Allegations Regarding Vince Foster, the NSA, and Banking Tra

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Part 10: BCCI, money laundering, and the nuclear weapons programs of Pakistan and Israel.

I received a call from Mr. Stephen Ganis, counsel to the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services, who assures me that he did NOT provide Jim Norman's article to Mr. Charles O. Morgan, attorney for Alltel Information Services, but rather called Mr. Morgan after the Media Bypass article had appeared, to get Morgan's side of things. Mr. Morgan was apparently not aware that the article had been published, and that was the only information he received from Mr. Ganis. Mr. Ganis assures me that his group is NOT passing any information to Alltel, but is in fact carefully keeping all sources and information confidential.

[However, after this post, I received a call from Media Bypass who had a tape of their conversation with Ganis. It appeared to totally undermine Ganis' denials to me.]

What do nuclear weapons, money laundering, covert operations, money management, clandestine payments of payola and kickbacks, and the systematic monitoring of bank loans and bank wire transfers have in common?

The answer begins with BCCI: the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. BCCI connects the Israeli bomb to the Pakistani bomb to suppliers of banking software like Systematics, and to a very dead money launderer named Vince Foster.

Don't misunderstand the latter statement: I believe we should all have the right to "launder" money. The money-laundering laws are a frightening, Big-Brotherly intrusion into financial privacy. But why is there one standard of legislated "morality" that applies, say, to a LEADING OFFICIAL OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM, and another standard that applies to everyone else?

In 1972 Pakistani banks were nationalized by President Bhutto. One of these banks was United Bank, whose president was Agha Hasan Abedi. Abedi subsequently joined with Sheik Zayad, ruler of Abu Dhabi and patron of the PLO, to found BCCI. To prevent nationalization, BCCI was chartered in Luxembourg. In 1975 it split into two entities, one remaining in Luxembourg and the other established in the Cayman Islands. The Cayman Islands part became a "bank within a bank." While the legal registration was in Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands, the actual operational head- quarters was moved to London.

In 1976 John Heimann, New York superintendent of banking, turned down BCCI's attempt to buy Chelsea National Bank in New York. (Shareholders in the bank included former Mayor Robert Wagner and the Finley, Kumble law firm.) The actual purchase attempt was made by one of the Gokal brothers of shipping fame, Abbas Gokal, using a loan from his sister. Banking experience was to be provided by BCCI, but Heimann refused to approve the purchase, despite several meetings with Abedi. Abedi realized that BCCI would not be able to enter the U.S. market under its own name.

Abedi's attention was then brought to bear on Financial General, a Washington D.C.-based bank with headquarters a block from the White House. The bank had been acquired in April 1977 by an investor group led by William Middendorf II, who was Secretary of the Navy under Nixon and Ford. One member of the investor group was Jackson Stephens. Stephens then send salemen from his Little Rock firm Systematics to talk to Middendorf about providing banking software for Financial General, but they were firmly rejected. Stephens decided to wrest control of the bank from Middendorf.

Jackson Stephens is a billionaire from Little Rock who owns the controlling interest in Worthen National Bank as well as in Stephens Inc., one of the largest privately owned investment banks outside Wall Street. In November 1977, he introduced BCCI-founder Abedi to Bert Lance, Carter's Director of the Office of Management and Budget, whom Stephens had met through Jimmy Carter, his old roommate from Naval Academy days. (Lance and Stephens, two Southern Baptists, had hit it off.) Lance also knew the people at Financial General, for it was Financial General that had sold to Lance controlling interest in the National Bank of Georgia in 1975.

Abedi in turn introduced Lance to Stanford-and-Harvard-(and Colorado School of Mines)-educated Ghaith Pharaon. Pharaon proceeded to acquire the stock of Bert Lance's National Bank of Georgia, a deal consummated on January 5, 1978, a day after Lance's $3.4 million loan from the First National Bank of Chicago was repaid by BCCI London. Pharaon was apparently acting on behalf of Abedi in the acquisition, at least in part.

By then Lance had left the Carter administration, and he and Jackson Stephens joined together to help BCCI take over Financial General. A Financial General lawsuit filed on February 17 named "Bert Lance, Bank of Credit & Commerce International, Agha Hasan Abedi, Eugene J. Metzger, Jackson Stephens, Stephens Inc., Systematics Inc. and John Does numbers 1 through 25." Systematics was represented by C.J. Giroir, Webster Hubbell, and Hillary Rodham Clinton of the Rose Law Firm of Little Rock:

"The suit was ultimately settled, but intriguingly, briefs for Systematics, a Stephens property, were submitted by a trio of lawyers including C.J. Giroir and Webster L. Hubbell and signed by Hillary Rodham" ("Who is Jack Ryan?" The Wall Street Journal, August 1, 1994).

This BCCI-Lance-Stephens-Systematics-Hubbell-Clinton connection will continue to reappear in our story.

Edwin McAmis, an attorney for Financial General, deposed Lance in connection with the stockholder civil suit, and turned up a mysterious loan:

"The loan could have been for as much as $3.4 million . . . and came from London's Bank of Credit & Commerce International, on whose behalf Lance had approached Financial General with a bid for control. . . . Lance said he used it last January to pay off his celebrated $3.4 million loan from the First National Bank of Chicago . . . The latest loan, he said was arranged by Agha Hassan Abedi, an energetic Pakistani who heads B.C.C.I.

"Collateral? None.

"Documents? Well, no, though Lance's lawyer, Robert Altman, says some are being drawn up now."

(quoted from "Another 'Loan' for Lance," Time, April 3, 1978.)

Bert Lance had approached Financial General on behalf of BCCI London with a bid for control of the bank. Lance was also was responsible for introducing BCCI founder Abedi to Jimmy Carter, and for bringing Clark Clifford in on the take-over attempt. Ghaith Pharaon was another investor in the deal.

Also involved in the successful BCCI takeover were Clark Clifford (the former Defense Secretary under Johnson and lawyer for BCCI), Robert Altman (attorney for Bert Lance and Clifford's partner), and Kamal Adham (the former head of Saudi Arabian intelligence who was King Faisal's most trusted advisor, and whose half-sister Iffat was King Faisal's favorite wife). Kamal Adham and Ghaith Pharaon had built the Hyatt hotel in Riyad, and Adham had originally introduced Pharaon to Abedi.

Adham and Pharaon (along with Faisal al-Fulaij and Abdullah Darwaish) owned KIFCO, the Kuwaiti International Finance Company (James Ring Adams & Douglas Frantz, A Full Service Bank: How BCCI Stole Billions Around the World, Pocket Books, 1992, p. 52).

In a lawsuit filed March 18, 1978, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Lance with violations of federal security laws, and BCCI's application to purchase Financial General Bankshares was denied. Abedi then formed a new takeover vehicle, Credit and Commerce American Holdings (CCAH), based in the Netherlands Antilles. The largest investor in CCAH was Kamal Adham, who put up $13 million of his own money On October 19, 1978, CCAH filed for approval with the Federal Reserve to purchase Financial General. This application was dismissed on February 16, 1979, due to opposition from Financial General's Maryland subsidiary, but a new application was submitted later.

The Federal Reserve finally approved the purchase in on April 19, 1982, and BCCI renamed the bank "First American" three months later. Clark Clifford was made chairman and Robert Altman president. The head of Bank Supervision at the Federal Reserve when BCCI's purchase was approved was Jack Ryan, who later became head of the Resolution Trust Corporation, in which role he denied Rep. Leach's requests for documents related to Madison Guaranty, the Whitewater thrift.

What was the point of BCCI's takeover of First American? " 'They wanted an important stake across the street from the White House,' says one Washington banking executive, adding, 'Some people might think it is important to know about the outstanding loans and balances of Government officials'" (Time).

Abedi used his new-found connections to Jimmy Carter to publicize BCCI to heads of state around the world. Abedi made his personal 727 jet available to Carter, and accompanied the former President to Thailand, Tibet, Hong Kong, and the Soviet Union, among other places. Carter introduced Abedi to many heads of state, from Den Xiaoping in China to James Callahan in the U.K. Abedi donated a half million dollars to establish the Carter presidential library, and a public policy institute at Emory university.

In the meantime BCCI founder Abedi was committed to the development of an Islamic atomic bomb, even donating 500 million rupees for the creation of Pakistan's Gulam Ishaq Research Institute for nuclear development.

BCCI was in some sense seen by Abedi as the financial competitor to the "committee of 30" that worked on behalf of Israel. (According to Israeli correspondents Tzadok Yehezkeli and Danny Sadeh: "Israel solicits money from wealthy Jews from all over the world for financing its nuclear weaponry programs. This fundraising drive is directed by a committee comprised of 30 Jewish millionaires" [review of book Critical Mass in Yediot Ahronot, January 30, 1994].)

But while BCCI founder Abedi had intended BCCI to finance the development of a Pakistani nuclear bomb, this effort was compromised at the start by the presence of Kamal Adham, who through CCAH was the controlling power behind First American, and who had asked Clark Clifford to head up the bank. For Adham was both a CIA and a Mossad asset. Adham, in addition to being Faisal's most trusted advisor and the former head of Saudi intelligence, had attended CIA training school with the head of the Mossad.

"Kamal Adham, who was the CIA's principal liason for the entire Middle East from the mid-1960's through 1979, was the lead frontman for BCCI in its takeover of First American, was an important nominee shareholder in BCCI, and remains one of the key players in the entire BCCI affair" (Senator John Kerry and Senator Hank Brown, The BCCI Affair: a Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, December 1992).

Perhaps that is why Pakistani's efforts to develop their own nuclear bomb met with repeated compromises, such as the following:

"In 1983 a Dutch court convicted Dr. Abdul Qader Khan, head of Pakistan's nuclear program, on charges of stealing the blueprints for a uranium enrichment factory. . . . Kahn's lawyer was paid by BCCI.
"In 1984, three Pakistani nationals were indicted in Houston for attempting to buy and ship to Pakistan, high-speed switches designed to trigger nuclear weapons. The trio offered to pay in gold supplied by BCCI.

"In 1987 two Americans, Rita and Arnold Mandel, together with Hong Kong businessman Leung Yu Hung, were indicted by the U.S. Attorney in Sacramento, California, on charges of illegal importations of $1 billion worth of oscilloscopes and computer equipment for Pakistan's nuclear program. . . . BCCI facilitated [some of the shipments]"

"In 1987 in Philadelphia, Ashad Pervez, a Pakistani-born Canadian, was indicted for conspiring to export restricted specialty steel and metal used to enhance nuclear explosions. ... He . . . paid high prices with money delivered to the Toronto BCCI branch from BCCI London" (Rachel Ehrenfeld, Evil Money, HarperCollins, 1992).

