TBR News February 2, 2017

The Voice of the White House

Washington, D.C. February 2, 2017: “We will be out of the country until February 4^th, Ed.”

 

Descending into Darkness: The Making of a Wartime President

By Brian Harring

www.amazon.com  kindle ebooks $3.99

 “THE HARRING REPORT IS ANOTHER ‘DEEP THROAT’”

Published for the first time ever, Descending Into Darkness shows the actual, as opposed to the propaganda, background to the upheavals in the Middle East and the reasons for the 9/11 attacks. It also includes the complete, as contrasted with the false, official (at the time this book went to press) DoD listings of U.S. Military casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Also in Prelude to Disaster:

• Events leading up to Operation Iraqi Freedom
• War in Iraq – Russian Military Intelligence Reports & Assessment [March 17-April 8, 2003]
• The “Nazi” Neocons – Who are they?
• The Secret Downing Street Memo – Setting the Stage for 9/11
• Israeli Espionage Against the United States

Table of Contents

• Brexit will see Britain quit EU customs union
• Ukraine: US Will Never Accept Russia’s Annexation of Crimea
• The real reason why the United States is opposed to the Russian acquisition of the Crimea
• In Taking Crimea, Putin Gains a Sea of Fuel Reserves
• S. and Mexico appear to take first steps toward renegotiating NAFTA, document suggests
• Based on a Vague Tip, the Feds Can Surveil Anyone
• The Zipper Documents and the Assassination of Kennedy- Part
• A Knife in the Dark: Sikh Terrorists in Canada

Brexit will see Britain quit EU customs union

The UK government’s first policy document on Brexit suggests that Britain will no longer be part of Europe’s customs union. This comes as the government denies Scottland a second vote.

February 2, 2017

DW

A day after British MPs voted to allow Prime Minister Theresa May to formally launch the country’s exit from the European Union, the government has published a “White Paper” policy document, setting out its Brexit plans.

The 77-page paper reiterated the 12 priorities set out by May in a speech last month, including that Britain would seek a comprehensive free trade agreement with the EU but not an unlimited transitional status.

Previously, the government confirmed that Britain would leave the EU’s single market, but the document confirmed that the country would also no longer be part of the bloc’s customs union, which allows free trade with other EU states.

The decision potentially opens the country up to paying much higher import duties and tarifs, the “Independent” newspaper reported.

Repeal law will follow

The document says that a second “White Paper” will be published in due time to repeal the European Communities Act of 1972 and convert much of EU law into British law.

The paper suggests a similar arrangement to the current EU Single market could be viable, and also highlights how a “phased process of implementation” of transitional arrangements could be achieved after the negotiations with Brussels have been completed.

While the paper doesn’t give any guarantee to EU workers in the UK, it says the issue is “one of this government’s early priorities for the forthcoming negotiations.”

Regarding taking control of immigration after leaving the EU, the document describes a possible “phased process of implementation” having considered the impact on the economy and the labour market.

New EU relationship

As the “White Paper” was released, Brexit Secretary David Davis addressed parliament, telling MPs that “we want the EU to succeed politically and economically,” and Britain would work toward “a new positive and constructive partnership” with the bloc.

Davis confirmed that Britain would the customs union, saying after Brexit: “We will not be bound by the EU’s Common External Tariff or participate in the Common Commercial Policy.”

He said the long-term goal for the UK would be “the most free and frictionless trade in goods and services as possible.”

He also said Britain would not be “throwing any people out” as a result of Brexit, but that he needed similar assurances from EU leaders over the fate of British residents on the continent.

But the opposition Labour party complained that the document was only released to MPs as David got up to speak.

On Wednesday, MPs voted 498 in favor and 114 against a short piece of leglislation that allows two years of exit negotiations with Brussels to formally begin.

Formal negotiations with the EU can only begin once May has triggered Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty which she has promised to do by the end of next month.

Ukraine: US Will Never Accept Russia’s Annexation of Crimea

February 1, 2017

The Associated Press

United Nations-Ukraine’s U.N. envoy says U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley has confirmed the Trump administration fully supports his country’s territorial integrity and independence and will never accept Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

Volodymyr Yelchenko told reporters Wednesday that Haley also confirmed in their “very good” recent meeting that the U.S. is “completely against the way Russia is dealing with the eastern part of Ukraine.”

Yelchenko says he’s “absolutely satisfied by her reaction and replies.”

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014, and since then fighting between Ukrainian government troops and Russia-backed separatists has killed more than 9,600 people in the east.

Yelchenko is the current Security Council president and said members will be briefed Thursday on the latest flare-up in violence.

The U.S. Mission says Haley reaffirmed support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

The real reason why the United States is opposed to the Russian acquisition of the Crimea

In Taking Crimea, Putin Gains a Sea of Fuel Reserves

May 17, 2014

by William J. Broad

New York Times

When Russia seized Crimea in March, it acquired not just the Crimean landmass but also a maritime zone more than three times its size with the rights to underwater resources potentially worth trillions of dollars.

Russia portrayed the takeover as reclamation of its rightful territory, drawing no attention to the oil and gas rush that had recently been heating up in the Black Sea. But the move also extended Russia’s maritime boundaries, quietly giving Russia dominion over vast oil and gas reserves while dealing a crippling blow to Ukraine’s hopes for energy independence.

Russia did so under an international accord that gives nations sovereignty over areas up to 230 miles from their shorelines. It had tried, unsuccessfully, to gain access to energy resources in the same territory in a pact with Ukraine less than two years earlier.

“It’s a big deal,” said Carol R. Saivetz, a Eurasian expert in the Security Studies Program of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It deprives Ukraine of the possibility of developing these resources and gives them to Russia. It makes Ukraine more vulnerable to Russian pressure.”

Gilles Lericolais, the director of European and international affairs at France’s state oceanographic group, called Russia’s annexation of Crimea “so obvious” as a play for offshore riches.

In Moscow, a spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin said there was “no connection” between the annexation and energy resources, adding that Russia did not even care about the oil and gas. “Compared to all the potential Russia has got, there was no interest there,” the spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Saturday.

Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell and other major oil companies have already explored the Black Sea, and some petroleum analysts say its potential may rival that of the North Sea. That rush, which began in the 1970s, lifted the economies of Britain, Norway and other European countries.

William B. F. Ryan, a marine geologist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, said Russia’s Black Sea acquisition gave it what are potentially “the best” of that body’s deep oil reserves.

Oil analysts said that mounting economic sanctions could slow Russia’s exploitation of its Black and Azov Sea annexations by reducing access to Western financing and technology. But they noted that Russia had already taken over the Crimean arm of Ukraine’s national gas company, instantly giving Russia exploratory gear on the Black Sea.

“Russia’s in a mood to behave aggressively,” said Vladimir Socor, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, a research group in Washington that follows Eurasian affairs. “It’s already seized two drilling rigs.”

The global hunt for fossil fuels has increasingly gone offshore, to places like the Atlantic Ocean off Brazil, the Gulf of Mexico and the South China Sea. Hundreds of oil rigs dot the Caspian, a few hundred miles east of the Black Sea.

Nations divide up the world’s potentially lucrative waters according to guidelines set forth by the 1982 Law of the Sea Treaty. The agreement lets coastal nations claim what are known as exclusive economic zones that can extend up to 200 nautical miles (or 230 statute miles) from their shores. Inside these zones, countries can explore, exploit, conserve and manage deep natural resources, living and nonliving.

The countries with shores along the Black Sea have long seen its floor as a potential energy source, mainly because of modest oil successes in shallow waters.

Just over two years ago, the prospects for huge payoffs soared when a giant ship drilling through deep bedrock off Romania found a large gas field in waters more than half a mile deep.

Russia moved fast.

In April 2012, Mr. Putin, then Russia’s prime minister, presided over the signing of an accord with Eni, the Italian energy giant, to explore Russia’s economic zone in the northeastern Black Sea. Dr. Ryan of Columbia estimated that the size of the zone before the Crimean annexation was roughly 26,000 square miles, about the size of Lithuania.

“I want to assure you that the Russian government will do everything to support projects of this kind,” Mr. Putin said at the signing, according to Russia’s Interfax news agency.

A month later, oil exploration specialists at a European petroleum conference made a lengthy presentation, the title of which asked: “Is the Black Sea the Next North Sea?” The paper cited geological studies that judged the waters off Ukraine as having “tremendous exploration potential” but saw the Russian zone as less attractive.

In August 2012, Ukraine announced an accord with an Exxon-led group to extract oil and gas from the depths of Ukraine’s Black Sea waters. The Exxon team had outbid Lukoil, a Russian company. Ukraine’s state geology bureau said development of the field would cost up to $12 billion.

“The Black Sea Hots Up,” read a 2013 headline in GEO ExPro, an industry magazine published in Britain. “Elevated levels of activity have become apparent throughout the Black Sea region,” the article said, “particularly in deepwater.”

When Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine on March 18, it issued a treaty of annexation between the newly declared Republic of Crimea and the Russian Federation. Buried in the document — in Article 4, Section 3 — a single bland sentence said international law would govern the drawing of boundaries through the adjacent Black and Azov Seas.

Dr. Ryan estimates that the newly claimed maritime zone around Crimea added about 36,000 square miles to Russia’s existing holdings. The addition is more than three times the size of the Crimean landmass, and about the size of Maine.

