Fundraiser gone wrong. Once (WTC 93) could be an accident. Twice (OKC bombing) looks like negligence. Three times (911) ... Is enemy action.

30 111041

Caller (rep. Istook): "I don't think they expected the truck to blow up. I believe, and I've believed this for a long time... I believe that number two — John Doe #2 — was a federal agent working undercover. And I believe that he helped McVeigh steal the goods and helped buy the equipment, and I believe that he helped McVeigh make the bomb, and I believe that his whole task in this whole thing... his only real task was to render the device safe so that the federal agents could pretend to remove it and move in. They did not want to move in until he was cleared of the scene so that they wouldn't tip their hands. See what I'm saying? And the odds are pretty good that whole reason behind this is because they were after someone bigger than McVeigh, which means they probably think he was linked to somebody in the Militia movement or something like that. "So I think what you're saying... you know I understand what you're saying... but I don't think you see the big picture. I don't think that , you know, I'd only divulge a look at the big picture if that's the actual scenario. If that's the actual scenario, which I believe it to be, I think there really is no claim that the agent, that was John Doe #2, did not render the bomb safe. Which he very well may have rendered the bomb safe, and then McVeigh may have put in a second fail-safe which he didn't know about. Which is probably what's happened.... "I would bet money on that's, in fact, the way this whole thing came down. Yes, they stood out in front of the building. Yes, they followed him directly to the building. Yes, they watched him get out of the building... get out of the truck. Yes, they watched him drive off. That's not ... that was their plan. I don't believe they ever planned to apprehend him anywhere near the building. I believe that John Doe #2 was a federal witness. His job was to render the device safe. Therefore, the only thing sitting out in front of that building was a bomb... a truck loaded with a bomb that would not go off. And I think that's the situation. In fact I know it is."

McDonald: "Okay... so... so why didn't they just come out and explain that to everybody?"

Caller: "The public doesn't have to know that. When it comes to the national security and things like this, the public does not have to know... the public is not required to know. First of all, by doing that, they would've, uh, put their witness, which is the federal agent John Doe #2, they would have blown his cover, first of all. Which possibly he's involved in something right now that you have no idea about. You know, there very well may have been numerous plots involving numerous buildings. See what I'm saying? You don't have the whole picture... without full knowledge... what you may do may cost them their lives. You should be very aware of that."

 McDonald: "Okay. Well, that's what I've been trying to be very careful of. I don't want to see anyone else get hurt. At the same time..."

Caller: "...Well, if that guy's cover's been blown, he'd dead already."

 McDonald: "Do you think so?"

 Caller: "Sure... I'm sure. Once you have gone up to this point, it has gotten out, which I'm sure it has, because there are moles everywhere... the chances are good that he's been terminated already and this whole thing has blown up in their face. I don't believe that, out of an act of negligence, these highly trained professionals would have allowed that man to leave that truck out in front of that building with its live bomb in it."

McDonald: No, no, no. It stood out there for the whole time, from the time it pulled up until it went off."

Caller: "That's what I'm saying. They would not have allowed it. The only reason they allowed the truck to sit there so long, is because in my opinion they were under the impression that that bomb was rendered safe. And I'd say that there was no rush... there was no reason... to evacuate the building. There was no rush to make an arrest. The truck was just going to sit out there until they went and towed it off. So I don't think they thought it was an emergency and I think either that John Doe #2 made a mistake in rendering the bomb safe, or McVeigh was smart enough to plant a second fail-safe. Which most bomb makers do."

McDonald: "Do you think that's why they didn't tell anybody?"

 Caller: "No. The bomb was safe as far as they knew."

McDonald: "Okay. Well, that explains why there was so many of them (federal agents) there so fast."

Caller: "Exactly. They followed him to the building, their agent was in the truck with him when they followed him to the building, everything was under control, as far as they thought, all they had was the man who built the bomb that was not going to go off, because their agent had rendered it safe. And their whole thing was not a problem. Let him drive his truck right in front of his target, then they allowed him to drive off. "Once he drives off, he renders the truck safe, and then we can have the trooper arrest him on the interstate for bogus charges. Which they did, and this was all planned out 1 00 percent. I . . . I . . . I don't believe they allowed that truck. . . "

 McDonald: "You don't think they intentionally let the bomb go off?"

Caller: "No, that's right. I'll never believe that."

 McDonald: "Well, I mean, that's the only thing about this that I found so hard to believe."

Caller: "They... they thought the bomb was safe. They thought that their agent, who was in the truck and who helped prepare the bomb, would set it so it would not go off. Now, whether McVeigh went back to the truck... where the agent did not know... and put a second fail- safe... or the agent made a mistake and did not actually render the bomb safe like he was supposed to... that's what's going on here."

McDonald: "Well, see, that's it then. I wanted someone that would be able to tell us for a fact if this was, like, deliberate or not. You know what I'm saying?"

Caller: "I'm not gong to tell you that. Let me tell you something. I'm sure they had... everything was under surveillance there. So I'm sure they do have pictures of the building blowing up, and I'm sure they do have pictures of federal agents, and I'm sure they do have audio tapes of them saying: Let 'em go, let 'em go. . . Wait, wait, wait. . . " there was no rush in their mind. In their mind, there was no rush to get that truck away from that building... that bomb... was not supposed to go off. "Therefore, everything they did, fits, if you think about it. they followed it, they allowed it to drive up there knowing that there was a bomb in the truck. Their idea was to let John Doe #2 — their federal agent — they would be able to use him in further investigations of these bombings of these groups that are in militia groups. And this was a perfect entry in, because he could have went through there. "After McVeigh was arrested, John Doe #2 would have become a hero to the cause of the militias. And the militias would have taken him in and hid him, which would have made him part of the infrastructure of the militias. Which is what their goal was forthis whole thing... waste bust the militias. If you take the big picture, and look at the big picture, there were very few mistakes made on this sting operation,  with the exception that John Doe #2, the federal agent, did not render the bomb safe. Just think of it this way, Ramona."

McDonald: "I've always been a big fan of the United States and that, but then... I've always been... this was the one thing that bothered me."

Caller: "They didn't let the building fall intentionally. Their opinion was that this bomb was rendered safe and this bomb would not go off. And their whole thing on this thing... if you think about it... it makes sense from a tactical standpoint. You would follow the truck to the building. You allow your lead suspect to get away from the building because it didn't blow up, because it's not supposed to. You take John Doe #2... he gets away, which is your federal agent. John Doe #1 — McVeigh — is arrested on a bogus charge and then later proven that he's the one who planted the bomb that did not go off."

McDonald: "But you honestly don't think that they really intended..."

Caller: "Not at all. Not at all. They would not have to. No.... Basically, what happened is, this was a mistake. Someone screwed up and the only one that screwed up... The agents on the scene? They didn't screw up. They did exactly what their orders were: Wait... allow the suspect to leave the scene. Once the suspect had left the scene, then render the truck safe, which is already safe. All they have to do is get in, give it a hot-wire, and drive it off to a safe location and then open up the back and disarm the bomb. Which was supposedly rendered safe to begin with. Okay? "And then, from there... they charge in... See, the plan... this plan was put in motion before the bomb ever went off. Their intent was to allow McVeigh to be arrested later on... John Doe#2 to get away... and then, John Doe #2, the Federal Government would have released a sketch or picture. And then, that man would have had to go underground and hide. Where would he hide? He would have hid with the militias. The militias would take him in as a hero. The militias would give him hero status in the Militia movement, which would allow him to be privy to information that the government could use later on... "...they did not want that building to blow up. I guarantee you this... their whole intent was that that bomb was rendered safe before it was ever parked in frontof that building... otherwise, they would have quietly..."

 McDonald: "...Got everybody out of the building?"

 Caller: "Got everybody out of the building, before the bomb ever even pulled up in front of the building. There was no reason for them to do that, because according to their plan, the bomb was safe now. There was no reason to evacuate the building and the panic... because there was a truck loaded with a bomb that was not going to blow up. . . . "

McDonald: "Okay." Caller: "See what I'm saying? And John Doe#2.... By going this far with it... Let me explain something to you. Your actions have consequences. There are a lot of witnesses. There are a lot of agents right now in the hills that are infiltrating these militia groups, and... all these people will get killed. Their blood will be on your hands. I understand that you want... If I really thought that the government allowed the building to blow up, I would be with you 100 percent. But I know... and I believe... they were horrified when the bomb went off... really horrified."

 McDonald: "Yeah, they all looked like they were in shock."


 Caller: "They figured, as soon as McVeigh got free, as soon as he got... drove off in his car... and I'll tell you something they did. Do you what they did?"

McDonald: "What?"

