EMERGING VIRUSES: AIDS & EBOLA: Nature, Accident or Intenti

Re:  EMERGING VIRUSES: AIDS & EBOLA: Nature, Accident or Int

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Part 2 of 2

Fig 6.7 - Major United States Army Biological Weapons Contractors for Fiscal year 1969

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Mr. Mahon. List for the record the major contractors and the sums allocated to them in this program in fiscal year 1969.

(The information follows:)

The following list contains the major contractors and amounts of each contract.

Contractor / Fiscal year 1969

Miami, University of Coral Gables Fla / $645,000
Herner and Co., Bethesda. Md / $518,000
Missouri, University of, Columbia, Mo / $250,000
Chicago, University, of Chicago, Ill / $216,000
Aerojet-General Corp,. Sacramento, Calif / $210,000
Bionetics Research Laboratories, Inc., Falls Church, Va / $180,000
West Virginia University. Morgantown, W. Va / $177,000
Maryland. University of, College Park. Md / $170,000
Dow Chemical Co., Midland, Mich / $158,000
Hazelton Laboritories, Inc., Falls Church, Reston. Va / $145,000
New York University Medical Center, New York, NY / $142,000
Midwest Research Institute. Kansas Clty, MO / $134.000
Stanford University, Palo Alto, Califf / $125,000
Stanford Research Institute, Menio Park, Califf / $124,000
Pfizer and Co., Inc., New York, NY / $120,000
Aldrich Chemical Co., Inc., Milwaukee, Wis / $117,000
Computer Usahe Development Corp., Washington, D.C. / $110,000
New England Nuclear Corp., Boston, Mass / $104,000

Source: Department of Defense Appropriations For 1970: Hearings Before A Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations House of Representatives, Ninety-first Congress, First Session, H.B. 15090, Part 5, Research, Development, Test and Evaluation of Biological Weapons, Dept. of the Army. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1969, p689.


Fig 6.8 - The Early Research of Cr. Robert Gallo at the National Cancer Institute and it's Implications in relation to the Theory of synthetic HIV Development
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Year and Subject of Investigation / Study Conclusions / Possible Relationship to HIV Synthesis

1967

Gallo RC. The Inhibitory Effect of Heme on Heme Formation In Vivo. Possible Mechanism for the Regulation of Hemoglobin Synthesis. Joumal of Clinical Investigation 1967;46;1:124-132. / Red blood cell 'heme' synthesis depends upon a feedback syslem thaf is self-limiting. The "possible site of negative feedback control" in red blood cell production is considered. / None.

Gallo RC, Perry S and Breitman TR. The Enzymatic Mechanisms for Deoxythymidine Synthesis in Human Leukocytes. Journal of Biological Chemistry1967;242;21:5059-5068. / Amino acid synthesis in while blood cells, and subsequent cell reproduction is regulatted by special enzymes. These control factors can be modfied by inorganic substances (e.g. arsenate or phosphate). / Mechanisms for inhibiting white blood cell production. In AIDS there is a reduction in the number of white blood cells from the thymus (i.e., T-lymphocytes) and resulting immunosuppression.

1968

Gallo RC and Perry S. Enzymatic AbnormaIity in Human Leukaemia. Nature 1968;218:465-466. / Special enzymes are altered in white blood cells of leukemia patients. Study shows which enzyme (i.e. pyrimidine deoxynucleoside) is associated with chronic leukemia and what will likely cause a reduction of this enzyme to prompt leukemia. / Specific enzyme associated with (chronic myelogenous) leukemia found, and apparent requirement to create a "base pair switch mutation" in the protein (genes) of white blood cells to create immune system dysfunction.

Gallo RC and Breitman TR.The Enzymatic Mechanisms for Deoxythymidine Synthesis in Human Leukocytes: Comparison of Deoxyribosyl Donors. Journal of Biological Chemistry1968;243;19:4936- 4942. / Human while blood cell reproduction is largely regulated by independent enzyme-linked mechanisms. Both activities are the function of one protein. / The production of one of four major building blocks of DNA (i.e., deoxythymidine) in human white blood cells (leukocytes) can be stimulated or inhibied by manipulating "the function of one protein" within the cells.

Gallo RC and Breitman TR.The Enzymatic Mechanisms for Deoxythymidine Synthesis in Human leukocytes: Inhibition of Deoxythymidine Phosphorylase by Purines. Journal of Biological Chemistry 1968;243;19:4943-4951. / Further evidence that human white blood cell reproduction is largely regulated by independent enzyme-linked mechanisms associated with the addition of the base components of nucleic acids which can affect the synthesis of DNA and cell replication. / DNA in human leukocytes can be inhibited by the addition of various reagents (including the "pooling" of purine bases within the cell).This may cause "DNA degradation" and immune system dysfunction.

Gallo RC, Perry S and Breitman TR. Inhibition of Human Leukocyte Pyrimidine Deoxynucleoside Synthesis by Allopurinal and 6-Mercaptopurine. Biochemical Pharmacology1968; 17:2185-2191. / The nucleic acid base purine plays a role in the regulation of human white biood cell reproduction(which is largely regulated by independent enzyme-linked mechanisms), but not as much as the pyrimidine bases studied previously (and cited above). / Though related to the treatment of childhood leukemia, this study provides evidence that human leukocytes can be inhibited to a larger degree by the building blocks ot RNA and DNA.

1969

Gallo RC and Perry S.The Enzymatic Mechanisms for Deoxythymidine Synthesis in Human Leukocytes: Comparison Between Normal and Leukemic Leukocytes. / Same findings as cited above. / Same findings as cited above.

Gallo RC, Whang-Peng J and Perry S. Isopentenyladenosine Stimulates and Inhibits Mitosis in Human Lympocytes Treated with Phytohemagglutinin. Science. 1969: 165:400-402. / Transfer RNA (tRNA) components from plants affects human lymph cells. Stimulation or inhibition of cell divisIon depends on the concentrations of reagents used. tRNA components may be useful in treating cancers and "has potential immunosuppressive properties." / Relates to human lymphocytes (immune cell) division control mechanisms as well as immunosuppressive influence of tRNA. AIDS virus is RNA virus which causes immunosuppression.

1970

Herrera F, Adamson RH and Gallo RC. Uptake of Transfer Ribonucleic Acid by Normal and Leukemic Cells. Proceedngs of the National Academy of Sciences. 1970;67;4:1943-1950. Presented at the NATO International Symposium on Uptake of Informative Molecules by Living Cells, Mol, Belgium, 1970. / Uptake of foreign (bacterial) tRNA by mammalian leukemia and normal immature human white biood cells is detennined by "an energy independent, carrier-mediated, mechanism." Paper offers several possibilities of what this mechanism might be. / Paper links Gallo not onty to National Academy of Sciences at the time DOD contracted with them to develop immune deliciency causing biological weapons, but also to Senior NCI research position in "entry of foreign nucleic acids into cells" to effect immunosuppression -- This at the time of controversial Fort Detrick symposium. Paper also implies Gallo's link to NATO's applied "defense" research.

Gallo RC and Longmore JL. Asparaginyl-tRNA and Resistance of Murine Leukaemias to L-Asparaginase. Nature 1970;227:1134-1136. / L-Asparaginase synthetase (a unique enzyme) plays a key role in controlling the growth of tumors. By blocking this enzyme's activity, tumors can be "derepressed"- that is, made resislantto chemotherapies -- and stimulated to grow. / Study focuses on key enzyme in white blood cells which itfrepressed will induce leukemia and other cancers as well as make the exposed animal cells treatment resistant. This work lays the foundation for discovery and work on reverse transcriptase enzyme in RNA retroviruses.

Gallo RC, Yang SS and Ting RAC. RNA Dependent DNA Polymerase of Human Acute Leukaemic Cens. Nature 1970;228:927-929. / An RNA dependent DNA polymerase analogus to that of RNA tumour viruses has been found in lymphoblasts (immature white blood cells) of leukaemic patients but not or normal donors. The enzyme can use an RNA template from mammalian cells to synthesize DNA. / Reverse transcriptasenzyme identified responsible for "gene amplification, "biochemical cytodifferentiation," (i.e., development of unique cell characteristics including cancer cell production) and "leukaemogenesis." With HIV, this enzyme causes infected T-4 Lymphocite to produce additional viruses as well as lose their immunocompetence.


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Year and Subject of Investigation / Study Conclusions / Possible Relationship to HIV Synthesis

1972 continued

Talal N and Gallo RC. Antibodies to DNA:RNA Hybrid in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus measured by a Cellulose Ester Filter Fadioimmunoassay. Nature New Biology 1972;24:240-242. / "The RNA tumour viruses apparently replicate by means of an RNA-dependent DNA polymerase (reverse transcriptase) that produces virus specific DNA which presumably is integrated into the host genome. The first product of this process is a DNA:RNA hybrid...Antibodies to such hybrids might strengthen the role for viruses in this disease." / Gallo and Talal concluded that -- "A continued search for antibodies to natural hybrids seems warranted." The importance, specificity and difficult task of isolating antibodies to reverse transcriptase RNA tumor viruses descriped in this report, provided the incentive to develop the antibody isolation techniques and antibodies which AIDS researchers throughout the world sought from Gallo alone.

Borrow SN, Smith RG, Reitz MS and Gallo RC. Stimulated Normal Human Lymphocites Contain a Ribonuclease-Sensitive DNA Polymerase Distinct from Viral RNA-Directed DNA Polymerase. Proceedings National Academy of Sciences 1972;69;11:3228-3232. / Ribonuclease-sensitive DNA synthesis was found in normal human blood lymphocites stimulated with the foreign plant derived antigenic substance called phytohemagglutinin (PHA), but not in the unstimulated lymphocites. DNA polymerase purified from this fraction does not transcribed specific regions of "naturally occurring, exogenously supplied single-stranded RNA," that is the "70S RNA from RNA tumor viruses." This distinguishes this enzyme from the RNA-directed DNA polymerase (reverse transcriptase) found in cancer causing RNA viruses and human leukemic cells. / In this study, Gallo and co-workers experimented with the single stranded RNA from chicken viruses which were known to cause leukemia in the birds. They essentially injected the single strands of RNA into the human white blood cells to see if the normal DNA enzymes present in the lymphocites would be able to work with the viral RNA to produce a radioactively labeled protein. This study shows that by the early 1970s Gallo was injecting foreign single stranded RNA from animal viruses to determine their effects on human white blood cell structure and functioning. The AIDS virus, as you may now know, is a single stranded RNA retrovirus which as shown in this study, provides an enzyme mechanism foreign to the cell's natural protein synthesis mechanism in order to produce protein, that is, reproduce itself.

Gallo RC, Abrell JW, Robert MS, Yang SS and Smith RG. Reverse Transcriptase From Mason-Pfizer Monkey Tumor Virus, Avian Myeloblastosis Virus, and Rauscher Leukemia Virus and Its Response to Rifamycin Derivatives. Journal of the National Cancer Institute 1972;48;4:11:1185-1189. / The partially purified polymerases from RNA tumor viruses exhibited similar characteristics which enabled the virus' "reverse transcriptases" to be distinguished from the purified cellular enzymes. "Since the existence of RNA-dependent DNA polymerase (RDDP) was first reported, RDDP has been found in all RNA tumor viruses. Included in this class are the following 3 viruses: Mason-Pfizer monkey tumor virus (M-PMTV), avian myeloblastosis virus (AMV), and Rauscher Murine (rat/mouse) leukemia virus (RLV). M-PMTV is of interest, since it is a primate RNA virus adapted to a human cell line, NC-37. This cell line was initially derived from the peripheral blood of normal human lymphocytes. This system has been used in our laboratory as a model for the detection of the RDDP in human neoplastic cells. The data also demonstrated the ability of the viral and not naturally occurring enzymes to utilize single-stranded RNA for protein synthesis which may be increased dramatically by the incorporation of thymidylic acid and adenylic acid. / Here, Gallo and coworkers publish experiments using monkey leukemia viruses as well as chicken and mouse viruses to test for their effects on normal human DNA-directed protein synthesis in white blood cells. Many authorities believe the AIDS virus bears great similarities to the simian monkey virus with which Gallo's lab was also working (See Fujioka and Gallo, 1971; and Gallo, Miller, Saxinger and Gillespie, 1973). In addition, the researchers acquired additional evidence that as previously noted some amino acids, in this case, thymidylic and adenylic, can greatly increase the rate of RNA reverse transcriptase directed DNA synthesis when added to the "synthetic DNA-RNA hybrid." This aspect of the study reflects the minute detail which went into influencing the expression of foreign (in this case monkey virus) RNA on human white blood cells.

Wu AM, Ting RC, Paran M and Gallo RC. Dordycepin Inhibits Induction of Murine Leukovirus Production By 5-lodo-2'-deoxyuridine. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 1972;69;12:3820-3824. / "RNA tumor viruses replicate via a transcription of proviral DNA ... The discovery of RNA-dependent DNA polymerase ... supports the idea that the genetic information of RNA tumor viruses can exist in an infected cell (or transformed cell) in a form of DNA termed a "provirus." In this study, "the production of RNA viruses induced by 5-iodo-2'-deoxyuridine, IdU, (a constituent of RNA) in [mouse/rat] cell lines" was blocked by a chemical (Cordycepin 3'-deoxyadenosine), a known inhibitor of poly (A) (this term refers to a chemical polymer of adenylic acid which is a condensation product of adenosine and phosphoric acid; a nucleotide found within all nucleic acids). / In the above study, Gallo et al found that adenylic acid a basic (nucleotide) component of RNA and DNA can "greatly increase the rate of RNA directed protein synthesis from DNA through teh reverse transcription mechanism. In this study they concluded that chemicals which can block the adenylic acid portion of viral RNA can inhibit this protein synthesis/viral reproduction mechanism, though not without side effects. In regard to HIV synthesis, in this study new forms of RNA retroviruses were being synthesized by the addition of 5-iodo-2'-deoxyuridine, that is IdU, a foreign RNA component introduced into normal rodent white blood cells. Clearly, the researchers were manufacturing a new strain of virus here and checking to see if chemotherapy could stop it from reproducing itself through the reverse protein synthesis mechanism typical of RNA retroviruses.

Gallo RC, Hecht SM, Whang-Peng J and O'Hopp S. Ns-(∆2-Isopentenyl) Adenosine: The Regulatory Effects of a Cytokinin and Modified Nucleoside From tRNA on Human Lymphocytes. Biochimica Et Biophysica Acta 1972;281:488-500. / Ns-(∆2-Isopentenyl) Adenosine, a plant hormone (among a class of hormones called cytokinins known to be a "causative agent in certain plant pathogens or cancers and component of the tRNAs of numerous forms of plant and animal life") was found within the tRNA of lymphosarcoma cells from cancer patients at levels "four times as great as that in normal lymphocytes" from healthy humans. "DNA synthesis cannot be the primary site of action" of this drug which causes "remarkably similar effects" as phytohemagglutinin on "stimulated lymphocytes at comparable concentrations." / Gallo's group is clearly considering the possibility of using Ns-(∆2-Isopentenyl) Adenosine or related plant hormones to both inhibit and stimulate cancer cell division, they appear at this point to have narrowed their attention on to the tRNA segments composed of adenosine or adenylic acids.


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1972 continued

Ting RC, Yang SS and Gallo RC. Reverse Transcriptase, RNA Tumour Virus Transformation and Derivatives of Rifamycin SV. Nature New Biology 1972;236:163-165. / Derivatives of the antibiotic rifamycin derived lrom bacteria were used to inhibit the effects of rat and mouse leukaemia-sarcoma viruses preventing the formation of cancer cells. "This suggests that reverse transcripase is necessary for transformation by RNA tumour viruses. / Reverse transcriptase, the unique enzyme found in HIV is here shown to be required lor leukaemia and sarcoma viruses to produce their cancer causing effects. HIV attacks white blood cells, that is leukocytes, and causes a rare skin cancer known as Kaposi's sarcoma.

Smith RG, Whang-Peng J, Gallo RC, Levine P and Ting RC. Selective Toxicity of Rifamycin Derivatives for Leukaemic Human Leucocytes. Nature New Biology 1972;236:166-171. / Certain rifamycin derivatives have been lound to be more toxic lor fresh human leukaemic blood cells than for normal blood cells. These particular antibiotics also inhibit the reverse transcriptases of both human and viral origin. / This work advanced the use of certain antibiotics in an effort to fight human leukemia. Though it bears no relationship to the development of HIV or other AIDS-like viruses, it might be interpreted as having contributed to the development of chemotherapies for cancer as well as possibly AIDS patients. The authors did indicate that normal cells would also be harmed along with cancer cells.

Gallo RC. RNA-Dependent DNA Polymerase in Viruses and Cells: Views on the Current State. Blood 1972;39:1 :117-137. / The presence of an RNA-dependent DNA polymerase or reverse transcriptase has been found in every RNA oncogenic virus ... It is assumed thet the role of the enzyme is to convert viral 70S RNA to a DNA copy, allowing the viral genome to be inserted into the host cell. / Though this summary and update report on reverse transcriptase and its link to cancer bears no relationship to the development of HIV or other AIDS-like viruses, Gallo did discuss beginning to develop antibodies which could help detect this enzyme which is currently used to identity HIV infections.

1973

Gallo RC. Reverse Transcriptase and Neoplasia. Biomedicine 1973;18;446-452. / "Reverse transcriptase, the DNA polymerase of type-C RNA tumor viruses, can be distinguished Irom the DNA polymerases of normal cells by biochemical and immunological approaches. The enzyme is required for formation of the provirus, the RNA tumor viruses, and hence, for inlection of cells by these viruses ...A reverse transcriptase related to the reverse transcriptase of type-C RNA tumor viruses (leukemia-lymphoma-sarcoma complex) has been unequivocally demonstrated in some human acute leukemic cells and its presence has been suggested ...in other human cancers ...Work on reverse transcriptase has contributed to major progress in tumor virology and to molecular biology in general in a very short period." / This review article summarizes Gallo's research on the unique reverse transcriptase enzyme associated with HIV and other RNA tumor viruses. Here the theory of how HIV and other such viruses replicate is published -- ten years belore Luc Montagnier at the Pasteur Reseach Instiute isolated HIV from the white blood cells of AIDS patients. The biochemical and immunological detection techniques which would later be used to detect HIV infection were also discussed here. It is remarkable thaI the type-C RNA tumor viruses Gallo studied and discussed here produced a similar complex of diseases associated with AIDS including a "leukemia-lymphoma- sarcoma complex."

Wu AM, Ting RCY and Gallo RC. RNA-Directed DNA Polymerase and Virus-Induced Leukemia in Mice. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 1973;70;5:1298-1302. / "The results of this study suggest that RNA-directed DNA polymerase is essential lor induction of leukemia by exogenous virus and correlate with the previous observation that the same [Rifamycin antibiotic] derivatives block viral transformation (in cell cultures]. / Besides unon Bionetics, a documented U.S. D.O.D. biological weapons contractor, being cited as the major funding source for these experiments. The Special Virus Cancer Program from Hazleton Laboratory in Vienna,Va. was mentioned as the supplier of Rausher leukemia viruses used in this study. This is noteworthy as Hazleton's Reston Va, monkey facility was the site of the sfrightening Ebola-like virus outbreak in December, 1989. Nowhere in Richard Preston's best seller The Hof Zone was Hazleton mentioned as an actual supplier of RNA tumor viruses. In fact, Preston alleged the deadly viruses came from either the Phillipines or Africa.

Paran M, Gallo RC, Richardson LS and Wu AM. Adrenal Corticosteroids Enhance Production of Type-C Virus Induced by 5-lodo-2'-Deoxyuridine from Cultured Mouse Fibroblasts. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 1973;70;8:2391-2395. / RNA tumor viruses can be stimulated to reproduce in mouse cells by the addition of adrenal corticosteroids and many other hormones. Cordycepin (a crystalline antibiotic obtained from the bacteria Cordyceps militans) was shown to be an inhibitor of RNA synthesis in RNA tumor viruses. / No apparent relation to the development of AIDS-like viruses or of identification or treatment methods for AIDS. Paper does provide interesting acknowledgment: The cordycepin antibiolic used in the experiment had been obtained from the "Drug Development Branch of the National Cancer Institute." The NCI, the authors wrote received the drug from "Merck and Co., Incorp." Document provides evidence of link between Gallo, the NCI, and the documented biological weapons contractor Merck and Co. Also, apparent is connection of Merck and Co. to a special branch of the NCI responsible for the development of new pharmaceuticals, developed apparently with federal and taxpayer assistance.


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1973 continued

Gillespie D. Gillespie S. Gallo RC, East JL and Dmochowski L. Genetic Origin of RD114 and Other RNA Tumour Viruses assayed by Molecular Hybridization. Nature New Biology 1973;224:52-54. / The group tested "RNA from RD 114 virus. potentially an RNA tumour virus of human origin," to see if reverse transcription occurred to give rise to additional RD 114 virus. This study concluded that "the reverse transcriptase of RD114 is not closely related to any tested viral reverse transcriptase. It is believed that the gsl antigen of tumour viruses is species specific ... Unless it is shown that one species can produce only one type of gs1 antigen, however, it can always be argued that RD114 is a new cat virus with a gs1 antigen that differs from the antigen found on the viruses of known feline origin. Also. it was noled that "only viruses which had been grown in the orignal tumour cell and had never been purified as a cell free extract before the final colleclion hybridized [that is joined] strongly and specifically to cell DNA. / Many researchers believe that the RD114 virus evolved from a cat virus to later infect humans. This repen stated that: "Some experiments have been reported which have led to the belief that RD114 is not a cat origin or is likely to be of human origin." Just as Gallo's research team argued in this paper, "it can always be argued that the" HIV evolved as a simian virus with antigens (foreign proteins which prompt an immune response] that differ "from the antigen found on the viruses of known" monkey origin. Also, the group concluded thet "RNA tumour viruses maintained in tissue culture [as opposed to a cell line in culture] often do not produce the pathology of the original virus and give cause for questioning the indiscriminate use of the viruses transferred from one type of cell to another: Apparently, the group was not concerned about creating new viruses; rather that the new viruses they created would not mutate to other less deadly forms before they could capture and study them thoroughly.

Gallo RC, Miller NR, Saxinger WC and Gillespie D. Primate RNA Tumor Virus-like DNA Synthesized Endogenously by RNA-Dependent DNA Polymerase in Virus-like Particles from Fresh Human Acute Leukemic Blood Cells. Proceedings National Academy of Sciences 1973;70; 11:3219-3224. / "DNA polymerase activity in human acute leukemia is recovered from a cytoplasmic subcellular fraction having a density (1.16-1.17g/ ml) characteristic of RNA tumor virus particles of animals ...the purified enzyme uses synthetic template-primers with a specificity like RNA-dependent DNA polymerase [reverse transcriptase] of viruses and different from the major DNA polymerases of normalproliferating leukocytes; and ...the DNA synthesized [within the cells] by RNA-dependent DNA polymerase contained among its sequences a high proportion (50%) capable of hybridizing to RNA isolated from a primate type-C sarcoma virus and/or a murine sarcoma virus [that is, a Kirsten (rat) sarcoma-leukemia virus complex] ...The DNA-synthesizing activity was recovered in a particle not disaggregated [that is, not broken apart or destroyed] by physical manipulation unlike the vast majority of cytoplasmic particulate material, which had a density of 1.16-1.17g/ml...The present results stress the importance of purification of the cytoplasmic particle to obtain a suitable DNA probe, [thati s, a particle which can initiate the invasion of normal DNA by foreign viral RNA]. / Here in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Gallo and co-workers proclaim they have isolated a virus-like particle from human acute [that is, quick acting] leukemic [white] blood cells. This particle they state has a specfic density of 1.16-1.17 g/ml, can be repeatedly recovered without being destroyed by physical handling, and has the capability of producing the principal rapidly progressing cancers associated with AIDS including leukemias, sarcomas, and carcinomas. In essence, Gallo and company announced isolating AIDS-like virus particles more than a decade before Luc Montagnier announced the discovery of LAV [HIV]. It is also interesting to note that to accomplish this result, Gallo and co-workers reported here using several types of RNA tumor viruses including: "SiSV (NRK)- simian [monkey] sarcoma virus grown in normal rat kidney (NRK) cells; MuSV (Kirsten [type])-a [rat/mouse) sarcoma-leukemia virus complex grown in NRK cells which originated by repeated infection of rats with a Gross-type murine leukemia virus; ...AvLV (ANV), avian [bird] leukosis (leukemia] virus, strain avian myeloblastosis [bone marrow cancer]; ...FeSV (Gardner), feline [cat] sarcoma-leukemia virus, ..." and several other RNA animal viruses.

1974

Wu AM and Gallo RC. Interaction between Murine Type-C Virus RNA-Directed DNA Polymerases and Rifamycin Derivatives. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 1974;340;419-436 / Similar to those reported previously. / None more apparent than above.

1985

Fisher AG, Collalti E, Ratner L, Gallo RC, Wong-Staal F. A molecular clone of HTLV-III with biological activity. Nature 1985;316;262- 265. / "A clone containing the full-length HTLV-III proviral DNA was inserted into a plasmid [a extrachromosomal hereditary determining replicating unit other than a gene from the cell nucleus] and used to transfect cord blood T cells from normal newborn humans ...this molecular clone is infectious ...and causes marked cytopathic [cell death] on T-cell cultures ..." / This paper along with Gallo's earlier publication (see Gallagher, Ting and Gallo, 1972) shows that Gallo not only had the methods and materials needed to clone Luc Montagnier's LAV, but also the capacity to develop a foreign germ capable of infecting normal newborn human cells with the genetic material needed to cause marked T-cell death; identical to the AIDS virus.

Ratner L, Haseltine W, Patarca R, Livak KJ, Starcich A. and Gallo RC et al. Complete nucleotide sequence of the AIDS virus, HTLV-III. Nature 1985;313;277-284. / The complete genetic building block sequence of two human T-cell leukaemia type III (HTLV-III) proviral DNAs are identified and described. / As Strecker reported in 1986, this large group of researchers including Gallo found the HTLV family of retroviruses similar but not identical to the bovine leukaemia virus (BLV).


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1970 continued

Gallo RC and Pestka S. Transfer RNA Species in Normal and Leukemic Human Lymphoblasts. Journal of Molecular Biology. I970;52:195-219. / This study identified the transfer RNA responsible for the production of every amino acid in human tissues. It found al least 56 species of tRNA from both normal and leukemic cells. Most species were very similar except for tyrosyl-tRNA and glutaminyl-tRNA where the differences were "most prounounced." / Report focused on defining specific alterations in tRNA responsible for "abnormal cellular regulatory mechanisms in neoplastic cells." Such findings would provide knowledge as to where a tRNA molecule might need to be modified (by a virus) to produce leukemia and perhaps other cancers.

1971

Gallo RC, Sarin PS, Allen, PT, Newton WA, Priori ES, Bowen JM and Dmochowski L Reverse Transcriptase in Type C Virus Particles of Human Origin. Nature New Biology. 1971;232;140-142. / Discovery of reverse transcriptase activity in hunan type C virus associated with lymphoma. By adding a synthetic RNA and Feline (i.e., cat) leukaemia virus "template" to the human virus, the rate of DNA production (and subsequenf provirus synthesis) increased two and thirty times respectively. This human "type C virus" possesses a DNA polymerase (reverse transcriptase) which can utilize both endogenous (i.e., its own natural) RNA, or "exogenous RNA" as a template, (i.e.,foreign RNA extracted from other cells or viruses) to produce the effects on the human cells coded for by the new genetic material. / Report stated this type of virus may cause many types of cancers besides leukaemia and lymphoma including sarcomas. HIV causes sarcoma development. "Only one virus [of 27 known RNA retroviruses] which contains reverse transcriptase," article said. "does not seem to be oncogenic (cancer-causing)."-- the "simian" (monkey) virus. This contradicts the claim that a monkey virus was a natural precursor to HIV. Evidence presented here that this humanly benign retrovirus was being modified by the addition of cat leukaemia RNA, and other synthetic products to increase its DNA output and protein systhesis; that is. its disease causing capacity.

Gallo RC, Whang-Peng J and Adamson RH. Studies on the Antitumor Activity, Mechanism of Action, and cell Cycle ENacts of Camptothecin. Journal of the National Cancer Institute. 1971 ;46;4:789-795. / At lower ooncentrations, dibutyryl adenosine cyclic 3',5'-monophosphate increased DNA synthesis and the rate of cell division of normal human lymphocytes responding to the stimulant phytohemagglutinin (PHA) -- a foreign plant derived substance. At higher concentrations of reagent, the opposite response was found. Cyclic 3',5'AMP "may be useful in immunotherapy." / None apparent at present time.

Gallo RC, Whang-Peng J. Enhanced Transformation of Human Immunocompetent Cells by Dibutyryl Adenosine Cyclic 3',5'-Monophosphate. Journal of the National Cancer Institute. 1971 ;47; 1:91 -94. / Camptothecin, a naturally occurring antitumor drug extended survival time for mice bearing various experimental leukemias.,the ptasma cell tumor, but less effective against a mast cell tumor and a reticululm cell sarcoma. The alkaloid also killed cells in three cell lines. DNA synthesis was strongly inhibited but not RNA or protein synthesis. The drug may be useful for specific tumors. / None apparent at present time.

Riddick DH and Gallo RC. The Transfer RNA Methylases of Human Lymphocytes: Induction by PHA in Normal Lymphocytes. Blood 1971;37;3:282- 292. / Phytohemagglutinin (PHA) treated human leukaemic lymphocytes contain increased tRNA enzymes (methylases) different from normal lymphocytes which was "dependent on the synthesis of new RNA" which has been methylated consistent with some tumors and cancer viruses. / Human lymphocytes (immun cell) control mechanisms is inftuence by tRNA. AIDS virus influences this control mechanism to uttimatety cause immuno- suppression. Later research found unique cellular proteins which specifically bind to HIV including lhose of a "PHA stimulated human CD4 + lymphoblast cell line."

Riddick DH and Gallo RC. The Transfer RNA Methylases of Human Lymphocytes: II. Delayed Induction by PHA in Lymphocytes From Patients With Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. Blood 1971;37;3:293-298. / Phytohemagglutinin (PHA) treated human leukaemic lymphocytes induces quantitative and qualitative changes in tRNA methylase enzymes similar to those seen in normal lymphocytes, but the sequence of events of PHA interaction with chronic Iymphoctytc leukemia (CLL) lymphocytes leading to enzyme induction is delayed. / Same as above plus additional finding that chronic lymphocytic leukaemia cells contain fewer Phytohemagglutinin. PHA, receptors than normal lymphoctye cell membranes. This factor may be somehow related to the specific binding of HIV to CD4 + lymphocytes as seen in AIDS patients.

Levine L. Vunakis HV and Gallo RC. Serologic Specificities of Methylated Base Immune Systems. Biochemistry 1971; 10;11:2009-2013. / Protein synthesis in cells is dependent on nucleic acids -- the basic building blocks of DNA and RNA. The two major categories of these "bases" purrines and pyrimidines can be biochemically methylated and are then easily identified by specific antibodies.This can be helpful in diagnosing tRNA changes in some tumors and leukaemias. / Study provides the first published evidence of Gallo's work in developing antibodies which can detect problems with tRNA in white blood cells. This represents the basic research upon which he advanced the technology to produce the only antibodies available to detect the human T-lymphocyte viruses (HTLV-I, II, and III_, and were required in identifying HIV. Currently, the HIV antibodies developed from this early work, were patented and sold by Gallo and the NCI to produce the blood tests used to detect HIV infection.

Fujioka S and Gallo RC. Aminoacyl Transfer RNA Profiles in Human Myeloma Cells. Blood 1971; 38;2:246-252. / Between human normal lymphoblasts (immature lymphocytes) and human myeloma cells (cancerous antibody-forming plasma cells manufactured in bone marrow) minor differences were noted in only 2 of 20 amino add tRNA comp1exes -- aspartyl-tRNA and larger differences in tyrosyl-tRNA -- were observed.Consequently, this apparent defect in white blood cell differentiation In leukemia may be due to an abnormality in the "translational control" of these two amino acid -- tRNA complexes. Additional analysis of the tyrosyl-tRNA found the presence of "more hydrophobic groups such as methyl groups in the tRNA of the neoplastic (cancerous) cells." This tied in with evidence cited above of the importance of tRNA methylase enzymes in the induction of leukaemia from viruses. / Gallo and Fujioka concluded Irom this study conducted in late 1969 or early 1970 that they would need to further "evaluate the functional significance of tRNA changes in tumor cells," by designing an experiment in which "specific tumor cell tRNAs" would be "added directly to normal cells." It was explained that one way of doing this was to use viruses to deliver the foreign cancer producing tRNA to normal cells.The viruses which were then being employed to do this, the report noted, was the simian monkey virus (SV40) and the mouse parotid tumor (polyoma) virus. Such experiments could have established the technology and provided a model for the development of HIV--allegedly of simian virus descent-which similarly delivers foreign RNA to normal white blood cells.


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1971 continued

Gallo RC. Transfer RNA and Transfer RNA Methylation in Growing and "Resting" Adult and Embryonic Tissues and in Various Oncogenic Systems. Cancer Research 1971; 31 :621-629. / Human acute leukenia likely involves a block in leukocyte maturation due to a "disorder of protein synthesis." This is indicated by reduced DNA synthesis in cancerous cells and a build-up of heavy weight rRNA -- the assembly station for building amino acids into proteins -- in young leukemic cells. (The amino acids are delivered by tRNA to the rRNA, the ribosomal 'assembly station.') In this report, Gallo questioned whether acute lymphocytic leukemia was associated with a specfic change in tyrosyl-tRNA, and whether lymphosarcoma was related to a specific change in seryl-tRNA. "Similar to the results with RNA virus-transformed cells, the tumor derived trom the polyoma (mouse parotid tumor) cells showed higher tRNA methylase activity. / In this study, Gallo used several virus-transformed cells including the simian (monkey) virus (SV40) the murine (rat or mouse) sarcoma virus,and the polyoma (mouse parotid tumor) virus infected cells. At this time changes in specific amino acids within the white blood cells' RNA and DNA were being manufactured in the lab and studied to determine the related effects on the inmmune cell structure and function. Combine this research, and the available technology to isolate and inject genes from different viruses to produce a unique RNA retrovirus, and Gallo et. al., had all the requirements needed to produce HIV. The next questions are: 1) Did he attempt to combine different viruses to induce specific cancerous and immune system alterations, and 2) if so, which speciIc viral species and components might he have used to create an AIDS virus?

Gallo RC. Reverse Transcriptase, the DNA Polymerase of Oncogenic RNA Viruses. Nature1971;39;1:194-198. / Article reviews and updates knowledge regarding the importance of reverse transcriptase enzyme in cancer causing RNA tumor viruses. Important questions which Gallo proposed be researched including: "What are the detailed biochemical mechanisms for this enzyme?" and "Does the enzyme in viruses from higher forms ciffer from that of lower animals?" / None obvious in this summary report.

1972

Gallagher AE, Ting RC and Gallo RC. A Common Change of Aspartyl-tRNA in Polyoma- and SV40 Transformed Cells. Biochimica Et Biopnysica Acta 1972;272:568-582. / A major difference in aspartyl-tRNA (Asp-t-RNA) was demonstrated in polyoma (mouse parotid tumor) cells and SV40 (simian monkey tumor) cells. The "pattern of Asp-t-RNA is due to selective cellular gene expression," which "may be related to the function of the DNA oncogenic (cancer causing) virus genome (gene structure)" in infected cells. In addition, "a potential advantage of selecting virus-transformed tumor cells for study is that tRNA dilferences dscovered may be correlated with the virus genome function," with the ability to produce virus-related antigens and their effects. / In this study, Gallo and coworkers studed portions of different viruses to determine if "the tRNA difference (in cancer cells) be related to the properties of neoplasia (cancer development) in general, or, more specffically, to the function of the DNA oncogenic (cancer causing) virus genome (genetic code) inserted in the infected and transformed cells? They stated that "by studying viral or cellular mutants or cell segregants ...which have condtional variations in virus-specific celllular alterations, it should be possible to more precisely determine the bio- logical significance of the aspartyl-tRNA variation reported here." This work shows the analysis of different viral genes was underway to determine what effects each might have on developing cancer. They reported their desire to use this information on cancer causing viruses to fnd a cure for cancer, but at this time they applied their knowledge more towards creating various cancers and new viral species, than towards enadicating them.

