Friday, November 30, 2007

New Revelations in Kennedy Assassination

AC Note: The murder of John Kennedy was planned and overseen by Charles Willoughby/Weidenbach, who laid a maze of false trails leading to Dallas by manipulating individuals and groups like pieces on a Parker Brothers game board, each performing self-implicating acts or making suspicious statements that linked them to the assassination. The strategy involved look-alikes. After the assassination, anyone investigating the self-implicating acts would find himself either pursuing a false trail (riding a bus to Mexico), or utterly lost in the maze of seemingly unresolvable cover stories (Mafia, Castro, Soviets ... there were false trails laid down for each).

The American people have been herded into the second category.

The same strategy has been used in CIA/military intelligence hits over the years. One of those "suspicious" trails to Dallas - complete with an Oswald look-alike - was recently discovered by the media. But no effort is made to deconstruct the Willoughby strategy and clear up the widespread confusion that has spread like a fog over the assassination. The latest "revelations" will only add to the mass confusion unless this is done. The Willoughby strategy has to be laid out for the public to comprehend, and the false trails distinguished from the actual murder plot.

BTW, theories that claim Kennedy was murdered because he planned to pull out of Vietnam are bogus. Prouty was wrong. But then Prouty was published by Willoughby's Liberty Lobby, an obvious conflict-of-interest that rules him out as a source on the assassination, IMHO.

Rather, the assassination plot overseen by Willoughby WENT INTO MOTION THE MOMENT KENNEDY WAS ELECTED PRESIDENT. This is verified by following the movements of Oswald and the other chess pieces in the timeline.

John Kennedy was never meant to live in the White House. That alone was the reason the fascists took him out. The job was intended for his Republican opponent, and all obstacles were cleared over the bloody course of the next five years to put Tricky Dick in the Oval Office.
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New Revelations in Kennedy Assassination: Information over holiday weekend turns an old story in new directions

By Gary Reese
Florida Insider

November 24, 2007 — A new report from a Chicago ABC affiliate and several other developments has shifted theories concerning the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy in new directions.

Since the day of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, some 44 years ago, the nation has been divided over the concept that some form of conspiracy to murder Kennedy took place. Analysts and experts have examined recorded sounds, tested bullets shot from distances through various objects, and looked at thousands of pieces of evidence, all in pursuit of exposing a conspiracy involving more than the one known gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, or to vehemently counter the numerous theories which have grown up around that notion.

Many of the conspiracy theories have centered on individuals and locations in the South. Specifically, Miami, Tampa, New Orleans, and of course Dallas, have all played roles in theories set forth by those who believe that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone in murdering America’s 35th president.

Thanksgiving 2007 happened to fall on the 44th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination and thus brought out the usual set of editorials and articles remembering the tragedy and debating the well-known issues surrounding the story. But on this particular anniversary of Kennedy’s death, three unrelated news stories or broadcasts raised some eyebrows.

This weekend, ABC News.com (based on the work of its Chicago affiliate ABC7, and its investigative reporter, Chuck Goudie) revealed that the only African-American member of Kennedy’s Secret Service team, 72-year-old Abraham Bolden, has come forth to confirm that in early November of 1963, about three weeks before the shooting in Dallas, the Secret Service learned of a known Kennedy critic living in Chicago and arrested him briefly for having in his possession a high powered rifle and a revolver and posing as a threat to Kennedy.

Kennedy was to travel by motorcade to a college football game at Chicago’s Soldier Field. The president’s trip was cancelled at the last minute, apparently for security reasons, although the public was told he had a cold.The man arrested, Thomas Vallee, like Lee Harvey Oswald, was an ex-Marine with expertise as a marksman. Pictures of the two men even looked somewhat alike. What made this report more interesting was the former agent’s revelation that the FBI received a tip from a hotel manager at roughly the same time that a group of Cuban nationals, staying at the Chicago hotel, had high powered rifles with telescopic lenses and a publicly published copy of the route the Kennedy motorcade was to take, in their room. The report implies that the route would have passed the hotel where the Cubans were staying.

The evidence, according to Bolden, was seized; the Cuban nationals fled and were never found. The hotel room, according to the former agent, was never dusted for fingerprints and the case file was lost. Bolden said that none of the information about Vallee or the Cubans was forwarded to federal officials in Dallas prior to Kennedy’s visit there just twenty days later.

More disturbing was the fact that Bolden, a black man who had been hand picked by Kennedy to serve in a prestigious and virtually all-white profession, apparently attempted to give the information to members of the Warren Commission formed to investigate the Kennedy assassination. Not only, according to Bolden, did they refuse to take the information, he was at about the same time accused of soliciting a bribe from a counterfeiter and sent to jail for six years. According to the interview, conducted by the ABC affiliate in Chicago, Bolden contends that this was a set-up to silence him.

Bolden’s then-accuser recently recanted his charges.

“It would truly be ironic if the first African-American to serve on a Presidential security detail was in fact a hero whose race and information made him an easy mark to put down and lock away back in those days” said an individual closely related to the civil rights movement in the 1960s who preferred not to be identified.

Perhaps a more specious revelation came this last week from a publisher of rare books who claimed on FOXNEWS that he has published the last book written by the late President Gerald Ford. Ford’s “last book” reportedly says that the CIA either withheld or destroyed evidence related to the Kennedy murder according to the publisher. The press release issued by the publisher gives the strong impression that Ford authored the book.Whether Ford authored the entire book seemed unclear. A casual examination (the book could not be obtained in time for this article) through on-line research gives the impression that Ford may have written a forward, but the substance of the book may be a reprint of the Warren Commission Report, a Commission upon which Ford served and whose conclusions he reportedly stood by until his death.

The book was not listed on Amazon.com as of this weekend and the most our research could find was an what appeared to be Ford’s name on the cover of the book indicated as having written an introduction to the Commission’s findings, in which he reportedly stood by the Warren Commission Report but was critical of the CIA for having either hidden or destroyed potential evidence related to the assassination. There was no evidence to suggest that Ford did not write the introduction to or some segment of the book. However, there is also no evidence that Ford in any way repudiated the findings of the original report.

Finally, a PBS documentary shown in the South this past week related to news coverage of the Kennedy assassination caught the attention of many viewers. The documentary showed the full local television coverage of Kennedy’s arrival in Dallas and departure as he started his fateful ride in the motorcade.

