Virginia McCullough Interview, by Paul DeRienzo

Virginia McCullough Interview, by Paul DeRienzo

Postby admin » Fri Apr 29, 2016 12:00 am

Virginia McCullough Interview
by Paul DeRienzo
1991

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Fred Alvarez, the deputy tribal chief of the Cabazon Indian tribe, found out that the monetary proceeds from the Bingo Palace (set up on his tribe’s reservation presumably to reward the tribe for permitting the Wackenhut Security Corporation to use the reservation for weapons and biochemical warfare development) were being laundered and used to finance the Contras in Nicaragua.

VIRGINIA McCULLOUGH: …. Alvarez realized that the Indians were receiving no money, and in fact, the money was being fairly evenly split between [members of] a partnership called the Bingo Palace Inc. As a result of his investigation, there was anger and outrage by the Nichols family and by those Indians on the reservation who supported them. Fred experienced death threats. He experienced sabotage to his motorcycle. He experienced terrorism, and finally he gave a series of interviews to the Desert Sun which was a newspaper in the general area. And at the time, he said, "As I give you these interviews, I’m a dead man."

Shortly thereafter, he and two other men, who just happened to be in his home at the time, were executed. There was evidence that Fred had been tortured. And they were shot, execution style.

Now, there was no autopsy done or [investigation] allowed of the scene. Shortly after that, the house in which the murders took place was razed to the ground. Linda Streeter Dukic, who is Fred Alvarez’s sister, and his parents, Phyllis and Leroy Alvarez, succeeded in reopening the investigation briefly. In 1985, Governor Dukemejian of California ordered the attorney-general’s office to look into it.

But something happened at that time that was very strange, because just shortly after they reopened the investigation, they immediately closed it. We now know that there was a key suspect in the contract murders of those three individuals. But no indictment was brought down. In fact, it’s my belief that a cover-up took place at the state level.


PAUL DeRIENZO: Do you know the name of the person who was the suspect?

VIRGINIA McCULLOUGH: Well, I have a three-page letter, that was written June 26, 1991, that names the suspect. And I’ll quote from the letter. You can imagine our shock when the investigators from the attorney-general’s office informed us that the boyfriend was, in fact, John Paul Nichols Jr., the key suspect.

PAUL DeRIENZO: That’s the son of John P. Nichols, who at one time was the administrator of the Cabazon Indian reservation.

VIRGINIA McCULLOUGH: Yes, and who still holds tremendous power there. Just recently— I think, in order to justify the distribution of funds—the senior Mr. Nichols has been named counselor to the Indians down there on the Cabazon reservation.

PAUL DeRIENZO: Tell us a little bit about the Cabazon Indians. Where is this reservation located?

VIRGINIA McCULLOUGH: The reservation is located near Indio, California, which is just outside of Palm Springs. And the reservation itself is a reservation of large acreage. It has some seventeen hundred acres in the desert. It has the usual water and mineral rights on the reservation. But the membership of the tribe itself is very low: twenty-four members at the time that the Nichols took over, around 1978. And there were some changes in Indian land law that took place at the Congressional level in 1978 that allowed white managers to come in over the tribes and manage the affairs of the reservations—to actually broker the assets of the reservations, and to enter into contracts with other entities.

As part of the senior Mr. Nichols management of the Indian reservation, numerous joint ventures were entered into between the Nichols family, operating for the Cabazons, and the Wackenhut Security Corporation out of Coral Gables, Florida. The Wackenhut Security Corporation has heavy CIA ties, and also has ties directly to the White House.

PAUL DeRIENZO: Describe some of the projects that were entertained on the Cabazon reservation. Now, I hear that there was, besides the bingo parlors, off-track betting, a housing project called Indian Village Housing that was going to bring in luxury housing for whites on reservation land, and the construction, also, of a toxic waste dump, a power plant that, because of the status of the reservation, would not be covered by EPA regulations.

VIRGINIA McCULLOUGH: There was all of that and much more. There were arms produced and manufactured and proposed through a company called the Cabazon Arms Corporation which, again, was Wackenhut and the Cabazon Security Corporation. And that arms corporation had demonstrations of night-vision goggles, and chemical warfare weapons, and machine guns during the time that these items would be necessary to supply to the Contras.