Smith RG and Gallo RC. DNA-Dependenf DNA Polymerases I and II from Normal Human-Blood Lymphocytes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 1972; 69;10:2879-2884. / "A DNA polymerase has been found in blood lymphoblasts [immature white blood cells] from individuals with acute leukemia that, unlike lymphocyte DNA polymerases from normal indviduals, transcribes 70S viral RNA." / The 70S RNA virus is single stranded RNA retrovirus found in chickens which causes some prominent features of AIDS, including white blood cell dysfunction, sarcomas, progressive wasting, and death.

Robert MS, Smith RG and Gallo RC. Viral and Cellular DNA Polymerase: Comparison of Activities with Synthetic and Natural RNA Templates. Science 1972;176:798-800. / "Two DNA poIymerases purified from normal human lymphocytes (NHL) are distinguishable from the viral reverse transcriptases of avian [chicken] myeloblastosis virus and mason-Pfizer monkey virus by their relative affinity for select templates ...Criteria for dstinguishing the activity of viral reverse transcriptase are discussed," includng " ...the ability of viral reverse transcriptases, but not the cellular DNA polymerases, to react with purified single-stranded 70S RNA templates." Also: "The importance of using rigorously purified 70S RNA cannol be overemphasized. In early experiments, NHL DNA poIymerases I and II showed reactivity with feline (cat) leukemia virus (FELV) 70S RNA," however this was an artifact of contamination. "All of these distinguishing criteria will enable more critical determination to be made as to whether a viral-like reverse transcriptase is associated with neoplastic disease. The RNA-dependent DNA polymerase from human acute leukemic cells satisfies all these criteria for a reverse transcriptase. / This report also indicates Gallo and co-workers were evaluating single stranded RNA reverse transcriptase activity in cat leukemias as well as chickens. In 1982, Dr. Don Francis, a chief virologist at the CDC noted the "laundry list" of feline leukemia-like diseases and the sexual tranmissability of AIDS, and remarked, "Combine these two diseases -- feline leukemia and hepatitis -- and you have the immune deficiency.' The possibilities in relation to HIV synthesis and the implications of this study speak for themselves.


Acknowledged Funding Source/Biological Weapons Contract: (i) Litton Bionetics; (ii) Bionetics Research Labs; (iii) Univ. of Calif.; (iv) Univ. of Texas; (v) Univ. of Chicago; (vi) Yale U.

_______________

Notes:

[1] Germain RN. Antigen processing and CD4+ T cell depletion in AIDS. Cell 1988; 54:441-414.

[2] Herrera F. Adamson RH and Gallo RC. Uptake of transfer ribonucleic acid by normal and leukemic cells. Proc Nat Acad Sci 1970;67;4: 1943-1950. This paper was presented before the "International Symposium on Uptake of Informative Molecules by Living Cells, Mol, Belgium, 1970," the year in which $10 million in funds were appropriated by the Department of Defense for the development of AIDS-like viruses.

[3] Gallo RC, Perry S and Breitman RT. The enzymatic mechanisms for deoxythymidine synthesis in human leukocytes. Journal of Biological Chemistry 1967;242;21:5059-5068.

[4] Gallo RC and Perry S. Enzymatic abnormality in human leukaemia. Nature 1968;218:465-466.

[5] Gallo RC and Breitman TR. The enzymatic mechanisms for deoxythymidine synthesis in human leukocytes: Inhibition of deoxythymidine phosphorylase by purines. Journal of Biological Chemistry 1968;243;19:4943-4951.

[6] Gallo RC, Yang SS and Ting RC. RNA dependent DNA Polymerase of human acute leukaemic cells. Nature 1970;228:927-929.

[7] Gallo RC and Longmore JL. Asparaginyl-tRNA and resistance of murine leukaemias to L-asparaginase. Nature 1970;227:1134-1136.

[8] Department of Defense Appropriations For 1970: Hearings Before A Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations House of Representatives. Ninety-first Congress. First Session. H.B. 15090. Part 5. Research. Development. Test and Evaluation. Dept. of the Army. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1969.

[9] Gallaher RE, Ting RC and Gallo RC. A common change aspartyl-tRNA in polyoma and SV transformed cells. Biochimica Et Biophysica Acta 1972;272:568-582.

[10] Gallo RC, Sarin PS, Allen PT, Newton WA Priori ES, Bowen JM and Dmochowski L. Reverse transcriptase in type C virus particles of human origin. Nature New Biology 1971 ;232: 140-142; see also Gallo RC. Transfer RNA and transfer RNA methylation in growing and "resting" adult and embyonic tissues and in various oncogenic systems. Cancer Research 1971 ;31:621-29.

[11] Fujioka S and Gallo RC. Aminoacyl transfer RNA profiles in human myeloma cells. Blood 1971;38;2:246-252.

[12] Smith RG and Gallo RC. DNA-dependent DNA polymerases I and II from normal human-blood lymphocytes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 1972;69; 10:2879-2884.

[13] Bobrow SN, Smith RG, Reitz MS and Gallo RC. Stimulated normal human lymphocytes contain a ribonuclease-sensitive DNA polymerase distinct from viral RNA-directed DNA polymerase. Proceedings National Academy of Sciences 1972;69; 11 :3228-3232.

[14] Robert MS, Smith RG, Gallo RC, Sarin PS and Abrell JW. Viral and cellular DNA polymerase: Comparison of activities with synthetic and natural RNA templates. Science 1972; 176:798-800.

[15] Gallo RC, Abrell JW, Robert MS, Yang SS and Smith RG. Reverse transcriptase from Mason-Pfizer monkey tumor virus, avian myeloblastosis virus, and Rauscher leukemia virus and its response to rifamycin derivatives. Journal of the National Cancer Institute 1972;48;4:1185-1189.

[16] NCI staff. The Special Virus Cancer Program: Progress Report #8. Office of the Associate Scientific Director for Viral Oncology (OASDVO). J. B. Moloney, Ed., Washington, DC.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971, p. 22.

[17] Wu AM, Ting RC, Paran M and Gallo RC. Cordycepin inhibits induction of murine leukovirus production by 5-iodo-2'- deoxyuridine. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 1972;69;12:3820-3824.

[18] Gillespie D, Gillespie S, Gallo RC, East J and Dmochowski L. Genetic origin of RD114 and other RNA tumor viruses assayed by molecular hybridization. Nature New Biology 1973;224:52-54.

[19] Gallo RC, Miller NR, Saxinger WC and Gillespie D. Primate RNA Tumor Virus-Like DNA Synthesized Endogenously by RNA-Dependent DNA Polymerase in Viruslike Particles from Fresh Human Acute Leukemic Blood Cells. Proceedings National Academy of Sciences 1973;70; 11 :3219-3224.

[20] Department of Defense Appropriations For 1970: Hearings Before A Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations House of Representatives, Ninety-first Congress. First Session. H.B. 15090, Part 5. Research. Development. Test and Evaluation. Dept. of the Army. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1969, p. 689.

[21] Committee on Human Resources. United States Senate. Hearings before the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research. Biological Testing Involving Human Subjects by the Department of Defense. 1977: Examination of Serious Deficiencies in the Defense Departments Efforts to Protect the Human Subjects of Drug Research. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, May 8 and May 23, 1977, pp. 80-100.
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Re:  EMERGING VIRUSES: AIDS & EBOLA: Nature, Accident or Int

Postby admin » Wed Jan 06, 2016 4:49 am

Part 1 of 2

Chapter 7: An Interview with Dr. Robert Strecker

THE next morning, I tried contacting Strecker again. First I dialed what I thought was his published telephone number. Again, it rang continuously unanswered. Then I called the number directory assistance had given me for Dr. William Campbell Douglass, a physician from Clayton, Georgia, who had published an article entitled "WHO Murdered Africa," which supported Strecker's theory. As in past attempts, a machine instructed me to leave a message.

"Is there anyone there!? This is about the sixth time I've called. I've been trying to reach you for months. I'm trying to reach Dr. William Douglass. I need to get in touch with Dr. Robert Strecker. My name is Dr. Len Horowitz, and this is an emergency. If anyone can answer, would you please return my call?" I then left my 800 number and hung up.

Two days later I received a call from a Mr. William Douglass. I was delighted. He immediately informed me, however, that he was not the person I sought.

"I've been getting a couple of calls a month for Dr. Strecker, so I finally decided to get his number. If you like, I can give it to you."

"Please. I would really appreciate it."

Finally! I thought as I quickly dialed the magic numbers, feeling the end of my frustration might be near.

"Hello, this is Dr. Strecker's office," a woman's kindly voice answered.

Following a lengthy introduction, the woman informed me that Dr. Strecker was indeed alive, well, and practicing internal medicine in Needles, California. He was busy seeing patients, I was told, but I was assured he would return my call that evening.

"All right!" I affirmed as I hung up the phone. Then I quickly relayed the good news to Jackie.

The information on Strecker's whereabouts immediately helped to ease her concerns.

On the Line

That night, Robert Strecker returned my call with news about his ongoing crusade to bring the "truth to light." We spoke at length about our independent investigations, immediately developing the warm rapport that two black sheep isolated from the establishment's scientific flock might.

Pondering safety, I asked, "Has anyone from the government ever bothered you over all these years?"

"Not really," he replied. "Since the suspicious deaths of my brother and Representative Huff, [1] I've just gone about my business. There was one incident though that occurred shortly after I sent reports of my findings to all the health and intelligence agencies."

"What happened?"

"Well, first, the CIA warned all agencies that I was a communist and told them not to take anything I said seriously. My brother Ted obtained a copy of the release they sent out through the Freedom of Information Act. Their counterintelligence efforts apparently worked."

"Do you still have a copy of the release?"

"I wish I did," Strecker replied. "It disappeared along with a lot of other records Ted and I had collected. Shortly after Ted's death, my office was burglarized."

"Interesting," I said. "Who do you think did it?"

"I believe it was the CIA, but I obviously can't prove it."

Following an illuminating conversation, Robert - as he preferred to be called - and I agreed to mail each other copies of our previous publications. He would send me a copy of 'The Strecker Memorandum,' which I still had not viewed, and I would send him 'Deadly Innocence,' which he had not heard about.

Then we also agreed to exchange interviews. I set up a time to be a guest on "He Said/She Said," a radio program Strecker cohosted with Betsy Prior on KGER-AM, Los Angeles, and he agreed to be interviewed for this book.

The Strecker Interview

Several weeks went by before we could coordinate our schedules for my telephone interview with Strecker. By this time, I had watched 'The Strecker Memorandum,' and considered, as Acer had, Strecker's position that AIDS had been "predicted, requested, created, and deployed."

Strecker, I now knew, was a stocky, earnest-looking man in his late 40s or early 50s. His dark blond hair glistened as he spoke. His wire-rimmed glasses and slightly graying temples portrayed a more mature, intelligent, demeanor than what his boyish face disguised. He spoke quickly and easily, accompanied by an unmistakable Midwestern drawl. He appeared to me to be a once all American, football hero type, whose athleticism and idealism was quickly dashed by the nature of medical education and academic politics.

I began the interview by reading from a list of questions I had prepared for Robert to answer:

LEN: Robert, first off, what convinced you that the AIDS virus was synthetically manufactured?

ROBERT: What convinced us [The Strecker Group] was the fact that this new agent had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. That the virus had characteristics of animal viruses more so than human viruses, and that the genetic structure of the AIDS virus actually looked like the viruses that appeared in animals that would not normally adapt themselves in humans. . . .

That could have occurred spontaneously, but not by the process that scientists have normally talked about. For instance, not by the virus running in primates [the highest order of mammals, including man, monkeys, and lemurs] because if you look at the genetic structure of the AIDS virus, what you find is that the codon choices [the specific sequence of three (purine and pyrimidine) bases in the viral RNA that codes for the production of a specific amino acid by the infected cell] included in the AIDS virus are not existent in primate genes.

Therefore, to assume that they simply mutated in order to adapt themselves into primates in the case of AIDS is vanishingly small although still possible.

What happened is that the virus either mutated in cattle and sheep, and then was artificially adapted to humans by growing in human tissue cultures, which they [virologists] do and in which they are easily manipulated in that manner - or the virus was actually constructed in a laboratory by gene manipulation, which was available to scientists in the early '70s although many of the techniques were not talked about until the mid '70s, because the biowarfare laboratories throughout the world have always been about five to ten years ahead of other laboratories working on all kinds of projects.

In addition, a clearer reason is, if you look at the appearance of the 'human retroviruses,' the fact is that there were a host of these things that appeared all at the same time. So, you have to explain not only the appearance of HIV-I, but also HIV-II, HTLV-I, NTLV-II, HTLV-IV, HTLV-V, HTLV-VI, ad nauseam.

And so, to say that these things all spontaneously mutated at the same time in nature, and in the same direction, to infect human beings spontaneously and spread disease in worldwide epidemic proportions, in my opinion, is absurd compared to the known fact that scientists were working with exact progenitors of these viruses in their laboratories, which we can document.

The Green Monkey Theory

LEN: But what about the green monkey theory - the theory that a green monkey bit an African or someone had sex with an ape?

ROBERT: That's just nonsense. . . . Green monkeys are about the size of chickens. So the idea of a human having sex with a female monkey the size of a chicken is, of course, absurd.

In addition, the theory that a transmission occurred through biting, of course, is always said to be close to impossible. If you look at the CDC and everybody else, they say that biting is not an easy way to spread these diseases except in the case of the purported green monkey which is suddenly the way it was spread. [2]

We don't believe that the viruses came from primates or from green monkeys. In addition, if you look at the whole theory that was published in Rolling Stone. . . which accused Wistar Institute of spreading AIDS to Africa in the polio vaccines of the early 1960s; Wistar, of course, says that they have now reviewed all their stocks [without finding any incriminating evidence for the allegation]. . . . Wistar Institute is one of the world's biological leaders in 'retrovirus, virus, and cancer causation, cancer research,' [and is] located in Philadelphia. [3]

And these viruses were originally known by their Philadelphia names. They were called 'NBC' for New Bolton Center, which is also in Philadelphia. And if you look up the original AIDS virus, in our opinion, that goes back to cattle viruses that were called NBC, New Bolton Center I through about XIV or XVI. [4]

And we identified HLTV-I and HLTV-II and HLTV-III in those first cultures that were adapted to human beings by growing them in human tissue culture. . . .

For many years actually, you could simply call up New Bolton and say, "Give me some NBC-XIII." And they would send it to you. And then when AIDS appeared around 1978 or so, all of a sudden the NBC line all disappeared. You could no longer order them.

LEN: How interesting.

The Cow Theory

ROBERT: Yeah. It is interesting. And so we tracked NBC, I think it's [NBC-] XIII . . . back to Louisiana State Agriculture Farm (LSAF) cow BFC-44. And what happens was you see, they were looking a lot at HLTV-I, which is like bovine leukemia virus (BLV), [5] and this cow at the LSAF got they thought a BLV infection. She got huge lymph nodes in the neck just like HLTVV-I/BLV in cattle. And then she apparently conquered it because the lymph nodes went down; she got better after a mononucleosis-like disease, and she made lots and lots and lots of antibodies against this virus.

Then about five or six years later, she started losing weight rapidly, developed diarrhea, and died with pneumonia. And they autopsied her and of course she had no immune system left.

And as far as we can tell, that was the original bovine visna virus isolate.

LEN: What year was that?

ROBERT: 1969. And that virus was capable of wiping out T-cells selectively, it produced syncytium [a mass of cell fluids containing many cell nuclei formed by the joining of originally separate cells as a result of infection or disease] [6] in tissue culture, and it does everything that AIDS does.

LEN: Now, who was studying that?

ROBERT: That was isolated from the LSAF outside of New Orleans.

LEN: So Gallo wasn't the only one studying that virus?

ROBERT: No, everybody was. These [cultures] were [widely distributed]. If you go back and look at the veterinary literature, they were looking at all the BLV, bovine leukemia virus lines, bovine syncytium viruses, and bovine visna viruses. And all these things were being studied. . . .

Well, at this point, they were still essentially noninvasive because they were restricted to animals. But, then what happened was in the late '60s and early '70s they started growing these in human tissue.

Early Researchers

LEN: Now when you say 'they,' can you be more specific in terms of the labs that you're familiar with that were doing this work?

ROBERT: Yeah, well virtually every lab in the world that was doing sophisticated lymphocyte studies. But particularly Gallo and company at the NIH, ahh . . . ahh . . . actually there were only a few guys you know - Gallo, Montagnier, a couple of guys that are dead, Baltimore, [7] Teman, [8] and a few others and a few veterinarians. . . .

Dmochowski was interesting because he was the first one to show that you could basically adapt retroviruses to different mammalian species by growing them in the tissue cultures that you wanted them to go to. Now he's down in Texas. [9]

Miller, in 1969, took bovine leukemia virus and injected it into chimpanzees, and the chimpanzees formed antibodies against the virus. [10] So they concluded that these chimpanzees were immune. And so that was the decision for telling everybody that bovine viruses in human beings posed no threat; which is relatively true, there is a species barrier.

Since the 1950s and even the 1940s Bumy, [11] Bobrow, [12] and all these guys from Europe said these [bovine] viruses posed a threat to humans, so they began a whole program of mass extermination of cattle in Europe that carried BLV and other viruses. [13]

In this country, half of our herds are infected with BLV, BFC, or BVV, and the only thing that has prevented, in my opinion, everyone from dying of T-cell leukemia is the fact that pasteurization of the milk kills viruses.

Now if you look at the distribution of T-cell leukemia across the upper United States, from like Minnesota to Wisconsin, there's a huge incidence of T-cell leukemia in dairy farmers.

And if you actually look at some of the studies done in France, they found that guys working in meat-packing plants had a greater incidence of T-cell leukemia too. [13]

So there's all this evidence that T-cell leukemia is related to BLV, which it certainly is, [and] for sure, if you culture the virus in human tissue and adapt it, what you get [is an HTLV-I-like virus that thrives in humans]. . . .

If you look at BVV, bovine visna virus, [13] . . . it's very closely related [to HIV], but it's still not there; it's not the same as AIDS because what you have is bovine visna virus - a virus growing in cattle - and that's not adapted to humans yet. To adapt it to humans, you've got to grow it in human tissue, as they were doing in those early '70s. And what they discovered was that it was a selective T-cell destroyer [just as the AIDS virus is].

French/American ʺBullʺ

ROBERT: Do you know what the true conflict [was] that occurred between Gallo and Montagnier?

LEN: The one that I'm aware of was that Montagnier allegedly gave him what he thought was the virus, and Gallo supposedly cloned it.

ROBERT: That was all bull. . . . Because they both had the viruses growing in their labs in the early 1970s.

The real problem was, and what happens is - suppose you take a culture of lymphocytes, you take T-cell lymphocytes and you dump in HTLV-I or II. What happens to the T-lymphocyte culture?

LEN: It gets infected, and it proliferates.

ROBERT: That's exactly what happens. The tissue grows and grows and grows in human beings. That's what results in leukemia. You have to take the cells out; they get so packed that the tissue culture dies.

Now what happens when you dump bovine visna or AIDS virus into the same tissue cultures?

LEN: The cells don't grow.

ROBERT: Exactly! They're lysed. They die. So when you come back in a day or two and look, there's nothing left except debris. And so Gallo couldn't figure out how to make enough virus for the antibody tests. They needed virus in quantities to get everything going. And they couldn't get them to reproduce long enough to get large quantities of virus.

[I felt the urge to interrupt Strecker at this point since I had questioned this same allegation before when Randy Shilts advanced it in 'The Band.' Instead, I remained silent, heeding my father's recommendation that I could, "learn more from listening than speaking."]

ROBERT: So that's the real argument. And what Montagnier figured out was if you dump in Epstein-Barr virus on to the Tlymphocytes, you immortalize them. . . . They will just sit there and make virus for you, which is why if you have an Epstein- Barr virus infection on top of an AIDS virus infection you're in sorry, sorry shape. . . . The immortalized Epstein-Barr-virus-infected T-cells will just churn out AIDS viruses day after day after day. . . . And so that was the real thing that Montagnier discovered. . . . [14]

LEN: And that's not published anywhere?

ROBERT: Oh sure it's published. But it's the true argument versus the suspicious argument that, "You stole my virus." That's all a lot of bull because they both had the virus, and they both knew what they were doing from day one in my opinion.

[If that was true, I considered, then Gallo would have also known about the Epstein-Barr virus effects, which I recalled he also published. [14] So I questioned Strecker:]

LEN: Now when I look back at the research literature, at least in the Index Medicus, Montagnier did not have too many publications in this field [in the early 1970s], whereas Gallo had been churning out the publications.

ROBERT: Except that Montagnier had worked with Gallo! [15]

LEN: They did?

ROBERT: Yeah, they were in the same [building] or on the same hallway.

LEN: At the NCI?

ROBERT: Yes! . . . Montagnier was over here. . . around 1965 or so; he and Gallo were working together. . . . They're all connected.

LEN: Interesting.

[I had not considered the possibility that Gallo and Montagnier had known about each other's work prior to 1978 as Shilts documented.]

ROBERT: And then when. . . Donald Francis and what's his name? When they published that cat house experiment, and questioned, "Is it possible that there's a human retrovirus similar to this one." Of course [there was]! Gallo had already isolated HTLV-III. . . . And his office was only twenty-five feet away.

[I sat up on the edge of my seat taken by the allegation. 'The Band' presented Francis as somewhat of a hero during his alleged conflict with Gallo and other NCI administrators over withholding support for AIDS research. I suspected he knew about Gallo's early research, and Strecker was now alleging the same.]

LEN: You mean Don Francis from the CDC? Francis was originally at the NCI before he went to the CDC?

ROBERT: Yes. . . . He was working there right next to Gallo. And that's when they did their famous cat house experiments showing that the cats were transferring the viruses back and forth amongst themselves. And then they wrote this article that said, "It is possible. . ." [16]

I mean, they knew or else they didn't talk for the whole time. They knew that there was a similar virus out there growing in human beings. . . . Gallo had already isolated it, and their labs were twenty-five feet apart.

LEN: Now what I seem to have dug up in the 'WHO Chronicle,' is that the first American laboratory to be sent any of the viral strains from which they began was the NCI [17]

ROBERT: Yeah. Well, I think that's a lie. I mean, I think the viruses were growing in the basement of the NCI all along. . . . Do you know about the meeting between Gallo, Montagnier, and Salk?

LEN: No.

ROBERT: Oh my God! Anyway, a year or two ago, and this is documented in 'Science' or somewhere, Gallo, Montagnier, and Salk met in San Diego to write up the history - the official history - of their discoveries. [18]

LEN: Salk? The polio virus Salk?

ROBERT: Yeah, they met down there and made up a story. . . . And I personally believe that virtually everything they wrote was bull. . . . We [referring again to his brother and other colleagues in The Strecker Group] understood that they used to meet like two or three times a week and decide what to tell next - how to package it, how to discuss it. In other words, they already knew everything because they'd been working on it since the early 1970s. They basically knew they had the same stuff [retroviruses and reagents] because if you look at what happened, their discoveries were too quick. . . .

LEN: OK. Explain this now. Why did Gallo in 1980 become so frustrated that he couldn't keep the [T-lymph] cells alive, so allegedly he quit.

ROBERT: What?

LEN: According to Shilts, Gallo dropped out of the AIDS race for about two years.

ROBERT: I don't believe that either. I don't know what he was doing in that time frame, but he was still working on AIDS; there's no doubt about that.

LEN: According to Shilts, Gallo had only about 10 percent of his lab going on the AIDS problem. He said that Gallo stonewalled researchers throughout the world [by] not providing the antibodies, not providing the cell lines that were required to identify and cultivate the virus.

ROBERT: Yeah. . . . Why would they want to give things away when they knew what was going on already, and it was a matter of Gallo and Montagnier deciding who was going to tell what when. . . . Do you know the story about the patent? [19]

LEN: Gallo ripped Montagnier off.

ROBERT: Yeah. That's what brought the split. You see we [the United States] tried to take all the money.

LEN: Well, that's what they've done.

ROBERT: Yes. Yes. Yes. So that's what got the French so angry. And what was Montagnier going to do? Come out and say, "Well, we lied. We've been doing this work all along. We're all crooks."

So that's, in my opinion, what happened. Anybody with any scientific credibility knew that Gallo stole the virus if that's what they were talking about because they [HLTV-III and LAV] were identical. . . . But I think that the big war was really a war over money.

LEN: Oh, for sure.

ROBERT: Yeah. Anybody with any sense knew; I mean retrovirologists laugh about it because they knew that Gallo stole it. It was only the press that was blind.

LEN: But how do YOU reconcile the first comment that they all had these things and then later that he [Gallo] cloned it [Montagnier's LAV]?

ROBERT: They had them, and you can grow the virus in perpetuity if you keep constantly changing their cell line as it kills it. That doesn't mean you can grow it in any quantity. In other words, every lab in the world - and these were all over the world, they weren't just here and in France; they were in Germany and Russia and everywhere - [and] a lot of people had the [human] cell lines, and they had the cattle cell lines [in the early 1970s]. . . . And we know they had, in 1976, BVV, bovine visna virus, growing in brain tissue in Brussels because we have papers on that. One paper said that the AIDS[-like] virus would infect [human] brain tissue. And the guy even wrote, "Is it possible that this is a cause of slow virus disease of man?" [20] So, I mean, they were everywhere.

The ʺConspiracy of Cellsʺ

ROBERT: Plus, they were growing in cattle naturally, and we were using fetal calf serum as growth medium for every cell culture in the world. . . . The theory was that since these were extracted from fetuses, they were sterile, but in fact, they weren't.

Because the AIDS virus and BLV-I and II were being transferred in the gene lines. And so they were potentially transferring these viruses into every tissue culture throughout the world. . . .

So it gets very mixed up. You've got to read a book called 'Conspiracy of Cells,' by Michael Gold. [21] This is a story about Walter Nelson Reese who worked in the highest containment laboratory in the NIH - the BSL 4 lab. That's where they keep their tissue cultures, and they had like 300 to 400 of them. And in 1981, Walter Nelson Reese published a paper [in 'Science'] saying that over a third of them were Henrietta-Lack-cell-contaminated cell lines.

Henrietta Lack was a black lady who worked at Hopkins in the late 1950s. She died around 1965 or so while she was still working there. . . [from] a tumor of the uterus that literally ate her alive. And that tissue was the first human tissue that was grown in perpetuity in tissue cultures. Because up till then, they would only grow one or two divisions and then die, and her tissue called HELA - that's where HELA comes from, Henrietta Lack - was the first [cancer cells] that would grow in tissue cultures.

Now those cell lines were sent all over the world, and what happened was that scientists were contaminating their tissue culture cells with HELA accidentally. And in the early 1970s, I think '72 under Nixon, the Russians sent us six cell lines that they thought contained human cancer-causing viruses. And those were sent to Walter Nelson Reese who was the keeper of the cell lines in the United States. He was in San Francisco, and it was his job to keep the cell lines straight and not contaminate them.

That was [during] the great "war on cancer," that's where all this stuff came from. The NIH was funded in '72 with billions of dollars to find the cancer virus. . . .

Nixon was trying to steal the show from [Teddy] Kennedy by coming up with a virus and vaccine against cancer. They said, "Let's find a virus." So that's where the big cancer virus hypothesis came from.

Now when we got these six cell lines from the Russians. . . Reese started looking at them and discovered that they were all female; then he discovered that they were all black. And so he questioned, 'How many black females are there in Moscow who have cancer?' And, of course, what he discovered was that these were all Henrietta Lack cell contaminants that contained monkey viruses. And so all that stuff the Russians sent us was in fact a fraud. But. . . it was a very embarrassing thing because they thought they had got there first, and what we proved was that they were awful scientists.

So then what Walter Nelson Reese did is that he started looking at all the cell lines of the United States, and closely. And [then he] discovered that at the NIH, over a third of them were HELA contaminated.

What happened was that when they would open their tissue culture lids, they would aerosolize small particles into the air. They would float around and drop into another cell line, and HELA's so aggressive that it will literally take over. And so it just takes one cell to drop into another cell line and it takes over, and it amalgamates, and those were called HELA contaminated.

And so what the NIH did to him [Dr. Reese] was, of course, defunded him and put him out of business. Because he proved they were all a bunch of idiots.

LEN: Oh - I see.

ROBERT: So then the problem was you had a whole bunch of HELA-contaminated cell lines floating around and being sent out as clean cell lines and they weren't; they were actually human cancer malignant cell lines, and some of them contained viruses that were from other species.

And so it represented a big problem. Plus, they were throwing in fetal calf serum which was contaminated with these bovine viruses.

So you had a mixture for a natural [disaster]. I mean, the thing is, like they said in the '72 conferences, it's a wonder that we don't have worse disasters. You just wonder why we haven't been annihilated by these idiots.

If, for instance, you look at the tissue cell culture that was used to determine x-ray tolerance of human tissue, it turns out it's a HELA-contaminated cell line. Which means the most radiation-resistant cell line in the world is used as the standard to determine how much radiation a human should be exposed to!

LEN: Unreal.

ROBERT: Well, that's all documented in 'Conspiracy of Cells' by Michael Gold. . . . Walter Nelson Reese now runs an art gallery. They put him out of business. . . .

The ʺPatient Zeroʺ Theory

LEN: All right, let's get back. . . to the situation with AIDS. What about the "patient zero theory?"

ROBERT: That's nonsense. First off, this guy lived in Canada and flew primarily in Canadian cities, yet you must propose that he only had sex in American cities because the disease broke out in specific American cities where he allegedly had sex.

In addition, it doesn't make any sense if you look at the time frame. AIDS broke out in '78 in Manhattan and then in '80 in San Francisco. It didn't break out in Montreal in '79, or in Toronto, in Quebec, or Ontario in '80, whatever. It broke out in select cities in the United States in a select time frame which corresponds exactly to the hepatitis B study. [22]

LEN: OK. Let's talk about that study for a minute. If you could conceive of a way that vaccine could have been contaminated, how could it have happened?

ROBERT: Two ways. One way accidentally and one way intentionally.

LEN: All right then, elaborate. . . .

ROBERT: Well the vaccine was prepared from gays first off, and then it had plasma expanders that came from cattle added to it.

LEN: So the hepatitis B vaccine is produced through the bovine serum.

ROBERT: Yes. . . . It had expanders put into it as a mechanism of production.

LEN: Like serum?

ROBERT: Yeah, serum. . . . Because they needed to expand the volume.

LEN: Now is the vaccine produced in cow carcases?

ROBERT: No, it's made from humans.

LEN: The hepatitis B vaccine [is made] from the gay men's serum?

ROBERT: And also from straight men's serum.

LEN: OK.

ROBERT: And. . . that's the most interesting thing. Why did they make two separate vaccines?

LEN: Yeah. Why?

ROBERT: Because the epitopes [23] [surface molecules] of hepatitis B [antigens] in gays was different than in straights. . . . So what does that tell you?

LEN: I'm not quite sure.

ROBERT: Well it tells you there's not a lot of exchange going on between the two pools. Because if there were, the hepatitis B would not have separated into two epitopes. So if there was a lot of exchange, the information would have been heterogeneous in the pools, not homogeneous and not different [between homosexual and heterosexual men].

Now suppose you introduce a virus which is transferred like hepatitis B into the gay pool or population. When will it show up in the heterosexual pool?

LEN: I don't know. When?

ROBERT: Well it will take it a long time to show up there, because what you know is that the exchange of information going on between homosexuals and heterosexuals is limited.

So Szmuness was the guy who conducted that study. [22] Szmuness came from Poland, and was educated in Moscow. He somehow managed to escape [from Poland] to the United States with his family in tow, and ended up in New York City. . . as the head of the New York City Blood Bank.

[That is interesting, I thought as I reflected on my recent tour of the National Holocaust Museum in Washington. The Nazis, I learned, had done extensive blood and genetics research in an effort to discriminate and exterminate mixed breeds from their racist and white supremacist world. A Russian-educated Polish researcher with Szmuness's credentials could have best survived Nazi-occupied Poland by joining the Nazi's research effort, or post-Nazi Poland by serving Russia. How did he end up in the United States? I wondered if there was a link between the Nazi effort to exterminate homosexuals and Szmuness's study that targeted gays with allegedly tainted hepatitis B vaccines? The German-owned Merck Company, after all, funded the study and produced the experimental and control vaccines] [22]

LEN: So [still somewhat perplexed, I asked,] that's the theory of unintentional infection?

ROBERT: Well, the fact is that the vaccine could have been prepared in a way that unintentionally infected them. Yes. [But] it might have been intentionally contaminated by somebody [also]. . . . They may have been testing gays trying to develop an immunity against something they knew was already ripping through Africa. . . . It could be that they were testing it just to test it, or it could be that somebody intentionally was trying to exterminate gays, or in our opinion, it could be that their actual goal was to exterminate the United States.

[Strecker's latter remark took me by surprise. It was the first thing he said which to me made no sense.]

LEN: The actual goal was to try to exterminate the United States? And that's one of your most plausible explanations?

ROBERT: Yes.

LEN: And who would have been behind that?

ROBERT: Some foreign party. The Russians or someone who didn't like us. Because the Russians have talked about that for fifty years. There have been KGB biological warfare experts that have been trying to do that to us for fifty years.

[I felt intuitively uncomfortable with Strecker's explanation. I recalled his comments about Walter Nelson Reese which proved the Soviets knew far less about viral biotechnology than American researchers. Moreover, it seemed farfetched to believe the Russians had somehow managed to infiltrate the New York City Blood Center which appeared to be the starting point for the AIDS epidemic in America. This part of Strecker's theory would have required Szmuness, or one of his associates, to have been a secret agent working for Russia.]

LEN: OK, but why would they have started with gays?

ROBERT: For a very obvious reason. And that is because nothing would be done. Just think about this. Suppose you put this virus in the heterosexuals or kids. What kind of response would have occurred compared to the response that did occur?

LEN: Right. That's for sure. Quite different. I appreciate that, but still, even to this day, the heterosexual spread is limited compared to the spread in the gay population.

ROBERT: Only in this country.

LEN: Right.

ROBERT: If you look in the world, what percentage of the world's AIDS cases are heterosexuals?

LEN: Ninety percent.

ROBERT: Over 90 percent. Right. Exactly. . . It's only in this country that you have this strange, unexplained predominance of homosexuals. Now, that's why you have to remember what I just told you. What happens when you put a virus that is transferred like hepatitis B into the homosexuals? When does it appear in heterosexuals?

LEN: Not for a long time.

ROBERT: Exactly. . . [That's why] I think it was pure genius.

Now people say, "Well nobody would think of that." And my answer to that is: "Well, I thought of it. So why couldn't they think of it?"

LEN: I still like my theory better.

[Problems with the 'communist theory' flooded my head. Strecker noted the Russians were way behind us in viral research. How would the Russians have gained access to the viruses in Gallo's or Merck's labs in the first place. Even if Szmuness had been a Russian agent, he would have needed to gain access to the viruses first in order to contaminate the vaccines. Also, had the Russians created AIDS-like viruses shortly after Gallo surely did, then why had Gallo become the world's preeminent retrovirologist and not some Russian? Also the patents are worth millions. Why would the United States and not Russia hold the patents on the AIDS virus antibodies and cell lines?]

ROBERT: Yeah. I mean I don't have the answer. I'm just telling you my theory.

African Vaccine Trials

LEN: OK. So that's the intentional theory.

ROBERT: Yeah. It could've been an experiment. It could've been intentional to get rid of gays. It could've been intentional to infect all of us.

LEN: OK.

ROBERT: And you see what happened. In our opinion, IARC, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, took these viruses to Africa in the early 1970s and tested them. Because we think they were trying to get the virus/cancer hypothesis proved; they wanted to develop a vaccine, and they wanted to find out which of those [viruses] were actually causing cancer because they weren't sure. [24]

So how do you prove it. How do you prove Koch's postulates [25] in the case of virus and cancer?