Many viewers noted that just as the presidential limo was leaving the airport, the two Secret Service agents who were to ride on the back of Kennedy’s car were, at the very last second, removed from their posts. One agent was clearly agitated for being removed from his position, one that would have been right behind President Kennedy and which possibly could have saved his life.As it turns out, this aspect of the assassination has also been examined and the sequence was actually posted on YouTube years back. Apparently the issue in this instance is that the top Secret Service officials said Kennedy ordered that the agents stay off the car, while Kennedy’s aides say it wasn’t so and that he never interfered with his Secret Service protection.

Based on our research, neither claim has ever been definitively confirmed. However, the broadcast on public television gave many their first full look at the incident.

As time marches on, more is revealed concerning the events of November 22, 1963. And just as there are those who believe new revelations only confirm their beliefs in a conspiracy, others, such as author James Piereson, writing in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal, indicate a belief that Oswald acted alone, not based on any issues related to the civil rights battles occurring in the South at the time, but more out of sympathy for Cuba.

Pierson’s book on the subject will likely receive strong criticism from some corners for its suggestion that the mood of the South in 1963 was not the motivating factor in Kennedy’s murder. Dallas was undeniably viewed as hostile territory for Kennedy, even by its own local news accounts at that time.The scenario in Chicago certainly has many of the elements of numerous assassination theories which have centered on locations in the South, usually with a tie to some Cuban-related groups.

Even the failure to follow up on the threat or pass the information on to the Secret Service in Dallas follows a similar path already set forth with regard to Oswald as established by the official inquiries. Such issues, some have argued, point more to theories related to either direct involvement of U.S. government officials or severe incompetence overlooked by the Warren Commission.

Again, a source of endless debate.If nothing else, this “Northern Turn” of events takes all theories out of the exclusive territory of the South. Perhaps it will some day lead to other significant revelations. More than likely it will simply fuel the argument over conspiracy versus non-conspiracy. In either case Bolden’s statements add to the list of locations where an alleged but foiled or aborted attempt on Kennedy’s life took place.

http://www.southernpoliticalreport.com/storylink_1124_47.aspx

Mugabe crash was ‘assassination plot’

Nov 30, 2007

Two men have died in a crash involving Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe’s motorcade, according to Zimbabwe Today.

Security officials believe the crash was an attempt to assassinate Mugabe.

His motorcade, known for its high-speed travel, came to a sudden halt in Harare on Tuesday when a small car evaded outriders and smashed into a bodyguards’ vehicle.

The drivers of both the cars involved in the collision were killed.

The crash happened near the official residence of the Zimbabwean president.

Mugabe was unhurt and continued his journey to the airport, from where he flew to Mozambique.

The Times of London has reported that a group of 14 African nations, including South Africa, on Wednesday threatened to pull out of the two-day EU-Africa summit that begins on December 8 unless European leaders agreed not to single out Zimbabwe for criticism.

But EU officials in Brussels said it would be impossible for Mugabe to escape censure on the dire straits to which he has brought his country.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he will boycott the summit if Mugabe attends, a move followed by Mirek Topolanek, the Czech Prime Minister.

http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=644327

Thursday, November 29, 2007

The Lexington Comair Crash, Part 37: Idiot Wind – "Company" Sopranos Fix the 2005 Kentucky Derby

" ... I asked him why any jockey would risk getting caught, and have his career ended, and Macklin explained, 'The money. Horse Racing is the sport of kings, and kings don't care about playing fair, just winning. There are very rich and powerful men wagering on these races, and they have their ways of making sure that they don't lose.' ... "

By Alex Constantine



Hunter Thompson may have been on strange drugs when he observed, "the Kentucky Derby is decadent and depraved," but he was putting it mildly.

There was a temptation some couldn't possibly ignore ...

Lexington's clutch of CIA-guns-and-drugs-running, mercenary-training, witness-disappearing, Dixie-Mafia Company Dons fixed the 2005 Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs ...

A bet on Giocomo, the front-runner in the world's ultimate horse race, paid a staggering 50-1 – that is, a $20,000 bet grossed you $1,000,000. It was a fix waiting to happen ... And who should be situated ideally to know something about it? ...

As it happens, Giacomo, the Derby "champion," was bred, foaled and trained at Mill Ridge Farm, a hub of Flight 5191 casualty Marcie Thomason's universe. William W. Thomason, her father, has been the financial and administrative manager of the horse breeding farm for some 20 years (see part 24).293 Thomason pays close attention to every horse at the farm, according to the Mill Ridge web site. And through Bill Thomason – former chairman of the Lexington Chamber of Commerce – Marcie came into Giacomo's sphere and had contact with some of those behind the Kentucky Derby Fix ...

Jerry Moss, for instance, owner of Giacomo.294

Moss heads up A&M Records.294

A&M Records is a division of MCA Universal – the mobbed-up mass entertainment production complex that gave us Robert Strauss, the crooked Houston attorney, James A. Baker III's former partner, and J. Livingston Kosberg's Gibraltar Savings co-conspirator (see parts 1, 17-suppl., 31 & 36)].

Herb Alpert & Jerry Moss

Jerry Moss, of course, is an iconic figure in the record business. In 1961, Moss and Herb Albert of Tijuana Brass fame founded Carnival Records, the antecedent of A&M, the most successful independent record company in the biz.295 Moss was born in New York City on May 8, 1935. As the A&M site relates: "He was the second son of Irving and Rose Moss. Jerry's parents were poor, living in the South Bronx area near Yankee stadium. He worked his way through college, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Brooklyn College. After college, he entered the U.S. Army and was discharged in August of 1958. He was hired by record promotion man Marvin Cane at $75 per week to hype records to radio stations on the east coast. His first assignment was to promote 'Sixteen Candles' by the Crests. Moss didn't think much of the recording, but he worked hard promoting the record up and down the east coast. In January, 1959, the song rose to the No. 2 spot in the Billboard charts, due in large part to the efforts of Moss. Jerry Moss worked for a year and a half with Cane, learning the 'ins and outs' of record promotion. He left Cane and moved to California in the spring of 1960, and became a record promo man on the West Coast. In 1961, Moss met Herb Alpert, and was impressed with his trumpet playing."296 A&M (for Alpert and Moss) was born.

