TB News July 25, 2019

Jul 25 2019

The Voice of the White House Washington, D.C. July 25, 2019:

“Working in the White House as a junior staffer is an interesting experience.

When I was younger, I worked as a summer-time job in a clinic for people who had moderate to severe mental problems and the current work closely, at times, echos the earlier one.

I am not an intimate of the President but I have encountered him from time to time and I daily see manifestations of his growing psychological problems.

He insults people, uses foul language, is frantic to see his name mentioned on main-line television and pays absolutely no attention to any advice from his staff that runs counter to his strange ideas.

He lies like a rug to everyone, eats like a hog, makes lewd remarks to female staffers and flies into rages if anyone dares to contradict him.

His latest business is to re-institute a universal draft in America.

He wants to do this to remove tens of thousands of unemployed young Americans from the streets so they won’t come together and fight him.

Commentary for July 25:”Mr. Mueller is being cautious and bland but in general, he has not cleared Trump and he knows far more about his, albeit as often unverified input, that he lets on. Still, Trump is not a happy man and I note his choice for Attorney General has just reinstiuited Federal death penalties.Will he be approving of official troops machine-gunning Mexican children next? If one knows a man by his friends, Trump belongs in Leavenworth. As note brother Epstein, raper of small girls. As the Germans say, associate with certain people and get hanged with them.”

 

 

The Table of Contents

  • Trump in the White House is a national security nightmare – and Mueller knows it
  • Making America Great Again: Trump’s Impossible Challenges
  • Congress and the Press Should Pick Up Where Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller Left Off
  • Trump blew whistle on Jeffrey Epstein’; Pedophile’s threat to expose President ‘as a financial fraud’ after he ‘stole’ his $125M mansion led to then-tycoon outing the pedophile to cops
  • Encyclopedia of American Loons
  • The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations
  • The Broken Sword of Langley
  • Opertation Northwoods: A typical operation explained

Trump in the White House is a national security nightmare – and Mueller knows it

Mueller is at his core a moralist and a patriot – and the House intelligence committee knew it as they lured him out of his heavily guarded Fortress of His Own Rectitude

July 24, 2019

by Walter Shapiro

The Guardian

A word of belated advice for dejected House Democrats: believe Robert Mueller next time he tells you in advance that he would be a terrible and reluctant public witness on legal matters.

Appearing before the House judiciary committee on Wednesday morning, Mueller was even more buttoned-down than his crisp white shirt. Not only did the former special counsel refuse to read aloud from his own report (“I’m happy to have you read it,” he said repeatedly), but a flustered Mueller also failed to remember which president had appointed him to his first major justice department post. (It was Ronald Reagan and not, as Mueller guessed, George HW Bush.)

The predictable and sometimes tedious judiciary committee hearing proved that Mueller lacks both the prosecutorial zeal and the performance skills to star in a remake of Watergate. Democrats may still try to make the case that Donald Trump perverted justice, but it is hard to see how Mueller helped their cause with his mantra, “I’m not going to speculate”.

By the time the hearing ended at lunchtime, it was not safe for impeachment-minded Democrats to pass too close to an open window on a high floor.

But then in a dramatic rescue mission, reminiscent of the cavalry riding over the hill in an old-time western, Adam Schiff transformed the political equation as he convened the afternoon hearing of the House intelligence committee, which he chairs.

Schiff instinctively understood that Mueller – the straight-arrow marine and former FBI director – is at his core a moralist and a patriot.

Playing to an audience of one in his compelling opening statement, Schiff said: “The story of the 2016 election is a story about disloyalty to country, about greed and about lies. Your investigation determined that the Trump campaign – including Donald Trump himself – knew that a foreign power was intervening in our election and welcomed it, built Russian meddling into their strategy, and used it.”

After describing Trump’s panting eagerness for Russian aid as “disloyalty to country”, Schiff added a sentence that does not normally pop up in the gospel according to MSNBC: “That disloyalty may not have been criminal … but disloyalty to country violates the very oath of citizenship.”

An unfortunate legacy of Watergate is that liberals see everything through a legalistic lens. As we get caught up in the technicalities of what constitutes obstruction of justice (the key offense that brought down Richard Nixon), we tend to lose sight of the deliberate Vladimir Putin-spawned conspiracy to undermine western democracy. And we forget the degree to which Trump was – and may well still be – Moscow’s willing enabler.

As the Republicans tried to undermine Mueller by embracing every handy conspiracy theory (somehow they missed the faking of the moon landing), the Democrats on the intelligence committee kept reminding the nation that Trump lied repeatedly about having no business interests in Russia. In fact, at times in 2016, Trump seemed more passionate about building a Trump Tower in Moscow than he was about winning the White House.

This set-up the dramatic final round of questioning as Schiff finally lured Mueller out of his heavily guarded Fortress of His Own Rectitude.

After discussing the potential for Russian blackmail, Schiff asked Mueller: “So if candidate Trump was saying ‘I have no dealings with the Russians’ but the Russians had a tape recording, they could expose that, could they not?” And rather than refusing to speculate or retreating back to the wording of his report, Mueller uttered a powerful one-word answer: “Yes.”

Emboldened Schiff went further as he said, leading the witness: “That is the stuff of counterintelligence nightmares, is it not?” Again, rather than ducking the implications of the question, Mueller replied: “Well, it has to do with counterintelligence and the need for a strong counterintelligence entity.”

Maybe this soundbite will not play powerfully on television (alas, the current standard for political relevance) since there was no yelling or pointing of fingers. But it is telling that Robert Mueller – a terse and reluctant witness who probably wouldn’t speculate about tomorrow’s weather – said, in effect, that Donald Trump in the White House represents the essence of a national security nightmare.

It is folly to immediately predict the reverberations from the most anxiously awaited congressional hearings of the Trump era. But it would be fitting if Trump – like another strutting autocrat named Napoleon – saw his imperial dreams begin to crumble at the gates of Moscow.

 

Making America Great Again: Trump’s Impossible Challenges

by Christian Jürs

Once the most powerful nation, the United States is rapidly losing its premier position in the international sphere while at the same time facing a potential serious anti-government political movement developing in that country.

The number of unemployed in the United States today is approximately 97,000,000. Official American sources claim that employment is always improving but in fact it is not. Most official governmental releases reflect wishful thinking or are designed to placate the public

This situation is caused by the movement, by management, of manufacturing businesses to foreign labor markets. While these removals can indeed save the companies a great deal of expenditure on domestic labor, by sharply reducing their former worker bodies to a small number, the companies have reduced the number of prospective purchasers of expensive items like automobiles.

The U.S. government’s total revenue is estimated to be $3.654 trillion for fiscal year 2018.

  • Personal income taxes contribute $1.836 trillion, half of the total.
  • Another third ($1.224 trillion) comes from payroll taxes.

This includes $892 billion for Social Security, $270 billion for Medicare and $50 billion for unemployment insurance.

  • Corporate taxes add $355 billion, only 10 percent.
  • Customs excise taxes and tariffs on imports contribute $146 billion, just 4 percent
  • The Federal Reserve’s net income adds $70 billion.
  • The remaining $23 billion of federal income comes from estate taxes and miscellaneous receipts.
  • The use of secret offshore accounts by US citizens to evade U.S. federal taxes costs the U.S. Department of the Treasury well over $100 billion annually.

By moving from a producing to an importing entity, the United States has developed, and is developing, serious sociological and economic problems in a significant number of its citizens, and many suffer from serious health problems that are not treated.

It is estimated that over 500,000 American citizens are without any form of housing. Many of these people either are living on the streets, in public parks, living in cars or in charity shelters. There are at present over 200,000 family groups in America with over 300,000 individuals involved and 25% of the total are minor children.

Over 80,000 individuals are permanently without any residence. Many of these have physical disabilities such as chronic alcoholism or drug addiction. Many are classified as having severe mental disorders.

About 50,000 of these homeless individuals are military veterans, many of whom have serious physical or mental problems. One of the most common mental disorders is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Governmental treatment for these individuals is virtually non-existent.  Approximately half of this number are either black or Latin American (“Hispanics” in official designation.)

Of the total number of the homeless individuals, approximately 10% are female.

Official but private, estimates are that there over 500,000 youths below the age of 24 in current American society that find themselves homeless for periods lasting from one week to a permanent status.

Over 100,000 of this class are young people who are defined as being homosexual. Those in this class find themselves persecuted to a considerable degree by society in general and their peer groups in specific.

