JFK files reveal Hoover's prurient interest in sex By The Wayne Madsen Report

 

JFK files reveal Hoover's prurient interest in sex

By The Wayne Madsen Report

While the partially-released JFK assassination files contain some nuggets of interest that fill in the gaps for some of the events that transpired before, during, and after the November 22, 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, there are a few FBI memos that point to its director's penchant for gathering intelligence on prurient sexual matters. Hoover, who is now recognized by many historians as being a closeted homosexual, maintained an extensive card filing system that included information that could be used to blackmail politicians and other prominent citizens. 

FBI agents assigned to investigate Lee Harvey Oswald assassin Jack Ruby appeared anxious to whet Hoover's appetite with memos regarding Ruby's female "employees." One air telegram sent from the FBI office in Los Angeles concerned a former Ruby night club stripper named Marjorie Alice Putnam. A January 7, 1964 Airtel implies that Putnam, who went by the stage name "Syra the Dutch Doll," moved to Hollywood, California after working for Ruby in Dallas.

An earlier FBI telegram from the FBI office in Cleveland to Hoover and the FBI Dallas office, dated November 27, 1963, five days after Kennedy's assassination, concerns a former stripper named "Taffy Twist," who denied to the FBI knowing Ruby. For the FBI to be chasing down strippers appears to have been a monumental waste of resources at the time.



A January 30, 1964 Airtel to Hoover from the FBI office in San Francisco also dwells on sexual information. Dr. Walter Bromberg, a resident of Sacramento, was one of Ruby's defense team psychiatrists. After the FBI in San Francisco determined that Bromberg had not been a member of the Communist Party, the FBI San Francisco office noted that a Napa, California source, a nurse, reported that Bromberg, who was married, "conducted sex parties in which he struck women companions with a whip."



A June 21, 1967 FBI memo concerns a bureau interview with Lillie Mae McMaines, a New Orleans friend of Perry Russo, one of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison's chief witnesses and an associate of CIA-linked businessman Clay Shaw, aka Clem Bertrand. McMaines used the name Sandra Moffett while living in New Orleans. After dating Russo and becoming pregnant by him, Russo told her to "get lost." During the time she dated Russo, she stated that he "photographed her on several occasions while she was engaging in the act of coitus with different men." Moffett later turned to prostitution to support herself. On another occasion, Russo wanted Moffett and a girl named Kathy to engage in a lesbian act so he could photograph it. Moffett/McMaines was used by Garrison to prove the association of Russo with JFK assassin co-conspirator David Ferrie. The FBI memo states that Moffett/McMaines "told substantially the truth" during a polygraph examination.

The newly-released files also contain a wealth of information on the activities of Ruby, aka Jacob Rubinstein, in Chicago. A November 25, 1963 telegram from the FBI office in Chicago to Hoover and the Dallas FBI office refers to "Jack Leon Ruby" being a relative of a notorious Chicago gangster named Harry Rubinstein, the owner of the Olympic Hotel on North Clark Street in Chicago's Near North Side. Harry Rubinstein killed a man at his hotel in the mid-1940s but, by paying $25,000 to a Chicago cop, was able to have the homicide charge dropped to manslaughter with one year of probation. Ruby worked for Rubinstein as a bartender at the Banker's Building in the Chicago Loop. Ruby tried to enlist in the Navy in 1942/1943 but failed the physical examination.

The FBI, relying on an informant, noted that Jack Ruby, whose nickname was "Sparky," was an "excellent fist fighter" who operated a bookie operation out of his friend Abe "Zuckie" Zuckerman's restaurant on Roosevelt Road in north Chicago during the World War II years. Because Zuckerman failed to cut Chicago hoodlum Leonard Partick in on the bookie profits, Patrick had Zuckerman shot to death. 

Due to the second page being suspiciously missing from the November 25, 1963 FBI telegram, the full context of the FBI's statement that Ruby's gangster associates provided three of the four guns used by Puerto Rican nationalists who, on March 1, 1954, opened fire from the visitor's gallery of the U.S. House of Representatives on to the House floor, is incomplete. Wounded in the attack were Alvin M. Bentley (R-MI), who was shot in the chest; Clifford Davis (D-TN), wounded in the leg; Ben F. Jensen (R-IA), also shot in the back; George Hyde Fallon (D-MD); and Kenneth A. Roberts (D-AL).

A December 12, 1964 telegram from the FBI in Chicago to Hoover and the Dallas field office provides information on a Ruby associate named Paul Dorfman, who had infiltrated, on behalf of the mob, the Waste Paper Handlers Union in Chicago. Bob Mullenix, a private investigator hired to probe Dorfman's involvement with the union, was killed in an "auto accident" in November 1962, a year before JFK's assassination. Mullenix's files on Dorfman and, presumably Ruby, were sent to his brother, John C. Mullenix, in Springfield, Illinois for safekeeping. The FBI Springfield office was tasked with reviewing those files.

There is a fascinating radio telex message from the FBI in New York to Hoover and the Dallas field office, dated November 30, 1963, that provides information on a link between Ruby and Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry. The telex is titled "Possible Association Between Jesse Curry, Chief of Police, Dallas, Texas, and Ruby." The New York FBI source was the Polish Press Agency's New York correspondent Wieslaw Gornicki. Gornicki relayed a conversation he had with Poland's United Nations ambassador Bohdan Lewanowski. The ambassador told Gornicki that the correspondent for the Indian publication "Blitz" was in Dallas on the day of the assassination. 

