1980 October Surprise: Anything Goes With These Types

Tuesday, January 30, 2007
1980 "OCTOBER SURPRISE"

The Consortium
The Russian Report

On Jan. 11, 1993, Russia 's Supreme Soviet sent a secret cable to the U.S. Congress. The cable claimed that Russian national security files held evidence that two U.S. Presidents and two CIA directors had committed an act of treachery with Iran 's radical Islamic government in 1980.
Despite its explosive potential, the document was kept from the American people. It was buried in a pile of cardboard boxes, left behind with a host of other unclassified and secret papers in an obscure storage room on Capitol Hill: a real-life "X-Files."

October Surprise X-Files (Part 1): Russia 's Report By Robert Parry

WASHINGTON -- On Jan. 11, 1993, the nation's capital was readying itself for the Inauguration of President Bill Clinton, the first Democrat to sit in the Oval Office in a dozen years. Temporary grandstands were going up along Pennsylvania Avenue . The city brimmed with a celebratory air that fills the capital whenever a grand event like an Inauguration takes place. But in an obscure set of offices near the U.S. Capitol, a congressional task force was coping with another problem, one that had seeped out over those same twelve years to stain the Republican victory that had last changed party power at the White House, in 1980.

The House task force was concluding a year-long investigation into claims that Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign had interfered with President Carter's negotiations to free 52 Americans held hostage in Iran . A mixed bag of Iranian officials, foreign intelligence agents and international arms dealers had alleged a Republican deal behind Carter's back. But the task force had decided there was "no credible evidence" to support allegations that the Reagan campaign had blocked Carter's possible "October Surprise" of an election-eve hostage return.

Carter's failure to free those hostages over 444 days had sealed his political doom and boosted Reagan from a neck-and-neck race to a resounding electoral victory. The hostages' release, as Reagan was completing his Inaugural Address on Jan. 20, 1981, opened a floodgate of patriotic fervor that reshaped the political landscape and made Reagan a hero.

The possibility that this pivotal moment in modern American history had resulted from a nearly treasonous dirty trick had drawn understandably angry denials from Reagan-Bush loyalists -- and even from Democrats who feared that the public would lose faith in politics if the charges proved true.

So, with a collective sigh of relief, the House task force debunked the charges by adopting an elaborate set of alibis for the key players, particularly the late CIA director William J. Casey, who had run Reagan's campaign. One of the Casey alibi dates was nailed down, according to the task force, because a Republican operative had written Casey's home phone number on a piece of paper that day, although the operative admitted that he had no recollection of reaching Casey at home.

Nevertheless, with a host of such dubious alibis, the 968-page report was shipped off to the printers, with a public release set for Jan. 13, 1993. Washington journalists, already briefed on the task force findings, were preparing to praise the report as "exhaustive" and "bipartisan."
But two days before the news conference, a cable arrived from Moscow . It was a response to a query dated Oct. 21, 1992, that Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., who headed the House task force, had sent to Sergey Vadimovich Stepashin, then chairman of the Supreme Soviet's Committee on Defense and Security Issues. Hamilton asked Stepashin -- whose job was roughly equal to chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee -- what information the Russian government had about the so-called "October Surprise" charges.

The Supreme Soviet's response was delivered to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow by Nikolay Kuznetsov, secretary of the subcommittee on state security. Kuznetsov apologized for the "lengthy preparation of the response." It was quickly translated by the U.S. embassy and forwarded to Hamilton .

Carter vs. Reagan

To the shock of the task force, the six-page Russian report stated, as fact, that Casey, George Bush and other Republicans had met secretly with Iranian officials in Europe during the 1980 presidential campaign. The Russians depicted the hostage negotiations that year as a two-way competition between the Carter White House and the Reagan campaign to outbid one another for Iran 's cooperation on the hostages. The Russians asserted that the Reagan team had disrupted Carter's hostage negotiations after all, the exact opposite of the task force conclusion.
As described by the Russians, the Carter administration offered the Iranians supplies of arms and unfreezing of assets for a pre-election release of the hostages. One important meeting had occurred in Athens in July 1980 with Pentagon representatives agreeing "in principle" to deliver "a significant quantity of spare parts for F-4 and F-5 aircraft and also M-60 tanks ... via Turkey ," according to the Russian report. The Iranians "discussed a possible step-by-step normalization of Iranian-American relations [and] the provision of support for President Carter in the election campaign via the release of American hostages."

But the Republicans were making separate overtures to the Iranians, also in Europe , the Russians claimed. "William Casey, in 1980, met three times with representatives of the Iranian leadership," the Russians wrote. "The meetings took place in Madrid and Paris ."

At the Paris meeting in October 1980, "R[obert] Gates, at that time a staffer of the National Security Council in the administration of Jimmy Carter and former CIA director George Bush also took part," the Russians said. "In Madrid and Paris , the representatives of Ronald Reagan and the Iranian leadership discussed the question of possibly delaying the release of 52 hostages from the staff of the U.S. Embassy in Teheran."

Both the Reagan Republicans and Carter Democrats "started from the proposition that Imam [Ruhollah] Khomeini, having announced a policy of 'neither the West nor the East,' and cursing the 'American devil,' imperialism and Zionism, was forced to acquire American weapons, spares and military supplies by any and all possible means," the Russians wrote. According to the report, the Republicans won the bidding war.

"After the victory of R. Reagan in the election, in early 1981, a secret agreement was reached in London in accord with which Iran released the American hostages, and the U.S. continued to supply arms, spares and military supplies for the Iranian army," the report continued. The deliveries were carried out by Israel , often through private arms dealers, the Russians said. Spares for F-14 fighters and other military equipment went to Iran from Israel in March-April 1981 and the arms pipeline kept flowing into the mid-1980s.

"Through the Israeli conduit, Iran in 1983 bought surface-to-surface missiles of the 'Lance' class plus artillery of a total value of $135 million," the report said. "In July 1983, a group of specialists from the firm, Lockheed, went to Iran on English passports to repair the navigation systems and other electronic components on American-produced planes." Then, in 1985, the weapons tap opened wider, into the Iran-contra shipments.

The Russian 'Bomb'

The matter-of-fact Russian report was stunning. It also matched other information the task force had. The Israelis, for example, had shipped U.S. military spares to Iran in the early 1980s, with the acquiescence of senior Reagan administration officials. But the Russians weren't clear about where their information came from or how reliable it was.

After receiving the Russian report in January 1993, a U.S. Embassy political officer went back to the Russians seeking more details. But the Russians would state only that the data came from the Committee on Defense and Security Issues. The embassy political officer then speculated that Moscow 's report might have been "based largely on material that has previously appeared in the Western media."

But apparently, there was no serious follow-up -- even though Moscow , the communist enemy in the 1980s, claimed to possess incriminating evidence about two CIA directors (Casey and Gates) and two U.S. Presidents (Reagan and Bush). Though the Russian claims about Carter's negotiations with Iran might cause embarrassment, Carter, as President, possessed the constitutional authority to negotiate with a foreign power. The Republicans did not.

Task force investigators felt the Russian report could be safely dismissed because one section took seriously the allegations of former Israeli intelligence official Ari Ben-Menashe, an Iranian-born Jew. Ben-Menashe had testified to Congress that, as an Israeli intelligence officer, he participated in Paris meetings between senior Iranians and Republican emissaries in October 1980. Ben-Menashe had placed Casey, Bush and Gates at those meetings as well.

But Bush, who was Reagan's vice presidential running mate in 1980 and President during the task force investigation, denied being in Paris. So did Gates, who was Casey's deputy director at CIA and Bush's CIA director. (Casey died in 1987 before the October Surprise issue surfaced.)
When Ben-Menashe went public in the early 1990s, the Israeli government first called him an imposter and claimed he had never worked for Israeli intelligence. But confronted with documents proving Ben-Menashe's employment, Israeli officials reversed themselves and admitted that Ben-Menashe had worked for Israeli military intelligence from 1977-87. Nevertheless, they continued to attack his truthfulness. The House task force also rejected Ben-Menashe as lacking credibility. For his part, Ben-Menashe, now living in Canada , still insists that he was telling the truth.

After finding the Russian report in a remote storage room on Capitol Hill, I contacted one well-placed official in Europe who checked with the Russian government. "This was real information based on their own sources and methods," the official told me. As for the possibility that the report was blowback from the U.S. media, the official insisted that the Russians "would not send something like this to the U.S. Congress at that time, if it was bullshit."

Instead, the Russians considered their report "a bomb" and "couldn't believe it was ignored," the official said. Not only did the House task force keep the extraordinary Russian report secret, it ended up in a cardboard box among hundreds of documents, some unclassified and others "secret." The document boxes were piled, ingloriously, on the floor of a former Ladies' Room which had been converted into storage space, deep inside a parking garage of the Rayburn House Office Building .

The Ladies' Room Secrets

Stored away in a converted Ladies' Room on Capitol Hill, dusty boxes contained startling evidence of Republican dirty tricks in the 1980 presidential campaign -- and of a bipartisan cover-up that continues to this day.

From secret payments to an Iranian banker to incriminating CIA discussions, the documents painted a picture of political deceit at the highest levels of national power and of a fraud perpetrated on American history: another chapter of the October Surprise X-Files

October Surprise X-Files (Part 2): The Ladies' Room Secrets By Robert Parry

WASHINGTON -- After its release on Jan. 13, 1993, the House task force report on the October Surprise controversy quickly hardened into historical concrete. Its conclusion that there was "no credible evidence" to support the allegations of Republican sabotage in the 1980 Iran hostage crisis won acclaim across the political spectrum.

Columnist David Broder lauded Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., the task force chairman, as the "conscience of Congress" for repudiating the accusations of GOP wrongdoing. No one, it seemed, examined the quality of the investigation or listened to the few dissenting voices.

But in the months following the task force's findings, more foreign leaders in positions to know told other Americans that there was more to the October Surprise story than the task force found. Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasir Arafat informed American journalist Richard Fricker that senior Republicans had traveled to Beirut in 1980 seeking avenues to the Iranian leadership.

In a May 1993 videotaped interview in Tel Aviv, former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was asked "was there an October Surprise?" and he responded "of course, it was." In another interview, retired Israeli General Yehoshua Saguy, who was head of Israeli military intelligence in 1980, said Prime Minister Menachem Begin claimed American approval for Israel 's secret 1980 weapons shipments to Iran . But the approval had not come from President Carter, who had angrily objected to the shipments when he learned of them.

The French Spymaster

Alexandre deMarenches, the man who ran French intelligence in 1980, privately mocked the House task force findings and let stand the sworn testimony of his biographer that he (deMarenches) had arranged meetings between Ronald Reagan's campaign chief William J. Casey and Iranians in Paris in October 1980.

In December 1992, deMarenches's biographer, David Andelman, an ex-New York Times and CBS News correspondent, had testified before the task force that deMarenches had discussed the Paris meetings while the two were writing deMarenches's autobiography, The Fourth World War. After Andelman's testimony, the task force called deMarenches. But when the imperious French spymaster failed to return the call, the task force concluded, paradoxically, that Andelman's testimony was "credible" but lacked "probative value."

These newer witnesses also were corroborating longstanding claims about Republican interference that had been made by top Iranians of the period, including Iran 's President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, Foreign Minister Sadeq Ghotzbadeh and Defense Minister Ahmed Madani. Other testimony supporting the October Surprise charges had come from intelligence agents with confirmed ties to Israel , France and the United States .

But the dismissive House task force report effectively buried the October Surprise story as an historical issue. Washington 's conventional wisdom readily accepted that there had been no Republican contacts to Iran in 1980; that Casey, George Bush and other Reagan campaign officials had been falsely accused.

Then, last year, senior representatives of Iran 's current government held informal talks in Europe with Americans close to President Clinton. Like deMarenches, these Iranians were amused at how wrong the House task force had been. Casey indeed had made secret overtures to Iran during the hostage crisis of 1980, these Iranians said.

The new Iranian claims were relayed to the highest levels of the Clinton administration. But fearing how a reopened October Surprise investigation might look, the White House refused to reconsider the House task force findings. For reasons perhaps explained best by Washington 's acute sense for sniffing career danger, the October Surprise story had become one of the capital's most powerful taboos.

The Ladies' Room Files

Given that reality, I hesitated before seeking access to the task force's raw files. But having learned of the new Iranian claims, I decided to go ahead. I obtained permission from the House International Relations Committee to examine the task force's unclassified papers. I was told that there had not been a single prior request for these records that had been collecting dust in an obscure office off the Rayburn House Office Building 's parking garage, across from the U.S. Capitol.
To reach the files required taking the Rayburn building's elevator to a sub-basement floor and then winding through the musty underground garage almost to the car exit at the building's south side. To the right, behind venetian-blind-covered windows was a small locked office. Inside were a few desks, cloth-covered partitions, phones and a rumbling old copying machine.
At the rear of the office was a converted Ladies' Room, now used for storage. The task force's taped boxes sat against the wall, under an empty tampon dispenser which still hung from the salmon-colored tiles. I began pulling the tape off the boxes and poring through the files. Not only did I find unclassified notes and documents about the task force's work, but also "secret" and even "top secret" papers that had been left behind, apparently in the haste to wrap up the investigation.

A few "secret" depositions were there, including one of a senior CIA officer named Charles Cogan. Cogan testified that he had attended a 1981 meeting at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., in which a high-ranking Republican commented to Casey about their success in disrupting Carter's "October Surprise," the term used to describe President Carter's hope for a last-minute release of the 52 American hostages held in Iran.

FBI Wiretaps

Another box contained a "secret" summary of FBI wiretaps placed on phones belonging to Cyrus Hashemi, an Iranian financier who had worked for the CIA in 1980. Hashemi also was a key Carter intermediary in the hostage talks. But in fall 1980, the wiretaps showed Hashemi receiving a $3 million deposit arranged by a Houston lawyer who claimed to be associated with then-vice presidential candidate George Bush.

After the 1980 election, the Houston lawyer was back on the phone promising Hashemi help from "the Bush people" for one of Hashemi's failing investments. And shortly after President Reagan's Inauguration, a second mysterious payment to Hashemi arrived from London by Concorde, via a courier for the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI).

There were notes, too, describing Bush's active involvement in monitoring President Carter's Iran hostage negotiations. According to one set of notes, dated Oct. 27, 1980, Bush instructed foreign policy adviser Richard Allen to funnel last-minute information about the negotiations back to him via Theodore Shackley, the CIA's former associate deputy director for operations.
Still, another file contained a summary of all "secret" and "top secret" State Department records on arms sales to Iran in the 1980s. One "top secret/sensitive" document recounted private meetings that Secretary of State Alexander Haig had with Middle Eastern leaders during a trip in May 1981. The leaders told Haig about the continuing secret flow of weapons from Israel to Iran .

I also found a "confidential" October Surprise report that had been sent by Russia 's Supreme Soviet informing the task force that Moscow 's national security files contained evidence that Casey, Bush and other Republicans had negotiated secretly with Iranians in Europe in 1980. [See "The Consortium," Dec. 11, 1995, Vol. 1, No. 1]

All of this information had been excluded from the House task force report. And after the report was completed, the documents were left unceremoniously behind on the floor of the converted Ladies' Room.

'A Trap Door'

Other task force papers in the boxes revealed how flimsy the report's October Surprise debunking had been. Even, task force chief counsel E. Lawrence Barcella was nervous about the weaknesses. On Dec. 8, 1992, he instructed his deputies "to put some language in, as a trap door" in case later disclosures disproved parts of the report or if complaints arose about selective omission of evidence.

"This report does not and could not reflect every single lead that was investigated, every single phone call that was made, every single contact that was established," Barcella suggested as "trap door" wording. "Similarly, the task force did not resolve every single one of the scores of 'curiosities,' 'coincidences,' sub-allegations or question marks that have been raised over the years and become part of the October Surprise story."

But as the documents made clear, many of those "coincidences" left out were historically important. The October Surprise story connected some of the world's most powerful figures in secret interlocking business deals. The documents also revealed an investigation that not only overlooked a few "curiosities" or failed to mention a "lead" or two, but an inquiry that consistently slanted the evidence.

The boxes of documents revealed that the task force used false alibis on Casey's whereabouts for key October Surprise dates; withheld relevant documents and testimony that clashed with its conclusions; dismissed credible witnesses who supplied unwelcome support for the allegations; and accepted dubious -- if not blatantly false -- testimony from Republicans.

Conflicts of Interest

In addition, the task force's files contained new evidence of conflicts of interest for the House investigators, particularly chief counsel Barcella. In the 1980s, he had been a lead attorney for the corrupt international bank, BCCI, which paid his firm more than $2 million to shield it from press and governmental investigations. At that time, Barcella also was a law partner of Paul Laxalt, who had been chairman of the Reagan-Bush campaign in 1980.

Indeed, the Ladies' Room files showed that a fascinating chapter of recent American history -- the story of the pivotal 1980 election -- had been seriously miswritten. Even if one still judges that the evidence falls short of proving an explicit Republican-Iranian "deal" to delay the release of the 52 American hostages, the facts do point to significant GOP interference in President Carter's negotiations during the campaign.

Much of that missing history was there in the documents.

Bill Casey' Iranian

Iranian banker Cyrus Hashemi was a mystery man of the 1980s, a nexus point for scandal, from accessing vaults of the corrupt BCCI to opening doors to the Iran-Contra Affair. But for years, the FBI withheld key wiretaps of Hashemi's secret conversations.

Now, from a dusty box in a Capitol Hill storage room, a classified summary of those incriminating calls has been recovered. It fills in crucial missing pieces of the history of the Reagan-Bush era: another chapter of the October Surprise X-Files

October Surprise X-Files (Part 3): Bill Casey's Iranian By Robert Parry

WASHINGTON -- On Sept. 23, 1980, in the midst of the Reagan-Carter presidential race, two men from Houston placed phone calls to an Iranian banker at his swank office in a mid-town Manhattan skyscraper. The two men had a cryptic message. They informed the banker, Cyrus Hashemi, that "a Greek ship captain" would be delivering a $3 million deposit from Beirut to Hashemi's offshore bank headquartered in the Netherlands Antilles .

Hashemi was told the "Greek ship captain" would use the name "Fibolous." One of the Texans, a former judge named Harrel Tillman, considered himself a 30-year friend of George Bush, the Republican candidate for Vice President. Hashemi, in 1980, was acting as a principal intermediary for President Carter's frantic efforts to free 52 Americans held hostage in Iran .
On Nov. 20, after President Carter failed to spring the hostages and lost to Ronald Reagan, Tillman was back on the phone with Hashemi, this time about the "purchase of [a] refinery," according to a "secret" FBI wiretap summary. Tillman said he had been in touch with Vice President-elect Bush and had consulted with "the 'Bush' people" about the troubles that Hashemi and his business associate, John Shaheem, were having with a bankrupt oil refinery in Newfoundland .

"Bush people would be cooperative with this matter and make it a showcase," Tillman said, according to the summary. "But the 'Bush' people would not act on it until after the Inauguration" in January 1981.

Interviewed this past week about those 1980 phone calls, Tillman said he recalled nothing about either the $3 million deposit or the promises from the "Bush people." "I don't remember having that conversation," Tillman told me. He acknowledged, though, being questioned about the calls by congressional investigators in 1992, but added that he could not recall the substance of that interview either. "I'm not trying to be evasive," he insisted.

