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"- Ms.Freddi .A.R.."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is the story that couldn't be suppressed. An investigative report
into a scandal that haunts the reputations of three presidents --
Reagan, Bush, and Clinton.
THE CRIMES OF MENA
Article by Sally Denton and Roger Morris
Penthouse
July, 1995
[ABOUT THIS STORY]
The initial suppression of the Seal-archive story created a small tidal
wave that surged along the internet, gave right-wing radio another
conspiracy to caress, and made headlines from London to San Francisco.
After 11 weeks of line-by-line fact-checking, editing, and legal
vetting, after the text had been laid out in final type, photos and
artwork arrayed, contracts signed, and publication date fixed, at the
last moment -- on January 26, 1995 -- *Washington Post* Managing Editor
Robert Kaiser had put one more nervous hold on the article you now see
in *Penthouse*. We pulled the piece in dismay and disgust. Even the
*Post's* own ombudsman acknowledged "the uproar" over what she called
"the story of the hour."
For us as authors, personally and intellectually, the de facto
suppression and resulting sensation were at best a mixed affair. A
little like Henry Miller's *Tropic* titles, banned in Boston, our
article was, ironically, receiving more attention unprinted that it
might have drawn had it appeared as scheduled. Yet in their inevitable
self-justification, *Post* editors were also impugning us as
journalists, and the still-invisible piece was inevitably caught up in
wild speculation or anti-Clinton mania that in many ways obscured the
deeper, wider importance of what we had reported.
This was, after all, the thoroughly documented story of an enormous
crime -- of billions of dollars in gunrunning and drug smuggling done
with the apparent collusion and cover-up of the U.S. government. It
raised ominous questions not only about Bill Clinton, but about
presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush as well -- not simply a single
set of scoundrels, but a far larger culture of official lawlessness.
And behind the sorry episode at *The Washington Post* was something
nearly as sinister -- the tragic inability or refusal of a major media
institution to confront that malignant dark side of American life and
governance, even when presented with unprecedented evidence.
It had all begun almost by accident. As a member of the Association of
National Security Alumni, a group of onetime CIA, White House, and other
officials devoted to reform in intelligence and foreign policy, Roger
Morris had first read about Mena in the organization's newsletter,
*Unclassified*, where an article early in the 1992 campaign summarized
the fragmentary, largely undocumented accounts of Barry Seal's operation
in western Arkansas in the eighties. By the spring of 1993, Morris had
started a book on Bill and Hillary Clinton, including their Arkansas
background, and had begun to gather a thick file on Mena. Trips and
literally dozens of phone calls back and forth to Arkansas added
significantly to the sources -- many of them sworn, on the record, and
previously unreported.
Still, the sheer detail and exact magnitude of the smuggling and money
laundering lacked hard evidence. With the exception of a lone account
by reporter Bill Plante with producer Michael Singer on the CBS evening
news, and two *Wall Street Journal* editorial-page feature pieces by
Micah Morrison -- all in 1994, and drawing mainly on known sources and
accounts -- the story remained a silhouette, and largely on the
disdained margin of American journalism. Most major papers and networks
ignored the scandal. A few, like *Time* or *The Post* itself, had
written about it only to ridicule the accusations.
Meanwhile, in summer 1993, Morris shared his bulging Mena files with a
close friend and colleague, Sally Denton, whose book on drugs and
political corruption in Kentucky, *The Bluegrass Conspiracy*, was seen
by many investigative reporters as a small classic on its kindred
subject.
Instantly recognizing the gravity of the material, familiar from her own
experience with the censure or aversion of the general media to such
reporting, Denton instantly offered to pursue the story herself while
Morris concentrated on other aspects of his book. Over the next year,
Denton scoured her considerable law-enforcement and underworld sources
throughout the nation, calling in or sending packages of an ever-growing
mass of new evidence. By late summer 1994, what we called the Seal
archive was mostly gathered -- more than 2,000 documents, from the
smallest receipt to whole volumes of investigation, that left no doubt
about at least the seminal crimes in Mena.
Last autumn, we first submitted a brief op-ed version of the piece to
*The New York Times*, which promptly turned it down. This was
essentially a *Wall Street Journal* subject that *The Times* had not
pursued as reportage, op-ed editor Michael Levitas told Morris. While
they had no reason to doubt the documentation or the import of the
story, the great gray *Times*, for now, would pass.
Without hesitation, we went next to *The Washington Post*, obviously
looking for much the same political impact and mainstream authority.
Less than an hour after we had faxed a copy to the *Post's Outlook*
section, Deputy Editor Jeffrey Frank called back with warm acceptance
and support.
It was obviously an extraordinary article, Frank told us, and though it
would have to be thoroughly checked and carefully steered through the
paper, he would do all he could to see it published.
Over the next 11 weeks, from early November 1994 to late January 1995,
there were repeated delays and postponements, most ascribed to the
election aftermath, the new Congress, and the holidays. But Frank and
his staff were steady in their editorial commitment and enthusiasm,
something Denton saw firsthand in a visit in *Outlook* offices before
Christmas.
Meanwhile, as the article was set in galleys, there were numerous faxes
back and forth, shipments of documents, photos, and even stills from
videotape, and weeks of painstaking checking, editing, and legal review
by the *Post's* in-house lawyers, carefully chosen to avoid any
potential conflict of interest with attorneys the paper might share
somehow with the Clintons.
"Just get everybody on board," Frank said Executive Editor Leonard
Downie had told him. And Frank had done just that, as we patiently
answered queries from any number of *Post* editors and reporters who had
been remotely associated with aspects of the story -- far more, we were
told later, than to the usual *Outlook* piece. But then, we recognized
that this was anything but usual.
At last, on January 25, it all seemed done. Everyone had signed off, we
were assured. The galleys were in final form, the contracts signed, and
publication was set for a major splash on Sunday the twenty-ninth.
Often strained over the weeks of work and marshaling, Frank's own voice
seemed audibly relaxed as we began talking about how we would respond to
other media questions.
Then suddenly -- literally at the last moment -- as *Outlook* went to
press on January 26, Frank was on the message machine saying Managing
Editor Robert Kaiser had held the story yet again. At the same moment,
we were being called by the London *Sunday Telegraph*, whose
correspondence had been leaked an early version of the piece (by a
source high up at *The Post*, we were told) and had learned even before
we did that the story was being held once more. He was now planning to
file his own dispatch on the whole episode, perhaps including the piece
itself.
A bit desperate, we called Bob Kaiser directly, not to lobby further for
the story -- which Frank had told us would be in vain -- but to alert
him to the disturbing news of the *Telegraph* leak. But even after
Morris explained all that through a secretary, Kaiser refused to come on
the line. "He doesn't want to talk to you," she said. Frustrated,
furious, convinced that Kaiser was not dealing with the story
professionally -- and likely never would -- we pulled it.
We still don't know why the story was suppressed, though rumors
abound -- of CIA compromises at *The Post*, of calls from the White
House, or some imagined rivalry between Morris's book and a Clinton
biography by a longtime *Post* reporter, soon to be serialized and,
unusually, promoted in the paper.
Whatever the motives, however, the fact remains that once more,
mainstream media had turned away from the dark side, perhaps dreading
what it would find there and what it would have to do as a result,
perhaps afraid of something of its own reflection.
As so often in the past, the public service of airing stores like Mena
would fall to braver outlets, like *Penthouse*. -- Sally Denton and
Roger Morris.
The Crimes of Mena
by Sally Denton and Roger Morris
Penthouse
July, 1995
Barry Seal -- gunrunner, drug trafficker, and covert CIA operative
extraordinaire -- is hardly a familiar name in American politics. But
nine years after he was murdered in a hail of bullets by Medellin cartel
hit men outside a Salvation Army shelter in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, he
has come back to haunt the reputations of three American presidents.
Seal's legacy includes more than 2,000 newly discovered documents that
now verify and quantify much of what previously had been only suspicion,
conjecture, and legend. The documents confirm that from 1981 to his
brutal death in 1986, Barry Seal carried on one of the most lucrative,
extensive, and brazen operations in the history of the international
drug trade, and that he did it with evident complicity, if not
collusion, of elements of the United States government, apparently with
the acquiescence of Ronald Reagan's administration, impunity from any
subsequent exposure by George Bush's administration, and under the
usually acute political nose of then Arkansas governor Bill Clinton.
The newly unearthed papers show the real Seal as far more impressive and
well-connected than the character played by Dennis Hopper in a
made-for-TV movie some years ago, loosely based on the smuggler's life.
The film portrayed the pudgy pilot as a hapless victim, caught in a
cross fire between bungling but benign government agencies and Latin
drug lords. The truth sprinkled through the documents is a richer --
and altogether more sinister -- matter of national and individual
corruption.
It is a tale of massive, socially devastating crime, of what seems to
have been an official cover-up to match, and, not the least, of the
strange reluctance of so-called mainstream American journalism to come
to grips with the phenomenon and its ominous implications -- even when
the documentary evidence had appeared.
The trail winds back to another slightly bruited but obscure name -- a
small place in western Arkansas called Mena.
Of the many stories emerging from Arkansas of the 1980s that was a
crucible to the Clinton presidency, none has been more elusive than the
charges surrounding Mena. Nestled in the dense pine and hardwood
forests of the Oachita Mountains, some 160 miles west of Little Rock,
once thought a refuge for nineteenth-century border outlaws and even a
hotbed of Depression-era anarchists, the tiny town has been the locale
for persistent reports of drug smuggling, gunrunning, and money
laundering tracing to the early eighties, when Seal based his aircraft
at Mena's Intermountain Regional Airport.
>From first accounts circulating locally in Arkansas, the story surfaced
nationally as early as 1989 in a *Penthouse* article called "Snowbound,"
written by investigative reporter John Cummings, and in a Jack Anderson
column, but was never advanced at the time by other media. Few
reporters covering Clinton in the 1992 campaign missed hearing at least
something about Mena. But it was obviously a serious and demanding
subject -- the specter of vast drug smuggling with CIA involvement --
and none of the major media pursued it seriously. During 1992, the story
was kept alive by Sarah McClendon, *The Nation*, and *The Village
Voice*.
Then, after Clinton became president, Mena began to reappear. Over the
past year, CBS News and *The Wall Street Journal* have reported the
original, unquieted charges surrounding Mena, including the shadow of
some CIA (or "national security") involvement in the gun and drug
traffic, and the apparent failure of then governor Clinton to pursue
evidence of such international crime so close to home.
"Seal was smuggling drugs and kept his planes at Mena," *The Wall Street
Journal* reported in 1994. "He also acted as an agent for the DEA. In
one of these missions, he flew the plane that produced photographs of
Sandinistas loading drugs in Nicaragua.
He was killed by a drug gang [Medellin cartel hit men] in Baton Rouge.
The cargo plane he flew was the same one later flown by Eugene Hasenfus
when he was shot down over Nicaragua with a load of contra supplies."
In a mix of wild rumor and random fact, Mena has also been a topic of
ubiquitous anti-Clinton diatribes circulated by right-wing extremists --
an irony in that the Mena operation was the apparent brainchild of the
two previous and Republican administrations.
Still, most of the larger American media have continued to ignore, if
not ridicule, the Mena accusations. Finding no conspiracy in the
Oachitas last July, a *Washington Post* reporter typically scoffed at
the "alleged dark deeds," contrasting Mena with an image as
"Clandestination, Arkansas...Cloak and Dagger Capital of America."
Noting that *The New York Times* had "mentioned Mena primarily as the
headquarters of the American Rock Garden Society," the *Columbia
Journalism Review* in a recent issue dismissed "the conspiracy theories"
as of "dubious relevance."
A former Little Rock businessman, Terry Reed, has coauthored with John
Cummings a highly controversial book, *Compromised: Clinton, Bush, and
the CIA*, which describes a number of covert activities around Mena,
including a CIA operation to train pilots and troops for the Nicaraguan
Contras, and the collusion of local officials. Both the book and its
authors were greeted with derision.
Now, however, a new mass of documentary evidence has come to light
regarding just such "dark deeds" -- previously private and secret
records that substantiate as never before some of the worst and most
portentous suspicions about what went on at Mena, Arkansas, a decade
ago.
Given the scope and implications of the Mena story, it may be easy to
understand the media's initial skepticism and reluctance. But it was
never so easy to dismiss the testimony and suspicions of some of those
close to the matter: Internal Revenue Service Agent Bill Duncan,
Arkansas State Police Investigator Russell Welch, Arkansas Attorney
General J. Winston Bryant, Congressman Bill Alexander, and various
other local law-enforcement officials and citizens.
All of these people were convinced by the late eighties that there
existed what Bryant termed "credible evidence" of the most serious
criminal activity involving Mena between 1981 and 1986.
They also believed that crimes were committed with the acquiescence, if
not the complicity, of elements of the U.S. government. But they
couldn't seem to get the national media to pay attention.
During the 1992 campaign, outside advisers and aides urged former
California governor Jerry Brown to raise the Mena issue against
Clinton -- at least to ask why the Arkansas governor had not done more
about such serious international crime so close to home. But Brown,
too, backed away from the subject. "I'll raise it if the major media
break it first," he told aides. "The media will do it, Governor," one
of them replied in frustration, "if only you'll raise it."
Mena's obscure airport was thought by the IRS, the FBI, U.S. Customs,
and the Arkansas State Police to be a base for Adler Berriman "Barry"
Seal, a self-confessed, convicted smuggler whose operations had been
linked to the intelligence community.
Duncan and Welch both spent years building cases against Seal and others
for drug smuggling and money laundering around Mena, only to see their
own law-enforcement careers damaged in the process.
What evidence they gathered, they have said in testimony and other
public statements, was not sufficiently pursued by the then U.S.
attorney for the region, J. Michael Fitzhugh, or by the IRS, Arkansas
State Police, and other agencies. Duncan, testifying before the joint
investigation by the Arkansas state attorney general's office and the
United States Congress in June 1991, said that 29 federal indictments
drafted in a Mena-based money- laundering scheme had gone unexplored.
Fitzhugh, responding at the tie to Duncan's charges, said, "This office
has not slowed up any investigation... [and] has never been under any
pressure in any investigation."
By 1992, to Duncan's and Welch's mounting dismay, several other official
inquiries into the alleged Mena connection were similarly ineffectual or
were stifled altogether, furthering their suspicions of government
collusion and cover-up. In his testimony before Congress, Duncan said
the IRS "withdrew support for the operations" and further directed him
to "withhold information from Congress and perjure myself."
Duncan later testified that he had never before experienced "anything
remotely akin to this type of interference.... Alarms were going off,"
he continued, "and as soon as Mr. Fitzhugh got involved, he was more
aggressive in not allowing the subpoenas and in interfering in the
investigative process."
State policeman Russell Welch felt he was "probably the most
knowledgeable person" regarding the activities at Mena, yet he was not
initially subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury.
Welch testified later that the only reason he was ultimately subpoenaed
at all was because one of the grand jurors was from Mena and "told the
others that if they wanted to know something about the Mena airport,
they ought to ask that guy [Welch] out there in the hall."
State Attorney General Bryant, in a 1991 letter to the office of
Lawrence Walsh, the independent counsel in the Iran-Contra
investigation, wondered "why no one was prosecuted in Arkansas despite a
mountain of evidence that Seal was using Arkansas as his principle
staging area during the years 1982 through 1985."
What actually went on in the woods of western Arkansas? The question is
still relevant for what it may reveal about certain government
operations during the time that Reagan and Bush were in the White House
and Clinton was governor of Arkansas.
In a mass of startling new documentation -- the more than 2,000 papers
gathered by the authors from private and law-enforcement sources in a
year-long nationwide search -- answers are found and serious questions
are posed.
These newly unearthed documents --the veritable private papers of Barry
Seal -- substantiate at least part of what went on at Mena.
What might be called the Seal archive dates back to 1981, when Seal
began his operations at the Intermountain Regional Airport in Mena. The
archive, all of it now in our possession, continues beyond February
1986, when Seal was murdered by Colombian assassins after he had
testified in federal court in Las Vegas, Fort Lauderdale, and Miami for
the U.S. government against leaders of the Medellin drug cartel.
The papers include such seemingly innocuous material as Seal's bank and
telephone records; negotiable instruments, promissory notes, and
invoices; personal correspondence; address and appointment books; bills
of sale for aircraft and boats; aircraft registration, and modification
work orders.
In addition, the archive also contains personal diaries; handwritten
to-do lists and other private notes; secretly tape-recorded
conversations; and cryptographic keys and legends for codes used in the
Seal operation.
Finally, there are extensive official records; federal investigative and
surveillance reports, accounting assessments by the IRS and DEA, and
court proceedings not previously reported in the press -- testimony as
well as confidential pre-sentencing memoranda in federal
narcotics-trafficking trials in Florida and Nevada -- numerous
depositions, and other sworn statements.
The archive paints a vivid portrait not only of a major criminal
conspiracy around Mena, but also of the unmistakable shadow of
government complicity. Among the new revelations:
Mena, from 1981 to 1985, was indeed one of the centers for international
smuggling traffic. According to official IRS and DEA calculations,
sworn court testimony, and other corroborative records, the traffic
amounted to thousands of kilos of cocaine and heroin and literally
hundreds of millions of dollars in drug profits. According to a 1986
letter from the Louisiana attorney general to then U.S. attorney
general Edwin Meese, Seal "smuggled between $3 billion and $5 billion of
drugs into the U.S."
Seal himself spent considerable sums to land, base, maintain, and
specially equip or refit his aircraft for smuggling. According to
personal and business records, he had extensive associations at Mena and
in Little Rock, and was in nearly constant telephone contact with Mena
when he was not there himself. Phone records indicate Seal made
repeated calls to Mena the day before his murder. This was long after
Seal, according to his own testimony, was working as an $800,000-a-year
informant for the federal government.
A former member of the Army Special Forces, Seal had ties to the Central
Intelligence Agency dating to the early 1970s. He had confided to
relatives and others, according to their sworn statements, that he was a
CIA operative before and during the period when he established his
operations at Mena. In one statement to Louisiana State Police, a Seal
relative said, "Barry was into gunrunning and drug smuggling in Central
and South America... and he had done some time in El Salvadore [sic]."
Another added, "It was true, but at the time Barry was working for the
CIA."
In a posthumous jeopardy-assessment case against Seal -- also documented
in the archive -- the IRS determined that money earned by Seal between
1984 and 1986 was not illegal because of his "CIA-DEA employment." The
only public official acknowledgment of Seals's relationship to the CIA
has been in court and congressional testimony, and in various published
accounts describing the CIA's installation of cameras in Seal's C-123K
transport plane, used in a highly celebrated 1984 sting operation
against the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.
Robert Joura, the assistant special agent in charge of the DEA's Houston
office and the agent who coordinated Seal's undercover work, told *The
Washington Post* last year that Seal was enlisted by the CIA for one
sensitive mission -- providing photographic evidence that the
Sandinistas were letting cocaine from Colombia move through Nicaragua.
A spokesman for then Senate candidate Oliver North told *The Post* that
North had been kept aware of Seal's work through "intelligence sources."
Federal Aviation Administration registration records contained in the
archive confirm that aircraft identified by federal and state narcotics
agents as in the Seal smuggling operation were previously owned by Air
America, Inc., widely reported to have been a CIA proprietary company.
Emile Camp, one of Seal's pilots and a witness to some of his most
significant dealings, was killed on a mountainside near Mena in 1985 in
the unexplained crash of one of those planes that had once belonged to
Air America.
According to still other Seal records, at least some of the aircraft in
his smuggling fleet, which included a Lear jet, helicopters, and former
U.S. military transports, were also outfitted with avionics and other
equipment by yet another company in turn linked to Air America.
Among the aircraft flown in and out of Mena was Seal's C-123K cargo
plane, christened *Fat Lady*. The records show that *Fat Lady*, serial
number 54-0679, was sold by Seal months before his death. According to
other files, the plane soon found its way to a phantom company of what
became known in the Iran-Contra scandal as "the Enterprise," the
CIA-related secret entity managed by Oliver North and others to smuggle
illegal weapons to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels. According to former
DEA agent Celerino Castilo and others, the aircraft was allegedly
involved in a return traffic in cocaine, profits from which were then
used to finance more clandestine gunrunning.
FAA records show that in October 1986, the same *Fat Lady* was shot down
over Nicaragua with a load of arms destined for the Contras. Documents
found on board the aircraft and seized by the Sandinistas included logs
linking the plane with Area 51 -- the nation's top-secret
nuclear-weapons facility at the Nevada Test Site. The doomed aircraft
was co-piloted by Wallace Blaine "Buzz" Sawyer, a native of western
Arkansas, who died in the crash. The admissions of the surviving crew
member, Eugene Hasenfus, began a public unraveling of the Iran-Contra
episode.
An Arkansas gun manufacturer testified in 1993 in federal court in
Fayetteville that the CIA contracted with him to build 250 automatic
pistols for the Mena operation. William Holmes testified that he had
been introduced in Mena by a CIA operative, and that he then sold
weapons to Seal. Even though he was given a Department of Defense
purchase order for guns fitted with silencers, Holmes testified that he
was never paid the $140,000 the government owed him. "After the
Hasenfus plane was shot down," Holmes said, "you couldn't find a soul
around Mena."
Meanwhile, there was still more evidence that Seal's massive smuggling
operation based in Arkansas had been part of a CIA operation, and that
the crimes were continuing well after Seal's murder. In 1991 sworn
testimony to both Congressman Alexander and Attorney General Bryant,
state police investigator Welch recorded that in 1987 he had documented
"new activity at the [Mena] airport with the appearance of... an
Australian business [a company linked with the CIA], and C-130s had
appeared..."
At the same time, according to Welch, two FBI agents officially informed
him that the CIA "had something going on at the Mena Airport involving
Southern Air Transport [another company linked with the CIA]...and they
didn't want us [the Arkansas State Police] to screw it up like we had
the last one."
The hundreds of millions in profits generated by the Seal trafficking
via Mena and other outposts resulted in extraordinary banking and
business practices in apparent efforts to launder or disperse the vast
amounts of illicit money in Arkansas and elsewhere. Seal's financial
records show from the early eighties, for example, instances of daily
deposits of $50,000 or more, and extensive use of an offshore foreign
bank in the Caribbean, as well as financial institutions in Arkansas and
Florida.
According to IRS criminal investigator Duncan, secretaries at the Mena
Airport told him that when Seal flew into Mena, "there would be stacks
of cash to be taken to the bank and laundered." One secretary told him
that she was ordered to obtain numerous cashier's checks, each in an
amount just under $10,000, at various banks in Mena and surrounding
communities, to avoid filing the federal Currency Transaction Reports
required for all bank transactions that exceed that limit.
Bank tellers testified before a federal grand jury that in November
1982, a Mena airport employee carried a suitcase containing more than
$70,000 into a bank. "The bank officer went down the teller lines
handing out the stacks of $1,000 bills and got the cashier's checks."
Law-enforcement sources confirmed that hundreds of thousands of dollars
were laundered from 1981 to 1983 just in a few small banks near Mena,
and that millions more from Seal's operation were laundered elsewhere in
Arkansas and the nation.
Spanish-language documents in Seal's possession at the time of his
murder also indicate that he had accounts throughout Central America and
was planning to set up his own bank in the Caribbean.
Additionally, Seal's files suggest a grandiose scheme for building an
empire. Papers in his office at the time of his death include
references to dozens of companies -- all of which had names that began
with Royale. Among them: Royale Sports, Royale Television Network,
Royale Liquors, Royale Casino, S.A., Royale Pharmaceuticals, Royale
Arabians, Royale Seafood, Royale Security, Royale Resorts... and on and
on.
Seal was scarcely alone in his extensive smuggling operation based in
Mena from 1981 to 1986, commonly described in both federal and state
law-enforcement files as one of the largest drug-trafficking operations
in the United States at the time, if not in the history of the drug
trade. Documents show Seal confiding on one occasion that he was "only
the transport," pointing to an extensive network of narcotics
distribution and finance in Arkansas and other states. After drugs were
smuggled across the border, the duffel bags of cocaine would be
retrieved by helicopters and dropped onto flatbed trucks destined for
various American cities.
In recognition of Seal's significance in the drug trade, government
prosecutors made him their chief witness in various cases, including a
1985 Miami trial in absentia of Medellin drug lords; in another 1985
trial of what federal officials regarded as the largest
narcotics-trafficking case to date in Las Vegas; and in still a third
prosecution of corrupt officials in the Turks and Caicos Islands. At
the same time, court records and other documents reveal a studied
indifference by government prosecutors to Seal's earlier and ongoing
operations at Mena.
In the end, the Seal documents are vindication for dedicated officials
in Arkansas like agents Duncan and Welch and local citizens' groups like
the Arkansas Committee, whose own evidence and charges take on a new
gravity -- and also for *The Nation*, *The Village Voice*, the
Association of National Security Alumni, the venerable Washington
journalists Sarah McClendon and Jack Anderson, Arkansas reporters Rodney
Bowers and Mara Leveritt, and others who kept an all-too-authentic story
alive amid wider indifference.
But now the larger implications of the newly exposed evidence seem as
disturbing as the criminal enormity it silhouettes. Like his modern
freebooter's life, Seal's documents leave the political and legal
landscape littered with stark questions.
What, for example, happened to some nine different official
investigations into Mena after 1987, from allegedly compromised federal
grand juries to congressional inquiries suppressed by the National
Security Council in 1988 under Ronald Reagan to still later Justice
Department inaction under George Bush?
Officials repeatedly invoked national security to quash most of the
investigations. Court documents *do* show clearly that the CIA and the
DEA employed Seal during 1984 and 1985 for the Reagan administration's
celebrated sting attempt to implicate the Nicaraguan Sandinista regime
in cocaine trafficking.
According to a December 1988 Senate Foreign Relations Committee report,
"cases were dropped. The apparent reason was that the prosecution might
have revealed national-security information, even though all of the
crimes which were the focus of the investigation occurred before Seal
became a federal informant."
Tax records show that, having assessed Seal posthumously for some $86
million in back taxes on his earnings from Mena and elsewhere between
1981 and 1983, even the IRS forgave the taxes on hundreds of millions in
known drug and gun profits over the ensuing two-year period when Seal
was officially admitted to be employed by the government.
To follow the IRS logic, what of the years, crimes, and profits at Mena
in the early eighties, before Barry Seal became an acknowledged federal
operative, as well as the subsequently reported drug-trafficking
activities at Mena even *after* his murder -- crimes far removed from
his admitted cooperation as government informant and witness?
"Joe [name deleted] works for Seal and cannot be touched because Seal
works for the CIA," a Customs official said in an Arkansas investigation
into drug trafficking during the early eighties. "A CIA or DEA
operation is taking place at the Mena airport," an FBI telex advised the
Arkansas State Police in August 1987, 18 months after Seal's murder.
Welch later testified that a Customs agent told him, "Look, we've been
told not to touch anything that has Barry Seal's name on it, just to let
it go."
The London *Sunday Telegraph* recently reported new evidence, including
a secret code number, that Seal was also working as an operative of the
Defense Intelligence Agency during the period of the gunrunning and drug
smuggling.
Perhaps most telling is what is so visibly missing from the voluminous
files. In thousands of pages reflecting a man of meticulous
organization and planning, Barry Seal seems to have felt singularly and
utterly secure -- if not somehow invulnerable -- at least in the
ceaseless air transport and delivery into the United States of tons of
cocaine for more than five years. In a 1986 letter to the DEA, the
commander and deputy commander of narcotics for the Louisiana State
Police say that Seal "was being given apparent free rein to import drugs
in conjunction with DEA investigations with so little restraint and
control on his actions as to allow him the opportunity to import drugs
for himself should he have been so disposed."
Seal's personal videotapes, in the authors' possession, show one scene
in which he used U.S. Army paratroop equipment, as well as
military-like precision, in his drug-transporting operation. Then, in
the middle of the afternoon, after a number of dry runs, one of his
airplanes dropped a load of several duffel bags attached to a
parachute. Within seconds, the cargo sitting on the remote grass
landing strip was retrieved by Seal and loaded onto a helicopter that
had followed the low-flying aircraft. "This is he first daylight
cocaine drop in the history of the state of Louisiana," Seal narrates on
the tape. If the duffel bags seen in the smuggler's home movies were
filled with cocaine -- as Seal himself states on tape -- that single
load would have been worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Perhaps the videos were not of an actual cocaine drop, but merely the
drug trafficker's training video for his smuggling organization, or even
a test maneuver. Regardless, the films show a remarkable, fearless
invincibility. Barry Seal was not expecting apprehension.
His most personal papers show him all but unconcerned about the very
flights and drops that would indeed have been protected or "fixed,"
according to law-enforcement sources, by the collusion of U.S.
intelligence.
In an interview with agent Duncan, Seal brazenly "admitted that he had
been a drug smuggler."
If the Seal documents show anything, an attentive reader might conclude,
it is that ominous implication of some official sanction. Over the
entire episode looms the unmistakable shape of government collaboration
in vast drug trafficking and gunrunning, and in a decade-long cover-up
of criminality.
Government investigators apparently had no doubt about the magnitude of
those crimes. According to Customs sources, Seal's operations at Mena
and other bases were involved in the export of guns to Bolivia,
Argentina, Peru, and Brazil, as well as to the Contras, and the
importation of cocaine from Colombia to be sold in New York, Chicago,
Detroit, St. Louis, and other cities, as well as in Arkansas itself.
Duncan and his colleagues knew that Seal's modus operandi included
dumping most of the drugs in other southern states, so that what
Arkansas agents witnessed in Mena was but a tiny fragment of an
operation staggering it its magnitude.
Yet none of the putative inquiries seems to have made a serious effort
to gather even a fraction of the available Seal documents now assembled
and studied by the authors.
Finally, of course, there are somber questions about then governor
Clinton's own role vis-a-vis the crimes of Mena.
Clinton has acknowledged learning officially about Mena only in April
1988, though a state police investigation had been in progress for
several years. As the state's chief executive, Clinton often claimed to
be fully abreast of such inquiries. In his one public statement on the
matter as governor, in September 1991, he spoke of that investigation
finding "linkages to the federal government," and "all kinds of
questions about whether he [Seal] had any links to the CIA... and if
that backed into the Iran-Contra deal."
But then Clinton did not offer further support for any inquiry, "despite
the fact," as Bill Plante and Michael Singer of CBS News have written,
"that a Republican administration was apparently sponsoring a Contra-aid
operation in his state and protecting a smuggling ring that flew tons of
cocaine through Arkansas."
As recently as March 1995, Arkansas state trooper Larry Patterson
testified under oath, according to the London *Sunday Telegraph*, that
he and other officers "discussed repeatedly in Clinton's presence" the
"large quantities of drugs being flown into the Mena airport, large
quantities of money, large quantities of guns," indicating that Clinton
may have known much more about Seal's activities than he has admitted.
Moreover, what of the hundreds of millions generated by Seal's Mena
contraband? The Seal records reveal his dealings with at least one
major Little Rock bank. How much drug money from him or his associates
made its way into criminal laundering in Arkansas's notoriously
freewheeling financial institutions and bond houses, some of which are
reportedly under investigation by the Whitewater special prosecutor for
just such large, unaccountable infusions of cash and unexplained
transactions?
"The state offers an enticing climate for traffickers," IRS agents had
concluded by the end of the eighties, documenting a "major increase" in
the amount of large cash and bank transactions in Arkansas after 1985,
despite a struggling local economy.
Meanwhile, prominent backers of Clinton's over the same years --
including bond broker and convicted drug dealer Dan Lasater and chicken
tycoon Don Tyson -- have themselves been subjects of extensive
investigative and surveillance files by the DEA or the FBI similar to
those relating to Seal, including allegations of illegal drug activity
that Tyson has recently acknowledged publicly and denounced as "totally
false." "This may be the first president in history with such close
buddies who have NADDIS numbers" says one concerned law-enforcement
official, referring to the Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Intelligence
System numbers assigned those under protracted investigation for
possible drug crimes.
The Seal documents are still more proof that Clinton, the Arkansas of
the eighties and the company that he kept there will not soon disappear
as a political or even constitutional liability.
"I've always felt we never got the whole story there," Clinton said in
1991.
Indeed. But as president of the United States, he need no longer
wonder -- and neither should the nation. On the basis of the Seal
documents (copies of which are being given to the Whitewater special
prosecutor in any case), the president should ask immediately for a full
report on the matter from the CIA, the DEA, the FBI, the Justice
Department, and other relevant agencies of his own administration --
including the long-buried evidence gathered by IRS agent Duncan and
Arkansas state police investigator Welch. President Clinton should also
offer full executive-branch cooperation with a reopened congressional
inquiry, and expose the subject fully for what it says of both the
American past and future.
Seal saw himself as a patriot to the end. He had dictated his own
epitaph for his grave in Baton Rouge: "A rebel adventurer the likes of
whom in previous days made America great." In a sense, his documents may
now render that claim less ironic than it seems.
The tons of drugs that Seal and his associates brought into the country,
officials agree, affected tens of thousands of lives at the least, and
exacted an incalculable toll on American society. And for the three
presidents, the enduring questions of political scandal are once again
apt: What did they know about Mena? When did they now it? Why didn't
they do anything to stop it?
The crimes of Mena were real. That much is now documented beyond
doubt. The only remaining issues are how far they extended, and who was
responsible.
~END ~
----- End Included Message -----
Date: Sun Aug 27, 1995 7:26 pm CST
From: Richard Clark
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: cardin@slip.net
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Re: A review of the Mena coke operation
The secretaries employed at the Mena airport have testified that when
Barry Seal flew into Mena "there would be stacks of cash to be taken to
the bank and laundered." One secretary told IRS investigator Bill
Duncan that she was ordered to obtain numerous cashier's checks, each
in an amount just under $10,000, at various banks around Mena. Why?
--- So that federal Currency Transaction Reports would not have to be
filed. Bank tellers testified before a federal grand jury about an
instance when a Mena airport employee carried a suitcase into their
bank that was stuffed with $70,000 in cash. The bank officer calmly
proceeded from one teller to the next, handing out stacks of hundred
dollar bills to each one, so that the proper cashier's checks could be
drawn up without delay. (The best customers get the best service.)
Between 1981 and 1983, hundreds of thousands of dollars were in this
way laundered just in the few small banks near Mena, according to law-
enforcement sources. Millions more were laundered throughout
Arkansas. [According to other sources there is also evidence that then-
governor Clinton was able to siphon off some of these proceeds, putting
them to use in the purchase of political advantage not otherwise
available. Apparently much of Arkansas was benefiting from this
operation, especially the Arkansas Development Finance Authority
(AFDA), which helped launder (and disburse) much of the money.
Political payoffs were rampant.] Of special interest here, to the
Whitewater special prosecutor, were the huge and completely
unaccountable infusions of cash into various Arkansas financial
institutions. IRS records show a "major increase" in the amount of
large cash and bank transactions in Arkansas around this period,
despite a rather poor and struggling local economy. It would seem that
unless the Whitewater investigation is somehow corrupted or stopped,
some very upsetting truth is likely to emerge. Note: many of the
recently unearthed Barry Seal documents have been forwarded to the
Whitewater special prosecutor because they are believed to have great
relevance to that investigation.
What happened to the nine different investigations into Mena after
1987? Mainly it was a matter of compromised federal grand juries and
congressional inquiries that were suppressed by the National Security
Council under Ronald Reagan's directives. Then there was Justice
Department sand-bagging under George Bush. The whole story had to
be quashed for reasons of "national security." It seems that Reagan,
Bush and Clinton can't imagine a nation in which the truth about this
would come out. Why? Perhaps because it would be a nation in which
they would be in jail.
Curiously, as governor of Arkansas in 1991, Clinton publicly
acknowledged that the Mena investigation had found "linkages to the
federal government," and had come up with "all kinds of questions
about whether he [Barry Seal] had any links to the CIA" and about
whether or not this was tied into "the Iran-Contra deal." But then
Clinton apparently decided it would not be to his advantage to press for
any further inquiry. Meanwhile his principal political backers in
Arkansas are under FBI investigation and have been assigned case
numbers under the Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Intelligence
System.
Clinton's failure, as governor, to press for an investigation of this is
mighty strange, according to Bill Plante and Michael Singer of CBS
News. They write that "a Republican administration was apparently
sponsoring a Contra-aid operation in his state and protecting a
smuggling ring that flew tons of cocaine through Arkansas."
Now, for the time being, one can only speculate as to why _president_
Bill, now that he has the power, does not immediately ask for a full
report from the CIA, IRS, DEA, and FBI about their rather abundant
and long-surpressed records having to do with the Mena operation.
Why must the cover-up continue, Bill? Why not bring the whole truth
out into the open? Could the answer to this question possibly have
something to do with the tens of thousands of lives that have been
destroyed by these tons of coke that were flown into Arkansas? Could it
possibly have something to do with the tens of thousands of young black
men whose souls rot in the proliferating numbers of penitentiaries that
have had to be constructed to house them all? Worst of all, could these
be the people who unwittingly made it possible for Bill Clinton to
become president?
