The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 33 (35)

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0:06 Okay, let's get this party started. Hello, everybody. I hope you had a nice weekend. I had a crazy weekend. So I've been holding off on telling this story because I wanted to have a happy ending.

0:32 to tell the story and not just the horrible initial part of the story. So about a month ago, maybe a month and a half ago, do you guys remember me telling you the story about going over with my husband to a car show on a Saturday night in Orlando and like every part of the trip was like totally screwed up?

1:03 The guy that he goes to the car show with lives about halfway between us and Orlando. So we go by his house and then they drive together into the car show where it's at Margaritaville in Claremont, which is just north of Orlando. And they close down, it's like an outdoor mall and they close down the whole inside and there's all of these.

1:27 old cars and Bugattis and all kinds of exotic cars. And people just kind of walk around, eat, dinner, whatever. So he's been going to it for a couple of years. And I have never been with him. So I decide on a Saturday night, I'm going to go. So we stopped by, the other guy's name is John, so is my husband's name. So John number two's house, and he has this Porsche.

1:58 And no, Ferrari. I don't know. One of those cars. He works on cars. And it was a car that he was selling for someone else. So he had just washed it. And it has a dealer because he's a dealer tag on it. So he had taken the dealer tag off to wash the whole thing for the car show. And decides at the last minute he needs to run down to the store and forgot to put the tag back on. So we get there in his garage doors.

2:27 open. He's not at home and the car is not there. So John called him on the phone and said, hey, where are you? And he goes, I'm surrounded by seven cop cars right now. I'll call you right back. So he's Italian, but he does look a little Middle Eastern. They thought he had stolen the car. So the guy that saw him driving this exotic, like $300,000 car thought it was stolen.

2:56 And so a whole big confusion and actually once he showed him the registration because it's a dealer and all this other crap. So they get that all figured out and he comes to the house and we get on the road. So just before the exit to get off to go around to the mall, there's a huge wreck. So we're in like massive traffic and I'm looking at my husband and I'm going,

3:25 Is it like this all the time? He goes, this has never happened ever. I come over here, we fly in here and there's never a problem. And I'm going, okay. So we get to the place. We pull up to the entrance and they have a check-in. You have to pre-register for this event. Well, the last time he registered, it's an annual basis.

3:53 his insurance between that time and this time had expired because you have to fill that part out too. So he doesn't have his insurance card. So I'm having to go through my phone to find the email because it's a classic car. And I find it, I show the guy and I'm looking at my husband. I'm going, I'm never coming again. And so we have problems at the restaurant.

4:16 The restaurant, when we got there, there was no one there. And then a party of 20 comes in and sits down beside our table. No drink refills, blah, blah, blah. So when we get home, I tell my husband, I'm never going back. The next week he goes, he's on his way back and about halfway home, which is about 30 miles from the house, his hood latch on the, he has a 1968.

4:46 beautiful Camaro, his hood latch breaks. And at 80 miles an hour on I-4, the interstate, which on a Saturday night is packed, his hood flies up. He can see absolutely nothing. And he sticks his head out the window and his favorite hat goes flying off his head. And he manages to get the car over on the shoulder.

5:16 He takes his phone out and turns the light on, goes to the trunk. Now, he's heartbroken. This literally is, he calls, he's, anybody that comes up to us and people have with cash offered to buy the car, he tells them it's his casket, not his car. And he's like wedded to this car. It goes back, it was, he had a different 68 as his first car. This car.

5:42 Every time he sits in it, he gets the biggest smile. So he's devastated. His heart's racing. He's thankful that he's even alive, but he has the wherewithal. He has a jacket in the back. So he gets in his trunk, uses his phone to get the jacket out. He ties the hood down and he starts off home again. The whole hood and both front quarter panels are totally destroyed.

6:12 So it did not crash the windshield. It didn't hit the windshield at all. So the rest of the car is fine. So he realizes he doesn't have his phone in his pocket. He thinks it's in the trunk when he got his jacket out. So he comes home and he says, I don't know where my phone is. Because when he got home, he looked in the trunk. It's not in the trunk.

6:40 So I pull up my Apple, the Find Me app, and I said, well, is this where you pulled off? And it was. So we had to get in the truck and we're going back. And again, he's like shaking. He's like devastated. So we get off on the interstate at the next exit after where he was on the other side of the road. Do the U-turn, come back around.

7:06 And I told him, I said, okay, pull over. We're almost there to the phone. And laying in the side of the road about 20 feet in front of his phone is his hat. So he gets out and he gets his hat. We drive a little bit forward. His phone's right there laying because he had used it to tie his jacket around the hood to keep it down. So we have his phone.

7:31 So the guy that painted his car that did all the body work on it, originally get all the lines right, is in North Carolina. And he's not coming back for like 10 days. So that gave us enough time to do the whole insurance thing. And the insurance paid for it. And he is right now over there.

7:54 They're just buffing out. It's all repainted. It's all repaired. And they're just now buffing out because they have to put several layers of clear coat on the hood because he has the big stripe that comes up the hood. So we have a happy ending. And miraculously enough, this weekend, which happens to be my birthday weekend, we are going on a cruise with his...

8:23 Camaro car club over in Tampa up to a town that's just south of the Georgia border so it's going to be done in time he was scared to death he was going to have to go on that cruise in my Supra with everybody else having Camaros so he will have it back in time to go on this weekend

8:46 drive. So I was waiting to tell everybody. I wanted to share this with you guys, but I couldn't until I had a happy ending to it. So just wanted to share that with everybody. Poor John's going to need therapy. I mean, it's just, wow. What an event. It was so heartbreaking to me.

9:12 you know, he's an alpha guy. So, you know, he just kind of took it in stride, but I just know how devastating it was to him because, and again, he still went to car shows while his was sitting in the garage and took my Supra and even won an award with the Supra. So,

9:40 But it's just not the same. And sure, I think tomorrow I'll probably have to take him over there. One of these days, either tomorrow or Thursday, I'll have to take him over there to pick it up and bring it back home. So we're just going to have to play around with the schedule. Friday, because we will be on that trip, we will not have a show. So I just wanted to let you guys know that ahead of time.

10:07 Because we're leaving Friday morning and I'll have to contact War Hamster to figure out when we're going to do our Friday noon show. But anyway, that's the happy ending. So he's over there right now helping him buff it out. Okay, now for our lesson. We left off in the early 1970s with the...

10:36 approach to China, the release of Robert Bechtel and John Downey, who will be released in 1973. So that's where we were at in this book. For those of you who's following along, we're on page 385. Okay, for more than two decades since the inception of covert operations in Harry Truman's time,

11:05 It had been assumed that certain duplicity went with the territory. This formed the essence of the concept of plausible deniability. But the rationale had always been to prevent knowledge of the actions becoming available to the targets in the case of minor endeavors and to the American public in larger ones. In other words, your government constantly has lied to you since post-World War II.

11:32 No one ever intended to deny information to leaders in the U.S. government. Right. Propelled by the growing controversy over covert operations, however, Nixon and Kissinger contrived to do exactly that, elevating duplicity to a virtual management principle. Since the inception of the technique, the problem of controlling covert operations had been a thorny one. We have seen the efforts of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson.

12:03 Nixon, too, made his changes. According to Kissinger, they changed the name because the 303 Committee had been identified in a 1969 news story. We can't have the American people knowing what their government is doing. In fact, the reconstituted National Security Council Special Group expanded to include the Attorney General, John Mitchell, Nixon's close friend and former law partner.

12:32 undoubtedly Mitchell joined the special group as a personal watchdog to keep an eye on Kissinger, whom Nixon did not entirely trust, which again, you have to ask yourself, why would he be there? Well, there's many stories about how Nixon was supported by the same group that supported JFK back in the day, or excuse me, Eisenhower, sorry.

12:59 Rockefeller family. And many of those same people were behind Nixon early on, which is how he ended up in Congress. So again, if you understand the heritage of these people, and Kissinger was basically a disciple of the Rockefellers as well. So evidently, Nixon was told that Kissinger

13:27 is going to be on his staff, and he didn't trust him. Other special group members saw little reason for his inclusion. Mitchell rarely spoke at meetings and instead played with his pipe. Nixon formalized the change on February 17, 1970. In the National Security Decision Memorandum 40, the special group became known as the 40 Committee. The National Security Directive

14:00 decision memorandum also rescinded 5412-2. Instead, Nixon's directive stated, quote, I have determined that it is essential to the defense and security of the United States and its efforts for world peace that the overt foreign activities of the U.S. government continue to be supplemented by covert action operations, unquote. Under

14:30 National Security Decision Memorandum 40, the special group, was to approve all major and politically sensitive covert action programs in the joint reconnaissance schedule and to review covert programs annually. The review requirement responded to criticism during the Johnson era of the 303 Committee and represented one of the few substantive changes.

