The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 47 (49)

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Transcript

0:04 Whoa. I still love that. I was just thinking the same thing. I can get over on rumble and I'm like, you know, get over there, get over there. Yeah. I love it. Um, still gets me psyched up. Okay. So we're on page five 49 under chapter project democracy and the book.

0:31 safe for democracy. We are still talking about Nicaragua and Oliver North. Oliver North asked Robert McFarlane for permission to provide intelligence about El Bluff and went to the U.S. Southern Command General Paul Gorman and the CIA's National Intelligence Officer for Latin America, Robert Vickers.

1:02 to get data. He assembled it into a package that Robert Owen carried to Honduras. Then Vickers found himself cut off from the clandestine service data on future events. In December, because again, we don't want the CIA actually doing CIA stuff. In December, a British paramilitary expert, David Walker, formerly commander of the 22nd

1:31 SAS Regiment, which is like their special forces, met North and proposed a commando attack. North and Calero discussed the idea. Calero also consulted General Singlib about the concept. A Walker associate entered Nicaragua to test the route, but found such tight security around El Bluff that a raid

2:01 seemed impossible. Calero abandoned the idea. Although Walker received no immediate employment, he won a place on the team when Project Democracy expanded to include Airlift. In February 1985, North asked Rob Owens to carry intelligence, including maps to Calero. Robert Owens met Colonel North just outside the White House sit room.

2:31 The two discovered that the CATF had sent maps displayed on poster boards, not at all suitable to be carried as a secret courier. Yeah, here, let me get all my big hard boards into a secret pouch. North called Alan Fiers with some choice words. Langley sent a man to Dulles Airport with reformatted.

3:02 packet of maps so Owen could take to Honduras. Now remember, Owen is the guy that was planted in the State Department. We talked about him at length in several of the books, but primarily the one where, what's his, Dark Alliance, Gary Webb was talking about all of this.

3:31 On a larger scale, North formulated a military plan to bring the Contras victory. This included the FDN seizing part of Nicaragua, declaring a provisional government, and planting a flag so the U.S. could immediately recognize it. Puerto Cabarrus was the target. The Contras' Alamo-like stand would supposedly energize support for Reagan's policy.

4:01 Enable a U.S. blockade and force Managua to fold. Elliott Abrams, RIG, actually discussed this theme as well. But the Pentagon and CIA both said it was nonsense. North nonetheless used the plan to solicit donations from donors. North busily suggested things the Contra could do with all the money.

4:30 after they received a huge Saudi Arabia donation and warned Calero of the money's appearance. Owen carried another packet of intelligence to Calero in April when Oliver North told Robert McFarlane that Bermudez planned a big FDN offensive in June. The Contras now claimed 12,000 to 14,000 men in the field under eight commands.

4:58 Declassified U.S. cable traffic confirms half that number. Despite the troops and the weapons bought by Calero, June was most notable for a shooting incident on the Costa Rican border. Nothing indicated an offensive at all. Bermuda's lacked results, and that led to a meeting in July. That meeting occurred at the Miami Airport Hotel.

5:28 and it involved Calero, Bermudez, General Secord, and Oliver North. Secord stated his opinion that without aircraft, the Contras would be driven from the field and defeated post-haste. He then volunteered to create an aircraft capability.

5:49 Meanwhile, as quietly as North attempted to play his own role, the press picked up bits of the story and published accounts questioning Oliver North's activities. Some in Congress noted the reports and began raising questions. At the National Security Council, McFarland received inquiries from Lee Hamilton. He was on the House Intelligence Committee.

6:22 representatives, and sometimes one of one from Indiana that was a Democrat. He was in Southern Indiana, just across the border from Louisville, Kentucky, because he was there when I was going to school at Indiana University. Also, Michael Barnes, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee for Latin America's subcommittee, started asking questions. These inquiries scared the White House.

6:51 To answer Hamilton, Robert McFarland sent a letter drafted by North which asserted deep personal convictions that no one on the NSC had violated the Boland Amendment. When the Barnes letter arrived, McFarland and the president were at the Reagan Ranch. McFarland later reviewed North's file and found at least a half a dozen memoranda that raised legal questions on the NSC's staff participation.

7:21 Among them was El Bluff plans, the transfer of intelligence, an abortive North scheme to pirate a Nicaraguan merchant vessel. NSC staff pressured to get the State Department to secure a multiple entry visa for Singlib's trips to Honduras and many other papers.

7:47 Oliver North managed to convince McFarland that his activities were just defensive in nature. Again, McFarland signed a letter drafted by North, this one to Barnes, declaring, quote, my actions and those of my staff have been in compliance with both the letter and the spirit of the law, unquote. Then Robert McFarland resorted to trickery in the face of Barnes' request for documents.

8:14 McFarland refused to surrender any papers or allow Barnes' staff access, but he invited the congressman to review documents at the White House if he wished. McFarland then scheduled Barnes for 20 minutes and used much of the time just to chat. The problem memoranda lay to one side, immersed in a stack of papers in case Barnes asked to look at documents, but he did not.

8:43 Barnes' letter also triggered an inquiry by the Intelligence Oversight Board. Counsel Breton Scaroni took charge. He had never practiced law and had passed the D.C. bar exam only to get a government job. He had no help except a secretary. This was his first opinion he had ever written.

9:12 He was handed the McFarland assurance letters and had a five-minute conversation with Oliver North and a single 45-minute talk with NSC Council Commander Paul Thompson. Thompson gave Scaroni documents to look at, but not to retain for study. He could only make notes. These excluded any of the damning memoranda that I just mentioned. Based on this,

9:43 Scaroni produced an opinion, rubber stamping the information. It found the NSC staff activity perfectly legal. At least twice when Allen fires question NSC staff actions, Oliver North referred to this legal opinion. Once North handed fires a copy of it, then took it back. Thereafter, the problem memoranda were carefully shielded. North made a list.

10:14 of their file locations and kept it taped to his computer. Once it began to appear that there was going to be a real investigation, North checked the papers out of the NSC Central Registry, altered them, having his secretary type up revised versions. Whatever was in the legal opinion, Oliver North knew he had legal problems. Meanwhile, the opinion did just what North wanted it to do.

10:43 Fires would not be the sole victim of his deception. Oliver North exhibited the opinion on plain paper without letterhead whenever anyone questioned the legality of his actions. Robert McFarland protected North from a congressional inquiry that would have halted the Contra program. No doubt this was a crucial moment in Project Democracy. Unchecked, the program moved ahead to create an airlift.

11:12 a unit that gave the White House all the attributes of a standard CIA paramilitary operation. Supply headaches hampered the Contra actions at every level. The Sandinistas did what they could to make the problem worse. In January of 85, they deployed 2,000 troops on the Nicaraguan side of the border, salient, which contained most of the Contra camps, with the soldiers

11:41 came long-range rockets that could strike the Contra main base just in Honduras, but they were located just inside of Nicaragua. Ambassador Negroponte asked for aerial reconnaissance, which led the Reagan administration to appeal to Congress to let the CIA share intelligence with the Contras. Negroponte also warned that if Reagan failed to obtain new money for the rebels, Honduran support would diminish.

12:11 Already 2,000 of the 7,000 Contras were permanently immobilized. As many as were in Nicaragua, the rest were able to operate only as supplies materialized. This didn't satisfy the Hondurans. One evening in February, talking in a library at the embassy residence, the Honduran chief of staff told Negroponte that the Contras were in a race against time, caught between U.S. politics.

12:40 and Sandinista power. For Colonel Bermudez and Sanchez, chief of the FDN logistics, he was moving stuff to columns in the field and that basically consumed all of their time. They mostly bought food locally. Material for the columns in the field went into Nicaragua on the backs of men and mules.

13:10 Men could not carry much while the mule trains could not be very long without observation. This translated into patrols that could not stay out very long. Bermuda sent a few columns deep into Nicaragua to exert presence, but their rebel units typically made an ambush or two, set a few landmines, and then came back to camp. The Contra conflict remained a war.

13:39 of excursions and not a steady exertion of military pressure. Congress had it on high authority from Southern Command General Paul Gorman that the Contras were incapable of overthrowing the Managua government. One possibility was to give the Contras real teeth by extending their reach and complicating the Sandinista strategic situation. This meant an airlift to get supplies to the front.

14:08 but also staging operations from Costa Rica. Until 1985, only the indigenous people and the ARDC operated from Costa Rica. But then both groups kind of tried to get together. The indigenous divided internally felt that they had been used by the FDN.

14:37 ARDE had been crippled by the attempted assassination on Pastora, plus charges that senior commanders were running drugs, which of course they were not. The CIA and FDN disliked Pastora because he wouldn't take their drug money. True, Robello had joined the UNO, but as chief of the ARDE's political wing, he had no troops.

15:08 Without Pastora, the followers would not stay there. Any idea the FDN could step in and gain allegiance to these rebels was non-existent because they hated the FDN because those were the National Guard from the former Somoza regime. Calero tried to reactivate the Southern Front. He arranged with a pro-contra American farmer, John Hall.

15:37 who had the ranch in Costa Rica that we talked about multiple times. And after Robelo and Arturo Cruz joined the UNO, there followed a protracted effort to recruit the ARDE factions under Pastora. A lack of equipment furnished ARDE's excuse, and airlift would alleviate that problem. But Secord believed...