But the ex-judge did add another twist to the mysterious phone calls. Tillman said that besides supporting the Reagan-Bush ticket in 1980, he was working as a consultant to Iran 's radical Islamic government. Tillman also felt President Carter had bungled the hostage crisis.

Still, whatever the reason for the $3 million deposit -- whether it was a payoff or an unrelated business deal -- it added to Hashemi's already-deep dependence on the Republicans. Hashemi worked closely with former Nixon administration official Stanley Pottinger and was a business associate of John Shaheen, a Republican businessman who counted among his best friends William J. Casey, then in charge of the Reagan-Bush campaign.

A Madrid Meeting?

Hashemi's ties to Casey and Shaheen would be central to allegations that the Reagan-Bush campaign sabotaged President Carter's hostage talks. Hashemi's older brother, Jamshid, claimed that Cyrus and Casey began collaborating secretly on the Iranian hostage issue in the spring and summer of 1980.

According to Jamshid Hashemi's sworn testimony, Cyrus arranged a clandestine meeting in Madrid between Casey and a radical Iranian mullah, Mehdi Karrubi, in late July 1980. At the meeting, Casey allegedly opened a back-channel to Iran that disrupted President Carter's hostage negotiations and ensured Ronald Reagan's resounding victory that November.

As many as two dozen other Iranian, European and Middle Eastern officials made similar assertions of GOP interference. But in January 1993, after a year-long investigation, a special House task force concluded that "no credible evidence" existed to support allegations of a Republican dirty trick. One of the task force's principal arguments for the debunking was that a careful review of secret FBI wiretaps on Cyrus Hashemi's phones from September 1980 to February 1981 found nothing to support the so-called October Surprise charges.

So when I gained access to boxes of the task force's raw records in an obscure Capitol Hill storage room (see The Consortium, Dec. 21), I was startled to discover a "secret" FBI wiretap summary that revealed a much more complex story than the House task force's sanitized version of events.

For instance, while the task force was aware of the $3 million "Greek ship captain" deposit and the potential conflict of interest it represented for Cyrus Hashemi, no mention was made of it in the House report. Nor did the task force explain financial connections that tied Shaheen and Hashemi to wealthy figures from the Philippines , the Middle East, the corrupt Bank of Credit and Commerce International, and the ousted royal family of Iran .

All those links gave Hashemi powerful motives to betray President Carter -- and, in each one, William Casey was in the background.

'Two Faces'

The wiretap summary showed almost daily contacts between Cyrus Hashemi, a worldly financier in his 40s whose phone calls included chats with high-priced prostitutes, and John Shaheen, the fast-talking former officer in World War II's Office of Strategic Services. Shaheen and Casey, who met in the OSS , also had worked together on the failed Newfoundland oil refinery that Hashemi and Tillman discussed in the wiretapped conversation.

Indeed, on Sept. 22, the day before the first calls from Houston, Hashemi was on the phone discussing how to line up a $40 million loan to help Shaheen regain control of the refinery.That same week, Hashemi and Shaheen hashed over schemes for opening a bank together, possibly in Asia with some Philippine investors.

On Sept. 25, Hashemi and Shaheen discussed a " Hong Kong deal," according to the wiretaps. On Oct. 14, the two men were arranging a meeting with Philippine bankers and businessmen. Hashemi expressed concern because he had already deposited "a large sum of money in a bank in the Philippines ."

In mid-October 1980, even as Hashemi supposedly was helping President Carter's last-ditch effort to resolve the hostage crisis, the Iranian banker began work with other Republicans lining up arms shipments to Iran , including parts for helicopter gunships and night-vision goggles for pilots.

The FBI wiretap summary also contained references to Hashemi lying about the hostage issue. On Oct. 22, 1980, the FBI bugs caught Hashemi's wife, Houma , scolding her husband about his denials that he had discussed the hostages with Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Rafsanjani. "It is not possible to be a double agent and have two faces," Houma warned Cyrus.

The next day, Oct. 23, Shaheen again was in Hashemi's office at 9 West 57th St. , using one of the bugged phones to brief a European associate, Dick Gaedecke, about the latest developments in the hostage negotiations. Hashemi was keeping Shaheen, Casey's pal, fully informed about President Carter's hostage strategies.

A Reagan Link?

On Oct. 24, the FBI recorded another cryptic note suggesting Hashemi's close ties to another prominent Republican. Using Cyrus Hashemi's initials, it read: "CH-banking business about Reagan overseas corp.," according to the wiretap summary.

The possibility of a Reagan-Hashemi link was not entirely new. It arose initially in 1992 when Reuters news agency quoted FBI sources in New York as saying that agents heasrd Ronald Reagan on one Hashemi tape. But the congressional investigators said Reagan was not recorded speaking on the 548 tapes made available to Congress, except for some television background noise.

But the investigators were unable to explain an eight-day gap on one tape. Eleven others were blank, a condition possibly caused by intentional erasure, according to tape experts. Still, the House task force found nothing suspicious about this pattern.

In clearing the Republicans, the House report also left out testimony from Iran 's former Defense Minister, Ahmed Madani, who stated that he, too, had chastised Hashemi for collaborating secretly with the Republicans behind President Carter's back. Madani testified that Hashemi offered to bring Casey to a hostage discussion during the campaign.

"We are not here to play politics," Madani said he responded. The discussion convinced Madani that "Casey wanted to fish in troubled waters" and that Hashemi was "double-dealing" President Carter.

In the transition period after Ronald Reagan's victory, the FBI picked up more conversations about Hashemi's GOP ties. On Nov. 20, the same day as Tillman's call about the "Bush people," Hashemi boasted to fellow Iranian Mahmood Moini about ties to Casey, who was then running President-elect Reagan's transition office. "I have been, well, close friends ... with Casey for several years," Hashemi told Moini.

Although the Carter administration had finally frozen Hashemi out of the hostage talks because of the arms dealing, the shrewd Iranian banker kept his hands in. On Jan. 15, 1981, Hashemi met with Iranian Revolutionary Guard officials in London and opened an account for them with 1.87 million pounds (roughly equal to $3 million), according to the FBI wiretaps. The money apparently was to finance arms sales.

On Jan. 19, 1981, the last day of the Carter Presidency, Hashemi was back on one of the bugged phones, describing to a cohort "the banking arrangements being made to free the American hostages in Iran ." Hashemi was also moving ahead with military shipments to Iran . "How should we proceed with our friend over there?" the associate asked Hashemi. "I'm just a little bit nervous that everyone is trying to move in on the action here."

The hostages were released the next day, immediately after Ronald Reagan's Inauguration.

BCCI Flies the Concorde

Over the next weeks, unusual deposits continued to flow into Hashemi's offshore bank, the First Gulf Bank and Trust Company. In early February 1981, the FBI recorded a call alerting Hashemi that "money from BCCI [is] to come in tomorrow from London on Concorde."

Within days of the BCCI-Concorde call, the new Justice Department ordered the wiretaps pulled from Hashemi's office. Though the FBI and field prosecutors wanted to use the wiretap information immediately to mount an arms trafficking case against Hashemi, the proposed indictment languished for more than three years. Even then, in May 1984, when the evidence finally went to a grand jury, the Justice Department insisted on tipping off Hashemi, allowing him to cancel a flight from London to New York and avoid arrest.

Less than a year later, in early spring 1985, Israeli arms dealers, Albert Schwimmer and Ya'acov Nimrodi, arrived at a luxury London hotel to meet with Cyrus Hashemi, Saudi financier Adnan Khashoggi and an Iranian intelligence man named Manucher Ghorbanifar. Hashemi was proposing more weapons sales for Iran.He was working again with John Shaheen and Bill Casey, who was President Reagan's director of the CIA.

A year later, still in London , Hashemi fell suddenly ill with what was diagnosed as acute leukemia. He died on July 21, 1986. But what Hashemi had started in that London hotel room would become known a few months after Hashemi's death as the Iran-Contra Affair.

Follow the Money

An intimidating array of individuals and forces wanted President Carter ousted from the White House in 1980. Some were driven by ambition; others by money; and still others by revenge. Together, they were over-powering.

Newly revealed documents, meant to stay hidden from the public, now show the interlocking relationships that operated behind the facade of American democracy: a chilling chapter of the October Surprise X-Files

· October Surprise X-Files (Part 4): The Money Trail By Robert Parry

WASHINGTON -- It was the start of winter, December 21, 1992, but the mild Washington weather was still like fall. In a secure conference room, a senior CIA Middle East specialist sat down to give a classified deposition to a special House task force investigating the October Surprise controversy.

The task force had already drafted its report, which firmly rejected allegations that the Reagan-Bush campaign sabotaged President Carter's Iran hostage talks in 1980. The distinguished gray-haired CIA man, Charles G. Cogan, had been called to tie down a loose end or two.

But Cogan started his testimony with a startling recollection. He remembered an off-hand remark that he had heard in 1981, during a meeting between then-CIA director William J. Casey and a prominent Republican, Joseph V. Reed. Cogan said he was finishing a meeting with Casey in the director's seventh floor office at CIA's campus-like headquarters in Langley , Va. , when Reed arrived.

Knowing Reed, a longtime top aide to Chase Manhattan's David Rockefeller, Cogan lingered at the door. Cogan said he had a "definite memory" of a comment Reed made about disrupting President Carter's "October Surprise" of a pre-election release of 52 American hostage held in Iran . But Cogan said he could not recall the precise verb that Reed had used.

"Joseph Reed said, 'we' and then the verb [and then] something about Carter's October Surprise," Cogan testified. "The implication was we did something about Carter's October Surprise, but I don't have the exact wording." (Another congressional investigator, who discussed the recollection with Cogan in a less formal setting, concluded that the verb apparently was the past tense of an expletive related to sex.)

Though supposedly seeking evidence of just such a Republican action, the task force lawyers did not welcome Cogan's testimony. Republican lawyer (and former CIA official) David Laufman asked if Cogan had since "had occasion to ask him [Reed] about this?"

Yes, Cogan replied, he had asked Reed about it, after Reed moved to a protocol job at the United Nations. "I called him up," Cogan said. "He was at his farm in Connecticut, as I recall, and I just told him that, look, this is what sticks in my mind and what I am going to say [to Congress], and he didn't have any comment on it and continued on to other matters."

"He didn't offer any explanation to you of what he meant?" exclaimed Laufman.

"No," answered Cogan.

"Nor did he deny that he had said it?" asked another task force lawyer Mark L. Shaffer.

"He didn't say anything," Cogan responded. "We just continued on talking about other things."
And so did the task force lawyers at this remarkable deposition. They even failed to ask Cogan the obvious follow-up: How did Casey react to Reed's remark about doing something to President Carter's October Surprise? Instead, Cogan's testimony, like so many other pieces of incriminating evidence, would be excluded from the final report and locked away with classified information that was intended to stay outside the public's reach.

A Hostile Witness But the Cogan deposition was one of the "secret" documents left behind, apparently by accident. It was mixed in with unclassified material that I was allowed to examine in an obscure Capitol Hill storage room. (See "October Surprise X-Files" series for more details.)
I also discovered the notes of an FBI agent who tried to interview Joseph Reed about his October Surprise knowledge. The FBI man, Harry A. Penich, had scribbled down that "numerous telephone calls were placed to him [Reed]. He failed to answer any of them. I conservatively place the number over 10."

Finally, Penich, armed with a subpoena, cornered Reed arriving home at his 50-acre estate in Greenwich , Conn. "He was surprised and absolutely livid at being served at home," Penich wrote. "His responses could best be characterized as lashing out."

Reed threatened to go over Penich's head. In hand-written "talking points" that Penich apparently used to brief an unnamed superior, the FBI agent wrote: "He [Reed] did it in such a way as to lead a reasonable person to believe he had influence w/you. The man's remarks were both inappropriate and improper."

But the hard-ball tactics worked. When Reed finally consented to an interview, task force lawyers treated him with kid-gloves. Penich took the interview notes and wrote that Reed "recalls no contact with Casey in 1980," though Reed added that "their paths crossed many times because of Reed's position at Chase." In 1979, Reed had spearheaded the Rockefeller lobbying to get the shah admitted into the United States for cancer treatment, an event that led to the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Teheran.

As for the 1981 CIA visit, Reed added that as the newly appointed U.S. ambassador to Morocco , he "would have stopped in to see Casey and pay respect." But on whether Reed made any remark about obstructing President Carter's October Surprise, Reed claimed he "does not specifically know what October Surprise refers to," Penich scribbled down. The task force lawyers did not press too hard.

Most glaringly, the lawyers failed to confront Reed with a key piece of evidence that would have impeached his contention that he had "no contact with Casey in 1980." According to sign-in sheets at the Reagan-Bush campaign headquarters in Arlington , Va. , which the task force had obtained, Reed saw Casey on September 11, 1980.

On that visit, Reed accompanied David Rockefeller; Owen Frisbie, Rockefeller's Washington lobbyist; and the late Archibald Roosevelt, a Chase adviser and a legendary CIA veteran of Middle East operations, including the 1953 plot that restored the shah to the Peacock Throne.
'Flying Dutchman' In the quarter century after that CIA operation, David Rockefeller's bank profited handsomely from the shah's deposits. But when the shah was ousted in January 1979, Chase faced serious exposure as the new Islamic government ordered $6 billion pulled from Chase's vaults.

Besides the money, Rockefeller and his aides were furious at President Carter's treatment of the shah. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger lamented that the shah had been turned into a real-life "Flying Dutchman," fleeing from one temporary shelter to another, from Egypt to Morocco to Mexico to the United States to Panama , before returning to Egypt where the shah died on July 27, 1980.

But Cogan's testimony about the Reed-Casey conversation also pointed the way toward a major investigative avenue that the task force had little desire to go down. The shah's family (the Pahlavis) had close financial ties not just to Rockefeller and Chase Manhattan but to William Casey's personal business circle.

According to a 1984 CIA memo given to the task force, Casey recruited his old World War II spy chum John Shaheen and Iranian banker Cyrus Hashemi in 1979 to sell off property in New York City belonging to the shah's Pahlavi Foundation. At that time, the radical Islamic government in Teheran was claiming that property as its own and the shah's family was desperate for the cash.
The early Casey-Shaheen-Hashemi partnership on this Iranian business deal was important, because in 1980 Hashemi became one of President Carter's principal intermediaries on the hostage crisis and Casey was in charge of Ronald Reagan's campaign. The Casey-Shaheen-Hashemi connection made the October Surprise allegations far more credible.

Though Cyrus Hashemi died in 1986, his older brother, Jamshid, testified under oath before the task force that Cyrus had arranged July 1980 meetings in Madrid where Casey discussed the hostages with a radical Iranian mullah, Mehdi Karrubi. Jamshid's testimony was at the heart of the October Surprise charges that Casey derailed President Carter's hostage talks.

But the House task force cast aside the CIA memo and concluded that there was "no evidence" that Casey had met Cyrus Hashemi before the 1980 election in November. In the public report, the task force briefly mentioned the CIA memo, but deleted the identity of the foundation. The word "Pahlavi" was excised, thus obscuring the significance of the information.

A Marcos Bagman Also missing from the report was evidence that Cyrus Hashemi had worked with Casey ally Shaheen on other lucrative business schemes tied to the Pahlavi fortune. For instance, FBI wiretaps of Cyrus Hashemi's New York City office in fall 1980 discovered that Shaheen and Hashemi were planning to invest millions of dollars to establish a bank together, possibly in Hong Kong with Philippine investors. (See Consortiumnews.com's "Bill Casey's Iranian.")

The bank deal took final shape two days after President Reagan Inauguration and the near-simultaneous release of the 52 American hostages whom President Carter had failed to free. On January 22, 1981, Shaheen opened the Hong Kong Deposit and Guaranty Bank with $20 million that had been funneled to him through a Rockefeller-connected lawyer in Geneva , named Jean Patry.

The bank sported on its board other powerful world players, including Herminio Disini, known as Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos's personal bag man. Indeed, a Shaheen lawyer told me that Shaheen flew to Manila in early 1981 to meet face-to-face with Marcos, the man whom Shaheen considered really "in charge." The lawyer said the Hong Kong bank was a way for Marcos "to get his hands on some of the Arabs' Euro-petrodollars."

In 1980, Marcos also may have delivered secret payments to Casey. According to a letter revealed in the Philippines after Marcos's overthrow in 1986, President Reagan wanted files about those payments back before Marcos fled to Hawaii . The letter, purportedly written by Marcos's executive assistant, Victor Nituda, stated that Sen. Paul Laxalt, R-Nev., "expects all documents checklisted during his last visit or the deal is off." One of the files was marked "1980 SEC-014, Funds to Casey." Another file was slugged "1980 SEC-015, Reagan Funds Not Used."
While in exile in Hawaii , Marcos reportedly boasted to visitors that he gave $4 million to Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign, contributions that would have violated federal election laws -- and might explain why Marcos was allowed to profit off the Hong Kong bank.

From 1981-84, Hong Kong Deposit and Guaranty did pull in hundreds of millions of petrodollars, just as Marcos had hoped. The bank also attracted high-flying Arabs to its board of directors. Two directors were Ghanim Al-Mazrouie, the Abu Dhabi official who controlled 10 percent of the corrupt Bank of Credit and Commerce International, and Hassan Yassin, a cousin of Saudi financier Adnan Khashoggi and an adviser to BCCI principal Kamal Adham, the former chief of Saudi intelligence.

Though Cyrus Hashemi's name was not directly connected to the Hong Kong bank, he did receive cash from BCCI. An FBI wiretap of Hashemi's office in early February 1981 picked up an advisory that "money from BCCI [is] to come in tomorrow from London on Concorde."

The Missing Millions In 1984, the Hong Kong Deposit and Guaranty collapsed and an estimated $100 million disappeared. The crash put Shaheen in hot water again, but he died of liver cancer in 1985 so the bank's loss was buried with him, in his estate. The biggest loser in the deal -- the mystery $20 million investor from 1980-81 -- apparently did not want any publicity.
The House task force figured out who the bank's benefactor was. But, again, the House report left out this intriguing fact.

The $20 million that had capitalized Hong Kong Deposit and Guaranty, the money that was funneled through the Rockefeller lawyer in Geneva , had come from Princess Ashraf, the shah's strong-willed twin sister. The House task force interviewed Ashraf and accepted her bald statement that the $20 million was just a routine business investment.

In 1980, however, the deposed princess was one of Jimmy Carter's most implacable enemies. She blamed the President for failing to save the shah. His overthrow then led to the murder of her son. Ashraf suspected, too, that President Carter's team was desperate enough to trade the ailing shah for the hostages. According to The Shah's Last Ride by William Shawcross, she snubbed White House chief of staff Hamilton Jordan when their paths crossed in Panama in early 1980.

That Princess Ashraf was supplying $20 million to Cyrus Hashemi's American business partner, John Shaheen, while Hashemi was supposedly helping President Carter resolve the hostage impasse would normally be seen as evidence of a pay-off. So, too, might BCCI's curious Concorde money flight.

But as it turned out, the task force's chief counsel, E. Lawrence Barcella Jr., had worked as a lead attorney for BCCI in the late 1980s. BCCI paid Barcella and his firm more than $2 million, and the lead partner in the firm was former Sen. Paul Laxalt. Not the BCCI money, nor Ashraf's $20 million, nor the Philippine files were mentioned in the House report. The task force, it seemed, had no interest in following the money.