14:58 To fulfill CIA's role at Langley, the DO's mission and program staff developed the justification and objective memoranda for the 40 committee. This staff also became the center of operational planning. A reorganized covert action staff also replaced the previous one. Having carefully set up this framework, Nixon and Kissinger proceeded to ignore it. The most frequent occasions for 40 committee meetings became those for project review.

15:29 U. Alexis Johnson, back on the group again, writes, quote, it is true that during the Nixon administration, the president and CIA bypassed the committee on sensitive issues, unquote. When Nixon gave his first go-ahead on covert arms to Cambodia, he ordered Kissinger to say nothing to the 40 committee. At the very same time, the special group had on its plate a similar clandestine arms initiative.

15:58 to supply rifles to King Jordan, the King of Jordan. So this was not a matter of excluding a certain type of activity. Everyone from the special group to the Secretary of State lived in ignorance of the Chilean initiative called Track Two, even though the group considered almost two dozen other aspects of covert action in Chile.

16:24 Similarly, the 40 Committee could not be consulted on the project shortly to be described, a paramilitary effort among the Kurds of Iraq. Among decisions that can be traced to the 40 Committee, those on collection figures prominently. Overhead and satellite reconnaissance targeting submarine incursions into foreign territorial waters were attempts

16:55 And the Glomar Explorer, which was an attempt to raise a Soviet missile submarine from the floor of the Pacific Ocean, were discussed by the 40 Committee. A project to spend $10 million to influence the Italian elections again in 1972, much like the budgets approved for Chile, went through formal approval process. By then, pretty much routinely.

17:25 Another routine function was the approval of subsidies to certain foreign leaders. Reportedly, half a dozen were on the CIA payroll to include King Hussein of Jordan. Thus, it came as no surprise when the secret war managers were asked to approve $20,000 to be handed to President Bokassa of the Central African Republic, who had received certain documents believed to be forged.

17:57 impugning American motives and threatened to break relations with the U.S. The 40 Committee was used on everyday decisions, but not for the big ones. Henry Kissinger chaired the 40 Committee. He set the meetings and the agenda. Assisted by a single CIA staffer, only principals could attend. Henry was the ultimate arbiter. The first official

18:26 manual on covert operations prepared by the CIA in 1942, or 72, sorry, observed that only about a quarter would be considered by the 40 committee. Excluded were not only minor unimportant operations, but virtually all major ones. One technique Kissinger used to minimize the committee's impact was to have as few meetings as possible. He liked to poll by telephone.

18:56 On the dubious theory, members had better uses of their time. Beyond the question of what could be more important than running the nation's covert action program, it cannot be escaped that Henry Kissinger's National Security Council, that phone calls permitted fewer records to be kept. And it allowed Kissinger to take on officials one by one. It also allowed him to tell them whatever he wanted.

19:26 and not all the same thing. Avoiding meetings also prevented the kind of give and take that would have allowed officials to tell what everybody else was having as far as their attitudes, their perceptions of these different operations. It gives you the feeling of them being very close hold and in total control.

19:58 In 1972, the 40 Committee met only once. In 73 and 74, it adopted more than three dozen decisions without meeting to discuss any of them. The essential activity became focusing on covert activities more tightly. In Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, action continued on something like the old scale, but across the board.

20:25 Spending declined in most geographic and functional areas, mostly due to Vietnam. The cost of paramilitary operations peaked in 1970. But after 72, it declined even in the Far East. By 73, the CIA director could report that only 5% of the agency's budget was used by the covert action. And remember, at some points, it's been as high as 50%.

20:55 At the same time, a relatively high proportion of projects over a quarter were defined as major operations. How Kissinger supposed the 40 committee could review every major operation every year without ever even meeting can only be imagined. The special group had never been so useless. It might not have been so costly had oversight mechanisms functioned more effectively. They did not.

21:24 The president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, which Nixon reconstituted by executive order on March 20th, 1969, remained the sole alternative. Maxwell Taylor, its first chairman, was in declining health and left after about a year. He was succeeded by Admiral George Anderson, under whom the advisory board became decidedly more political, which is weird.

21:53 because generals and admirals aren't supposed to be political. In the style of the Nixon White House, the Intelligence Advisory Board members had lawyer Franklin Lincoln, Los Angeles Times magnate Franklin Murphy, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller.

22:22 and formal diplomat Robert Murphy. In the six years of Nixon's presidency, the board met with the president only eight times. Nixon sometimes convened smaller groups. The senior intelligence advisory board official recalls that the board exercised no watchdog function.

22:46 The National Security Council staffer of the period observed that in her experience in two and a half years across the hall, she never saw the door open to that office ever. The board retained some dedicated members, in particular Gordon Gray, William Baker, and Edwin Land, who worked selflessly and hard, but labored in isolation.

23:13 gray-headed a small subcommittee on clandestine collections. Baker and Land continued to focus on technical issues. Possibly the Intelligence Advisory Board's greatest achievement during that period came in their area where Baker and Land fought for the next generation of photographic satellites with digital readout capability, which was currently at that time being opposed by the Air Force.

23:42 Governor Rockefeller headed the subcommittee on covert operations, which I find absolutely fascinating. A Rockefeller in charge of covert operations. Technically, they've been in charge of them the entire time because we did an awful lot of them to benefit the Rockefellers. But this is the first documentation.

24:13 that we've come across that formally acknowledges that. There is little indication he ever saw one that he did not like because they all enriched him. Bob Murphy once suggested assassinating Ho Chi Minh. The CIA rejected it. Murphy often played the devil's advocate, saying things just to see how people would respond.

24:43 Ho Chi Minh died in late 1969. The agency officers were highly critical of Murphy. Some said in a little play on the title of his memoir that Murphy was a warrior among diplomats. Admiral Anderson was a nitpicker. He went after the CIA on its Soviet estimates, which he regarded insufficiently alarming. He wanted them to be very alarming.

25:14 He put his effort into writing alternative papers, exaggerating the threat. Staff thought Anderson's presence a bad influence. Later additions to the board included California Governor Ronald Reagan on the Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board. Scientist Edward Teller, very active.

25:44 but held in contempt by Baker and Land. Texas Governor John Connolly, who propelled the Intelligence Advisory Board into its first ever study of economic intelligence collection. He had a very important influence on President Nixon, because that's why we do covert operations, for their economic value to the oligarchs.

26:15 Richard Helms dealt straightforwardly with the board. Typically, the intelligence advisory board staff would tell Helms before a board session about the nature of the meeting, and the CIA director would come prepared to talk about the subjects. Helms showed up with a single aide in stark contrast to the military, whose generals appeared with full entourages.

26:37 Henry Kissinger and General Alexander Haig usually sat in on the presidential intelligence advisory board's meeting with the president. Kissinger, or sometimes the board executive secretary, prepared information papers for Nixon before the meeting. Nixon used the board for chores that might have little to do with intelligence. Early on, the president assigned the presidential

27:05 Intelligence Advisory Board to assess the Russian-designed AK-47 assault rifle against the American M-16. Later tasks included examining the capability of the Soviet SA-7, a shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile, commenting on the U.S. sale of tanks to Turkey. There would be a six-month long study of intelligence failures in the North Vietnamese supply.

27:36 shipments through Cambodia. Sometimes Kissinger made the assignments, but he carefully emphasized that he was acting on behalf of the president each and every time. In June of 70, Nixon met the board opening with a long soliloquy of foreign policy in the Middle East, then asked the board to make a East Asian inspection trip.

28:05 and render a report in the style of those that British consultant Sir Robert Thompson had supplied to Nixon about Vietnam. The board did just that and had a smaller group meeting with the president on July 18th. Admiral Anderson had focused on military affairs, Gordon Gray on intelligence, and Frank Murphy on pacification issues. Robert Murphy...

28:34 focused on political issues. Board Executive Secretary Jared Burke accompanied the group on this trip. The National Security Agency officer with long service as chief of staff to General Marshall Carter and a good friend of Max Taylor's. Burke came to the Presidential Advisory Board as deputy to J. Patrick Coyne.

29:03 whom he then replaced. Burke's experience had been in the missile intelligence field, and his initial purpose was to give the board depth on its estimates for Soviets. Now Burke was pulled into everything. For a time, he felt like he was virtually commuting to Vietnam since the subject came up every single intelligence board meeting. During the 1970 tour,

29:31 Burke sat by the window as board members talked in Cambodia, and he took notes when they spoke to Sovana Foma in Laos. They visited Long Tien and Vang Pao's Hmong Army. Enormously impressed that a war directed by so few CIA field hands seemed to be working.

29:57 while the one led by all the generals in Vietnam was a lost cause. Huh, one had to play by the rules and the other one did not. Burke appreciated the incredible mess, but there was little time or staff to study the issues during these inspections. The group was unable to look into the Phoenix program. Of course they were. Huh, wonder why?

30:29 Gordon Gray studied drug use by American soldiers in Vietnam, yet the Presidential Advisory Board remained entirely unaware of the drug running by the U.S. CIA in Laos. A year later, Burke recalls the board never heard of and did not see the CIA Inspector General's report on the Laotian drug trafficking. Some intelligence board.