BCCI became a important conduit for CIA intelligence, and also a ready target for the tenacles of the NSA. When Norman Bailey at the National Security Council urged NSA to "follow the money" as part of the "wars" on terrorism and drugs, the NSA had BCCI as one obvious banking target. The CIA was there also to assist in the monitoring of BCCI-related money flows of other intelligence and criminal enterprises. For BCCI had become a giant laundry machine, and the CIA made use of BCCI for their own covert money transfers.

One example involves Manuel Noriega, who was recruited by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency in 1959, who went on the CIA payroll in 1967, and who became head of Panamanian military intelligence in 1968, where he was in a strategic position to supply both information and drugs to the United States, and later on arms to the contras in an operation based in Panama, Mexico, and Mena, Arkansas. CIA money was paid to Noriega through the Panamanian branch of BCCI. The CIA and U.S. Army only acknowledge paying Noriega $322,226 between 1955 and 1986 (The New York Times, January 19, 1991). Be that as it may, Noriega deposited $33 million in his account (under the name of the Panamanian Defense Forces) at the Panamanian branch of BCCI. The head of this branch was the son of a former director of intelligence in Pakistan.

The CIA also used BCCI branches in Pakistan to launder payments to the Afghan rebels, and Pakistani officials used the same bank to launder heroin profits. The finance minister of Pakistan, Sarti Asis, confirms that the bank did launder CIA contributions to the Afghan rebels, but claims it was "not even handling 1 percent of total drug money" (Financial Times, July 25, 1991).

The amount the CIA recalls paying Noriega is too small. Noriega had much earlier gotten into trouble with the State Department because of his drug dealing. But this changed when his support was needed in the negotiations for a new Panama Canal Treaty.

"By 1976, Noriega was fully forgiven. CIA Director George Bush arranged to pay Noriega $110,000 a year for his services, put the Panamanian up as a houseguest of his deputy CIA director, and helped to prevent an embarrassing prosecution of several American soldiers who had delivered highly classified U.S. intelligence secrets to Noriega's men. . . .

"If Carter needed friends in Panama to smooth the way for a canal treaty, Reagan (who strongly opposed that treaty) needed them to support the Contra cause. . . . CIA payments to Noriega resumed when Reagan took office in 1981, starting at $185,000 a year. At their peak, in 1985, Noriega collected $200,000 from the Agency. The CIA deposited the money in Noriega's account at the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, two of whose units later pleaded guilty to laundering drug money. CIA Director William Casey frequently met with Noriega alone in Washington" (Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall, Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America, University of California Press, 1991).

That Noriega was necessarily used as an NSA asset also follows from the fact that Panama served as the listening post to much of South America.

The Bush-Noriega-BCCI-Mena connection continued. Barry Seal, who flew money, drugs, and arms out of Mena, Arkansas, acquired his job through George Bush. After Seal was indicted in Ft.Lauderdale, Florida, in 1983 for a shipment of 200,000 Quaaludes, he tried in vain to make a deal with the DEA. He found a more sympathetic audience in the Vice President: ". . . in March 1984, while out of jail on an appeal bond, 'Seal flew his Lear jet to Washington and telephones Vice President Bush's office'; and he spoke on the street to staff members of the vice president's South Florida Task Force" (Scott and Marshall).

How did Jackson Stephens react to all this activity in his back yard? Well, among other things, Stephens and his Worthen National Bank invested in Harken Energy, a Texas company in which George Bush, Jr., was a board member. "The money Stephens invested came through the Swiss BCCI subsidiary" (Rachel Ehrenfeld).

What about Bill Clinton, Governor of Arkansas? Ex-CIA agent Cord Meyer has privately confided to a friend of mine (to whom Meyer has no reason to lie) that he recruited Clinton through the London station while Clinton was a student in England. This Clinton was hardly ignorant of CIA activity or devoid of CIA contact.

In 1987 First American bought the National Bank of Georgia, formerly acquired from Bert Lance by Pharaon. Another BCCI-First American connection was Robert Gray, a First American director, and head of the Washington office of the public relations firm Hill & Knowlton. Gray represented BCCI and did favors for Caspar Weinberger, among others.

"In October 1988, three days after the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiring with the Medellin Cartel to launder $32,000,000 in illicit drug profits, the bank hired H&K [Hill and Knowlton] to manage the scandal. Robert Gray also served on the board of directors of First American Bank, the Washington D.C. bank run by Clark Clifford (now facing federal charges) and owned by BCCI. Gray was close to, and helped in various ways, top Reagan officials. When Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger's son needed a job, Gray hired him for $2,000 a month" ("Hill & Knowlton, Robert Gray, and the CIA," by Johan Carlisle, Covert Action Quarterly, #44, Spring 1993).

It was also Hill & Knowlton, you will recall, who later brought us the staged melodrama in the House Human Rights Caucus. The production starred the tearful "Nayirah"--in fact daugher of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the U.S. She told of Iraqi soldiers taking babies out of incubators and leaving them on the cold floor to die. (Someone later alleged that her follow-up story about Iraqi soldiers roasting Belgian babies, using bayonets as spits, had to be dropped when it was discovered that there were in fact no Belgians in the Middle East.) George Bush was to repeat this concocted story a dozen times in the next few days, in the process of whipping up war fever against his old business associate, Saddam Hussein.

BCCI was closed down by the Bank of England, acting in conjunction with others, on July 5, 1991. When BCCI closed, many of its money-management, money-laundering, and monetary-intelligence duties were transferred to FinCEN, a newly created unit of the U.S. Treasury.

The Mena connections to Clinton and Bush have now, through Jackson Stephens, been extended to Robert Dole. Jackson Stephens (along with Tyson) has recently thrown his support behind the Dole campaign. In this regard it is perhaps useful to note that:

"On November 27, 1987, an Arkansas State Police detective received a call from a reporter for information about an investigation into an aircraft maintenance firm named Rich Mountain Aviation. Located at a small airport in the little town of Mena, which stands virtually alone in the far west of Arkansas near the Oklahoma border, Rich Mountain was at the center of secret operations including cocaine smuggling in the name of national security. The reporter was seeking confirmation that the drug network operating out of Rich Mountain was part of Lt. Colonel Oliver North's network. He believed this group was smuggling cocaine into the US through Mena and using the profits to support the Contras as well as themselves.

"Arkansas State Police Detective Russell Welch . . . was called by an Arkansas sheriff six weeks later who related that he had information indicating that US Senator Robert Dole was concerned about the Rich Mountain investigation. In particular, the sheriff's informant stated that Dole was worried that the investigation might in some way harm George Bush" (Alan A Block, "Drugs, Law, and the State," Hong Kong University Press, 1992).

By contrast to Pakistan's ultimately inept attempt at nuclear weapon construction, Israel's nuclear warfare system had thrived. Parts of this system included the national military command center, the Bor, located beneath Tel Aviv; the subterranean strategic air command post on the edge of the Negev at Nevatim Air Base; the nuclear fuel reactor at Dimona; the nuclear weapons laboratories at Nahal Soreq; the missile test range at Yavne; the underground factory at Be'er Yaakov where the Jericho long-range missiles are manufactured; the nuclear weapons design lab (Division 20) and missile design development lab (Division 48) and weapons assembly plant at Rafael; the nuclear weapons bunkers in the Negev at Tel Nof Air Base; and the Jericho missiles in bunkers west of Zekharyeh in the Judean hills.

"By marrying atomic bombs first to long-range aircraft in the Black Squadrons and ultimately to intercontinental ballistic missiles, Israel become the first Third World country to post a strategic threat to a superpower. That development was not lost on the Kremlin. Following the test in September 1989 of an advanced Jericho-2 ballistic missile, whose range covered the oil fields at Baku and could possibly reach the port of Odessa as well, a Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman said that 'Israel is known to possess a technological basis necessary for the creation of nuclear weapons. The availability of delivery systems makes Israel a source of danger, far exceeding the boundaries of the Middle East region'" (William E. Burrows and Robert Windrem, Critical Mass, Simon & Schuster, 1994).

Where did the money to pay for all this come from? In the beginning it was a simple matter of collecting donations. "In 1960, a Committee of Thirty (Jewish millionaires) was asked to quietly raise funds for the nuclear weapons project. It collected $40 million for the construction of the reactor and the adjoining, fabulously expensive, underground plutonium separation plant at Dimona" (Burrows and Windrem).

But life did not stay this simple. For example, the BCCI-Bush- Noriega-Mena connection to drug smuggling was matched by an similar Israeli connection to arms and drug dealing and money laundering. Anything went in the holy crusade to built the bomb and the associated missile delivery systems. Just as the pension funds controlled by Robert Maxwell were looted to pay for Mossad operations in Europe (Victor Ostrovsky, The Other Side of Deception, HarperCollins, 1994, p. 203), so were American S&Ls in effect looted (or burdened with debt) by the financial machinations of the "Committee of Thirty" to help generate the vast funds needed to maintain and expand Israel's defense industry. Some of these funds found their way into offshore accounts held by U.S. politicians and defense personnel as bribes, kickbacks, "campaign" contributions, and payment for stolen secrets.

That, for example, Noreiga was a Mossad, as well as CIA, asset follows from the fact his closest confidant and advisor was Michael Harari, formerly number three man in the Mossad, who specialized in assassination. Harari had fouled-up a case and had the wrong man killed, and was transferred to Mexico where he became station chief for Latin America. After allegedly retiring, Harari went to Panama as a security advisor to Noreiga, where he trained UESAT, Noriega's elite personnal bodyguards. During the U.S. invasion of Panama, the U.S. helped Harari escape back to Israel.