The Indian reporter told Lewanowski that he had obtained documents indicating that Ruby and Curry were members of "MB KESIDE" or "MB SESILE." These appear to be CIA digraphs followed by cryptonym used to denote various covert operations. For example, "MK" denoted the CIA's Technical Services Division operations in the 1950s and 60s, while "MH" denoted the CIA's worldwide operations. MHCHAOS was the CIA's anti-Vietnam War protest surveillance operation and LITEMPO was a CIA spy operation in Mexico. [UPDATE: Among the newly-released documents is an October 11, 1963 message from the CIA station in Mexico City referring to the implementation of the program with the digraph/cryptonym combination of LCFLUTTER. The "MB" reference may be the CIA's digraph for operations targeting President Kennedy in Dallas in 1963. LCFLUTTER was a CIA program to use Sodium Amytal (amobarbital), Sodium Pentothal (thiopental), and Seconal (secobarbital) in a targeted individual to induce regression]. It is intriguing how a correspondent for a magazine in non-aligned India came to share such information with the ambassador of a Communist country in New York. However, the Indian and Polish reporters, as well as the ambassador, may have been CIA informants.


Another, much later message, dated October 6, 1975, from the FBI Dallas to FBI headquarters in Washington, states that Dallas Morning News reporter Earl Golz "came into possession of documents three years ago from Paul Rothermel, a former Special Agent, FBI, and former Chief of Security, for Hunt Oil Company, Dallas, Texas." One of the documents, dated November 4, 1963, is from "Rothermel to H. L. Hunt (now deceased) which states Rothermel was told by a reliable source that there would be violence along the parade route to be taken by the President John F. Kennedy. The communication further states Rothermel reported this information to Dallas Police Dept., and the FBI." The FBI message refers to Golz as a person who believed in a "conspiratorial plot to assassinate the president," an all-too-familiar pejorative, crafted by the CIA and used by Warren Commission junkies.

While the FBI sought to damage the credibility of journalists like Golz, it had its own informants within the news media. A December 5, 1963 memo to Hoover from the FBI office in Philadelphia concerns an effort to discover the identity of a "JHC" who "sent a letter to Dallas," and a post card to radio station WPEN in Philadelphia that concerned Ruby. The FBI telex states that Theodore Reinhart, the producer of the night talk program, the Red Benson Show on WPEN, was an "established source" for the FBI. Reinhart used the Red Benson Show to appeal to "JHC," who apparently called into the Red Benson Show sometime after January 1, 1963 and before November 22, 1963 with information concerning Ruby and the planned assassinations of JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald, to "come forward" with his or her identity. There is no indication that "JHC" ever surfaced.

A May 8, 1964 FBI memo to the FBI's third-in-charge William Sullivan reports on an interview with Ned Touchstone, an FBI informant, editor of the Citizens' Council of Louisiana publication The Councilor, and member of the Original Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, who reported that President Lyndon Johnson "was formerly a member of the Klan in Texas during the early days of his political career." Sullivan was shot to death on November 9, 1977 in New Hampshire when a local hunter said he mistook him for a deer. Sullivan was due to testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations. The shooter's father was a New Hampshire state policeman at the time of the incident.

A July 25, 1969 FBI memo concerns a report from Charles William Thomas, a diplomat who served as Political Officer at the U.S. embassy in Mexico City from 1964 to 1967. Thomas related how the famous Mexican play-right [sic] Elena Garro de Paz told him about a party she attended at the home of her cousin Ruben Duran sometime before the JFK assassination. At the party, she was introduced to Oswald and two other Americans. The memo stated that, at the time of the party, there was a close association between the CIA station chief in Mexico City, Winston Scott, and President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, who served as Interior Minister before becoming president in 1964. With the CIA controlling the Mexican Interior Ministry, the so-called "surveillance" of Oswald consorting with Soviet diplomats in Mexico City is highly dubious, considering the links between the CIA, FBI, and the Mexican security services at the time. Thomas's report states that the CIA was "considerably disturbed" by de Paz's recollection of the meeting with Oswald and the two unidentified Americans and information she ascertained at the time about a plot to kill President Kennedy.

The politics surrounding a massacre BY THE WAYNE MADSEN REPORT

The politics surrounding a massacre BY THE WAYNE MADSEN REPORT

Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo was surprisingly open to the press about where his initial investigation was leading in the wake of alleged gunman Stephen Paddock's massacre of 58 people and wounding of some 489 others gathered at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival in Las Vegas on October 1. At a press conference on October 4, Lombardo held out the possibility that Paddock may have had assistance in carrying out his deadly massacre from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino on the Las Vegas strip.

Lombardo said, "Do you think this was all accomplished on his own? . . . Self value, face value, you got to make the assumption that he had to have had some help at some point. And we want to ensure that that's the answer. Maybe he's a super guy ... [he] was working out all of this on his own. But it'd be hard for me to believe that."

