TBR News June 26, 2017

The Voice of the White House

Washington, D.C., June 26, 2017: “In relatively recent history, it is interesting to note the number of world leaders whose existence is an annoyance to the CIA seem to be assassinated.

A list of these would fill pages but of current interest is the botched attempt to kill Vladimir Putin in Moscow by crashing a speeding Mercedes into his official limousine.

The attempt killed only Putin’s driver, Putin himself being in China on an official visit at the time.

The problem with such attempts, like the unreported failed one on Edward Snowden also in Moscow, is that reciprocity often emerges and the target responds in kind.

Diplomacy has never been the strong suit of the United States but if they deigned to attempt it, perhaps they could achieve their goals successfully.”

Table of Contents

• Who Tried to Kill Putin – Five Times?
• Does US have right to data on overseas servers? We’re about to find out
• US Supreme Court lifts injunction, reinstates Trump’s travel ban
• Worldwide advancements in missile technologies putting US more at risk – Pentagon report
• Night & Fog
• TSA considers forcing airline passengers to remove books from carry-ons
• Asylum seekers in Canada who fled Trump now trapped in legal limbo
• Grenfell Tower: cladding material linked to fire pulled from sale worldwide
• Top Democrat says health bill will kill ‘hundreds of thousands’
• The ZIPPER File and the official CIA murder of JFK

Who Tried to Kill Putin – Five Times?

Oliver Stone’s ‘The Putin Interviews’ (Part I)

June 26, 2017

by Justin Raimondo

AntiWar

Oliver Stone’s series of interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin – conducted between July 2015 and February 2017 – has garnered a lot of attention, albeit in most cases not for the right reasons. In a much-noted appearance of Stephen Colbert’s comedy show, the liberal host attacked Stone for not confronting the Russian leader for his alleged crimes – which simply shows that Colbert didn’t bother seeing the interviews, because Stone most certainly did question Putin about this and other related matters. A review in Salon follows a similar pattern: the reviewer apparently did view at least some parts of the interviews, but predictably focused on the most superficial material: Putin loves Judo, he’s not a feminist, and won’t be marching in any Gay Pride events. Shocking!

In the present atmosphere of Russophobic hysteria, no honest account of what is happening in Russia or what Putin is really all about is likely to be taken at face value. What’s astonishing, however, is that this four-part documentary was even made at all– and shown on Showtime, where it is currently playing. Less surprising is the fact that the interviews contain several news-making revelations that the “mainstream” media has so far largely ignored.

It gets interesting right from the beginning when Stone delves into Putin’s early career. As a KGB officer stationed in East Germany, then the German Democratic Republic, he describes the GDR as entirely lacking the “spirit of innovation,” a “society [that] was frozen in the 1950s.” Hardly what one would expect from the caricature of a Soviet apparatchik Western profiles of Putin routinely portray. And also right from the beginning there is a tension between Stone, with his often archetypal liberal-left views, and Putin, whose perspective – if it has any American equivalent – might be called paleoconservative.

When Stone tries to identify Putin with Mikhail Gobachev, the Soviet liberal-reformist leader – “he has a resemblance to you in that he came up through that system. Very humble beginnings” – Putin rejects this outright with laconic disdain: “We all have something in common because we’re human beings.” Gorby, a favorite of American liberals, is seen by Putin as someone who “didn’t know what [he] wanted or know how to achieve what was required.”

Putin is routinely described by Western journalists as someone who wants to restore the old Soviet system, or at least restore the empire that extended over the countries of the Warsaw Pact, but what isn’t recognized is that he opposed the failed coup that sought a Soviet restoration: he resigned from his KGB office when the coup plotters briefly took over. And so Stone asks him, “But in your mind, did you still believe in communism? Did you believe in the system?” Putin answers: “No, certainly not. But at the beginning I believed it … and I wanted to implement it.” So when did he change? “You know, regrettably, my views are not changed when I’m exposed to new ideas, but only when I’m exposed to new circumstances.” Here is Putin the pragmatist, the man of action, who wants results and not theories: “The political system was stagnating,” he says, “it was frozen, it was not capable of any development.” Just like East Germany, which he had recently come from. And therefore he concluded that “the monopoly of one political force, of one party, is pernicious to the country.”

Still, Stone insists that “these are Gorbachev’s ideas, so you were influenced by Gorbachev.” Yet Putin contradicts him: “These are not ideas of Gorbachev,” who was merely trying to reform a system that was rotten at its very core: “The problem is this, this system was not efficient at its roots. And how can you radically change the system while preserving the country? That’s something no one back then knew—including Gorbachev. And they pushed the country towards collapse.”

It was the country versus the system – the latter was destroying the former. So how to preserve the Russian nation in the midst of so much turmoil? That was the problem that Russia faced as the Communist colossus was falling, and it is still the conundrum at the heart of Putin’s concerns. Putin greatly resents Gorbachev because the would-be Soviet reformer was pushing the system toward its ultimate demolition without regard for the consequences.

And why was this a disastrous course in Putin’s view? Not because the old Communist dream was exposed as a nightmare, but due to the fact that the nation – as opposed to the system – was dismembered. “To start with,” says Putin, “the most important thing is that after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, 25 million Russians – in the blink of an eye – found themselves abroad. In another country.”

Imagine waking up one morning and finding that you’re not a citizen of the United States, but instead come under the control of some foreign entity that never existed in your lifetime. That’s what happened in the old Soviet Union. And the consequences of that historic implosion are still reverberating some thirty years later.

A key part of the mythology surrounding Putin is that he’s a power-mad dictator, the reincarnation of Stalin, and yet the facts – little known, of course, and not reported in the Western media – give us quite a different perspective. For example, I’ve never heard a single news story about Putin’s career report the fact that he initially refused President Boris Yeltsin’s first offer to appoint him Prime Minister. He didn’t trust Yeltsin, with good reason, and to underscore the dangers inherent in the office at that point he says: “And there was only one thing I was thinking about back then: Where to hide my children?”

This is not someone who wants power for its own sake. Indeed, Putin comes across as a modest man, driven by a sense of patriotic duty rather than lust for power, prestige, or pelf. He looks askance at praise, such as when Stone says: “You’re credited with doing many fine things in your first term. Privatization was stopped. You built up industries … a real son of Russia – you should be proud. You raised the GDP,” etc. etc. A Stalin type would simply have accepted this adulation, and yet Putin disputed Stone’s key point:

“Well, it’s not exactly like that. I didn’t stop privatization. I just wanted to make it more equitable, more fair. We put an end to some schemes – manipulation schemes – which led to the creation of oligarchs. These schemes that allowed some people to become billionaires in the blink of an eye.”

Here, again, we see the tension between Stone’s left-wing economic views, and Putin’s perspective, a theme played out in the entire course of these interviews: Putin continually insists that he is for private property, and that the “privatization” schemes he denounces were all due to the oligarchs’ connections to the state apparatus, which handed them control of entire industries for pennies on the dollar. The oligarchs were made possible by government control of industry and a rigged system, the exact opposite of a market economy. Putin clearly understands this when, later in the interview, he says:

“Do you know who was not happy with the new laws [which opened up the bidding process for state-owned industries]? Those who were not true businessmen. Those who earned their millions or billions not thanks to their entrepreneurial talents, but thanks to their ability to force good relationships with the government – those people were not happy.”

I said there was some real news buried in these interviews, which has gone unreported for the most part in Western media, and toward the end of the first interview there’s a real shocker when Stone says:

“Five assassination attempts, I’m told. Not as much as Castro whom I interviewed – I think he must have had 50 – but there’s a legitimate five that I’ve heard about.”

