ORIGINS OF THE IRAN DEAL
Bill Casey’s appointment as director of Central Intelligence was hardly popular with many on the Hill and the broader political establishment. One particularly vehement opponent was Barry Goldwater, whom Casey had sparred with back in the 1960s. Casey had designated Goldwater as a candidate of an increasingly incoherent right-wing fringe, and Goldwater clearly held a grudge against the veteran spook. He proposed his own candidate: Bobby Ray Inman, the naval intelligence and NSA chief who had done much to disrupt the Shackley clique by shuttering Task Force 157. Goldwater even went so far as to personally lobby Reagan to appoint Inman rather than Casey. But he was only successful in getting Inman the number-two position at the Agency.
The split at the top of the intelligence hierarchy was part of a cascade of factional struggles that swept across Reagan’s first term as president. Joseph Persico has described how quickly the CIA bureaucracy was polarized between the two men, eventually reaching a point where “Casey’s staff and Inman’s staff barely communicated.”242 Inman was blocked from participating in major operations, such as the early Contra-support operations, and Casey even went so far as to plant stories about Inman in the press. He devised a new division of labor in the Agency so that it gave Casey unfettered access to President Reagan – a privilege that Inman did not enjoy.
Joseph Trento argues, drawing on sources from within the intelligence community, that the rivalry between the two men was capitalized on by Casey’s other rival, then vice president George H.W. Bush. Inman, already close to Bush, acted as his eyes and ears within the CIA. “Bush was walking a tightrope,” Trento writes. “Inman considered himself a friend of Bush’s and was reporting to Bush on Casey’s activities within the CIA. At the same time, Inman’s great rival, Shackley, was [also] reporting to Bush.”243 To make matters more complicated, Shackley and his core group of associates – Richard Secord and Thomas Clines, among others – were increasingly active in Casey’s off-the-books operations, apparently walking a tightrope of their own between other rival factions.
Details scattered throughout Persico’s biography of Casey add credence to Trento’s claims. When Inman accepted the CIA job, for example, he wanted Bush present for the welcoming ceremony. “George Bush isn’t welcome out here,” Casey told him, alluding to the CIA. “Inman waited for an explanation, but none was forthcoming.”244 At another point, Casey flew into a rage on discovering that Inman had been frequently meeting with Bush and briefing him on intelligence matters.
Inman stepped down from his CIA post in 1981 and turned toward a career in the private sector. The presence of Bush’s influence can be seen in some of his subsequent business affairs. Inman, in the mid-1980s, worked as the head of an electronics-industry holding company called Westmark, which in turned owned Tracor – a major defense contractor that produced electronics for weapons systems. The main group behind Tracor was a web of in-laws and business associates of Walter Mischer, the same Texas banker and real estate developer that Pete Brewton had found to have been involved with Bush in private-intelligence operations.245
There are other indications that Bush was operating his own intelligence web within the Reagan administration. Seymour Hersh, for example, charged that Bush, wary of Casey, set up a “team of military operatives” that “bypassed the nationalsecurity establishment – including the CIA – and wasn’t answerable to congressional oversight.”246 According to Hersh, this team included Vice Adm. Arthur Moreau, then serving as assistant to the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Daniel Murphy, Bush’s chief of staff; and Donald Gregg, the former CIA officer who had become Bush’s advisor on national security. Gregg, as discussed earlier, had a history with Shackley and may have been involved in the October Surprise. According to Joseph Trento, Gregg served as a channel of communication between Bush and Shackley.247
Such was the reality of the Reagan administration. Despite the outward appearance of strength and unity, the internal dynamics were characterized by rivalry, factionalism, double-dealing, and, on occasion, moments of fragile cooperation. This was the heady environment that incubated the Iran-Contra affair, in which the US government violated several of its own laws in an attempt to covertly finance the Nicaraguan Contras in their fight against the country’s Sandinista government. It was very much the legacy of the Shackley-Wilson private-intelligence network. Though Ed Wilson was, by this point, in prison for his Libyan escapades, old veterans of that network such as Clines, Secord, and even Gray were active in this new covert war.
Oliver North, Secord’s primary partner in orchestrating many of the byzantine plots that characterized the Contra-support efforts, appears to have been operating on behalf of Casey, who had been blocked from overtly supporting the Nicaraguan rebels by Congress. For example, Casey directly intervened to keep North in the National Security Council when he was supposed to be rotated back to regular Marine duties. The close proximity of North to Casey adds credence to the allegations made by Seymour Hersh that Bush’s own intelligence operations had leaked details to the press concerning North and Secord’s arms sales to Iran.
Shackley himself was called to testify in the wake of the revelations of the scandal. He was never found to be connected with the affair, though subsequent statements by investigators suggest that, behind closed doors, there was doubt as to his professed innocence. The facts that he shared during his testimony were, however, quite revealing. In the course of his work for John Deuss, Shackley deployed the services of a former SAVAK agent named Novzar Razmara as a source of information on Middle East oil and the geopolitical situation surrounding the Iran-Iraq War. Through Razmara, Shackley was plugged into a network of former Iranian military officers who maintained some contact with the country’s post-revolution government.
In November 1984, as the hostage crisis in Lebanon was mobilizing the National Security Council, Shackley traveled to Hamburg, Germany, with Razmara to meet with the former SAVAK general Manucher Hashemi (no relation to Cyrus and Jamshid Hashemi). The ostensible goal of this meeting was to introduce Shackley and Razmara to “interesting Iranians who were traveling in Europe at the time and from Iran.”248 Present for the meeting was Manucher Ghorbanifar, an arms dealer and shady businessman with ties to both the older pro-Shah military officers and the new intelligence apparatus of Khomeini’s government.