Stewart Copeland

It was Jerry Moss who signed The Police – at the behest of Miles Copeland – initially to a distribution deal. Copeland biographer Aaron Stipkovich writes that the early success of The Police "enabled Miles to talk Jerry Moss into distributing a U.S. version of his U.K. labels with A & M in the United States, and I.R.S. Records was born." Police drummer Stewart Copeland's father, Miles Copeland, Sr., of course, was an OSS recruit and was instrumental in the formation of the CIA.

Stipkovich: "After the war, the family moved to Washington, D.C., where father Miles and a small nucleus of intelligence officers were given the task of organizing a central intelligence gathering organization combining the best of the various forces intelligence corps including the O.S.S. This resulted in the foundation of the C.I.A." The Copelands "alternated between Middle East posts and Washington D.C. In 1953, father Miles Jr. was loaned by the C.I.A. to Gamal Abdul Nasser (President of Egypt) to organize the Egyptian secret intelligence, The Muhabarat. He soon became Nasser’s closest western advisor. It was here that Lorraine Copeland took up archeology and Miles III took up an interest in collecting anything ancient, from mummy parts to coins. It was also here that young Miles became friends with Col. Hasan Tuhami, Nasser’s machine gun toting bodyguard who lived next door. In later years, this friendship became extremely useful as Mr. Tuhami became Vice Prime Minister of Egypt and came to the rescue of The Police, whose equipment was stuck in Egyptian customs, jeopardizing a concert at the Cairo University that night. Father Miles’ exploits are recounted in three books: Game of Nations, The Real Spy World and his autobiography, The Game Player."297


Some racing industry whistle-blowers maintain that the Kentucky Derby has been fixed in the past. Ben Radstein, a horse race commentator, writes that the 2003 Kentucky Derby ended in an upset when 12-1 long shot "Funny Cide defeated the heavily favored Empire Maker. No gelding had won the Derby since Clyde Van Dusen in 1929. Many were angered one week later whan a photo seemed to show jockey Jose Santos holding a foreign object along with his whip. To try to get to the bottom of this, I spoke to Manny Macklin, an industry insider, and publisher of the tipsheet, Mad Manny's Pony Picks. 'That was a buzzer. You can bet the farm on that.' said Macklin, 'For those who don't know, a buzzer is a simple device that can be put together with a battery and a little bit of wire.' ... I asked him why any jockey would risk getting caught, and have his career ended, and Macklin explained, 'The money. Horse Racing is the sport of kings, and kings don't care about playing fair, just winning. There are very rich and powerful men wagering on these races, and they have their ways of making sure that they don't lose.' ... Macklin presented me with an exclusive photo that he had shown to no one else. It clearly shows the horse's reaction when zapped with the buzzer. 'There it is, plain as day. That pony just got one heller of a jolt, and that put him over the top. From the looks of it, Santos was using a really potent one.'"298

The outcome of the 2003 Derby was bizarre, but Giacomo's win in 2005, overcoming 50-1 odds, was even more unbelievable. On May 8, 2005, USA Today offered a novel theory: "Now it can be told. Given the out-of-this-world finish by Kentucky Derby winner Giacomo, maybe it's no surprise jockey Mike Smith is from Roswell, N.M.... Might those aliens have given him a lift on his first Derby victory in 12 rides?"299

Giacomo's upset was such a shocking development that HBO boxing promoter Jim Lampley, writing in the Huffington Post, considered it "the second biggest story of our lives" – the first being the stolen GW Bush elections ...

"Oddsmakers consulted racing form data and thoroughly examined the prior times of every horse in this years Kentucky Derby. Bellamy Road was the choice of oddmakers across the board, especially in light of his 30 length victory margin in the last race before the run at Churchill Downs.

"Oddsmakers acknowledged in their oddsmaking at that moment that Bellamy Road would win the Kentucky Derby.

"And he most certainly would have, at least if the race had been fairly and LEGALLY run. What happened instead was the BIGGEST CRIME IN THE HISTORY OF HORSERACING, and the collective media silence which has followed is the greatest fourth-estate failure ever on our soil.

"Many of the participants in this blog have graduate school educations. It is damned near impossible to go to graduate school in any but the most artistic disciplines without having to learn about the basics of social research and its uncanny accuracy and validity. We know that triple crown events simply do not produce 50-1 longshot winners 'out of nowhere,' without some elaborate Rovian conspiracy to cheat and defraud the betting public. Because Giacomo was the biggest longshot to win the Derby since 1913 and the runner-up, Closing Argument (72-1), was even longer odds the trifecta payouts was $133,134.80 for a $2 bet. That kind of payout attracts those who like their games of chance with big payouts and low risk. Of course today we learn that Bellamy Road has dropped out of the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes, due to an alleged foot injury. Coincidence? Of course not.

"George Steinbrenner [whose horse finished seventh in the Derby] isn't capable of conceiving and executing such a grandiose crime? Wake up. THEY DID IT. The silence of traditional media on this subject is enough to establish their newfound bankruptcy. ... Is there any greater imperative than to reverse this crime and reestablish the opportunity for a legitimate contender for the Triple Crown? Why the mass silence? Let's go to work with the circumstantial evidence, begin to narrow from the outside in, and find some witnesses who will turn. ..."300

"Giacomo's victory beyond strange," reported Rick Bozich at the Louisville Courier-Journal. "Giacomo? ... he was some faceless 50-1 also-ran from California owned by a Hollywood record producer. This one is going to take some time to explain — or understand. ... The 131st Kentucky Derby was won by a horse that had been beaten in his last five starts, a colt whose only win in seven career starts had been a maiden race last October, a horse whose only memorable credential was that he was named after the youngest son of the musical star Sting."301

Many other commentators in the press have stated openly that they believed the race was fixed.

NEXT ...

MORE COMPANY UPDATES ...

NOTES

293.) Jack Shinar, "Giacomo's First Win Since Derby a Nail-Biter," Blood-Horse Magazine, July 24, 2006.
http://bloodhorse.com/viewstory_plain.asp?id=34539

294.) Jay Hovdey, "ANN & JERRY MOSS," Gregson Foundation site, April 24, 2006.
http://www.gregsonfoundation.com/jerryandannmoss-honored.htm

295.) Patrice Eyries, Dave Edwards, & Mike Callahan, "A&M Album Discography," A&M Records site, August 9, 2001.
http://www.bsnpubs.com/aandm/aandmstory.html

296.) Ibid.