At the time, few observers noted Russia’s annexation of Crimea in those terms. An exception was Romania, whose Black Sea zone had been adjacent to Ukraine’s before Russia stepped in.

“Romania and Russia will be neighbors,” Romania Libera, a newspaper in Bucharest, observed on March 24. The article’s headline said the new maritime border could become a “potential source of conflict.”

Many nations have challenged Russia’s seizing of Crimea and thus the legality of its Black and Azov Sea claims. But the Romanian newspaper quoted analysts as judging that the other countries bordering the Black Sea — Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania — would tacitly recognize the annexation “in order to avoid an open conflict.”

Most immediately, analysts say, Russia’s seizing may alter the route along which the South Stream pipeline would be built, saving Russia money, time and engineering challenges. The planned pipeline, meant to run through the deepest parts of the Black Sea, is to pump Russian gas to Europe.

Originally, to avoid Ukraine’s maritime zone, Russia drew the route for the costly pipeline in a circuitous jog southward through Turkey’s waters. But now it can take a far more direct path through its newly acquired Black Sea territory, if the project moves forward. The Ukraine crisis has thrown its future into doubt.

As for oil extraction in the newly claimed maritime zones, companies say their old deals with Ukraine are in limbo, and analysts say new contracts are unlikely to be signed anytime soon, given the continuing turmoil in the region and the United States’ efforts to ratchet up pressure on Russia.

“There are huge issues at stake,” noted Dr. Saivetz of M.I.T. “I can’t see them jumping into new deals right now.”

The United States is using its wherewithal to block Russian moves in the maritime zones. Last month, it imposed trade restrictions on Chernomorneftegaz, the breakaway Crimean arm of Ukraine’s national gas company.

Eric L. Hirschhorn, the United States under secretary of commerce for industry and security, said sanctions against the Crimean business would send “a strong message” of condemnation for Russia’s “incursion into Ukraine and expropriation of Ukrainian assets.”

Alexandra Odynova contributed reporting from Moscow.

 U.S. and Mexico appear to take first steps toward renegotiating NAFTA, document suggests

February 1, 2017

by Ana Swanson and Joshua Partlow

The Washington Post

The United States and Mexico appear to have taken the first steps toward renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, according to a Mexican government document, walking down a path that would fulfill one of President Trump’s big campaign promises and potentially transform the hemisphere’s economy

A communique posted by Mexico’s foreign and economic ministries on a government website on Wednesday said that the Mexican government had begun a series of consultations with the private sector, a process which it said would take 90 days. “The consultation in Mexico will start simultaneously with the internal process being carried out by the government of the United States,” the document said.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment and officials in the U.S. Congress said they had not yet been notified of any formal action. But trade economists said the process might be tied to U.S. legislation passed under former president Barack Obama that gives the president power to quickly broker a new trade agreement. Called fast-track authority, it requires the president to notify Congress 90 days before entering into negotiations for a new agreement.

If the White House is indeed proceeding under fast-track authority, that suggests Trump could intend to scrap NAFTA altogether and forge bilateral trade deals with Mexico and Canada instead, said Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Trump and his administration have expressed a preference for bilateral deals, which they say allow the United States to better wield its economic heft at the negotiating table.

“I think they want to retire the name NAFTA, say they got rid of it, then put it into the history books,” said Hufbauer.

It’s still possible, however, that the process will be terminated if the U.S., Mexico and Canada agree to terms overhauling NAFTA.

Renegotiating NAFTA was one of the major promises Trump made on the campaign trail, where he criticized the trade pact, which took effect in 1994, for hollowing out America’s manufacturing sector. The news comes as Trump reassesses America’s system of trade and immigration. He has already pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a Pacific Rim trade deal crafted by the Obama administration.

This historic shift in trade policy is likely to have wide-ranging implications for multinational companies, which have strung factories and facilities across the North America to take advantage of NAFTA’s terms. It could also portend changes for American consumers, who for decades have enjoyed cheap goods manufactured just over the border.

The specific effects on American businesses and consumers would hinge on the terms of the trade deals that replace it. But if tougher barriers to Mexican imports were to provoke retaliatory action by Mexico, the effect could be damaging to American manufacturing communities, said Hufbauer. “There would be a lot of localized pain of going down this path, and there may be some products that are suddenly more expensive than they otherwise would have been.”

For Mexico, the ultimate goal in the trade negotiations with the United States is to maintain the flow of free trade that NAFTA has created between the two countries. The United States is Mexico’s largest trading partner and the destination of 80 percent of its exports.

“We want to arrive at an agreement,” Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray told reporters on Wednesday.

Mexican officials plan to use the 90 day consultation period to meet with domestic industry leaders in farming, manufacturing, textiles, petroleum, and other sectors, to see what aspects of NAFTA could be improved. The discussions will be coordinated by the secretary of the economy.

“This gives us a very solid preparation to enter the dialogue once the 90 days passes,” Videgaray said.

At the same time, Mexico is also looking to expand trade ties with other countries, in case trade with the United States gets restricted. Mexican officials have already begun talks with Argentina and Brazil, and are interested in discussions with Malaysia, Australia, Singapore and others.

Trump has already clashed publicly with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. Following a spat on social media on Jan. 26 over who would pay for Trump’s border wall, Peña Nieto called off a scheduled visit to Washington the following week. The next day, Trump and Peña Nieto discussed the U.S.-Mexico relationship by phone for an hour.

During the campaign, Trump announced his intention to renegotiate the sweeping trade deal between the United States, Canada and Mexico on his first day in office.

“If I win, day one, we are going to announce our plans to renegotiate NAFTA,” he told a crowd in Greensboro, N.C., in October.

Influential in the negotiations are likely to be two men who are not yet confirmed for their positions: Commerce Secretary nominee Wilbur Ross and Trump’s pick for the U.S. Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer.

NAFTA became a divisive issue in the 2016 campaign, as critics on both the left and the right disparaged it for siphoning off good-paying American manufacturing jobs. Trump repeatedly criticized former President Bill Clinton’s role in negotiating NAFTA, calling it “the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere.”

Economists have generally disagreed, or expressed more nuanced concerns. In a panel of 41 prominent economists surveyed in 2012 by the University of Chicago, 85 percent agreed or strongly agreed that Americans were better off under NAFTA than previously existing trade rules among the U.S., Canada and Mexico, while only 5 percent said they were uncertain. None disagreed with the statement.

More recent research by John McLaren of the University of Virginia and Shushanik Hakobyan of Fordham University has shown that blue-collar workers in industries most affected by NAFTA had lower wage growth over the 1990s compared with other workers. The study concluded that the overall impact of NAFTA on American wages was small, but heavily concentrated in some communities.

The trade pact dates to 1992, when President George H.W. Bush negotiated it in his final year in office. Congress approved the deal the next year under Clinton, and it finally took effect in 1994, establishing an unprecedented free-trade zone across North America.

Over the next decade, the flow of goods and services between the U.S. and Mexico more than quintupled.

By reducing barriers to trade, the deal aimed to knit the countries of North America closer together and expand their economies. It also specifically aimed to help the struggling Mexican economy. By raising the standard of living, many supporters argued the deal would cut down on illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States.

In his criticism of trade deals, Trump has formed an unusual alliance with labor-friendly figures on the political left. Former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has said he hoped “very much that President Trump will come on board and work with us as we revamp in a very fundamental way our trade policies.”

Republicans, however, have been more traditional defenders of open trade. who have traditionally viewed free trade as a driver of economic growth. “As I frequently tell my friends in Mexico, we can’t get a divorce. We need to figure out how to make this marriage work,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Tex.) told CNN recently.

Trump does not require Congressional approval to exit NAFTA. Article 2205 of the agreement allows any party to withdraw six months after providing written notice to the other parties. Trump would have to take additional steps to raise tariffs on imports from those countries.

Ross echoed the need to renegotiate the deal in his Senate confirmation hearing on Jan. 18. He criticized the deal for its weak enforcement on environmental and labor standards, and said that NAFTA was “logically the first thing” for the Trump administration to work on.

“All aspects of NAFTA will be put on the table,” Ross said.

Based on a Vague Tip, the Feds Can Surveil Anyone

Low-level “assessments” allow the FBI to follow people with planes, examine travel records, and run subjects’ names through the CIA and NSA.

January 31 2017

by Cora Currier

The Intercept

At its lowest level of investigative activity, on the basis of vague tips or broad intelligence interests, the FBI can follow people with airplanes, examine travel records, and analyze links between email, phone, and other records collected by intelligence agencies.

Two large FBI manuals obtained by The Intercept, one of which is classified, offer previously unreleased information about just how powerful an intelligence apparatus the FBI draws on even for low-level checks, known as “assessments.”

Assessments allow agents to look into tips or leads that don’t meet the standard for opening an investigation, which requires specific information or allegations of wrongdoing — an “articulable factual basis” for suspicion, as FBI rules put it. In an assessment, by contrast, an agent just needs to give an “authorized purpose” for their actions. Agents can open assessments “proactively,” in order to evaluate potential informants, collect intelligence about threats surrounding public events, study a field office’s geographical area, or gather information about a general phenomenon of interest to the bureau.