There were numerous meetings over the course of that day, and many of the details about them are redacted in the publicly available version of Shackley’s deposition. What is revealed is that Ghorbanifar approached Shackley with questions concerning the acquisition of TOW missiles – anti-tank guided missiles that the Iranians were seeking in hopes of turning the tide in their conflict with Iraq. Shackley claims that he rejected Ghorbanifar’s overtures. Yet, TOW missiles were not the only thing on the arms dealer’s mind. Ghorbanifar stated that “for a price he could arrange for the release of the US hostages in Lebanon through his Iranian contacts.”249
Shackley’s version of these events is somewhat difficult to believe: the TOW missiles that would be shipped to Iran were not to be used as a source of financing for the Contras but were to guarantee that Iran would utilize its influence to release the hostages held by Hezbollah in Lebanon. One of these hostages was, in fact, a CIA station head whom Shackley had been close to. These weapons sales were carried out by individuals all closely associated with Shackley, working in concert with Ghorbanifar. Yet, somehow we are supposed to believe that Shackley’s 1984 meeting in Hamburg had happened just by chance. Also suspicious was that Shackley had written a memo on his meeting with Ghorbanifar and dispatched it to Lt. Gen. Vernon Walters at the State Department.
This memo was brought up during Robert McFarlane’s deposition:
MR. COHEN: You recall that Ted Shackley, back in 1984 sent a memo to Vernon Walters suggesting we have a new relationship with Iran. Were you aware of that?
MR. MCFARLANE: No, sir.
MR. COHEN: That that recommendation was discarded and that the memo was retyped in June of 1985, actually June 7 of 1985, it was sort of retyped and given to Michael Ledeen. Are you aware of that?
Mr. MCFARLANE: No, sir.
Mr. COHEN: That Michael Ledeen gave it to Oliver North?
Mr. MCFARLANE: I didn’t know that.
Mr. COHEN: Are you aware of a John Shaheen?
Mr. MCFARLANE: The name is familiar. I believe he was associated with Mr. Khashoggi.
Mr. COHEN: Actually he was a very close friend of Bill Casey’s. They served together in World War II in the OSS, and John Shaheen floated a possible hostage initiative on behalf of Cyrus Hashemi … that proposal was determined by the State Department to be unworthy of pursuit. Were you aware that was being done at the same time we had paper being prepared by – a recommendation by John Shaheen?
Mr. MCFARLANE: No sir, I don’t.
Mr. COHEN: Were you aware that the State Department looked behind the Shaheen proposal and saw Mr. Ghorbanifar?250
Cyrus Hashemi, John Shaheen’s contact who put the October Surprise conspiracy in motion, was indeed a close associate and business partner of Manucher Ghorbanifar, and the two would operate in the murky world of arms trafficking up until Ghorbanifar broke ties with him and partnered instead with Adnan Khashoggi. According to Gordon Thomas and Matt Dillon, Ghorbanifar and Robert Maxwell were well acquainted, having been introduced to each other by Cyrus Hashemi.251
Subsequently, both Khashoggi and Ghorbanifar were recruited by Israel to help traffic arms to Iran to bolster the country in its fight against Iraq, allowing the two enemies of the Jewish state to continue to weaken each other. Overseeing this operation was David Kimche, a former Mossad officer and at the time director general of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Robert Maxwell, who was playing a supporting role in the plan, was also actively working on behalf of Israel intelligence. As will be detailed in Chapter 9, Khashoggi and Ghorbanifar were also connected, as was Maxwell, to the PROMIS scandal, also known as the Inslaw affair.
Shackley might have been privy to these complicated arrangements and designed his testimony concerning the 1984 Hamburg meeting to suppress knowledge of his role in them. In his memo, he had effectively offered Ghorbanifar’s services to the State Department. Former CIA officer William Corson holds that he did this “because Israeli intelligence suggested it.”252 This sort of interplay between Shackley’s network and the other factions detailed in this chapter with Israeli intelligence would be a recurring theme throughout the Reagan era and beyond.
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Endnotes:
1 Jerry Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis: The Committee on the Present Danger and the Politics of Containment (South End Press, 1999), 221.
2 Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis, 221.
3 Yvonne Dilling and Ingrid Rogers, In Search of Refuge (Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1984), 220.
4 Ken Silverstein and Daniel Burton-Rose, Private Warriors (Verso, 2000), 215-16; Holy Sklar, Washington’s War on Nicaragua (South End Press, 1988), 80.
5 Joseph John Trento, Prelude to Terror: The Rogue CIA and the Legacy of America’s Private Intelligence Network (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2005), 72, http://archive.org/details/preludetoterror-r00tren.
6 Jonathan Kwitny, The Crimes of the Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA (W. W. Norton), 1987.
7 Kwitny, Crimes of the Patriots, 59-62.
8 Kwitny, Crimes of the Patriots, 115.
9 John Pilger, “The British-American Coup That Ended Australian Independence,” Guardian, Oct. 23, 2014.
10 Joseph Trento, “FBI Probing Ex-Spy’s Role in Task Force,” Wilmington Sunday News Journal, October 5, 1980, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CI ... 0073-2.pdf.
11 Trento, Prelude to Terror, 73.
12 Peter Maas, Manhunt: The Incredible Pursuit of a CIA Agent Turned Terrorist (Random House, 1986), 59.
13 Trento, Prelude to Terror, 71.
14 Maas, Manhunt, 59.
15 Trento, Prelude to Terror, 74.
16 “Exposing the Libyan Link,” New York Times Magazine, June 21, 1981.
17 Maas, Manhunt, 163.
18 William E. Schmidt, “Ex-Green Beret Is Convicted of Assault on Libyan Student,” New York Times, December 5, 1981.
19 Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall, The Iran-Contra Connection: Secret Teams and Covert Operations of the Reagan Era (South End Press, 1987), 41.