 Caller: ""They stole his license plate off that car. You know why? So they"d have probable cause to stop him on the interstate.... They stole his plate. Why do you think the plate was never found? His plate was stolen from the vehicle and the Federal Government stole the plate from the vehicle, so that he would be arrested... John Doe #2 would go free, they would put a sketch out that would make him "America"s Most Wanted." The only place that a man that would be wanted by the government can hide would be to be hid by the militia groups inside their infrastructure. ""But once he infiltrates the infrastructure... and he"s in... all of a sudden he"s a hero. And right now, you know, these groups probably believe that they have John Doe #2 and that they"re hiding him from the government and they"re doing the patriotic thing... and they believe that the building should have blown up. So they"re holding him. Now, this man"s privy to all kinds of information about future bombings, which we don"t even know how many bombs they have stopped because the agents... how many lives have been saved because that agent"s now in the militia. And if this comes to light... this operation...""

What the caller does is attempt to instill guilt in McDonald over her efforts to reveal the truth.

Yet McDonald did not allow 169 innocent people to be killed through her negligence and stupidity.

Where does the ill-gotten welfare stolen by all these middle eastern illegal aliens end up?

"Back at the time we had a big problem with Iranians," said the former CID investigator, "a big problem. They were always trying to infiltrate the arsenal. A number of them were attending Alabama A&M University under student visas, but most of them didn't go to school. They were involved in a lot of different criminal enterprises, drugs, stolen property, prostitution, all sorts of things...."

 The suspects were also linked to a string of convenience stores.

Interestingly, Northrop believes that Sam Khalid is a "money man" for Arab immigrants wishing to open businesses — namely convenience stores. Those wishing to do so must split the profits with the "money man" fifty-fifty. 

Could this be another PLO funding scam? CID opened their case on Yousif/Khalid in September of 1982. "During the course of all this, to verify that the guy was real, we got his phone number... and I called the number one night, and I asked for Ahmed Khalid, and this guy got on the phone and said, 'I don't know him.' And I said, 'Well, it's got to be you. I got to talk to you — it's important' Twenty-four hours later that guy was in Tuskumbee, AL." Like his brother Sam, Wahid was never prosecuted. "The FBI [officially] took no interest.... Another CID investigator got reprimanded by our SAC, because he went and did this (interviewed Walker). That was the total gist of the FBI's involvement."^^^ The Army investigator's experiences paralleled that of Gagan's. "That's a pretty common thread when you deal with them (the FBI)," Gagan explained. "You bring them information, and you never hear another word about it."

***

We don't need this sort of trash in Australia. No one needs it anywhere but least of all here.

Full text of "The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror"

Full text of "The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror"

HIGHTIMES.COM | INSIDE THE OKLAHOMA BOMBING CONSPIRACY

 

HIGHTIMES.COM | INSIDE THE OKLAHOMA BOMBING CONSPIRACY

Mark Miller
"It brings me no joy to watch McVeigh die, no closure, it doesn't bring my grandkids back. He deserves to die, but with the death of McVeigh, so dies the truth." Those were Cathy Wilburn's words to HIGH TIMES, shortly before being one of the chosen witnesses to watch convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh be put to death via chemical injection on June 11, 2001, at the United States penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. McVeigh, 33, was the first person to be executed by the federal government since 1963. A fatal injection of potassium chloride stopped his heart at 7:14 AM, CDT.

McVeigh was convicted and sentenced to death in 1997 for detonating a fertilizer bomb, concealed in a rented Ryder truck, that blew off the front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. Collapsing floors in the nine-story structure buried victims under masses of steel and concrete. It was the worst domestic terrorist attack in US history, killing 168 people, including 19 children attending daycare, and injuring over 500 others.

McVeigh had originally been scheduled to die on May 16, but on May 10, the Justice Department turned over more than 4,000 previously undisclosed FBI investigation papers to his attorneys. Attorney General John Ashcroft cited the FBI blunder and delayed the execution until June 11. Some of the documents in question relate to the distinct possibility that McVeigh did not act alone in the bombing.

On May 31, McVeigh agreed to seek a further delay, based on the notion that the FBI papers would have helped him avoid the death penalty at trial by implicating others in the bombing. However, on June 6, federal District Judge Richard Matsch, who presided over McVeigh's 1997 trial and sentencing, dismissed his attorneys' argument that the FBI had worked a "fraud on the court" by withholding the 4,000 papers. Matsch rejected the request to delay the execution, and on June 7, McVeigh decided against further appeals, including to the Supreme Court, and chose to die.
[cont.]

Oklahoma Bombing Conspiray -- page 2

As the international media horde descended on the modest Midwestern town of Terre Haute, the focus was predictably on McVeigh, portrayed as America's greatest villain, having acted alone in planting the truck bomb in front of the Murrah building that fateful morning.

The official version holds that the OKC federal building was targeted by McVeigh and coconspirator Terry Nichols in retaliation for the FBI's assault on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas on April 19, 1993, in which 80 men, women and children died ("Appointment With the Apocalypse," May ‘01 HT).

Though McVeigh served in the Persian Gulf war, winning a Bronze Star for courage under fire, he was extremely antigovernment and sought to punish the Feds on the second anniversary of the Waco assault.

McVeigh was arrested 90 minutes after the OKC bombing, for driving without a license plate. The next morning, just as he was about to be released from police custody, he was identified as "John Doe #1," and charged with the bombing.

That McVeigh was "John Doe #1" implies there was a "John Doe #2" -- and there was, at the beginning of the investigation. Throughout 1995, the FBI conducted a massive manhunt for "John Doe #2," but then the Justice Department and the FBI suddenly reversed themselves, and announced it had all been a "big mistake," that there was no "John Doe #2" and McVeigh acted alone.

Cathy Wilburn thinks otherwise. Her life was changed forever when her grandsons, Chase Smith, 3, and Colton Smith, 2, were killed in the bombing. In addition to being one of the victims chosen by Attorney General John Ashcroft to witness McVeigh's execution, Wilburn has been the most vocal and passionate critics of the "official version" during her six-year sojourn to, as she puts it, "gain the truth of what really happened in Oklahoma City."

Wilburn has visited many of the sites connected to the case, be they official or conspiratorial. She has slept in the same hotel room where McVeigh spent the night before his arrest. She has visited Elohim City, the Christian Identity compound in eastern Oklahoma which McVeigh is documented to have visited and phoned in the weeks prior to the OKC bombing.

Wilburn, her husband, Glenn, and their daughter Edye Smith have filed a $30 million lawsuit against McVeigh, Andreas Strassmeir of Germany, Michael Brescia and Michael Fortier for involvement in the bombing. She says the suit is still in the courts.

Michael Fortier, an Army buddy of both McVeigh and Nichols, was the government's star witness in both their trials, and was sentenced to 12 years for failing to notify anyone of the bombing plot. Nichols was sentenced to life in federal prison after refusing to reveal any further information regarding his role in planning the bombing.

According to an Oklahoma County grand jury, there were no additional conspirators beyond Nichols and McVeigh. In December 1998, the grand jury found no evidence the federal government had advance knowledge of the bombing, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. They found no connection between the bombing and Elohim City, nor to anyone overseas, including Germany.
[cont.]

Oklahoma Bombing Conspiray -- page 3

Despite the findings of that grand jury, Elohim City is clearly at the center of the unofficial investigations into the bombing. A 400-acre compound located near Lawton, OK, it is home to approximately 100 men, women and children who are part of the growing Christian Identity (CI) movement.

CI is a racist, anti-Semitic theology which holds that there are essentially three distinct types of people: the "true Israelites" created by God, meaning those of Western and Northern European extraction; Jews, who are the offspring of Satan; and "mud people" -- all nonwhites, descended from pre-Adamic "lower species." The white "Israelites" should rule the world, while Jews are to be executed and "mud people" enslaved.

CI is the religion of choice for white supremacist neo-Nazis and Christian "Reconstructionists," who would establish a theocracy in the US, replacing the Constitution with biblical law. It also intersects with creationism, which appeals to those offended by the notion man evolved from a mere monkey, regardless of the fossil record. The belief that people, or certain people, were created directly by God, and are therefore "superior," plays right into CI doctrine.

Elohim City was founded in 1973 by Robert Millar, a Canadian CI preacher who was the "spiritual advisor" for Richard Wayne Snell, a neo-Nazi executed by the state of Arkansas the same day as the OKC bombing. Millar brought Snell's corpse back to Elohim City for a hero's funeral.

Snell was put to death for murdering a black Arkansas state trooper and a jeweler he thought was Jewish. On April 15, 1995, he told prison officials there would be a bombing at an unspecified location on the day of his death. Four days later, Snell's startling prediction came true in OKC.

Snell and his neo-Nazi group, the Covenant, Sword and Arm of the Lord, had cased the very same Murrah building for a terrorist attack back in 1983, but abandoned the plan when the rocket launcher to be utilized blew up in Snell's hands while being test-fired.

"It's ludicrous to believe it's only a coincidence McVeigh picked the same building Snell targeted in '83, and that Snell's body was taken to Elohim City," Cathy Wilburn states.