When assessments were made an official category in the last months of the George W. Bush administration, civil liberties advocates warned that the change eroded limits imposed on the bureau after the abuses of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI came to light in congressional investigations in the 1970s. Those limits set high standards for the FBI’s investigations, requiring them to be tied to evidence of wrongdoing and adding layers of oversight. Advocates now say that the standard for opening an assessment is just too low, allowing for enormous amounts of information to be collected and retained even when nothing turns up.

The FBI counters that assessments offer a common-sense, expeditious means of handling tips and doing due diligence on potential threats. The bureau maintains that assessments are still subject to oversight and are usually quickly closed if they don’t meet the threshold for a more intensive investigation.

The Intercept is publishing in full for the very first time the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, or DIOG, which governs FBI operations. The DIOG’s rules for assessments, which were previously released with significant redactions, make clear that the FBI can follow up on a tip or complaint by probing government records and conducting interviews. The bureau need not necessarily keep a record of this search. But if agents decide to dig deeper by opening an assessment, they are allowed to have informants collect information, and they can also physically surveil the subject — including by airplane. In some cases, they can issue grand jury subpoenas. If the purpose of an assessment is to evaluate someone as a potential informant, agents can give polygraph tests, dig through trash, and use fake identities in the course of their research.

When an assessment is linked to counterterrorism, agents are required to address a sort of checklist of questions called the “baseline collection plan.” The American Civil Liberties Union obtained the 2009 baseline collection questions through a public records request several years ago. The Intercept has now obtained an unredacted version of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Policy Guide, which reveals new details about baseline collection and the resources the FBI uses to carry it out.

According to this guide, as part of baseline collection, the FBI avails itself of an array of sophisticated databases and analytical tools. These include “Clearwater” and “Polaris,” tools that are used to analyze links between email, phone, and other records collected by government agencies through various programs, and about which little has been publicly acknowledged. The policy guide directs agents to query the subject’s telephone numbers in those and other systems, including the FBI’s Telephone Application, used to analyze phone records; the Investigative Data Warehouse, which as of 2008 contained some 1 billion unique records and has been described as the FBI’s Google; the Data Warehouse System, which collates many FBI investigative records; and the Data Loading and Analysis System, which holds files from digital media seized by the FBI, including cellphones, computers, CDs, and the like.

The FBI also traces the subject’s travel history through Department of State visa and passport records, a Customs and Border Protection database, and data held by a private company called the Airlines Reporting Corporation, which manages itineraries for airlines and travel agencies. In 2009, Wired reported that the FBI was seeking access to ARC’s full database, which would include billions of travel records showing the data printed on the front of an airplane ticket and the method of payment used. ARC told Wired at the time that it only released records in response to a legal order such as a national security letter or subpoena, and that such demands had so far resulted in 17,000 records being turned over. It is unclear from the policy guide what sort of access the FBI now has to ARC, or whether it is checking previously obtained documents. ARC declined to comment.

Agents running assessments can further check the databases of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network in the Department of the Treasury. They can ask for information on gun purchases from the relevant local bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. They can run subjects’ names through the National Counterterrorism Center, and even through the CIA and NSA.

An unclassified October 2013 communiqué from the FBI’s counterterrorism division also suggests searching a classified terror watchlist, an FBI internet data-mining tool called Base Jumper, DMV files of driver’s license photos, and state-level business filings. The communiqué also lists open source resources, including social media sites, “web crawlers/deep web engines/social media searchers,” and photo websites like Flickr, Picasa, and Shutterfly.

The document adds that “in addition to queries of databases/resources and interviews, careful consideration should also be given to utilizing other investigative methods authorized in Assessments, such as [confidential human source] tasking and physical surveillance, when appropriate.”

The FBI, through a spokesperson, said that assessments were limited in scope and subject to rigorous oversight: “Regular file reviews, which include a review of whether or not the assessment should be closed or should continue for another 60- or 90-day period, as well as realistic resource constraints provide the necessary safeguards to ensure that individuals are not subject to long-term surveillance,” said an FBI spokesperson.

Yet, critics note that it appears the data collected can be retained for decades and queried for years, even when it does not lead to an investigation. The FBI would not clarify the precise limits on how long it can keep assessment data.

“Everyone should know that the FBI claims the authority to use extremely intrusive methods to investigate people without any factual basis to suspect that they have engaged in actual wrongdoing,” said Hina Shamsi, director of the National Security Project at the ACLU. Those methods “can reveal intimate information about how people live their lives,” she said, adding, “This is an ineffective authority because it clogs up the system with baseless investigations, and it is a dangerous authority because it has been abused to spy on innocent people exercising their First Amendment rights to protest, worship, and engage in political advocacy.”

Despite initial condemnation from civil liberties groups, in the years since assessments were instituted, they have received relatively little attention — except when the FBI is criticized for not having caught in an assessment someone who went on to carry out an attack.

The DIOG specifies that an assessment can’t be opened on the basis of “arbitrary or groundless speculation,” and the agent is supposed to be able to articulate why the assessment isn’t “frivolous or improper.” Assessments are also not supposed to be based “solely” on First Amendment-protected activities, or on the target’s race, religion, or ethnicity — although such characteristics can be taken into account. The Counterterrorism Policy Guide indicates that an assessment isn’t enough to place someone on the terror watchlist.

The examples of assessments given in the DIOG — blacked out in the versions that have been made public previously — show how FBI agents are expected to understand these boundaries.

In one example, if an FBI agent gets a tip that men of Middle Eastern descent rented a boat and asked the marina owner to circle military installations and nuclear power plants on a map, he can open an assessment and look into the men’s backgrounds. The example emphasizes that “the men’s national origin is not the motivating factor for the assessment” — unless other information suggests it is relevant, “for example, if existing intelligence reporting suggested that Al Qaeda was planning an attack using boats.” In another example, the FBI describes an assessment asking whether a public event — such as an auto show — could draw national security threats.

According to the DIOG, some assessments can take whole neighborhoods into their sights, with agents collecting information on the “composition of the community, the different ethnic groups, religious affiliations, community interests and dynamics, businesses, etc. for analysis and planning.” This kind of assessment could involve checking public, commercial, and governmental data, including visa information, and the FBI field office could “store, analyze, map, and share the information.” Such practices have stoked controversy, particularly among civil liberties and Muslim groups, who protest that such assessments risk tarring whole communities with criminal associations.

According to the last available figures, obtained by the New York Times, the FBI opened more than 82,000 assessments between 2009 and 2011. Most of them were closed without developing into investigations. Critics seized on these numbers as evidence that the FBI was casting too wide a net. But the FBI protested that the opposite was true: Assessments allowed agents to be more discriminating, the FBI maintained, and to open fewer preliminary investigations, which are even more invasive.

Between the 2008 and 2011 versions of the DIOG, the rules on assessments actually got more permissive, granting agents more flexibility in using surveillance teams, for example, and allowing them to run checks in commercial and law enforcement databases without formally opening assessments.

“There’s been a lot of morphing on assessments,” Jeff Danik, a former FBI agent who worked on counterterrorism, told The Intercept. “At first it was very cut and dry when it says, ‘We can’t do this.’ Now it’s more, ‘We’re not going to go against what it says, we’re just going to get the approvals, which are going to be given pretty freely.’ It’s kind of found its own middle ground. They didn’t take the rules away, but they made it a little easier to go forward.”

There is no time limit on how long an assessment can last, though the FBI stressed that supervisors must periodically review the basis for keeping it open. Danik said there was often pressure to either “convert it to an investigation or get it closed.”

Assessments have mostly come to the public’s attention after domestic terror attacks, when the bureau gets criticized for not having caught perpetrators beforehand. After last year’s bombings in New Jersey and New York, for example, the public learned that the suspect had been scrutinized in an assessment. Yet nothing had turned up that warned of his future violence or warranted either an investigation or an arrest.

According to some critics, assessments offer a worst-of-both-worlds solution, in which agents pursue every lead, generating overwhelming caseloads, even while the bureau is unfairly blamed for not having followed up beyond what it was legally allowed to do.

The Zipper Documents and the Assassination of Kennedy- Part 6

February 2, 2017

by Gregory Douglas

The Alternative Theory

The CIA

The Central Intelligence Agency grew out of the wartime Office of Special Services (OSS) which was set up by William Donovan, a New York attorney, at the request of his friend, President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The President, a firm supporter of Josef Stalin and a man of strong left wing politics, mandated the OSS to render as much logistical support to the Soviet Union as possible. The Roosevelt administration was packed with Soviet agents who dedicated their existence to the unqualified support of the Communist State.

Top presidential aide Harry Hopkins has been identified as a paid Soviet agent as were Harry Dexter White, top advisor to Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Alger Hiss, senior official of the Department of State, David K. Niles, senior presidential advisor, and many others.

The Vice President, Henry Wallace, was in complete sympathy with the aims of Stalin, and while he was not a paid agent, he was an agent of influence and worked closely with the head of Soviet intelligence in Washington throughout and after the war.

The OSS was filled with pro-Soviet agents who had been instructed by OSS chief William Donovan to cooperate fully with their counterparts in the NKVD.