20 “Theodore Shackley deposition,” Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, One Hundredth Congress, First session, Washington, 1987, appendix B, Vol. 25, 15, https://www.maryferrell.org/php/showlis ... ocset=1949.
21 “Shackley deposition,” 25-28.
22 “Shackley deposition,” 14.
23 Trento, Prelude to Terror, 174.
24 David Stout, “Theodore Shackley, Enigmatic C.I.A. Official, Dies at 75,” New York Times, December 14, 2002.
25 Philip Taubman, “Ex-C.I.A. Agent’s Associates Run Arms Export Concerns,” New York Times, September 6, 1981.
26 “Pseudonym: Ledbetter, Wallace,” Mary Farrell Foundation, https://www.maryferrell.org/php/pseudod ... ER_WALLACE.
27 Javier Blas and Jack Farchy, The World for Sale: Money, Power, and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources (Oxford University Press, 2021), 89; Fuel for Apartheid: Oil Supplies to South Africa (Shipping Research Bureau Amsterdam, September 1990).
28 Susan Mazur, “John Deuss’ Editors on Record on the Man,” Scoop News, December 2, 2006.
29 Trento, Prelude to Terror, 230-31.
30 Terry Reed and John Cummings, Compromised: Clinton, Bush, and the CIA (S.P.I. Books, 1994), 542.
31 “Clines Interview,” Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, First Session, Washington, 1988, appendix A, Vol. 2, Source Documents, 179, https://www.maryferrell.org/php/showlis ... ocset=1949.
32 “Clines Interview,” 179.
33 “Clines Interview,” 179.
34 Edward T. Pound and Walter S. Mossberg, “Arms Sales to Egypt Yielded Huge Profits for Obscure New Firm,” Wall Street Journal, October 1, 1982.
35 Peter Maas, “Oliver North’s Strange Recruits,” New York Times Magazine, January 18, 1987, https://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/18/maga ... ruits.html.
36 Taubman, “Ex-C.I.A. Agent’s Associates.”
37 Taubman, “Ex-C.I.A. Agent’s Associates.”
38 “Libya: Terrorism II [Terrorism: Libya 09/25/1986-09/30/1986]” Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Digital Library Collections, https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/public/di ... /smof/nsc- politicalandmilitaryaffairs/north/box-105/40-633-1201554-105-022-2017.pdf.
39 Trento, Prelude to Terror, 148.
40 Trento, Prelude to Terror, 148.
41 Trento, Prelude to Terror, 148-149; David H. Halevy and Neil C. Livingstone, “Noriega’s Pet Spy,” Washington Post, January 7, 1990.
42 Halevy and Livingstone, “Noriega’s Pet Spy.”
43 Halevy and Livingstone, “Noriega’s Pet Spy.”
44 Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall, Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 73–78.
45 Morgan Strong, “Mubarak, the Bag Man,” Consortium News, March 3, 2011, https://www.consortiumnews.com/2011/030311b.html.
46 Jon Grambell, “UK Court Orders Gunrunner to Pay over $4.1 Million to UAE Emirate,” ABC News, May 22, 2020, https://abcnews.go.com/International/wi ... e-70836616.
47 Trento, Prelude to Terror, 179.
48 Pete Brewton, The Mafia, CIA, and George Bush (S.P.I. Books, December 1992), 201.
49 Brewton, The Mafia, 201.
50 Brewton, The Mafia, 201.
51 Trento, Prelude to Terror, 179.
52 Jack Anderson, “Did Ex-CIA Agents Bug the Army?,” Washington Whirl, October 18, 1981.
53 Anderson, “Did Ex-CIA Agents Bug the Army?”
54 Stephen Pizzo, Mary Fricker, and Paul Muolo, Inside Job: The Looting of America’s Savings and Loans (Harper Collins, 1991), 119-120; Brewton, The Mafia, 200.
55 Pizzo, Fricker, and Muolo, Inside Job, 90-91.
56 Pizzo, Fricker, and Muolo, Inside Job, 91.
57 Brewton, The Mafia, 160-64.
58 Brewton, The Mafia, 162.
59 Brewton, The Mafia, 162.
60 Brewton, The Mafia, 162.
61 Brewton, The Mafia, 161.
62 “Vaughn R. “Bobby” Ross, Sr. Obituary,” The Advocate, March 5, 2018, https://obits.theadvocate.com/us/obitua ... d=12105551.
63 James R. Woodrall, Twelve Texas Aggie War Heroes (Texas A & M University Press, 2015), 237.
64 Brewton, The Mafia, 163.
65 Pizzo, Fricker, and Muolo, Inside Job, 232.
66 Brewton, The Mafia, 155-57.
67 Brewton, The Mafia, 160.
68 Brewton, The Mafia, 5.
69 Brewton, The Mafia, 6-7; “Dan Kuykendall Deposition,” Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, First Session, Washington 1988, appendix B, Vol. 15, 243-47.
70 Brewton, The Mafia, 6-7.
71 “[CTRL] S&L Fraud Suspect Found Dead; Suicide Possible in Corson Case,” July 28, 2001, https://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@lists ... 73302.html.
72 Brewton, The Mafia, 104.
73 Gordon Thomas and Martin Dillon, Robert Maxwell, Israel’s Superspy: The Life and Murder of a Media Mogul, 1st Carroll & Graf ed (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2002), 78-79, https://archive.org/details/robert-maxw ... illon-2002.
74 Brewton, The Mafia, 105.
75 Jack Z. Smith, “Fund-raiser faces hard choice in ‘84,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, July 31, 1983.
76 Smith, “Fund-raiser faces hard choice in ‘84.”
77 Rad Sallee and Kristen Mack, “Walter Mischer left mark on politics, real estate,” Houston Chronicle, December 20, 2005, https://www.chron.com/news/houston-deat ... 637567.php.