Richard Clark
Date: Sun Aug 27, 1995 7:28 pm CST
From: Randy Benes
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: DFFC45B@prodigy.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Impending Crisis Over Whitewater
IMPENDING CRISIS OVER WHITEWATER
by Paul Craig Roberts
The liberal media and Moderate Rebublicans are trying to
psych-out Gingrich and Company in order to prevent any
fundamental changes. The argument is that if the Repub-
licans go too far, President Clinton will veto their
measures. It is better, say the liberals and the moderates,
to compromise in behalf of limited change inplace of none
at all.
The truth is the opposite. If Mr. Clinton cooperates with
the Republican agenda, he may be spared Whitewatergate im-
peachment. There is no question that Mr. Clinton is at least
as vulnerahle as was Mr. Nixon. Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, chair-
man of the Senate Banking Committee, could easily drive Mr.
Clinton from office with Whitewater hearings. Indeed, many
people believe that the only thing that will keep Mr.
Clinton from being indicted is that he is more valuable to
Republicans in office.
One often hears in Republican circles that " Jimmy Carter
gave us Reagan, and Clinton gave us a Republican Congress.
Clinton is destroying the Democratic Party. Why do we want
to evict him? "
Keeping Mr. Clinton in office might not be a bad strategy,
but the problem for Republicans is that Whitewater may be
too explosive for them to sit on. Serious discrepancies
between the testimony of eyewitnesses and the official
report on Deputy White Counsel Vincent Foster's death have
forced Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr to reopen the
inquiry.
Two rescue workers, George Gonzalez and Todd Hall, summoned
to Fort Marcy Park when Mr. Foster's body was discovered
have told authorities that they saw Mr. Foster's briefcase
in his car in the Fort Marcy parking lot. This is big
trouble for the official report that places the briefcase
in Mr. Foster's White House office with a torn-up suicide
note.
This discrepancy gives new weight to the witness who found
Mr. Foster's body and has testified under oath that no gun
or weapon was present on the scene. Something is seriously
amiss when the official report is so totally at odds at
crucial points with eyewitness accounts.
Whitewater is proving explosive for another reason as well.
It is increasingly pointing to Mena, Ark., the site of gun-
running and drug-smuggling operations in the 1980s. A former
Air Force intelligence officer has published a book charging
that Clinton friends laundered drug money through the
Arkansas Development Finance Authority, a state agency under
Gov. Clinton's direct control.
Whatever was going on in Mena was big enough that powerful
interests in both political parties are determined to keep
the lid on. Rep. Bill Alexander, who represented Arkansas
for 24 years in the House, was unable to get anywhere with
his efforts to investigate Mena. "There was enough evidence
to begin cracking it open," says Mr. Alexander, " and sud-
denly nobody wanted to touch it. I want to know why. "
Mr. Alexander notes that despite having "the highest
possible clearance that the government can provide for
secrecy," he was "denied access to information in a criminal
investigation in my own state."
Bill Duncan and Russell Welch, respectively Internal Revenue
Service and Arkansas State Police investigators, marshalled
evidence of money-laundering connected to the Mena activit-
ies and managed to get a case before a federal grand jury,
but it was botched. Several grand jurors complained of "some
type of government intervention" that resulted in a coverup.
The book by the former Air Force intelligence officer drags
so many prominent names through the mire that it almost
looks like an attempt to convince the public that Mena is
nothing but a wild conspiracy theory. An excess of kooky
charges is one way to kill an investigation.
If Mena proves to be about anything, I predict it will be a
story of the corruption of U.S. politics by drug money.
Recently Hernan Cubillos, former foreign minister of Chile,
wrote in the Wall Street Journal that "armies that fight
drug traffickers become corrupted by them." He notes that
"by pushing Latin America's armies into a war on drugs" the
United States has caused two South American countries to
"have parallel government financed by drug money."
Mr. Cubillos says there are only two solutions to the drug
problem, drastic Singapore-style punishments or legalizat-
ion. "Either would destroy the drug lords. What the U.S. is
now doing empowers them.
The best way to avoid a political crisis when the Mena
story finally breaks is for Gingrich and Company to have
already pulled off a political revolution in Washington.
Paul Craig Roberts is a columnist for the Washington Times
and is nationally syndicated.
Date: Sun Aug 27, 1995 6:33 pm CST
From: Martin Anderson
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: anderso1@ix.netcom.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Fwd: Re: Clinton/Bush: Co-conspirators in CIA Drug Smuggling (part 4 of 5)
---- Begin Forwarded Message
220 14023 <41qi6f$q40@ixnews4.ix.netcom.com> article
Path: ix.netcom.com!netnews
From: anderso1@ix.netcom.com (Martin Anderson )
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater
Subject: Re: Clinton/Bush: Co-conspirators in CIA Drug Smuggling (part
4 of 5)
Date: 27 Aug 1995 19:48:31 GMT
Organization: Netcom
Lines: 31
Message-ID: <41qi6f$q40@ixnews4.ix.netcom.com>
References: <41ps1t$284@news.cais.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: ix-dc14-04.ix.netcom.com
In <41ps1t$284@news.cais.com> nemo writes:
>
>From:
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
------. But in any case, we've collected just about everything
> that's publicly available about Mena and all of its
ramifications.
> It's a tremendous story, and I'd like to emphasize, right now,
> that Governor Clinton's part in this is very minor. The real
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> big fish in this story is President George Bush.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This, folks, is what is called a trial balloon.
Its place of birth is the Oval Office and its genesis was not
immaculate.
The Mena heat is building up, Senator Dole notwithstanding, and a fall
back position is being constructed.
This will be only the latest version of the ongoing "it wasn't my
fault" footnoting of Clintonista history.
That should be obvious to all save the average Republican Senator who,
of course, will again be blindsided.
Martin
---- End Forwarded Message
Date: Mon Aug 28, 1995 7:27 am CST
From: John Q. Public
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: capmicro@inxpress.net
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Terry Reed Lawsuit: Court Date Delayed till 1/16/96
Washington Weekly, 8/28 edition, reports that Terry Reed has been
granted a delay in bringing his lawsuit against Raymond "Buddy" Young
et al until 1/16/96. Apparently, Mr. Reed sought the delay because
witnesses who didn't wish to be deposed were not showing up
for interviews, etc.
Date: Mon Aug 28, 1995 7:38 am CST
From: ezehr
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: ezehr@capaccess.org
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Re: DEA at Mena?
In Message-ID:
chauptma@netcom.com (Charles Hauppman) wrote:
>Strange indeed that Larry all of a sudden has cleared the Republicans of
>any connection to Mena. I find that Terry Reeds book is more credible
>than some of Larry's comments have been in the past, but still Larry is
>on the ground and SHOULD know what happened in the past.
Well, it's not really so strange if you have followed Nichols' comments
for the past six months or so. He stated his reasons openly in his
August 24 interview with Mike Reagan:
NICHOLS: Oh absolutely - once, I believe, the Republicans lose the
fear that they're gonna get themselves in trouble, then I think
you'll see the gates open. You know, that's been one of the major
drawbacks to the Republicans - they've been afraid to go after
ADFA, because to get to ADFA, you've got to have a source of money.
The source of money was Mena. And then if they opened up Mena, they
were afraid that they would be getting a whole bunch of Republicans.
Nichols believes that the Republicans' fear of uncovering something at
Mena that would incriminate some of their own has inhibited them from
pursuing the Clinton scandals - from money laundering by ADFA to the
death of Vince Foster. Given their timidity in this summer's hearings,
he may have a point. Apparently he believes the article to which he
referred will support Oliver North's contention that all illicit drug
activity in the Contra operation had been reported to the DEA. He hopes
that this will remove whatever inhibitions the GOP may have about going
after Clinton.
Oliver North raises an interesting point about the drug-running allegations
in his book *Under Fire*:
Very little in my life has angered me as much as the allegations
that I or anyone else involved with the resistance had a drug
connection. I hate to put it in these terms, but since December
1986, the office of the special prosecutor [Lawrence Walsh] has
spent tens of millions of dollars investigating us - and me in
particular. If there was even a grain of truth to these stories,
it surely would have come out.
On the face of it, North would seem to have a point - unless Walsh was
reluctant to open that can of worms. Part of the problem is that Mena
is not the only place illicit drugs are alleged to have been brought
into the country in connection with a covert CIA operation. (See, for
example, Sally Denton's book *The Bluegrass Conspiracy* that deals with
such a scandal in Kentucky during the 1980s).
The deeper one digs into the Mena story and its implications, the broader
they appear to be. What, for example, did Ross Perot have against George
Bush that made him so antagonistic as to run against him in 1992? Perot
is enough of a realist to understand that he had no chance to win -
but had a definite opportunity to deny Bush a second term. But why did
he do it? It was monstrously expensive, both in terms of money and lost
prestige for Perot, who was generally well thought of before he entered
the presidential race.
To understand this, one must recall that Perot supported Reagan in 1980,
and after the election Reagan gave Perot a broad mandate to investigate
rumors that American POWs had been abandoned when the U.S. pulled out
of Vietnam. Perot was frustrated at every turn by the entrenched
bureaucracy.
I quote from the book *Kiss the Boys Goodbye*, written by Monika Jensen-
Stevenson and William Stevenson and published in 1990:
Relations between Bush and Perot had gone downhill ever since the
Vice President had asked Ross Perot how his POW/MIA investigations
were going.
"Well, George, I go in looking for prisoners," said Perot, "but
I spend all my time discovering the government has been moving
drugs around the world and is involved in illegal arms deals...
I can't get at the prisoners because of the corruption among our
own covert people."
This ended Perot's official access to the highly classified files
as a one-man presidential investigator. "I have been ordered to
cease and desist," he had informed the families of missing men early
in 1987.
Of course, this book treats Perot in a favorable light. The quotation
obviously came from Perot and was no doubt "remembered" in such a way
as to place him at an advantage. Nevertheless, this excerpt suggests
the extent to which widespread corruption within the government has
poisoned every aspect of its operation and tainted those who chose as
their career a life of "public service."
Through continuous neglect by all concerned this wound has been allowed
to fester until gangrene set in. We have now reached the stage that no
thoughtful person is able to believe the lies and cover stories told
by government officials who appear desperate to cover their tracks.
Unfortunately, many knowledgeable persons within the government and
the establishment media (which have become little more than a branch of
the government) still pretend to believe the lies. If this situation is
not corrected soon, it will destroy the legitimacy of the government.
Date: Mon Aug 28, 1995 11:27 am CST
From: John Q. Public
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: capmicro@execpc.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: John Crudele, NY Post 8/28 (via Mr. Ken R. Cook)
forwarded, without permission
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 1995 12:00:57 EDT
From: VJDB56A@prodigy.com (MR KEN R COOK)
Subject: WW Mailing - 7/28/95
This mailing is going out to all those on my WW mailing list.
Here is the latest from John Crudele. It appeared in today's New York
Post on page 5. This article, coupled with the Mena-related columns
printed by the Washington Times last week should really begin making
Mena a household word in America. In Britain, where Mena is a household
word, the British equivalent of "60 Minutes" had a film crew in Mena
and should have an expose on British television soon - the "telly" as
they call it over there.
Meanwhile on the FOSTERGATE front, stay tuned. Jim Norman just did
two hours on the Jack Christy show yesterday and had some amazing
things to say. I hope to get a report out to you all shortly.
Read on the Internet that Newsweek (Michael Isikoff) is planning an
attack on this article, tying it to "conspiracy theorists." The
strategy here will obviously be to turn people off to this article
before they even get a chance to read it for themselves. Isikoff is
reportedly contacting all reporters who are covering Foster (Ruddy,
Pritchard, etc.) for his story.
As I've said a million times before, I do not necessarily buy into
all the elements of Jim Norman's FOSTERGATE story. But I do feel that
Jim Norman sacrificed a lot (he lost his job at Forbes) to get this
story out and that he deserves to be heard. I also feel that Norman
believes in his story and if it does turn out to be inaccurate, then he
was duped by others. Bottom line is that I feel that Norman's motives
are pure in this whole matter.
Stay tuned, I have some information re: FOSTERGATE that could be
earthshattering. There is a chance that a very prominent person may
confirm what Norman has reported. I either have to check it out and be
sure of myself first before I post it, or I will just have to wait for
this person to identify himself.
Here's the John Crudele article from todays NY Post:
WHITEWATER PROBE MAY EYE ARKANSAS DRUG RING
by John Crudele
A massive drug-running operation out of Mena, Ark., apparently had a
guardian angel.
And congressional investigators are now trying to find out who
interfered with the ability of law-enforcement authorities to stop the
flow of Latin American cocaine into that state and why.
The matter is also likely to soon be incorporated into the massive
probe of Arkansas state corruption now being conducted by Special
Prosecutor Kenneth Starr.
The drug-running venture poured hundreds of millions of dollars into
Arkansas during the mid-1980s. And many believe it was at the root of
substantial financial corruption now being uncovered in that state.
According to two Arkansas State troopers who I've interviewed by
telephone this week, law-enforcement authorities were within minutes of
confiscating an aircraft they thought was being used by Barry Seal to
smuggle cocaine.
Seal was believed to have been a CIA operative who had been enlisted
to smuggle guns from Mena, Ark., to Contra rebels in Nicaragua. It was
on return flights from Latin America that authorities suspect drugs
were stashed on the planes.
Seal was killed while working for the government on an undercover
operation in the mid-1980s.
The troopers say they were ready to confiscate the plane one day in
the winter of 1984 when they were suddenly told by someone working for
the FBI to leave the aircraft alone. Eleven years later, neither could
provide the exact date, but they still have official log books which
they say would contain the entry.
Neither of these troopers has ever stepped forward with accusations
before. And both have been interviewed by an investigator for Iowa
Republican Congressman Jim Leach's office.
As I said last week, Leach's recent hearings on the Whitewater
scandal will probably be expanded to look into the operations of the
Arkansas Development and Finance Authority (ADFA) as well as the events
that took place at Mena. There have been accusations that ADFA -
possibly unknown to its officials - may have been used to launder drug
money.
Starr isn't permitted to officially look into Mena unless a link
between it and the corruption in the Arkansas banking system can be
found.
One of the troopers, Steve Clements, told me that he was relatively
new to the force and was working on the narcotics detail in 1984 when
he and partners came upon a suspicious aircraft in Mena.
Clements and his partners were waiting in a hotel room, he says, for
permission to seize the plane.
"All I remember is what my boss told me," said Clements. "He said
someone called and told him we could seize it if we want, but they'd
get it back in a few minutes."
His boss was a man named Finus Duvall, who was the company commander
at the criminal investigations division of the state police. Duvall is
now retired and says the decision not to take the aircraft was his
biggest mistake.
"I should have seized it. The worst mistake I ever made was not
seizing it because I let the government override the state," he said.
"We made a call. We called an outfit called Group 7. It was the DEA
(Drug Enforcement Administration) operation in Miami. They told us that
if we took the airplane down, they would be up there in three hours and
take it away from us. That particular plane was smuggling cocaine."
Duvall couldn't explain why the DEA would quash an operation that
could have stopped the flow of narcotics.
Bill Clinton, the governor of Arkansas at the time, was "aware that
we were investigating but he never knew the minute details because it
was too complicated," said Duvall, adding that nobody in the Arkansas
government ever interfered with his Mena investigation.
Another trooper named L.D. Brown recently said that he told Clinton
around 1984 that drugs were being smuggled into Mena. Brown has said a
number of times - including during an interview with The Post - that
Clinton had not appeared surprised about his accusations of drug
smuggling. But he was surprised that Brown had been shown some of the
cargo.
Duvall says that L.D. Brown never told the Mena investigators of his
suspicions.
Duvall said he was "mad as hell" when the raid wasn't carried out.
Later, he said, he handed over all his files on the case to Lawrence
Walsh, the special prosecutor assigned to the Iran-Contra
investigation.
"I shipped Walsh a complete case file of the Mena investigation,"
Duvall said. "It weighed 400 pounds. Where the hell is the case file?"
The Arkansas state police started investigating Mena in 1982, says
Duvall. Others, including investigators from the Internal Revenue
Service, later tracked several hundred dollars that were being
laundered in Mena.
But Duvall indicates that the money coming from the Mena operations
was much more substantial than that. In fact, he says that Seal made a
video "that shows Barry Seal at the Mena airport counting $1 million.
That's been documented."
'I don't have any idea where the money went," says Duvall.
As bizarre as it might seem, investigators believe that Barry Seal
bank accounts may still exist in the banking havens in the Carribean.
In fact, one source claims that the government recently seized one of
Seal's bank accounts.
END OF ARTICLE BY JOHN CRUDELE FOR NY POST - 8/28/95
Date: Mon Aug 28, 1995 10:16 pm CST
From: Jamianne [Ms. Freddi ".A.R.." Reddi]
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: jamiv@verilink.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
CC: jamiv
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: jamiv@verilink.com
Subject: list/ufos/Mena-Gate is overflowing
David
Sorry I don't have the bounce message from your server.
It said something like: machine unreachable for 2 or 3 days.
What is the syntax to subscribe to
snet-l run
from ?
subscribe snet-l run
?
or without the "run"
I may want to check it out.
I went through a phase of interest in UFOs. I read every book
I could get for several months. It was interesting but
inconclusive and illusive. The VHS on the anti-matter
power and transmission plant by the guy who worked at
Hanger 18 Area 51, Dreamland was somewhat plausible.
The saucer worked by distorting gravity and thereby snapping
itself along in pulses. The electrical power was generated by
an anti-matter reactor based on type of stable isotope not
available locally (some ungodly atomic number).
I found Strieber's books (Communion, etc) imaginative
but probably works of fiction or hallucination.
Thanks for the Bluegrass news items.
I rough-processed the files by taking out a whole
lot of ascii codes that somehow got put in at some
boundaries.
I enclose some mena articles from the Clinton Scandals (CS) list
I ordered the laser disc "Cover-up" from Tower records.
I will make you a VHS copy if you like, when I get it.
I saw part of this when i rented it. It was well done.
I had to take it back when I ran out of time.
I also ordered "the Mena Connection" by Terry Reed in VHS from the
number given in the CS list. I cannot copy VHS to VHS right
now since I do not have two VCRs.
-Ms. Freddi ".A.R.." Reddi, "the Columbian Camou-Frogess"
3rd EXECUTE-ive VP for Stations WMNA AND KMNA,
"your `Mena-Gate' stations on the net"
"You mess with the 2nd amendment, and you
mess with me."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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From owner-cs@oak.oakland.edu Tue Aug 22 11:15:25 1995
Path: news1.oakland.edu!vtc.tacom.army.mil!ulowell.uml.edu!
europa.chnt.gtegsc.com!howland.reston.ans.net!
news-e1a.megaweb.com!newstf01.news.aol.com!
newsbf02.news.aol.com!not-for-mail
From: theknep@aol.com (TheKnep)
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater
Subject: : Mena again folks/was :The Gramm Factor--Will Democrats Panic?
Lines: 16
References: <4182jo$3oi@ixnews5.ix.netcom.com>
Reply-To: theknep@aol.com (TheKnep)
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Resent-Date: Tue, 22 Aug 1995 14:02:51 -0400 (EDT)
Resent-From: "David J. Sussman"
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Read the latest issue of Strategic Investment, which I hope someone will
be kind enough to post here. James Dale Davidson, who I respect greatly,
feels it's no accident Dole has been such a foot dragger on uncovering the
Crimes of Mena. In fact he was endorsed last month for President by those
Arkansas godfathers Don Tyson and Jackson Stephens. Davidson figures they
were especially grateful that Dole went along with Field Marshal Janet
Reno's decision to block Special Prosecutor Smaltz's investigation of
Tyson.
Davidson makes a good case for pessimism that the truth will ever come
out about why Vince Foster was killed. The major media has clamped the lid
on, all Republican Congressional investigations so far have studiously
avoided the subject of Foster's death. Now all journalists, and they are
few in number, who question the party line, despite its patent absurdity,
are being marginalized and branded as lunatic right-wingers. Our
government is being Stalinized before our very eyes, and Republicans are
going along with it. That is what cuts me to the quick.
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From jamiv Wed Aug 23 19:56:27 1995
From: jamiv ([Jamianne [Ms. Freddi ".A.R.." Redi]])
To: jamiv
Subject: The Mena Connection VHS video terry reed
Content-Length: 1957
X-Lines: 44
>From ca-firearms-owner@shell.portal.com Fri May 12 19:09:44 1995
From: Brad Parsons
Subject: ** The Mena Connection **
To: roc@xmission.com, libernet@dartmouth.edu, libernet-d@dartmouth.edu,
c-news@world.std.com, ca-firearms@shell.portal.com,
constitution@earthlink.net, cybernews-publish-l@cornell.edu,
michigun@css.itd.umich.edu, noban@mainstream.com, patriots@kaiwan.com,
texas-gun-owners@zilker.net, alt-conspiracy@cs.utexas.edu
Cc: alt-activism@cs.utexas.edu
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: ca-firearms-owner@shell.portal.com
Reply-To:
Followup-To: ca-firearms@shell.portal.com
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater
Subject: ** The Mena Connection **
Date: 12 May 1995 20:34:01 -0500
"The Mena Connection" ($19.95) 1-800-888-9999 ( call 24.hrs)
I got Terry Reed's video tape yesterday and viewed it.
IT IS OUTSTANDING. Better than his book. I highly
recommend that everyone here get it. It has a bunch
of news footage from a Ft. Smith, AR TV station, from
a major Chicago network TV station, and the CBS Eye
on America report on the matter. There is also a very
interesting recording in the tape of a phone conversa-
tion between Hubbell and a Time reporter. Terry's wife
Jan also give a great interview in the tape. And much
more. There is a lot of video footage in this tape
that I had not seen before, and I have been following
this issue for two years, have read Terry Reed's book,
and been following this newsgroup since the day it
began. You can order "The Mena Connection" for $19.95
at 1-800-888-9999 (24 hrs). This is FYI only, I have no
connection with the producers/sellers of this excellent
video tape. After viewing the tape a few times and
sharing it with family and close friends, you might
also consider donating the video to your local cable
access station. ;)
"The Mena Connection" ($19.95) 1-800-888-9999 (24.hrs)
----- End Included Message -----
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From owner-cs@oak.oakland.edu Sat Aug 26 12:46:58 1995
Path: news1.oakland.edu!simtel!news.sprintlink.net!howland.reston
.ans.net!usc!news.service.uci.edu!taurus.oac.uci.edu!eaou669
From: Duane Roberts
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater
Subject: Re: DEA at Mena?
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Resent-Date: Sat, 26 Aug 1995 15:41:42 -0400 (EDT)
Resent-From: "David J. Sussman"
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In a previous message, "John Q. Public" wrote the following:
> Last night, larry Nichols told Michael Reagan that an article
> would likely be published today that would reveal DEA involvement
> with the Mena cocaine operation. Has anyone seen such an article?
I haven't seen the article.
But I do want to confirm that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
was involved with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in an alleged sting
operation conducted against the Medellin Cartel by the late Adler Berriman
"Barry" Seal. This alleged sting operation was the one where Seal
supposedly collected evidence that the Nicaraguan government was letting
the Medellin Cartel use airstrips in their country to ship cocaine to the
United States. Barry Seal launched this alleged sting operation from the
Intermountain Regional Airport in Mena, Arkansas during the middle of
1984 (A congressional hearing conducted by the House Judiciary Committee
in 1988 on Seal's role as a "confidential informant" for the DEA confirms
this).
However I disagree with Mr. Nichol's suggestion that Lt. Col. Oliver North
and other high-ranking Reagan Administration officials weren't involved
in overseeing a contra resupply operation at the Intermountain Regional
Airport in Mena, Arkansas; and I don't agree with his claim that most of
the activities taking place at Mena were primarily the result of a sting
operation being conducted by the DEA.
During the early 80s, Seal's gunrunning and drug smuggling activities
(apparently with the tacit approval of the CIA) were beginning to attract
the attention of law enforcement agencies in Florida, Louisiana, and
other states. When Seal was arrested by the DEA for smuggling drugs
into Ft. Lauderdale, Florida in April of 1983, his mounting legal problems
threatened to jeopardize his efforts to arm the Nicaraguan Contras
with weapons purchased with drug money. Hence, Seal flew off to Washington,
D.C. in his LearJet and spoke with Reagan administration officials (e.g.,
Vice-President George Bush), who subsequently pressured the DEA to reduce
the charges against him and enlist Seal as a "confidential informant" for
sting operations. Seal's role as a "confidential informant" for the DEA
enabled him to continue working for the CIA in their efforts to supply the
Nicaraguan Contras with weapons. This was his "cover," so to speak. And it
gave him a license to continue running a contra resupply operation for
the Reagan administration - and finance it with drug money - without any
interference from law enforcement agencies in other states. For example, if
law enforcement agencies in Louisiana uncovered evidence that Seal was
smuggling cocaine into Arkansas through their state, they wouldn't be able to
do much of anything about it because of his status as a "confidential
informant." If the Louisiana State Police asked the Reagan administration
why Seal was being allowed to smuggle drugs into the country, all the
Reagan administration needed to do is claim that Seal was doing this as
part of a "secret sting operation" being conducted by the DEA. Of course,
this explanation serves the useful purpose of hiding the fact that
high-ranking Reagan administration officials (apparently in collusion
with the governor of Arkansas) were allowing a major drug trafficker like
Seal to freely import drugs into the United States in return for using a
portion of the profits to finance the purchase of weapons and
supplies for the Nicaraguan Contras.
Sincerely,
Duane J. Roberts
eaou669@ea.oac.uci.edu
Undergraduate Student
Criminology, Law, and Society
School of Social Ecology
University of California, Irvine
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From owner-cs@oak.oakland.edu Mon Aug 28 10:29:33 1995
Path: news1.oakland.edu!news.concourse.com!ragnarok.oar.net!
malgudi.oar.net!news.sprintlink.net!in1.uu.net!spool.mu.edu!
daily-planet.execpc.com!usenet
From: capmicro@execpc.com (John Q. Public)
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater
Subject: mena fostergate John Crudele, NY Post 8/28 (via Mr. Ken R. Cook)
Lines: 135
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forwarded, without permission
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 1995 12:00:57 EDT
From: VJDB56A@prodigy.com (MR KEN R COOK)
Subject: WW Mailing - 7/28/95
This mailing is going out to all those on my WW mailing list.
Here is the latest from John Crudele. It appeared in today's New York
Post on page 5. This article, coupled with the Mena-related columns
printed by the Washington Times last week should really begin making
Mena a household word in America. In Britain, where Mena is a household
word, the British equivalent of "60 Minutes" had a film crew in Mena
and should have an expose on British television soon - the "telly" as
they call it over there.
Meanwhile on the FOSTERGATE front, stay tuned. Jim Norman just did
two hours on the Jack Christy show yesterday and had some amazing
things to say. I hope to get a report out to you all shortly.
Read on the Internet that Newsweek (Michael Isikoff) is planning an
attack on this article, tying it to "conspiracy theorists." The
strategy here will obviously be to turn people off to this article
before they even get a chance to read it for themselves. Isikoff is
reportedly contacting all reporters who are covering Foster (Ruddy,
Pritchard, etc.) for his story.
As I've said a million times before, I do not necessarily buy into
all the elements of Jim Norman's FOSTERGATE story. But I do feel that
Jim Norman sacrificed a lot (he lost his job at Forbes) to get this
story out and that he deserves to be heard. I also feel that Norman
believes in his story and if it does turn out to be inaccurate, then he
was duped by others. Bottom line is that I feel that Norman's motives
are pure in this whole matter.
Stay tuned, I have some information re: FOSTERGATE that could be
earthshattering. There is a chance that a very prominent person may
confirm what Norman has reported. I either have to check it out and be
sure of myself first before I post it, or I will just have to wait for
this person to identify himself.
Here's the John Crudele article from todays NY Post:
WHITEWATER PROBE MAY EYE ARKANSAS DRUG RING
by John Crudele
A massive drug-running operation out of Mena, Ark., apparently had a
guardian angel.
And congressional investigators are now trying to find out who
interfered with the ability of law-enforcement authorities to stop the
flow of Latin American cocaine into that state and why.
The matter is also likely to soon be incorporated into the massive
probe of Arkansas state corruption now being conducted by Special
Prosecutor Kenneth Starr.
The drug-running venture poured hundreds of millions of dollars into
Arkansas during the mid-1980s. And many believe it was at the root of
substantial financial corruption now being uncovered in that state.
According to two Arkansas State troopers who I've interviewed by
telephone this week, law-enforcement authorities were within minutes of
confiscating an aircraft they thought was being used by Barry Seal to
smuggle cocaine.
Seal was believed to have been a CIA operative who had been enlisted
to smuggle guns from Mena, Ark., to Contra rebels in Nicaragua. It was
on return flights from Latin America that authorities suspect drugs
were stashed on the planes.
Seal was killed while working for the government on an undercover
operation in the mid-1980s.
The troopers say they were ready to confiscate the plane one day in
the winter of 1984 when they were suddenly told by someone working for
the FBI to leave the aircraft alone. Eleven years later, neither could
provide the exact date, but they still have official log books which
they say would contain the entry.
Neither of these troopers has ever stepped forward with accusations
before. And both have been interviewed by an investigator for Iowa
Republican Congressman Jim Leach's office.
As I said last week, Leach's recent hearings on the Whitewater
scandal will probably be expanded to look into the operations of the
Arkansas Development and Finance Authority (ADFA) as well as the events
that took place at Mena. There have been accusations that ADFA -
possibly unknown to its officials - may have been used to launder drug
money.
Starr isn't permitted to officially look into Mena unless a link
between it and the corruption in the Arkansas banking system can be
found.
One of the troopers, Steve Clements, told me that he was relatively
new to the force and was working on the narcotics detail in 1984 when
he and partners came upon a suspicious aircraft in Mena.
Clements and his partners were waiting in a hotel room, he says, for
permission to seize the plane.
"All I remember is what my boss told me," said Clements. "He said
someone called and told him we could seize it if we want, but they'd
get it back in a few minutes."
His boss was a man named Finus Duvall, who was the company commander
at the criminal investigations division of the state police. Duvall is
now retired and says the decision not to take the aircraft was his
biggest mistake.
"I should have seized it. The worst mistake I ever made was not
seizing it because I let the government override the state," he said.
"We made a call. We called an outfit called Group 7. It was the DEA
(Drug Enforcement Administration) operation in Miami. They told us that
if we took the airplane down, they would be up there in three hours and
take it away from us. That particular plane was smuggling cocaine."
Duvall couldn't explain why the DEA would quash an operation that
could have stopped the flow of narcotics.
Bill Clinton, the governor of Arkansas at the time, was "aware that
we were investigating but he never knew the minute details because it
was too complicated," said Duvall, adding that nobody in the Arkansas
government ever interfered with his Mena investigation.
Another trooper named L.D. Brown recently said that he told Clinton
around 1984 that drugs were being smuggled into Mena. Brown has said a
number of times - including during an interview with The Post - that
Clinton had not appeared surprised about his accusations of drug
smuggling. But he was surprised that Brown had been shown some of the
cargo.
Duvall says that L.D. Brown never told the Mena investigators of his
suspicions.
Duvall said he was "mad as hell" when the raid wasn't carried out.
Later, he said, he handed over all his files on the case to Lawrence
Walsh, the special prosecutor assigned to the Iran-Contra
investigation.
"I shipped Walsh a complete case file of the Mena investigation,"
Duvall said. "It weighed 400 pounds. Where the hell is the case file?"
The Arkansas state police started investigating Mena in 1982, says
Duvall. Others, including investigators from the Internal Revenue
Service, later tracked several hundred dollars that were being
laundered in Mena.
But Duvall indicates that the money coming from the Mena operations
was much more substantial than that. In fact, he says that Seal made a
video "that shows Barry Seal at the Mena airport counting $1 million.
That's been documented."
'I don't have any idea where the money went," says Duvall.
As bizarre as it might seem, investigators believe that Barry Seal
bank accounts may still exist in the banking havens in the Carribean.
In fact, one source claims that the government recently seized one of
Seal's bank accounts.
END OF ARTICLE BY JOHN CRUDELE FOR NY POST - 8/28/95
----- Begin Included Message -----
From owner-cs@oak.oakland.edu Sat Aug 26 16:39:09 1995
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater,alt.conspiracy,
alt.politics.economics,soc.rights.human,alt.society.revolution,
soc.culture.usa,alt.politi
Subject: Clark: A review of the Mena coke operation
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soc.culture.usa:84610
Resent-Date: Sat, 26 Aug 1995 19:35:45 -0400 (EDT)
Resent-From: "David J. Sussman"
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As I've said, this report came very, very close to being published in the
_Washington Post_ in late January of this year. Revealed are both
state and federal law-enforcement files containing solid evidence of
one of the largest drug trafficking operations in U.S. history. Until
now these files have been kept secret.
Literally tons of cocaine were shipped into the U.S. over a period of 5
or 6 years, through Bill Clinton's Arkansas. The operation was
overseen by a former officer of the U.S. Army Special Forces, Barry
Seal, who court records show was an employee of both the CIA and
the DEA. This was an operation that was carried out with the
collusion and cover-up of the United States government.
Mena, of course, is not a new story. The highly esteemed journalist
Sarah McClendon has dealt with it; so has CBS, the _Wall St.
Journal_, _The Nation_, and the _Village Voice_. Elements of the
story have been in print, one place or another, now and then, since
1989, when Jack Anderson first broke it. But never before have so
many of the documented facts been put together in such compelling
fashion.
Consider the article that appeared in the _Wall St. Journal_ in 1994.
Here's a quote:
"(Barry) Seal was smuggling drugs and kept his planes at Mena
(Arkansas). . . The cargo plane he flew was the same one later flown
by Eugene Hasenfus when he was shot down over Nicaragua with a
load of Contra supplies."
Next, let's consider the principal and most credible people who have
thus far testified, and who have, in doing so, implicated the President
of the United States. First there is IRS investigator Bill Duncan,
followed by Arkansas State Police investigator Russell Welch,
Arkansas Attorney General Winston Bryant, Congressman Bill
Alexander, and various other law enforcement officials. In 1991, Bill
Duncan testified at a joint investigation by the Arkansas state attorney
general's office and the U.S. Congress. At that time he referred to 29
federal indictments having to do with a Mena-based money laundering
scheme that was in operation when Clinton was governor of the state.
The problem was, Duncan said, that the U.S. Attorney for the region,
as if because of orders from above, had refused to act on these
indictments. Then too, there was the matter that the IRS had
specifically instructed him---its own investigator---to "withhold
information from Congress and to perjure (himself)." This Duncan
stated before Congress. He further testified that the U.S. Attorney for
the region had stopped the subpoenas in this investigation and had
blocked the entire investigation.
Meanwhile, Arkansas Attorney General Winston Bryant wrote to
independent counsel Lawrence Walsh in 1991, expressing his
bewilderment as to "why no one was prosecuted in Arkansas despite a
mountain of evidence that (Barry) Seal was using Arkansas as his
principle staging area (for drug smuggling) during the years 1982
through 1985." The fact that Mena was indeed one of the centers for
international drug smuggling is confirmed by official IRS and DEA
records, sworn court testimony, and other corroborative records. In
fact Seal later admitted to IRS investigator Duncan that he had indeed
been a drug smuggler!
So why was he allowed to continue? The answer, perhaps, lies in U.S.
Customs evidence that Seal surreptitiously exported huge arms
shipments to the repressive governments of Bolivia, Argentina, Peru,
and Brazil, as well as to the Contras. In a sense, Barry Seal was an
instrument of U.S. foreign policy, and was appropriately (if illegally
and improperly) rewarded for his assistance.
Remember, though, we're talking about many thousands of kilos of
cocaine and literally hundreds of millions of dollars in drug profits.
According to a 1986 letter from the Louisiana attorney general to then
U.S. attorney general Edwin Meese, this former U.S. military officer
Barry Seal (with well established CIA connections, flying CIA charter
planes) "smuggled between $3 billion and $5 billion of drugs into the
U.S." In addition to the $50,000 a day in drug-money greenbacks that
Seal's people were depositing into banks around Mena between 1981
and 1985---they have testified to this---Seal was also receiving
$800,000 a year from the U.S. government---so he testified---because
of the valuable information and evidence he was providing the gov't
about the Sandinista/Columbian involvement in this drug trafficking.
Then, after he was murdered by a Medellin hit squad, Seal's relatives
and friends all testified to police that he had told them he was working
for the CIA when he established his smuggling operations at Mena.
Even the IRS had determined, in its investigations, that the millions
"earned" by Seal between 1984 and 1986 was not illegal, because of
his "CIA-DEA employment" at the time. It was the CIA, after all, that
had installed cameras in one of Seal's planes, so as allow him to get
photographic evidence, much touted by Ronald Reagan, of the
Sandinistas loading Colombian cocaine onto a plane, for shipment into
the U.S. Perhaps most compelling of all, court documents show
clearly that Seal was indeed employed both by the CIA and the DEA
in 1984 and 1985.
In addition, a spokesman for Oliver North actually told the
_Washington Post_ that North had been kept aware of Seal's work
through "intelligence sources." Indeed one of Seal's planes was
purchased by North's Iran-Contra operation, known as "The
Enterprise," and was used to smuggle still more cocaine back into the
U.S. on each return trip, after guns were delivered to the Contras.