Lombardo also revealed that Paddock booked an AirBnB room at the Ogden condominium in Las Vegas the prior weekend. That room overlooked another concert venue, the Life Is Beautiful music festival. Other factoids offered by Lombardo included the fact that Paddock, while firing his weapons, stood back from the hotel's smashed-out windows to protect himself from return police sniper fire. Lombardo later revealed that a note with a list of numbers was found in one of the two adjoining suites comped to Paddock by the Mandalay because of his high-roller gambler status. The sheriff's office was also the apparent source for a report that someone with a room key card and who was not hotel staff entered Paddock's suite while he was away from the hotel.

Lombardo's willingness to be open with the public hearkens back to the "Sagebrush Rebellion" of the 1980s, when elected sheriffs in the Rocky Mountain West demonstrated their fierce independence from dictates out of Washington. The more information Lombardo offered the press, the more Las Vegas FBI special agent-in-charge (SAC) Aaron Rouse pushed back against Lombardo's revelations. The conflict between Western sheriffs and the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies are ingrained in federal-state relations extending from Arizona through Nevada and into the upper Rockies.

Lombardo, a Republican, was elected sheriff of Clark County in 2014. Lombardo spent 30 years as a Las Vegas police officer prior to being elected sheriff. His office also places him in charge of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Department. While Lombardo has police authority within the city limits of Las Vegas, the famed "Strip" lies outside the city limits but Lombardo still has ultimate police authority over the casino region as the sheriff of Clark County.

It was noteworthy that Las Vegas mayor Carolyn Goodman pushed back against Lombardo's statement that Paddock may have had help. Goodman brushed off additional parties being involved in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer. She insisted that the word "may" was key and reiterated the investigation remained inconclusive, despite the earlier comments by Lombardo. Ms. Goodman succeeded her husband Oscar Goodman as mayor seven years ago. 

Oscar Goodman, who owns a steakhouse in Las Vegas, is a former Philadelphia lawyer for mobsters like Nicky Scarfo and Phil Leonetti. While practicing law in Las Vegas, Goodman represented other mobsters, including Meyer Lansky, Herbert "Fat Herbie" Blitzstein, and Stardust "skim" boss Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal. Now an independent, Oscar Goodman ran for mayor in 1998 as a Democrat. Carolyn Goodman declined to endorse either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. Some local Las Vegas journalists regard the Goodmans as part of the mob scene in Las Vegas. Oscar Goodman pushed hard for U.S. Congressional approval and budget earmarking for Las Vegas's Mob Museum, located in the old U.S. Post Office Building and which honors the mob's contributions to the founding of Las Vegas.

FBI agent Rouse only offered up the fact that the FBI's investigation of the mass shooting extended "across the United States and all across the world." Paddock is known to have traveled widely international, including booking cruises to Europe and the Middle East. Rouse was appointed Special Agent-in-Charge for Las Vegas in 2016 by then-FBI director James Comey. His previous job was section chief in the Counterintelligence Division at FBI Headquarters. Prior to that he served in the Tampa and San Antonio Divisions. In what may represent a first, Rouse announced that the FBI, Las Vegas Police, and Clear Channel Outdoors, a subsidiary of the right-wing iHeartMedia, Inc., were partnering in a Las Vegas area billboard information campaign to encourage people to contact the FBI if they have information on Paddock or anyone else with knowledge of the shooting. Borrowing from the Department of Homeland Security's "If you see something, say something" campaign on counter-terrorism, the FBI is spearheading a campaign based on "If you know something, say something,” along with a 1-800-CallFBI tip line.

The FBI did not seem interested in the fact that on the morning of October 2, the morning after the Las Vegas shooting, Nye County Sheriff's deputies arrested wanted violent felon Duane Johnson, who may have been armed, run into Manse Elementary School in Pahrump, Nevada, which is about 62 miles to the west of Las Vegas. Johnson was not apprehended. Nye County Sheriff's deputies also responded to reports of an armed man at both Floyd Elementary and Rosemary Clarke Middle Schools, both also in Pahrump.

In the past few days, Lombardo has apparently been sidelined at joint FBI-Las Vegas Sheriff's Department press conferences by his Undersheriff Kevin McMahill, a graduate of the CIA-connected Harvard Kennedy School of Government's Senior Executives in State and Local Government Program. McMahill is a graduate of Columbia Southern University, a distance-learning and for-profit institution headquartered in Orange Beach, Alabama. Lombardo's recent absence coincides with a tightening up on law enforcement information provided to the media concerning the mass shooting.
There is increasing evidence, based on Paddock's life style, background -- including being a private pilot --  financial wealth, and international travel, that he may have served as an underworld hitman. Two Hollywood movies, "The Mechanic" and "The Accountant," provide main characters -- hit men -- who mirror Paddock's personality and background. Paddock's fascination with numbers and weapons, as well as his previous job as an accountant for a Lockheed subsidiary and the Internal Revenue Service, closely match the persona of the Ben Affleck character, Christian Wolff, in "The Accountant." [pictured right].

Las Vegas is the capital city of contract hits. Adding credibility to the Paddock-as-a-professional-hitman theory is Lombardo's stated belief that Paddock [pictured left] intended to survive the aftermath of the shooting. Paddock may have had a specific target in the concert crowd but some other party may have altered the scenario from a single hit to a mass shooting. Paddock appears to have specialized in sniper hits into large crowds at long ranges and from tall structures as evidenced by his interest in renting hotel rooms overlooking Chicago's Grant Park during a major music festival there in the summer of 2016 and Boston's Fenway Park, another popular venue for concerts.