16:07 that to get useful loads to the southern front in his twin-engine aircraft would require an airfield in Costa Rica to recover airplanes after the mission or in case of an emergency landing. The idea of a Costa Rican airfield came up within a month of the decision. An airfield represented a new degree of involvement for Costa Rican government.

16:29 For the most part, San Jose had been willing to wink at the contra activities, making arrests and seizures in the most egregious cases. Still, Costa Rica's official position remained neutral. Allowing land to be used was an act of commission. Ambassador Louis Tams was new to Costa Rica in the summer of 85. Before leaving Washington, Tams

16:58 had talked to Oliver North, purporting to speak for the RIG. North gave Tams the task of getting the Southern Front moving again. Elliott Abrams gave no such order, according to the author, nor did Secretary Shultz in his written instructions. But Tams evidently thought North's order had their approval. In San Jose, Tams met the CIA station chief, Joe Fernandez.

17:29 who told him of the need for the airfield at what they labeled Point West. Tams told the Costa Ricans that an airfield benefited them. Getting Fernando Chamorro's troops into Nicaragua would reduce the contra problem in Costa Rica. General Secord turned to his Air Force comrade, General Richard Gad, to supervise site preparation at Point West, which received the codename.

18:00 Plantation, a GAD company called Eagle Aviation Technology and Services, another one of those proprietaries, received $100,000 for this work. Plantation possessed a 6,500-foot dirt strip, a barracks capable of housing about 30 men, and a few outbuildings.

18:26 From the beginning, there was a security breach just waiting to happen. This secret airstrip could be seen from the air by planes using the standard air approach into the Capitol's airport. A security breach did occur. The instigator was Elliott Abrams on a visit to the Capitol. Abrams sat with Tams to listen to Joe Fernandez and two subordinates give an hour-long briefing on Costa Rica's activities.

18:55 not a word about the plantation. Abrams finally asked, what about that airfield? Both Abrams and Tams saw the CIA station chief turn colors. He thought he was going to have a coronary attack. Fernandez took Abrams aside, indicating his officers were not cleared to know about the airfield. With plantation under construction, and it was completed early in 1986, only longer

19:25 Range aircraft like C-130s could use it on air missions. Here again, Secord turned to Gad, who once boasted, give me an account number and I'll fly anywhere. He had done just that, moving Task Force 160 helicopters to Barbados for the Grenada invasion and flying Delta teams on both missions and exercises.

19:53 The Reagan administration failed in a request for military aid for the Contras, but it came back and won $27 million for humanitarian aid following an incredible series of gaps by Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega. When the State Department had to administer this aid, Colonel North sent their newly formed Nicaraguan humanitarian assistant officer to GAD for the airlift.

20:23 As with Secord, he arranged through Southern Air Transport, which had made at least 14 flights to fly weapons to the Contras. Gad played a primary role in setting up the private benefactor airlift. He found the airplanes. Gad almost bought some aircraft from the Venezuelan Air Force before he found better ones. Two Canadian versions of the C-7 Caribou

20:50 along with a C-123K from Summit Aviation, which, by the way, is another CIA proprietary, were acquired in early 1986. The C-123 was another security breach. It was the same one used in the Air Force Intrigue to entrap the Sandinistas in drug trafficking a year earlier. Ha! Crazy! Don't they realize you can track aircraft? To work the plans,

21:28 Gadd hired nine pilots, three loadmasters, and seven mechanics. The crews earned $3,200 a month. They had plenty of experience. The project manager, Secord called him the chief pilot, was William Cooper. He had 25,000 hours in his flight log and had been Air America's top pilot flying Vang Pao in Laos.

21:57 One drug operation is the same as another drug operation. The deputy, John McRaney, another Laos vet with 19,000 hours of his own, McRaney, looking for a new gig, had gone to Air America's buddy, James Ryan, who now ran the CIA proprietary Aero Contractors, but found the layout not to his liking.

22:26 When McGraney asked for other projects, Ryan told him about the Secord GAD project. McGraney learned the CIA knew all about the project, but was told that it wasn't a CIA project. Other members were also Air America veterans. John Piawati and Elmo Baker had both flown for the CIA in Vietnam.

22:57 Baker had spent five years as an enemy prisoner. The youngest was Wallace Buzz Sawyer and David Johnson. They were in their 30s. A British crew with David Walker, the former commando, as minimally capable loadmaster and Ian Crawford for pilot, barely qualified on the C-123. All of the three American loadmasters to include

23:26 Eugene Hassan bus had flown with Cooper and Laos. All were nominally employed by a Quarryville, Pennsylvania company called Corporate Air Services. The crews thought that they worked for the CIA and were told that by Luis Posato Corrales. During questioning,

23:58 by the FBI for the Iran-Contra Special Counsel. Meanwhile, Cuban exile and CIA contract officer, one of our favorite Forrest Gumbs, Felix Rodriguez, had been in Argentina in the Middle East after Vietnam. He retired with, in 1976, retired, in air quotes. But,

24:32 was found operating in El Salvador, setting up the death squads there. He wanted to apply a bomber helicopter attack method that he had invented in the Mekong Delta during Vietnam. In December of 84 through January of 85, Rodriguez made the rounds of Salvadoran and U.S. officials, including Don Gregg,

24:58 a friend and former CIA boss in Vietnam, who was now the National Security Advisor to Vice President Bush. He didn't make the rounds. He was working for Don Gregg. That's a proven fact. So Felix meets Oliver North. As part of his work for the Salvadorans, Phoenix held a commission in their Air Force and had run their air operations at El...

25:31 El Pango airfield. That fall, Oliver North convinced him to add the task of liaison between the El Salvadoran air operations and private benefactors. Working closely with the Salvadoran air commander, General Rafael Bustelo Rodriguez, arranged for them to use El Pango airbase and its

26:03 Call sign in this operation became Island. Rodriguez was doubtful about one of the operatives called Mr. Green, actually fellow Bay of Pigs and Mongoose veteran, Rafael Quintero, who went between Sawyer's people and the higher ups. Quintero had been close to Thomas Klein's. Felix.

26:34 former Mongoose case officer. Both had worked with Edwin Wilson and were on the danger list as far as Rodriguez knew. Then Rodriguez, who himself used the false identity of Max Gomez, learned that Clines had worked with Secord on the arms deals coming into the Contras, personally pocketing money along the way.

27:05 Felix worried about the gloss that had been put on Project Democracy, thinking it was a Wilson gang back in business. But Rodriguez himself had brought in a questionable character whom he did trust, which was Luis Posado. He had been implicated in the 1976 bombing of the Cuban airliner that killed that youth fencing team that had taken off from Venezuela and was headed to Cuba.

27:36 He wasn't implicated. He did it. That bomb that he placed on that aircraft killed 73 people. Posado had worked for Venezuelan intelligence in Pinochet's Dina. You know, all in the family. He had been condemned to death in absentee in Venezuela for the bombing of the airliner. Posado supposedly had went underground organizing Cuban exile groups.

28:12 and plotting additional bombings. Underground, of course. Isn't all these guys supposed to be underground? Rodriguez arranged for Posado to come to El Salvador under a false passport and got him a new identity. And you know, he only does that because he's not really working with the CIA, but he has access to false identification and everything as if he's actually working for the CIA.

28:43 But the CIA doesn't know anything about any of this stuff. There, Posada worked as a helper. He rented three houses in nice districts for Sawyer's pilots and a hotel in San Salvador for visitors and the mechanics. You know, doing logistics work for the operation. He also handled the quote-unquote enterprise purchase of aviation fuel from the Salvadoran Air Force.

29:13 at El Opango. Once or twice, Cooper took care of the gas when Posado couldn't make it. But the Cuban gained unquestioned control of the funds from the Americans. And this outraged General Bastillo by dumping wads of cash on his desk like they were operating like the mafia.

29:43 Project Democracy aircraft were also not all they could be. Flying into Ilopango in February of 86, the first C-7 developed engine trouble and made a forced landing. The press reported the incident, but another security breach, which was another security breach, the CIA's reluctance to furnish intelligence became another headache. Sure it did. Secord visited William Casey.

30:13 in early February, both of them said, we want every bit of support we can get from you. But instead of that, what we're getting is a lot of questions about the nature of our GADS organization. Casey made no promises, except for Casey has been over backwards excited about this. And now we're pretending he doesn't care. Secord complained that Alan Fiers

30:44 who was on his back, had no qualifications to be even in the operation. Fires had no paramilitary experience, and the agency had few well-qualified people in its air branch. But again, they're not involved. The officer Fires had sent to see Dick Gad, someone Secord knew from Laos, was not even an airman. Casey defended Fires as a dedicated officer.

31:19 North told Secord that fires seem to have found religion. Secord heard rumors that Casey had come down hard on the task force chief. Secord wanted regular updates on the Sandinista troop movements and air defenses. Casey's reply has not been recorded, but shortly afterwards, the benefactors and Joe Fernandez in Costa Rica received KL-43 online encryption devices.

31:47 that enabled North to communicate privately with them. Again, that's CIA. Those are their devices. Rafael Quintero told Fernandez the sophisticated coding devices produced were actually contracted by the NSA for deployable units for the CIA. The first successful airdrop of lethal aid indeed received.