297.) Aaron Stipkovich, "Miles Copeland: Profile."
http://www.milescopeland.net/content/publish/mc/article_2.shtml

298.) Ben Radstein, "Kentucky Derby was Rigged."
http://www.uncoveror.com/derby.htm

299.) Gary Mihoces and Tom Pedulla, "Roswell native Smith feels force," USA Today, May 8, 2005.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/horses/triple/derby/2005-05-08-notebook-roswell_x.htm

300.) Jim Lampley, "THE SECOND BIGGEST STORY OF OUR LIVES," Huffington Post, May 11, 2005.
http://wizbangblog.com 2005/05/11/the-second-biggest-story-of-our-lives.php

301.) Rick Bozich, "Giacomo's victory beyond strange," reprinted at USA Today site, May 7, 2005.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/horses/triple/derby/2005-05-07-giacomo-strange_x.htm

Downed CIA/Aero Jet Drug Plane and Baruch Vega, DEA, FBI, CIA, the Bogota Connection, Colombian Law Enforcement Officials ... Who is Greg Smith?

http://www.narconews.com/Issue47/article2885.html

Mysterious Jet Crash Is Rare Portal Into the “Dark Alliances” of the Drug War

Paper Trail for Cocaine-Filled Plane that Crashed in Yucatán Suggests Link to U.S. Law Enforcement Corruption in Colombia

By Bill Conroy
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
November 17, 2007

The Gulfstream II aircraft that crashed on the Yucatan Peninsula outside of Cancun in late September while laden with some four tons of cocaine has been the subject of considerable media and blogger attention in recent weeks.

The Gulfstream II with tail number N987SA, one month before it crashed in the Yucatán peninsula.

Some reports have alleged the errant plane was previously used between 2003 and 2005 by the CIA for several flights to the infamous U.S. “terrorist” prison camp in Guantamano Bay. The fact that the ownership of the aircraft apparently switched hands twice within weeks of the crash, helping to obscure its ownership, has only further fueled media and Internet speculation that the jet’s illegal payload was being transported as part of some larger U.S. government black operation.

All that might be true — or not.

But Narco News has uncovered at least one fact that is certain to deepen the mystery surrounding the crash of the jet whose tail number, N987SA, is now affixed in the lexicon of CIA folklore. That fact revolves around the name Greg Smith, who was identified in a McClatchy Washington Bureau report on the Gulfstream II’s crash as follows:

A bill of sale obtained by McClatchy Newspapers indicates that Florida pilot Clyde O’Connor bought the plane on Sept. 16 — eight days before it went down in the Yucatan jungle. Another Florida pilot, identified by his license number and signature as Greg Smith, also signed the document, but his relationship to O’Connor isn’t detailed.

But before we introduce you to the mysterious Mr. Smith, it is important in all of this to remember that a proposition is not automatically a corollary of a seemingly related fact.

Too many conspiracy theories rest on a proof built on the six-degrees-of-separation premise — that any person on the Earth can be connected to anyone else through a chain of no more than five people. That might be true, and can make for an interesting trail to follow, but it doesn’t prove the first person in the chain even knew the last person — let alone that all six individuals acted in a conspiracy.

As the late, great authentic journalism heavyweight Gary Webb, who did meticulously investigate and link CIA activities to illicit drug running, once said:

“I don’t believe in conspiracy theories. I believe in conspiracies.”

With that understanding in mind, it is important to review the timeline of the Gulfstream II’s demise in the Yucatan peninsula— as reported by other media.

The plane took off from Ft. Lauderdale Executive Airport headed for Toluca, outside Mexico City, on Sept. 18. It crashed near Cancun, Mexico, on Sept. 24 after departing from Rio Negro, Colombia.

Mexican publication Por Esto!, whose work on the story has been exhaustive, with some 30 stories to date, and based on solid journalism, reported that the jet was headed to an airport in Cancun, but arrived shortly after a work-shift change at the airport. The security people on the new work shift did not authorize the Gulfstream II to land, so it flew to an airport in the Yucatán capital of Merida, which also would not authorize a landing.

The jet remained stranded in the air until it ran out of fuel and was forced to make an emergency landing in the hills by the nearby town of Tixkokob, Por Esto! reported.

Mexican authorities apprehended one of the pilots onboard the Gulfstream II a couple days later, about three miles from the crash site. Four days later, they apprehended a man alleged to be the copilot, though Por Esto! has questioned why none of the helicopters or other high-tech search equipment available were mobilized to find the two more quickly. Por Esto! also claimed that the amount of cocaine at the crash site appeared to be much more than the 3.7 metric tons authorities reported.

Also of importance to this story is the ownership trail of the jet itself. McClatchy reported that a Florida-based company called Donna Blue Aircraft, which is supposedly owned by two Brazilian men, acquired the Gulfstream II from a company connected to New York real estate developer William Achenbaum.

That deal was allegedly cut on August 30. Donna Blue then flipped the jet to a new owner, for a supposed payment of about $2 million, on September16.

That’s where the enigmatic Greg Smith comes into the picture, as one of the supposed co-signers on the bill of sale drafted by Donna Blue for the Gulfstream II. Media reports to date have followed the trail of his supposed partner in the deal, Clyde O’Connor, and even delved into the background of Achenbaum, but the trail on Smith seems to be cold.

Where could he be — and who is he anyway? Smith is not exactly a unique name, even in the insular world of the private-jet industry.

Well, it turns out that Narco News has run across the trail of at least one Greg Smith who has plenty of experience flying between southern Florida and Latin America — for the U.S. government.

The Vega Connection

Baruch Vega is a colorful Colombian who has worked as an asset for the FBI, DEA and CIA, among other agencies, over the years.

Vega was very involved with a series of U.S. law enforcement operations carried out by the DEA and FBI between 1997 and 2000. Those operations, Vega claims, involved brokering deals with Colombian narco-traffickers by offering them the bait of U.S.-government sanctioned plea deals in return for their surrender or cooperation.

The following is from a lawsuit filed recently in federal court by Vega, in which he alleges the government failed to pay him for his high-risk services, to the tune of some $28.5 million:

Once Mr. Vega introduced … American lawyers to the Colombian targets [the narco-traffickers], the lawyers would then get retained and then take over as legal representatives for the Colombian targets and further deal with a group of United States law enforcement agents and prosecutors, hand-picked to work out deals for the Colombian targets. A particular United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida became the coordinator of this “recruiting effort.”
So Vega is in a position to know the lay of the land in the Colombian narco-trafficking scene — which is the source of the four tons of cocaine found on the crashed Gulfstream II jet. After all, coca plants don’t grow well in Mexico.