With the death of Roosevelt in April of 1945 and the elevation of Vice President Harry Truman to the presidency, the eager, unstinting and certainly unquestioned cooperation between Stalin’s agents and the United States came to an end. Unlike his predecessor, Truman was not enraptured with fuzzy dreams of a People’s Republic on the Potomac and almost immediately ordered the disbanding of the OSS.

A number of its ultra-left wing former agents were posted to the U.S. Department of State to await a dignified separation from government service, untainted by accusations of being active Communists. There the matter stood until 1947 when Truman mandated the formation of a new intelligence-gathering agency.

This was to be called the Central Intelligence Agency and its sole purpose was to keep the President and his top officials current with global political intelligence.

Military intelligence was in the hands of the respective services, but Truman wished to prevent another Pearl Harbor from being launched on the United States. One of the training films shown to CIA recruits has this anti-Pearl Harbor message as its main theme.

If the purpose of the CIA was to prevent future surprise attacks on the United States, the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, are overwhelming evidence that an astronomical amount of taxpayer’s money was completely wasted.

The vast sums voted by Congress and not subject to accounting under any circumstances might have been far better spent on constructive national programs that would have been subject to strict accountability.

Starting out as a small agency under the direction of Rear Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, the CIA was filled with former OSS personnel who certainly found their new role confusing. Instead of giving powerful assistance to the Soviet Union, their new agency rapidly grew into an anti-Soviet entity.

When Allen Welch Dulles joined the CIA in 1950, the agency was under the control of General Walter Bedell Smith, once Eisenhower’s Chief of Staff and later U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union. Dulles had been the OSS Chief of Station in neutral Switzerland and his officially praised activities there were nothing more than an intelligence disaster of the highest magnitude.

Dulles, who always entertained a very high opinion of himself, attempted to penetrate the defenses of the German Reich and actually believed that he had done so with brilliant success. In truth, German counterintelligence had easily penetrated his organization and filled the complaisant Dulles with an incredible amount of highly destructive disinformation.

The Dulles analysis of conditions inside the Greater German Reich, when read with hindsight, would be amusing in the extreme had not so many OSS agents been caught and executed because of the incompetence of the OSS chief of station, in many cases by the same man who later occupied a prominent position in the CIA.

The Cold War was an engineered affair and its chief architect was former German Army General Reinhard Gehlen, a former head of the Soviet military intelligence section of the Wehrmacht. In 1948, at the request of his superiors, Gehlen concocted a lengthy pseudo-informational report stating that 135 Soviet armored divisions were poised to strike into Central Europe.

This report was a complete fiction and was prepared solely to create a situation wherein the American military could legitimately increase its size, and American business, in a slump after the end of the boom years of World War II, would once again gear up for a highly profitable wartime economy.

The so-called Gehlen Report was brilliantly successful once it had been leaked to key members of Congress and the President. This was the starting gun of a Cold War that ran on for over forty years and lofted the CIA into a position of supreme power in the ruling circles of the American government.

Because of what they convinced the American leadership was a mortal danger to the security of the United States, the CIA grew from an informational service to an enormous, bloated agency with tens of thousands of employees and an annual budget running into the billions.

They were, as they often pointed out to various occupants of the Oval Office and Congress, the shield and buckler of American freedom and, by extension, the freedom of the rest of the world.  Or at least that part of the world that had the approval of the CIA and, by inference, the American government.

At the time of his devastating essay into creative writing, former General Gehlen was a paid employee of the CIA.

After Truman came Eisenhower, a man who strongly supported the CIA and cooperated in its empire building. From modest quarters in a disused Washington hospital, the CIA later expanded into an enormous office complex in Langley, Virginia. It now owns hundreds of “proprietary” businesses, including air and shipping lines, publishing and weapons companies, think tanks, import and export companies, and telecommunication networks. It also controls hundreds, if not thousands, of voluntary sources scattered throughout key elements of both the American and European private sectors.

It was under Eisenhower that the CIA launched its clandestine warfare against the Marxist Cuban regime of Fidel Castro, warfare that the Agency warmly believed would terminate in a successful invasion of the Caribbean bastion of the world Communist movement.

If history can be said to be instructive, the CIA, like the Bourbons, obviously forgot nothing and learned nothing from their past errors.

In 1956, a CIA-instigated revolt broke out in Hungary, fueled by repeated CIA promises of immediate U.S. military assistance if the occupants of that nation rose up against their Soviet occupiers.

The revolt was an initial success, but President Eisenhower quite sensibly refused to support it with American military aid and it died in a bloodbath of Soviet military repression. Better, Eisenhower reasoned, a few thousand dead Hungarians than hundreds of thousands of dead Americans.

The identical scenario was to be repeated in the so-called Bay of Pigs invasion in April of 1961. Kennedy, Eisenhower’s successor, had only been partially briefed by the CIA and had given his conditional approval to the projected invasion by Cuban nationals of Castro’s fortress.

In order to prevent another Hungarian fiasco, the CIA had thoughtfully dispatched a boatload of Cuban rebels disguised as members of the regular Cuban armed forces to launch an attack on the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba.

In furtherance of strongly desired military attacks on Cuba, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) prepared Operation NORTHWOODS. This plan was to deliberately provoke a war with Cuba by executing a series of assaults on the United States by American special forces! Boats full of Cuban refugees were to be sunk on the high seas, aircraft were to be hijacked, bombs detonated in American cities, an American military ship was to be blown up, and passenger aircraft destroyed in the air. All of these terrorist acts against American cities and its citizens, shockingly redolent of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, were to be planned and executed by the American military, under orders of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and conducted by American military and civilian personnel.

The attacks on shipping in Guantánamo Bay were part and parcel of Operation NORTHWOODS:

37. At that time, the FBI was involved, at the request of the Attorney General, Robert Kennedy, in watching the clandestine activities of the CIA and its Alpha and Omega special commando groups, some of whom were in training in the New Orleans area.
38. The American President was greatly concerned that continued and fully unauthorized para-military action against Cuba might upset the balance he had achieved in seeking peace with the Soviet Union.
39. It is knows from informants inside the CIA and also from Cuban double agents that the CIA was, in conjunction with the highest American military leadership, to force an American invasion of Cuba.
40. These joint plans, which consisted of acts of extreme provocation by American units against American property and citizens, were unknown to Kennedy.
41. When the American President discovered that Cuban insurgents, under the control of the CIA and with the support of the highest military leadership, were embarked on a course of launching military action against American naval bases under the cover of being Cuban regular troops, he at once ordered a halt. Russian Intelligence study

The JCS anticipated that the U.S. forces at the base would naturally return fire and call for military assistance. This assistance, they reasoned, would guarantee full, and official, American military support of their venture.

They did neither anticipate that some unhelpful individual in their ranks would have informed Kennedy of their scheme to involve the United States in a massive invasion of Cuba, nor that the new President’s immediate response to the Guantánamo diversion was to not only recall the projected attackers but also refuse to support the CIA-organized landings at the Bay of Pigs.

Instead of the Cuban people rising in joyous revolt against Castro, as the CIA pundits fondly believed, the evil Marxist dictator easily crushed the invasion and captured or killed all of the CIA’s troops.

There was great and understandable unhappiness in the camps of Cuban rebels, and the CIA, with commendable forthrightness, shifted the blame for the disaster onto the new President.

This was one of the major building blocks of the conspiracy to remove John Kennedy from office.

When the President learned the full scope of the CIA’s duplicity, he fired the beloved head of the CIA, Allen Welch Dulles, as well as General Charles P. Cabell and Richard E. Bissell, Jr., the CIA’s Director of Clandestine Services. He also told Senator Mike Mansfield that he planned to “break up the CIA and scatter it to the winds.”

The leadership of the CIA, especially James Jesus Angleton, felt that Kennedy had sufficient knowledge of the Cuban putsch and that his sacking of their top officials and threats to disband them were merely designed to distance him from the debacle.

This was another of the building blocks in the CIA’s growing fear of the Kennedy presidency.

After the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the CIA continued their commando raids against Cuba and its ruler. It was during this time that Angleton approached the Chicago Mafia with an eye to assassinating Fidel Castro:

47. The attempts of the CIA and the JCS to remove Castro by assassination are also part of the official record. These assassination plots, called RIFLE show the connections between the CIA and the Chicago branch of the Mafia. DIA analysis

The mob was certainly eager to regain control of its lucrative Cuban casinos, and various conversations took place concerning the physical removal of the Cuban leader.

As has always been the case, the CIA demands plausible deniability on its part should one of their often-bizarre plots suddenly come to the public attention. In the case of Castro, the plans discussed bordered on the lunatic: he would be blown up by a booby trap cunningly disguised as a rare sea shell; his wet suit would be poisoned; and even more ludicrous, a drug would be put into his shoes to cause his trademark beard to fall out!

As the usual method of Mafia removal was to shoot their target and be done with it, one wonders if Sam Giancana was entertaining himself with the slapstick efforts of the shield of democracy.

The Soviet KGB learned of these plots and Nikita Khrushchev became convinced that the United States planned to kill off one of his more prominent satellite leaders and invade his bastion of Western Hemisphere Marxism. In order to frustrate the United States in its ambitions and to protect his client, Khrushchev began to clandestinely move Soviet troops and missiles into the tropical paradise with an eye to balancing the scales.