32:19 intelligence support cabled from CIA headquarters. You know, because they're not involved at all. When Congress permitted intelligence cooperation, the agency used this cloak to deliver $13 million in Comgear. This was the quote-unquote humanitarian aid. This allowed Calero to use their private funding for other things.

32:45 The CIA discovered as early as April 86 that Joe Fernandez supported Norse operation, but the agency took no steps to bring this back to the attention of the oversight bodies. Again, only a month earlier, the agency's analysts had produced a fresh national intelligence estimate, quote, Nicaragua, prospect for an insurgency, unquote, which

33:15 once found the Contras in decline, except they weren't. Oh, the Contras, yes, they were. That April, when incoming division chief Jerry Gruner came through Central America to familiarize himself with the players and problems, Joe Fernandez asked for assurances that his connections to the benefactors were permitted by the Bolin. Gruner said he would check. Fernandez stunned Alan Fiers.

33:49 A month later, when he raised the same issue at a regional session, Fiers knew nothing about the links, and Gruner apparently had not mentioned it to him. B.S. On May 28th, Fiers cabled Fernandez that Langley approved advice, communications equipment, and intelligence. Afterward, the CIA recruited and began training a Contra radio operator to work the net from the airfield during supply flights.

34:21 Until that happened, Felix Rodriguez had had that duty since he was the only one that spoke Spanish. The airlift's first great moment occurred in March of 86. A Sandinista infantry force pursued FDN troops across the border and made for the Contra camps. The U.S. got Honduras to ask for assistance, whereupon an emergency aid grant of $20 million put an airlift

34:51 by Southern Air Command, who sent helicopter with U.S. crews to lift a Honduran infantry battalion into the area. One CIA pilot was badly injured when one of the aircraft crashed. Within days of the incursion, Project Democracy aircraft were flying supplies from Aquacate, a CIA base in Honduras. Buzz Sawyer's log shows 10 flights out of Aquacate.

35:20 between March 24th and 28th alone. In Nicaragua, a Southern Air Transport L-100 completed its first successful air resupply mission to a column that had moved inside of Nicaragua. Another Southern Air Transport flight reached Aquacate on the evening of March 24th. The Southern Air Transport L-100 flew down from Dulles Airport with quote-unquote medical supplies.

35:51 and Rob Owens on board. Owens hired by the State Department, we already talked about that, humanitarian office, in big air quotes, was to supervise the unloading of the shipment because the Hondurans were not permitted to do that. It had to be an American official.

36:23 In fact, he was there on another purpose as well. The L-100 was supposed to take Contra weapons at Aquacate and fly them to El Salvador, from where the next night it would take its first airdrop into the southern front. Oliver North asked Owens to help because the Southern Air Transport crew knew none of the contact people at the various points along the mission.

36:48 Owen found no FDN weapons. The two CIA liaison men knew nothing of weapons and the Contra representatives simply shrugged in ignorance. Owen went to the CIA chief of base, Jerry Atkins, who refused to call the Honduran station chief and get the FDN to release the arms. Finally, Owens flew on to El Salvador with an empty L-100.

37:13 General Secord concluded that Atkins, as well as the agency station chief in El Salvador, were openly, quote-unquote, hostile to this operation. Sure. The next day at El Pango came a meeting among Owen Felix Rodriguez, Rafael Quintero, and Colonel James Steele, who was the U.S. military advisor in El Salvador. They phoned Gad, Secord, and North.

37:43 Colonel Steele agreed to put through a secure call to Vincent Shields, the Honduras' cheapest station. Ultimately, they had to scrub the airdrop and scramble to inform the affected Contra units. Another attempt took place on April 9th with a Southern Air Transport L-100 that brought a load in from New Orleans to El Palpango.

38:12 The plane could not find the Contras on the ground. Colonel Steele was frustrated. When Secord wanted to try again, Steele insisted no mission be flown unless radio contact could be made. Secord observed, this is asinine. No black ops ever uses radio communications to drop weapons. By contrast, in Honduras, in Costa Rica, the private benefactors could get all the CIA help they wanted.

38:42 from the CIA that's not involved. Station Chief Joe Fernandez had been involved since March of 85. Fernandez now used his KL-45 to report the success of the L-100 deliveries to the Southern Front. Ambassador Tams knew that Fernandez had the KL-43 device. The diplomat allowed the station chief to go ahead participating in Norse network. Yeah.

39:10 like we're still pretending that the CIA works for the State Department. Ha ha! The other nodes on the net were Norse NSC office, Secord, GAD, Calero, Southern Air Transport, Rafael Quintero, and Felix Rodriguez. Fernandez subsequently provided intelligence on Sandinista's air defense and dispositions, weather, and local liaisons.

39:36 Some of this might be permitted by the 1985 Intelligence Authorization Act, which allowed cooperation with the Contras. But Fernandez went well beyond that to the point of basically supplying all the support to include weapons into the Contras. The CIA station chief even got into military planning, as was demonstrated on his April 12th.

40:06 KL-43 message to North, in which he reported the L-100 drop, another drop for the indigenous people, and a dispatch of new Contra recruits forwarded with, quote, all remaining cached lethal material, unquote. You know, like they're setting up stay-behind units there? Cached legal material. As for future plans, Fernandez declared, this is in the cable.

40:38 My objective is creation of a 2,500-man force which can strike northwest and link up with cachets to form solid southern force. Likewise, envision formidable opposition on Atlantic coast resupplied at or by sea. You know, not like he's actually embedded with the Contras and setting the whole thing up or anything.

41:08 The CIA's cooperation on the Southern Front amounted to the best thing Project Democracy had going. The airlift remained sour with accidents and abortive flights. April 1986 marked an intense spike in phone calls between North and Bill Casey. General Secord thought he could straighten things out and flew to Il Pango on April 20th, taking North and Gadd with him. Secord met the pilots at one of their safe houses.

41:38 There, he told them that the British crew would make the flights into Nicaragua so that the American nationals couldn't be captured. Boy, I bet that made the British crew feel good. If anybody's going to get captured, it's not the Americans. Throw the British to the wolves. Secord and North went on to confer with Colonel Bermudez and Alex Rodriguez on anti-aircraft missiles for the FDN.

42:07 Secord thought he might get 10 launchers and 20 blowpipes from Chile, the DINA, if Rodriguez could get Salvadoran end-user certificates. Rodriguez turned to North. The White House staffer made appropriate gestures. Bermudez complained of the old slow aircraft in their fleet. Oliver North said that if he had the money, he'd have bought better aircraft. The planes were...

42:37 quote unquote, donated. The Contras had to take what they could get. Donated and were previous CIA aircraft. So who were they donated from? Oh, the CIA fronts. This conversation had fateful consequences for Rodriguez began thinking of the Secord aircraft as Contra property. Rodriguez's early doubts about the operation became another path.

43:07 to the unraveling. Ronald Reagan still had the vision of hanging by his thumbs outside the White House unless he could get aid to the Contras. The administration waited only as long as required by the existing legislation before going back to Congress with another request. This time, the secret war managers were determined to do it upright. No half-assed shoestring appropriation.

43:33 The request in February of 86 was for $100 million, and it was supposed to be transferred from the Pentagon budget. Anybody wondering where all that missing money from the Pentagon went? Bill Casey personally participated, presiding over the congressional briefing, at which the CIA used smear tactics in a classified paper, again collected once it was read. The paper characterized lobbying efforts in...

44:03 behalf of Managua by the consulting firm Agendas International as a disinformation and subversion campaign against the U.S. So if they're actually telling the truth about what's going on in Nicaragua, it's a disinformation campaign. As Congress debated the money, Ronald Reagan did something calculated to curry favor among the legislatures.

44:37 With much fanfare, on March 14th, the president sent a message to Congress on freedom, regional security, and global peace. The White House spin doctors, including John Poindexter and Ronald Reagan, characterized the approach as essentially a repudiation of the Kirkpatrick Doctrine that right-wing dictators are good. Henceforth, the U.S. would oppose all of these dictators.

45:06 on both the right and left, all of the ones that they set up. Tyranny in any form is an enemy of democracy. And oh, by the way, I've got this other thing over here that I'm basically doing the same thing with, but it's called Project Democracy, so it's fine. The text indeed said these things, but Reagan's message also contained appropriate indicators and questionable assertions.

45:34 His words on leftist regimes made his basic stance quite plain. Soviet-style dictatorships, in short, are an almost unique threat to peace, both before and after they consolidate their rule. Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge killers in Cambodia fighting against the Vietnamese puppet government in Phnom Penh was characterized as democratic forces.

46:04 The mass murder, that's Democrat. The message also commented favorably about those with whom the CIA had worked in Afghanistan and Angola. Those guys are all good too. As for the Contras, Reagan's message contained an astonishing assertion that the rebels had been holding their own despite their lack of significant outside support. The administration knew perfectly well that the Contras had

46:36 roughly as much outside support as the CIA had previously provided. The White House itself had orchestrated that assistance. It also stretched credibility to assert Managua, and this is what he called it. Wait for it. It's a Leninist regime that was killing its own people. You just can't make this shit up.