30:57 The talking points that Kissinger prepared when the intelligence board group returned indicated that the White House was interested. Nixon, aside from Vietnam, should ask whether Long Nol really commanded or if he reflected the confidence of ignorance. As in Indonesia,

31:19 where the presidential advisory board had met with Suharto and his intelligence chief, Kissinger wanted Nixon to ask, quote, on Cambodia, did he, Suharto, emphasize the importance of Indonesia's maintaining its appearance of neutrality? Or did he emphasize the need to save the Lon Nol government?

31:45 unquote. Clearly, Nixon's intent here had been to use the Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board to fill out Suharto's willingness to engage more deeply as a surrogate for the U.S. in Cambodia. Well, he owes the entire presence of him being in charge of Indonesia to the CIA. How could he refuse? A May 1972 meeting record shows the board in its

32:15 more traditional role. Nixon apologized for not meeting with them more frequently. Their conversation touched on the Soviet estimates, on net assessment, on overhead reconnaissance, human intelligence collection, and the economic intelligence. Nixon asked the board to study the capabilities of the US versus Russian conventional weapons. Covert operations were nowhere in the conversation.

32:42 At this very moment, Nixon had resumed pressing the CIA for covert action against Hanoi while the agency had moved into high gear with a paramilitary initiative with the Kurds in Iraq. Any potential for the advisory board might have had as an oversight mechanism on covert operations was destroyed by the Nixon administration's secrecy.

33:13 Kissinger himself asked the advisory board to examine the situation in Chile, where Salvador Allende had just been elected president, to see whether the CIA had failed to propose measures that might have prevented this. Huh. Well, they sure exercised a lot of preventative measures that all failed.

33:37 Yet Kissinger then refused the board access to the 40 committee minutes and the NSC's records that would have shown that the covert actions were approved and carried out. So how are you going to review something if you're not allowed to see it? In another instance, Gordon Gray supervised an inquiry into U.S. counterintelligence. Closely watched by both the CIA and FBI, Gray ran a full-spectrum review, including visits to key overseas.

34:08 facilities without encountering the impact of the hunt for alleged Soviet moles that had been tearing apart the CIA for years. Gray's report contained no criticism whatsoever of Langley and its counter-spy, James Angleton, the operator behind the witch hunt. The CIA blacked out the advisory board's need to know.

34:38 After leaving the board, Robert Murphy chaired a presidential commission on the U.S. government and foreign relations. The commission's overview volume in its discussion of intelligence issues included remarks about the presidential advisory board immediately following its conclusion that the president's role remained crucial. Quote, we believe that the board should play a larger role.

35:02 the steady external and independent oversight of the performance of the foreign intelligence community as a whole, unquote. Nelson Rockefeller, who chaired another presidential commission in the mid-1970s, also reported that the board's role should be strengthened. You know, because he was on it. Meanwhile, Nixon lost his ability to wield power even as he concentrated it in the Oval Office. Watergate is an ugly name from the Nixon years.

35:34 a product of his 1972 re-election campaign. It is important to the CIA because of the participation of the Bay of Pigs veterans, not only the Cuban exiles like Bernard Barker, but CIA officers like E. Howard Hunt. Agency security specialist James McCord, like Hunt, collected his paycheck at the White House when the public learned that the CIA had helped

36:04 Hunt's White House schemes and had prepared certain psychological profiles on Americans at the request of the White House and that virtually the same Watergate cast had carried out illegal break-ins on White House instructions, the CIA knew it had a major problem. Nixon tried to use the agency to shut down the FBI's investigation.

36:31 Which is kind of weird since we've read so many stories of the CIA shutting down every investigation that they wanted to. Especially those nasty ones that involved exposing the CIA as drug traffickers or weapons traffickers. Every single one of them gets shut down because they just screened national security. But for some reason, Langley resisted.

37:01 Because Langley is in on it. Whatever it had or had not done, the inquiries and the drawn-out investigation were certainly damaging. Richard Helms designated Executive Director William Colby as point man for Watergate. Helms, during his final months, and General Vernon Walters, who was another one of those Forrest Gumps of Gladio,

37:32 who held the post as deputy CIA director from 72 to 76, spent a great deal of time defending the CIA from White House demands. In other words, they resisted every attempt to get involved because they were already involved on the other side. Watergate, and especially the CIA's refusal to enlist the White House political cover operation, provided grist for Nixon's reflective feelings for Richard Helms.

38:02 By September 72, the president was telling his chief of staff, H.R. Holderman, that Helms had to go. Nixon also spoke of cutting the CIA back by as much as 40%. A couple of weeks after Nixon's victory in November election, he summoned Helms to Camp David. The spy anticipated budget business and armed himself with briefing papers. Instead, Holderman ushered Helms into the presidential's presence.

38:32 and Nixon offered a little bit of small talk and broached the subject of needing fresh faces. The conversation turned to Helms' future, and the two agreed on the CIA director's suggestion that he be appointed ambassador to Iran. Helms recounts that he had no idea why the country popped into his head, but left believing he had won a single concession.

39:00 The move would be delayed until the end of March 1973 when Helms reached his mandatory retirement age at the CIA. Bob Halderman records in his diary for November 20, 1972, the fateful day at Camp David that Helms recommended William Colby or Tom Karamesans as his successor. Except for the Tehran appointment, none of what Helms discussed that day

39:30 would come to pass. Rather, in early February 73, among appointments, Nixon announced James Schlesinger as the director of the CIA. The president had reached outside the agency and the accelerated dismissal of Helms, which barely gave the departing director time to arrange a farewell ceremony. Nixon's covert operations proceeded despite this political infighting.

39:59 One nation to fill the weight of Nixon's covert operations was Iraq, especially the Kurds in Kurdistan in the north of the country. This secret war essentially involved the United States doing a favor for the Shah of Iran, where they were sending Richard Helms. The Kurds are a nomadic people, a loose confederation of some 40 tribes who had earnestly desired nationhood.

40:27 They were spread out across the borders of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey. As early as 1948, a CIA estimate observed the mountain tribes known as the Kurds are now and will continue to be an important factor in strategic estimates of the Near East affairs. Periodically, the Kurds fought the Turks, Iraqis, and Iranians in a quest for their freedom. Shortly after World War II,

40:55 Kurds cooperated with the Russians to set up a short-lived republic in northern Iran. After the 1958 coup in Baghdad, the Iraqi government began cutting back Kurdish autonomy. The tribes took the field into a partisan war in which long campaigns and ceasefires would occur. Mullah Banzani, the tribal leader since 1945, led the main forces.

41:23 Finally, in sheer exhaustion in the 70s, the Iraqis and Kurds reached a settlement. Peace might have reigned except for Iran. The Iranians were engaged in several border disputes with Iraq, including one over the international boundary of the Tigris River, which had changed course in such a way as to put the main shipping channel used by the Iraqis into an area claimed by Iran.

41:52 The Shah of Iran feared the end of the Kurdish war would bring more direct confrontation between Iran and Iraq. He stirred up trouble for the Iraqi government by then in the hands of Saddam Hussein, thanks to us. The Shah offered money and weapons for Kurds to resume their fight. Dissatisfied with Saddam's implementation of the 1970 settlement, outraged by an assassination attempt against Barzani,

42:21 The Kurds were tempted but also distrusted the Shah. Barzani would consider the Shah's offer only with a U.S. guarantee that Iran would not cut off the Kurdish resistance. In March 1972, Jordanian King Hussein forwarded Barzani's request for the guarantee to Nixon. And remember, King Hussein in Jordan is basically on the CIA's payroll.

42:52 Tehran had already made two overtures to Washington, and concern grew when a high-level Soviet delegation visited Iraq that April and reached an arms deal with Saddam. In May, Nixon and Kissinger made an official visit to Iran immediately after the Moscow summit, where the first nuclear arms agreement with Russia was completed. In Tehran, John Connolly,

43:21 Another Nixon political associate told the Shah that Washington could help the Kurds. The CIA handled the American side from their station in Tehran. Kissinger set up the U.S. apparatus for the Kurdish secret war. His records reflect Washington's goal as raising the cost to Baghdad of controlling Kurdistan, improving Kurdish bargaining power, and convincing Saddam to respect

43:50 the Kurdish minority, as well as the Iranian security concerns. Kissinger's military aide, Colonel Richard Kennedy, met with the CIA and one of Barzani's sons on the Kurdish request. A staff assistant, Alfred Atherton, became the NSC's staff focal point. Nixon signed the authorizing directive on August 1st. No 40 committee meeting looked at the project.

44:21 At first, the Nixon directive provided covert support of $5 million. The CIA provided $1 million worth of captured Soviet weapons and ammunition and remains unclear whether this formed part of the budget program or, like with the initial CIA arms to Cambodia, occurred off the books. British covert aid also figured Israelis were helping

44:51 the Kurds too, and they had been helping the Kurds since 1965. Together, the three countries funded the secret war at a level of about a million dollars a month. These involvements were dwarfed by the Shah. Armed with assistance, the Kurds raised 100,000 partisan troops called the Peshmerga, a larger force.