Within the past decade, there have been over a half-dozen criminal cases involving Las Vegas-based hitmen. In July of this year, Thomas Randolph, 62, was convicted of hiring a Vegas hitman, Michael James Miller, to kill his wife. After Miller murdered Sharon Causse, Randolph's sixth wife, Randolph shot Miller to death. Randolph was convicted of a double homicide and sentenced to death. In 2012, Noel Stevens, a Vegas hitman, who went by the name "Greyhound," murdered Shauna Tiaffay, the estranged wife of a Las Vegas firefighter. The firefighter, George Tiaffay, paid Stevens $600 to club his wife to death with a hammer.

In 2004, Las Vegas habitué and hitman Ronald Bruce Bigger stabbed Tucson, Arizona physician Dr. David Brian Stidham. Bigger was paid $10,000 by Stidham's medical partner, Dr. Bradley Schwartz. The case is germane to Paddock because Bigger was diagnosed by an Arizona forensic psychologist as suffering from a personality disorder with narcissistic and antisocial features. Paddock has been described in very similar terms. 

In 2009, Wen Jun Li was stabbed and slashed 32 times by Taiwanese United Bamboo gang martial arts hitman Xiao Ye Bai for failing to pay back $10,000 in gambling debts. The attack occurred a few blocks west of the Strip at the KTV karaoke bar.

Contract hits have become so common in Las Vegas that the Las Vegas police run undercover officers posing as hitmen who are contacted by individuals trying to arrange murders-for-hire. In 2012, Jorge Velasquez of Las Vegas paid one such undercover officer $2000 to murder his wife as his 32nd birthday present.

Chicago hitman Frank Cullotta worked for Chicago mobster Lefty Rosenthal, a numbers man who ran the mob's casino "skim" of the gross house take at the Stardust Casino. Cullotta is now a featured speaker at Oscar Goodman's pet project, the Mob Museum. Cullotta joined the Federal Witness Protection Program after rolling on the mob.

Las Vegas, which continues its reputation as a "mobbed up" city, may never truly solve the Paddock case. If Paddock was, in fact, a professional hitman, other cans of worms may be opened that the "city fathers" may very well want to keep closed.

Military makes preparations for "significant" flu crisis in October

WMR has learned from a U.S. military source with responsibility for the U.S. military's response to an expected A/H1N1 mutated virus pandemic in October that the threat currently posed by the mutated virus is "significant."

WMR has also learned that Asia and the Pacific are expected to be "ground zero" for the mutated influenza strain and that major U.S. contingency operations to respond to the more virulent form of the current hybrid "swine flu" are now being staged out of Japan.

In addition, the U.S. hospital ships, USNS Mercy and USNS Comfort are being readied to respond to the initial stages of the more deadly virus expected to hit in October. The military response to the expected October surge in cases of mutated flu, for which current vaccines will be ineffective, is being coordinated by the Surgeon General of the United States and the U.S. Navy's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED).

The Department of Defense is engaged in high-level counter-influenza contingency planning in Hawaii, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, and Malaysia. The Pentagon's preparations are said to be "huge."

WMR has also learned of highly-classified military programs involving North Korea when the mutated flu strikes that isolated country. However, details of the program could not be obtained from our source.

Currently, the strategy of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and the Department of Health and Human Services is not to raise any alarms by closing schools or restricting travel at airports. The government wants to maintain "a sense of normalcy," according to our well-placed source. However, the source also stated that the "alarm should now be sounded" about the coming catastrophic flu season expected to rear its head worldwide in the autumn.

Special fears have been raised for children and pregnant women when the mutated flu begins to spread, revealed our military source.

U.S. military planners are reportedly planning for the worst case scenario but their ranks are plagued with high-level incompetence, WMR has been told. In addition, some military officials are distressed with the approach taken by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in putting too much faith in vaccines. Experts warn that vaccines developed to combat the current hybrid A/H1N1 flu may not be effective against the deadlier mutated strain expected to wreak havoc in the autumn months. Current plans are to have 160 million doses of the vaccine to combat the current strain of A/H1N1 in readiness in October, the same month a public health awareness and vaccination program is set to begin.

WMR has also learned from a financial adviser that financial investment strategies are already being tailored in reaction to the expected mutated swine flu pandemic expected around the October time frame. Many Wall Street insiders fear a "perfect storm" of a jittery economy and a deadly flu pandemic will trigger a "financial catastrophe" in October.

Although there are preparations being made by the military and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for quarantines of cities and regions of the country, contingency planners warn that they "cannot be depended on."

Five Years for Powell -- and VIPS By Ray McGovern

Colin Powell, cover-up artist for the empire ever since Vietnam

It is a difficult anniversary to “celebrate” – Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity’s first publication, a same-day critique of Colin Powell’s Feb. 5, 2003, UN address – since what he said helped grease the skids for incalculable death and destruction in Iraq and brought shame on our country.

A handful of former CIA intelligence officers formed VIPS in January 2003, after we could no longer avoid concluding that our profession had been corrupted to “justify” what was, pure and simple, a war of aggression.