Putin doesn’t deny it. Instead, he talks about his discussion with Fidel Castro on the subject, who told him “Do you know why I’m still alive? Because I was always the one to deal with my security personally.” However, Putin doesn’t follow Castro’s example. Apparently he trusts his security people: “I do my job and the security people do theirs.” What’s interesting is that the conversation continues along these lines, in the context of attempts on Castro’s life. Stone is surprised that Putin didn’t take Castro’s advice on the security question, saying “Because always the first mode of assassination, from when the United States went after Castro, you try to get inside the security of the president to perform assassination.” “Yes,” replies Putin, “I know that. Do you know what they say among the Russian people? They say that those who are destined to be hanged are not going to drown.”

While I’m not prepared to interpret this Russian proverb, or its relevance to what is an astounding revelation – five assassination attempts! – Putin’s willingness to contradict or correct Stone, and the absence of any objection to this line of questioning on his part, looks very much like an endorsement of Stone’s contention. To my knowledge, CBS – which owns Showtime — is the only major media outlet in this country (aside from a brief mention in Newsweek ) that reported it, and then only perfunctorily.

So who tried to kill Putin? From the context of this interview, the clear implication is that it was the US, or its agents, but we don’t know that for a fact. Indeed, the whole subject is something Putin – while he doesn’t deny it – doesn’t want to pursue to the end. This is, I think, in large part because – and this will astonish you – he’s very pro-American. This comes out in the beginning of the second interview, the next day [July 3, 2015], when, in the midst of a discussion about US intervention in Iraq in 1991, and Gorbachev’s withdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe, a clearly frustrated Stone – who is not getting the expected answers from Putin – explodes:

“Let’s lay it on the line here. I mean, I was in the Vietnam War,. We sent 500,000 troops to Vietnam. That was outrageous and condemned by the whole world. After the détente with Gorbachev, Reagan and the United States put 500,000 troops into Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.”

To this, Putin raises his eyebrows — ever so slightly – and says:

“I know that you are very critical of the American government in many dimensions. I do not always share your point of view. Despite the fact that, with regards to the American leadership, we do not always have the relationship we would like to have with them. Sometimes decisions have to be taken which are not entirely approved of in some parts of society.”

After some confusion about what they’re talking about – Putin is referring to the 1991 invasion of Iraq by George Herbert Walker Bush, not the invasion and subsequent occupation by his son – Putin says “President Bush was quite right to do what he did, he was cautious. He responded to aggression and then stopped when the time was right.” The point here is not that Stone is wrong, but that the caricature of Putin as reflexively opposed to everything the United States does is inaccurate. Another indication of where Putin is really coming from is his habit – throughout the entire series of interviews – of referring to the US government as “our partners.” This really sticks in Stone’s craw, until he finally says:

“So stop referring to them as partners – ‘our partners’ – you’ve said that too much. They’re being euphemistic. They’re no longer partners.

“Putin: But dialogue has to be pursued further.”

The Russian President maintains this tone throughout. It’s almost wistful: speaking of “our partner,” Putin exudes the air of a disappointed lover, one baffled by the constant rebuffs, the refusals, the outright disdain coming from the object of his affections. He constantly refers to the mutuality of interests that exists, the common goal of fighting Islamic terrorism, and he simply cannot believe that Washington continues to deny this. He just cannot understand it: why, we could be so happy together!

Indeed, Putin chides Stone more than once for his “anti-Americanism” – a charge Stone comes back to late in the interviews, and heatedly denies – and this underscores my point: here is someone who is not the enemy he is portrayed as being. Despite the coordinated campaign demonizing him in Western circles, despite the relentless eastward advance of NATO, despite the new cold war being waged at home and abroad by American politicians, Putin is stubbornly pro-American. And that is the most surprising aspect of these interviews, one I’ll get into in more depth later as I continue this series.

Editorial note: This is the first part of a multi-part series on Oliver Stone’s “The Putin Interviews.” Future installments will continue throughout the week. Read the entire interviews, including unaired content, by buying the book.

 

Does US have right to data on overseas servers? We’re about to find out

Supreme Court case has ramifications for tech sector, foreign relations, and privacy.

June 23, 2017

by David Kravets

arstechnica

The Justice Department on Friday petitioned the US Supreme Court to step into an international legal thicket, one that asks whether US search warrants extend to data stored on foreign servers. The US government says it has the legal right, with a valid court warrant, to reach into the world’s servers with the assistance of the tech sector, no matter where the data is stored.

The request for Supreme Court intervention concerns a 4-year-old legal battle between Microsoft and the US government over data stored on Dublin, Ireland servers. The US government has a valid warrant for the e-mail as part of a drug investigation. Microsoft balked at the warrant, and convinced a federal appeals court that US law does not apply to foreign data.

The government on Friday told the justices that US law allows it to get overseas data, and national security was at risk.

“This Court should grant review to restore the government’s ability to require providers to disclose electronic communications—which are, in this day and age, often the only or the most critical evidence of terrorism and crime,” the government wrote. (PDF)

The outcome has huge privacy ramifications for consumers and for the tech sector, which is caught between a rock and a hard place. The sector is being asked by the US government to comply with court orders that sometimes conflict with the laws of where the data is stored.

To remedy that, Congress is trying to hash out legislation that would allow the US government to enter into reciprocity agreements with other countries so that each side has the right to access data on foreign servers—with a valid warrant.

The paradox

“I look forward to getting out some legislation before the end of the year,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the topic last month. “It’s very important for our national security.”

Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican and member of the Judiciary Committee, asked: “What are providers supposed to do? Who’s law do they violate?”

Adding to the quagmire, lawmakers noted that the search-and-seizure laws of some nations, like China, are not on par with the US government, which would make it difficult to negotiate reciprocity deals with those countries.

Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president and chief legal officer, told the committee he hopes the US can strike deals with foreign nations. He told lawmakers that Microsoft first challenged whether the US had the right to overseas data in 2013. Simply complying with US warrants for overseas data, he said, “undermines foreign confidence in American technology companies.”

“These concerns led to our lawsuit,” he said.

In a statement late Friday, Smith added:

Today the U.S. Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to reconsider a legal decision, in a case brought by Microsoft, which found that U.S. warrants cannot be unilaterally applied to email in other countries. It seems backward to keep arguing in court when there is positive momentum in Congress toward better law for everyone. The DOJ’s position would put businesses in impossible conflict-of-law situations and hurt the security, jobs, and personal rights of Americans.

The government balked at the assertion. In its petition, the Justice Department said that Microsoft’s “arguments ring hallow.”

Economic concerns cannot override the text of the statute or the interests in public safety and national security that are at stake in this case—particularly when the claimed economic benefit is derived directly from a provider’s ability to market itself as capable of shielding subscribers’ activity, including their criminal activity, from discovery by the authorities.

Following Microsoft’s lead, there are more than 100 active cases in the US in which the tech sector is challenging whether the US government, even with valid warrants, can reach into their foreign servers.

“The numbers continue to rise,” Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brad Wiegmann told the Judiciary Committee. Many of those challenges are under seal and not a part of public court dockets. Some cases not under seal were brought by Google and Yahoo.

Invalid warrants

In a nutshell, the US government claims it should not matter where the data is stored. What matters is whether the company can access that data in the US.

The Microsoft case is the only one to have been litigated far enough to have reached the Supreme Court.

When the Microsoft case was in the lower courts, dozens of organizations and companies submitted briefs on behalf of Microsoft. They include the US Chamber of Commerce, Amazon, Apple, Cisco, CNN, Fox News Network, Gannett, and Verizon.