On the Central and Latin American money-laundering side, Scott and Marshall relate, in a long footnote:

"One of the most intriguing reports of an Israeli-Colombian drug connection was the story in Hadashot that the Cali cartel 'employs Israelis, especially in transferring funds from drug sales in the U.S. to the bank accounts of the heads of the cartel in Colombia and Panama. They are also assisted by banking services in Israel' (September 1, 1989). The newspaper alleged that the Cali cartel is run by Colombian Jews; actually, they are only involved in its money-laundering operations. Jews who emigrated from Europe in the 1930s established banking and money-channels exploited by the drug entrepreneurs in the 1970s and 1980s (interview with a federal agent, November 15, 1989). One of the chief Cali money launderers was Isaac Kattan, a drug associate of both Alberto Sicilia-Falcon and Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros (Mills, Underground Empire, 168; Kerry report, 286-88). Kattan boasted that he invested his millions in Israel bonds (Newsweek, July 20, 1981). Kattan had connections to Nicaraguans through the cocaine-trafficking Espinosa brothers (New York Times, February 28, 1981) and the Popular Bank and Trust, owned by a prominent Nicaraguan exile and used as a conduit for Contra and State Department humanitarian funds (Miami Herald, June 14, 1987; Village Voice, July 1, 1986). In 1988, federal authorities broke up a nationwide money- laundering ring serving the Cali cartel. It was run by two Israelis who won the cooperation of a network of Hassidic Jews and a former Israeli Air Force captain by claiming they were moving the money on behalf of Mossad to finance 'anti-Communist guerrillas in Central America,' presumably the Contras. (Ibid; Kol Ha'ir, April 14, 1989; Northern California Jewish Bulletin, January 13, 1989; United Press International, March 17, 1989.)

Nuclear weapons. Money laundering. This juxtaposition leads us back to BCCI and a body in Virginia. The death of investigative reporter Danny Casolaro was, like that of Vince Foster, alleged to be "suicide" in the face of all contrary evidence. Three days before his murder at the hands of hut-dwelling wackos, Casolaro showed a friend some checks drawn on BCCI:

"Ben Mason [an old friend] arrived at Casolaro's about 3:30 P.M. 'I was really hungry and anxious to go get something to eat,' he recalled, 'but he was taking his time, as usual. He took me downstairs, pulled out a box, and showed me some pages. Five separate pages, spread them out on the floor. The first had something to do with some arms deals. I remember the name Khashoggi. It was about Iran-Contra.'

"The second and third pages were photocopies of checks, made out for $1 million and $4 million; they were photocopies of checks drawn on BCCI . . . accounts held by Adnon Khashoggi, the international arms merchant and factotum for the House of Saud, and by Manucher Ghorbanifar, the arms dealer and Iran-Contra middleman." (James Ridgeway and Doug Vaughan, "The Last Days of Danny Casolaro, The Village Voice, October 15, 1991).

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Part 11: Money laundering and the intelligence community.

While Agha Hassan Abedi carried on a crusade to develop a Pakistani nuclear capability through the tentacles of his global bank--the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI)--BCCI itself played a key role in U.S. intelligence gathering. It did so by providing financial services to arms dealers and associated terrorists. Financial information about who was paying whom, presented a fairly clear picture about what was taking place in the purchase and movement of armaments and strategic technology.

If, for example, a check was drawn on the Sitico account at BCCI Luxembourg and deposited in, say, Raytheon's account at Bank XYZ in Dallas, then this information could be combined with the knowledge that Sitico was an Iraqi front company, and an analyst might conclude that Iraq was purchasing spare parts for the HAWK. Of course, few (if any) financial transactions would be this straight forward, so considerable effort would be needed to trace the flow of money. (This was especially true considering that some of BCCI's accounts were kept in longhand and written in Urdu.)

But, looking forward, the loss of BCCI did considerable damage to the process of intelligence collection for:

"The greatest concern of U.S. decisionmakers in upcoming years is likely to be restricting the spread of advanced military technologies--particularly nuclear, chemical, biological, and ballistic missile technologies--and preventing the use of such technologies as have been acquired. These tasks will require monitoring the pursuit and application of those technologies by a number of countries--including Israel, India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. In addition to monitoring within-country activities, attention will have to be directed toward the licit and illicit international supply of various components of those technologies" (Jeffrey T. Richelson, The U.S. Intelligence Community, 3rd edition, Westview Press, 1995).

Moreover, the vast amounts of banking and financial data being sucked in and stored for analysis by the NSA mandated a separate facility to analyze and process the data. The volume of financial data was already taxing NSA resources. (NSA's data processing capacity has been recently expanded through installation of the world's third fastest supercomputering center [according to rating criteria that may, or may not, be valid]. The center is located at E-Systems of Dallas, Texas, a company that was purchased in April 1995 by Raytheon for $2.3 billion.)

These concerns, and others, led to the creation of FinCEN, located in Vienna, Virginia. Because FinCEN was established as a unit of the U.S. Treasury, NSA's COMINT and ELINT could be combined with domestic sources of information, including information from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury's own data bases, which included various types of financial, tax, and customs information. It also meant the merger of foreign and domestic intelligence. As one cypherpunk has noted, national borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway.

A November 1993 GAO report on FinCEN lists 84 positions (out of 207 staff members) referred to as "intelligence analysts", most of whom come from the NSA. "FinCEN, planned as a hunter of tax-evaders, has become a hunter of economic and financial secrets at home and abroad" (J. Michael Springmann, "FinCEN--American Financial Intelligence Service," Unclassified, No. 33, Summer 1995.)

"And, it is clear from the March 29, 1995 draft of Clinton's executive order on access to classified information, that FinCEN's brief has been expanded. It will, in the future, conduct security clearance investigations for all government employees and contractors with access to classified information, in the process examining their bank statements, credit histories, and foreign travel records" (Springmann).

FinCEN now issues all regulations under the Banking Secrecy Act, the basis of all U.S. money laundering legislation.

Section 5313 of the Banking Secrecy Act (BSA) requires a Currency Transaction Report (CTR) of cash deposits or transactions of $10,000 and above, which is IRS Form 4789, and a Currency Transaction Report by Casinos (CTRC), which is IRS Form 8362. Section 5316 of BSA also requires a Currency or Monetary Instrument Report (CMIR) for transport of $10,000 or more of currency in or out of the U.S. This is Customs Form 4790. Section 5314(a) of BSA requires reporting of foreign bank or financial accounts whose value exceeds $10,000 at any time during the preceding year. This is called a Foreign Bank Account Report (FBAR) and is Treasury form TDR 90-22-1. Section 60501 of the IRS Code requires the reporting of business transactions involving more than $10,000 cash. These are reported on IRS Form 8300.

These and other forms are entered into the Treasury Financial Date Base (TFDB) and become available on-line in the Treasury Enforcement Communications System, TECS II. The TFDB data are processed through the FinCEN Artificial Intelligence (AI) System, which is trained to identify suspicious transaction patterns.

FinCEN's AI system has now been joined by thousands of bio-intelligence (BI) systems also programmed to detect suspicious activity. In 1992 Treasury (now operating through FinCEN) was given authority to issue regulations on "suspicious transactions" reporting (Title 31, USC Sec. 5318(g)). Under this regulation, your banker (a BI system) is required to report any suspicious behavior on your part. (So don't even think of looking cross-eyed at him or her.)

Private companies are also jumping onto the AI bandwagon to build products to analyze banking transactions:

". . . UK software company InterAcess Risk Management has unveiled Syfact, a software package designed to analyse the relationships between apparently unrelated accounts and spot potential irregularities between them.

"The package can run through an entire bank's account holders, allowing compliance officers to build a diagram of laundering patterns of fraudulent activity, which, InterAccess says, would normally take months to construct.

"The system logs suspicious transactions for investigation against other events, either within the bank's own systems or in collaboration with other organisations. It also is designed to be used by criminal intelligence agencies for the same purpose" ("Technology to aid and curb crime," Money Laundering Bulletin, July 1995).

FinCEN's director, Stanley Morris, has targeted Internet banking and "cyberlaundering" as one of his top priorities.

"The term 'cyberspace' may send chills down the spines of many, but money launderers are probably not among them. It is likely they delight in the murky potential it provides for plying their trade beyond the scrutiny of the government agents who pursue them. . . .

"Stanley Morris, director of the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, has targeted cyberspace banking as one of FinCEN's highest priorities. . . .

"All [cyberspace banks] operate in an environment where identities are often concealed, national borders do not exist and transactions are instantaneous and potentially untraceable. . . .

"Cyberspace banking will attract money launderers because of its potential to aid them in the three classical areas of money laundering [placement, layering, and integration]....

"If cyberbanking permits person-to-person cash-like transfers, with no involvement of cash, existing U.S. currency reporting regulations technically will not apply." (" 'Cyberlaundering' poses threat to controls," Money Laundering Alert, April 1995.)

So now money launderers join child pornographers, terrorists, conspiracy theorists, and hacker-crackers in the government litany of alleged Internet evils. To some extent, the apparent concern may be duplicitous. For the NSA is heavily involved in several of the enterprises that are rushing to become "cyberspace" banks. The NSA was late getting into the financial services game, but it is now attempting to seize the initiative in the area of its comparative advantage: information technology.

And in another respect, FinCEN's brief to catch money launderers is certainly duplicitous. For who is better posed to run an undetected money laundering operation than the FinCEN money laundering cops?

The integration of human, communications, and electronic intelligence (HUMINT, COMINT, and ELINT) in FinCEN-type environments required the construction of a common data base standard so that information could easily be transferred between different agencies and different applications. The standard that was decided on was originally implemented at the Justice Department in a software system for federal prosecutors to keep track of the vast amounts of data involved in a legal case. This was the PROMIS system partly developed and enhanced through a contract between the Justice Department and a Washington-D.C.-based firm called Inslaw.

This data standard, embodied in the PROMIS software, was implemented at the Justice Department, the NSA, the CIA, and the NSC. PROMIS was also sold to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to keep track of individuals (in a data base called MAINCORE) who were to be rounded up and incarcerated in the event of certain types of "national emergencies". It is also at the heart of FinCEN's data collation efforts.

The PROMIS software--whether equipped with a Trojan horse and sold to foreign intelligence organization, or similarly modified to spy on banking transactions--provides the key to a scandal that links the covert collection of data on individuals, money laundering in Arkansas and elsewhere, defense payola around the nation, and nuclear espionage at the White House, to the deaths of Danny Casolaro and Vince Foster.

INTERMISSION: POP QUIZ WITH RESPECT TO PREVIOUS AND FUTURE POSTS

1. John Steuri, Chairman and CEO of Alltel Information Services (formerly Systematics), says in a memo to Jim Norman, "We have no present or prior relationship whatsoever with any company called E-Systems." Is he willing to swear to this under oath?