78 Brewton, The Mafia, 12.
79 Eric C Orlemann, LeTourneau Earthmovers (MN: MBI, 2001), 124–25; William R Haycraft, Yellow Steel: The Story of the Earthmoving Equipment Industry (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002), 180.
80 Van Craddock, “Marathon Manufacturing Co. Sold,” Longview News-Journal, December 20, 1979.
81 Brewton, The Mafia, 33.
82 Brewton, The Mafia, 32.
83 Paul Burka, “Power,” Texas Monthly, December 1987, 218.
84 See, for examples, “Camp Rio Vista Sold to Houston Group,” Kerrville Mountain Sun, December 16, 1970; “Parker Drilling Firm Re-Elects Chairman,” Abilene Reporter-News, December 29, 1981.
85 For a discussion how the Duncans launched Hines’ career, see George Rodrigue, “Anatomy of a Super Mall,” D Magazine, November 1, 1981, https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/ ... uper-mall/
86 “Joseph Patten, 73, Retired in ‘73 as Partner of Bear, Stearns & Co.,” New York Times, April 20, 1978, https://www.nytimes.com/1978/04/20/arch ... s-co.html; “Gulf Chiefs Beaten,” Spokane Chronicle, June 8, 1982.
87 Martin Paredes, “Watergate and Mexico,” El Paso News, May 17, 2017, https://elpasonews.org/2017/05/17/water ... d-mexico/; Allen McDuffee, “Shady funds through foreign powers, digging up dirt, and an election won: the Nixon playbook,” Timeline, November 16, 2017, https://timeline.com/richard-nixon-elec ... 002789b554.
88 George Bush, All the Best, George Bush: My Life in Letters and Other Writings (New York: Scribner, 1999), 82.
89 The Structure of the U.S. Petroleum Industry: A Summary of Survey Data. United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. Special Subcommittee on Integrated Oil Operations, 1976, 135.
90 “New Bank is Headed By Smith,” Kilgore News Herald, October 3, 1978. Prior to its merger into Mischer’s complex, one of the Bank of Texas’ directors was Houston oilman Sidney Adger. In 1968, Adger approached Texas lieutenant governor Ben Barnes – identified above as an associate of Herman Beebe – about arranging for George W. Bush to enter into the National Guard as a means of preemptively avoiding the Vietnam War draft. See Jeff Horwitz, “I’m Very Ashamed,” Salon, August 28, 2004, https://www.salon.com/2004/08/28/barnes_4/.
91 “People and Business,” New York Times, February 23, 1977, https://www.nytimes.com/1977/02/23/arch ... ntral.html
92 Russ Baker, Family of Secrets (Bloomsbury Press, 2010), 300, https://archive.org/details/familyofsec ... 0bake_r7l6.
93 Baker, Family of Secrets, 300. Joseph Trento writes that the London merchant bank subsidiary of First International moved “petrodollars and BCCI money... for a variety of intelligence operations that would span the next decade, according to the Senate BCCI investigation and the Morgenthau New York BCCI investigation.” Trento, Prelude to Terror, 139.
94 Glenn R. Simpson, “Riggs Had Longstanding Link to the CIA,” Wall Street Journal, December 31, 2004, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB110444413126413199.
95 “Riggs Bank guilty of money laundering,” NBC News, January 27, 2005, https://www.nbc- news.com/id/wbna6875033.
96 Kirk Johnson, “Clore Takes Over at Gulf,” New York Times, June 9, 1982, https://www.nytimes.com/1982/06/09/busi ... -gulf.html. During the takeover, Clore retained the legal services of the New York City attorney Kenneth Bialkin. Bialkin, whose law firm Wilkie Farr & Gallagher saw charges brought against some of its members in connection to Robert Vesco’s looting of IOS, was at this time the chairman of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. Interestingly, Robert Allen, who was ousted from control of Gulf Resources in the Clore takeover, was a recipient of the ADL’s Torch of Liberty Award. See “Robert H. Allen: Business and Professional Background,” https://utsystem.edu/sites/default/file ... 1-1996.pdf.
97 On John Murchison and his ties to First International and LTV, see “Briefs,” Scouting, January/February 1979, 4. On Edwin L. Cox and his ties to First International and LTV, see Harry Hurt III, “The Most Powerful Texans,” Texas Monthly, April 1976, 114.
98 “Post Edges Back Into LTV’s Leadership Ranks,” Bradenton Herald, June 14, 1970.
99 Robert E. Bedingfield, “Personality,” New York Times, May 24, 1970, https://www.nytimes.com/1970/05/24/arch ... eadership- seen.html.
100 Howard D. Putnam and Gene Busnar, The Winds of Turbulence: A CEO’s Reflections on Surviving and Thriving on the Cutting Edge of Corporate Crisis (Howard D. Putnam Enterprise, 1995), 184.
101 Robert O. Anderson was at the Council on Foreign Relations from 1974 to 1980, while George H.W. Bush was there 1977-1979.
102 “Governor Tours Oil Drilling Site,” Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, May 2, 1967; “Airline Puts Sleek New Charter Plane to Work,” Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, November 9, 1967.
103 Baker, Family of Secrets, 320.
104 Baker, Family of Secrets, 321.
105 “State Secrets,” Texas Monthly, July 1984, 196.
106 “All’s Well That Ends Well,” The Observer, May 23, 1993.
107 Andre Adelson, “Legendary Oilman Has a New Venture,” New York Times, July 31, 1987, https://www.nytimes.com/1987/07/31/busi ... nture.html
108 Trento, Prelude to Terror, 102-6.
109 Trento, Prelude to Terror, 102.
110 See Mohammed Heikal, Iran: The Untold Story – An Insider’s Account of America’s Iranian Adventure and Its Consequences for the Future (Pantheon Books, 1982).