45:20 than Benzani had ever filled it. They engaged large Iraqi forces, including more than 90,000 regular troops with 1,200 tanks and 200 guns per auxiliary. By October, the CIA would report that they were engaging much of the Iraqi army. In 1973, the secret war intensified along with demands for money. That March, the CIA proposed an increase.

45:50 One of James Schlesinger's first moves on the covert action front, which Kissinger backed and Nixon approved. Kissinger reports the Shah's covert aid at that point was over $30 million. And of course, we're giving Iran money too. So it's just a money laundering operation. Iran ensured that the Kurds obtained heavy artillery.

46:20 When the Iraqis joined other Arab states against Israel in October 73 in the Yom Kippur War, two Iraqi armored divisions and parts of the two infantry divisions were deployed into Syria. Almost half of Baghdad's forces. Henry Kissinger's description of this intervention is of a piece with much of his writing.

46:44 In his first volume of memoirs, Kissinger put the Iraqi Expeditionary Force at one division, about a third of its size. In his last volume, published long after the history of the October War had been well documented, Kissinger reduced the Iraqi force to a single brigade, a small fraction of the actual army. Kissinger, in fact, argues that restricting the size of Saddam's forces in the October War was an important achievement.

47:14 of the covert operation with the Kurds. So in other words, we're going to have this other war over here and we know that Iraq is going to be part of it. So we'll start this shit up here in the north with the Kurds and keep it a two front war for them. But Baghdad clearly discounted a Kurdish offensive at that time in the war, seeking to take pressure off their own front in Syria. Israeli advisors told the Kurds that now was the time for the big attack on Saddam.

47:46 Barzani thought this was a good idea and asked Washington about it. The CIA opposed any move. On October 16, 1973, Henry Kissinger instructed the CIA director to tell the Kurds not to attack. Barzani relented. Kissinger's response thus flew in the face of his claimed achievement. In the spring of 1974, the Iraqis launched a new offensive against the Kurds.

48:14 From more advantageous positions seized a year earlier, Barzani asked for new aid. He wanted $180 million to achieve Curtis' autonomy, or twice that amount to build the infrastructure to support its independence. Even the lesser amount exceeded any CIA covert budget. The CIA director, by then Dick Helms, had gone to Iran as ambassador.

48:46 Schlesinger had left and William Colby was the boss. He argued against any increase in the aides to the Kurds. Kissinger viewed Colby as an isolated voice among the multitudes who agreed the Kurds would be unable to defeat the Iraqis at the prevailing level. Kissinger asked Ambassador Helms and Deputy National Security Advisor General Brent Scrocoff

49:14 to develop an alternative proposal, and they came back with a figure of $8 million. Another $1 million in overt refugee aid completed the U.S. package. The British and Israelis, together contributing about $7 million a year, maintained their assistance. Helms helped convince the Shah to double his to $75 million.

49:40 Kissinger accused the CIA secret warriors of dragging their feet on a program while acknowledging that this moment, in fact, provided the opportunity for a real review of the program. Kissinger admits that he was too preoccupied with other issues. Barzani and the Kurds, Kissinger writes, were poor guides, exuberant one moment and warning of defeat the next.

50:10 auxiliary troops into Iraq to fight in Peshmerga uniforms. Then Director Colby warned that Barzani's headquarters and best supply route to Iran was being threatened by Iraqi advances. Colby advised cutting back the CIA had already given the Kurds almost $20 million, including more than 1,250 tons of weapons and ammunition.

50:38 Rather than rethink the program, Kissinger cooked up a deal with the Israelis who were happy to exchange Russian weapons they had captured in the October war for American new ones to the tune of about $28 million. Under unrelenting military pressure from Saddam Hussein's forces, by early 75, the Kurds were in trouble. By now, Washington estimated that only Iranian military intervention could save them.

51:07 And the course would require at least two divisions of troops at the cost of about $300 million. The Shah had no intention of doing that. In February 75, he began negotiating a border settlement with Saddam. For the Shah, the Kurds were but a single card to play. Tehran and Baghdad bridged some of their differences, leading to a deal in March. Simultaneously, the Shah halted his aid.

51:36 stopped free passage for CIA arms shipments, and closed his border to Barzani's Peshmerga. The next day, the Iraqis began a full-scale offensive. On March 10th, the Kurds sent CIA an anguished appeal. Our people's fate is in unprecedented danger. Complete destruction hanging over our head. No explanation for all of this. We appeal to you and the U.S. government.

52:04 to intervene according to your promises. Barzani also sent a personal letter to Kissinger, who was now Secretary of State, in addition to his White House post. Quote, we feel that the U.S. has a moral and political responsibility towards our people. We committed to your policy. Author Callahan, Tehran's station chief, in forwarding the Kurdish appeals, desperately asked if Langley had been in touch with Kissinger's office.

52:34 He warned, quote, if the U.S. does not handle the situation deftly in a way which will avoid giving the Kurds the impression that we are abandoning them, they will likely go public. Iran's action had not only shattered their political hopes, it endangers the lives of thousands. Kissinger made no reply. Callahan had not only offered options.

53:04 for a response, but argued it was the right thing to do. He was left holding the bag. In Kissinger's version, the station had all along sided with headquarters in resisting escalation and now succumbed to feelings of guilt. As many as 200,000 Kurdish refugees poured into Iran, many of them forcibly repatriated. None were admitted into the United States. Pressed on the abandonment of the Kurds, a senior U.S. official famously retorted,

53:36 Covert action should not be confused with missionary work. That's an actual quote. Columnist William Sapphire became the first to identify this callous official as Henry Kissinger. In retrospect, Kissinger calls the public horror over our sordid role in this covert disaster another of the episodes of self-fagulation.

54:07 But this had nothing to do with the narcissistic atonement for the exuberant optimism of the 1960s as Kissinger goes on. He himself concedes that the pros and cons of the operation seem much more balanced than they did at the time. And that we probably should have analyzed more carefully the different motives in the anti-Iraqi coalition together with the consequences of one of the partners jumping ship.

54:37 The truth is the Kurdish paramilitary action was pure real politic, and it rose and fell on the considerations that had nothing to do with the Kurds or their desires for independence and democracy. Indeed, real politic was and remains at the heart of the U.S. maintenance and development of covert operations. Left them high and dry, like we do every single time we use them. And we've used them.

55:09 repeatedly. So we're going to stop right there. That's crazy. Totally nuts. Yeah. Need to be buried underneath nuclear waste. I'm just saying. Yeah. I don't know. I think if we had to do a list with Alan Dulles as the number one, I think Kissinger would be number two as people that are not human beings. Just absolutely crazy.

55:49 The more we get into this, the more I truly believe it is demonic in nature. Now, the people have a love of evil, but some of the things that they come up with is just so to the nth degree, for lack of a better word. Yeah, I agree. I was trying to add you a speaker, but it kept spinning.

56:22 Yeah, let me try it again. Go ahead, Illini. Did you have something you wanted to add? Hey, Colonel. Yeah, the reference to Rockefeller is fascinating. I think you mentioned that he worked on the Covert Oversight Committee. He was on the Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board, which is supposed to be there to review covert operations. Okay, so I don't...

56:55 Was he on it or was he the chair? I forget if you remember what Prado said about that. Well, he's definitely on it. Okay. Let me go back and I'll say that. Go ahead. That's probably going to bring him into contact with Tom Karamasins. Oh, yeah. Who's director of operations at the CIA under Helms and under Nixon. Right.

57:21 And while all this is going on, of course, you know, Karamasins is just one of these interesting figures that doesn't get talked about a lot. But he's kind of, you know, he's kind of the Forrest Gump of a lot of these different intelligence operations, including Piano Solo. I think he was station chief of the Rome station in Italy.

57:47 He was also, of course, involved in the Chilean coup. But the most fascinating part, I think, in all of this, and I think there might be some insight here, is I think he meets with Hunt a couple of times, including perhaps even in relation to the Robert Mullen Company. So you've got Rockefeller.

58:10 And I think also one of Rockefeller's protégés, I think it was Nelson, at least according to – I mean, Secret Agenda by Jim Hoogan, a 1984 book, gives you a couple of references here that are interesting. But with Nelson's presence in Special Operations, they get a lot more interesting, where you can almost kind of start looking for –

58:38 You know, the puppet strings on Karamasin's potentially going back to Nelly. If you've got, you know, a couple of, I think the head of the plumbers worked for Kissinger and was a Rockefeller protege. I think that's in Jim Hoogan's book, too. I can look that one up. It's the only thing in the index under Rockefeller.

59:05 But then if you couple that with some potential links to the director of operations, I think it gets interesting. So it says, Governor Rockefeller headed the subcommittee of the Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board on covert operations. Okay, so there you go. He's going to be talking to Karamasins? Yeah. At least you would assume.