According to Vega, between late 1997 and 2000, he traveled between South Florida and South America via a private jet for a total of some 25 to 30 “recruiting” trips— some with FBI agents on board, some with DEA agents on board, and some transporting Colombian narco-traffickers who were being brought back to the United States to negotiate deals.

Vega claims that the main pilot for all of those flights was none other than an individual named Greg Smith.

Here’s how Vega described the situation to Narco News in a recent interview.

Well originally… I met Greg Smith… we needed a pilot, a very trustful pilot, someone we could trust to bring in the [Colombian] drug traffickers to surrender. Then the members of the FBI recommended to get in contact with this guy [Smith] because he was very close to them. Ever since we flew only with him.
Everything was with him. … I never asked anything [about Smith’s background]. But he [Smith] brought a couple of pilots because we always have two pilots in the plane. He occasionally brought pilots from the US Customs.

I tell you one thing. We flew with Greg Smith easily 25 to 30 times. All [the] operations [were] between the end of 1997 to 2000.

When Vega was asked if federal agents were on board the jet during those trips, he responded:

“Oh yes, many times. If you read the flying manifest, there were… DEA agents in the plane and of course drug traffickers who were coming to surrender with attorneys.”

Vega adds that the FBI and DEA were each running their own separate operations at the time, so the FBI also was involved in some of the confidential source recruiting trips to South America as well, and he says the Bureau “even paid for the [leased] plane a few times.”

A judge’s ruling in another legal case that is related to Vega’s pending lawsuit, in fact, backs up his claims. It describes the CIA’s involvement in one flight in 1999 that departed from Panama for Florida that involved Vega, federal agents and an indicted, fugitive Colombian narco-trafficker:

Indeed, the appellant [a DEA supervisor] used the CIA to bring Mr. Cristancho to the chartered aircraft surreptitiously, without going through Panamanian airport security or customs. The appellant simply made no attempt to conceal the use of the chartered aircraft. And, an Assistant U.S. Attorney and various DEA agents from Group 9 were at the Fort Lauderdale airport to greet the plane.

And those same legal pleadings mention the name of the company from which Vega chartered the aircraft: Aero Group Jets.

On or about November 17, 1999, the appellant [a DEA supervisor] received an invoice from Aero Group Jets in the amount of $23,200 for the rental of the aircraft used to transport Mr. Cristancho.
Vega also confirmed that Smith’s company was called Aero Group Jets.

A check of the public records available through Florida’s Department of State lists the registered agent/officer of that now inactive company as Gregory D. Smith.

So it would seem that the real question now is whether the Greg Smith who allegedly signed the paperwork in the purchase of the crashed Gulfstream II jet, as reported by McClatchy, is the same Greg Smith who was recommended by the FBI, according to Vega, to pilot more than two dozen flights to Latin America between 1997 and 2000 as part of U.S.-sanctioned law enforcement operations.

One reporter known for his spook-related journalism claims to have already interviewed the right Mr. Smith, but, by his own admission, it was through a third party — which leaves open the possibility of all sorts of shenanigans, particularly if we are dealing with real CIA spooks.

Another reporter with a Florida weekly also claims to have interviewed the real Mr. Smith. However, as it turns out, when Narco News contacted that individual, he stressed that the reporter had gotten the wrong man.

“I was falsely written up … and they named my company,” says Greg Smith, who is with a company called Global Jet Solutions of Pembroke Pines, Fla. “There’s probably three or four Greg Smiths in aviation in South Florida. But it’s not my name on the bill of sale [for the Gulfstream II jet that crashed in Mexico on September 24].”

This Smith, who says his middle initial is “J,” adds that he has hired an attorney to explore legal action against the publication that he alleges wrongly identified him and his company.

This is the 1998 signature of Gregory D. Smith of Aero Group Jets. Baruch Vega claims a Greg Smith of Aero Group Jets was the pilot for a jet that flew as many as 30 flights between Florida and South America with DEA or FBI agents on board, and in some cases drug traffickers — who were being transported to the United States to broker deals with the U.S. government.
Narco News did obtain a copy of a 2007 document that contains the signature belonging to the Greg Smith of Global Jet Solutions. That signature does appear to be different than the signature of the Greg Smith contained on an annual report filed with the state of Florida in 1998 by Aero Group Jets — the firm Vega claims he leased a jet from during his many trips to South America between 1997 and 2000.

So it appears, at least for now, a cloud of mystery still conceals the whereabouts of the right Greg Smith — whom McClatchy reporters contend was a co-signer on the bill of sale for the ill-fated Gulfstream II Jet.

Many possibilities

Now, before anyone jumps to conclusions, it is important to point out that every crashed plane has its own unique story — as does every drug deal gone bad. And most don’t all involve grand CIA conspiracies directly linked to the White House — though as Gary Webbs’ investigative reporting on the CIA/Contra/Crack connection showed, those “Dark Alliances” do surface from time to time.

But for the sake of argument, let’s explore some more mundane theories.

For example, the Gulfstream II jet’s crash landing in the Yucatan might simply be a drug-smuggling run gone bad, with no mystery beyond that reality.

Or it is possible that the jet that crashed outside of Cancun was under surveillance as part of a government operation known as a controlled delivery — in which government agents allow a load of drugs to make its way to the destination (under close scrutiny) with the goal of arresting those who take delivery of the narcotics in the United States. If that’s the case, the fact that the jet crashed after getting waived off of two airports tells us only that something went wrong, that the operation was not “greased” properly, in law enforcement lingo.

As for Vega, and several former federal law enforcement sources interviewed by Narco News, both the notion that the Gulfstream II was part of a U.S. government-sanctioned controlled delivery operation, or that it was part of some kind of CIA black op, are both viewed as being on the low side of probability.

However, at least one law enforcement source with experience working in Latin America did say: “I wouldn’t put anything past those guys [the CIA]. … They aren’t even supposed to be there [in Latin America] officially, so if anything did show up [related to their operations] they would deny it.”