111 Heikal, Iran: The Untold Story, 124.
112 Stephen Pizzo, Mary Fricker, and Paul Muolo, Inside Job: The Looting of America’s Savings and Loans, 1st Harper Perennial ed (New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 1991), 461.
113 “Fit for a Saudi”, Philadelphia Daily News, October 12, 1977.
114 “RE: Alex Gus,” FBI Airtel from Special Agent in Charge, Los Angeles, to FBI Director, February 9, 1961, NARA Record number 124-10199-10054, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docid=142286.
115 Robert C. Ruark, “Here’s How Ray Ryan of Evansville Happened to Buy Hotel Kenya,” Evansville Press, September 26, 1959.
116 Ricardo Sicre was a participant in a special OSS unit nicknamed the “Banana Boys,” which carried out activities in Spain and Morocco. See Patrick K. O’Connell, Operatives, Spies, and Saboteurs: The Unknown Story of the Men and Women of World War II’s OSS (Free Press, 2014), 27, 30, 43; Robin W. Winks, Cloak & Gown: Scholars in the Secret War, 1939-41 (Yale University Press, 1996), 177. Overseeing the OSS Secret Intelligence apparatus, which handled ‘cloak and dagger’ operations, in Spain was Frank Ryan. See, George C. Chalou (eds.), The Secrets War: The Office of Strategic Services in World War II (National Archives Trust Fund Board, 1992), 127.
117 On the World Commerce Corporation, see Anthony Cave Brown, Wild Bill Donovan: The Last Hero (Times Books, 1982), 795-800; Major Ralph Ganis, The Skorzeny Papers: Evidence for the Plot to Kill JFK, ePub (Hot Books, 2020), 293-300; S. William Snider, A Special Relationship: Trump, Epstein, and the Secret History of the Anglo-American Establishment (Independent, 2020), 97-150; Larry Loftis, The Princess Spy: The True Story of World War II Spy Aline Griffith, Countess of the Romanones (Atria Books, 2021), 222, 266.
118 Snider, A Special Relationship, 97-150.
119 Brown, Wild Bill Donovan, 795-800; Ganis, The Skorzeny Papers, 293-300.
120 Ronald Kessler, The Richest Man in the World: The Story of Adnan Khashoggi (Grand Central Publishing, 1986), 204.
121 Kessler, Adnan Khashoggi, 203.
122 Kessler, Adnan Khashoggi, 302.
123 “Memorandum for the Record, Subject: Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro,” CIA, April 25, 1967, NARA Record Number 104-10213-10101, https://www.archives.gov/files/research ... -10101.pdf.
124 “World Commerce Corporation & the Safari Club,” Reciprocal Contradiction, January 8, 2021, https://reciprocalcontradiction.home.bl ... fari-club/.
125 “Edward Moss’ Mafia Connections,” CIA Memo, May 14, 1973, NARA Record Number 104-101119-10406, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docid=14916.
126 “Edward Moss’ Mafia Connections.”
127 Peter Dale Scott, “The American Deep State, Deep Events, and Off-the-Books Financing,” Asia-Pacific Journal, April 6, 2014, https://apjjf.org/2014/12/10/Peter-Dale ... ticle.html
128 Scott, “American Deep State.”
129 “Edward Moss’ Mafia Connections”
130 Trento, Prelude to Terrror, 169.
131 David Teacher, Rogue Agents: The Cercle and 6I in the Private Cold War 1951-1991 (5th ed., 2017), 192.
132 Teacher, Rogue Agents, 189, 467.
133 Joseph Persico, Casey: The Lives and Secrets of William J. Casey from the OSS to the CIA (Viking, 1990), 42.
134 Persico, Casey, 84-85; “Otto Doering, Former O.S.S. Leader,” New York Times, July 14, 1979, https://www.nytimes.com/1979/07/14/arch ... eader.html.
135 Persico, Casey, 61.
136 Persico, Casey, 61.
137 Teacher, Rogue Agents, 35-36. Teacher notes that the Institute for American Strategy had been organized by the American Security Council.
138 Teacher, Rogue Agents, 546.
139 Persico, Casey, 114.
140 Stu Bishop, “Stans: He Fixed the Books,” North American Congress on Latin America, September 25, 2007, https://nacla.org/article/stans-he-fixed-books.
141 Persico, Casey, 131.
142 Jim Hougan, Spooks: The Haunting of America: The Private Use of Secret Agents (New York: Morrow, 1978), 222.
143 Hougan, Spooks, 169.
144 R. T. Naylor, Hot Money and the Politics of Debt (Linden, 1987), 19.
145 Naylor, Hot Money, 26-30.
146 Alan A. Block and Constance A. Weaver, All is Clouded by Desire: Global Banking, Money Laundering, and International Organized Crime (Prager, 2004), 36.
147 Block and Weaver, Clouded by Desire, 36.
148 Arthur Herzog, Vesco: From Wall Street to Castro’s Cuba – The Rise, Fall, and Exile of the King of White Collar Crime (Doubleday, 1987), 11-15.
149 “Israeli Corporation-Rosenbaum-International Credit Bank Controversy,” US State Department cable, September 30,1974, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974 ... 552_b.html.
150 Herzog, Vesco, 30-31.
151 Hougan, Spooks, 176-77.
152 Robert Hutchinson, Vesco (Avon, 1976), 241.
153 Dan Dorfman, “Casey Misled Investors on Agribusiness, Judge Rules,” July 15, 1981, Chicago Tribune.
154 Dorfman, “Casey Misled Investors”; In the Matter of Multiponics, Incorporated, Bankrupt. machinery Rental, Inc. and Carl Biehl, Appellants, v. William W. Herpel, Trustee, et al., Appellees, 622 F.2d 709 (5th Cir. 1980).