What of Michael Brescia and Andreas Strassmeir, the two Elohim City roommates also named in Wilburn's suit? Brescia has been identified as "John Doe #2" by Catina Lawson, McVeigh's ex-girlfriend, and by Dennis Mahon, former Imperial Dragon of a Ku Klux Klan sect. Mahon, like McVeigh, was a frequent visitor to Elohim City.

Brescia sports an interesting resume that includes being part of a bank-robbing speed-metal band called Cyanide, as well as being a member of the Aryan Republican Army (ARA), which boasted of their plans to kill Jews and deport blacks.

Cathy Wilburn believes the string of 22 Midwestern bank robberies by the ARA in 1994-95 was intended to fund their racist agenda, including funneling money to McVeigh in the months prior to the bombing, as he traveled the US and stayed in motels with no apparent means of income.
[cont.]

Oklahoma Bombing Conspiray -- page 4]

Although the other three ARA members involved in the robberies were arrested shortly afterwards, the FBI did not bust Brescia until January 1997. It was members of a militia group headed by Arlin Adams who posted flyers accusing Brescia of being involved in the OKC bombing throughout Philadelphia.


The posters read: "UNWANTED by the FBI -- Michael Brescia a.k.a. ‘John Doe #2.'" They also contained a photo of Brescia juxtaposed with the familiar sketch of "John Doe #2" that was circulated by the FBI immediately following the bombing -- the "John Doe #2" which the FBI said did not exist. It took a public pressure campaign for the FBI to finally move in and arrest Brescia. He was only convicted of the bank robberies, not the bombing, and has since been released from prison.

Andreas Strassmeir is a former German army official. His father is Gunther Strassmeir, one of the architects of German reunification, and former chief of staff for former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

Strassmeir was present with his father at the official ceremonies celebrating the annexation of East Germany by West Germany. He came to the US in 1989, and eventually served as chief of security for Elohim City for two years, including the time prior to and following the OKC bombing. He returned to Germany in late 1995.

According to his attorney, Kirk Lyons, Strassmeir was assisted in his escape from the US by GSG-9, the German counterterrorism unit. Lyons has been an attorney for neo-Nazis, Klansmen and Holocaust deniers, and has himself been videotaped participating in neo-Nazi activities in Germany.

Carol Howe, informant for the BATF who infiltrated Elohim City, says that the bombing was masterminded by Strassmeir, who allegedly exerted profound control over McVeigh.

Howe warned her BATF case agent that the terrorist underground of Elohim City was planning to blow up a federal building in either Tulsa or OKC, with a probable target date of April 19, 1995. She identified Brescia as "John Doe #2" during a BATF debriefing following the bombing, and said McVeigh went by the alias of "Tim Tuttle" when visiting Elohim City.

The BATF confirmed in 1997 that Howe was a source -- after claiming for two years that the idea that the Feds had prior knowledge of the bombing was a "conspiracy theory." US authorities now admit they had advance warning, but that the info provided by Howe was too vague for them to act.

Strassmeir, 42, is an enigma, in that his role in and motivation for the bombing is uncertain--he has been portrayed as both a violent neo-Nazi and a government informant working undercover for the BATF.

"I don't think Strassmeir was working for the BATF, but he was someone the government didn't want to touch," Cathy Wilburn comments. "He was protected by someone, he was working for someone."
[cont.]

Oklahoma Bombing Conspiray -- page 5

When US officials sought to question Strassmeir in 1997, they were told by German police and intelligence that neither had any data concerning him. This seems improbable, as Strassmeir would likely have needed a security clearance to attend the reunification ceremonies. Also, his alleged neo-Nazi ties to Elohim City would have been likely monitored by German intelligence.

One possibility for the Strassmeir cover-up was to protect then-Chancellor Kohl from scandal preceding the 1998 election, given his friendship with Strassmeir's father. (Kohl was defeated by Gerhard Schroder). Kohl himself has longstanding ties to the residual elements of the Third Reich in Germany, including associations with Nazi industrialist Fritz Ries and Eberhard Taubert, a Goebbels propaganda official who was employed by the West German national-security establishment.

Besides the German connections, there is also McVeigh's link to the neo-Nazi tract The Turner Diaries and its notorious author, William Pierce.


The 1978 novel dramatizes a fascist takeover of the U.S. in which federal buildings are blown up. It served as a blueprint for the Order, the neo-Nazi group which robbed armored cars and assassinated Alan Berg, an outspoken Jewish radio host in Denver, in 1984.

McVeigh was said to be so obsessed with the "message" of The Turner Diaries that he sold the book at gun shows and even passed them out to friends. A copy of the book was found in his car the day of the OKC bombing.

Ironically, Pierce himself told 60 Minutes that the OKC bombing was a "mistake," as it failed to advance the neo-Nazi cause because there was no sustained rebellion. He promised, "One day there will be real, organized terrorism -- aimed at bringing down the government."

Finally, there is the possibility that fascist elements within the U.S. military may have been involved, at least in creating the "mad bomber" Timothy McVeigh.

According to the book The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of TerrorM, McVeigh claimed that the Army had implanted him with a microchip, a miniature subcutaneous transponder, inserted in his buttocks, in order to keep track of him. "We used this with military personnel in the Iraq war, where they were actually tracked using this particular type of device," says Dr. Carl Sanders, developer of the Intelligence Manned Interface biochip.

Following the war, McVeigh took a job at Burns International Security, where fellow employee Lynda Haner-Mele described him and his personality:

"Timmy just wasn't the type of person who could initiate action. He was very good if you said, ‘Tim, watch this door--don't let anyone through.' The Tim I knew couldn't have masterminded something like this [the OKC bombing]. It would have had to have been someone who said: ‘Tim, this is what you do. You drive the truck.'"

That the OKC bombing may have been engineered behind the scenes by fascist elements in the military, the German government and on the neo-Nazi/CI fringe seems fantastic, yet the evidence continues to mount in that direction, regardless of being covered up by the government or ignored by the mainstream press.

McVeigh was quoted in the book American Terrorist as saying, "I did not do it for personal gain... I did it for the larger good."

Was that "larger good" a fascist overthrow of the US government, with Christian Identity zealots and neo-Nazis ascending to dictatorship? Time will tell if the prognostications in The Turner Diaries come to fruition.

As for Cathy Wilburn, she has both a documentary film and book in the works, as she continues her personal quest to expose the truth of the OKC bombing. McVeigh's execution may have satisfied the majority of Americans, but people like Wilburn, who believe there's much more to this than just a "lone nut bomber," know that full justice has yet to be served as long as people and groups such as Brescia, Strassmeir and Elohim City continue to go free.

(Additional research for this story provided by Cheri Seymour.)

Waves, Forms and Guides the ARPA way

The Last Circle, by Carol Marshall, Re Inslaw Case, at American Buddha Online Library

Shortly after the Waco incident in Texas, a secret "classified conference" was held at the Los Alamos National Laboratories in New Mexico. Through a friend in Maine, I was able to obtain an official copy of the speaking agenda for the November 1993 conference and, oddly, the subject matter under discussion correlated with not only the original Aquino Army report, but also with the MKUltra behavior research underway during the 1950's and 1960's.

The title of the conference was "Non-Lethal Defense" and just a few of the speakers included such dignitaries as the Honorable U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno; Dr. Edward Teller who had helped develop the nuclear bomb; Dr. Milt Finger from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Mr. Andy Andrews, Non-Lethal Project Leader at Los Alamos National Laboratory; LTG William H. Forster from Army Research, Development and Acquisition; Dr. Clay Easterly from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Dr. Henry Brisker from U.S. Army Research Laboratories; Ms. Astrid Lewis from the U.S. Army Chemical Research & Development Command; Lt. General Richard G. Trefry, former Military Advisor to President George Bush; and many more.

The most noteworthy "non-lethal" technology presentations included the following: "High Power Microwave Technology" "Application of Extremely Low Frequency Electromagnetic Fields to Non-Lethal Weapons" "Voice Synthesis" "Incremental Aggression: Requirements for the Future" "Chemical/Biological Anti-Terrorism" "Biological Challenges" "Non-Lethal Research: Fracture & Dynamic Behavior, Biotechnology & Structural Ceramics, and many more.

Interestingly, the opening address was given by General E.C. Meyer (Ret.), former Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army the very same General Meyer who had set up the Department of Defense conference in which Michael Riconosciuto had been the principal speaker from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. to a group of senior level national security research and development officials.

The objective and scope of the 1993 Los Alamos conference included exploring a non-lethal approach to apply force against not only wartime enemies (the Soviet Union had already fallen) but against "terrorists" and "international drug traffickers" as well. The introduction noted that the purpose of the conference was to bring together "industry, government, and academia to explore the potential of non-lethal defense and identify requirements so that the defense community can work together in leveraging the non-lethal concept."