If the justices grant the government’s appeal, a hearing is not expected until the court’s next term in the fall.

US Supreme Court lifts injunction, reinstates Trump’s travel ban

The high court narrowed the focus of lower court rulings that blocked his travel ban on people from six mostly Muslim countries. The court agreed to hear the government’s appeals in the case

June 26, 2017

DW

The court agreed to hear arguments on the legality of one of Trump’s signature policies from the first months of his presidency. The case is scheduled to be heard at the start of the court’s next term, in October .

The justices also agreed to grant parts of his administration’s emergency request to put the March 6 executive order into effect immediately while the legal battle continues.

Trump’s travel ban calls for blocking all visitors from six predominantly Muslim countries – Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

With one exception, the high court also said it would partly allow a 120-day ban on all refugees entering the US to go into effect. The court said people  “with a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States” could not be denied entry into the country.

Trump’s judtification for the ban is to carry out an internal review of the screening procedures for visa applicants from those countries. That review is expected to be completed before the court begins its fall term on October 2.

Worldwide advancements in missile technologies putting US more at risk – Pentagon report

June 26, 2017

RT

Countries around the world are advancing their ballistic and cruise missile technologies, and increasing potential threats towards the US, according to a new Pentagon report seen by Bloomberg.

The report, conducted by the National Air and Space Intelligence Center and Defense Intelligence Ballistic Missile Analysis Committee, says that the “last decade has seen a dramatic increase in ballistic missile capabilities to include accuracy, post-boost maneuverability, and combat effectiveness.”

It notes that ballistic missiles “can be deployed in silos, on submarines, surface ships, road- and rail-mobile launchers and aircraft.”

The report, seen by Bloomberg in advance of its release, specifically mentions advancements in technology by North Korea, China, Russia, and Iran.

It notes that hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs) are being developed by Moscow and Beijing.

“HGVs are maneuverable vehicles that travel at hypersonic (greater than Mach 5) speed and spend most of their flight at much lower altitudes than a typical ballistic missile,” the report states.

“The combination of high speed, maneuverability, and relatively low altitude makes them challenging targets for missile defense systems.”

It goes on to state that China continues to have the “most active and diverse ballistic missile development program in the world.”

“It is developing and testing offensive missiles, forming additional missile units, qualitatively upgrading missile systems, and developing methods to counter ballistic missile defenses.”

It also noted that Russia, which surpassed the US in deployed nuclear warheads in 2014, is “expected to retain the largest force of strategic ballistic missiles outside the United States.”

When it comes to Iran, the report said its desire to have a “strategic counter to the United States could drive it to field an ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile).”

“Progress in Iran’s space program could shorten a pathway to an ICBM because space launch vehicles (SLV) use inherently similar technologies.”

Tensions between Iran and the US have continued to mount since US President Donald Trump took office, largely due to its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Trump has repeatedly referred to a historic nuclear deal agreed between Tehran and six world powers at the “worst deal ever negotiated,” and put Iran “on notice” in February after it conducted a missile test.

Meanwhile, tensions between the US and North Korea have also mounted over Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities, with Pyongyang ignoring calls from Washington and others to halt both programs.

Night & Fog

The German methodology for dealing with terrorists and potential terrorists

June 26 2017

by Harry von Johnston  PhD

Directives for the prosecution of offences committed within the occupied territories against the German State or the occupying power, of December 7th, 1941.

Within the occupied territories, communistic elements and other circles hostile to Germany have increased their efforts against the German State and the occupying powers since the Russian campaign started. The amount and the danger of these machinations oblige us to take severe measures as a determent. First of all the following directives are to be applied:

1. Within the occupied territories, the adequate punishment for offences committed against the German State or the occupying power which endanger their security or a state of readiness is on principle the death penalty.
2. The offences listed in paragraph I as a rule are to be dealt with in the occupied countries only if it is probable that sentence of death will be passed upon the offender, at least the principal offender, and if the trial and the execution can be completed in a very short time. Otherwise the offenders, at least the principal offenders, are to be taken to Germany.

III. Prisoners taken to Germany are subjected to military procedure only if particular military interests require this. In case German or foreign authorities inquire about such prisoners, they are to be told that they were arrested, but that the proceedings do not allow any further information.

1. The Commanders in the occupied territories and the Court authorities within the framework of their jurisdiction, are personally responsible for the observance of this decree.
2. The Chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces determines in which occupied territories this decree is to be applied. He is authorized to explain and to issue executive orders and supplements. The Reich Minister of Justice will issue executive orders within his own jurisdiction.

On December 7, 1941, Hitler issued Nacht und Nebel, the Night and Fog Decree.

This decree replaced the unsuccessful Nazi policy of taking hostages to undermine underground activities. Suspected underground agents and others would now vanish without a trace into the night and fog.

SS Reichsführer Himmler issued the following instructions to the Gestapo.

“After lengthy consideration, it is the will of the Führer that the measures taken against those who are guilty of offenses against the Reich or against the occupation forces in occupied areas should be altered. The Führer is of the opinion that in such cases penal servitude or even a hard labor sentence for life will be regarded as a sign of weakness. An effective and lasting deterrent can be achieved only by the death penalty or by taking measures which will leave the family and the population uncertain as to the fate of the offender. Deportation to Germany serves this purpose.”

Field Marshall Keitel issued a letter stating:

“Efficient and enduring intimidation can only be achieved either by capital punishment or by measures by which the relatives of the criminals do not know the fate of the criminal. The prisoners are, in future, to be transported to Germany secretly, and further treatment of the offenders will take place here; these measures will have a deterrent effect because – A. The prisoners will vanish without a trace. B. No information may be given as to their whereabouts or their fate.”

The victims were mostly from France, Belgium and Holland. They were usually arrested in the middle of the night and quickly taken to prisons hundreds of miles away for questioning and torture, eventually arriving at the concentration camps of Natzweiler or Gross-Rosen, if they survived.

Even before the deportation and mass murder of the innocents of Europe, the mentally impaired, the Jews, the Gypsies, and so forth, the Nazis had been dealing severely with political prisoners. Most of the early prisoners were of two sorts: they were either prisoners of belief/political prisoners whom the Nazis deemed in need of “re-education” to Nazi thinking, or resistance leaders in occupied western Europe. Up until the time of the “Night and Fog” decree, prisoners were handled by German soldiers in approximately the same way other countries did: according to national agreements and procedures such as the Geneva Convention. Hitler and his upper level staff, however, made a critical decision not to have to conform to what they considered unnecessary rules. The Third Reich, after all, was not a party to the Geneva Convention, and so observed it only as needed to reduce tensions with other nations.

On December 7th, 1941, SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler issued the following instructions to the Gestapo: “After lengthy consideration, it is the will of the Führer that the measures taken against those who are guilty of offenses against the Reich or against the occupation forces in occupied areas should be altered. The Führer is of the opinion that in such cases penal servitude or even a hard labor sentence for life will be regarded as a sign of weakness. An effective and lasting deterrent can be achieved only by the death penalty or by taking measures which will leave the family and the population uncertain as to the fate of the offender. Deportation to Germany serves this purpose.”

The Night and Fog prisoners were mostly from France, Belgium and the Netherlands. They were usually arrested in the middle of the night and quickly taken to prisons hundreds of miles away for questioning and torture, eventually arriving at the concentration camps of Natzweiler or Gross-Rosen, if they survived.

The 1955 film Night and Fog uses the term to illustrate one aspect of the concentration camp system as it was transformed into a system of labour and death camps.