Approximately 50% of this homeless population are over the age of 50, many of whom suffer from chronic, debilitating physical illnesses that are not treated.

Drug deaths in the U.S. in 2017 exceeded 60,000.  Nearly half of all opioid overdose deaths involved prescriptions. Opioids are a class of strong painkillers drugs and include Percocet, Vicodin and OxyContin which are synthetic drugs designed to resemble opiates such as opium derived morphine and heroin. The most dangerous opioid is Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid painkiller 50-100 times more powerful than morphine. The increasing demand for these drugs is causing them to be manufactured outside the United States.

Suicide is the primary cause of “injury death” in the United States and more U.S. military personnel on active duty have killed themselves than were killed in combat last year.

The growing instability of American families is manifested by the fact that:

  • One out of every three children in America lives in a home without a father.
  • More than half of all babies are being born out of wedlock for women under the age of 30 living in the United States
  • The United States has the highest child abuse death rate in the developed world.
  • The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the world although the numbers have declined in recent years due to the use of contraceptives.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate and the largest total prison population in the entire world. The criminal justice system in the United States holds more than 4,166,000 people in 1,719 state prisons, 102,000 in federal prisons, 901,000 in juvenile correctional facilities, and 3,163,000 in local jails. Additionally, 5,203,400 adults are on probation or on parole.

The number of people on probation or parole has increased the population of the American corrections system to more than 9,369,400 in 2017. Corrections costs the American taxpayer $69 billion a year.

There are a huge number of American domestic and business mortgages, (67 million by conservative estimate) which have been sliced up, put into so-called “investment packages” and sold to customers both domestic and foreign. This problem has been covered up by American authorities by cloaking the facts in something called MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registration System)

This results in the fact that the holders of mortgages, so chopped and packed, are not possible to identify by MERS or anyone else, at any time and by any agency. This means that any property holder, be they a domestic home owner or a business owner, is paying their monthly fees for property they can never own.

Another festering problem consists of the official loans made to students in colleges and universities in the U.S. the predatory nature of the $90 billion student loan industry. These so-called student loans are the most serious economic problem faced today by American university students.

This problem arose due to federal legislation originating in the mid-1990s which effectively removed basic consumer protections from student loans, thus permitting extensive penalties and the methodology for enforced collection.

Because of the highly inflated cost of higher American education, very few students from high school can afford university education. The new college graduate has, on average, a student loan in excess of $20,000 and students attending graduate programs have average debts of over $40,000.

America today has seriously failing public school systems. Upper economic class Americans are able to send their children to expensive private schools and avoid the exceedingly incompetent public systems. The average American lower school graduates are only a step above illiteracy and their lack of knowledge of world affairs is quite unbelievable.

A small number of extremely wealthy men control and operate all of the major American print and television media.

Each of the few very powerful, rich men have their own reasons for deciding what qualifies as news.

But the public in America now gets its news, without cost, from various internet sites and the circulation number of major print news has dropped dramatically. This has forced the internet editions of the print news media to erect what they call “paywalls.” This permits a very limited number of articles to be read or downloaded before the system demands money for the use of additional material.

The major print media in America is faced with imminent bankruptcy and are making frantic efforts at attempts to prevent free news sites from being aired on the internet.

Government surveillance of the American public is very widespread and at the present time, almost every aspect of an American citizen, or resident, is available for official surveillance. This includes mail, television viewing, telephone conversations, computer communications, travel, ownership of property, medical and school records, banking and credit card transactions, inheritances and other aspects of a citizen’s daily life.

This is done to circumvent any possible organization that could contravene official government policy and has its roots in massive civil resistance to governmental policy during the war in Vietnam. The government does not want a reprise of that problem and its growing surveillance is designed to carefully watch any citizen, or groups of citizens, who might, present or future, pose a threat to government policy.

Another factor to be considered is the current American attitudes towards racial issues. There has always been prejudice in the United States against blacks. In 1943 there were bloody riots in Detroit and Los Angeles, the former aimed at blacks and the latter against Mexicans. Since then, there has been chronic racial prejudice but it has been relatively small and very local. Also, there is growing anti-Semitic prejudice in American but this is officially ignored and never is mentioned in the American media. Much of this growing problem is directed at the brutal actions of Israel against Palestinians. Israelis have an undue influence in the American political scene. The very far right so-called neo-cons are almost all Jewish and most are Israeli citizens. Also, the middle-level ranks of American CIA personnel are heavily infiltrated by Israelis and it is said that any secret the CIA has is at once passed to Israel and that countries needs are assuming importance in CIA actions.

The attitudes of the working class Americans were inflamed during the last presidential elections by Mr. Trump who catered to them and encouraged rebellious attitudes. By speaking against Central American illegal immigrants, Mr. Trump has caused a polarization of attitudes and the militant right wing in America, currently small in number but well-organized and potentially very dangerous, has begun to make its views very well known in public demonstrations.

 

Congress and the Press Should Pick Up Where Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller Left Off

July 25, 2019

by James Risen

The Intercept

Last week, CNN published an explosive story related to the Trump-Russia case that raised important new questions about ties between Julian Assange, WikiLeaks, and Russia.

The report said that CNN had obtained hundreds of pages of surveillance reports compiled for the Ecuadorian government by a Spanish security company, which showed that Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, received “in-person deliveries, potentially of hacked materials related to the 2016 U.S. election, during a series of suspicious meetings” while he lived in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. “Assange met with Russians and world-class hackers at critical moments, frequently for hours at a time,” CNN reported. He “acquired powerful new computing network hardware to facilitate data transfers just weeks before WikiLeaks received hacked materials from Russian operatives.”

The CNN report — which appeared on a day when the Washington press corps was distracted by President Donald Trump’s racist tweets — was largely ignored. But with former special counsel Robert Mueller testifying before Congress on Wednesday, the little-noticed Assange story was yet another reminder that despite Mueller’s efforts, many important questions about the Trump-Russia case remain unresolved.

During his testimony before two House committees on Wednesday, Mueller provided terse answers to both Democrats and Republicans, largely sticking to his vow not to go beyond the written text of his report. He acted as if the report were the final word on the Trump-Russia matter.

But the truth is that Mueller pulled his punches in his report and left plenty of room for both the press and Congress to pursue the Trump-Russia case further. His grim Sergeant Friday-style testimony on Wednesday only reinforced the need for others to now pick up where Mueller left off.

Among other things, Mueller’s testimony, like his report, failed to answer the question of whether Trump should be prosecuted for obstruction of justice given the mountain of evidence gathered by Mueller and his prosecutors.

What’s more, Mueller stated in his report that he lacked enough evidence to bring charges in connection with possible coordination between Russian operatives and the Trump campaign that could have represented violations of campaign finance laws. Yet the report details many contacts between the Trump circle and Kremlin-connected Russians, while also acknowledging that Mueller’s investigators could not discern the significance of some of those contacts.

Mueller’s unresponsive testimony, like his hesitant report, suggests that Trump’s long, public campaign of intimidation against Mueller’s probe had an impact.

During his testimony, Mueller hinted that Trump’s unrelenting fight against him influenced at least one of his most important decisions during the two-year investigation. Mueller’s team never interviewed Trump himself, instead accepting written answers to questions. He didn’t even attempt to subpoena Trump to force him to testify. Asked about the matter Wednesday, Mueller admitted that he knew Trump would fight a subpoena and that would prolong his investigation.

Democrats had to take solace from a few lonely nuggets from Mueller, such as his restatement of the fact that Trump was not exonerated by his report, and that Trump could still be charged with obstruction when he leaves office.

One of the best exchanges of the day came in the second hearing, before the House Intelligence Committee. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the committee’s chairman, asked Mueller whether it was accurate to say that Trump campaign officials “built their strategy, their messaging strategy, around those stolen documents,” meaning the Democratic emails and documents hacked by the Russians and released by WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign.

“Generally, that’s true,” Mueller replied.

“And then they lied to cover it up?”

“Generally, that’s true.”

But overall, Mueller turned in a cursory public appearance that indicated his eagerness to go back into retirement.

In addition to Mueller’s fatigue and Trump’s intimidation tactics, there is another little understood factor that helps explain why Mueller hewed to such a narrow approach in both his report and his testimony. The anticlimactic ending to the Mueller investigation can be seen as the product of decades of bitter fights between Democrats and Republicans over what powers should be granted to special prosecutors probing criminal acts by powerful government officials.