"Industry [law enforcement], particularly, will benefit from a more precise understanding of requirements and operational constraints regarding non-lethal defense technologies," noted the conference's sponsors, The American Defense Preparedness Association.

Additionally, non-lethal defense was described as "an emerging technological option being developed conceptually with a sea of technical opportunity."

Based upon the technical presentations listed in the brochure, it didn't appear to me that such technology as acoustical, high power microwave, laser, ELF/RF weapons and "psychotronic" systems were particularly NEW in the field of military or intelligence applications. Obviously, what was occurring at this conference was the presentation of these formidable weapons to law enforcement for domestic (U.S.) applications.

In late November 1993, a letter came to my attention which discussed the abovementioned conference. The letter had been written to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno by a former CIA employee, Julianne McKinney, on letterhead stationary originating from the "Association of National Security Alumni, Electronic Surveillance Project, P.O. Box 13625, Silver Spring, Maryland 209113625."

Portions of the letter read as follows: " ... In December 1992, when `Microwave Harassment and Mind Control Experimentation' was published, U.S. Government representatives routinely took the position that directed energy technologies were nothing more than mere figments of physicists' imaginations, still on the drawing boards. Shortly following publication of this report, information concerning these technologies began to appear in such noteworthy organs as The Wall Street Journal, Defense News, Aviation Week & Space Technology, Tactical Technology, Defense Electronics and, most recently, The Washington Post.

"In a flurry of activity these past 10 months, directed energy based surveillance and antipersonnel systems have suddenly leaped off of physicists' drawing boards into the world of reality, thus obviating the criticism, it would appear, that the attached publication [Los Alamos conference brochure] concerns nonexistent technologies.

"Indeed, directed energy technologies appear to have evolved at such a rapid rate that they are now being promoted as the `Final Solution' to crime preliminarily, at a classified conference sponsored by the Los Alamos National Laboratory ..."

McKinney's concern focused primarily on future law enforcement application of "psychotronic" tools, or directed energy weapons technologies. "What, so far, has prevented this government and its contractors from testing these technologies on U.S. citizens under involuntary circumstances?," she asked.

The letter went on to outline various instances in which people had complained to her organization of alleged symptoms of directed energy technologies in such areas as the United States, England, Canada and Australia.

JFK shot from the front seat of the limo Redux

The Last Circle, by Carol Marshall, Re Inslaw Case, at American Buddha Online Library

At one point during our conversation, and completely out of context with what we were discussing, Nichols played a video tape of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The southern wall of Nichols' apartment contained a six-foot-wide screen on which I watched a blown-up (enlarged), slow motion "uncut" version of the famous Zapruder film.

I watched what appeared to be the standard media version of the film, seen so many times in film clips over the years, but then Nichols slowed the camera even more, and on the six-foot screen, I observed the driver of the limousine turn to his right, first looking at Connolly, then at Kennedy. The driver's left hand came over his right shoulder, and he was holding a long barreled gun. Smoke and a bullet emerged from the gun, traveling ever so slowly across the screen into Kennedy's head, blowing brain tissue into the air as he fell back against the seat.

Stunned, I watched Jacqueline Kennedy open her mouth in horror as she glanced at the driver, then try to climb over the back seat of the car.

Littman and Zokosky and I stared at the scene in silence, unable to believe what we were seeing. Nichols then changed the tape and showed what he described as the "media" version of the Zapruder tape. In the media version, the driver continued to drive, unflinching, as the shots rang out. Then the scene switched to the back part of the limousine.

At this point, Nichols stopped the frame and pointed with a stick at a tree in the background behind the limousine. From the middle of the tree to the ground, there was no trunk, just air. The top part of the tree was growing in air!

I demanded that my husband be allowed to see the film. I felt I must have been hypnotized. When he arrived, he viewed both films up close, in slow motion, and saw the same thing. Nichols played both tapes backwards and forwards as often as we demanded, until the memory of it was burned forever into our minds.

I wondered if the video had been tampered with. I asked Nichols where he had obtained the original "uncut" version? He would not say. I had no idea at that time that his F.I.D.C.O. partner, Clint Murchison, Jr.'s father had had instant access to the Zapruder film immediately after the assassination in Dallas, Texas.

Nichols studied me for the longest time, then walked over to the window and lit a cigarette. He finally commented that the CIA can cover up anything it wants, even a president's murder. He wanted to show me the power of the Octopus. "Nothing is as it appears to be," he said.

C-911-Tuhnekaw

The Last Circle, by Carol Marshall, Re Inslaw Case, at American Buddha Online Library

I later asked a friend in Washington D.C. to research Nichols' copyrights at the Library of Congress. There were indeed two stories copyrighted by Robert Booth Nichols under the pseudonym of R.N. LeDevoilier. Perhaps he was unaware that a cross-reference would reveal his true identity.

The 20-page manuscript entitled "Acceptable Casualty," essentially outlined gays and I.V. drug users as targets of bio-war by a cabal of military intelligence officers. In the story, a secret file, "C-911-Tuhnekaw," revealed the origin of the first AIDS infection. Field research dated November 12, 1977 originated from a Bay Area laboratory destroyed by fire in December 1975. Assorted bio-labs were mentioned, one in Palo Alto, California. The hero of the story obtained the secret cure from "the Chosen Ones" and escaped to Singapore with his family.

Interestingly, the names of those involved included "Yutaka Okimoto" and "Lawrence Zokosky," the last names of which match those listed on Nichols' "real life" corporation, Meridian International Logistics (MIL).

Nichols also copyrighted a 90-page James Bond type treatment entitled, "Decision of Conscience," which described state-of-the-art electromagnetic technology (launchers) used to demolish a two-story concrete building. I later found the words, "Decision of Conscience," written in Danny Casolaro's handwritten notes also.

Nichols' secret desire to write about his exploits in the CIA had led him to contact Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, through his (then) corporate partner Eugene Giaquinto. The three met at the Beverly Hills Hotel where Nichols attempted to sell Valenti manuscripts disclosing top secret CIA technology.

Nichols later said Valenti refused the manuscripts because they contained "classified national security information." (Valenti once served as assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson).

BBC News - Iran nuclear crisis: Fordo capacity doubled - IAEA

BBC News - Iran nuclear crisis: Fordo capacity doubled - IAEA

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear watchdog, says Iran has doubled production capacity at the Fordo nuclear site.

The latest IAEA quarterly report also said Iran had "significantly hampered" the agency's ability to inspect the Parchin military site.
Iran has produced 189kg (417 lb) of higher-grade enriched uranium since 2010, it added.
Iran denies its nuclear programme has any military aspect.
The number of enrichment centrifuges at Fordo, at a facility buried deep inside a mountain near the holy city of Qom, had more than doubled to 2,140 from 1,064 in May, the IAEA said.
However, the new machines were not yet operating, it said.
Iran says the aim of the Fordo site is to enrich uranium for civilian use up to a maximum of 20%.
In May, UN nuclear inspectors found traces of uranium enriched at 27% at the site, but Iran said those readings could be accidental.
Analysts say 27% would bring Iran closer to making weapons-grade uranium.
Although the new centrifuges are not yet operating, their installation will worry Israel, says the BBC's James Reynolds.
The Israeli government fears that Iran is developing its nuclear capabilities in a location which may be safe from Israeli air strikes.
In Thursday's report, the IAEA also said the Parchin site had been "sanitised" and that Iran had "been conducting activities at that location that will significantly hamper the agency's ability to conduct effective verification", if inspectors were granted access.
The Parchin site is suspected of being used for experiments related to nuclear weapons.
The overall Parchin complex is one of Iran's leading munitions centres - for the research, development and production of ammunition, rockets and high explosives.
Iran says it needs nuclear material for energy and medical needs.
But in this report, the IAEA concludes that it is unable to say that all nuclear material in Iran is for peaceful activities, our correspondent says.