The reasons for Nacht und Nebel were many:

• First, distinct complaints by other governments or humanitarian organizations against the German government were made far more difficult because the exact cause of internment or death, indeed whether or not the event had even occurred, was obscured. It kept the Nazis from being held accountable.
• The decree and hidden events afforded the Nazis the ability to act cruelly and unjustly without public outcry.
• It allowed an across-the-board, silent veto of international treaties and conventions: one cannot apply the limits and terms of humane treatment in war if one cannot locate the victim or discern his destiny.
• Additionally, it lessened the moral qualms and confrontations of the German public as well as that of servicemen, in an agreed and/or ignorant silence.

The result, even early in the war, was the facilitating of utter brutality and execution of political prisoners, especially Soviet military prisoners, who early in the war outnumbered the Jews in number of deaths even at Auschwitz. As the transports grew and Hitler’s troops moved across Europe, that ratio changed dramatically.

The Night and Fog Decree was carried out surreptitiously, but it set the background for orders that would follow. As the war continued, so did the openness of such decrees and orders. It is probably correct to surmise, from various writings, that in the beginning the German public knew only a little of the insidious plans Hitler had for a “New European Order”. As the years passed, despite the best attempts of Goebbels and the Propaganda Ministry with its formidable domestic information control, there can be little doubt from diaries and periodicals of the time that information about the harshness and cruelty became progressively known to the German public. Soldiers brought back information, families on rare occasion heard from or about loved ones, and allied news sources and the BBC were able to get through sporadically. Night and Fog set the stage for the obfuscatory information the Reich hoped would provide a cover for their operations in the eastern theatre.

TSA considers forcing airline passengers to remove books from carry-ons

June 25, 2017

by Brandon Carter

The Hill

The Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) is reportedly testing new safety procedures that could require airline passengers to remove books from their carry-on bags when going through security lines, raising privacy concerns.

The Week reported that the TSA began testing the new security requirement for books and other paper products at airports in Missouri and California earlier this month. The new screening process could require passengers to remove all reading material and food from their carry-ons and place them in bins for screening, though the Wall Street Journal note changes have not been finalized.

Travelers already have to remove laptops from carry-on bags and place them in a separate bin. An early May test in Kansas City, Mo., had travelers remove all paper from their carryon bags, but it didn’t go well and was halted after a few days, the TSA told the Wall Street Journal.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said in an interview with “Fox News Sunday” in late May that the department would “likely” expand the new carry-on policy nationwide.

“What we’re doing now is working out the tactics, techniques, and procedures, if you will, in a few airports, to find out exactly how to do that with the least amount of inconvenience to the traveler,” Kelly said at the time.

The American Civil Liberties Organization (ACLU) raised concerns over the proposed book policy in a recent post on its website, given that TSA agents could page through books as part of the search.

“[B]ooks raise very special privacy issues,” senior policy analyst Jay Stanley wrote. “There is a long history of special legal protection for the privacy of one’s reading habits in the United States, not only through numerous Supreme Court and other court decisions, but also through state laws that criminalize the violation of public library reading privacy or require a warrant to obtain book sales, rental, or lending records.”

The ACLU urged the TSA to train its agents in the privacy concerns surrounding examining passengers’ books and papers and proposed the agents allow passengers to wrap their books and papers in another material, like a sleeve, to protect their contents.

Asylum seekers in Canada who fled Trump now trapped in legal limbo

June 26, 2017

by Anna Mehler Paperny and Rod Nickel

Reuters

TORONTO/WINNIPEG, Manitoba-Thousands of people who fled to Canada to escape President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal migrants have become trapped in legal limbo because of an overburdened refugee system, struggling to find work, permanent housing or enroll their children in schools.

Refugee claims are taking longer to be completed than at any time in the past five years, according to previously unpublished Immigration and Refugee Board data provided to Reuters. Those wait times are set to grow longer after the IRB in April allocated “up to half” of its 127 tribunal members to focus on old cases. The number of delayed hearings more than doubled from 2015 to 2016 and is on track to increase again this year.

Hearings are crucial to establishing a claimant’s legal status in Canada. Without that status, they struggle to convince employers to hire them or landlords to rent to them. Claimants cannot access loans or student financial aid, or update academic or professional credentials to meet Canadian standards.

Canada’s refugee system was struggling to process thousands of applications even before 3,500 asylum seekers began crossing the U.S. border on foot in January. It lacks the manpower to complete security screenings for claimants and hear cases in a timely manner. Often there are not enough tribunal members to decide cases or interpreters to attend hearings, the IRB said.

More than 4,500 hearings scheduled in the first four months of 2017 were canceled, according to the IRB data.

The government is now focused on clearing a backlog of about 24,000 claimants, including people who filed claims in 2012 or earlier. That means more than 15,000 people who have filed claims so far this year, including the new arrivals from the United States, will have to wait even longer for their cases to be heard.

​Asylum cases are already taking longer to finalize, on average, than at any time since Canada introduced a statutory two-month time limit in 2012. This year, it has been taking 5.6 months on average, compared to ​3.6 months in 2013.

Mohamed Daud, 36, left his family and a pending refugee claim in the United States and walked into Canada in February after hearing rumors of U.S. immigration raids. Daud, originally from Somalia, had been living and working legally in Nebraska but feared he would be detained and then deported at an upcoming check-in with immigration officials.

His May 8 hearing with a Canadian refugee tribunal was canceled three days beforehand. He has not been given a new date.

“I don’t know when they will call me. I can’t work. It isn’t easy,” said Daud. While waiting for a work permit, he gets approximately C$600 ($453) a month in government social assistance and shares a room in an apartment with six other asylum seekers.

Still, Daud doesn’t regret abandoning his life in the United States.

“The worry, the fear is the same,” he said.

To try to speed cases through, Canada’s refugee tribunal has put people from certain war-torn countries such as Syria and Yemen on an expedited track that requires no hearings.

​Border agents are working overtime to address the backlog in security screenings, said Scott Bardsley, spokesman for Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, who oversees the Canada Border Services Agency.​

INDEFINITE WAIT

Asylum claimants are eligible for work permits while awaiting hearings, but employers are often reluctant to employ people with temporary social insurance numbers whose future is uncertain, refugee lawyers told Reuters.

“How do you establish yourself when your status is unknown?” said Toronto-based lawyer Aadil Mangalji.

This year is on track to be the highest year for refugee claims since at least 2011, according to government statistics.

The stresses on the Canadian system mirror those of other countries with an open door policy. In Sweden, rising financial strains involved in resettlement ​were partly behind a move to introduce tough asylum laws.

Honduran Raul Contreras, 19, who walked across the Quebec border in March and whose hearing has been postponed indefinitely, is staying in a government-subsidized Toronto hotel with his mother, step-father and uncle. Contreras, who spends his days at a local library or working out in the hotel gym, says he has been repeatedly rejected by landlords.

“They just said that they didn’t rent places to refugee claimants,” he said. “(They) said that refugees don’t have jobs and probably wouldn’t pay.”

(Editing by Ross Colvin)

 Grenfell Tower: cladding material linked to fire pulled from sale worldwide

Arconic discontinues Reynobond PE, an element of cladding linked to the London blaze, for use in high-rise buildings

June 26, 2017

by Rob Davies

The Guardian

The company that manufactures an element of the cladding believed to have contributed to the rapid spread of fire through Grenfell Tower has pulled the material from sale around the world.

Arconic said on Monday that is was discontinuing Reynobond PE, panels that are combined with insulation to form cladding that was revealed as flammable in the wake of the blaze that killed at least 79 people in west London.