47:10 Reagan's message in the intensive lobbying proved inadequate. The House of Representatives rejected the $100 million CIA program, as it had every other proposal of lethal assistance since the harbor mining incident. But now the Sandinistas became their own worst enemy. Later in 86, Daniel Ortega made a movie star-like tour of Europe, seeking aid in Western Europe and Russia, permitting Reagan.

47:39 to dub him as a dictator. That was when Congress passed Reagan's $100 million program. You know, you're not allowed to talk to the Russians. Once the budget was passed, Alan Fiers held the first of several conversations with General Secord on whether the agency would take over what the enterprise had been doing anyway. As Secord and Hakeem dubbed,

48:10 their little empire, the enterprise. Bill Casey took to the streets in an effort to build public support. In a Denver speech on July 30th, the CIA director said, we are only at the beginning of the struggle and we have to resist the old American tendency to expect instant, easy success. Casey expected the new money to turn up the heat against the Sandinistas.

48:38 by expanding the number of Contra troops and opening new areas of operation. But the Soviets and their Sandinista clients would not give up their toehold without a determined fight. The spy chief looked forward to seeing Moscow spending more money to counter the insurgency than Washington did to support her. After these many months, the name of the game in Washington was still Bridging Aid. This time, the bridge.

49:10 had to reach from humanitarian aid to a new program. Saudi Arabia had been a generous donor, but had exhausted its interest. Top floor in radio parlance of Bill Cooper's crews cast about for alternatives, as did private benefactors. John Singleton prepared a new approach to Taiwan, with which he had been successful before. He called off.

49:41 Elliott Abrams. Taiwan did, however, donate millions of dollars. Isn't that nice of them? Oliver North dreamed up the scheme that brought fresh culpability into the White House. This was a diversion of the Contra's money from the Iran arms sales. Ultimately, the gamut involved only about $3.5 million, not the $12 million that North had anticipated.

50:13 It included Secord Aircraft and the Santa Elena Airfield. Discovery of Norse memo advocating diversion began the Iran-Contra affair when Justice Department lawyers found it in a safe. The official U.S. government approach to soliciting bridging aid from third countries was decided at a National Security Planning Group meeting on May 16. All of the principals were present.

50:43 including Reagan, Bush, Casey, Schultz, Weinberger, James A. Baker, and Donald Reagan. For the NSC staff, North attended, along with the Central American Senior Director, Raymond Burghardt. Admiral Poindexter presented the situation as good but liable to change because contra funds were running out.

51:11 Poindexter presented options, go to Congress for authorization, seek third country donors, you know, the same old thing. Secretary Shultz initially favored solicitation from third parties. Casey, perfectly aware of what had already been done, innocently asked if this had been tried before. Shultz, unaware of the Saudi funding until a bizarre telephone call from Robert McFarlane that June,

51:39 replied that a few unsuccessful approaches had been made. They weren't unsuccessful. They had been getting millions from all kinds of people to include donated aircraft. Donated, in air quotes. Others, also aware of the Saudi donations, pronounced solicitation worth exploring, including increased involvement by President Reagan. Then they proceeded to make a list of who they were going to go beg money from.

52:12 Schultz had come a long way since September of 85 when referring to North, he had instructed Abrams to monitor Oliver North. Now Schultz was ready to go out and ask for money. Interestingly enough, this episode goes entirely unmentioned in Schultz's memoirs. He instructed Abrams to avoid countries ruled by...

52:38 quote unquote, dictators and those dependent on USAID, which was like just about everybody. Abrams wanted donors to be oil magnets so that they had cash and wasn't going to be transferring money that could be tracked. He went to the Assistant Secretary of Middle Eastern Affairs, Richard Murphy, who felt that none was suitable. The only other oil country Abrams could think of was Brunei.

53:10 The original idea was to have George Shultz make the approach to the Sultan during a visit. Extensive conversations among Shultz and Topps' advisors on the Secretary's plane across the Pacific convinced him to speak with the U.S. Ambassador before talking to the Sultan. The Ambassador, in turn, convinced the Secretary not to ask. Shultz decided instead that Abrams should handle the request, which was then arranged for August 8th.

53:40 Abrams contacted a high Brunei official in London. They went for a walk. Abrams began with his standard Central American speech, a talk that he had given a hundred times, then turned to the need of a bridging aid. The Sultan's emissary asked how much. He asked for $3 million a month. The emissary replied that he did not have access to that amount of money while traveling.

54:11 Abrams handed him a three-by-five card with a typed bank account number on it. The assistant secretary's file card would later get diplomatic embarrassment. Abrams had gotten the bank numbers from both Alan Fiers at the CIA and Oliver North. The CIA provided a contra bank account in the Bahamas. North gave Secord's Lake Resources account.

54:41 In Geneva, Abrams used Oliver's number, but Norse's secretary had inadvertently transposed two digits when typing them. The Sultan of Brunei deposited $10 million on August 19th. When Brunei asked Washington to confirm that, the U.S. proved unable to do so. The money had ended up in the account of a Swiss doctor. Lengthy legal proceedings had to be initiated to recover the money.

55:11 Abrams was mistaken to suppose the CIA account more tainted than that of Lake Resources. General Secord had all he could do to stay in touch with the players and movements of funds, arms, ships, and planes. For detailed management, Secord relied on others. Tom's Klein did the arms shipment to Central America. Air operations in Central America was Dick Gad's.

55:42 job, but by the spring of 86, he was pretty burnt out. Secord was doubly pleased at this time, therefore, to hear that his friend, Colonel Robert Dutton, had retired from the Air Force. Secord had served with him during the Iran hostage mission and trusted him implicitly. He immediately hired him for Project Democracy. Dutton came at the beginning of May.

56:12 Secord spoke of a legal situation at their very first encounter, handing Dutton a copy of the Brenton Sarconi's sanitized opinion, which Secord considered sufficient lawyering to satisfy him. He told his manager to avoid violating the Neutrality Act by doing nothing on U.S. soil and by never delivering personnel, only things.

56:38 Dutton immediately went to El Salvador to meet the people, see the equipment, carrying the legal opinion under his arm. There, he reviewed ground rules with the crews. He emphasized William Cooper's role as air boss and restricted Rafael Quintero to support with Felix Rodriguez as the facilitator. Dutton initially had a good impression of Rodriguez, though he came to think of him as a meddler.

57:07 The air crews sent mission reports to Dutton, who passed them to Secord and North, whom he saw as co-commanders of the operation. By June, Secord considered Rodriguez, the project's biggest enemy, a leak waiting to happen. When TV reporters assembled an expose of the Contra supply activities that summer, where Secord's name surfaced for the first time, he believed that that was from Rodriguez.

57:36 The enemy intention to limit flights over Nicaragua to third-party nationals had to be abandoned by mid-June. The British crews had a pilot who had previously flown only helicopters. Moreover, the crew's escapades in San Salvador drew unwanted attention and a rebuke from Colonel Steele. David Walker's British were phased out. North and Secord decided to send Americans into Nicaragua.

58:05 Here came another security breach. A private communication network was a breach already in progress, with top KL-43 online encryption gear in the hands of people without clearances. Because his name had figured in the Wilson affair, Secord himself had failed to secure a CIA clearance in 1983. His Pentagon clearance were later revoked after failure to file prerequisite disclosure papers.

58:34 Bill Cooper, Calero, Quintero, and Rodriguez also had no security clearances. But they were all using this classified encryption machine without authorization. Beyond the use of secret encoding devices, there was many ways in which the U.S. government made Project Democracy possible. Colonel Steele provided intelligence, weather data.

58:59 and intervened several times when Dutton's people were locked out of the airfield. Still allowed Felix Rodriguez access to the encryption machines provided him a military car and advisory group identification. He also made him a deputy in negotiating or facilitating the money coming in from the United States private donors. From the U.S. Embassy, Rodriguez received a powerful radio to communicate with aircraft.

59:29 Felix also got work crews to fix up his house, and the embassy expedited paperwork for Felix Quintero. From the CIA came the vital cooperation of Joe Fernandez, who sent his drop zone list through Quintero. The degree of CIA involvement held great interest for Secorda North, who pressed for more. On April 16th, the same day that the National Security Planning Group discussed

1:00:00 cash solicitation, North argued to Admiral Poindexter that the more viable democracy project became that the planes and pilots and weapons, the more inquisitive people would become. Steelhammer wrote, quote, we have to lift some of this onto the CIA, unquote, rather than taking more.

1:00:26 May 21st, Quintero informed Dutton that the CIA officers were saying that they could not talk to Secord's people at all. That applied to Bill Cooper's crew and presumably enjoined CIA Joe Fernandez from helping. Secord went to North, who followed up with Langley. In May, North took Secord to a meeting with Bill Casey at the White House. To Secord, the discussion seemed like part of an ongoing exchange.

1:00:55 After insisting on the need to get the CIA back in the field, Oliver North complained of donations trailing off and mentioned a Middle East country where Secord had contacts. Secord objected that he was not a U.S. official and associates would not want to hear from a private citizen. This was a far cry from 1985 when he had claimed part credit for the Saudi donations. Asked how much he needed for the airlifts, Secord said $10 million.