155 Hutchinson, Vesco, 235.
156 Gary Miller and Andrew Whitford, Above Politics: Bureaucratic Discretion and Credible Commitment, 165; Alan A. Block and Patricia Klausner, “Masters of Paradise Island: Organized Crime, Neo-Colonialism, and the Bahamas,” Dialectical Anthropology 12, no. 1 (1987): 85–102, https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00734790.
157 Gary Webb, Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Cocaine Explosion (Seven Stories Press, 2014), 303-5.
158 “Allegations of Connections Between Cia and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States, Volume II: The Contra Story,” Central Intelligence Agency Inspector General, Report of Investigation, October 8, 1998, https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/contents.html.
159 Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall, Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America (University of California Press, 1998), 95.
160 “Drug Trafficker Links Fugitive to Laundering,” Baltimore Sun, November 26, 1991, https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xp ... story.html.
161 Godfrey Sperling Jr, “‘Billygate’ Stands in Way of Comeback for President,” Christian Science Monitor, July 28, 1980, https://www.csmonitor.com/1980/0728/072837.html.
162 Inquiry into the Matter of Billy Carter and Libya: Report Together with Additional Views, US Senate, Ninety-Fifth Congress, Second Session, October 2, 1980, 1-2, https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sit ... 961015.pdf.
163 Inquiry into the Matter of Billy Carter and Libya, 2.
164 Inquiry into the Matter of Billy Carter and Libya, 7.
165 Inquiry into the Matter of Billy Carter and Libya, 11.
166 Inquiry into the Matter of Billy Carter and Libya, 11, note 35.
167 Trento, Prelude to Terror, 160.
168 Trento, Prelude to Terror, 161.
169 Robert Sherrill, Gothic Politics in the Deep South: Stars of the New Confederacy (New York: Grossman, 1968), 146.
170 Gerard Colby, Du Pont Dynasty: Behind the Nylon Curtain, ePub (Open Road Media, 2014), 782.
171 Hearing Before the Committee on Banking and Currency, House of Representatives, Eighty-Eighth Congress, June 11, 1964, 188, https://www.google.com/books/edition/He ... Senat/9Tc4 AAAAIAAJ.
172 Hearing Before the Committee on Banking and Currency, 188.
173 Elizabeth Hedderigg, “Nix Hints Charter Plays Major Role in Bankshares”, Tampa Bay Times, February 18, 1970.
174 Colby, DuPont Dynasty, 796.
175 Herzog, Vesco, 143.
176 Edward Jay Epstein, Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer (Random House, 1996), 23.
177 Alan A. Block and Constance Weaver, All is Clouded by Desire: Global Banking, Money Laundering, and International Organized Crime (Praeger, 2004), 20.
178 Black and Weaver, All is Clouded by Desire, 20.
179 Investigation of Robert L. Vesco Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Improvements in Judicial Machinery of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Ninety-sixth Congress, Second Session, October 2, 3, 23, 24, December 2, and 3, 1980, 237, https://books.google.com/books/about/In ... Vesco.html? id=wHFAmuZlAqcC.
180 Investigation of Robert L. Vesco, 237.
181 Investigation of Robert L. Vesco, 238.
182 Inquiry into the Matter of Billy Carter and Libya, 13.
183 Inquiry into the Matter of Billy Carter and Libya, 11, note 37.
184 “Inquiry is Reported on Libya Plane Sale,” New York Times, September 30, 1979, https://www.nytimes.com/1979/09/30/arch ... atic.html; Yousseff M. Ibrahin, “U.S. Delays Sales Made to Libyans,” New York Times, June 24, 1978, https://www.nytimes.com/1978/06/24/arch ... ve-on.html
185 The Undercover Investigation of Robert L. Vesco’s Alleged Attempts to Reverse a State Department Ban Preventing the Export of Planes to Libya, Staff Report of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, September 1982, 6, https://www.google.com/books/edition/Th ... rt_L/42esI xxc8RcC.
186 The Undercover Investigation, 4.
187 Brewton, The Mafia, CIA and George Bush, 50-53, 75.
188 The Undercover Investigation, 4.
189 The Undercover Investigation, 11.
190 The Undercover Investigation, 8-9.
191 The Undercover Investigation, 35.
192 The Undercover Investigation, 35.
193 The Undercover Investigation, 60.
194 Morton Minz, “Truth is Elusive in ‘Plot’ to Gain Release of C130s,” Washington Post, August 18, 1980, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ ... dc9fc72e1/.
195 David Brewerton, “Jack Dellal Obituary,” The Guardian, November 8, 2012, https://amp.theguardian.com/business/20 ... ack-dellal.
196 Nicholas Faith, “Obituary: Sir Edward du Cann, ex-politician and financier who helped elect Margaret Thatcher,” Independent, September 8, 2017, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obit ... 33726.html.
197 “Letter from Mr Mohamed Al-Fayed to The Rt Hon Paul Channon, MP Secretary of State for Trade and Industry,” Select Committee on Standards and Privileges First Report, UK Parliament, February 1987, https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/c ... p01100.htm.
198 “Letter from Mr Mohamed Al-Fayed.”
199 “AFC on Charter Co.’s list of creditors,” Cincinnati Post, April 23, 1984.
200 “Max M. Fisher: In Ronald Reagan’s White House,” https://maxmfisher.org/resource- center/photo/ronald-reagans-white-house.
201 Ronald Brownstein and Nina Easton, Reagan’s Ruling Class: Portraits of the Top One Hundred Officials (Presidential Accountability Group, January 1982), 630-32.