LEN: Difficult.

ROBERT: Yeah. You've got to test them.

LEN: Right.
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Re:  EMERGING VIRUSES: AIDS & EBOLA: Nature, Accident or Int

Postby admin » Fri Jan 15, 2016 6:47 am

Part 2 of 2

ROBERT: It's like saying because you have lung cancer in women, it's because they wear hose. That doesn't prove anything. You've got to have causation. So they were stuck.

Now that's what was said in our references. They said, "let's test it; let's test it in humans with the same degree of sophisticated experiments that we use in animals." What does that mean? And then they published their test sites. And the test sites are exactly where AIDS is. We had these huge laboratories over there. [24]

LEN: And what year was that?

ROBERT: 1972, I think. . . . It says that epidemiological studies are of no use per se. So what do you conclude?

LEN: That they're going to have to test it in a population.

ROBERT: Exactly. And then it says we're going to test these things in sibships - brothers and sisters from the same family. And they were going to study the time course of the infection. And then we said, well, what do you mean by that?

And they said, well, we're gonna study the antibody response. And I said, well you already knew the antibody response. How could there be any time course to that. The only thing that a time course could refer to is an infection. Which means you had to have active particles. That's all in the references, [26] Anyway in 1972 they said, let's make a T-cell destroyer. That's out of the bulletin of the WHO.

LEN: That I know.

ROBERT: The same year, they said let's test it, and then let's inject it. And then they published their test sites which is a map of Africa where they have all their test sites, and that corresponds exactly to the outbreak of AIDS.

LEN: Do you have those maps anywhere?

ROBERT: They're in the references [we published]. [26] They're also in the Federal Register. . . .

So we think that they went over there and tested it. . . . Then somebody put it back into us or simply used it in us.

[Again, I thought, it makes more sense to place the source of the experimental AIDS viruses in Bethesda and not Russia given that the WHO had made the NCI, and not a Russian institution, the initial distributor of viral testing reagents [27-29] And since the initial homosexual outbreak of AIDS was in New York, Szmuness and his New York colleagues along with Merck researchers seemed to be the prime suspects. Then I wondered whether there were any documented links between Gallo's group and Szmuness?]

Manufacturing AIDS-Like Viruses

LEN: OK. Now let's get a little bit more specific about the virus itself. With regard to the AIDS virus, had it been specifically manufactured, what might have been the first steps? What do you think the researchers began with?

ROBERT: I think they began with bovine visna virus, which they knew was a T-cell destroyer. And they made that by crossing bovine and visna [viruses] in cattle. . . .

Visna is the virus in sheep. Its characteristic is a destroyer, and they wanted a T-cell destroyer. So they took a T-cell attacker-the bovine leukemia virus and crossed it with a visna to make a Tcell destroyer, which is exactly what they got.

But then all they had was a T-cell destroyer in cattle which wasn't very good for humans. So then they grew it in human tissue, and when you do that it adapts to human beings (see fig. 7.1). And there are a host of ways to get these things to grow in tissue even if the receptors won't take [the virus]. . . .

LEN: They could have delivered the viral RNA a number of ways.

ROBERT: Yes. One of the ways is by pseudovirus formation. . .. Pseudovirus formation is where you put in a simultaneous mixture of cells and viruses, and what happens is, for instance, if you put bovine and visna viruses in with herpes virus; in the packaging process, you'll get BVV genome inside a herpes coat and visa versa.

So then you separate out all the herpes ones, and it just infects any cells which are sensitive to herpes. And you can artificially introduce BVV into a herpes-sensitive cell, because it has BVV on the inside and herpes on the outside.

LEN: I remember reading through studies about that technique being used.

ROBERT: Yeah. Another way is you treat 'em with heat, and they open up. Or you can use some detergents that will open them up, or there's a host of different things; even some viruses will tend to open them up. It makes the cells permeable even though they normally wouldn't be, so you can introduce the one you want to get in even though there's no real receptor for it.

LEN: OK. So it could've been bovine visna virus, BVV, but also there was some speculation it could have been scrapie, another sheep virus, right?

ROBERT: Yeah, well. . . . Scrapie's a little bit different than visna, but basically I don't think scrapie's a retrovirus. It's like it, but it's not the culprit.

LEN: During our first conversation, you also mentioned, like other researchers, you could actually take a look at the AIDS virus, and it looks like it's been spliced in particular regions.

ROBERT: Oh yes. Actually, looking at it was one of the first things that told us what it was because BVV and AIDS, of course, look identical, and there weren't that many 'D-type' retroviruses. There were only a few.

The 'D-type' are cylindrical-shaped retroviruses which of course BVV and AIDS are identical. Besides the fact that they were both magnesium dependent and were T-cell attackers that would produce syncytium and could wipe out cells.

And then what you do is look at the genome. Actually, a paper by Gallo published in 'Science' I think about '83, or '86, said he took the restriction endonucleases [scissor-like enzymes] and treated the virus, and showed that when the virus falls apart, that where it falls apart are exactly at the gene lines.

In other words, it manages to fall apart just at the places where they could have constructed it.

LEN: Is that right? Just where the foreign pieces might have come together?

ROBERT: Yes, it falls apart in ten or twelve places. . . because those endonucleases cut at specific points.

But, what's interesting is . . . if it occurred spontaneously [in nature], why would it fall apart exactly where the genes occurred - the gag, pol, envelope, the tat genes? [30] Everything sort of cuts apart just the way you would put it together if you were constructing it. . . . [This] we thought [was] the strongest piece of evidence that would have said they actually put it together entirely in a lab.

LEN: And how might they have done that then? Let's say they started with BVV.

ROBERT: Well, in this case if you start with BVV, you just manipulate it to grow it in human tissue to adapt it to humans.

If you started with BLV and visna, you would. . . take the viruses, cut them up [with enzymes], then chromatograph them so that they're homologous. That is, the ten different parts [separate], then you take each different part that you want uniquely and put it together with other parts and zip' em up.

LEN: And how do they 'zip 'em up' or combine them?

ROBERT: They have enzymes that sew them back up just like they've got ones which cut' em apart. These are repair enzymes.

LEN: Then they separate those particular viruses, and they put them into cells?

ROBERT: They put them into serum. . . [add] your enzymes and [other] parts and wait for awhile. And then throw [everything] . . . into a culture and see what happens."

[I was still a bit fuzzy.]

ROBERT: But you see that's work. You don't have to do that. Nature does it all for you. All you do is take a cow and simultaneously inject bovine in one hip and visna in the other, and the cow is your mixer. And it will do it for you automatically. Because what happens is the viruses are so unstable that they will recombine and produce every thermodynamically stable recombinant possible.

LEN: Interesting. It's unbelievable.

ROBERT: Yeah. You see that's why everybody says, "We didn't make these viruses! We didn't have the techniques."

LEN: That's nonsense.

Fig 7.1 - Theoretic Manufacture of AIDS-Like Viruses From Bovine leukemia and Shee Visna Viruses

Image

Strecker theorized that bioweapons researchers began by mixing bovine leukemia viruses -- which they knew were T-cell attackers -- with sheep visna viruses -- which were recognized T-cell destroyers. They thus produced bovine visna viruses.

Next, in order to get these viruses to cross the species barrier and infect human cells, Strecker reported that researchers may have cultured them with herpes viruses or human white blood cells. The viruses were thus repackaged. Herpes virus envelopes, for instance, then contained genes for BVV, which could have easily created a virus that did everything the AIDS virus did.

[i] Bovine leukemia virus RNA with reverse transcriptase

[ii] Sheep visna virus RNA with reverse transcriptase

[iii] Herpes virus DNA found in infected humans

Diagram depicts the theoretic manufacture of AIDS-like viruses according to Roben Strecker, M.D., Ph.D., beginning with the bovine leukemia virus and sheep visna virus. Support for this theory was presented by Fort Detrick, NCI researchers Gonda MA, Braun MJ, Caner SG, Kost TA, Bess Jr JW, Arhur LO, and VanDer Maaten MJ. Characterization and molecular cloning of a bovine lentivirus related to human immunodeficiency virus. Nature 1987;330, 388-391.


ROBERT: Right. That's bull too, but, of course, our answer is: "Well. . . the virus makes itself." So you don't even have to implicate them for the genetic [engineering] viewpoint, if you don't want to.

[Strecker then provided a unique, common sense, metaphor for the emergence of HIV.]

ROBERT: It's like saying you've got a baby with no arms and legs and somebody dressed it up and took it to a party in Beverly Hills. Well, it sure couldn't do that and get there by itself!

Evidence Against Simians

LEN: What about simian monkey viruses? Why do they have scientists throughout the world claiming HIV is a simian monkey type of virus?

ROBERT: Because they get money for that. You know. . . . Here. . . send more money. Let me tell you about the simian AIDS virus.

First off, how does simian AIDS virus work? It produces a protein that causes AIDS in simians, and it's very easy to make a vaccine against a protein. And that's actually a derivative of the Mason Phizer monkey virus, which is another laboratory creation. . . another man-made virus made in the lab which was a simian virus that was being used for various things. It will cause AIDS in apes, but it doesn't do it [like HIV]; it does it by making a protein that wipes out their immune system.

LEN: Is it also a specific T-cell destroyer?

ROBERT: No. . . . The virus produces a protein, and the protein messes up the immune system. And it's very easy to make a vaccine against a protein.

But AIDS works entirely differently. It wipes out the T-cells and works inside of macrophages. . . . It inhibits the processing plant. AIDS is really a problem of macrophages, not of lymphocytes. . . . The virus makes the macrophage dysfunction.

What really is supposed to happen is that the macrophage is supposed to chop up the virus and present it to the T4 cell [thymus-derived cells] for the production of delayed immunity, and then to the B [bone-marrow-derived] cell for antibodies. But what happens is that the macrophage can't process it.

LEN: OK. So what happens then?

ROBERT: They run around the body and inject it into other cells. That's how the virus gets into other cells. That's how the virus gets into cells that don't have receptors for it.

LEN: So the macrophage actually reproduces the virus and then distributes it?

ROBERT: Yes. That's exactly what happens. That's how it gets into the brain. It's carried across the blood-brain barrier by macrophages that then inject it into brain cells.

LEN: Because T4 lymphocytes don't cross the barrier?

ROBERT: Yeah, they do, but they don't inject it. . . . They don't have sex with cells, whereas the macrophages do. And also the viruses are bigger than the pores of the membranes, so they can't get across directly. So something has to carry it.

Streckerʹs Colleagues

LEN: Now let's discuss some of your colleagues. Others have reported similar findings to yours. During our first conversation, we talked briefly about John Seale. [31] What do you know about his work?

ROBERT: Seale started writing about AIDS in '81 or so, even before us, and he was the first guy to say AIDS was not a venereal disease, and that it appeared to be artificial and spreading in an unusual manner, which was really just looking at the fact that the virus appeared in different areas of the world at the same time.

ROBERT: By the way, do you know the story of Parvo II?

LEN: No.

ROBERT: Parvo-II virus is a dog virus that appeared simultaneously around the world at the same time and proceeded to kill hundreds of millions of dogs. How does a virus appear in Australia, Europe, and Asia all at the same time?"

LEN: American Airlines.

ROBERT: Right. American Airlines.

[We both laughed.]

ROBERT: OK. And then instead of spreading contiguously [from one dog to another], the viruses were spreading and popped up [in different areas around the world] as if directed mutations had occurred [and been delivered by humans].

And Parvo II was eventually proven by genetic techniques to be feline panleukopenic virus which had contaminated dog vaccines. [32]

So Seale was observing the same thing with AIDS. How was this virus appearing at different spots in the world at the same time in a sense without any contiguous spread? I mean, even if you look at the gay [transmission] theory [if AIDS started in Africa, Haiti, Paris, and then New York], why wasn't there AIDS in Miami, or New Orleans, or Dallas. I mean those guys were going to Haiti [New York, Africa, and Paris] far more than the gays from San Francisco. I mean none of this theory makes any sense!

Then Segal began to write the same thing.

LEN: Jacabo Segal, from Humboldt University in Berlin? [33]

ROBERT: Yes. He was at the Institute of Biology in East Berlin. He was writing the same stuff, but again, he thought that the virus was constructed from HTLV-I and visna. And that's correct except he didn't go far enough because really HTLV-I is just bovine leukemia virus in man.

So both [Seale and Segal] were saying the same sort of stuff, but neither one could exactly figure out how it was done. And so that's basically what we figured out, how it occurred. And we believe it occurred at Fort Detrick. . . . And Segal was probably supplied information by the KGB.

[This sudden reference to the KGB threw me again. Somehow I needed to reconcile why Strecker, who believed the Russians may have brought AIDS to America, also recognized Fort Detrick as the source of the scourge.]

ROBERT: The Russians wrote in over 400 public places that the virus was constructed over here. And if you remember our good surgeon genital went over there and made a deal with them. I don't know if you know anything about that?

LEN: Which surgeon general was that?

ROBERT: Koop.

LEN: No. I didn't know that.

ROBERT: Yeah. Koop went to Russia - to Moscow - and basically made a deal with them to stop talking about it and we'd give them our money.

[That doesn't surprise me, I thought, reflecting on the alleged apology Gorbachev offered Reagan according to Covert's 'Cutting Edge.'] [34]

LEN: That's what I figured cause something like that is talked about vaguely in the book that I got from Fort Detrick. By the way, have you seen that book?

ROBERT: No.

LEN: You've got to get a copy of it. It came out in 1993. It's the fifty year history of Fort Detrick. It's free. They'll send it to you.

ROBERT: Well they won't send me one.

[Strecker seemed to relish that possibility and his notoriety.]

LEN: Oh they will. It's by a very nice guy. He's the public relations director for the fort. His name is Norman Covert. Imagine that?

ROBERT: Norman Covert? [Strecker laughed heartily] Is that a code name?

LEN: That's his real name. It's perfect, huh?

ROBERT: Well, do you know anything about what's going on there, the anthrax building?

LEN: Yes. I read about that.

ROBERT: Do you know about the Ebola building?

LEN: Vaguely.

ROBERT: Well they've got another building that's contaminated now; that they can't get into because of Ebola. You know they've got a whole bunch of problems. There's a bunch of people in Frederick [Maryland] that believe everything we talk about. We've quite a few supporters there, because they've had a lot of problems with strange illnesses. And so they're not entirely unsuspicious.

[I shuddered for a moment considering the fact that I was scheduled to visit Frederick on my way to present an AIDS education seminar in Western Pennsylvania later in the year.]

LEN: Robert, here's another one - Dr. Manuel Servin of the National Autonomous University of Mexico said that research conducted at Columbia by the U.S. Army was starting to point to the deadly disease in Haiti. He said that an unexplained accident caused the virus to spread to an employee of Haitian origin, and this person he believed, brought it back to Haiti. What do you think of that theory? [35]

ROBERT: No. There were like 47,000 Haitians working in Zaire at the time of these experiments. . . . So we think they either got it from the vaccine project or from the gays that were infected.

LEN: OK. So there were tens of thousands of Haitians working on health and welfare activities in Zaire during the 1970s?

ROBERT: Yes.

LEN: OK. So here's another one. There was a European physician who told a Russian journalist that he believed he was working for a DOD subcontractor with orders to mutate simian monkey viruses to produce fast-killing human viruses. [31] Had you heard that?

ROBERT: No, but that's entirely possible.

LEN: And this report went on to say that the experiment was considered a partial failure because they got a slow-acting virus rather than a fast one. They were allegedly looking for fast acting killers.

ROBERT: Except that quick viruses are, of course, worthless because they're too easy to defend against. I mean a very fast-acting virus is not any good.

LEN: What do you mean?

ROBERT: Frank Fenner talks about all the characteristics. . . . Ahh. . . . It's out of. . . Cold Springs Harbor, that's the other great biowarfare palace. It's the Eugenics Institute. . . . Cold Springs is in upstate New York. . . . That was the place started by Margaret Thanger and others. Now they're, of course, the big biological warfare place under the guise of just research.

Anyway, Cold Springs Harbor put out a big thing on MMMV, that is, the 'maximally monstrous malignant virus,' and then they gave all the characteristics. And they talked about what it would take to produce this kind of virus. And, of course, all the characteristics are exactly those of the AIDS virus except for one thing, and that is, aerosolized transmission - which we believe is potentially possible.

[Oh, God forbid, I thought. I hadn't heard that theory before. Given Strecker's obvious intelligence and formidable knowledge, his assertion startled me.]

ROBERT: But they produced papers about what makes viruses malignant and monstrous. And one of the things is that they work slowly, and not fast. And that they are constantly mutating. Exactly the characteristics of AIDS.

LEN: Interesting. It's unbelievable.

ROBERT: Yes it is.

Final Recommendations

LEN: Now, the first time we spoke, you mentioned something about. . . a forthcoming cure for AIDS. How might it work?

ROBERT: Well, it's very simple in theory; complicated in practice. Basically, just as viruses are little crystals, you might hit them with electromagnetic frequencies and destroy them. Just as you can shakedown a crystal and destroy it without disrupting the surrounding house, you can [theoretically] disrupt viruses without destroying the surrounding cell structure.

LEN: Are there laboratories working on that?

ROBERT: Not that I know of.

LEN: OK. Now there was something in the news the other day that the French had allegedly discovered a cure. Have you heard anything new?

ROBERT: Nah. I haven't heard or seen anything. . . . I can't believe the word would not be all over everywhere if they thought [they had a cure] . . . particularly the French.

Now you see also what is Pasteur? The Pasteur Institute is their biowarfare institute, the same as Porton Down [in England], the same as Ivanofsky Institute [in Russia], the same as the Tokyo Institute. These are all the biowarfare centers for these countries; they're also the great AIDS research centers for these countries.

LEN: Right. It figures.

Now my last question. If you could tell people one thing about AIDS or your theories, what would it be?

ROBERT: The whole story. Everything. How the virus was made; that it was man-made, and we think it represents a threat to the human species.

LEN: And if there's some positive thing that people can do you might recommend, what would it be?

ROBERT: Other than no IV drugs, reduce their [sexual] promiscuity, and no blood products, start by questioning some of the things that they hear which may or may not be true.

_______________

Notes:

[1] According to The Strecker Group, Dr. Strecker's brother, Ted Strecker, was found shot to death alone in his home in Springfield, Missouri, an apparent suicide, on August 11, 1988. In the past he suffered from depression and monumental frustration at the relative lack of interest in his findings. Ted had been working with Robert to uncover evidence linking the DOD to the development of HIV. Ted is credited, along with Black military officer, Zears Miles, for having discovered and distributed fig. 1.1. However, Robert spoke with Ted the night before his death. He seemed cheerful - "in good spirits," - looking forward to new developments that promised progress. The following day he was found dead. His 22-caliber rifle lay next to him. He left no note, no message, and he said no goodbyes. This was very untypical of him. Officially the death was ruled a suicide. "Next," according to The Strecker Group, "Illinois State Representative Douglas Huff of Chicago was found alone in his home, dead from an apparent overdose of cocaine and heroin, on September 22, 1988. Representative Huff did everything in his power to make the Illinois State Legislature and the people of Chicago aware of Dr. Strecker's work. He was very vocal, gave many press interviews, was constantly on television and radio urging people to wake up to the coverup concerning AIDS. Did Representative Huff use drugs? Perhaps yes, but only occasionally and recreationally. Was he an addict? No. Would he have known how dangerous a massive overdose of cocaine and heroin was? Yes of course. Cause of death: officially a stroke. Dr. Strecker has serious doubts. . . ."

[2] Strecker's comment came months prior to the first confirmed case of HIV transmission from a human bite. See: Singer G and Athans M. 91-year-old teaches world about AIDS: HIV contracted from prostitute's bite. Sun-Sentinel Saturday October 28, 1995 pp1A and 6A.

[3] Several reports confirmed that The Wistar Institute is located at 36th and Spruce Sts. Philadelphia, PA 19104 (215-222-6700). See: Science and Technology Division National Referral Centel: Biological Sciences: A Director of Information Resources in the United States. Washington, D. C.: Library of Congress, 1972, p. 493.

[4] New Bolton Center is apparently now part of the University of Pennsylvania. One reference which appeared during my Medline search was: Bowman KF, Tate LP Jr., Evans LH and Donawick WI. Complications of cleft palate repair in large animals. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 1982;180;6:652-7.

[5] Gonda MA, Braun MJ, Carter SG, Kost TA, Bess JW, Arthur LO and Van Der Maaten MJ. Characterization and molecular cloning of a bovine lentivirus related to human immunodeficiency virus. Nature 1987;330:388-391. This research group, which reported stark similarities between the bovine immunodeficiency-like virus (BIV) and HIV, interestingly enough was funded by the National Cancer Institute and based at the Frederick (Fort Detrick) Cancer Research Facility in Maryland.

[6] Stedman's Medical Dictionary, Twenty-Second Edition. Baltimore Maryland: Williams & Wilkins Co., p. 1233.

[7] Temin HM. The role of the DNA provirus in carcinogenesis by RNA tumor viruses. In: The Biology of Oncogenic Viruses, LG Silverster, Ed. New York: Elsevier, 1971, 176; Temin HM. The protovirus hypothesis. J. National Cancer Institute 1971;46:3. Also see: Temin HM. The participation of DNA in Rous sarcoma virus production. Virology 1964; 23:486; Temin HM and Mizutani S. Nature 1970; 226:1211.

[8] Baltimore D. Viral RNA-dependent DNA polymerase. Nature 1970;226:1209.

[9] Maruyama K and Dmochowski L. Cross-species transmission of mammalian RNA tumor viruses. Texas Medicine 1973;69:65- 75. Regarding Hilary Koprowski serving at The Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, see: Silversti LG. The Biology of Oncogenic Viruses. New York: American Elsevier Publishing Company, Inc., 1971, p. 332; Huebner RJ, Todaro GJ, Sarrna P, Hartley JW, Freeman AE, Peters RL, Whitmire CE, Meier H and Gilden RV. Switched Off' Vertically Transmitted C-type RNA Tumor Viruses as Determinants of Spontaneous and Induced Cancer: A New Hypothesis of Viral Carcinogenesis. In: Defectiveness, Rescue and Stimulation of Oncogenic Viruses: Second International Symposium on Tumor Viruses, Royaumont, France June 3-5, 1969. Paris: Centre National De La Recherche Scientifique, 1970, pp. 33-77; Montagnier L. Alterations de la surface des cellules BHK21 en rapport avec leur transformation par des virus ongogenes. Ibid., p. 6; For more on ethnic cancer studies see: MacMahon B. The ethnic distribution of cancer mortality in New York City, 1955. Acta Unio Internat. contra cancrum, 1960 16;1716; Newill VA. Distribution of cancer mortality among ethnic subgroups of the white population of New York City, 1953-58. J. National Cancer Institute 196126:405.

[10] Miller JM, Miller LD, Olsen C and Gillette KG. Virus-like particles in phytohemagglutinin-stimulated lymphocyte cultures with references to bovine lymphosarcoma. Journal National Cancer Institute 1969;43:1297-1305. See also: Miller JM and Van Der Maaten MJ. The biology of bovine leukemia virus infection in cattle. In: Viruses in Naturally Occurring Cancers: Book B. Essex M, Todaro G, and zur Hausen H, Eds. Cold Spring Harbor Conferences on Cell Proliferation, Vol. 7, New York: Cold Spring Harbor Lahoratory, 1980, pp.901-909.

[11] Burny A, Bex F, Chantrenne J, Cleuter Y, Dekegel D, Ghysdael J, Kettmann R, Leclercq M, Leunen J, Marnrnerickx M and Portetelle D. Bovine leukemia virus involvement in enzootic bovine leucosis [lymphosarcoma in cattle]. Adv. Cancer Res. 1978;28:251; See also: Bumy A, Bruck G, Cleuter y et al. Bovine leukemia virus, a distinguished member of the human Tlymphotropic virus family. Soc. Press. Tokyo: VNU Science Press, Utrecht, pp. 219-227,1983

[12] Bobrow SN, Smith RG, Reitz MS and Gallo RC. Stimulated normal human lymphocytes contain a ribonuclease-sensitive DNA polymerase distinct from viral RNA-directed DNA polymerase. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 1972;69;11:3228-3232; Gallo RC, Pestka S, Smith RG, Herrera, Ting RC, Bobrow SN, Davis C and Fujioka S. RNA-and DNA-dependent DNA polymerases of human normal and leukemic cells. In Silvestri, L. (Ed.): II. Lepetit Colloquia on Biology and Medicine "The Biology of Oncogenic Viruses." Amsterdam, North-Holland, 1971, p. 210.

[13] Mussgay M, Dietzschold B, Lorenz R, Matheka HD, Matthaeus W, Straub OC, Weiland F, Wilesmith JW, Frenzel B and Kaaden o. Some properties of bovine leukemia virus, its use in seroepidemiological studies, and eradication of the disease from infected herds. In: Viruses in Naturally Occurring Cancers: Book B. M. Essex, G. Todaro and H zur Hausen, Eds. New York: Cold Spring Hamor Laboratory, 1980, pp. 911-925; Flensburg JC. Attempt to eradicate leukosis from a dairy herd by slaughter of cattle with lymphocytosis. Report over a ten-year period. Vet. Microbiol. 1976 1 :301; Callahan R, Lieber MM, Todaro GJ, Graves DC and Ferrer FJ. Bovine leukemia virus genes in the DNA of leukemic cattle. 1976 Science 192:1005; Crespeau S, Sarsat FP, Vuillaume A, Levy D and Parodi AL. A two-year sero-epidemiological survey of bovine leukemia virus (BLV) infection in a high-incidence area of the southwest of France. Ann. Rech. Vet. 19789:747; Haase A. The slow infection caused by visna virus. Curl: Top. Microbiol. Immunol. 197572:101.; Narayan O, Griffin DE and Clements JE. Virus mutation during "slow infection"- Temporal development and characterization of mutants of visna virus recovered from sheep. J. Gen. Virol. 197841:343.

[14] Though I was unable to locate the Montagnier publication re: placing EBV into infected T-cell culture to keep them alive, I did locate several articles published in the early 1970s that noted the presence EBV caused lymphocytes to proliferate. Several papers were presented during conferences attended by both Montagnier and Gallo that emphasized the role of EBV in molecular biology and tumor virology. Gallo wrote about the work of Pagano and the role of EBV in human cancer in his 1977 book, referred to EBV as a model oncogenic virus: "The evidence with EBV, although not definitive, has been extended from Burkitt's lymphoma to nasopharyngeal carcinomas." So he was certainly well aware of the ability of EBV to prompt lymphocytic proliferation. See: Gallo R. Recent Advances in Cancer Research: Cell Biology. Molecular Biology, and Tumor Virology, Volume I. Cleveland: CRC Press, Inc., 1977; In 1971 EBV was also studied by Gallo and co-workers. See Fujioka S and GalloRC. Aminoacyl Transfer RNA Profiles in Human Myeloma Cells. Blood 1971; 38;2:246-252.

[15] I was unable to find direct evidence that Montagnier had worked side-by-side with Gallo at the NCI. However, I located ample evidence that the two traveled in some of the same scientific circles, and attended many of the same cancer virus conferences. It is clear they were aware of each others' research from the late 1960s. Also, Montagnier published a report that suggested links between LAV/HTLV-III and the bovine leukemia virus. See: Alizon M and Montagnier L. Relationship of AIDS to other retroviruses. Nature 1985;313:743.

[16] Strecker's comments about the "famous cat house experiments," wherein Don Francis and Robert Gallo allegedly knew it was possible for mutant forms of feline leukemia virus (FeLV) to jump species to humans, are supported by parallel presentations made by the researchers during the same Cold Spring Harbor conference in 1980 See: Gutensohn N, Essex M, Francis DP and Hardy, Jr. WD. Risk to humans from exposure to feline leukemia virus: Epidemiological considerations; and Wong-Staal F, Koshy R and Gallo RC. Feline leukemia virus genomes associated with the domestic cat: A survey of normal and leukemic animals. In: Viruses in Naturally Occurring Cancers: Book A. Essex M, Todaro G, and zur Hausen H, Eds. Cold Spring Harbor Conferences on Cell Proliferation, Vol. 7, New York: Cold Spring Hamor Laboratory, 1980, pp. 699-706; 623-634.

[17] World Health Organization Report. Five years of research on virus diseases. WHO Chronicle 1969 23;12:564-572; World Health Organization Report. Recent work on virus diseases. WHO Chronicle 1974;28:410-413; Kalter SS and Heberling RL. The study of simian viruses-work of the WHO collaborating laboratory on comparative medicine: Simian viruses. WHO Chronicle 1969;23;3:112-117.

[18] Strecker was also accurate in reporting that Salk and colleagues at The Salk Institute had been researching RNA and DNA retroviruses including the simian monkey virus (SV40) with financial support from the NCI and the West German Max- Planck Society. Thus, Salk quite plausibly participated, as Strecker alleged, in writing up the history of AIDS virus research, and in making "up a story." See: Tonegawa S, Walter G and Dulbecco R. Transcription of SV 40 genome transformed and lytically infected cells; Eckhart W. Induction of cellular DNA synthesis after infection by polyoma virus: viral gene expression in the presence of hydroxyurea. (Both research teams from The Salk Institute) In: The Biology of Oncogenic Viruses. Proceedings of the second Lepetit Colloquium, Paris France, November 1970. LG Silvestri, Ed. New York: Elsevier, 1971, pp. 65-75;290-294.

[19] Beardsley T. AIDS: Pasteur sues over patent. Nature 1985;318:595; Palca J. AIDS: US wins round in patent row. Nature 1986;322:200; Palca J. Franco--US agreement on AIDS test within sight: AIDS patent dispute near end? France and United States call truce. Nature 1987;326:115; See also: Staff writer. Settling the AIDS virus dispute. Nature 1987;326:425- 426; Anderson C and Butler PD. US rejects French request to reopen AIDS patent deal. Nature 1987;326:425-426; Rensberger B. AIDS scientist Gallo, rival meet to discuss cooperation. The Washington Post, Saturday January 9, 1993, p. A2; Anderson C. Scientific misconduct: Popovic is cleared on all charges; Gallo case in doubt. Science 1993;262:981-983; Culliton BJ. Misconduct charges against Gallo withdrawn after Popovic decision. Nature 1993;366:191; Brown Dand SchwartzI. Case against AIDS scientist dropped: Agency decides evidence insufficient to sustain Gallo charges. The Washington Post Saturday, November 13, 1993, pp AI;16; Greenberg DS. End of the Gallo case-maybe. The Lancet 1993;342:1289; Staff writer. What to do about scientific misconduct. Nature 194;369:261-262.

[20] Gutensohn N, Essex M, Francis DP and Hardy, Jr. WD. Risk to humans from exposure to feline leukemia virus: Epidemiological considerations; and Wong-Staal F, Koshy R and Gallo RC. Feline leukemia virus genomes associated with the domestic cat: A survey of normal and leukemic animals. In: Vruses in Naturally Occurring Cancers: BookA. Essex M, Todaro G, and zur Hausen H, EdS. Cold Spring Harbor Conferences on Cell Proliferation, Vol. 7, New York: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1980, pp.699-706; 623-634.

[21] Gold M. Conspiracy of Cells Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1986.

[22] Szmuness W, Stevens CE, Harley EJ, Zang EA and Oleszko WR et al. Hepatitis B vaccine: Demonstration of efficacy in a controlled clinical trial in a high-risk population in the United States. New England Journal of Medicine 1980;303;15:833-841. Regarding Szmuness, I later learned from AIDS researcher and physician Alan Cantwell, Jr. that Wolf Szmuness became a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University School of Public Health, and chief of epidemiology at the New York City Blood Center in Manhattan shortly after his arrival in the United States. According to Cantwell, who credits Magic Shots (1982) by Allan Chase, Szmuness was born in 1919 in Poland, and came to the United States in 1968 after being expelled from Poland "by the communist government in an anti-semitic purge." With no other history, it is interesting that Szmuness, so quickly, in 1969, became the chief epidemiologist at the New York City Blood Center. For more information see: Cantwell A. AIDS and the Doctors of Death: An Inquiry into the Origin of the AIDS Epidemic. Los Angeles: Aries Rising Press, 1988.

[23] An epitope is a molecular region on the surface of an invading microorganism or infectious agent capable of eliciting an immune response and of combining with the specific antibody produced by such a response. It is also called a "determinant," or "antigenic determinant."

[24] Gardner WU. International union against cancer: Brief history, organization, and program review of a nongovernmental voluntary organization. National Cancer Institute Monograph 197440:51-55; Higginson J and Muir CS. Epidemiologic program of the International Agency for Research on Cancer. National Cancer Institute Monograph 197440:63-70.

[25] Koch's postulates were advanced as a scientific method to determine the cause and effect relationship between a germ and the disease it is believed to cause. It is based on three tests: 1) the microbe must be invariably found among organisms demonstrating the disease; 2) the microbe must not be present in disease-free organisms; and 3) the microorganisms must be effective in causing similar diseases among laboratory animals infected with the germ.

[26] Strecker R. This is a bio-attack alert. The Strecker Group, 1501 Colorado Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90041. March 28,1986, pp. 24-26.

[27] Rowe DS. The WHO immunology laboratories at Lausanne. WHO Chronicle 1968;22;11 :496.

[28] WHO Report (Based on the 1969 report The medical research programme of the World health Organization, 1964- 1968, Geneva.) Five years of research of virus diseases. WHO Chronicle 1969;23;12:564-572.

[29] Kalter SS and Heberling. The study of simian viruses. WHO Chronicle 1969;23;3:112-117.

[30] Three HIV genes-gag, pol and env-code for the structural parts of the AIDS virus envelope, or for the enzymes needed for gene transcription and insertion. According to authorities (Haseltine WA, Wong-Staal F. The molecular biology of the AIDS virus. Scientific American 1988;52-62; and Kieny MP. Structure and regulation of the human AIDS virus. J AIDS 1990;3:395-402), the gag, or group specific antigen, gene codes for the p24 proteins which form an "inner shell" within the virus. The pol gene codes for the reverse transcriptase enzyme which transcribes viral RNA to form a proviral form of DNA. The pol gene also codes for the endonuclease enzyme which transports the provirus into the host cell's nucleus and then deposits it into the host chromosome. The env gene codes for the "transmembrane protein" gp41 (glycosylated protein 41), which is incorporated into the envelope along with a closely associated gp120 protein which itself may have cell and nerve killing effects. The tat gene codes for a protein that enhances viral replication.

[31] Moscow World Service in English. Belitskiy on How, Where AIDS Virus Originated. March 11, 1988. Published in International Affairs. FBIS-SOV-88-049, March 14, 1988, p. 24. Text discusses Seale's allegations, but does not furnish specifics.

[32] Allison AC, Beveridge WIB, Cockburn WC, et al. Virus-associated immunopathology: Animal models and implications for human disease. Bulletin WHO 1972;47:257-263.

[33] Havana International Service in Spanish. German Claims AIDS Virus Created by Pentagon. FBIS-LAT 91-017. January 25,1991. Caribbean, Cuba. Text discusses Dr. Jacobo Segal's allegations. Document PA 2401213091-0000 GMT 24, January 1991.

[34] Covert NM. Cutting Edge: A history of Fort Detrick, Maryland 1943-1993. Fort Detrick, MD: Headquarters, U. S. Army Garrison, Public Affairs Office, 1993. [For copies calI301- 619-2018].

[35] Havana International Service in Spanish. Commentary Accuses U.S. of Developing AIDS Virus. LAT 24, June 1987. Caribbean, Cuba "Viewpoint" commentary read by Angel Hernandez. Document PA 200342- OOOGMT 19, June 1987. pp. A5-6.  
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Re:  EMERGING VIRUSES: AIDS & EBOLA: Nature, Accident or Int

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Part 1 of 2

Chapter 8: HIV-l, 2 and the "Big Bang"

THE morning after the Strecker interview, I handed Jackie the tape of our conversation. "Here, listen to this," I said. I then walked off to my office to do some more reading.