This according to sworn testimony by former high-ranking DEA agent
Celerino Castillo. Finally there is the Arkansas gun manufacturer
who, in 1993, testified in federal court that the CIA contracted with
him to build 250 automatic pistols, equipped with silencers, for the
Mena operation. At that time, he testified, he was personally
introduced to Barry Seal, in Mena, by a CIA operative, and then sold
weapons to Seal.
Interestingly the gun manufacturer was provided with a U.S.
Department of Defense purchase-order for some of the weapons he
sold at this time, but was never paid the $140,000 that the government
owed him, due to the fact that when the Hasenfus CIA plane was shot
down over Nicaragua, Mena's population was suddenly reduced by half
and he was unable to collect.
And who, according to telephone records, was the first person that the
Central American CIA operative in charge of this smuggling operation
telephoned, after this plane went down? None other than George
Bush, our then beloved Vice President.
More evidence from the article appears in the next post.
Richard Clark
----- End Included Message -----
----- Begin Included Message -----
From owner-cs@oak.oakland.edu Sun Aug 27 18:45:19 1995
From: cardin@slip.net (Richard Clark)
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater,alt.conspiracy,
alt.politics.economics,soc.rights.human,alt.society.revolution,
soc.culture.usa,alt.politi
Subject: more?: A review of the Mena coke operation
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soc.culture.usa:84690
Resent-Date: Sun, 27 Aug 1995 21:18:26 -0400 (EDT)
Resent-From: "David J. Sussman"
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The secretaries employed at the Mena airport have testified that when
Barry Seal flew into Mena "there would be stacks of cash to be taken to
the bank and laundered." One secretary told IRS investigator Bill
Duncan that she was ordered to obtain numerous cashier's checks, each
in an amount just under $10,000, at various banks around Mena. Why?
--- So that federal Currency Transaction Reports would not have to be
filed. Bank tellers testified before a federal grand jury about an
instance when a Mena airport employee carried a suitcase into their
bank that was stuffed with $70,000 in cash. The bank officer calmly
proceeded from one teller to the next, handing out stacks of hundred
dollar bills to each one, so that the proper cashier's checks could be
drawn up without delay. (The best customers get the best service.)
Between 1981 and 1983, hundreds of thousands of dollars were in this
way laundered just in the few small banks near Mena, according to law-
enforcement sources. Millions more were laundered throughout
Arkansas. [According to other sources there is also evidence that then-
governor Clinton was able to siphon off some of these proceeds, putting
them to use in the purchase of political advantage not otherwise
available. Apparently much of Arkansas was benefiting from this
operation, especially the Arkansas Development Finance Authority
(AFDA), which helped launder (and disburse) much of the money.
Political payoffs were rampant.] Of special interest here, to the
Whitewater special prosecutor, were the huge and completely
unaccountable infusions of cash into various Arkansas financial
institutions. IRS records show a "major increase" in the amount of
large cash and bank transactions in Arkansas around this period,
despite a rather poor and struggling local economy. It would seem that
unless the Whitewater investigation is somehow corrupted or stopped,
some very upsetting truth is likely to emerge. Note: many of the
recently unearthed Barry Seal documents have been forwarded to the
Whitewater special prosecutor because they are believed to have great
relevance to that investigation.
What happened to the nine different investigations into Mena after
1987? Mainly it was a matter of compromised federal grand juries and
congressional inquiries that were suppressed by the National Security
Council under Ronald Reagan's directives. Then there was Justice
Department sand-bagging under George Bush. The whole story had to
be quashed for reasons of "national security." It seems that Reagan,
Bush and Clinton can't imagine a nation in which the truth about this
would come out. Why? Perhaps because it would be a nation in which
they would be in jail.
Curiously, as governor of Arkansas in 1991, Clinton publicly
acknowledged that the Mena investigation had found "linkages to the
federal government," and had come up with "all kinds of questions
about whether he [Barry Seal] had any links to the CIA" and about
whether or not this was tied into "the Iran-Contra deal." But then
Clinton apparently decided it would not be to his advantage to press for
any further inquiry. Meanwhile his principal political backers in
Arkansas are under FBI investigation and have been assigned case
numbers under the Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Intelligence
System.
Clinton's failure, as governor, to press for an investigation of this is
mighty strange, according to Bill Plante and Michael Singer of CBS
News. They write that "a Republican administration was apparently
sponsoring a Contra-aid operation in his state and protecting a
smuggling ring that flew tons of cocaine through Arkansas."
Now, for the time being, one can only speculate as to why _president_
Bill, now that he has the power, does not immediately ask for a full
report from the CIA, IRS, DEA, and FBI about their rather abundant
and long-surpressed records having to do with the Mena operation.
Why must the cover-up continue, Bill? Why not bring the whole truth
out into the open? Could the answer to this question possibly have
something to do with the tens of thousands of lives that have been
destroyed by these tons of coke that were flown into Arkansas? Could it
possibly have something to do with the tens of thousands of young black
men whose souls rot in the proliferating numbers of penitentiaries that
have had to be constructed to house them all? Worst of all, could these
be the people who unwittingly made it possible for Bill Clinton to
become president?
Richard Clark
----- Begin Included Message -----
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From: abigreen@inx.net
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater
Subject: Re: TYRRELL: L.D. Brown/Mena/Clinton/Bush
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I am moving this thread forward because for some reason it has been virtually
ignored. Yet it is the most important piece of writing to appear in the national
media and it sets forth just how precarious a hold the Clintons now have on
the White House, dependent totally upon the willful dereliction of professional
duty by all of the major news organizations in this country. The article that
follows, posted yesterday by Edward Zehr, marks a turning point not only in
the Whitewater-Foster-Mena scandal, but a no-turning-back point for Bob
Tyrrell, its author, who is also the editor of The American Spectator. It
appeared in yesterday's Washington Times. If you want to forward something
to your favorite politician, media type, or independent counsel, consider this
outstanding piece of commentary.
--Martin McPhillips
> ezehr@CapAccess.org (Edward W. Zehr) writes:
> August 25, 1995
>
> FURTIVE DRUG FLIGHTS
>
> By R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.
>
> Last month, a most amazing thing happened in American Journalism,
> demonstrating how easily intimidated and politically sensitive the
> supposedly bold American press is. A witness came forward and
> reported to me - and shortly thereafter in depositions - that the
> long-rumored American intelligence operation to resupply the
> Contras in the 1980s was carried out through flights out of
> Arkansas. On the return flights, drugs were brought into the state.
> Gov. Clinton knew about both legs of these flights. As president,
> he has lied about this activity repeatedly -and he has attempted to
> intimidate this witness. The Wall Street Journal, which has been
> following this story for several years, editorialized on the
> importance of this witness' revelations to me. Now for the amazing
> thing: No other major media source even reported the story. Today,
> I think I know why. There is more to the story.
>
> The witness, a former narcotics investigator and erstwhile
> confidant of Mr. Clinton, has testified in legally binding
> deposition that in 1984 with the encouragement of his boss, then-
> Gov. Clinton, he traveled on two flights from Arkansas' Mena
> airport to Central America. On those flights, for which the Central
> Intelligence agency paid him $5,000, arms were dropped to the
> Contras. The witness, Arkansas state trooper L.D. Brown, discovered
> that on the return leg of these flights, the pilot, Barry Seal, was
> carrying large quantities of cocaine. Seal was a convicted drug
> trafficker who later was shot dead in Louisiana.
>
> Three Columbians have been convicted of the crime. At the time of
> the flights, Seal was an operative with the Drug Enforcement
> Administration and a contract employee with the Central
> Intelligence Agency. After Mr. Brown's second flight with Seal, the
> pilot showed Mr. Brown both cocaine and money he had picked up in
> Central America. Alarmed and angered, Mr. Brown returned to the man
> who had gotten him onto these flights, Mr. Clinton, to warn him of
> the drug shipments. Mr. Clinton's blase response was, "That's [Dan]
> Lasater's deal, that's Lasater's deal." Lasater, a Clinton
> supporter in Arkansas, was eventually convicted of drug
> distribution. He was a benefactor of another drug user, Bill
> Clinton's brother Roger.
>
> There is more to this story, which perhaps explains the press's
> reluctance to report it. After Mr. Clinton said, "That's Lasater's
> deal," he went on to say "and your buddy Bush knows about it." Or
> it could have been "your hero Bush knows about it" - Mr. Brown is
> not certain about the precise wording. Mr. Brown had met then-Vice
> President Bush with Mr. Clinton a year before and admired him.
>
> In the months before Mr. Brown's flights, Mr. Clinton reminded Mr.
> Brown that Mr. Bush had once headed the CIA. Mr. Clinton's mention
> of Mr. Bush's old position was made while he was helping Mr. Brown
> with his application for employment with the CIA. I have copies of
> the correspondence that took place at this time between Mr. Brown
> and the agency. More importantly, an essay Mr. Brown submitted to
> the CIA bears Mr. Clinton's handwritten interpolations. Mr. Brown's
> testimony that Mr. Clinton told him about Mr. Bush's knowledge of
> Mena is to be included in a corrected version of Mr. Brown's recent
> deposition. The deposition results from a false arrest and
> defamation suit against, among others, the former chief of security
> to then-Gov. Clinton. Similar testimony by Mr. Brown has been given
> to the independent counsel probing Whitewater, Kenneth Starr.
>
> The L.D. Brown story is not going to go away.People in the press
> who believe they can or should protect a Republican or a Democratic
> president are kidding themselves. Indeed the story is spreading,
> and fast. I have legal depositions from witnesses refuting Mr.
> Clinton's claim that he had little knowledge of Mena airport. Now
> two more witnesses have come forward corroborating Mr. Brown's
> story that he flew to Central America and that he associated with
> Barry Seal. Both of these sources are going to be subpoenaed. In
> the Wall Street Journal's July 10 editorial the editors wrote,
> "Mena cries out for investigation. A congressional committee with
> resources, subpoena power, and the perseverance displayed by some
> past chairmen should look into this. If some chips fall on the
> Republican side, so be it. Important questions need to be
> answered."
>
> Well, I have word that the important questions have multiplied
> since last month's revelations. Reliable sources have told me that
> the independent counsel has been informed of attempts by the White
> House to intimidate the witness, L.D. Brown, and to obstruct
> justice. Other equally reliable sources have told me that since Mr.
> Brown's story came out, Mr. Clinton told an Arkansas senator that
> he was having the Internal Revenue Service investigate Mr. Brown's
> tax returns. Moreover I am told that someone acting directly or
> indirectly on behalf of the president has gotten a copy of the 1971
> death certificate of Joann Brown, Mr. Brown's mother who died in a
> gun accident. The last time Mr. Clinton tried to shut down a media
> investigation of Mr. Brown, his lawyer implied to ABC News that Mr.
> Brown played a sinister role in his mother's death.
>
> Quite by accident a couple of weeks back I had the opportunity to
> ask Mr. Clinton for his response to Mr. Brown's claim that, as
> governor, Mr. Clinton had knowledge of Mena being a shipping point
> for illegal arms, drugs trafficking and money laundering. He called
> Mr. Brown a "pathological liar," though in no instance have any
> investigators been able to find Mr. Brown's lying. And the
> president's record in this department is well, spotty. The
> president's legendary anger then surged as he grumbled, "Lies,
> lies, lies." We have all heard of his tantrums. As I was the target
> of this one, I must say that I found his anger curious. He is a
> large mann and in fact rugged looking, but his tantrum was
> strangely feckless, tinny and petulant. What came to mind was not
> the anger of a statesman but rather Tinkerbell in a snit. Mr.
> Clinton's was anger without force. It really is time for the media
> to review Mr. Brown's original charges. And now there are new
> charges of the White House intimidating a witness and obstructing
> justice.
>
>
>>>>
More commentary: Bob Tyrrell (R. Emmett Tyrrell) is not a man given to
hyperbole.
He is indeed a very conservative writer, but he is very natural about his
conservatism. He is no neophyte. The American Spectator has followed the
Whitewater/Clinton debacle from the beginning. The thing I like about this
article is--and this may surprise you--is that it has the same rock hard serious
tone that finally became a part of the New York Times coverage of
Whitewater right after the last set of indictments.
Another thing I like about this article is that Tyrrell is opening a new front on
the criminal--and I use the word criminal advisedly--negligence of the news
media in failing to cover the real story. I am very close to wondering what it
would take to file a class action suit against the major networks and the major
national newspapers for failing to diligently investigate the extraordinary
charges that people are now bringing forward against a sitting President of
the United States.
I know the First Amendment does guarantee a free press, but one has to
wonder whether or not the across-the-board failure of the major news media
to cover these stories does not constitute some kind of fundamental breach
of contract with the American people. The New York Times, for instance,
carries the motto "All the news that's fit to print." Certainly one could make a
good case that that represents a certain kind of warranty of product, and that
whereas there are many stories about which there can be a debate over
newswothiness, but in the case of a criminal presidency, there can be no
such debate.
Therefore, the New York Times is in breach of its warranty and contract with
its readers by not aggressively providing the facts about who, what, when,
where, why and how these scandals have come about.
And, of course, I continue to be astounded by the fact that Tyrrell, and, as he
pointed out, the July 10 lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal have been
ignored by other media interests. Imagine if the WSJ ran an editorial claiming
that Newt's book deal had in fact been a backchannel deal with Rupert
Murdock; here is how Tom Brokaw would lead off the NBC Nightly News:
"And now the embattled Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, is being
accussed by a traditional ally of conservative Republicans, the editorial page
of the Wall Street Journal. And it's that same book deal with Rupert Murdock
that has the Speaker in trouble again. Brian Williams reports from New York."
Then Williams would come on, and in a very solemn Watergate-like tone,
read excerpts from the powerfully written editorial. Clinton could cut the paws
off of a Panda bear at the zoo and it would be turned into a human interest
story about the stresses of the Presidency.
This has gone too far, this gigantic silence on the part of journalists, even as
they reposition themselves daily for the eventual end of the Clinton
Presidency. I for one, and I have been a long-time critic of the big media,
have never seen anything like this. I read a post over in AOL that said
something like, if Watergate had been covered like this, there would not
have been a Watergate. To which I responded, if the whole 1970s had been
covered like this, there wouldn't have been any 1970s.
Now I am beginning to wonder whether or not the media could have kept the
public from knowing about World Wars I and II if they had covered it the way
they cover Clinton. So when this is all over the media will have not a shred of
whatever morsel of credibility it ever had in my mind. It has just become one
big awful sick joke.
So as we approach the next century, I advise all of my colleagues in this
newsgroup to begin honing your skills as journalists. It is not a deep field; you
can discover all of its principles in about one week (I mean the real principles
of journalism not the politically correct biases of the mainstream press), and
then you can master the techniques of newsgathering, reporting and writing
in the span of a month or so. Any good basic journalism text will do. And then
we will have the foundation of a national news service, the independent
citizens news service, just like those that sprung up in Eastern Europe before
the fall of communism.
The hell with these Ivy League pampered and perfumed sycophants. They
are just a bunch of lying bastards with the ethics of a pack of stray dogs and
the intellectual achievment of clerks at the motor vehicle departments across
the land. They just buy their suits at Brooks Brothers and still comb their hair
like they did when they were twelve years old.
The most disturbing thing about the mainstream press, however, is it's
growing sophistication at making less-than-news into more-than-news. Take
the OJ trial. To be sure it is one of the big stories of our times, of this century.
But does it really require that Brokaw introduce two experts--Ira Reiner and
Jack Ford--to analyze the days events at a trial that has already gone on for
over 220 days? Where were the legal experts to analyze what might be the
next move of the Independent Counsel after the last huge round of
indictments? Experts? NBC did not even give it the treatment of a 30-second
story. They breezed over it with about six seconds of news around the nation
time.
The President's business partners and his successor as governor of
Arkansas are indicted in a scandal that has been before the national eye off
and on for about two years and it is treated like a non-story. This is
scandalous. It is beyond scandalous. When the truth comes out, when the
instant histories of this period are written, the role the press has played in all
of this may be even more of a scandal than a criminal presidency. It is just
beyond belief that we have come to this.
So in addition to urging you all to learn the rudimentary arts and craft of
journalism, I urge you all to get on the phone tonight and read Tyrrell's column
to ten friends, and then ask them to each tell ten friends and then fax the
column to ten friends and then take the column and make a hundred xerox
copies of it and hand it out at your church or synagogue or at the local diner
or on the corner. This shit has just gone too far. The goddamn Nazis couldn't
have done a better job than the Brokaws, Rathers, Jennings, Woodruffs,
Doles, and their masters. The Nazis were not this good at hiding the truth. I
have friends and relatives who still have no grasp at all of just how serious
are the charges against the clown in the Oval O. "Well it's not being covered
out here. We haven't heard a thing about it." This, my friends, is the ultimate
poison created by the fact, which has been casually repeated over and over
again for the last decade and a half, that most Americans get most of their
news from television. Well here is the fruit of that great transformation. An
America of 250,000,000 people who are unaware, for the most part, that the
President of the United States, and his lovely wife, is a career criminal. And a
press that diverts attention by talking up how "partisan" DC politics has
become, and how Whitewater is just another example of that. In other words,
par for the course!
--Martin McPhillips
----- End Included Message -----
----- End Included Message -----
----- Begin Included Message -----
From owner-cs@oak.oakland.edu Mon Aug 28 06:40:15 1995
From: ezehr@CapAccess.org (Edward W. Zehr)
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater
Subject: DEA at Mena? NICHOLS interview with Mike Reagan comment
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Resent-Date: Mon, 28 Aug 1995 09:38:55 -0400 (EDT)
Resent-From: "David J. Sussman"
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In Message-ID:
chauptma@netcom.com (Charles Hauppman) wrote:
>Strange indeed that Larry all of a sudden has cleared the Republicans of
>any connection to Mena. I find that Terry Reeds book is more credible
>than some of Larry's comments have been in the past, but still Larry is
>on the ground and SHOULD know what happened in the past.
Well, it's not really so strange if you have followed Nichols' comments
for the past six months or so. He stated his reasons openly in his
August 24 interview with Mike Reagan:
NICHOLS: Oh absolutely - once, I believe, the Republicans lose the
fear that they're gonna get themselves in trouble, then I think
you'll see the gates open. You know, that's been one of the major
drawbacks to the Republicans - they've been afraid to go after
ADFA, because to get to ADFA, you've got to have a source of money.
The source of money was Mena. And then if they opened up Mena, they
were afraid that they would be getting a whole bunch of Republicans.
Nichols believes that the Republicans' fear of uncovering something at
Mena that would incriminate some of their own has inhibited them from
pursuing the Clinton scandals - from money laundering by ADFA to the
death of Vince Foster. Given their timidity in this summer's hearings,
he may have a point. Apparently he believes the article to which he
referred will support Oliver North's contention that all illicit drug
activity in the Contra operation had been reported to the DEA. He hopes
that this will remove whatever inhibitions the GOP may have about going
after Clinton.
Oliver North raises an interesting point about the drug-running allegations
in his book *Under Fire*:
Very little in my life has angered me as much as the allegations
that I or anyone else involved with the resistance had a drug
connection. I hate to put it in these terms, but since December
1986, the office of the special prosecutor [Lawrence Walsh] has
spent tens of millions of dollars investigating us - and me in
particular. If there was even a grain of truth to these stories,
it surely would have come out.
On the face of it, North would seem to have a point - unless Walsh was
reluctant to open that can of worms. Part of the problem is that Mena
is not the only place illicit drugs are alleged to have been brought
into the country in connection with a covert CIA operation. (See, for
example, Sally Denton's book *The Bluegrass Conspiracy* that deals with
such a scandal in Kentucky during the 1980s).
The deeper one digs into the Mena story and its implications, the broader
they appear to be. What, for example, did Ross Perot have against George
Bush that made him so antagonistic as to run against him in 1992? Perot
is enough of a realist to understand that he had no chance to win -
but had a definite opportunity to deny Bush a second term. But why did
he do it? It was monstrously expensive, both in terms of money and lost
prestige for Perot, who was generally well thought of before he entered
the presidential race.
To understand this, one must recall that Perot supported Reagan in 1980,
and after the election Reagan gave Perot a broad mandate to investigate
rumors that American POWs had been abandoned when the U.S. pulled out
of Vietnam. Perot was frustrated at every turn by the entrenched
bureaucracy.
I quote from the book *Kiss the Boys Goodbye*, written by Monika Jensen-
Stevenson and William Stevenson and published in 1990:
Relations between Bush and Perot had gone downhill ever since the
Vice President had asked Ross Perot how his POW/MIA investigations
were going.
"Well, George, I go in looking for prisoners," said Perot, "but
I spend all my time discovering the government has been moving
drugs around the world and is involved in illegal arms deals...
I can't get at the prisoners because of the corruption among our
own covert people."
This ended Perot's official access to the highly classified files
as a one-man presidential investigator. "I have been ordered to
cease and desist," he had informed the families of missing men early
in 1987.
Of course, this book treats Perot in a favorable light. The quotation
obviously came from Perot and was no doubt "remembered" in such a way
as to place him at an advantage. Nevertheless, this excerpt suggests
the extent to which widespread corruption within the government has
poisoned every aspect of its operation and tainted those who chose as
their career a life of "public service."
Through continuous neglect by all concerned this wound has been allowed
to fester until gangrene set in. We have now reached the stage that no
thoughtful person is able to believe the lies and cover stories told
by government officials who appear desperate to cover their tracks.
Unfortunately, many knowledgeable persons within the government and
the establishment media (which have become little more than a branch of
the government) still pretend to believe the lies. If this situation is
not corrected soon, it will destroy the legitimacy of the government.
Date: Sun, 27 AUG 95 20:26:00 -0500
From: Financial Opportunities
Newgroups: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater
Subject: US Soldier Refuses UN Uniform!
Content-Length: 2563
X-Lines: 69
Status: RO
There's hope yet :)....
>Date: Sun, 27 Aug 1995 05:47:29 -0400
>From: joyce1@ix.netcom.COM (Joyce Rosenwald )
> (by way of Charles Zeps )
>Subject: US soldier refuses UN uniform!
>
>
>Date: Sat, 26 Aug 1995 13:17:02 -0400
>
>Subject: US soldier refuses UN uniform!
>More on soldier's woes...
>
>Specialist Michael New, medic with the 3rd Infantry Division
>in Germany, has indicated his refusal to wear a blue beret
>or blue helmet in October when his unit is deployed to
>Macedonia (Yugoslavia) to conduct a UN "peacekeeping mission"
>there.
>
>New says, "I took an oath to the Constitution of the United
>States, and I can find no reference to the United Nations in
>it anywhere."
>
>The Army says, "You took an oath to obey legal orders and
>you WILL comply, or you will face possible court martial,
>possible imprisonment, and certainly a less-than-honorable
>discharge.
>
>New says, "It is not clear to me why I have to change my
>uniform in order to represent my country."
>
>The Army says, "You are not there to represent your country.
>You are there to represent the U.N."
>
>New says, "By what authority can you transfer my loyalty
>without my permission?"
>
>Etc., etc. On Monday, 28 August, New will meet with a JAG
>lawyer (military) and discuss his options. His future looks
>bleak unless there is an outcry of anger from constituents
>to Congressmen over this issue.
>
>Please ask your Congressman to take a public stand on this
>issue -- and to explain by what CONSTITUTIONAL authority can
>an American citizen and soldier be forced to serve in the
>UN or any other foreign army?
>
>Is Presidential Decision Directive #25 behind all this? How
>can we know? President Clinton has classified it. Yet it
>is supposed to the be rules of deployment of American soldiers
>under UN auspices.
>
>This is reminiscent of Nazi Germany, or the Soviet Union,
>where men are told to forget their consciences and to obey
>any and all orders without regard for their previous oaths.
>
>Privately, many officers and non-coms agree with Michael New.
>Publicly, they all have careers and retirement to consider.
>
>Please write to your Congressman, or to your favorite
>candidate for President and ask him to take a stand on this
>issue, not for Spec. Michael New's sake, but for the sake of
>freedom and American sovereignty -- an old fashioned idea
>which has come back -- at least to one American soldier!
>
>.. The concept of national sovereignty is becoming obsolete.
>.. -- Strobe Talbott, Deputy Secretary of State under Clinton
Date: Sun, 27 AUG 95 20:26:00 -0500
From: Financial Opportunities
Newgroups: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater
Subject: US Soldier Refuses UN Uniform!
Content-Length: 2788
X-Lines: 74
Status: RO
There's hope yet :)....
>Date: Sun, 27 Aug 1995 05:47:29 -0400
>From: joyce1@ix.netcom.COM (Joyce Rosenwald )
> (by way of Charles Zeps )
>Subject: US soldier refuses UN uniform!
>
>
>Date: Sat, 26 Aug 1995 13:17:02 -0400
>
>Subject: US soldier refuses UN uniform!
>More on soldier's woes...
>
>Specialist Michael New, medic with the 3rd Infantry Division
>in Germany, has indicated his refusal to wear a blue beret
>or blue helmet in October when his unit is deployed to
>Macedonia (Yugoslavia) to conduct a UN "peacekeeping mission"
>there.
>
>New says, "I took an oath to the Constitution of the United
>States, and I can find no reference to the United Nations in
>it anywhere."
>
>The Army says, "You took an oath to obey legal orders and
>you WILL comply, or you will face possible court martial,
>possible imprisonment, and certainly a less-than-honorable
>discharge.
>
>New says, "It is not clear to me why I have to change my
>uniform in order to represent my country."
>
>The Army says, "You are not there to represent your country.
>You are there to represent the U.N."
>
>New says, "By what authority can you transfer my loyalty
>without my permission?"
>
>Etc., etc. On Monday, 28 August, New will meet with a JAG
>lawyer (military) and discuss his options. His future looks
>bleak unless there is an outcry of anger from constituents
>to Congressmen over this issue.
>
>Please ask your Congressman to take a public stand on this
>issue -- and to explain by what CONSTITUTIONAL authority can
>an American citizen and soldier be forced to serve in the
>UN or any other foreign army?
>
>Is Presidential Decision Directive #25 behind all this? How
>can we know? President Clinton has classified it. Yet it
>is supposed to the be rules of deployment of American soldiers
>under UN auspices.
>
>This is reminiscent of Nazi Germany, or the Soviet Union,
>where men are told to forget their consciences and to obey
>any and all orders without regard for their previous oaths.
>
>Privately, many officers and non-coms agree with Michael New.
>Publicly, they all have careers and retirement to consider.
>
>Please write to your Congressman, or to your favorite
>candidate for President and ask him to take a stand on this
>issue, not for Spec. Michael New's sake, but for the sake of
>freedom and American sovereignty -- an old fashioned idea
>which has come back -- at least to one American soldier!
>
>.. The concept of national sovereignty is becoming obsolete.
>.. -- Strobe Talbott, Deputy Secretary of State under Clinton
>*************************************************************************
>UCC 1-207 Unsubscribe info - send to usa-forever-request@webcom.com the
>word unsubscribe in the body of the message. | Listowner pc-man@pobox.com
----- End Included Message -----
Date: Tue Aug 29, 1995 9:17 am CST
From: Carolyn Rubright
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: clloyd@ix.netcom.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Reporting from Arkansas
FROM: MAXINE ALEXANDER (NKYF03A) Prodigy
From Arkansas Democrat-Gazette - August 26, 1995
BRITISH TV JOURNALIST FINISHED FILMING MENA AIRPORT
'SECRETS'
Reporter calls tale of drugs, arms for Contras
"fascinating"
by Rodney Bowers
Democrat-Gazette State Reporter
MENA -- A British journalist said Friday that he found the
"secrets and allegations" of drugs and arms smuggling at the
Mena airport "fascinating."
"It's a fascinating story that we think will interest
British viewers," said David Baxter, an associate producer
for the independent film company 20-20. "If that sort of
thing happened in the United Kingdom, it would be amazing"
and warrant extensive national media reporting, which he
said "strangely" has not occurred here.
Baxter's London-based film crew spent three weeks in
Arkansas this month investigating allegations that convicted
drug smuggler Barry Seal shipped "hundreds of pounds" of
cocaine into the state through the Mena airport in the early
1980s. They also investigated allegations that Seal flew
illegal firearms out of the airport to the Nicaraguan
Contras during Bill Clinton's tenure as governor. The film
crew also looked into allegations that Seal
funneled his drug money through Clinton associates and
state agencies.
Seal, who cooperated as a federal Drug Enforcement
Administration witness, died in a hail of gunfire in
February 1986 as he returned to a halfway house in Baton
Rouge, La., where he was serving a sentence in a federal
drug case. Authorities later arrested and convicted a
group of Columbians in the assassination.
It also was the October 1986 crash of one of Seal's cargo
airplanes - a
C-123K based for a time at Mena - that led to the unraveling
of a covert U.S. operation to arm Contra rebels against the
communist government in Nicaragua.
Baxter said he expects the report to air Sept. 7 or 14 as
part of "The Big Story," a "60 Minutes" type program on the
British television network ITV.
Baxter said he found the account of a former Clinton
security guard particularly interesting, adding, "We're very
pleased with our interview with L.D.Brown." Brown has
claimed he left the governor's security force in 1984 to
work for the CIA and that he participated in Seal's drugs
flights at Mena.
"Obviously, if L.D. Brown is to be believed - and he
certainly comes across to me as honest - Clinton knew about
what was going on," Baxter said. "I'm certainly startled by
that."
Clinton, however, has disputed Brown's story, calling him
a "pathological liar."
During the course of the group's investigation, Baxter
said, "We spoke to people who claimed they were interviewed
by (Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth) Starr ...
concerning the Arkansas Development and Finance Authority"
and the possibility that Seal and others laundered drug
money through that organization.
Others interviewed by the British crew for their
television report included:
*Terry Reed, a former Little Rock businessman who recently
claimed that Iran-Contra figure Oliver North recruited him
to train Contra pilots at Mena and that Clinton knew of the
drugs and arms smuggling at the airport.
*Bill Dunca, a former IRS agent who investigated Seal's
admitted money-laundering at Mena.
*Russell Welch, a state police investigator who looked
into Seal's smuggling activities at the airport.
*John Brown,a former Saline County sheriff's Deputy who
investigated the 1987 deaths of Bryant teen-agers Don G.
Henry and Larry K. Ives and thought them to be linked to the
Mena operation.
A federal grand jury meeting in the late 1980s in western
Arkansas did not return any indictments in its Mena investi-
gation. Several people associated with the investigation
have claimed the U.S. attorney's office withheld information
from the grand jury.
J. Michael Fitzhugh, the former U.S. attorney who oversaw
the investigation, has denied the allegation.
Baxter said he and the film crew had several unusual
experiences while in Arkansas, including seeing an Air Force
helicopter land at the Mena airport for "no apparent
reason".
Also while in Mena, he said, city police twice pulled over
members of the film crew and asked for identification and
their reason for being there. Baxter said that did not
bother him as much, however, as an incident at Little Rock.
"I found a man in my motel room in the middle of the
night," he said. Baxter said the man explained that he had
been sleepwalking and theorized he entered Baxter's unlocked
door. (And elephants fly, too - Mine mma)
While it "turned out to be quite innocent and amusing,"
Baxter said, "a certain percentage of me still thinks that
it may have been something more."
Likewise, Baxter said he believes there might be more to
the Mena story. "I would very much like to come back and
have a more thorough investigation," he said.
END OF ARTICLE
The "sleepwalking" man makes me feel he learned his answers
at the knees of WW hearings. Thought this was interesting
and all of you (instead of ya'll) would enjoy it.
Regards, Maxine 8:10 PM CST
Date: Wed Aug 30, 1995 2:25 pm CST
From: snet l
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: snet-l@world.std.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Sara McClendon: "U.S. government death squads"
I heard Sara McClendon interviewed on the Michael Savage talk show
yesterday afternoon (KSFO, 560 AM, San Francisco).
Now someone correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that Sara McClendon
qualifies as SOMEONE with respect to her journalistic credentials. I
believe that she as regarded as the "dean" of the Washington press corps,
and was one of the biggest name writers for the Associated Press. I
understand that it was a long standing tradition that McClendon would
always wear a red dress to Presidential press conferences, sit in the
front row, and have the privilege of asking the first question. To
repeat, in the world of journalism, Sara McClendon was SOMEBODY.
I cannot recap everything that was said in the interview on KSFO, but the
most remarkable things that I remember are the following:
1.) The U.S. government has "death squads": the CIA probably has two or
three, the FBI probably has one, the Justice department probably has one.
2.) Vince Fosters death should be investigated as a murder. Foster had
learned some very alarming things, had become disillusioned/disgusted,
and was going to meet with the President on Wednesday, without Web
Hubbel, and spill the beans. But on the Tuesday before the meeting,
Foster's life ended or was ended. (Can anyone shed some light on this?
Does anyone know if there is any evidence or testimony that Foster
and Clinton were scheduled to meet on Wednesday?)
3.) I can't recall the nuances, but McClendon appeared to distance
herself or be non-committal on the Jim Norman "Fostergate" story. I
think her response was "I haven't looked into that and can't say anything
about it." (McClendon appeared to be very defensive, though, when a
caller raised the question about whether the FBI or other agencies had
used Mossad to facilitate/perpetrate "suicides" of various people in the
U.S. Without answering the question, she simply responded that after WW
II the U.S. had brought former Nazis into the government in the U.S.)
4.) When a caller made reference to the circulating reports (on the
internet) of 25 or 35 people associated with the Clinton's in Arkansas
now being deceased under mysterious or untimely circumstances, McClendon
indicated that there were perhaps 67 people who's deaths could be linked
to the government. The only specific case I recall her mentioning was
that of a Marine Corps Colonel who had learned of Marine Corps planes
bringing illegal drugs into the country and who was killed to silence him.
5.) McClendon said that the reason that the drug traffic is so large and
that the war against drugs has been such a failure is that goverment
officials and politicians receive a lot of money from it.
G. Holford
Date: Wed Aug 30, 1995 9:12 pm CST
From: Gerhard Holford
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: germanic@netcom.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Re: Sara McClendon: "U.S. government death squads"
On Wed, 30 Aug 1995, Daniel J. Mangan wrote:
>
> I'll correct you: I believe you are confusing McClendon with Helen
> Thomas, who is considered the dean of the White House Correspondents,
> and who works at UPI, not the AP. Thomas, I think, wears red dresses to
> presidential press conferences, and, I know, sits in the first row asks
> the first question, and says "Thank you Mr. President," at the end of
> the session. Helen Thomas is indeed 'SOMEBODY.'
> Now who McClendon is is a different story. Some view her as a crank,
> others as a refreshing alternative to the generally kowtowing White
> House corps. From what I know of her she's run her own news service for
> years -- which she had to do since no newspaper would hire her because
> of her sex -- and that Nixon press secretary Ron Ziegler treated her
> with disdain at times. For a good account of McClendon, Thomas, and
> other White House reporters, check out "The Boys on The Bus," by Tim
> Crouse, who was Hunter S. Thompson's fellow '72 campaign reporter for
> Rolling Stone. The book is, rightly so, considered a classic.
>
>
>
Yes, I believe I have confused Sara McClendon and Helen Thomas. All
those geriatric female reporters look alike to me.
Thanks for the correction.
Regards,
G. Holford
Date: Fri Sep 01, 1995 12:47 pm CST
From: nemo
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: nemo@jupiter.acs.oakland.edu
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: U.S. Death Squads [Part 2 of 2]
[continuation of Part 1]
[...commercial break...]
O.K. We are back, live. My guest is Gene Wheaton. He is an
investigator. He has had many, many years of experience, and
plenty of credentials to do what he does.
And you actually got recruited by military buddies of yours when
you were *out* of the military. And [you] started lookin', back
in the days of Iran-Contra.
WHEATON:
That's correct.
VALENTINE:
I remember the last time you were on. You said something about
helping "The Opponents for Ollie North". Well Ollie North got
beat. Can you take any credit?
WHEATON:
I certainly sit back here very pleased that he got beat. I... The
man is part of that "lunatic fringe". I equate him to corporal
Adolph Hitler, before the German government was taken over. They
really want a secret police state! He and his little fringe group
that he runs with. And I, I did what I could. They started a
disinformation program about 30 days before the election, to try
to get the national media to stop talking to me. But I was in
there working, to the last day.
TOM VALENTINE:
Well I understand that.
Now, when you began investigating the Iran-Contra affair, then
you ran into Ollie North right off the bat.
GENE WHEATON:
That's right. In the actual beginning, '85, you know I didn't
have any objection to covert operations, as long as they were in
the interest of national security and were legal and
congressionally approved and conformed to the Constitution. But
within several months, the folks I mentioned who asked me to help
'em started feeding me information about renegade operations,
about the theft of billions of dollars worth of taxpayer paid-for
weapons out of U.S. military stockpiles and NATO stockpiles being
sold, and the money being stashed in off-shore bank accounts: the
weapons going to both our friends and our enemies, just to keep
turmoil going in the world; and laundered drug money being used
for covert operations.