In the late 1970s, after Watergate, Congress passed legislation creating the role of a special prosecutor, later known as an independent counsel. Those who held the job had broad powers. Lawrence Walsh, the independent counsel appointed to look into the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s, conducted a long investigation of the Reagan administration that Republicans complained was overzealous. Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel who investigated the Monica Lewinsky affair during the Clinton administration, left Democrats fuming that he was overzealous.

The result of this bipartisan exhaustion was an uneasy truce. When the law governing independent counsels came up for reauthorization in 1999, Congress let it expire. In its place, the Justice Department issued new rules that gave the attorney general much more control over appointing special counsels and over their investigations. One result is that special counsels today arguably have less independence and power to hold high officials accountable than the independent counsels of the past.

The Democratic-controlled House should pick up where Mueller left off and create a select investigative committee that consolidates all the House’s inquiries into Trump and Russia. That would mirror the way Congress handled Watergate. Long before Congress began impeachment hearings in the House, a select Watergate committee was created in the Senate to investigate the scandal. Its hearings captured the public’s attention and helped changed the nation’s attitudes about Nixon and his role in the Democratic National Committee break-in.

There’s a message for the press here too: Let Trump’s incendiary tweets speak for themselves, and look at the Mueller report as a road map for further investigation, not as the end of the story.

 

Trump blew whistle on Jeffrey Epstein’; Pedophile’s threat to expose President ‘as a financial fraud’ after he ‘stole’ his $125M mansion led to then-tycoon outing the pedophile to cops

  • Jeffrey Epstein informed President Trump of a real estate purchase he planned to make in Palm Beach back in 2004 claims Michael Wolff
  • He was trying to determine if he could move the pool on the property which he was prepared to bid $36 million for and then flip
  • Epstein, 66, was not afraid of letting Trump know this because he assumed he did not have the money to purchase the property
  • Trump got the money from Deutsche Bank and bid $5 million more than Epstein before putting the home on the market for $125 million after renovations
  • Epstein threatened to expose Trump claims Wolff and in turn he suggests that Trump outed Epstein to police and helped launch the 2005 criminal probe
  • The property sold for $96 million to Dmitry Rybolovlev and in 2016 was torn down and made into three lots, that each sold for over $30 million

July 23, 2019

By Chris Spargo

Daily Mail

President Donald Trump played a central role in launching the 2005 criminal investigation of Jeffrey Epstein by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.

Michael Wolff, who was close with both men in the early aughts, writes in Fire and Fury that Epstein was outed to authorities soon after he threatened to expose Trump as a financial fraud.

It all started in 2004 when Epstein, who was still friends with Trump at the time, invited the real estate scion to see a foreclosed property in the tony enclave that he planned to purchase and then flip.

And it all ended with Trump pocketing more than $50 million in profits and Epstein behind bars, though both men did manage to negotiate sweet deals.

Epstein was planning to pay $36 million for the property, information he shared with Trump because he was certain the still-struggling developer would not be able to come up with the capital to submit his own bid.

That assumption proved to be wrong, and after learning of Epstein’s plan to list the home at a sizable profit million after renovations, Trump snapped up the oceanfront villa by bidding $5 million more than his pal.

He would list it for $125 million after minor renovations, which resulted in an enraged Epstein threatening to expose Trump.

It was shortly after making those threats that Epstein found himself under criminal investigation writes Wolff.

‘Soon after negotiating the deal for the house in Palm Beach, Epstein took Trump to see it, looking for advice on construction issues involved with moving the swimming pool,’ writes Woff.

‘But as he prepared to finalize his purchase for the house, Epstein discovered that Trump, who was severely cash-constrained at the time, had bid $41 million for the property and bought it out from under Epstein through an entity called Trump Properties LLC, entirely financed by Deutsche Bank.

Local reports reveal that the two men did in fact battle it out at the auction, with Trump saying: ‘I won’t be living there because I already live in the best house in America.’

He later mentioned: ‘I’m the largest developer in New York so this isn’t a big deal to me.’

That claim is not true.

Property records confirm that an LLC with Trump’s name bought and then sold the massive mansion, and made a tidy sum in the process.

The property sold for $96 million, more than doubling Trump’s initial investment even after renovation costs.

Epstein was apoplectic and threatened to expose the precarious nature of Trump’s wealth.

‘A furious Epstein, certain that Trump was merely fronting for the real owners, threatened to expose the deal, which was getting extensive coverage in Florida papers,’ writes Wolff.

‘The fight became all the more bitter when, not long after the purchase, Trump put the house on the market for $125 million.’

And Trump in turn helped usher in the PBCSO investigation by exposing Epstein’s secrets.

‘Just as the enmity between the two friends increased over the house purchase, Epstein found himself under investigation by the Palm Beach police,’ writes Wolff.

‘And as Epstein’s legal problems escalated, the house, with only minor improvements,  was acquired for $96 million by Dmitry Rybolovlev, an oligarch who was part of the close Putin circle of government-aligned industrialists in Russia, and who, in fact, never moved into the house.’

Trump likely had knowledge of the alleged criminal enterprise due to the fact that Epstein recruited from his private club.

Two Epstein victims claim they were approached while employees of the spa at Mar-a-Lago.

President Trump in turn banned Epstein from the club, but according to Wolff did not sever the friendship entirely until years later.

The sale of the home did later prove to be problematic for Trump when news of Russian meddling during the election came to light.

In 2016, it was torn down and divided into three lots that were each sold for over $30 million.

Last week, producers at Morning Joe unearthed a video from 1992 which shows that Epstein was a guest of Trump’s at Mar-a-Lago in November of that year and was surrounded by a group of models and cheerleaders.

It was one of Trump’s final private parties before the financially-strapped real estate scion turned his residence into a members-only club.

Epstein brought his then-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell along for the outing, years before she would use the club as a hunting ground for underage girls according to court documents.

In one video, the women described in court documents as Epstein’s pimp can be seen dancing behind Epstein and Trump as they assess the dozens of young females who had taken over the club that night.

‘Look at her back there, she’s hot,’ Trump tells Epstein.

Epstein briefly feigns interest in the ‘hot woman,’ and soon after is seen doubling over with laughter when Trump whispers something in his ear.

President Trump insisted he wasn’t friends with Epstein after he was arrested for sex trafficking.

‘I had a falling out with him a long time ago. I wasn’t a fan. I was not a fan of his. That I can tell you,’ he told reporters.

A majority of the footage shows Trump dancing with the bevy of beauties on hand that evening.

He even appears to kiss one, just a few months after finalizing his divorce from first wife Ivana Trump.

The kiss is a bit of shock given the fact that Trump clearly states that he is aware NBC is filming the footage.

He was dating Marla Maples at the time, though the two were famously on-and-off for years.

A few months after the video was shot she became pregnant with his fourth child, Tiffany.

There is no evidence that Epstein had been charged or even accused of a sex crime involving minors at the time of this party.

 

Encyclopedia of American Loons

John Marshall

Intelligent design creationism (ID) is pseudoscience, and as with most branches of pseudoscience, proponents of ID see the theory’s lack of popularity among those who actually has some expertise in the relevant areas not as a result of ID’s lack of scientific merit but as a result of conspiracy and/or bias. ID’s proponents themselves, of course, do not possess such expertise. A fine example is John Marshall, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Missouri-Columbia and ID apologist, who claims that mainstream scientists are trying to kick intelligent design “off the playing field of science” even though, according to Marshall, ID is “as much science as Darwinian evolution is science”. It isn’t. Marshall, of course, is not a biologist, and does not appear to have extensive knowledge of the relevant fields. Nevertheless, “as a theory, I believe that intelligent design fits the evidence of biology better than Darwinian evolution,” says Marshall, since that’s what he chooses to believe, regardless of evidence or principles for good scientific inquiry or evaluation of evidence (Marshall, in a 2007 talk in which he asserted his stance, failed to answer questions (from scientists) about ID’s testable predictions, for instance, which are sorely missing). He did bring up the standard false analogy involving DNA and information, however, saying that DNA is the “most complex, densely packed, elaborate assembly of information in the known universe” and even bears similarities to computer codes or a language, which is misleading at best. There is a nice, brief discussion of Marshall’s claim that ID is science here.

Marshall is also a signatory to the Discovery Institute’s laughable petition A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism.