A few hours later, Jackie, who had slain much of her fear following word of Strecker's whereabouts, walked in holding the cassette. "This is completely unbelievable," she protested. "The part about the HELA cells, aerosolized in labs, ending up all over the world, is absolutely horrifying."

"The whole thing is horrifying, if you ask me," I responded. "I have a few problems with what he alleged, particularly the Russian theory, but most of what he said seems plausible. I'm going to check on his references tomorrow."

"You're going back to Harvard?"

"Yeah. I want to read some of the articles he mentioned, and see if they have Conspiracy of Cells."

Early the next morning, 1made my now routine excursion to Countway to investigate Strecker's allegations. Unfortunately for humanity, I found scientific evidence to support the vast majority of his claims.

His BLV/BVV theory of AIDS virus engineering was indeed sound. The methods Strecker cited as those used by cancer researchers to establish new strains of deadly viruses were generally accepted and widely practiced. 1,2

In addition, evolutionary trees had been developed showing the close relationship between HTLV-I and II and BLV,as well as between HIV and VISNA (see fig. 8.1).3

One conflicting report, however, emerged from the NCI. The report alleged the risk of BLV or BVV transmission to humans was nil. In a Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory publication, Dr. S. G. Devare wrote:

There is evidence that BLV can be transmitted to sheep through unpasteurized milk .... In one instance leukemia has been reported to have developed in a chimpanzee fed milk from a leukemic cow.... However, sera from patients with various forms of cancer, as well as from individuals in contact with cattle, lacked detectable levels of antibodies to BLV proteins .... These observations confirm those of others ... and suggest that BLV is not likely to pose a serious natural hazard to humans.4


Fig. 8.1. Evolutionary Comparisons of HIVand Other Similar Viruses

Image
Source: McClure MA, Johnson MS, Feng DF and Doolittle RF. Sequence comparisons of retrovirai proteins: Relative rates of change and general phylogeny, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 1988;85:2469-73.

My internal dialogue questioned again, "What about unnatural hazards like intentional mutations and tainted vaccine injections?" If chimpanzees were susceptible to cow milk transmitted leukemia, then humans might be also; particularly if the inoculated BLV or BVV was experimentally cultured in human WBCs, as researchers had routinely done.5

Additionally disturbing was an article I found about human breast milk in Nature New Biology -- a journal in which Gallo published much of his work.6,7 This report, by other members of the NCI staff, found "type C particles" -- simian sarcoma virus type structures -- in mother's milk that resembled "known oncogenic RNA viruses" isolated from monkey breast tumors. As in Gallo's NAS report,8 in which he manipulated simian sarcoma virus RNA to synthesize a "DNA probe" for human cancer research, the particles found by this group of researchers had an identical density of 1.16-1.19g/ml-1.

What left me cold was the fact that Gallo and others at the NCI were manipulating simian monkey viruses to create human killers, screening American women for these agents, and then oddly enough, locating these same "particles" in their lactates.6-8 I couldn't help wondering-Might at least some of the world's childhood leukemia cases be linked to nursing infants exposed to NCI simian monkey cancer viruses? Could such experiments have gone awry exposing American women to breast-cancer-causing viruses too?

I made note of the fact that the authors acknowledged their NCI coordinators- Drs. Bryan, Manaker, and Clausen-for their efforts.6

Shilts vs. Strecker on Montagnier and Gallo

Strecker indicated The Wistar Institute was alleged to have spread AIDS through tainted polio vaccines. In researching background on Wistar, I learned that Hilary Koprowski served as a chief virologist at the facility during the late 1960s and early 1970s.9

I found it interesting to read that Koprowski also served as co-chair for the "Second International Symposium on Tumor Viruses" held at Royaumont, France, on June 3-5, 1969. During Koprowski's sessiontitled "Persistence and transcription of the viral genome in virus-transformed cells mechanism of induction," he presented the "Presence of SV40 [Simian virus 40] genome in transformed cells and mechanism of rescue operation"-Luc Montagnier, then with the Institut du Radium, Orsay, France, attended.

Montagnier also presented a paper at this symposium ("Alterations de la surface des cellules BHK21 en rapport avec leur transformation par des virus ongogenes") in which he discussed the nature of changes OCcurringat cell surfaces following exposure to cancer-causing viruses.10

In addition, Montagnier was apparently present at the general session in which Drs. Huebner, Todar, and Sarma from the NCI presented "'Switched off' vertically transmitted C-type RNA tumor viruses as determinants of spontaneous and induced cancer: A new hypothesis of viral carcinogenesis." 11

During their presentation, this NCI-affiliated group acknowledged, as Gallo did shortly after, that their search for cancer-causing viruses was only marginally fruitful. They said:

[O]nly Burkitt's African lymphoma survives as a cancerous entity, the natural occurrence of which could be regarded as consistent with [a foreign virus] such as the herpes-like Epstein Barr virus (EBV) .... Although EBV infections have also been associated with nasopharyngeal cancers, racial (genetic) factors and perhaps religious practices appear to be important contributing factors.

Despite extensive sero-epidemiologic [blood surveys] and experimental tumor induction studies of the "oncogenic" DNA viruses ... none have been established as significant causes of spontaneous cancers in their natural hosts....

These various convincing arguments against DNA and other horizontally [species to species] spread viruses as possible significant causes of natural cancer led us to ask this very pertinent question: Do any of the known oncogenic viruses have properties and/or behavior patterns consistent with the well known ... [naturally occurring] ... cancers? We concluded that the only candidates were the RNA tumor viruses of the C and B types, the prototypes of which are the sarcoma and leukemia viruses .... Except for the Btype mammary tumor virus ... the C-type virus we believe represents the only well established oncogenic group of viruses that can be considered seriously in the etiology of ... naturally occurring cancer.11


Meaning? Shilts was mistaken and Strecker was undoubtedly correct. Montagnier apparently knew as much as Gallo not only about "slow" Ctype viruses, and simian monkey viruses including SV40, but also about the suspected relationship between EBV and Burkitt's African lymphoma-a WBC cancer affecting genetically and behaviorally predisposed black people.

Moreover, it was obvious and highly suspicious that Montagnier, Koprowski, as well as Gallo knew that the "only candidates" for cancer causing viruses potentially useful as human bioweapons, were the "RNA tumor viruses ... the prototypes" that caused the rare AIDS-related cancers -- sarcoma, lymphoma, and leukemia.

More troubling, these researchers acknowledged cancer studies conducted in New York City that provided evidence of the probable association "of virtually all human cancer occurring in different age groups and in different ethnic groups in each of many different years."12

As Jackie had noted the similarity of the NCI's blood studies to those conducted by the Nazis, here was evidence that New York researchers confirmed as early as 1960, exactly which ethnic groups would be most susceptible to lymphoma, leukemia, and sarcoma virus attacks.

The IARC and African AIDS

Strecker's theory that IARC brought AIDS to Africa is based on the knowledge that the organization, along with the Cancer Division of the WHO, worked with the International Union Against Cancer (IUAC) -- a nongovernmental, voluntary agency "devoted solely to promoting the campaign against cancer in its research, therapeutic, and preventive aspects."13

The NCI reported that IARC was established in 1965 under the auspices of the WHO. Initially sponsored by the five most active NATO countries -- the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States -- and based in Lyon, France, IARC began work with a budget of $750,000 per year. The budget for 1973 was $3.5 million as ten other countries joined the organization, including the Soviet Union.14

Indeed, when attention began to focus on the apparent link between virus infections and cancers, IARC focused its research efforts principally on Africa. The reasons for this are also suspicious. Despite the existence of cancers in most parts of the world, IARC targeted esophageal cancer and liver cancer both in black African populations.14

The NCI reported:

The incidence of cancer of the esophagus shows very wide geographic variations. It has also increased significantly in recent years in certain population groups, notably the black community in the United States, for as yet undetermined reasons.14


In an effort to determine the reasons:

... the Agency is investigating a "hot spot" for rumenal cancer in cattle (the equivalent of esophageal cancer in man) in Kenya which affects 10% of all beasts in a very limited area and which may provide clues to the possible etiology of esophageal cancer in those human situations where alcohol is not important.14


Liver cancer was second on the list of IARC priorities. To determine the relationship between aflatoxin, a toxic chemical produced by the fungus Aspergillus flavus, and liver cancer, IARC studied individuals in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa.14

Fig. 8.2. Geographic Distribution of Some NCI and IARC "Collaborative Agency" Programs

Image
The map shows Uganda and Bethesda as sites tor herpes type virus research conducted by Merck and Bionetics contractors. Hepatitis vaccine research tor "liver cancer" also took place in Northwest Uganda, where experts believe the Malburg, Ebola, Reston, and AIDS viruses originated. Source: Higginson J and Muir CS. Epidemiologic program of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). In: The National Cancer Program and Intemational Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute Monograph 1974; 40:65.

The problem has been further compounded by recent work on hepatitis virus and liver cancer. Serologic studies show that the hepatitis B antigen (HBag) is associated with ˂-50% of liver cancers in Africa and Asia [two areas of the world wherein AIDS prevalence rates are highest), being found in about 6% of controls. Much lower frequencies were obtained in North America and in Europe. While much remains to be discovered about HBag, there now exist 2 putative etiologic agents, one chemical and the other viral. Intensive study is needed to show whether they are both in fact responsible for liver cancer, and if so, whether they operate independently or together. A survey of 5,000 individuals has been carried out over 2 years in West Africa to determine the natural history of HBag.14


Besides IARC's interest in hepatitis B:

Even more important perhaps are the sero-epidemiologic studies being carried out with the support of the U.S. National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland, and the East African Virus Research Institute, Entebbe, Uganda. The Agency has been studying nasopharyngeal carcinoma in Asia and Burkitt's lymphoma in Africa, neoplasms associated serologically with a herpesvirus [a C-type RNA retrovirus]. A mass survey has been organized which will follow a population of approximately 35,000 children in Africa over a sufficient period of time to see whether the development of Burkitt's lymphoma in that population is in fact linked with infection by the virus. The logistic problems are considerable, but no other possible approach has been suggested to date.14


A map (see fig. 8.2) depicting the nature of IARC-sponsored programs in Africa and elsewhere was also published in their report. 14

Recognizing that hepatitis-B-virus related cancer research was a concern for IARC as well as Merck, Inc., I searched to understand why. The answer was apparent in a chapter of Prospects for Vaccines Against Cancer written in the early 1970s by Maurice R. Hilleman-Chief of the Division of Virus and Cell Biology Research at Merck Institute for Therapeutic Research- Gallo's counterpart at the Merck labs in West Point, Pennsylvania. 15 Hilleman explained the company's interest in viral vaccines this way:

It is well established that a great many factors have something to do with cancer: ionizing radiation, environmental carcinogens, age of host, hormones, genetic factors, and the like. It is also well established that a great variety of tumors of animals are caused by viruses, and one needs only to point to the role of viruses in the malignant neoplasia of rodents, cats, fowl, frogs, and bovines with ancillary information obtained in studies of cancer in monkeys and man. This leads to the concept that the one indispensable element in cancer may be a virus or its genetic material, and all other factors may only be secondary. In taking this position, we are reinforced by the fact that cancer cells seem to have a new genetic input that allows them to make new and unique antigens that are present in the cells and on their surfaces. Carcinogenic chemicals and physical agents, such as ionizing radiation, do not provide such input-they only rearrange the output. If it is true that virus infec- tion is indispensable in cancer, then the prevention of viral infection or the negation of the viral effect might pennit the breakjng of an essential link in the neoplastic chain and so make the prevention of cancer possible.

This then has provided the motivation for seeking the virus or viruses that cause cancer in man. Current research in viral etiology of human cancer has been focused on the C and B type RNA viruses that are being linked with leukemia, sarcoma, and breast cancer mainly by the demonstration of viruses or viruslike particles in human neoplastic tissues and secretions. To date, however, no reliably propagable RNA virus has been recovered from human neoplasia that can be considered to be a serious candidate for an etiologic role in man; this in spite of the intense competitive effort given to it and in spite of the private and public proclamations to the contrary.

The DNA viruses have fared somewhat better, and the herpesviruses can be seriously considered as candidates for several neoplasias in man including Burkitt's lymphoma and nasopharyngeal carcinoma and possibly also cervical and prostatic neoplasia and Hodgkin's disease. As with the RNA viruses, however, proof of etiologic role remains elusive and is frustrated by the inability to carry out direct etiologic studies in the human species.15


Regarding the use of the "Feline Leukemia-Sarcoma Model" for vaccine production and cancer research, Hilleman noted:

In judging the probability for developing vaccines against cancer, it is necessary to consider the means for spread of the virus, whether it be horizontal as in infectious disease [like animal to animal or cross species transmission] or vertical as in transmission from mother to offspring either through transplacental infection or through integration in the germ plasm [genes]. ...

The feline leukemia-sarcoma complex presents an excellent model in comparative oncology for testing vertical versus horizontal spread of cancer and for evaluating the effectiveness of vaccines. It is the prime model for RNA oncogenic viruses that is being pursued in our laboratories. The cat might be considered an especially meaningful modelfor such studies, since the cat, like man, is outbred, and it is subject to many, ifnot most, of the same environmental carcinogens to which man is subject and which might playa role in the induction of cancer. The rates for spontaneous leukemia and sarcoma in cats are low and roughly in the same range as in man, considering the difference in life span. Most important, while cats do harbor covert indigenous leukemia viruses, horizontal transmission of the oncogenic virus does occur [whereas] the role of the vertically transmitted ... cancer ... is in serous doubt.)6 Significantly, adult immunologically competent cats can be infected artificially or naturally with the virus and this can result in the induction of leukemia. With further study, it may be hoped that this model will present the means whereby live, killed, and subunit vaccines can be evaluated for prophylactic and therapeutic efficacy and whereby information can be obtained that can be applied eventually to the development of vaccines for use in man [emphasis added].15


Finally, Hilleman acknowledged the use of simian cancer viruses, two of which were herpes viruses-herpesvirus saimiri "recovered from kidneys of squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus) and herpesvirus ateles isolated from kidney culture of a black spider monkey (Ateles geoffroyi)"-known to "cause lymphoma or reticulum cell tumor and leukemia" when injected into other monkey species. "These viruses," Hilleman wrote, "present excellent models for studies for immunologic interruption of cancer in primate species using live, killed, or subunit viral vaccines. They are of special importance because of their possible use in elucidating the interactions among Epstein-Barr virus, Burkitt's lymphoma, and nasopharyngeal carcinoma in man."15

Now I better understood what Nixon's "war on cancer," and the "cancer virus hypothesis" was really about-the search for the virus and vaccine. I also realized why the generals on the battlefield-Gallo at the NCI, Hilleman at Merck, and Don Francis at the CDC-were fooling around with leukemic cats and simian monkeys. These models they claimed might provide the most powerful weapons against human immune-system-destroying germs.

Tribute to Don Francis

Attempting to investigate Strecker's claim that Drs. Gallo, Francis, and Montagnier were long-time workmates at the NCI, I sought Francis's biography in American Men & Women of Science. 17 In a nutshell, here's what I learned:

Donald Pinkston Francis was born in Los Angeles, California, on October 24, 1942. He married in 1976 and had two children. Educated at Northwestern University, he received his M. D. degree in 1968, and then an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Harvard in 1979. His specialty was noted as "medical epidemiology and virology." From 1978 to the time ofthis writing he served as chief of the epidemiology branch at the Hepatitis Labs Division of the CDC.

Francis's professional experience included service as an International Fellow in the Children's Bureau of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in Punjab, India, in 1968; internship and residency in pediatrics at the Los Angeles County, University of Southern California Medical Center, 1969-1971; USAID service as a state epidemiologist in infectious disease in Rivers State, Nigeria, in 1971; American epidemiologic intelligence service officer for the CDC, 1971-1973; and medical officer for the World Health Organization's smallpox vaccine program in the Sudan -- which abuts the northern border of Zaire and Uganda -- the "Hot Zone" wherein the AIDS, Ebola Zaire, and Ebola Sudan viruses allegedly jumped species three years after Francis's tour of the Sudan ended.18 He then went to India from 1973 to 1975. And, finally, he received an infectious disease fellowship at the Channing Lab at Harvard Medical School from 1975 to 1977.

He currently holds a position at my alma mater, Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), which he began as Fellow in Microbiology in 1976. His mailing address was listed as the Division of Oral Diseases, CDC, Atlanta, GA 30333.17

I found nothing to indicate Francis and Gallo shared common workplaces in the early 1970s although Francis received several grants from the NCI during that time. He also shared with Gallo several acquaintances, including Max Essex at the HSPH Department of Microbiology, with whom he co-authored many feline leukemia virus reports. 19 Consistent with Strecker's allegation of collusion, however, it's hard to imagine this most esteemed group of American type-C RNA retrovirologists were unaware of each other's studies and findings during this important time in cancer virus research.

Given his unique early 1970s cat leukemia virus research, hepatitis B virus studies, medical intelligence background, and Third World service record, the fact that Francis noted the laundry list of cat leukemia/sarcoma virus symptoms among gay men and intravenous drug users in the early days of the AIDS epidemic made me question his knowledge and service record even more.

"Combine these two diseases," Francis said to a gathering· of colleagues, "feline leukemia and hepatitis, and you have the immune deficiency." 20

Surely Francis knew what Hilleman had clearly explained. He would have known that Gallo had taken monkey viruses, extracted their humanly benign DNA, infused their empty viral shells with cat leukemia/sarcoma RNA, and then cultured the genetically engineered mutants in human WBCs to allow them to cross the species barrierYThe COC's hepatitis chief might have had an inkling that this new retrovirus he suspected of causing GRID might have come from Gallo's or Hilleman's labs, or another NCI research group that manipulated viruses in this way,particularly since he, Gallo, and Essex presented their cat retrovirus research at the same session of a 1980 Cold Spring Harbor conference in which cat leukemia and sarcoma virus mutations, cloning, and cross-species transmissions were discussed.22

If Shiltz were alive, he might now realize an alternative reason why Francis was particularly "incredulous" that the NCI had successfully stalled the AIDS research effort. 20 Could their stalling have provided time to organize and administer an effective disinformation campaign? Surely, Francis knew more than he was saying.

Francis in Ebola Territory

I also found it interesting that Francis directed the emergency response team sent by the WHO to control the outbreak of the dreaded Ebola virus. Shilts chronicled this activity well:

The horrible fever had swept seemingly from nowhere into the border region between Zaire and Sudan, on the fetid banks of the Ebola River. The disease was a blood-borne virus, wickedly spreading both through sexual intercourse, because infected lymphocytes were in victims' semen, and through the sharing of needles in local bush hospitals. The absence of modem precautions to protect doctors also spread the blood-borne disease among medical personnel through routes unimaginable in more civilized countries.

During this 1976 outbreak, local Danish doctors in the remote hospitals in Zaire, people like Ib Bygbjerg and Grethe Rask, were impressed with the vigor with which the team from the World Health Organil.ation (WHO) had moved to stamp out this deadly disease that became known as Ebola Fever. When it became obvious that the disease was spreading through autopsies and ritual contact with corpses during the funerary process, Dr. Don Francis, on loan to the World Health Organization from the CDC, had simply banned local rituals and unceremoniously burned the corpses. Infected survivors were removed from the community and quarantined until it was clear that they could no longer spread the fever. Within weeks, the disease disappeared as mysteriously as it had come .... 23


Six years later, on January 6, 1982, Francis "could not escape the memories of the horrible Ebola Fever outbreak," wrote Shilts. His recollections became more acute when he received "a phone call from Dr. Guy de The in Pans, another veteran of African epidemics."23

Dr. de The had studied the latest data from Africa. The common cases of benign Kaposi's sarcoma were not in question. Typically, Kaposi's sarcoma in African males responded to treatment. Francis, however:

had already heard of the new, more virulent KS that had been reported first in Uganda in 1972. But there was more, de The said. In the western Nile district of Uganda, young men living together were getting not only the typical, easygoing Kaposi's sarcoma, but the nasty kind, like that tearing through the bodies of American homosexuals. These Africans also suffered from the lymphadenopathy that marked the early stages of the American disease, de The said. There had to be some connection. [emphasis added]

Of course, Francis thought. A new virus from Africa. It was where Bob Gallo at the National Cancer Institute figured his new retrovirus for Human T-cell Leukemia came from too. After all, HTL V only struck in the portions of Japan settled by Portuguese traders, who apparently had brought the microbe with them from Africa some 500 years ago. The African links reinforced Francis's hypothesis about a transmissible agent ... [but] The National Cancer Institute didn't seem terribly interested in the disease.23


Come on Shilts, I respectfully implored the deceased journalist, you were a lot smarter than that. Why would it have taken 500 years for an African virus to express itself in Japan while everywhere else in the world it reared its ugly head in less than a decade 90 percent of the time? Had Gallo figured his new retrovirus came from Africa because that's where the experiments were taking place in the race to create special cancer viruses and vaccines? A race in which he, Francis, and Hilleman were major contestants; a race to create dozens of leukemia/sarcoma RNA retroviruses for vaccine tests in black Africans in the "Nile district" of Northwest Uganda, and American homosexuals in New York City?

Finally, I found it interesting that following a successful stint in Nigeria as a USAID infectious disease researcher and a couple of years in Sudan on behalf of the CDC and WHO as a smallpox vaccination program officer, Francis was assigned a principal role in the gay male hepatitis B vaccine study funded by the CDC and Merck, Sharp & Dohme.24

Notes on Duesberg

As I was searching the literature, another prominent name in AIDS research circles kept appearing -- Peter Duesberg. As detailed in Deadly Innocence 25and elsewhere,26 Duesberg is regarded as an esteemed American scientist, a member of the NAS, and is credited for having initially mapped the genetic structure of retroviruses. Unlike most AIDS scientists, however, Duesberg has, since the mid-1980s, argued that AIDS is completely atypical of an infectious disease and not likely caused by the retrovirus Gallo and Montagnier identified.

How is this possible? I questioned during the Deadly Innocence investigation.

To be an infectious disease, traditionally, scientists had to prove a cause-effect relationship between the suspected germ and the symptoms it is alleged to cause when the germ spreads to other hosts. As Strecker alluded, these standards, known as "Koch's postulates," are based on three tests.

First, the suspected germ must be found in everyone with the disease. Not all people with AIDS test positive for HIV infection. These patients would now likely be diagnosed as having Idiopathic Lymphocyteopaenia (ILC) -- a disease in which WBCs spontaneously disappear for no apparent reason.

Second, the germ should not be present in individuals without the illness. Yet, of the estimated I million Americans who are believed to be HIV carriers, three-quarters have not developed AIDS. Furthermore, in a recent CBS News report, scientists noted that 8 percent of those who carry HIV antibodies have remained symptomless for more than a decade, suggesting that they may be carrying a weaker strain, or doing something special to prolong their health. Positive thinking, exercise, and good nutrition may be part of that special something.26

Third, researchers should be able to reproduce the illness in laboratory animals using isolated germ cultures. Duesberg argued that, with AIDS, this has proved difficult.

In the August 5, 1992, issue of In These Times, health writer Benjamin Goldman and AIDS journalist Michael Chappelle reported that defenders of the HIV hypothesis simply rejected Koch's postulates as being outdated. They stated that Harold Jaffe, the senior AIDS/HIV investigator at the CDC, and Robin Weiss, a British AIDS researcher, argued:

What seems bizarre is that anyone should demand strict adherence to these unreconstructed postulates 100 years after their proposition.26


Reporters Goldman and Chappelle, however, noted the advice of Nobel Laureate Walter Gilbert of Harvard University:

"Someone scientifically trained would not make that statement. Koch's postulates are an attempt at rigorous proof. If you cannot fulfill Koch's postulates, you've got a problem. You can deal with that either with hard thinking or with soft thinking. If you can block the virus and thus block the disease, that would constitute hard evidence that you were right." But in the absence of a successful treatment, Gilbert characterizes the attempt to dismiss Koch's postulates and fall back on incomplete epidemiological statistics as "soft-minded."26


I questioned, might Koch's postulates -- the scientific test to prove etiology of naturally occurring infectious diseases -- be outdated and dismissed only because they don't hold for unnatural man-made infectious diseases?

Fig. 8.3. NIH Progress Report On Testing Mutant RNA Sarcoma and Leukemia Tumor Viruses at the Univ. of Calif. By Duesberg and Others, 1971

CALIFORNIA, UNIVERSITY OF (NIH 71-2173)

Title: Studies on the Structure and Replication of Viruses and Mechanism of Regulation

Contractor's Project Directors: Dr. Howard K. Schachman, Dr. Peter Duesberg

Project Officers (NCI): Dr. Robert J. Huebner, Dr. James T. Duff

Objectives: Research on the structure of viruses includes studies on the type spec1f1c antigens, nucleo1d structure and viral subunits of RN.Atumor viruses, and the nucleic acids of various mutant viruses such as the radiation or chemically induced variants of Rous virus. Research on the replication of RNA tumor viruses includes stud1es on the RNA-dependent DNA polymerase and other enzymes of these viruses, and the analysis of temperature sensitive mutants of Rous sarcoma virus. Research on the mechanisms of regulation include transcr1pti0nal control by a satellite virus and factors controlling the growth of mammalian cells in culture.

Major Findings: This is a new contract and major findings have not been reported.

Significance to Biomedical Research and the Program of the Institute: These studies may prov1de important insight into the mechanism by which RNA tumor viruses bring about malignant transformation, and perhaps will lead to significant advances in the understanding of the causation and control of human neoplastic disease.

Date Contract Initiated: June 1971

NIH progress report shows Dr. Peter Duesberg, at the University of California (UC), in 1971, directed studies which paralleled Dr. Gallo's at the NCI. Duesberg intended to explain "the mechanism by which RNA tumor viruses bring about malignant" changes in humans. Mutant sarcoma viruses were used for this purpose following studies inoculating cows and monkeys with simian sarcoma and leukemia viruses by Leo 8ustad and Robert Huebner at UC and the NCI. This evidence, along with a conference discussion, raises serious questions regarding Dr. Duesberg's more recent publications asserting HIV cannot cause AIDS. Source: NCI staff. The Special Virus Cancer Program: Progress Reports #8 and #9 Office of the Associate Scientific Director for Viral Oncology (OASDVO). J. 8. Moloney, Ed., Washington, D. C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1971, p. 233.


In any case, Duesberg has argued for more than a decade that you can find HIV in any burned-out, drugged-out, and sexed-out individual. He has consistently "blamed the victims" of AIDS for living unhealthy lives. His arguments are difficult to dispute since physicians and scientists have known for years that strong host resistance is a key factor in determining whether or not an infectious germ can take root, grow, and ultimately overwhelm the immune system. Moreover, he has claimed that HIV is very difficult to spread -- which it is. With rare exception, it generally requires larger doses of viruses in more healthy individuals to claim lives. So nothing Duesberg has said is new.
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Re:  EMERGING VIRUSES: AIDS & EBOLA: Nature, Accident or Int

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Part 2 of 2

In fact, Duesberg's position is exactly that held by prominent NCI and NIH researchers from the beginning of the epidemic. As Shilts wrote, it is "incredulous" that "the National Cancer Institute [in 1982] was still fiddling around with half-baked theories that GRID was caused by poppers or sperm. But those were the presentations the NIH researchers made at the conferences. None of them was talking about what Francis thought was the most obvious cause, a new viral agent."24

The fact is that Duesberg -- like Gallo, Montagnier, Francis, Hilleman, and a few others -- had been part of a core group of investigators funded by the NCI to study "special" viruses and their links to cancer. 27

In 1971, for instance, Duesberg became a "project director" for the University of California's contract (NIH 71-2173; see fig. 8.3) to study the mechanisms regulating mutant RNA tumor virus reproduction and sarcoma development; the RNA-dependent DNA polymerase related effects Gallo and his teams studied. This work followed sarcoma and leukemia virus studies on monkeys and cows, also conducted at the University of California with NCI funding. 27

The same year, during a meeting in Paris attended by Gallo and Montagnier, Duesberg presented evidence that RNA leukemia and sarcoma viruses can be manipulated and observed to produce the "provirus DNA" needed to successfully reproduce in nature and cel! cultures.28 Earlier, Duesberg evaluated the effects of chemotherapy (using the antibiotic Actinomycin- D) on mouse leukemia viruses (MLV).29 Later, he examined leukemia and sarcoma viruses to show how mutants of varying oncogenicity are formed.30

Most pertinent to Duesberg's main argument -- HTLV-III does not cause the immune deficiency and cancers seen in AIDS, Duesberg and Gallo, in 1973, debated essentially the same question: Can "special" type C-RNA tumor viruses, such as those captured from monkeys and modified for human experiments, cause cancers? Duesberg answered affirmatively, "That is absolutely right."31

The discussion occurred following Gallo's presentation, "On the Origin of Human Acute Myeloblastic Leukemia: The Virus- 'Hot Spot' Hypothesis." Gallo was joined by Dr. Wu, who presented two related papers as an emissary of Litton Bionetics.32

During the session's open discussion, Gallo questioned whether the genetic "Hot Spot" that caused cells to become cancerous was responding to an external or internal virus-like particle:

GALLO: Are there viral (type-C RNA tumor virus) genes in some normal cells? Everyone by now must believe that there are some virogenes in at least some normal cells. I would like to know where they came from -- or which came first -- are these virogenes in fact really cell genes which the virus utilizes') Duesberg should speculate on this.

DUESBERG: That's too much for me. That's like all theories on the origin of life: Where do whales come from, where does God come from, where does a 'clean chicken' come from? Butl would like to return a question to you, maybe somewhat related to that. I think we can at least divide those viruses which cause cancer and those which are subvirus-like things which may be a consequence of cancer. I think that those which are causing cancer may be like the men and the other more or less like the boys. So I think that shouldn't be confused too much. I think these subviral particles or endogenous viruses or incomplete endogenous viruses or enzymes might in fact well he a consequence of cancer rather than its cause. But I think there is little doubt that Rous SV [mouse sarcoma virus] or AMV [bird virus] can be the eause of cancer."

GALLO: I kind of agree with that, at least they cause chicken cancer, I think the information for carcinogenesis may be packaged into only very special type-C RNA tumor viruses. But I wouldn 'I even make those viruses that you call boys any less important because boys can become men. Moreover, we have now demonstrated that the reverse transcriptase in human leukemic cells and the viral related nucleic acid is related not to endogenous non-oncogenic type-C viruses, but specifically to type C viruses which in fact are oncogenic such as the woolly monkey simian sarcoma virus.

DUESBERG: That is absolutely right.... [Emphasis added] 31


In essence, Gallo stated, and Duesberg acknowledged, that only "very special" retroviruses could be expected to produce AIDS-like immunosuppression and cancers, as this had already been proven in monkeys and other animals. In fact, AIDS-like viruses, they agreed, caused cancers in chickens and monkeys before they were clearly modified to infect humans.

In contrast, since the publication of his objections to the HIV=AIDS paradigm in 1988, Duesberg has diverted public attention from the facts by arguing that HIY is insufficient to cause AIDS." Like counterintelligence propaganda that presents mostly truth, what he doesn't tell is most revealing.

Duesberg argues correctly that unhealthy lifestyles and abused drugs -- including the commonly used AIDS drugs AZT, ddi, ddc, 3TC, and protease inhibitors -- cause toxic side effects that reduce immune system strength. What he and his followers fail to discuss, however, is their knowledge that the so called "neutralizing antibody" response to HIV infection, allegedly protective, may in fact be part of an autoimmune response to virus/ host protein-complex formation.33 In other words, as the virus contacts, then attaches to host proteins (antibodies included) these antigenic complexes can trigger additional antibody responses, autoimmune diseases, and infectious disease susceptibilities. 33

Thus, in light of Duesberg's documented ties to the NAS and NCI, at the exact time the NAS informed the DOD that AIDS-like viruses could be developed in five years for $10 million, his earlier admission, and his incomplete message, I wondered whether the professor intended to provide a disinformation smokescreen for these organizations? Consistent with Hegel's approach to counterintelligence propaganda, Gallo's HIV=AIDS thesis, coupled with Duesberg's HIV [does not equal] AIDS antithesis, caused "synthesis" -- mass confusion.

Earliest AIDS Cases

One important consideration remained before the basic premise of manmade HIV development could be reconciled. The literature held several accounts of alleged AIDS cases and HIV discoveries predating the work of Gallo, Hilleman, Duesberg, et aI., that is, prior to the 1960s or early 1970s.

A literature search conducted to investigate such claims revealed several interesting discoveries.

I first read a series of reports published in The Lancet regarding the earliest alleged AIDS case -- a "25-year-old former naval seaman" who died of cytomegalovirus and pneumocystis infections in 1959.34 The claim was made by University of Manchester researcher Gerald Corbitt and coworkers. Having meticulously extracted the seaman's tissues from paraffin blocks initially developed to make autopsy slides, DNA amplification methods were used to "search for very small quantities of HIV proviral DNA in target cells." The group found the suspected particles in several of the recaptured tissues, and the news media broadly heralded the event.

Several years later, Drs. David Ho and Tuofu Zhu of the Aaron Diamond Research Center in New York reexamined Corbitt's tissues in an effort to investigate the theory that HIV evolved somehow from tainted poliovaccines during the 1950s. Ho and Zhu determined that the DNA sequences found by Corbitt and his colleagues were essentially identical to a strain of HIV circulating in the United States during the late 1980s. This raised "the spectre of specimen contamination."35

This contamination, the evidence showed, "was more likely to be [caused] by another clinical specimen" than by improper DNA probing techniques. And when additional methods were used to learn more, the New York researchers concluded that the tissues examined were "derived from at least two individuals."

Thus, the Corbitt group's finding was invalidated.

Corbitt, allegedly mystified by what Steve Connor of London's daily The Independent called a calculated hoax or mammoth error, later requested the material be reexamined by a third party.36,37

HIV in Zaire in 1959?

Another study supported by grants obtained by Robert GaUo's and Don Francis's coUeague Max Essex and his Harvard associate P. Kanki, alleged to have found one HTLV-III (HIV)-positive plasma specimen among 1213 from central Africa dating back to 1959.38 Much ado accompanied this find especially since it was said to have come from Zaire. Essex's group also reported that the presence of HIV in the sample had been confirmed by three other laboratories using "different techniques." According to the scientific consensus, however, an independent confirmatory test was never done.39

The "three other laboratories" that Essex alleged checked his group's work, may not have been impartial. These included: Gallo's lab in Bethesda, Dr. C. Schable's lab at the CDC, and Abbott Laboratories.38

Abbott Labs are best known for having licensed and produced: the ELISA screening test for HIV This test had also been used by Saxinger, Gallo, and others who claimed 60 percent of Ugandan children were infected with HIV by the early 1970s.40 This report was later debunked by several research groups that noted the esteemed NCI researchers had failed to use HIV specific testing methods or materials.41-44

Abbott also licensed and marketed the hepatitis core antigen test purchased by New York City Blood Center officials, following years of delay, and before the ELISA test was available, to help identify blood units suspected of HIV infection. The company had also supplied expertise and the radioactive experimental reagents Szmuness required for his NewYork homosexual hepatitis B vaccine trial. Furthermore, Abbott Labs ended up commerciaUy marketing MSDs hepatitis B vaccine.45, 46, 47

Moreover, the hepatitis B vaccines suspected of having transmitted HIV to American homosexuals, was researched by Abbott's L. R. Overby who was intimately connected to NYUMC hepatitis B chief Saul Krugman. Together, they evaluated hepatitis B susceptibility and vaccination methods in the New York subjects during the mid-1970s. 48

As it turned out, additional confirmatory studies could not be carried out by independent investigators as the specimens containing the "Leopoldville strain" HIV had been lost by the Essex team.39

AIDS Case in 1968?