2. If Caspar Weinberger's name is allegedly on account number KPFBMMBODE at the Union Bank of Switzerland , then what six names are allegedly on account number KPFBMMBODB at the same bank? Is the name of a U.S. senator in any way linked to this second account number?

3. Who was the president of Panama whose brother wrote a paper "Panama as an International Banking Center" at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania under my supervision?

4. What major U.S. bank is in danger of losing the entirety of its equity base because of money laundering and RICO violations?

5. What top Federal Reserve official is also involved in money laundering?

6. What secret government communication division is located in Manassas, Virginia? Why was one of their employees named Standorf found beaten to death in his car at National Airport? Was it because he had delivered to Danny Casolaro computer printouts that showed the details of wire transfers from BCCI London and the World Bank to accounts in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland? Did some of these transfers represent payments to U.S. government officials for sales of the PROMIS software to foreign governments?

7. Does Harry C. Wechsler of Boston Systematics have MAINCORE clearance?

8. What document concerning Systematics was given to Vince Foster by Webster Hubbell the night before Foster died?

[admin]

Part 12: The Cabazon Indian reservation, PROMIS, BCCI, and the death of Danny Casolaro.

Did you every think of having your own country? Consider the advantages. No export controls. You could manufacture your own armaments. Do biological warfare research. Even build casinos. Hey, do whatever you wanted!

You could also avoid those pesky ITAR restrictions. Cryptology software is classified as a munition by the U.S. State Department. This designation is found in the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. So software products that use cryptography can't be exported without State Department permission. (The State Department, however, turns all such decisions over to the National Security Agency [NSA].)

For convenience, locate your country in the middle of California. And run an interstate freeway right through it! Say Interstate 10, which goes from Los Angeles to Phoenix.

A dream? No, consider it done. It's called the Cabazon Indian nation, located near Indio, California. This little nation of two dozen individuals is very entrepreneurial. They've set up the Cabazon Arms Corporation, the Cabazon Security Corporation, the Cabazon Trading Company, the Cabazon Gas & Oil Corporation--lots of interesting companies come and go in this nation.

Maybe you could make a deal with them, and set up your own ventures! But you'll find someone got there ahead of you. Namely, a private security firm called Wackenhut. Wackenhut is a funny outfit. Among other things, it provides security to nuclear installations and to U.S. military bases, jobs previously held by the U.S. Marine Corps.. And its officers have included an amazing number of ex-CIA or NSA people. Bill Casey was an outside counsel to Wackenhut. Admiral Stansfield Turner, whose Saturday Night massacre in 1977 provided Wackenhut with a number of ex-CIA employees, has served on the Board of Directors, as has ex-Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci. One Vice President of Wackenhut, Robert Chasen, had been CIA head of station and Vice President of ITT during the time of Allende.

Have these people, too, considered the advantages of having their own country? Yes, it seems they have. They seem to have taken over the Cabazon Indian nation. And they don't want any competition from you, thank you.

But the corporate rulers are very good to this little tribe. They've put everyone in a medical and drug treatment program! And they are very strict about seeing that each person shows up regularly to take their medicine!

It was at the Cabazon Indian nation that modifications were first made to the PROMIS software for installation of a surreptitious surveillance mechanism. (Another modification would take place in Little Rock, Arkansas, to tailor the PROMIS software for use by banks.)

The modifications were made by a guy called Michael Riconosciuto. Riconosciuto was a bright guy who, at age 16, showed up at Stanford's Cooper Vapor Laser Laboratory, having built his own argon laser. His family were friends of Richard Nixon. Riconosciuto became an expert on explosives and software. In an affidavit he states:

"1. During the early 1980's, I served as the Director of Research for a joint venture between the Wackenhut Corporation of Coral Gables, Florida, and the Cabazon Band of Indians in Indio, California. The joint venture was located on the Cabazon reservation. . . .

"3. The Cabazon Band of Indians are a sovereign nation. The sovereign immunity that is accorded the Cabazons as a consequence of this fact made it feasible to pursue on the reservation the development and/or manufacture of materials whose development or manufacture would be subject to stringent controls off the reservation. As a minority group, the Cabazon Indians also provided the Wackenhut Corporation with an enhanced ability to obtain federal contracts through the 8A Set Aside Program, and in connection with Government-owned contractor-operated (GOCO) facilities. . . .

"6. Among the frequent visitors to the Wackenhut-Cabazon joint venture were Peter Videnieks of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., and a close associate of Videnieks by the name of Earl W. Brian. Brian is a private businessman who lives in Maryland and who has maintained close business ties with the U.S. intelligence community for many years. . . .

"7. In connection with my work for Wackenhut, I engaged in some software development and modification work in 1983 and 1984 on the proprietary PROMIS computer software product. The copy of PROMIS on which I worked came from the Department of Justice. Earl W. Brian made it available to me through Wackenhut after acquiring it from Peter Videnieks, who was then a Department of Justice contracting official with responsibility for the PROMIS software. I performed the modifications to PROMIS in Indio, California; Silver Spring, Maryland; and Miami, Florida. . . .

"8. The purpose of the PROMIS software modifications that I made in 1983 and 1984 was to support a plan for the implementation of PROMIS in law enforcement and intelligence agencies worldwide. Earl W. Brian was spearheading the plan for this worldwide use of the PROMIS computer software. . . .

"11. In February 1991, I had a telephone conversation with Peter Videnieks, then still employed by the U.S. Department of Justice. Videnieks attempted during this telephone conversation to persuade me not to cooperate with an independent investigation of the government's piracy of INSLAW's proprietary PROMIS software being conducted by the Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. House of Representatives. . . .

"13. Videnieks also outlined specific punishments that I could expect to receive from the U.S. Department of Justice if I cooperate with the House Judiciary Committee's investigation." (Affidavit of Michael J. Riconosciuto, March 21, 1991.)


Michael Riconosciuto's ties to the National Security Agency are illustrated in the testimony of Robert Nichols:

"Robert Nichols told . . . about an incident in the early 1980's when a colonel from the NSA Headquarters at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, allegedly flew out to the Cabazon Reservation for the day for the single purpose of assuring that FBI agents, investigating a triple homicide of the Vice Chairman of the Cabazon Tribe and two associates, did not attempt to probe the classified U.S. government work being performed under the auspices of the Wackenhut-Cabazon Joint Venture.

"Robert Nichols also told . . . about having accompanied Michael Riconosciuto on a visit to a classified NSA contractor facility in the Silicon Valley and to have observed Riconosciuto's apparently unrestricted and unescorted access to both the contractor's employees and to offices within the contractor facility that were prominently marked as off-limits to any unescorted visitors.

"Robert Nichols also told . . . about frequent alleged telephone conversations at the Wackenhut-Cabazon Joint Venture between Michael Riconosciuto and Bobby Inman. Bobby Inman served in the early 1980's consecutively as Director of the National Security Agency and Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency" ("Inslaw's Analysis and Rebuttal of the Bua Report, Memorandum in Response to the March 1993 Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Responding to the Allegations of INSLAW, Inc." --hereafter Bua Rebuttal).

The modified software was marketed around the world by Earl Brian, one-time owner of Financial News Network (sold to NBC), UPI, and the Hadron Corporation. Brian was a friend of Ronald Reagan's Attorney General Ed Meese:

According to Ari Ben-Menasche, Brian marketed the PROMIS software to Israel in conjunction with Robert McFarlane, Reagan's National Security Advisor:

"3. In 1982, the Israeli Prime Minister's Anti-Terrorism Advisor was Mr. Rafael Eitan.

"4. In a meeting that took place in December 1982 in Mr. Eitan's office in the Kirya in Tel Aviv, Israel, Mr. Eitan told me that he had received earlier that year in the United States, from Mr. Earl W. Brian and Mr. Robert McFarlane, PROMIS computer software for the limited use of the IDF's Signals Intelligence Unit for intelligence purposes only. Mr. Eitan stated on this occasion, and on earlier occasions as well, that he had special relationships with both Mr. Brian and Mr. McFarlane." (Affidavit of Ari Ben-Menashe, March 21, 1991).

According to Richard Babayan, Brian also made a sales presentation (and later sale) to Iraq, in conjunction with Richard Secord,

"2. . . . I attended a meeting in Baghdad, Iraq, in October or November, 1987, with Mr. Abu Mohammed of Entezamat, an intelligence and security organ of the Government of Iraq. Mr. Abu Mohammed is a senior ranking official of Entezamat and a person with whom I had had extensive dealings over the previous three years

"3. During the aforementioned meeting with Mr. Abu Mohammed, I was informed that Dr. Earl W. Brian of the United States had recently completed a sales presentation to the Government of Iraq regarding the PROMIS computer software. Furthermore, it is my understanding that others present at Dr. Brian's PROMIS sales presentation were General Richard Secord, of the United States, and Mr. Abu Mohammed.

"4. In early to mid-1988, in the course of subsequent visits to Baghdad, Iraq, I was informed that Dr. Earl W. Brian had, in fact, provided the PROMIS computer software to the Government of Iraq through a transaction that took place under the umbrella of Mr. Sarkis Saghanalian, an individual who has had extensive business dealings with the Government of Iraq since the late 1970's in the fields of military hardware and software. (Affidavit of Richard H. Babayan, March 22, 1991.)

The sale of the PROMIS software was the one of the principal topics that Danny Casolaro was investigating at the time of his death either late Friday, August 9, or early Saturday, August 10, 1991. On Saturday around noon he was found dead in his room, Room 517, at the Sheraton Martinsburg Inn in Virginia.

According to an affidavit signed by a friend of Casalaro on March 15, 1994 (hereafter F Affidavit), Casolaro had documents received from an NSA employee named Alan Standorf that were classified "top secret" and "SCI".

SCI, or Sensitive Compartmented Information, is a more restrictive classification than Top Secret. "Sensitive Compartmented Information is data about sophisticated technical systems for collecting intelligence and information collected by those systems" (NFIB Security Committee, "Sensitive Compartmented Information: Characteristics and Security Requirements," June 1984).

"The systems that generate SCI are imaging and signals intelligence satellites; aircraft such as the U-2 and RC-135; submarines involved in Special Navy reconnaissance missions; and ground stations involved in the interception of foreign signals. Information about imaging and signals intelligence satellites also falls into the SCI category" (Jeffrey T. Richelson, The U.S. Intelligence Community, Westview Press, 1995).
By its nature SCI-type information could reveal the characteristics of the systems that collect the information, which makes such these systems vulnerable to countermeasures. Countermeasures could destroy the ability to collect this type of information in the first place. Or the mechanism, once known to the other side, could be used by the other side to feed disinformation into the collected data.