Little did we know at the time that a month later Colin Powell, with then-CIA Director George Tenet sitting conspicuously behind him, would provide the world a textbook example of careerism and cowardice in cooking intelligence to the recipe of his master.

It was hardly Powell’s first display of abject obedience.

Some biographers have traced the pattern back to his early days as an Army officer in Vietnam and later as an Iran-Contra accomplice while serving as military assistant to Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger in the 1980s. [See Chapter 8 of Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush.]

A year before his UN speech, rather than confront President George W. Bush personally on White House pressure for legal wiggle-room for torture, Powell asked State Department lawyers to engage White House lawyers Alberto Gonzales and Cheney favorite David Addington, in what Powell knew would be a quixotic effort, absent his personal involvement.

Powell’s lawyers put in writing his concern that making an end-run around the Geneva protections for prisoners of war “could undermine U.S. military culture which emphasizes maintaining the highest standards of conduct in combat, and could introduce an element of uncertainty in the status of adversaries.”

But when Gonzales and Addington simply declared parts of Geneva “quaint” and “obsolete,” Powell caved, acquiescing in the corruption of the Army to which he owed so much. We know the next chapters (Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo) of that story.

Powell was right, but lacked the strength of his convictions. Turns out that key instance of obeisance – important as it was in its own right – was just practice for Powell.

VIPS’ Maiden Effort

When our fledgling VIPS learned that Powell would address the UN, we decided to do a same-day analytic assessment – the kind we used to do when someone like Khrushchev, or Gorbachev, or Gromyko, or Mao, or Castro gave a major address.

We were only too well accustomed to the imperative to beat the media with our commentary. Coordinating our Powell effort via e-mail, we issued VIPS’ first Memorandum for the President at 5:15 p.m. – “Subject: Today’s Speech by Secretary Powell at the UN.”

Our understanding at that time was far from perfect. It was not yet completely clear to us, for example, that Saddam Hussein had for the most part been abiding by, rather than flouting, UN resolutions.

We stressed, though, that the key question was whether any of this justified war:

“This is the question the world is asking. Secretary Powell’s presentation does not come close to answering it.”

And we warned the president:

“Intelligence community analysts are finding it hard to make themselves heard above the drumbeat for war.”

And we voiced our distress at “the politicization of intelligence,” as well as the deep flaws:

“Your Pentagon advisers draw a connection between war with Iraq and terrorism, but for the wrong reasons. The connection takes on much more reality in a post-US invasion scenario.” [bold in original]

“Indeed, it is our view that an invasion of Iraq would ensure overflowing recruitment centers for terrorists into the indefinite future. Far from eliminating the threat it would enhance it exponentially.”

Dissociating VIPS from Powell’s bravado rhetoric claiming that the evidence he presented was “irrefutable,” we noted, “No one has a corner on the truth,” and warned the president:

“But after watching Secretary Powell today, we are convinced you would be well served if you widened the discussion beyond violations of Resolution 1441, and beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.”

And Senator Clinton Knew

Five years later, we take no pleasure at having been right; we take considerable pain at having been ignored.

It was a no-brainer, and serious specialists like former UN inspector Scott Ritter, to his credit, were shouting it from the rooftops.

And here is more than a mere footnote. Folks should know that our Feb. 5, 2003, memorandum analyzing Powell’s speech was shared with the junior senator from New York. Thus, she still had plenty of time to raise her voice before the Bush administration launched the fateful attack on Iraq on March 19.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. A veteran of 27 years in the analytic ranks of CIA, he is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. VIPS’ issuances are listed below; complete texts can be found at afterdowningstreet.org/vips.

Below is the full text of the VIPS’ first issuance, a Memorandum for the President, Feb. 5, 2003

“Secretary Powell’s Presentation to the UN Today”

Secretary Powell’s presentation at the UN today requires context. We give him an “A” for assembling and listing the charges against Iraq, but only a “C–” in providing context and perspective.

What seems clear to us is that you need an intelligence briefi ng, not grand jury testimony. Secretary Powell effectively showed that Iraq is guilty beyond reasonable doubt for not cooperating fully with UN Security Council Resolution 1441. That had already been demonstrated by the chief UN inspectors. For Powell, it was what the
Pentagon calls a “cakewalk.”

The narrow focus on Resolution 1441 has diverted attention from the wider picture. It is crucial that we not lose sight of that. Intelligence community analysts are finding it hard to make themselves heard above the drumbeat for war. Speaking both for ourselves, as veteran intelligence officers on the VIPS Steering Group with over a hundred
years of professional experience, and for colleagues within the community who are increasingly distressed at the politicization of intelligence, we feel a responsibility to help you frame the issues. For they are far more far-reaching—and complicated—than “UN v. Saddam Hussein.” And they need to be discussed dispassionately, in a setting
in which sobriquets like “sinister nexus,” “evil genius,” and “web of lies” can be more hindrance than help.

Flouting UN Resolutions

The key question is whether Iraq’s flouting of a UN resolution justifies war. This is the question the world is asking.

Secretary Powell’s presentation does not come close to answering it. One might well come away from his briefing thinking that the Iraqis are the only ones in flagrant violation of UN resolutions. Or one might argue that there is more urgency to the need to punish the violator of Resolution 1441 than, say, of Resolution 242 of 1967 requiring Israel to withdraw from Arab territories it occupied that year. More urgency? You will not find many Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims who would agree.

