
It is situated 2.4 miles (3.9 km) south of Charing Cross. Brixton, Clapham, South Lambeth and Kennington all border Stockwell. Once one of London's poorest neighbourhoods, it is now an up-and-coming area, owing to its close proximity to Central London and excellent transport links.
Stockwell probably got the second half of its name from a local well; the other half is from "stoc", which was Old English for a tree trunk or post. From the thirteenth to the start of the nineteenth century, Stockwell was a rural manor at the edge of London. It included market gardens and John Tradescant's botanical garden – commemorated in Tradescant Road, which was built over it in 1880, and in a memorial outside St Stephen's church. In the nineteenth century it developed as an elegant middle class suburb. Residents included the artist Arthur Rackham, who was born in South Lambeth Road in 1867, moving with his family to Albert Square when he was 15.
John R. Stockwell (born 1937) is a former CIA officer who became a critic of United States government policies after serving seven tours of duty over thirteen years. Having managed American involvement in the Angolan Civil War as Chief of the Angola Task Force during its 1975 covert operations, he resigned and wrote In Search of Enemies.
Born in Angleton, Texas, Stockwell's Presbyterian father moved the family to the Belgian Congo when he was posted there to provide engineering assistance. Stockwell attended school in Lubondai before studying in the Plan II Honors program at the University of Texas.
As a Marine, Stockwell was a CIA paramilitary intelligence case officer in three wars: the Congo Crisis, the Vietnam War, and the Angolan War of Independence. His military rank is Major. Beginning his career in 1964, Stockwell spent six years in Africa, Chief of Base in the Katanga during the Bob Denard invasion in 1968, then Chief of Station in Bujumbura, Burundi in 1970, before being transferred to Vietnam to oversee intelligence operations in the Tay Ninh province and was awarded the CIA Medal of Merit for keeping his post open until the last days of the fall of Saigon in 1975.