In 1984, researchers published evidence that "Robert R.," a fifteen-year-old, black, male, heterosexual, born and reared in St. Louis, had died of AIDS-like illnesses.49 Later, in 1987, scientists provided evidence that the boy's blood contained antibodies to HIV. 50

"If a virus related to HIV," they concluded, "has been present in the United States, Africa, or elsewhere for several decades, its failure to spread in an epidemic fashion earlier may reflect a recent genetic change in the virus and/or sociocultural factors involving sexual practices or numbers of sexual partners."50

By 1990, advanced gene analysis techniques allowed scientists to reexamine this case, at which time they determined that "Robert R." had not died of AIDS. His blood never contained HIV. 39

This evidence and more led the consensus of international AIDS researchers to conclude that some radical event between 1970 and 1975 had changed the HIV-I progenitor from a virtually harmless germ, essentially noninfectious to humans, to a silent killer.

Dr. Gerald Myers, chief of the special HIV Sequence Database AIDS Project of the U.S. Government's Los Alamos National Laboratory, may have articulated this position best when he said "the preponderance of evidence still argues for an explosive event in the mid-1970s." Furthermore, regarding the origin of AIDS, he insisted HIV-I was a fairly new virus, surely only a few decades young.39

Alternatively, Ho and other virologists proposed that HIV-I may have been ancient, but the mass of epidemiological evidence indicates a dramatic change occurred in the 1970s, most likely due to human events more than biological ones in the natural evolution of the virus.39

What might those human events have been?

Obviously, they would have needed to take place simultaneously in North America and Africa. An iatrogenic event, involving vaccines being tested on both continents on monkeys and people offers the most plausible, and in fact only, explanation being advanced.39

Polio Vaccine Theory of AIDS

Chief among these theories, I learned, is the polio vaccine theory. A fascinating article entitled "Simian retroviruses, polio vaccine, and origins of AIDS" by Walter Kyle sparked a flurry of debate in The Lancet.51 Kyle, a New Hampshire attorney who represented a client who had become paralyzed, apparently from contacting someone who had received the poliovaccine, raised a number of concerns. Chief among them was the fact that live SV40, the simian virus that Gallo, Koprowski, and many others had manipulated for "cancer research," had been known by government officials and vaccine manufacturers to contaminate "all Salk inactivated vaccine" as well as "Sabin's original seed strains." Max Essex and his colleagues, Kyle noted, "reported that the African green monkey, the species used in the production of most live poliovaccine in the U.S., was a reservoir of SIV." 52

Presumably the regulatory authorities concluded that the presence of any such monkey virus would not affect man because there would be no transfer from the digestive tract to the lymph and blood systems and because there was no reason to suspect inter-species transfer. At that time this must have seemed correct, otherwise there would surely have been an outbreak in the child recipients of the vaccine.


Thus, government and industry standards overlooked SV40 and SIV vaccine contaminants in the range of 100 viruses per dose.

Kyle then explained that during the mid-l 970s, homosexual men in the U.S. were prescribed SIV tainted poliovaccines in efforts to treat their herpes infections. Indeed Kyle's theory was so plausible that researchers around the world, including some ordered by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), began testing suspected vaccine lots for type-C RNA tumor viruses.

Kyle concluded:

My hypothesis that the virus particles found in those vaccine lots were HIV (or some variant) can be tested by analyzing stored samples by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Reverse transcriptase analyses of released vaccine have shown up positive for such simian viruses up to 1985, and a critical look should now be taken at all such vaccines. If US govemment laboratories have already done PCR tests on stored samples of the incriminated lots of poliovaccine which remain, the results should be made public. 51


Several rebuttals to Kyle's controversial report were subsequently published. Some investigators expressed the opinion that "the origin of AIDS is unimportant," and that research time and money might be better spent finding a cure. This led Raphael Stricker and Blaine Elswood, two California scientists, to respond that Kyle's work, though "hardly surprising," was very important for three reasons:

the sociological reason is that victims of the disease should not be blamed for starting it; the scientific reason is that new therapies for AIDS could be developed from an understanding of its origin; and the ethical reason is that the sequence of events culminating in AIDS should never be allowed to happen again. 53


Kyle's theory also brought praise and criticism from Thomas F. Schulz of London's Institute of Cancer Research. It was "legitimate to ask whether one advance in medicine, such as the highly successful vaccines against poliomyelitis, might not inadvertently have given rise to another catastrophe, AIDS," he wrote. However, there were reasons why Kyle's theory was questionable. Foremost among these was Schultz's concern that African green monkey immunodeficiency viruses (SIV-agm) are "not C-type viruses." They differ significantly from my. So much so, Schultz argued, that they would not be suspected of causing human AIDS even though they had contaminated the poliovaccine lots.54

What Schultz and The Lancet omitted, however, was the fact that "initial reports of the discovery of HIV and SIV classified them as type-C viruses," Kyle relayed during a telephone interview. 55"Although now called lentiviruses, they go through a stage of type-C morphogenesis during replication and look similar to the type-C viruses."

Additional support for Kyle's theory came in the Journal a/Virology. "RNA viruses in general, and lentiviruses, in particular, undergo extensive genetic variation as a result of error-prone replication and recombination such that they are considered to exist as 'quasispecies,''' that is, a population of relatives with similar genes.56 One researcher noted "the exceptional ability of HIV-l to mutate results in rapid development of quasispecies which evade host defenses and become resistant to various antiviral" agents. 57

Further supporting Kyle, and relating to Gallo's early work in the development of AIDS-like viruses, researchers later observed that HIV undergoes "type-C morphogenesis .... Although not classified as type-C viruses, lentiviruses follow a similar assembly strategy, by which capsid [shell] formation and budding [of the virus from the infected cell] occur simultaneously."5B SV40's shell, likewise, is called a "capsid," I recalled. Perhaps not coincidentally, then, during the metamorphosis of HIV, researchers found "a reproducible peak of viral protein in the fraction corresponding to a density of approximately 1.15 to 1.16g/ml ... in gradients of gag HIV," that is, the gene that codes for the inner shell, capsid-like structure, of the AIDS virus.58

The number "1.16" jogged my memory. Gallo reported it also, but in 1973, after repeatedly recovering the same density "virus-like particle" from human leukemic cells that was capable of producing the principal rapidly growing cancers seen in AIDS including sarcomas, leukemias, and carcinomas (see page 75).59 The FDA's Bureau of Biologics, as Kyle noted in The Lancet, also found a similar characteristic in the "adventitious virus" found in some live polio vaccine approved by the FDA and released in 1977.51

Could the SV40 capsid have become the "inner shell" of a more complex retrovirus following recombination with SFV, FELV, chicken leukemia and perhaps other viruses? The scientific evidence was mounting.

Furthermore, Shultz explained the differences between HIV-1, HIV-2, and SIV agm, and made a very important observation -- HIV-2 is virtually agm, identical to a monkey virus found only in captive macaques.

The closest primate relative of HIV-l is a lenti virus isolated from chimpanzees (SIV-cpz) and the closest relative of HIV-2 found in free living monkeys is SIV, from sootey mangabeys. Both HIV-2 and SIV-sm are closely related to SIV-mac from macaques (a virus found only in captive macaques and one which may have been transmitted to this species in captivity) .... All this means that ... it is uncertain whether the viral particles observed by electronmicroscopy and reverse transcriptase assays [as Kyle reported in certain poliovaccine lots] were indeed SIV-agm. They may have represented endogenous retroviruses (retroviral genomes carried in germline for millions of years and activated and packaged into virion particles under the conditions of tissue culture)." [emphasis added]


In other words, the vaccines may have been tainted with monkey virus genes that for millions of years posed no threat to humans, but had acquired HIV-like capabilities, including the capacity to produce AIDS in humans, while being accidentally or intentionally altered in laboratories during human tissue culture processing.

Therefore, Schulz agreed, that it was important to "take up Kyle's suggestion and examine any remaining vaccine lots by the polymerase chain reaction" that might identify HIV or related lentiviruses.

Significantly, Kyle observes a more recent Ho et al. report that HIV-2 primarily appears in the wild in sexually active adult sooty mangabeys, not in immature monkeys, a fact which additionally discredits the evolutionary origin of AIDS theory.55,60

Finally, Schulz commented on the Elswood-Stricker theory that "certain live poliovirus vaccine lots dispensed in Zaire in 1957 to 1960 and prepared on African green monkey kidney cell cultures could have been inadvertently infected with a monkey lentivirus hypothesized to represent the ancestor of HIV-I." While this theory was compatible with the idea that the AIDS epidemic began in Africa, Schulz reiterated his belief that the AIDS agent could not have been SIV-agm. Suspecting, however, a related agm hybrid or intermediary might have given rise to HIV-1 during vaccine manufacture, he wrote, "it would be of scientific and practical interest to identify the retroviral particles present in some of the poliovirus vaccine lots."54

The same might be said for the hepatitis B vaccine lots used on New York's gay men I realized.

Max Essex, HIV-2, and the Origin of HIV-1

Perhaps not coincidentally, then, the discovery of monkey AIDS viruses dated back to the earliest days of the recognized human epidemic. According to Laurie Garrett's text, The Coming Plague, in 1969, researchers at the California Primate Research Center in Davis witnessed the first outbreak of AIDS-like symptoms among forty-two macaques. The monkeys suffered severe T-cell immune system depression, lymphomas, Kaposi's-like skin patches, and a host of opportunistic infections. Two similar outbreaks occurred in 1976 and 1978 in the same facility.39

Next, Garrett chronicled another French-American AIDS fracas, this time between Luc Montagnier and Max Essex regarding HIV-2 (initially dubbed HTLV-IV by Essex's group and LAV-II by the French).39

Essex and colleagues alleged discovering this virus among healthy Senegalese female prostitutes.61 They reported the women's immune response to HTLV-IV and SIV-agm were equally strong. Essex claimed this fmd was "the missing link" to HIV-l since it was very similar to the monkey virus, and humanly benign.62

Eventually, Gallo published a detailed genetic analysis of SIVmac and HTLV-IV that indicated these viruses were identical. Presumably, Gallo's group argued, Essex's laboratory had been contaminated. Monkey and human tissues were somehow mixed.63

Yet, how could SlV-mac and HTLV-IV/HIV-2 -- identical new retroviruses, determined to be laboratory contaminants by Schulz, Gallo, and others, with roots in the monkey virus kingdom-be infecting Senegalese women and not macaques in the wild? The laboratory was the only common denominator, I realized. For HIV-2 to infect Senegalese women and only humans in the wild, not monkeys, the carriers would have needed to be exposed iatrogenically, that is, by the hand of man. Vaccines were the most plausible way. Particularly since SIV-agm, a documented vaccine contaminant, was also present in these women.51,54

Later, during the 1996 National AIDS Update Conference, held in San Francisco, I had the opportunity to ask Max Essex, during his press conference, how, other than through vaccines, could HIV-2, a laboratory monkey virus contaminant not found in monkeys in the wild, have gotten into his Senegalese subjects?

After beating around the bush for several minutes unwilling to answer the question directly, he defended, "I can tell you how my monkeys got infected .... Researchers had inoculated the monkeys with human tissues during experiments [unrelated to HIV] prior to them coming to my lab."

Though Essex's comment failed to explain just how HlV-] and HIV-2 got into black Africans and gay Americans in the first place, it did provide an insider's view of human error commonly associated with laboratory contamination, including the threat of viral contaminants being spread from humans to monkeys and back again.

Indeed, the laboratory was the only common denominator, I realized, and experimental vaccines were the most likely transmitter.

The "Big Bang" Theory

Various researchers determined that HIV-2 preceded HIV-I's evolution. As family trees were constructed for these and related viruses based on archeoepidemiology, or what others called molecular epidemiology, scientists concluded the two HIVs shared a recent common ancestor -- SlV (or SIV-agm).39

Fig. 8.4. The Evolution of AIDS-like Viruses Based on Gene Typing and Molecular Epidemiology Theory as Presented By Dr. Gerald Myers

Image
Chief of the special HIV Sequence Database AIDS Project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Myers stated "the preponderance of evidence still argues for an explosive event in the mid-1970s." Regarding the origin of AIDS, he insisted, HIV-1 evolved fairly recently from SIV-agm. SV40, the monkey virus Gallo and Bionetics researchers genetically altered in a series of steps and then cultured in human WBCs to alter its outer membrane characteristics, may have been a building block for HIV-2 and HIV-1. Additional evidence suggests that SIV-agm. may have been man-made as well. Source: See chapter 6, and Myers. G, MacInnes K, and Myers L. "Phenogenetic Moments in the AIDS Epidemic," Chapter 12 in S. S. Morse, ed., Emerging Viruses (Oxford, Eng.: Oxford University Press, 1993).

During the 1990s it was discovered that: (1) HIV-I and HIV-2 were about 43 percent homologous or similar; (2) SIV-agm and HIV-1 were also about 43 percent alike; (3) SIV-agm and HIV-2/SIV-mac were genetically 72 percent alike; and (4) SIV-agm and SIV-mac envelopes were 91.4 percent homologous. 39

I considered this information along with the phylogenetic tree developed by Gerald Myers (see fig. 8.4),64 and realized that Myers's mid-1970s "Big Bang" theory coincided with: (I1 the completion of efforts on behalf of the DOD to create AIDS-like viruses for biological warfare; and (2), the work of Gallo and Litton Bionetics researchers as diagramed in figure 6.5.

Fig. 8.5. Iatrogenic Theory on the Evolution of HIV-1 and HIV-2

Image
A new theory on the origin of the HIVs from simian virus progenitors modified through laboratory experiments. Diagram shows the HIVs and SIVs most likely evolved from the "type-C" cancer viruses that were genetically altered and then cultured or inoculated into human tissues during cancer virus and vaccine studies conducted by NCI researchers during the late 1960s and early 1970s. These studies were notlim~ed to monkeys, cats, and chickens. Cow, sheep, horse, rodent, and human viruses were also hybridized and likely contaminated laboratory cell cultures and experimental vaccines. This theory best explains how HIV-2/SIV-mac, a simian virus found only in laboratory and not wild monkeys, was found by Max Essex in Senegalese female prostitutes.

I wondered whether a similar series of SIV cancer virus vaccine experi- agm ments might have resulted in the mutations and phylogenetic variations consis- tent with all the findings above, including those reported by Schulz and Kyle regarding the possible iatrogenic origin of HIV-2/SIV-mac, HIV-1, and AIDS.

I realized that by genetically altering monkey viruses, and monkey virus vaccine contaminants, as many researchers, including Gallo and those at Bionetics, had done prior to culturing them in human tissues, they might have created AIDS virus progenitors like SIV, HIV-2, and others to which Schulz and Kyle were referring.

Putting all the facts together, I now understood how humanly benign DNA monkey viruses, like SV40, SIV-agm, and other common retrovirus vaccine contaminants like SFV, could have, over the period of a few decades, become RNA retroviruses that, through contaminated vaccines, spread to millions of people around the world.

SV40 may have been a building block for SIV-agm, which was 72 percent identical to HIV-2, and 43 percent like HIV-1. The highly unstable monkey retrovirus SFV, or other possible contaminants, including the leukemia, sarcoma, and immunodeficiency mutants Gallo and others put together, could have easily recombined with SV 40, SIV-agm, or SFV. Together, they might have undergone the laboratory transformations, and vaccine transmissions, resulting in the AIDS pandemic today.

In late 1995, Bill Narayan, a Kansas Medical Center virologist reported a similar transformation in reverse -- making SIV, that can cause monkey AIDS, from HIV-1. He used a hybrid of SIV and HIV-1 that contained "the core of the monkey virus and the outer coating of the human virus. This hybrid was supplied by Max Essex's group at Harvard. Narayan's study, funded by "the philanthropic foundation of Hoechst Marian Roussel, Inc., formerly known as Marian Merrell Dow Inc.," was heralded as important for developing a new vaccine against AIDS. The study was later awarded a $1.6 million grant from the NIH.65

Indeed, the iatrogenic origin theory of AIDS, the synthetic development of HIV-1, HIV-2, and a host of other killer viruses, seemed most plausible (see fig. 8.5 and discussion in Chapter 6).

After digesting all the facts, I concluded that claims of HIV's existence prior to the 1970s had to be seriously questioned, and those who made them, particularly Gallo and Essex, appeared to have on several occasions incriminated themselves.

Up to my neck in this world of cancer research, scientific misconduct, and counterintelligence, it seemed very hard to distinguish incompetence from duplicity.
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Chapter 9: Early Targeting of Minority America

I returned home from Boston later that evening and gave Jackie an overview of my findings. After digesting the recap, including the scoop on Francis and Duesberg, she asked a question that seemed to come from left field.

"Let's think about this for a minute," she adjured. "What was happening politically around the time cancer viruses first came in vogue? Who was in power?" Jackie, reared in Canada knew little about the politically volatile I960s and early 1970s.

After a few seconds of considering the question, I replied "The '60s and early '70s were a political nightmare. President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. The cold war and Vietnam was heating up, and the use of nuclear weapons was on everyone's minds, particularly those at the Defense Department."

"Do you think Kennedy's assassination had something to do with the CIA?" she asked.

"A lot of conspiracy buffs think so. Why? What are you getting at?"

"Military science doesn't evolve in a vacuum. Nor do global epidemics. You remember the famous French microbiologist Rene Dubos? He considered the powerful influence social and environmental factors wielded on every epidemic. He concluded, "The germ is nothing; the terrain is everything."1 The world's greatest epidemics have always been preceded by great social/political upheaval. I just want to know who was behind the orders to develop AIDS-like viruses, why, and what was happening politically at the time."

With those questions in mind, the next day, we went to our local library and borrowed several books that provided additional insights into the dark forces at work during Camelot's demise. Soon thereafter, Jackie questioned whether the CIA's alleged involvement in the Kennedy and King assassinations might be linked to the targeting of blacks, or even homosexuals, by those with genocidal motives. Initially, the consideration seemed far- fetched. Though now I considered the epidemic iatrogenic, I still had difficulty with the notion of intent. But the more I thought about it, the greater the urge I felt to investigate the possibility. At worst, it would be a great history lesson.

Concluding Camelot

So we began to study the political 'terrain' upon which the Kennedy and King assassinations took place. By the end of this seemingly unrelated investigation, Jackie's proposed link between the politics of Camelot lost and the development of AIDS-like viruses seemed frighteningly plausible.

It was during this bleak period of American history that biological weapons contractors began to realize the possibility of genetically engineered virus delivery systems for untraceable genocide.

Moreover, by the mid-1960s, the checks and balances between the legislative and executive branches of government ceased to function. J. Edgar Hoover's position as "the effigy of anti-Communistic, crime-fighting vigilance" had grown to such an extent that legislative oversight of the FBI and CIA was essentially non-existent. 2

It was during this period that shadow governors like Hoover began to grossly abuse their freedom with the press. According to New Jersey Congressman Neil Gallagher, ousted as a result of a smear campaign waged by Hoover and his media liaison Roy Cohn, information was "controlled" and "the bastards" were in charge of a multitude of disinformation channels.2

The American political system, infected by the most evil forces imaginable- under Hoover, Lansky, and the military/industrial complex-functioned metaphorically like the retroviruses Gallo and his coworkers were about to create. Both macroscopic and microscopic menaces transmitted disinformation and created the many pathological life forms needed to control, grow, kill, and remain undetected.

The military/industrial complex in association with organized crime had overrun the nation's natural immune system-the checks and balances for truth and justice established under the United States Constitution. American government became a cancerous growth that consumed rather than abetted the public's health and welfare.

By the time we finished reading Citizen Cohn2 by von Hoffman, and Secrecy and Power by Powers.3 it was clear the FBI and CIA officials who administered the Communist (Counter) Intelligence Program. the COIN- TELPRO, were not only plausible suspects in the Kennedy and King assassinations, but in the transmission of AIDS to specific American and Third World populations. We based this seemingly bizarre assertion on the fact that McCarthy mania, which raged overtly during the 1940s and 1950s, continued covertly throughout the 1970s. Most suspiciously, it consumed gays, blacks, and anyone accused of communist inclinations-roughly the same populations devastated by the AIDS epidemic.

The following summarizes what we learned about the early targeting of minority America.

Early McCarthyism and Its Homosexual Focus

In the mid-1940s, as post WWII reconstruction began, Governor Thomas E. Dewey, the New York GOP presidential candidate, accused the Truman administration of harboring sex offenders. GOP Republican party officials, quick to take advantage of the "homosexual angle," mailed thousands of newsletters to party aides explaining that "sexual perverts" were "perhaps as dangerous as the actual Communists" who allegedly supported them. They encouraged a campaign to rid government of the "queers" who had "lodged themselves in the tissues of the bureaucracy."2

Soon thereafter, the U.S. Senate formed a special "pervert committee," to investigate the allegations that led to a report charging that homosexuals tend "to have a corrosive influence upon ... fellow employees. These perverts will frequently attempt to entice normal individuals to engage in perverted practices. This is particularly true in the case of young and impressionable people who might come under the influence of a pervert .. . . One homosexual can pollute a government office,"the report said.2

By 1952, ninety-one homosexuals had been fired from the State Department allegedly for links to communism and immorality. Such stories dominated the press and fanned fears that affected every government agency. Even the FBI and CIA was stricken with "perverts" and infiltrated by "communists" according to Hoover.2

Reflecting on Deadly Innocence

More than thirty years of "gay bashing" apparently foreshadowed Dr. David Acer's efforts to get even, I suddenly realized.

It was 1987 when Acer and Edward Parsons viewed Strecker's videotape and learned that in 1978 the allegedly tainted hepatitis B vaccine was administered to more than J ,000 homosexuals as a "Trojan horse" experiment. 4-6

"But Hoover himself was a homosexual," Jackie argued. "Surely he wouldn't have wanted other gays to be so brutally affected. And he couldn't have had anything to do with the hepatitis B experiments. He had been dead for several years!"

"Right, Hoover died in 1972, but Gallo synthesized AIDS-like viruses in J 970. Hoover controlled the FBI and was a powerful influence in the CIA until shortly before his death. He mayor may not have been dead at the time a plan to deal with the "homosexual problem" may have been decided. Either way, it would be naive to think that the political and commercial powers that Hoover represented would have changed their agendas simply because of his death. His extensive intelligence files on domestic and foreign enemies-gays, blacks, and communists-would have been passed on to his heirs.

"And so far as his homosexuality is concerned, Acer was a homosexual too. That didn't stop him from threatening the lives of dozens of other gay men by exposing them to his virus through unprotected sex. There are good and bad people of every background.6

"Also, the antics of Hoover and Cohn are well documented." Being farther ahead in my reading than Jackie, given her constant attention to our toddler Alena, I explained, "Cohn, Hoover, and Acer were all 'closet' homosexuals who disrespected other gays. Cohn, in particular, was famous for persecuting homosexuals.2

"Surrounded by CIA and FBI officials who, at the time, believed the civil rights movement as well as the gay rights movement was a communist conspiracy to be squelched at whatever cost, Hoover would not likely have defended his sexual preference or interfered with plans to target gays, blacks, or other politically left groups."

"I suppose you're right," Jackie admitted. "It seems that Hoover hated minorities about as much as Hitler. He was also an impassioned power monger who apparently stopped at nothing to destroy his enemies .... "

"Right. Given his history," I interrupted, "even if he had been alive, he wouldn't have risked being compromised to defend the American gay community."

More "Gay Bashing"

To further substantiate my point, I showed Jackie a segment of von Hoffman's book which noted that persecution against homosexuals discovered in public office was so fierce, many took their lives rather than bear the shame. Examples included the famous English mathematician, Alan Turing, who broke Germany's "Enigma" code during World War II and subsequently contributed greatly to the development of computers. He was arrested for homosexual acts, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to receive hormone injections. The treatment caused him to become impotent and grow breasts. Shortly thereafter, he committed suicide.2

John Montgomery, manager of the State Department's Finnish Desk, suffered a similar fate. He ended his life by hanging himself by a rope tied to the balcony of a Georgetown house he shared with his lover.

Episodes like these reinforced widespread homophobia. As a result, the media exploited the Republican-directed purging of homosexuals in public service. In Washington Confidential, 7 a book published in 1951 by Crown, readers were told in Chapter 15, "Garden of the Pansies," that:

More than 90 twisted twerps in trousers had been swished oul of the Stale Department. ... [T]here are at least 6,000 homosexuals on the government payroll, most of them known, and these comprise only a fraction of the total of their kind in the city ....

Aware of the seriousness of the problem, the State Department has a highly hush-hush Homosexual Bureau, manned by trained investigators and former counterespionage agents, whose duties are to ferret out pansies in Foggy Bottom .... With more than 6,000 fairies in government offices, you may be concerned about the security of the country. Fairies are no more disloyal than the normal. But homosexuals are vulnerable; they can be blackmailed or influenced by sex more deeply than conventional citizens: they are far more intense about their love-life. 8


It was opinions like these, wrote von Hoffman, that accounted for more than 1,000 annual arrests in D.C. alone during the early 1950s. "Thousands more were forced out of federal jobs in both the civilian and military service, and unknown numbers were refused employment for the same reason .... "8

Social historian John D'Emilio also wrote about the FBI's involvement in this homosexual inquisition:

The FBI sought out friendly vice squad officers who supplied arrest records on morals charges, regardless of whether convictions had ensued. Regional FBI offices gathered data on gay bars, compiled lists of other places frequented by homosexuals, and clipped press articles that provided information about the gay world. Friendships with known homosexuals or lesbians subjected anyone to an investigation .... Postal inspectors subscribed to pen pal clubs, initiated correspondence with men who they believed might be homosexual, and, if their suspicions were confirmed, placed tracers on victims' mail in order to locate other homosexuals. 8


Though both Hoover and Cohn denied their homosexuality, vulnerability to blackmail was part of the reason they persecuted homosexuals. "In many minds, homosexuality and communism were entwined."2

Thus Nebraska's Republican Senator Kenneth Wherry was calling for measures to guarantee "the security of seaports and major cities against sabotage through conspiracy of subversives and moral perverts in government establishments." It was thought by the senator and others that Adolf Hitler had made a "world list" of homosexuals who could be reached and enlisted one way or another for espionage, sabotage, or terrorism. The list was supposed to have fallen into Stalin's hands when the Nazi capital was captured in 1945 and now the Communists were updating and using it. Small wonder that Wherry was moved to tell newspaperman Max Lerner that "You can't ... separate homosexuals from subversives .... Mind you,] don't say every homosexual is a subversive, and I don't say every subversive is a homosexual. But a man of low morality is a menace in the government, whatever he is, and they are all tied up together." 2


"Oddly enough, 'they' were, to a very limited extent, all tied up together," von Hoffman analyzed. He argued that what we know of civil rights for homosexuals came from the pens of American left-wing radicals, and "especially the anarchists." He recalled that Paul Goodman, an admitted anarchist and bisexual was among the first to argue publicly that "gay might be good."

Anarchism, von Hoffman argued, is tainted with libertarianism, which opposes any form of communist rule. Also on the left, briefly following the revolution, Marxist-Leninism delayed its execrations, tolerating homosexuality for a few years before Stalin outlawed such behavior. So it was that capitalistic and Marxist puritanism marched to the same beat.

Early History of Gay Rights: Links to Communism?

The first, enduring public organization for gays was founded by Henry Hay, an outspoken communist in Los Angeles in 1951-the Mattachine (from the French word masque) Society. Hay had tried to follow the communist line of remaining a heterosexual but felt uncomfortable trying to be something he was not. He brought the matter and desire to start the Mattachine to the attention of his higher-ups in the U. S. Communist Party, CPUSA. Here's what Hay wrote:

About the fall of 1951 I decided that organizing the Mattachine was a call to me deeper than the innermost reaches of spirit, a vision quest more important than life. I went to the Communist Party and discussed this "total call" upon me, recommending to them my expulsion. They rejected "expulsion," and in honor of my eighteen years as a member and ten years as a teacher and cultural innovator dropped me as "a security risk" but [praised me for being] a lifelong friend of the people. 2


Von Hoffman commented, "it seems that the only thing the Communist Party and the American Government agreed on was that homosexuals were security risks."2

Ultimately, it was an article in the Los Angeles Mirror, whi-:h provided the Mattachine Society its communist label. The piece stated that the organization's attorney had been an antagonistic witness during House Committee hearings on un-American activities. The reporter theorized that one day, homosexuals, who were "scorned" by the American majority, "might band together for their own protection. Eventually they might swing tremendous political power. A well-trained subversive could move in and forge that power into a dangerous political weapon."2


Mattachine members became as alarmed as the newspaper reporter at the "possibility of subversive influences among them," von Hoffman wrote:

Hay recalled that the men in the organization were straight, middle-class types, who insisted they were exactly like everybody else, except in bed. They had no interest in or sympathy for Marxism, so in short order some Mattachine chapters were proposing loyalty oaths for prospective members; one leader threatened that if the organization weren't sterilized of "communistic" notions, he would give the FBI names of the members. 2


Cohn's Deadly Denial

"For a young, Jewish, homosexual, anti-Communist prosecutor," von Hoffman continued, "these must have been strange, dangerously confusing, and exciting days." Cohn is remembered as having frequented Washington's gay bars. It is unknown if he considered himself a homosexual. "It appears that for Roy the definition of a homosexual was a man with womanish mannerisms."2

During an interview with Ken Auletta in the 1970s, Cohn denied his homosexuality yet became embarrassed and thick-tongued in the process:

Anybody who knows me ... and knows anything about me or who knows the way my mind works or knows the way I function ... would have an awfully hard time reconciling ah, ah, reconciling that with ah, ah, any kind of homosexuality. Every facet of my personality, of my, ah, aggressiveness, of my toughness, of everything along those lines, isjust totally, I suppose, incompatible with anything like that. ... [T]here have always been normal-appearing men who were homosexual [though] never or seldom practiced, while the other type-what you call Teutonic-was not so much in evidence and we knew very little about them and thought they were just trade, you know, the truck driver who enjoyed being had but pretended that he was really interested in women and money.2


In the final years of Cohn's life, people from all walks of life pointed angrily to his hypocrisy. "How can the man go on denying what he is?" many asked. Van Hoffman explained:

[T]here was a recognizable type of manly male, a Roy type, who had sex with other men but did not consider himself a homosexual. ... That pretension could be a pretending to the self with a young man like Roy who was out to show that Jews were not Communists, but who also had to face the overlap between Communist and homosexualist.2

Cohn ultimately died of AIDS.


Black Hate and American Intelligence

The effect of McCarthy mania on the fledgling civil rights movement and the plight of blacks struggling to overcome racial burdens in post-Reconstruction America was onerous.

In the early days following World War II, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP, approached President Eisenhower with a petition for ending segregation and discrimination in America's capitol, the District of Columbia. Historian Dorothy K. Newman recorded many of the events during this time: 9

Black federal workers were fired for participating after work in NAACP-sponsored picketing of discriminating retail stores, and on the strength of unproved allegations that they attended Communist-inspired meetings. A black postal worker in Santa Monica, who was also head of the local NAACP, was fired from his job for organizing a drive, after hours, to increase black employment at a local department store. His crime, and that of black postal and govemment employees in other states, was simply membership in the NAACP. These were the early Cold War years, and an atmosphere of prying and recrimination pervaded government. ... In that atmosphere, fighting discrimination became nearly synonymous with disloyalty, and black employees everywhere became especially vulnerable-particularly since there was no need to prove the charges before firing a worker. Time and time again, the NAACP was called on to defend black government workers accused of disloyalty after pressing for black rights. 9


In keeping with the racist nature of the time, the "first offensive research" lab at Fort Detrick, which was just beginning to produce biological weapons, was christened the "Black Maria"-adopted from the old high german term mare, meaning the black incubation chamber for evil "exceeding what is natural or regular." 10

Fears of black communist collusion continued throughout the Kennedy years and beyond. Before being forced to propose comprehensive civil rights legislation because of pressure from northern liberal and southern black leaders, the Kennedys served Hoover's racist agenda.

In 1963, for instance, John Kennedy's Assistant Attorney General Burke MarshalI told Martin Luther King that he had to divorce himself from two chief advisors-Stanley Levison, the New York attorney, and Hunter Pitts O'Dell, one of King's executive assistants. The bureau had concluded the two men were communists. "A paid agent of the Soviet Communist apparatus," MarshalI called Levison. King resisted the charge and demanded proof. With that, Bobby Kennedy, then attorney general, took charge of the case. He considered the possibility that King-being linked to communists-might bring down the president as weIl. 11

In an effort to persuade King to obey, the attorney general mentioned Bayard Rustin, the man A. Philip Randolph had chosen to organize the 1963 March on Washington, who had been a registered communist and had once been arrested for sodomy. Bobby also approached King supporters in an effort to undermine King's leadership. Leaning toward Marietta Tree, a friend and UN delegate, Bobby said, "So, you're down here for that old black fairy's anti-Kennedy demonstration."11

When it was clear that King wouldn't be moved by either Bobby or his assistant, the president took over. He asked King to take a walk with him in the Rose Garden, where he put a hand on King's shoulder, something he rarely did, and said: "I assume you know you're under very close surveillance." He mentioned Levison and O'Dell by name and said, "They're communists, you've got to get rid of them." 11

After the Kennedys

Following the Kennedy and King assassinations, on April 27, 1965, President Johnson's advisor George Bundy requested that Hoover provide information linking blacks and communists to the antiwar movement. At a White House meeting the following day, Johnson told Hoover:

that he was quite concerned over the anti-Vietnam situation that has developed in this country and he appreciated particularly the material that we sent him yesterday containing clippings from various columnists in the country who had attributed the agitation in this country to the communists as there was no doubt in his mind but that they were behind the disturbances that have already occurred. [The CIA had] stated that their intelligence showed that the Chinese and North Vietnamese believe that by intensifying the agitation in this country, particularly on the college campus level, it would so confuse and divide the Americans that our troops in South Vietnam would have to be withdrawn in order to preserve order here and it would enable North Vietnam to move in at once.12


In response to Johnson's concerns and request for expanded intelligence, Hoover ordered his staff to prepare a report for Johnson "containing what we know about the Students for a Democratic Society .... What I want to get to the President is the background with emphasis upon the communist influence therein so that he will know exactly what the picture is .... I believe we should have ... proper informant coverage similar to what we have in the Ku Klux Klan and the Communist Party itself."13

Shortly thereafter, the black riots in Watts in the summer of 1965, followed by similar aggression in Chicago, Newark, Brooklyn, Cleveland, Omaha, Jacksonville, Baltimore, San Francisco, and finally the "cataclysmic Detroit riots" in July 1967, prompted an expanded attack on the civil rights and black power movements by Johnson, Hoover, and the American intelligence community.

In September 1967, Hoover received word from Attorney General Ramsey Clark to "use the maximum resources, investigative and intelligence, to collect and report all facts bearing upon the question as to whether there has been or is a scheme or conspiracy by any group of whatever size, effectiveness or affiliation, to plan, promote, or aggravate riot activity." In response, Hoover recruited a network of "ghetto-type racial informants"- over 4,000 contacts in a ghetto informant program, which supplied the FBI and White House with intelligence reports about the activities and sentiments of black America.14, 15

Hoover's response to the race riots of the late 1960s, however, was not limited to intelligence gathering. Dr. King's harassment since 1963 primed the FBI to expand its Communist (Counter) Intelligence Program, the COINTELPRO, into a Cold War against black power. Leaders like Stokely Carmichael who warned "the white establishment" to "move on over or we'll move on over you," and appealed to blacks across the land to "take over" through violence, were attacked like King with death threats and disinformation campaigns designed to discredit them. 14,16

In an effort to maximize effectiveness and prevent wasted effort, as the Nixon administration took office in the spring of 1968, Hoover set "longrange goals" for the Black Nationalist COINTELPRO, and instructed his agents to:

I. Prevent the coalition of militant black nationalist groups. In unity there is strength; a truism that is no less valid for all its triteness. An effective coalition of black nationalist groups might be the first step toward a feared "Mau Mau" in America, the beginning of a true black revolution.