59:32 And then you've got the head of the White House plumbers who know everything that's who knows everything that's going on with the Watergate Hotel and is potentially coordinating and, you know, operating everything. And then, well, you know, Nellie becomes vice president a couple of years later when when Nixon steps down. It's I think when you take a look at that backdrop.

59:56 And then, of course, you take a look at what we now know about the Rockefeller's family's associations with Jeffrey Epstein. You can kind of see who's pulling the puppet strings in the United States, at least, you know, the 1970s and even into the late 80s. Well, they were pulling the puppet strings back in the 50s with Eisenhower. They're the ones that was behind Nixon getting in the Senate. They were behind.

1:00:24 Eisenhower convincing him to run as a Republican because he was being recruited by Truman as a Democrat. And it was the Rockefellers that intervened. So I think their string pulling goes way, way back. And yeah, I find it very interesting that he is in charge of the covert operations, one of which was the plumbers.

1:00:54 staffed with CIA and who's the beneficiary of that covert operation which basically was a coup of the president Rockefeller because he ends up being vice president how's that that's like crazy shit um Megan the head of the Rockefellers was David Young it's on page 32 of secret agenda by uh Jim Hoogan and this was

1:01:25 A 32-year-old Oxford scholar and a protege of Nelson Rockefeller's. Prior to his employment, he had been Henry Kissinger, who was Nelson Rockefeller's man, according to Seymour Hersh. Henry Kissinger's employment secretary on the National Security Council. And what's the name of that book? Jim Hoogan, Secret Agenda, 1984. It was 10 years after Watergate. It was kind of the first.

1:01:52 You know, new question about whether this is all a deep state operation. OK, got it. Megan, go ahead. Hello, Colonel. Hey, I got a two part question here. OK, first part, who is ultimately in charge of the redactions and all of these agencies? The actual.

1:02:20 agency themselves. So you'll have a security staff and it depends on where it resides. So like in the CIA, in the operations side, you know, they have an analyst side and an operations side. There are, I don't even know how to describe this, but there's an office that

1:02:46 actually produced the document. So they are the original classifiers of the document. And when it comes to releasing a document, it goes through their chain of command. Now, the original office where that document resides will be the first one to redact it or make proposed redactions to it.

1:03:11 Then it goes up through the chain of command. Now, the CIA director has ultimate declassification authority over all of the documents there. And then, of course, the president has ultimate declassification authority. But wherever that document resides, it goes up through the chain of command. Now, the original person may say that three things based on methods.

1:03:40 needs to be redacted, but their boss who has a broader perspective may add a couple of redactions or even potentially unredact something that he doesn't feel falls within the current need to classify or to redact it. You know, if it includes people's names that are currently on the operations side, they will redact them.

1:04:10 So that's basically the process. Okay, I understand the process and protecting personnel, but not the information. Okay, now on to my second question. With all this information that you've been putting out here, I've alluded to this question before. Is anybody doing any kind of research on this level with what is currently happening in...

1:04:43 the political system today and exposing the playbook that is being used today stacked up against what was being used in the past? Not to my knowledge. Where history has shown that we know of, I mean, we do that, but we're a little...

1:05:14 pebble in a great big pond. I don't know how many people out there have the historical knowledge that we do. I'm sure there's people out there. I'm not saying there's not. Do I think there's people in the administration that are fully aware of the historical

1:05:43 shenanigans? Yes. You have to also understand that if you are going to be prosecuting people, there are certain things that for a general public release will need to stay redacted until the grand jury indicts someone and it comes out as part of the evidence.

1:06:10 So that you're not necessarily tipping your hand overall. Go ahead. Go ahead. I was going to say, you know, you got people like Nick Shirley exposing the system. And I'm just curious because I know there's quite a few people in this circle that.

1:06:37 They're really knowledgeable about what happened in the past and why they're not applying that to current situation and exposing the same stuff going on. And I and I understand that is you have to keep premise and everything you say or write or do with I am not suicidal. But at the same time, if we're going to ever stop this stuff.

1:07:06 Somebody has to start jumping on this crap. You're never. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So here's the dilemma. If you have an intelligence background and you currently still have a security clearance, you're not going to be the one doing it. You will find yourself in a quicksand immediately. So it is left to.

1:07:36 other people who have the time and put in the effort to go back and relook at all of our history like we've been doing. But there's a concerted effort to make sure that our audience stays below the threshold for anything to go. We have posted some of the most incredible information.

1:08:05 That is devastating over the last three years. And you get zero traction on X. Again, I'm not complaining. It's just the fact of life. And the few people, you know, 70,000 of you guys now that come across the material that we do are, you know, amazed at the level of research that we've done.

1:08:34 um other than you know grabbing somebody's head and putting your hands on both sides of that and you know like shaking them and going read this i don't know what else to do um yeah i i get you on that and i'm gonna tell everybody in this room we have i don't know how many people sitting in here and how many sitting in the listening or uh in the uh sub sub uh nosebleed section but there's only three

1:09:05 retweets and three hearts. And the Colonel cannot do this herself. If you guys would start retweeting and hearting every time she is on this space, her reach would grow exponentially. So I'm just putting that out there. I love you, Colonel. I know you don't toot your own horn or anything, but it's sad that the people that are in this room.

1:09:34 aren't getting this message out to everybody else. If you don't come in here and hit the heart and hit the retweet, you're doing the Colonel a serious disfavor. So, you know what's very interesting? I noticed when, and Bridget has pointed this out to me repeatedly, we have ran the Grok analysis on our account. It is definitely being messed with. And that's not me.

1:10:03 I've screenshot the analysis. People will occasionally point that and you can screen grab these prompts. I don't even know what they do. But you just copy and paste them in a DM to Grok and it will come back and tell you.

1:10:24 all of the things. And it'll point things out. The fact that we talk about Operation Gladio all the time, we talk about the CIA all the time, and they'll tell you that that's the reason why. So there's literally nothing I can do about that absent you guys reposting things. And it's much more important to have conversations under a post with the new algorithms.

1:10:52 generating those conversations is what they're promoting on X, just FYI. And I do try to go through everybody that comments on my stuff and I'll either like it or post a comment myself. But if you guys had conversations under some of the bigger posts that we do, it certainly would help that.

1:11:22 reach, get out. But again, I've noticed, and Bridget has access to this, you can look, one day we will make, you know, whatever, 20 posts, and it'll be a million views. The next time that I make a controversial, and as a matter of fact, what was it? The only meme I've ever made in my life got more views than me writing books about history on post.

1:11:51 It's the craziest thing. I'm sorry. I'm not just going to start making memes. It's ridiculous. But it is a very wonky system. But it is what we have to work with. And I'm happy to do it. Travis, go ahead. Like I said, it's nothing against you. You have folks sitting in this room that won't retweet this. It just blows my mind. And that's on them, not on you.

1:12:21 They're here for the show. So anyway, love everybody that's in here. Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to chastise anybody to the point that you're going to start bleeding profusely about the buttocks, but it needs to be said. If we don't help her out, she's just going to keep here doing this book club for us every day, and we're just going to get to sit here and enjoy it. So we need to move some needles. Thank you. Travis, go ahead, and then we'll go back to Illini.

1:12:52 I just wanted to, since I can't watch you anywhere else except X, I was just wondering if you had covered the Gladios installation of Nasser in Egypt. We covered, when we did the original Around the World tour, we did do Egypt. That's been a long time ago. Okay.

1:13:23 I just wasn't sure. Like I said, I can only watch you on here. Every place else kicks me out. Well, God bless you for being here. And I also wanted to, like people, like you were saying before, people have clearances. The most a person like that can do is nudge.

1:13:51 Might find somebody like you and say, hmm, maybe if you look here. Right. There probably could be something. You might be interested. That's about most we can do. We can't. But the interesting thing, again, just to throw it out there, the people that.

1:14:13 Follow me. And I think we discovered a big thing. I don't know if you guys saw that Dom LaCour, whatever, however you say his name, and that Gunther Eagleman guy, they actually charge people to repost. You guys know I'm not paying anybody a dime. I don't promote any of my posts. You can do that too. You can spend $100 and have 100,000 people see it. I'm not doing any of that.

1:14:41 Number one, I don't have the money to do it. And number two, it's bullshit. But it did explain a lot because both of those people were following me. I unfollowed both of them. I'm not following people who are making money off of reposting other people's stuff. That's just ridiculous. I don't play those games. I think that's horrendous. But anyway, it did explain a lot on...

1:15:10 why some of these large counts that follow me never comment on any of our posts or repost any of it or anything like that, because evidently they're charging money to do that. So that solved the mystery for us. Illini, go ahead. Hey, Colonel. Two questions on Iran. The first is, I might have heard you mention in the past that a lot of people who are part of SAVAK

1:15:38 uh the um shah's um secret police eventually wound up joining the irgc um i and whether there's you know i was curious if there was a reference or a citation that i could try to hunt down on that and the second one i guess this is really the bigger picture question right now and i think it's like this is the 64 trillion dollar question is is whether trump is coordinating

1:16:06 on this whole Strait of Hormuz naval situation with Xi Jinping or not? So to your first question, what I said was the infrastructure was not removed. Now, obviously...