202 Persico, Casey, 166.
203 Tad Szulc, “Deak & Co. Cited,” New Republic, April 2, 1976, https://archive.org/details/nsia- DeakNicholas/nsia-DeakNicholas/Deak%20Nicholas%2005/. Nicholas Deak died under strange circumstances on November 19, 1985. He was shot to death at the Deak corporate offices in lower Manhattan. The gunman was a homeless woman named Lois Lang, who had arrived at the building earlier that day “asserting that she was part owner of the company and that ‘an injustice had been done to her.’” Also killed by Lang was receptionist Frances Lauder (Margot Hornblower, “Deak-Perera Chairman Fatally Shot in Office,” New York Times, November 19, 1985, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ ... a8d7beed1/). It was subsequently reported that Lang was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and had “believed the government had given her Deak-Perera in the 1940s.... When Deak & Co. filed for protection under federal bankruptcy laws last year, Lang became convinced that [Nicholas Deak] had mismanaged the firm, and decided to kill him.” (Rick Hampson, “Woman Diagnosed as Paranoid and Schizophrenic, Psychiatric Report Says,” AP News, November 21, 1985, https://apnews.com/article/911643acc47c ... ac9a11c451). Hank Albarelli notes: “Deak’s killer, Lois Lang, as early as 1975, was confined to the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center under the care of the late Dr. Frederick Melges, a psychiatrist associated with the Stanford Research Institute, a longtime facility used by the CIA and US Army for behavior modification experiments." According to numerous medical journal articles written by Dr. Megles, his specialty was narco-hypnosis and the use of hypnosis to create dissociative states. Dr. Melges worked closely at Stanford with Dr. Leo Hollister, also deceased, who had been a CIA MK/ULTRA sub-contractor working with LSD and other drugs” [H. P. Albarelli, A Secret Order: Investigating the High Strangeness and Synchronicity in the JFK Assassination (Trine Day, 2013)].
204 Scott and Marshall, Cocaine Politics, 82.
205 “The Cash Connection: Organized Crime, Financial Institutions, and Money Laundering,” President’s Commission on Organized Crime, US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, 1984, 42.
206 “Victor Posner obituary,” Economist, March 7, 2002, https://www.economist.com/obituary/2002 ... tor-posner.
207 “Letter from Max Fisher to Judge Morris Lasky on Behalf of Ivan Boesky,” Securities and Exchange Commission Historical Society, September 28, 1987, http://www.sechistorical.org.
208 Richard Eden, “Countess of Iveagh, 46, Splits from £900m Guinness Heir,” Mail Online, February 27, 2021, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... orces.html.
209 “Interview with Stanley Sporkin,” Securities and Exchange Commission Historical Society, September 2003, http://3197d6d14b5f19f2f440- 5e13d29c4c016cf96cbbfd197c579b45.r81.cf1.rackcdn.com/collection/oral- histories/sporkin092303Transcript.pdf.
210 Connie Bruck, The Predators’ Ball: The Inside Story of Drexel Burnham and the Rise of the Junk Bond Raiders (New York, N.Y., U.S.A: Penguin Books, 1989), 58. Incredibly, Riklis had his own encounters with Robert Vesco and IOS. In 1971 it was reported that he offered $10 million to a “dissident” group of IOS shareholders loyal to Cornfeld. There might be a simple explanation for this apparent factional dispute. Cornfeld had pressured Riklis to purchase, through Rapid American, “450,000 shares [of IOS] at $4 a piece”; it was suggested by those close to the fight that he wanted, with the $10 million commitment, “to be taken out of his stock position at cost, at which point he would drop the dissidents and step aside.” See “I.O.S. Managers Score Riklis on Rebel Move,” New York Times, August 19, 1971; and Hutchison, Vesco, 174.
211 Rebecca Thom, “2 Elected in Palm Beach; 2 in Run-off,” Sun-Sentinel, February 3, 1988.
212 Brewton, The Mafia, 321.
213 According to Walter Beinecke Jr., White had been “manager or junior partner for [the] Mackle brothers.” See “Interview with Walter Breinecke Jr., Samuel Proctor Oral History Project,” University of Florida, July 9, 1990, 129, https://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00006970/00001/. The Mackle brothers were behind the General Development Corporation, the major land development corporation that helped develop Florida hotspots such as Key Biscayne, Deltona, and Port St. John. Another figure in the General Development Corporation was Lou Chesler, the Canadian-born mobster who acted as a front man for Meyer Lansky.
214 Susan Sachs, “Pelullo, Sunshine State Bank had most dealings,” Miami Herald, October 9, 1986; On the Mackle Brothers, General Development Corporation, and Lou Chesler, see “General Development Corp,” Mackle Brothers website, https://www.themacklecompany.com/general-development. On Lou Chesler and Meyer Lansky, see Jim Hougan, Spooks, 230-231.
215 Rick Green, “State Reinstated Boxing Promoter,” Hartford Courant, October 28, 2004, https://www.courant.com/news/connecticu ... story.html.
216 Chris Frates, “Donald Trump and the Mob,” CNN, July 31, 2015, https://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/31/poli ... mob-mafia/.
217 “Context in Accord for Casino Project,” New York Times, June 8, 1979, https://www.nytimes.com/1979/06/08/arch ... oject.html. The project was eventually abandoned.