2. Prevent the rise of a "messiah" who could unify and electrify the militant black nationalist movement. Malcolm X might have been such a "messiah," he is the martyr of this movement today. Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael, and Elijah Muhammed all aspire to this position. King could be a very real contender ... should he abandon his supposed "obedience" to "white liberal doctrines." Carmichael has the necessary charisma to be a real threat in this way.14,16

Hoover thus ordered his agents to "prevent militant black nationalist groups and leaders from gaining respectability" and to prevent black nationalist organizations from growing, especially among black youth.14,16

In response, the FBI created 360 disruptive operations under the COINTELPRO Black Nationalist Hate Group's umbrella, including the dissemination of media propaganda and some affirmative action programs to dissuade black youth from joining the militant movement. Richard Pow- ers, the author of Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover, wrote that their counterintelligence campaign included:

rumors to the media about Elijah Muhammad's sexual conduct, alerting the IRS to possible tax fraud by black organizations, and planting stories that portrayed the 1968 Poor People's March on Washington as dominated by violence- prone radicals. In November 1968, COINTELPRO-Black Hate, concentrated its attention on the Black Panther party, a black radical organization led by Bobby Seale, Fred Hampton, and Eldridge Cleaver that had adopted some of the trappings of the counterinsurgency Green Berets. The Bureau deliberately tried to incite confrontation between this group and its militant rivals within the black radical movement. It has been impossible to prove conclusively that the Bureau was responsible for specific acts of violence, but a Senate investigative committee concluded that "the chief investigative branch of the Federal Government, which was charged by law with investigating crimes and preventing criminal conduct, itself engaged in lawless tactics and responded to deep-seated social problems by fomenting violence and unrest." 14, 15


Black Nationalist Hate

Between 1968 and 1973, even after Hoover's death. the Nixon administration's dirty tricks against blacks gained momentum. Efforts to "expose" Martin Luther King, Jr., persisted more than a year after King's death. Hoover personally directed a conservative attack against King's memory and tried to block attempts to honor the fallen leader. At the same time, the COINTELPRO Hate Groups launched a major offensive against the Black Panther party, the BPP. Having issued the "Panther Directives" aimed at disrupting the BPP, Hoover intensified the Bureau's involvement in the most dangerous COINTELPRO initiative ever launched against any group.16

Some anti-Panther operations encouraged violence. In its effort to destroy the 3,000-member-strong organization, the Bureau encouraged local police departments to mount Panther offensives. One such operation led to the deaths of Illinois Panther chairman Fred Hampton and Peoria chairnlan Mark Clark. The December 4, 1969, raid by the Chicago police department was directed by Hampton's bodyguard, an FBI informant. 17, 18

In the course of attacking Hollywood Panther supporters, including celebrities such as Leonard Bernstein and Peter Duchin, the "Bureau caught an unstable young screen actress, Jean Seberg, in its net."19, 20

Seberg had gotten interested in black radicalism while in Paris pursuing her film career. She had a lover, a North African, who was friendly with the Black Panthers in Los Angeles, and through him Seberg got to know Panther leader Bobby Seale. She became a supporter and financial contributor to the Panthers, and thus a subject of interest to Hoover and the Bureau.

. . . a culture of racism had so permeated the Bureau and its field offices that the agents seethed with hatred toward the Panthers and the white women who associated with them. "In the view of the Bureau" [according to one FBI agent stationed in Los Angeles], " ... Jean was giving aid and comfort to the enemy, the BPP ... [and] giving of her white body to a black man was an unbearable thought for many of the white agents."19, 20


Fig. 9.1. FBI Memorandum from J. Edgar Hoover Regarding the "Negro Question" During COINTELPRO

UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT Memorandum To: Mr. A.H. Belmont From: Mr. W.C. Sullivan Subject: Communist Party, USA, Negro Question, Communist Influence in Racial Matters, Internal Security -- Communist Date: January 27, 1964

Memorandum 1/23/64 from Mr. F.J. Baumgardner to myself advised of authority given to the Milwaukee Office for a microphone surveillance [illegible] to cover the activities of Martin Luther King, Jr., and his associates while in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he is scheduled to appear for a talk tonight (1/27/64), [DELETE]

SAC Baker of the Milwaukee Office phone me this morning to advise that King had arrived in Milwaukee and checked into the [illegible] Hotel as scheduled and that the [illegible] activated at 10:30 a.m. today. Symbol numbers assigned are [DELETE] and [DELETE] Baker also advised that the local police have taken a room close to the suite of rooms engaged by King so that protection might be afforded King. In view of this, it was the conjecture of [illegible] that the likelihood of King's going ahead with any [DELETE] plans is greatly minimized. I agree with this observation.

Milwaukee is to keep the Bureau promptly advised of all developments and upon receipt of additional information you will be further informed.

-- Mr. Belmont Mr. Sullivan Mr. Baumgardner [illegible]

Hoover expanded COINTELPRO -- his covert anticommunist undertaking -- to include attacks on black activists. Martin Luther King, Jr., in particular, was intensively hated and targeted during this period. Hoover's handwrtlten note here urges his agents to keep close tabs on King, whom he called a "'tom cat' with obsessive degenerate sexual urging.'" Source: Powers, RG. Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover. New York: The Free Press, 1987.


Ultimately, the Bureau targeted the pregnant Seberg with a disinformation campaign through its contacts with the Los Angeles Times and Newsweek. The slanderous articles ultimately resulted in the premature birth of her child and the baby's death. Three years later, Seberg committed suicide, and her ex-husband, shortly thereafter, also killed himself.21

The COINTELPRO attack on Seberg, wrote Powers, was "no different from hundreds of other documented attacks on obscure radicals and their friends, stories that were never told because the victims were not glamorous, not famous, and, in many of the worst cases, not white."21

A campaign as vicious and lawless as the one against Seberg proves there was nothing Hoover would not do to destroy black radicalism. 21


Two other celebrities with black and communist ties marked for foreign and domestic denigration by the COINTELPRO was the French feminist, philosopher, and author Simone de Beauvoir and her lifelong companion, existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. The couple served in the vanguard of French intellectual life for nearly four decades, much of the time as members of the French Communist Party.

Between 1961 and 1966, Sartre devoted much of his time to political activity while Beauvoir accompanied him to the Soviet Union on seven different occasions--events considered "a boon for Soviet propaganda." They also visited Cuba and became personal friends of Castro and his closest friend Che Guevara who escorted the couple on their guided tour of the island. On their return trip, Cuban officials planned for the couple to fly via New York.22,23

[U]nknown to them the Cuban press attache had arranged a conference in which Sartre was expected to render a further snub to the United States by praising the glories of Castro's Cuba. He did not disappoint them .... Beauvoir [repaid] her Cuban sponsors for their hospitality ... through an interview in France-Obsen'alellr. praising Castro as the incarnation of a tremendous emotional power and calling his leadership "not only a success but an example."24


Beauvoir, maintained another serious relationship with Nelson Algren, an American communist who was "being investigated by the FBI for his left-wing political activities."21 The two repeatedly vacationed in North Africa, which is believed to have ignited Beauvoir's love for the African continent. Finally, in 1960, she became an outspoken proponent of Algerian independence from France.25

During the next decade, with the increasing threat of Third World revolution on their minds, American intelligence agencies saw Africa struggle to define and assert its native identity. Ultimately, the continent emerged largely socialist, procommunist, and staunchly anticapitalist.

The African American Connection

During the period when the domestic war against black radicals was raging, the African continent became a principal target of COINTELPRO and other covert CIA anticommunist operations.

As early as 1966, the CIA was ordered to "search for alien influence in the antiwar movement." The Johnson and Hoover directive resulted in the launching of "Operation Chaos," which ran from 1966 to 1974. During this initiative, the FBI and CIA agreed to share the fruits of each other's intelligence- gathering labors. Midway through Operation Chaos, the U.S. Army formally established a domestic intelligence section with similar objectives. Orders undoubtedly came from National Security Advisor Dr. Henry Kissinger, who during the Nixon era, personally oversaw major CIA and FBI intelligence operations and directed the military chiefs of staff. 26

During this operation, "the CIA established a new file or case entitled "Activities of United States Black Militants."

Field offices were instructed to forward to headquarters, by memorandum, information which came to their attention "concerning the activities of United States Black Militants either in the United States or abroad." 27


The Rockefeller Commission Report on CIA Wrongdoing reported:

CIA's interest [was] primarily to ascertain the details of foreign involvement/ support/guidance/training/funding or exploitation of the above groups or movements, particularly through coverage of the foreign travel, contacts and activities of the Americans involved.

Although the emphasis was clearly on information establishing a foreign link with these groups, the division's field officers were also requested to rcportfor background purposes-on the purely domestic activities of these groups and their members. The Operation CHAOS representative explained that this purely domestic information was necessary to compile a data base essential to full understanding of possible connections between these groups and hostile elements abroad. 27


The purpose of foreign espionage efforts in Africa was considered both urgent and multifaceted. Within the highest circles of American government, officials feared that American civil rights groups and militant organizations such as the Black Panthers had received direct aid from communist supporters in Russia, Asia, and Africa. Concern over the exploding Third World population, and the inherent threat this posed to white supremacist ideology and capitalistic expansion abroad, directly influenced the CIA's targeting of the "New Left."27

Given this knowledge, the possibility that AIDS-like viruses, once developed by Gallo and coworkers during the early 1970s, may have been used for population control loomed ever larger. This awareness directed our attention to the next area we investigated-population control in the Third World.
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Part 1 of 2

Chapter 10: African Foreign Policy and Population Control

TO the displeasure of American political and corporate interests, by 1970, Africa had succeeded in defining its "culture."l Despite a recognized diversity of native beliefs and practices, an anti-American consensus emerged for most African nations that clearly alarmed the entire allied intelligence community.

Jackie and I first became aware of this state of affairs from a 1971 WHO Chronicle article. In May of that year, the WHO held its Twenty- Fourth World Health Organization Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland. With Nixon staffers poised to administer the famous Watergate break-ins, COINTELPRO forces expanding widely into foreign capitals,2 and the CIA beginning paramilitary operations in Zaire and Angola under direct orders from Dr. Henry Kissinger,3 a spokesman for Africa's political consensus, Professor T. Adeoye Lambo, brought international attention to Africa's need to keep American powers and corporate greed from infecting the "African mind." 1

"African Culture" and American Displeasure

Lambo's opening remarks before the entire WHO assembly were indeed noteworthy. The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, where he was formerly Head of the Department of Psychiatry and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Lambo praised socialized medicine, disease prevention, and natural-spiritual healing, as opposed to other forms of health care inspired by western medical industrialists. Openly attacking the American way of life and economically driven medicine, he declared that in contrast to African ways of life:

men in many advanced countries at the present time are so engrossed in their various occupations, in manufacturing superfluous goods, in buying and selling, in searching for affluence, in accumulating wealth, in altering their environment, in building for the future, and in rushing hither and thither, that they have no time left to wonder what it is all about. 1


Believing that capitalism led only to mass "disillusionment," Lambo expressed the African position of "doubt whether material prosperity is necessarily synonymous with successful living."1

There is no doubt that this preoccupation with affluence tends to destroy traditional cultures, or at least to transform them.

. . . Yet in all cases the modified cultures weaken dependencies of individuals on family, clan, shrine, and community, and it is this break in the affective bond which is at the root of the contemporary conflict agitating the mind of the African. 1


Lambo cautioned against the negative "impact of the western style of life, including technology, on the family 'tradition' or 'atmosphere,' its interests and amusements, its resources for occupying and developing rather than repressing the growing mind, its social ideals and customs."1

It is important to remember that the fundamental basis of African cultures attributes all values, categories of thought, and significant content of thought to the group. Because of the nature of this cultural environment, intellectual and affective [emotional] factors are closely interwoven (a form of autoplastic adaptation), but the affective sector predominates and it overshadows the African's life: he does not interpret reality in relation to the temporal environment but in terms of the relations of men to other men, and of men to the supernatural. ...


Despite acknowledging western medicine's "remarkable development" in providing drugs to combat "infectious diseases and disorders of metabolism," Lambo cited its weaknesses in Africa:

The patient himself was provisionally ignored; he was merely the incidental battlefield of a bacteriological conflict, or the irrelevant container of fascinating biochemical processes. The prestige of discoveries made along these lines encouraged the injudicious to formulate practically all ailments, even the psychoneuroses, in terms of internal medicine, with no reference to the integrative levels of the instincts, the emotions, the personality, and the ecology. 1


Largely rejecting western medicine and WHO pharmaceutical campaigns, Lambo urged the adoption of "a well-designed programme of preventive medicine in many fields, involving the social sciences and mental health ... in order to obviate the necessity of building expensive institutions for curative purposes."1

"This must have alerted Afro-American policy analysts and infuriated lobbyists for the American medical-industrial complex," Jackie concluded.

A moment of thought later I replied, "Had the AIDS virus been deployed in Africa through WHO-directed vaccination programs, it would have killed three birds with one stone: The Defense Department could see how well their $10 million biological weapon-HIY-functioned; COINTELPRO forces could put a damper on the alleged black population explosion and the growing communist-socialist-anticapitalist Third World threat; and the pharmaceutical barons and lords of the medical industrial complex could prove to "the African mind" how important germs are while securing the black continent's dependence on western medicine."

Lambo continued his tirade against westernization:

The state of mind engendered in those most exposed to the stress of rapid social change, as characterized by formal ... major intrusions of the western style of life, would seem to be compounded [by] various feelings: complete lack of interest in, or lack of capacity to control, events on which well-being depends; overt human responses to change, including anxiety and fear; an extreme sense of insecurity, lack of purpose and direction; severe manifestations of depersonalization and derealization, including confusion of identity; conflicts generated by incompatible values characterized by the sense of social isolation, [and] self-estrangement. ... 1

Africa's development must be based upon a deep commitment to a profound value system, even to the exclusion of affluence. Only in this way can Africa make an important contribution to human civilization. It must retain its identity, its particularity, and its singularity. It is not inconceivable that our relative poverty in Africa may force us to have the courage to find ways and new methods of raising the standard ofliving ofthe African, of liberating him from the shackles of disease for creative work, without losing those fundamental human values that are so important for the dignity of man and for the progressive and positive development of his society. I believe that Africa's apparent disadvantages could be converted to a wealth of advantages, thereby becoming the source of its strength.1


In retrospect, we realized, it was ironic that Lambo closed by praising the WHO -- "there is no organization better qualified and better equipped to attend to these human problems with expert understanding, to guide the transition and adaptations which must attend the introduction of modem technological, economic, and political ideas than the World Health Organization" -- the organization that, mounting evidence suggested, played a minor role in developing genocidal germs and possibly a major role in delivering them to the Third World.

The Roots of Third World Foreign Policy

Two years before Lambo's critical remarks before the WHO general assembly, and only days after the DOD requisitioned the $10 million from Congress to fund the development of AIDS-like viruses,4 on July 29,1969, the House Republican research committee task force on earth resources and population, chaired by the Honorable George Bush of Texas, cited the urgent need for population control activities to fend off a growing Third World crisis.5 Earlier in the week, their committee had heard from General William H. Draper, Jr., national chairman of the Population Crisis Committee, and Dr. William Moran, president of the Population Reference Bureau. Mr. Bush brought the House of Representatives up to speed on their discussions:

General Draper stated, "Our strivings for the individual good will become a scourge to the community unless we use our God-given brain power to bring back a balance between the birth rate and the death rate.

The governments of Latin American countries realize the significance of their own population growth rates, but cannot politically support family planning programs due to the opposition of the Roman Catholic Church ....

General Draper pointed to three areas which are related to population control, which have not been adequately covered: (1) the 1970 and 1971 censuses should be supported on a worldwide basis, (2) contraceptive research should be accelerated both here and abroad, [and] (3) the World Health Organization should step up its proposed international programs ....

Referring to a possible trend to liberalize abortion laws, General Draper pointed out that the Executive Commitlee of Planned Parenthood World Population has adopted a policy resolution claiming that abortion is not a legal matter, but rather one for the husband, wife and doctor to decide without the help of the state.

Co!. Frank Borman, the famous [NASA Apollo program] astronaut, added that he personally couldn't see any hope for a meaningful life on earth, "living in a cubical apartment with a bowling alley in the basement." 5


Borman's anxiety was apparently felt at the highest political levels. Following his speech, population control was thought so urgent that President Nixon "proposed a major transformation in the foreign assistance program of the United States."6

Graphic illustrations depicting exploding Third World populations were developed, under US AID contract, and distributed to the press. Samples of these are shown in figs. 10.1 and 10.2.

The president, in his Message to the Congress on Population Matters of July 1969, and then again in April 1971, appealed for more urgent action. Secretary of State William P. Rogers quoted the president who said:

Fig. 10.1. Persuasion Graphic Illustrating An Urgent Need For Population Control in Third World Countries

Momentum of Population: In an Illustrative Developing Country
Image
This diagram was presented by Secretary of State William P. Rogers to promote emergency funding of population control programs by the U S Congress. The graphic, typical of the persuasion tools used, depicts theoretical population explosion in an undefined country. Source: Rogers W. P. Report of the Secretary of State, U.S. Foreign Policy 1971, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govt Printing Office, Dept. of State Publication 8634, 1972, p. 325.

Fig. 10.2. One of a Series of Persuasion Graphics Intimating the USA Would Be Overrun By Third World Populations

Image
Source: Based on estimates by W. Parker Mauldin of The Population Council. New York. 1978. Another graph designed to promote an alleged threat to national security interests from "exploding" Third World populations.This chart was one of dozens prepared by a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm under contract with USAID. Source: Department of State Bulletin. World population: The silent explosion-Part 2 (of a three part series which ran Oct.-Dec.), November, 1978, p 8.

"... few subjects will so deeply affect the lives of this and future generations as the challenge of population growth. It is important also that we recognize the need to meet this challenge with an extreme sense of urgency. The momentum already built into the world's population growth means that delay in acting now will greatly increase the burden of the problems which must be borne later.

"But if our people, with your educational help, and if all the peoples of the world will join in doing what is needed without delay, then mankind may indeed successfully sunnount this serious challenge.

"Otherwise, I truly fear the consequences for all of humanity."6


All these warnings came during Nixon's first term in office when Third World military advantage, economic development, health policy, and population control were lumped together under one foreign policy umbrella over which Henry Kissinger ruled. 7

Not long after Bush gained added congressional support for Third World population control programs, Nixon stressed that economic progress in Africa was vital to western world interests. As the Vietnam War was winding down, the "energy crisis" was revving up, and Americans waited in long lines for gas. Soon thereafter, Nixon reported to Congress:

Our interest in supporting Africa's development efforts rests on many bases.... We also believe a developing African economy will mean expanding potential markets for American goods. Moreover, Africa is becoming a major source of energy for the United States and Western Europe ... .7

To stress America's humanitarian deeds, Nixon added:

The United States can be proud of its record of direct development assistance to Africa. We have assisted Africa both through bilateral aid and by contributing over 30 percent of the funds provided to Africa by international agencies . . . . In 1972, our bilateral and multilateral aid was $600 million-up from $550 in 1971 and $450 million in 1970.... Two thousand four hundred Peace Corps volunteers are currently serving in Africa .... 7


American direct private investment in Africa, Nixon recalled, had about doubled between 1968 and 1972, "reaching a total of $4 billion." American firms, Congress was told, have been a "conduit for the transfer of skills, resources, and technology" to the region. "The productive impact of these enterprises" was seen by the administration as "the most direct as well as the most reliable outside stimulus to the raising of living standards in developing Africa .... "7

Nixon also hailed America's response to Africa's health and education needs. For decades, he said:

Americans have worked -- through private and voluntary agencies and public programs -- to help Africans combat illiteracy, starvation, disease, and the effects of natural disasters. We can take particular pride in our contribution to a major seven-year campaign to control smallpox throughout Central and West Africa. Working with the World Health Organization and twenty African Governments, we helped virtually to eliminate the disease from the area. We are continuing efforts to reduce the prevalence of measles in the area [again, through vaccination programs]. ... 7


"Where civil strife has occurred, the United States" Nixon added, "has responded with generosity and impartiality" to the basic needs of the people living in Africa's war-torn areas. He cited as examples, once again, central African countries, including those hardest hit by the AIDS epidemic -- Ethiopia, Nigeria, Zaire, and Sudan. 7

Nixon also cited Burundi and Uganda, wherein American diplomatic efforts were still in progress. Both countries were also in the AIDS belt of central Africa, and both were adjacent Zaire. 7

The president concluded his speech this way:

The United States continues to enforce -- more strictly than many other countries -- an embargo on sales of arms to all sides in South Africa and in the Portuguese territories. While we favor change, we do not regard violence as an acceptable formula for human progress. 7


We soon learned that this last remark -- including both arms sales to the region, and nonviolent conflict resolution -- was, respectively, a complete misrepresentation of the facts and a downright lie.

Sahel African Disaster Relief

Six months after President Nixon articulated his administration's African foreign policy objectives before Congress, Maurice J. Williams, the Deputy Administrator of USAID and the president's Special Coordinator for Emergency Relief to Sub-Sahara Africa, submitted a report to the president summarizing his agency's "Disaster Relief and Recovery Assistance for Sahel Africa." The response was allegedly needed in the wake of "immense devastation and dislocations" that had occurred due to a regional drought. He noted that widespread starvation had been averted because of "relief food and medical supplies from the U.S."8

We have sent a special AID [Aid for International Development] Task Force to the area to help design concrete programs of action to cope with droughtrelated problems ....

Nutritional problems, particularly for women and children, are a growing concern. U.S. epidemiologists from the Center for Disease Control have helped identify pockets of distress. In response we are supplying medicines, vitamins, blankets, shelter and specially fortified foods for these camps .... 8


The World Bank made available a special, "flexible credit" program. Other major donors included the Germans, French, Canadians, and European Economic Community.8

Williams reinforced U.S. willingness to help Africa's drought-stricken nations with "both technical and material resources in meeting the region's needs." Specifically, Williams said he had engaged:

-- NASA to explore the use of such advanced technology as the Earth Resources Technology Satellite [ERTS] and Sky Lab to analyze from photos the cropping and water resource potential;

-- Massachusetts Institute of Technology [MIT] to analyze major development options for this region;

-- the National Academy of Sciences [NAS] to provide scientific advisory services covering a spectrum of disciplines during the recovery period.8

"All this for drought relief?" Jackie questioned.

Apparently not. The following month, the Department of State Bulletin published statements by David D. Newsom, Assistant Secretary for African Affairs. "We have a clear and compelling interest in the natural resources and markets of Africa on terms consistent with Africa's independence," Newsom said. "We need energy fuels and ... we need development and expanding markets for our products." And in an effort to secure such African treasures, Newsom recommended "new foreign aid legislation" that emphasized "areas of particular importance to the African countries: agriculture, population and health, and education and human resources."9

Kissinger's Comments

Henry Kissinger, however, best articulated America's motivation for granting African assistance in the broader context of world affairs. Speaking before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on June 4, 1974, Secretary Kissinger said America's foreign policy assistance program served a larger "global situation in which America must pursue its national interests." He envisioned world "peace sustained by the growing realization on the part of all nations that they have a stake in stability and that stability is insured by acting from a sense of justice and moderation." In such a world, he said, "all nations would share the benefits of stability, and all would have an incentive to maintain it through cooperation."

Americans have a vital stake in the realization of this prospect. In a world made interdependent 00 by nuclear weapons, instant communications, and a global economy -- Americans can preserve their security, their values, and their prosperity only by nurturing the shoots of stability and cooperation. Our policies are shaped to that purpose .... 10


Next, the foreign affairs director cited the "unprecedented opportunity for American diplomacy ... to make progress on the central issues which have threatened world peace .... " He stated that "hopes for a peaceful, cooperative, and just international order can only be realized with the strong participation of this nation .... " He also said "security and economic assistance programs" were "essential instruments as we seek to shape a cooperative international order that reflects our interests." 10

Kissinger then discussed his "foreign assistance and security proposals for fiscal year 1975," which he proposed would place us in a better position:

-- To enlist the developing nations' cooperation in sustaining an open global economy;

-- To promote a long-term balance between demand for goods and their supply; and

-- To be responsive to the concerns of countries and areas of importance to us.... 10

Regarding his "security assistance programs apart from those in Indochina and the Middle East," Kissinger stated "long-term food, population, and education programs," and the International Development Association (IDA), which concentrates on the needs of the poorest" nations was especially needed in Latin America and Africa. 10

We must provide adequate credit levels to our friends and allies as we reduce direct government assistance. The foreign military sales program promotes the self-sufficiency we seek and our partners are pursuing.10


Military Buildup in Zaire

The following year, Kissinger again appealed to a House committee for foreign security assistance funding. This time he cited "two significant programs" that were addressing the needs of African "partners." Since "stability in the Horn of Africa" had "wider geopolitical meaning, ... to help maintain that stability" he proposed "$12.6 million in grant aid and $10 million in credits for Ethiopia, a strategically located nation."

"Zaire," he explained, needed "$19 million in credits to help modernize its forces and meet its legitimate defense needs in view of increased threats to its security, particularly that posed by the instability in Angola. Our aid," he concluded, "would help meet a defensive force need recommended by a U.S. military study team after careful observation and consultation with the Zaire military." 11

Congress typically granted Kissinger everything he alleged Zaire needed in terms of military hardware and "humanitarian aid," including one NASA ERTS-Zaire reconnaissance station. The project, which required a written treaty, was signed by Zairian and American officials on January 6, 1975 (see fig. 10.3). 12

The Silent Explosion

A few years later, shortly after George Bush's retirement as CIA director, 13 the State Department issued a three-part series of publications entitled "World Population: The Silent Explosion."14 The reports, accompanied by a series of graphs, predicted disastrous effects of the burgeoning Third World populations on the world's resources.

"Nearly 2 billion people in developing countries are continually undernourished, with resultant low vitality, vulnerability to disease, and low life expectancy," the State Department said. "A 1977 U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) survey found that in 23 developing countries, per capita daily caloric supplies, in fact, declined between 1961-63 and 1972- 74.... The FAO estimates that food deficits for developing countries (excluding Communist Asia) can be expected to increase fivefold between 1970 and 1990."14

The Carter administration's report continued:

It is sometimes said that there is no food problem, only a population problem. This is an oversimplification -- there would be food problems in many developing countries even if their populations were suddenly much reduced. But, unquestionably, the severe undernourishment of two-fifths of mankind is attributable, in major part, to the handicap of too many mouths to feed. And the number grows daiIy. 14


Fig. 10.3. American Treaty With Zaire Negotiated By Henry Kissinger Involving Satellite Reconnaissance Station Development by NASA Allegedly For Crop and Water Surveys

4964 U.S. Treaties and Other International Agreements [29 UST

A.I.D. Project No. 660-0059

Project Loan Agreement

Dated: JANUARY 27, 1977

Between: THE REPUBLIC OF ZAIRE ("Borrower")

And: THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ACTING THROUGH THE AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT "A.I.D.")

ARTICLE I: The Agreement

The purpose of this Agreement is to seL out the understandings of the parties named above ("Parties") with respect to the undertaking by the BorroWer of the Project described herein, and with respect to the financing of goods and services needed for the Project by the Parties. Annexes I and II [1] are integral to this agreement.

ARTICLE 2: The Project

SECTIOS 2.1. Definition of Project. The Project which is further described in Annex 1 shall identify major fact()rs of environment and traditional crop production techniques, including transportation and marketing methods in the project area, which adversely affect Zaire's ability TO achieve self-sufficiency in maize production, and attempt to develop new techniques, or to modify existing production techniques, so as to increase substantiall,)' maize yields. Under the Project the system will consist of six components as follows:

(a) A Sub-system for Research and Extension Operations under which goods, services and training will be financed to establish a research and training center where basic farming systems in use in the Project Area will be replicated, agronomic research will be conducted, innovations will be tested for dissemination to farmers, and agricultural assistants will be trained in collaborative extension methods emphasizing maximum farmer involvement.

1 Not printed herein. Annex II is deposited in the archives of the Department of State where it is available for reference.

TIAS 9090

1700 U.S. Treaties and Other International Agreements [26 UST

MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING

BETWEEN

ERTS-ZAIRE

AND THE

UNITED STATES NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION (NASA)

1. The purposes of this agreement are to set forth the responsibilities of the partles and the procedures for providing for: (a) direct access, by a ground station to be built and operated in Zaire by ERTS-Zaire, to NASA ERTS-l and ERTS-B satellite data and to the data from any future ERTS experimental satellites which NASA may launch, and (b) availability to NASA of data acquired by the Zairian station pursuant to (a) above, subject to the provisions which follow.

2. For its part, ERTS-Zaire will use its best efforts to:

(a) Develop and operate a facility near Kinshasa, Zaire for acquisition and processing of ERTS data as well a. other non-space data of interest to ERTS-Zaire entirely at its own cost, including the cost of the necessary communication links with the NASA ERTS OCC/NDPF (Operations Control Center/NASA Data Processing Facility) at the Goddard Space Flight Center.

(b) Provlde during Phase B, as described below, processed data to ERTS Principal Investlgators duly selected by NASA whose test sites are in range of the zairian data acquisition station for the period of coverage promised to them and under the same conditions as NASA provides data to Principal Investigators. Should another country in the region establish ERTS facilities, ERTS-Zalre's obligation to provide data to Principal Investigators in that country will terminate as soon as the new facilities are capable of providing this service. ERrS-Zaire will continue to serve Prlncipal Investigators in countries within range of the Kinshasa Station which do not have ERTS facilities, unless and until alternative arrangements are concluded.

(c) Provide, to the best of its ability, any support requested by NASA ln a spacecraft emergency condition, such as the provislon of data indicated in paragraph 2(e) below, should the on-beard tape recorders fail.

(d) Provide quarterly reports in English to NASA on the progress and results of the ERTS-Zaire experimental program with respect especlally to the ability to apply data and analyses obtained to real-time decision making, and the principal applications made.

(e) Make available to NASA, on a cost-free basis and in the NASA-preferred format (negative imagery format with identifying annotation) such copies of the ERTS data it acquires and processes as NASA may request in reasonable quantities (except in emergency conditions as noted in paragraph 2(c) above). These data provided to NASA by ERTS-Zaire will be made available to the public from US sources on precisely the same terms as data acquired directly by NASA. These provisions apply as well to selected duplicate computer compatible tapes. Public requests (for data) from the area covered by Kinshasa Station will be referred as appropriate to ERTS-Zaire, or to other regional facilities which may be established in the area. Coordination among such facilities would be highly desirable.

(f) Include as output data from the Kinshasa Station computer compatible tapes (CCT's) and 70mm roll film.

3. For its part, NASA will use its best efforts to:

(a) Program ERTS-l and any subsequent experimental ERTS-type satellite to acquire data in areas accessible for direct read-out by the Zalrian Station. The frequency of such programming will be subject to mutual agreement by the Project Managers (see below). It will be limited to test purposes in Phase A, and expanded as Agreed in Phase B.

(b) Provide to ERTS-Zaire as necessary antenna pointing elements for acquisitlon of the ERTS spacecraft transmitted signal and updated definitive orbital information for use in processing the data.

(c) Process, on a time-available basis and as may be agreed by the Project Managers, a limlted number of data tapes acquired by the Zairian Station in Phase A for initial evaluation and calibration of the station's performance.

(d) Provide, during Phase A, ERTS data to any NASA-selected Zairian Principal Investigators to the extent of the time-coverage promised for them.

(e) Make available, for comparison purposes, a limited number of selected NASA data tapes covering portions of the area accessible to the Kinshasa Statlon.

(f) Keep ERTS-Zaire informed of other prospective ERTS facilities in the area so that regional coord,nation can be effected.

4. The course of the project will be divided into two phases. Phase A is for the test and checkout of the Kinshasa Station. Phase B is for the following period of routine data acquisition and processing at the Kinshasa Station. Phase A will begin when the Project Managers agree on the readiness of the technical and operational interfaces required to carry out the project and on a schedule fpr accomplishing Phases A and B. Phase A will be concluded and Phase 5 begun by mutual agreement of the Project Managers.

5. To implement the agreement, ERTS-Zaire and NASA will each designate Project Managers to be responsible for coordinatina the aareed functlons and responsibilities of each side with the other. The Project Managers will be co-chairmen of a Joint Working Group which will be the principal instrument for assuring the execution of the project and for keeping both sides continuously informed of the'project status. The Joint Working Group may establish such committees as required to carry out the project.

6. The following additional understandings are confirmed:

(a) ERTS-Zaire will resolve any radio frequency difficulties in the region to the satisfaction of the parties concerned so this cooperation can proceed without difficulty.

(b) The responsibility for spacecraft control. health and status will remain with NASA throughout the program.

(c) There will be no exchange of funds between ERTS-Zaire and NASA for ERTS-B operations. This agreement assures ERTS-Zaire access to the ERTS-B satellite without charge for a six month period from the date the ERTS-Zaire ground station begins to acquire ERTS data. It is understood, however, that NASA may thereafter establish some cost-sharing arrangement, such as users' fees, for participating Ground Stations.

(d) It is understood at this stage that NASA cannot make a firm comrnltment for future ERTS-type satellites.

(e) Decisions taken by the International Telecommunications Union require that radio frequencies for future operational ERTS satellites will differ from those currently used for experimental satellites.

(f) It is understood that ERTS-Zaire and the other Zairian agencies participating in the program will pursue an ERTS open-data policy comparable to that of NASA and other US agencies participating in the program. particularly with respect to the public availability of data. ERTS-Zaire will thus ensure unrestricted public availability of the earth resources satellite data at a fair and reasonable charge based on actual cost.

(g) Training and exchange of technical personnel will take place as mutually agreed.

(h) ERTS-Zaire and NASA will freely share and exchange technical information as mutually agreed, and consistent with the export regulations of the two countries.

(i) It is understood that this project is experimental in character and subject to change in accordance with changes in technical requirements and opportanities.

(j) ERTS-Zaire and NASA may each release general information to the public regarding the conduct of their own portion of the project as desired and, insofar as participation of the other agency is concerned, after suitable coordination.

(k) ERTS-Zaire and NASA will assure that the project is appropriately recorded in still and motion picture photography, and that the photography is made avallable to the other agency upon request for public information purposes.

(1) It is understood that the ability of ERTS-Zalre and NASA to carry out the responsibillities of this agreement is subject to the availability of appropriated funds.

7. This Memorandum of Understanding shall enter into force upon signature by ERTS-Zaire and NASA and shall continue in force for four years, subject to extension as may be agreed by ERTS-Zaire and NASA.

For ERTS-Zaire

VISENGIMANA RWEMA, Directeur du Bureau du President, Date: 31 Janvier 1975.

For the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

James C. Fletcher, Administrator, Date: 1/16/75

TIAS 8129

Source: Department of State. Memorandum of Understanding Between ERTS-Zaire and the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Diplomatic List. Washington, D. C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, (1977) 1975 pp. (4964) 1700-1704.
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Re:  EMERGING VIRUSES: AIDS & EBOLA: Nature, Accident or Int

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Part 2 of 2

"That's clearly a mixed message," Jackie observed. "On the one hand, the officials were citing the need to provide more aid to feed and immunize the starving and diseased masses. On the other hand, if the starving masses died, there would be less of a problem."

I agreed.

Superficially, chief administrators of USAID reconciled the conflict this way. "Neither death nor birth control action can or should proceed far independently, the one without the other."15

This message was initially advanced and clarified during a policy statement made during the Nixon administration by USAID mass immunization program analyst Dr. R. T. Ravenholt:

The confluence of needed policy change, adequate fiscal resources, large numbers of trained and experienced personnel, more effective means of controlling fertility, and more effective program strategies (distilled from farflung program experience) provides a strong basis for optimism that highly effective fertility control programs and activities will soon be operating in all countries to counter any too-rapid population growth that might otherwise result from highly effective mass immunization programs.

As one now fully engaged in work concerned with fertility-control programs in developing countries, I do not view the promise of more effective control of microparasitic disease by immunization with alarm; I look upon such disease and death control programs as partners in our common endeavor to move traditional societies from their inefficient pattern of high birth rates balanced by high death rates to a modern and more efficient developmental pattern of low birth and death rates.

Neither death nor birth control action can or should proceed far independently, the one without the other. Together they can provide a sound basis for the achievement of man's ultimate goal -- a prosperous and peaceful world in which everyone will have the best possible opportunity of attaining his own unique potential. 16


Later, the Carter administration's State Department published a related report expressing more clearly their fundamental national security concern:

In centuries past, millions of poor have accepted their lot with resignation and political apathy. This situation is changing, as expanding communications instill greater awareness that there can be a better life. Some can be expected to seek radical prescriptions in violence, including terrorism. There is real danger that violence will grow and spread unless more effective means can be found for improving conditions of life for the masses.