Many of the people who were instrumental in, and operatives in, the Iran/Contra [conspiracy] appeared on a range just outside of the reservation to view the weapons, in the early 1980’s. They also had a Cabazon Trading Company which dealt largely with tobacco and coffee imports. They had a Cabazon Gas & Oil Corporation that dealt with research connected directly to Hercules Research Corporation in Hercules, California, which was partially owned by Michael Riconosciuto. Michael Riconosciuto is a CIA operative who was trying to leave "the company" [the CIA’s nickname], and who has given a declaration [affidavit] in the Inslaw bankruptcy.

PAUL DeRIENZO: We played a tape of an interview, that was done at a Pacifica station in Los Angeles, with Michael Riconosciuto who is now in jail. And we spoke with Harry Martin earlier a bit about Michael Riconosciuto. He was involved with the Inslaw case in that he gave testimony shortly before he was arrested that he was involved in rewriting this software for intelligence purposes on the Cabazon reservation, and that he was also involved in selling this software to various intelligence agencies around the world—this software that belongs to the Inslaw Company which Inslaw and bankruptcy judges maintain was taken illegally from Inslaw by the Justice Department.

VIRGINIA McCULLOUGH: Yes. In fact, I think the words were, "stolen by trickery, fraud and deceit" from Inslaw Corporation. That’s the PROMIS software. And it’s ostensibly in use, as we speak, within the United States Justice Department, but also in the intelligence communities of Canada, Austria, Australia, India, Iraq, Iran and parts of Saudi Arabia.

PAUL DeRIENZO: Now, what is the connection between the Inslaw case, the Cabazon tribe, and Mr. Riconosciuto?

VIRGINIA McCULLOUGH: The declaration that Michael Riconosciuto presented, in the Inslaw case on March 21, 1991, was absolutely devastating because he alleged that Dr. Earl Brian, who owns UPI [United Press International] and FNN [Financial News Network], actually took the software through an operative by the name of Peter Videnieks, who was the Government auditor for the Inslaw contract with the Justice Department. Mr. Videnieks obtained the software, gave it to Dr. Earl Brian, and Dr. Earl Brian presented it to Michael Riconosciuto with instructions that it be altered or adapted for use by the Canadian and other intelligence communities. Michael complied and did as he was told, and he did, in fact, alter that software. And he named the locations where the work took place in the declaration of March 21st.

But in addition to that, he also went into great detail about the threats that had been made against him by Peter Videnieks who was the Justice Department employee. And, in effect, what Mr. Videnieks told Michael Riconosciuto, according to the declaration, was that he would be subject to prosecution in a case that had yet to be announced by the Justice Department—a case involving a Mr. Robert Ferrante and Consolidated Savings & Loan of Southern California—if he continued to cooperate with the Inslaw people in testifying before Congressman Jack Brooks’s House Judiciary Committee.

PAUL DeRIENZO: And he was, in fact, arrested.

VIRGINIA McCULLOUGH: Eight days later. He was arrested and he was held on one count of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamines. He is being held at Pearce County Jail in the state of Washington.

Earl Brian was detailed at length by a reporter for the Financial Post by the name of Eric Reguly on August 19, 1991. Now, Mr. Reguly had received the same death threats as the slain reporter Danny Casolaro when he started looking into Mr. Earl Brian. And anyone who has researched Earl Brian’s early life is left with many, many questions about everything from whether the man is truly a doctor (he did not finish his internship at Stanford; he left a quarter short of [finishing] his internship at Stanford University) to exactly what role he played in the Vietnam War that would result in all of the many medals which the United States Government claims he received in the two years he served there as a physician.

Mr. Reguly’s article was entitled: "Questions Grow as Big Daddy Watches His Empire Crumble". Big Daddy is the nickname for Dr. Earl Brian. And he had an extensive financial network, from a company called Biotech Capital Corporation—where Mrs. Edwin Meese had invested—to the Financial News Network, where he was accused of cooking the books by his own auditors. In addition to that, this article goes into great detail about Dr. Earl Brian’s links to the US and Israeli intelligence communities. Many people have testified in the article that Dr. Earl Brian’s nickname in the intelligence community was "Cash". And that would tie directly into what Michael Riconosciuto is alleging: that both he and Earl Brian, together, arranged for the transfer of forty million dollars for the "October Surprise" to retain the American hostages in Iran until after the presidential inauguration of Ronald Reagan.

PAUL DeRIENZO: Could you just cite that article for us one more time?