It is widely known that you have a uniquely close relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. This presents a strong disincentive to those who might otherwise warn you that Israel’s continuing encroachment on Arab territories, its oppression of the Palestinian people, and its pre-emptive attack on Iraq in 1981 are among the root causes not only of terrorism, but of Saddam Hussein’s felt need to develop the means to deter further Israeli attacks.

Secretary Powell dismisses this factor far too lightly with his summary judgment that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction are “not for self-defense.”

Containment

You have dismissed containment as being irrelevant in a post 9/11 world. You should know that no one was particularly fond of containment, but that it has been effective for the last 55 years. And the concept of “material breach” is hardly anything new.

Material Breach

In the summer of 1983 we detected a huge early warning radar installation at Krasnoyarsk in Siberia. In 1984 President Reagan declared it an outright violation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. At an ABM Treaty review in 1988, the US spoke of this continuing violation as a “material breach” of the treaty. In the fall of 1989, the Soviet Union agreed to eliminate the radar at Krasnoyarsk without preconditions.

We adduce this example simply to show that, with patient, persistent diplomacy, the worst situations can change over time.

You have said that Iraq is a “grave threat to the United States,” and many Americans think you believe it to be an imminent threat. Otherwise why would you be sending hundreds of thousands of troops to the Gulf area? In your major speech in Cincinnati on October 7, 2002, you warned that “the risk is simply too great that Saddam Hussein
will use instruments of mass death and destruction, or provide them to a terror network.”

Terrorism

Your intelligence agencies see it differently. On the same day you spoke in Cincinnati, a letter from the CIA to the Senate Intelligence Committee asserted that the probability is low that Iraq would initiate an attack with such weapons or give them to terrorists—UNLESS: “Should Saddam conclude that a US-led attack could no longer be deterred, he probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorist actions.”

For now, continued the CIA letter, “Baghdad appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or chemical/biological warfare against the United States.” With his back against the wall, however, “Saddam might decide that the extreme step of assisting Islamist terrorists in conducting a weapons-of-mass-destruction
attack against the United States would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him.”

Your Pentagon advisers draw a connection between war with Iraq and terrorism, but for the wrong reasons. The connection takes on much more reality in a post-US invasion scenario.

Indeed, it is our view that an invasion of Iraq would ensure overflowing recruitment centers for terrorists into the indefinite future. Far from eliminating the threat it would enhance it exponentially.

As recent events around the world attest, terrorism is like malaria. You don’t eliminate malaria by shooting mosquitoes. Rather you must drain the swamp. With an invasion of Iraq, the world can expect to be inundated with swamps breeding terrorists. In human terms, your daughters are unlikely to be able to travel abroad in future years without a large phalanx of security personnel.

We recommend you re-read the CIA assessment of last fall that pointed out that “the forces fueling hatred of the US and fueling al Qaeda recruiting are not being addressed,” and that “the underlying causes that drive terrorists will persist.” That CIA report cited a Gallup poll last year of almost 10,000 Muslims in nine countries in which respondents
described the United States as “ruthless, aggressive, conceited, arrogant, easily provoked and biased.”

Chemical Weapons

With respect to possible Iraqi use of chemical weapons, it has been the judgment of the US intelligence community for over 12 years that the likelihood of such use would greatly increase during an offensive aimed at getting rid of Saddam Hussein.

Listing the indictment particulars, Secretary Powell said, in an oh-by-the-way tone, that sources had reported that Saddam Hussein recently authorized his field commanders to use such weapons. We find this truly alarming. We do not share the Defense Department’s optimism that radio broadcasts and leaflets would induce Iraqi commanders
not to obey orders to use such weapons, or that Iraqi generals would remove Saddam Hussein as soon as the first US soldier sets foot in Iraq. Clearly, an invasion would be no cakewalk for American troops, ill equipped as they are to operate in a chemical environment.

Casualties

Reminder: The last time we sent troops to the Gulf, over 600,000 of them, one out of three came back ill—many with unexplained disorders of the nervous system. Your Secretary of Veterans Affairs recently closed the VA healthcare system to nearly 200,000 eligible veterans by administrative fiat. Thus, casualties of further war will inevitably displace other veterans who need VA services.

In his second inaugural, Abraham Lincoln appealed to his fellow citizens to care for those who “have borne the battle.” Years before you took office, our country was doing a very poor job of that for the over 200,000 servicemen and women stricken with various Gulf War illnesses. Today’s battlefield is likely to be even more sodden with chemicals and is altogether likely to yield tens of thousands more casualties. On October 1, 2002, Congress’ General Accounting Office reported “serious problems still persist” with the Pentagon’s efforts to protect servicemen and women, including shortfalls in clothing, equipment, and training. Our troops deserve more effective support than broadcasts, leaflets, and faulty equipment for protection against chemical and biological agents.

No one has a corner on the truth; nor do we harbor illusions that our analysis is irrefutable or undeniable. But after watching Secretary Powell today, we are convinced that you would be well served if you widened the discussion beyond violations of Resolution 1441, and beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.