In the beginning, I thought the contractor pilots were cheating
on the National Security Council and Ollie North's people, and I
briefed CIA director Bill Casey and Ollie North's staff and the
Pentagon people, in early '86.
VALENTINE:
I'll bet they were really surprised that somebody was tellin' 'em
what they were doin'!
WHEATON:
Yeah! [laughs] I was a little naive. They said, "Oh, really?" And
then they all denied being involved. And thinking that I was only
one guy out there, they told me if I thought I could expose it,
to go ahead. So [they] sorta "threw down the gauntlet". But it
wasn't just me. It was a large group of patriotic people that
were helping me, and we...
VALENTINE:
A lot of those folks ended up in jail, did they not?
WHEATON:
Well... The wrong, not many of the *right* people ended up in
jail! There was...
VALENTINE:
Well I thought some of these guys who blew the whistle and ended
up in jail were pretty much on the right side.
WHEATON:
There were some people who ended up dead; some ended up in jail.
But the ones who *should* have been in jail are the ones walkin'
free today. [CN -- i.e., many of Wheaton's informants, the
"whistleblowers", were either murdered or imprisoned. But the
actual guilty parties avoided justice.]
VALENTINE:
Isn't that how it works.
No, I was thinking of... There was a fellow, named Martin, who
called me from jail in the south side. There's a Customs agent
named "Ayers(sp?)" who went to jail trying to put the figure of
the drug operations and the drugs and guns operations of the
Iran-Contra...
WHEATON:
He was a former special forces officer who was working under the
south Florida "task force" of narcotics. That's Brad Ayers.
VALENTINE:
Yes! Brad Ayers, yeah!
WHEATON:
His credibility was destroyed by disinformation, much like they
tried to do mine. The only thing [that] saved me is my strong
family background, my friends, and my military and police
reputation. But Brad really had a rough time, and is *still*
having a rough time.
VALENTINE:
Yes. In fact, I've known about Brad for many years, and we were
neighbors up in St. Paul, Minnesota. And I will be... I've never
brought him on as a guest! One of these days I may let him tell
his whole story. It's a hair-raiser.
WHEATON:
It certainly is. He's got a major, major... He had to fight
through the legal system in a lawsuit to try to obtain records
out of the CIA and Customs and U.S. Marshalls Office about bad
stories that were spread about him. He's got the documentation
now. I think he's taking some legal action.
VALENTINE:
Yes, he's tryin'. That's why I'm sayin' I'd like to get him back
on the show.
Now we had a character that came on this show; his wife came on
this show many times. He is said to be still in prison, over in
Austria, but *I* believe he's sittin' there, countin' his money
-- and that is Gunther Russbacher(sp?).
WHEATON:
Yes... I've avoided getting involved in that thing because I know
very little about him. Plus, I don't... The problem with Gunther
Russbacher that I see -- he's called me 2 or 3 times, while he
was in jail, but I've never met him...
VALENTINE:
Uh-huh [understands].
WHEATON:
.and I would try to pin him down on things. But like a *lot* of
guys involved in the covert operations community, these guys, as
part of their trade, are pathological liars, and they will
intermix the truth with fiction. When the truth would help 'em,
they will still tell you a lie. And he had so many conflicting
stories that he was saying to me that I couldn't determine
whether he was real or a phony. So I...
VALENTINE:
It drove ya nuts, didn't it!?
Yeah, he even... Uh, Ross Perot tried to get some facts out of
him and couldn't do it.
WHEATON:
I understand that. Yes.
VALENTINE:
Yeah. O.K. Now. I'm gonna ask your opinion on one of 'em. I
believe that Inslaw, [the] theft of that software, is one of the
biggest crimes in the history of American government. Right up
there... Iran-Contra are all part of it. And I'm just wondering
if you've had any, run across anything of that Inslaw case.
WHEATON:
Well, I have. Early on, Bill Hamilton contacted me. And I've had
several meetings with him, back in Washington, and gave him a
little advice. It's a very convoluted thing, but it was one of
the biggest rip-offs by the U.S. Justice Department and the
intelligence community [that] I have ever seen in my life. Every
time a judge ruled in his favor, that judge lost his job.
I know the people who actually sold his software overseas. And
I've given that information to him (I don't want to discuss it
over the air). But...
VALENTINE:
Yes. I understand.
I'm still following the Inslaw case. And of course, I've had
another one, just like Gunther Russbacher, in Michael
Riconosciuto!
WHEATON:
Some of them, I think, may be covert operators that just can't
distinguish the truth from fiction. And some of 'em are "ringers"
that they send in on you just as confusion people, so that you
don't know which way to go.
VALENTINE:
Aren't they good at that.
All right. My guest is Gene Wheaton. Subject: investigating the
kind of corruption that goes on in our government. If you'd like
to join us, 1-800-878-8255. I'm Tom Valentine. This is *Radio
Free America*.
[...commercial break...]
All right, we are back, live. My guest is Gene Wheaton.
You know, Gene, I'm sitting here as a journalist and a co-author
for many, many people; I'm saying, "Have you arranged for your
book yet?"
WHEATON:
[laughs] No. I'd have to write it as fiction. Nobody'd believe it
as the truth!
VALENTINE:
I think maybe you and I'd better talk. Because I have worked with
people before on this kind of book, and *yes*, we should talk.
You're *not* fiction. And I think people who listen can tell
there's credibility here.
Fred. Picayune, Mississippi. You're on with Gene Wheaton.
FRED:
Hello, Tom! Nice to talk with ya. And good afternoon... Colonel,
Colonel Wheaton, is it?
WHEATON:
Chief warrant officer.
VALENTINE:
Chief warrant officer.
FRED:
O.K. I helped pull a whole bunch of marines [unclear] the 10th
Corps on the beach at [unclear] back in December of 1950, and so
consider myself a friend of the armed forces, since I was a
member of the United States Navy.
But a question I have for you is, I happened to read a piece in
the Louisville *Courier-Journal*, on the front page, about -- I
guess it was the third week of January, 1987 -- in which a pilot
who had been caught hauling weapons down to, I think it was...
uh, Honduras -- I think it was Honduras -- and was bringing back
loads of drugs!! He said it happened every trip! And he said that
he would normally land on some deserted strip in Florida, in the
middle of the night -- which he was on his way to doing, and he
got word to go to Opalanca(?) [CN -- apparently a military
airbase of some sort]. And he said, "Opalanca! You know what I'm
carrying?!" And they said, "Don't worry. It's all taken care of."
And this was brought up during Oliver North's appearance, shortly
after in, I forget... February, when he first appeared. There
were a group who came into the hearing room with a huge banner.
They unrolled this thing mentioning the drugs, so that the
congressmen could see it. And they were dragged out of the
building right away!
Do you know anything... I was wonderin', could you tell us
anything about that or...
WHEATON:
I was in Washington, D.C. when that banner was disclosed. It was
flown, in the room there.
VALENTINE:
Yeah. *Unfurled* it, huh? [chuckles]
FRED:
.I saw it [unclear]. I was watching the hearings. It was the
House hearings and they, these people walked in. And all of a
sudden you've got this banner stretched out across the room...
VALENTINE:
Well Gene saw it! Go ahead, Gene. Tell us what happened.
FRED:
.and I will hang up and listen.
WHEATON:
Well, there was a... This is just one of several. We have several
pilots, who are former covert operations pilots, that are coming
forward *now* because of the Sabo case and because of the 32 C-
130s. Some of them flew those C-130s. They're just now hearing
about our investigation and it's starting to come out of the
closet.
These guys *were* *patriots*, former military and Air America,
CIA pilots, who were *told* that flying weapons down was covert
operations, and flying drugs back would be "DEA stings". But they
flew many, many missions and no sting operations ever happened.
And then many of them became whistle blowers. Some of them were
put in prison... uh, falsely, with evidence withheld at their
trial, to shut them up.
But we do have, we do have a few of 'em that have come out of the
woodwork.
That particular incident that your caller was talking about was a
DC-6 load of 27,000 pounds of marijuana that was vectored in with
the, by the covert operators, getting the, getting the squawk
signals on the radio to land at Homestead Air Force Base, in
Florida. The pilot of that plane was a guy by the name of Michael
Tolliver(sp?). Mike Tolliver later flew a twin-engine plane up
with a load of narcotics and wrecked the plane when he ran out of
fuel just off of one of the islands in the Caribbean. He was put
in prison, but later was called into federal court in Wichita,
Kansas, under Judge Kelley's court, because of the lawsuit
between the owners of the plane and the insurance company's
claiming it was being used for criminal activities. Tolliver
claimed that the plane he wrecked -- not the one at Homestead,
but the one he wrecked in the Caribbean -- was furnished to him
by the U.S. government and he was hauling narcotics into the
United States for *them*. Now Judge Kelley(sp?) called him up
from prison and put him in front of his court in Kansas, with the
opposition of the U.S. Attorney's office and the Marshalls. And
Tolliver made a sworn statement to the judge, to that effect. The
U.S. government continued to deny any involvement, but a year or
two later, the U.S. government *quietly* paid for that airplane.
Now that's the typical type of thing that... Laundered drug money
is being used for covert operations all over the world, and it is
*not*, I repeat, for national security reasons. It's to keep the
covert operators in business and to keep the international
weapons business viable. And that's the kind of guys that you're
running into.
TOM VALENTINE:
All right. We have another caller, "J.R.", Johnson City,
Illinois. You're on with Gene Wheaton.
J.R.:
O.K. Thanks a lot, Tom. What I wanted to ask Mr. Wheaton was, is,
you know everybody knows what Clinton's up to and his "leftist"
views and everything. And what I'd really like to know is, in the
top echelon of the military, if they try this "national
emergency" or try to bring FEMA in to take over everything (as a
lot of the word is now on talk radio), do you think that there's
enough of the top brass in the military that'll put a squash to
this? I'll hang up and listen for the answer.
VALENTINE:
All right. Gene, I don't know if you would understand the
question. I don't know if it's in your area. But it may be,
'cause you *do* get around with our military. But there's a lot
of Americans who are concerned that our government has a, in
place, "Emergency Manipulation Agency", that could take over in a
crisis and conduct martial law. And we're wondering if there are
people in the military who simply wouldn't stand for it.
WHEATON:
Well I would certainly hope so.
VALENTINE:
Yeah, me too!
WHEATON:
The... 90, 95 percent of the military are extremely patriotic,
loyal American people. The problem is that, in the old days, when
you and I knew what our real military was, the line officers, the
combat arms officers -- infantry generals, tank generals,
artillery generals -- were the key men in the Pentagon. They now,
through this infiltration, have moved civilians into the
Department of Defense who are former covert operators in CIA. And
have moved their proteges, who are military men but have actually
worked on CIA covert operations most of their careers, into many
of the very senior, key positions in the Pentagon. And these guys
answer to their mentors, outside of the chain of command, rather
than up through the chain of command to the commanding general.
And they send orders out to the field, and people have to obey
those orders or be court-martialed for disobeying them.
Now there's gonna be a... There *is* a plan, that came out during
the Iran-Contra hearings, by Jack Brooks of Texas, that...
VALENTINE:
Yeah, but Jack is now out!
WHEATON:
Yes. But he brought it up, but he was shut down when he tried to
elaborate on it during the Iran-Contra. A plan, that Ollie North
drafted, for FEMA to be standing by, and martial law -- when it
was implemented, they would go out and scarf up maybe 300,000 of
the more, more vocal opponents of their plans, and put 'em in
twelve detention camps [a.k.a. concentration camps] around the
United States.
VALENTINE:
All right. We'll come back to that, if you don't mind, Gene. My
last break of the day. My guest is Gene Wheaton. I'm Tom
Valentine, this is *Radio Free America*.
[...commercial break...]
All right, we are back, live. My guest is Gene Wheaton, a veteran
police investigator whose credibility is unchallenged, or
unchallengeable. And he's one of the real Americans. I love to
have him come on this show.
Gene, you were talkin' about Ollie North and FEMA when we had to
take that break.
WHEATON:
That's right. And they set up this program to, they were planning
on some Central American invasions. And if too many American
people opposed it they were going to declare martial law and take
these old military bases that they had designated, around the
United States, as detention camps -- much like they did the
Nissei(sp?) Japanese-Americans during World War II -- and scarf
'em up and put 'em...
VALENTINE:
Well they have not abandoned that plan! They may have abandoned
Ollie, but they haven't abandoned that plan!
WHEATON:
Well the plan is still there, on the books.
VALENTINE:
Yep.
WHEATON:
Jack Brooks was talked down and told he had to go into "executive
session" [i.e. away from public scrutiny] when he brought it up
during the Iran-Contra hearings. But it was still there.
And there is a new Army field manual on civilian affairs/civilian
operations that's "floating around" right now calling, outlining
this very same program.
VALENTINE:
All right. Now we've had a major political change in this
country. And I've tried to point out [that] we're not saved by it
at all. But it's a step in the right direction.
Jack Brooks is typical of the Democrats that were defeated, and
he himself was defeated in this election. But do you think that
there's enough stuff in Jack Brook's head, if he were ever to
tell everything he's learned, it would be pretty heavy?
WHEATON:
Yes. He was the head of the House Judiciary Committee. And the
sub-committee on crime of the House Judiciary Committee was the
committee that held our hearings on the Gandor crash. And he
is... And I also briefed him, his staff, on the covert operations
at Mena, Arkansas.
And incidentally, I know it's not the time to go into it, but
we've tracked the operations of the 32 missing C-130s *through*
Mena, Arkansas. And the same people are running those that were
running these things now. And it's a continuation of Iran-Contra!
Everybody thinks Iran-Contra *quit* with Ollie North and Secord
being exposed. But it actually got bigger because the media
stopped looking at it at that time.
VALENTINE:
All right. Now. We *are* getting out of time. But you will be
back, I am sure. The, the last thing I want to ask you is...
[sighs] I was listening to you and I've lost my train of thought,
but I will get it back.
Essentially, you read the book by Terry Reed, I presume?
WHEATON:
Yes. I know Terry Reed.
VALENTINE:
*Compromised*. And Terry Reed is pretty valid, is he not?
WHEATON:
His book is, concerning events at Mena, Arkansas, is extremely
accurate. I can't vouch for the other things about his stolen
airplane and the covert operations in Mexico that he talks about.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
[CN -- Regarding the credibility of Reed's book, I have
recently heard its credibility questioned as follows: (1) I
called a radio program which featured a reporter from the
*Arkansas-Gazette*. In the process of challenging him (he was
defending Clinton), I mentioned Reed's book. His retort was
along the lines of "I can't really see Reed smoking a joint
with Bill Casey." (2) A similar disparagement was heard by me
shortly thereafter on a different radio show, where the
disparagement went along the lines of "I can't really see
Reed smoking a joint with Ollie North."
From the book, *Compromised*, by Terry Reed & John Cummings
[excerpts only]:
The governor's invitation had come as a surprise to
Terry. He would be even more surprised by what he was
about to see and hear.
"Bobby says you've got a problem about going to Mexico
because of the deal with Barry Seal," the glassy-eyed
governor began. By this time, the smell of marijuana was
unmistakable.
Clinton paused for a moment as if trying to sort out his
thoughts. "I can see your concern. I understand Seal was
a friend of yours. His death does appear suspicious...
Seal got just too damn big for his britches and that scum
basically deserved to die, in my opinion..." {CN --
Further note that LaRouche et al. have heaped *great*
*praise* on Reed and his book. This makes me wonder, how
does LaRouche's newspaper *New Federalist* reconcile this
paragraph with their unbridled praise for Reed's book?
After all, LaRouche and friends keep *defending* Clinton
-- isn't there a contradiction here in that they *both*
defend Clinton *and* endorse Reed's book? What does
LaRouche say about "...that scum basically deserved to
die", a statement attributed to Clinton in a book which
has received strong endorsement from the LaRouche
organization?}
With that, Clinton got up from his chair and went to the
back of the van, returning with a half-smoked joint. He
reseated himself. He took a long, deep drag. After
holding it in until his cheeks bulged, he then exhaled
slowly and deliberately.
He extended his arm and offered the joint to Reed. Terry
shook his head and gestured, no thanks.
I have been unable to locate any section in which Reed is
smoking marijuana with either Bill Casey or Oliver North. If
anyone knows of such a section, please send the relevant page
number and/or chapter. In the meantime I will keep searching
through Reed's book for the alleged section.]
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
VALENTINE:
All right, the very last thing: is anything *ever* gonna come of
the Gandor investigation?
WHEATON:
Well the Gandor investigation is the biggest scandal that is
being concealed in the entire 20th century, as far as I'm
concerned. We got 248 soldiers from the 101st Airborne murdered,
and 8 crew members. And Ollie North and Dick Secord and "Buck"
Ravell(sp?) of the FBI, and the administration, *covered* *that*
*up*. We have just come across *new* information, that we may
have to talk about later, that shows that there was some back-
pack nuclear devices on that airplane and there was a *nuclear*
*accident* at Gandor that they didn't want the world to know
about because they were illegally moving nuclear devices through
countries that weren't authorizing this to take place.
VALENTINE:
You will be back, on *Radio Free America*, Gene Wheaton. I sure
thank you for your time today.
WHEATON:
O.K., Tom.
VALENTINE:
And we *will* be talking. All right. Thank you very much.
Gene Wheaton is the guest and, as you heard, there's a *lot*
goin' on out there, and it's not... It's skullduggery. More
skullduggery than we care to even contemplate. It's time it gets
cleaned up, folks. And Americans like Gene Wheaton are gonna help
us.
All right! We'll be back! In the next hour. See you right after
the alleged "news".
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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/ \ __ / --------------- * NEMO@CAIS.COM
/ / \(..)/ ------------ * :::::::::::::
////// ' \/ ` ---------- * PGP Encrypted
//// / // : : ------- * Mail Welcome
\\/ / * / /` ' ---- * P K Fingerprint: 30 2C E7 58 18 38 DE 45
\*/ * //..\\ (as of 8/10/95) 39 FB F5 B6 1F D8 0E 54
-----------UU----UU--------------------------------------------------------
'//||\\` N E M O M E I M P U N E L A C E S S I T
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END
Date: Sat Sep 02, 1995 12:38 pm CST
From: INTRREPID
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: intrrepid@aol.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: The Mena Plot Thickens
September 11 Insight Magazine article by Jamie Dettmer and Paul Rodriguez
states:
Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr's recent indictments of
former Clinton business partner James McDougal and Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy
Tucker are unlikely to be the last to shake the Razorback State and the
Clinton Whitehouse. Other indictments are being considered by Starr's
team. But the next batch almost certainly is going come not from
Whitewater inquiry but from an FBI probe into a 1987 double homicide that
has been the subject of considerable state controversy.
For several months the FBI have been investigating the murders of
teenagers Don Henry and Kevin Ives, who were found stabbed and bludgeoned
on railroad tracks along the Pulaski-Saline county line on the outskirts
of Little Rock.
The targets of the probe are a handfull of suspected drug dealers from
northwest Arkansas, a Little Rock prosecutor and several former members of
the sheriff's departments in Pulaski and Saline counties, local law
enforcement sources tell *news alert!
Why should this case bother the White House? For a couple of major
reasons. Two of the alleged drug dealers under suspicion for the murders
have been linked in raw law-enforcement intelligence files with prominent
Arkansas businessmen__who also happen to be Friends of Bill. Further, the
gruesome double homicide may well be connected with the mysterious Mena
drug-trafficking of the 1980s that is beginning-at last-to catch the
attention of congressional investigators. It woul appear the boys
stumbled upon a Mena narcotics drop site shortly before a delivery.
Starr's investigators have also inquired about this in their bid to trace
money-laundering in Arkansas.
If any case is mounted by the FBI, then Mena is likely to figure
prominently. And the proverbial cat could well be out of the bag.
Meanwhile, despite press reports that Illinios Republican Henry Hyde, the
chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is contemplating a Mena probe,
it now appears that he has decided against such an inquiry, congressional
sources tell *news alert. But Iowa Republican Jim Leach, chairman of the
House Banking Committee, is getting more interested in Mena and has now
tasked two aides to begin a preliminary investigation. If the Feds start
on Mena now, Leach could be encouraged to call a hearing.
*News Alert is the name of the feature inside Insight Magazine.
Date: Sun Sep 03, 1995 9:45 am CST
From: ezehr
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: ezehr@capaccess.org
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Re: Choices
In Message-ID: <429i9b$314$1@mhadg.production.compuserve.com>
Rosalee Thompson <75304.2620@CompuServe.COM> wrote:
>On a 1 Sep message, Wayne Mann says he has no fact to back up his
>claim that Perot's motive was to defeat Bush--there was a
>vendetta, well-published before the election, I just can't
>remember what it was; from what I've read/observed about Perot,
>it doesn't take much--likely another fantasy such as the one
>about his daughter's wedding.
>
>I agree with David's comment--He would have knowingly handed over
>the president to [David's well-made point about] Clinton.
>What is so disturbing to me, is how deeply hate can penetrate
>within Perot's psyche.
There can hardly be any doubt that Perot's motive was to defeat Bush.
His appeal was to the "Reagan Democrats." By depriving Bush of the
support of that block of voters Perot was able to deny him the chance
to be re-elected. That is not to say that Bush might not have lost
anyway - only that Perot's entry into the race made his defeat a near
certainty.
I don't know if I would go so far as to characterize Perot's emotional
reaction to Bush as one of "hate," but he must have felt a great deal of
animosity toward the man to act as he did.
I too have wondered what was behind Perot's dislike for Bush. The only
thing I have been able to dig up is Bush's apparent blow-off of Perot's
attempts to locate and return American POWs abandoned in Southeast Asia
after the Vietnam War. The following quote from the book *Kiss the Boys
Goodbye* by Monika and William Stevenson makes this clear:
Relations between Bush and Perot had gone downhill ever since the
Vice President had asked Ross Perot how his POW/MIA investigations
were going.
"Well, George, I go in looking for prisoners," said Perot, "but
I spend all my time discovering the government has been moving
drugs around the world and is involved in illegal arms deals...
I can't get at the prisoners because of the corruption among our
own covert people."
This ended Perot's official access to the highly classified files
as a one-man presidential investigator. "I have been ordered to
cease and desist," he had informed the families of missing men early
in 1987.
The book is highly supportive of Perot, as the above quotation suggests.
We don't know Bush's side of the case since he has never addressed this
aspect of the POW issue publicly.
Another quote from the same source was made by Perot following an address
he delivered at the Naval Academy in 1986:
When you look into the prisoner cover-up, you find government
officials in the drug trade who can't break themselves of the habit.
Thus, Perot was already aware, at that early date, that our government had
been corrupted, at a very high level, by the drug trafficking that underlies
the scandals we know as "Mena." During the summer of that year, Sen. Kerry,
a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, spoke of "an interlocking web
of private bank accounts, airstrips, pilots, planes and anti-Communist
guerrilla bases used in common by arms-smugglers, narcotics smugglers..."
The means whereby Kerry's investigation was sidetracked and the coverup
maintained are outlined in the book.
What we are seeing now is merely a continuation of the same old scam,
perpetuated by powerful insiders of both major political parties who
are motivated by moral cowardice, or worse. If it is true, as Mr. Norman
maintains, that more than 200 high government officials possessed secret
Swiss bank accounts averaging $10 million each, what possible source could
there be for such a surfeit of illicit funds other than the drug trade?
If even a significant fraction of the allegations made to date regarding
this issue are true, then our government is not merely corrupt - it is
utterly vile. The image of Americans who fought for their country being
left to rot in captivity so that some loathsome, fat-faced, overprivileged
government parasites can bloat their bank accounts with illegal drug
money is so egregious it cries to heaven for vengeance.
The determination of the facts regarding this issue is not a matter of
idle curiosity - it has to do with the survival of our democratic
institutions. The only way we will ever induce the sniveling cowards
who pretend to represent us to tell us the truth about this is to make
it unambiguously clear to them that we demand and require the truth, and
that if it is not forthcoming we are prepared to send them straight to
Hell, without passing Go or any of the other amenities.
Date: Sun Sep 03, 1995 9:49 am CST
From: Financial Opportunities
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: financial.opportunities@canrem.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: More on *drugs* from DISPOSABLE PATRIOT..& FOSTERGATE
More thoughts to munch on, regarding Mena and the Contra
affair, from DISPOSABLE PATRIOT....with a postscript on
FOSTERGATE and those "nuclear secrets"!
*******************************************************
According to Glibbery, strange events happened
regularly on Hull's ranch.
A number of Americans of some apparent importance
arrived at various intervals, met with Hull for a
while, then departed. One of them, according to
Glibbery, was Andy Messing, a high-profile Contra
supporter in Washington and director of the
National Defence Council. But Messing's business
card indicated he was something else. "Andy
Messing, Arms Dealer" was on the card he gave Glibbery.
Carr said that on March 6th the previous year, he
and Robert "Pantera" Thompson were flown from the Fort
Lauderdale-Hollywood airport in south Florida aboard a
CV-440 cargo plane owned by Florida Aircraft Leasing
Corp. and leased by American Flyers, a secretive air
cargo company in south Florida.
American Flyers was owned by Daniel Vasquez III, who
had been convicted of illegally running guns to Cuba
in the 1950's and again in the 1960's. The air cargo
manifest for the trip listed "50 cartons medical
supplies" and "30 cartons clothing". It was,
according to the manifest, "a relief shipment to
the refugees of San Salvador."
Some relief shipment.
Aboard the plane, according to Carr, were a 14-foot
20mm cannon with 150 rounds, 30 G-3 automatic rifles,
a box of M16 rifles, some 60mm mortars and a .50-
caliber machine gun with 250 rounds of ammunition.
All of the weapons came from the home of Rene
Corvo and Frank Chanes of Ocean Hunter. Carr's
claims were later backed up by FBI documents.
According to Carr, the plane flew from Fort
Lauderdale to Illopango in El Salvador, the arms were
transferred to an Islander cargo plane belonging
to the Salvadorean Air Force, and they were then
flown to Hull's ranch.
More troubling than the arms shipments were
claims by Carr and Clibbery that much of the activity
around [John] Hull's [Costa Rican] ranch involved the
transshipment of cocaine to the United States.
Carr said he had personally witnessed cocaine being
loaded on aircraft that regularly landed at Hull's
ranch. Before they were allowed to take off, the pilots
were charged exorbitant fees for landing rights and
refueling.
Glibbery said at one point he overheard a call Hull
received from someone in Washington expressing concern
about the drugs. Washington wanted to "clean up" Hull,
according to Glibbery.
Carr and Glibbery confirmed my earlier suspicious
about the real reason for the southern front. It was a
drug front. The information provided by Carlos Cassell
and the offer from Paco Chanes only reinforced what I
was hearing from these two. There remained little doubt
in my mind that the U.S. government had knowledge
about the drug trade being advanced under the
protection of its war against the Sandinistas.
John Davies, the other British mercenary, refused
to talk to me. But Pantera, the former Florida highway
patrolman, was happy to see me because I represented the
first semi-friendly face he had seen in a while. He had
lost at least 50 pounds since the last time I saw him
because the meager [Costa Rican] prison food that was
being restricted due to Hull's influence.
Pantera was disoriented and talked in riddles most of
the time, but he told me enough about the drug
trafficking schemes on Hull's ranch to support Glibbery
and Carr.
Human mules were humping 10 to 12 kilos of cocaine
each from labs around Bluefields and taking it across the
Rio San Juan onto Hull's ranch before being flown to the
States.
The drugs were being processed in labs in *Nicaragua*
because at that time the Colombians were having problems
getting ether they needed for the final step in processing
coca paste into cocaine. They'd ship the paste from Colombia
into Nicaragua, where they could get plenty of ether,
process the paste into cocaine there, and then take
the cocaine through Costa Rica and Honduras.
Hull's ranch was the most convenient transshipment
point. But drug shipments also provided a good source of
funds for the Contras. They supposedly were going to do
this only until Congress re-established funding for the
Contras. It was short-term, creative financing in the
incredibly lucrative commodity of cocaine.
The five mercenaries knew the ins and outs of the
scheme and that knowledge made their lives virtually
worthless as long as they stayed in Costa Rica. Glibbery,
Carr and Pantera were wide-eyed with fear when I talked
to them. Hull had a lot of influence in Costa Rica
and could just as easily have had them killed as he could
ensure they spent many years in prison.
***********************************************************
Exerpted from DISPOSABLE PATRIOT, by Jack Terrell and Ron
Martz [ISBN 0915765381, National Press Books, 1992] -
highly recommended for background on the US intelligence
community, drugs, and the Contras!
**********************************************************
And for those who find it unbelievable that senior US
officials could sell or give US nuclear secrets [and
drawings, materials, supplies and parts] secretly to other
countries, I recommend NEW WORLD ORDER by William Still
[ISBN 0910316411, Huntingdon House, 1990, $9.95]. Still,
an ex-newspaper editor, devotes a chapter to the DIARIES
OF MAJOR JORDAN, wherein Jordan, the US officer responsible
for lend-lease air shipments to Russia, documented the
constant flow of nuclear bomb plans, parts and fissionable
material, together with maps marking key US military and
industrial locations, to Russia via his opposite number,
Russian Colonel Kotikov [whenever Kotikov wanted something
or was displeased, he called someone in Washington, and an
hour later he had it or it was on its way. Jordan identifies
that "someone" as Harry Hopkins]. General Groves, the
security head for the US A-bomb project managed to stem
the flow of vital thorium shipments to Russia when he
discovered them, but that was all he was able to stop!
And for those who doubt Major Jordan, consult the
chapter entitled "Super Lend-Lease" in BLACK SUN: THE
MAKING OF THE HYDROGEN BOMB, by Richard Rhodes [1995,
Simon and Shuster]. Rhodes confirms Jordan in every detail.
So it appears that selling or giving away US nuclear
secrets has an *honourable pedigree* in Washington....
Date: Mon Sep 04, 1995 10:05 am CST
From: ezehr
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: ezehr@capaccess.org
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Re: Am I reading these Mena things right?
In Message-ID: <42ba0i$a4@lucky.innet.com>
rbb2@lucky.innet.com wrote:
>Am I misreading something? For the past few months there have been numerous
>people voicing the opinion that individuals within the US govt have been
>involved in drug trafficing, and nobody's been sent to jail?
>
>I thought we were supposed to put bad guys in jail???
>
>-rbb
That was before certain people in the government decided that drug
trafficking would be a dandy way to finance covert operations. By
1985, Gen. Paul F. Gorman[*] had revealed in a "secret memo" sent to
the Defense Department that, "There is not a single group in
unconventional warfare that does not use narcotics to fund itself."
The approach of some of these groups to "warfare" seems pretty
unconventional alright. It appears to consist mainly of skimming a
healthy percentage off the top and distributing it among the group
(as well as its "groupies" within the federal, state and local
governments).
Ancillary tasks include smearing journalists who get too nosey
and deviate from the official line, arranging "accidents" ["he ran
into a tree and died"], orchestrating suicides [two decapitated
bodies found on a railroad track in Arkansas - obvious cause of death,
suicide], and beating to a pulp anyone who seems excessively unfriendly
to the "Activity."
Not to name names, but when a certain governor (who later
went on to bigger things) was informed by a certain state trooper
that while on a flight to a certain country in Central America,
that originated in a certain state that was governed by the governor,
on behalf of a certain intelligence agency, he learned that the airplane
was loaded with cocaine, the gov. replied "That's [Dan] Lasater's [oops]
deal, that's Lasater's deal." He went on to say "and your buddy Bush
knows about it."
I really shouldn't drop names like that. It's all very hush-hush, you
know (i.e. everybody knows about it but the press). Guess I let the cat
out of the bag - you've probably figured out who the "governor" is by now.
__________________________
[*] At the time, Gen. Gorman headed Southern Command, covering Latin
America from Panama.
Date: Mon Sep 04, 1995 10:19 am CST
From: snet l
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: snet-l@world.std.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: more Mena info
Frm: (Glenda Stocks) Glenda.Stocks@f707.n203.z1.fidonet.org
For: All
Org: FREEDOM USA BBS! greg.waggy@707.gigo.com **VOTE!** (1:203/707)
...................................................................
* Forwarded by Glenda Stocks (1:330/201)
* Area : POLITICS (POLITICS)
* From : Greg Waggy, 1:203/707 (01 Sep 95 22:44)
* To : ALL
* Subj : FYI
...................................................................
Hello ALL!
(4) Mon 31 Jul 95 8:06 Rcvd: Mon 31 Jul 12:57
By: nssc@inlink.com, Net 203 Gateway (203/2)
To: greg waggy
Re: John Crudele is BACK! (fwd)
St: Pvt Kill Rcvd
-----------------------------------------------------------------
---------- Forwarded message ----------
To: uwsa@shell.portal.com, roc@xmission.com
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Financial reporter for the New York Post, John Crudele, has returned from
a much deserved month-long vacation. He is now recharged and ready to
take his Whitewater investigation to new heights. Here is his first
article since arriving back, it appeared in todays (7/28/95) NY Post:
BOMBSHELLS COMING OUT OF ARKANSAS WILL LIKELY HURT CLINTON
by John Crudele
At the same time that the Senate is wrestling with hostile witnesses over
whether or not something was removed by somebody from presidential aide
Vincent Foster's office after his death, testimony is being taken in
Arkansas that could be much more devastating to Bill Clinton.
Sworn depositions given the past few days in a lawsuit by a guy named
Terry Reed against Raymond "Buddy" Young, a close friend of Clinton, have
produced some bombshells that could severely damage the president's image
and his re-election chances.
Among the disclosures is one by a clerk for the intelligence unit of
the Arkansas State Police's Criminal Investigation unit who testified
that she was ordered in 1988 by superiors to shred documents related to a
drug-and-gun running operation out of Mena, Ark.
You've read about Mena here and elsewhere. In the early 1980s, the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is said to have assembled guns in
Arkansas for shipment to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. Cocaine was
allegedly being smuggled into the U.S. on return flights.
Reed said he was recruited into the gun running part of this operation.
His book, titled "Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA," gives his view
on what was going on in Mena.
Officials in Arkansas have denied knowing about the operation.
But the testimony of the clerk, whose name I am withholding, could
puncture the notion that all of this went on under the noses of Arkansas
officials without their knowledge.
The clerk swore in testimony taken at the Arkansas Attorney General's
office two days ago that as late as 1988 there were documents about Mena
in the state police files. The papers--including one with the headline
"Mena Illegal Activities," the subject of which was narcotics and arms
shipments--were ordered shredded, the clerk said.
Clinton was governor in 1988. Which raises the question: Could Clinton
really have been unaware that something this controversial was going on
if the state police--the guys who drove him around each day and with who
he partied--had a file on Mena?
The Post has also learned that testimony has been given in the case
that says Clinton appeared not only to know about the gun running
operation but also that cocaine was aboard return flights.
Worse for the President's image--but probably less troubling legally--
may be the fact that a state trooper named L.D. Brown has said in sworn
statements that then Governor Clinton, in early 1984, was invited to a
party at his friend Dan Lasaster's house where cocaine was openly used.
The trooper testified that he hustled Clinton out of the party when the
trooper spotted a sterling silver dish that appeared to contain cocaine.
But Clinton did not report the illegal activity.
I spoke with the trooper yesterday by phone. In a recent article in the
magazine American Spectator, Brown said he got involved in the Mena
operation with the help of Bill Clinton, the man who Brown had been
guarding. That article was largely ignored by the popular press [except
the Wall Street Journal and Rush Limbaugh] because many people just
didn't believe Brown.
But during his testimony in the Terry Reed case this week, Brown says
he produced documents that show he had been lured into the Mena operation.
So what did Brown say in his deposition?
Brown says he was recruited into the Mena operation with the help of
his friend Bill Clinton. He was interviewed by a guy named McGruder and
later got a call from Barry Seal, who is now dead but apparently was the
leader of the Mena operation.
Brown says his first trip with the Seal operation was on Oct. 24, 1984
aboard a C123 plane. They dropped some skids off the plane which, he was
later told, contained M16 rifles. He said in the deposition that after
the plane landed, four duffel bags were loaded on board.
Brown said in his testimony--and in my phone interview--he expressed
concern to Clinton.
After the second flight, Dec. 24, Brown said he told Clinton that he
had seen cocaine being loaded onto the homebound plane.
"If there was any alarm it was that I had been shown the existence of
the cocaine," Brown said in our phone talk yesterday. "I had been hoping
to get a quick denial or a statement of disbelief."
"Instead, he tried to calm me down by saying 'That's Lasater's deal.'
Not only wasn't he denying it, but he knew," Brown said.
For the record, Brown said he never saw Bill Clinton use cocaine. "I
don't have any prrof he ever used drugs" is the way he put it to me.
But here's the real kick in the butt to the White House. Brown has
already spoken with Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr's people and the FBI
a number of times. He also confirms that he has been before the grand
jury looking into all this stuff.
Brown won't say what he told the grand jury or investigators except
that the conversations were "about everything."
Last Monday, I spent one of the last days of my vacation in Arkansas.
Let me tell you, there is a lot more to come!
END OF ARTICLE BY JOHN CRUDELE FOR NY POST - 7/28/95
So Long,
Greg
...................................................................