Diagnosis: Marshall is a scientist. But being a working scientist in one field doesn’t mean that your dabblings in a different field are anything but pseudoscientific. Marshall is also a pseudoscientist.

StarShield Lortie

StarShield Lortie is the owner of Blissful Spaces Housecleaning in Columbia, Tennessee. Lortie claims that she can rid houses, apartments, condos, or used cars of “residual energies left behind by the previous occupant.” We don’t really see the need for looking into more details about that, but apparently Lortie is a “student of Native American Shamanic and Toltec traditions for over 18 years,” so if your house, apartment or condo is located in a Stephen King novel, you might want to check out her services.

Diagnosis: You really don’t need to check out her services. A plastic dreamcatcher will do precisely the same trick (including the being slightly offensive aspect). Probably harmless, though.

Al Ouimet

Goodnighties is a sleepwear product that will ostensibly “maximize sleep benefits” by neutralizing “the stress our bodies produce.” It does so since it is “made with a smart-fabric” that is “stimulating blood flow with negative ions to tired strained muscles.” If you worry about “bullshit” based on that description, rest assured that your worries will not be allayed by trying to go further into the details (some of which are discussed here). In any case, the sleepwear is supposed to be impregnated with a substance that emits negative ions. How that is connected to “the stress our bodies produce” is anybody’s guess, and that’s without even raising the question of how it is supposed to cureit, even if the ions could be directed to specific “tired, strained muscled” when absorbed by our bodies, which they cannot, even if they existed in the product, which tests (this one is a good report of various tests done on the product) suggest they do not. None of that prevents the company from making some spectacularly grandiose claims about the product, such as that the negative ions “increase blood flow and oxygen to relieve pain and restore joint mobility, “restore pH balance”, and (at the same time) “promote an alkaline reaction in the cells,” and that athletes use the product, the primary function of which is to provide a more peaceful sleep, as “a stimulus to enhance physical performance”. The product has, however, been promoted by Dr. Oz. So has astrology and communication with the spirits of the dead.

Most of the, uh, science supposedly supporting the product has been systematized by one Dr. Albert Ouimet, their leading scientist (we’re not sure whether there are more) and part of the original IonX development team (ditto). Ouimet has more recently also expanded the product sortiment, all based on ridiculous nonsense. Energy Athletic Golf (“powered by IonX”), for instance, can ostensibly “improve all aspects [products like this usually come with pretty strong claims] of a golfer’s game, helping to energize, increase focus and add power during every round” by “ionization”. The claim is discussed here. According to Ouimet, “science has learned […] that ionization energizes the body’s electrical circuits,” which “stimulates blood flow, increases efficiency of power and speeds up recovery.” Ah, yes, the science. If Ouimet knows what it means, then surely his target audience does not. How does it work? “With coverage many times greater than a bracelet or necklace, the IonX Ionized Energy Fabric, exclusive to Energy Athletic Golf, delivers ionized energy to the entire upper body through a negatively charged electromagnetic field built into the molecular structure of the fabric.” And apart from some technobabble and the claim that the shirt in question works with the body’s own “force field”, that’s pretty much all the details you will get. You will, however, also be told that “wearing Energy Athletic powered by IonX will have the advantage of increased average power of 2.7%” – “power” being that bar in the upper right of your screen that blinks red when it’s low. He’s also got a graph. And testimonials, of course.

Diagnosis: Some may find it hard to believe that Al Ouimet is a loon, but we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt (or not, depending how you see it), and suggest that he is a derangedly insane crackpot. His customers definitely are, at least.

 

The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations

July 25, 2019

by Dr. Peter Janney

On October 8th, 2000, Robert Trumbull Crowley, once a leader of the CIA’s Clandestine Operations Division, died in a Washington hospital of heart failure and the end effects of Alzheimer’s Disease. Before the late Assistant Director Crowley was cold, Joseph Trento, a writer of light-weight books on the CIA, descended on Crowley’s widow at her town house on Cathedral Hill Drive in Washington and hauled away over fifty boxes of Crowley’s CIA files.

Once Trento had his new find secure in his house in Front Royal, Virginia, he called a well-known Washington fix lawyer with the news of his success in securing what the CIA had always considered to be a potential major embarrassment.

Three months before, on July 20th of that year, retired Marine Corps colonel William R. Corson, and an associate of Crowley, died of emphysema and lung cancer at a hospital in Bethesda, Md.

After Corson’s death, Trento and the well-known Washington fix-lawyer went to Corson’s bank, got into his safe deposit box and removed a manuscript entitled ‘Zipper.’ This manuscript, which dealt with Crowley’s involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, vanished into a CIA burn-bag and the matter was considered to be closed forever.

The small group of CIA officials gathered at Trento’s house to search through the Crowley papers, looking for documents that must not become public. A few were found but, to their consternation, a significant number of files Crowley was known to have had in his possession had simply vanished.

When published material concerning the CIA’s actions against Kennedy became public in 2002, it was discovered to the CIA’s horror, that the missing documents had been sent by an increasingly erratic Crowley to another person and these missing papers included devastating material on the CIA’s activities in South East Asia to include drug running, money laundering and the maintenance of the notorious ‘Regional Interrogation Centers’ in Viet Nam and, worse still, the Zipper files proving the CIA’s active organization of the assassination of President John Kennedy..

A massive, preemptive disinformation campaign was readied, using government-friendly bloggers, CIA-paid “historians” and others, in the event that anything from this file ever surfaced. The best-laid plans often go astray and in this case, one of the compliant historians, a former government librarian who fancied himself a serious writer, began to tell his friends about the CIA plan to kill Kennedy and eventually, word of this began to leak out into the outside world.

The originals had vanished and an extensive search was conducted by the FBI and CIA operatives but without success. Crowley’s survivors, his aged wife and son, were interviewed extensively by the FBI and instructed to minimize any discussion of highly damaging CIA files that Crowley had, illegally, removed from Langley when he retired. Crowley had been a close friend of James Jesus Angleton, the CIA’s notorious head of Counterintelligence. When Angleton was sacked by DCI William Colby in December of 1974, Crowley and Angleton conspired to secretly remove Angleton’s most sensitive secret files out of the agency. Crowley did the same thing right before his own retirement, secretly removing thousands of pages of classified information that covered his entire agency career.

Known as “The Crow” within the agency, Robert T. Crowley joined the CIA at its inception and spent his entire career in the Directorate of Plans, also know as the “Department of Dirty Tricks. ”

Crowley was one of the tallest man ever to work at the CIA. Born in 1924 and raised in Chicago, Crowley grew to six and a half feet when he entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in N.Y. as a cadet in 1943 in the class of 1946. He never graduated, having enlisted in the Army, serving in the Pacific during World War II. He retired from the Army Reserve in 1986 as a lieutenant colonel. According to a book he authored with his friend and colleague, William Corson, Crowley’s career included service in Military Intelligence and Naval Intelligence, before joining the CIA at its inception in 1947. His entire career at the agency was spent within the Directorate of Plans in covert operations. Before his retirement, Bob Crowley became assistant deputy director for operations, the second-in-command in the Clandestine Directorate of Operations.

Bob Crowley first contacted Gregory Douglas in 1993 when he found out from John Costello that Douglas was about to publish his first book on Heinrich Mueller, the former head of the Gestapo who had become a secret, long-time asset to the CIA. Crowley contacted Douglas and they began a series of long and often very informative telephone conversations that lasted for four years. In 1996, Crowley told Douglas that he believed him to be the person that should ultimately tell Crowley’s story but only after Crowley’s death. Douglas, for his part, became so entranced with some of the material that Crowley began to share with him that he secretly began to record their conversations, later transcribing them word for word, planning to incorporate some, or all, of the material in later publication.

 

Conversation No. 44

Date: Tuesday, October 29, 1996

Commenced: 8:45 AM CST

Concluded:    9:05 AM CST

 

GD: Good morning, Robert. How is life treating you?

RTC: Well enough, I suppose. Yourself?

GD: Not too badly. I heard from Corson who wants me to come back for a meeting with you and himself soon. He neglected to mention Kimmel for some reason.

RTC: Kimmel will probably be along to subject you to his brilliant interrogative techniques.

GD: Good. That ought to be entertaining. Corson mentioned the University Club.

RTC: Yes. Up on Sixteenth Avenue past the White House. We can have lunch.

GD: Is the food good?

RTC: It’s not the Jockey Club but it will do. Do you have any idea when you will come?