1:16:25 There was a lot of the senior leadership of the Savak taken out when the Shah was overthrown. A lot of that was done primarily from a looks perspective. They were sent to the prisons they'd been sending everybody else to and executed the leadership. The institution itself.

1:16:49 Other than changing the name and one of the offices, and I'm trying to remember which book that that's in. I'll be able to find it because it was a book that went into extraordinary detail about Norman Schwarzkopf Sr.'s role in creating the Sabacc, which I found completely fascinating. And prior to reading that book, I'd never even heard of it.

1:17:18 that happening, I didn't know that he created the New Jersey State Police either, and kind of all made sense afterwards, especially if you've ever been to New Jersey, but no, just kidding, but yeah, so a lot of the leadership of the SAVAK was done away with, but the institution itself basically was just transitioned into the Iranian

1:17:48 Republican Guard and carried on doing exactly what the SABAC had been doing. And of course, we know that there was significant interplay with the IRGC and Israel.

1:18:09 As well as many of the cutouts for the CIA, especially during the 80s when we were supplying them with missiles covertly and all kinds of other aid. So what I find most fascinating about that now is if you look at the list of people that they've been confirmed dead.

1:18:34 There's been no one in the Iranian army leadership that's been assassinated. Almost the entire 25 or 30 identified leaders of the IRGC, I think there's only two still alive. Like if you had an org chart of what their organization looked like.

1:19:00 almost the entire leadership has been eliminated of the IRGC. I find that incredibly fascinating. So you see again where the purpose is not to destroy the country. The purpose is to destroy the people that are controlling the nefarious pieces of the government. And as far as Xi's concerned,

1:19:30 of the belief, if you go back in history, both Russia, and even before that, the Soviet Union, and China, more recently, has not had any problem with other presidents in confronting, like right in your face, things that we have done. So at any time,

1:20:03 China could have deployed what Navy they have into the Straits of Hormuz. They could have a major confrontation with the United States. That's not happened. The same thing with Russia. Russia has started protecting their oil tankers, but there's been no direct confrontation.

1:20:33 I find that it's kind of like the dog not barking scenario that by not doing it, it implies, and I know many people that I talk to that are way more in the know than I am have strongly suggested that is because there has been a lot of back channel communications.

1:21:00 in exactly how this thing is going to go down i've i've i've heard that um i'm also seeing a report by mario novel you know okay um that's saying that china's defense minister just told the u.s navy directly our ships are going through the strait we have agreements with iran and don't touch them um so i mean there there's there's also reports of chinese ships turning away

1:21:28 I think it's complicated. I really hope that we don't have, you know, another, you know, Cuban Missile Crisis kind of naval confrontation here. I just don't see that happening. Is it possible? Yes. I don't think that's going to happen. But we shall see. Renee, go ahead. Hey, happy Monday, everybody. Kind of in a spotty zone. Yeah, you're going in and out.

1:22:03 Okay, dang it. Well, if I get a strong signal in the next couple minutes, I'll reach out. Otherwise, I'll talk tomorrow. Okay. Okay. Sorry. All right. Anybody else have anything? Thank you again, Colonel. Thank you, Megan. Awesome. Awesome. X Spaces. I don't like watching you on Rumble because I can't interact. You don't do anything with the...

1:22:38 Yeah, that's too much. I have to keep my eyes on the phone, my eyes on the book. I got you. Yeah, I read it while you guys are posting. I just can't post myself. Yeah, I get you. Yeah, and that's the reason why we do them simultaneously. There's a lot of people that are not on X and they're not available at four o'clock. So having the...

1:23:05 interactive part on X and the visual part on rumble, I think is incredibly important. Um, it is awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the limit of my tech capability as well. I know there are other people that have like, they'll have four computers and they'll have each of the chats open and I can't do that. Um, I'm just, yeah. And somebody else, I was on a,

1:23:34 I love this because I get to interact with you personally. So it's cool. It's good. Anyway, thank you. Sure. I was on another show recently, and they have some other platform. I don't even remember the name of it. I wrote it down. And they were like, oh, you have to get on there. Everybody on there would absolutely love this material. And I'm like, I can't do another one. So, yeah, I don't know how I'd pull that off.

1:24:03 Um, okay. Renee, go ahead. Okay. I'm going to try again. Okay. Great. Full bars. Okay. Um, going back to this chapter and this time period, I have found it really fascinating in our Gladio research that, um, Kissinger, the Rockefellers, um,

1:24:29 Licio Gelli is really connected to a lot of these guys. And recently I came across that, and I don't know if you've come across this, but apparently he was at inauguration of not only Ronald Reagan, but I believe Carter and possibly Ford as well. I've been researching and it seems definitely Carter and Reagan.

1:24:57 And as well as we all know, Geli had connections straight with Haig and Kissinger during the Nixon administration. But it really connects the Italy P2 and during the time of the years of lead to Washington, D.C. And not only that, I posted in the pill that it seems the Watergate building in D.C. has.

1:25:27 Some Italian connections that are questionable in the Vatican as well. So I think I believe also at this time is when the Club of Rome, you know, late 60s was kicked off. And that was the whole in the direction of the Green Agenda.

1:25:52 population control and everything and all the same cats that we're speaking of are in that circle as well. So, um, yeah, I just wanted to bring that up. Did you ever come across that galley? He was definitely, he was definitely at Ronald Reagan's. Um, we found that, um, uh, a long time ago. Yeah. He was definitely Ronald Reagan's because again, we, we go back to the, um,

1:26:18 you know, the stature in which Ronald Reagan is fondly remembered. And he had, what's his name? The Ukrainian Nazi. Bridget, help me out. What's the guy's name? I almost had it. Bandera. No, not Bandera. The other guy. Shoot. What is his name?

1:26:50 Stetsco? Stetsco, yeah. Yeah, Stetsco was at the White House as well. Yeah, it's just crazy. He was at Reagan's White House. Yeah. Go ahead, Lanai. Renee, just to give you another reference on this, I think that Lyndon LaRouche's executive intelligence report.

1:27:18 started to find some of the connections between, I think it was Kissinger, the Years of Lead, and Galley. And in particular, the P2 Masonic Lodge in the early 1980s. And that's still online, so you can browse the archive. And I think there's more resources on this. And I think the LaRouche folks uncovered that one in the early 1980s.

1:27:45 Thank you for sharing. I will go in that direction. Yeah, I've read several of their articles about Geli. That's a great resource. Megan, go ahead. Is it okay to send you a DM? Sure. Okay.

1:28:03 I have an ask from you and I just wanted to, I was going to ask a question here, but I'm not going to do it. I'll DM you. So please keep an eye out for that, please. Absolutely. Awesome. Like I said, thank you again, Carol. Appreciate it. You're welcome. All right. If we don't have anything else, but I wanted to share with you guys. When I was looking for,

1:28:35 something just a second ago. I put in, because there was something that I wanted to look up on Lucio Gelli. And I put in his name and the word that I was looking for. I get two responses on the Brave search engine. And I go into Yandex and I've got like four pages. That just goes to show you.

1:29:04 that so much of the information about this is censored. And Brave is much better than Google or any of the other ones. So you can't do anything with this particular topic on any other search engine as far as I'm concerned because they're going to hide the majority of the stuff from you.

1:29:33 Which should tell people something. All right. Yeah, so we have another Forrest Gump identified. I'm beginning to think Alexander Haig is a Forrest Gump too. He may have to get added to my Forrest Gump list. He shows up in a whole lot of this stuff.

1:29:58 Okay, everybody. Thanks for joining us. I appreciate it. And you guys have a nice evening. And I do have, let me look. I will be on a podcast with E.M. Burlingham tonight, just him and I. Can I make a request, please? Sorry. Well, let me finish. Sure.

1:30:29 This is the first time I've actually did a show with just him. And I have no idea what the topic is going to be. But I am really, really excited about doing it. He's doing the podcast. So I don't know. I'll text him and ask him if he's going to record it or if it's going to be live. Because, again, I've never done a podcast with him. But he's hosting it, not me.

1:30:58 So go ahead, Renee. OK, on his show he did with Crypto Rich last week about the whole financial algorithm and how Trump and his mad.

1:31:15 statements online messes up that algorithm. It was very complicated anyway. It was a fabulous, intense show. My brain is not equipped for financial matters. But later on in that interview, they kind of tap into our hemisphere and Bukele in El Salvador. And also he talked about Paraguay.

1:31:40 And because we've covered the zones with Operation Condor, et cetera, I am super curious and would love for you to perhaps ask him, because he brought up a huge Lebanese population in Paraguay. He brought up some stuff in El Salvador where he considers it a template and funded perhaps by...