***

U.S. BUILT MAJOR IRANIAN NUCLEAR FACILITY

by Sam Roe By Sam Roe Tribune staff reporter August 23, 2006, 9:56 PM EDT In the heart of Tehran sits one of Iran's most important nuclear facilities, a dome-shaped building where scientists have conducted secret experiments that could help the country build atomic bombs. It was provided to the Iranians by the United States. The Tehran Research Reactor represents a little-known aspect of the international uproar over the country's alleged weapons program. Not only did the U.S. provide the reactor in the 1960s as part of a Cold War strategy, America also supplied the weapons-grade uranium needed to power the facility—fuel that remains in Iran and could be used to help make nuclear arms. As the U.S. and other countries wrestle with Iran's refusal this week to curb its nuclear capabilities, an examination of the Tehran facility sheds light on the degree to which the United States has been complicit in Iran developing those capabilities. Though the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, has found no proof Iran is building a bomb, the agency says the country has repeatedly concealed its nuclear activities from inspectors. And some of these activities have taken place in the U.S.-supplied reactor, IAEA records show, including experiments with uranium, a key material in the production of nuclear weapons. U.S. officials point to these activities as evidence Iran is trying to construct nuclear arms, but they do not publicly mention that the work has taken place in a U.S.-supplied facility. The U.S. provided the reactor when America was eager to prop up the shah, who also was aligned against the Soviet Union at the time. After the Islamic revolution toppled the shah in 1979, the reactor became a reminder that in geopolitics, today's ally can become tomorrow's threat. Also missing from the current debate over Iran's nuclear intentions is emerging evidence that its research program may be more troubled than previously known. The Bush administration has portrayed the program as a sophisticated operation that has skillfully hid its true mission of making the bomb. But in the case of the Tehran Research Reactor, a study by a top Iranian scientist suggests otherwise. After a serious accident in 2001 at the U.S.-supplied reactor, the scientist concluded that poor quality control at the facility was a "chronic disease." Problems included carelessness, sloppy bookkeeping and a staff so poorly trained that workers had a weak understanding of "the most basic and simple principles of physics and mathematics," according to the study, presented at an international nuclear conference in 2004 in France. The Iranian scientist, Morteza Gharib, told the Tribune that management of the facility had improved in the past three years. When asked whether sloppiness at the reactor might have contributed to some of Iran's troubles with the IAEA, Gharib wrote in an email: "It is always possible, for any system, to commit infractions inadvertently due to lack of proper bookkeeping." Jeffrey Lewis, an arms control expert at Harvard University, said bungling might be to blame for some infractions, but the Iranians clearly concealed major nuclear activities, such as building a facility to enrich uranium. "This was not an oversight," he said. Another overlooked concern about the Tehran reactor is the weapons-grade fuel the U.S. provided Iran in the 1960s—about 10 pounds of highly enriched uranium, the most valuable material to bomb makers. It is still at the reactor and susceptible to theft, U.S. scientists familiar with the situation said. This uranium has already been burned in the reactor, but the "spent fuel" is still highly enriched and could be used in a bomb. Normally, spent fuel is so radioactive that terrorists cannot handle it without causing themselves great harm. But the spent fuel in Iran has sat in storage for so long that it is probably no longer highly radioactive and could be handled easily, the U.S. scientists say. The fuel is about one-fifth the amount needed to make a nuclear weapon, but experts said it could be combined with other material to construct a bomb. In an interview, Linton Brooks, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, an arm of the U.S. Energy Department, said the U.S. would like to retrieve the U.S.-supplied fuel, but the top priority has been to get Iran to suspend its enrichment efforts. Under the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. But the UN Security Council, saying Iran has failed to prove it is not building weapons, has demanded Iran stop enrichment by Aug. 31 or face economic sanctions. This week, Iran offered "serious talks" on its nuclear activities but did not promise to stop enriching uranium. While Brooks downplayed the proliferation risk of the Tehran Research Reactor, some experts believe the facility is so important to Iran's nuclear program that it would be targeted in a U.S. military strike on Iran. "Its purpose is mainly advanced training and producing a cadre of nuclear engineers," said Paul Rogers, an arms control expert at the University of Bradford in England. "So it's one of the facilities that is really quite significant." Exactly how significant is unclear. The Tehran reactor provided the foundation for Iran's nuclear program, but that program now consists of numerous other facilities as well. And over the years, Iran has obtained nuclear aid from various sources, including Russia and the black market network of Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan. China also has supplied research reactors. Most of the world's nuclear research reactors, which train students or produce radioisotopes for medicine, fall under IAEA restrictions. Agency inspectors have visited the Tehran facility several times in recent years. Iran says its nuclear program, including the U.S.-supplied reactor, is solely for peaceful purposes. When arguing for tough penalties on Iran, U.S. officials have pointed to activities in the U.S.-supplied reactor. In 2004, John Bolton, the State Department's senior arms control official at the time, told a congressional panel that Iran's covert nuclear weapons program was marked by a "two-decades-long record of obfuscation and deceit." He cited experiments in the reactor as part of the evidence. Several months later, Bolton told another congressional panel that Iran had received technological assistance from companies in Russia, China and North Korea in an attempt to develop missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. Countries that provide Iran such weapons-of-mass-destruction technology "ought to know better," said Bolton, now the American ambassador to the United Nations. If foreign companies aid Iran, the U.S. "will impose economic burdens and brand them as proliferators." What Bolton didn't note: America's role in Iran's nuclear program. That role has complicated U.S. efforts to gain support for greater restrictions on Iran. For instance, the U.S. wants Russia to take a firmer stance on Iran's nuclear program and has been critical of Russian efforts to help Iran build a nuclear power plant. But Russia has noted the U.S. had no problem providing Iran a research reactor and highly enriched uranium when it was politically expedient. Those who defend the U.S. say it should not be faulted for aiding Iran in the past. "It's not the international community's fault for helping Iran exercise its rights in the past" to develop nuclear energy for peaceful uses, said Lewis, the Harvard expert. "It's Iran's fault for not living up to its safeguards obligation." Iran's nuclear program can be traced to the Cold War era, when the U.S. provided nuclear technology to its allies, including Iran. In 1953, the CIA secretly helped overthrow Iran's democratically elected prime minister and restore the shah of Iran to power. In the 1960s, the U.S. provided Iran its first nuclear research reactor. Despite Iran's enormous oil reserves, the shah wanted to build numerous nuclear power reactors, which American and other Western companies planned to supply. Yet today, the U.S. argues that Iran does not need to develop nuclear power because of those same petroleum resources. In 1979, when the shah was overthrown and U.S. hostages taken, America and Iran became enemies; Iran's nuclear power program stalled. The U.S. refused to give Iran any more highly enriched uranium for its reactor, and Iran eventually obtained new fuel from Argentina. This fuel is too low in enrichment to be used in weapons but powerful enough to run the facility. To this day, the reactor runs on this kind of fuel from Argentina. In papers filed with the IAEA, Iran states that before the 1979 revolution it gave the U.S. $2 million for additional highly enriched uranium fuel for its American-supplied reactor but the U.S. neither provided the fuel nor returned the $2 million. In 2003, shortly after IAEA officials inspected the U.S.-supplied reactor, Iran acknowledged it had conducted experiments on uranium in the reactor between 1988 and 1992—activities that had not been previously reported to the agency. The IAEA rebuked Iran for failing to report these experiments and expressed concern about other activities in the reactor. These included tests involving the production of polonium-210, a radioisotope useful in nuclear batteries but also in nuclear weapons. Inspectors also were curious why some uranium was missing from two small cylinders. Iran said the uranium probably leaked when the cylinders were stored under the roof of the research reactor, where heat in the summer reached 131 degrees Fahrenheit. When inspectors took samples from under the roof, they indeed found uranium particles. But inspectors did not think Iran's explanation about leaking cylinders was plausible. Eventually, Iran acknowledged the missing uranium had been used in key enrichment tests in another facility.