Glenda Stocks
Date: Mon Sep 04, 1995 10:21 am CST
From: snet l
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: snet-l@world.std.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Fostergate review
Frm: (Glenda Stocks) Glenda.Stocks@f707.n203.z1.fidonet.org
For: All
Org: FREEDOM USA BBS! greg.waggy@707.gigo.com **VOTE!** (1:203/707)
...................................................................
* Forwarded by Glenda Stocks (1:330/201)
* Area : POLITICS (POLITICS)
* From : Greg Waggy, 1:203/707 (01 Sep 95 22:52)
* To : ALL
* Subj : FYI
...................................................................
Hello ALL!
(1) 21 Aug 95 19:16:02 Rcvd: Mon 21 Aug 23:12
By: nssc@inlink.com, Net 203 Gateway (203/2)
To: greg waggy
Re: Re: part 18: vince foster and the $286,000 (fwd)
St: Pvt Lock Rcvd
-----------------------------------------------------------------
FYI
Kathy called and says much of this is verifyable. Don't know if you have
it but if not, you should.
Regards,
Nick
P.S. Definetly.......pass it on!
---------- Forwarded message ----------
To: Nick Ivanovich
On Sun, 20 Aug 1995, Nick Ivanovich wrote:
> Brad,
>
>
> Do you have the Grabe post on Hillary from Fri Aug. 18th. I would
> appreciate your forwarding it if you so. Kathy Watkins had a lot to say
> about it.
> Thanks for your effort.
>
>
> Nick Ivnaovich
>
>From KALLISTE@delphi.comFri Aug 18 17:14:40 1995
To: bdolan@use.usit.net
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Allegations Regarding Vince Foster, the NSA, and
Banking Transactions Spying, Part XIX
by J. Orlin Grabbe
The triangular trade in early American history involved slaves
picked up from the African coast, transported to the Caribbean to be
exchanged for sugar, and the sugar then transported to the American colonies
to be exchanged for rum.
The triangular trade in modern times involves the exchange of
some third world raw material (oil, gold) or agricultural product
derivative (coca processed into cocaine, or opium processed into heroin),
for first world armaments and high technology, facilitated by cash or a
cash-like intermediary which is laundered through banking or financial
institutions.
Does the current Whitewater investigation simply involve a turf
war, a battle for market share, in the modern triangular trade? Does one
component of this war consist of a feud between families, reminiscent of
the Hatfields and the McCoys?
Think of the parallels between Arkansas and Pittsburgh.
A. Bill Clinton, with the financial backing of Don Lasater and
Jackson Stephens, ran Little Rock like a Mafia don.
B. Richard Scaife, using his own fortune, runs Pittsburgh like a
Mafia don.
A. The friends of Bill Clinton were involved in supplying weapons
to the Contras.
B. The friends of Richard Scaife were involved in supplying weapons
and nuclear-related technology to Iraq.
A. Many of the Arkansas companies involved were represented by
the Rose law firm.
B. Many of Iraq's nuclear suppliers are represented by the law
firm of Buchanan Ingersoll P.C.
A. The Arkansas money was laundered through Don Lasater's bond
business, Jackson Stephens' Worthen bank, and the ADFA.
B. The Pittsburgh money was laundered through Mellon Bank.
A. Faced with media exposure, the Little-Rock based Systematics
(Alltel Information Services), a supplier of banking software, hires a New
York detective firm named Proust and Killman to monitor its critics.
Proust is said to have been sacked by Richard Helms as a CIA renegade.
B. Faced with media exposure, the Pittsburgh-based Mellon Bank,
scheduled to face a RICO-suit for money laundering on August 28, hires a
New York detective firm named Proust and Killman to monitor its critics.
Proust is said to have been sacked by Richard Helms as a CIA renegade.
A. Vince Foster was a behind-the-scenes manager of a Systematics-
related money-laundering project. According to a confidential report,
"When considered in comparison to BCCI in its original conceptual intent,
Systematics is several steps ahead of the capability of Financial General,
BCCI, BNL's grey book operations and any of the CASA de Cambios that are
currently servicing the lesser needs of the covert/illegal money trades
domestically and internationally. To state this very simply, don't own
the bank or the financial institution that has to maintain its accounta-
bility under regulatory scrutiny--own the computers, financial software
and employees which operate the back office for the banks and financial
institutions."
B. Vince Foster, at the time of his death, was in possession of
nuclear-weapons related materials. He had his executive assistant, Deborah
Gorham, place in Bernard Nussbaum's safe two notebooks from the National
Security Agency. One of these was blue, indicating nuclear-related secrets.
NSA's responsibilities include communications security for strategic weapons
systems such as the Minuteman missile so as to prevent unauthorized
intrusion, interference, or jamming, and responsibility for developing the
codes by which the President must identify himself in order to authorize a
nuclear strike.
According to Anthony Kimery, in an article entitled *Fostergate
Continued*, scheduled to appear in the September issue of *Media Bypass
Magazine*, on the day of his death Vince Foster left the White House around
1:00 p.m., "to meet a man employed by a company involved in construction
of signals intelligence collection facilities for the National Security
Agency
(NSA) . . . Allegedly under investigation by the FBI for contract fraud, the
firm's Little Rock office was where the tag to the vehicle driven by the
man was registered."
A. Hillary Clinton, while one of the chief litigators of the Rose
law firm and wife of Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, was a director of
Wal-Mart, said to have been utilized in the Little Rock money-laundering
operation.
B. Hillary Clinton, while one of the chief litigators of the Rose
law firm and wife of Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, was a director of
Lafarge corporation, whose Marblehead, Ohio subsidiary Standard Lafarge is
said to have been utilized in the transport network to ferret machine tools
and nose cones out of Pittsburgh and into Canada for shipment to Iraq.
A. The friends of Bill Clinton profited from the cash laundry of
the Bush-Casey linked CIA drugs-for-arms deals (reportedly 10% of the profits
of the laundry), then had a falling out, the bad news delivered by William
P. Barr.
This meeting took place at Camp Robinson, an army facility outside
Little Rock, according to Terry Reed, a CIA subcontractor. Also present
besides Reed were Gov. Bill Clinton; Raymond Young, Clinton's Chief of
Security; Bob Nash, a Clinton aide; Oliver North, in charge of supplying
arms to the Contras; and Felix Rodriquez, the CIA-appointed head of a
related operation in Mexico; Akihide Sawahata, the resident CIA agent. The
meeting was run by William P. Barr, Chief Counsel for the CIA airline
Southern Air Transport, who was representing CIA Director Bill Casey.
(Barr later served as Attorney General under George Bush.)
In Reed's account, Barr said to Clinton: "The deal we [the CIA]
made was to launder our money through your bond business." But Clinton,
Barr said, had been getting greedy. "Our deal was for you to have 10
percent of the profit, not 10 percent of the gross . . . This has turned
into a feeding frenzy by your good ole boy sharks, and you've had a hand in
it too, Mr. Clinton. Just ask your Mr. Nash to produce a business card.
I'll bet it reads Arkansas Development and Finance Authority . . . This ADFA
of yours is double-dipping. Our deal with you was to launder our money.
You got 10 per cent after costs . . . No one agreed for you to start loaning
our money out to your friends through your ADFA so that they could buy
machinery to build our guns. That wasn't the deal . . . Dammit, *we*
bought a whole gun company, lock, stock and barrel and shipped the whole
thing down here for you. And Mr. Reed even help set it up. You people go
and screw us by setting up some subcontractors that weren't even
authorized by us. Shit, people who didn't even have security clearances.
That's why we're pulling the operation out of Arkansas. It's become a
liability for us. *We don't need live liabilities*." (Terry Reed & John
Cummings, *Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA*, Shapolsky Publishers,
1994). The Arkansas operation was subsequently transferred to Mexico under
the code name *Screw Worm*.
B. The friends of Richard Scaife profited from the Bush build-up of
Iraq. Involved are Mellon-related companies Kennametal and Westinghouse.
Did Bush similarly have a falling out with Scaife?
At least in one recent court case we find William P. Barr
representing the Republic of the Phillipines against Westinghouse
Electric Corporation. (United States Court of Appeals for the
Third Circuit, No. 93-5672, involving the Republic of the Phillipines and
the National Power Corporation, appellants, versus Westinghouse Electric
Corporation, Westinghouse International Projects Company, and Burns and
Roe Enterprises, Inc., appellees; the attorneys for the appellants were
William P. Barr and David J. Cynamon of Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge.)
A-B. Sheila Anthony, sister of Vince Foster, effects a wire
transfer of $286,000 from Mellon Bank to her sister-in-law Lisa Foster,
four days before Vince Foster meets his death.
A-B. Sheila Anthony, Bill Clinton's Assistant Attorney General
for Legislative Affairs, shows up mysteriously at House Judiciary
meetings that discuss Iraqgate.
Finally, consider the case of Jim Norman, Senior editor at *Forbes*
whose article *Fostergate*, about the Vince Foster case, was killed by
Steve Forbes, through the influence of Caspar Weinberger, Publisher
Emeritus, whose ex-company Bechtel Corporation got the contract to
build the PC2 petrochemical complex south of Baghdad, which is the
center of Iraq's chemical weapons program. Jim Norman kept his job,
however, and was permitted to publish the article elsewhere. It appeared
in the August 1995 issue of *Media Bypass Magazine*.
Caspar Weinberger is one thing. Messing with Mellon Bank is
another. Jim Norman now faces the Hobbesian choice of losing his
job or taking a leave of absence (with no return guarantees). His sins? He
sent a letter to Mellon Bank and a memo to his editor Jim Michaels.
First the letter to Mellon Bank.
###
"12 August 1995
"Margaret Kirsch Cohen
"Media Relations
"Mellon Bank
"Dear Margaret:
"It has been brought to my attention that on July 16, 1993, four days
before the death of White House Deputy Counsel Vincent Foster, his sister
and Justice Dept. Assistant U.S. Attorney, Sheila Anthony, effected a
wire transfer from a branch or affiliate of Mellon Bank in the amount
of $286,000 'and change' to her sister-in-law, Lisa (Elizabeth Braden)
Foster.
"I would like to request the following information.
"From what account were these funds paid? If these funds came from
Ms. Anthony's own account, when and from where did they originate?
Who had signatory authority over these accounts? Was a trust account
involved? If so, who are the beneficiaries and who is the trust officer?
Who at Mellon Bank authorized this transfer? . . .
"Thank you for your prompt response, by letter and fax to 212-620-1873.
"Respectfully yours,
"James R. Norman
"Senior Editor
"cc: Rep. James Leach
Chairman, House Banking Committee
Rep. William F. Clinger,
Chairman, House Oversight Committee
Rep. Newt Gingrich,
Speaker of the House
James Hamilton, attorney"
###
This letter is said to have generated numerous phone calls to
Steve Forbes.
Now the memo, which lead to the choice of unemployment or an
unpaid leave of absence.
###
"16 August 1995
"to: Jim Michaels
"from: Jim Norman
"Jim:
". . . I feel like I should update you on some developments that are
steadily corroborating key elements of the [Vince Foster] story.
Indeed, since the article has run in a little magazine called Media
Bypass, the story has taken on 'legs' and is about to get significant
attention. I'd still urge Forbes to take advantage of its lead and
print the story. Here's why:
"1.) Since Forbes decision not to print Fostergate, solid evidence has
emerged from credit card and airline frequent flier records that VWF
was making periodic one-day trips to Switzerland. This has been
reported in the London Sunday Telegraph.
"2.) A staffer on Jim Leach's House Banking Committee has confirmed, on
tape, that VWF had a Swiss bank account.
"3.) Foster's former executive assistant, Deborah Gorham, has testified
under oath in a private deposition that Foster had her put two inch-thick
NSA binders in Bernie Nussbaum's safe. This establishes beyond a doubt
that Foster had access to sensitive NSA documents. In fact, my sources
say one of the binders contained presidential authentication codes
required to authorize the use of nuclear weapons or other significant
military action. A copy of her sworn statement is attached. Foster was
not on the routing list for such sensitive documents, did not have a
high enough security clearance for them, and must have gotten them from
someone in or close to the oval office.
"4.) Gorham has also told investigators for Kenneth Starr that on the
day before he died, Foster received a document related to Systematics.
That document disappeared from his office after his death. This is
from a very credible source close to Starr's investigation, corroborated
by other sources.
"5.) Systematics was clearly part of a massive illicit money laundering
operation, according to a report being prepared for Leach's committee
(A copy of the preliminary introduction is attached)
"6.) Although Systematics attempted to prevent the publication of Fostergate
in Media Bypass, the company (Alltel) has not even bothered to demand a
retraction of anything published in the story. Indeed, I have been told
by at least four sources that senior officials of the company are now
hiring criminal legal defense attorneys, and that Alltel itself is
quietly up for sale. The WSJ has offered to help pick up Media Bypass'
legal tab if they are sued (which is unlikely).
"7.) Rep. Bob Dornan, head of the House Intelligence Committee, says he
plans to read Fostergate into the congressional record. I'm doing 2-3
hours a night of talk-radio interviews. This stuff is hot on the Internet.
"8.) If you have any doubts about the ability of the CIA's Fifth Column
to raid foreign bank accounts and withdraw funds, just ask Caspar
Weinberger. Having obtained an encrypted code (KPFBMMBODB) for an
unknown Swiss account, I gave it to [name omitted], who either gave
it to one of his colleagues or personally decrypted the number and
hacked his way into the account at Union Bank of Switzerland in Berne.
They removed $2.3 million, and then left a note with the decrypted
account number in the account holder's mailbox in Maine. It was Cap's.
The total take from his various Swiss accounts, I'm told is in 'eight
digits.'
"The source of this account number was the trunk of arms/drug smuggler
Barry Seal's car. A copy of documents from a suitcase in that trunk
is attached. The clear implication is that Caspar Weinberger, while
Sec. of Defense, was taking kickbacks on drug and arms sales.
"A co-signatory on this account appears to be connected with (a relative
of) Howard Metzenbaum, the retired senator from Ohio. We are talking
about by-partisan payola. Which helps explain why Congress is so
squeamish about investigating this stuff.
"HOWEVER: Newt Gingrich has now ordered Rep. Clinger, head of the House
oversight committee, to conduct hearings into the death of Vince Foster.
Gingrich has publicly stated that to believe Foster died of a simple
suicide as officially stated requires 'gullibility to the point of
stupidity.' . . .
"Pouring gasoline on this fire is the revelation over the past weekend
that Lisa Foster, Vince's wife, received a mysterious $286,000-plus
payment, which came through Foster's sister Sheila Anthony, an Assistant
Attorney General at the time, just four days before Foster's death. This
clearly smacks of a hush-money payment. And apparently Foster wouldn't
take the bait, despite being forced into a tight financial bind from the
loss of his Swiss funds and probably from picking up the tab on all sorts
of incidental Clinton campaign expenses. Faced with the likelihood he
would be the fall guy for Hillary's sale of high-level nuclear code
secrets to the Israelis (through Foster), he apparently threatened to
dump the whole mess in Bill Clinton's lap at a one-on-one meeting set
for Wednesday morning, July 21, 1993. But Foster never lived that long.
. . .
"Jim, we are sitting on the most important story of the past 50 years.
And one way or another, it's going to come out in a massive way. I
wish Forbes would stand up and do its journalistic duty, no matter what
bogus claims of national security may be invoked. This is corruption of
the highest order.
"I have read in the Baltimore Sun that your official explanation for not
running the story was concern over some of my sources. That was a
legitimate concern in the early stages of this effort, and I shared that
concern. But as time has passed and corroboration mounts, you cannot
continue to use that excuse. As I said when I first delivered this story:
Forbes has become a little bit pregnant. Either it is going to birth
this troublesome baby or it is going to have one hellovan abortion on
its hands. The questions as to why Forbes has refused to run this story
are going to mount and mount, and I have no effective answer. It is
getting harder and harder to bite my tongue and refrain from disclosing
the real reason this story was killed, as revealed by a certain high
level official with the company: that it was Cap's doing. Frankly, it
is the only plausible reason I've heard so far, and a disheartening one.
This enterprise has come face-to-face with a crucial ethical problem.
How it handles it will reflect for a long time not just on Forbes
Magazine, but also on the man whose name is on the cover.
"I sincerely urge you to reconsider and to do what is right.
"Jim Norman x215"
###
In conclusion, I have just one question for Mr. Jim Michaels:
Mr. Michaels: Do you really think burying this story does
credit to a former member of Wild Bill Donovan's Office of
Strategic Services (OSS)? I think you have one hell of an
abortion on your hands.
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So Long,
Greg
...................................................................
Glenda Stocks
Date: Mon Sep 04, 1995 10:27 am CST
From: snet l
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: snet-l@world.std.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: yet more on Mena
Frm: (Glenda Stocks) Glenda.Stocks@f707.n203.z1.fidonet.org
For: All
Org: FREEDOM USA BBS! greg.waggy@707.gigo.com **VOTE!** (1:203/707)
...................................................................
* Forwarded by Glenda Stocks (1:330/201)
* Area : POLITICS (POLITICS)
* From : Greg Waggy, 1:203/707 (01 Sep 95 22:47)
* To : ALL
* Subj : FYI
...................................................................
Hello ALL!
(3) Fri 4 Aug 95 10:57 Rcvd: Fri 4 Aug 23:12
By: nssc@inlink.com, Net 203 Gateway (203/2)
To: greg waggy
Re: More Insight Into Fostergate (fwd)
St: Pvt Kill Rcvd
-----------------------------------------------------------------
---------- Forwarded message ----------
To: uwsa@shell.portal.com
---------- Forwarded message ----------
***MORE INSIGHT INTO FOSTERGATE***
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
"Starr Investigation Targets Law-Enforcement Complicity"
By Jamie Dettmer and Paul M. Rodriguez
INSIGHT magazine: May 29 1995
An ongoing money-laundering probe, led by independent counsel Kenneth W.
Starr, is churning up details of possible state and law-enforcement ties
to criminal misconduct in Arkansas.
In the late 1980s during the swirl of Iran-Contra allegations about
narcotics trafficking and weapons shipments, senior officer in the
Arkansas State Police began a methodical operation to destroy sensitive
documents linking some of the state's most prominent political and
business figures to illegal activities - spin-offs from Marine Lt. Col.
Oliver North's cover arms for hostages deals.
Arkansas connection to Iran-Contra were, at the time, obscured
nationally. Attention was riveted on Washington, Ronald Reagan and
North's manic shredding of files detailing the "enterprise" that
provided arms for the release of American hostages in the Middle East
and guns for the Nicaraguan Contras. Arkansas seemed a long way from
the action in the nation's capital.
Until Bill Clinton ran for president, an Arkansas dimension to Iran-
Contra remained ignored by mainstream news organizations and federal
officials. Now though, what in the 1980s has moved to center stage.
It's not just shady land deals surfacing, but widespread wrongdoing by
the state politico-business establishment that behaved as though it was
above the law - and with the help of police officers, was allowed to be.
The conspiracy theorist, of course, have run riot and attempted to pin
all the blame for misdeeds in Arkansas on Clinton. But what slowly is
unfolding is a far more complicated story of negligence, opportunism and
rank exploitation by a one-party political system that bent the rules
and turned a blind eye to alleged criminal activity when it was carried
out by some of its own.
Enter KWS. As the independent counsel pursues the money trail of
Clinton and his wife, Hillary, in a land deal called Whitewater, the
inner workings of Arkansas government and law enforcement are coming
under the spotlight. What KWS is finding, according to a former senior
federal official familiar with the probe, is a good-ole-boy network of
"corruption and obstruction" in a state seemingly awash in narcotics
money - some almost certainly of Iran-Contra origin and some from more
home-grown enterprises.
INSIGHT now has learned that Starr's team of more than 125 FBI and IRS
agents and U.S. attorneys are investigating what appears, on the
surface, to be unrelated aspects of the Whitewater deal. His
investigators are delving heavily into Arkansas narcotics and homicide
cases, some of which have remained unsolved for years. And what is
being uncovered, according to federal and state officials who agreed to
be interviewed, is layer upon layer of complicity by state and local
law-enforcement agencies and a maze of allegations that has
investigators widening their inquiries at every turn.
One of the most startling discoveries so far is an extensive and regular
pattern of document shredding in the late 1980s on the orders of senior
state police officials. According to law-enforcement sources in Little
Rock, the shredded documents were federal and state intelligence records
and police investigators' files on prominent Arkansans. Some, such as
businessman Dan Lasater, were significant contributors to Clinton's
gubernatorial campaigns. Also shredded was material on the murky drug-
rdrug-running and arms-smuggling operation based at the Mena
Intermountain Regional Airport (see INSIGHT, Jan. 30, 1995).
The shredding, which was conducted in a tiny office in the office in the
state police headquarters, was furtive and known only by a handful of
officers at the highest levels in the Arkansas State Police - that is,
until Starr's investigators recently received a tip. A state law-
enforcement source, who spoke to INSIGHT on the condition of anonymity,
says: "I was startled by what was going into the shredder. There were
Lasater files and Mena files" as well as files on other businessmen with
close ties to Clinton personally. The destruction of documents was at
its most intense in 1988 and 1989.
Col. Tommy Goodwin, former Arkansas State Police commander, says, "I am
not aware of any documents that were shredded."
Former state troopers, who in the 1980s attempted to investigate
prominent Arkansas allegedly involved in the cocaine parties and drug
sales, are not surprised by the disclosures of the shredding. Julius
"Doc" Delaughter claims he resigned from the state police in 1988 after
his superiors blocked the mounting of certain inquiries. He recalls how
documents concerning other cases, such as the Lasater investigation,
would turn up missing. "A deposition I took from a friend of Lasater was
stolen off my desk and was never seen again," says Delaughter.
The deposition Delaughter says he secured could have proved embarrassing
for then-Gov. Clinton if it had been leaked. It dealt with a cocaine
party allegedly organized by Lasater in Hot Springs, Ark., hotel suite.
The party hastily ended with the arrival of Clinton, who was scheduled
to meet with Lasater. Lasater subsequently was convicted of cocaine
distribution and sentenced to prison.
In another case, a state police captain was apparently so concerned by
the regular destruction of potentially embarrassing material that he
maintained for safekeeping a copy of a lengthy memorandum revealing that
a Mena-based drug-running suspect was allowed to consult investigators'
telephone records with the knowledge of Goodwin, who retired last June.
According to the memo, a copy of which INSIGHT has obtained, the suspect
a former state narcotics officer, learned from his search of the phone
logs that state trooper were cooperating with the FBI agents on a probe
of Barry Seal, a notorious, confessed drug trafficker who claimed,
before his assassination in 1986 at the hands of Colombian hit men, to
have been part of North's Iran-Contra operations.
The 10-page memo provides a revealing look into the close-knit world of
Arkansas law enforcement. Written on Jan. 9, 1987, by Lt. Doug Williams
(now a captain), the memo, which was sent to his superior officer, Capt.
Doug Stevens, related how the suspect requested help in learning the
nature of the investigations being mounted at Mena airport and into
himself and his associates.
The suspect complained to Williams that the "local sheriff's office had
started watching the airport." He mentioned he had visited a senior
state police officer, Maj. Richard Rail, "which he did often," and that
they had talked about how investigators charged long-distance calls to
state credit cards. According to the Williams memo: "He =9Bthe suspect|
stated that he took most of the day at the capitol building checking
these =9Btelephone| records and that the gentleman that was helping him
there told him he could not copy these records; however, he could sit
down with the records and make hand notes from them and that Colonel
Goodwin had been advised of his being there and periodically checked
back to see if he was still there and each time the colonel checked
back, the man would walk in and say Mr. Goodwin just called back to see
if you were still here and how you were doing."
Rules governing public access to state police phone records and credit
cards should have restrained the suspect. According to Wayne Jordan, a
spokesman for the Arkansas State Police, records connected with active
intelligence operations and ongoing probes are strictly off-limits.
Only when cases are closed, according to Jordan, are records available
for public inspection; then any inspection requires a Freedom of
Information Act request and approval by the head of the Arkansas State
Police.
The complex events surrounding Mena-the clandestine flights of guns and
drugs in the dead of night; the peculiar stifling of local
investigations as well as probes mounted by federal agencies, including
the IRS; and evidence of serious money laundering in the town's banks-
have been dismissed over the years as having little to do with Reagan's
anti-Sandinista effort and even less to do with Clinton. But Starr's
investigators seem to be convinced, based on their questions to
witnesses and requests for documents, that the flow of drug profits and
the alleged diversion of that money into businesses in Arkansas and even
into Clinton's campaign finances warrant major investigation.
In his bid to trace donations to the then governor's election coffers,
the independent counsel's FBI agents have reviewed thousands of pages of
case files connected to suspected narcotics operations and money
laundering by reputed criminals in Arkansas and surrounding
jurisdictions. Starr's investigators also begun question the Mena
pilots responsible for air-dropping sturdy duffel bags full of Central
American cocaine and cash at pre-arranged sites in Arkansas.
"The Feds are primarily interested in money-laundering activities," says
Joe Evans, one of the pilots interrogated recently. "The questioning had
to do with where the money was coming from, where the money was going.
They asked me from which banks in the U.S. or internationally the money
originated. They asked me how frequent were the flights and how large
were the shipments."
During the interview with Evans, Starr's investigators also were
interested in a mysterious and as-yet-unsolved double homicide near
Little Rock in 1987 that has been the subject of considerable local
controversy. Again, it is money laundering that seems to be foremost in
the minds of Starr's investigators as they review the cold-case files
concerning the murders of teenagers Don Henry and Kevin Ives, who were
found stabbed and bludgeoned on railroad tracks along the Pulaski-Saline
county line on the outskirts of Little Rock.
INSIGHT has learned that the double homicide also is the subject of a
separate FBI investigation and that a grand jury has been impaneled in
Little Rock to take testimony in the case. The targets of that
investigation, according to sources, are a handful of suspected drug
dealers from northwest Arkansas, a Little Rock prosecutor and several
former members of the sheriff's departments in Pulaski and Saline
counties. Two of the alleged drug dealers under suspicion in the
murders were mentioned regularly in Arkansas State Police intelligence
files, copies of which INSIGHT has obtained, contain raw and
unsubstantiated allegations about wrongdoing by a number of prominent
businessmen in Arkansas.
There have been many theories put forth to explain the murders of Henry
and Ives. A persistent one argues that the teenagers stumbled upon a
Mena narcotics drop site shortly before drugs were due to be unloaded.
This theory appears to have caught the attention of Starr's team. Mena
pilots have been asked about a drop site code-named "A-12" by the
smugglers. They also have been asked about "Flight 50" -all Mena
flights were numbered - which coincided with the date and time of the
boys' deaths.
Starr's investigators have interviewed several convicted drug offenders
in Arkansas prisons who are believed to be connected to the homicides of
Henry and Ives.
Current and former members of Congress and law-enforcement officers who
have looked into the Mena drug and money-laundering operations long have
suspected that there was -and continues to be - complicity by people at
both the state and federal levels to keep a lid on the events in
Arkansas during the 1980s and early 1990s. They believe that what began
under the guise of national security involving Iran-Contra blossomed
into an extensive, tangled conspiracy to hide the links between Mena and
nonfederal corruption through out the region.
"Starr should be investigating the Arkansas police," says a former high
ranking federal official who worked behind the scenes to put together
pieces of the Mena puzzle. "What is coming to light now is that there
was a broad-based conspiracy to hide the truth about corruption at the
highest levels of Arkansas and at the Justice Department, and it is
still ongoing."
"This is about money, pure and simple," adds a federal law-enforcement
official familiar with Mena, the drug conspiracies and the latest turns
in the Starr inquiry.
"I could never understand why no one went down this path before," says
Bill Duncan, a former IRS agent and congressional investigator who for
three years tried to secure indictments in connection with Mena drug
smuggling.
In a confidential memorandum to House Judiciary subcommittee on crime
dated Oct. 8, 1991, Duncan wrote: "On this date I received a telephone
call from Paul Whitmore concerning a conversation which he had just
overheard at the El Paso Intelligence Center. Whitmore related that,
just minutes ago, he heard the Central Intelligence Agency EPIC Resident
Agent tell the U.S. Customs EPIC Resident Agent that the CIA still has
ongoing operations out of the Mena, Ark., Airport, but that 'some other
guys' are still operating out of the airport also, and that one of the
operations at the airport is laundering money." Whitmore was the IRS
agent stationed at EPIC, formally called the El Paso Intelligence
agencies.
Duncan's memo concluded: "The CIA agent then told the Customs Agent that
if the laundering of cash was a par of Customs Operations, he wasn't
going to worry about it. According to Whitmore, they also discussed
checking the registration of various aircraft which are currently at the
Mena, Ark., Airport."
For Duncan, the memo is just one more piece of evidence pointing to "a
bizarre mixture of drug smuggling, gun running and money laundering."
=9BThree photos accompany the article.
1. Photo of Goodwin.
2. Photo of a C-123 cargo plane at Mena.
3. Photos of Henry and Ives.
INSIGHT is a weekly news magazine published by
Washington Times Corp
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So Long,
Greg
...................................................................
Glenda Stocks
Date: Mon Sep 04, 1995 10:29 am CST
From: snet l
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TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Wall Street Journal Mena article
Frm: (Glenda Stocks) Glenda.Stocks@f707.n203.z1.fidonet.org
For: All
Org: FREEDOM USA BBS! greg.waggy@707.gigo.com **VOTE!** (1:203/707)
...................................................................
* Forwarded by Glenda Stocks (1:330/201)
* Area : POLITICS (POLITICS)
* From : Greg Waggy, 1:203/707 (01 Sep 95 22:43)
* To : ALL
* Subj : FYI
...................................................................
Hello ALL!
(1) Mon 31 Jul 95 7:44 Rcvd: Mon 31 Jul 12:57
By: nssc@inlink.com, Net 203 Gateway (203/2)
To: greg waggy
Re: Re: WSJ - INVESTIGATE MENA! (fwd)
St: Pvt Kill Rcvd
-----------------------------------------------------------------
FYI
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To: uwsa@shell.portal.com, roc@xmission.com
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The Wall Street Journal - perhaps the most respected and credible source
of information in the country - ran a lead editorial about the purported
drug smuggling and money laundering that went on in Mena, Arkansas. The
WSJ had run several Mena stories in the past, but this is the strongest
piece yet. [Editorial text below.]
Over the past year and a half, I have been asked many times by people
the following question: "Ken, why do you spend so much time and energy
writing about this subject? Aren't these allegation ridiculous and just
an attempt to discredit the president?
I tell them that I couldn't care less whether this affects Bill Clinton
or George Bush - or both of them. I just want the truth to come out and
if the government was smuggling drugs into this country, I want people to
go to jail. If Clinton's not directly involved, fine, find out who was
and nail them to the wall. The thought of the government (CIA) being
involved with drug smuggling makes me sick. These drugs are ruining the
lives of Americans. If the government is involved in any way, it's
tantamount to waging war on its own citizens.
There is a huge article coming out in the next American Spectator about
Mena. I will get it online as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the Wall
Street Journal has just run this explosive piece. Even Rush Limbaugh has
picked up the ball on Mena - he spent nearly 15 minutes on it today.
Let's make a lot of noise out there and ensure that the activities at
Mena are looked into.
Here's the full article that appeared in todays Wall Street Journal
(7/10/95).
INVESTIGATE MENA
For more than a year we have been reporting on the mysteries of tiny
Mena airfield in western Arkansas. The clouded tale of drug smugglers and
spy operations in the 1980s is a potential embarrassment to the
Democratic governor who ran the state and the Republicans who ran the
White House. But the big story here is not primarily about who did what
10 years ago. It's about a very 1990s concern: drugs. How has our system
broken down so that illegal drugs can be moved into this country on such
a large scale?
This week, the American Spectator magazine adds another piece to the
Mena puzzle with a story about Arkansas State Trooper L.D. Brown written
by Spectator editor R. Emmitt Tyrrell. Now, the account's weakness and
strength are one and the same - L.D. Brown himself. Its weakness is that
it is a single-source account; its strength is that L.D. Brown is an
important source. A potentially key player in the Whitewater saga, Mr.
Brown corroborates part of David Hale's claim that Mr. Clinton put
pressure on him for financial help.
Mr. Brown now says that while working on then-Gov. Clinton's security
detail, he applied to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), with the
governor's support. Following CIA testing and an exchange of letters -
supplied to Mr. Tyrrell by Mr. Brown - the state trooper claims he was
contacted by Mena drug smuggler Barry Seal. Soon after, he was on two
Central American flights from Mena airport aboard Mr. Seal's C-123K,
running guns to the Contras. Mr. Brown, a former narcotics officer, says
that when Mr. Seal showed him some cash and cocaine shipments, he quit
[similar to what Terry Reed had done]. When he confronted Gov. Clinton
about the drugs and money, Mr. Brown allegedly was told not to worry
about it. "That's (Dan) Lasater's deal," Mr. Brown claims Gov. Clinton
told him.
To be sure, Dan Lasater is a colorful figure. He ran a free-wheeling
bond house in Little Rock, and was a friend and campaign supporter to
Bill Clinton. In 1986, in a case that also involved Mr. Clinton's brother,
Roger, Mr. Lasater pleaded guilty to a cocaine distribution charge and
went off to prison for a brief stay. The federal prosecutor who handled
the case was George Proctor, a Carter-era appointee who now heads the
Justice Department's Office of International Affairs; Mr. Proctor's
office has authority over aspects of another of our longstanding concerns,
BCCI. One of Mr. Proctor's predecessors at OIA, Michael Abbell, was in
the news recently when he was indicted on racketeering charges in
connection with the Cali drug cartel. [Wonderful group of people!]
Our own reporting about Mena points more toward Washington than
Arkansas. We want to know what the federal government knew about drugs
and money flowing through the area. Our Micah Morrison has painstakingly
separated fact from fiction regarding Mena and Barry Seal's involvement
with the CIA, the Contras and cocaine traffic. Mr Seal, a sometime
informant for the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), smuggled several billion
dollars' worth of drugs into the country. In our October 18 story "The
Mena Coverup," we detailed the short-circuiting of nine separate state
and federal probes into Mena. Reliable sources in the intelligence
community now tell us that in the years after Mr. Seal's death (he was
assassinated near New Orleans around 1986), some activities continued
around Mena: an AWACs-Patriot system was tested, CIA contract planes were
repainted, and the area was included in a counterterror exercise run out
of nearby Fort Chaffee.
But the heart of Mena, we suspect, is narcotics, and on this aspect
answers are lacking. Drugs? Arkansas officials wave off the question,
saying Mena was a federal responsibility. The CIA blames a "rogue DEA
operation;" the DEA isn't talking; the FBI says "no comment."
The betting around here is that L.D. Brown and others in the Arkansas
State Police know a lot more on the matter - including what the feds were
up to - than they are letting on. State police officers are starting to
show up all over the Mena story. While we discount some of the more
extreme speculations in self-proclaimed Terry Reed's book about Mena,
"Compromised," it's important to note that Mr. Reed is making headway in
Little Rock with his lawsuit against former state troopers Tommy Baker
and Buddy Young; Mr. Young also served for a time as Gov. Clinton's
security chief. Mr. Reed's lawyers have deposed several state troopers in
connection with the case, Mr. Tyrrell says. Last year "CBS Evening News"
reported that a top Arkansas State Police official played a role in
derailing an early effort to advance the Mena probe.
Despite some reports to the contrary, we see no indication that
Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr is investigating Mena or Mr. Lasater.
Mr. Starr appears to be sticking close to his mandate to examine matters
arising from Madison, the Whitewater Development Co., or Mr. Hale's
Capital Management Services.
Yet Mena cries out for investigation. A congressional committee with
resources, subpoena power, and the perseverance displayed by some past
chairmen should look into this. If some chips fall on the Republican side,
so be it. Important questions need to be answered.
Was Mena simply a remote outpost of the Cold War? Or was it a major
tran-shipment point for drugs and money laundering? To what degree were
government officials involved? Where did all the cocaine and cash
involved in the Barry Seal operation go? Were Arkansas financial
institutions involved in laundering drug money?
Again, how Mena worked is of some present moment as the U.S. continues
to wrestle with illegal drugs - their use apparently on the increase
again among teenagers - and the attendant corruption. Mena may provide a
window into one of the big sources of this problem.
END OF WALL STREET JOURNAL LEAD EDITORIAL (7/10/95)
Posted to the Internet by
Ken Cook
7/10/95
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So Long,
Greg
...................................................................
Glenda Stocks
Date: Wed Sep 06, 1995 7:36 pm CST
From: Martin Anderson
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TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Fwd: WSJ re: BCCI, Mena, & Whitewater
From uwsa@shell.portal.com, a moderated Perot newsgroup.
Martin
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Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 19:56:20 -0400
Message-ID: <950906195617_12675225@mail06.mail.aol.com>
To: uwsa@shell.portal.com
Subject: WSJ re: BCCI, Mena, & Whitewater
I was happy to see that BCCI wasn't forgotten altogether by the media.
The
drug cartels have invaded our government and our banks. Will our
congressmen
be brave enough to have a full investigation of Mena, Whitewater and
BCCI?