The United States, after all, had placed its Jupiter missiles in Turkey, right on the Soviet border, and a quid pro quo appeared to be entirely in order:

74. American, and most especially the CIA, attempts to destabilize a Communist state i.e., Cuba, could not be permitted by the Soviet leadership. Castro was a most valuable client in that he provided an excellent base of intelligence and political operations in the American hemisphere. As the CIA had been setting up its own ring of hostile states surrounding the Soviet Union, Cuba was viewed officially as a completely legitimate area of political expansion. Threats of invasion and physical actions against Cuba were viewed by the Chairman as threats against the Soviet Union itself.”

Russian Intelligence Study,

77.Soviet attempts to gain a strategic foothold in close proximity to the United States and certainly well within missile range, was intolerable and had to be countered with equal force. At that time, the threat of major war was not only imminent but anticipated. In retrospect, all out nuclear warfare between the United States and the Soviet Union was only barely averted and only at the last minute. DIA analysis

The U.S. discovered the Soviet actions and the Cuban Missile Crisis erupted in October of 1962. Kennedy ordered overflights of Cuba to verify Soviet missile positions, then blockaded the country and threatened to prevent further Soviet shipments of weaponry by force if necessary.

In the end, common sense on both sides prevailed and the crisis ended peacefully. The Soviets agreed to withdraw their weapons and the United States agreed to withdraw its Jupiter missiles from Turkey. Kennedy also agreed to halt armed commando raids against Cuba and abandon any attempt to physically invade Khrushchev’s ally.

As this meant the cessation of the CIA attacks, the Agency was infuriated. The training and supply of these militant units was an excellent source of money that, again, did not need to be accounted for. The termination of funding for the Cuban adventurers meant a serious diminution of the flow of money that the CIA found so comforting and useful.

As a result of his rapprochement with his opposite number in the Kremlin, Kennedy ordered all CIA incursions and commando activities against Cuba to cease.

The CIA paid no attention to the President’s orders and Kennedy then ordered the FBI to raid the CIA camps, seize weapons and paperwork and arrest anyone found:

43. The American President, unsure of the depth of his influence with the leadership of the American military and the CIA, ordered the FBI to investigate these matters and ordered the Director, Hoover, to report directly to him on his findings

Russian Intelligence study

These actions merely confirmed to certain high elements in the CIA that Kennedy had to be silenced. He had, in fact, become a stone in their shoe.

What really convinced the CIA to remove their President had its roots in the Bay of Pigs episode and was viewed by Angleton, Crowley, and others as an imperative that both Kennedy and his brother Robert be removed from the levers of power as expeditiously as possible. Injured feelings and lost revenue aside, the leadership of the CIA did indeed have what could well be considered as a thoroughly legitimate reason for their actions.

The information about the CIA’s activities on behalf of John F. Kennedy between summer 1962 and February 1963, as it is laid out in the rest of this chapter, mainly rest on conversations the author had with Robert T. Crowley. Where information could be corroborated with other sources, these are given in the footnotes. Documents of these events—if they ever existed—were probably destroyed. There exists, however, one document found in R. T. Crowley’s papers which describes in a very brief way the CIA’s actions between March 1963 and November 1963, the already mentioned “ZIPPER document.” It will be referred to in detail in the following chapter.

The author is well aware of the somewhat unreliable nature of the oral evidence given by Crowley more than thirty years after the event, nevertheless, his witness accounts are reproduced here, since the events prior to March 1963 are not crucial to the understanding of what happened afterwards, and because they merely flesh out and corroborate the much more reliable documentary framework that exists for the time after 1963. Hence, if not indicated otherwise, the following information is taken from conversations the author had with R. T. Crowley.

One of the top Soviet intelligence agents in Washington at the time of the Bay of Pigs was Georgi N. Bolshakov. Ostensibly a reporter for the Soviet TASS news agency, Bolshakov was approached by Robert Kennedy’s press secretary, Edwin Guthman, shortly after the disastrous Bay of Pigs. The President and his brother were, above all, political pragmatists. They had learned this from their practical and ruthless father. From April of 1961 onward, the President of the United States, through his brother, the Attorney General, was in direct contact with Soviet Premier Khruschev, effectively bypassing not only his Department of State but the CIA as well.

The Soviets bypassed their own ambassador in this, and the two leaders kept in constant contact. The purpose of this unofficial contact was to insure that neither party suffered from the actions of the other and that both men could be of mutual assistance to each other’s political careers without the danger of serious confrontations and possible conflict.

In August of 1961, in order to prevent the flight of valuable East German professionals to the West, the German capital was bisected by the Berlin wall. In the West, this act was viewed as a terrible provocation, but serious confrontation between the two powers was quickly averted when Kennedy granted, through the offices of Bolshakov, that he would not make any serious move to contest the Soviet actions.

The Kennedy-Khruschev contacts continued on a regular basis at the very least until January of 1963.

In August of 1962, James Jesus Angleton, Chief of Counterintelligence for the CIA, was informed from a very reliable Soviet source that highly secret top-level American intelligence information was coming into the hands of the Soviet leadership on a regular basis. Angleton was given several specific items of an extraordinarily sensitive, and accurate, nature then circulating in Moscow.

A second report from the same source, via Sweden, in early September of 1962 thoroughly frightened Angleton and convinced him that there was a very high level mole somewhere in the upper levels of his own CIA.

Always inclined to a paranoid view of his profession, the frantic Angleton started an intense search for the disastrous leak. The CIA was so large and those possessing knowledge of the secret material so diverse in number that he found himself frustrated in his efforts to pinpoint the mole in his agency.

Finally, Robert Crowley suggested a possible means by which the leak could be identified. He knew that the leaked information was all contained in the regular CIA reports that were circulated in official Washington. These reports were highly classified and only a handful of top-level personnel were privy to their contents.

Crowley suggested that each report be prepared with a different additive. The basic reports, he said, should all be the same but each one should contain an entirely different subject. This inclusion should be of such a nature as to draw strong attention to itself but not detract from the thrust of the intelligence evaluations.

Desperate and frantic at his lack of success in tracking the leak and the leakers, Angleton followed Crowley’s shrewd and very practical advice.

Subsequent top-level CIA briefing reports did indeed have the telltale additives included in them.

In December of 1962, a report from the Soviet source contained an almost verbatim copy of a CIA report with an identifying marker included.

Angleton and his inner circle of counter intelligence staff were horrified to discover that the leak was coming from the CIA reports given to the President himself!

It was a well-known Washington secret that the President entertained a steady stream of Washington prostitutes, party girls, and other women of easy virtue in the White House whenever his wife was absent. There were nude swimming parties in the White House pool with Kennedy and some of his aides cavorting with his female visitors. Drugs were used, including marijuana, cocaine, and, finally, LSD.

Kennedy, who liked three-way sex, had professional pictures taken of himself and his ladies. A number of these photographs, developed and printed (and often framed as presidential gifts) by a well-known Washington photography gallery, came into the hands of Robert Crowley at one point and ended up in his papers:

74….It is an absolute fact that both the American President, Kennedy, and his brother, the American Attorney General, were especially active in a sexual sense. A number of sexually explicit pictures of the President engaging in sexual acts are in the official files as are several pictures of the Attorney General, taken while on a visit to Moscow in 1961.

75. The President was aware that a number of these pictures were in Soviet hands and acted accordingly. In addition to a regular parade of whores into the White House, it was also reliably reported from several sources that the President was a heavy user of various kinds of illegal narcotics. It is also known from medical reports that the President suffered from a chronic venereal disease for which he was receiving medical treatment. Russian Intelligence study

Angleton found it an extremely difficult prospect to investigate the White House personnel to determine the source of the serious leaks of the CIA’s top briefing papers.

Kennedy’s personal staff was noted for its loyalty to the President and Angleton said repeatedly that any hint of his very active suspicions of peculation in the White House might well backfire in a fatal way if they became known.

Finally, in late December of 1962, a personal friend commented in passing that Bobby Kennedy had developed a very close relationship with a top Soviet agent in Washington, and at this point the entire secret backstairs diplomacy became a matter of growing knowledge in the CIA.

Angleton had the technical section of the CIA tap the telephones of the Attorney General, both those in his private office and the ones in his home in Virginia. It was only a matter of time before the CIA technicians successfully intercepted a call between Bobby Kennedy and Bolshakov in February of 1963.

During the course of this taped conversation, it became very clear that the American President and the Soviet Premier had been in direct contact for some time through the medium of Bobby Kennedy and a senior KGB agent. A comment from the Russian about material that could only have come from the President’s CIA briefing papers convinced Angleton that the Kennedys were engaging in treasonable activities and had severely compromised a number of important CIA agents and operations throughout the world:

76. In order to better cooperate with the Soviet Union, President Kennedy used to regularly keep in close, private communication with the Chairman. These contacts were kept private to prevent negative influences from the State Department and most certainly from the Central Intelligence Agency. The President said several times that he did not trust this agency who was bent on stirring up a war between the two nations. Through this personal contact, many matters that might have escalated due to the interference of others were peacefully settled. Russian Intelligence study

78.The President’s highly unorthodox form of personal diplomacy vis a vis the Soviets created far more problems that it ever solved. When it came to light, both the DOS and the CIA were extremely concerned that sensitive intelligence matters might have been inadvertently passed to the Soviets. DIA analysis

The fact that the President’s brother, with his permission, was passing what the CIA considered highly secret material to their chief enemy had a terrible effect. Angleton, who knew the President and his family socially, was devastated. In a series of private meetings held between himself and several of his trusted associates, including Robert Crowley (who took notes), Angleton made a strong case against Kennedy.