1:32:06 military in the West. I don't know if he could just maybe pick his brain or have him expand on or spill the beans on some perhaps inside information he may have on, you know, we know about the Moonies and the Bushes and stuff in Paraguay, but it seems he may have some other information. I'm just curious. Okay. So what he was saying, because we've talked about this before,

1:32:38 And Eli and I will keep me straight on this part. So we've made the comment repeatedly during some of these shows that the markets move based on pre-knowledge. So they position themselves with what they already know. That's the reason why.

1:33:03 and I was just on a show the other day where somebody was saying, oh, the OSS was fine, and then the CIA, and I'm like, no, no. The OSS has the exact same problem that the CIA does. They were bankers and lawyers. They were industrialists. They shaped, using quote-unquote intelligence, the battlefield. That's the same thing the CIA does. So if you know,

1:33:33 and you have your bankers and your lawyers in the CIA, and they're planning a covert operation, let's say like back in the 1970s, we were just talking about that particular time. And you know, for a period of time that Iran and Iraq, major oil suppliers are going to go to war because you're going to make them go to war.

1:33:59 You can short, you can invest, you can divest, you can do all of that crap. And you can do it in a predictable way because you're the one actually doing it. Because again, the CIA doesn't work for the US government. So that's basically what he was saying. Those are now all programmed into algorithms in trading platforms. And they are trading ahead of...

1:34:27 what they know is going to happen. And he made the comment that when Trump does unexpected things because they don't know now, they have no idea. And he throws out, gosh, dang it. Duane and Brian are like going at it with their text messages. Sorry about that. If he's not,

1:34:57 having the CIA run these operations, they're out in left field. They're not prepared. Their algorithms are not going to allow them to trade. Now, when something happens, like what happened in Iran, can you use that knowledge to do something yourself? Sure you can. But we're talking trillions of dollars of movement.

1:35:26 when these operations happened over the last 75 years. And now you've got this guy in there that with a post on True Social can totally F up your entire portfolio because you're locked into one area and he can destroy it with a post. And so that's got these people in a tizzy.

1:35:55 He has consistently been able to do that while he's in office. So that's what EM was talking about on the financial piece of that is he stuck a big piece of metal in their gearbox called an algorithm. So anyway, all right, we're out of here, guys. You guys take care. Let me grab something to eat before I have to.

1:36:26 Take on EM. I'm not even sure how that whole thing is going to work out, but I'm very much looking forward to it. Okay, guys, take care.

Entities here

Iran42 CIA37 Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board26 Kurdish militant groups25 Richard Nixon25 Henry Kissinger25 Committee of 4014 Nelson Rockefeller11 Reza Pahlavi11 Richard Helms11 Saddam Hussein9 Mullah Mustafa Barzani9 Vietnam9 Soviet Union8 National Security Council8 Watergate scandal7 Israel6 Gordon Gray5 Tom Karamessines5 Licio Gelli5 SAVAK4 Cambodia4 Robert Murphy4 George Anderson4 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps4 William Colby4 Jim Hougan4 Jared Burke4 Secret Agenda4 Alexander Haig3 Harry S. Truman3 Peshmerga3 Turkey3 Chile3 Ronald Reagan3 Syria3 Jordan3 E. Howard Hunt3 White House Plumbers3 William Barr3

Claims made here

Richard Nixon changed 208 Committee book_quoted ▶ 12:03

“Nixon, too, made his changes. According to Kissinger, they changed the name because the 303 Committee had been identified in a 1969 news story. We can't have the American people knowing what their gov…”

John Mitchell member_of National Security Council book_quoted ▶ 12:03

Richard Nixon appointed John Mitchell book_quoted ▶ 12:32

“undoubtedly Mitchell joined the special group as a personal watchdog to keep an eye on Kissinger, whom Nixon did not entirely trust, which again, you have to ask yourself, why would he be there? Well,…”

Richard Nixon supported_by Rockefeller host_asserted ▶ 12:32

Henry Kissinger member_of Rockefeller host_asserted ▶ 12:59

“Rockefeller family. And many of those same people were behind Nixon early on, which is how he ended up in Congress. So again, if you understand the heritage of these people, and Kissinger was basicall…”

Richard Nixon founded Committee of 40 book_quoted ▶ 13:27

“is going to be on his staff, and he didn't trust him. Other special group members saw little reason for his inclusion. Mitchell rarely spoke at meetings and instead played with his pipe. Nixon formali…”

Richard Nixon ordered_assassination_of Cambodia book_quoted ▶ 15:29

“U. Alexis Johnson, back on the group again, writes, quote, it is true that during the Nixon administration, the president and CIA bypassed the committee on sensitive issues, unquote. When Nixon gave h…”

National Security Council supplied_arms_to King Hussein of Jordan book_quoted ▶ 15:29

National Security Council targeted_for_regime_change Chile book_quoted ▶ 15:58

“to supply rifles to King Jordan, the King of Jordan. So this was not a matter of excluding a certain type of activity. Everyone from the special group to the Secretary of State lived in ignorance of t…”

Committee of 40 discussed Glomar Explorer book_quoted ▶ 16:55

“And the Glomar Explorer, which was an attempt to raise a Soviet missile submarine from the floor of the Pacific Ocean, were discussed by the 40 Committee. A project to spend $10 million to influence t…”

Committee of 40 funded Italy book_quoted ▶ 16:55

CIA paid King Hussein of Jordan book_quoted ▶ 17:25

“Another routine function was the approval of subsidies to certain foreign leaders. Reportedly, half a dozen were on the CIA payroll to include King Hussein of Jordan. Thus, it came as no surprise when…”

Committee of 40 paid Bokassa book_quoted ▶ 17:25

Henry Kissinger headed Committee of 40 book_quoted ▶ 17:57

“impugning American motives and threatened to break relations with the U.S. The 40 Committee was used on everyday decisions, but not for the big ones. Henry Kissinger chaired the 40 Committee. He set t…”

Richard Nixon reconstituted Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board book_quoted ▶ 21:24

“The president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, which Nixon reconstituted by executive order on March 20th, 1969, remained the sole alternative. Maxwell Taylor, its first chairman, was in declini…”

Maxwell D. Taylor headed Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board book_quoted ▶ 21:24

George Anderson succeeded Maxwell D. Taylor book_quoted ▶ 21:24

Franklin Lincoln member_of Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board book_quoted ▶ 21:53

“because generals and admirals aren't supposed to be political. In the style of the Nixon White House, the Intelligence Advisory Board members had lawyer Franklin Lincoln, Los Angeles Times magnate Fra…”

Franklin Murphy member_of Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board book_quoted ▶ 21:53

Nelson Rockefeller member_of Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board book_quoted ▶ 21:53

Robert Murphy member_of Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board book_quoted ▶ 22:22

“and formal diplomat Robert Murphy. In the six years of Nixon's presidency, the board met with the president only eight times. Nixon sometimes convened smaller groups. The senior intelligence advisory …”

Robert Murphy proposed Ho Chi Minh book_quoted ▶ 24:13

“that we've come across that formally acknowledges that. There is little indication he ever saw one that he did not like because they all enriched him. Bob Murphy once suggested assassinating Ho Chi Mi…”

CIA rejected Robert Murphy book_quoted ▶ 24:13

Ronald Reagan member_of Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board book_quoted ▶ 25:14

“He put his effort into writing alternative papers, exaggerating the threat. Staff thought Anderson's presence a bad influence. Later additions to the board included California Governor Ronald Reagan o…”

Edward Teller member_of Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board book_quoted ▶ 25:14

John Connally member_of Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board book_quoted ▶ 25:14

Richard Helms member_of CIA book_quoted ▶ 26:15

“Richard Helms dealt straightforwardly with the board. Typically, the intelligence advisory board staff would tell Helms before a board session about the nature of the meeting, and the CIA director wou…”

Alexander Haig member_of Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board book_quoted ▶ 26:37

“Henry Kissinger and General Alexander Haig usually sat in on the presidential intelligence advisory board's meeting with the president. Kissinger, or sometimes the board executive secretary, prepared …”

Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board studied Turkey book_quoted ▶ 27:05

“Intelligence Advisory Board to assess the Russian-designed AK-47 assault rifle against the American M-16. Later tasks included examining the capability of the Soviet SA-7, a shoulder-fired anti-aircra…”

Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board studied Vietnam book_quoted ▶ 27:05

Richard Nixon asked Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board book_quoted ▶ 27:36

“shipments through Cambodia. Sometimes Kissinger made the assignments, but he carefully emphasized that he was acting on behalf of the president each and every time. In June of 70, Nixon met the board …”

Jared Burke member_of Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board book_quoted ▶ 28:34

“focused on political issues. Board Executive Secretary Jared Burke accompanied the group on this trip. The National Security Agency officer with long service as chief of staff to General Marshall Cart…”

Jared Burke visited Vang Pao book_quoted ▶ 29:31

“Burke sat by the window as board members talked in Cambodia, and he took notes when they spoke to Sovana Foma in Laos. They visited Long Tien and Vang Pao's Hmong Army. Enormously impressed that a war…”