___________________________________
Wall Street Journal
Sept. 5, 1995
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
page A14
BCCI Opening
Because nearly everyone else has forgotten, we always have to
apologize for our continued interest in the Bank of Credit & Commerce
International--instead of more contemporary scandals such as Bob
Packwood's boorishness or Newt Gingrich's book deal. All that BCCI
represents, after all, is the prototypical 21st century criminal
enterprise. A stateless entity, it ripped off depositors worldwide of
$10 Billion, laundered money, corrupted governments, and consorted with
terrorists and drug dealers. In the U.S., BCCI crooks somehow managed
to acquire the biggest bank in the nation's capital, as well as banks in
at least six other states.
The global struggle with corruption, further, is one of the most
dramatic stories of our time. Money scandals have contributed to the
collapse of governments in Italy, Japan and France. Drug pushers with
Pharaonic pretensions influence councils of state in Colombia, Mexico,
Nigeria and Thailand. Powerful criminal gangs are on the rise in Russia
and China. The life blood of all these enterprises, of course, is
money; the international banking system is at once particularly
vulnerable to, and a potentially important checkpoint against , criminal
cartels.
So we'd like to know precisely what happened with BCCI, in
particular how it managed to penetrate American banking. And we do not
know, at least to our satisfaction. At the head of their U.S. effort,
the Arabs and Pakistanis running BCCI placed Washington icon Clark
Clifford and his partner, Robert Altman, to run companies controlling
First American Bank in Washington. Movers and shakers in both parties
became the beneficiaries of BCCI's largesse. Naturally, this created a
strong incentive to downplay the entire affair when the bank came to a
screeching halt in 1991.
This effort has been a great success. When criminal charges were
brought by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, Mr. Clifford
was dropped from the case due to age and infirmity. Mr. Altman was
acquitted at a criminal trial in New York; precisely why is difficult to
ascertain because under curious and probably unconstitutional New York
law the testimony is sealed. While various legal proceedings limped on,
the journalistic community soon lost interest in murky and complex
charges. Case closed, it would seem.
In the depths of August, though, came proof of the adage that it
ain't over until it's over. In a civil case against Mr. Clifford and
Mr. Altman and others in U.S. District Court for the District of
Columbia, Judge Joyce Hen Green dismissed procedural motions to throw
out charges for common law fraud, misconduct, conspiracy and
racketeering. She threw out objections that the trustee bringing the
action was exceeding his authority; that First American lacked standing;
that the statute of limitations had run; that the plaintiffs failed to
adequately state the charges against them. Judge Green turned thumbs
down on all the arguments and ordered the BCCI case to move swiftly to
discovery and trial.
That's big news for anyone who professes to be concerned about
big-time corruption. A civil trial opens up an avenue for finally
getting to the truth about BCCI. We would like to know a lot more, for
example, about how Mr. Clifford and Mr. Altman got the Federal Reserve
to approve the acquisition of First American by BCCI front men. There
have been suggestions, for example, that the New York jury acquitted
Mr. Altman because it concluded the Fed was not deceived, but knew who
the true owners were.
The civil suit now headed to trial is the result of the diligence
of the First American trustee, Harry Albright, with the help of Mr.
Morgenthau and the Justice Department. The suit has already netted
some $350 million in settlements, including $239 million from Sheik
Zayed bin Sultan and other parts of the royal household of Abu Dhabi,
$27 million from Kamal Adham, formerly intelligence adviser to the king
of Saudi Arabia, and $10 million from Khalid bin Mahfouz, one of Saudi
Arabia's leading bankers. Including the sale of First American Bank,
Mr. Albright and his associates have recovered some $1.4 billion for
the trust funds to repay defrauded parties world-wide.
As we keep noting, there are also numerous intriguing conjunctions
between the BCCI history and the Whitewater scandal that besets
President Clinton. BCCI's first attempt to acquire First American, for
example, was put together in Arkansas by investment giant Stephens Inc.
Jack Ryan, one of the Fed officials most involved in approving the First
American acquisition, was (and still is) head of the Resolution Trust
Corp. when RTC investigator Jean Lewis pressed her case against Madison
Guaranty, the Whitewater S&L. And while there's no evidence that BCCI
was connected to activities at Arkansas's Mena airport, both seem to
have involved the same netherworld of money laundering, drugs and
intelligence agencies.
Congressional committees, even under Republican control, have been
leery of opening the broader aspects of Whitewater. Perhaps this is
because Senator D'Amato has turned Statesman, or perhaps it's because a
wider investigation would tar not only Democrats but Republicans. The
GOP needs to recognize that voters disgusted with Washington want
someone to clean house and let chips fall where they may, and will find
somewhere else to turn if Republicans don't deliver.
Beyond Washington and outside of partisan politics, though, people
like Harry Albright doggedly pursue their own duties. If we ever do
learn the full story of BCCI and the rest, it will be because the
diversity of our governing system gives it a profound strength.
Date: Mon Sep 11, 1995 11:00 pm CST
From: John Q. Public
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: capmicro@execpc.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: John Crudele: Truck Driver May Hold Key for Starr, 9/8 NY Post (fwd)
forwarded from Mr. Ken R. Cook:
TRUCK DRIVER MAY HOLD KEY FOR STARR
by John Crudele
SOME parts of Dennis Patrick's life have been ordinary. He works
construction, for instance. And he's been a truck driver.
But other parts of Patrick's life are, to say the least,
different. For one thing, Patrick says there have been three attempts
on his life. And for another, Patrick can produce documents that prove
there were many millions of dollars in a brokerage account in his name
at one time in the mid-1980s.
A truck driver with millions of dollars in assets? Patrick's
explanation is simple. He claims he was a dupe in a scheme to launder
massive amounts of drug money in Arkansas.
"I was never sat down and told that we were going to enter into
something illegal," says Patrick in a telephone interview recently from
his hideaway. Patrick says he merely opened a brokerage account at
Lasater & Co., which was run by Dan Lasater - friend of the Clintons
and a convicted felon - and things started to happen.
What things? Well, there was the time in October of 1985 when $2-
million worth of U.S. Treasury bonds were purchased through his
account. The interest alone on the bonds was $28,294.34. The delivery
instructions on the bonds read, "Wire to 1st American National Bank
NLR/cr 1st American LR."
This sort of thing happened over and over again. Patrick has provided
me with dozens of brokerage account confirmation slips of million-
dollar trades. One of the biggest, was the purchase of $11,625,000
worth of Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. bonds in August of 1985.
Patrick says he has already met with FBI gents about his claims. And
his documents have been turned over to numerous other authorities,
including Manhatten District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, who has spent
years looking into the money laundering shenanigans of BCCI. And
Patrick has already spoken with other members of the press, and his
tale of woe has been repeated on the floor of Congress. Patrick says he
has also spoken to investigators for Robert Fiske, the representatives
of the former Whitewater Prosecutor who preceded the current Whitewater
special prosecutor.
But the significance of Patrick's documents have so far been missed.
The documents may be the key that unlocks the mystery in the drug
running that seems to have been going on at the Mena, Ark., airport in
the mid-1980s.
The most significant information on the trading slips, I'm told,
could be the delivery instructions, like those mentioned above on the
$2-million transaction of October 1985.
As I've said in past columns, current Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth
Starr would like nothing more than to widen the scope of his
investigation to include whatever is going on at Mena.
As my readers know by now, there have been allegations - which
seem to be proving true - that the tiny airport in southwestern
Arkansas was a depot through which guns were smuggled to the Contra
rebels in Nicaragua and cocaine smuggled back into the United States.
The most active investigation of Arkansas financial affairs at the
moment is Starr's. But the connection between the narrowly-focused
wrongdoing at Whitewater Development and much broader issues like Mena
hasn't yet been made. So Starr, while poking around the fringes of Mena,
hasn't been able to officially add the topic to his charter.
The Patrick documents obtained by The Post may provide that
connection. Because bond money was sent to banks in Arkansas. Patrick's
documents make a convincing case that Mena corrupted the banking system
of Arkansas. And because the banking system is within Starr's
jurisdiction, the prosecutor can probably get his jurisdiction
extended.
While copies of the confirmation statements have been provided by
Patrick to numerous authorities, none have yet made their way through
official channels to Starr. But Patrick would like to provide the
information to Starr, and I suspect the connection will be made in the
weeks ahead.
By keeping his distance from Mena, Starr is trying to avoid the
sort of problem he encountered this week when one of his indictments
against Arkansas governor Jim Guy Tucker was thrown out because a
federal judge (and FOB) contended that Starr went outside his mandate.
The dismissal of the indictment is being appealed by Starr, and legal
experts expect the prosecutor to win on some level of appeal. Working
in Starr's favor is the fact that he did receive permission from the
Justice Department to expand his jurisdiction in the Tucker matter. And
Judge Henry Woods, who dismissed the indictments, is a friend of the
Clintons.
Incidents like that one keep Starr on the straight-and-narrow.
But the prosecutor's desire to enter the Mena investigation will
probably become greater because of an investigation now being conducted
by the Drug Enforcement Administration in New Orleans. Sources
in Arkansas and Louisiana tell me that DEA agents from New Orleans have
recently been interviewing people with knowledge of the Mena operation
because the government has located two bank accounts in the Cayman
Islands that belonged to Barry Seal. Before he was killed in a government
sting operation, Seal was alleged to have been one of the ringleaders
at Mena. The DEA wouldn't officially comment. But one source in
New Orleans did blurt out that "a couple" of accounts were located in the
Caymans but that there was no money in them.
The people of Arkansas have been told that the accounts, which are
said to have once contained hundreds of millions of dollars, were
actively used even after Seal was killed.
With Patrick's documents, Ken Starr could soon steer his
investigation into Mena, the Caymans or any other place that pleases
him. The probe could start to get interesting and embarrassing to
politicians of different persuasions.
END OF ARTICLE BY JOHN CRUDELE FOR NY POST - 9/8/95
Date: Tue Sep 12, 1995 7:48 pm CST
From: Nationtalk Director
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: Wayne_Walker@rolnet.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Do the Ends Justify the Means (and the Menas)?
Published in the American Reporter
Weekend edition: September 9-11
August 30, 1995
Do the ends justify the means (and the Menas)?
by Wayne G. Walker, Ph.D., J.D.
Lancaster, CA -- As detailed over 20 years ago in The CIA and the Cult of
Intelligence by Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks (1974), the CIA culture
promotes the questionable belief that the ends justify the means.
As more and more evidence and allegations surface about Mena, Arkansas, CIA
drug running, the massive CIA money laundering in Arkansas under Clinton's
direction, the secret Swiss Bank accounts of scores of national leaders
(including Vince Foster), the sale of nuclear secrets by top officials through
Foster, and the turf war for control of this power between the Bush and
Clinton families (played out in the 92 election), one wonders whether corrupt
means may swallow the democracy the CIA is supposed to serve.
Rep. Bob Dornan recently began shouting that "Bill Clinton is the most corrupt
man to ever sit in the oval office!" If former CIA agent Terry Reed's recent
book, Compromised (1994), is accurate, Dornan is only partly right. Reed's
allegations imply that not only has Clinton been in the center of an immense
web of corruption, George Bush may be similarly culpable.
The problem with allegations made by former CIA agents is the secrecy
shrouding U.S. intelligence operations. Official denial and deception is the
norm. As pointed out in The Cult of Intelligence, U.S. "secrecy and deception
in intelligence operations are as much to keep the Congress and the public
from learning what their government is doing as to shield these activities
from the opposition. The intelligence establishment operates as it does to
maintain freedom of action and avoid accountability."
Because of the seriousness of the allegations and observations made by Reed, and
the consistency of his narrative with accounts from other sources, such as
those cited in R. Emmett Tyrell Jr.'s article "The Arkansas Drug Shuttle," The
American Spectator (August 1995) and Sally Denton and Roger Morris' article,
"The Crimes of Mena," Penthouse Magazine (July 1995), the allegations merit
not only careful consideration, but full investigation.
The following is a brief summary of Reed's very detailed account.
According to Reed, the CIA, with Bill Clinton's full support, managed a large
covert operation in Mena, Arkansas during the early 80s to transport guns and
munitions to the Contras fighting in Nicaragua, and train Nicaraguan pilots to
fly the munitions air-drops. Reed, a machine tool company owner, helped train
the pilots and manage the operation. The CIA also used Arkansas to launder
its black money. According to Reed, Bill Clinton smoothed the way for all of
this in exchange for 10% of the "profits." In 1985, the money laundering
amounted to millions of dollars each week.
Reed claims all of this was directed by Oliver North in the CIA and George
Bush, its former director, then Vice-President under Reagan.
Reed says he was deeply involved in the move of the CIA operation to Mexico in
1986. Also, according to Reed, before the Mena operation was over, the Bush
sons shipped a duffel bag of cocaine to Clinton associates in an effort to
bring down the Clintons. This cocaine was distributed in part by Dan Lasater,
Clinton's money laundering bond dealer, who served a little time in prison for
Cocaine distribution along with Clinton's brother Roger, before both
were pardoned by Governor Clinton.
In early 1986, Reed claims Bill Clinton attended a clandestine meeting at Camp
Robinson, outside Little Rock, with himself, Oliver North, William P. Barr
(Bush's attorney cum CIA spook and eventually U.S. Attorney General), to clean
up the operational liabilities in Arkansas. Reed says that Barr informed
Clinton that despite the huge Arkansas screw-ups, if Clinton would continue to
cooperate, he was still on the CIA's short list for the position to which he
would eventually aspire and take (ironically, or poetically, from Bush). Reed
drew the conclusion that the CIA was actively engaged in manipulating the
outcome of American presidential politics.
After Clinton left, Reed says North and Barr offered him responsibility for
the new Mexico operation, which Reed himself had proposed, and initiated Reed
into the higher echelons of deniable asset work for the CIA.
After talking everything over with his wife, Reed initially decided to decline
the CIA opportunity, stay in Arkansas, build his growing machine tool business
and get involved in local politics. Reed says the opportunity was still on
his mind when Bill Clinton took Reed into his security van outside of a new
Little Rock restaurant and strongly encouraged Reed to accept the new CIA
post. Reed reconsidered and accepted.
While in Mexico, Reed set up a front company to replicate Mena's gun
manufacturing and shipping operation. Before the operation was fully
operational, the CIA lost a gun running C-123 over Nicaragua, causing a halt
to the entire project.
Reed claims he later learned from a high level Israeli Mossad operative that
Vice-president Bush had essentially conducted a silent coup to stop Reagan's
anti-communist efforts in Nicaragua, and take control of the U.S. government.
According to Reed, it was Bush's right-hand CIA operative who had killed the
pilots and then staged the CIA crash in Nicaragua.
Reed says he soon also discovered that the CIA in Mexico was using his company
name and warehouse to ship TONS of Cocaine to the US.
Upon that discovery, and with the front company and the CIA operation falling
apart in the wake of the Nicaragua crash, Reed, at great risk to himself,
parted with the CIA and returned to the states with his young family. Reed
and his family immediately began an evasive run around the country as it
quickly became clear that elements in the CIA and the Clinton Administration
in Arkansas were determined to silence Reed and his wife with long prison
terms or worse.
After several months, the Reeds turned themselves in, faced criminal insurance
fraud charges related to the CIA theft of Reed's own airplane, and after 2 and
1/2 years in the criminal system were declared completely innocent. They are
now bringing a civil suit against Clinton's former chief of security, Buddy
Young, and others for (1) creating the false computer profile of armed and
dangerous drug runners which led to the Reeds' harrowing flight for survival
and (2) bringing the false criminal charges. The case comes to trial next
month in Little Rock.
Reed's charges are consistent with operational tactics and means recounted in
The Cult of Intelligence, as well as in an earlier work, The Invisible
Government by David Wise and Thomas Ross (1964), and they are cumulative.
When Reed's charges are combined with the ongoing testimony of Larry Nichols
of Little Rock about the Arkansas Development Finance Agency (ADFA)
money laundering (3/4 of a billion dollars over Clinton's signature) and
the Foster death cover-ups (Secret Service documentation that Foster was
found in his car), and the allegations of James Norman, formerly of
Forbes Magazine, that over 200 secret Swiss (and other off shore) bank
accounts held by leading American politicians were swept clean by the
CIA of over $2 billion of illicit funds during the last couple of years,
the possible full extent of the corruption of the CIA and leading
politicians is almost incredible.
Yet, if only half of the above allegations are supported, the U.S. is facing
monumental corruption. The accounts of Norman, Reed and Nichols are
compelling. Together they are chilling. But are they accurate?
Certainly, continued media silence will shed very little "direct" light
on the truth of these charges. Yet, formidable obstacles block media
and official investigation of these charges.
First are the secrecy laws and official "national security" reluctance to
allow exposure of any details about intelligence organizations and operations.
For example, according to Norman, after Forbes cancelled his Fostergate
article at the last minute, he took the story to Insight Magazine. But a
defense intelligence agent strongly advised the editor not to publish the
article. (Media Bypass Magazine published Norman's Fostergate article in
August).
Second, if Norman's sources are correct, numerous national leaders, Senators
and Representatives are compromised. Indeed, the charges about secret Swiss
bank accounts cast suspicion on political leaders from both major parties.
Third, Norman's sources claim the CIA has manipulated the flow of damaging
information for years. They indicate that over 100 key news media executives,
editors and reporters are employed or paid by the CIA to manipulate the flow
of news and keep embarrassing stories out of the press. Rolling Stone
Magazine reported in 1977 that the number is more like 200-400.
This allegation about the press, especially a press intimidated by the
national security shield, may partly explain why the Norman story has not
gotten any attention in the established media, much less further
investigation, and why four credible journalists working on the Foster story,
including Norman, were suddenly fired or threatened with firing or worse in
the last couple of weeks.
It may also explain why the Washington Post cancelled the Denton and Morris
article mentioned above, "The Crimes of Mena," after eleven weeks of fact
checking and legal review, indeed after the text was laid out in final type
and contracts with the authors signed in January.
If Reed and Norman are right, the thinking that the end justifies the means
may have led the CIA to attempt to control both the established U.S. media and
presidential politics.
The extreme seriousness of these allegations, and the dangers to American
democracy which they imply, are more than sufficient reason for the press and
Congress to thoroughly investigate the charges, regardless of who, or which
intelligence organizations, may be damaged.
Norman's sources from the intelligence community should be given complete
immunity so all of their facts can come out, including the complete list of
politicians and national leaders holding secret Swiss Bank accounts which were
discovered and emptied by the CIA.
In addition, the bright light of full public disclosure should shine all over
the Reagan, Bush and Clinton Administrations' covert CIA and NSA operations
conducted on U.S. soil, including the control or manipulation of the press,
and all covert drug operations. Complete reform of the intelligence
establishment is long over-due. President Truman, who established the CIA,
called for just that back in 1963.
Neither covert corruption, nor official cover-ups in the name of national
security, can be tolerated. Indeed, the lingering policy question is whether
the ends for which the Constitution, the Republic and American democracy stand
can long survive, much less justify, such means.
Wayne Walker is the host of Nationtalk, a radio talk show broadcast each
Saturday over Satcom F1, Transponder 15, 7.56 Mhz. He is also the founder of
the Restore Integrity in Government Coalition.
*******************************************************
Sent from NationTALK: Enhancing societal learning
e-mail: walker @ rolnet.com
website: http://www.rolnet.com/~wwalker/nt/nt.html
FirstClass BBS: 805-948-4900
*******************************************************
Date: Wed Sep 13, 1995 8:16 am CST
From: bigxc
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: bigxc@prairienet.org
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 6 Num. 04
Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 6 Num. 04
======================================
("Quid coniuratio est?")
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The Money Trail
By Sherman H. Skolnick
[Contact: (312) 375-5741]
[...continued...]
The bribery/blackmail of the U.S. House and Senate turned out to
be a cynical exercise. The bulk of the BCCI/BNL funds, supposedly
"deposited" in offshore banks, such as in Switzerland and the
Grand Caymans, for the American legislators were, in fact,
*stolen* *back* by the highly skilled hackers and became
reportedly the basis for BCCI's reincarnation as PINNACLE BANC
GROUP.
Related events:
--- Vincent W. Foster, Jr., and Hillary Rodham Clinton, on
behalf of the Rose Law Firm and Jackson Stephens and Worthen Bank
Group, arranged for BCCI to penetrate the American market. (A
related story, not mentioned by others in the popular press, was
in the *New York Post*, 02/08/92.) Some are unaware that Jackson
Stephens runs the largest bond house outside of Wall Street, with
offices, such as in Atlanta, intersecting with BCCI and BNL.
--- The five billion dollar scandal of arms for Iraq disguised
as U.S. Agriculture loans through BNL/Atlanta implicated more
than just George Bush. Also possibly incriminated would be
Clinton's financial backers, such as Jackson Stephens. (You can
see why BCCI/BNL reportedly bribed and/or blackmailed the
chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee.)
--- BCCI/BNL intersects with a reputed dope money laundry
spreading out in all directions, called HOUSEHOLD INTERNATIONAL
and HOUSEHOLD BANK, now headquartered in Prospect Heights, a
Chicago suburb. Household is the successor to the CIA front, the
NUGAN-HAND BANK of Australia. Part of a RESOLUTION TRUST
CORPORATION fund parked with Household International -- fifty
million dollars of the 58.4 million dollar fund -- was secretly
transferred to Little Rock, an attempted cover up of 47 million
dollars stolen and/or embezzled from MADISON GUARANTY SAVINGS &
LOAN, reportedly implicating Bill and Hillary Clinton.
A public access cable TV show in Chicago (run by this writer)
fingered Household as the reputed money laundry for "CHINA
WHITE", high purity heroin now flooding the U.S., smuggled into
the U.S. through Joliet, just south of Chicago. (The DEA and
Justice Department bosses -- including Mark Prosperi, head of the
Organized Crime Drug Task Force -- confronted on this by this
writer, have planted misleading stories that "China White" is
being smuggled into the Chicago area by Nigerians.)
Also reportedly implicated in the "China White" smuggling into
the Chicago area has been former Illinois governor Jim Thompson,
more recently chairman of the 400-member worldwide law firm,
headquartered in Chicago, WINSTON & STRAWN. Their District of
Columbia office is headed by Foster's brother-in-law, BERYL
ANTHONY, former Arkansas congressman who somehow escaped
prosecution in the House Bank mess. Foster's sister, SHEILA
FOSTER ANTHONY, has headed up a Justice Department section
instrumental in the appointments of new federal Judges, U.S.
District Attorneys, and U.S. Marshals.
Thompson has supervised CIA covert operations, reportedly
including dope/gun-running money laundries, through his position
on the FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE ADVISORY BOARD (FIAB).
--- Vince Foster aided CIA in clandestine gold transactions
through his role with a Caymans bank, going back to the late
1970s when he started as the military equivalent of a general
with the NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY -- code crackers and satellite
controllers and such. Foster headed up their bank spying project,
spying on money transfers from and to foreign banks, including
Central Banks, from 1983 to and including the time he became
Clinton White House deputy counsel: 1993. While in the Clinton
White House, Foster was also with NSA.
Assisting Foster with the secret gold transactions for CIA was
the reputed mafia representative on the LONDON GOLD POOL. This
reputed mafioso has links to top officials of the FBI counter-
intelligence and the U.S. Secret Service. (Little known: the
Secret Service depends on mafia people to inform the government
of any "loners" plotting to harm the president and other top
federal officials traveling into or through the city the mafioso
resides in.) This reputed mafioso lives, naturally, a few blocks
away from PINNACLE BANC GROUP's flagship, First National Bank of
Cicero. His influence and links are reportedly through the
Archbishop of Milan, Italy, reportedly his cousin. A sideline of
his reportedly was peddling stolen FOOD STAMPS -- some food
stores, exempt from U.S. Treasury regulations on ten thousand
dollars or more deposits of cash having to be identified,
sometimes deposit mysteriously large amounts of food stamps in a
bank instead of cash -- food stamps in pristine condition
apparently never handled by usual eligible recipients.
Foster's widow, Lisa, heavily medicated by mood-altering PROZAC
(claimed by some to cause dangerous side effects and memory
loss), recently made the statement that she examined various
transactions of her late husband for the six years prior to his
death. According to published accounts: "She went through all his
files, putting together a list of names for all his phone calls
and logging his American Express records for six years to rebut
*allegations of secret Swiss accounts and CIA-sponsored drug
smuggling*." (Emphasis added.) Strange, but the popular press
never previously referred to those allegations. See: Chicago
Tribune, 09/04/95, page 3, Sec. 1.
Question: Is someone heavily medicated by PROZAC a credible,
dependable witness? Some experienced trial attorneys greatly
question Lisa Foster's credibility under the circumstances that
there may be a high-level cover up of the details of her
husband's violent death -- a cover up that she may not be in a
position to rebut or combat.
Question: Did Lisa Foster know that her husband's body was
handled by a mortuary with reported links to the Defense
Department and CIA? The mortuary reportedly specialized in
handling sensitive situations where CIA covert operators were
murdered in the U.S. or overseas.
The money trail, linking to several of the foregoing situations,
was reportedly covered up by ROBERT CESCA, once acting Inspector
General for the U.S. Treasury. Some contend Cesca is the highest
ranking mafia representative in the United States.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Mr. Skolnick is founder/chairman, Citizens' Committee to Clean Up
the Courts, since 1963. Since 1971, editor, HOTLINE NEWS,
recorded message, on 24 hours/day, (312) 731-1100. Since 1991,
regular panel member on "Broadsides", popular public access Cable
TV Show, Chicago. Office (8 a.m. to midnight): (312) 375-5741.
9800 So. Oglesby, Chicago IL 60617.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
I neither necessarily agree nor disagree with either all or
portions of the preceding. Persons mentioned are invited to send
their rebuttals, of reasonable length, to bigred@shout.net for
probable distribution.
-- Brian Francis Redman, Editor-in-Chief
-----------------------------------------------------------------
I encourage distribution of "Conspiracy Nation."
-----------------------------------------------------------------
For information on how to receive the new Conspiracy Nation
Newsletter, send an e-mail message to bigred@shout.net
-----------------------------------------------------------------
If you would like "Conspiracy Nation" sent to your e-mail
address, send a message in the form "subscribe conspire My Name"
to listproc@prairienet.org -- To cancel, send a message in the
form "unsubscribe conspire" to listproc@prairienet.org
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Want to know more about Whitewater, Oklahoma City bombing, etc?
(1) telnet prairienet.org (2) logon as "visitor" (3) go citcom
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et
pauperem. -- Liber Proverbiorum XXXI: 8-9
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
O what fine thought we had because we thought | bigred@shout.net
That the worst rogues and rascals had died out. | Illinois,
-- W.B. Yeats, "Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen" | I'm your boy.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Date: Wed Sep 13, 1995 9:57 pm CST
From: Orlin Grabbe
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: kalliste@delphi.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: part 25: vince foster, the nsa, and bank spying
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Allegations Regarding Vince Foster, the NSA, and
Banking Transactions Spying, Part XXV
by J. Orlin Grabbe
What ties together cocaine in Arkansas, an assassinated Vince
Foster, Systematics banking software, NSA codes diverted to the Israelis,
hidden accounts at Pittsburgh's Mellon Bank, Iraq-bound technology from
Westinghouse and Kennametal (perhaps smuggled or escorted by Wackenhut
security), and bipartisan political payola?
One common thread concerns a global money-laundering operation
run out of Lima, Peru.
Just as two banks will not be sufficient to form an efficient
foreign exchange market, neither can a couple of isolated institutions
effectively launder money. Therefore anyone with large amounts of "dirty"
money to process must ultimately intersect with the global market for the
flow of laundered cash. A principal reason has to do with *layering*.
Classical money laundering involves three stages: placement,
layering, and integration. *Placement* is getting cash into the system.
This usually involves a friendly banker who doesn't fill out reporting
forms. *Layering* is a chain of transactions (these are often interbank
transactions) at least one of which needs to be invisible in order to
effectively break the monetary trail. *Integration* is getting the "clean"
money back to the original owner. This may take many forms, including
offshore "loans" which are never repaid.
Here is a thumbnail sketch of some of the money-laundering inter-
connections among the various subjects of discussion that have arisen in
this series of Internet posts.
1. Cocaine smuggled through Mena, Arkansas and elsewhere
(including, currently, the cross-border flow from Canada and
Mexico) generates huge cash profits which must be laundered.
I first learned of the Arkansas drug-related laundry around 1983,
about three years after it had gone into operation. Nicolas Ardito-
Barletta was then a World Bank economist, but one who would
shortly become President of Panama (prior to General Noriega).
Nicolas' brother took my class on international financial markets
at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and
afterward wrote his advanced study project paper on Panama as an
international banking center under my supervision. The paper
focused on the economic incentives offered by the Panamanian
banking system. But privately we discussed the obvious demand
for banking services generated by the intercontinental cocaine trade.
The Arkansas laundry was well-known to Panamanian bankers.
2. Prohibitions on the export of weapons or advanced technology
similarly creates a profit opportunity for those willing to subvert
that prohibition. So another source of demand for laundering
services comes from smuggled nuclear technology, nuclear fuel, and
arms shipments.
Pittsburgh--whose environs encompass Kennametal, parts of
Westinghouse, and Mellon Bank--was a focal point for the
latter operation. Kennametal machine tools and Westinghouse
nose cones were shipped up the St. Lawrence to Montreal for
forwarding to Iraq. (Parts of the story of the arming of Iraq
may be found in Alan Friedman's *Spider's Web*; other parts
may be found in *Time*, "A Matter of Honor", June 21, 1993.
There is still much more untold.)
Has Westinghouse just been indicted for price-fixing? What about
Kennametal? Does some of the evidence involve the Mellon Bank
money-laundering operation? Has the money-laundering operation
formerly run through Mellon Bank now been moved to New York?
In the event the exchange involves arms for oil, the oil must
be brokered, sold, and the cash transferred to the relevant party.
The commodity divisions of investment banks are often involved
in this part of the transaction (a number of examples along this
line involve the defunct Drexel Burnham Lambert, one of my former
software clients).
3. Prohibitions on the sharing of "classified" information create a
profit opportunity for those willing to sell restricted information.
This is commonly known as "espionage", and those who commit
it--like Jonathan Pollard, Aldrich Ames, and Vince Foster--often
end up in prison or dead or both.
In this case the amount of money involved is often small.
Concealment is important, nevertheless, so the payoff--if
not in cash--often occurs through channels otherwise used
for the laundry.
Foster received deposits in offshore accounts for selling nuclear
codes. He was paid via covert channels. So also--one suspects--
were the hit men who took him out.
(The fact that Robert Goetzman used the royal "we" in "we did Foster"
on the day of Foster's death--in Debra von Trapp's account--does
not prove to me that he was actually involved in the hit, even if
the conversation occurred exactly as related. After all, there are
probably many people who would like to enhance their prestige by
claiming credit for the Foster assassination. But the timing of the
conversation would indicate Goetzman knew about it at approximately
the time it occurred. Did he have *advance* knowledge of the hit?
Does he even now know the identity of the contract agents involved?)
4. The Cabazon Indian nation comes into the story because, being
a sovereign nation, it was a way to avoid export restrictions and
to develop new weapons technology. It was also one of the sites
where Michael Riconosciuto helped create a backdoor version of the
PROMIS software. Even those sources who tell me that Riconosciuto
"lies a lot" confirm that he worked on the PROMIS software to
develop a mechanism for covert telecommunications access.
The PROMIS software enters the story in three ways: it is a
mechanism for tracking people, a mechanism for tracking money,
and a useful tool for managing a global laundry.
5. The early 1980s mandate to track terrorists (a "terrorist" being
defined as anyone who does things normally reserved for government
agencies) involved tracking the money and tracking the people.
PROMIS was designed to track people. It was especially useful
in tracking spies and other outsiders, the natural users of the
parallel monetary system, the global laundry. Sales of the PROMIS
software to security organization around the world were made by Earl
Brian, recently indicted in California and, reportedly, also Canada
(along with the noted alleged con artist, Ari Ben-Menasche).
6. The PROMIS software was modified to track money, and sold
to bank back-offices across the country and around the world by a
Little Rock company called Systematics (now Alltel Information
Services). The telecommunications backdoor in the software was
intended by the NSA to be used to spy on bank transactions in
real time. But there were also other possibilities, soon apparent
to enterprising souls.
If you run the back offices of banks, then you are in a position to
make--and keep track of--covert transfers through the "backdoor"
mechanism of PROMIS. That is, such transfers could take place
in such a way that one would not leave an audit trail, and in
such a way that the funds would never show up in the ordinary
accounting reports. That is, the same software was an
excellent way to manage the global laundry.
7. Despite the distributed nature of the software-controlled
back-office operation, the laundry in the U.S. has been mostly
concentrated in a couple of dozen financial institutions.
How could this escape the scrutiny of the Federal Reserve? The
answer is: Through complicity at a very high level. What does Alan
Greenspan have to say about all this? (Did you get the letter?)
8. But the back-door created a massive security hole in the
operation of banking cash-management and wire-transfer
services. Banks had gone out and purchased a software vault
with a massive steel door on the front, but a secret entrance
and exit to be used by enterprising thieves.
Did Alltel Information Services recently hire four more law
firms to represent it in the inevitable lawsuits to come?
Is this why Ross Perot is getting into the banking software
business?
Swiss Bank Corp. recently acquired a 24.9 percent stake in
Perot Systems Corp., which will form a new division called
Perot Systems Global Financial Services to run the bank's
computer operations. Perot Systems in turn is taking a 40
percent stake in Systor, a Swiss Bank Corp. subsidiary that
provides banking software.
Meanwhile, a 28-year-old Vladimir "Vova" Levin of St. Peterburg,
Russia, was recently reported to have, in connection with some
others, penetrated Citicorp's cash management services in New York,
and transferred more than $10 million to banks in six other countries
(including Switzerland and Israel). Although the hackers were caught,
due to excessive greed, a hefty $400,000 was not recovered.
How were they able to bypass Citibank's security procedures? "Is
there a mole in Citibank?" a *Wall Street Journal* headline recently
asked. A more perceptive headline would have asked, "Is there a
*hole* in Citibank software?" Some people think the hackers utilized
the PROMIS system backdoor (the "Greek" method).
Some people who are totally devoid of expertise in banking tech-
nology have questioned the ability of a group of (possibly CIA) "Fifth
Column" hackers to clean out accounts in Switzerland using a computer,
whether Cray or otherwise. Well, duuuuuh, let's see, a Russian graduate
student with modest equipment accomplished the same thing from *St.
Petersburg* using the *Russian phone system*. Just think of what he might
have been able to do if he had had some advantages . . .
Others wonder why Swiss banks haven't been publicly screaming
about a missing billion or two. Well, their computers thought the transfers
were duly authorized. Do you really expect the banks to worry about making
restitution? (We are not dealing with pissant ATM theft here.) Secondly,
Switzerland houses much of the world's flight capital. Wonder what would
happen to a lot of it, if Swiss banks admitted to a hacker vulnerability?
But not to worry. Anyone can get his money back by identifying
the amount, the account number, and signing a *sworn* statement that the
account in question belonges to him . . .
Finally, others question the ability of anyone to saunter through
the Mossad's files. Why? You might not even need a computer. If you think
much of the U.S. government is for sale, you should take a good look
at Israel's. And, at any rate, the Mossad is currently a third-rate
intelligence organization in chaos. Hardly a fortress on a hill.
[to be continued]
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Date: Thu Sep 14, 1995 8:26 am CST
From: Duane Roberts
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: eaou669@aldebaran.oac.uci.edu
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: MENA - Excerpt from a letter to Congressman Doug Barnard, Jr.
-----------------------------------------------------------
CONTINUED INVESTIGATION OF SENIOR-LEVEL EMPLOYEE MISCONDUCT
AND MISMANAGEMENT AT THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE:
-----------------------------------------------------------
Hearing before the Commerce, Consumer, and Monetary Affairs
Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations,
House of Representatives, One Hundred Second Congress,
First Session, July 24, 1991.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Washington : U.S. G.P.O. : For sale by the U.S. G.P.O.,
Supt. of Docs., Congressional Sales Office, 1992.
-----------------------------------------------------------
GOV DOC # Y 4.G 74/7:Em 7/16
-----------------------------------------------------------
The following excerpt is from a letter written by former IRS senior Criminal
Investigator William C. Duncan to Representative Doug Barnard, Jr.
(D-Georgia), former Chairman of the Commerce, Consumer, and Monetary
Affairs Subcommittee.
From page 311.
(2.B.) WHY DO YOU BELIEVE THAT THEY WANTED OR NEED TO SUPPRESS YOUR
TESTIMONY?
Recent sworn testimony from several witnesses concerning events
in the Mena, AR area, indicates that the United States Government
had interests which would have not been best served by
unobstructed completion of IRS and Arkansas State police money
laundering and drug smuggling investigations. Nor would their
interests have been well served by exposure of interference
in the investigations through testimony before the Subcommittee
on Crime. I believe that someone in the IRS was told to suppress
my testimony in an attempt to protect other United States
Government interests at the Mena, AR Airport. The cooperating
Arkansas State Police Investigator has stated that he was told
twice during 1987 by FBI Agents that the Central Intelligence
Agency was involved in some sort of operation at the airport.