1:01:25 This may have been what led North to put Lake Resources account number on the file card for Elliott Abrams for the Brunei caper. So court again raised the issue of intelligence support from the agency. So we're going to stop right there. Isn't it amazing how all of these names just come up over and over and over again?

1:02:02 It's crazy. So, lot of stuff going on. It really shows you how small a club, in my opinion. You know what I mean? Where they say the 1% of the 1%, you know. Yeah. Well, obviously, they have, like, the senior staff. And they have been graduated into...

1:02:38 the upper echelon as they go from one operation to another operation to another operation, which is just, again, it's simply amazing. And for some reason, they all seem to involve drugs. Weird how that happens. Hello, Mr. Illini. I haven't seen you in a long time. Hey, Colonel. Good to see you. Yeah, I've been busy with all the developments in the oil market. I bet.

1:03:10 You know, I didn't hear Barry seal come up this time. Okay. But, but he does come up. Okay, good. You know, let me just check here real quick. We haven't got to the crash there. And I'm not sure this guy really isn't into that.

1:03:37 part of the story. So I'm not sure he comes up from the CIA's perspective, not so much the drug perspective. As a matter of fact, he hasn't mentioned them ferrying drugs anywhere. He's not mentioned any of the Samosan agents in Miami and in California. He's very picky about what he talks about in this book.

1:04:01 Prados is a truth teller, but there's certain stuff that he just doesn't go for, if I recall correctly. Yeah. And the same thing kind of comes out in his biography of Colby, if I recall correctly, too. I mean, it's not an omissive – I mean, he's not an omissive journalist, but –

1:04:24 There's just some stuff. He will embarrass the CIA, but he only goes so far. Yeah, that's a good point. It's kind of the right way of putting it. But yeah, I do think it is interesting. I forgot that Bill Casey was involved in Iran-Contra, but how couldn't he be? And it's just sort of another link.

1:04:48 From Iran-Contra, of course, to the Franklin scandal and the Craig Spence scandal. Yeah. Between both George H.W. Bush, Bill Casey. There's a couple of Vietnam intelligence connections, too, which are kind of interesting.

1:05:12 But yeah, there do seem to be a couple of Forrest Gumps of various intelligence programs out there. Yep, and it seems like we find them in our research. Truth that prevails, did you want to say something? So I wasn't aware that it was a book thing, so I was just listening in.

1:05:43 The operations thing made me cry because I've just discovered a lot of history with like Operation Popeye. As far as like weather manipulation was part of like why Vietnam was so detrimental on our veterans there because they intentionally.

1:06:14 made the weather worse they made them uh basically roll around in the mud and it was like funny for them and it's hard because my dad was uh private in vietnam and i've just heard a lot of horror stories about veterans when they came back even being treated like garbage so not only were they treated like garbage when they went to try and serve our country

1:06:41 But they were treated like garbage when they got back. And it just seems like a repeated pattern every time. Yeah, they were definitely spraying chemicals, not just Agent Orange, but things that obviously cloud seeding and that type of thing to the purpose of it was not. And believe me, I'm not defending them.

1:07:11 The purpose of it was to make the Ho Chi Minh Trail impassable for the North, but it did exactly the same thing for the American forces that were having to operate in that area. And there was little regard, number one, for the effects of doing those types of chemical operations near and on American forces.

1:07:41 And there was a significant lack of care provided to any of them when they got back. That is a pattern. It has happened repeatedly. It happened with Desert Storm 1 when everybody had the...

1:08:01 the Desert Storm Syndrome and had all of these different ailments coming back from that. And then the VA tried to pretend that none of that existed, just like they did with Vietnam with Agent Orange and any other ailments that came out of there. So yeah, it's a very sad story. And then it gets even sadder when you find out that all of those things were instigated.

1:08:30 in order to, none of them occurred naturally. Desert Storm 1 did not occur naturally. Vietnam War did not occur naturally. And it all, in many cases, has everything to do with controlling drug markets. And so very, very sad because not only does it affect all the people directly involved in those operations, it just increases the...

1:08:57 chemical weapons referred to as narcotics coming into our country. So it's kind of bad from all sides. And, oh, by the way, we pay for most of it out of our tax dollars. So, yeah, not a good news story, but it's important that we understand what our history is so we can insist on it getting fixed. And then not to mention Operation Paperclip.

1:09:31 Yeah, we've talked about that before. Mariah, Operation Paperclip just skims the surface. Yeah. I am literally a victim of it and just literally found out within the last week. Well, Paperclip, at least as I understand it, was the fact that we were taught in schools that they brought over German scientists, including some who were...

1:09:57 heavy supporters of the Nazis after World War II. And army generals and their children. Yep. And, you know, we haven't gotten to, you know, German intelligence either after the war. We installed Reinhard Gehlen into the Bundesnachrichtendienst. We, you know, partnered with, I mean, obviously we hired Otto Skorzeny to carry out a number of assassinations.

1:10:25 He consulted, you know, on the assassination of Lumumba. And I think, you know, the other thing is Bandera. Bandera was living in West Germany after World War II. The US CIA, as well as the Galen organization, which at the time hadn't become the BND yet, but he was hiding out there and we were, you know, giving him cover.

1:10:55 Yeah, I was more talking about the training of private investigators to target women of Vietnam vets. But that's not really paperclip. It's the generation after paperclip. It's the children of paperclip. So they had the Nazi influence upon them, the communist influence upon them. Well, the communist... Hold on, hold on, hold on.

1:11:24 The communists don't have anything to do with this. The Nazis were not communist. You don't believe they have similar ideologies? They're not communist. The Nazis were fascist. Well, Colonel, they did have the Red Brigades and stuff like that. We had fake communists running around, you know, doing false rights attacks in Italy. I know, but that's my point. You can't just throw the word communist around. We're very specific.

1:11:56 in this space about using proper terms. Nazis are not communist. Okay, my apologies. Yeah, so I'm interested in understanding your logic, though. You're saying that some of the Nazi scientists that came to the United States, children were involved in it. What exactly?

1:12:30 Child trafficking right beside Hillary Clinton and all of her friends. 1997 Adoption Safe Families Act. Can you give me a name of one of the Nazi children that was involved in that? Colonel Bill Littlefield, World War II. Harold Grant Littlefield, private investigator.

1:12:58 under investigation by FBI in 2021. My trafficker from Tampa, Florida in 1992, 34 years ago yesterday. So you're saying Littlefield is the product of one of the Nazi scientists that was brought over from Paperclip? Nazi engineer slash...

1:13:28 Army colonel, yes. He was stationed in Hamburg, and he adopted a Korean girl from Seoul, Korea. And they were doing the same types of things that communism was doing in China, where they were only allowing you to have a certain number of children. So they adopted a little girl from Seoul, Korea. Okay.

1:13:57 I'll look into that. I've not heard his name before. Colonel, this could be, I forget where the finders were in 1989. Second Colonel, sorry. This is, but I think the finders were in North Florida. I forget exactly where. They were up by Tallahassee in the Panhandle. Yeah. I guess that is kind of worth a question though. Yeah. Adam, go ahead.

1:14:27 Hey, thanks for the mic, Colonel. You know, could you say or could you agree with saying that Nazis were Marxist in a nationalist kind of fashion, but they are still fascist, which falls under I place it along with communism and cronyism under the umbrella of authoritarianism? So we can all agree that the.

1:14:56 dictatorship, absent elections are on a continuum on the side of 100% government control. But we're fairly particular about those labels here for a multitude of reasons, because the CIA has a tendency to manipulate those words where they want to.

1:15:25 to elicit certain psychological responses. And so when you look at a continuum of anarchy to total government, are totalitarianism, fascism, Marxism, and communism on that end of the continuum? Absolutely. But it's very important to understand

1:15:53 the differences between those two and their thought processes behind them so that we're not perpetually manipulated in mislabeling things. And that's why I'm a pretty big stickler about that because they use improper terms to psychologically manipulate us. So I just want to make sure that we're labeling things

1:16:23 I love that. Yeah. I want to agree with that. I just kind of understood where she was kind of coming from because from my understanding, Marx had quite an influence on Hitler and so on and so forth and all along with the communist movement and the East. So they kind of play these both sides of things as well. Well, and it's interesting enough when you go back and you look at who funded.

1:16:50 Karl Marx, you find a lot of the Fabian Milner UK kind of

1:16:59 funding behind that and again that's very important because Lenin and Trotsky were also housed in New York City and London before they were introduced into the Soviet Union to create you know the Bolshevik then slash communism and so what you find is a lot of these all start as a product of a

1:17:27 manipulation event in order to create these narratives of opposing forces when they're purposely designed as

1:17:40 to appear as opposing forces by the same people funding both sides, which brings us back to that meme of every war where the missiles are going back and forth saying, my tax dollars and somehow my tax dollars over here too. And so, yeah, it's crazy. Absolutely crazy. Colonel, you touched on a lot of my point for me that there does appear to be a common source.

1:18:14 You know, for both communism and fascism. Anthony Sutton covers this in great detail in his three-book series that he wrote in the 1970s after he got thrown out of the Hoover Institute for discovering Wall Street's links to the Bolshevik Revolution. But it all does seem to go to a certain extent back to the Fabian Society.