The firm said it had stopped global sales of the material for tall buildings over concerns about the “inconsistency of building codes across the world”. Reynobond PE, one of several options offered by the company and not the most fire-retardant, has been banned for use on towers in countries including Germany and the US but not the UK.

The manufacturer said in a statement: “Arconic is discontinuing global sales of Reynobond PE for use in high-rise applications. We believe this is the right decision because of the inconsistency of building codes across the world and issues that have arisen in the wake of the Grenfell Tower tragedy regarding code compliance of cladding systems in the context of buildings’ overall designs. We will continue to fully support the authorities as they investigate this tragedy.”

The company emailed clients on Monday to tell them it would no longer sell Reynobond PE to buyers planning to use it on tower blocks. It said this would apply globally due to the difficulty of being sure that its cladding would be used in a way that complies with building regulations in multiple countries. Arconic’s factory in Merxheim, France, manufactures several types of Reynobond for the European market.

The decision to stop selling it for use in skyscraper cladding comes after it emerged that the company knew that the less fire-resistant version, Reynobond PE, would be used on Grenfell Tower despite its own guidelines warning that it was unsuitable for buildings above 10m tall. Emails obtained by Reuters showed Arconic was involved in discussions about the use of cladding on the building during 2014.

One of its own brochures states that Reynobond PE should only be used in buildings up to 10m, with more fire-resistant products recommended above that height. Grenfell Tower is more than 60m tall.

In a separate statement about the leaked emails, Arconic said: “We sold Reynobond PE to our customer, the fabricator, in 2015 for use as one component of the overall cladding system. We did not supply other parts of this cladding system, including the insulation.

“While we publish general usage guidelines, regulations and codes vary by country and need to be determined by the local building code experts.”

 Top Democrat says health bill will kill ‘hundreds of thousands’

June 26, 2017

BBC News

Top Democrat Nancy Pelosi has warned “hundreds of thousands” of Americans will die if congressional Republicans pass their healthcare legislation.

President Donald Trump’s party is struggling to secure the votes to get its bill through the Senate.

Republican Senator Ron Johnson said on Sunday there should “no way” be a vote on the legislation this week.

At least five Republicans are opposed to their party’s bill, which can only afford to lose two votes.

The Senate bill would slash taxes for the wealthy while imposing cuts on Medicaid, a healthcare programme for the poor, and offer less help for working families to buy medical insurance.

House of Representatives minority leader Nancy Pelosi told CBS This Morning on Monday: “We do know that many more people – millions, hundreds of thousands – of people will die if this bill passes.

“These bills systemically, structurally, they are very, very harmful to the American people.

“They will raise costs with fewer benefits, have an age tax, they will undermine Medicare.”

Republicans have rejected the notion that anyone will die as a result of their healthcare plan.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that 23 million people would lose their health insurance over the next 10 years if Congress passed a Republican health plan approved by the House.

An estimate by the same agency is scheduled to be released this week for the Senate bill.

Republicans are also expected to issue a revised version of their bill on Monday, a Senate aide told Reuters news agency, without detailing the revisions.

Away from the policy debate on Capitol Hill, a New Jersey mother’s viral tweet has put a human face on the US healthcare debate.

Alison Chandra posted a photo of a medical bill for her son, Ethan, who was born with a rare genetic disorder, heterotaxy syndrome.

Ms Chandra tweeted: “Without insurance we would owe $231,115 for 10 hours in the OR [operating room], 1 week in the CICU [cardiac unit] and 1 week on the cardiac floor.”

She says she is worried because the Republican legislation does not cover essential health benefits, including the prescription medications that her son will rely on for the rest of his life.

“It seems like our kids are being reduced to a line in a budget,” she told CNN. “No one seems to realise there are real people behind it.”

With not a single Democrat supporting the bill, Republicans face some legislative arm-twisting to rally their rank and file.

But Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson has moved to put the brakes on the party leadership’s plan to hold a vote this week.

“We don’t have the courage in Washington, the honesty, to talk about this issue with real facts,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. “There’s no way we should be voting on it this next week, no way.”

He is one of four hardline conservative senators who think the Senate bill does not do enough to lower health costs. The others are Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah.

On Friday, Nevada Senator Dean Heller became the fifth Republican senator to publicly come out against the legislation.

He said the party leadership’s claim that the bill would lower health costs is “a lie”.

A political action committee has threatened to launch attack ads to pressure Mr Heller into supporting the legislation.

Also on Sunday, Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy declared himself “undecided”, saying the bill contains provisions “which adversely affect my state, that are peculiar to my state”.

Kellyanne Conway, an adviser to Mr Trump, claimed on Sunday the Senate bill would not actually cut Medicaid, despite projections that it would slash $800bn (£630bn) from the programme.

Maine Senator Susan Collins told ABC’s This Week on Sunday she worries about “what [the bill] means to our most vulnerable citizens”.

The president took to Twitter on Monday to attack his political adversaries.

The Democrats have become nothing but OBSTRUCTIONISTS, they have no policies or ideas,” he tweeted. “All they do is delay and complain. They own ObamaCare!”

But their support is unlikely, given that Republicans are trying to overturn one of the most cherished policy accomplishments of any Democratic administration in decades.

The Senate healthcare bill was crafted in secret with only a small number of Republicans consulted, and no Democrats were asked their opinion.

An opinion poll last week found that for the first time former President Barack Obama’s 2010 Affordable Care Act – known as Obamacare – is now viewed positively by more than half Americans (51%).

The ZIPPER File and the official CIA murder of JFK

In March of 1963, a plot was constructed inside the highest levels of the CIA that eventually resulted in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The chief architects of this plot, eventually labeled as ‘Operation ZIPPER’ were James Angleton, head of CIA counterintelligence and Robert Crowley, Deputy Director of the CIA’s Clandestine Operations. Angleton had discovered that Kennedy, through his brother Robert, the Attorney General, had been in contact with Soviet leader Khrushchev and had exchanged what the CIA considered to be top level intelligence secrets with him.

ZIPPER was not put on paper, for obvious reasons, but a record was kept of various meetings, telephone conversations, trips and other events. This record is a very interesting example of how plots can be developed and eventually put into action.

According to a document found in the papers of R. T. Crowley, Deputy Director of Clandestine Affairs for the CIA, the officially organized assassination of John F. Kennedy by the CIA had the code name: “Operation ZIPPER.” This document, which is entitled “OPERATION ZIPPER Conference Record,” is reproduced below in this study..

Early in March of 1963, the matter of the actual assassin became a pressing issue. Because of Crowley’s connections with the mob in Chicago (his father had been an important Chicago politician, parks commissioner, in the Kelly-Nash machine), he received the task of personally contacting members of the Chicago Mafia for advice and possible assistance.

Chicago mob leader Sam Giancana, who had assisted in locating persons to carry out the CIA’s murder plots against Fidel Castro, loathed the Kennedy brothers but was far too shrewd to lend any of his identifiable men to cooperate in such a project. In two conferences in the Drake Hotel with Crowley, Giancana agreed to locate assassins who could be expected to perform in a professional manner. It was suggested that perhaps this recruitment might be better done outside of the United States. Rather than involve the Sicilian Mafia,  Giancana had one of his connections in that entity contact someone in the Corsican Mafia, the so-called Unione Corse, and it was from the ranks of this Marseille-based, well-knit, and very professional criminal organization that the assassins were found.

The plotter’s reasoning was that if the killers were somehow caught before the CIA could kill them first, they could only identify the Chicago Mafia as their employers, and the Mafia would never identify the CIA as the real moving force. If this question arose, the Mafia could much more easily be silenced than foreign killers could.