Overpopulation has been an underlying factor in certain international conflicts and major internal disorders. This danger continues and may intensify as populations burgeon and the scramble for scarce raw materials intensifies.

Such pressures seem destined to produce an increasingly turbulent and dangerous international environment for the pursuit of peace, stability, and improved conditions of life for all people.14


"WHAT IS BEING DONE?" [Emphasis not added.] The report explained:

To a large extent, farsighted, public-spirited private individuals and organizations have taken the lead in sounding the alarm and initiating national and international population programs. The United Nations and its concerned specialized and associated agencies, including the World Bank, have become more and more involved. In mid-1974, a U.N.-sponsored World Population Conference was held in Bucharest. The conference adopted a World Population Plan of Action (WPPA) which reflected a consensus of 136 participating governments and which stands today as a charter and beacon for effective, morally, and culturally acceptable population policies and programs. (The Holy See did not participate in the consensus.)

The WPPA ... advocates a two-pronged approach in which development is pursued in mutually reinforcing conjunction with population programs.

Such population programs have come to center in two broad areas-motivation of couples to desire small families and the provision of modem family planning services.14


The report explained organized efforts to advance activities in these two areas. Then the role of the United Nations was articulated:

The U.N. Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) is the largest multilateral source of external funding for population action programs in developing countries. In its 9 years' existence, UNFPA has provided over $250 million in support of more than 1,200 population projects in more than 100 countries. In 1977 the Fund's annual budget, obtained from voluntary contributions, exceeded $100 million. The major donors have included Canada, Denmark, the Federal Republic of Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. [Essentially the NATO alliance, I quickly realized.) The United States in recent years has provided about 30% of total UNFPA funding.

Most of the projects that UNFPA supports are implemented through organizations and specialized agencies of the U.N. system, acting in their respective fields of competence. Among these are the U.N. Office of Technical Cooperation, the U.N. Development Program (UNDP), World Health Organization (WHO), [the] U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) ... [and others].

The World Bank and its soft-loan affiliate, the International Development Association (IDA), entered the population assistance field in 1968. This reflected the Bank's conviction that rapid population growth is a major barrier to the economic and social progress of many developing countries. Supported projects have included a widening range of activities relevant to an effective population program. Assistance is provided on conventional Bank terms or, in the case of especially weak economies, on highly subsidized soft-loan terms. [Meaning repayment was not required.)14


Bilateral assistance, the report continued, came from the NATO countries and Japan. The U.S. program comprised about "two-thirds of the total over the 1965-78 period," and the entire operation was "administered by the Agency for International Development (USAID).'' 14

And who were the "voluntary" contributors funding the lion's share of the operation? The State Department said:

The United States has provided substantial financial support, through USAID, to a number of NGO's [non-governmental organizations] in recognition of the need for many-sided efforts for effective overall population assistance to developing countries. The Ford and Rockefeller Foundations have been major supporters of world population programs since 1965. 14


Califano on Health and Population Control

In May 1978, shortly before the AIDS epidemic began, Mr. Joseph A. Califano, Jr., Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, headed a U.S. delegation to the 31st assembly of the WHO in Geneva.

Califano's role as government lawyer and "public health policy educator" began shortly following his receipt of a law degree from Harvard in 1955. Over the next decade, he served as special assistant to the general counsel of the DOD, special assistant to the secretary of the Army, general counsel for the Army, and then between 1964 and 1965, he became special assistant to the secretary, and ultimately, deputy secretary of the Defense Department. 17

"It is my honor to speak today," he said, "as the first Cabinet officer ever to head the U.S. delegation to the World Health Assembly. I come as President Carter's personal emissary to underscore the commitment of the Government and people of the United States to the World Health Organization (WHO)."18

The expert in health and military justice then reviewed the WHO's achievements and challenges. The achievements, he said; "striking as they are, are dwarfed by the unmet challenges that confront us."

Chief among the unmet challenges Califano noted, besides food and water shortages and infectious diseases, was rapid population growth, which "retards social and economic progress in many nations and burdens many families and communities."17

To help resolve these woes, he pledged activities that "will be conducted in close cooperation with international agencies, and in partnership with other nations." The emphasis, he said, "will be on prevention of ill health, including malnutrition and infectious diseases. Our own national resources will be more fully mobilized -- our universities, industries, and private organizations -- and we will coordinate more closely the various international health activities within our government." 17

Regarding America's role in international health, "President Carter announced publicly his intention to strengthen the role of the United States in international health," Califano said. "We want to commit new resources to the battle against infectious diseases. The United States is already deeply involved in combating the major infectious diseases." He cited the tropical diseases, including cholera and diarrheal diseases, and malaria. "To this end, we are conducting significant work to develop a malaria vaccine ... "

Califano continued his address explaining it was his intention to improve research in countries where tropical diseases were a problem. The NIH and the WHO he said would collaborate in developing a "global epidemic surveillance service," and that this was "indispensable" for public health. "We stand ready to help the World Health Organization develop a program for training physicians and field officers from developing countries," he said. Then he mentioned that "Tropical Disease Research Centers" would be established in two countries in particular-Ndola, Zambia and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.17

Zambia, we realized after surveying a map, lies between Zaire and Angola, just below the militarily active Shaba region of Southern Zaire. We noted the timing and placement of the NIHlWHO "global epidemic surveillance outpost" here just before the AIDS epidemic.

Yaws, Califano said was another controllable infectious disease, though it resurged in several African and Asian countries. In one African country, reported cases had risen "from less than 3,000 in 1969 to more than 70,000 in 1976." It appeared to be increasing in 12 other African nations. 18 This admission seemed odd as I considered the period coincided with increased USAID and WHO public health research, education, and vaccination programs. One might have expected less of this most treatable disease, especially with such a sharp focus on African health at that time. "Why the 1,000 plus percent increase?" I asked Jackie rhetorically.

Then he said:

The expanded program on immunization is an endeavor we believe highly important. ...

In the developing world, despite the fact that effective vaccines exist, less than 10% of the children receive immunizations against preventable diseases .... Our concern for these preventable diseases abroad has led us to develop bilat- eral immunization programs in cooperation with the World Health Organization- programs designed to help countries strengthen their own preventive health capacities.

We stand ready to go beyond our present participation in WHO's immunization program by increasing the numbers of our epidemiologists and other international health workers available to join in the efforts of developing nations. Moreover, I can announce that, in addition to the services we are already providing, we will make available a further $200,000 in direct support to the WHO expanded program on immunization through a contribution to the Voluntary Fund for Health Promotion [VFHP). Our Agency for International AID [USAID), in cooperation with my own Department, is exploring with WHO the possibility of undertaking a multi-year immunization program for the African region. 18


Califano then called for joint efforts to achieve one overriding objective -- " to immunize the children of the world by 1990." There could be no greater gift to the next generation," he cheered, than to celebrate this event as it came to pass. 18

The public celebration Califano anticipated, however, never occurred. There were those, though, who in 1990 found cause to celebrate. AIDS had devastated many of the most populated areas of central Africa. 19

Repackaging Population Control

During the Fall of 1994, Jackie, Alena, and I visited friends and family in San Francisco. There, in a newsstand adjacent Fisherman's Market, I came across an issue of Covert Action Information Bulletin that contained a fascinating article by British journalist Helen Simons entitled "Repackaging Population Control." The article, which we read on the plane ride back to Boston, explained that despite official claims to the contrary, African overpopulation was not a prime motivation behind family planning and maternal and child health programs. 19-21 Nor was population control even a desire among African women.

As Nicholas Eberstadt, foreign policy analyst for the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, noted, "in most of sub-Saharan Africa it is infertility-not unwanted pregnancies-that women rank as their top priority." The fate of barren women throughout the region, he continued, "is a pitiable one .... While fertility enhancement in the industrialized north is a multi-billion dollar industry, little attention is accorded to the population problems that most concern Africans themselves."21

For almost four decades, we learned, Third World countries had held American population control policies accountable for diverting attention from the central problem-too much poverty, not over-population.22 Many leaders charged that such policies were "nothing short of blackmail and coercion directed against the people of the Third World." 19 Linda Gordon, author of Woman's Body, Woman's Rights: A Social History of Birth Control in America, argued:

Coercive population control is stimulated and then made acceptable by racism .... Nonsensical ideas about the cheapness of life among Asians and highly documented analyses of the different structure of the black family such as matriarchal theory have served to justify coercion to reduce non-white birth rates.23


This view predominated during the first United Nations conference on population control held in Bucharest in 1974. The meeting ended in shambles after delegates from Africa, Latin America, and Russia denounced the entire concept of Third World population control as imperialist and racist.23

To make her point, Simons quoted Pentagon consultant and National Defense University associate dean Gregory D. Foster who wrote:

[P]olicy makers and strategic planners in this country, have little choice in the coming decades but to pay serious attention to population trends, their causes and effects. Already the United States has embarked on an era of constrained resources. It thus becomes more important than ever to do those things that will provide more bang for every buck spent on national security .... [Policy makers] must employ all the instruments of statecraft at their disposal (development assistance and population planning every bit as much as new weapons systems).24


Alternative Views of Population Policy

Despite the State Department's hailing of the Bucharest conference as consensus building, it was in reality an "embarrassing failure." In its wake, U.S. policy makers scrambled to reformulate population control strategies as discussed in a secret National Security Council report published four months later.20,25

The document suggested new language be used. It warned against actions that gave the appearance that "the policy was directed against the Less Developed Countries." Instead, it recommended the use of leverage through more neutral organizations like the U.N. and NGOs to assist developing countries "in integrating population factors in national plans, particularly as they relate to health services, nutrition, agriculture, education, social services, organized labor, women's activities and community development." In essence, population control was repackaged to overcome the opposition.20, 25, 26

The report revealed the true motives underlying the representational changes in U.S. foreign population control policy:

The U.S. can help minimize charges of an imperialist motivation behind its support of population activities by repeatedly asserting that such support derives from a concern for: a) the right of the individual to determine freely and responsibly their number and spacing of children .... and b) the fundamental and economic development of poor countries.26


Thus, the tarnished image of U.S. population control policies in the Third World largely ceased. It was replaced by the perception that America sought only to promote basic rights for women. In doing so, it became possible to present population control as a legitimate concern for developing countries. International feminist groups, NGOs, and foreign leaders all endorsed the principals and practices of "family planning."20

Over the next two decades, U.S. population policy makers repeatedly refined their messages so that family planning activities and their impact would be more broadly accepted. A USAID commissioners' report urged that population activities "should be integrated with maternal and health care delivery." The move was motivated by concerns that USAID programs "only increase suspicion in the host country" if they were too narrowly focused on family planning.20, 27, 28

"Since the mid-1970s," Simons wrote, "much of the aid from Western governments, the World Bank, and the European Union has been channeled through" NGOs that "are prepared to toe the line on population control." 20 Thus, American-backed donor agencies, including AID and the World Bank, have used their economic power to influence NGO policy.29,30

The World Bank, which was present [at the September 5-13, 1994 Cairo, Egypt 'International Conference on Population and Development' meeting] ... in full force, ... emerged as a major funder of population control. During 1969-70, it only spent $27 million on population programs. In 1987, the then president promised to increase the amount to $500 million by 1990. In 1993, it had already shot up to $1.3 billion. [Additional funds are] ... now promised to jack it up further to an annual $2.5 billion by 1995.20


A position paper transmitted over the Internet entitled, "Was Cairo a step forward for Third World women?" by Drs. Vandana and Mira-Hiva, warned:

The World Bank has cleverly redefined the "population and development" sector as "population and women," thus making invisible the destructive impact of its policies on the lives of Third World women and ironically appearing as a champion of women's rights.20


Simons also noted, when appeals for stricter "maternal and child health policy" failed, environmental concerns were then successfully used to "dress up old racist rantings."20 Their argument was eloquently expressed in an article in Atlantic Monthly by author, Robert Kaplan:

Mention "the environment" or "diminishing natural resources" in foreign policy circles and you meet a brick wall of skepticism or boredom. To conservatives especially the very term seems flaky ... [but] it is time to understand "the environment" for what it is: the national security issue of the early twenty-first century. The political and strategic impact of surging populations spreading disease, deforestation and soil erosion, water depletion and possibly rising sea levels in critical overcrowded regions like the Nile Delta and Bangladesh -- developments that will prompt mass migration and in turn incite group conflicts-will be the core foreign policy challenge from which most others will ultimately emanate.31


Thoreau's warning darted through my mind -- "Nothing is so much to be feared as fear."32

Simons concluded:

Wrapped up in the language of women's empowerment and environmental concerns, the establishment's old arguments about there being too many nonwhite babies in the world have finally won the day.20


RAPID Disinformation and Deterioration

Betsy Hartmann, Director of the Population and Development Program at Hampshire College and author of Reproductive Rights and Wrongs: The Global Politics of Population Control and Contraceptive Choice (New York: Harper and Row, 1987), noted the World Bank's key device for administering population policy was "leverage over other forms of development finance." She noted that governments often burdened by massive foreign debt are persuaded to "devalue their currency, privatize their industries, open their doors to foreign investment, freeze wages, raise food prices, slash social services and implement Bank-sanctioned population programs."28,33

Hartmann reported that the Futures Group, a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm was funded by USAID to develop RAPID (Resources for the Awareness of Population Impacts on Development), the source of the alleged disinformation seen in figs. 10.1 and 10.2. 19

RAPID analyses urged Third World economies to follow a Western-style development model and thus become dependent on external markets and Western technology. For example, in Zaire's eastern neighbor, Tanzania, a RAPID study concluded the country must abandon traditional labor-intensive farming for more "scientific and commercial agriculture." The report warned that the ensuing population growth and "entry of large numbers of new workers into the agricultural sector" hinder the country's development since "traditional patterns of small holder production with land-intensive and resource-intensive cultivation" are probably not "the most feasible means of employing so many additional people."34

Unfortunately, RAPID consultants failed to look in their own backyard -- the heartland of America -- to predict this policy's most tragic outcome. Jackie and I discussed the fact that once upon a time, American families who worked their farms, were bonded by the labor and service to society. Generally speaking, family farmers maintained a great sense of purpose. Most appreciated God for providing nature, and therefore the family, its sustenance. The social and work environments supported family values as families depended on one another to survive. When automated farming methods forced many small farm owners to sell their land, the vast majority of family owned farms were lost. This also forced many families apart. Children left home to earn a living elsewhere. This added to the country's political burdens, not the least of which is the perceived breach in family values.35 As Lambo predicted 1970, what might happen if western capitalists were allowed to dictate African economic policies and "development," happened in America-mass disillusionment accompanied by the destruction of traditional cultures, the preoccupation with money, and a weakened dependence on "family, clan, shrine, and community."1

Women's Rights or Malthusian Eco-Fascism?

Before concluding, Hartmann provided an example of USAID's "cavalier" approach to population control in disregard of health and safety.29 The use of Norplant was cited:

Developed by the Population Council in New York, Norplant is a progestin implant system inserted under the skin of a woman's arm, which prevents pregnancy for at least five years. Common side effects of Norplant include menstrual irregularity, headaches, nervousness, nausea, acne and weight gain. Both insertion and removal require local anesthesia and medical skill. Ethical use of the drug depends on adequate medical screening and folIow-up, and most importantly on access to removal on demand.

An internal Population Control report provides chilling evidence of how Norplant has been misused in the Indonesian population program. Nearly half million women have had Norplant inserted, often without counseling on side effects, alternative contraceptive options, pregnancy screening, or proper sterilization of equipment. Many have not even been told that the implant must be removed after five years to avoid increased risk of life-threatening ectopic pregnancy.

Moreover, removal on demand is not guaranteed, not only because of lack of trained personnel. but more importantly to serve the ... government's demographic objectives. According to the Population Council report, "Recent government policy encourages use of Norplant for the duration of the full five years of effectiveness, which is communicated to the client as a form of commitment. ... " Or as one Indonesian population official put it, "People are told it has to last five years, they give their word ... and rural people don't go back on their word. If they request removal, they are reminded that they gave their word."28,36 [Emphasis added]


Hartmann then noted, "coercive use of Norplant is not restricted to the Third World." Similar programs in California, Kansas and Texas have been proposed or sanctioned for use in special populations.28,37

Finally, in addressing what she considers "Malthusian Eco-Fascism," Hartmann considered the moral decay of population strategists, among whom Dr. Maurice King established prominence in Britain. King, in The Lancet, endorsed what Hartmann adversely labeled "a 1990s variant of triage: try family planning, but if it doesn't work, let the poor die because they are an ecological menace."28

According to King, in countries where there is unsustainable pressure on the environment from overpopulation, "such desustaining measures as oral rehydration [a simple lifesaving method of treating diarrheal disease] should not be introduced on a public health scale," he concluded, "since they increase the man-years of human misery, ultimately from starvation .. . . Such a strategy needs a name," he wrote. "Why not call it HSE 2100- Health in a sustainable ecosystem for the year 2100?"37

Why not call it "MEF-Malthusian Eco-Fascism," Hartmann rebutted after contacting Dr. King in Leeds to confirm that his statements in Lancet- believed by some to have been a parody-were "dead serious."28

Hartmann concluded:

In much of Africa where AIDS threatens tragic human and demographic consequences, the present emphasis on population control and de-funding of health systems amount to indirect triage-no less morally repugnant than Dr. King's twisted vision.19


Some extremist U.S. ecologists go so far as to see AIDS as a blessing. According to a letter from "Miss Ann Thropy" printed under an open-letter policy in Earth First! journal, "If radical environmentalists were to invent a disease to bring human population back to ecological sanity, it would probably be something like AIDS .... We can see AIDS not as a problem, but a necessary solution .... "

Fig. 10.4. Selected USAID Summary Reports Regarding Immunization and Population Control Programs in Africa Between 1963 and 1980 Including Funding Data for Fiscal Years 1973 and 1974

Table 4 Funds obligated for A.I.D. activities and amount and percentage for health, population and nutrition projects by country or other allocation, Africa Region, FY 1973 and FY 1974.
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COUNTRY Central West Africa Regional

Project Name: Measles Control - Smallpox Eradication

Project No. 625-11-510-116

Contract No: AFR (HA) 18-67

Began: Fiscal Year 1963

Estimated Termination Date: Fiscal Year 1974

Description:

This project was designed to assist 20 West and Central African countries in the eradication of smallpox and the control of measles.

Smallpox is one of the most lethal diseases known to man and in Africa kills approximately 25% of those stricken. The smallpox portion of the project represents a U.S. contribution to the global program sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO) to eradicate the disease throughout the world. The measles portion of this dual campaign was intended to reduce a major cause of death and disability among young Africans.

Technical direction of the project was carried out for A.I.D. by the Center for Disease Control of the PHS under a PASA. Commodities were provided by A.I.D. through grant agreements with the Organization for Cooperation and Coordination in the Fight Against Major Endemic Diseases (OCCGE) and by the Organization for the Control of Endemic Diseases in Central Africa (OCEAC). Planning and operations in West Africa were coordinated by the OCCGE and by the OCEAC, by the governments of participating countries and with WHO, as required.

Phase I included one mass smallpox vaccination of the entire population of the 20 countries and a simultaneous measles vaccination of all susceptible children between the ages of six months and six years, later reduced to four years in most countries. Phase II was limited to a maintenance program consisting of smallpox vaccinations for persons not vaccinated in Phase I, and surveillance.

Phasing out of U.S. assistance began in FY 1971. During this period U.S. advisers were engaged in activities aimed at bringing about an orderly transition of the program into health services of the participating countries. The project was concluded in FY 1974.

Funding:

FY 1973 - No grant funds were obligated by A.I.D.

FY 1974 - No grant funds were obligated by A.I.D.

Total through 6/30/74: $24,248,000

COUNTRY Central West Africa Regional

Project Name: Onchocerciasis Control Program

Project No.: 625-11-510-908

Began: Fiscal Year 1974

Estimated Termination Date: Fiscal Year 1980

Description:

This program is aimed at alleviating human suffering and at rehabilitating the onchocerciasis infected areas. Onchocerciasis (river blindness) affects over one million persons in the zone covered by the proposed control program (a river basin area shared by Dahomey, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Togo and Upper Volta). Fear of the disease has led to abandonment of extensive areas of fertile river valleys in the Volta River Basin. These valleys are badly needed for production of staple food supplies.

In July 1968 a conference convened by WHO with the West Africa OCCGE and AID concluded that control of the disease was technically feasible. Following that conference the seven governments of the affected Volta River Basin area confirmed their desire to participate in an onchocerciasis program.

A Preparatory Assistance Group prepared a plan of work to achieve control of the disease in the affected zone and to work out expected costs and benefits of the scheme. At the end of June 1973, the World Bank and WHO, the fiscal and executing agencies for the proposed program, convened a preliminary meeting in Paris of the participating African countries, interested donor Governments, and concerned international agencies for purposes of organizing the programming and implementation of an international effort with regard to onchocerciasis. Total costs for the twenty-year control program are estimated at $120 million. The total cost for the first six years is estimated at $54 million. The Onchocerciasis 1974 Fund Agreement was promulgated, in which initial funding of $7.5 million has been committed by Canada, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States, the WHO, UNOP, and the World Bank. The total U.S. contribution to the six-year'phase of the program is estimated at $8.2 million, or not to exceed 20 percent of total program costs. The participating governments will provide the program with full support including priority consideration for socioeconomic development in the sectors freed from onchocerciasis.

Funding:

FY 1974 - $2,000,000 grant funds were obligated by A.I.D. Total through 6/30/74 - $2,000,000

ZAIRE

FY 1973 Foreign Assistance funds totaling $3.592 million were obligated for A.I.D. activities. Of this amount, $301,000 was obligated for one health project, Maternal and Child Health, 660-11-531-049.

In FY 1974, $1.087 million was obligated for A.I.D. activities which included $336,000 for the above project.


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The above selected items show a wide array of contractors, including The Population Council of the City of New York, and related projects, including several called "Special Population Activity." The word "special," in intelligence circles, typically indicates "secret" or "covert." Source: Report on the Health, Population and Nutrition Activities of the Agency for International Development Department of State for Fiscal Years 1973 and 1974. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 1975
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Re:  EMERGING VIRUSES: AIDS & EBOLA: Nature, Accident or Int

Postby admin » Mon Jan 18, 2016 8:30 pm

Part 1 of 2

Chapter 11: Henry Kissinger's "New World Order"

NOT long after our return to Boston, I needed to fly out to the west coast again to give a presentation in Bellingham, Washington. The following day, while killing time at the Village Bookstore, a discounted hardcover caught my eye -- Kissinger by Walter Isaacson.

At the time, Jackie was spiritually engaged in The Celestine Prophecy. Following our San Francisco trip, she had relinquished her investigative chores for a good reason. We were pregnant. On entering her first trimester, a naturally protective maternal instinct arose. What we had so far discovered in our search of the origin of AIDS was so disturbing that the stress, we feared, might have an adverse effect on our developing child. Our concern was magnified by the fact that Jackie had miscarried twice during the past year. The intensity of our Deadly Innocence investigation that exposed the Florida dental AIDS cover-up, sifting through stacks of sickening testimony, obtaining and analyzing FBI reports on dozens of serial killers, and the constant reminders from caring friends and loving family that we were placing our lives at risk, would have scared off any soul searching for the comforts of a nurturing womb. It was obvious she'd be better off focusing her attention on more soothing subjects. So as I purchased Kissinger; I knew I would be perusing it alone.

From this point on, though Jackie maintained an interest in the investigation, and frequently asked about my ongoing discoveries, what had been largely our cooperative labor was now my sole passion.

Trauma and Escape From Nazi Germany

I found Isaacson's book fascinating. The meticulously referenced text quickly taught me that Heinz Alfred Kissinger had been a key player in U.S. foreign policy from the late 1950s to the time of this writing. Naturally the author began by reviewing Kissinger's early history.

Henry Kissinger was the first-born son of German Jewish parents -- Louis and Paula. The couple led their family to freedom in August 1938, less than three months before the Kristallnacht riots destroyed most of the Jewish institutions in Nazi Germany.1

"My life in Ftirch seems to have passed without leaving any lasting impressions," Kissinger told a German reporter more recently. "That part of my childhood is not a key to anything." Minimizing the trauma he faced as a fifteen-year-old refugee, the statesman added, "I was not consciously unhappy. I was not acutely aware of what was going on. For children, these things are not that serious."2

Give me a break. I thought on reading this. He's either got to be kidding or steeped in massive denial.

I too was a first-born son of a German Jewish father and Austrian mother who were also fortunate to have survived the holocaust. I could relate to Kissinger's plight better than most. Given this background, plus my postdoctoral degree in behavioral science, I understood well the role persecution can play on the development of personalities and personality disorders.

My mother, at age sixteen, was among the last group of Jews to leave Nazi Austria. Her immortal picture can be seen in The National Holocaust Museum, where she, among dozens, was photographed on her knees, scrubbing the streets of Vienna at Nazi gunpoint. She along with her brother, who was thirteen at the time, and the other refugees in our family never forgot those nightmarish days. Understandably, they lived a largely paranoid life. My mother and I argued for decades about what I judged (perhaps in retrospect incorrectly) to be her unjustified paranoia that Nazis could once again assume power and control over world events.

Though Kissinger may have been spared the worst, I found it incomprehensible that he could have left Nazi Germany, at that age and time, unfazed.

Denial and Paranoia

I was not alone in this view. Kissinger's childhood friends also felt his denial was a form of "self-delusion." Isaacson wrote:

Some of them see his escape from memory as a key to his legendary insecurities. The child who had to pretend to be someone else so that he could get into soccer games, they say, became an adult who was prone to deceit and selfdeception in the pursuit of acceptance by political and social patrons .... '


Whereas Kissinger's childhood friends recalled numerous traumas, young Heinz allegedly felt nothing. "We couldn't go to the swimming pool, the dances, or the tea room," Werner Gundelfinger said. "We couldn't go anywhere without seeing the sign: Juden Verboten. These are things that remain in your subconscious." Frank Harris argued, "We all grew up with a certain amount of inferiority." Otto Pretsfelder added, "You can't grow up like we did and be untouched. Every day there were slurs on the street, anti-Semitic remarks, calling you filthy names."3

"The Hitler Youth, which included almost all the children in Fiirch, sang in ranks in the streets and paraded in uniform, and Henry and his brother would watch them, unable to understand why they didn't have the right to do what others did," recalled Lina Rau Schubach.4 "Anti-Semitism was a feature of Bavaria and did not start with Hitler," Menachem Lion added. "We didn't have much, if any, contact with non-Jewish children. We were afraid when we saw any non-Jewish kids coming down the street. We would experience things that people couldn't imagine today, but we took it for granted. It was like the air we breathed."5

Despite Kissinger's denials, the Nazi atrocities "were able to damage his soul," said Fritz Kraemer, a German gentile who resisted Hitler and later became Kissinger's student in the U.S. Army. "For the formative years of his youth, he faced the horror of his world coming apart, of the father he loved being turned into a helpless mouse."6

Kissinger's most obvious personality traits, Kraemer argued, could be traced to his Nazi experience. "It made him seek order, and it led him to hunger for acceptance, even if it meant trying to please those he considered his intellectual inferiors."6

His drive for social acceptance, and his paranoid tendencies were both reasonable reactions to a childhood "violated by one of the most gruesome chapters in human history." As a result, during his career, he was often known to compromise his beliefs to impress those he feared. 7

For Kissinger, the Nazi experience severed the connection between God's will and historic evolution -- a basic principle of the Jewish faith and one of its most important contributions to Western philosophy. For faithful Jews, historic meaning is linked to divine justice. After witnessing Hitler's horror, Kissinger abandoned his religion and embiU"kedon an intellectual journey to find an alternative way to interpret history.8

Kissinger's traumatic childhood also instilled in him "a deep distrust of other people." He felt compelled to establish secret wiretaps on the phones of even his closest aides.9

Another symptom of Kissinger's holocaust rearing was his tendency to disguise, as an adult, any sign of personal weakness. This consistent compulsion of his had been commonly observed; particularly in his approach to foreign policy negotiations. Kissinger's father, "whom he loved deeply, was graced by gentleness and a heart of unquestioning kindness. But such virtues served only to make him seem weak in the face of Nazi humiliations." Thus, as Kissinger matured, he "repeatedly attached himself to forceful, often overbearing patrons with powerful personalities," including Nelson Rockefeller and Richard Nixon.9

Still another childhood legacy was his "philosophical pessimism." He maintained a dark and verboten world view "suffused with a sense of tragedy." He embraced the view that civilization's tendency is toward decay, and "statesmen must continually fight against the natural tendency toward international instability."9

The Nazi experience could have instilled in Kissinger either of two approaches to foreign policy: an idealistic, moralistic approach dedicated to protecting human rights; or a realist, realpolitik approach that sought to preserve order through balances of power and a willingness to use force as a tool of diplomacy. Kissinger would follow the latter route. Given a choice of order or justice, he often said, paraphrasing Goethe, he would choose order. He had seen too clearly the consequences of disorder.9


As a result, Nixon's secretary of state became a philosophical, intellectual, and political conservative. He developed an intuitive aversion to change through revolution and became "uncomfortable with the passions of democracy and populism." In essence, Kissinger never embraced "the messy glory of the American political system" particularly since it constrained his "realpolitik" approach to administering foreign policy.9

Throughout his career, Kissinger confronted a recurring tension that in his view existed between realism and morality. Survival, he argued, at times required that moral standards be disregarded. This he noted was "inconceivable" to people who had lived "sheltered" lives. He contrasted the callous realist, who survived, with "the men of high morals," who, during rough times, had no chance. In his later years, Kissinger equated moral sensitivity to personal weakness. 10

Chief Intelligence Officer and Nazi Hunter

When the 84th Infantry Division received its order to embark for Europe in September 1944, private Kissinger was with the 335 Infantry Regiment. Six years after his escape from Hitler, he and his G Company invaded Germany though he never fired a shot.

Thanks to Fritz Gustav Anton Kraemer, a proud aristocratic German expatriate who took a shining to the overflattering private, Kissinger was soon assigned to a safer position in General Bolling's Army Intelligence unit. Kraemer got him assigned to translate for the general, and "instigated his selection as a chief administrator overseeing the occupation of captured towns." In essence, Kraemer paved Kissinger's way "into the Counter-Intelligence Corps." From there, he was selected to teach "military intelligence" in Germany. I I

During his German stint in Army Intelligence, Kissinger refrained from expressing any animosity toward the Germans. "In fact," his biographer noted, "he reserved his anger for those Counter-Intelligence agents -- particularly Jews -- who gave vent to anti-German feelings. "I remember one occasion when some of these refugee interpreters were being a little abusive to a civilian couple," one army colleague, Ralph Farris, recalled. "Henry began yelling at the questioners thusly: 'You lived under the Nazis! You know how abusive they were! How can you turn around and abuse these people the same way?'"12

Kissinger went even further: he kept quiet, insofar as it was possible, about the fact that he was Jewish. He no longer practiced his religion and never brought it up. And though his army colleagues of course knew him as Kissinger, he called himself Mr. Henry among the Germans in his jurisdiction because it sounded more American than Jewish. "I used the name Mr. Henry," he later explained, "because I didn't want the Germans to think the Jews were coming back to take revenge."12


As the chief Army Counter-Intelligence administrator with jurisdiction over more than twenty towns, Kissinger honed his diplomatic skills. Frequent dinner guests included the mayor of Bensheim, "the pre-Hitler police chief, who helped Kissinger identify and arrest the local Nazi leaders," and others who might serve American intelligence interests. 13"Henry was an excellent diplomat," said Bechhofer. "He was able to get along with German officials and make them do his bidding. In short order, the towns were working and the region had been de-Nazified."12

Fig. 11.1. Declassified Document Explaining the CIA's Project Paperclip and PROJECT 63 -- Programs to Locate, Recruit, and Exfiltrate Nazi Scientists to Serve American Intelligence Interests

Project Paperclip

Subject: Civilian Personnel Spaces to Accommodate the PAPERCLIP and PROJECT 63 Programs.

1. The Department of Defense has two classified projects, deemed of utmost importance, that result in the employment and exploitation of foreign scientists by the Department:

a. The first, PAPERCLIP, provides a means of obtaining services of foreign specialists for specific assignments within the technical services of the Departments of Army, Navy and Air Force. The primary function of this program is the utilization of the individual, the denial aspect being a highly desirable, although secondary feature. Such specialists sign a year's contract for a specific assignment prior to leaving their place of residence.

B. PROJECT 63 is primarily a denial program with utilization as a desirable feature. The aim of this program is to secure employment in the United States of certain preeminent German and Austrian specialists, thus denying their services to potential enemies. Such specialists sign a six-month Department of Defense contract, which guarantees them an income until permanent employment is arranged with Department of Defense Agencies or industry within the United States.

Project Overcast, later renamed Project Paperclip, was the top-secret program set up in 1945 by the War Department to locate, recruit, and exfiltrate to the United States hundreds of Nazi scientists, specialist in rocketry, biological warfare, aviation medicine, wind tunnels, and the like.

This declassified document is dated June 2, 1953 and signed by Air Force Chief of Staff (and former Director of Central Intelligence) Hoyt S. Vandenberg. It indicates that at least 820 Nazis were brought to the U.S. under Paperclip, seen as “a means of obtaining the services of foreign specialists” for the U.S. military. (Reliable accounts indicate they numbered in excess of 900.) Another parallel program was “Project 63” to bring “certain preeminent German and Austrian specialists” to the U.S. with the primary intent of denying their services to potential enemies. Vandenberg acknowledged however that their “utilization [was] a desirable feature.”

Many of these hundreds of Nazis, including SS and SA officers, were provably guilty of war crimes and prosecutable before the Nuremberg Tribunal. To get them out of Germany and into the United States the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency, responsible to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the administration of Paperclip, shamelessly set about altering, hiding, and destroying the evidence of their recruits' atrocities. Security reports researched and written by U.S. military intelligence were located and changed. When some State Department officials discovered the changes, further charges were made and lies were told.

An extremely valuable account of the exfiltration program by journalist Linda Hunt, who spent 18 months using the Freedom of Information Act to obtain the relevant files, appears in the April 1985 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Source: Preston W. The real treason. Covert Action Information Bulletin 1986;25:23-26. Reprinted with permission.


Shortly thereafter, Kraemer played patron to Kissinger again and promoted him to teach Allied military officers "how to uncover Nazis and restore German civil authority at the European Command Intelligence School in Oberammergau."12

The Nazis uncovered by Kissinger and his students were evaluated for their potential to serve as American military and industrial assets. In particular, Allied intelligence was looking for Nazi scientists who maintained special expertise in rocketry, biological warfare, and other areas of military medicine. More than 900 Nazi scientists were eventually recruited under this Department of Defense secret "PROJECT 63."13 Figure 11.1, published by Covert Action Publications, Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based, nonprofit CIA watchdog organization, describes this project in more detail.

The Harvard Experience

In the fall of 1947, Kissinger returned from Germany to join Harvard's class of 1950 as a twenty-four-year-old mentally gifted sophomore. Harvard, at the time, was bristling with excitement. McGeorge Bundy, then a government professor recalled, "International affairs was expanding as a discipline ... [and] Harvard believed it had a new role because the country had a new role." During his 1947 commencement speech in Harvard Yard, Secretary of State George Marshall inaugurated his postwar European revival plan. That semester, a forum featuring Joseph Alsop and I. F. Stone, debated the issue "Must We Stop Russia?" The Carnegie Foundation heralded its funding of the university's "area studies" program in which the first task was to establish a Russian Research Center to support America's emergence from isolationism.14

At Harvard, though discrimination evaded extinction in some departments, it was least noticed in the Government Department wherein Kissinger majored.