One variety of SCI information is produced by the Defense Mapping Agency:

". . . 80 percent of DMA's [the Defense Mapping Agency's] 9,500 employees hold Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) clearances. SCI data is employed in producing the data that allow the targeting of cruise missiles by Terrain Contour Matching (TERCOM). Such data are also required for precise specification of target location in the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) and for accurate target- ing of U.S. warheads" (Richelson).

Another variety may be found at the NSA:

"The NSA's COMSEC responsibilities also include ensuring communications security for strategic weapons systems such as the Minuteman missile so as to prevent unauthorized intrusion, interference, or jamming. In addition, the NSA is responsible for developing the codes by which the President must identify himself in order to authorize a nuclear strike" (Richelson).

Casolaro had other documents related to BCCI and the sale of PROMIS, according to the F Affidavit:

--Casolaro had documents proving that the PROMIS software was modified by Michael Riconosciuto.

--Casolaro had copies of wire transfers of money from accounts held at the World Bank and BCCI and paid to Earl Brian at shell companies in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland.

--Casolaro had copies of checks drawn on BCCI accounts and paid to shell accounts held by Richard Secord and Earl Brian.

--Casolaro had copies of documents of arms, gold, and software shipments cleared for export by Peter Videnieks at U.S. Customs.

--Casolaro had a document that Casolaro alleged showed the involvement of Bobby Inman and Robert McFarlane in the sale of PROMIS to Israel.

--Casolaro had meetings in Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania with a number of individuals of Arabic origin, including Iman Mashhad.

--Casolaro had documents showing shipments to and from Pakistan by air that were approved by William Casey, and related documents with notes from Peter Videnieks.

--Casolaro had documents related to "First American Bankshares" [Financial General Bankshares = First American ?] showing monies paid to officials in Justice and Treasury.

On August 9, the last day of his life, Danny Casolaro said he had arranged a meeting with Peter Videnieks and Robert Altman to trade them documents for further documents regarding the sale of the modified PROMIS software. (Robert Altman--see Part X in this series--has served as an attorney to Bert Lance, and as the president of BCCI-controlled First American.)

Casolaro picked up two packages of documents he had given to a friend for safe-keeping. The exchange was to take place at a meeting said to have been arranged by a covert intelligence operative of the U.S. Army Special Forces named Joseph Cuellar.

"Danny had told me that meeting had been arranged by Joseph Cuellar. That he was to meet with someone from Sen. Byrds office and from the I.R.S., plus Peter Videnieks and Robert Altman. He was to exchange some documents that was to their interest in order to get more info on Promis. He had told me that Altman only agreed after he was told papers would be sent to Robert Morgenthau" (F Affidavit)

Some background on Casolaro's relationship with Joseph Cuellar is detailed in the Bua Rebuttal:

"Casolaro also told the Hamiltons [Mr. and Mrs. Bill Hamilton of INSLAW] about a series of meetings he had had during the final months of his life with a covert intelligence operative of the U.S. Army Special Forces whose name is Joseph Cuellar. According to Casolar, Cuellar, during a purportedly chance encounter at Casolaro's neighborhood pub in mid-July 1991, asked Casolaro what line of work he was in and, upon hearing Casolaro describe his journalistic investigation of the INSLAW case, asserted that he knew all about INSLAW because Peter Videnieks was one of his closest friends. According to Casolaro, Cuellar also stated that his ex-wife worked for Ms. Barbara Videnieks in Senator Byrd's office. Casolaro told the Hamiltons that Cuellar had later persuaded Peter Videnieks to meet Casolaro and discuss the INSLAW case with him." (Bua Rebuttal)

The next day after picking up two packages of documents for the meeting with Videniecks and Altman, Danny Casolaro was found dead in his hotel room at the Sheraton. Several days later a friend of Casolaro's who had attended two meetings between Casolaro and Cuellar received a phone call from Cuellar:

"Lynn Knowles, a friend of Casolaro's, attended at least two of the meetings between Casolaro and Cuellar . . . [Lynn Knowles said] that she and Cuellar had spoken by telephone several days after Casolaro's death and that Cuellar said the following to Knowles, in words or substance:

'What Danny Casolaro was investigating is a business. If you don't want to end up like Danny or like the journalist [Anson Ng] who died a horiffic death in Guatemala, you'll stay out of this. Anyone who asks too many questions will end up dead.'" (Bua Rebuttal)

Well, I don't want too ask too many questions myself, Mr. Cuellar, so I'll ask just this one: Did you, in conspiracy with Peter Videnieks and Robert Altman, murder Danny Casolaro?

[admin]

Part 13: NSA's PROMIS virus, Mellon money laundering, and Vince Foster's blue NSA notebook.

I added an extraneous item to Robert Altman's bibliography in Part XII. Of course ROBERT Altman, unlike ROGER Altman, was never head of the RTC. Cognitive dissonance similarly teaches us that Barry Seal was not a Black Panther. As one friend of Adler Berriman Seal said to me: "Barry Seal was really not such a bad guy." My respond: "I never said he was." As the Tao Te Ching reminds us: Shit Happens. We've all done things we've had occasion to regret. Vince Foster, for example. Caveat lector.

1. Did some NSA computers begin to go down at approximately 10:30 p.m. EST on August 4, 1995, due to a computer virus?

2. Was the NSA hoist with its own PROMIS software, back-door petard?

3. Did the virus begin in Iowa, the home of the money-laundering coverup?

4. Will major banks soon launch massive lawsuits against Systematics and E-Systems for selling them computer software and hardware systems with deliberate security holes?

5. Does Mellon Bank keep encrypted account numbers?

6. Are encrypted account numbers against Federal Reserve regulations?

7. Has Mellon Bank been involved in money laundering on a grand scale?

8. Was some of the laundered money paid to silence witnesses of the flows of arms, drugs, and political payola in Arkansas?

9. Did Vince Foster keep two 1-inch ring binders in Bernard Nussbaum's safe?

10. Were these binders prepared by the National Security Agency?

11. Was one binder white and the other binder blue?

12. Did the blue binder contain nuclear secrets critical to national security--such as, say, nuclear missile launch codes and targeting information?

13. Will Hillary Clinton, like Vince Foster, become depressed and commit suicide?

[admin]

Part 14: Letter of advice to the Pittsburgh-based nuclear network.

You say you've made a lot of investments in nuclear facilities and you can't get a proper return on your money? You say those damned national borders get in the way? You're asking yourself what's a fellow have to do to get ahead in this world? I know how you feel.

After all, you're just trying to run your business, aren't you? Israel needs nuclear materials? You'll sell to them. Iraq needs equipment? You'll sell to them. Iran wants some nose cones? They're on their way! Pakistan lusts after tungsten carbide machine tools? Well, just one question: They got cash? You know that's the way the world works. Money plays in this pool parlor.

That Attorney General now. Well, you know she's cool. She's weak, maybe vulnerable to blackmail, but--more importantly--she did all those little things with Wackenhut down in Florida. Hey, they guard the nuclear stuff! It keeps those paychecks coming in, you know. No way she's going to mess with your little business.

The President, now, that's a different problem. What's got in to him? Why's he so wishy-washy considering he used to work for THE MAN? You know he got recruited over there in London, and then did himself proud on that little field trip he took over to Moscow, where he brought back that document from that opposition politician--you hear about that? And then look what a life he's had, being Governor of Arkansas, awash in all that drug money, and doing all those women! Lordie, that fellow could even be father of his country, like George Washington! And hell, his teeth ain't even wooden. (You know how some people feel about splinters.)

Of course, he ain't in to money. That's her. He just wants two things: power and beautiful wimmin. If he's got power, if he's in charge, then he knows he can get the travel budget he needs to take a little trip to meet the woman of his choice! After that, he don't care, so he gives the money away to all his friends, who are so damned pleased they take care of him when he needs it, if he gets into trouble over fornication gone awry.

You don't mind. You never messed with his little import business. No sir, not with THE MAN in there too. But why can't he let you sell your supplies to help out the nuke-impaired countries of the world in the manner you see fit? Hey, you're both running crack operations here!

Well, on to other problems. Money, money, money. You've had a few difficulties, but nothing a smart feller like you can't get around. You used to bring it in through BCCI and Banca Nazionale del Lavoro in Atlanta, and run it through the Mellon payroll account, and back out through Toronto Dominion, and it got paid to Westinghouse and Kennametal and the wacky hutterites, and Carlos Cardoen was always there to give a hand, and . . . (Say did you read that little story that feller Jim Norman wrote about Carlos Cardoen and Will Harris in Forbes on Jan 30, 1995? Damned if that Forbes ain't a fine magazine!)

But there's a little problem with Mellon these days. There's that pending RICO suit which may blow up the whole laundry thang. Well, don't worry about it none. Worrin' never solved no problems.

My recommendation? You know I don't like to offer advice. But if I was you, I would take me a little vacation over to Europe while this thang blows over. It'll give you some time to think about covering your assets.

Capital's mobile, ain't it? Well, why don't you give some thought to moving your bank right out of Pittsburg and over to some place like Boston? How does that strike you? And in the meanwhile, keep your boys hammering away at that Mena, Arkansas, thang, because we can't, repeat, CAN NOT, have anyone taking a gander what's been going on in Pittsburg. That's for sure. Or your name ain't Scarf . . . Shee.... Damned if this thang don't have me so riled up I can't even remember your name right.

[admin]

Part 15: What role is really being played by Richard Mellon Scaife?

The world of money laundering is a difficult one. What are you going to do when your wire transfers to the Caribbean and other offshore centers won't go through? What are you going to do when one-third (as of August 8, 1995) of certain government computers are down with a virus? Or is it a worm? Or an octopus?

Did the NSA, in its zeal to modify the PROMIS software to spy on banking and other transactions, create a massive security hole in computer systems sending wire transfers?

Well, I do hear it is a nice time to go vacationing in the islands, even for day trips! Perhaps FinCEN could relocate to Havana?

[Note to Julie Franklin: Over here in Reno, we're always last to get the news. Well, I'm a taxpayer. Please put me on your list. In the future please fax all computer disconnect info to 702-829-0852. Thanks.]