He also stated that he saw an FBI teletype which referred to the
CIA operation and the United States Attorney's Office interference
in our investigations into allegations of drug smuggling and
money laundering by Barry Seal and/or associates of Seal. This
interference was exactly what the Subcommittee on Crime
wanted me to testify about.
Date: Thu Sep 14, 1995 8:42 am CST
From: Duane Roberts
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: eaou669@aldebaran.oac.uci.edu
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: MENA - The Sworn Testimony of Chief Investigator William C. Duncan
-----------------------------------------------------------
CONTINUED INVESTIGATION OF SENIOR-LEVEL EMPLOYEE MISCONDUCT
AND MISMANAGEMENT AT THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE:
-----------------------------------------------------------
Hearing before the Commerce, Consumer, and Monetary Affairs
Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations,
House of Representatives, One Hundred Second Congress,
First Session, July 24, 1991.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Washington : U.S. G.P.O. : For sale by the U.S. G.P.O.,
Supt. of Docs., Congressional Sales Office, 1992.
-----------------------------------------------------------
GOV DOC # Y 4.G 74/7:Em 7/16
-----------------------------------------------------------
The following excerpts are from pages 64-73, 85-86.
Representative Doug Barnard, Jr. (D-Georgia) was Chairman of the Commerce,
Consumer, and Monetary Affairs Subcommittee in 1991.
Mr. BARNARD. Thank you very much.
Our next panel consists of Mr. William C. Duncan, a former IRS senior
Criminal Investigation employee, and Mr. N. Paul Whitmore, group manager
of the Criminal Investigation Division of the Internal Revenue Service.
Gentlemen, we appreciate you again being with us today for this
important hearing. We will include your entire testimony, without
objection, in the record and would like for your statements, if possible,
to be summarized. Thank you again for being with us.
We will first hear from Mr. Duncan. Incidently, I want to congratulate
you I understand that you are now gainfully employed again.
Mr. DUNCAN. I finally got a job; yes, sir.
Mr. BARNARD. Chief investigator of the Arkansas attorney general's
office. I am glad that you are now employed.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, sir. Would it be better if I just responded to
questions from the panel because it takes about 20 to 25 minutes for me
to read this?
Mr. BARNARD. Could you just sort of summarize to begin with? We have
some questions for you and Mr. Whitmore, but couldn't you just sort of
summarize what your statement includes?
Mr. DUNCAN. This was my summary.
Mr. BARNARD. A 20-page summary.
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM C. DUNCAN, CHIEF INVESTIGATOR,
OFFICE OF ATTORNEY GENERAL, STATE OF ARKANSAS
Mr. DUNCAN. No, sir. It is about 9 pages.
I can just say that Mr. Whitmore and I have testified truthfully about
the events that occurred in connection with my testimony before the
Subcommittee on Crime and m briefing process. We have provided
documentation pertaining to our trips here. We have testified on several
occasions, and we volunteered for and submitted to polygraph exams which
we passed. And we also cooperated with Treasury IG in their extensive
investigation. I don't know what more we can do.
Mr. BARNARD. Well, we have some questions that we will direct to you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Duncan follows]
TESTIMONY OF
WILLIAM C. DUNCAN
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, CONSUMER, AND MONETARY AFFAIRS
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS
JULY 24, 1991
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. Since my
testimony before you on July 27, 1989, I have cooperated completely
with investigators from the U. S. Treasury, Inspector General's Office
and Government Accounting Office in an attempt to deal with the
integrity problems and criminal acts of IRS Chief Counsel Attorneys.
To my knowledge, not one of the IRS Attorneys has been punished,
additional IRS Executives apparently have provided false, misleading or
incomplete testimony to Treasury IG Investigators, and the conspiracy
to cover up the illegal acts continues. The system now in place for
investigating Senior Level IRS integrity problems has not worked.
My prior testimony before you related to instructions given to me by
IRS Chief Counsel Attorneys concerning my testimony before the House
Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime on February 26, 1988, about criminal
investigations in which I participated while assigned as an IRS Special
Agent to the Fayetteville, AR Post-of-Duty. These joint investigations
were initiated because of information which we received during 1983 and
1984 concerning the Barry Seal smuggling organization's move from
Louisiana to the Mena, AR Airport.
By the end of 1987, it was apparent that thousands of law enforcement
manhours and an enormous amount of evidence of drug smuggling, aiding
and abetting drug smugglers, conspiracy, perjury, money laundering and
illegal modifications to smuggling aircraft had gone to waste. Not only
were no indictments ever returned on any of the individuals under
investigation for their role in the Mena Operation, there was a
complete breakdown in the judicial system. The United States Attorney,
Western Judicial District of Arkansas, assured us that there were no
national security or other issues involved which would impede
investigation and prosecution of criminal violations in Arkansas,
however, be refused to issue subpoenas for critical witnesses,
interfered in the investigations apparently mislead grand juries about
evidence and availability of witnesses, refused to allow investigators
to present evidence to the grand jury, and in general made a mockery of
the entire investigative and judicial process. The Subcommittee on
Crime, through media reports, became aware of public concern over
lack of indictments and reuested my testimony.
As you are aware from our testimony and statements made to your
investigators by Hayden Gregory, Chief Counsel for the Subcommittee
on Crime, if I had followed the directives of [deleted] and
[deleted], I would have completely mislead the Subcommittee
about the problems which we encountered in the investigations, and
ultimately would have perjured myself in connection with an allegation
about a bribe from Barry Seal to a high ranking Department of Justice
official. The intense IRS Disclosure Litigation process which we
described was purely and simply designed to impede the Congress of
the United States in their investigation of issues which impact on
the very heart of our judicial system, and ultimately the security
of this country.
Why did this happen? What could have been important enough for the
Department of Justice and the Department of Treasury to join hands
in an effort which resulted in such interference? Perhaps there are
answers. Evidence gathered during the last year and a half indicates
that during the period 1984 through 1986, the Mena, AR Airport was
an important hub/waypoint for transshipment of drugs, weapons and
Central American "Contra" and Panamanian Defense Force personnel who
were receiving covert training in a variety of specialties in the
Nella Community, located ten miles north of the Mena, AR Airport.
The evidence details a bizarre mixture of drug smuggling, gun running,
money laundering and covert operations by Barry Seal, his associates,
and both employees and contract operatives of the United States
Intelligence Services. The testimony reveals a scheme whereby
massive amounts of cocaine were smuggled into the State of Arkansas,
and profits were partially used to fund covert operations. Two
witnesses testified that one of the Western District of Arkaas
Assistant U. S. Attorneys told them that the U. S. Attorney's Office
received a call to shut down the investigations involving Seal and
his associates.
Is this the reason why the IRS went to such great lengths to
cause me to withhold information from Congress? I don't know. It is
obvious that their interference had little to with 6103 or 6E
information. There had to be another reason. Something so important,
that it would cause IRS Attorney to deny even the meeting during which
the subornation of the perjury occured.
I have been asked to comment on the Treasury Inspector General's
Office Investigation into this matter. After reviewing unredacted
portions of the investigative report, I can tell you that it contains
many inaccuracies and it should be the subject of intense review by
this subcommittee. The conclusions exhibited in the report allow
criminal violations to go unpunished, and provide fertile ground
for similar violations in the future....
When this subcommittee formally requested my testimony, the pressures
from [deleted], and my immediate supervisor [deleted] increased
dramatically. [deleted] told me not to even call the Little Rock,
AR District Office to inquire as to the location of case files concerning
the Mena Investigations. I was not allowed to either inquire about
the files or return to Little Rock in time to review the
files for information relating to my contacts with the Disclosure
Litigation Attorneys....
It is ironic that the Internal Revenue Service promotes use of
polygraph examinations in conduct of criminal investigations of
american taxpayers because they, along with most other investigative
and intelligence agencies, know that polygraph is an excellent
investigative tool for determination of the truthfulness of
witnesses. Paul Whitmore and I volunteered for, and submitted to,
polygraph examinations administered by the United States Secret
Service, because we were eager, as we told Commissioner Goldberg,
to prove the truthfulness of our testimony. I again challenge
[names deleted] and any other Internal Revenue Service personnel
who dispute our testimony, to take a polygraph so that the truth can
be displayed and this matter put finally to rest.
Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, it is unlikely that any of the IRS
executives and attorneys who were involved in this matter will ever
take polygraph examinations, and they will probably never admit to
their deception. They know full well that they do not have to submit
to polygraph, and that they have protection within their powerful circle
of co-conspirators who have distorted the truth so many times on behalf
of this organization that they now comfortably perceive the truth to be
whatever the Internal Revenue Service tells them it is. Loyalty is an
important and valued asset. But never, ever, should loyalty be
justification for perjury. History is filled with tragedies resulting
from deception and crimes in the name of loyalty, patriotism and
national security. It seems that most of America keeps their hands over
their eyes, even when it comes to evidence of U.S. Government involvement
in drug smuggling and IRS corruption that erodes voluntary taxpayer
compliance, and ultimately, the very fiscal foundation of this country.
With the exception of a few in depth articles by publications such as the
Boston Phoenix, even the media has refused to demand answers. Please
do not allow this matter to remain unresolved.
The personal cost? The loss of an unblemished federal law enforcement
career and my retirement; emotional and financial trauma beyond
description; my portrayal by IRS Management as someone who turned their
back on their organization, in other words, a traitor; inability to obtain
other federal law enforcement employment because of perceptions that I am a
"whistleblower" and because the Internal Revenue Service withheld
my closing evaluation for over eighteen months....
I am thankful for the Attorney General of the State of Arkansas
who viewed my refusal to perjure myself as a quality which he wanted
in his administration. Otherwise, I might still be unable to find
employment as a criminal inrestigator. Unfortunately, reprisal against
me for truthful testimony and cooperation with congress continues.
The U. S. Attorney in Western, Arkansas has sent word on two occasions
that his office will not handle any Medicaid Fraud cases for the State of
Arkansas as long as I am on staff with the Medicaid Fraud Division.
In other words, he is willing to allow Medicaid Fraud, which affects
healthcare of the poor and elderly, to go unchecked in the entire western
half of the State of Arkansas, in order to sabotage my first fulltime
employment in nineteen months. His actions have caused us to have to
take all of our criminal cases to the Eastern Judicial District
U. S. Attorney, placing an unfair workload on both he and his staff.
How is it that IRS and Department of Justice Attorneys continue this
type of action with no perception of risk. Why are we powerless to
stop it? The Attorney General of the United States should directly
intervene with [deleted] to stop retaliation against me. Mr. Goldberg
should take charge and begin to deal with integrity problems
at the top of his organization. He should also, very quickly arrive at a
solution in order to fully restore my Federal Law Enforcement career,
with full benefits and compensation for the effects of IRS corruption
on me and my family. He should gladly provide Mr. Whitmore and his
family full compensation for any losses which they have incurred, and
allow him to effectively continue to progress in his management career.
People who cooperate with truthful testimony should be promoted, not
demoted. We have fulfilled our responsibilities to the Internal
Revenue Service and Congress under exteme duress. If the Commissioner
of Internal Revenue and the Attorney General refuse to fulfill the
responsibilities of their jobs, they should be replaced with someone
who will.
What can be done to protect IRS Whistleblowers? The first thing you
can do it make sure that whistleblowers are given the guidance and
emotional support which they are going to need to get tbrough some very
tough times. We were totally unprepared for the emotional trama of
dealing with an enemy which we really didn't understand. How many IRS
Employees know that IRS Attorneys are not there to protect them
individually, but are there to protect the IRS Organization? There
is no Attorney-Client relationship between an employee and an IRS
Disclosure Litigation Attorney. The employee will not even be able
to obtain the briefing records prepared by the attorney. Yet I
was told repeatedly that I had to use the assigned Disclosure
Litigation Attorney, that I had no choice.
Finally, you can insure, that complaints about retaliation are
promptly addressed, and that action is taken to intercede, and
provide imediate relief to tbe extent possible. People are not
going to willingly expose themselves and their families to economic
and emotional peril, without some assurance that there will be real
support from Congress
During a portion of the past three years I found myself filled with
feelings of rage, disgust and helplessness as I discovered that I
was powerless to deal with managers within IRS who perceived me as a
troublemaker, and even a traitor, because I insisted on telling the
truth. I believe that I exhibited the ultimate in loyalty to the
Internal Revenue Service. I did not begin dealing with anyone outside
my organization until I felt that I had exhausted all avenues within the
organization. I sought guidance from each of my supervisors, who, until
I became involved with this subcommittee, did nothing but encourage me
to go back and go through the same horrifying process again. I feel now
that I have done all that I can do. I despise the corruption that I have
witnessed first hand, but I have had to displace my anger toward the
people who participated in it. I am in the process of trying to
reconstruct some semblance of life and security for my family. It is
my sincere hope that others within the Internal Revenue Service will
read the transcripts of the hearings conducted by this subcommittee and
learn from them.
Mr. BARNARD. As we begin our interrogation of these two gentlemen, I
want to thank both of you for coming to the subcommittee to tell your
story. I think that your testimony in the past has helped us mold an IRS
of the future that will certainly not tolerate situations like the ones
that you have experienced, and hopefully ill prevent any retaliation
against whistleblowers in the future. Mr. Duncan, if IRS had given you
more latitude in your Justice Department testimony in 1988, would you
still be an IRS employee today?
Mr. DUNCAN. I am certain that I would.
Mr. BARNARD. Why do you believe that?
Mr. DUNCAN. I thought I had the greatest job in the Internal Revenue
Service. I thoroughly enjoyed my work, and I enjoyed the coworkers.
Mr. BARNARD. Where do you think that your investigation would have led?
Mr. DUNCAN. Wel at the time I testified before the Subcommittee on
Crime, we had just touched the tip of the iceberg, in my opinion. Since
then we have received additional testimony that there were a lot more
things going on, there was a lot more money that was being laundered. All
I wanted to do was to be able to respond truthfully and answer questions
completely before the Subcommittee on Crime.
Mr. BARNARD. What has happened to that investigation since you left it?
Mr. DUNCAN. The IRS investigation? To my knowledge, it has been closed.
Mr. BARNARD. What about the Justice Department?
Mr. DUNCAN. The statutes of limitations have expired on the cases and,
to my knowledge, nothing else will be done.
Mr. BARNARD. Mr. Duncan, do you believe that the information on the
$350,000 bribe to a high-level Justice official was valid?
Mr. DUNCAN. That is not a determination for me to make. I can only
communicate that the law enforcement officer who received that information
told me on numerous occasions that the informant that provided the
information had provided in the past nothing but good information.
Mr. BARNARD. Had he ever been tested, as far as a lie detector test is
concerned?
Mr. DUNCAN. I am not aware of that.
Mr. BARNARD. Mr. Duncan, why do you believe that [deleted] and
[deleted] requested that you not offer this information to the Justice
Subcommittee?
Mr. DUNCAN. I have asked myself that question thousands of times.
Based on the information we have received in the last year and a half it
appears that things were going on at that airport that could have been
related to the Contra resupply, I don't know. I perceive that they wanted
to protect the Internal Revenue Service from anything controversial.
Mr. BARNARD. What has happened in that particular case since you left,
to your knowledge?
Mr. DUNCAN. Information is still coming in, additional witnesses are
testifying, and we are gathering information right now.
Mr. BARNARD. Are you associated with that case now as an investigator
for the Arkansas attorney general?
Mr. DUNCAN. I receive information and pass it along to the attorney
general, and also to Congressman Alexander.
Date: Thu Sep 14, 1995 8:45 am CST
From: Duane Roberts
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: eaou669@aldebaran.oac.uci.edu
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: MENA - Another excerpt from a letter to Congressman Doug Barnard, Jr.
-----------------------------------------------------------
CONTINUED INVESTIGATION OF SENIOR-LEVEL EMPLOYEE MISCONDUCT
AND MISMANAGEMENT AT THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE:
-----------------------------------------------------------
Hearing before the Commerce, Consumer, and Monetary Affairs
Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations,
House of Representatives, One Hundred Second Congress,
First Session, July 24, 1991.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Washington : U.S. G.P.O. : For sale by the U.S. G.P.O.,
Supt. of Docs., Congressional Sales Office, 1992.
-----------------------------------------------------------
GOV DOC # Y 4.G 74/7:Em 7/16
-----------------------------------------------------------
The following excerpt is from a letter written by IRS Representative
N. Paul Whitmore to Representative Doug Barnard, Jr. (D-Georgia), former
Chairman of the Commerce, Consumer, and Monetary Affairs Subcommittee.
The letter was written in response to a question posed by Chairman Barnard
as to why Mr. Whitmore felt that IRS attorneys wanted to suppress former
IRS Special Agent William C. Duncan's testimony before the House Judiciary
Subcommittee on Crime in 1988 regarding events taking place at the
Intermountain Regional Airport in Mena, Arkansas.
From page 320.
2. It is my perspective that the IRS attorneys were not acting alone
when they wanted to suppress Mr. Duncan's 1988 testimony. Although,
they visualize themselves as the guardians of the IRS image, I do
not believe that they would take it upon themselves to suggest that
S/A Duncan to commit perjury. [deleted] stated that the
Commissioner's Office was very concerned about Duncan's upcoming
testimony. This was a direct indication that the Commissioner's
office was involved. Carrying this a step further, it is my
perspective that the Commissioner's office would not be involved
unless pressure was received from an outside source.
It is my opinion they wanted to suppress his testimony as they
did not want the IRS to be involved in a controversial issue. In
addition they did not want the IRS to be identified as the agency
responsible for uncovering evidence has shown to be a covert
operation involving illegal arms shipments, illegal drug smuggling
and illegal money laundering activities which involved other
federal government agencies. If this were not the case, why
then is the Commissioner's office still going to such great
lengths to protect these attorneys.
Date: Thu Sep 14, 1995 11:10 pm CST
From: Jamianne [Ms. Freddi ".A.R.." Reddi]
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: jamiv@verilink.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Annotated Mena-Gate Bibliography 9/14/95 for your reading & viewing
pleasure
>
Mena-Gate/CIA-Gate
Bibliography
700 Club Fact Sheet: "Mena Airport:
Arkansas' Contra Connection?"
Bowers, Rodney, Arkansas Democrat-
Gazette-August 26, 1995: "British TV
Journalist Finished Filming Mena Air-
port Secrets"-"Reporter calls tale of
drugs, arms for Contras `fascinating.'"
CBS News focused two segments of
"Eye on America" on the Mena epi-
sodes.
Celerino Castillo and David Harmon:
Powder Burns: Cocaine, Contras and the
Drug War. Castillo was the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration's (DEA)
top agent in El Salvador during 1985-87
Cockburn, Alexander, The Nation, p 582.
A drug and gun trafficking opera-
tion through Mena in western
Arkansas was protected by Federal
officials. In a 1983 IRS drug smug-
gling and money laundering investi-
gation by the Arkansas State Police,
prime investigator Russell Welch,
uncovered CIA connections, and
was warned off by the FBI. Arkansas
state agencies brokered loans to
associated companies and interfered
with investigations.
Dettmer, Jamie, "Arkansas Probe Leads
Back To Mysterious Rural Airport"
Insight Magazine, a Washington Time
Corp. publication. August 28, 1995
issue. Editorial Offices (202) 636-8800,
76353.2113@compuserve.com Fax:
(202) 529-2484.
The Nation, p 189-192. "How the Drug
Czar Got Away", by Martin A. Lee.
`The gist of the story is that the USA is
more interested in implicating Nicara-
guan Sandinistas in drug running than
in prosecuting smugglers. Also the US
Government funded contras with drug
money. Jorge Luis Ochoa of Columbia
was captured in Spain. The DEA (at
least one agent was also member of
Lieut. Col. Oliver North's team) offered
to have extradition bungled if Ochoa
would implicate the Nicaraguan Sand-
inista government in cocaine traffick-
ing. Ochoa refused. After 20 months,
Spain decided that USA was seeking to
use Ochoa as a political instrument and
denied extradition to USA. Ochoa had
fled to Spain in June 1984 after being
implicated in the assassination of Lara
Bonilla, the Columbian Minister of Jus-
tice who had crusaded against his
country's $5 billion per year cocaine
trade. Alder Berriman Seal (Barry Seal)
said he flew 1500 kilograms of cocaine
from Columbia to Managua for Ochoa.
The story quotes The Wall Street Jour-
nal as reporting that four imprisoned
drug pilots who knew Seal said that
Seal was part of contra supply network,
delivering weapons and drugs. Seal also
took secret photos of Sandinista soldiers
loading cocaine on his C-123 transport (the
same plane as shot down with Eugene
Hasenfus). Ochoa contributed money to
contras. Ramon Milian-Rodriguez told
Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nar-
cotics and International Operations that he
had funneled $10 million to the contras
through former CIA operative Felix Rod-
riguez in 1983. James Kible, Madrid Spain
based DEA agent assigned to Ochoa case
and another DEA agent, Victor Oliveira
were caught while boarding a plane for
Switzerland at Madrid Barajos Airport
with $5 million in cash, supposedly for
North's contra-aid team. The records of
these arrests have been "disappeared."
Larry Nichols: "The Truth Will Set Us
Free," For The People News Reporter, May 30,
1994, p. 13.
Oliver North: Under Fire
Penthouse: "Snowbound," July, 1989, writ-
ten by investigative reporters John Cum-
mings, and Ernest Volkman.
Penthouse: "The Crimes Of Mena," July
1995, by Sally Denton and Roger Morris (a
"follow-up" article on "Snowbound")
[Both Penthouse articles are available in various
Internet versions.]
Terry Reed and John Cummings, Compro-
mised: Clinton, Bush, and the CIA, How the
Presidency was Co-opted by the CIA, SPI
Books, a Division of Shapolsky Publishers,
New York city (1994, hardcover, $23.95,
556 pp). It can be ordered from Crown
Books and other sources.
Terry Reed is a former Air Force Intelli-
gence officer (with a top secret clearance
and a distinguished record) who became
an operative of the CIA and FBI during the
CIA Iran-Contra operations in Mena,
which airlifted guns to the South and
drugs and cash on the return leg. Oliver
North was recruited by and worked with
Barry Seal. He was a firsthand witness to
the guns, cocaine, money-laundering, and
Contra training aspects of the operation.
When security began to unravel in AR
because of leaks, mistakes, and inquisitive-
ness on the part of some of the media and
some investigators, Clinton realized Terry
had met too many people and learned too
much about the guns, drugs, and money-
laundering in AR. The CIA proposed that
Terry head a front company in Mexico,
where the guns-drugs smuggling opera-
tion was being moved. Clinton made it
clear he wanted Terry to take the offer. The
front company was supposed to be a cover
for smuggling guns only. But Terry discov-
ered his employees (CIA operatives) were
secretly using his business to smuggle
drugs on the return leg from south and
Central American. He attempted to extri-
cate himself and there resulted a break
with the CIA and FBI. He found the FBI
had fabricated a complete criminal file on
him and his wife as drug smugglers, an
aircraft thieves, as insurance against Terry
`s possible disloyalty. Realizing elements
in the government had turned against him,
he went in to hiding-like Robert Redford
in Days of the Condor. He was brought to
trial. The prosecutor and possibly the
judge was fully aware that he was inno-
cent but that he was being persecuted
for being a political persona non grata. He
was acquitted, only to be smeared by
Time magazine, under Strobe Talbot (see
above).
He is currently suing Time. Send
contributions to: Reed Counter Offen-
sive, 3232 San Mateo N.E., Suite 155,
Albuquerque NM 87110.
John Cummings co-authored the 1989
Penthouse article, Snowbound."-editor
Reed, Terry, The Mena Connection, video-
documentary (140 min. VHS) You can
order it for $19.95 at 1-800-888-9999 (24
hrs).-a "blockbuster" A poster to the
Newsgroup:
alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater says:
...Better than his book. I highly rec-
ommend that everyone here get it. It
has a bunch of news footage from a
Ft. Smith, AR TV station, from a
major Chicago network TV station,
and the CBS Eye on America report on
the matter. There is also a very inter-
esting recording in the tape of a
phone conversation between Hub-
bell and a Time reporter. Terry's wife
Jan also give a great interview in the
tape. And much more. There is a lot
of video footage in this tape that I had
not seen before, and I have been fol-
lowing this issue for two years, have
read Terry Reed's book, and been fol-
lowing this newsgroup since the day
it began. After viewing the tape a few
times and sharing it with family and
close friends, you might also con-
sider donating the video to your local
cable access station.
Monika and William Stevenson: Kiss the
Boys Good-bye. A poster to GS writes:
The book makes this clear: relations
between Bush and Perot had gone
downhill ever since the Vice Presi-
dent had asked Ross Perot how his
POW/MIA investigations were
going.
"Well, George, I go in looking for
prisoners," said Perot, "but I spend
all my time discovering the govern-
ment has been moving drugs around
the world and is involved in illegal
arms deals...I can't get at the prison-
ers because of the corruption among
our own covert people."
This ended Perot's official access to
the highly classified files as a one-
man presidential investigator. "I
have been ordered to cease and
desist," he had informed the families
of missing men early in 1987.
R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr: "Furtive Drug
Flights," article, Aug. 25, 1995, posted to
alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater
R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr is Editor of the
American Spectator.
Jack Terrell and Ron Martz: Disposable
Patriot, ISBN 0915765381, National Press
Books, 1992. "Highly recommended for
background on the US intelligence com-
munity, drugs, and the Contras!"
U. S. News & World Report, Oct 3, 1988, p.
13. "Elaine Shannon in Desperados says
that in June 1984, Oliver North, in an
effort to expose alleged links between the
Sandinistas and drug dealers, leaked
information which exposed Barry Seal
who was infiltrating The Medellin
[cocaine] Cartel."
Wayne G. Walker, Ph.D., J.D.: "Do the
ends justify the means (and the Menas)?"
Published in the American Reporter,
Weekend edition: September 9-11,
August 30, 1995. Sent from NationTALK:
Enhancing societal learning e-mail:
walker @ rolnet.com website: http://
www.rolnet.com/~wwalker/nt/nt.html First-
class BBS: 805-948-4900
Wall Street Journal, [editorials, articles]:
-"BCCI Opening," Sept. 5, 1995, Review
& Outlook, page A14.
-"Investigate Mena," 07/10/95, p. A12.
-"The Mena Cover-up," Oct/18/94.
-"On the Mena Trail," Epstein, Edward
Jay.
-"Still a Strong Scent on the Mena
Trail," by Bill Plante and Michael Singer,
CBS News, Letters to the Editor, May 3,
1994, p. A15
-"Who is Dan Lasater?" 8/7/95, edito-
rial page.
-"Secret Meetings in Arkansas," May
13, 1994, p.A11]
>
Date: Fri Sep 22, 1995 9:15 am CST
From: snet l
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: snet-l@world.std.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: MENA, ARKANSAS: Congressman Bill Alexander confronts the IRS
-----------------------------------------------------------
IRS SENIOR EMPLOYEE MISCONDUCT PROBLEMS
-----------------------------------------------------------
Hearings before the Commerce, Consumer, and Monetary
Affairs Subcommittee of the Committee on Government
Operations, House of Representatives, One Hundred First
Congress, First Session, July 25, 26, and 27, 1989.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Washington : U.S. G.P.O. : For sale by the Supt. of Docs.,
Congressional Sales Office, U.S. G.P.O., 1989.
-----------------------------------------------------------
GOV DOC # Y 4.G 74/7:Em 7/11.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Congressman Doug Barnard, Jr. (D-Georgia) was Chairman of the Commerce,
Consumer, and Monetary Affairs Subcommittee.
The following exchange is between William Alexander, Congressman (D-Arkansas),
Michael Murphy, Senior Deputy Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service,
and Fred Goldberg, Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service.
Excerpts are from pages 554-559.
Mr. BARNARD. Well - I want to take that back up. I think we need to.
I have invited Mr. Alexander, who is not a member of the committee, but
a former member of the committee, to come - to sit in at these hearings
and according the accommodations that we have in Congress, I will give
him the opportunity to ask any questions.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
First, I would like to thank the chairman, the minority, and the entire
committee for permitting these hearings and I would explain my reason for
being here, to state for the record and under oath, if you wish, Mr. Chairman,
that the House Appropriations Commitiee, specifically the Subcommittees
on Commerce, Justice, State, and Judiciary and Treasury, both of which I
am a member of, together and in cooperation with the Subcommittee on
Crime, Chairman Hughes of the House Judiciary Committee, the General
Accounting Office, and in cooperation with the Criminal Investigation
Division of the Arkansas State Police, have been investigating events
surrounding the Mena, AR, Airport for several years.
The allegations here are of the most serious nature involving allegation
of high crimes in high places in Washington.
They involve allegations that a C-123/C-130 operation, contract operation,
was operating out of Mena Airport transporting guns to Central America
and running drugs to Arkansas, and laundering money in Arkansas from the
sale of those drugs.
I wish at this point to state publicly my appreciation for the cooperation
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement
Administration, both of which agencies have cooperated with the House
Appropriations Committee, the General Accounting Office, the Subcommittee
on Crime, and the Arkansas State Police.
This investigation led us to the Internal Revenue Service about 1 year
ago, at which time I attempted to obtain that agency's cooperation by
asking IRS to provide access to one of the witnesses here today.
I believe it was in September of last year, because of the failure of
that cooperation, I wrote a letter to Mr. Gibbs, who was then Commissioner,
and I will submit a copy of that letter for the record, requesting the
cooperation of the Commissioner and specifically requesting the access to
information and testimony of Mr. Duncan.
I did not receive a reply to that letter by March of this year, and I
spoke directly to Mr. Murphy, who appeared before our Committee on Treasury
appropriations. Mr. Murphy appeared to be cooperative and stated his
cooperation, but as of this moment, except for the evidence that I have
heard here tody and through the General Accounting Office resulting
from the resignation of Mr. Duncan as a criminal investigator for the
Internal Revenue Service, the IRS has not provided any evidence or any
access to that evidence to me, to the Subcommittee on Crime nor to the
General Accounting Office or the Arkansas State Police Criminal
Division.
I will state for the record that it has only been through the resignation
of Mr. Duncan and his testimony here today that we have discovered part
of the truth that, we think will lead us to an indictment on money laundering
charges for drug trafficking in Arkansas.
The action of the Internal Revenue Service has prevented the Government
from investigating and prosecuting these cases in Arkansas.
I don't think that it is intentional on your part to do so, but I
would like to state to you that I have for over a year been trying to gain
access to Mr. Duncan's testimony.
It has been explained to me that you could not provide it because it
was prevented by the security provisions of the confidentiality requirements
on tax returns and grand jury information.
I might say that the emissary that you have sent to me has been
most polite in explaining that to me.
The effect of the failure of your cooperation has been to permit
the statute of limitations to continue to run on persons that we believe
to be drug traffickers, in effect, to protect drug traffickers and
their drug lords that are profiting from the illicit drug trafficking in
the United States and specifically in my State of Arkansas.
That is to say, that little children in Arkansas are buying drugs
because we are unable to discover sufficient evidence to bring indictments
to prevent that from happening. I don't think you intend to do that, but
that is the effect of the Government and the bureaucracy not cooperating
with law enforcement officials.
It is a serious problem in this country, and one of the most serious
obstacles to attacking the problem, the war on drugs, is the bureaucracy,
the rules and regulations, and the intentional prevention of the submission
of evidence that we have heard from the witnesses today.
I would just like to ask a couple of questions about those witnesses,
because my committee, together with the Subcommittee on Crime, and in
cooperation with this committee, will be subpoenaing you gentlemen in the
future if that is necessary to get all the information. We hope that is
not necessary.
Mr. Murphy, did you know that since I talked to you in March my
effort to acquire access to needed information to pursue a prosecution
in Arkansas has not been forthcoming?
Mr. MURPHY. Mr. Alexander, I am aware that there has been a serious
issue as to what information, if any, we could provide to you.
As you well pointed out, on the day that I testified before the House
Appropriations Committee, we met and I thought we had - a good
communication privately.
Mr. ALEXANDER. We had a good communication. We can stipulate that, but
we still don't have any evidence.
Mr. MURPHY. I understand that.
I thought you showed me a letter that you wrote to the Regional
Commissioner in Southeast and I also recall that I apologized to you for
not responding to it. I had.
Mr. ALEXANDER. You are correct. The letter was to the Regional
Commissioner in Atlanta.
I am mistaken about that. I will submit a copy of the letter for
the record.
[The information follows:]
BILL ALEXANDER, M.C. 233 CANNON HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING
ARKANSAS WASHINGTON, DC 20515
(202) 225-4078
COMMITTEE ON
APPRORIATIONS
Congress of the United States
September 26, 1988
Mr. Thomas A. Cardoza
Regional Comissioner
Internal Revenue Service
Southeast Region
Post Office Box 926 (Room 600)
Atlanta, Georgia 30370
Dear Mr. Cardoza:
Please be advised that the General Accounting Office Congressman
Willlam Hughes, Senator John Kerry and I are conducting a
Congressional investigation of illegal drug trafficking from
Latin American countries to the United States.
Of particular interest is the use of Mena Airport in Arkansas
as a staging area for the transport of arms to, and drugs
from Central America.
One of your special operations coordinators, Bill Duncan has
information relevant to this investigation. Accordingly, I herewith
request that you authorize Bill Duncan to share all relevant
information pertaining to the Congressional investigation which
I have herein described.
Thanking you for your cooperation in this matter, I am
Sincerely yours,
BILL ALEXANDER
Member of Congress
BA/js
Mr. MURPHY. The apology for being nonresponsive to the letter, whether
you wrote to the Regional Commissioner, to me, or to the Commissioner, we
should have responded.
Mr. ALEXANDER. It has been a year.
Mr. MURPHY. I know that.
Mr. ALEXANDER. The statute of limitations is running on the criminals.
Mr. MURPHY. I understand, but I had Ms. Morin with me. I am going to ask
Mr. Keightley to respond to the question because there were issues that,
upon the advice of counsel I gave directions that if there was some way that
we could legally cooperate with your committee and provide information to
you, that was my objective.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. Murphy, I understand that you have rules and
regulations to operate by and we don't want to violate those rules.
It is not our purpose to do that.
Our purpose is to try to stop drugs from coming into this country.
Your interpretation of your rules and regulations are, in effect,
cooperating with the drug lords. Your bureaucracy is preventing us from
waging a war on drugs.
Mr. MURPHY. Mr. Alexander, before I ask Mr. Keightley to respond, I
would like to point out to you, IRS agents, including Special Agent
Duncan when he was with us, across the country have been partners in
dealing with the war on drugs.
We have gotten much, much recognition on that and I think we can
even do more on that. I think Mr. Keightley can respond to the specifics.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. Keightley can respond for the record.
I have heard the explanation. The basic problem here is that while I
have the highest possible clearance that the Government can provide
for secrecy - being cleared for secrets that the President and no one
else gets, I have still been denied access to information in a criminal
investigation in my State.
Now, Mr. Duncan came in here this morning and he has testified
that he was prevented from offering evidence that he thought relevant
to that investigation. In effect he has testified that he was, in effect,
ordered to perjure himseif in evidence before a grand jury.
I have other information that Mr. Duncan believes that the prevention
of his testimony before the grand jury prevented an indictment on drug
money laundering charges - very serious charges - and you were all part
of that. What we want to do is to get to the bottom of this thing so that
we are all working together to fight this war on drugs instead of
fighting one another. We are fighting one another and we ought to be out
here fighting these drug lords. Now, will you and Mr. Goldberg order all
of the agents in the Internal Revenue Service to cooperate with these
investigations and will you submit a memorandum to that effect and send
us a copy of it?
Mr. GOLDBERG. Mr. Alexander, I will make crystal clear to every one
of our employees that they are obligated to and they will cooperate
to the fullest extent of the law with your investigation and any other
investigation conducted by the Congress of the United States.
Mr. ALEXANDER. And will you put in writing to me the reason that you
have not cooperated thus far?
Mr. GOLDBERG. Mr. Alexander, I have stopped beating my wife - I don't
know whether we have cooperated or not, but I assure you I will personally
look into this matter and I will personally be on your doorstep in the
future with my report.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Date: Sat Sep 23, 1995 10:10 am CST
From: conspire
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: conspire@prairienet.org
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: CONSPIRE digest 156
CONSPIRE Digest 156
Topics covered in this issue include:
1) Foster, NSA & Bank Spying
by Brian Redman
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Topic No. 1
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 1995 11:14:03 -0500 (CDT)
From: Brian Redman
To: conspire-post@firefly.prairienet.org
Subject: Foster, NSA & Bank Spying
Message-ID:
og.Index.Doc
============
Now archived and available via anonymous ftp at ftp.shout.net
in subdirectory pub/users/bigred
Allegations Regarding Vince Foster, the NSA, and
Banking Transactions Spying by J. Orlin Grabbe
Basic instructions:
1) ftp ftp.shout.net
2) logon: anonymous
3) password: email@ <-- not meant literally!! Use first part
of your e-mail address as the password
4) cd pub/users/bigred
5) og.Index.Doc (see below) has info you need
6) get og015 <-- not meant literally!! You can also
"get og001", "get og023", etc.