The CIA in Australia, by Wakeupmag.co.uk

The CIA in Australia, by Wakeupmag.co.uk

THE CIA IN AUSTRALIA:  AMERICA'S FOREIGN WATERGATE

by wakeupmag.co.uk "The CIA's aim in Australia was to get rid of a government they did not like and that was not co-operative… it's a Chile, but in a much more sophisticated and subtle form." - VICTOR MARCHETTI, ex-CIA officer, 1980 "There is profoundly increasing evidence that foreign espionage and intelligence activities are being practised in Australia on a wide scale… I believe the evidence is so grave and so alarming in its implications that it demands the fullest explanation. The deception over the CIA and the activities of foreign installations on our soil… are an onslaught on Australia's sovereignty." - GOUGH WHITLAM to the Australian Parliament, 1977 On December 2nd 1972, Australia's first Labor Government for twenty-three years was elected. The new Prime Minister, Edward Gough Whitlam, quickly set about a series of historic legislations: wages, pensions and unemployment benefits were increased; equal pay for women was introduced; a free national health service was established; spending on education was doubled; university and college fees were abolished; and legal aid became a universal right. The Federal Government assumed responsibility for Aboriginal health, education and welfare, and the first land rights legislation for Aborigines was drafted. Cultural initiatives for women, Aborigines and immigrants were set up. Imperial honours such as knighthoods and MBEs were scrapped. The "Commonwealth Government" was renamed the Australian Government and an Australian anthem replaced "God Save the Queen." Conscription was ended. Australian troops were withdrawn from the Vietnam War and men imprisoned for draft evasion were released. Australian ministers publicly condemned the American conduct of the Vietnam War. The U.S. bombing of Hanoi during Christmas 1972 was denounced as the work of "maniacs" and "mass murderers". Deputy Prime Minister, Dr Jim Cairns, called for public rallies to condemn the bombing and for boycotts on American goods. In response, Australian dockers refused to unload American ships. Whitlam himself warned the Nixon administration that he might draw Indonesia and Japan into protests against the bombing. The Australian Government also pressed for support for the Indian Ocean Zone of Peace, which was opposed by the US, and spoke up in the United Nations for Palestinian rights. The French were condemned for testing nuclear weapons in the South Pacific, and refugees fleeing the CIA-backed coup in Chile were welcomed into Australia (an irony in the light of Washington's retaliation against Whitlam). "We were told that the Australians might as well be regarded as North Vietnamese collaborators." - FRANK SNEPP, CIA officer stationed in Saigon at the time of the Agency's covert activities against the Whitlam government. The CIA's alarm over the Australian Government rose to a fury when, in the early hours of March 16th 1973, the Attorney General, Lionel Murphy, led a raid on the Melbourne offices of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). Murphy and Whitlam were concerned about ASIO's involvement with local fascist Croatian groups that had carried out terrorist acts in Australia and against Yugoslav diplomats abroad. Set up under the auspices of the UKUSA Treaty in 1949, ASIO had distinguished itself by not uncovering a single spy or traitor (this is still the case), yet it had become almost as powerful in Australia as the CIA itself. ASIO had a secret pact of loyalty to the CIA and helped to set up and maintain secret police organisations that kept files on all Australian Labor Party members, prominent politicians, government officials, union leaders, members of the Council of Civil Liberties and anyone considered the slightest left-of centre. Even prayer meetings for peace were watched and recorded. According to a top-secret report to a Royal Commission into Australia's secret services led by Mr Justice Hope, for decades members of ASIO handed over to the CIA slanderous information against Australian politicians and senior officials who they regarded unfavourably. This material ranged from accusations of subversive tendencies to concern about their personal lives, and allowed the CIA to work against these people in ways that ranged from blackmail to efforts to block their careers. ASIO is run as an internal organisation in Australia. The Australian Secret Intelligence Service, ASIS, operates abroad and is less well known. Code-named MO9, its existence was only acknowledged after the Labor Government came to power in 1972. ASIS played an important role in the CIA's covert activities against foreign governments in Southeast Asia. For example, after Cambodia's Prince Sihanouk broke off diplomatic relations with the United States in 1965, the CIA used ASIS to secretly carry out its work in the country for the next four years, despite official Australian policy being one of strict neutrality. After Sihanouk was overthrown in a CIA-inspired coup, American forces invaded Cambodia and the US carpet-bombing of the country - a bombing so intense that during one six-month period in 1973, American B52s dropped the equivalent (in tons of bombs) of five Hiroshimas on the civilian population - served as a catalyst for the rise to power of Pol Pot and the genocidal Khmer Rouge). Extract from a top-secret ASIS document, describing the organisation's activities. Whitlam also discovered that ASIS agents were working for the CIA in Chile, de-stabilising the government of Salvador Allende, who was supported by the Australian Labor Government. Whitlam promptly ordered the ASIS officers home. However, some remained in Chile under Australian Embassy cover and without Whitlam's knowledge; Allende was subsequently murdered during the CIA-orchestrated military coup led by the dictator General Augusto Pinochet. The CIA's concern over the activities of the Whitlam government was due to the fact that Australia played a pivotal role in the United States' desire for covert influence over Indo-China. Some of the most strategically important and top-secret American bases outside the United States are located in Australia. These include the U.S. Naval Communication Station, North West Cape, on the northern coast of Western Australia, which transmits battle orders for the nuclear missile-carrying Polaris submarines. The most secretive Australian intelligence organisation is the Melbourne-based Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) which is modelled on the American National Security Agency, NSA. The DSD spies for the U.S. in the Indian Ocean, the South Pacific and Southeast Asia. There is also the Joint Intelligence Organisation (JIO), established in 1970 under the supervision of the CIA's analyst division, and the Office of National Assessments (ONA), whose job is to co-ordinate and analyse Australia's extensive spying networks in the region. Most important of all is Pine Gap, near Alice Springs, officially described as an American- Australian "Joint Defence Space Research Facility", but in actuality it is an entirely American spy-satellite base, run by the CIA and the NSA. Pine Gap can pick up communications from almost anywhere in the world; its primary function is the collection of data from CIA sources and transmitters, and the preparation for nuclear warfare. So secretive were Pine Gap and the other major U.S. base at Nurrungar in South Australia that no details of their plans were revealed to successive Australian Prime Ministers and their cabinets. Leaked Australian Defence Department documents disclosed that in 1972, high-frequency transmitters at North West Cape had helped the United States to mine Haiphong and other North Vietnamese harbours; and that satellites controlled from Pine Gap and Nurrungar were being used to pinpoint targets for the American bombing of Cambodia. These actions were taken entirely without the consent or knowledge of the Australian government. William Corson, a former senior U.S. intelligence officer, also revealed that the CIA ran between ten and fifteen "black airfields" at their secret Australian bases during the Vietnam War, flying "hot" CIA agents from Vietnam for debriefing. In 1975, as the North Vietnamese captured control of South Vietnam, massive supplies of drugs that had been stashed by the CIA in Vietnam were flown into the secret U.S. airfields in Australia. The drugs were redistributed to "regional drug banks", thus providing a "reserve currency" for the Agency's global criminal activities. The top-secret American base at Nurrungar, South Australia. In October 1973, during the Middle East War, President Nixon put U.S. forces on nuclear "Level Three" alert, through the base at North West Cape. Australia had become involved, without the knowledge of its government, in a war on the other side of the world. When Whitlam found out about this, he was furious and told Parliament that although the Australian government would honour agreements with America covering existing spy stations, "there will not be extensions or proliferations." Whitlam's words were to have serious consequences for the fate of his government. A new American Ambassador was appointed to Australia - Marshall Green, widely known as "the coup-master". Green was a senior U.S. policy planner for Southeast Asia and had the distinction of being involved in several countries where the CIA had masterminded coups, such as Indonesia and Chile. Green visited the office of Clyde Cameron, a senior minister in the Whitlam government, and made the threat that if the Labor Government honoured one of its key election pledges to reclaim national ownership of oil refineries and other industries which had been mostly sold to American transnational interests, "we would move in." In early 1974, Green addressed the Australian Institute of Directors with a speech that amounted almost to an incitement to rise against the Australian Government. Green went on to say that Australian business leaders "could expect help from the United States, which would be similar to the help given to South America." (The CIA-sponsored coup in Chile had happened only a few months earlier). The CIA set about a programme of discrediting Jim Cairns, leader of the anti-Vietnam War movement. ASIO timed the leak of a defamatory "Cairns file" to the Bulletin magazine to coincide with Cairns' election to Deputy Prime Minister in 1974. This file claimed that Cairns "echoed Communist views... and his activities could lead to the fascist cult of the personality... and to the destruction of the democratic system of government." A few weeks later, ASIO leaked a second file to journalist Peter Samuels, a regular publisher of CIA propaganda. Under the headline The Pathway to Terrorism, Samuels wrote that ASIO's prime concern about Cairns was the "terrorist" potential of his part in the anti-war movement. By the end of 1974, inflation and the money supply were rising at an alarming rate due to the dramatic rise in the cost of oil. Despite this, the Whitlam Government was determined to honour its election promise to hand control of U.S. multinational subsidiaries to the Australian people. In order to achieve this, Whitlam sent two of his ministers to scour the Middle East for a loan of $A4 billion. In November 1974 Rex Connor, the Minister for Minerals and Energy, met with Tirath Khemlani, a Pakistani "commodities merchant" who was working for the London brokers Dalamal & Sons. Unknown to Connor, Khemlani was a con-man who had been sent to sabotage the Australian Government by a Hong Kong arms firm closely associated with Commerce International, a Brussels-based armaments company with widespread links to the CIA. (Commerce International was set up as a front