GD: Probably early in December. Willis Carto  wants to meet with me over the weekend in DC so we can get together just after that. I’ve been reading over this ZIPPER business and checking various dates out. Fascinating story, Robert, and hopefully it will make a good book. And before you say it, no, I won’t publish until after you’re gone. They were all of them into it, weren’t they?

RTC: Just a few of the top people, actually. We were talking about the Army plot to start a war with Cuba by attacking our planes and setting off a few bombs here. I believe we did talk about this.

GD: Yes.

RTC: Jim Bamford knows all about this. It’s called ‘Operation Northwoods’ and the plans are in the National Archives. I wouldn’t recommend your asking your friend Wolfe about it because he’d run to Langley with his tongue hanging out and then they would vanish without a trace. If you’re going to be here, I’ll give you chapter and verse so you can find them yourself. Oh and one other thing. You mentioned an Army file on top Nazis we used. Wolfe sent it to you?

GD: Yes, I got it from him.

RTC: If I gave you chapter and verse on it, would you confirm?

GD: Certainly.

RTC: Let me just find this…..always putting….here. ‘P&O file 311.5 TS, sections one two and three.’ Dated 1948. Is that the one?

GD: It sounds like it. I’m bad on numbers. Let me pull it out. Take about a minute.

RTC: Go ahead.

(Pause)

GD: That’s it.

RTC: That stupid son of a bitch had no right to give that to you. He’s playing both ends against the middle. When you come back here, could you make a copy and give it to me?

GD: I will do that.

RTC: That man is a rat, Gregory, a sewer rat.

GD: Don’t drag me into it, please. I never solicited it and he sent it to me so I would give him some Müller papers dealing with his employment by your people. Naturally, since I never asked for it, once it came and I read it, I pretended I never got it. This scared yesterday’s dinner out of him because he put his return address on it. He thinks some post office employee will find it and turn it over to the FBI. I think he’s afraid of going to jail.

RTC: He damned well ought to.

GD: Who knows, Robert? He might like it inside the big house. You know what they say, don’t you? If you can’t get a woman get a clean old man.

RTC: (Laughter)

GD: My, and such a lot of Gestapo and SD people, not to mention a few Einsatzgruppen people we transported here, gave new names and ID to and made them GS18s… I think Wolfe wanted me to publish this and embarrass the CIA and the Army. He can’t, of course, so he thinks he is very clever using me as a cat’s paw. And to show you how brilliant an operative he is, the thing came in a NA envelope with his name written above the return address. Is he typical of the type of pseudo-academics you use?

RTC: These are useless attention-craving idiots but useful in their way.

GD: As fertilizer in your garden? You know the old saying that those who can, do, and others teach? Fits them perfectly. I have been running into academics for years. Petty, puffed-up bags of shit who squall and attack each other with their purses over the most trivial things. And, of course, they steal from everyone and then call it research. I might cite the case of Stephen Ambrose, the wonderful historian. He published a book once called a ‘Handbook on German Military Forces.’ Problem was, the book had been published in 1945 by the War Department as TM-E 30-451. Of course it wasn’t illegal to steal it, page by page, because it was public domain, but after I brought this to the attention of his publishers, the next edition had certain credit corrections. He probably blamed it all on his careless typist. You know, I always recommend an Ambrose book because you can get three books for the price of one. Why ever do you use such slugs? I’ll bet that even now, Mortimer Z. Tinsley, PhD, DVM is working on a devastating attack on the Müller book. He probably teaches at some obscure school like Antelope Valley Teacher’s College, in the history department, and his doctoral thesis, which he stole in its entirely, was entitled ‘A History of Fraud in Bulgarian Bar Mitzvahs in the Nineteenth Century.’  He will point out that Müller died in 1945 and my book is fuller of shit than a Christmas turkey. Of course he’s prating about Dr. Heinrich Müller, not Gestapo Müller, but I’ll just bet The New York Times Sunday book section will carry a wonderful review of it. I love that section. They push forward deeply moving books about a black orphan boy raised in Georgia by two vegetarian lesbians and his poignant and deeply moving struggles to become a champion purse snatcher-cum-pimp in Hell’s Kitchen. The sort of silly shit that no one reads but the editor knows the publisher.

RTC: Oh, we do have our stable of weird people working for us. Did I ever tell you about the Pedophile Academy, Gregory?

GD: Are you speaking of Yale, Robert?

RTC: No, no we actually had one down at Camp Peary. Right near Jim Critchfield’s place. I don’t know if you are aware of it but we called it The Farm and it was supposed to be a secret training center for young agents. Anyway, Allen Dulles set up this training center down there for pedophiles. They were in training to seduce, molest and, most especially, photograph the young children of targets. Not only, Allen reasoned, would our graduates have a spanking good time but they could get wonderful action pictures of the wee ones to blackmail their families with.

GD: Sick.

RTC: One could say that. I understand they broke it up when one of the graduates nailed a Deputy Director’s son at a summer camp.

GD: Another boat trip?

RTC: I really don’t know. I heard he had a sudden heart attack. We do those very well, you know.

GD: I am aware. A French doctor invented the drug. The Gestapo used it internally and externally and through Müller, we got it. Is that what you’re talking about?

RTC: I think so.

GD: Müller told me that when he came to Washington, they were tossing people out of windows. Forrestal went crazy and they chunked him out of the sixteenth floor clinic at Bethesda. That’s the special floor where they keep Senators who flip out and run around the Mall in the nude.

RTC: I think it’s more of a drunk tank, Gregory. McCarthy was locked up there for a time.

GD: They should have put him out the window. Müller used to say that this showed no consideration for people passing on the sidewalk below or expensive parked cars. Imagine an overweight official descending ten stories onto your new Packard or worse, on your Christmas shopping wife. Think of the lost gifts, Robert, and you too will weep.

RTC: Gregory, you are a terrible person.

GD: I know that, Robert. I once put angel hair…you know, the spun glass insulation…into my sister’s underwear before a family dinner and she spent most of the time scratching her crotch and other unmentionable body areas right at the table. I told everyone she had crabs and she had to leave the table. I understand her swollen pudenda looked like an eggplant.

RTC: (Laughter) Gregory, you are really very bad. But entertaining.

GD: I know. Anyway, when I come back to see you I have some ZIPPER questions for you.

RTC: Yes, I much prefer a face-to-face. But, my God, not at the University Club lunch.

GD: Of course not.

RTC: If Tom Kimmel ever got wind of what we were up to, he would have my place raided.

GD: Oh my God, Robert, he might find the Swiss Music Box.

RTC: Speaking of that, it seems to be working. At least it scares off all the birds and every time I put it on, the dogs in the neighborhood howl like demons.

GD: Maybe the poor Swiss are soaking their embassy floor with urine. Did you ever think of that?

RTC: It did occur to me. But enough merriment for today. I have to get ready to go to the doctor’s office so I will speak with you later.

 

(Concluded at 9:05 AM CST)

 

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Conversations+with+the+Crow+by+Gregory+Douglas

 

The Broken Sword of Langley

by Christian Jürs

The first serious, and successful, U.S. direct interference in Russian leadership policies was in 1953. An ageing Josef Stalin, suffering from arteriosclerosis and becoming increasingly hostile to his subordinates, was poisoned by Laverenti P. Beria, head of his secret police. Beria, was a Mingrelian Jew, very ruthless and a man who ordered and often supervised the executions of people Stalin suspected of plotting against him, had fallen out of favor with Stalin and had come to believe that he was on the list of those Stalin wished to remove. With his intelligence connection, Beria was contacted by the American CIA through one of his trusted agents in Helskinki and through this contact, Beria was supplied dosages of warfarin  The first drug in the class to be widely commercialized was dicoumarol itself, patented in 1941 and later used as a pharmaceutical. potent coumarin-based anticoagulants for use as rodent poisons, resulting in warfarin in 1948. The name warfarin stems from the acronym WARF, for Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation plus the ending -arin indicating its link with coumarin. Warfarin was first registered for use as a rodenticide in the US in 1948, and was immediately popular; although it was developed by Link, the WARF financially supported the research and was assigned the patent.

Warfarin was used by Lavrenti Beria to poison Stalin. Stalin’s cooks and personal bodyguards were all under the direct control of  Beria. He acknowledged to other top Soviet leaders that he had poisoned Stalin, according to Molotov’s memoirs. Nikita Khrushchev and others to poison Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Warfarin is tasteless and colorless, and produces symptoms similar to those that Stalin exhibited. Stalin collapsed during the night after a dinner with Beria and other Soviet leaders, and died four days later on 5 March 1953.

Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, in his political memoirs (published posthumously in 1993), claimed that Beria told him that he had poisoned Stalin. “I took him out,” Beria supposedly boasted. There is evidence that after Stalin was found unconscious, medical care was not provided for many hours. Other evidence of the murder of Stalin by Beria associates was presented by Edvard Radzinsky in his biography Stalin. It has been suggested that warfarin was used; it would have produced the symptoms reported.

After the fall of Gorbachev and his replacement by Boris Yeltsin, a known CIA connection, the Russian criminal mob was encouraged by the CIA to move into the potentially highly lucrative Russian natural resource field.

By 1993 almost all banks in Russia were owned by the mafia, and 80% of businesses were paying protection money. In that year, 1400 people were murdered in Moscow, crime members killed businessmen who would not pay money to them, as well as reporters, politicians, bank owners and others opposed to them. The new criminal class of Russia took on a more Westernized and businesslike approach to organized crime as the more code-of-honor based Vory faded into extinction.

The Izmaylovskaya gang was considered one of the country’s most important and oldest Russian Mafia groups in Moscow and also had a presence in Tel Aviv, Berlin, Paris, Toronto, Miami and New York City. It was founded during the 1980s under the leadership of Oleg Ivanov and was estimated to consist of about 200 active members (according to other data of 300–500 people). In principle, the organization was divided into two separate bodies—Izmailovskaya and Gol’yanovskaya  which utilized quasi-military ranks and strict internal discipline. It was involved extensively in murder-for-hire, extortions, and infiltration of legitimate businesses.

The gangs were termed the Oligarchy and were funded by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Israeli-owned Bank of New York all with the assisance of the American government.

The arrival of Vladimir Putin as the new leader of Russia was at first ignored in Washington. A former KGB Lt. Colonel who had been stationed in East Germany, Putin was viewed as inconsequential, bland and colorless by the purported Russian experts in both the Department of State and the CIA.

Putin, however, proved to be a dangerous opponent who blocked the Oligarchs attempt to control the oil fields and other assets, eventual control of which had been promised to both American and British firms.

The Oligarchs were allowed to leave the country and those remaining behind were forced to follow Putin’s policies. Foreign control over Russian natural resources ceased and as both the CIA, various foreign firms and the American government had spent huge sums greasing the skids, there was now considerable negative feelings towards Putin.

The next serious moves against Russia came with a plan conceived by the CIA and fully approved by President George W. Bush, whose father had once been head of the CIA.

This consisted of ‘Operation Sickle’ which was designed to surround the western and southern borders of Russia with states controlled by the United States through the guise of NATO membership. Included in this encirclement program were the Baltic States, Poland, the Czech Republic, Georgia and a number of Asiatic states bordering southern Russia. It was the stated intention of the NATO leadership to put military missiles in all these countries. The so-called “Orange Revolution” funded and directed by the CIA, overthrew the pro-Moscow government in the Ukraine, giving the United States theoretical control over the heavy industrialized Donetz Basin and most importantly, the huge former Soviet naval base at Sebastopol.

The Georgia Train and Equip Program (GTEP) was an American-sponsored 18-month, $64-million program aimed at increasing the capabilities of the Georgian armed forces by training and equipping four 600-man battalions with light weapons, vehicles and communications. The program enabled the US to expedite funding for the Georgian military for Operation Enduring Freedom.

On February 27, 2002, the US media reported that the U.S. would send approximately two hundred United States Army Special Forces soldiers to Georgia to train Georgian troops. The program implemented President Bush’s decision to respond to the Government of Georgia’s request for assistance to enhance its counter-terrorism capabilities and addressed the situation in the Pankisi Gorge.

The program began in May 2002 when American special forces soldiers began training select units of the Georgian Armed Forces, including the 12th Commando Light Infantry Battalion, the 16th Mountain-Infantry Battalion, the 13th “Shavnabada” Light Infantry Battalion, the 11th Light Infantry Battalion, a mechanized company and small numbers of Interior Ministry troops and border guards.

Eventually, responsibility for training Georgian forces was turned over to the US Marine Corps in conjunction with the British Army. British and American teams worked as part of a joint effort to train each of the four infantry battalion staffs and their organic rifle companies. This training began with the individual soldier and continued through fire team, squad, platoon, company, and battalion level tactics as well as staff planning and organization. Upon completing training, each of the new Georgian infantry battalions began preparing for deployment rotations in support of the Global War on Terrorism

The CIA were instrumental in getting Mikheil Saakashvili, an erratic policician, pro-West, into the presidency of Georgia but although he allowed the country to be flooded with American arms and “military trainers” he was not a man easily controlled and under the mistaken belief that Ameriacn military might supported him, commenced to threaten Moscow. Two Georgian provinces were heavily populated by Russians and objected to the inclusion in Georgia and against them, Saakashvili began to make threatening moves.

The 2008 South Ossetia War or Russo-Georgian War (in Russia also known as the Five-Day War) was an armed conflict in August 2008 between Georgia on one side, and Russia and separatist governments of South Ossetia and Abkhazia on the other.

During the night of 7 to 8 August 2008, Georgia launched a large-scale military offensive against South Ossetia, in an attempt to reclaim the territory. Georgia claimed that it was responding to attacks on its peacekeepers and villages in South Ossetia, and that Russia was moving non-peacekeeping units into the country. The Georgian attack caused casualties among Russian peacekeepers, who resisted the assault along with Ossetian militia. Georgia successfully captured most of Tskhinvali within hours. Russia reacted by deploying units of the Russian 58th Army and Russian Airborne Troops in South Ossetia, and launching airstrikes against Georgian forces in South Ossetia and military and logistical targets in Georgia proper. Russia claimed these actions were a necessary humanitarian intervention and peace enforcement.

When the Russian incursion was seen as massive and serious, U.S. president George W. Bush’s statement to Russia was: “Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century.” The US Embassy in Georgia, describing the Matthew Bryza press-conference, called the war an “incursion by one of the world’s strongest powers to destroy the democratically elected government of a smaller neighbor”.

Initially the Bush Administration seriously considered a military response to defend Georgia, but such an intervention was ruled out by the Pentagon due to the inevitable conflict it would lead to with Russia. Instead, Bush opted for a softer option by sending humanitarian supplies to Georgia by military, rather than civilian, aircraft. And he ordered the immediate evacuation of all American military units from Georgia. The huge CIA contingent in the Georgian capital fled by aircraft and the American troops, mostly U.S. Marines, evacuated quickly to the Black Sea where they were evacuated by the U.S. Navy. British and Israeli military units also fled the country and all of them had to leave behind an enormous amount of military equipment to include tanks, light armored  vehicles, small arms, radio equipment, and trucks full of intelligence data they had neither the time nor foresight to destroy.

The immediate result of this demarche was the defection of the so-called “NATO Block” eastern Europeans from the Bush/CIA project who saw the United States as a paper tiger that would not, and could not, defend them against the Russians. In a sense, the Russian incursion into Georgia was a massive political, not a military, victory.

The CIA was not happy with the actions of Vladimir Putin and when he ran for reelection, they poured money into the hands of Putin’s enemies, hoping to reprise the Ukrainian Orange Revolution but the effort was in vain.

And when the Poles, nervous about the apparent speed with which the US forces had abandoned their bases in Georgia, were in the progress of establishing a rapprochement with Vladimir Putin, the CIA moved to prevent this. The top Polish government was slated to fly into Smolensk for a ceremony to mark the killing by Stalin of many Polish officer prisoners of war. Someone, the Russians are sure was CIA, tampered with the landing signals on the airfield so that the foggy landing strip appeared to be at a lower altitude. The plane, with the entire upper level of the Polish government, slammed into the ground, killing all of the passengers.

Elegant diplomacy executed by true gentlemen!  And never let your children anywhere near any of them.