He claimed that Kennedy himself had approved the Bay of Pigs action but dropped it at the last minute out of moral weakness. Angleton believed that Kennedy then deliberately attacked the leadership of the CIA, firing Allen Dulles among others and basically accusing the Agency of bad faith and duplicity. Angleton was positive that Kennedy had fully approved all of the CIA’s actions in the Bay of Pigs mission but had blamed others to save his own reputation. The failure of the mission was, Angleton said, solely the result of Kennedy’s cowardice.

His negotiations behind the back of responsible American government agencies with the head of the Soviet Union smacked of treason and certainly undermined all of the intense work the CIA was doing to thwart Soviet imperialism both in Europe and Latin America.

But far and away the gravest charge leveled against the President was his behavior in not striking militarily at the armed Soviet troops and their deadly missiles stationed only a few miles away from American soil. Not only had Kennedy allowed the Soviets to get away with their aggression, he further removed American missiles from Turkey and materially weakened the American military position in Europe. As far as the passing of highly sensitive material to the Soviets was concerned, a furious Angleton claimed that this was high treason and the President should be removed from his high office.

Kennedy was far too popular to institute impeachment proceedings against him in the Congress.  Leaking the information about the CIA reports being given to Khruschev to the CIA’s many friendly press sources was also ruled out. If made public, this information would not only damage Kennedy, it would also damage the reputation of the CIA and unduly alarm its many highly placed international sources.

Finally, after a series of heated meetings over the period of a month, the subject of physical removal was not only broached but also developed. After all, the CIA had been responsible for a significant number of high-level political assassinations in the past, albeit in other countries, and they had not only the means but also the conditioning to assist their planning.

In late February, the general outline of the plot was well set. Initial plans to blow up the presidential plane were scrapped. Secret Service and U.S. Air Force security were far too comprehensive to permit the clandestine placing of an explosive device on Air Force One.

A second plan was to approach one of the President’s physicians, Dr. Max Jacobson, with a view to convince the doctor, who supplied and injected the President with amphetamines, to put certain fatal additives in Kennedy’s drugs. The CIA had a small but effective laboratory that specialized in rare poisons. This plan was rejected because it was felt Jacobson was unstable and associated with too many questionable individuals. Using his services would have necessitated removing the doctor as well, and Angleton was strongly against involving more untrustworthy people than necessary in his plot.

It was also suggested that since the President was known to sail in Massachusetts’ coastal waters, an assassin could either shoot him at a distance or attach an explosive charge to the bottom of his boat.  This was generally rejected by everyone but Angleton, because the President’s wife and children might well be on board and this was found to be unacceptable.

It was finally decided to shoot the President when he was in the open rather than in a building that could easily be sealed off and immediately searched. The political trip to Dallas had not yet been planned, and there was a great deal of practical work to do before any assassination could be successfully attempted.

If the President was shot in public, the assassin stood a high risk of being captured. If this happened, there was an even worse risk that he could somehow be traced to the CIA. The CIA therefore realized that it had to get the support of the entire governmental apparatus to be able to implement such a radical solution to what it considered to be the most serious threat to U.S. security in decades.

A Knife in the Dark: Sikh Terrorists in Canada

by R. Mohan Srivastava

Sikh Terrorism

Because of the menace of Sikh terrorism now in Canada and threatening to spread to the United States, there is a strong, and growing presence in Vancouver and several other Canadian Sikh centers. Both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have anti-Sikh offices whose purpose it is to infiltrate and destroy these very dangerous cultists.

There is a growing body of evidence indicating that terrorist groups have been operating effectively in Canada by taking advantage of Canada’s liberal immigration and political asylum policies and the porous Canadian-American border.

Terrorist-related activities in Canada include fundraising, lobbying through front organizations, providing support for terrorist operations in Canada or abroad, procuring weapons and materiel, coercing and manipulating immigrant communities in Canada, facilitating transit to and from the U.S. and other countries, and other illegal activities.

According to an August 2002 report of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), “… with the possible exception of the United States, there are more international terrorist organizations active in Canada than anywhere in the world.

This situation can be attributed to Canada’s proximity to the United States which currently is the principal target of terrorist groups operating internationally; and to the fact that Canada, a country built upon immigration, represents a microcosm of the world. It is therefore not surprising that the world’s extremist elements are represented here, along with peace-loving citizens. Terrorist groups are present here whose origins lie in regional, ethnic and nationalist conflicts, including the Israeli Palestinian one, as well as those in Egypt, Algeria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Northern Ireland, the Punjab, Sri Lanka, Turkey and the former Yugoslavia.”

According to the CSIS, in recent years, terrorists have moved “from significant support roles, such as fundraising and procurement, to actually planning and preparing terrorist acts from Canadian territory. In order to carry out these efforts, terrorists and their supporters use intimidation and other coercive methods in immigrant communities, and they abuse Canada’s immigration, passport, welfare, and charity regulations.”

The Canadian-American Border and Immigration Policies

The U.S.-Canada border, stretching for over 4,000 miles, is the longest international border in the world.

In December 1999, Algerian terrorist Ahmed Ressam was caught trying to cross the Canadian-American border at Port Angeles, Washington, with explosives in his car. Ressam belonged to a Montreal-based terrorist cell thought to be linked to both the Algerian terrorist group Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and Al Qaeda. The cell was apparently planning a millennium terror attack at Los Angeles International Airport. In April 2001 Ressam was convicted in Los Angeles of conspiracy to commit terrorism, document fraud and possession of deadly explosives.

The ease with which Ahmed Ressam and his fellow terror cell members entered and left Canada and Ressam’s ability to assemble bomb-making materials in Canada heightened concerns about border security and the apparent ease with which potential terrorists can move freely from one country to the other. According to the CSIS, terrorists from 50 different international terrorist organizations come to Canada posing as refugees. Nearly 300,000 immigrants are admitted each year to Canada, many of whom seek political asylum and safe haven. Canada, however, does not detain refugee seekers upon entry, even those with questionable backgrounds, so thousands of potential terrorists disappear annually into Canada’s ethnic communities. Armed with a fraudulent French passport, for example, Ahmed Ressam had entered Canada in 1994 claiming refugee status.

In America, the debate continues as to the utility of tightening the Canadian-U.S. border. Those arguing for increased border security maintain that such controls will deter terrorists. Others argue that increasing the quality and quantity of checkpoints will ultimately do little to restrict the movements of terrorists but would result in decreased trade between the countries and would disrupt the legitimate flow of people across the border. Canada is America’s largest trading partner, accounting for more than one-fifth of America’s exports and a little less than one-fifth of its imports. On a daily basis, there is $1.9 billion in trade across the shared border.

In December 2001, the U.S. and Canada signed a Joint Statement of Cooperation on Border Security and Regional Migration Issues.The declaration established a joint action plan for deter-ring, detecting and prosecuting security threats while ensuring the free flow of people and goods across the border. In November 2003, the U.S. and Canada announced the creation of two more Integrated Border Enforcement Teams (IBETs) to improve security across the border. IBETs are multi-agency teams combining U.S. and Canadian law enforcement, immigration and customs officials, working together daily with local, state and provincial enforcement agencies.They are strategically located along the length of the border to ensure it remains open to trade and travel, but closed to criminal or terrorist elements. With the two new ones, there are now 14 IBETs covering every strategic location across the U.S.- Canada border.

Current Joint  Canadian-U.S. concerns

By penetrating various Sikh organizations in the Vancouver, BC area, joi8nt American/Canadian counter intelligence has learned that at least two, and probably three, Sikh groups have set up three secret camps deep in the heavy woods of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. This extensive wilderness area west of Seattle has very few roads and these are mere trails for logging trucks. This area borders on Puget Sound to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west and could easily hide a small army. Counter-intelligence, working both sides of the borders, has yet to positively identify a Sikh camp although radio and cell phone intercepts positively indicate such safe havens. The purpose of such camps is to both hide illegal Sikh immigrants who enter the United States via the harbor at Aberdeen, somewhat south of the Olympic Peninsula. Once there, they can be given false papers, trained in Canadian habits and speech and then brought into Vancouver area, not via the Highway 5 through Blaine but by boat to one of the small harbors that dot the Vancouver area. From there, the smuggled aliens can enter the existing Sikh communities without a problem.

Furthermore, the Olympic Peninsula camps are believed to be hiding places for explosives and automatic weapons which, using basic caution, can easily be tested in the forests without the danger of being heard, or seen. From radio and cell phone traffic, a conservative estimate is that at lest 150 persons could be located on the Peninsula at any given time but interdiction and discovery is made more difficult both by the denseness of the woods and the very easy access to small boats, such as small fishing or pleasure craft that are very much in evidence on Puget Sound.

U.S. authorities, in this case both the CIA and the FBI, are very much concerned that the Sikhs might well start to move into the United States where their instability and fanaticism could equal or surpass Al Quaeda in potential terrorist activity.