Saddam's 'Green Light'

In 1980, Iraq 's Saddam Hussein was suddenly a bigtime international 'player,' invited to the gaudy palaces of the Saudi Arabian monarchy. But there was an ulterior motive behind the flattering invitation: Saddam's army was the new protector of the petro-rich against the Iranian hordes.

Saudi Prince Fahd claimed to have a message, too, from the President of the United States . It was a missive that might have changed the course of history, another installment from the October Surprise

October Surprise X-Files (Part 5): Saddam's 'Green Light' By Robert Parry

WASHINGTON -- In summer 1980, Iraq 's wily president Saddam Hussein saw opportunities in the chaos sweeping the Persian Gulf . Iran 's Islamic revolution had terrified the Saudi princes and other Arab royalty who feared uprisings against their own corrupt life styles. Saddam's help was sought, too, by CIA-backed Iranian exiles who wanted a base to challenge the fundamentalist regime of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. And as always, the Western powers were worried about the Middle East oil fields.

So because of geography and his formidable Soviet-supplied army, Saddam was suddenly a popular fellow.

On Aug. 5, 1980, the Saudi rulers welcomed Saddam to Riyadh for his first state visit to Saudi Arabia , the first for any Iraqi president. The Saudis, of course, wanted something. At those fateful meetings, amid the luxury of the ornate palaces, the Saudis would encourage Saddam to invade Iran . The Saudis also would claim to pass on a secret message about President Carter's geo-political desires.

During that summer of 1980, President Carter was facing his own crisis. His failure to free 52 American hostages held in Iran was threatening his political survival. As he wrote in his memoirs, Keeping Faith, "The election might also be riding on their freedom." Equally alarming, President Carter had begun receiving reports that the Republicans were making back-channel contacts with Iran about the hostage crisis, as he would state in a letter to a journalist nearly a decade later.

Though it was unclear then, this multi-sided political intrigue would shape the history from 1980 to the present day. Iraq 's invasion of Iran in September 1980 would deteriorate into eight years of bloody trench warfare that did little more than kill and maim an estimated one million people. What little more the war did was to generate billions of dollars in profits for well-connected arms merchants -- and spawn a series of national security scandals.

In 1986-87, the Iran-Contra Affair peeled back some of the layers of secrecy, but bipartisan investigations dumped the blame mostly on Oliver North and a few low-level "men of zeal." Later inquiries into Iraqgate allegations of secret U.S. military support for Saddam Hussein also ended inconclusively. The missing billions from the sleazy Bank of Credit and Commerce International disappeared into the mist of complex charge and counter-charge, too. So did evidence implicating the CIA and Nicaraguan contra rebels in cocaine trafficking.

A similar fate befell the October Surprise story and President Carter's old suspicion of Republican interference in the 1980 hostage crisis. A special House task force concluded in 1993 that it could find "no credible evidence" to support the October Surprise charges.

Haig's Talking Points

Still, I gained access to documents from that investigation, including papers marked "secret" and "top secret" which apparently had been left behind by accident in a remote Capitol Hill storage room. Those papers filled in a number of the era's missing pieces and established that there was more to the reports that President Carter heard in 1980 than the task force publicly acknowledged. (For more details, see the first four issues of The Consortium.)

But besides undermining the task force's October Surprise debunking, the papers clarified President Reagan's early strategy for a clandestine foreign policy hidden from Congress and the American people. One such document was a two-page "Talking Points" prepared by Secretary of State Alexander Haig for a briefing of President Reagan. Marked "top secret/sensitive," the paper recounted Haig's first trip to the Middle East in April 1981.

In the report, Haig wrote that he was impressed with "bits of useful intelligence" that he had learned. "Both [ Egypt 's Anwar] Sadat and [Saudi Prince] Fahd [explained that] Iran is receiving military spares for U.S. equipment from Israel ." This fact might have been less surprising to President Reagan, whose intermediaries allegedly collaborated with Israeli officials in 1980 to smuggle weapons to Iran behind President Carter's back.

But Haig followed that comment with another stunning assertion: "It was also interesting to confirm that President Carter gave the Iraqis a green light to launch the war against Iran through Fahd." In other words, according to Haig's information, Saudi Prince Fahd (now King Fahd) claimed that President Carter, apparently hoping to strengthen the U.S. hand in the Middle East and desperate to pressure Iran over the stalled hostage talks, gave clearance to Saddam's invasion of Iran. If true, Jimmy Carter, the peacemaker, had encouraged a war.

Haig's written report contained no other details about the "green light," and Haig declined my request for an interview about the Talking Points. But the paper represented the first documented corroboration of Iran 's long-held belief that the United States backed Iraq 's 1980 invasion.

In 1980, President Carter termed Iranian charges of U.S. complicity "patently false." He mentioned Iraq 's invasion only briefly in his memoirs, in the context of an unexpected mid-September hostage initiative from a Khomeini in-law, Sadeq Tabatabai. "Exploratory conversations [in Germany ] were quite encouraging," President Carter wrote about that approach, but he added: "As fate would have it, the Iraqis chose the day of [Tabatabai's] scheduled arrival in Iran , September 22, to invade Iran and to bomb the Tehran airport. Typically, the Iranians accused me of planning and supporting the invasion."

The Iraqi invasion did make Iran more desperate to get U.S. spare parts for its air and ground forces. Yet the Carter administration continued to demand that the American hostages be freed before military shipments could resume. But according to House task force documents that I found in the storage room, the Republicans were more accommodating.

Secret FBI wiretaps revealed that an Iranian banker, the late Cyrus Hashemi, who supposedly was helping President Carter on the hostage talks, was assisting Republicans with arms shipments to Iran and peculiar money transfers in fall 1980. Hashemi's older brother, Jamshid, testified that the Iran arms shipments, via Israel , resulted from secret meetings in Madrid between the GOP campaign director, William J. Casey, and a radical Islamic mullah named Mehdi Karrubi.

For whatever reasons, on Election Day 1980, President Carter still had failed to free the hostages and Ronald Reagan won in a landslide.

A 'Private Channel'

Within minutes of President Reagan's Inauguration on Jan. 20, 1981, the hostages finally were freed. In the following weeks, the new administration put in place discreet channels to Middle East powers, as Haig flew to the region for a round of high-level consultations. The trim silver-haired former four-star general met with Iraq 's chief allies, Saudi Arabia and Egypt , and with Israel , which was continuing to support Iran as a counter-weight to Iraq and the Arab states.
On April 8, 1981, Haig ended his first round of meetings in Riyadh and issued a diplomatic statement lauding Saudi Arabia 's "dedication to building a better world and the wisdom of your leaders." More to the point, he announced that "the foundation has been laid during this trip for the strengthening of U.S.-Saudi relations."

After Haig's return to Washington, his top secret Talking Points fleshed out for President Reagan the actual agreements that were reached at the private sessions in Saudi Arabia, as well as at other meetings in Egypt and Israel.

"As we discussed before my Middle East trip," Haig explained to President Reagan, "I proposed to President Sadat, [ Israel 's] Prime Minister [Menachem] Begin and Crown Prince Fahd that we establish a private channel for the consideration of particularly sensitive matters of concern to you. Each of the three picked up on the proposal and asked for early meetings."

Haig wrote that on his return, he immediately dispatched his counselor, Robert "Bud" McFarlane, to Cairo and Riyadh to formalize those channels. "He held extremely useful meetings with both Sadat and Fahd," Haig boasted. "In fact, Sadat kept Ed Muskie [President Carter's secretary of state] waiting for an hour and a half while he [Sadat] extended the meeting."

These early contacts with Fahd, Sadat and Begin solidified their three countries as the cornerstones of the administration's clandestine foreign policy of the 1980s: the Saudis as the moneymen, the Israelis as the middlemen, and the Egyptians as a ready source for Soviet-made equipment .

Although President Carter had brokered a historic peace treaty between Egypt and Israel , Sadat, Begin and Fahd had all been alarmed at signs of U.S. weakness, especially Washington 's inability to protect the Shah of Iran from ouster in 1979. Haig's Talking Points captured that relief at President Carter's removal from office.

"It is clear that your policies of firmness toward the Soviets has restored Saudi and Egyptian confidence in the leadership of the U.S. ," Haig wrote for the presentation to his boss. "Both [Fahd and Sadat] went much further than ever before in offering to be supportive."

Haig said "Sadat offered to host a forward headquarters for the Rapid Deployment Force, including a full-time presence of U.S military personnel." Sadat also outlined his strategy for invading Libya to disrupt Moammar Khadafy's intervention in Chad . "Frankly," observed Haig, "I believe he [Sadat] could easily get overextended in such an undertaking and [I] will try to moderate his ambitions on this score."

'Special Status,' Money and Guns

Haig reported that Prince Fahd was "also very enthusiastic" about President Reagan's foreign policy. Fahd had agreed "in principle to fund arms sales to the Pakistanis and other states in the region," Haig wrote. The Saudi leader was promising, too, to help the U.S. economy by committing his oil-rich nation to a position of "no drop in production" of petroleum.

"These channels promise to be extremely useful in forging compatible policies with the Saudis and Egyptians," Haig continued. "Both men value the 'special status' you have conferred on them and both value confidentiality. I will follow up with [Defense Secretary] Cap Weinberger and [CIA Director] Bill Casey. ...The larger message emerging from these exchanges, however, is that your policies are correct and are already eliciting the enthusiastic support of important leaders abroad."

In the following years, the Reagan administration would exploit the "special status" with all three countries to skirt Constitutional restrictions on Executive war-making powers. Secretly, the administration would tilt back and forth in the Iran-Iraq war, between aiding the Iranians with missiles and spare parts and helping the Iraqis with intelligence and indirect military shipments.

When the Soviets shot down an Israeli-leased Argentine plane carrying U.S. military supplies to Iran on July 18, 1981, the State Department showed it, too, valued confidentiality. At the time, State denied U.S. knowledge. But in a later interview, assistant secretary of state Nicholas Veliotes said "it was clear to me after my conversations with people on high that indeed we had agreed that the Israelis could transship to Iran some American-origin military equipment."

According to a sworn affidavit by former Reagan national security staffer Howard Teicher, the administration enlisted the Egyptians in a secret "Bear Spares" program that gave the United States access to Soviet-designed military equipment. Teicher asserted that the Reagan administration funnelled some of those weapons to Iraq and also arranged other shipments of devastating cluster bombs that Saddam's air force dropped on Iranians troops.

In 1984, facing congressional rejection of continued CIA funding of the Nicaraguan contra rebels, President Reagan exploited the "special status" again. He tapped into the Saudi slush funds for money to support the Nicaraguan contra rebels in their war in Central America . The President also authorized secret weapons shipments to Iran in another arms-for-hostages scheme, with the profits going to "off-the-shelf" intelligence operations. That gambit, like the others, was protected by walls of "deniability" and outright lies.

Some of those lies collapsed in the Iran-Contra scandal, but the administration quickly constructed new stonewalls that were never breached. Republicans fiercely defended the secrets and Democrats lacked the nerve to fight for the truth. The Washington media also lost interest because the scandals were complex and official sources steered the press in other directions.

'Read Machiavelli'

When I interviewed Haig several years ago, I asked him if he was troubled by the pattern of deceit that had become the norm among international players in the 1980s. "Oh, no, no, no, no," he boomed, shaking his head. "On that kind of thing? No. Come on. Jesus! God! You know, you'd better get out and read Machiavelli or somebody else because I think you're living in a dream world! People do what their national interest tells them to do and if it means lying to a friendly nation, they're going to lie through their teeth."

But sometimes the game-playing did have unintended consequences. In 1990, a decade after Iraq 's messy invasion of Iran , an embittered Saddam Hussein was looking for pay-back from the sheikhdoms that he felt had egged him into war. Saddam was especially furious with Kuwait for slant drilling into Iraq 's oil fields and refusing to extend more credit. Again, Saddam was looking for a signal from the U.S. president, this time George Bush.

When Saddam explained his confrontation with Kuwait to U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie, he received an ambiguous reply, a reaction he apparently perceived as another "green light." Eight days later, Saddam unleashed his army into Kuwait , an invasion that required 500,000 U.S. troops and thousands more dead to reverse.

Where's Bill Casey?

In 1991-92, the October Surprise investigation was like a worldwide Where's Waldo game, trying to locate Bill Casey on crucial days in 1980. Two national magazines and a House task force claimed success, thus disproving that Casey sabotaged the Iran hostage talks. The game was over; Casey and the Republicans were innocent.

But from an obscure storage room on Capitol Hill comes a photograph showing that the Where's Bill game was fixed, that his face is not among the Bohemian Grove members who supplied the vital alibi, a troubling chapter about faked history from the October Surprise X-Files.

October Surprise X-Files (Part 6): Where's Bill Casey? By Robert Parry

WASHINGTON -- "We found a photograph from the Bohemian Grove for the last weekend of July," the congressional investigator boasted to me over the phone. I was stunned.
"You found a photograph from the Bohemian Grove?" I stammered.

The announcement might not have sounded that unusual. But for the few reporters who were investigating the October Surprise controversy, the statement that the House task force had located a photograph from the Bohemian Grove for the last weekend of July 1980 was big news. It was exactly the kind of hard evidence that we had been seeking to show whether William Casey was at that exclusive men's retreat in northern California or at a secret meeting with Iranian emissaries in Spain .

From the investigator's confident tone, it sounded as if the House task force finally had the smoking-gun evidence to disprove the allegation that Casey, as Ronald Reagan's campaign director in 1980, had disrupted President Carter's Iranian hostage negotiations, a dirty trick that bordered on treason and might have cinched a historic GOP victory.

As the October Surprise story belatedly heated up, in 1991-92, investigators had tried to fix Casey's whereabouts on a handful of days when several witnesses placed the Republican campaign chief at meetings in Madrid and Paris . Two of those mystery days were July 27 and 28, 1980, a Sunday and a Monday, when Iranian CIA agent Jamshid Hashemi testified that he was with Casey in Madrid at a two-day meeting with radical Iranian mullah Mehdi Karrubi.

But nailing down the whereabouts of Casey, a wily old World War II spymaster, had proved difficult. Documents and news clips did show that going into that late July weekend in 1980 Casey was in Arlington , Va. , at the Republican campaign headquarters. He disappeared from public view on Saturday, July 26; was missing Sunday and Monday morning; and then turned up late on Monday afternoon, July 28, at a World War II historical conference in London .

But where had Casey been from Saturday until Monday afternoon? Could he have gone to Madrid for a two-day meeting before flying to London ?

A Debunking Hysteria

At a pivotal moment in the October Surprise investigation (in November 1991), two national magazines, Newsweek and The New Republic, published matching cover stories declaring that records at the historical conference revealed that Casey arrived in London Sunday evening, July 27, and attended the next morning's session, July 28. That proved, the magazines declared in unison, that a two-day meeting in Madrid was impossible. The October Surprise story was declared a "myth."

The impact of those two magazine stories cannot be overstated. They convinced most of the Washington news media and many members of Congress that the longstanding suspicions of Casey's skulduggery were false. A kind of debunking hysteria followed, with other publications joining in a stampede that trampled any careful examination of the October Surprise facts.

But Newsweek and The New Republic were wrong; they had completely misread the London evidence. When more thorough interviews were done with Americans who had attended the London conference with Casey, it became clear that Casey was not there on either Sunday night or Monday morning. He arrived late Monday afternoon, as a notation on the attendance sheet corroborated. It said Casey "came at 4 p.m."

Typically, however, neither magazine corrected the major journalistic error that they had committed. The new information also received almost no mention in the rest of the national media. So millions of Americans were left believing that the two magazines had established a correct alibi for Bill Caseyand that the October Surprise story had been disproved.

Though inclined to join in the debunking, the House task force, which started work in 1992, was forced to recognize the glaring mistake by the two magazines. But instead of blowing the whistle, the congressional investigators simply began a quiet search for a new alibi to slip into the place of the old.

By fall 1992, the task force had settled on a new location for Casey's late July weekend whereabouts. The task force put him in the Parsonage cottage at the Bohemian Grove encampment in northern California .

According to this new alibi, Casey flew from Los Angeles to San Francisco on Friday, July 25, with Republican operative Darrell Trent. Casey then drove with Trent to the Bohemian Grove, arriving sometime late Friday evening. Casey stayed at the Grove until Sunday morning, July 27. He then went to San Francisco, boarded a British Airways flight, flew all night, and landed about lunchtime the next day, Monday, July 28, in London.

That itinerary left no time for a side trip to Spain, so Jamshid Hashemi's allegations of a secret two-day meeting in Madrid could be declared false a second time. The October Surprise charges were again dismissed as a "myth."

But there were problems, too, with this Bohemian Grove alibi. I and other reporters at Public Broadcasting System's FRONTLINE program had already investigated this possibility for Casey's whereabouts and found it to be untrue. We discovered clear documentary evidence that Casey actually attended the Grove on the following weekend, Aug. 1-3, not the last weekend of July.

Evidence in the Way

Indeed, the House task force's own evidence countered the Bohemian Grove alibi. According to Grove records obtained by the House investigators, Casey's host, Darrell Trent, was already at the Grove on Friday, July 25, while Casey was still in Washington . So they could not have traveled together from Los Angeles .

Further, the task force found a plane ticket for a flight that Casey did take that day. But it was not to the West Coast. It was a ticket for the Washington -to- New York shuttle. A Casey calendar entry then showed a meeting on Saturday morning, July 26, with a right-to-life activist who said she met Casey at his home in Roslyn Harbor , N.Y.

Other records supported FRONTLINE's interpretation that Casey had attended the Grove the following weekend. Republican campaign records revealed that on Aug. 1, Casey did travel to Los Angeles , where he hooked up with Darrell Trent. Also on Aug. 1, Grove financial records documented Casey and Trent making purchases at the Grove. In addition, there was a diary entry from Matthew McGowan, one of the Grove members at the Parsonage cottage. He wrote on Aug. 3 that "we had Bill Casey, Gov. Reagan's campaign mgr., as our guest this last weekend."
Still, regardless of these facts, the House task force insisted on the Bohemian Grove alibi. The congressional investigators showed a similar bias in handling the alibi for Casey on the other crucial date, Oct. 19, 1980. That's when witnesses claimed they saw the campaign director in Paris at another round of meetings with Karrubi, an assertion supported by four French intelligence officials, including the French spy chief Alexandre deMarenches who described the meetings to his biographer.

To overcome the Paris evidence, the task force relied on the decade-old memory of Casey's nephew, Larry Casey, who claimed he remembered his late father placing a telephone call to Bill Casey who was at the Republican headquarters in Arlington . Though Larry Casey had no corroboration for that memory, the task force accepted it as "credible."

But again, FRONTLINE reporters had been down that road -- and found it to be a dead end. I had interviewed Larry Casey on videotape in 1991, a year before his House testimony. In that interview, Larry Casey offered a completely different alibi, insisting that he vividly remembered his parents having dinner with Bill Casey at the Jockey Club in Washington on Oct. 19, 1980.