 

Opertation Northwoods: A typical operation explained

[Document begins]

TOP SECRET

POSSIBLE ACTIONS TO PROVOKE, HARRASS, OR DISRUPT

-CUBA-

  1. Operation SMASHER:
  2. Objective: The objective is to disrupt/disable military and commercial communications facilities in Cuba.
  3. Concept: This to be accomplished by the clandestine introduction of a “special” vacuum tube into selected communications equipment. The tube, which is available, is virtually undetectable inasmuch as its effectiveness is due to the insertion of a chemical compound in the base of the tube. The chemical, when heated becomes a conductor, when cool a non-conductor.
  4. Operation FREE RIDE:
  5. Objective: The objective is to create unrest and dissension amongst the Cuban people.
  6. Concept: This to be accomplished by airdropping valid Pan American or KLM one-way airline tickets good for passage to Mexico City, Caracas, etc. (none to the U.S.). Tickets could be intermixed with other leaflets planned to be dropped. The number of tickets dropped could be increased. The validity of the tickets would have to be restricted to a time period.
  7. Operation TURN ABOUT:
  8. Objective: The objective is to create indications to Fidel Castro that his value to the revolutionary cause has diminished to the point where plans are being made for his “removal”.
  9. Concept: This to be accomplished by the use of intelligence means the crescendo increasing until it culminates in Castro’s discovery of the mechanism or hardware.

1

[page break]

  1. Operation DEFECTOR:
  2. Objective: To induce elements or individuals of the Cuban military to defect with equipment.
  3. Concept: This activity when properly planned and implemented has the effect of decreasing military capability. In a totalitarian system the immediate reaction is increased security accompanied by decreased activity. It also creates havoc in security and intelligence agencies. Could be accomplished by intelligence means and promise of rewards.
  4. Operation BREAK-UP:
  5. Objective: To clandestinely introduce corrosive materials to cause aircraft, vehicle or boat accidents.
  6. Concept: This activity, if possible should be aimed primarily toward the Soviet-provided aircraft. If properly accomplished it would degrade confidence in the equipment, increase supply and maintenance problems and seriously affect combat capability.
  7. Operation COVER-UP:
  8. Objective: The objective is to convince the Communist government of Cuba that Naval Forces ostensibly assigned to the MERCURY project is merely a cover.
  9. Concept: It should not be revealed as to what the cover is — this should be left to conjecture. This could tie in with Operation DIRTY TRICK.
  10. Operation DIRTY TRICK:
  11. Objective: The objective is to provide irrevocable proof that, should the MERCURY manned orbit flight fail, the fault lies with the Communists et al Cuba.
  12. Concept: This to be accomplished by manufacturing various pieces of evidence which would prove electronic interference on the part of the Cubans.
  13. Operation FULL-UP:
  14. Objective: The objective is to destroy confidence in fuel supplied by the Soviet Bloc by indicating it is contaminated.

2

[page break]

  1. Concept: This to be accomplished by introducing a known biological agent into jet fuel storage facilities. This agent flourishes in jet fuel and grows until it consumes all the space inside the tank.
  2. Operation PHANTOM:
  3. Objective: The objective is to convince the Castro Government that clandestine penetration and resupply of agents is being regularly conducted.
  4. Concept: This to be accomplished by use of BJ, UDT, AND JJ capabilities to create the impression that landings have been made on beaches and air drops have been made in other areas.
  5. Operation BINGO:
  6. Objective: The objective is to create an incident which has the appearance of an attack on U.S. facilities (GMO) in Cuba, thus providing an excuse for use of U.S. military might to overthrow the current government of Cuba.
  7. Concept: This to be accomplished by the use of SNAKES outside the confines of the Guantanamo Base. SNAKES simulate an actual fire-fight and upon hearing such a sound it is entirely feasible that the immediate reaction on G’Mo would be that the base is being attacked. This would, with proper preparation, be followed by a counterattack and with adequate planning the base at G’Mo could disgorge military force in sufficient number to sustain itself until other forces, which had been previously alerted, could attack in other areas. It is envisaged that a schedule of operations similar to the following would overwhelm the Cuban military and cause its defeat:

(1) Simulated attack on Guantanamo.

(2) Word flashed to the President.

(3) President orders counterattack to include:

  1. a) Immediate launch of alerted aircraft whose targets are Cuban airfields.

(b) Immediate launch of counterattack down strategic lines in communication in Cuba.

(c) Fleet force standing by on alert would make way toward pre-selected targets/landing areas.

(d) Immediate embarkation of airborne troops previously alerted to pre-selected targets.

(e) Launch of additional combat aircraft to clear drop areas and further interdict lines of communication.

(f) Ships and aircraft would land/airdrop troops and secure airfields, road/rail terminals, etc.

 

3

[page break]

 

(g) Resupply and replacement activities.

Properly executed, the above could overthrow the Cuban Government in a matter of hours, providing the plan is implemented within the next six months.

  1. Operation GOOD TIMES:
  2. Objective: To disillusion the Cuban population with Castro image by distribution of fake photographic material.
  3. Concept: Prepare a desired photograph, such as an obese Castro with two beauties in any situation desired, ostensibly within a room in the Castro residence, lavishly furnished, and a table briming over with the most delectable Cuban food with an underlying caption (appropriately Cuban) such as “My ration is different.” Make as many prints as desired on sterile paper and then distribute over the countryside by air drops or agents. This should put even a Commie Dictator in the proper perspective with the underprivileged masses.
  4. Operation HEAT IS ON:
  5. Objective: To create the impression with Castro Government that certain dyed-in-the-wool Red pilots are planning to defect, thus causing a detrimental tightening of security.
  6. Concept: It is known that many Cuban refugee pilots are personally acquainted with many of the present CRAF pilots. Accordingly, by utilizing all sources available, determine by name those pilots considered to be dedicated Castro Reds. Then by use of agents, communications, etc. inject into the Castro intelligence system the fact that these pre-designated Reds are planning to defect for monetary and/or ideological reasons. Security crackdown should help destroy Castro image and also impose unacceptable restrictions on routine training activities.

[Document ends]

[Document begins]

Office of the Secretary of Defense

Washington 25, D.C.

13 March 1962

MEMORANDUM FOR CHIEF OF OPERATIONS, CUBA PROJECT

Subject: Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba (TS)

  1. Reference is made to memorandum from Chief of Operations, Cuba Project, for General Craig, subject: “Operation MONGOOSE”, dated 5 March 1962, which requested brief but precise description of pretexts which the Joint Chiefs of Staff consider would provide justification for US military intervention in Cuba.
  2. The projects listed in the enclosure hereto are forwarded as a preliminary submission suitable for planning purposes. It is assumed that there will be similar submissions from other agencies and that these inputs will be used as a basis for developing a time-phased plan. The individual projects can then be considered on a case-by-case basis.
  3. This plan, incorporating projects selected from the attached suggestions, or from other sources, should be developed to focus all efforts on a specific ultimate objective which would provide adequate justification for US military intervention. Such a plan would enable a logical build-up of incidents to be combined with other seemingly unrelated events to camouflage the ultimate objective and create the necessary impression of Cuban rashness and irresponsibility on a large scale, directed at other countries as well as the United States. The plan would also properly integrate and time phase the courses of action to be pursued. The desired resultant from the execution of this plan would be to place the United States in the apparent position of suffering defensible grievances from a rash and irresponsible government of Cuba and to develop an international image of a Cuban threat to peace in the Western Hemisphere.
  4. Time is an important factor in resolution of the Cuban problem. Therefore, the plan should be so time-phased that projects would be operable within the next few months.
  5. Inasmuch as the ultimate objective is overt military intervention, it is recommeded that primary responsibility for developing military and para-military aspects of the plan for both overt and covert military operations be assigned the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

 

WILLIAM H. CRAIG

Brig General, USA

DOD/JCS Representative

Caribbean Survey Group

 

Enclosure:

Pretexts to Justify Military Intervention in Cuba

MEMORANDUM FOR CHIEF OF OPERATIONS, CUBA PROJECT

Subject: Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba (TS)

  1. Reference is made to memorandum from Chief of Operations, Cuba Project, for General Craig, subject: “Operation MONGOOSE”, dated 5 March 1962, which requested brief but precise description of pretexts which the Joint Chiefs of Staff consider would provide justification for US military intervention in Cuba.
  2. The projects listed in the enclosure hereto are forwarded as a preliminary submission suitable for planning purposes. It is assumed that there will be similar submissions from other agencies and that these inputs will be used as a basis for developing a time-phased plan. The individual projects can then be considered on a case-by-case basis.
  3. This plan, incorporating projects selected from the attached suggestions, or from other sources, should be developed to focus all efforts on a specific ultimate objective which would provide adequate justification for US military intervention. Such a plan would enable a logical build-up of incidents to be combined with other seemingly unrelated events to camouflage the ultimate objective and create the necessary impression of Cuban rashness and irresponsibility on a large scale, directed at other countries as well as the United States. The plan would also properly integrate and time phase the courses of action to be pursued. The desired resultant from the execution of this plan would be to place the United States in the apparent position of suffering defensible grievances from a rash and irresponsible government of Cuba and to develop an international image of a Cuban threat to peace in the Western Hemisphere.
  4. Time is an important factor in resolution of the Cuban problem. Therefore, the plan should be so time-phased that projects would be operable within the next few months.
  5. Inasmuch as the ultimate objective is overt military intervention, it is recommended that primary responsibility for developing military and para-military aspects of the plan for both overt and covert military operations be assigned the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Enclosure

Pretexts to Justify Military Intervention

In Cuba

 

PRETEXTS TO JUSTIFY US MILITARY INTERVENTION IN CUBA

(Note: The courses of action which follow are a preliminary submission suitable only for planning purposes. They are arranged neither chronologically nor in ascending order. Together with similar inputs from other agencies, they are intended to provide a point of departure for the development of a single, integrated, time-phased plan. Such a plan would permit the evaluation of individual projects within the context of cumulative, correlated actions designed to lead inexorably to the objective of adequate justification for US military intervention in Cuba).