A program now under consideration is to move American Special Forces into the suspect wooded areas and engage the Sikhs directly with the purpose of killing them and leaving them to rot in the woods. Other Sikhs coming to the area, would find only corpses instead of living terrorists and it is believed that this might cause very real panic and evacuation of all of the training and holding camps.

Sikh Extremism and the Air India Bombings Trial

In June of 1985, known Sikh militants bombed an Air India flight originating in Vancouver, killing all 329 people aboard, including 154 Canadians. The bombing was the single, deadliest incident of aviation terrorism until September 11th. Canadian authorities know that the bombing was masterminded and perpetrated by Sikh terrorists operating from Canada, some of whom were Canadian citizens. Two Canadian-based Sikhs, Ripudaman Singh Malik, 53, and Ajaib Singh Bagri, 51, have been on trial in Vancouver for involvement in the aircraft bombing and for another suitcase bombing at Narita Airport in Tokyo, that killed two baggage handlers. Another British Columbian Sikh extremist, Inderjit Singh Reyat, was convicted in 1991 of building the Tokyo bomb and pleaded guilty in February 2003 to aiding in the construction of the Air India bomb.

The Canadian government believes the bombings were part of a conspiracy by British Columbia-based Sikh extremists to take revenge against the Indian government for its 1984 storming of the Golden Temple, a Sikh shrine. The Indian government sought to flush out armed Sikh extremists fighting for a separate Sikh homeland. Bagri, a former preacher and supporter of Sikh separatism, was second in command in the Babbar Khalsa, a terrorist group dedicated to the creation of a separate Sikh homeland called Khalistan. Babbar Khalsa raised funds in Canada until its charitable status was revoked in the mid 1990s. The Canadian government added Babbar Khalsa to its list of banned terrorist organizations in June 2003.

Canadian Anti-Terror Initiatives

In December 2001, the Canadian Parliament passed the Anti-Terrorism Act, which made perpetrating, financing, or contributing to terrorist activity in Canada a crime. It is now a crime to knowingly support terrorist organizations through overt violence, documentary support, shelter or funds. The legislation requires the publication of a list of terrorist groups deemed to constitute a threat to the security of Canada and Canadians. The act also increased the government’s investigative powers and paved the way for the country to sign the last two of the United Nations’ 12 anti terrorism conventions.

Some Sikh extremists have been separatists pursuing the formation of a Sikh state, often referred to as Khalistan. Some extremists took part in the Indian independence movement. Some extremists took part in sectarian or other religious violence. Religious terrorism has been used in the Khalistan movement. It has been suggested that addressing extremism requires both political and religious action.

Sikh extremist  activity in the independence movement seems to have started in the late mid-19th century, with agitation against British rule, by the extremist Sikh sect of Kuka (Namdhari).

In the early 20th century, other Sikhs who employed extremist tactics emerged whose goals were Indian independence and the British leaving India. Such extremists included Kartar Singh Sarabha (Ghadar conspiracy), Bhagat Singh, Ajmere Singh and Udham Singh.

Ajit Singh, Kishan Singh were Kartar Singh Sarabha’s co-conspirators, and were also alleged by the British to be Extremists . Sikhs participated in Indian independence movement with such a zeal that Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya advised Hindus to raise at least one of their family members as Sikh. Sikhs also raised several rebel units in Japan, Italy and Germany. Sikhs also engineered the Marine Revolt in Bombay and the Signal Regimental mutiny in Jubblepur, India.

History of Sikh separatism

Sikh separatism began in colonial times, or soon after India gained independence in 1947.[20] By the 1970s, some felt the government of India had not responded adequately to Sikh grievances.

A demand for a separate Sikh homeland was made by Jagjit Singh Chauhan, who at the time was Secretary General of the Akali Dal party. In 1971, Jagjit Singh was expelled from the party for his “anti-nationalistic” activities. He later returned to India, denouncing terrorism and pursuing Khalistan through democratic means

In October, 1991, The New York Times reported that “many”Sikhs claimed they were being discriminated against, and that the Punjab region was not treated equally with other regions of India. “By February 1997, a UN report appears to have found that Sikhs had religious freedom, but that there were reports of discriminatory practices in public administration

Amnesty International reported that, from 1983 to 1994, armed groups struggling to form an independent Sikh state were responsible for “widespread” human rights violations, killing “thousands” of civilians and taking hostages. It further reported that the police responded with a “crackdown”, illegally detaining, torturing and killing “hundreds of young men”.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports that from the 1980s Sikh separatists were guilty of serious human rights violations through “…massacre of civilians, attacks upon Hindu minorities in the state, and indiscriminate bomb attacks in crowded places…”. HRW also reported that the government response resulted in further serious human rights violations against “tens of thousands”. HRW noted that one case currently under investigation by India’s National Human Rights Commission focused on allegations that “thousands” had been killed and cremated by security forces throughout Punjab

Sikh terorist events

Udham Singh, of Sikh background, was described variously as a freedom fighter, an “extremist revolutionary”,and a terrorist. While Udham Singh was living in the UK, he shot and killed Michael O’Dwyer in London on 1 April 1940. O’Dwyer had been the Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab at the time of Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Udham Singh was hanged in UK on 25 June 1940, and his ashes were returned to India in 1974.

Bhagat Singh, a Sikh by religion, was active in the Indian independence struggle. He was called an extremist by Mahatama Gandhi. He murdered a Lahore Police officer and his mercy plea was rejected by British Viceroy of India Lord Irwin

Immediately after Operation Blue Star, authorities were unprepared for how quickly extremism spread and gained support in Canada, with extremists “…threatening to kill thousand of Hindus by a number of means, including blowing up Air India flights.”

The 1985 bombing of Air India Flight 182 off Ireland, the deadliest aircraft terror attack until the September 11, 2001 attacks, and the attempted bombing of Air India Flight 301, were alleged by the Canadian government to have been carried out by Sikh extremists. However, Inderjit Singh Reyat, of the ISYF, who was found guilty of manslaughter for making the bombs, is the only individual convicted in these attacks as of 2 May 2010.

Canadian Member of Parliament Ujjal Dosanjh, a moderate Sikh, stated that he and others who spoke out against Sikh extremism in the 1980s faced a “reign of terror”.

Indian counter intelligence agencies reported that, in the early 1990s, journalists who did not conform to militant-approved behavior were targeted for death. It also reports that there were indiscriminate attacks designed to cause extensive civilian casualties: derailing trains, exploding bombs in markets, restaurants, and other civilian areas between Delhi and Punjab. It further reported that militants assassinated many of those moderate Sikh leaders who opposed them and sometimes killed rivals within the militant group. It also stated that many civilians who had been kidnapped by extremists were murdered if the militants’ demands were not met. Finally, it reports that Hindus left Punjab by the thousands.

In August 1991, Julio Ribeiro, then Indian Ambassador to Romania was attacked and wounded in a Bucharest assassination attempt by gunmen identified as Punjabi Sikhs.

Sikh groups claimed responsibility for the 1991 kidnapping of the Romanian chargé d’affaires in New Delhi, Liviu Radu. This appeared to be retaliation for Romanian arrests of KLF members suspected of the attempted assassination of Julio Ribeiro, then 62, the Indian ambassador to Romania, in Bucharest. Radu was released unharmed after Sikh politicians criticized the action.

In October, 1991, The New York Times reported that violence had increased sharply in the months leading up to the kidnapping, with Indian security forces or Sikh militants killing 20 or more people per day, and that the militants had been “gunning down” family members of police officers.

On  January 24, 1995, Tarsem Singh Purewal, editor of Britain’s Punjabi-language weekly “Des Pardes”, was killed as he was closing his office in Southall. There is speculation that the murder was related to Sikh extremism, which Purewal may have been investigating. Another theory is that he was killed in retaliation for revealing the identity of a young rape victim.

On August 31,1995, Chief minister Beant Singh was killed by a suicide bomber. Babbar Khalsa claimed responsibility for the assassination, but “security authorities” were reported to be doubtful of the truth of that claim. A 2006 press release by the Embassy of the United States in New Delhi indicated that the responsible organization was the Khalistan Commando Force.

On  November 18, 1998, Journalist Tara Singh Hayer, was gunned down. The publisher of the “Indo-Canadian Times,” a Canadian Sikh and once-vocal advocate of the armed struggle for Khalistan, he had criticized the bombing of Air India flight 182, and was to testify about a conversation he overheard concerning the bombing. Because of his murder, his 15 October 1998, statement to police was not admissible at the trial of Ajaib Singh Bagri.

In 2004, violence erupted at a protest against a play, “Behzti” (Dishonour), that was to have been performed at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. The protest organizer, Sewa Singh Mandla, chairman of the Birmingham council of Sikh Gurdwaras, blamed the violence on extremist members of The Sikh Federation. Amrik Singh Gill, chairman of the Federation, said his members had taken part in the opposition to the play from the start, and denied that its members played any part in the violence. Another member of the Sikh Federation, Kulwinder Singh Johal, expressed happiness that the play had been canceled, confirmed that Sikh Federation members had taken part in the protest against the play, and denied that there had been any violence on the part of the protesters. The Sunday Herald reported that when it appeared the play might be presented despite the protest, death threats increased, and the playwright went into hiding. The play was canceled.