Vega weighed in on the questions as follows:

… I believe more it could be a run [by narco-traffickers] because a controlled delivery is very easy. A controlled delivery would make the plane land … remember how close the Keys are to the Yucatan Peninsula or any airport in Miami. And if it’s a controlled delivery by your government, that plane could land anywhere basically. Or at least land in one place until they call the agents and come and clear the whole thing. That’s why I could say more it looks like a run for one of the traffickers.

… Again, that’s what I say [in terms of the allegation that it was a CIA black operation], that’s what doesn’t make sense because let’s assume the Agency is running that thing, they could land in Guantanamo, they could land anywhere in the Keys or in Florida and wait an hour or two until someone calls from somewhere, and then don’t worry. That’s it.

But there also are other possible explanations as to the Gulfstream’s possible connections to U.S. intelligence or law enforcement that fall more squarely into the chaos of human vice —such as greed and official corruption.

With that in mind, it might be worth reviewing some past cases where human virtue seems to have gotten twisted up a bit in pursuit of the drug war.

Money for nothing

At the top of the list is the case of the Bogota Connection, which was exposed by a Justice Department memo drafted in 2004.

Vega was very involved with some of the U.S. law enforcement operations referenced in the memo. Those particular operations played out between 1997 and 2000 and sought to snare narco-traffickers with Colombia’s infamous North Valley Cartel. Remember, Vega claims an individual named Greg Smith, during that same time period, was retained as a pilot to fly numerous missions — for both the DEA and FBI — that were, in essence, confidential-source recruiting trips.

In the course of that work, Vega alleges, corrupt U.S. agents in Colombia seriously compromised his role as a government asset and that a number of his informants within Colombia’s narco-trafficking underworld were assassinated as a result.

Justice Department attorney Thomas M. Kent wrote the memo in late 2004 in an effort to draw attention to alleged serious corruption within the U.S. Embassy in Colombia. In the memo, Kent alleges that DEA agents in Bogotá are on drug traffickers’ payrolls, complicit in the murders of informants who knew too much, and, most startlingly, directly involved in helping Colombia’s infamous rightwing paramilitary death squads to launder drug money.

The first of the major allegations in Kent’s memo centers on a DEA undercover operation launched in Colombia in 1997 called Cali-Man, which made use of Vega as an asset. The operation was overseen by David Tinsley, a DEA group supervisor in Miami.

As part of Cali-Man, Tinsley and the agents working under him uncovered evidence that DEA agents in Bogotá appeared to be assisting narco-traffickers in Colombia. In one case, Tinsley’s group, as part of a sting, obtained a classified document from the U.S. Embassy in Bogota via a narco-trafficker turned informant.

After Narco News exposed the Kent memo in a story published on Jan. 9, 2006, DEA reacted by describing the corruption allegations in that memo as “extremely serious.”

However, some nine days later, after Semana, a popular weekly magazine in Colombia, published a story about the Kent memo, DEA issued another public statement describing the corruption allegations as “unfounded.”

The U.S. mainstream media has been silent about the Kent memo, and the Bogotá Connection, since that time.

It is not to be ignored, in the case of the Gulfstream II jet crash in Mexico, that the flight allegedly left from Rio Negro, Colombia, just outside Medellín, where it managed to avoid that nation’s customs and law enforcement scrutiny while loaded up with at least 132 bags of cocaine that tipped the scales at four tons.

In any event, Vega says his work in Colombia for the DEA and FBI did produce results — despite the alleged treachery on the part of U.S. agents in Bogotá and elsewhere

“All in all, Mr. Vega convinced and successfully recruited about 114 Colombian targets to enter this plan/program, about 25 of which were fugitives at the time of negotiating the deals,” his lawsuit alleges. But, in the end, the U.S. government, he contends, failed to compensate him for his work and risks as promised.

(For more on Vega’s lawsuit, go to this link.)

But the allegations of U.S. law enforcement corruption that have surfaced in the Bogota Connection are not new in the history of the drug war, for those who care to follow that trail.

For example, in the early 1990s, according to court pleadings in a criminal case filed in New York, DEA agents transported a large quantity of heroin from Pakistan to New York City, via commercial airlines, allegedly for the purpose of setting up undercover stings.

However, the defendant in the litigation, Gaetano DiGirolamo, who is now serving a life prison sentence, claims he is not guilty of the charges brought against him in 1991; in fact, he claims that DEA agents framed him, seeking to use his case as a cover for their own illegal drug-smuggling activities.

Among the claims raised in a post-conviction petition filed by DiGirolamo was that he was convicted “based upon perjury of three DEA agents.”

“(The DEA agents) testified that they were involved in importing drugs for use in ‘stings’ against me and others when in truth and in fact they were doing so for their own personal, criminal enrichment,” DiGirolamo states the post-conviction petition.

The petition goes on to raise major doubts about the veracity of the DEA agents’ purported sting against DiGirolamo — such as the fact that the alleged heroin brought in from Pakistan was never tested to assure it was the same heroin used in the sting, nor was the heroin ever produced at trial.

In addition, despite claims by the DEA agents involved in transporting the heroin that their operation had been sanctioned by DEA headquarters in Washington, D.C., as well as the French and Pakistani governments, DiGirolamo’s attorney, law professor Steven B. Duke, says those approvals were never produced.

“Where are they?” Duke asks in a court filing. “Where are the applications for such approvals? Where is the evidence that any of these approvals were sought, much less obtained?”

The DEA agents, of course, contend Duke’s allegations are baseless.

Still, it is clear that federal agents did transport 20 kilos of heroin from Pakistan to New York via commercial airlines — a fact to keep in mind the next time you are flying the friendly skies.

The U.S. Customs Service sent Duke a letter on May 2, 2000, in reply to his queries about the incident. The response was prepared by Bonnie Tischler, then assistant commissioner for Customs’ Office of Investigations. (Customs is now part of the Department of Homeland Security.)

From Tischler’s letter to Duke:

Dear Mr. Duke,
Thank you for your March 3, 2000, letter regarding the importation of narcotics into the United States by law enforcement officers.

… The specific incident you cite involved the international controlled delivery of 20 kilograms of heroin at the John F. Kennedy (JFK) Airport on Dec. 4, 1990. Our records indicate that while our agency provided assistance in facilitating that delivery through JFK, the entire operation was initiated and coordinated solely by the DEA. Therefore, I would refer any further questions you my have regarding this matter to DEA Headquarters, 600 Army Navy Drive, Arlington, Virginia 22202.