"It was very clear in my mind even though it was 11 years ago," Larry Casey said. But then I showed Larry Casey the sign-in sheets for the GOP headquarters. The entries recorded Larry Casey's parents picking up Bill Casey for the dinner on Oct. 15, four days earlier. Larry Casey acknowledged his error, and indeed an American Express receipt later confirmed Oct. 15 as the date of the Jockey Club dinner.

In 1992, however, Larry Casey testified before the House task force and offered the phone call alibi, which he had not mentioned in the FRONTLINE interview. Though I notified the House task force about this discrepancy, the task force was undeterred. It still used the phone call alibi to debunk the Paris allegations.

The Bohemian Grove Photo

This pattern of accepting silly alibis for Bill Casey had convinced me that the House investigation was little more than a whitewash. Clearing the late Bill Casey and Ronald Reagan's campaign pleased Republicans who wanted to protect the legitimacy of the 12-year Reagan-Bush reign. But the Democrats, too, seemed eager to go along, frightened of a head-on fight with the Republicans.

But my confidence was shaken by the House investigator on the phone and his photograph. A formal group photo of the Bohemian Grove members and guests at the Parsonage cottage on the last weekend of July 1980 would be the clincher. It would prove, finally, that Jamshid Hashemi was a liar and that the Madrid allegation was a myth.

"You found a photograph of Bill Casey at the Bohemian Grove?" I choked. A lightheadedness swept over my mind as I tried to reconcile how the seeming ironclad evidence against the Bohemian Grove alibi could have been so wrong.

But I sensed an uncertainty, maybe even embarrassment, at the other end of the line.

"Well," the investigator answered hesitantly, "Bill Casey's not in the photograph. Everyone else is. Darrell Trent, his host, is there. But Bill Casey's not in the picture."

"Bill Casey's not there?" I exclaimed in amazement.

"No, Bill Casey's not in the picture."

Still, in its published report, the task force ditched the photograph and other documents putting Casey at the Grove only on the first weekend of August 1980. The task force relied instead on one piece of paper, a notation written by Republican foreign policy adviser Richard Allen. On a note page dated Aug. 2, Allen had scribbled down Casey's Long Island home phone number.

That act of writing down the number proved, the task force sleuths concluded, that Casey was at home that day -- and thus not at the Grove. That, in turn, meant that Casey must have attended the Grove the last weekend of July. The task force embraced this strange argument even though Allen testified that "I can't tell you whether or not I got through" on Casey's number when he dialed it Aug. 2.

In other words, the seasoned House investigators decided that writing down a person's home phone number proved the person was at home, even if the phone went unanswered. Armed with such "logic," the task force completed its debunking of the October Surprise allegations.
On the Op-Ed page of the New York Times, the task force chairman, Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., cited the solid Casey alibis as a key reason why the task force report "should put the controversy to rest once and for all." (Jan. 24, 1993) Hamilton 's article was aptly entitled "Case Closed."

And so it stayed, until I learned that senior Iranian officials had informed intermediaries close to President Clinton in 1993-94 that the House task force had gotten the story all wrong. These Iranians asserted that they indeed had collaborated with Casey and other Republicans in 1980. But the Clinton administration, at its highest levels, chose not to reopen the "closed" investigation. President Clinton apparently felt the old fight was too risky and might detract from his high-priority domestic agenda.

It was then that I tracked down the House task force records in a barren storage room off the House Rayburn parking garage. In the boxes were documents, some "secret" and even "top secret," that contradicted many of the task force's conclusions. I dubbed these records, the October Surprise X-Files. (See the first five issues of The Consortium for more details.)

In one of the dozens of boxes, I found a color photograph of the 16 men who spent that pivotal last weekend of July 1980 in the Parsonage cottage at the Bohemian Grove. They were posed in a formal setting, with some older gentlemen seated in front and the other members and guests standing in elevated rows behind them. I looked at one man after another, searching for the tall, stooped, large-headed figure of Bill Casey. He was no where to be seen.

Bush & a CIA Power Play

The CIA Old Boys were reeling. In the 1970s, exposure of their dirty games and dirty tricks made the Cold Warriors look sinister -- and silly. Then, President Carter ordered a housecleaning that left scores of CIA men out in the cold.

In 1980, the CIA men wanted back in and their champion was former CIA director George Bush. With Bush and Ronald Reagan in power, the old spies could resume their work with a vengeance. The temptation was to do to Jimmy Carter what the CIA had done to countless other world leaders -- overthrow him, a frightening chapter from the October Surprise X-Files

October Surprise X-Files (Part 7): Bush & a CIA Power Play By Robert Parry

WASHINGTON -- With little more than a week left in the 1980 campaign, Republican vice presidential nominee George Bush was nervous. New polls put Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter in a dead heat. Then, while going to campaign in Pittsburgh , Bush got an unsettling message from former Texas Gov. John Connally.

Connally, a onetime-Democrat-turned-Republican, said the oil-rich Middle East was buzzing with rumors that President Carter had achieved his long-elusive goal of a pre-election release of 52 American hostages held in Iran . If true, Ronald Reagan's election was in trouble.

So, at 2:12 p.m., Oct. 27, 1980, George Bush called Richard Allen, a senior Reagan foreign policy adviser who was keeping tabs on Carter's hostage progress. Bush ordered Allen to find out what he could about Connally's tip. Allen's notes, which I discovered many years later in an obscure Capitol Hill storage room, made clear that Bush was in charge.

"Geo Bush," Allen's notes began, "JBC [Connally] -- already made deal. Israelis delivered last wk spare pts. via Amsterdam . Hostages out this wk. Moderate Arabs upset. French have given spares to Iraq and know of JC [Carter] deal w/Iran. JBC [Connally] unsure what we should do. RVA [Allen] to act if true or not."

In a still "secret" 1992 deposition to House investigators, Allen explained the cryptic notes as meaning Connally had heard that President Carter had ransomed the hostages' freedom with an Israeli shipment of military spare parts to Iran . Allen said Bush then instructed him to query Connally, who was in Houston , and to pass on any new details to two of Bush's closest personal aides.

The Blond Ghost

According to the notes, Allen was to relay the information to "Ted Shacklee [sic] via Jennifer." The Jennifer was Bush's longtime assistant, Jennifer Fitzgerald, Allen testified. "Shacklee" was Theodore Shackley, the legendary CIA covert ops specialist known as the "blond ghost."

During the Cold War, Shackley had run many of the CIA's most controversial paramilitary operations, from Vietnam and Laos to the JMWAVE operations against Fidel Castro's Cuba . When Bush was CIA director in 1976, he appointed Shackley to a top clandestine job, associate deputy director for operations.

But Shackley's CIA career ended in 1979, after three years of battling Carter's CIA director, Stansfield Turner. Shackley believed that Turner, by cleaning out hundreds of covert "old boys," was destroying the agency -- as well as Shackley's career.

After retiring, Shackley went into business with another ex-CIA man, Thomas Clines, a partner with Edwin Wilson, the rogue spy who later would go to prison over shipments of terrorist materials to Libya . Clines himself would be convicted of tax fraud in the Iran-contra scandal, another controversy in which Shackley's pale specter would hover in the background.

But in 1980, Shackley was set on putting his former boss, George ush, in the White House and possibly securing the CIA directorship for himself. Shackley volunteered his prodigious skills to Bush in early 1980. Though that fact has come out before, Shackley's involvement in the Iran hostage issue, the so-called October Surprise controversy, has been a closely held secret, until now.

In 1992, the House investigators should have jumped when they saw the Shackley tie-in. The task force, which was examining charges that Republicans sabotaged Carter's hostage talks, already knew that other ex-CIA men were managing a 24-hour-a-day " Operations Center " at Reagan-Bush campaign headquarters to monitor Iran developments. Richard Allen had called the ex-spies a "plane load of disgruntled CIA" officers "playing cops and robbers."

Some House investigators wanted the behind-the-scenes CIA role mentioned. A "secret" draft chapter of the House task force report, which I also found in the storage room, stated that: "Many of the [ Operations Center 's] staff members were former CIA employees who had previously worked on the Bush campaign or were otherwise loyal to George Bush." But that section was deleted from the publicly released version.

Another task force discovery -- also dropped from the final report -- was that conservative "journalist" Michael Ledeen, another Shackley associate, was privately collaborating with the Reagan-Bush campaign on the Iran hostage issue. The draft chapter said Ledeen was an unofficial member of the campaign's "October Surprise" group. A separate page of Allen's notes revealed Ledeen joining campaign director, William J. Casey, in a Sept. 16 meeting for what was called the "Persian Gulf Project."

In 1980, Shackley had teamed up with Ledeen as paid consultants to a "war game" for SISMI, the Italian intelligence service with close ties to the secret international right-wing Masonic lodge, P-2. As the 1980 campaign neared its end, Italian intelligence leaked a damaging -- and questionable -- story to Ledeen about President Carter's brother Billy and his business ties to Libya . Ledeen wrote the story for The New Republic without mentioning that he was working for SISMI or assisting the Reagan-Bush campaign. (See David Corn's The Blond Ghost, p. 359.)
Shackley had strong bonds to many CIA officers still in the government, too. Donald Gregg, who also has been linked to the October Surprise allegations, served under Shackley's command in Vietnam . In 1980, Gregg was the CIA liaison inside Carter's National Security Council, making him privy to secrets about the hostage talks. Gregg would later become national security adviser to Vice President Bush and a secondary figure in the Iran-contra scandal.

A Paris Tale

But the pivotal October Surprise question still turned on whether Reagan's campaign director Casey and vice presidential nominee Bush met face-to-face with Iranian mullahs in 1980. According to one set of allegations, the pair slipped off to Paris for such a meeting on Oct. 19, 1980.

Four French intelligence officials, including France 's spy chief Alexandre deMarenches in statements to his biographer, placed Casey at the Paris meeting. But two other witnesses, a pilot named Heinrich Rupp and Israeli intelligence official Ari Ben-Menashe, also claimed to have seen Bush in Paris that day. Ben-Menashe testified that Casey and Bush were accompanied by active-duty CIA officers.

Rupp, who says he flew Casey from National Airport to Paris , recalled that the flight left very late on a rainy night. The night of Oct. 18 indeed was rainy and sign-in sheets at the Republican headquarters showed Casey stopping at the Operations Center for a 10-minute visit at about 11:30 p.m. The headquarters in Arlington , Va. , was only a five-minute drive from National Airport . Casey also had no credible alibi for his whereabouts on that day. (See The Consortium, Feb. 14).

Bush, however, was a different story. He was under Secret Service protection and those confidential records listed him as taking a day off from the campaign at his home in Washington . Yet, there were troubles with Bush's alibi. None of the Secret Service agents could recall the two personal trips that Bush supposedly took in the morning and afternoon of Oct. 19.

Then, the Bush administration blocked access to one family friend listed as receiving a visit from the Bushes in the afternoon. The name was blacked out in the records given to the task force, and the investigators only got the name by promising to keep it secret and to never question the family friend.

In a bipartisan spirit, eager to repudiate the disturbing Bush charges, the House task force acquiesced to these unusual terms. Amazingly, the purported alibi witness was never interviewed. In its first public statement on July 1, 1992, the task force cleared Bush.

That decision meant the investigators found no need to explain another curious fact. At PBS FRONTLINE, we had discovered that on Oct. 18, 1980, a Chicago Tribune reporter named John Maclean told a U.S. foreign service officer, David Henderson, that a Republican source had supplied a fascinating tip -- that Bush was flying to Paris to discuss the hostages with Iranians.
That two strangers -- Maclean and Henderson -- would have discussed a Bush trip to Paris at the precise time that others would allege, years later, that Bush left the country should have raised the task force's eyebrows. At least, the investigators should have questioned the Bush family friend. But they didn't. (Allen's notes for that week reveal a meeting with Maclean, although the reporter has refused to divulge the name of his source.)

To the task force, the possibility that former and current CIA officers conspired with Republicans and foreign intelligence services to unseat a President of the United States was unthinkable. If true, it would have meant that elements of the CIA mounted a silent coup d'etat that undermined American democracy to put in place a President who would unleash the spy agency.

But certainly what followed in the 1980s pleased the CIA's hardliners. Under President Reagan's CIA director William Casey, CIA covert operations proliferated. Dozens of cashiered CIA officers were brought back on contract. Billions of taxpayer dollars were poured into CIA projects. The CIA was also spared Carter's nagging about human rights, as CIA-trained units launched death-squad operations throughout Central America and Africa .

A real politick Zeitgeist took hold in Washington . It tolerated drug smuggling by CIA-connected groups, including the Nicaraguan contras and the Afghan mujahadeen. It watched passively as CIA associates plundered the world's banking system, most notably through the corrupt Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), which also had paid off a key Iranian in the October Surprise mystery. (See The Consortium, Dec. 31)

Connally's False Alarm

Still, regardless of what did or didn't happen in Paris , Bush was jittery on Oct. 27, 1980. If Connally was right, Carter might have offered Iran a deal so sweet the mullahs couldn't refuse. But as it turned out, Connally's news was garbled. It was true that Israel had shipped military spare parts by air to Iran a few days earlier. But the shipment had been in defiance of Carter, not part of a solution to the hostage crisis.

In 1992, ex-President Carter told the congressional investigators that Israel 's Likud government had opposed his re-election. According to other notes I found in the storage room, Carter said that from April 1980, "I felt Israel cast their lot with Reagan." Carter sensed a "lingering concern [among] Jewish leaders that I was too friendly with Arabs."

But the House task force had little interest in pulling strings that might unravel a nasty national security scandal. Luckily for the CIA, the chief investigator, E. Lawrence Barcella Jr. was a favorite of the intelligence community and had worked closely with many of the figures implicated in the October Surprise affair.

For instance, BCCI paid Barcella and his law firm more than $2 million to fend off charges of corruption and money-laundering. At that time, Barcella's senior law partner was former Sen. Paul Laxalt, Reagan's finance chairman in 1980 who allegedly had covered up secret payments to the 1980 campaign from the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos. (See The Consortium, Jan. 15)
Barcella was also close friends with Michael Ledeen. The two men shared a housekeeper and socialized together. In 1982, when Barcella was the lead prosecutor in the Edwin Wilson case, Ledeen visited Barcella's home one night to urge that the prosecutor drop Shackley from the investigation.

Neither Barcella nor Ledeen saw anything wrong with Ledeen's out-of-channel contact. "He just wanted to add his two-cents worth," Barcella told me. "This is a community in which people help friends understand things," Ledeen explained. Shackley was soon cleared of complicity in the unsavory Wilson matter.

In 1993, Barcella would also find "no credible evidence" to support the October Surprise charges. But as we have shown in the first six parts of this series, a wealth of evidence that pointed in the opposite direction was left out of the final report.

For instance, there was no reference to BCCI's secret money deliveries to October Surprise suspects, no mention of Ledeen, Shackley or the other ex-CIA men assisting the Reagan-Bush campaign on Iran, no word about Laxalt and the Marcos money -and nothing about Bush's phone call.

Lies Spun into History

Better than Democrats, Bob Dole and other Republicans grasped the value of defending heroes, even imperfect ones. So the GOP battled the charges that Bill Casey and other Republicans played a nearly treasonous dirty trick to win in 1980.

The defense required enforcing absurd alibis, bullying investigators and massaging the facts. But it worked. The Democrats acquiesced and the Republicans proved that they respected history enough to falsify it, the final chapter of the October Surprise X-Files.

October Surprise X-Files (Part 8): Lies Spun into History By Robert Parry

WASHINGTON -- Bill Clinton's Inauguration ended the 12-year Reagan-Bush reign, but the Republicans still had the legacy. On Feb. 3, 1993, two weeks after Clinton moved into the White House, GOP congressmen took to the House floor to celebrate the debunking of the October Surprise allegations. During a "special order," Rep. Henry Hyde denounced the long-standing suspicions as a "myth." He trumpeted the bipartisan House task force's finding -- that William Casey and George Bush did nothing to undercut President Carter's Iranian hostage talks in 1980.

"October Surprise" quickly passed from allegation to Republican grievance. It would become a GOP battle cry, echoing through the next three years as Sen. Bob Dole and others demanded investigations of Clinton by citing the attention given the "baseless" accusations from 1980. House Democrats may have thought they were buying some political peace by clearing Casey and Bush on the 1980 matter. But the Democrats were wrong.

In a gleeful House colloquy, Hyde, a white-haired rotund Republican from Illinois , did acknowledge some weakness in the House task force findings. Casey's 1980 passport had disappeared, as had key pages of his calendar, Hyde admitted. He noted, too, that the chief of French intelligence, Alexandre deMarenches, had told his biographer that Casey, while Ronald Reagan's campaign director, did hold hostage talks with the Iranians in Paris in October 1980. Several French intelligence officials were corroborating that assertion.

But Hyde insisted that two solid blocks of evidence proved that the October Surprise allegations were false. Hyde's first cornerstone was hard-rock alibis for Casey and other suspects. "We were able to locate [Casey's] whereabouts with virtual certainty" on the dates when he allegedly met with Iranians in Europe to discuss the hostages, Hyde declared.

For instance, Casey had been in California on the late July 1980 weekend of a purported meeting with Iranians in Madrid , Hyde said. There was an alibi, too, that weekend for the late Cyrus Hashemi, a mysterious Iranian banker with ties to the CIA, Tehran 's radical mullahs and the corrupt Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). Hashemi was in Connecticut , Hyde said -- even though Hashemi's older brother Jamshid testified under oath that he and Cyrus were with Casey and a senior Iranian cleric in Madrid .

The second debunking cornerstone, Hyde added, was the absence of anything incriminating on FBI wiretaps of Cyrus Hashemi over five months in late 1980 and early 1981. Hyde noted that according to the task force report, "there is not a single indication that William Casey had contact with Cyrus or Jamshid Hashemi. ...Indeed, there is no indication on the tapes that Casey or any other individuals associated with the Reagan campaign had contact with any persons representing or associated with the Iranian government."

Cracked Cornerstones

But under any careful inspection, both of Hyde's cornerstones crumbled. The alibis were laughably bogus. The clear and documented record showed that the House investigators put Casey in California on the wrong weekend. (See The Consortium, Feb. 14, 1996)

Plus, the "proof" of Hashemi's presence in Connecticut consisted of phone records showing two one-minute calls, one from a lawyer to Hashemi's home and one back to the lawyer. There was no evidence that Hashemi received or made the calls, and the pattern more likely fit a call asking a family member when Hashemi was due home and the second call giving the answer.

The Republicans were wrong, too, about the absence of incriminating evidence on the Hashemi wiretaps. But since those wiretaps were secret in 1993, that argument was impossible to assess then. But when I accessed the raw House documents (which I dubbed the "October Surprise X-Files") in a remote Capitol Hill storage room many months later, I found a classified summary of the FBI bugging.

According to that summary, the bugs actually revealed Cyrus Hashemi deeply enmeshed with Republicans on arms deals to Iran in fall 1980 as well as in business schemes with Bill Casey's close friend, John Shaheen. And contrary to the task force's claim of "not a single indication" of contact between Casey and Cyrus Hashemi, the Iranian banker was recorded as boasting that he and Casey had been "close friends" for years. That claim was supported by a CIA memo which stated that Casey recruited Cyrus Hashemi into a sensitive business arrangement in 1979. (See The Consortium, Dec. 31, 1995)

But beyond that, the secret FBI summary showed Hashemi receiving a $3 million offshore deposit, arranged by a Houston lawyer who said he was a longtime associate of then-vice presidential candidate George Bush. The Houston lawyer, Harrel Tillman, also told me in an interview that in 1980, he was doubling as a consultant to Iran 's Islamic government.