218 Susan Sans, “Pelullo, Sunshine State Bank Had Most Dealings,” Miami Herald, Oct. 4, 1986.
219 Pelullo’s stake in Sunshine was organized through King Crown, a company that he had cofounded with the thrift’s primary owner, Ray Corona. Corona’s background may be relevant here: he had cut his teeth in the world of shadowy finance at Miami National Bank. This bank, in the late 1950s, had been bought by Louis Poller, a close associate of Sam Cohen, a veteran of the Detroit Purple Gang and ally of Meyer Lansky. Poller’s purchase of Miami National was carried out with the aid of a loan from the Teamsters Pension Fund: “Shortly thereafter, a coterie of Hoffa-Teamsters associates became directors of the bank, and loans became available for numerous mob-connected ventures” See: “Subject: Joseph Shimon,” FBI, November 3, 1962, 34, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html? docid=116372; “Organized Crime: Stolen Securities,” Senate Subcommittee on Government Operations, 1971, 708; Jeff Gerth, “Richard M. Nixon and Organized Crime,” Penthouse, July 1974). Miami National also boasted a curious choice for legal counsel: the law firm of Helliwell, Melrose and DeWolf. This was the firm of OSS veteran and CIA banker Paul Helliwell, but work for the bank fell to Helliwell’s associate Truman Skinner. Peter Brewton notes that Skinner frequently worked with Donald Berg – a business associate of Richard Nixon’s good friend Bebe Rebozo – and Harold White in a series of Florida real estate ventures. Harold White, to bring this full circle, was the son of Pelullo’s good friend Armer White. (Brewton p. 322-23).
220 Alan A. Block and Frank R. Scarpitti, Poisoning for Profit: The Mafia and Toxic Waste in America (William Morrow & Co., 1985), 172.
221 “Provenzano and 2 Other Temaster Aides Indicted for Kickback Deal,” New York Times, December 11, 1975, https://www.nytimes.com/1975/12/11/arch ... -deal.html.
222 William M. Adler, Mollie’s Job: A Story of Life and Work on the Global Assembly Line (Scribner, 2000), 226; Organized Crime Links to the Waste Disposal Industry: Hearings Before the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, May 28, 1981, 17-24, https://play.google.com/store/books/details? id=2TYhAAAAMAAJ.
223 Ralph Blumenthal, “Illegal Dumping of Toxins Laid to Organized Crime,” New York Times, June 5, 1983, https://www.nytimes.com/1983/06/05/nyre ... crime.html.
224 Block and Scarpitti, Poisoning for Profit, 176.
225 Hazardous Waste Enforcement: Report of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, US House of Representatives, December 1982, 22.
226 Hazardous Waste Enforcement, 24.
227 Joseph A. Califano Jr., Inside: A Public and Private Life (Public Affairs, 2004), 391.
228 Nominations to the US Advisory Commission on Information: Hearings, Ninety-Second Congress, First Session, April 29 and June 8, 1971, 33, https://books.google.com/books/about/No ... cRAAAAIAAJ
229 Richard Harris Smith, OSS: The Secret History of America’s First Central Intelligence Agency (Lyons Press, 2019), xiv.
230 See Walter Stewart, “John Doyle’s Gamble with Millions: Heads He Wings, Tails You Lose,” Macleans, February 1, 1969.
231 Mark Millard was director of Carl M. Loeb, Rhoades & Co. when it held over 28,000 shares in Canadian Javelin, while Millard himself held 1,000 shares in Doyle’s company. See “Company officials report stock changes,” National Post (Toronto), October 27, 1962. Edgar Bronfman, in his book Good Spirits, refers to Mark Millard as “my friend” and as “a senior executive at Carl M. Loeb, Rhoades & Company and my father-in-law John L. Loeb’s partner”. He goes on to say of Millar “I had enjoyed many successful business dealings with Mark over the years, and I trusted him deeply.” See Edgar Bronfman, “Good Spirits: The Making of a Businessman,” New York Times, 1998, https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes ... irits.html.
232 Joint Report of the Task Force to Investigate Certain Allegations concerning the Holding of American Hostages by Iran in 1980, US Congress, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, One Hundred Second Congress, Second Session, January 3, 1993, 120, https://books.google.com/books?id=x-pl1AAAAMAAJ.
233 Task Force to Investigate Certain Allegations, 120-21.
234 Deposition of Roy Furmark,” Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, Appendix B, Vol. 11: Depositions, 100 Congress, First Session, 1988, 19 https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.htm ... lPageId=43
235 “Deposition of Roy Furmark,” 19
236 Task Force to Investigate Certain Allegations, 121.
237 Task Force to Investigate Certain Allegations, 122.
238 Robert Perry, “Debunking the Debunkers of October Surprise” (Excerpt from America’s Stolen Narrative), FAIR, March 2013, https://fair.org/extra/debunking-the-de ... -surprise/.
239 Task Force to Investigate Certain Allegations, 74.
240 Task Force to Investigate Certain Allegations, 130.
241 Susan Trento, The Power House: Robert Keith Gray and the Selling of Influence and Access in Washington (St. Martins, 1992), 129. https://archive.org/details/powerhouserobert00tren
242 Persico, Casey, 233.
243 Trento, Prelude to Terror, 216.
244 Persico, Casey, 232.
245 Brewton, The Mafia, 7. To make things more complicated, Tracor was in 1985 involved in a joint venture to produce and install hush kits for Boeing 707s. Customers of these particular hush kits included Buffalo Airways, one of the successors to Global International Airways formed by Farhad Azima. See Brewton, The Mafia, 318.
246 Seymour M. Hersh, “The Vice President’s Men,” London Review of Books, Vol. 41, no. 2, January 24, 2019, https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n02 ... dent-s-men.
247 Trento, Prelude to Terror, 214.
248 “Shackley deposition,” 144.
249 Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, Vol. 1, 164, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=146504.
250 Joint Hearings Before the House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran and Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition: Testimony of Robert C. McFarlane, Gaston J. Sigur, Jr., and Robert W. Owen, One Hundredth Congress, First Session, May 11, 12, 13, 14, and 19, 1987, p. 244, https://archive.org/details/Iran-Contra ... -irn-0003- McFarlane-Sigur-Owen/.
251 Thomas and Dillon, Israel’s Superspy, 145.
252 Trento, Prelude to Terror, 284.