Patrick Lannan, president of the nonprofit Lannan Foundation, on Wednesday night suddenly canceled a speaking engagement for the veteran U.K.-based investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker John Pilger scheduled for June 15.

In an email Thursday morning, Pilger said Lannan had given no reason for his decision. "Just like that. A short e-mail — no explanation whatsoever."

Later in the morning, Pilger wrote, "All I have is an e-mail from Barbara Ventrello (the foundation's Cultural Freedom Special Projects director) saying Patrick Lannan called from California saying cancel all my events. I know Patrick — all very friendly, Lannan has flown me over before. I regarded them as friends. Now they won't even answer their phones ... Am completely perplexed.

After repeated requests for an explanation, Ventrello emailed this statement from Patrick Lannan: "Lannan Foundation regrets the cancellation of Mr. John Pilger's events next week and any inconvenience this may have caused the Santa Fe community members who support our public programs."

The Lannan Foundation had the Pilger event on its schedule for months. Part of its Readings and Conversations series, it was to be a conversation between Pilger and David Barsamian, director of Boulder, Colo.-based Alternative Radio.

Barsamian did not return phone calls Thursday.

While in Santa Fe, Pilger also was expected to attend the U.S. premiere of his new film, The War You Don't See, on June 16 at The Screen. Lannan paid the rental fee in advance, but canceled that event as well. Peter Grendle, manager of theater on the Santa Fe University of Art & Design campus, said he was informed about the decision in an email from Ventrello. He said Pilger planned to introduce the film and do a question-and-answer session afterward.

It is not known if the Pilger event was dropped because of topics he might address in his talk, but Lannan is not known for exercising any kind of censorship in the past.

Pilger, the author of eight books and nearly 60 documentary films, has been a fierce and prolific critic of government and the media for more than 40 years.

The War You Don't See opens with upsetting footage of an "unreported Apache gunship attack" on people walking on a Baghdad street in 2007. As the pavement erupts in bullet-sprayed dust and the people fall and scramble, the voice of the commander directs, "Keep shootin'. Keep shootin'. Keep shootin'."

When director Pilger questions Bryan Whitman, the United States' deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, about the attack, Whitman is relatively noncommittal. "These incidences are unfortunate. Every one in which there is a civilian casualty is unfortunate," he says. "But again, it is the enemy who is deliberately trying to inflict civilian casualties and put civilians in harm. It is the NATO forces, it is the U.S. forces that are taking every precaution they can to prosecute the war and prevent civilian casualties."

On the dearth of probing investigations into the truths behind the Iraq war, Pilger grills journalists including David Mannion, editor in chief of ITV News. He asks Mannion about his decision to report uncritically a warning by then-Vice President Dick Cheney that Iraq would soon have nuclear weapons. Mannion says the network "allowed our viewers to make up their minds as to whether this was a man telling the truth or not."

"But that's not fair on viewers, is it?" Pilger says. "Because they may not know what we as journalists know or ought to know: that this was an extremely dodgy politician who was making extraordinary claims."

He gets former CBS correspondent Dan Rather to admit in the film that, "If we had done our job, I do think a strong argument can be made that perhaps we would not have gone to war."

In an email exchange June 1 for a Pasatiempo story — now also canceled — about the Lannan event, Pilger said, "The point is journalism. Real journalism, not the kind that takes authority at face value, that is bored with the notion of truth-telling and is besotted by 'celebrities,' famous or not. If those of us paid to keep the record straight don't do our job, who will?"

The War You Don't See was made before the killing of Osama bin Laden. But in an interview with Pasatiempo, Pilger said, "The impression I get is that much of the U.S. media rejoiced at the killing of Osama bin Laden. For the victims of 9/11 that would be understandable. But for Maureen Dowd, liberal columnist of The New York Times, to say words to the effect that it was suddenly great to be American again is absurd.

"Why wasn't bin Laden brought back to the U.S. and put on trial? Isn't that the way true democracies behave? Perhaps the reason was that he might have thrown light on his earlier employment by the CIA and Britain's MI6. The victims of 9/11 surely had a right to see him tried. His killing will undoubtedly bring reprisals against innocents, media 'unpeople' in those faraway places whose names we never know, whose faces we never see. That's already happened."

At a little after 9 p.m. London-time Thursday, Pilger sent an email to The New Mexican regarding the cancellation of his Santa Fe appearances that said, "I'm e-mailing Patrick Lannan to ask why. How can he not answer? What's going on? Is the U.S. an open or closed society?"

Contact Paul Weideman at 986-3043 or pweideman@sfnewmexican.com.