"We never, ever discussed our Jewishness," recalled Arthur Gilman, Kissinger's roommate. But during late-night discussions, Kissinger strongly opposed Israel's creation. "He said it would alienate the Arabs and jeopardize U.S. interests. I thought it was a strange view for someone who had been a refugee from Nazi Germany. Herbert Engelhardt, another dormitory resident said, "I got the impression that Kissinger suffered less anti- Semitism in his youth than I did as a kid in New Jersey."15

Kissinger's university acquaintances described him as an intensely driven, excessively mature, incessant reader who bit his fingernails and established his own rules. Despite his expressed interest in sports, the young immigrant skipped all athletic events, avoided drinking and partying with his housemates, failed to join clubs or societies, contributed nothing to school publications, and made no effort to participate in student activities. "Henry could be charming if he decided he wanted to be," said Gilman, "but he was really a loner."15

Englehardt, while claiming a grudging affection, confessed, "he was deadly serious all the time. He never liked to chase after women. His famous wit and nuance were not in evidence when he was an undergraduate. He had no judgment, no feel for what was happening around him, no empathy for people he was with. He was clumsy, socially awkward, I guess a little shy. Basically, he was a very limited person."16

With his interests peaked in government and philosophy, the straight- A student became fascinated with William Yandell Elliott, his first-semester course professor in "The Development of Constitutional Government." Owing to outstanding academic achievements, Kissinger was entitled to have Elliott serve as his senior faculty tutor. And in recommending Henry for Phi Beta Kappa, Elliott's endorsement read:

I would say that I have not had any students in the past five years, even among the summa cum laude group, who have had the depth and philosophical insight shown by Mr. Kissinger. On the other hand, his mind lacks grace and is Teutonic in its systematic thoroughness. He has a certain emotional bent, perhaps from a refugee origin, that occasionally comes out. But I would regard him as on the whole a very balanced and just mind. 17


Though Kissinger became attached to Elliott, he diplomatically paid homage to Professor Carl Friedrich who with Elliott represented the "twin pillars of the Government Department." In fact, the aspiring diplomat became famous for his ability to transcend the political rivalry Elliott and Friedrich demonstrated.18

Kissinger's "Meaning of History"

"In Harvard's 350-year history," wrote Isaacson, "it has learned to take in stride the peculiar combination of intellectual brilliance and quirkiness that occasionally blossoms among its undergraduates. Even so, Henry Kissinger's senior thesis is still described in awed tones."19

The 383-page "Meaning of History" introduced themes about freedom, morality, revolution, creativity, and bureaucracy that recurred throughout Kissinger's life. It provided a taste of the intellectual haughtiness for which he became famous; it provided an impression of how the future statesman waged the pursuit of peace as "a constant balancing act that lacked larger meaning."19, 20

In his chapter covering the early twentieth-century political philosopher Spengler, titled "History as Intuition," Kissinger paraphrased the nationalistic German scholar: "... amidst a repetition of cataclysmic wars the civilization petrifies and dies." 21

Thus Kissinger advanced Spengler's portrayal of history as an incessant and existentially doomed power struggle: "a vast succession of catastrophic upheavals of which power is not only the manifestation but the exclusive aim."21

"It would be wrong," Isaacson cautioned, "to identify Spengler's gloomy views with those of Kissinger," who sought to "find a more palatable meaning" in history. But it would be inaccurate to ignore "the perverse fascination that the brooding German refugee had for Spengler. Kissinger's historic pessimism, inbred as a boy, set him apart from the traditional American mavens of manifest destiny." 22

Then Kissinger provided a stark portrayal of historic determinism: "Life is suffering, birth involves death. Transitoriness is the fate of existence." 21

The cure for this moribund state of affairs, according to his thesis, lies in the development of personal awareness and "inward conviction" of each individual's freedom -- a philosophy advanced most notably by the famous French existentialist Jean Paul Sartre who, following the lead of Karl Marx, became a principal promoter of communism. Odd that neither Kissinger nor Isaacson acknowledged that, I thought.

Kissinger also appreciated Kant but only partially embraced the philosopher's European liberalism, republicanism, and idealism. Kant's "Perpetual Peace" advocated a League of Republics that cooperated according to international law, much like that which is practiced by the United Nations.

Alternatively, Kissinger was also drawn to European conservatism, which focused on national sovereignty and balanced powers. "Youthful fascination with Kant's political writings could have moved Kissinger toward a Wilsonian view of America's interests and mission," explained Peter Dickson in his study of Kissinger. "Instead, the emigre turned to Metternich and Bismarck -- the prime practitioners of power politics."23

The Harvard International Seminar

Besides being an intellectual mentor to the fledgling diplomat, Professor Elliott became one of Kissinger's most influential mid-career patrons. To his credit, the flashy Southern educator overcame the academic jealousy that caused most other Harvard colleagues to snub Henry. Elliott knew his bright student could readily surpass his intellectual prowess, so he dedicated himself to helping him when he needed it.
With Elliott's aid Kissinger found work, made extra money, and established an academic and political base at Harvard. As the university's summer school director, Elliott helped Kissinger start a project that served him well -- the Harvard International Seminar.24

The program, which invited some ofthe world's most promising young leaders to Harvard, ran successfully from 1951 to 1968. During that time, Kissinger personally selected hundreds of young elected officials, civil servants, and journalists to participate. As America assumed greater influence in the Western alliance, aspiring leaders from around the globe hungered for an invitation to visit Cambridge for the summer. Henry obliged dozens of them.24

As the program evolved, Kissinger solicited Harvard's power elite to participate. "At twenty-eight," wrote Isaacson, "he was developing a power base within the academic bureaucracy." There was even money to dispense. The seminar was "well funded ... [and Kissinger] could offer a fat fee to the professors [he] invited to lecture."25

Kissinger was not shy about calling famous professors, both at Harvard and around the country, pouring on doses of flattery, and asking if they would be kind enough to lecture his students. Those who spoke at Kissinger's behest ranged from Eleanor Roosevelt to Southern poet John Crowe Ranson, from sociologist David Riesman to the labor leader Walter Reuther ....

Money [for the International Seminar] came from the university, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and elsewhere. Kissinger spent much of his time hustling funds. Beginning in 1953, a group named Friends of the Middle East began giving grants that eventually totaled just under $250,000. Later it was revealed that the group was a CIA front. Kissinger was panicky at first, fearing that this might ruin his reputation. He stormed into his office the day the story broke and flew into a rage. But the controversy soon blew over.25


Might his military background and service to Army intelligence have boosted his concerns? I questioned in the silence of my Bellingham hotel room.

Additional Links to Domestic Intelligence

By the time Kissinger set sail for Cambridge, he had established vital connections to the military intelligence community. In fact, his intelligence contacts included not only Fritz Kraemer and General Bolling, but Helmut Sonnenfeldt, who later became Kissinger's counselor at the State Department, and Henry Rosovsky, "who attended Kissinger's class on German paramilitary organizations," when the two were stationed in Oberammergau. Rosovsky later became a "noted economist and dean at Harvard." 11, 12

In summary, Kissinger was at the center of a good old boy intelligence network even before the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations funded his International Seminar, I realized.

So in July 1953, when a batch of forty envelopes addressed to foreign seminar participants arrived at Kissinger's office, he curiously opened one. To his dismay, it contained literature critical of American military policy and "ban-the-bomb propaganda." Enraged, he phoned Boston's FBI field office, and an agent was sent to investigate. The final part of the investigator's confidential report read: "KISSINGER identified himself as an individual who is strongly sympathetic to the FBI ... Steps will be taken ... to make KISSINGER a Confidential Source of this Division." As a result, Kissinger was occasionally contacted at Harvard for information valuable to domestic intelligence.26

In return for his kindness, many of the International Seminar participants extended their host invitations to visit them in their native lands. This, coupled with Kissinger's intelligence interest provided numerous opportunities for overseas travel. In 1951, for instance, the Operations Research Office of the Army sent Kissinger as a graduate student to Korea to assess the impact of the U.S. military presence on civilian life. The following summer, Kissinger returned to Germany and met with "leading German industrialists in Dusseldorf and was feted at a dinner in his honor-held in the dining room of the Krupp munitions plant. 'Who would have thought?' he joked to his parents."27

Kissinger's Realpolitik: Visions of a New World Order

Kissinger's "realpolitik" -- his practical philosophy of political history -- as described in his Harvard thesis and demonstrated by his diplomatic behavior, showed that throughout his career he sought to "preserve [and even define a] world order." His approach to peace implied "artfully tending to balances of power."28 World peace was, therefore, not the defining policy objective for Kissinger.

Kissinger believed that a "balance of power" was the best that could be obtained. This he believed could be achieved through the acceptance and control of limited conflicts -- "small wars." With this in mind, the diplomat's mission was to assure that the United States and not the Russians would lead and win many of these.28

Kissinger's conservative realpolitik ... was based on the principle, taught by realists from Karl von Clausewitz to Hans Morgenthau, that diplomacy cannot be divorced from the realities of force and power. But diplomacy should be divorced, Kissinger argued, from a moralistic and meddlesome concern with the internal policies of other nations. Stability is the prime goal of diplomacy. It is served when nations accept the legitimacy of the existing world order and when they act based on their national interests; it is threatened when nations embark on ideological or moral crusades. "His was a quest for a realpolitik devoid of moral homilies," said his Harvard colleague Stanley Hoffman.28


From the beginning of his thesis, the political historian established a premise that would define his career's work. "Whenever peace -- conceived as the avoidance of war-has been the primary objective of a power or a group of powers," Kissinger wrote, "the international system has been at the mercy of the most ruthless member of the international community." A more appropriate goal, he advanced, was for "stability based on an equilibrium of forces."21

In one instance, Stoessinger asked Kissinger his preference between a revolutionary state committed to justice versus a ruling state that sought unjust ends? Kissinger replied by paraphrasing Goethe: "If I had to choose between justice and order, on the one hand, and injustice and order, on the other, I would always choose the latter."29

Kissinger believed that summit conferences with the other superpowers only served a propaganda objective. In his first article in the lay press, "The Limitations of Diplomacy" published in The New Republic in 1955, he contended that summit meetings with the communists could only raise false hopes; yet, they should be conducted to win neutral nation confidence and assuage allies concerns.30

Later, he advanced the belief that China's and Russia's "revolutionary" tendencies could be mitigated by offering them a legitimate stake in the international system. Thus, the game plan for the New World Order was established.28

The Foreign Affairs Minister

In April 1955, Kissinger's first major national security policy paper appeared in Foreign Affairs, a prestigious quarterly published by the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. The report, developed at the request of Harvard history professor Arthur Schlesinger, advanced Kissinger's critique of the "massive retaliation" doctrine that proposed an all-out nuclear response to Soviet attack.31

In the report, Kissinger argued that the massive retaliation doctrine acquired during the Eisenhower years was dangerously outdated. The Soviets now had their own bomb. Threatened all-out nuclear retaliation for Soviet expansion into the "gray areas" of the world was, therefore, no longer credible. "As Soviet nuclear strength increases," he wrote, "the number of areas that will seem worth the destruction of New York, Detroit, or Chicago will steadily diminish. An all-or-nothing military policy therefore makes for a paralysis of diplomacy." Kissinger called for policy change in which the capacity to wage localized "little wars" was emphasized.31

The Foreign Affairs piece had two notable consequences. It laid the groundwork for Kissinger's theory that the U.S. should be prepared to fight "limited nuclear wars" -- a doctrine that became the intellectual precursor to the Kennedy administration's "flexible response" strategy and NATO's decision to deploy intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe. 31


"In addition," Isaacson noted, "the article helped get Kissinger a job at the Council on Foreign Relations, a post that would catapult him from the obscurity of an untenured instructor to the celebrity of a best-selling nuclear strategist."31

The Council on Foreign Relations

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) was founded in 1921 "by members of Manhattan's internationally minded business and legal elite .... "

Contrary to what I had assumed, the CFR is a "private organization that serves as a discussion club for close to three thousand well-connected aficionados of foreign affairs. Beneath chandeliers and stately portraits in its Park Avenue mansion, members attend lectures, dinners, and roundtable seminars featuring top officials and visiting world leaders."31
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Re:  EMERGING VIRUSES: AIDS & EBOLA: Nature, Accident or Int

Postby admin » Mon Jan 18, 2016 8:30 pm

Part 2 of 2

Isaacson further revealed:

The most exalted enterprises at the Council are the study groups, which consist of about a dozen distinguished members and wise men who meet regularly for a year or so to explore a particular subject. Each has a study director, often a rising star in the academic world. The group that Kissinger was asked to direct had been formed in November 1954 to probe the topic of "nuclear weapons and foreign policy." 31


Kissinger's group met almost monthly and was chaired by the former head of the Atomic Energy Commission, Gordon Dean. Included in the evening discussions was such foreign policy mavins as Paul Nitre, a previous director of the State Department's policy planning committee; the department's director Robert Bowie, who later became Kissinger's academic antagonist at Harvard; Lieutenant General James Gavin, "whose belief in the potential of nuclear technology to cure American military deficiencies proved infectious. . ."; and David Rockefeller, who was enthralled by Gavin's recommendations for military industrialization, and soon thereafter acquired two chairmanships: one of the Council and the other of the Chase Bank.31

Graduated Deterrence Doctrine

Among Kissinger's first invited guests was Harvard's dean McGeorge Bundy who arrived in December 1955 to lead a fascinating discussion on NATO strategy. "It was one of the first times that abstract theorizing about limited nuclear war was related to the defense doctrine that later became known as flexible response," wrote Isaacson.31

When Nitze -- Kissinger's cohort on the topic of "limited nuclear war" -- argued that threatened massive nuclear retaliation might be considered a "bluff," Bundy replied, "Can we not develop a concept for the graduated application of power? It is essential that we find some flexible policy." Six years later, as national security advisor during the Kennedy administration, Bundy helped activate this "flexible response" doctrine. 31

"Kissinger, with some discomfort" had by then accepted the view that "for the foreseeable future, the U.S. would have to rely on nuclear weapons in fighting even a limited war."31

It would be "extremely dangerous," Kissinger argued, to become paralyzed by the belief that any use of nuclear weapons would automatically escalate to an all-out war. Like Nitze, he endorsed the concept of graduated deterrence, which meant being willing to fight limited wars with tactical nuclear weapons. 31


"One of the crucial problems facing the U.S.," Kissinger said at the time, "was to develop a doctrine for the graduated employment of force."32

On reading this, I wondered -- Could the incredible proliferation of chemical and biological weapons during the late 1960s and early 1970s have been the result of Kissinger's articulated need for nuclear alternatives; a broader weapons arsenal that might allow for more "graduated deterrence" and "flexible response" capabilities?

I reflected on the fact that the order for AIDS-like viruses came during Nixon's years in office when Henry Kissinger ran the National Security Council (NSC).

Early Rockefeller Influence

Among Kissinger's most influential patrons as he worked his way up the ladder of success to become Nixon's "Deputy to the President for National Security," was Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, the son of Standard Oil heir John D. Rockefeller, Jr. 33

The Rockefeller family's involvement in the medical-industrial complex, health science research, and American politics, deserves some background.

Before World War II, major administration of medical research, or financing by federal agencies, had been generally opposed by America's scientific community. In fact, it was only during times of war that organizations like the NAS or the NRC received major funding. Both the NAS, established during the Civil War, and the NRC, set up during the First World War, were largely ignored in times of peace.34

Between 1900 and 1940, private foundations and universities financed most medical research. According to Paul Starr, author of The Social Transformation of American Medicine: The rise of a sovereign profession and the making of a vast industry, "the most richly endowed research center, the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research was established in New York in 1902 and by 1928 had received from John D. Rockefeller $65 million in endowment funds." In contrast, as late as 1938, as little as $2.8 million in federal funding was budgeted for the entire PHS. Therefore, it is easy to see that Rockefeller family investment in health science research predated, and far surpassed, even the federal government's.34

More than the New Deal, the Second World War created the greatest boom in federal government and private industry support for medical research. In 1938, the NIH took up residence in "a privately donated estate" in Bethesda, Maryland, which is still its home today.35

Prior to the war, American science and medicine was heavily influenced by German models. This precedent, however, changed during the 1930s when the Nazis purged Jewish scientists from German universities and biological laboratories. These changes, according to Starr, significantly altered the course of American health science and medicine. Many of Germany's most brilliant Jewish researchers emigrated to the United States just as the movement burgeoned to privatize war related biological and medical research.34

At this time, the Rockefeller led medical-industrial complex was flllly poised to influence, and take advantage of, Congress's "first series of measures to promote cancer research and cancer control." In 1937, the new federal legislation authorized the establishment of the National Cancer Institute under the NIH, and, for the first time, "the Public Health Service to make grants to outside researchers."34

According to Starr:

The war gave medical research priority. In July 1941 President Roosevelt created an Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) with two parallel committees on national defense and medical research. The Committee on Medical Research (CMR) undertook a comprehensive research program to deal with the medical problems of the war. The work, costing $15 million, involved 450 contracts with universities and another 150 with research institutes, hospitals, and other organizations. Altogether, some 5,500 scientists and technicians were employed in the enterprise. 36


Moreover, according to E. Richard Brown's RockefeLLer Medicine Men, the Rockefellers exercised significant control over the outcomes of these efforts through the foundations they established.37

Rockefeller Befriends Kissinger

Following the war, Nelson Rockefeller remained active in the CFR, and, in 1955, while serving as President Eisenhower's assistant for international affairs, invited Kissinger to discuss national security issues at the Quantico (Virginia) Marine Base. Following their meeting, according to Isaacson, the diplomat became Rockefeller's "closest intellectual associate," and soon after, Kissinger authored several military proposals for Eisenhower to consider. Unimpressed, Eisenhower turned them down.33

As a result, Rockefeller sent Eisenhower his resignation and then launched a Special Studies Project that explored the "critical choices" America faced militarily in the coming years. Kissinger agreed to direct this new project and published a 468-page book on his findings. The treatise proposed that tactical nuclear weapons be developed and "a bomb shelter [be built] in every house" in preparation for limited thermonuclear war. "The willingness to engage in nuclear war when necessary is part of the price of our freedom," Kissinger argued.

I suddenly realized that the anxiety I felt in grade school while drilling for possible nuclear attacks was part of Kissinger's price for freedom. Eisenhower had warned America that the gravest threat to world security, democracy, and even spirituality, was the growing military-industrial complex, I recalled. And the Rockefellers and Kissinger played leading roles in its expansion.

For more than ten years, Nelson Rockefeller's nuclear policy guru remained a well-paid Chase Bank consultant and Harvard faculty member. During that time, Kissinger continued writing numerous books and articles on subjects related to the practical application of his realpolitik in the nuclear age. He also continued to provide favors and advice to White House dignitaries and Rockefeller executives until late 1968. After Rockefeller lost the Republican presidential nomination to Nixon, Kissinger then joined Nixon's staff.33, 38

The National Security Council Job

Following the 1968 Republican convention, Richard Allen, Nixon's foreign policy adviser, contacted Kissinger to serve on his advisory board. The invitation was not only in deference to Kissinger's formidable intelligence on the subject, but as remuneration for helping keep Nixon abreast of the latest developments in the Paris peace negotiations, which ended the bombing in Vietnam.

"During the last days of the campaign," Nixon noted, "when Kissinger was providing us with information about the bombing halt, I became more aware of his knowledge and his influence." Kissinger had served as Nixon's spook in the Johnson camp. He kept the Republican presidential candidate abreast for campaign speeches and meetings with the press. In appreciation, Nixon rewarded him with the top position in national security.39

Nixon's aim in appointing Kissinger to be in charge of the National Security Council was to "run foreign policy from the White House." Undoubtedly, the chief executive intended to emasculate the State Department. 39

As vice president under Eisenhower, Nixon felt abused by members of the State Department who "treated him with contempt." In retaliation, he intended to "usurp the power of the State Department bureaucracy," by establishing a "strong National Security Council staff in the White House that would take over from State the responsibility for developing policy options." Kissinger agreed with Nixon's mission, and the two men struck a bond.39

Besides Kissinger, three other candidates for the national security post were interviewed by the president. They included Robert Strausz-Hupe and William Kinter of the University of Pennsylvania, and Roy Ash, president of Litton Industries.

"Holy smoke!" I burst. "Will you look at that. Litton Industries's president Roy Ash was Kissinger's alternate for the national security job." I immediately realized Litton Industries was the parent company to Litton Bionetics -- the firm Gallo and his co-workers often cited as their funding source. "Now when was that?" I searched Kissinger for the date-January 1969. "Just six months before Congress was asked to fund the DOD contract for AIDS-like viruses."40

The following week back from the west coast, and on tour in New York, I stopped in the public library to look up Roy Ash in Who's Who. The business executive and co-founder of Litton Industries, Inc., in Beverly Hills, California, had directed the military megacontractor from 1953 to 1972. In 1969, instead of the NSC directorship, Nixon appointed him chairman of the President's Advisory Council on Executive Organizations, on which he served until 1971. Then he was elevated to the rank of "Assistant to the President of the United States." He served the Nixon and Ford administrations in this capacity as well as directed the Office of Management and Budget for the White House until 1975. 41

The Silent Coup Begins

In order to direct foreign policy from the White House, Nixon needed to "sap the traditional powers of the State and Defense departments and centralize control in the West Wing, specifically in the hands of Nixon and Kissinger," Isaacson wrote.42

The principal purpose of this strategy was not only to appease Nixon's megalomaniacal insecurity, but to punish the agency that had irresponsibly guided America through its worst international embarrassment -- Vietnam.

To establish new policy in the old State Department, painstaking negotiations among countless bureaucrats were required for even the simplest decisions. Institutional input from dozens of agencies, including the CIA, FBI, Pentagon, and State Department resulted in "glacial changes, fuzzy conclusions swathed in murky language, and a resistance to reopening issues once a bureaucratic consensus had been reached."43

Nixon wanted to revisit a horde of issues and, like Kissinger, tended to circumvent instead of confront immovable bureaucracies. The National Security Council became their vehicle for securing this liberty.

The NSC had been created in 1947 during the Truman administration in response to Franklin Roosevelt's habit of leaving certain agencies in the dark when he made decisions. Its membership -- known as the NSC "principals" -- included the president, vice president, secretary of state, secretary of defense, and other top officials [such as the director of central intelligence] designated by the president.42


During the Kennedy and Johnson years, the significance of the NSC waned, but the importance of a separate but related entity -- the NSC staff -- grew to assume the most powerful role in American government. "Headed by a special assistant who eventually became known as the national security 'adviser,' the staff became a personal minibureaucracy that could analyze policy, devise tactics, and carry out operations for the president -- often without the other principals of the NSC being informed .... " That was precisely what Kissinger and Nixon wanted. 42

Following their reorganization of the agency, Kissinger gained: veto power over State Department or other agency proposals; virtual control over NSC meeting agendas; the ability to hold secret meetings with State, Defense, and other department directors so that he alone could privately negotiate with them without revealing his purposes to others.42

"From the start," Undersecretary of State U. Alexis Johnson recalled, "it was obvious that Kissinger was extremely insecure and had an obsession, which persisted throughout his White House years, that the State Department and Foreign Service were determined to undermine him." The result concluded Isaacson, "was a national security apparatus well crafted for a diplomacy based on bold new approaches, secrecy, surprise, and tactical maneuvering. On the other hand, it was not as well suited for building a bureaucratic and public consensus for major policies, nor for creating institutional checks on a defiant president who was prone to acting on impulse." 42

All of Kissinger's Men

When Kissinger began to look for an NSC military assistant, Colonel Alexander Haig was recommended by Robert McNamara (defense secretary under Kennedy) and Joseph Califano -- Secretary of Health and Human Services under Jimmy Carter. Califano, according to Isaacson, had known Haig "from his days as a staff officer in the Pentagon."44 In fact, Califano had been Haig's boss at the Pentagon in the early 1960s. On further research in New York Public Library, I learned that both had received law degrees. Califano received his from Harvard in 1955 -- the year Kissinger submitted his Meaning of History for his Ph.D. What's more, all three had served in the army during the war.

From 1964 to 1965, Haig served as Deputy Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Army, and as Deputy Secretary of Defense of the Army while Califano was at the Pentagon as Special Assistant to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of the DOD.41

Kissinger's old mentor Fritz Kraemer also urged him to tap Haig, whom he later called "my other great discovery."44

Unlike the myriad other NSC staff Kissinger had sent to the Executive Office Building, Haig and personal assistant Eagleburger set up shop in the basement of the White House just outside Kissinger's West Wing office. Soon Haig began administering the most sensitive projects in his quest to become the NSC director's deputy. "Haig's duties were manifold ... ." explained Isaacson:

He served as the emissary to FBI DirectorJ. Edgar Hooverand others who might suspect Kissingerof being soft. He taughtKissingeraboutthe perks of power, ... [and] soon came to handle ... overseeing a secret FBI program to wiretap the home telephones of other members of the NSC staff. [Morton] Halperin and [Helmut] Sonnenfeldt [two Kissinger NSC appointees, both of whom had designs on the vacant deputy director position] ... would be the first two victims of that program. 44


Kissinger became convinced that Haig would never threaten his relationship with Nixon or become disloyal.

Matching Nixon's White House austerity, an air of secrecy surrounded the NSC in those days. The president and Kissinger both were paranoid that underlings were out to get them. So they labored to make themselves invincible. They severed channels of communication and routinely destroyed paper trails to limit their accessibility and vulnerability. Their staff, in essence, operated with information provided only -- as in the CIA -- on a need-to-know basis.46

Compared to President Johnson, who maintained "a bank of phones" and sought information from a variety of sources within and beyond his administration, Nixon was a loner who trusted few others. "If I needed to get hold of somebody," Johnson bragged to an aide on leaving his replacement's Oval Office, "all I had to do was mash a button. And I mean anybody -- even some little fellow tucked away in one of the agencies." Nixon, he reported with wonder, "had just one dinky phone" with three buttons .... "That's all! Just three buttons! And they all go to Germans."42

Likewise, Kissinger's paranoia drove him to make unparalleled demands on the staff. He ended the practice of allowing chief administrators to share their expertise with Nixon in his absence. Isaacson reported he would not even allow high-level staff "to accompany him to meetings with the president except in rare cases." Winston Lord, a former Kissinger aide believed this behavior "reflected his tremendous mixture of ego and insecurity." Ultimately, White House morale suffered as the anticipation and thrill of presidential encounters eroded.

For instance, when Morton Halperin provided CIA director Richard Helms a routine summary of the NSC's first meeting agenda, Kissinger protested. He did not object to what was said, only that an underling had presumed to address a cabinet official. Kissinger ordered Haig to rule "No staffer is to talk to principals."46

The White House Wire Taps

Kissinger's angst that members of his staff would undermine his leadership and violate the secrecy he needed to carry out his realpolitik transformed into full-blown paranoia when the New York Times broke the story about American B-52 bombers hitting North Vietnam. Kissinger then ordered Haig to Hoover's office to direct the FBI to wiretap "six of Kissinger's aides, eight other officials and four prominent journalists."47,48

In all there would be seventeen FBI wiretaps ordered by the White House under the justification of national security -- thirteen of them on government employees, four on newsmen. The program would last for twenty-one months, until February 1971. ... As the summaries came to Kissinger's office, Haig would read them, show his boss the interesting parts, and then store them in a safe ....

Other aides began to suspect something. Soon after the wiretaps had begun, Roger Morris went to the hospital to visit Lawrence Eagleburger, Kissinger's personal assistant who had collapsed from nervous exhaustion. Tears came to Eagleburger's eyes as he told his old friend from the foreign service about the tapping. "Don't say anything you don't want Haldeman or Henry to read over breakfast," Eagleburger warned. Anthony Lake, another idealistic staffer, stumbled across a wiretap summary involving one of their colleagues, and he told Morris about it. "Roger and I decided not to confront Kissinger," he recalled. "We were fighting on enough fronts. But every now and then, when we were talking on the phone, we'd wish 1. Edgar Hoover a merry Christmas."47


To protect his flanks, Hoover had Attorney General John Mitchell sign the wiretap authorizations.

Likewise, Kissinger targeted Hoover and Haig for his alibi. He used a written defense to incriminate Hoover. He wrote in his memoirs: "J. Edgar Hoover invariably listed some official outside the FBI hierarchy as requesting each wiretap, even in cases where I had heard Hoover himself specifically recommend them to Nixon."48 Though he had instructed Haig to deliver the wiretap order to Hoover, Kissinger later told friends that Haig originated the plan. Isaacson wrote that much of what was requested in Kissinger's name, "he insisted was done on Haig's own initiative." And there was "some truth to the charge; Haig used the program to further his own interests and spy on his rivals."47

He also rationalized the surveillance as something previous administrations had done. "I don't think there was any more or less wiretapping" during the Nixon administration than in previous years, the FBI's intelligence division chief James Adams said. However, "what was unusual about this [was] that it involved wiretaps on the NSC staff, on individuals that were part of the White House family." Administration officials had previously ordered wiretaps to spy on potentially criminal union leaders and organized mobsters. A wiretapping program set against one's own staff was, according to another top FBI official, Thomas Smith, "unprecedented." 47,49

Deputy FBI director William Sullivan was charged with overseeing Kissinger's wiretap operation. Hoover later discharged Sullivan for insubordination since he was suspected of plotting against the FBI director for the benefit of the CIA and Nixon White House officials -- particularly Haig and Kissinger.

The surveillance program reflected "quite a natural temptation, especially for two people with a touch of paranoia," Isaacson concluded. "To eavesdrop on what others are saying -- colleagues, subordinates, rivals, and enemies -- gives a heady sense of power that has tempted people even more ethically fastidious than Kissinger and Nixon."47

The program -- which ultimately led to the plumbers. which led to Watergate -- illustrated what can happen when a White House is intent on pursuing policies. such as the bombing of Cambodia, that it feels it cannot dare let the public discover.47


"It is the part of my public service about which I am most ambivalent," Kissinger said, referring to this phase of his career. This was as close as he ever came to saying he was sorry.

The Great Power Grab

For Nixon, National Security Council meetings quickly became bothersome. Rather than having to deal with issues and objections raised by State Department director William Rogers and Defense Secretary Melvin Laird, both of whom threatened Kissinger's power and ego, Nixon directed Haldeman to announce a decision he and Kissinger had been considering for five months: the new role of the NSC adviser would be to oversee the departments of Defense and State. Thereafter, rather than exploring foreign policy matters during full NSC meetings, Nixon and Kissinger decided them alone.50

"Cut NSC to one every two week[s] -- or once a month," read Haldeman's notes of the great power grab. "More brought privately to President for his discussion with Kissinger." Later in the meeting, Nixon informed Haldeman that from now on, Kissinger should direct NSC agenda discussions directly to him before informing agency chiefs during council meetings. In this way, the two came to decisions without Rogers and Laird being informed. "No appeal," Nixon ordered, as he frequently did, for emphasis. 51

"This suited Kissinger just fine," wrote Isaacson who chronicled:

From the start, he had been seeking to make foreign policy in private with Nixon whenever possible. For the very first NSC meeting, which dealt with Vietnam options, he had Halperin do a two-page cover memo summarizing the plans put forth from State and other agencies. There were little boxes for Nixon to initial. Kissinger looked at it and told Halperin, "Fine, but now tell him what to do." Halperin was a little taken aback, having heard all of Kissinger's pronouncements about how the NSC staff would merely pass along options. The summary documents, with Kissinger's recommended course of action, were to become another of the secrets that Kissinger had to keep from the State Department and the rest of the govemment. 50, 52


The power shift was quickly announced by the press. After only three weeks at the White House, Time's cover story featured Kissinger. Already the article said, "Kissinger is ... widely suspected in Washington of being a would-be usurper of the powers traditionally delegated to the State and Defense departments [and] ... Humility is not his hallmark." Likewise, The New York Times reported that Kissinger "is taking over the responsibility for coordinating foreign policy in the Nixon Administration, a mandate formerly assigned to the Secretary of State."50,53

At this point I questioned: What were Kissinger's responsibilities? Might they have included directing Defense Department research activities. Did he order the request for appropriations for the development of AIDS-like viruses? Could he have discussed with Roy Ash the award granted to Gallo through Litton Bionetics for the development of immunesystem- destroying viruses following Nixon's signing of the Geneva accord? Had Roy Ash informed Kissinger about such possibilities from his company's R & D reports?

Isaacson quickly answered the first of my questions with a resounding yes. As chairman of the NSC's Senior Review Group, he was in the most powerful position to determine what issues reached the president as well as the agency directors. As shown in figure 11.2, Kissinger quickly "set up a covey of other committees, all of which he chaired, to give him better control over specific topics. They included:

• The Defense Program Review Committee, which considered the funding requests for weapons and other military needs.

• The 40 Committee, a new name for an older panel, which was in charge of authorizing covert actions by the CIA and other agencies.
[emphasis added.]

• The Vietnam Special Studies Group, set up in September 1969, which coordinated military and diplomatic policy regarding the war.

• The Verification Panel, formed in July 1969, which ostensibly analyzed whether compliance with different arms control proposals could be verified by U.S. intelligence, but which was soon in charge of managing all arms negotiations.

• The Washington Special Action Group, set up after North Korea's downing of the EC-121 plane, which handled breaking events and crises."50

From 1968 to 1971, the Kissinger-directed NSC annual budget jumped from $700,000 to $2.2 million as its staff almost doubled to 105 administrative aides.50, 54

In essence, during Nixon's years in office, Kissinger dictated foreign (as well as domestic) policies, procedures, and programs to everyone, including those in command of the military and intelligence communities. In one case, CIA director Richard Helms bore the brunt of Kissinger's power. Kissinger had never felt comfortable with aristocrats like Helms. So he ordered the CIA patrician to supply raw intelligence data rather than summary reports for the NSC director to personally interpret. "It skewed our way of writing estimates, especially about the Soviets," Helms complained. "The estimates had to provide a vast amount of data so Kissinger could make up his own mind." 50

In another instance, Kissinger pressured military directors, including Laird, to fall in line. In early 1969, he phoned Admiral Zumwalt,55 chief of naval operations, over an issue regarding Africa. Laird was outraged. He insisted that all NSC military dealings should run through him. Kissinger argued that as the president's representative, he held the power to command military operations.

A few weeks later, when Zumwalt and Kissinger met at a social event, the navy chief noted that he shared Laird's objections to dealing outside of the chain of command. But Kissinger was adamant. It was a matter of both power and principle, he felt, and he insisted that he had the right to deal with all members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff directly. "From then on," says Zumwalt, "every time we got together for business, he referred to it as a 'nonmeeting.' Without Kissinger's knowledge, Zumwalt kept Laird fully informed. 50


"Kissinger's desire to control foreign policy," Isaacson wrote, "was not wholly unwarranted." By keeping close tabs on the bureaucracy, "he was able to dispel some of the stale thinking that permeated the State and Defense departments."50

My distrust of Kissinger for having played a key role in the development and possible deployment of AIDS-like viruses was not unwarranted according to Isaacson's record:

In the summer of 1969, he ordered a study on chemical and biological weapons. He was dubious about whether they had much use in a war-fighting strategy, and assumed correctly that little thought had been given to the issue. By asking for a range of feasible options, Kissinger guaranteed that the possibility of eliminating the program would be listed, if only as an extreme option to set off the policy the military preferred.50


What returned to Kissinger's desk was a "mass of opaque prose" that even he couldn't understand. "I can't even read this paper," he bellowed.

"But he knew that an opportunity had been uncovered," Isaacson concluded. "He had his staff sharpen the wording so that the options became clearer. In making his decision to renounce first use of chemical weapons and to dismantle production of biological ones, Nixon stressed the novelty of the review process and how well it had worked."50 He also effectively misled the media and world powers that the United States had turned away from the evils of biological warfare. Nothing could have been further from the truth.56

That night, from my New York hotel room, with Kissinger on my lap, and military intelligence on my mind, I telephoned Jackie. "Jack, get this." I said. "Kissinger undoubtedly ordered the DOD appropriations request for the AIDS-like viruses."

"How do you know that?" she asked.

"It's apparent from what I just read. I'll tell you about it when I get home."

Fig. 11.2. Control and Direction of U.S. Foreign Intelligence Within the National Security System

Image
Adapted from John Stockwell's In Search of Enemies. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1978, p. 261. Mr. Stockwell was the Chief of the CIA's Angola Task Force during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
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