for Task Force 157, the highly secretive CIA "dirty tricks" organisation). In March 1975 Jim Cairns was introduced to Melbourne businessman George Harris, who told Cairns that a $A4 billion loan was available from Commerce International with a once-only brokerage fee of 2.5%. Cairns considered the offer a fairy tale and rejected the deal. Harris then contacted Phillip Lynch, Deputy Leader of the opposition Liberal Party. When Lynch raised the question of the brokerage fee in Parliament, Cairns denied that any such agreement existed. Within days, a letter with Cairns' signature was published on the front pages of the national newspapers and Cairns was forced to resign for "misleading Parliament." Cairns steadfastly maintained that he never agreed to or put his name to such an outrageous and incriminating letter. A top-secret CIA briefing document for the U.S. President dated July 3rd 1975 later revealed that Cairns had been sacked "even though the evidence had been fabricated." The CIA was involved in further activities designed to undermine the Whitlam Government. In July 1975 the Australian media reported that the Mercantile Bank and Trust Company, based in the Bahamas, had issued a letter seeking $4,267,365,000 "for and on behalf of the Government of Australia." The bank did not claim to be acting with the approval of the Australian Government and cabinet ministers had never heard of it. But the implication was enough to fill the newspapers with another "scandal". Much later, an ASIO officer was to publicly state: "some of the documents which helped discredit the Labor Government in its last year in office were forgeries planted by the CIA." Mercantile Bank and Trust was set up and owned by the CIA's Colonel Paul Helliwell, who built up a network of banks, including the infamous Castle Bank, which collapsed after U.S. tax investigators found it was laundering drugs money for the CIA and the Mafia (see the Wake Up article Dealing in Death: The CIA and the Drugs Trade). As the loans affair reached its climax in the spring of 1975, a welter of supposedly incriminating documents forged by the CIA were given widespread coverage in the Australian media. Tirath Khemlani himself arrived in Australia with two bags bulging with more "incriminating" documents. Bodyguards provided by the opposition parties accompanied Khemlani and the CIA paid his expenses. Khemlani made outrageous claims in the media that Labor ministers had received commissions and "kickbacks" from the loans, that documents proving corruption were soon to be made public, and so on. In fact not one of these "documents" proved a thing; not one penny was paid by anyone to the government, nor did any minister profit from the affair. In 1981 a CIA contract employee, Joseph Flynn, revealed that he had forged some of the loans affair documents and had bugged a hotel room where Gough Whitlam was staying. He had been paid by Michael Hand, co-founder of the CIA's Nugan Hand Bank. Former Nugan Hand principal Karl Schuller provided evidence to Australian Corporate Affairs investigating officers that the CIA transferred a "slush fund" of $A2,400,000 to the main opposition parties in March 1973, four months after Whitlam's election. An investigation by a special New South Wales police task force concluded that "many links were found between individuals connected with Nugan Hand and individuals connected in very significant ways with U.S. intelligence organisations, specifically the Central Intelligence Agency and the Office of Naval Intelligence [Task Force 157]... at times those links have the appearance of the direct involvement of the U.S. intelligence community itself." The Commission called for criminal charges for "drug, conspiracy, perjury and passport offences." (A year after Frank Nugan's death, the Deputy Director of the CIA, Admiral Bobby Inman, expressed deep concern that the investigations into Nugan Hand Bank would lead to disclosure of a range of CIA dirty tricks calculated to undermine the Whitlam Government). It was revealed in the press that the CIA had offered the Australian opposition Liberal Party (the Liberals were actually conservative) "unlimited funds" in their unsuccessful attempt to defeat the Labor party in the May 1974 parliamentary elections. Former CIA officer Victor Marchetti confirmed that the CIA had funded both of the major opposition parties and that the Liberals had been receiving CIA funds since the late 1960s. According to the former Deputy Director of Intelligence for the CIA, Dr Ray Cline, the CIA passed information to opposition politicians not only to discredit the Whitlam Government but also to put pressure on Australian civil servants who in turn would pressure the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr. When the Pine Gap Treaty, which would determine the future of the CIA's most valuable overseas base, was due for renewal on December 9th 1975, Whitlam's comments that he might not renew the treaty raised major alarms in the Agency. CIA Director William Colby later wrote that the "threat" posed by the Whitlam Government was one of the three "world crises" of his career, comparable with the Middle East war two years previously, when the United States considered using nuclear weapons. The CIA Station Chief in London, Dr John Proctor, contacted MI6 and asked for British help with "the Whitlam problem." William Colby directly approached his opposite number, head of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield, to emphasise to British intelligence that Australia was "traditionally Britain's domain" and that if Pine Gap was closed down, "the Alliance would be blinded strategically." The CIA also sought assistance from MI6 and MI5 liaison officers based in Washington. British intelligence has long had a vested interest in Australian politics. MI6 operates its own base at Kowandi, south of Darwin, where its highly secret activities are concealed from the Australian government and people. They include widespread interception of communications and covert operations in Asia. The Australian Secret Intelligence Service, ASIS, also operates from this base and is highly integrated with British intelligence. At the same time as U.S. intelligence was targeting the Australian Labor Government, Peter Wright (of Spycatcher infamy) and his colleagues in British intelligence were busy destabilising the British Labour Government of Harold Wilson. Wright conspired with his close friend, James Jesus Angleton, the extreme right-wing head of CIA counter-intelligence, to "target" the three Western leaders they regarded as "Communist agents": Harold Wilson, Willy Brandt in Germany and Gough Whitlam. After discovering that the British and American intelligence services based in Australia were secretly involved in Indonesia's invasion of East Timor, Whitlam ordered the dismissal of the heads of ASIO and ASIS in the autumn of 1975, and then began to make moves against the CIA. Then, at the beginning of November, it was revealed in the press that a former CIA officer, Richard Stallings, had been channelling funds to J. Douglas Anthony, leader of the opposition National Country Party, and was a close friend and former tenant of Anthony's Canberra home. Whitlam accused the opposition of being "subsidised by the CIA." In Parliament, Doug Anthony admitted that Stallings was a friend but challenged Whitlam to provide evidence that Stallings worked for the CIA. (Stallings' name was not on the official list of "declared" CIA officers working in Australia, but on a "confidential" list held by the Permanent Head of the Australian Defence Department, Sir Arthur Tange). Whitlam prepared a reply, which he intended to give when Parliament resumed the following week, on Tuesday November 11th. The CIA was frantic. The Australian Prime Minister was about to blow the cover of the agent who had set up Pine Gap and to reveal that the supposedly "joint" facility was a CIA charade. Furthermore, the future of the base itself was to be subject to parliamentary debate. The day before his speech was due, Whitlam was informed of a telex from the ASIO station in Washington, which stated that the Prime Minister of Australia was a security risk in his own country. The message had been virtually dictated by Theodore Shackley, head of the CIA's East Asia Division (and whose plethora of illegal covert activities have been outlined in other articles on this site). On Sunday November 9th, the Australian Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, was briefed on the "security crisis", while the head of the Defence Department declared publicly: "This is the greatest risk to the nation's security there has ever been." The CIA was certain that Whitlam would announce the cancellation of the Pine Gap agreement on December 9th, and set into motion a plan to install in power a political party to "protect the sanctity of U.S. bases." Six weeks earlier, during a visit to Indonesia, opposition politician Andrew Peacock had briefed government officials there on the current state of the Australian political crisis. He described in detail a sequence of events that were about to take Australia by surprise. A record of his briefing was later read into Australian Hansard: "Whitlam will not agree to hold an election.... The Governor-General would be forced to ask Malcolm Fraser to form a Cabinet. But this Cabinet would not be able to get a mandate to govern, because Parliament is controlled by the Labor Party.... Fraser is appointed PM, a minute later he asks the Governor-General to dissolve Parliament, following which a general election is to be held." And that was exactly what happened. On November 11th, the day Whitlam was to inform Parliament fully about the CIA and American bases in Australia, he was summoned by Kerr from Parliament House. Without warning, Kerr dismissed Whitlam as Prime Minister, dissolved both houses of Parliament and appointed Malcolm Fraser, leader of the Liberal Party, to head an interim government until new elections could be held in December. An unelected official (whose position was traditionally only that of a figurehead representative of the Queen of England) had, in one arbitrary and unconstitutional act, overthrown a legitimate and democratically elected government. Back in the House of Representatives, Whitlam called for a vote of confidence in himself and his government. An overwhelming majority supported Whitlam. Indeed, six motions proposed that day, including a motion of no-confidence in Malcolm Fraser, were passed by absolute majorities. The Speaker of the House delivered Parliament's clear message of confidence in the Whitlam government personally to the Governor-General. Kerr refused to accept it. The no-confidence motion against Fraser legally obliged the Governor-General to dismiss Fraser, but Kerr chose to ignore this. Former CIA officers who were among the Agency's "top seven" in 1975, revealed ten years later that "Whitlam was set up. The action that Kerr took was so extreme that it would take far more than a constitutional crisis to cause him to do what he did...." A Deputy Director of the CIA said, "Kerr did what he was told to do." During the first week of the coup, the Australian army was recalled to barracks and there were reports that units were issued with live ammunition. There were demonstrations against the sacking of the Labor Government throughout Australia; the unions began to mobilise and prepare for a general strike. However, Bob Hawke, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), summoned the press and delivered a stirring speech in which he said that "working people must not be provoked... we have to show we are not going to allow this to snowball." Hawke's intervention was critical: Australia's organised labour was strangely quiet in response