In 2006, a Brooklyn, New York, jury convicted Khalid Awan of providing money and financial services to the Khalistan Commando Force, a terrorist organization responsible for thousands of deaths in India since its founding in 1986. The investigation began in 2003, when Awan, jailed at the time for credit card fraud, bragged of his relationship with Paramjeet Singh Panjwar, leader of the KCF.

The Indian Express reported in its online edition on 19 June 2006 that “Police claimed” that the KZF was behind bomb blasts in Jalandhar, India, at the Inter-State Bus Terminus that left three people killed and injured 12. A police spokesman said the attack was planned by a pair of KZF leaders, one based in Pakistan and one in Canada, and executed by a “local criminal”.

Terry Milewski reported in a 2006 documentary for the CBC [67] that a minority within Canada’s Sikh community was gaining political influence even while publicly supporting terrorist acts in the struggle for an independent Sikh state. In response, the World Sikh Organization of Canada (WSO), a Canadian Sikh human rights group that opposes violence and extremism sued the CBC for “defamation, slander and libel”, alleging that Milewski linked it to terrorism and damaged the reputation of the WSO within the Sikh community.

Canadian journalist Kim Bolan has written extensively on Sikh extremism. Speaking at the Fraser Institute in 2007, she reported that she still received death threats over her coverage of the 1985 Air India bombing.

In February 2008, BBC Radio 4 reported that the Chief of the Punjab Police, NPS Aulakh, alleged that militant groups were receiving money from the British Sikh community.The same report included statements that although the Sikh militant groups were poorly equipped and staffed, intelligence reports and interrogations indicated that Babbar Khalsa was sending its recruits to the same terrorist training camps in Pakistan used by Al Qaeda.

A June 2008 article by Vicky Nanjappa, writing for Rediff.com, stated that a report by India’s Intelligence Bureau indicated that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence organization was “desperately trying to revive Sikh” militant activity in India.

In 2008, a CBC report stated that “a disturbing brand of extremist politics has surfaced” at some of the Vaisakhi parades in Canada, and The Trumpet agreed with the CBC assessment. Two leading Canadian Sikh politicians refused to attend the parade in Surrey, saying it was a glorification of terrorism.

In 2008, Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India, expressed his concern that there might be a resurgence of Sikh extremism.

On May 24, 2009, armed Sikh men attacked the Gurdwara Nanaksar, the Ravidas temple in Rudolfsheim Vienna. They left 16 injured, including visiting Dera Sach Khand head Nirajnan Das, 68, and another leader, Rama Nand, 57, dead. The attack triggered protests and rioting across northern India resulting in at least one death. There were claims and denials of responsibility in the name of the Khalistan Zindabad Force, and suspicions that the attack might have been made by members of a rival sect.

On September 24, 2009, United News of India, published that police arrested two Babbar Khalsa “militants” earlier in the day. The article described the arrests as a “major breakthrough in the assassination case of Rulda Singh, president of the Punjab Rashtriya Sikh Sangat who was shot at and seriously injured by two unidentified persons at his residence near New Grain market on 29 July.”

On September 29, 2009, Rajinder Soomel was murdered on Cambie Street in Vancouver, British Columbia. The murder renewed fears of gang violence. Soomel had been released on parole shortly before his murder. In March, 2008, Soomel had been sentenced to 4 years in prison after confessing he had tried to hire an undercover police officer to kill Hardip Uppal. Uppal had identified Ravinder Soomel, younger brother of the victim, as one of two assassins who killed Tara Singh Hayer in 1998.

Militant Organizations

Sikh involvement in militant organizations have existed Pre-1947 (before Indian Independence), and after 1947. The goal of some pre-1947 organizations being to gain Indian Independence from the British

Ghadar Party

A militant extremist organization set up overseas to drive the British out of India. Its members were mostly from the Sikh community and were dubbed “Sikh extremists” by the British authorities at that time.

Indian National Army

The Azad Hind Fauj (Indian National Army was formed by Mohan Singh Deb (who was described as an extremist) to free India from British rule, and fought in Southeast Asia, with support from Japan, during WWII.A part of this movement, led by Chandra Bose, formed a special unit in the German Wehrmacht and fought in combat with them.

A 2007 Australian research report cited difficulties in researching both violent and non-violent activities of the various (perhaps 22, in 1987) Sikh separatist groups. Names of groups are used interchangeably in reports, intentionally or through error. Bias and sensationalism in government and media reports reduce their reliability. The illegal nature of the organizations also presents challenges. Institute for Conflict Management, on its South Asia Terrorism Portal, alleged that Pakistan’s ISI was making “serious attempts” to reinvigorate terrorism in India, and that “terror groups” were working together to accomplish that goal.

Babbar Khalsa

Babbar Khalsa has been listed as a terrorist organization in the European Union, Canada, India, UK, and the United States. A Canadian Sikh, Ajaib Singh Bagri, co-founder of Babbar Khalsa, said in a 1984 speech, after Hindus had murdered thousands of Sikhs in Delhi that “Until we kill 50,000 Hindus, we will not rest.”

The United States has designated the Babbar Khalsa responsible for the bombing of Air India Flight 182 on 27 June 2002. Canadian courts have further established that Talwinder Singh Parmar, a founder of Babbar Khalsa, was the mastermind of the Air India bombings. Milewski further reported that some parade floats portray Parmar as a “shaheed” (martyr).

Babbar Khalsa was listed in 1995 one of the 4 “major militant groups” in the Khalistan movement

International Sikh Youth Federation

Lord Bassam of Brighton, then Home Office minister, stated that ISYF members working from the UK had committed “assassinations, bombings and kidnappings” and were a “threat to national security.” The ISYF is listed in the UK as a “Proscribed Terrorist Group”.It was also added to the US Treasury Department terrorism list on 27 June 2002. There are allegations that the ISYF has long been supported by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence organization.

Andrew Gilligan, reporting for The London Evening Standard, stated that the Sikh Federation (UK) is the “successor” of the ISYF, and that its executive committee, objectives, and senior members… are largely the same. The Vancouver Sun reported in February 2008 that Dabinderjit Singh was campaigning to have both the Babbar Khalsa and International Sikh Youth Federation de-listed as terrorist organizations.

It also stated of Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day that “he has not been approached by anyone lobbying to delist the banned groups”. Day is also quoted as saying “The decision to list organizations such as Babbar Khalsa, Babbar Khalsa International and the International Sikh Youth Federation as terrorist entities under the Criminal Code is intended to protect Canada and Canadians from terrorism”

Numbers and Demographics

Worldwide, there are 25.8 million Sikhs and approximately 75% of Sikhs live in the Indian state of Punjab, where they constitute about 60% of the state’s population. Even though there are a large number of Sikhs in the world, certain countries have not recognized Sikhism as a major religion. Large communities of Sikhs live in the neighboring states, and large communities of Sikhs can be found across India. However, Sikhs only make up about 2% of the Indian population.

Sikh Migration beginning from the 19th century led to the creation of significant communities in Canada (predominantly in Brampton, along with Malton in Ontario and Abbotsford, Mission, Lower Mainland, Surrey in British Columbia), East Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, the United Kingdom as well as Australia and New Zealand. These communities developed as Sikhs migrated out of Punjab to fill in gaps in imperial labour markets. In the early twentieth century a significant community began to take shape on the west coast of the United States. Smaller populations of Sikhs are found in within many countries in Western Europe, Mauritius, Malaysia, Fiji, Nepal, China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Singapore, Mexico and many other countries.

Numbers of Sikhs

The precise number of followers of any religion is difficult to estimate. Some sources, like telephone surveys and government censuses count adults who identify themselves as from a specific faith. Predictions by religious organizations are generally higher because they might count individuals as members who do not consider themselves of that faith.

Various sources estimate that Sikhism has about 23 or 24 million followers, making it the fifth largest organized religion in the world. It is surpassed in numbers only by Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. If one defines the term “religion” very inclusively, it is the ninth largest religion in the world, being fewer in numbers than secularists, and followers of Chinese traditional religion, African traditional religions and aboriginal faiths

The Real Sikhism web site estimates that about 21 million (89%) Sikhs live in the Punjab, India. About 400,000 (2%) live in North America, and 360,000 (2%) are in the UK. (2004 data)

The Sikh population of Canada increased from about 147,000 in 1991 to 278,000 in 2001, according to the Canadian census. 3 Independent estimates between 1995 and 2005 range from 160,000, by the 1997 Britannica Book of the Year, to 300,000 by Christian Century magazine.

Data on the number of Sikhs in the U.S. is highly variable:

The 1996 Britannica Book of the Year estimates that there are 240,000 Sikhs in the U.S.; the 1997 edition estimates 190,000.

In 1999, the New York Times estimated a population of 175,000; the Salt Lake Tribune estimated 500,000.

In 2007, WikiPedia stated that there were estimated to be between 250,000 and 500,000 Sikhs living in the United States,

 

1. Mohan Srivastava, a former cryptographer in the Indian Navy, is now resident in Coquitlam, BC and is employed as a mathematician for FSS International Inc. .(a holding company of Radian Holdings Premier, Inc. Kyoto, Japan) in Vancouver, B.C. He is the co author of several intelligence analysis papers for the Routlege Institute of Great Britain. His co-authors are Philip L. Kushner and Thomas K. Kimmel Jr.