After Reagan defeated Carter in November 1980, Tillman was back on the line promising help from the "Bush people" for one of Hashemi's floundering business deals. Then, the FBI wiretaps picked up Hashemi getting a cash payment, via a courier arriving on the Concorde, from the corrupt bank, BCCI. (For more details, see The Consortium, Dec. 31, 1995, & Jan. 15, 1996)

The House task force concealed these documents and then grossly miswrote an important chapter of recent American history. But even the primary author, the chief counsel, E. Lawrence Barcella Jr., saw potential problems caused by the report's omissions. According to another document I found in the storage room, Barcella ordered his staff "to put some language in, as a trap door" to allow a last-minute escape should complaints arise about selective use of evidence.
Barcella also needed to duck another problem -- conflicts of interest confronting him from the October Surprise case. Not only was the chief counsel friends with some of the suspects, he had earned more than $2 million from BCCI for his law firm which was headed by former Sen. Paul Laxalt, who had served as Reagan's campaign finance chairman in 1980. The conflict-of-interest difficulty was handled simply by purging any reference to BCCI and Barcella's associates from the final report. (See The Consortium, Feb. 29, 1996)

Dissent Denied

Inside the House task force, Barcella encountered some resistance to the report's bogus alibis and twisted logic. When a draft was belatedly shown to Democrats on the panel, in December 1992, one congressman, Mervyn Dymally of California , authorized the writing of a formal dissent.
Staff aide, Marwan Burgan, quickly spotted some of the report's absurd alibis, including the claim that because someone wrote down Casey's home phone number on one day that proved Casey was home, or that because a plane flew from San Francisco directly to London on another important date that Casey must have been onboard.

According to sources who saw Dymally's dissent, it argued that "just because phones ring and planes fly doesn't mean that someone is there to answer the phone or is on the plane." But Dymally's reasonable observations were fiercely opposed by Barcella, who enlisted the task force chairman, Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., to pressure Dymally into withdrawing the dissent.
If the dissent were not pulled, Barcella and Hamilton threatened to denounce Dymally for missing task force meetings and for not having Burgan cleared to review all the classified material. Hamilton warned Dymally, who was retiring from Congress, that he [Hamilton] would "come down hard" on Dymally. The next day, Hamilton fired all the staffers who had worked on Dymally's Africa subcommittee.

Seeing the firings as retribution (though Hamilton denied a connection), Dymally relented and withdrew the dissent, which was never made public. With the road cleared, the task force report, resplendent in its irrationality, rolled ahead to become the official history of the United States .
But the silencing of Dymally was only the final act in a long-running campaign to halt any serious accounting for Reagan-Bush misdeeds in the 1980s. Two weeks earlier, on Christmas Eve 1992, President Bush had pardoned six Iran-contra conspirators, effectively ending the Iran-contra investigation by independent counsel Lawrence Walsh. Bush also left office with his aides ripping out the hard discs of their computers and still stonewalling congressional requests for documents about the secret arming of Iraq .

Dole to the Defense

On Bush was aided in these national security cover-ups by a sometimes political rival, Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole. The dour Kansan, now seeking the Republican presidential nomination, played the same protective role for Bush that House Minority Leader Gerald Ford had for President Nixon in the early days of the Watergate scandal in the 1970s.

Throughout the Iran-contra affair and its spin-off scandals, Dole fought rear-guard actions to frustrate investigations. In doing so, he earned credit with the GOP's dominant right wing, which was in denial that Ronald Reagan could do anything wrong. At the Conservative Political Action Conference in 1993, Dole boasted how he had gone to the Senate floor "on countless occasions" to hector special prosecutor Walsh, often over petty issues.

"I've discussed his violation of Washington , D.C. tax laws, his first-class air fares, the lavish office space," Dole said. "I've talked about his breakfasts, his paid-for room service and dinners provided by American taxpayers." Dole bragged that he even examined the "political leanings" of Walsh's staff lawyers, some of whom were then set up for bashing in the right-wing press.
But on the October Surprise issue, Dole went straight for the jugular. Not content to harass an ongoing investigation, Dole mounted a filibuster against any independent Senate inquiry. On Nov. 22, 1991, Dole invoked party discipline to defeat a cloture vote and block special funding for the investigation.

When a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee still sponsored a small-scale investigation, Dole's lieutenants, Sens. Mitch McConnell and Jesse Helms, summoned the chief counsel, Reid Weingarten, into a closed-door meeting. McConnell brow-beat Weingarten with personal insults. Helms barred Weingarten's investigators from interviewing witnesses outside Washington .

Though hamstrung by lack of funds and hampered by Republicans, Weingarten did make some significant discoveries. He obtained testimony corroborating claims that Casey had known Cyrus Hashemi before the 1980 election. His investigators found that some FBI wiretaps of Hashemi might have been intentionally erased. He revealed that key Casey records -- the 1980 passport and several calendar pages -- were missing and that the Casey family was withholding documents.

In the end, however, the best Weingarten could do was conclude that Casey had been "fishing in troubled waters" on the hostage issue in 1980 and was engaged in "informal, clandestine, and potentially dangerous efforts on behalf of the Reagan campaign to gather intelligence on the volatile and unpredictable course of the hostage negotiations."'

Thanks to the Dole filibuster, most of the October Surprise investigation was delivered into the friendlier hands of the House task force. Then, with crucial evidence hidden, the House task force concluded that Ronald Reagan won the Presidency without recourse to a very dirty trick.
In that way, the historical legitimacy of the Reagan and Bush presidencies was preserved.
Henry Hyde and the other Republicans could celebrate.

The Bushes & the Truth About Iran

By Robert Parry September 21, 2006

Having gone through the diplomatic motions with Iran , George W. Bush is shifting toward a military option that carries severe risks for American soldiers in Iraq as well as for long-term U.S. interests around the world. Yet, despite this looming crisis, the Bush Family continues to withhold key historical facts about U.S.-Iranian relations.

Those historical facts – relating to Republican contacts with Iran ’s Islamic regime more than a quarter century ago – are relevant today because an underlying theme in Bush’s rationale for war is that direct negotiations with Iran are pointless. But Bush’s own father may know otherwise.

The evidence is now persuasive that George H.W. Bush participated in negotiations with Iran ’s radical regime in 1980, behind President Jimmy Carter’s back, with the goal of arranging for 52 American hostages to be released after Bush and Ronald Reagan were sworn in as Vice President and President, respectively.

In exchange, the Republicans agreed to let Iran obtain U.S.-manufactured military supplies through Israel . The Iranians kept their word, releasing the hostages immediately upon Reagan’s swearing-in on Jan. 20, 1981.

Over the next few years, the Republican-Israel-Iran weapons pipeline operated mostly in secret, only exploding into public view with the Iran-Contra scandal in late 1986. Even then, the Reagan-Bush team was able to limit congressional and other investigations, keeping the full history – and the 1980 chapter – hidden from the American people.

Upon taking office on Jan. 20, 2001, George W. Bush walled up the history even more by issuing an executive order blocking the scheduled declassification of records from the Reagan-Bush years. After 9/11, the younger George Bush added more bricks to the wall by giving Presidents, Vice Presidents and their heirs power over releasing documents.

Impending War

But that history is vital today.

First, the American people should know the real history of U.S.-Iran relations before the Bush administration launches another preemptive war in the Middle East . Second, the degree to which Iranian officials are willing to negotiate with their U.S. counterparts – and fulfill their side of the bargain – bears on the feasibility of talks now.

Indeed, the only rationale for hiding the historical record is that it would embarrass the Bush Family and possibly complicate George W. Bush’s decision to attack Iran regardless of what the American people might want.

The Time magazine cover story, released on Sept. 17, and a new report by retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner – entitled “The End of the ‘Summer Diplomacy’” – make clear that the military option against Iran is moving rapidly toward implementation.

Gardiner, who taught at the National War College and has war-gamed U.S. attacks on Iran for American policymakers over the past five years, noted that one of the “seven key truths” guiding Bush to war is that “you cannot negotiate with these people.”

That “truth,” combined with suspicions about Iran ’s nuclear ambitions and Tehran ’s relationship with Hezbelloh and other militant Islamic groups, has led the Bush administration into the box-canyon logic that war is the only answer, despite the fact that Gardiner’s war games have found that war would have disastrous consequences.

In his report, Gardiner also noted that Bush’s personality and his sense of his presidential destiny are adding to the pressures for war.

“The President is said to see himself as being like Winston Churchill, and to believe that the world will only appreciate him after he leaves office; he talks about the Middle East in messianic terms; he is said to have told those close to him that he has got to attack Iran because even if a Republican succeeds him in the White House, he will not have the same freedom of action that Bush enjoys.

“Most recently, someone high in the administration told a reporter that the President believes that he is the only one who can ‘do the right thing’ with respect to Iran . One thing is clear: a major source of the pressure for a military strike emanates from the very man who will ultimately make the decision over whether to authorize such a strike – the President.”

A Made-up Mind

Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, who reflects the thinking of influential neoconservatives, reached a similar conclusion – that Bush had essentially made up his mind about attacking Iran .

Krauthammer noted that on the day after the fifth anniversary of 9/11, Bush responded to a question about Iran by saying: “It’s very important for the American people to see the President try to solve problems diplomatically before resorting to military force.”

“‘Before’ implies that one follows the other,” Krauthammer wrote. “The signal is unmistakable. An aerial attack on Iran ’s nuclear facilities lies just beyond the horizon of diplomacy. With the crisis advancing and the moment of truth approaching, it is important to begin looking now with unflinching honesty at the military option.” [ Washington Post, Sept. 15, 2006]

Yet, before making such a fateful decision, shouldn’t Bush at least ask his father to finally level with him and with the American people about what happened in 1980 when the country was transfixed by Iranian militants holding 52 American hostages for 444 days?

At Consortiumnews.com, we have a special interest in that history because it was my discovery of a trove of classified documents pointing to the secret Republican negotiations with Iran that led to the founding of this Web site in 1995 and the publication of our first investigative series.
In the mid-1990s, the U.S. news media was obsessed with issues such as the O.J. Simpson trial and the so-called “Clinton scandals,” so there was little interest in reexamining some historical mystery about Republicans going behind Jimmy Carter’s back to strike a deal with Iran’s mullahs.

[The fullest account of this history can be found in Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege, which was published in 2004.]

But that history now could be a matter of life or death for thousands of people in the Middle East, including Iranians, Israelis and American soldiers in Iraq .

False History

The false history surrounding the Iranian hostage crisis also has led to the mistaken conclusion that it was only the specter of Ronald Reagan’s tough-guy image that made Iran buckle in January 1981 and that, therefore, the Iranians respect only force.

The hostage release on Reagan’s Inauguration Day bathed the new President in an aura of heroism as a leader so feared by America ’s enemies that they scrambled to avoid angering him. It was viewed as a case study of how U.S. toughness could restore the proper international order.

That night, as fireworks lit the skies of Washington , the celebration was not only for a new President and for the freed hostages, but for a new era in which American power would no longer be mocked. That momentum continues to this day in George W. Bush’s “preemptive” wars and the imperial boasts about a “New American Century.”

However, the reality of that day 25 years ago now appears to have been quite different than was understood at the time. What’s now known about the Iranian hostage crisis suggests that the “coincidence” of the Reagan Inauguration and the Hostage Release was not a case of frightened Iranians cowering before a U.S. President who might just nuke Tehran .

The evidence indicates that it was a prearranged deal between the Republicans and the Iranians. The Republicans got the hostages and the political bounce; Iran ’s Islamic fundamentalists got a secret supply of weapons and various other payoffs.

State Secret

Though the full history remains a state secret, it now appears Republicans did contact Iran ’s mullahs during the 1980 campaign; a hostage agreement was reached; and a clandestine flow of U.S. weapons soon followed.

In effect, while Americans thought they were witnessing one reality – the cinematic heroism of Ronald Reagan backing down Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini – another truth existed beneath the surface, one so troubling that the Reagan-Bush political apparatus has made keeping the secret a top priority for a quarter century.

The American people must never be allowed to think that the Reagan-Bush era began with collusion between Republican operatives and Islamic terrorists, an act that many might view as treason.

A part of those secret dealings between Iran and the Republicans surfaced in the Iran-Contra Affair in 1986, when the public learned that the Reagan-Bush administration had sold arms to Iran for its help in freeing U.S. hostages then held in Lebanon .

After first denying these facts, the White House acknowledged the existence of the arms deals in 1985 and 1986 but managed to block investigators from looking back before 1984, when the official histories assert that the Iran initiative began.

During the 1987 congressional hearings on Iran-Contra, Republicans – behind the hardnosed leadership of Rep. Dick Cheney – fought to protect the White House, while Democrats, led by the accommodating Rep. Lee Hamilton, had no stomach for a constitutional crisis.

The result was a truncated investigation that laid much of the blame on supposedly rogue operatives, such as Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North.

Many American editors quickly grew bored with the complex Iran-Contra tale, but a few reporters kept searching for its origins. The trail kept receding in time, back to the Republican-Iranian relationship forged in the heat of the 1980 presidential campaign.

‘Germs’ of Scandal

Besides the few journalists, some U.S. government officials reached the same conclusion. For instance, Nicholas Veliotes, Reagan’s assistant secretary of state for the Middle East , traced the “germs” of the Iran-Contra scandal to the 1980 campaign.

In a PBS interview, Veliotes said he first discovered the secret arms pipeline to Iran when an Israeli weapons flight was shot down over the Soviet Union on July 18, 1981, after straying off course on its third mission to deliver U.S. military supplies from Israel to Iran via Larnaca , Cyprus .

“We received a press report from Tass [the official Soviet news agency] that an Argentinian plane had crashed,” Veliotes said. “According to the documents … this was chartered by Israel and it was carrying American military equipment to Iran . …And it was clear to me after my conversations with people on high that indeed we had agreed that the Israelis could transship to Iran some American-origin military equipment.

“Now this was not a covert operation in the classic sense, for which probably you could get a legal justification for it. As it stood, I believe it was the initiative of a few people [who] gave the Israelis the go-ahead. The net result was a violation of American law.”

The reason that the Israeli flights violated U.S. law was that no formal notification had been given to Congress about the transshipment of U.S. military equipment as required by the Arms Export Control Act – a foreshadowing of George W. Bush’s decision two decades later to bypass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

In checking out the Israeli flight, Veliotes came to believe that the Reagan-Bush camp’s dealings with Iran dated back to before the 1980 election.

“It seems to have started in earnest in the period probably prior to the election of 1980, as the Israelis had identified who would become the new players in the national security area in the Reagan administration,” Veliotes said. “And I understand some contacts were made at that time.”

Q: “Between?”

Veliotes: “Between Israelis and these new players.”

Israeli Interests

In my work on the Iran-Contra scandal, I had obtained a classified summary of testimony by a mid-level State Department official, David Satterfield, who saw the early arms shipments as a continuation of Israeli policy toward Iran .

“Satterfield believed that Israel maintained a persistent military relationship with Iran , based on the Israeli assumption that Iran was a non-Arab state which always constituted a potential ally in the Middle East ,” the summary read. “There was evidence that Israel resumed providing arms to Iran in 1980.”

Over the years, senior Israeli officials claimed that those early shipments had the discreet blessing of top Reagan-Bush officials.

In May 1982, Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon told the Washington Post that U.S. officials had approved the Iranian arms transfers. “We said that notwithstanding the tyranny of Khomeini, which we all hate, we have to leave a small window open to this country, a tiny small bridge to this country,” Sharon said.

A decade later, in 1993, I took part in an interview with former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in Tel Aviv during which he said he had read Gary Sick’s 1991 book, October Surprise, which made the case for believing that the Republicans had intervened in the 1980 hostage negotiations to disrupt Jimmy Carter’s reelection.

With the topic raised, one interviewer asked, “What do you think? Was there an October Surprise?”

“Of course, it was,” Shamir responded without hesitation. “It was.” Later in the interview when pressed for details, Shamir seemed to regret his candor and tried to backpedal somewhat on his answer.

Lie Detector

Iran-Contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh also came to suspect that the arms-for-hostage trail led back to 1980, since it was the only way to make sense of why the Reagan-Bush team continued selling arms to Iran in 1985-86 when there was so little progress in reducing the number of American hostages in Lebanon .

When Walsh’s investigators conducted a polygraph of George H.W. Bush’s national security adviser Donald Gregg, they added a question about Gregg’s possible participation in the secret 1980 negotiations.

“Were you ever involved in a plan to delay the release of the hostages in Iran until after the 1980 Presidential election?” the examiner asked. Gregg’s denial was judged to be deceptive. [See Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters, Vol. I, p. 501]

While investigating the so-called “October Surprise” issue for PBS “Frontline” in 1991-92, I also discovered a former State Department official who claimed contemporaneous knowledge of an October 1980 trip by then vice presidential candidate George H.W. Bush to Paris to meet with Iranians about the hostages.

David Henderson, who was then a State Department Foreign Service officer, recalled the date as October 18, 1980. He said he heard about the Paris trip when Chicago Tribune correspondent John Maclean met him for an interview on another topic.

Maclean, son of author Norman Maclean who wrote A River Runs Through It, had just been told by a well-placed Republican source that Bush was flying to Paris for a clandestine meeting with a delegation of Iranians about the American hostages.

Henderson wasn’t sure whether Maclean was looking for some confirmation or whether he was simply sharing an interesting tidbit of news. For his part, Maclean never wrote about the leak because, he told me later, a GOP campaign spokesman had denied it.

Faded Memory

As the years passed, the memory of that Bush-to-Paris leak faded for both Henderson and Maclean, until October Surprise allegations bubbled to the surface in the early 1990s.

Several intelligence operatives were claiming that Bush had undertaken a secret mission to Paris in mid-October 1980 to give the Iranian government an assurance from one of the two Republicans on the presidential ticket that the GOP promises of future military and other assistance would be kept.

Henderson mentioned his recollection of the Bush-to-Paris leak in a 1991 letter to a U.S. senator, which someone sent to me. Though Henderson didn’t remember the name of the Chicago Tribune reporter, we were able to track it back to Maclean through a story that he had written about Henderson .

Though not eager to become part of the October Surprise story in 1991, Maclean confirmed that he had received the Republican leak. He also agreed with Henderson ’s recollection that their conversation occurred on or about Oct.18, 1980. But Maclean still declined to identify his source.
The significance of the Maclean-Henderson conversation was that it was a piece of information locked in a kind of historical amber, untainted by subsequent claims from intelligence operatives whose credibility had been challenged.

One couldn’t accuse Maclean of concocting the Bush-to-Paris allegation for some ulterior motive, since he hadn’t used it in 1980, nor had he volunteered it a decade later. He only confirmed it when asked and even then wasn’t eager to talk about it.

Bush Meeting

The Maclean-Henderson conversation provided important corroboration for the claims by the intelligence operatives, including Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe who said he saw Bush attend a final round of meetings with Iranians in Paris .

Ben-Menashe said he was in Paris as part of a six-member Israeli delegation that was coordinating the arms deliveries to Iran . He said the key meeting had occurred at the Ritz Hotel in Paris .