Richard Beske, San Diego
Kathleen McGrath Christison, Santa Fe
William Christison, Santa Fe
Patrick Eddington, Alexandria
Raymond McGovern, Arlington
Steering Group
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Other Issuances

2 Memorandum for Confused Americans, March 12, 2003
“Cooking Intelligence for War”

3 Memorandum for the President, March 18, 2003
“Forgery, Hyperbole, Half-Truth: A Problem”

4 Memorandum, March 26, 2003
“Arafat Interviewed by the Christisons on Current Impasse”

5 Memorandum, April 24, 2003
“The Stakes in the Search for Weapons of Mass Destruction”

6 Memorandum for the President, May 1, 2003
“Intelligence Fiasco”

7 Letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, May 19, 2003
“On UN Inspectors and Weapons of Mass Destruction”

8 Memorandum for the President, July 14, 2003
“Intelligence Unglued”

9 Memorandum for Colleagues in Intelligence, August 22, 2003
“Now It’s Your Turn”

10 Memorandum for Colleagues in Intelligence, October 13, 2003
“One Person Can Make a Difference”

11 Memorandum for the President, January 13, 2004
“Your State-of-the-Union Address”

12 Memorandum for the President, August 24, 2005
“Recommendation: Try A Circle of ‘Wise Women’”

13 Memorandum for Speaker of the House, Senate Majority Leader
“Denouement on Iraq: First Stop the Bleeding, March 14, 2007

14 Memorandum, March 29, 2007
“Brinkmanship Unwise in Uncharted Waters”

15 Memorandum, June 17, 2007
“Countering Terrorism—How Not to Do It”

16 Memorandum, July 27, 2007
“Dangers of a Cornered George Bush”

9/11 Toxic Dust: Official Who Knowingly Lied Refuses To Testify

Whitman in the frame to take the fall for Guiliani, Rice and The White House

The former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, who knowingly lied and signed off on falsified scientific research on the toxicity of the air in the aftermath of 9/11, has refused a request by Rep. Jerrold Nadler that she testify before a congressional hearing on the federal government's response to be tabled later this month.

The New York Sun today reported:

Christine Todd Whitman, the EPA administrator at the time, has declined an invitation to appear before a House subcommittee that Mr. Nadler chairs, an aide to the congressman said yesterday. Mr. Nadler, whose district includes ground zero, is expected to ask Ms. Whitman again before considering whether to seek to compel her testimony with a subpoena, the aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said.
Yesterday we reported on the fact that Hillary Clinton had announced, along with New York Congressman Jerry Nadler, D-NY, that she will chair the probe looking into the federal government's response and environmental clean-up efforts in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The Clinton/ Nadler press release stated that one intention of the probe was to take a close look at the EPA's inadequate program to test and clean residential areas in Manhattan.

Part of the press release stated:

In a recent decision, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York found that former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman's falsely reassuring and misleading statements of safety after the September 11, 2001 attacks were "without question conscience-shocking." The court also found the facts "support an allegation of a violation of the substantive due process right to be free from official government policies that increase the risk of bodily harm" by Whitman's misstatements regarding the air quality of the affected area. An EPA Inspector General review reached similar conclusions.

An AP report last month on these legal findings was posted last month and can be read here.

We have postulated that the left arm of the Washington power elite will be unlikely to fully expose the reality of the monumental criminal culpability of the Bush Administration on this particular issue, but will instead seek to once again close off the issue. Indeed it seems that Whitman is in the frame to take the fall and once cover the behinds of the ever increasingly unaccountable Neocon crime syndicate in the White House.


In August 2003 it was revealed that the Government ordered the EPA to give the public misleading information, telling New Yorkers on September 12 it was safe to breathe when reliable information on air quality was not available and Asbestos levels were known to be three times higher than national standards.

Further documents were obtained by CBS news last September, revealing that Lower Manhattan was reopened a few weeks following the attack even though the air was not safe.

The two devastating memos, written by the U.S. and local governments, show they knew. They knew the toxic soup created at Ground Zero was a deadly health hazard. Yet they sent workers into the pit and people back into their homes.

"Not only did they know it was unsafe, they didn't heed the words of more experienced people that worked for the city and E.P.A.," said Joel Kupferman, with the group Environmental Justice Project.

An EPA whistleblower, Dr. Cate Jenkins then wrote a letter to Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and other members of the New York congressional delegation blasting the EPA for hiding dangerous toxins from Ground Zero workers in the aftermath of 9/11.

The Letter claimed that EPA-funded research on the toxicity of breathable alkaline dust at the site “falsified pH results” to make the substance appear benign, when it was, in reality, corrosive enough to cause first responders and other workers in lower Manhattan to later lose pulmonary functions and, in some cases, to die.


In an even more shocking development it was revealed that Whitman apparently had financial interests in reassuring the public that all was well and that lower Manhattan could safely be reoccupied.

In a New York Post piece which has since been memory holed, but that was reported on here, these facts became clearly evident:

Meanwhile, Whitman's newly released financial-disclosure forms show that she said seven months before 9/11 that she would not get involved in any issue related to the finances of the Port Authority - which owns the WTC site - because she or her family owned PA bonds. Its finances could be impacted by lawsuits growing of the cleanup.

"I understand the following interests that belong to me, my spouse or my children present a conflict of interest," Whitman wrote at the time. She then listed various investments, including the bistate agency.