1:18:41 And this concept of imperial socialism and, yeah, British intelligence. If you trace it all kind of back, it all kind of goes back to the city of London. Yeah. The city of London. I know Warhamster likes to argue with me that it all goes back to Roosevelt or Rockefellers.

1:19:12 Well, the Rockefellers were part of the roundtable groups, right? Yeah, I know. I think they're definitely at the high table. Then you've got to look at the Order of Seraphim, too. There's a lot of stuff. Well, I mean, Epstein is basically conspiracy bingo. This is like catnip. The Epstein files are catnip for your conspiracy theorist because you've got a guy.

1:19:39 you know, operating out of jeevacations at gmail.com, sending out poorly typed emails, you know, with all kinds of horrible misspellings, brokering these major transactions between two very prominent families that have their own investment banks and their own Harvard MBAs and their own associates and vice presidents and managing directors to put pitch decks together for them that could be spelled properly.

1:20:06 It must brighten the gears of every investment banker out there to realize that there's some rando dude brokering these big transactions between the Rothschild family and the Rockefeller family. And that's how these deals are actually getting done, by some random guy with a random Gmail account.

1:20:33 I would just find that flabbergasting. I mean, that is your conspiracy bingo that they can't actually do it through the banks because the bankers wouldn't want to be involved in some of this stuff. Yeah, those are the same bankers that are paying billion-dollar fines for money laundering, but they wouldn't get involved in that stuff. Well, no, I think there's enough honest – I worked at an investment bank, Colonel. There's enough honest people there that they couldn't route it through Chase.

1:21:02 Maybe if it was a very small team, they could. There's plenty of those that do that, though. Or they wouldn't be paying billion-dollar fines. Adam, go ahead. Yeah, interesting. I did bring up the Order of Seraphim. If you look at the trident that matches on top of what's on top of the Ukrainian flag now, what used to be just...

1:21:29 blue and yellow uh and then also the their yes yachenko uh got knighted by them in 1999 uh kind of interesting rabbit hole to go down there too but uh

1:21:43 I did want to bring up the Strait of Hormuz and what it's highlighted with the Lloyds of London, right? If you don't have somebody attacking and the propping up of, if you go back to Anglo-Iranian oil, BP, and all that stuff, if you don't have that person attacking ships in the shipping lane, right, what do you need insurance for?

1:22:06 And if those countries around that area would secure their waters rather than, you know, that nonsense going on, it kind of highlights the Lloyds of London, what's their purpose. And I think that's what President Trump is showing. If this IRGC is neutralized, you know, which means I would personally say that they kind of prop them up to get a use for to create the insurance need. Right. Rather than those countries securing the waterways themselves. Right.

1:22:35 I don't know. So are you suggesting the Lloyds of London would create a threat so that they can? Yes. Yes. Okay. Well, we know that happened at least once with one of the, whose name I'm not going to remember, the guy that set up the executive outcomes, private military organization over in Britain. His company was actually hired to go do that.

1:23:04 in the Middle East in order to do exactly that same thing. So Renee, go ahead. Hey, good afternoon, everybody. I just wanted to share, I posted in the Purple Pill for those interested. Colonel did a great show recently with Cynthia Chung and some other ladies. I forget what they're called, their handle, something with homes. Home with homes.

1:23:31 Home with Holmes, yes. Okay, great. So it's in The Purple Pill. It's very informative because, yeah, we are all confused with the isms, fascism, communism, etc. And then also just a suggestion for future books, Colonel, maybe it would be good to do The Third Way or Nazi International because it really ties the Gladio together with, you know, Operation Sunrise.

1:24:01 In Madrid, the Madrid Circular, Otto Scorsese, Despine, The Spider, and all the Nazis coming over here. Just a suggestion. Yeah, both of those are excellent books. We've talked a lot about The Third Way, but I'll put them at the top of the list. Illini, go ahead. I mean, one other option for The Third Way might be the original primary source document, which I think is covered.

1:24:28 I think the book is called, like, Germany Plots with Moscow. It came out in the 1950s where they published the Madrid Circular. The third way does get kind of deep into some other stuff, too, if I recall correctly. That author, you know, is a little bit like, you know, Catherine Fitz, where, you know, sometimes they can give you a good lead.

1:24:52 But there's a lot of other stuff that you have to accept, too, outside of just the intelligence world and historical primary source analysis of deep political events. And it might be a little bit more interesting to go through. I think that original book is something like Berlin or Germany, plots with Moscow or Russia or something like that. It came out in the early 50s.

1:25:22 I don't have that. I'll look for it. It's kind of hard to find, but I think it's on the Internet Archive. My only other thought for Adam is it sounds like a lot of people have discovered Promethean action, and I think EIR on the one hand has always been an excellent detail-oriented

1:25:52 source of information, you do have to trace it down to primary sources. But the one thing that Susan Kokinda and Barbara Boyd haven't really come out with yet, and haven't flipped their cards on the table yet, where I think there needs to be some more work done on this, is the transition from SAVAK to the IRGC.

1:26:18 and trying to establish the link from the IRGC back to MI6. And I don't think that that post-1979 picture of, okay, MI6 is still kind of pulling strings in Tehran, I don't think that that picture is complete. And I think there needs to be some more work done on that.

1:26:43 And I know that Colonel, I think there was a book that talked about that transition with Savak to the IRGC in the eighties. And I'm always, you know. Yeah. Basically, and I'm not sure we've been through so many books. I'm not sure exactly. I'll know by looking at them and I keep the ones that we've done separate from my other books. Because basically the argument was made that if you look at,

1:27:13 all of the different functions of the SAVAK. Basically what they did was take like the top three officials, executed them and left the body fully functioning and just placed their new IRGC leadership and to continue doing the nefarious black site.

1:27:36 operations and basically the entire network still operated as if it had been there all along to include the external pieces of it. And it's a very interesting concept, but going back and finding informed sources to be able to make those connections. I think

1:28:05 Where the biggest connection gets made in my mind is that Iran has continued to be able to interact with the West in many different ways, to include all of the higher-ups buying property in the UK.

1:28:30 Those are just not things that you do if you have a country that is as sanctioned. I mean, it'd be like Putin's number two guy coming over here and buying a $100 million house. No, he would be on a sanctions list and all of that other stuff, just like what we had done with Venezuela in any of these targeted countries. And so it's very interesting.

1:28:59 the tangled web and you find a whole bunch of the IRGC leadership's kids living in the United States, how that happened. So it is very interesting, the connections for something that we are told is such a pariah state that you would have assumed.

1:29:24 that the State Department would not have allowed those people to have visas if they're a direct descendant of someone you're calling a terrorist. It just literally makes no sense unless there is a lot more complicity involved in these operations. Adam, go ahead. Yeah, a whole lot of kabuki theater, right?

1:29:53 You know, that's my research has been over like, you know, 25 years of digging into this stuff personally. And it was like sources like Wikipedia, like the am I coming in clear?

1:30:06 Yeah, like Wikipedia, which is a CIA website, essentially. They spoke about the Iran coups and all that. You could find out. This has been me piecing the puzzles of why, why, why, and trying to figure out why and who is behind all this stuff. It's interesting. It all links back to that, what I've come down to. Even the crown, I don't see it as British.

1:30:36 And it goes back to that Coburg-Sax-Gotha lineage there, even when you go on the Windsor side or the other side of the family there. And they even changed their name to Windsor at that point. So, yeah, it's a really interesting puzzle of the mind to put together of the world and how things came to be and what is what. So, yeah, definitely cool stuff. And there's a lot that I...

1:31:04 have learned from, you know, of course, Colonel Towner and her research here and, you know, everybody, you know, so like, yeah, I've been researching this stuff for a long time just because I have an inquisitive mind, let's say. Yep. All right, Sean, go ahead. Hiya, Colonel. Thanks very much for letting me speak. Sure. Yeah, it seems to me this war in Iran, the only country in the world, in the world that is benefiting from this war is Israel.

1:31:36 Right. Because it's going to cause a global collapse in the economy and it's going to cause a lot of pain for every other country in the world because of the disruption of supply chains and fertilizer and all of that. So the only country that's really benefiting from this is Israel. And they want to degrade Iran's military capability.

1:32:04 their nuclear ambitions and their intercontinental ballistic missile ambitions for a while. But it won't last forever. It's only temporary, right? But on the other hand, you could say that it's not good for any country in the world, for Iran, a Muslim country, to have nuclear weapons and the means to deliver those weapons via intercontinental ballistic missiles.

1:32:33 Because they could hit New York, they could hit Los Angeles, if they had that capability. So it's a big dilemma at the moment, you know? Yeah. Alain, go ahead. I think there's a couple of different pieces of open source intelligence that kind of backs up, Colonel, your point about Iran, as well as some of Adam's points.

1:32:59 And it comes from the world of oil. When Trump put sanctions on Iran during his first term, he was actually able to significantly lower US oil exports. In 2022, after the start of the Russian conflict with Ukraine, the Biden administration loosened a lot of those sanctions.

1:33:27 And Iran was able to increase its exports. And now they're back up above 5 million barrels a day, which is actually pretty close to their pre-1979 production highs under the Shah. So, you know, you can kind of like you can see who's trying to tamp down Iranian oil exports and who isn't, you know, with some of the changes in.