Before the Corsicans were finally brought on board, a co-worker suggested shopping in Beirut, Lebanon, then a center of assassination professionals. The argument against this was that Corsicans would have no problems blending in the background in race conscious Dallas. Darker complexioned Lebanese or Arab professionals would certainly attract unwelcome notice in the provincial southern city.

Cuban militants had been ruled out in the beginning as too volatile and inclined to emotional excesses.

It would be Marseilles, then, instead of Beirut, that would supply the killers.

Early March 1963, the Director of Central Intelligence, John McCone, began a series of delicate contacts outside his immediate circle.

The first government agency contacted was the FBI. The first conferences with its director John Edgar Hoover and Deputy Director William Sullivan were held on March 4th. According to the ZIPPER Document, the head of the FBI was permanently kept informed about the CIA’s actions by his top aide William Sullivan. Since Sullivan is described in the ZIPPER Document as a “participant” in the entire plot, it must be assumed that the FBI as a government department was collaborating with the CIA to achieve the projected goal.

On March 13 and 15, the next delicate contacts were made to Walter Jenkins and Abe Fortas, top aides of Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. According to the ZIPPER Document, Jenkins and Fortas, and with them of course the Vice President, were also kept informed about the rising plot.

Not a bold man, Johnson’s concerns were entirely typical for him. He had forced himself on the 1960 Democratic ticket against Kennedy’s wishes, and throughout the thousand days of the Kennedy presidency, Johnson was treated with contempt by Kennedy’s people. Their favorite epithet was “Uncle Cornpone,” and it became common knowledge that Kennedy was planning to replace Johnson on the 1964 ticket. To accomplish this, Bobby Kennedy was preparing criminal charges against Bobby Baker, one of Johnson’s top aides.

Johnson was aware that such charges would give the Kennedy faction the ability to force him off the ticket. Since Vice Presidents traditionally have run for the Presidency at the expiration of the mandatory two-term limit, any hope of gaining the White House would have been dashed. Johnson, therefore, became a willing if very timid participant in the ZIPPER project.

The two most important groups, the FBI and the future President of the United States, were hence quickly convinced to support the CIA:

There was, of course, another power to be taken into consideration, which could successfully prevent or reverse the attempted coup d’état: the Armed Forces of the United States of America. To integrate the U.S. Army into their putsch, the Director of the CIA conferred on March 28 with James Jesus Angelton to coordinate the objectives of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. Army with the CIA’s objectives within Operation ZIPPER.

The fourth cautious contact was made on 9 April by James Jesus Angleton: Lt. Colonel Bevin Cass, United States Marine Corps, was U.S. Military Attaché to the Dominican Republic and had been involved with the logistics of the Trujillo assassination.  Cass was later Commanding Officer of the Marine Corps infantry training center at Quantico, Virginia.

Cass obviously served as a liaison officer between the Joint Chief of Staffs and the CIA, as an entry on 14 April 1963 indicates, according to which Cass was recommended by the Chairman of the JCS, General Lyman Lemnitzer. The fact that LtCol. Cass, as a “participant,” received a copy of the ZIPPER Document, that the Chairman of the JCS was either directly or via LtCol. Cass in frequent contact with the CIA regarding Kennedy’s assassination,  and finally because the JCS is expressly mentioned as a “government department directly concerned” in the ZIPPER document that had specific knowledge about the assassination, it must be concluded that the U.S. Armed Forces are the fourth big cornerstone of the assassination of John F. Kennedy and, hence, the overthrow of the democratically elected government of the people of the United States of America.

1963

MARCH

1 MAR 63

8:30 AM- Noon

Conference with DCI, JJA, RTC.

Implementation of ZIPPER. Pre-

sentation of RFK intercepts to

DCI. Review of investigative

data to date. DCI requests more

data.

2 MAR 63

9:45 AM- 11:15 AM

Presentation by JJA and RTC to

DCI of evidentiary material.

2:20 PM

Request by DCI for interview

with Director/FBI

4 MAR 63

8:15 AM- 10:00 AM

Conference with DCI, JJA

with Director/FBI and DD/FBI

Sullivan.

10:20 AM- 10: 35 AM

Conference with DCI, JJA, RTC

and Sullivan.

7 MAR 63

 

8:30 PM-12:06 AM

Conference with JJA and Sullivan

8 MAR 63

2:02 PM- 3:45 PM

Conference with JJA, RTC in

re RFK.

4:15 PM- 4:38 PM

Telephone conference JJA with

DCI concerning above meeting

12 MAR 63

8:30 AM-9:23 AM

Conference JJA and Sullivan

1:20 PM- 2:10 PM

Lunch conference with JJA and

RTC. Joined by DCI.

13 MAR 63

9:10 AM- 9:30 AM

Telephone conference by DCI

with Walter Jenkins in re VP.

Request for personal interview.

3:30 PM- 3:34 PM

Conference JJA with DCI on

Jenkins request.

14. MAR 63

9:45 AM- 10:23 AM

and

3:37 PM – 4:11 PM

Conferences with JJA, Jenkins,

RTC and telephone conference

with WKH on ZIPPER. Views

of VP are discussed. Extreme

caution on part of VP subject

of both conferences. Tentative

acceptance of basic thrust of

ZIPPER. VP to speak with

DCI on 15 MAR.

15 MAR 63

12:35 PM-1:43 PM

Luncheon conference with DCI

Jenkins and A. Fortas, Met. Club.

Present: JJA and RTC. Discussion by

VP’s aides of two conversations with

DIR/FBI Hoover on ZIPPER. AF requests

copies of telephone intercepts.

16 MAR 63

1:08 PM- 1:16 PM

Telephone conference by RTC

with SG in re U/C.

1:24 PM- 2:19 PM

Telephone conference by RTC

with JJA in re SG.

 

2:45 PM- 3:10 PM

Telephone conversation by JJA

with DCI in re SG.

3:32 PM- 4:50 PM

Telephone conference with WKH

by JJA in re SG.

18 MAR 63

8:44 AM- 9:29 AM

Telephone conference by JJA w SC/

INTERARMCO in re weaponry

and delivery.

3:04 PM-3:30 PM

Telephone conferences with DCI

and RTC in re SC analysis.

9:30 PM- 11: 27 PM

Conference  RTC with WJ and AF.

Copies of RFK reports for VP.

19 MAR 63

11:45 AM

Telephone report by SG to RTC

concerning need for US passports.

20 MAR 63

3:27 PM- 3:29 PM

Telephone conference by RTC

with SG in re passports

Affirmative response.

21 MAR 63

11:55 AM-2:37 PM

Lunch meeting with DCI, RTC and JJA.

Review of telephone taps on RFK.

Report by JJA on Soviet receipts.

25 MAR 63

9:45 AM- 10:17 AM

Telephone conference with Jenkins

in re VP, RTC

28 MAR 63

3:15 PM- 4:25 PM

Conference with DCI and JJA

Coordination of JCS objectives with ZIPPER

4:45 PM-4:48 PM

Telephone conference with Jenkins

concerning VP RTC

4:55 PM-5:01 PM

Telephone conference with DCI on VP RTC

29 MAR 63

2:35PM-3:15 PM

Telephone conference: DCI

with FBI/Sullivan

6:60 PM-9:55 PM

Conference with RTC and WKH

reference logistics of ZIPPER

APRIL

3 APRIL  63

11:08 PM- 1:21 AM

Telephone conference between JJA

and Amos Minor, Israel l, in re possible

cooperation in ZIPPER

4 APRIL 63

11:31 AM- 1:02PM

Conference with JJA and RTC in re Minor

assistance.