But Whitman was involved at Ground Zero despite that refusal, although she or her family also owned shares of Citigroup, whose insurance-company subsidiary, The Travelers, paid out hundred of millions of dollars in claims to downtown residents displaced by the attacks.
Not surprising then that Whitman does not want to testify. She is totally compromised and clearly in very deep trouble. Congressman Nadler himself blasted Whitman when this was revealed stating:

"She conspired [with the White House] to convince people to go into an unsafe environment . . . For that, she ought to be prosecuted," Nadler said. "People are dead because of her."
However, it must be remembered that Whitman and the EPA are accountable to the White House and act under the direct authority of the Bush Administration.

It was the 2003 EPA Inspector General's investigation that revealed that it was the White House that had pressured EPA into changing its press releases to add more "reassuring" language.

The further memos revealed that Whitman conspired with the White House to falsely reassure New Yorkers that the air was safe.

The New York Post also reported on the fact that the internal documents show it was Condoleezza Rice's office that gave final approval to the infamous Environmental Protection Agency press releases days after 9/11 claiming the air around Ground Zero was "safe to breathe,".

Now Secretary of State, Rice was then head of the National Security Council - "the final decision maker" on EPA statements about lower Manhattan air quality, the documents say.

And it cannot be forgotten that Rudolph Guiliani, who was mayor at the time, also said repeatedly that the air was safe.

Furthermore it has been the Bush Administration that has PURPOSEFULLY blocked millions in health compensation programs for ground zero workers and continuously attempted to stonewall the issue because to do otherwise would be an admission of responsibility for exposure to harmful substances after the government had already given the all clear. It has been the Bush administration that has allowed 9/11 heroes to die while at the same time disgracefully using the event as a cart blanche excuse for their own criminal actions at home and abroad.

It seems Whitman knew immediately that she was being fingered as the ultimate scapegoat. When the new information broke last September, she was quick to blame the city for not forcing Ground Zero workers to wear respirators.

In a "60 Minutes" interview, Whitman maintained that the nation's leading environmental agency did not have authority to enforce rules at the site, though the agency did warn the city about dangers in the air at Ground Zero.

"We didn't have the authority to do that enforcement, but we communicated to the people who did," Whitman stressed.


A 2004 report by the Sierra Club however detailed gross malfeasance by EPA, FEMA, and the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) and then suggested a cover-up of the public health hazards of Ground Zero ensued.

The report found that the EPA and FEMA, in concert with New York City's own health department, told families that they could clean up the contaminated dust themselves with wet rags. In fact, they actually discouraged area residents from wearing safety masks.

Some preliminary scientific studies have indicated that as many as 400,000 people were exposed to toxic ground zero dust. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of people have fallen ill, and several have died from lung ailments blamed on inhaled Trade Center ash.

Any probe into this issue that cannot establish these basic conclusions and pinpoint those at fault AT ALL LEVELS WITHIN THE GOVERNMENT will be highly suspicious. It is blatantly clear that not only Whitman and her EPA counterparts were complicit in a conspiracy and cover up the environmental hazards at ground zero, but also that high ranking officials with the Bush administration are also complicit.

It is also apparent from reports that Whitman had significant financial interests in the ground zero site, which should also be investigated in addition to the financial interests other officials complicit in this diabolical case also had before and after 9/11.

The Nadler's hearing is scheduled for May 22, Clinton's is set for June 20.



Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2007/05/17/2007-05-17_cluck_cluck_cluck_cluck.html
Wednesday, May 16th 2007, 7:30 PM

Christie Whitman is a coward. No other word will suffice. Rather than clearing the air (pun intended) over her post-9/11 performance as Environmental Protection Agency administrator, she is hiding behind her lawyer's briefs instead of answering a call to testify before Congress.
Whitman was invited to appear next week before Rep. Jerry Nadler's House judiciary subcommittee, which is investigating the federal "handling of air quality issues" after the terrorist attacks and possible violation of "due process rights" of people living and working downtown. She has demurred, through her attorney, who said it would be "inappropriate" if Whitman testified since there is 9/11-related litigation pending against her. Also because: "Gov. Whitman is not a lawyer and would be unlikely to assist the subcommittee on this subject."

And the dog ate her homework. And she stepped on a crack and broke her mother's back. And she suffers from the heartbreak of psoriasis.

In his column yesterday, Juan Gonzalez called attention to this dodging by Whitman, who should be thankful for the opportunity to defend herself and her agency. Unless, of course, their behavior was indefensible. She owes an awful lot of explaining to an awful lot of people, particularly first-responders who were sickened by Ground Zero air - and the families of other first-responders whose lung ailments proved fatal.

On Sept. 18, 2001, Whitman declared: "I'm glad to reassure the people of New York that their air is safe to breathe." She insists she distinguished between the ambient air downtown and the miasma at the pile, where workers were told to wear respirators. But not required.
In any case, that reassurance came before final air quality test results were in. So why was she reassuring? There's also the matter of EPA press releases fixed, fudged or cooked to add positive statements and delete cautionary advice - such fixing, fudging or cooking having been ferreted out by the EPA's inspector general. But this is just the tip of the airberg.
If Whitman has nothing to hide, she shouldn't be hiding.
Slap her with a subpoena.