  1. Since it would seem desirable to use legitimate provocation as the basis for US military intervention in Cuba a cover and deception plan, to include requisite preliminary actions such as has been developed in response to Task 33 c, could be executed as an initial effort to provoke Cuban reactions. Harassment plus deceptive actions to convince the Cubans of imminent invasion would be emphasized. Our military posture throughout execution of the plan will allow a rapid change from exercise to intervention if Cuban response justifies.
  2. A series of well coordinated incidents will be planned to take place in and around Guantanamo to give genuine appearance of being done by hostile Cuban forces.
  3. Incidents to establish a credible attack (not in chronological order):

(1) Start rumors (many). Use clandestine radio stations

(2) Land friendly Cubans in uniform “over-the-fence” to stage attack on base.

(3) Capture Cuban (friendly) saboteurs inside the base.

(4) Start riots near the base main gate (friendly Cubans).

(5) Blow up ammunition inside the base; start fires.

(6) Burn aircraft on air base (sabotage).

(7) Lob mortar shells from outside of base into base. Some damage to installations.

(8) Capture assault teams approaching from the sea or vicinity of Guantanamo City.

(9) Capture militia group which storms the base.

(10) Sabotage ship in harbor; large fires — napthalene.

(11) Sink ship near harbor entrance. Conduct funerals for mock-victims (may be lieu of (10)).

  1. United States would respond by executing offensive operations to secure water and power supplies, destroying artillery and mortar emplacements which threaten the base.
  2. Commence large scale United States military operations.
  3. A “Remember the Maine” incident could be arranged in several forms:
  4. We could blow up a US ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba.
  5. We could blow up a drone (unmanned) vessel anywhere in the Cuban waters. We could arrange to cause such incident in the vicinity of Havana or Santiago as a spectacular result of Cuban attack from the air or sea, or both. The presence of Cuban planes or ships merely investigating the intent of the vessel could be fairly compelling evidence that the ship was under attack. The nearness to Havana or Santiago would add credibility especially to those people that might have heard the blast or have seen the fire. The US could follow up with an air/sea rescue operation covered by US fighters to “evacuate” remaining members of the non-existent crew. Casualty lists in US newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation.
  6. We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington.

The terror campaign could be pointed at Cuban refugees seeking haven in the United States. We could sink a boatload of Cubans enroute to Florida (real or simulated). We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized. Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots, the arrest of Cuban agents and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement also would be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible government.

  1. A “Cuban-based, Castro-supported” filibuster could be simulated against a neighboring Caribbean nation (in the vein of the 14th of June invasion of the Dominican Republic). We know that Castro is backing subversive efforts clandestinely against Haiti, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and Nicaragua at present and possible others. These efforts can be magnified and additional ones contrived for exposure. For example, advantage can be taken of the sensitivity of the Dominican Air Force to intrusions within their national air space. “Cuban” B-26 or C-46 type aircraft could make cane-burning raids at night. Soviet Bloc incendiaries could be found. This could be coupled with “Cuban” messages to the Communist underground in the Dominican Republic and “Cuban” shipments of arms which could be found, or intercepted, on the beach.
  2. Use of MIG type aircraft by US pilots could provide additional provocation. Harassment of civil air, attacks on surface shipping and destruction of US military drone aircraft by MIG type planes would be useful as complementary actions. An F-86 properly painted would convince air passengers that they saw a Cuban MIG, especially if the pilot of the transport were to announce such fact. The primary drawback to this suggestion appears to be the security risk inherent in obtaining or modifying an aircraft. However, reasonable copies of the MIG could be produced from US resources in about three months.
  3. Hijacking attempts against civil air and surface craft should appear to continue as harassing measures condoned by the government of Cuba. Concurrently, genuine defections of Cuban civil and military air and surface craft should be encouraged.
  4. It is possible to create an incident which will demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban aircraft has attacked and shot down a chartered civil airliner enroute from the United States to Jamaica, Guatemala, Panama or Venezuela. The destination would be chosen only to cause the flight plan route to cross Cuba. The passengers could be a group of college students off on a holiday or any grouping of persons with a common interest to support chartering a non-scheduled flight.
  5. An aircraft at Eglin AFB would be painted and numbered as an exact duplicate for a civil registered aircraft belonging to a CIA proprietary organization in the Miami area. At a designated time the duplicate would be substituted for the actual aircraft and would be loaded with the selected passengers, all boarded under carefully prepared aliases. The actual registered aircraft would be converted to a drone.
  6. Take off times of the drone aircraft and the actual aircraft will be scheduled to allow a rendezvous south of Florida. From the rendezvous point the passenger-carrying aircraft will descend to minimum altitude and go directly into an auxiliary field at Eglin AFB where arrangements will have been made to evacuate the passengers and return the aircraft to its original status. The drone aircraft meanwhile will continue to fly the filed flight plan. When over Cuba the drone will being transmitting on the international distress frequency a “MAY DAY” message stating he is under attack by Cuban MIG aircraft. The transmission will be interrupted by destruction of the aircraft which will be triggered by radio signal. This will allow ICAO radio stations in the Western Hemisphere to tell the US what has happened to the aircraft instead of the US trying to “sell” the incident.
  7. It is possible to create an incident which will make it appear that Communist Cuban MIGs have destroyed a USAF aircraft over international waters in an unprovoked attack.

a   Approximately 4 or 5 F-101 aircraft will be dispatched in trail from Homestead AFB, Florida, to the vicinity of Cuba. Their mission will be to reverse course and simulate fakir aircraft for an air defense exercise in southern Florida. These aircraft would conduct variations of these flights at frequent intervals. Crews would be briefed to remain at least 12 miles off the Cuban coast; however, they would be required to carry live ammunition in the event that hostile actions were taken by the Cuban MIGs.

  1. On one such flight, a pre-briefed pilot would fly tail-end Charley at considerable interval between aircraft. While near the Cuban Island this pilot would broadcast that he had been jumped by MIGs and was going down. No other calls would be made. The pilot would then fly directly west at extremely low altitude and land at a secure base, an Eglin auxiliary. The aircraft would be met by the proper people, quickly stored and given a new tail number. The pilot who had performed the mission under an alias, would resume his proper identity and return to his normal place of business. The pilot and aircraft would then have disappeared.
  2. At precisely the same time that the aircraft was presumably shot down a submarine or small surface craft would disburse F-101 parts, parachute, etc., at approximately 15 to 20 miles off the Cuban coast and depart. The pilots returning to Homestead would have a true story as far as they knew. Search ships and aircraft could be dispatched and parts of aircraft found.

 

[Document ends]

Commentary:

 

Operation NORTHWOODS sounds as if it were written by a liberal anti-militarist for the benefit of conspiracy theorists. If the official documents concerning the JCS plans had not been discovered in the National Archives, the story of the plot would have been dismissed by journalists friendly to the government and its agencies as nothing but the fevered imagination of conspiracy theorists.

Fortunately, these documents were discovered and précis of them published. The fact that no official or media notice was given is an indication of the degree of de facto control exercised by the establishment over the media and the academic world.

But the question now arises that if NORTHWOODS existed, what other vicious and treasonable plots were, or will be, laid and executed?

 

 

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