3:35 PM-4:45 PM

Telephone conference RTC and SG, Sicilian

referral.

9 APRIL 63

8:31 AM- 8:45 AM

Telephone conference, JJA with LtCOL Cass,

S’Domingo in re ZIPPER. Agreement for

conference.

9:08 AM- 9:14 AM

Conference with DCI and JJA concerning

Cass meeting and SG progress

11 APRIL 63

1:45 PM- 1:56 PM

Telephone conference with Jenkins

in re VP. Clarification of DCI memo.

2:30 PM-2:46 PM

Telephone conference with Pentagon

in re Cass meeting.

4:36 PM – 5:15 PM

Meeting JJA and DCI on progress for

Zipper. No direct contact between DCI

and Cass.

13 APRIL 63

8:22 PM- 9:07 PM

Telephone conference RTC

and SC in re ZIPPER

14 APRIL 63

9:35 AM- 11:07 AM

Conference with DCI, JJA, WKH

Reference update with WKH. Suggestion

received from Lemnitzer on rep. LtCOL

Cass in S’Domingo.

2:35 PM-3:12 PM

Telephone conference with LtCOL

Cass in re ZIPPER

15 APRIL 63

12:35 AM-2:23 PM

Conference with WKH and SC

concerning weaponry and logistics.

INTERARMCO

5:20 PM- 5:45 PM

Telephone conference with Jenkins

in re VP

18 APRIL 63

1:23 PM- 1:25 PM

Telephone conference with SC

of INTERARMCO

2:01 PM-2:05 PM

Telephone contact with SG in Chicago in re

RTC meeting. RTC

2:25 PM-2:31 PM

Telephone conference with JJA

concerning SG.

2:33 PM- 2:40 PM

Meeting with DCI about Chicago.

RTC, JJA

19 APRIL 63

Telephone conference with ARM in

re LANCER SS protection. JJA

23 APRIL 63

Conference with RTC and SG concerning

logistics for ZIPPER. Chicago

 

24 APRIL 63

Conference with RTC and SG concerning

logistics for ZIPPER. Chicago

3:09 PM- 3:33 PM

Conference with JJA and LtCol Cass in

re ZIPPER

30 APRIL 63

9:31 AM -1:45 AM

Telephone conference with RTC and

Jenkins in re VP. Further clarification

on post-ZIPPER.

2:20 PM- 5:38 PM

Conference DCI and Sullivan  in re

contact with Director/FBI. Supply

RFK transcripts.

MAY

2 MAY 63

1:00 PM- 2:59 PM

Conference with DCI, JJA, RTC, Sullivan

in re intercepted phone conversations

from Hickory Hill. Also, intercepted

and decoded conversations from Soviet embassy.

4:09 PM-4:21 PM

Telephone conversation RTC and SG on Marseilles

contacts.

4:30 PM- 5:37 PM

Conference with RTC and JJA concerning SG

referrals. Also Mass. sailboat plan. Rejected.

5 MAY 63

2:02 PM- 4:45 PM

Telephone conference between JJA,

RTC. With reference to progress on

ZIPPER. Subject of discussions:

1. SS Presidential security.
2. Projected Presidential visits,
3. Inside US.
4. Outside US
5. Disinformation in reports to White

House aimed at disrupting channels of

communication.

4. Contact with NSA in re blocking of

calls transmitting information to Soviet

Union

5. Close coordination with JCS concerning

military action against Cuba

6. Ascertaining attitudes of VP in re para 5.
7. Communicating compromising material

on President to Soviet Union….loss of

confidence.

8. Information on planned RFK prosecution of

VP aides. To discredit VP and give motive for

removing from the ticket in ‘64. Give to AF?

This entry is the most informative. It is obvious that this log was prepared by various people over the period from March through November. Vice President Lyndon Johnson obviously was brought into the plot through contact with Walter Jenkins and Abe Fortas. Not a bold man, Johnson’s concerns are entirely typical of the man. He had forced himself on the 1960 Democratic ticket against Kennedy’s wishes and throughout the thousand days of the Kennedy presidency, Johnson was treated with contempt by Kennedy’s people. Their favorite epithet was ‘Uncle Cornpone’ and it became common knowledge that Kennedy was planning to replace Johnson on the 1964 ticket. To accomplish this, Bobby Kennedy was preparing criminal charges against Bobby Baker, one of Johnson’s top aides. Johnson was aware that such charges would give the Kennedy faction the ability to force him off the ticket. Since Vice Presidents traditionally have run for the Presidency at the expiration of the mandatory two term limit, any hope of gaining the White House would have been dashed. Johnson, therefore, became a willing if very timid participant in the ZIPPER project.

6 MAY 63

9:34 AM- 10:21 AM

Conference JJA with DCI in re 5 May

conference. Approval noted.

11:10 AM-3:17 PM

Telephone conferences by JJA

& RTC with:

1. WJ in re VP
2. JCS in re ZIPPER and plans
3. SG in re team progress
4. SC in re logistics

The inclusion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is a thread that runs throughout the entire development of ZIPPER. Giancana obviously reported on his efforts to line up a foreign team and Sam Cummings, who was in charge of the weapons, reported on his task.

10 MAY 63

Lunch conference

DCI, Sullivan, JJA, RTC, WKH

Discussion of progress of ZIPPER.

Decision to launch disinformation

program in re Soviets.

Decision to expand sources to

include source, AF1

Decision for dual payments to

UC and to SG

AF1 refers to Air Force One but any attempt to destroy the President’s aircraft was eventually abandoned due to extraordinary security in place. Both Giancana and the Unione Corse were to be paid for their services, the former to ensure his continued cooperation.

14 MAY 63

4:45 PM

Report by SC in re weaponry

21 MAY 63

3:20 PM- 4:11 PM

Conference DCI, RTC

in re NSA communications

surveillance

The National  Security Agency or NSA is, and was in 1963, positioned to monitor all foreign and domestic telephone and radio traffic.

24 MAY 63

2:25 PM

Contact with source on AF1

It was at this point that any action involving the President’s aircraft was abandoned.

3:10 PM

Conference DCI, JJA on subject

payment for AF1 source

25 MAY 63

2:10 PM-4:43 PM

Conference, UClub, RTC, JJA, WKH

with rep, Chair/JCS in re ZIPPER.

Coordination of ZIPPER w. MARLINSTRIKE

The meaning of  MARLINSPIKE is not known at this writing but appears to be a plan designed to draw the United States into war with Cuba, a strong desire of the JCS and its Chief, General Lyman Lemnitzer.

27 MAY 63

 

9:45 AM- 12:00 PM

&

2:30 PM- 5:52 PM

Conference JJA, RTC in re ZIPPER

28 MAY 63

8:32 AM-9:01 AM

Telephone conference JJA with

LtCOL Cass in re ZIPPER

11:34 AM- 12:30 PM

Conference JJA, DCI in

re NSA transcripts

31 MAY 63

1:35 PM-2:50 PM

Conference JJA, AF in re VP

Discussion of VP attitudes in re

MARLINSTRIKE, ZIPPER

3:00 PM-3:21 PM

Telephone conference JJA.

JCS in re AF conference.

3:30 PM-3:34 PM

Telephone conference JJA

DCI in re AF & JCS

JUNE

3 JUNE 63

2:20 PM- 3:05 PM

Conference with DD Carter

and GEN Blake, DIR/NSA

concerning ZIPPER.

1. NSA SIGINT surveillance

of Cuba, Mexico and Dominican

Republic.

2. NSA domestic surveillance,
3. Confirming reports on RFK

conversations.