1:33:55 in these organizations now, I mean, in Washington, D.C. Now, I think, you know, my take on all of this is, you know, it is convenient for Trump and the United States that this war is occurring in 2026 and not 2005.

1:34:22 The US oil market is just fundamentally different today than it was 20 years ago. In 2005, the US was huge oil importers. Today, we're kind of a modest exporter. There's a few million more barrels of liquids overall that get sent abroad than we import.

1:34:44 And sure, the US doesn't have quite as much heavy oil as we ought to. Okay, fair point. But you know what? The Persian Gulf is also exporting the lighter end stuff too. So in effect, and same with our natural gas exports, with the Qatari exports offline, that creates a lot more demand on US LNG. So the timing does seem...

1:35:16 It seems like if there's ever a time for the United States to permit the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and to deal with that whole situation and that whole mess, this is probably the least awful time. Finally, one last point. Dr. Anas Al-Haji, who's an oil analyst from Kuwait, sometimes he'll go on Mario Nafal's shows in the morning.

1:35:40 He seems to have a really good knowledge sometimes of deep politics in Iran. He knows, for instance, that Mossadegh took everybody off to international arbitration in the 1950s. But one of the facts in Iran is that it's really the oil smugglers and exporters who are the real warmongers and the real hardliners over there. They're the ones who benefit from this conflict.

1:36:08 And they're the ones who benefit from the sanctions. And when the Japanese prime minister visited Iran for the first time about five years ago, post-revolution, they actually attacked Japanese vessels while he was there. The Iranians want the sanctions, at least the smugglers do.

1:36:27 Isn't that interesting? Because that's exactly what was happening in Venezuela with the middlemen in the dealings with Europe and Venezuela before all of the major sanctions. You had outside of the actual government itself, you had all of these middlemen and they got more power after the sanctions. And one of them was just arrested for money laundering by the U.S.

1:36:57 And that's really the piece that most people, thank you for bringing that up. That is the piece most people miss. They like the sanctions and they're the ones that carry out the attacks because as soon as the, they don't give a shit about their own people. As soon as the country gets sanctioned, they deal in black market profits and are,

1:37:26 rolling in the money. So that's a very, very important point. Adam, did you have your hand up? Yeah, go ahead. Yes. Yeah, that was a very astute point. Definitely. Yeah, I just, I see it being undone and that's what makes me happy. Like, is that all, you know, from Venezuela to, you know, which I personally saw as like kind of a hub.

1:37:55 Especially when you go over with Chile and all that and everything that goes there. So that was a hub, in my opinion, for trafficking drugs and children and people. I really don't know how much of that was going on. I know there's some going on in the South over the Pacific. I never viewed, at least in all of the research I've done, Venezuela since Chavez has not been a major drug.

1:38:25 smuggler. Is there some in the South? Yes. Does there some come up that waterway? Yes. To the east of Columbia? Well, Columbia is definitely in the big part of that. So I think people miss the underbelly of these operations. And obviously,

1:38:51 Trump was able to find enough people inside of Venezuela that he could work with offline to just take Maduro out and then take the sanctions off and reopen that. So they cut all of those middlemen criminal elements out of the deal. So they're dealing directly with them. And evidently,

1:39:15 It's a little more difficult to find some honest brokers in Iran, or it would have been done a lot quicker, where if you look at that list of the people that have been assassinated inside of Iran, there's no one in their military on that list. Every one of them is the top religious leaders and the IRGC.

1:39:42 And they've almost been taken out completely as far as the battalion commanders and several other figures on that side of that chart. And that's very telling because obviously those are the people that have been profiting off of the quote unquote sanction status with this illicit oil market. Sean, go ahead.

1:40:10 Could I add one last thing? A lot of these people that were out there as presidents, like even Assad, they're Oxford trained, you know what I mean? They go to Oxford and they go to British University and then go back and then all of a sudden there's some sort of leader, right? Yes, a lot of them are Western trained. Sean, go ahead. Hi, thanks. Yeah, all of that is very valid. It's very valid if you...

1:40:41 that we are reliant on petrochemicals for our energy sources like oil and gas and even renewables like wind and solar. But there are free energy systems that have been invented by scientists and engineers that have been suppressed, I believe.

1:41:07 Right. Okay. You agree with me? Yes, I know that to be a fact. But the countries around the world currently are reliant on oil. Well, exactly. But if we have this potential to transform the world, the energy system of the world, create a better world, and it's being suppressed, what's that about?

1:41:34 Obviously, the people that are making money off of oil don't want that to be a thing. Well, exactly. That's where we are. Yes, that's where we are. That's outside of my realm of expertise and control. So definitely a valid point. Okay. Anybody else have anything? All right. So we're off for the evening.

1:42:10 I will see you guys tomorrow at four o'clock. Thanks everyone for being here. Appreciate it. Take care. Have a good evening.

Entities here

CIA28 Oliver North25 United States25 Contras19 Nicaragua18 Democratic Force of Nicaragua18 Felix Rodriguez16 Iran15 Joseph Fernandez14 Sandinistas14 Honduras13 El Salvador12 Costa Rica12 Elliot Abrams12 William Casey12 Richard Secord11 Project Democracy10 National Security Council10 Alan Fiers9 Richard Garner9 Robert McFarlane9 Ronald Reagan9 João Baptista Figueiredo8 Rob Owens8 Rafael Quintero8 United Kingdom8 Vietnam7 William Cooper7 Venezuela7 U.S. State Department7 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps6 Robert Dutton6 Southern Air Transport6 Luis Posada Carriles6 James Earl Ray5 Saudi Arabia5 George Shultz5 Operation Paperclip5 Enrique Bermudez5 Brunei5

Claims made here

Oliver North recruited Rob Owens book_quoted ▶ 0:31

“safe for democracy. We are still talking about Nicaragua and Oliver North. Oliver North asked Robert McFarlane for permission to provide intelligence about El Bluff and went to the U.S. Southern Comma…”

David Walker proposed Oliver North book_quoted ▶ 1:02

“to get data. He assembled it into a package that Robert Owen carried to Honduras. Then Vickers found himself cut off from the clandestine service data on future events. In December, because again, we …”

Oliver North recruited David Walker book_quoted ▶ 2:01

“seemed impossible. Calero abandoned the idea. Although Walker received no immediate employment, he won a place on the team when Project Democracy expanded to include Airlift. In February 1985, North a…”

Oliver North funded Contras book_quoted ▶ 4:01

“Enable a U.S. blockade and force Managua to fold. Elliott Abrams, RIG, actually discussed this theme as well. But the Pentagon and CIA both said it was nonsense. North nonetheless used the plan to sol…”

Saudi Arabia funded Contras book_quoted ▶ 4:30

“after they received a huge Saudi Arabia donation and warned Calero of the money's appearance. Owen carried another packet of intelligence to Calero in April when Oliver North told Robert McFarlane tha…”

Robert McFarlane covered_up Oliver North book_quoted ▶ 10:43

“Fires would not be the sole victim of his deception. Oliver North exhibited the opinion on plain paper without letterhead whenever anyone questioned the legality of his actions. Robert McFarland prote…”

Oliver North appointed Louis Tams book_quoted ▶ 16:58

“had talked to Oliver North, purporting to speak for the RIG. North gave Tams the task of getting the Southern Front moving again. Elliott Abrams gave no such order, according to the author, nor did Se…”

Richard Secord appointed Richard Garner book_quoted ▶ 17:29

“who told him of the need for the airfield at what they labeled Point West. Tams told the Costa Ricans that an airfield benefited them. Getting Fernando Chamorro's troops into Nicaragua would reduce th…”

Richard Garner funded Eagle Aviation Technology and Services book_quoted ▶ 18:00

“Plantation, a GAD company called Eagle Aviation Technology and Services, another one of those proprietaries, received $100,000 for this work. Plantation possessed a 6,500-foot dirt strip, a barracks c…”

Southern Air Transport supplied_arms_to Contras book_quoted ▶ 20:23

“As with Secord, he arranged through Southern Air Transport, which had made at least 14 flights to fly weapons to the Contras. Gad played a primary role in setting up the private benefactor airlift. He…”

Richard Garner supplied_arms_to Contras book_quoted ▶ 20:23

Richard Garner recruited William Cooper book_quoted ▶ 21:28

“Gadd hired nine pilots, three loadmasters, and seven mechanics. The crews earned $3,200 a month. They had plenty of experience. The project manager, Secord called him the chief pilot, was William Coop…”

James Ryan recruited John McRaney book_quoted ▶ 21:57

“One drug operation is the same as another drug operation. The deputy, John McRaney, another Laos vet with 19,000 hours of his own, McRaney, looking for a new gig, had gone to Air America's buddy, Jame…”

Richard Garner recruited John McRaney book_quoted ▶ 21:57

Sterling Corporate Services front_for Project Democracy book_quoted ▶ 23:26

“Eugene Hassan bus had flown with Cooper and Laos. All were nominally employed by a Quarryville, Pennsylvania company called Corporate Air Services. The crews thought that they worked for the CIA and w…”

Felix Rodriguez member_of El Salvador book_quoted ▶ 24:58

“a friend and former CIA boss in Vietnam, who was now the National Security Advisor to Vice President Bush. He didn't make the rounds. He was working for Don Gregg. That's a proven fact. So Felix meets…”