In his memoirs, Profits of War, Ben-Menashe said he recognized several Americans, including Republican congressional aide Robert McFarlane and CIA officers Robert Gates, Donald Gregg and George Cave . Then, Ben-Menashe said, Iranian cleric Mehdi Karrubi arrived and walked into a conference room.

“A few minutes later George Bush, with the wispy-haired William Casey in front of him, stepped out of the elevator. He smiled, said hello to everyone, and, like Karrubi, hurried into the conference room,” Ben-Menashe wrote.

Ben-Menashe said the Paris meetings served to finalize a previously outlined agreement calling for release of the 52 hostages in exchange for $52 million, guarantees of arms sales for Iran , and unfreezing of Iranian monies in U.S. banks. The timing, however, was changed, he said, to coincide with Reagan’s expected Inauguration on Jan. 20, 1981.

Ben-Menashe, who repeated his allegations under oath in a congressional deposition, received support from several sources, including pilot Heinrich Rupp, who said he flew Casey – then Reagan’s campaign director – from Washington ’s National Airport to Paris on a flight that left very late on a rainy night in mid-October.

Rupp said that after arriving at LeBourget airport outside Paris , he saw a man resembling Bush on the tarmac. The night of Oct. 18 indeed was rainy in the Washington area. Also, sign-in sheets at the Reagan-Bush headquarters in Arlington , Virginia , placed Casey within a five-minute drive of National Airport late that evening.

Other Witnesses

There were other bits and pieces of corroboration about the Paris meetings. As early as 1987, Iran ’s ex-President Bani-Sadr had made similar claims about a Paris meeting between Republicans and Iranians. A French arms dealer, Nicholas Ignatiew, told me in 1990 that he had checked with his government contacts and was told that Republicans did meet with Iranians in Paris in mid-October 1980.

A well-connected French investigative reporter Claude Angeli said his sources inside the French secret service confirmed that the service provided “cover” for a meeting between Republicans and Iranians in France on the weekend of Oct. 18-19, 1980. German journalist Martin Kilian had received a similar account from a top aide to the fiercely anti-communist chief of French intelligence, Alexandre deMarenches.

Later, deMarenches’s biographer, David Andelman, told congressional investigators under oath that deMarenches admitted that he had helped the Reagan-Bush campaign arrange meetings with Iranians about the hostage issue in the summer and fall of 1980, with one meeting held in Paris in October.

Andelman said deMarenches ordered that the secret meetings be kept out of his biography because the story could otherwise damage the reputation of his friends, Casey and Bush. “I don’t want to hurt my friend, George Bush,” Andelman recalled deMarenches saying as Bush was seeking re-election in 1992.

Gates, McFarlane, Gregg and Cave all denied participating in the meeting, though some alibis proved shaky and others were never examined at all.

Lashing Out

For his part, George H.W. Bush lashed out at the October Surprise allegations. At a news conference on June 4, 1992, Bush was asked if he thought an independent counsel was needed to investigate allegations of secret arms shipments to Iraq during the 1980s.

“I wonder whether they’re going to use the same prosecutors that are trying out there to see whether I was in Paris in 1980,” Bush snapped.

As a surprised hush fell over the press corps, Bush continued, “I mean, where are we going with the taxpayers’ money in this political year?” Bush then asserted, “I was not in Paris , and we did nothing illegal or wrong here” on Iraq .

Though Bush was a former CIA director and had been caught lying about Iran-Contra with his claims of being “out of the loop,” he was still given the benefit of the doubt in 1992. Plus, he had what appeared to be a solid alibi for Oct. 18-19, 1980, Secret Service records which placed him at his home in Washington on that weekend.

However, the Bush administration released the records only in redacted form, making it difficult for congressional investigators to verify exactly what Bush had done that day and whom he had met.

The records for the key day of Sunday, Oct. 19, purported to show Bush going to the Chevy Chase Country Club in the morning and to someone’s private residence in the afternoon. If Bush indeed had been on those side trips, it would close the window on any possible flight to Paris and back.

Investigators of the October Surprise mystery – including those of us at “Frontline” – put great weight on the Secret Service records. But little is really known about the Secret Service’s standards for recording the movements of protectees.

Since the cooperation of the protectees is essential to the Secret Service staying in position to thwart any attacker, the agents presumably must show flexibility in what details they report.
Few politicians are going to want bodyguards around if they write down the details of sensitive meetings or assignations with illicit lovers. Reasonably, the agents might have to fudge or leave out some of the facts.

Bush’s Alibi
As it turned out, only one Secret Service agent on the Bush detail – supervisor Leonard Tanis – claimed a clear recollection of the trip to the Chevy Chase Country Club that Sunday. Tanis told congressional investigators that Mr. and Mrs. Bush went to the Chevy Chase club for brunch with Justice and Mrs. Potter Stewart.

But at “Frontline,” we had already gone down that path and found it to be a dead end. We had obtained Mrs. Bush’s protective records and they showed her going to the C&O Canal jogging path in Washington , not to the Chevy Chase club.

We also had reached Justice Stewart’s widow, who had no recollection of any Chevy Chase brunch. So it appeared that Tanis was wrong – and he later backed off his claims.

The inaccurate Tanis account raised the suspicions of House International Affairs Committee counsel Spencer Oliver. In a six-page memo urging a closer look at the Bush question, Oliver argued that the Secret Service had withheld the uncensored daily report for no justifiable reason from Congress.

“Why did the Secret Service refuse to cooperate on a matter which could have conclusively cleared George Bush of these serious allegations?” Oliver asked. “Was the White House involved in this refusal? Did they order it?”

Oliver also noted Bush’s strange behavior in raising the October Surprise issue on his own at two news conferences.

“It can be fairly said that President Bush's recent outbursts about the October Surprise inquiries and [about] his whereabouts in mid-October of 1980 are disingenuous at best,” wrote Oliver, “since the administration has refused to make available the documents and the witnesses that could finally and conclusively clear Mr. Bush.”

Secret Flight

Unintentionally, Bush’s eldest son poked another hole in the assumption that the government would never doctor official records to help cover up international travel by a protected public figure.

For Thanksgiving 2003, George W. Bush wanted to make a surprise flight to Iraq . To give Bush’s flight additional security – and extra drama – phony flight plans were filed, a false call sign was employed, and Air Force One was identified as a “Gulfstream 5” in response to a question from a British Airways pilot.

“A senior administration official told reporters that even some members of Bush’s Secret Service detail believed he was still in Crawford, Texas, getting ready to have his parents over for Thanksgiving,” Washington Post reporter Mike Allen wrote. [ Washington Post, Nov. 28, 2003]
Besides falsely telling reporters that George W. Bush planned to spend Thanksgiving at his Texas ranch, Bush’s handlers spirited Bush to Air Force One in an unmarked vehicle, with only a tiny Secret Service contingent, the Post reported.

Bush later relished describing the scene to reporters. “They pulled up in a plain-looking vehicle with tinted windows. I slipped on a baseball cap, pulled ‘er down -- as did Condi. We looked like a normal couple,” he said, referring to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.

Though the melodramatic deception surrounding Bush’s flight to Baghdad soon became public – since it was in essence a publicity stunt – it did prove the ability of high-ranking officials to conduct their movements in secrecy and the readiness of security personnel to file false reports as part of these operations.

Collapsing Alibis

By the late 1990s, other elements of the Republicans’ October Surprise alibis were collapsing, including pro-Reagan-Bush claims cited prominently by some news organizations, such as the New Republic and Newsweek. [For more details, see Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege or Consortiumnews.com’s “The Bushes & the Death of Reason.”]

With the Republican defenses falling apart and with many documents from the Reagan-Bush years scheduled for release in 2001, the opportunity to finally learn the truth about the pivotal election of 1980 loomed.

But George W. Bush got into the White House via a ruling by five Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the counting of votes in Florida . Then, on his first day in office, his counsel Alberto Gonzales drafted an executive order for Bush that postponed release of the Reagan-Bush records.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Bush approved another secrecy order that put the records beyond the public’s reach indefinitely, passing down control of many documents to a President’s or a Vice President’s descendants.

Thus, the truth about how the Reagan-Bush era began in the 1980s – and what was done to contain the Iran-Contra investigations in the late 1980s and early 1990s – might eventually become the property of the noted scholars, the Bush twins, Jenna and Barbara.

The American people will be kept in the dark about their own history, like the subjects of some hereditary dynasty. Without the facts, they also face the possibility of being more easily manipulated by emotional appeals devoid of informed debate. That moment has come sooner than many expected. The United States appears to be on the brink of a war with Iran , while many government officials and the citizenry are operating on historical assumptions derived more from fiction than fact.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'
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REPRINTED FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY UNDER FAIR USE DOCTRINE

WAR IS A RACKET by Maj. General Smedley D. Butler USMC

War Is A Racket
By Major General Smedley Butler

Contents
Chapter 1: War Is A Racket
Chapter 2: Who Makes The Profits?
Chapter 3: Who Pays The Bills?
Chapter 4: How To Smash This Racket!
Chapter 5: To Hell With War!


Smedley Darlington Butler

Born: West Chester, Pa., July 30, 1881
Educated: Haverford School
Married: Ethel C. Peters, of Philadelphia, June 30, 1905
Awarded two congressional medals of honor:
capture of Vera Cruz, Mexico, 1914
capture of Ft. Riviere, Haiti, 1917
Distinguished service medal, 1919
Major General - United States Marine Corps
Retired Oct. 1, 1931
On leave of absence to act as
director of Dept. of Safety, Philadelphia, 1932
Lecturer -- 1930's
Republican Candidate for Senate, 1932
Died at Naval Hospital, Philadelphia, June 21, 1940
For more information about Major General Butler,
contact the United States Marine Corps.


CHAPTER ONE

War Is A Racket

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few -- the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

And what is this bill?

This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.

For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.

Again they are choosing sides. France and Russia met and agreed to stand side by side. Italy and Austria hurried to make a similar agreement. Poland and Germany cast sheep's eyes at each other, forgetting for the nonce [one unique occasion], their dispute over the Polish Corridor.

The assassination of King Alexander of Jugoslavia [Yugoslavia] complicated matters. Jugoslavia and Hungary, long bitter enemies, were almost at each other's throats. Italy was ready to jump in. But France was waiting. So was Czechoslovakia. All of them are looking ahead to war. Not the people -- not those who fight and pay and die -- only those who foment wars and remain safely at home to profit.

There are 40,000,000 men under arms in the world today, and our statesmen and diplomats have the temerity to say that war is not in the making.

Hell's bells! Are these 40,000,000 men being trained to be dancers?

Not in Italy, to be sure. Premier Mussolini knows what they are being trained for. He, at least, is frank enough to speak out. Only the other day, Il Duce in "International Conciliation," the publication of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said:

"And above all, Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace. . . . War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the people who have the courage to meet it."

Undoubtedly Mussolini means exactly what he says. His well-trained army, his great fleet of planes, and even his navy are ready for war -- anxious for it, apparently. His recent stand at the side of Hungary in the latter's dispute with Jugoslavia showed that. And the hurried mobilization of his troops on the Austrian border after the assassination of Dollfuss showed it too. There are others in Europe too whose sabre rattling presages war, sooner or later.

Herr Hitler, with his rearming Germany and his constant demands for more and more arms, is an equal if not greater menace to peace. France only recently increased the term of military service for its youth from a year to eighteen months.

Yes, all over, nations are camping in their arms. The mad dogs of Europe are on the loose. In the Orient the maneuvering is more adroit. Back in 1904, when Russia and Japan fought, we kicked out our old friends the Russians and backed Japan. Then our very generous international bankers were financing Japan. Now the trend is to poison us against the Japanese. What does the "open door" policy to China mean to us? Our trade with China is about $90,000,000 a year. Or the Philippine Islands? We have spent about $600,000,000 in the Philippines in thirty-five years and we (our bankers and industrialists and speculators) have private investments there of less than $200,000,000.

Then, to save that China trade of about $90,000,000, or to protect these private investments of less than $200,000,000 in the Philippines, we would be all stirred up to hate Japan and go to war -- a war that might well cost us tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives of Americans, and many more hundreds of thousands of physically maimed and mentally unbalanced men.

Of course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit -- fortunes would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be piled up. By a few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well.

Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn't they? It pays high dividends.

But what does it profit the men who are killed? What does it profit their mothers and sisters, their wives and their sweethearts? What does it profit their children?

What does it profit anyone except the very few to whom war means huge profits?

Yes, and what does it profit the nation?

Take our own case. Until 1898 we didn't own a bit of territory outside the mainland of North America. At that time our national debt was a little more than $1,000,000,000. Then we became "internationally minded." We forgot, or shunted aside, the advice of the Father of our country. We forgot George Washington's warning about "entangling alliances." We went to war. We acquired outside territory. At the end of the World War period, as a direct result of our fiddling in international affairs, our national debt had jumped to over $25,000,000,000. Our total favorable trade balance during the twenty-five-year period was about $24,000,000,000. Therefore, on a purely bookkeeping basis, we ran a little behind year for year, and that foreign trade might well have been ours without the wars.

It would have been far cheaper (not to say safer) for the average American who pays the bills to stay out of foreign entanglements. For a very few this racket, like bootlegging and other underworld rackets, brings fancy profits, but the cost of operations is always transferred to the people -- who do not profit.





CHAPTER TWO

Who Makes The Profits?

The World War, rather our brief participation in it, has cost the United States some $52,000,000,000. Figure it out. That means $400 to every American man, woman, and child. And we haven't paid the debt yet. We are paying it, our children will pay it, and our children's children probably still will be paying the cost of that war.

The normal profits of a business concern in the United States are six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve percent. But war-time profits -- ah! that is another matter -- twenty, sixty, one hundred, three hundred, and even eighteen hundred per cent -- the sky is the limit. All that traffic will bear. Uncle Sam has the money. Let's get it.

Of course, it isn't put that crudely in war time. It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and "we must all put our shoulders to the wheel," but the profits jump and leap and skyrocket -- and are safely pocketed. Let's just take a few examples:

Take our friends the du Ponts, the powder people -- didn't one of them testify before a Senate committee recently that their powder won the war? Or saved the world for democracy? Or something? How did they do in the war? They were a patriotic corporation. Well, the average earnings of the du Ponts for the period 1910 to 1914 were $6,000,000 a year. It wasn't much, but the du Ponts managed to get along on it. Now let's look at their average yearly profit during the war years, 1914 to 1918. Fifty-eight million dollars a year profit we find! Nearly ten times that of normal times, and the profits of normal times were pretty good. An increase in profits of more than 950 per cent.

Take one of our little steel companies that patriotically shunted aside the making of rails and girders and bridges to manufacture war materials. Well, their 1910-1914 yearly earnings averaged $6,000,000. Then came the war. And, like loyal citizens, Bethlehem Steel promptly turned to munitions making. Did their profits jump -- or did they let Uncle Sam in for a bargain? Well, their 1914-1918 average was $49,000,000 a year!

Or, let's take United States Steel. The normal earnings during the five-year period prior to the war were $105,000,000 a year. Not bad. Then along came the war and up went the profits. The average yearly profit for the period 1914-1918 was $240,000,000. Not bad.

There you have some of the steel and powder earnings. Let's look at something else. A little copper, perhaps. That always does well in war times.

Anaconda, for instance. Average yearly earnings during the pre-war years 1910-1914 of $10,000,000. During the war years 1914-1918 profits leaped to $34,000,000 per year.

Or Utah Copper. Average of $5,000,000 per year during the 1910-1914 period. Jumped to an average of $21,000,000 yearly profits for the war period.

Let's group these five, with three smaller companies. The total yearly average profits of the pre-war period 1910-1914 were $137,480,000. Then along came the war. The average yearly profits for this group skyrocketed to $408,300,000.

A little increase in profits of approximately 200 per cent.

Does war pay? It paid them. But they aren't the only ones. There are still others. Let's take leather.

For the three-year period before the war the total profits of Central Leather Company were $3,500,000. That was approximately $1,167,000 a year. Well, in 1916 Central Leather returned a profit of $15,000,000, a small increase of 1,100 per cent. That's all. The General Chemical Company averaged a profit for the three years before the war of a little over $800,000 a year. Came the war, and the profits jumped to $12,000,000. a leap of 1,400 per cent.

International Nickel Company -- and you can't have a war without nickel -- showed an increase in profits from a mere average of $4,000,000 a year to $73,000,000 yearly. Not bad? An increase of more than 1,700 per cent.

American Sugar Refining Company averaged $2,000,000 a year for the three years before the war. In 1916 a profit of $6,000,000 was recorded.

Listen to Senate Document No. 259. The Sixty-Fifth Congress, reporting on corporate earnings and government revenues. Considering the profits of 122 meat packers, 153 cotton manufacturers, 299 garment makers, 49 steel plants, and 340 coal producers during the war. Profits under 25 per cent were exceptional. For instance the coal companies made between 100 per cent and 7,856 per cent on their capital stock during the war. The Chicago packers doubled and tripled their earnings.

And let us not forget the bankers who financed the great war. If anyone had the cream of the profits it was the bankers. Being partnerships rather than incorporated organizations, they do not have to report to stockholders. And their profits were as secret as they were immense. How the bankers made their millions and their billions I do not know, because those little secrets never become public -- even before a Senate investigatory body.

But here's how some of the other patriotic industrialists and speculators chiseled their way into war profits.

Take the shoe people. They like war. It brings business with abnormal profits. They made huge profits on sales abroad to our allies. Perhaps, like the munitions manufacturers and armament makers, they also sold to the enemy. For a dollar is a dollar whether it comes from Germany or from France. But they did well by Uncle Sam too. For instance, they sold Uncle Sam 35,000,000 pairs of hobnailed service shoes. There were 4,000,000 soldiers. Eight pairs, and more, to a soldier. My regiment during the war had only one pair to a soldier. Some of these shoes probably are still in existence. They were good shoes. But when the war was over Uncle Sam has a matter of 25,000,000 pairs left over. Bought -- and paid for. Profits recorded and pocketed.

There was still lots of leather left. So the leather people sold your Uncle Sam hundreds of thousands of McClellan saddles for the cavalry. But there wasn't any American cavalry overseas! Somebody had to get rid of this leather, however. Somebody had to make a profit in it -- so we had a lot of McClellan saddles. And we probably have those yet.

Also somebody had a lot of mosquito netting. They sold your Uncle Sam 20,000,000 mosquito nets for the use of the soldiers overseas. I suppose the boys were expected to put it over them as they tried to sleep in muddy trenches -- one hand scratching cooties on their backs and the other making passes at scurrying rats. Well, not one of these mosquito nets ever got to France!

Anyhow, these thoughtful manufacturers wanted to make sure that no soldier would be without his mosquito net, so 40,000,000 additional yards of mosquito netting were sold to Uncle Sam.

There were pretty good profits in mosquito netting in those days, even if there were no mosquitoes in France. I suppose, if the war had lasted just a little longer, the enterprising mosquito netting manufacturers would have sold your Uncle Sam a couple of consignments of mosquitoes to plant in France so that more mosquito netting would be in order.