VIRGINIA McCULLOUGH: Certainly; August 19, 1991, in the Financial Post, by Eric Reguly. Eric Reguly is the bureau chief for the Financial Post which is Canada’s equivalent of the Financial Times. Now, anyone who has been following the story of the deaths that have occurred since Michael Riconosciuto began talking on March 21st, might be aware of the fact that one of Mr. Reguly’s compatriots—a man by the name of Anson Ng, who was a stringer for the Financial Times— was executed in Guatemala as he began investigating the links between the Cabazon Indian reservation and the execution of Fred Alvarez, BCCI [the Bank of Credit & Commerce International, the CIA’s money laundromat] and the Bank of America.

PAUL DeRIENZO: We’re speaking with Virginia McCullough, free-lance reporter, here on WBAI. We’re in the middle of a pledge marathon, and we’re discussing the Inslaw case and its connection to BCCI and "October Surprise", and a whole list of activities that seem to be so intertwined and folding back in all different directions as to make one believe that the theory of an "Octopus" was true—that maybe Danny Casolaro was getting close to something when he was killed looking for the last link in the chain, the conspiracy, which he called the "Octopus".

How does this tie in? I’ve heard it said that these people who were being named as involved in the "October Surprise", the situation on the Cabazon reservation, the Iran-Contra affair, and how that relates to this conspiracy that seems to be developing with a lot of connections—these are not the real CIA. These are people who seem to be working on the outside of the CIA itself —people who seem to be associates of Edwin Meese, associates of Ronald Reagan—people who seem to be using their positions that they had, being associates of people in power, to enrich themselves. Is this, in fact, the case? Or are there any connections to what we would call the real CIA?

VIRGINIA McCULLOUGH: Well, it’s my understanding, from talking to a lot of the people who have come forward to me lately, that there is a war within the CIA itself. There are two warring factions. There is a faction they call "B.B.", the Bush Boys, and a faction of (I guess you could identify them as a faction of) old world CIA intelligence men. Those men usually come under the heading of the Naval Intelligence Group. And the Naval Intelligence Group is of the opinion that the CIA has been prostituted by the Bush Boys for personal benefit and for directing the political philosophy of the United States under both Reagan and Bush.

There have been several mysterious plane crashes, that, as you might be aware, have had many CIA operatives on them. The most famous of them, of course, was the Lockerbie [Scotland], [Pan Am] 103 crash. And this war seems to have gone on for quite some time.

Possibly as far back as the early Reagan years. Maybe as far back as the Nixon years. Certainly, Michael Riconosciuto’s family and the family of friends—the W. Patrick Moriarty group—were long-time ex-parte kitchen cabinet members of the Nixon Administration. When Michael was first arrested on March 28th, I had been in touch with Bill Hamilton at this time, since November when Bill first started hearing from Michael. And Bill had phoned me (Bill Hamilton is the owner of Inslaw) and asked me if I knew or was aware of Michael Riconosciuto. And I had been because here in California in 1984 and 1985 there had been a scandal where the "safe and sane" fireworks king, W. Patrick Moriarty, had been arrested and put in jail for bribing government officials from the Governor on down to the Speaker of the House, Willie Brown. And at that time, we did research into Mr. Moriarty and his "safe and sane" fireworks kingdom which was Red Devil Fireworks and Pyrotronics, and was also connected to the Bank of Irvine. And we found out that his long-time personal friend and operative was a man named Marshall Riconosciuto. We also found out that when we wanted to investigate Marshall’s son Michael, we came up against a stone wall. There was no available information other than we could determine; that he was a child prodigy and was an expert in both explosives and in computer hardware and software. It seemed as though he had no previous life. And after I started talking to Michael after he was jailed in April—on a fairly regular basis, sometimes two or three times a day—the information, that he has given me and had FAXed to me from third parties, checks out. And I believe that he is exactly what he says he is. He’s a C.I.A. operative who wants to leave "the Company" and go home to mama and the kids. And the Government is going to make sure he doesn’t do that.

PAUL DeRIENZO: The idea of an "Octopus" or a "Secret Team"; on the one had, it matches. On the other hand, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s approach…. If we remember, back in 1987 it came out that Oliver North, in his role as organizer of "the Enterprise", which was doing the Iran-Contra drugs for arms pipeline, had also made some contacts with the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] in the sense of dealing with [American citizens] opponents of U.S. foreign policy toward Central America in the case of a war between the United States and Nicaragua. And it came out that there were actually plans on file to sweep people up—sweep activists up—in case of a war in Central America.

Although you haven’t mentioned anything that directly connects what we’re saying to that, it seems to tie in with the enforcement arm of…. you mention companies like Wackenhut, for example, that have a long history of involvement in keeping files on people, and in tracking dissidents. The Inslaw PROMIS software itself had that purpose.