I appreciate your interest in the Customs Service. If we may be of any further assistance, please contact me …

In yet another case in the late 1990s involving the U.S. Customs Service, federal agents in South Texas were accused of letting an informant — a drug-running pilot — bring tons of cocaine into the country unchecked as part of an effort to snare an alleged drug kingpin.

“Well, it was like a 007 license. I didn’t know the government did that. It was hard to resist,” the smuggler, Rodney Matthews, told ABC News – Primetime in a 1998 interview.

Customs officials denied that Matthews was allowed to smuggle drugs into the country. However, Mark Conrad, who at the time headed U.S. Customs Internal Affairs in Houston, told Primetime a different story:

We got in bed with Rodney Matthews and the importation of a humongous amount of narcotics coming into the United States. … The reason is there’s a great deal of pressure on agents in the field to make cases, to make the big one. And the bigger, the better. … We hide things. We cover them up. We don’t — we’re not honest at times within our own organization, and we’re clearly not honest at times with the media. … It would never be officially condoned. You’ll never find any policy that approves of it, but it happens routinely in virtually every situation where you’re dealing with informants.

Welcome to the drug war. Will the real Mr. Smith please stand up?

Stay tuned…

The Media War Against "Conspiracy Theorists": Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi Terrorizes 9/11 Truthers

"You're worse than a shill. You're an imbecile spreading stupidity as far and wide as possible." - Blogger's comment to Matt Taibbi

Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi

The Political Wit, Wisdom and Style of Matt Taibbi

Taibbi wanted to be a novelist, but, he says, his fiction writing "sucks." So bad you couldn't stand it. But we are to believe that his real talent is (hidden somewhere?) in political journalism:

"Actually, listening to Joe Biden sound self-righteous about anything makes me want to puke my guts out. I don't know what it is about him. Maybe it's that creepy poof of blowdried gray pubic fuzz he has now ... "

http://boardreader.com/t/Title_60760/Anybody_here_read_Matt_Taibbi_186502.html

"Liberal" Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi On the Left's "ugly little secret":

The American Left's Silly Victim Complex
From Adbusters #71, May-Jun 2007

" ... The sad truth is that if the FBI really is following anyone on the American left, it is engaging in a huge waste of time and personnel. No matter what it claims for a self-image, in reality it’s the saddest collection of cowering, ineffectual ninnies ever assembled under one banner on God’s green earth.

"And its ugly little secret is that it really doesn’t mind being in the position it’s in – politically irrelevant and permanently relegated to the sidelines, tucked into its cozy little cottage industry of polysyllabic, ivory tower criticism. When you get right down to it, the American left is basically just a noisy Upper West side cocktail party for the college-graduate class.

"And we all know it. The question is, when will we finally admit it? ... "

http://adbusters.org/the_magazine/71.php?id=271
••••••••••••••
Matt Taibbi's Perspective on 9/11:

THE LOW POST: I, Left Gatekeeper
Why the "9/11 Truth" movement makes the "Left Behind" sci-fi series read like Shakespeare

MATT TAIBBI
Posted Sep 26, 2006 12:14 PM

A few weeks ago I wrote a column on the anniversary of 9/11 that offhandedly dismissed 9/11 conspiracy theorists as "clinically insane." I expected a little bit of heat in response, but nothing could have prepared me for the deluge of fuck-you mail that I actually got. Apparently every third person in the United States thinks George Bush was behind the 9/11 attacks.

"You're just another MSM-whore left gatekeeper paid off by corporate America," said one writer. "What you do isn't journalism at all, you dick," said another. "You're the one who's clinically insane," barked a third, before educating me on the supposed anomalies of physics involved with the collapse of WTC-7.

I have two basic gripes with the 9/11 Truth movement. The first is that it gives supporters of Bush an excuse to dismiss critics of this administration. I have no doubt that every time one of those Loose Change dickwads opens his mouth, a Republican somewhere picks up five votes. In fact, if there were any conspiracy here, I'd be far more inclined to believe that this whole movement was cooked up by Karl Rove as a kind of mass cyber-provocation, along the lines of Gordon Liddy hiring hippie peace protesters to piss in the lobbies of hotels where campaign reporters were staying. ...

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/11818067/the_low_post_the_hopeless_stupidity_of_911_conspiracies
•••••••••••••••••
Taibbi's "Libertarian" Politics

Reason magazine - a CIA Mockingbird propaganda sheet - interviews Matt Taibbi:

Reason: You've told one interviewer, “I’m never comfortable when people call me a lefty. If anyone were to ever ask, I’d say I'm probably more of a libertarian than anything else. I believe in capitalism, small government, etc.” 

Taibbi: My political views shouldn’t be important. I’m more comfortable describing other people than talking about what I really think. I have different beliefs that are all over the place. I think Roe v. Wade should be overturned because I believe in the federalist model; I believe that states should be able to make their own drug laws. The more democracy you have, the more people can make decisions for their own communities, the more freedom people have.

http://reason.com/news/show/123414.html
•••••••••••••••••
His father is NBC's Mike Taibbi:
Profile:

Mike Taibbi is a television journalist working at NBC.

Taibbi received Bachelor of Science degrees from Rutgers University in sociology and journalism in 1971. He worked for ABC and CBS affiliates before settling in at NBC. He specializes in international news and has reported on the war on terrorism from Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years.

He has a son, Matt Taibbi, who is a contributing editor and writer for Rolling Stone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Taibbi

Bibliography

• Unholy Alliances: Working the Tawana Brawley Story (Harcourt, June 1989). ISBN 0-15-188050-6.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Taibbi
••••••••••••
Redacted Pages on 9/11 Isn't Just Hilarioous! It's Shilltastic! (TM)

Posted by: johndoraemi on Jun 26, 2007 9:57 PM   

Yeah Taibbi, you're so brilliant. Twenty eight pages that they won't release to the public, including evidence of "foreign governments" assisting alleged 9/11 hijackers (Bob Graham), is just waiting for some good penis joke angle to make it sing.

You're worse than a shill. You're an imbecile spreading stupidity as far and wide as you possibly can.

http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:mBhaPqojahUJ:www.alternet.org/columnists/story/55275/+%22You%27re+worse+than+a+shill.+You%27re+an+imbecile+spreading+stupidity+as+far+and+wide+as%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
•••••••••••
Matt Taibbi Bio:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Matthew C. Taibbi (born February 3, 1970), an American journalist and political writer. He currently works at Rolling Stone where he authors a column called "Road Rage" for the print version, and an additional weekly online-only column called "The Low Post". He is best known for his coverage of the 2004 US presidential election, and for his former editorial positions at newspapers the eXile, the New York Press, and the Beast.