Airplane and engine manufacturers felt they, too, should get their just profits out of this war. Why not? Everybody else was getting theirs. So $1,000,000,000 -- count them if you live long enough -- was spent by Uncle Sam in building airplane engines that never left the ground! Not one plane, or motor, out of the billion dollars worth ordered, ever got into a battle in France. Just the same the manufacturers made their little profit of 30, 100, or perhaps 300 per cent.

Undershirts for soldiers cost 14¢ [cents] to make and uncle Sam paid 30¢ to 40¢ each for them -- a nice little profit for the undershirt manufacturer. And the stocking manufacturer and the uniform manufacturers and the cap manufacturers and the steel helmet manufacturers -- all got theirs.

Why, when the war was over some 4,000,000 sets of equipment -- knapsacks and the things that go to fill them -- crammed warehouses on this side. Now they are being scrapped because the regulations have changed the contents. But the manufacturers collected their wartime profits on them -- and they will do it all over again the next time.

There were lots of brilliant ideas for profit making during the war.

One very versatile patriot sold Uncle Sam twelve dozen 48-inch wrenches. Oh, they were very nice wrenches. The only trouble was that there was only one nut ever made that was large enough for these wrenches. That is the one that holds the turbines at Niagara Falls. Well, after Uncle Sam had bought them and the manufacturer had pocketed the profit, the wrenches were put on freight cars and shunted all around the United States in an effort to find a use for them. When the Armistice was signed it was indeed a sad blow to the wrench manufacturer. He was just about to make some nuts to fit the wrenches. Then he planned to sell these, too, to your Uncle Sam.

Still another had the brilliant idea that colonels shouldn't ride in automobiles, nor should they even ride on horseback. One has probably seen a picture of Andy Jackson riding in a buckboard. Well, some 6,000 buckboards were sold to Uncle Sam for the use of colonels! Not one of them was used. But the buckboard manufacturer got his war profit.

The shipbuilders felt they should come in on some of it, too. They built a lot of ships that made a lot of profit. More than $3,000,000,000 worth. Some of the ships were all right. But $635,000,000 worth of them were made of wood and wouldn't float! The seams opened up -- and they sank. We paid for them, though. And somebody pocketed the profits.

It has been estimated by statisticians and economists and researchers that the war cost your Uncle Sam $52,000,000,000. Of this sum, $39,000,000,000 was expended in the actual war itself. This expenditure yielded $16,000,000,000 in profits. That is how the 21,000 billionaires and millionaires got that way. This $16,000,000,000 profits is not to be sneezed at. It is quite a tidy sum. And it went to a very few.

The Senate (Nye) committee probe of the munitions industry and its wartime profits, despite its sensational disclosures, hardly has scratched the surface.

Even so, it has had some effect. The State Department has been studying "for some time" methods of keeping out of war. The War Department suddenly decides it has a wonderful plan to spring. The Administration names a committee -- with the War and Navy Departments ably represented under the chairmanship of a Wall Street speculator -- to limit profits in war time. To what extent isn't suggested. Hmmm. Possibly the profits of 300 and 600 and 1,600 per cent of those who turned blood into gold in the World War would be limited to some smaller figure.

Apparently, however, the plan does not call for any limitation of losses -- that is, the losses of those who fight the war. As far as I have been able to ascertain there is nothing in the scheme to limit a soldier to the loss of but one eye, or one arm, or to limit his wounds to one or two or three. Or to limit the loss of life.

There is nothing in this scheme, apparently, that says not more than 12 per cent of a regiment shall be wounded in battle, or that not more than 7 per cent in a division shall be killed.

Of course, the committee cannot be bothered with such trifling matters.





CHAPTER THREE

Who Pays The Bills?

Who provides the profits -- these nice little profits of 20, 100, 300, 1,500 and 1,800 per cent? We all pay them -- in taxation. We paid the bankers their profits when we bought Liberty Bonds at $100.00 and sold them back at $84 or $86 to the bankers. These bankers collected $100 plus. It was a simple manipulation. The bankers control the security marts. It was easy for them to depress the price of these bonds. Then all of us -- the people -- got frightened and sold the bonds at $84 or $86. The bankers bought them. Then these same bankers stimulated a boom and government bonds went to par -- and above. Then the bankers collected their profits.

But the soldier pays the biggest part of the bill.

If you don't believe this, visit the American cemeteries on the battlefields abroad. Or visit any of the veteran's hospitals in the United States. On a tour of the country, in the midst of which I am at the time of this writing, I have visited eighteen government hospitals for veterans. In them are a total of about 50,000 destroyed men -- men who were the pick of the nation eighteen years ago. The very able chief surgeon at the government hospital; at Milwaukee, where there are 3,800 of the living dead, told me that mortality among veterans is three times as great as among those who stayed at home.

Boys with a normal viewpoint were taken out of the fields and offices and factories and classrooms and put into the ranks. There they were remolded; they were made over; they were made to "about face"; to regard murder as the order of the day. They were put shoulder to shoulder and, through mass psychology, they were entirely changed. We used them for a couple of years and trained them to think nothing at all of killing or of being killed.

Then, suddenly, we discharged them and told them to make another "about face" ! This time they had to do their own readjustment, sans [without] mass psychology, sans officers' aid and advice and sans nation-wide propaganda. We didn't need them any more. So we scattered them about without any "three-minute" or "Liberty Loan" speeches or parades. Many, too many, of these fine young boys are eventually destroyed, mentally, because they could not make that final "about face" alone.

In the government hospital in Marion, Indiana, 1,800 of these boys are in pens! Five hundred of them in a barracks with steel bars and wires all around outside the buildings and on the porches. These already have been mentally destroyed. These boys don't even look like human beings. Oh, the looks on their faces! Physically, they are in good shape; mentally, they are gone.

There are thousands and thousands of these cases, and more and more are coming in all the time. The tremendous excitement of the war, the sudden cutting off of that excitement -- the young boys couldn't stand it.

That's a part of the bill. So much for the dead -- they have paid their part of the war profits. So much for the mentally and physically wounded -- they are paying now their share of the war profits. But the others paid, too -- they paid with heartbreaks when they tore themselves away from their firesides and their families to don the uniform of Uncle Sam -- on which a profit had been made. They paid another part in the training camps where they were regimented and drilled while others took their jobs and their places in the lives of their communities. The paid for it in the trenches where they shot and were shot; where they were hungry for days at a time; where they slept in the mud and the cold and in the rain -- with the moans and shrieks of the dying for a horrible lullaby.

But don't forget -- the soldier paid part of the dollars and cents bill too.

Up to and including the Spanish-American War, we had a prize system, and soldiers and sailors fought for money. During the Civil War they were paid bonuses, in many instances, before they went into service. The government, or states, paid as high as $1,200 for an enlistment. In the Spanish-American War they gave prize money. When we captured any vessels, the soldiers all got their share -- at least, they were supposed to. Then it was found that we could reduce the cost of wars by taking all the prize money and keeping it, but conscripting [drafting] the soldier anyway. Then soldiers couldn't bargain for their labor, Everyone else could bargain, but the soldier couldn't.

Napoleon once said,

"All men are enamored of decorations . . . they positively hunger for them."

So by developing the Napoleonic system -- the medal business -- the government learned it could get soldiers for less money, because the boys liked to be decorated. Until the Civil War there were no medals. Then the Congressional Medal of Honor was handed out. It made enlistments easier. After the Civil War no new medals were issued until the Spanish-American War.

In the World War, we used propaganda to make the boys accept conscription. They were made to feel ashamed if they didn't join the army.

So vicious was this war propaganda that even God was brought into it. With few exceptions our clergymen joined in the clamor to kill, kill, kill. To kill the Germans. God is on our side . . . it is His will that the Germans be killed.

And in Germany, the good pastors called upon the Germans to kill the allies . . . to please the same God. That was a part of the general propaganda, built up to make people war conscious and murder conscious.

Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die. This was the "war to end all wars." This was the "war to make the world safe for democracy." No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war profits. No one told these American soldiers that they might be shot down by bullets made by their own brothers here. No one told them that the ships on which they were going to cross might be torpedoed by submarines built with United States patents. They were just told it was to be a "glorious adventure."

Thus, having stuffed patriotism down their throats, it was decided to make them help pay for the war, too. So, we gave them the large salary of $30 a month.

All they had to do for this munificent sum was to leave their dear ones behind, give up their jobs, lie in swampy trenches, eat canned willy (when they could get it) and kill and kill and kill . . . and be killed.

But wait!

Half of that wage (just a little more than a riveter in a shipyard or a laborer in a munitions factory safe at home made in a day) was promptly taken from him to support his dependents, so that they would not become a charge upon his community. Then we made him pay what amounted to accident insurance -- something the employer pays for in an enlightened state -- and that cost him $6 a month. He had less than $9 a month left.

Then, the most crowning insolence of all -- he was virtually blackjacked into paying for his own ammunition, clothing, and food by being made to buy Liberty Bonds. Most soldiers got no money at all on pay days.

We made them buy Liberty Bonds at $100 and then we bought them back -- when they came back from the war and couldn't find work -- at $84 and $86. And the soldiers bought about $2,000,000,000 worth of these bonds!

Yes, the soldier pays the greater part of the bill. His family pays too. They pay it in the same heart-break that he does. As he suffers, they suffer. At nights, as he lay in the trenches and watched shrapnel burst about him, they lay home in their beds and tossed sleeplessly -- his father, his mother, his wife, his sisters, his brothers, his sons, and his daughters.

When he returned home minus an eye, or minus a leg or with his mind broken, they suffered too -- as much as and even sometimes more than he. Yes, and they, too, contributed their dollars to the profits of the munitions makers and bankers and shipbuilders and the manufacturers and the speculators made. They, too, bought Liberty Bonds and contributed to the profit of the bankers after the Armistice in the hocus-pocus of manipulated Liberty Bond prices.

And even now the families of the wounded men and of the mentally broken and those who never were able to readjust themselves are still suffering and still paying.





CHAPTER FOUR

How To Smash This Racket!

WELL, it's a racket, all right.

A few profit -- and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You can't end it by disarmament conferences. You can't eliminate it by peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical groups can't wipe it out by resolutions. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war.

The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labor before the nations manhood can be conscripted. One month before the Government can conscript the young men of the nation -- it must conscript capital and industry and labor. Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our munitions makers and our shipbuilders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all the other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted -- to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get.

Let the workers in these plants get the same wages -- all the workers, all presidents, all executives, all directors, all managers, all bankers -- yes, and all generals and all admirals and all officers and all politicians and all government office holders -- everyone in the nation be restricted to a total monthly income not to exceed that paid to the soldier in the trenches!

Let all these kings and tycoons and masters of business and all those workers in industry and all our senators and governors and majors pay half of their monthly $30 wage to their families and pay war risk insurance and buy Liberty Bonds.

Why shouldn't they?

They aren't running any risk of being killed or of having their bodies mangled or their minds shattered. They aren't sleeping in muddy trenches. They aren't hungry. The soldiers are!

Give capital and industry and labor thirty days to think it over and you will find, by that time, there will be no war. That will smash the war racket -- that and nothing else.

Maybe I am a little too optimistic. Capital still has some say. So capital won't permit the taking of the profit out of war until the people -- those who do the suffering and still pay the price -- make up their minds that those they elect to office shall do their bidding, and not that of the profiteers.

Another step necessary in this fight to smash the war racket is the limited plebiscite to determine whether a war should be declared. A plebiscite not of all the voters but merely of those who would be called upon to do the fighting and dying. There wouldn't be very much sense in having a 76-year-old president of a munitions factory or the flat-footed head of an international banking firm or the cross-eyed manager of a uniform manufacturing plant -- all of whom see visions of tremendous profits in the event of war -- voting on whether the nation should go to war or not. They never would be called upon to shoulder arms -- to sleep in a trench and to be shot. Only those who would be called upon to risk their lives for their country should have the privilege of voting to determine whether the nation should go to war.

There is ample precedent for restricting the voting to those affected. Many of our states have restrictions on those permitted to vote. In most, it is necessary to be able to read and write before you may vote. In some, you must own property. It would be a simple matter each year for the men coming of military age to register in their communities as they did in the draft during the World War and be examined physically. Those who could pass and who would therefore be called upon to bear arms in the event of war would be eligible to vote in a limited plebiscite. They should be the ones to have the power to decide -- and not a Congress few of whose members are within the age limit and fewer still of whom are in physical condition to bear arms. Only those who must suffer should have the right to vote.

A third step in this business of smashing the war racket is to make certain that our military forces are truly forces for defense only.

At each session of Congress the question of further naval appropriations comes up. The swivel-chair admirals of Washington (and there are always a lot of them) are very adroit lobbyists. And they are smart. They don't shout that "We need a lot of battleships to war on this nation or that nation." Oh no. First of all, they let it be known that America is menaced by a great naval power. Almost any day, these admirals will tell you, the great fleet of this supposed enemy will strike suddenly and annihilate 125,000,000 people. Just like that. Then they begin to cry for a larger navy. For what? To fight the enemy? Oh my, no. Oh, no. For defense purposes only.

Then, incidentally, they announce maneuvers in the Pacific. For defense. Uh, huh.

The Pacific is a great big ocean. We have a tremendous coastline on the Pacific. Will the maneuvers be off the coast, two or three hundred miles? Oh, no. The maneuvers will be two thousand, yes, perhaps even thirty-five hundred miles, off the coast.

The Japanese, a proud people, of course will be pleased beyond expression to see the united States fleet so close to Nippon's shores. Even as pleased as would be the residents of California were they to dimly discern through the morning mist, the Japanese fleet playing at war games off Los Angeles.

The ships of our navy, it can be seen, should be specifically limited, by law, to within 200 miles of our coastline. Had that been the law in 1898 the Maine would never have gone to Havana Harbor. She never would have been blown up. There would have been no war with Spain with its attendant loss of life. Two hundred miles is ample, in the opinion of experts, for defense purposes. Our nation cannot start an offensive war if its ships can't go further than 200 miles from the coastline. Planes might be permitted to go as far as 500 miles from the coast for purposes of reconnaissance. And the army should never leave the territorial limits of our nation.

To summarize: Three steps must be taken to smash the war racket.


We must take the profit out of war.


We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war.


We must limit our military forces to home defense purposes.





CHAPTER FIVE

To Hell With War!

I am not a fool as to believe that war is a thing of the past. I know the people do not want war, but there is no use in saying we cannot be pushed into another war.

Looking back, Woodrow Wilson was re-elected president in 1916 on a platform that he had "kept us out of war" and on the implied promise that he would "keep us out of war." Yet, five months later he asked Congress to declare war on Germany.

In that five-month interval the people had not been asked whether they had changed their minds. The 4,000,000 young men who put on uniforms and marched or sailed away were not asked whether they wanted to go forth to suffer and die.

Then what caused our government to change its mind so suddenly?

Money.

An allied commission, it may be recalled, came over shortly before the war declaration and called on the President. The President summoned a group of advisers. The head of the commission spoke. Stripped of its diplomatic language, this is what he told the President and his group:

"There is no use kidding ourselves any longer. The cause of the allies is lost. We now owe you (American bankers, American munitions makers, American manufacturers, American speculators, American exporters) five or six billion dollars.

If we lose (and without the help of the United States we must lose) we, England, France and Italy, cannot pay back this money . . . and Germany won't.

So . . . "

Had secrecy been outlawed as far as war negotiations were concerned, and had the press been invited to be present at that conference, or had radio been available to broadcast the proceedings, America never would have entered the World War. But this conference, like all war discussions, was shrouded in utmost secrecy. When our boys were sent off to war they were told it was a "war to make the world safe for democracy" and a "war to end all wars."

Well, eighteen years after, the world has less of democracy than it had then. Besides, what business is it of ours whether Russia or Germany or England or France or Italy or Austria live under democracies or monarchies? Whether they are Fascists or Communists? Our problem is to preserve our own democracy.

And very little, if anything, has been accomplished to assure us that the World War was really the war to end all wars.

Yes, we have had disarmament conferences and limitations of arms conferences. They don't mean a thing. One has just failed; the results of another have been nullified. We send our professional soldiers and our sailors and our politicians and our diplomats to these conferences. And what happens?

The professional soldiers and sailors don't want to disarm. No admiral wants to be without a ship. No general wants to be without a command. Both mean men without jobs. They are not for disarmament. They cannot be for limitations of arms. And at all these conferences, lurking in the background but all-powerful, just the same, are the sinister agents of those who profit by war. They see to it that these conferences do not disarm or seriously limit armaments.

The chief aim of any power at any of these conferences has not been to achieve disarmament to prevent war but rather to get more armament for itself and less for any potential foe.

There is only one way to disarm with any semblance of practicability. That is for all nations to get together and scrap every ship, every gun, every rifle, every tank, every war plane. Even this, if it were possible, would not be enough.

The next war, according to experts, will be fought not with battleships, not by artillery, not with rifles and not with machine guns. It will be fought with deadly chemicals and gases.

Secretly each nation is studying and perfecting newer and ghastlier means of annihilating its foes wholesale. Yes, ships will continue to be built, for the shipbuilders must make their profits. And guns still will be manufactured and powder and rifles will be made, for the munitions makers must make their huge profits. And the soldiers, of course, must wear uniforms, for the manufacturer must make their war profits too.

But victory or defeat will be determined by the skill and ingenuity of our scientists.

If we put them to work making poison gas and more and more fiendish mechanical and explosive instruments of destruction, they will have no time for the constructive job of building greater prosperity for all peoples. By putting them to this useful job, we can all make more money out of peace than we can out of war -- even the munitions makers.

So...I say,

TO HELL WITH WAR!