Jared Burke visited Souvanna Phouma book_quoted ▶ 29:31

Gordon Gray studied Vietnam book_quoted ▶ 30:29

“Gordon Gray studied drug use by American soldiers in Vietnam, yet the Presidential Advisory Board remained entirely unaware of the drug running by the U.S. CIA in Laos. A year later, Burke recalls the…”

Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board unaware_of CIA book_quoted ▶ 30:29

Richard Nixon asked Suharto book_quoted ▶ 31:19

“where the presidential advisory board had met with Suharto and his intelligence chief, Kissinger wanted Nixon to ask, quote, on Cambodia, did he, Suharto, emphasize the importance of Indonesia's maint…”

CIA carried_out_attack Kurdish militant groups book_quoted ▶ 32:42

“At this very moment, Nixon had resumed pressing the CIA for covert action against Hanoi while the agency had moved into high gear with a paramilitary initiative with the Kurds in Iraq. Any potential f…”

Richard Nixon pressed CIA book_quoted ▶ 32:42

Henry Kissinger ordered_assassination_of Salvador Allende host_asserted ▶ 33:13

“Kissinger himself asked the advisory board to examine the situation in Chile, where Salvador Allende had just been elected president, to see whether the CIA had failed to propose measures that might h…”

Gordon Gray spied_on CIA documented ▶ 33:37

“Yet Kissinger then refused the board access to the 40 committee minutes and the NSC's records that would have shown that the covert actions were approved and carried out. So how are you going to revie…”

Henry Kissinger covered_up CIA documented ▶ 33:37

CIA covered_up Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board documented ▶ 34:08

“facilities without encountering the impact of the hunt for alleged Soviet moles that had been tearing apart the CIA for years. Gray's report contained no criticism whatsoever of Langley and its counte…”

Robert Murphy headed Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board documented ▶ 34:38

“After leaving the board, Robert Murphy chaired a presidential commission on the U.S. government and foreign relations. The commission's overview volume in its discussion of intelligence issues include…”

Nelson Rockefeller headed Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board documented ▶ 35:02

“the steady external and independent oversight of the performance of the foreign intelligence community as a whole, unquote. Nelson Rockefeller, who chaired another presidential commission in the mid-1…”

James McCord member_of CIA documented ▶ 35:34

“a product of his 1972 re-election campaign. It is important to the CIA because of the participation of the Bay of Pigs veterans, not only the Cuban exiles like Bernard Barker, but CIA officers like E.…”

E. Howard Hunt member_of CIA documented ▶ 35:34

Vernon Walters member_of Operation Gladio host_asserted ▶ 37:01

“Because Langley is in on it. Whatever it had or had not done, the inquiries and the drawn-out investigation were certainly damaging. Richard Helms designated Executive Director William Colby as point …”

Richard Helms appointed William Colby documented ▶ 37:01

Richard Nixon removed_from_power Richard Helms documented ▶ 38:02

“By September 72, the president was telling his chief of staff, H.R. Holderman, that Helms had to go. Nixon also spoke of cutting the CIA back by as much as 40%. A couple of weeks after Nixon's victory…”

Richard Nixon appointed James Schlesinger documented ▶ 39:30

“would come to pass. Rather, in early February 73, among appointments, Nixon announced James Schlesinger as the director of the CIA. The president had reached outside the agency and the accelerated dis…”

Reza Pahlavi funded Kurdish militant groups documented ▶ 41:52

“The Shah of Iran feared the end of the Kurdish war would bring more direct confrontation between Iran and Iraq. He stirred up trouble for the Iraqi government by then in the hands of Saddam Hussein, t…”

Henry Kissinger funded Kurdish militant groups documented ▶ 43:21

“Another Nixon political associate told the Shah that Washington could help the Kurds. The CIA handled the American side from their station in Tehran. Kissinger set up the U.S. apparatus for the Kurdis…”

United Kingdom funded Kurdish militant groups documented ▶ 44:21

“At first, the Nixon directive provided covert support of $5 million. The CIA provided $1 million worth of captured Soviet weapons and ammunition and remains unclear whether this formed part of the bud…”

CIA supplied_arms_to Kurdish militant groups documented ▶ 44:21

Israel funded Kurdish militant groups documented ▶ 44:51

“the Kurds too, and they had been helping the Kurds since 1965. Together, the three countries funded the secret war at a level of about a million dollars a month. These involvements were dwarfed by the…”

Reza Pahlavi funded Kurdish militant groups book_quoted ▶ 45:50

“One of James Schlesinger's first moves on the covert action front, which Kissinger backed and Nixon approved. Kissinger reports the Shah's covert aid at that point was over $30 million. And of course,…”

Henry Kissinger ordered_assassination_of Kurdish militant groups documented ▶ 47:46

“Barzani thought this was a good idea and asked Washington about it. The CIA opposed any move. On October 16, 1973, Henry Kissinger instructed the CIA director to tell the Kurds not to attack. Barzani …”

William Colby removed_from_power CIA documented ▶ 48:46

“Schlesinger had left and William Colby was the boss. He argued against any increase in the aides to the Kurds. Kissinger viewed Colby as an isolated voice among the multitudes who agreed the Kurds wou…”

Henry Kissinger funded Kurdish militant groups documented ▶ 50:38

“Rather than rethink the program, Kissinger cooked up a deal with the Israelis who were happy to exchange Russian weapons they had captured in the October war for American new ones to the tune of about…”

Reza Pahlavi removed_from_power Kurdish militant groups documented ▶ 51:36

“stopped free passage for CIA arms shipments, and closed his border to Barzani's Peshmerga. The next day, the Iraqis began a full-scale offensive. On March 10th, the Kurds sent CIA an anguished appeal.…”

Nelson Rockefeller member_of Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board guest_asserted ▶ 56:22

“Yeah, let me try it again. Go ahead, Illini. Did you have something you wanted to add? Hey, Colonel. Yeah, the reference to Rockefeller is fascinating. I think you mentioned that he worked on the Cove…”

Tom Karamessines member_of CIA guest_asserted ▶ 56:55

“Was he on it or was he the chair? I forget if you remember what Prado said about that. Well, he's definitely on it. Okay. Let me go back and I'll say that. Go ahead. That's probably going to bring him…”

Tom Karamessines member_of Operation Gladio guest_asserted ▶ 57:21

“And while all this is going on, of course, you know, Karamasins is just one of these interesting figures that doesn't get talked about a lot. But he's kind of, you know, he's kind of the Forrest Gump …”

Tom Karamessines member_of White House Plumbers guest_asserted ▶ 59:32

“And then you've got the head of the White House plumbers who know everything that's who knows everything that's going on with the Watergate Hotel and is potentially coordinating and, you know, operati…”

David Young member_of White House Plumbers guest_asserted ▶ 1:00:54

“staffed with CIA and who's the beneficiary of that covert operation which basically was a coup of the president Rockefeller because he ends up being vice president how's that that's like crazy shit um…”

Henry Kissinger member_of National Security Council book_quoted ▶ 1:01:25

“A 32-year-old Oxford scholar and a protege of Nelson Rockefeller's. Prior to his employment, he had been Henry Kissinger, who was Nelson Rockefeller's man, according to Seymour Hersh. Henry Kissinger'…”

Norman Schwarzkopf Sr. founded SAVAK book_quoted ▶ 1:16:49

“Other than changing the name and one of the offices, and I'm trying to remember which book that that's in. I'll be able to find it because it was a book that went into extraordinary detail about Norma…”

SAVAK succeeded Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps host_asserted ▶ 1:17:18

“that happening, I didn't know that he created the New Jersey State Police either, and kind of all made sense afterwards, especially if you've ever been to New Jersey, but no, just kidding, but yeah, s…”

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps member_of Israel host_asserted ▶ 1:17:48

“Republican Guard and carried on doing exactly what the SABAC had been doing. And of course, we know that there was significant interplay with the IRGC and Israel.…”

Licio Gelli member_of P2 Masonic Lodge caller_asserted ▶ 1:24:57

“And as well as we all know, Geli had connections straight with Haig and Kissinger during the Nixon administration. But it really connects the Italy P2 and during the time of the years of lead to Washi…”

Licio Gelli member_of Ronald Reagan host_asserted ▶ 1:25:52

“population control and everything and all the same cats that we're speaking of are in that circle as well. So, um, yeah, I just wanted to bring that up. Did you ever come across that galley? He was de…”

Licio Gelli member_of Club of Rome caller_asserted ▶ 1:25:52

Roman Shukhevych member_of Ronald Reagan host_asserted ▶ 1:26:50

“Stetsco? Stetsco, yeah. Yeah, Stetsco was at the White House as well. Yeah, it's just crazy. He was at Reagan's White House. Yeah. Go ahead, Lanai. Renee, just to give you another reference on this, I…”

Executive Intelligence Review exposed Licio Gelli caller_asserted ▶ 1:27:18

“started to find some of the connections between, I think it was Kissinger, the Years of Lead, and Galley. And in particular, the P2 Masonic Lodge in the early 1980s. And that's still online, so you ca…”