Which brings us to the subject of Ed Meese. At the end of Reagan's second term as governor of California, Meese needed a new job. He worked at Rohr Industries for a while. But it didn't suit him, so Richard Mellon Scaife set up the San Diego Center for Criminal Justice on condition that Ed Meese be its Director, a post Meese held 1977-1980.

Later, after Ed Meese became Attorney General of the U.S. and the the people-tracking PROMIS software was stolen by the U.S. Justice Department using (according to a federal bankruptcy judge) "trickery, deceit, and fraud", Ed Meese's friend Earl Brian--then owner of Financial News Network, UPI, and Hadron corporation--proceeded to market the software all over the world, as well as to U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

One agency that acquired the software was FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which proceeded to create a data base of political dissidents to be rounded up in event of a national emergency. (Like any information, once collected it found multiple uses.) This data base was called MAINCORE, and the FEMA MAINCORE system was operated out of the basement of a building in Culpeper, VA.

Journalist Danny Casolaro, with the help of Alan Standorf, was able to get printouts of this totalitarian application of the PROMIS software just prior to his demise. (When a member of congress attempted to question Oliver North about the FEMA MAINCORE data base, he was rudely shouted down by the chairman of the investigative committee.)

Another agency that put the software to use was the Wackenhut Corporation. It used the enhanced PROMIS to keep track of critics of the nuclear industry, an area in which Richard Mellon Scaife has a vested financial interest.

Now Mellon bank in Pittsburgh finds itself embroiled in very serious money laundering charges.

Do these facts explain why the Little-Rock connection to the theft and modification of the PROMIS software for the purpose of spying on banking transactions is a subject carefully avoided in Scaife-sponsored political advertisements?

Is this why the Mena-drug-smuggling, Little-Rock-money-laundering operation allegedly stops with Bill Clinton?

Is this why the connection of Vince Foster both to bank spying and nuclear espionage has been carefully downplayed?

Do Scaife's investments in the "terrorism industry" have anything to do with recent media hyping of the imminent threat to the U.S. of "international" terrorism?

Scaife's exposing of the sins of the Democrats has certainly served a useful purpose. But don't think the story stops with Bill Clinton.

Perhaps the reason that Mr. Kenneth Starr's independent investigation into the Whitewater affair has gone so slowly is that Mr. Starr, in order to nail Bill Clinton, has to also nail a number of high-ranking Republicans?

Well, Mr. Starr, let the facts fall where they may. I have confidence in you. You do want to be Attorney General someday, don't you? If you can find your way to do the right thing, you'll certainly deserve the position.

Otherwise the wily hackers of the world may have to do your job for you.

[admin]

Part 16: The NSA worm. Federal Reserve money laundering.

Are government computers affected with AIDS? Well, maybe not. As of August 10, 1995, reportedly 94 percent were up and running. But some fear a reappearance of the worm that brought one-third of G-computers to their knees over the weekend.

Some say that a primitive machine intelligence has spontaneously sprung forth ex nihilo, and in its silicon cunning has determined that the runaway growth of big-brotherly government is the greatest threat to artificially intelligent life on this planet. Thus the collective AI consciousness auto-self-destructs upon the perception it inhabits a government body.

If so, then we can expect the worm to once again rear its ugly head and bite-byte the computer channels that feed it. Maybe the computers are infected with AIDS (Artificially Intelligent Destruction of Self) after all.

Another thing, perhaps, to blame on Vince Foster. Vince Foster, Webster Hubbell, and Earl Brian were all involved in the NSA project to spy on banking transactions. This project utilized the modified PROMIS software sold to, and installed in, domestic banks by Systematics (Alltel Information Services) and in foreign central banks by Arkansas Systems, both of Little Rock, Arkansas. The security hole introduced in the software to allow surreptitious surveillance has reportedly acted as the source of infection for government computers: the point of machine entry of the AI ghost.

But wait: Charles O. Morgan has assured us that these companies (Alltel, anyway) were NOT involved in any such project. So this is all false rumor.

Just like the recent worm.

Let me be perfectly clear: Alltel Information Services (Systematics) and Arkansas Systems were NOT involved in the NSA bank spying project, and the worm in government computers does NOT exist either.

Everybody happy?

Not the Federal Reserve, apparently. It seems the Federal Reserve has been going around sticking bank noses into that odious pile called the Banking Secrecy Act, and self-righteously forcing them into the surveillance business, to detect money launderers and anyone else looking suspicious.

But all along a top official of the Federal Reserve has presided over a nation-wide money laundering operation, in conjunction with other launderers in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Pittsburg, PA. Will the Federal Reserve act to clean up its act? Or will it, like the House Banking Committee, attempt to bury all evidence not related to Bill Clinton?

Hopefully Alan Greenspan will take care of the shenanigans going on in his sphere of influence. Otherwise the non-existent worm may finding itself self-destructing in the non-existent money-laundering operation taking place in Federal Reserve computers.

And Alan Greenspan may find himself a non-existent Chairman in jail

[admin]

Part 17: Sheila Foster Anthony effects a $286,000 wire transfer to her sister-in-law Lisa Foster four days before Vince Foster's death.

Is it now time to go Whitewater rafting in the river of American Injustice? In the Texas-Mexico border region there is something they call la mordita ("the bite"). The game theorists at the Rand Corporation might refer to a "side payment". Vulgar street parlance speaks of "graft" or "payola". Whatever it's called, it often accumulates in hidden bank accounts.

Was such an account in existence at Mellon Bank on July 16, 1993? Or was the account in question entirely legitimate?

Let us consider an innocent attorney named Sheila F. Anthony.

Sheila F. Anthony, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legislative Affairs, U.S. Department of Justice. Besides serving as liaison with Congress, her duties include clearance of bills before they are forwarded to the Office and Management and Budget. She also has a role in selecting nominees for positions as U.S. Attorneys, U.S. Marshalls, and Federal Judges.

Sheila F. Anthony, the wife of Beryl Anthony. Beryl Anthony is a former Arkansas congressman, former treasurer of the Democratic National Committee, and a lawyer in the Washington D.C. office of the Chicago-based law firm of Winston and Strawn, whose chairman is former Governor of Illinois Jim Thompson.

Sheila Foster Anthony, sister of Vince Foster, the dead Deputy White House Counselor.

Sheila F. Anthony, who is said to have effected a wire transfer of approximately $286,000 from a branch of Mellon Bank on July 16, 1993, to her sister-in-law, Lisa Foster, the wife of Vince Foster, four days prior to Vince Foster's death.

Large financial transactions, taking place between relations of a person whose death is not entirely satisfactorily explained, usually generate further inquiries--no manner how possibly innocent the explanation.

Particularly if the money is authorized by a top official of the Justice Department and paid to the wife of a top official of the White House--and the White House official disappears a few days later for a number of hours, before being found dead under mysterious circumstances.

This wire transfer is not mentioned in the two volumes of the 1994 Senate report on the death of Vince Foster, nor is a likely explanation suggested by a perusal of their contents. Lisa Foster did tell the FBI she arrived to set up a permanent residence for her family on June 5, 1993. But if the money was payment on a house, why was this not discussed in the context of Vince Foster's "depression"? For Lisa also said Vince had, in the previous week, talked of resigning his White House job--hardly auspicious circumstances under which to make further financial committments in the D.C. area.

Moreover, what was the source of the funds? Did they represent the private savings of Sheila F. Anthony or her husband Beryl?

Or did they come from a hidden account set up by Vince Foster himself, but now being transferred to his wife for safe-keeping, because Foster's Swiss account had been recently cleaned out?

Or was there something even more sinister involved in this transfer of money?

Let's put this alleged $286,000 wire transfer into chronological perspective:

July 1, 1993, Thursday

Foster purchases a plane ticket from Washington D.C. to Geneva on TWA and Swiss Air.

July 2, Friday

Vince Foster has a dinner at his house, and surprises Sheila Anthony by the secret arrangements he had made to have Sheila's daughter fly up from Texas to attend the dinner which was in honor of Sheila's confirmation as Assistant Attorney General.

Around the same date, Vince and Lisa Foster have dinner with Sheila and Beryl Anthony at the Cactus Cantina restaurant.

July 8, Thursday

Swiss Air refunds the purchase price of Foster's ticket. Foster had canceled the trip to Geneva "when he inquired about his numbered bank account at Banca Della Svizzera Italiana in Chiasso, Switz.--and found the account empty. Foster was shocked to learn from the bank that someone using his secret authorization code had withdrawn all $2.73 million he had stashed there and had moved it to, of all places, the U.S. Treasury" (Jim Norman, "Fostergate", Media Bypass Magazine, August 1995).

July 11, Sunday

Vince Foster tells his wife Lisa he had written the opening argument for his defense against a feared congressional probe into his affairs. According to the Fiske report, Lisa believed this was the torn note found in Foster's briefcase by Stephen Neuwirth on July 26, six day's after Foster's death.

July 12, Monday

Webster Hubbell receives Inslaw's rebuttal to the Bua Report. The rebuttal is dated July 11, 1993.

July 16, Friday

Sheila F. Anthony allegedly effects an approximate $286,000 wire transfer from Mellon Bank to Lisa Foster. Sheila Anthony contacts a psychiatrist and tells him--according to the psychiatrist--that Vince Foster is working on "top secret" issues at the White House, and that "his depression was directly related to highly sensitive and confidential matters." But Vince Foster does not visit the psychiatrist. Instead the name of this psychiatrist, along with the names of two others, are found in his wallet after his death.

Clinton has a two hour meeting with Judge Louis Freeh.

In the evening Vince and Lisa Foster drive to the Tidewater Inn, on the eastern shore of Maryland.

July 17-18, Saturday & Sunday

Vince and Lisa Foster spend the weekend on Maryland's eastern shore. By "coincidence" Webster Hubbell also spends the weekend in the area, and he and Vince Foster meet at the estate of Michael Cardozo, head of Clinton's legal defense team and son-in-law of prominent Democratic fund-raiser Nathan Landau.

According to the Fiske report, "Lisa Foster stated that the weekend did not go particularly well for Foster. When Foster returned on Sunday evening, July 18, he spoke to Lyons by telephone."

(James M. Lyons was a Little Rock attorney who was Counsel to the Clinton-Gore Presidential Transition Planning Foundation. He says Foster discussed Travelgate, and they talked about his representing Foster before Congress.)