to the affair. In fact Marshall Green later said that he found Bob Hawke so amenable to the CIA's cause that "Bob gave me his private telephone number and said if anything ever comes up that desperately needs some action, this is the number to ring." An election was called for December 13th 1975. During the campaign, three letter bombs were posted to Kerr, Fraser and the ultra-right-wing Queensland Premier, Johannes Bjelke-Petersen. Most of the press, led by Rupert Murdoch's papers, concluded that the bombs were sent by left-wing extremists within the Labor Party. There was not a shred of evidence to support this and no culprits were ever found, but the charge of "terrorism" was used to great effect against Labor. Four days before the election, Bjelke-Petersen called a special session of the Queensland Parliament to hear "dramatic revelations". He claimed to be "in possession of material which made clear that two Ministers of the Whitlam Government were due to receive staggering sums of money as a consequence of secret commissions and kickbacks." Bjelke-Petersen then moved quickly to gag any debate and to prevent the Labor leader from arranging for parliamentary investigation of the "revelations". The undisclosed "revelations" made large headlines in the press. No material or evidence of any kind was ever produced, but the publicity achieved its goal. Whitlam lost the election. The new Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser renewed the Pine Gap treaty for another decade. He also offered Washington a naval base at Cockburn Sound, even though the Americans had not requested it. In his first budget, Fraser increased the size of ASIO and gave it more money, proportionately, than any other government body. Kerr was given an unequalled pay rise of 170% and was promoted to "Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Michael and St. George." The Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr. Despite denying that he ever had any connections with the CIA or any other intelligence organisations, Kerr in fact had a long association with covert intelligence operations, firstly as a member of the top-secret Directorate of Research and Civil Affairs during the Second World War. He was then seconded to the Office of Strategic Services, OSS, the fore-runner of the CIA. Although he joined the Australian Labor Party early in his career, Kerr was always well to the right politically. He was chief legal adviser to the Industrial Groups, a body which sought to dominate trade unionism and was linked to the Democratic Labor Party (DLP), an extreme "anti-Communist" organisation whose split from the Labor Party and subsequent spoiler tactics kept Labor in opposition until the election of Gough Whitlam in 1977. Kerr was an active member of the Australian Association for Cultural Freedom, which was exposed in Congress in 1967 as being "founded, funded and generally run by the CIA." In the 1960s Kerr travelled to the United States to arrange funding from the Asia Foundation; that too, was exposed in Congress as a CIA conduit for money and influence. The trade union movement of Australia had long been infiltrated by U.S. intelligence. As John Grenville, assistant secretary of the Victorian Trades Hall, revealed, "it was generally accepted that the U.S. labour attaché was the station agent for the CIA." Robert Walkinshaw was the labour attaché from 1962 to 1964. During his time in Melbourne, a trade-union publication, Spotlight, was set up, funded and run by the CIA. Walkinshaw's subsequent CIA posting was Indonesia, during the military coup in which over half a million alleged Communists were murdered. Walkinshaw was later posted as CIA adviser in Phuoc Tuy, Vietnam, where the Australian army and Australian CIA advisers were based. The CIA later admitted giving money to the General Secretary of the powerful Australian Worker's Union, Tom Dougherty, to "fight Communism in the AWU." Four years later the National Secretary of the Federation Ironworkers' Association, Laurie Short, began many visits to the United States, which were sponsored by the CIA. Short returned to Australia "determined to get rid of the Commies and their friends" from the Labor Party and the unions. He also delivered the clear message that "in America, the trade-union movement looked to Australian unionists to help counteract the spread of Communism in the Far East." The three Americans involved in supporting Bob Hawke's campaign for the Presidency of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) - Emil Lindahl, Gerry O'Keefe and Ed McHale - all worked for the CIA. Gerry O'Keefe was exposed as a major CIA operator in right-wing Chilean unions that helped to overthrow the Allende Government. Ed McHale was U.S. labour attaché in the early 1970s and maintained a "close personal relationship" with Hawke when the ACTU President was one of the most powerful union bosses Australia had ever known. McHale was internationally known as a senior CIA officer, having long been Assistant Director of Radio Free Europe, which had been set up, financed and run by the CIA. In 1977 the American Christopher Boyce disclosed details of CIA activities in Australia, specifically the manipulation of unions. Boyce was employed by a Californian aerospace company, TRW Systems Inc., in a cryptographic communications centre which linked CIA headquarters in Virginia with the Agency's satellite surveillance system in Australia. Boyce revealed that the CIA had infiltrated Australian labour unions, had manipulated their leadership and suppressed strikes, particularly those involving railroads and airports. Boyce described one instance when TRW had material and personnel to ship out to the CIA spy base at Pine Gap. The Agency was concerned that strikes at Australian airports could wreck their schedule. However, a telex from CIA headquarters said, "CIA will continue to suppress the strikes. Continue shipment on schedule." In other words, the CIA had infiltrated the hierarchy of Australian trade unions. Boyce and his associate Andrew Daulton Lee were put on trial in 1977 for selling U.S. secrets to the Russians. Lee had flown to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico and sold details of the CIA's covert activities in Australia to the Soviets. Boyce maintained that he had never intended the information to go the Russians, that Lee had agreed to make it public through one of his father's influential friends, but that he had been blackmailed by Lee, a heroin addict and pusher. Evidence emerged during the trial that most of TRW's communications came from Pine Gap and that although the United States had signed an Executive Agreement with Australia to share information from Pine Gap, the agreement was not being honoured and "certain information" was regularly concealed from the Australian government. Boyce described the CIA's campaigns to subvert Australian trade unions "particularly in the transport industry", and revealed that the Agency was using Pine Gap to eavesdrop on telephone and telex messages to and from Australia of a political character, and that the CIA had funded the Australian opposition political parties. Boyce also revealed that the Australian Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, was referred to by Joe Harrison, the CIA chief at TWR, as "our man Kerr." Boyce's disclosures caused a sensation in the United States. The prosecuting lawyers made no attempt to refute his allegations but successfully objected to any further evidence about the CIA's activities in Australia. The judge complied with a direct CIA request and agreed that Boyce would not mention the "Australia information" at his trial if, in return, the government did not use it against him - such was the sensitivity of the matter. Boyce and Lee were both found guilty; Lee was given a life sentence, while Boyce was sent for "psychiatric observation" - an indication that he might be treated leniently in return for his silence. However, Boyce made it consistently clear that he was so outraged at the betrayal of an ally - Australia - that he intended to talk. He was subsequently given forty years in Marion Federal Penitentiary in Illinois, where he is kept in solitary confinement. Whenever he leaves his cell, he is manacled, handcuffed and accompanied by two guards. It is said that his only hope of release rests on his continued silence about what happened in Australia. The American Christopher Boyce described CIA covert operations in Australia aimed at bringing down the Labor Government of Gough Whitlam. Boyce was sentenced to 40 years solitary confinement for his refusal to stay silent on the matter. Five years after the overthrow of Whitlam, in April 1981, senior executives of nineteen Australian corporations met at Melbourne's Noah's Hotel for a "forecasting round table" organised by Business International. Business International is a worldwide American organisation of "consultants" which represents the top multi-national companies in Australia. In December 1977, the New York Times exposed Business International's clandestine links with the CIA. The nineteen had come to hear Business International's Alan Carroll express his concern about the resurgence of the Labor Party under Bill Hayden, who had held senior posts in the Whitlam Government and described himself as a republican and a democratic socialist. At that time, Bob Hawke had completed his term as ACTU President and was a newly elected Labor Party Member of Parliament. Carroll told the meeting that he knew Hawke "pretty well" and "basically, Hawke will be Labor Party leader by the middle of next year; and that's my business, and we won't go into that in any great depth. But he will be there. It's all under way. The game plan is totally under way and I forecast 3 to 5 on a Hawke Government in '83! We had a meeting with him about one month ago and we're meeting with him every six months from now. It's terribly important." A top-secret CIA briefing document for the U.S. President described Hawke as "the best qualified" to succeed Whitlam as Labor leader. The forecasts of the Agency and Alan Carroll came true in almost every detail. In February 1983, three weeks before an election was due, Hawke and others on the party's right wing mounted a successful putsch against Bill Hayden. With the slogan, "Bob Hawke, Bringing Australia Together", the CIA's chosen candidate became Australian Prime Minister. Hawke went on to cultivate many ties with anti-Communist groups and developed what U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz described as "a fine relationship" with Presidents Nixon and Reagan. Hawke's Government repeatedly refused to release some 1,200 documents on the Nugan Hand Bank, the front for international crime and illegal CIA operations in Australia. Hawke also refused to find out why the CIA barred the release, under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, of fourteen intelligence reports on Commerce International, the CIA-front company that played a central role in the destruction of the Whitlam Government. In 1989 a committee headed by a former Chief Justice of the High Court recommended rigorous Government secrecy in order to prevent disclosures about the activities of the CIA, MI5 and MI6 in the internal affairs of Australia. The CIA's illicit actions against the Australian Labor Party clearly indicate that the Agency will not hesitate to move against even supposed allies if it considers that they threaten U.S. interests; the full range of CIA dirty tricks can be expected to be applied against any Western nation with the same lack of impunity and regard for the law that the Agency has shown in its wars with its enemies in the East. Good mates: U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz and Bob Hawke, 1987.