VIRGINIA McCULLOUGH: Had that purpose, and more important, had the full capability of doing it. It is the Cadillac of software systems, if you will use that term, as far as tying directly into the Cabazon with the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s plan to arrest, jail and hold in detention camps political dissidents of all kinds.

Harry Martin has done an interesting article that appeared in his paper on the 24th [of September]. And I draw your audience’s attention to the Napa Sentinel which is Harry Martin’s paper. It seems to be at the forefront of a lot of information about all of "the Octopus’s" many tentacles. Harry did an article regarding Dr. Earl Brian and Edwin Meese, and the origin of the original mind control, behavior control systems that were used initially in California, and probably were the forerunners of the FEMA plan to jail political dissidents. And it goes so far as to surgically alter their behavior, or to alter their behavior through drugs. And in talking with Linda Dukic, who is Fred Alvarez’s sister, she informs me that virtually every Indian in the the Cabazon Indian tribe has been sent, at one time or another, to various hospitals for treatment of "drug" or "alcohol" addiction.

I find that particularly interesting because Dr. Paul Nichols is now an advisor to the Indians. And within the last ten days there was a White gentleman who had been a longtime employee of the Bingo Palace, there on the Cabazon reservation, and who refused to go to Dr. Nichols for treatment. As a consequence, he was fired from the Bingo Palace. The Nichols family, acting in total disregard for the Indians’ (with whom this White gentleman was sharing a home) wishes, placed eviction notices on the doors of all of the "Cabazon dissidents". That’s what they call the Indians who want the Nichols family out of control of that reservation.

The Nichols family can be traced in the old hardback edition of INSIDE JOB by Stephen Pizzo and Mary Fricker [and Paul Muolo]. And in that book, which traces the history of the failing Savings & Loans (It’s considered a bible of what has happened with the Savings & Loans.) … in that book, Dr. Nichols identifies himself as a C.I.A operative involved in the assassination of [democratically elected President of Chile] Allende and the attempted assassination of [Cuban Premier] Castro.

PAUL DeRIENZO: So he has a long history in intelligence matters as an operative in the intelligence community.

VRGINIA McCULLOUGH: A very long history. And if I were an American taxpayer, which I am, I would be very outraged at the amount of grants that the Nichols family, with known Mob connections, is able to obtain and go through. Then, when the grant money runs out, they simply bankrupt the dba, the company they’re doing business as on the Cabazon reservation. In that manner, they burn the creditors, and they go on to a new dba and obtain more grant money.

PAUL DeRIENZO: Where is this investigation heading? Will there ever be actual indictments and jailings of the people involved in some of these criminal activities? Or does the fact that the Government in the Justice Department was the entity that was cited for having stolen the PROMIS software "through trickery, fraud and deceit" in the first place preempt any attempt at getting justice regarding this matter?

VIRGINIA McCULLOUGH: Well, I think what has to happen is exactly what Danny Casolaro intended to happen. And that is to understandably tie all of these events together because they are, in fact, all linked. And only under those conditions—and if our Congress and our Senators regain their intestinal fortitude to do their job (and I don’t mean just make themselves pay raises, but actually monitor what’s going on within the judiciary and within the executive branches of government, as they are supposed to to maintain our balance of power), maybe then the citizens can rely upon obtaining some answers.

It seems that only when a Congressman or a Senator is directly attacked is that Senator or Congressman able to pursue, for whatever reason, a proper investigation of what’s going on. I’ll give you an example. We have a Congressman by the name of George Miller here in California. He’s out of the Martinez area. And the Wackenhut Corporation has been maintaining secret files on reporters around the United States. They call them "damage-control lists". And they maintain secret files on various reporters whom they feel are getting too close to the truth, and they seek to install some form of "damage control" against those reporters. That was never investigated. But just a couple of weeks ago, George Miller found that the Wackenhut Security Corporation had a file on Congressman George Miller because of his involvement in trying to maintain some environmental controls over the Alaska Pipeline Service Corporation. And now, finally, the House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, last Wednesday, voted unanimously to subpoena the documents and testimony from that pipeline service company and the Wackenhut Security Corporation.

PAUL DeRIENZO: Thank you very much Virginia McCullough, joining us from California, for that incredibly enlightening view into the inner workings of the Central Intelligence Agency and its various spin-offs, and the types of internal divisions that seem to be developing within the ruling class of the Government
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