NAME DESCRIPTION
=================================================================
og001 The Norman Allegations
-----------------------------------------------------------------
og002 Attorney Charles O. Morgan Counter-Attacks
-----------------------------------------------------------------
og003 Follow The Money
-----------------------------------------------------------------
og004 More On Charles O. Morgan
-----------------------------------------------------------------
og005 Intermission
-----------------------------------------------------------------
og006 Bibliography of News Articles Regarding Systematics
-----------------------------------------------------------------
og007 Virtual Realities in the Banking and National Security
Worlds
-----------------------------------------------------------------
og008 Are U.S. Nuclear Secrets for Open Sale on the World
Market?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
og009 Letter to Mr. Wierzynski, Assistant Staff Director,
U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Banking
and Financial Services
-----------------------------------------------------------------
og010 The BCCI-Lance-Stephens-Systematics-Hubbell-Clinton
Connection
-----------------------------------------------------------------
og011 Collapse of BCCI Leads To FinCEN, Leads To Artificial
Intelligence, Leads To PROMIS Software
-----------------------------------------------------------------
og012 Cabazon Indian Nation, Wackenhut, PROMIS, Michael
Riconosciuto, and Danny Casolaro
-----------------------------------------------------------------
og013 Computer Virus Enters PROMIS Back Door And Shuts Down
NSA Computers?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
og014 Mellon Bank's Pending RICO Suit May Blow Up The Whole
Laundry Thang -- But Capital's Mobile, Ain't It?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
og015 The World Of Money Laundering, Richard Mellon Scaife,
Ed Meese, and FEMA
-----------------------------------------------------------------
og016 Recent Worms In Government Computers, and Federal
Reserve Pressures Banks Into Banking Surveillance
-----------------------------------------------------------------
og017 Mellon Bank, Sheila Foster Anthony, Lisa Foster, and
the $286,000 Wire Transfer; ALSO: July 1, 1993 to July
23, 1993 Sequence of Events
-----------------------------------------------------------------
og018 Death of Vince Foster Not Satisfactorily Investigated
-----------------------------------------------------------------
og019 The Triangular Trade. Parallels Between Arkansas and
Pittsburgh.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
og020 Geneology of Mr. Grabbe and of the Mellon Family
-----------------------------------------------------------------
og021 Just Pay The Electric Bill, And Hand Me The Keys To
The Mellon Bank
-----------------------------------------------------------------
og022 Mrs. Foster and Mrs. Anthony Are "Astonished and
Incensed", But the Dump Truck Has Sand to Dump on
Their Lawyer
-----------------------------------------------------------------
og023 Did Bush's Plumber Unit Do Dirty Tricks to Perot and
Kill Foster? Did the "Blonde Hairs" Belong to Dee Dee
Myers?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
og024 Assassination of Foster: Government Approved Hit or
"Unprofessional" Panic by Politicians and Their Goons?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
og025 Money Laundering Interconnections
-----------------------------------------------------------------
og026 Mark Tuohey Has a Conflict of Interest, Abner Mikva
Runs Out of Gas, and Some People are in Trouble
-----------------------------------------------------------------
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
O what fine thought we had because we thought | bigred@shout.net
That the worst rogues and rascals had died out. | Illinois,
-- W.B. Yeats, "Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen" | I'm your boy.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
------------------------------
End of CONSPIRE Digest 156
**************************
Date: Tue Oct 10, 1995 10:01 am CST
From: David J Sussman
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: djsussma@jupiter.acs.oakland.edu
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Re: NTB! URGENT! High-Tech AmTrak Sabotage in Arizona !
>Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 06:43:48 -0700
>From: pwatson@utdallas.edu
>To: no-terrorism-bill@mail.webcom.com
>Subject: Re: NTB! URGENT! High-Tech AmTrak Sabotage in Arizona !
>Sender: owner-no-terrorism-bill@webcom.com
>Precedence: bulk
>Reply-To: no-terrorism-bill@webcom.com
>
>
>
>On Mon, 9 Oct 1995 clarkm@cnct.com wrote:
>
>> Hi Mike and thanks! Who detained the two "non-suspects", do you know?
>>
>> Maricopa County deputies? They have/had jurisdiction until the FBI got
>> involved.
>>
>> Why the guess about the Mexican border? The site is described as "south
>> of Phoenix" and very desolate. It'd have to be way far south of Phoenix
>> to be really close to Mexico, eh?
>>
>> Do you use PGP? I'll send my key if you need it.
>>
>> Best, Clark
>>
>>
>> .---. .----------- * ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
>> / \ __ / ------ * clark.matthews@paranet.org
>> / / \(..)/ ----- * ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
>> ////// ' \/ ` ---- *
>> //// / // : : --- * PERMISSION TO
>> \\/ / * / /` '--* COPY / REPOST
>> \*/ * //..\\
>> x-x-UU----UU-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
>> '//||\\` N E M O..M E..I M P U N E..L A C E S S I T
>> x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
>>
>>
>> ****************************************************************
>> UCC 1-207 WP Unsubcribe to no-terrorism-bill-request@webcom.com
>> with word "unsubscribe" in body of message | howard@pc-man.com
>>
>
>At about 5:30 pm central time on the David Gold radio show KLIF 570am
>a retired "Air America" pilot, that's the CIA MENA airline, called in. I
>have head this guy over the last several years and he knew Barry Seal(?)
>and Terry Reed and all the MENA drug running for contra arms people. He
>lives in the Texas Panhandle and sounds like he is for real. I should
>also mention that I saw him at a Dallas public meeting for that Larry
>fellow who made the "Clinton Chronicles". They hugged and cried as they
>talked about how they were both walking dead men for going public.
>Any way, David Gold asked him if he had heard of the group "Sons of the
>Gestapo". He said yes they were a Mexican gang that has stolen TV and
>electronics from trains and then would cross back into Mexico and they
>have been around for years and are well know by the FBI. He said this
>is the first time they had ever done anything terrorist."
>
>I think the local police should find out the location of all BATF
>employees for several days prior to the derailment. Did not Clinton say a
>few weeks ago something to the effect of "what else is it gong to take
>for you to pass the Terrorist bill"???
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Paul Watson, pwatson@utdallas.edu Purchasing Department "DISCLAIMER"
>The University of Texas at Dallas ph# 214/883-2307, fax# 214/883-2348
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>****************************************************************
>UCC 1-207 WP Unsubcribe to no-terrorism-bill-request@webcom.com
>with word "unsubscribe" in body of message | howard@pc-man.com
>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Sussman
Oakland University SBA WWW Administrator
djsussma@jupiter.acs.oakland.edu
http://sba_server.sba.oakland.edu/staff/djsussma/djsussma.htm
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu Oct 19, 1995 5:42 pm CST
From: snet l
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: snet-l@world.std.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Mena: pressure increases for Congressional action
[From *Money Laundering Bulletin*, October 1995, p. 7.
Address: 173 Dalling Road, London W6 0ES; editorial
inquiries 44-171-221-8853; subscription inquiries
44-181-749-6951; fax 44-181-749-6951.]
Mena: pressure increases for Congressional action
Washington: Pressure is increasing in the US for a full-scale
investigation into the role of Bill Clinton in the Mena affair, when
governor of Akansas in the 1980s.
The questions currently being asked are: When did Bill Clinton
first learn that there was a major and possibly Iran-Contra linked
drugs-running operation being run from Arkansas? And what did Arkansas
state police know of the alleged shipment of narcotics and weapons in
the 1980s?
According to some reports, a Republican-led Congress is turning
a blind eye to the new material which is being unearthed on the case,
possibly because Republicans may be involved.
Mr. Kenneth Starr, the Whitewater independent counsel, is being
drawn every more deeply into the Mena affair, as he attempts to trace
cash contributions to Clinton's gubernatorial election coffers and the
complex financial relationships linking the Clintons and the current
Arkansas governor Jim Tucker with banks, businessmen and land deals.
Starr has reportedly uncovered evidence of large-scale money
laundering activities in the state, which together with allegations made
by state tropper LD Brown, reveal that Clinton had knowledge of Iran-
Contra Narcotics trafficking.
Congressional aides involved in the Whitewater inquiries have
admitted that it is "increasingly odd" the reluctance of congressmen
to investigate claims about Mena as more information on the Arkansas
drugs economy of the 1980s emerges.
Date: Mon Oct 23, 1995 9:11 pm CST
From: snet l
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: snet-l@world.std.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Mena, Akansas: Tom Valentine interviews Lt. Com. Alex Martin
[The following interview with Lt. Commander Alexander Martin (retired) took
place on Tom Valentine's Radio Free America program on July 10, 1995.
Valentine's comments follow "Q" while Martin's follow "A".]
Q: Please tell us a little bit about yourself.
A: I'm Alexander Martin of Iran-contra fame. I testified before the Kerry
committee and every single investigating committee in Congress from 1987
until 1990. I was the former employer, employee and subordinate of Major
General Richard Secord, a name familiar to people. In 1984, I was approached
by a representative of the good general with a mandate that I raise money
and form a series of corporations to raise money and legitimize flows of
money to what Oliver North described as "the cause" and what Secord described
as "the enterprise". That was a covert and illegal effort to support and
maintain a contra army within the border of Nicaragua.
Q: I've heard you were instrumental in much of this.
A: I don't know how instrumental I was, but I raised millions for these
boys.
Q: A lot of us have heard a lot about the so-called "Iran-contra" affair
which was very big in the media at one time, during the congressional
hearings, etc., but based upon what I know, I don't think the public really
knows the whole story. Do you think it has been clarified as to what
really did happen?
A: Of course not. Anyone who is in the people's government who is a politi-
cian obviously doesn't have a vested interest in telling the people the
truth. I'm going to try to tell the truth.
Q: You were a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy prior to your involve-
ment in the Iran-contra affair?
A: Yes, but I was retired from the Navy at the time I was brought into
what later became known as Iran-contra. That's when I became very closely
aligned with Richard Secord, Oliver North, Jeb Bush, Felix Rodriquez and a
whole panoply of people who essentially ran Iran-contra as it were.
[Q+A section on public's attitude omitted]
Q: I actually had somebody tell me recently that, in their words, "Iran-
contra was no big deal. They were fighting communism, weren't they?"
A: What became known as Iran-contra (and it was then-Attorney General Edwin
Meese who thought up the terminology) was the largest illegal covert
operation the government has ever undertaken. It involved nearly 5,000
people at one time, billions of taxpayers' dollars and egregious acts of
government which were illegal, including, obviously, the surreptitious
trafficking in arms and narcotics, as part of a state-sanctioned policy.
There has been great speculation in the press ever since the collapse of
Iran-contra about the CIA's sponsorship of narcotics trafficking to
generate covert revenues and the illegal trafficking of weapons, etc.
Q: There are still many who believe Iran-contra was not a government-
sponsored affair; that those who were responsible were part of a so-called
"rogue" operation by people who did it for their own profit.
A: To some extent, it's true. I've been asked about this before. There
were billions upon billions of dollars raised, ostensibly to support a
50,000-man rebel army in Nicaragua. And the money raised was certainly vast
resources beyond what was necessary to support that army. When Oliver
North, before the Kerry Senate hearing was asked by Senator Dan Inouye,
how much of those billions that the taxpayers were raped and pillaged for
actually went to support the Nicaraguan contras, North himself said in
public testimony that it was only 3 percent.
Q: Only 3 percent? That means 97 percent went somewhere else.
A: It went into people's pockets. General Secord certainly profited
handsomely. General John Singlaub and a host of others did likewise.
However, would it have been possible for these men to carry out such an
enormous conspiracy, to traffic in such enormous quantities of illegal
items, without the duplicity and complicity of the United States govern-
ment?
Q: I don't see how it would have been possible.
A: It would not have been possible, and it was not possible at the time to
do so. I think George Bush said it very well in an interview with Sarah
McClendon, the grand dame of the Washington press corps. When Bush consented
to an interview with Mrs. McClendon in June of 1992, he said on record, which
she printed in her newsletter that month, when she asked him about Iran-
contra and he said, (and I'm quoting from her newsletter): "If the people
were to ever find out what we have done, we would be chased down the streets
and lynched." This was a public comment by George Bush.
Q: George Bush actually admitted that?
A: He said it and it was printed in Mrs. McClendon's newsletter in June of
1992.
Q: That's interesting since Bush just got reimbursed for his legal fees
arising from the Iran-contra affair. Could you refresh us as to the details
of Iran-contra from your unique vantage point as a participant?
A: Very simply put, what became known as Iran-contra was originally an
operational policy formulated by the director of central intelligence
William Casey, early in the Reagan presidency. It was codenamed "Operation
Eagle" at that time. It was essentially put on the shelf until 1983,
renamed "Operation Black Eagle", and Oliver North was brought into it at
that time. One of the first things Ronald Reagan did was to appoint lowly
lieutenant colonel Oliver North to be director of the then-secret National
Programs Office (NPO), an agency which, in 1983, was still very highly
classified.
Q: Who suggested North's appointment to Reagan?
A: CIA Director Bill Casey. North was his hand-picked fellow. As far as
Ronald Reagan's role in Iran-contra (which I'm often asked about), I have
only met him once in my official capacity. It was always my impression
that Ronald Reagan had the broad concept of establishing a "contra" (or
rebel) army inside Nicaragua to act as a ward against what he perceived to
be a spreading Red tide in Central America. But that is about all Reagan
thought and that is about all he knew, at least based upon what I was able
to perceive at the time. He didn't come up with the policy; he was not
kept informed in regular briefings. All Iran-contra initiatives were
ultimately consolidated under the office of Vice President George Bush
who was ultimately responsible for the initiation of policies. He was
fully apprised of virtually every operation.
Q: Bush told the public that he was "out of the loop".
A: In fact, it was Reagan who was out of the loop. Certainly that was my
perception at the time. It was CIA Director Casey's idea to consolidate
Iran-contra operations under the office of the Vice President so that they
wouldn't "stick out" so much, as it were.
Q: The contra operations are relatively simple to understand. But how did
Iran become involved in the picture?
A: The whole concept of "Iran-contra" is a misnomer. It was thought up by
Ed Meese, who went on national television the day after Thanksgiving in 1986
and told the American people that their government had been involved in an
illegal act: to wit, the sale of arms to Iran and a diversion of the profits
from those weapons to support the Nicaraguan contras. That's all Meese said.
The ruse of talking about "Iran-contra" was done to misdirect the media into
looking at the Iranian aspect of it and stay away from the contra and
Central American aspect of it. It was in the latter case that the real
political and legal liability for the government lay.
Q: And this is where the real profit lay as well.
A: Narcotics were not involved with the Iranian operations. The more egreg-
ious acts involving our government didn't relate to the sale of some $30
million in TOW missiles to the Iranian government. Frankly, no one cared
about it at the time.
Q: The left-learning Sandinistas government was in power in Nicaragua at
this time and Ronald Reagan wanted to drive them out. Congress did not.
A: As early as 1983 Congress was fighting aid to the contras. They were
afraid of another Vietnam-style involvement. We were facing a well-equipped
120,000 man Sandinista army, thanks to arms from the Soviets. Therefore
they appropriated very little money (less than $100 million) during 1983
to 1986. Even that, Congress stipulated, would only go to "civilian
materiel assistance." That is, non-weapons. However, as it turned out, as
Oliver North pointed out, it didn't work out that way, but that is what
Congress intended.
Q: Somebody is going to make a lot of money in any war.
A: As Richard Secord was fond of saying, "If you look up the word 'covert'
in the dictionary, you'll find a dollar sign next to it."
Q: You were part of the financial end of Iran-contra, setting up dummy
companies that handled money for the operation.
A: Effectively, I was "legitimizing" money for the operation. I would
set up an investment company, let us say oil and gas, which tends to be one
of the oldest of right-wing favorites, for the production of covert revenue.
I would be provided by Richard Secord with lists of very well-heeled
Republicans who were supportive of "the cause" (Iran-contra) and wish to
contribute money but could not do so insofar as it was an illegal action
of state. Therefore I would set up an investment which existed nowhere
else but in a file drawer and I would sell this investment product to these
"investors" and the money would wind up in the hands of Oliver North and
Richard Secord, ostensibly to support "the cause". When the fraud was
perpetrated in this act was on the U.S. Treasury, insofar as the money that
these people were supposedly investing they got to write off on a very
high-levered basis. Consequently the IRS was denied substantial revenues
that they should have received.
Q: How did people manage that since there is very little that is able to
be written off these days?
A: This was prior to the 1986 tax reform laws. These are 50 percent maxi-
mum tax bracket days. These are the days of many tax shelters, oil and gas
certainly being premier among them. Obviously if you had a very well-heeled
gentleman in the 50 percent tax bracket, and you could provide him with an
investment where he could write off his money on a two-for-one leveraged
basis, then after taxes, his so-called "investment" didn't cost him a dime.
And, as Oliver North used to remind me, he had the gratification of serving
America--certainly Oliver North's version of America. One reason I've been
speaking out is that I have to defend myself. Obviously, Oliver North has
criticized me publicly in the past, even on his radio talk show.
North has said, for instance, that by telling the American people
the truth about what he and other did that I am being "unpatriotic". That
is essentially what he has said in his criticisms of me. That it is
obviously "unpatriotic" to tell the American people the truth about what
their government has been doing to them, a truth that if the American
people ever fully realized what has been done to them and did something
about it, could--in North's words--"prove dangerous to the political order
of the state."
Q: Let's hope so. The political order of the state brought us Oliver
North an his scandal. Now if they had been able to solve the problem in
Central America, we might conclude that they had done a good deed. How
do you look at that?
A: The original concept, in my estimation, was noble. But after 1983 it
became twisted as those in the shadows of government recognized an oppor-
tunity to profit by this. They recognized that in the name of "patriotism"
they were able to rape and pillage banks, securities and insurance firms,
to traffic in illicit items, all in the name of profit, and nothing in
the name of patriotism.
Q: This was a secret, covert operation so they could virtually get away
with murder.
A: Absolutely correct. The government was forced endlessly to cover up for
fraud by people who were only marginally connected to Iran-contra operations.
Q: The rape of the savings and loans was all part of this tax scam, for
this covert operation (Iran-contra), which became a scam.
A: The best description of what Iran-contra became was said to me in a
conversation with Richard Secord in September of 1985. I told the general
that I was becoming nervous about the volume of activity that we had become
engaged in. I was concerned that if the American people found out that the
political repercussions would be enormous. I pointed out to him that the
vast amount of money being raised was far beyond what was necessary to sup-
port a 50,000-man army. It wouldn't have taken a tenth of what we were
raising.
Q: Where does the CIA's Mena, Arkansas drugs-and-arms smuggling operation
fit into all of this?
A: Mena was essentially the hub of Olive North's so-called guns-for-drugs
operations. It was drugs flowing north and guns flowing south. How Mena
actually came into existence was that Mena was actually a secure facility
of the National Programs Office in 1983. You will notice that all of the
facilities used in the weapons and narcotics transactions--that is, at the
well-known places mentioned in the press before, such as Iron Mountain,
Texas, the airfield at Joppa Missouri, the airfield at Fire Lakes, Nevada, etc.
had a common link in that they were all facilities controlled by the National
Programs Office, an office that could operate in extreme secrecy and initially
keep these sites extremely secure. That is how we got to Mena. Also at
Mena there were existing CIA facilities and you had an existing CIA
command structure: communications and logistics support. I was the first
person to reveal the names of the CIA support people on the ground at Mena.
Now Mena is coming back in the news. There is a move within some GOP
circles on Capitol Hill to bring it back. We have not heard the last of Mena.
Q: Are you not afraid for your personal safety in exposing all of this?
There have been a lot of "suicides" we've been hearing about and other
strange deaths related to all this.
A: Out of the roughly 5,000 of us who were originally involved in Iran-
contra, approximately 400, since 1986, have committed suicide, died
accidentally or died of natural causes. I knew every single person who has
died. In over half of these deaths, official death certificates were never
even issued. In 187 circumstances, the bodies were cremated before the
families were even notified. I am lying low, so to speak. I have been
forced to do so. ###
Date: Mon Oct 23, 1995 10:42 pm CST
From: snet l
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: snet-l@world.std.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Barry Seal Evades Dec tection of Flight Path by Defense Satellites
Barry Seal Evades Detection of Flight Path by Defense Satellites
[The following excerpt recounts a flight Terry Reed took with Barry Seal
and is taken from *Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA*, by Terry Reed
and John Cummings, Shapolsky Publishers, 1994.]
The white Lear was airborne and heading south at 10 AM with "Emile
Camp" at the controls and Barry Seal on the radio. Once on their flight
plan, and in Mexican airspace, at a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet, Seal
went to the rear of the aircraft, grabbed two pilot map cases and dragged
them to the front. These were the same type of cases Terry had seen earlier
in Seal's Aero Commander that blew the engine in Texarkana. Inside were
custom aluminum boxes containing sophisticated electronics, some of which
Terry recognized.
"GNS-500s. Damn, those things used to cost a half-million apiece and
you've got two?"
"Nuthin' but the best when you're workin' for Uncle," Seal quipped.
"And these ain't your normal 500's. They're modified to do "special" things.
With these babies, we can not only pinpoint our position via satellite within
about 10 meters, we can find the window to the Bermuda Triangle. That takes
accuracy, son."
GNS-500s are navigational radios that continuously read the
aircraft's position in latitude and longitude via digital readouts. This,
coupled with their capability of storing and processing complex flight plans
and denoting wind speeds at various altitudes, and determining ground tracks
would give the jet the ability to fly without making contact with ground
controllers. Earlier in his aviation training, Terry had attended an
advanced navigation class in St. Louis, which taught the operation of this
system, but he never thought he would see two of them worth more than $1
million in the same portable box. This was the same type of sophisticated
navigation system aboard the Korean 747 airliner, Flight 007, shot down by
a Soviet MIG in September, 1983. That aircraft had only one GPS (Global
Positioning System). Seal had two to guarantee pinpoint navigation
accuracy.
Under the control panel on the co-pilot's side, Red Hall had
installed a secret power buss that Seal accessed with a jumper cable to
power the GNS-500s. With another jack, Seal connected the antennas, hidden
within the fuselage of the plane, to the radios in the box making everything
operational.
Terry sat in awe as he watched while Seal removed a piece of paper
from his shirt pocket and punched in the coordinates of the entire flight
plan.
"OK, I'll just hook up the ground and satellite communications
equipment in this other box and it'll be time for us to 'disappear',"
Seal chuckled.
As he opened the second box, Terry saw an array of electronics and
radios with ultra-high radio frequency ranges totally foreign to him. On
a sticker in the middle of the control panel was a service note, saying:
"Direct all service inquiries to Summit Aviation, Middleton, Delaware."
. . . What Seal was preparing to do was to "blind" a Department of
Defense satellite designed as a sentry to give advance warning of incoming
hostile weapons systems. This would provide a window through which the
Lear could fly through undetected. At the same time, Seal said, secret
military surveillance tracking stations manned by U.S. Army intelligence
personnel would emit large bursts of energy to jam the U.S. and Mexican
ATC radar.
Terry felt he was seeing the results of all the Star Wars counter-
measures technology. This, he now realized, was how Seal's Operation Jade
Bridge aircraft, codenamed Dodger, had been able to enter and leave the
United States without being detected. If there had ever been a doubt in
Terry's mind about who Seal was, and how high he was connected, it had been
put to rest forever. Seal got his flight plan authorizations not from
someone on the ground, like most pilots, but from satellites out in space.
###
Date: Tue Oct 24, 1995 11:12 am CST
From: snet l
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: snet-l@world.std.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Mena 1/2
Frm: (Glenda Stocks) Glenda.Stocks@f201.n330.z1.fidonet.org
For: all
Org: Ask your FIDO feed for I_UFO! (1:330/201)
-- Area : AEN NEWS -----------------------------------------( M-BOARD.TU1
)----
Msg# 20426 Loc Date: 10-14-95 17:47
From: Kenneth White Read: No Replied: No
To: All Mark:
Subj: MENA, FOSTE CRIMESRAP-UP
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*********************************
CAN ANYONE ANSWER QUESTIONS ON THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE:
1. What is address and cost of the American Reporter and
how often is it published?
2. What time on Saturday is Nationtalk radio show broadcast?
3. What other articles has Wayne Walker written?
4. When was Restore Integrity in Government Coalition
organized and what does it do?
*********************************
PLEASE POST ANY ANSWERS TO ABOVE
**************************************
From the Bulletin Board of Politics
Message 20 10/11/95 20:19
To: alt perot
*************************
Published in the American Reporter
**************************
Do the ends justify the means (and the Menas)?
by Wayne G. Walker, Ph.D., J.D.
********************************
Lancaster, CA -- As detailed over 20 years ago in The CIA and the Cult
of Intelligence by Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks (1974), the CIA
culture promotes the questionable belief that the ends justify the
means.
As more and more evidence and allegations surface about Mena, Arkansas,
CIA drug running, the massive CIA money laundering in Arkansas under
Clinton's direction, the secret Swiss Bank accounts of scores of
national leaders (including Vince Foster), the sale of nuclear secrets
by top officials through Foster, and the turf war for control of this
power between the Bush and Clinton families (played out in the 92
election), one wonders whether corrupt means may swallow the democracy
the CIA is supposed to serve.
Rep. Bob Dornan recently began shouting that "Bill Clinton is the most
corrupt man to ever sit in the oval office!" If former CIA agent Terry
Reed's recent book, Compromised (1994), is accurate, Dornan is only
partly right. Reed's allegations imply that not only has Clinton been
in the center of an immense web of corruption, George Bush may be
similarly culpable.
The problem with allegations made by former CIA agents is the secrecy
shrouding U.S. intelligence operations. Official denial and deception
is the norm. As pointed out in The Cult of Intelligence, U.S. "secrecy
and deception in intelligence operations are as much to keep the
Congress and the public from learning what their government is doing as
to shield these activities from the opposition. The intelligence
establishment operates as it does to maintain freedom of action and
avoid accountability."
Because of the seriousness of the allegations and observations made by
Reed, and the consistency of his narrative with accounts from other
sources, such as those cited in R. Emmett Tyrell Jr.'s article "The
Arkansas Drug Shuttle," The American Spectator (August 1995) and Sally
Denton and Roger Morris' article, "The Crimes of Mena," Penthouse
Magazine (July 1995), the allegations merit not only careful
consideration, but full investigation.
Subj: Mena, Fostergate crimes wrap-up 2/5
The following is a brief summary of Reed's very detailed account.
According to Reed, the CIA, with Bill Clinton's full support, managed a
large covert operation in Mena, Arkansas during the early 80s to
transport guns and munitions to the Contras fighting in Nicaragua, and
train Nicaraguan pilots to fly the munitions air- drops. Reed, a
machine tool company owner, helped train the pilots and manage the
operation. The CIA also used Arkansas to launder its black money.
According to Reed, Bill Clinton smoothed the way for all of this in
exchange for 10% of the "profits." In 1985, the money laundering
amounted to millions of dollars each week.
Reed claims all of this was directed by Oliver North in the CIA and
George Bush, its former director, then Vice-President under Reagan.
Reed says he was deeply involved in the move of the CIA operation to
Mexico in 1986. Also, according to Reed, before the Mena operation was
over, the Bush sons shipped a duffel bag of cocaine to Clinton
associates in an effort to bring down the Clintons. This cocaine was
distributed in part by Dan Lasater, Clinton's money laundering bond
dealer, who served a little time in prison for Cocaine distribution
along with Clinton's brother Roger, before both were pardoned by
Governor Clinton.
In early 1986, Reed claims Bill Clinton attended a clandestine meeting
at Camp Robinson, outside Little Rock, with himself, Oliver North,
William P. Barr (Bush's attorney cum CIA spook and eventually U.S.
Attorney General), to clean up the operational liabilities in Arkansas.
Reed says that Barr informed Clinton that despite the huge Arkansas
screw-ups, if Clinton would continue to cooperate, he was still on the
CIA's short list for the position to which he would eventually aspire
and take (ironically, or poetically, from Bush). Reed drew the
conclusion that the CIA was actively engaged in manipulating the outcome
of American presidential politics.
After Clinton left, Reed says North and Barr offered him responsibility
for the new Mexico operation, which Reed himself had proposed, and
initiated Reed into the higher echelons of deniable asset work for the
CIA.
After talking everything over with his wife, Reed initially decided to
decline the CIA opportunity, stay in Arkansas, build his growing machine
tool business and get involved in local politics. Reed says the
opportunity was still on his mind when Bill Clinton took Reed into his
security van outside of a new Little Rock restaurant and strongly
encouraged Reed to accept the new CIA post. Reed reconsidered and
accepted.
While in Mexico, Reed set up a front company to replicate Mena's gun
manufacturing and shipping operation. Before the operation was fully
operational, the CIA lost a gun running C-123 over Nicaragua, causing a
halt to the entire project.
Reed claims he later learned from a high level Israeli Mossad operative
that Vice-president Bush had essentially conducted a silent coup to stop
Reagan's anti-communist efforts in Nicaragua, and take control of the
U.S. government. According to Reed, it was Bush's right-hand CIA
operative who had killed the pilots and then staged the CIA crash in
Nicaragua. Reed says he soon also discovered that the CIA in Mexico was
using his company name and warehouse to ship TONS of Cocaine to the US.
Date: Tue Oct 24, 1995 11:15 am CST
From: snet l
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: snet-l@world.std.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Mena 2/2
Frm: (Glenda Stocks) Glenda.Stocks@f201.n330.z1.fidonet.org
For: all
Org: Ask your FIDO feed for I_UFO! (1:330/201)
Subj: Mena, Fostergate crimes wrap-up 3/5
Upon that discovery, and with the front company and the CIA operation
falling apart in the wake of the Nicaragua crash, Reed, at great risk to
himself, parted with the CIA and returned to the states with his young
family. Reed and his family immediately began an evasive run around the
country as it quickly became clear that elements in the CIA and the
Clinton Administration in Arkansas were determined to silence Reed and
his wife with long prison terms or worse.
After several months, the Reeds turned themselves in, faced criminal
insurance fraud charges related to the CIA theft of Reed's own airplane,
and after 2 and 1/2 years in the criminal system were declared
completely innocent. They are now bringing a civil suit against
Clinton's former chief of security, Buddy Young, and others for (1)
creating the false computer profile of armed and dangerous drug runners
which led to the Reeds' harrowing flight for survival and (2) bringing
the false criminal charges. The case comes to trial next month in
Little Rock.
Reed's charges are consistent with operational tactics and means
recounted in The Cult of Intelligence, as well as in an earlier work,
The Invisible Government by David Wise and Thomas Ross (1964), and they
are cumulative.
When Reed's charges are combined with the ongoing testimony of Larry
Nichols of Little Rock about the Arkansas Development Finance Agency
(ADFA) money laundering (3/4 of a billion dollars over Clinton's
signature) and the Foster death cover-ups (Secret Service documentation
that Foster was found in his car), and the allegations of James Norman,
formerly of Forbes Magazine, that over 200 secret Swiss (and other off
shore) bank accounts held by leading American politicians were swept
clean by the CIA of over $2 billion of illicit funds during the last
couple of years, the possible full extent of the corruption of the CIA
and leading politicians is almost incredible.
Yet, if only half of the above allegations are supported, the U.S. is
facing monumental corruption. The accounts of Norman, Reed and Nichols
are compelling. Together they are chilling. But are they accurate?
Certainly, continued media silence will shed very little "direct" light
on the truth of these charges. Yet, formidable obstacles block media
and official investigation of these charges.
First are the secrecy laws and official "national security" reluctance
to allow exposure of any details about intelligence organizations and
operations. For example, according to Norman, after Forbes cancelled
his Fostergate article at the last minute, he took the story to Insight
Magazine. But a defense intelligence agent strongly advised the editor
not to publish the article. (Media Bypass Magazine published Norman's
Fostergate article in August).
Second, if Norman's sources are correct, numerous national leaders,
Senators and Representatives are compromised. Indeed, the charges about
secret Swiss bank accounts cast suspicion on political leaders from both
major parties.
Subj: Mena, Fostergate crimes wrap-up 4/5
Third, Norman's sources claim the CIA has manipulated the flow of
damaging information for years. They indicate that over 100 key news
media executives, editors and reporters are employed or paid by the CIA
to manipulate the flow of news and keep embarrassing stories out of the
press. Rolling Stone Magazine reported in 1977 that the number is more
like 200-400.
This allegation about the press, especially a press intimidated by the
national security shield, may partly explain why the Norman story has
not gotten any attention in the established media, much less further
investigation, and why four credible journalists working on the Foster
story, including Norman, were suddenly fired or threatened with firing
or worse in the last couple of weeks.
It may also explain why the Washington Post cancelled the Denton and
Morris article mentioned above, "The Crimes of Mena," after eleven weeks
of fact checking and legal review, indeed after the text was laid out in
final type and contracts with the authors signed in January.
If Reed and Norman are right, the thinking that the end justifies the
means may have led the CIA to attempt to control both the established
U.S. media and presidential politics.
The extreme seriousness of these allegations, and the dangers to
American democracy which they imply, are more than sufficient reason for
the press and Congress to thoroughly investigate the charges, regardless
of who, or which intelligence organizations, may be damaged.
Norman's sources from the intelligence community should be given
complete immunity so all of their facts can come out, including the
complete list of politicians and national leaders holding secret Swiss
Bank accounts which were discovered and emptied by the CIA.
In addition, the bright light of full public disclosure should shine all
over the Reagan, Bush and Clinton Administrations' covert CIA and NSA
operations conducted on U.S. soil, including the control or
manipulation of the press, and all covert drug operations. Complete
reform of the intelligence establishment is long over-due. President
Truman, who established the CIA, called for just that back in 1963.
Neither covert corruption, nor official cover-ups in the name of
national security, can be tolerated. Indeed, the lingering policy
question is whether the ends for which the Constitution, the Republic
and American democracy stand can long survive, much less justify, such
means.
(END)
Subj: Mena, Fostergate crimes wrap-up 5/5
Wayne Walker is the host of Nationtalk, a radio talk show broadcast each
Saturday over Satcom F1, Transponder 15, 7.56 Mhz. He is also the
founder of the Restore Integrity in Government Coalition.
Website: http://www.rolnet.com/~wwalker/nt/nt.html
From: Wayne_Walker@rolnet.com (Nationtalk Director)
*******************************************************
Date: Mon Nov 06, 1995 11:31 pm CST
From: David J. Sussman
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: djsussma@jupiter.acs.oakland.edu
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: British TV Exposes String of Murders Near Mena, Arkansas (fwd)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 5 NOV 1995 20:03:01 GMT
From: Washington Weekly
Newgroups: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater
Subject: British TV Exposes String of Murders Near Mena, Arkansas
From the November 6 issue of the Washington Weekly. For more
information, see the Mena archive at
http://www.federal.com/9471.html
BRITISH TV EXPOSES STRING OF MURDERS NEAR MENA, ARKANSAS
A British documentary TV team has spent months near Mena,
Arkansas investigating a string of murders that leads to a gun
running and drug smuggling operation there that apparently leads
to the door of the White House.
The documentary by the prestigious Twenty Twenty program
leaves British TV viewers wondering about the state of the
American justice system.
The investigation starts with the death in 1987 of two boys,
Don Henry and Kevin Ives, on the railroad tracks near Mena. Their
death was ruled an accident by the Clinton-appointed state
medical examiner, Dr. Fahmy Malak. But Kevin's mother, Linda
Ives, knew that the official report didn't add up. After fighting
the Arkansas justice system for several years she won exhumation
and reautopsy. An out-of-state examiner said the cause of death
was clear: murder by beating and stabbing before they were placed
on the railroad tracks.
The murder case was assigned to police investigator John
Brown: "When I first reviewed the case file, I found a lot of
things missing...crime scene photographs were gone, the list of
evidence was gone, interviews were cut short. From 1987 until
1993 no one ever went out and talked to the people who lived by
the tracks. It was never intended for this case to be solved,"
John Brown told the British interviewer.
As the British narrator explains it: "What John Brown
discovered was an extraordinary trail of evidence that led from
the tracks to the Mena airport. From interviews with Mena pilots,
he pieced together a very different story of what happened to the
boys that night....They were hunting deer. They had no idea that
the tracks were used by Mena pilots as a site for dropping off
drugs and money, and that a drop had gone missing three nights
previously, causing panic at Mena."
John Brown continues: "The concern wasn't the $400,000 in the
[container]; it was the transmitter that was in the case that
everyone was concerned with because it was trackable, and it
would track them right back to Mena, Arkansas.... What these kids
walked into was a group of law enforcement officials and drug
dealers that were waiting to see who walked up onto their drop
site.... They were chased down, and they were taken to another
location. They were beaten and held. From that they were taken
and then killed. They were taken back and their bodies were
placed on the tracks in hopes that all evidence of the murder
would be distorted by the train mangling the bodies."
Brown didn't get very far with his investigation. He was
summoned to the sheriff, Judy Pridgen, and told "John, look,
you're going to have to leave this alone. We're going to...shut
it down. You will interview no one who tracks this case back to
Mena."
John Brown resigned the next morning.
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