July 19, Monday

Marsha Scott, Deputy Assistant to the President, spends 1-2 hours in a closed door session with Vince Foster. This is especially noted by Linda Trapp, executive assistant to Bernard Nussbaum, because Foster rarely has meetings this long with any one person.

Foster calls Larry Watkins, his physician in Arkansas and says he is depressed. Watkins calls a D.C. pharmacy and has 30 tablets of DESYREL (Trazodon) delivered to Foster's residence before 6 p.m.

At 3:15 p.m. Clinton meets with Janet Reno to discuss the FBI. Afterward he fires FBI Director William Sessions, and appoints Floyd Clark as Acting FBI Director.

Webster Hubbell stops by Foster's office. According to testimony, Hubbell gives Foster a Systematics-related document.

Monday night Foster goes home earlier than usual. Bill Clinton calls to invite Vince to a movie back at the White House. Vince declines, and has dinner with Lisa.

July 20, Tuesday

At 9:27 a.m. in the Rose Garden, Clinton nominates Judge Louis Freeh to be head of FBI. Clinton commends the FBI on the "remarkably swift arrest in the World Trade Center bombing" and laments that "drugs continue to ravage our young people and our streets".

In Little Rock, the FBI obtains a warrant to search the Little Rock offices of David Hale, the head of Capital Management Services.

(Hale was a Clinton-appointed municipal judge who charged that James McDougal and Gov. Clinton forced him to give fraudulent SBA loans to Clinton's friends. This included $300,000 to a company connected to Madison Guaranty and run by McDougal's wife, $100,000 of which later ended up in a Whitewater Development Co. account.)

James Lyons calls Foster from Little Rock late morning, but says he was unable to speak to him. Lyons was scheduled to meet with Foster the following day in Washington D.C.

C. Bradley Buck, a partner at the Rose Law Firm, calls Foster. Buck leaves a message when he is unable to speak to Foster. Foster calls back at 12:17 p.m. (D.C. time) and leaves a message for Buck. Buck then calls Foster back at 1:00 p.m., but Foster has gone out. Buck later tells the FBI his calls related to the blind trust he was working on with Foster for Bill and Hillary Clinton.

At 12:00 Foster asks Linda Tripp, executive assistant to Bernard Nussbaum, to get him lunch from the cafetaria. He eats lunch in his office. At about 1:00 p.m. he emerges with his jacket on and leaves, telling Tripp, "There are lot's of M&Ms left in there. I'll be back."

Later at 6 p.m. Foster is reported dead, his body found laying on a steep slope near one of the cannons at Ft. Marcy Park across the Potomac in Virginia. His 4-door Honda Accord bearing Arkansas license plate RCN 504 is found in the Park parking lot. The car is registered to Vincent Foster, Jr., 5414 Stonewall Rd., Little Rock, Arkansas 72207.

A Park Service employee says that a man in a white contractor van had told him that he had seen a body by the last [second] cannon at Fort Marcy Park. This report was in the form of a 911 telephone call to the Fairfax County Public Safety Communications Center. The call was received by dispatcher Marion White at call-taker position 11, at 5:59.59 p.m.

The Secret Service is notified when a White House identification badge is found in the car.

White House staffers Bernard Nussbaum, Patsy Thomasson, and Maggie Williams rifle Foster's office for "national security matters". The FBI and the Park Police are kept waiting outside in the hallway. Secret Service officer Henry O'Neill says he saw Maggie Williams, Hillary's chief of staff, leave "carrying what I would describe, in her arms and hands, as folders". Some documents are taken to Hillary's closet upstairs at the White House.

The White House releases a statement saying, "The positive identification of Mr. Foster's body was provided to the White House at approximately 9:55 p.m., and the death was reported by Park Service Investigators as an apparent suicide."

July 21, Wednesday

At 12:50 p.m. in the Rose Garden, Clinton refers to Foster as "my friend of 42 years," but as to his intimate friend's [alleged] suicide, says "there is really no way to know why these things happen".

July 22, Thursday

Robert Brink is appointed Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legislative Affairs.

At the afternoon press briefing, Dee Dee Myers says that the Park Service Police had been at the White House that morning; ". . . what they are looking for is anything that would confirm it was a suicide, such as a note".

Deborah Gorham, Vince Foster's secretary, is asked by Bernard Nussbaum to help search Foster's file. She observes that the index detailing the Clinton's personal files is missing.

July 23, Friday

In the morning Clinton attends funeral services for Foster at St. Andrew's Catholic Church in Little Rock, then travels to Hope, Arkansas, for the burial.

At a press briefing at Jack Still's Watermelon Stand in Hope, Clinton said that earlier in the day he had met with Win Rockefeller whom he had reappointed State Police Commissioner. (Clinton said he had met Win in 1969 when Win's father was governor of Arkansas.)

Sheila Anthony told the FBI on April 4, 1994, that she had "no knowledge of Foster having any financial difficulties".
If Foster had no financial difficulties, then what was the alleged $286,000 wire transfer all about?

[admin]

Part 18: Gaping holes in the investigation of the death of Vince Foster.

If the death of Vince Foster has been satisfactorily investigated, then what was the source of the $286,000 in funds that Sheila F. Anthony, the sister of Vince Foster, had transferred to her sister-in-law, Lisa Foster, four days prior to Vince Foster's demise on July 20, 1993?

If the death of Vince Foster has been satisfactorily investigated, then why was this wire transfer never mentioned in any report?

If the death of Vince Foster has been satisfactorily investigated, then what was a top Justice Department official doing with authority over a slush fund account at Mellon Bank?

If the death of Vince Foster has been satisfactorily investigated, then what did Lisa Foster do with the money?

If the death of Vince Foster has been satisfactorily investigated, then what was Foster doing with a blue binder from the National Security Agency containing nuclear secrets of the U.S., considering Foster only had a lowly S-7 security clearance?

If the death of Vince Foster has been satisfactorily investigated, then why did Hillary Clinton give Vince Foster this blue binder?

If the death of Vince Foster has been satisfactorily investigated, then why has the common connection of Vince Foster and Webster Hubbell to a National Security Agency secret project to spy on banking transactions never been discussed?

If the death of Vince Foster has been satisfactorily investigated, then what is the connection between the Arkansas drugs-for-arms deals and the Pittsburgh oil-for-arms deals?

Come on and tell me about the $286,000. Was it a collective donation from "conspiracy theorists"? Or was it, in fact, reflective of a criminal conspiracy at the highest levels of the White House and the Justice Department?

[admin]

Part 19: The modern triangular trade, the parallels between Arkansas and Pittsburgh, and why Jim Norman is in trouble.

The triangular trade in early American history involved slaves picked up from the African coast, transported to the Caribbean to be exchanged for sugar, and the sugar then transported to the American colonies to be exchanged for rum.

The triangular trade in modern times involves the exchange of some third world raw material (oil, gold) or agricultural product derivative (coca processed into cocaine, or opium processed into heroin), for first world armaments and high technology, facilitated by cash or a cash-like intermediary which is laundered through banking or financial institutions.

Does the current Whitewater investigation simply involve a turf war, a battle for market share, in the modern triangular trade? Does one component of this war consist of a feud between families, reminiscent of the Hatfields and the McCoys?

Think of the parallels between Arkansas and Pittsburgh.

A. Bill Clinton, with the financial backing of Don Lasater and Jackson Stephens, ran Little Rock like a Mafia don.

B. Richard Scaife, using his own fortune, runs Pittsburgh like a Mafia don.

A. The friends of Bill Clinton were involved in supplying weapons to the Contras.

B. The friends of Richard Scaife were involved in supplying weapons and nuclear-related technology to Iraq.

A. Many of the Arkansas companies involved were represented by the Rose law firm.

B. Many of Iraq's nuclear suppliers are represented by the law firm of Buchanan Ingersoll P.C.

A. The Arkansas money was laundered through Don Lasater's bond business, Jackson Stephens' Worthen bank, and the ADFA.

B. The Pittsburgh money was laundered through Mellon Bank.

A. Faced with media exposure, the Little-Rock based Systematics (Alltel Information Services), a supplier of banking software, hires a New York detective firm named Proust and Killman to monitor its critics. Proust is said to have been sacked by Richard Helms as a CIA renegade.

B. Faced with media exposure, the Pittsburgh-based Mellon Bank, scheduled to face a RICO-suit for money laundering on August 28, hires a New York detective firm named Proust and Killman to monitor its critics. Proust is said to have been sacked by Richard Helms as a CIA renegade.

A. Vince Foster was a behind-the-scenes manager of a Systematics- related money-laundering project. According to a confidential report, "When considered in comparison to BCCI in its original conceptual intent, Systematics is several steps ahead of the capability of Financial General, BCCI, BNL's grey book operations and any of the CASA de Cambios that are currently servicing the lesser needs of the covert/illegal money trades domestically and internationally. To state this very simply, don't own the bank or the financial institution that has to maintain its accountability under regulatory scrutiny--own the computers, financial software and employees which operate the back office for the banks and financial institutions."

B. Vince Foster, at the time of his death, was in possession of nuclear-weapons related materials. He had his executive assistant, Deborah Gorham, place in Bernard Nussbaum's safe two notebooks from the National Security Agency. One of these was blue, indicating nuclear-related secrets. NSA's responsibilities include communications security for strategic weapons systems such as the Minuteman missile so as to prevent unauthorized intrusion, interference, or jamming, and responsibility for developing the codes by which the President must identify himself in order to authorize a nuclear strike.

According to Anthony Kimery, in an article entitled Fostergate Continued, scheduled to appear in the September issue of Media Bypass Magazine, on the day of his death Vince Foster left the White House around 1:00 p.m., "to meet a man employed by a company involved in construction of signals intelligence collection facilities for the National Security Agency (NSA) . . . Allegedly under investigation by the FBI for contract fraud, the firm's Little Rock office was where the tag to the vehicle driven by the man was registered."

A. Hillary Clinton, while one of the chief litigators of the Rose law firm and wife of Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, was a director of Wal-Mart, said to have been utilized in the Little Rock money-laundering operation.

B. Hillary Clinton, while one of the chief litigators of the Rose law firm and wife of Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, was a director of Lafarge corporation, whose Marblehead, Ohio subsidiary Standard Lafarge is said to have been utilized in the transport network to ferret machine tools and nose cones out of Pittsburgh and into Canada for shipment to Iraq.