Bush Directive on National and Homeland Security

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For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
May 9, 2007
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National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive
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White House News

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NATIONAL SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/NSPD 51
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HOMELAND SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/HSPD-20
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Subject: National Continuity Policy
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Purpose
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(1) This directive establishes a comprehensive national policy on the continuity of Federal Government structures and operations and a single National Continuity Coordinator responsible for coordinating the development and implementation of Federal continuity policies. This policy establishes "National Essential Functions," prescribes continuity requirements for all executive departments and agencies, and provides guidance for State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector organizations in order to ensure a comprehensive and integrated national continuity program that will enhance the credibility of our national security posture and enable a more rapid and effective response to and recovery from a national emergency.
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Definitions
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(2) In this directive:
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(a) "Category" refers to the categories of executive departments and agencies listed in Annex A to this directive;
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(b) "Catastrophic Emergency" means any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions;
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(c) "Continuity of Government," or "COG," means a coordinated effort within the Federal Government's executive branch to ensure that National Essential Functions continue to be performed during a Catastrophic Emergency;
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(d) "Continuity of Operations," or "COOP," means an effort within individual executive departments and agencies to ensure that Primary Mission-Essential Functions continue to be performed during a wide range of emergencies, including localized acts of nature, accidents, and technological or attack-related emergencies;
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(e) "Enduring Constitutional Government," or "ECG," means a cooperative effort among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal Government, coordinated by the President, as a matter of comity with respect to the legislative and judicial branches and with proper respect for the constitutional separation of powers among the branches, to preserve the constitutional framework under which the Nation is governed and the capability of all three branches of government to execute constitutional responsibilities and provide for orderly succession, appropriate transition of leadership, and interoperability and support of the National Essential Functions during a catastrophic emergency;
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(f) "Executive Departments and Agencies" means the executive departments enumerated in 5 U.S.C. 101, independent establishments as defined by 5 U.S.C. 104(1), Government corporations as defined by 5 U.S.C. 103(1), and the United States Postal Service;
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(g) "Government Functions" means the collective functions of the heads of executive departments and agencies as defined by statute, regulation, presidential direction, or other legal authority, and the functions of the legislative and judicial branches;
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(h) "National Essential Functions," or "NEFs," means that subset of Government Functions that are necessary to lead and sustain the Nation during a catastrophic emergency and that, therefore, must be supported through COOP and COG capabilities; and
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(i) "Primary Mission Essential Functions," or "PMEFs," means those Government Functions that must be performed in order to support or implement the performance of NEFs before, during, and in the aftermath of an emergency.
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Policy
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(3) It is the policy of the United States to maintain a comprehensive and effective continuity capability composed of Continuity of Operations and Continuity of Government programs in order to ensure the preservation of our form of government under the Constitution and the continuing performance of National Essential Functions under all conditions.
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Implementation Actions
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(4) Continuity requirements shall be incorporated into daily operations of all executive departments and agencies. As a result of the asymmetric threat environment, adequate warning of potential emergencies that could pose a significant risk to the homeland might not be available, and therefore all continuity planning shall be based on the assumption that no such warning will be received. Emphasis will be placed upon geographic dispersion of leadership, staff, and infrastructure in order to increase survivability and maintain uninterrupted Government Functions. Risk management principles shall be applied to ensure that appropriate operational readiness decisions are based on the probability of an attack or other incident and its consequences.
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(5) The following NEFs are the foundation for all continuity programs and capabilities and represent the overarching responsibilities of the Federal Government to lead and sustain the Nation during a crisis, and therefore sustaining the following NEFs shall be the primary focus of the Federal Government leadership during and in the aftermath of an emergency that adversely affects the performance of Government Functions:
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(a) Ensuring the continued functioning of our form of government under the Constitution, including the functioning of the three separate branches of government;
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(b) Providing leadership visible to the Nation and the world and maintaining the trust and confidence of the American people;
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(c) Defending the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and preventing or interdicting attacks against the United States or its people, property, or interests;
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(d) Maintaining and fostering effective relationships with foreign nations;
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(e) Protecting against threats to the homeland and bringing to justice perpetrators of crimes or attacks against the United States or its people, property, or interests;
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(f) Providing rapid and effective response to and recovery from the domestic consequences of an attack or other incident;
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(g) Protecting and stabilizing the Nation's economy and ensuring public confidence in its financial systems; and
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(h) Providing for critical Federal Government services that address the national health, safety, and welfare needs of the United States.
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(6) The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government. In order to advise and assist the President in that function, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism (APHS/CT) is hereby designated as the National Continuity Coordinator. The National Continuity Coordinator, in coordination with the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA), without exercising directive authority, shall coordinate the development and implementation of continuity policy for executive departments and agencies. The Continuity Policy Coordination Committee (CPCC), chaired by a Senior Director from the Homeland Security Council staff, designated by the National Continuity Coordinator, shall be the main day-to-day forum for such policy coordination.
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(7) For continuity purposes, each executive department and agency is assigned to a category in accordance with the nature and characteristics of its national security roles and responsibilities in support of the Federal Government's ability to sustain the NEFs. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall serve as the President's lead agent for coordinating overall continuity operations and activities of executive departments and agencies, and in such role shall perform the responsibilities set forth for the Secretary in sections 10 and 16 of this directive.
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(8) The National Continuity Coordinator, in consultation with the heads of appropriate executive departments and agencies, will lead the development of a National Continuity Implementation Plan (Plan), which shall include prioritized goals and objectives, a concept of operations, performance metrics by which to measure continuity readiness, procedures for continuity and incident management activities, and clear direction to executive department and agency continuity coordinators, as well as guidance to promote interoperability of Federal Government continuity programs and procedures with State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure, as appropriate. The Plan shall be submitted to the President for approval not later than 90 days after the date of this directive.
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(9) Recognizing that each branch of the Federal Government is responsible for its own continuity programs, an official designated by the Chief of Staff to the President shall ensure that the executive branch's COOP and COG policies in support of ECG efforts are appropriately coordinated with those of the legislative and judicial branches in order to ensure interoperability and allocate national assets efficiently to maintain a functioning Federal Government.
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(10) Federal Government COOP, COG, and ECG plans and operations shall be appropriately integrated with the emergency plans and capabilities of State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure, as appropriate, in order to promote interoperability and to prevent redundancies and conflicting lines of authority. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall coordinate the integration of Federal continuity plans and operations with State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure, as appropriate, in order to provide for the delivery of essential services during an emergency.
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(11) Continuity requirements for the Executive Office of the President (EOP) and executive departments and agencies shall include the following:
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(a) The continuation of the performance of PMEFs during any emergency must be for a period up to 30 days or until normal operations can be resumed, and the capability to be fully operational at alternate sites as soon as possible after the occurrence of an emergency, but not later than 12 hours after COOP activation;
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(b) Succession orders and pre-planned devolution of authorities that ensure the emergency delegation of authority must be planned and documented in advance in accordance with applicable law;
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(c) Vital resources, facilities, and records must be safeguarded, and official access to them must be provided;
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(d) Provision must be made for the acquisition of the resources necessary for continuity operations on an emergency basis;
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(e) Provision must be made for the availability and redundancy of critical communications capabilities at alternate sites in order to support connectivity between and among key government leadership, internal elements, other executive departments and agencies, critical partners, and the public;
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(f) Provision must be made for reconstitution capabilities that allow for recovery from a catastrophic emergency and resumption of normal operations; and
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(g) Provision must be made for the identification, training, and preparedness of personnel capable of relocating to alternate facilities to support the continuation of the performance of PMEFs.
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(12) In order to provide a coordinated response to escalating threat levels or actual emergencies, the Continuity of Government Readiness Conditions (COGCON) system establishes executive branch continuity program readiness levels, focusing on possible threats to the National Capital Region. The President will determine and issue the COGCON Level. Executive departments and agencies shall comply with the requirements and assigned responsibilities under the COGCON program. During COOP activation, executive departments and agencies shall report their readiness status to the Secretary of Homeland Security or the Secretary's designee.
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(13) The Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall:
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(a) Conduct an annual assessment of executive department and agency continuity funding requests and performance data that are submitted by executive departments and agencies as part of the annual budget request process, in order to monitor progress in the implementation of the Plan and the execution of continuity budgets;
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(b) In coordination with the National Continuity Coordinator, issue annual continuity planning guidance for the development of continuity budget requests; and
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(c) Ensure that heads of executive departments and agencies prioritize budget resources for continuity capabilities, consistent with this directive.
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(14) The Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy shall:
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(a) Define and issue minimum requirements for continuity communications for executive departments and agencies, in consultation with the APHS/CT, the APNSA, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the Chief of Staff to the President;
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(b) Establish requirements for, and monitor the development, implementation, and maintenance of, a comprehensive communications architecture to integrate continuity components, in consultation with the APHS/CT, the APNSA, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the Chief of Staff to the President; and
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(c) Review quarterly and annual assessments of continuity communications capabilities, as prepared pursuant to section 16(d) of this directive or otherwise, and report the results and recommended remedial actions to the National Continuity Coordinator.
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(15) An official designated by the Chief of Staff to the President shall:
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(a) Advise the President, the Chief of Staff to the President, the APHS/CT, and the APNSA on COGCON operational execution options; and
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(b) Consult with the Secretary of Homeland Security in order to ensure synchronization and integration of continuity activities among the four categories of executive departments and agencies.
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(16) The Secretary of Homeland Security shall:
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(a) Coordinate the implementation, execution, and assessment of continuity operations and activities;
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(b) Develop and promulgate Federal Continuity Directives in order to establish continuity planning requirements for executive departments and agencies;
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(c) Conduct biennial assessments of individual department and agency continuity capabilities as prescribed by the Plan and report the results to the President through the APHS/CT;
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(d) Conduct quarterly and annual assessments of continuity communications capabilities in consultation with an official designated by the Chief of Staff to the President;
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(e) Develop, lead, and conduct a Federal continuity training and exercise program, which shall be incorporated into the National Exercise Program developed pursuant to Homeland Security Presidential Directive-8 of December 17, 2003 ("National Preparedness"), in consultation with an official designated by the Chief of Staff to the President;
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(f) Develop and promulgate continuity planning guidance to State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector critical infrastructure owners and operators;
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(g) Make available continuity planning and exercise funding, in the form of grants as provided by law, to State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector critical infrastructure owners and operators; and
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(h) As Executive Agent of the National Communications System, develop, implement, and maintain a comprehensive continuity communications architecture.
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(17) The Director of National Intelligence, in coordination with the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security, shall produce a biennial assessment of the foreign and domestic threats to the Nation's continuity of government.
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(18) The Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Secretary of Homeland Security, shall provide secure, integrated, Continuity of Government communications to the President, the Vice President, and, at a minimum, Category I executive departments and agencies.
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(19) Heads of executive departments and agencies shall execute their respective department or agency COOP plans in response to a localized emergency and shall:
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(a) Appoint a senior accountable official, at the Assistant Secretary level, as the Continuity Coordinator for the department or agency;
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(b) Identify and submit to the National Continuity Coordinator the list of PMEFs for the department or agency and develop continuity plans in support of the NEFs and the continuation of essential functions under all conditions;
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(c) Plan, program, and budget for continuity capabilities consistent with this directive;
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(d) Plan, conduct, and support annual tests and training, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, in order to evaluate program readiness and ensure adequacy and viability of continuity plans and communications systems; and
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(e) Support other continuity requirements, as assigned by category, in accordance with the nature and characteristics of its national security roles and responsibilities
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General Provisions
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(20) This directive shall be implemented in a manner that is consistent with, and facilitates effective implementation of, provisions of the Constitution concerning succession to the Presidency or the exercise of its powers, and the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 (3 U.S.C. 19), with consultation of the Vice President and, as appropriate, others involved. Heads of executive departments and agencies shall ensure that appropriate support is available to the Vice President and others involved as necessary to be prepared at all times to implement those provisions.
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(21) This directive:
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(a) Shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and the authorities of agencies, or heads of agencies, vested by law, and subject to the availability of appropriations;
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(b) Shall not be construed to impair or otherwise affect (i) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budget, administrative, and legislative proposals, or (ii) the authority of the Secretary of Defense over the Department of Defense, including the chain of command for military forces from the President, to the Secretary of Defense, to the commander of military forces, or military command and control procedures; and
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(c) Is not intended to, and does not, create any rights or benefits, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a party against the United States, its agencies, instrumentalities, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
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(22) Revocation. Presidential Decision Directive 67 of October 21, 1998 ("Enduring Constitutional Government and Continuity of Government Operations"), including all Annexes thereto, is hereby revoked.
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(23) Annex A and the classified Continuity Annexes, attached hereto, are hereby incorporated into and made a part of this directive.
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(24) Security. This directive and the information contained herein shall be protected from unauthorized disclosure, provided that, except for Annex A, the Annexes attached to this directive are classified and shall be accorded appropriate handling, consistent with applicable Executive Orders.
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GEORGE W. BUSH
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Thank You For Your--UH--"Service": Ramon's 9-11

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Thank You for Your–UH-”Service”: Ramon’s 9-11
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Introduction
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James Craven/Omahkohkiaayo i’poyi, like every surviving offspring of a mostly successful policy and practice of genocide, can do nothing but continue to exist and be an accusation leveled at a smug society. When I worked at Claremore Indian Hospital in 1989, I saw plenty of people who did that… many of them so deracinated and broken that they had lost any shred of their joie de vive, like the society in which they were stranded was some distant planet with a slow poison in the air.
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Jim has done something different, though. His life is one of those stubborn sparks that fans itself in the winds of political struggle. His accusations are not passive. Passive accusation gets invisibilized, like the homeless people we ignore as we pass them on the street. Jim accuses actively with his words and actions. Who better to tell us, as he did recently, that there is something mighty strange when the US press can natter on for days about a resolution on the Ottoman genocide of the Armenians in the grip of the press’ own intransigent amnesia about the very land upon which they stand and natter.
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I don’t think Jim is motivated by vengeance or venom, even though his accusations are bitter. He is a committed socialist, which to me means someone who wants to relieve suffering… not impose it. The bitterness of his thoughts and words are the bitterness of a strong medicine that we need. Without trying to excuse or write an equal-sign between the suffering of the oppressed and the suffering of those who are privileged within a system of oppression, I will say — as Toni Morrison did — that the slave bears her scars on her back, and the master pays the cost of a fragmented personality.
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This contribution to Insurgent American is Omahkohkiaayo i’poyi doing what he does best; and if it’s bitter, then savor the bitterness. It is good for you.
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Stan Goff
October 25, 2007
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Thank You for Your–UH-”Service”: Ramon’s 9-11
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by James Craven/Omahkohkiaayo i’poyi
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We’ve all done it. Someone in uniform, military mostly, but also police, firefighters, we say it almost like “Good Morning”; it is “Thank you for your service.” And we mean it. Thank you for being among the few with the courage and sacrifice to put your own life and comforts on the line for a transcendent cause beyond yourself; particularly if that Cause is the safety and liberty of me and mine.
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But that begs a thought experiment: Do Germans thank former SS for their “service” that many actually convinced thmselves was for the safety and liberty of their system, culture and “own kind”? Can we or should we separate the “service” to a transcendent Cause from the nature of that Cause itself?
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This occurred to me further when I got and and immediately digested the new book by Valerie Plame Wilson “Fair Game”. On one level I could respect that she put her life on the line for a transcendent Cause beyond her own self and selfishness and self-preservation; a Cause that she still believes in. But when she is quoted on the jacket of the book that she is “proud to have served my country by working at the Central Intelligence Agency” a chill goes up my spine:
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I think of all the books on the CIA written by insiders, never mind the outsider critics, I have read, along with all the released internal files of the CIA, that show what can only be described as organized terrorism and Imperial hubris against innocents. I think as well, about revelations, that, contrary to the hype and spin, almost every covert operation since CIA’s inception, has been/is coming back as “Blowback” with far worse evils coming back and/or ourselves being turned into, than the operation was intended to deal with or prevent. I think of Tim Weiner’s “Legacy of Ashes: The Secret History of the CIA” and Ralph McGehee’s Deadly Deceits” and all that they and so many other histories like it reveal. I think of the rigged elections in Italy in 1948; the overthrow of Mossadeq in 1953 and installation of the brutal Shah; Guatemala 1954; Syria 1956; Tibet 1959; Laos 59-62; South Korea 1962; Cuba 1962; Vietnam 1963; Dominican Republic 1965; Indonesia 1965; and on and on and on–the “blood-and-treasure” count.
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But most of all and always first, I think of Ramon. That is a pseudonym for a real person and I dare not use even his alias as I do not know if he is alive or if it might compromise him in some way. Ramon’s own special
9-11 was 9-11-1973 outside Santiago Chile when the democratically-elected Government of Salvador Allende (far fairer election than any of Bush) was violently overthrown by a CIA planned, designed, nurtured, initiated, executed, consolidated and covered-up fascist coup d’etat that installed the brutal fascist dictatorship of Pinochet.
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On his 9-11, Ramon was an engineering student working/studying outside Santiago at the copper pits. His wife was an artist who ran a center in Santiago. They were both idealists and progressives, but not members of any organization. Ramon, when attacked by fascist forces on 9-11, at the copper pits, picked up a gun for the first time in his life to defend himself. He was captured and because they thought he was some kind of a leader, he was slated for torture instead of immediate execution.
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Ramon was taken initially to the soccer stadium in Santiago. He kept asking where was his wife. His wife was brought into a room with six guards and a “gringo” present, while he was forced to watch his wife repeatedly gang raped and then beheaded with piano wire. Later he had two fingers cut off but in the internment camp a doctor sewed up his hand with horse hairs improvised. While in the internment camp, the Red Cross came and a worker saw him, with TB, and took pity and got him out and to Canada where he became a legal refugee and immigrant.
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I was teaching in a tenure-track position at a community college. Some friends approached me and basically asked for my help to do what amounted to the same thing as hiding Jews in nazi Germany. Although these Chilean immigrants were perfectly legal residents, as legal refugees and/or immigrants, they were subject to surveillance, harassment, kidnapping and even assassination (e.g. Orlando Letalier in Washington, DC) as Chilean DINA or national police, were allowed to operate, with the knowledge of the national intelligence services, in countries like the U.S., Canada, Britain, etc.
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I was asked to help to set up safe areas for legal refugees fleeing locally-assisted DINA agents looking for them and to do some long-distance photography at the airport baggage pickup. Here, after all they had suffered, they were still not safe as they were hounded against, as legal refugees ,within the countries that had accepted them as refugees.
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Last time I heard from Ramon was from a bakery somewhere on the east coast. Just like the Iraqis who got politicized, energized and became straight insurgents against a foreign occupying power, as we celebrate about ourselves doing every July 4th, and they have nothing to do with Al Qaeda, or that kind of ideology, they are not jihadists, so, people like Ramon, got politicized, energized and mobilized to devote their entire lives, and likely shorten those lives, in becoming very political, very radical and very determined. Another Blowback. Ramon got very political, and he became his own kind of counterterrorist against those who had terrorized him and so many like him.
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I also found Ms Plame Wilson’s book a bit self-absorbed. Over and over it comes through that, although she believes in all the good stuff, Americanism, Mom, apple pie, the flag, military,etc, her main choices were about her, her need for some thrills and travel, and what interested her personally as ways to make her contribution to the transcendent Causes. When her cover was blown, and other vital jobs were still open, but not in Directorate of Operations, or at least in the field, she chose to pack it in because the jobs did not fit her own personal interests and needs. So much for sacrifice for the ol Transcendent Cause.
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Finally, her work, which most certainly was covert, as was her CIA association until she was outed by right-wingers, and her job as Chief of Operations in the Counterproliferation Division, were far beyond the “glorified secretary” portrayed on Fox News (which, apparently, is the network of choice at the CIA and that itself is frightening and revealing about the culture of CIA at the same time). But here is another question: Since nuclear weapons, used by anyone in a conflict, threaten many other nations and even the whole planet–not a parties to any wars between nations–why should any nation be allowed to have nuclear weapons, given their massive letality and global spillover effects? Or, if any nation has nuclear weapons, why does that not give license and precedent of any other nation to have similar so as to have their own deterrence and protect their own national security? And in stopping proliferations of weapons unless authorized by the U.S. Government (like the U.S. arming Saddam Hussein) Ms Plame Wilson seems uncurious and ahistorical as to the implications of any nation, being a sole global superpower, armed with weapons no other nation has, and with no other nations able to hold it to any accountability in law.
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We can judge and rank-order systems on the basis of, with what given resources and constraints they deal with questions like: Who are the players? What do they do? How, Where, When, For Whom and Why do they do what they do relative to other systems? When we just look at the line-up of “candidates” for the presidency, historically and in the present, when we think that out of such a vast nation, is this really the “best” we could come up with? That thought experiment alone leads to some radical conclusions. And since all systems must be judged not only by what they really produce, BUT, also, relative to what they had to work with to produce it, and for whom they really produce it, then America is in some deep crap as is the whole world.
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I now say “Thank you for your ’service’ when I really mean it and when I do not have to de-link the service from the nature of “The Cause” that was/is really being served.
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