Oliver North recruited Felix Rodriguez book_quoted ▶ 25:31

“El Pango airfield. That fall, Oliver North convinced him to add the task of liaison between the El Salvadoran air operations and private benefactors. Working closely with the Salvadoran air commander,…”

Luis Posada Carriles carried_out_attack Bombing of Cubana Flight 455 host_asserted ▶ 27:36

“He wasn't implicated. He did it. That bomb that he placed on that aircraft killed 73 people. Posado had worked for Venezuelan intelligence in Pinochet's Dina. You know, all in the family. He had been …”

Felix Rodriguez recruited Luis Posada Carriles book_quoted ▶ 28:12

“and plotting additional bombings. Underground, of course. Isn't all these guys supposed to be underground? Rodriguez arranged for Posado to come to El Salvador under a false passport and got him a new…”

CIA funded Contras book_quoted ▶ 32:19

“intelligence support cabled from CIA headquarters. You know, because they're not involved at all. When Congress permitted intelligence cooperation, the agency used this cloak to deliver $13 million in…”

CIA covered_up Joseph Fernandez book_quoted ▶ 32:45

“The CIA discovered as early as April 86 that Joe Fernandez supported Norse operation, but the agency took no steps to bring this back to the attention of the oversight bodies. Again, only a month earl…”

Oliver North recruited Rob Owens host_asserted ▶ 36:23

“In fact, he was there on another purpose as well. The L-100 was supposed to take Contra weapons at Aquacate and fly them to El Salvador, from where the next night it would take its first airdrop into …”

Jerry Atkins covered_up Democratic Force of Nicaragua host_asserted ▶ 36:48

“Owen found no FDN weapons. The two CIA liaison men knew nothing of weapons and the Contra representatives simply shrugged in ignorance. Owen went to the CIA chief of base, Jerry Atkins, who refused to…”

James Earl Ray supplied_arms_to Democratic Force of Nicaragua host_asserted ▶ 37:43

“Colonel Steele agreed to put through a secure call to Vincent Shields, the Honduras' cheapest station. Ultimately, they had to scrub the airdrop and scramble to inform the affected Contra units. Anoth…”

Joseph Fernandez supplied_arms_to Democratic Force of Nicaragua host_asserted ▶ 38:42

“from the CIA that's not involved. Station Chief Joe Fernandez had been involved since March of 85. Fernandez now used his KL-45 to report the success of the L-100 deliveries to the Southern Front. Amb…”

Joseph Fernandez spied_on Sandinistas host_asserted ▶ 39:10

“like we're still pretending that the CIA works for the State Department. Ha ha! The other nodes on the net were Norse NSC office, Secord, GAD, Calero, Southern Air Transport, Rafael Quintero, and Feli…”

Joseph Fernandez funded Democratic Force of Nicaragua host_asserted ▶ 39:36

“Some of this might be permitted by the 1985 Intelligence Authorization Act, which allowed cooperation with the Contras. But Fernandez went well beyond that to the point of basically supplying all the …”

Ronald Reagan funded Democratic Force of Nicaragua host_asserted ▶ 43:33

“The request in February of 86 was for $100 million, and it was supposed to be transferred from the Pentagon budget. Anybody wondering where all that missing money from the Pentagon went? Bill Casey pe…”

Ronald Reagan targeted_for_regime_change Sandinistas host_asserted ▶ 45:06

“on both the right and left, all of the ones that they set up. Tyranny in any form is an enemy of democracy. And oh, by the way, I've got this other thing over here that I'm basically doing the same th…”

Daniel Ortega funded Sandinistas host_asserted ▶ 47:10

“Reagan's message in the intensive lobbying proved inadequate. The House of Representatives rejected the $100 million CIA program, as it had every other proposal of lethal assistance since the harbor m…”

Oliver North laundered_money_for Democratic Force of Nicaragua host_asserted ▶ 49:41

“Elliott Abrams. Taiwan did, however, donate millions of dollars. Isn't that nice of them? Oliver North dreamed up the scheme that brought fresh culpability into the White House. This was a diversion o…”

George Shultz funded Democratic Force of Nicaragua host_asserted ▶ 53:10

“The original idea was to have George Shultz make the approach to the Sultan during a visit. Extensive conversations among Shultz and Topps' advisors on the Secretary's plane across the Pacific convinc…”

James Earl Ray supplied_arms_to Democratic Force of Nicaragua host_asserted ▶ 58:59

“and intervened several times when Dutton's people were locked out of the airfield. Still allowed Felix Rodriguez access to the encryption machines provided him a military car and advisory group identi…”

James Earl Ray funded Democratic Force of Nicaragua host_asserted ▶ 58:59

Joseph Fernandez spied_on Sandinistas host_asserted ▶ 59:29

“Felix also got work crews to fix up his house, and the embassy expedited paperwork for Felix Quintero. From the CIA came the vital cooperation of Joe Fernandez, who sent his drop zone list through Qui…”

Oliver North covered_up Project Democracy host_asserted ▶ 1:00:00

“cash solicitation, North argued to Admiral Poindexter that the more viable democracy project became that the planes and pilots and weapons, the more inquisitive people would become. Steelhammer wrote,…”

Oliver North funded Democratic Force of Nicaragua host_asserted ▶ 1:01:25

“This may have been what led North to put Lake Resources account number on the file card for Elliott Abrams for the Brunei caper. So court again raised the issue of intelligence support from the agency…”

United States recruited Otto Skorzeny host_asserted ▶ 1:09:57

“heavy supporters of the Nazis after World War II. And army generals and their children. Yep. And, you know, we haven't gotten to, you know, German intelligence either after the war. We installed Reinh…”

United States installed Reinhard Gehlen host_asserted ▶ 1:09:57

Otto Skorzeny carried_out_attack Patrice Lumumba host_asserted ▶ 1:10:25

“He consulted, you know, on the assassination of Lumumba. And I think, you know, the other thing is Bandera. Bandera was living in West Germany after World War II. The US CIA, as well as the Galen orga…”

CIA funded Stepan Bandera host_asserted ▶ 1:10:25

Reinhard Gehlen front_for BND host_asserted ▶ 1:10:25

Red Brigades carried_out_attack Italy host_asserted ▶ 1:11:24

“The communists don't have anything to do with this. The Nazis were not communist. You don't believe they have similar ideologies? They're not communist. The Nazis were fascist. Well, Colonel, they did…”

Harold Grant Littlefield recruited Korea caller_asserted ▶ 1:13:28

“Army colonel, yes. He was stationed in Hamburg, and he adopted a Korean girl from Seoul, Korea. And they were doing the same types of things that communism was doing in China, where they were only all…”

Fabian Society funded Karl Marx caller_asserted ▶ 1:16:50

“Karl Marx, you find a lot of the Fabian Milner UK kind of…”

Fabian Society funded Leon Trotsky caller_asserted ▶ 1:16:59

“funding behind that and again that's very important because Lenin and Trotsky were also housed in New York City and London before they were introduced into the Soviet Union to create you know the Bols…”

Fabian Society funded Vladimir Lenin caller_asserted ▶ 1:16:59

Antony Sutton exposed Bolshevik Revolution caller_asserted ▶ 1:18:14

“You know, for both communism and fascism. Anthony Sutton covers this in great detail in his three-book series that he wrote in the 1970s after he got thrown out of the Hoover Institute for discovering…”

Rockefeller Foundation member_of Order of the Seraphim caller_asserted ▶ 1:19:12

“Well, the Rockefellers were part of the roundtable groups, right? Yeah, I know. I think they're definitely at the high table. Then you've got to look at the Order of Seraphim, too. There's a lot of st…”

Lloyd's of London funded Executive Outcomes caller_asserted ▶ 1:22:35

“I don't know. So are you suggesting the Lloyds of London would create a threat so that they can? Yes. Yes. Okay. Well, we know that happened at least once with one of the, whose name I'm not going to …”

Inter-Services Intelligence funded Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps caller_asserted ▶ 1:26:18

“and trying to establish the link from the IRGC back to MI6. And I don't think that that post-1979 picture of, okay, MI6 is still kind of pulling strings in Tehran, I don't think that that picture is c…”

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps succeeded SAVAK caller_asserted ▶ 1:27:13

“all of the different functions of the SAVAK. Basically what they did was take like the top three officials, executed them and left the body fully functioning and just placed their new IRGC leadership …”

Mohammad Mosaddegh carried_out_attack Anglo-Iranian Oil Company caller_asserted ▶ 1:35:40

“He seems to have a really good knowledge sometimes of deep politics in Iran. He knows, for instance, that Mossadegh took everybody off to international arbitration in the 1950s. But one of the facts i…”

Japan carried_out_attack Iran caller_asserted ▶ 1:36:08

“And they're the ones who benefit from the sanctions. And when the Japanese prime minister visited Iran for the first time about five years ago, post-revolution, they actually attacked Japanese vessels…”

United States removed_from_power Nicolás Maduro caller_asserted ▶ 1:38:51

“Trump was able to find enough people inside of Venezuela that he could work with offline to just take Maduro out and then take the sanctions off and reopen that. So they cut all of those middlemen cri…”