4. TASS communications.
5. Soviet internal communications
6. White House communications

General Marshal Carter, USA was a senior official in the CIA and later went on to head the NSA.

4 JUNE 63

Lunch conference, DD/MC,

JJA, RTC in reference Blake

position.

Lieutenant General Gordon Blake, USAF, was Director of the NSA from July 1962 through May, 1965. He was replaced by General Marshal Carter.

6 JUNE 63

7:30 PM- 9:20 PM

Conference, JJA, RTC in

re NSA intercepts.

11 JUNE 63

9:55 AM-10:02 AM

Telephone conference with

AF in re VP. Anxiety

12 JUNE 63

12:30 PM-12:45 PM

Telephone conference with

LtCOL Cass, S’Domingo

As U.S. Military Attaché to the Dominican Republic, Lt. Colonel Cass had been involved with the CIA assassination of Trujillo and had handled the weapons used in the killing,  which had arrived in the diplomatic pouch.

4:11 PM- 4:34 PM

Telephone conference with

JJA & A. Manor in re UC team.

5:30 PM- 6:45 PM

Telephone conference with

JJA & AF in re VP. More

reassurances needed.

True to form, Lyndon Johnson is still trying to have his cake and eat it as well.

19 JUNE 63

11:35 AM- 12:40 PM

Telephone conference, DD/MC

with D/NSA Blake concerning

NSA intercepts

1:45 PM-1:50 PM

Telephone conference, DD/MC

with RTC concerning SG.

24 JUNE 63

Report from SC in re weapons.

5:39 PM-5:51 PM

Telephone conference, DCI

and JJA, RTC and WKH

25 JUNE 63

Receipt of NSA report

3:09 PM- 3:30 PM

Telephone conference, WKH

with LtCOL Cass, S’Domingo

26 JUNE 63

9:30 AM- 9:54 AM

Telephone conference. AF

to RFK in re VP. Agreement

in general.

At this point in time, Lyndon Johnson had decided to join the Presidential poker game.

10:07 AM- 10:09 AM

Telephone conference RTC

with DCI. in re AF call

11:30 AM-11:45 AM

Telephone conference RTC

with Lemnitzer aide in re

ZIPPER

JULY

3 JULY 63

Arrival of B. Bauman from

Toronto.

Binjamin Bauman, a Shit Bet operative, had been a member of the terrorist Stern Gang and was one of the men who planted a huge bomb in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946. A large number of British officers and civilians were killed in the subsequent blast. Bauman was recruited by Angleton through his friend, Amos Manor, head of the Shin Bet, ,internal security organ of the Israeli government.

4 JULY 63

Receipt of courier reports

NSA.

7:39 PM- 11:45 PM

Personal interview with JJA, RTC

& MC with Bauman

5 JULY 63

Evaluation of AF1 material by

JJA, WKH, RTC.

2:33 PM-3:15 PM

Conference with DCI, JJA on

AF1 findings. Negative

11 JULY 63

Review by JJA on RFK and

White House telephone

transcripts.

It is obvious that both James Angleton and NSA were involved in electronic surveillance of the Attorney General and in all probability, the White House as well.

11:00 AM- 12:15 PM

Conference with JJA, MC and

RTC in re intercepts

16 JULY 63

10:45 AM- 11:14 AM

Telephone conference with

MC and Blake in re NSA

intercepts.

1:45 PM- 5:15 PM

Conference with BB, JJA

MC in re ZIPPER and

UC team.

17 JULY 63

6:30 PM-11:00 PM

Conference with JJA

& BB

9:45 PM- 10:15PM

Telephone conference JJA &

BB with SC in re weapons

19 JULY 63

7:01 PM-11:43 PM

Conference with DCI, AWD, MC,

JJA, RTC in re ZIPPER. Agreement

in principle on all issues.

AWD are the initials of Allen Welsh Dulles, former longtime head of the CIA who had been fired by Kennedy over the CIA failures in the Bay of Pigs fiasco.

31 JULY 63

9:40 AM-10:20 AM

Telephone conference with CHAIR/JCS

in re AWD, VP overviews.

11:30 AM-1:29 PM

Conference, MC, JJA, RTC in re

ZIPPER. Transfer operation to

WKH

It is at this point that the actual execution of ZIPPER was turned over to William King Harvey. All future records reflect a series of progress reports by Harvey on a weekly basis to his superiors.

AUGUST

9 AUGUST 63

1:50 PM-2:10 PM

Conference, WKH, JJA

Progress Report

16 AUGUST 63

7:50 PM-11:01 PM

Conference, WKH, JJA

Progress Report

23 AUGUST 63

8:15 PM-10:19 PM

Conference, WKH, JJA

RTC

Progress Report

30 AUGUST 63

7:50 PM- 8:45 PM

Conference, WKH, JJA

Progress Report

SEPTEMBER

6 SEPT 63

3:19PM-5:12 PM

Conference, WKH, MC, JJA

Progress Report

12 SEPT 63

2:45 PM- 3:18 PM

Conference, WKH, JJA

Progress Report

20 SEPT 63

10:20 PM- 1:45 AM

Conference, WKH, RTC

MC

Progress Report

27 SEPT 63

 

9:30 AM-10:17 AM

Conference, WKH,  DCI,MC,

JJA, RTC

Progress Report

OCTOBER

18 OCT 63

7:45 PM- 11:30 PM

Conference, WKH, JJA

Progress Report

Dallas

This is the only reference in this document to Dallas, Texas. On the 17th of October, Lee  Harvey Oswald began his employment at the Texas Book Depository.

24 OCT 63

11:20 AM- 11:22 AM

Telephone conference, SG,

JJA in re UC arrival Montreal

At this point, members of the Corsican assassination team arrived in Quebec, Canada.

NOVEMBER

1 NOV 63

8:40 PM-12: PM

Conference WKH, WTC

Progress Report

14 NOV 63

1:45 PM-1:56 PM

Telephone conference, WKH

1. in re UC/Dallas

The Unione Corse team was now in Dallas and preparing for their task when President Kennedy made his official visit on November 22.

Abbreviations used in the ZIPPER Document

DCI               Director of Central Intelligence, John McCone

DD/FBI          Deputy Director of Federal Bureau of Investigation,    William Sullivan

USMC            United States Marine Corps

JCS               Joint Chiefs of Staff of U.S. Armed Forces

SIGINT          Signals Intelligence

AG                Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy

OAS              Organisation de l’armée secrète, Secret Army Organization of former French officers who did not recognize the independence of Algeria

JJA                James Jesus Angleton, CIA Counterintelligence

RTC               Robert Trumbull Crowley, CIA Clandestine Operations

VP                 Vice President, Lyndon B. Johnson

WKH             William King Harvey, senior official of the CIA

Met.Club        Metropolitan Club, Washington, D.C.

AF                 Abe Fortas, advisor  to Lyndon B. Johnson

SG                Sam Giancana, Chicago Mafia chief

U/C               Unione Corse, Corsican Mafia

SC                Sam Cummings, INTERARMCO (CIA proprietary)

ARM              unidentified

Lancer SS      Code name for Secret Service for J. F. Kennedy travels

NSA              National Security Agency

WJ                Walter Jenkins, advisor to Lyndon B. Johnson

AF1               Air Force One (President’s official aircraft)

UClub            University Club, Washington, D.C.

MC                Marshal Carter, senior officer of CIA, later with  NSA

D/NSA           Director NSA, Gordon Blake

BB                Binjamin Baumann, Shin Beth (Israel)

AWD             Allen Welsh Dulles, former DCI