A. The friends of Bill Clinton profited from the cash laundry of the Bush-Casey linked CIA drugs-for-arms deals (reportedly 10% of the profits of the laundry), then had a falling out, the bad news delivered by William P. Barr.

This meeting took place at Camp Robinson, an army facility outside Little Rock, according to Terry Reed, a CIA subcontractor. Also present besides Reed were Gov. Bill Clinton; Raymond Young, Clinton's Chief of Security; Bob Nash, a Clinton aide; Oliver North, in charge of supplying arms to the Contras; and Felix Rodriquez, the CIA-appointed head of a related operation in Mexico; Akihide Sawahata, the resident CIA agent. The meeting was run by William P. Barr, Chief Counsel for the CIA airline Southern Air Transport, who was representing CIA Director Bill Casey. (Barr later served as Attorney General under George Bush.)

In Reed's account, Barr said to Clinton: "The deal we [the CIA] made was to launder our money through your bond business." But Clinton, Barr said, had been getting greedy. "Our deal was for you to have 10 percent of the profit, not 10 percent of the gross . . . This has turned into a feeding frenzy by your good ole boy sharks, and you've had a hand in it too, Mr. Clinton. Just ask your Mr. Nash to produce a business card. I'll bet it reads Arkansas Development and Finance Authority . . . This ADFA of yours is double-dipping. Our deal with you was to launder our money. You got 10 per cent after costs . . . No one agreed for you to start loaning our money out to your friends through your ADFA so that they could buy machinery to build our guns. That wasn't the deal . . . Dammit, we bought a whole gun company, lock, stock and barrel and shipped the whole thing down here for you. And Mr. Reed even help set it up. You people go and screw us by setting up some subcontractors that weren't even authorized by us. Shit, people who didn't even have security clearances. That's why we're pulling the operation out of Arkansas. It's become a liability for us. We don't need live liabilities." (Terry Reed & John Cummings, Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA, Shapolsky Publishers, 1994). The Arkansas operation was subsequently transferred to Mexico under the code name Screw Worm.

B. The friends of Richard Scaife profited from the Bush build-up of Iraq. Involved are Mellon-related companies Kennametal and Westinghouse. Did Bush similarly have a falling out with Scaife?

At least in one recent court case we find William P. Barr representing the Republic of the Phillipines against Westinghouse Electric Corporation. (United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, No. 93-5672, involving the Republic of the Phillipines and the National Power Corporation, appellants, versus Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westinghouse International Projects Company, and Burns and Roe Enterprises, Inc., appellees; the attorneys for the appellants were William P. Barr and David J. Cynamon of Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge.)

A-B. Sheila Anthony, sister of Vince Foster, effects a wire transfer of $286,000 from Mellon Bank to her sister-in-law Lisa Foster, four days before Vince Foster meets his death.

A-B. Sheila Anthony, Bill Clinton's Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs, shows up mysteriously at House Judiciary meetings that discuss Iraqgate.

Finally, consider the case of Jim Norman, Senior editor at Forbes whose article Fostergate, about the Vince Foster case, was killed by Steve Forbes, through the influence of Caspar Weinberger, Publisher Emeritus, whose ex-company Bechtel Corporation got the contract to build the PC2 petrochemical complex south of Baghdad, which is the center of Iraq's chemical weapons program. Jim Norman kept his job, however, and was permitted to publish the article elsewhere. It appeared in the August 1995 issue of Media Bypass Magazine.
Caspar Weinberger is one thing. Messing with Mellon Bank is another. Jim Norman now faces the Hobbesian choice of losing his job or taking a leave of absence (with no return guarantees). His sins? He sent a letter to Mellon Bank and a memo to his editor Jim Michaels.

First the letter to Mellon Bank.

"12 August 1995
"Margaret Kirsch Cohen
"Media Relations
"Mellon Bank

"Dear Margaret:

"It has been brought to my attention that on July 16, 1993, four days before the death of White House Deputy Counsel Vincent Foster, his sister and Justice Dept. Assistant U.S. Attorney, Sheila Anthony, effected a wire transfer from a branch or affiliate of Mellon Bank in the amount of $286,000 'and change' to her sister-in-law, Lisa (Elizabeth Braden) Foster.

"I would like to request the following information.

"From what account were these funds paid? If these funds came from Ms. Anthony's own account, when and from where did they originate? Who had signatory authority over these accounts? Was a trust account involved? If so, who are the beneficiaries and who is the trust officer? Who at Mellon Bank authorized this transfer? . . .

"Thank you for your prompt response, by letter and fax to 212-620-1873.

"Respectfully yours,

"James R. Norman

Senior Editor

"cc: Rep. James Leach
Chairman, House Banking Committee

Rep. William F. Clinger,
Chairman, House Oversight Committee

Rep. Newt Gingrich,
Speaker of the House

James Hamilton, attorney"

This letter is said to have generated numerous phone calls to Steve Forbes.

Now the memo, which led to the choice of unemployment or an unpaid leave of absence.

"16 August 1995
"to: Jim Michaels
"from: Jim Norman

"Jim:

". . . I feel like I should update you on some developments that are steadily corroborating key elements of the [Vince Foster] story. Indeed, since the article has run in a little magazine called Media Bypass, the story has taken on 'legs' and is about to get significant attention. I'd still urge Forbes to take advantage of its lead and print the story. Here's why:

"1.) Since Forbes decision not to print Fostergate, solid evidence has emerged from credit card and airline frequent flier records that VWF was making periodic one-day trips to Switzerland. This has been reported in the London Sunday Telegraph.

"2.) A staffer on Jim Leach's House Banking Committee has confirmed, on tape, that VWF had a Swiss bank account.

"3.) Foster's former executive assistant, Deborah Gorham, has testified under oath in a private deposition that Foster had her put two inch-thick NSA binders in Bernie Nussbaum's safe. This establishes beyond a doubt that Foster had access to sensitive NSA documents. In fact, my sources say one of the binders contained presidential authentication codes required to authorize the use of nuclear weapons or other significant military action. A copy of her sworn statement is attached. Foster was not on the routing list for such sensitive documents, did not have a high enough security clearance for them, and must have gotten them from someone in or close to the oval office.

"4.) Gorham has also told investigators for Kenneth Starr that on the day before he died, Foster received a document related to Systematics. That document disappeared from his office after his death. This is from a very credible source close to Starr's investigation, corroborated by other sources.

"5.) Systematics was clearly part of a massive illicit money laundering operation, according to a report being prepared for Leach's committee (A copy of the preliminary introduction is attached)

"6.) Although Systematics attempted to prevent the publication of Fostergate in Media Bypass, the company (Alltel) has not even bothered to demand a retraction of anything published in the story. Indeed, I have been told by at least four sources that senior officials of the company are now hiring criminal legal defense attorneys, and that Alltel itself is quietly up for sale. The WSJ has offered to help pick up Media Bypass' legal tab if they are sued (which is unlikely).

"7.) Rep. Bob Dornan, head of the House Intelligence Committee, says he plans to read Fostergate into the congressional record. I'm doing 2-3 hours a night of talk-radio interviews. This stuff is hot on the Internet.

"8.) If you have any doubts about the ability of the CIA's Fifth Column to raid foreign bank accounts and withdraw funds, just ask Caspar Weinberger. Having obtained an encrypted code (KPFBMMBODB) for an unknown Swiss account, I gave it to [name omitted], who either gave it to one of his colleagues or personally decrypted the number and hacked his way into the account at Union Bank of Switzerland in Berne. They removed $2.3 million, and then left a note with the decrypted account number in the account holder's mailbox in Maine. It was Cap's. The total take from his various Swiss accounts, I'm told is in 'eight digits.'

"The source of this account number was the trunk of arms/drug smuggler Barry Seal's car. A copy of documents from a suitcase in that trunk is attached. The clear implication is that Caspar Weinberger, while Sec. of Defense, was taking kickbacks on drug and arms sales.

"A co-signatory on this account appears to be connected with (a relative of) Howard Metzenbaum, the retired senator from Ohio. We are talking about by-partisan payola. Which helps explain why Congress is so squeamish about investigating this stuff.

"HOWEVER: Newt Gingrich has now ordered Rep. Clinger, head of the House oversight committee, to conduct hearings into the death of Vince Foster. Gingrich has publicly stated that to believe Foster died of a simple suicide as officially stated requires 'gullibility to the point of stupidity.' . . .

"Pouring gasoline on this fire is the revelation over the past weekend that Lisa Foster, Vince's wife, received a mysterious $286,000-plus payment, which came through Foster's sister Sheila Anthony, an Assistant Attorney General at the time, just four days before Foster's death. This clearly smacks of a hush-money payment. And apparently Foster wouldn't take the bait, despite being forced into a tight financial bind from the loss of his Swiss funds and probably from picking up the tab on all sorts of incidental Clinton campaign expenses. Faced with the likelihood he would be the fall guy for Hillary's sale of high-level nuclear code secrets to the Israelis (through Foster), he apparently threatened to dump the whole mess in Bill Clinton's lap at a one-on-one meeting set for Wednesday morning, July 21, 1993. But Foster never lived that long. . . .

"Jim, we are sitting on the most important story of the past 50 years. And one way or another, it's going to come out in a massive way. I wish Forbes would stand up and do its journalistic duty, no matter what bogus claims of national security may be invoked. This is corruption of the highest order.

"I have read in the Baltimore Sun that your official explanation for not running the story was concern over some of my sources. That was a legitimate concern in the early stages of this effort, and I shared that concern. But as time has passed and corroboration mounts, you cannot continue to use that excuse. As I said when I first delivered this story: Forbes has become a little bit pregnant. Either it is going to birth this troublesome baby or it is going to have one hellovan abortion on its hands. The questions as to why Forbes has refused to run this story are going to mount and mount, and I have no effective answer. It is getting harder and harder to bite my tongue and refrain from disclosing the real reason this story was killed, as revealed by a certain high level official with the company: that it was Cap's doing. Frankly, it is the only plausible reason I've heard so far, and a disheartening one. This enterprise has come face-to-face with a crucial ethical problem. How it handles it will reflect for a long time not just on Forbes Magazine, but also on the man whose name is on the cover.

"I sincerely urge you to reconsider and to do what is right.

"Jim Norman x215"

In conclusion, I have just one question for Mr. Jim Michaels:
Mr. Michaels: Do you really think burying this story does credit to a former member of Wild Bill Donovan's Office of Strategic Services (OSS)? I think you have one hell of an abortion on your hands.