Taibbi spent his childhood in the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts, attended Concord Academy, and attended Bard College at Annandale on Hudson, New York, spending his senior year abroad at Leningrad State Technical University. His father is Mike Taibbi, an NBC television reporter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Taibbi
••••••••••
Taibbi responds to blog questions:

For all American politicians in general, how much of their religious faith is real, and how much is for the votes? - Name Withheld

I think Bush's is real. Gary Bauer's is real, so is Santorum's. The rest are all completely full of shit. ...

http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/55275/

... I should say that the hardest thing for me in dealing with the Truthers is this feeling of being intimidated by how ridiculous they are. It would take a comic genius to really do them justice and the fear of falling short of that can be paralyzing. If you've ever seen the movie Eating Raoul there's this scene where Paul Bland throws an electric bug-zapper into a hot tub full of swingers and they all just sort of fall naked and limp all at once. It's hilarious. Somebody, and it may very well not be me, is going to write the electric bug-zapper of 9/11-debunker essays. But it's going to have to be an inspired effort, not something you just toss off in one night. I really wish Mark Twain were alive for that reason. A Jim Fetzer's Literary Offenses would potentially be one of the funniest things ever written in the English language.

http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/55275/

The Lexington Comair Crash (Excerpt): Part 41a - The Path to 9/11

By Alex Constantine


Possum in the Road
Arkansas Bassist (and former Governor) Mike Huckabee


On June 2, 2006, Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, another evangelical whose religion is stitched indelibly on his sleeve, learned the meaning of existential terror.

"There were some frightening moments for Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and his family last week," Aero-News sympathized, "as the business jet they were on experienced engine failure at 43,000 feet."

Huckabee, his wife Janet Huckabee, daughter Sarah, staffer Chad Rockett and a state trooper were on board. The jet climbed to circumvent storm clouds when "a noise came from the jet's right engine. 'We were flying over Tennessee, enjoying the flight, when suddenly a most horrible sound started coming from the airplane engine,' Huckabee said in a speech to North Carolina Republicans Tuesday. 'It was doing all sorts of funny things airplane engines are not supposed to do.' What's worse, said Huckabee, is that they had to descend through the thunderstorm in order to make an emergency landing in Tennessee. The governor said it felt like the plane was coming apart as the flight crew dove for the deck. 'Pilots had told me that the reason you have a twin engine plane is that in case one engine goes out, the other engine will fly you to the crash site,' said the governor. 'Somehow it wasn't a very comforting thought.'"

The close call, "which the southern governor likened to 'running over a great big possum in the road,' ended with everyone safe on the ground."

Mechanics repaired the malfunctioning engine, everyone climbed back on board and were on their way.

"Huckabee wouldn't say who the plane's owner was, saying it wouldn't be fair to single out the aircraft's owner as 'it wasn't the fault of the airplane.'"318

After all, you wouldn't want to trample on the Cessna's feelings ... or publicize a violation of federal political campaign laws ...

Huckabee refused to answer inquiries from the politrazzi, but the incident report filed at the Chatanooga airport listed the owner of the Cessna, Southeastern Asset Management (SAM), based in New Hampshire. Huckabee blogger Michael Powell, an NYU grad student, describes SAM as "a New Hampshire-based company of which Ted Suhl is the manager. Suhl is a past contributor to Huckabee campaigns, a Huckabee-appointee to the state Child Welfare Agency Review Board, and also the director of the Lord’s Ranch in Warm Springs, a religious-based youth home whose $8.5 million contract with the state is paid through Medicaid."319

Lord's Ranch

Jennifer Barnett Reed of the Arkansas Times: "Suhl is director of the Lord’s Ranch. Suhl and others connected to the youth home have given thousands of dollars to past Huckabee campaigns; about six years ago, it got its first contract with the state Department of Health and Human Services to provide services to troubled young people. In 2000, the contract was for $140,460 for psychological services; currently, the Lord’s Ranch gets payments for services through Medicaid. ... State tax revenues provide about 25 percent of Medicaid’s budget in Arkansas."

The Lord’s Ranch ran afoul of state law in the past. "In 1990, the state Child Care Review Board voted to revoke the home’s license because of 16 violations, including improper use of restraints on children. The Lord’s Ranch officials denied using restraints improperly, and the board changed its mind and recommended granting a six-month provisional license after getting more information." In 1994, officials of Lord's Ranch "refused to allow state monitors to inspect the home, and a 1996 report cited continuing compliance problems. But the relationship thawed considerably in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and the state gave the Lord’s Ranch its first contract, worth $140,490. Huckabee also appointed Suhl to the Child Welfare Agency Review Board — he was reappointed in 2004 — and appointed Russell Dixon, director of the ranch’s psychiatric program, to the state Psychology Board (his current term ends in 2009).

"The Ranch is currently in good standing with [Michael Leavitt's] DHHS."320

The staff at Lord's Ranch in Warm Springs wouldn't allow state regulators to interview children in its keep about allegations of abuse at the fundamentalist youth home.

In July, Arkansas legislators called Suhl to carpet for questions about the treatment of children at the Ranch. Suhl and his attorney vigorously defended themselves. Representative Buddy Blair, chairman of the House interim committee on aging and legislative affairs, brought up an e-mail he'd received from a former resident. The e-mail stated that the ranch punished those in its care, according to an AP report, "by forcing them onto the floor and having a staff member sit on them. The resident also accused the facility of making residents stand all day as punishment."321 Was this a Mel Sembler operation?

On the day that Lord's Ranch staffers blocked the state monitors from questioning residents, the Randolph Counth Sheriff's office reported that Suhl had purchased two QR-15 assault rifles, two shotguns and some handguns.322

The airplane with the "funny" engine generated a hogshead of headlines, but none of them concerned the title holder of the Cessna, Southeastern Assets Management, itself. SAM holdings include a sizable share of General Motors. Disney. Renault. Phillips Electronics ....

Taco Bell. KFC. And just like that we're back in racehorse country, the scene of the crime ... Before moving on, though, you want to take a peak at KFC operations to see how the chickenwerks have evolved since John Y. Brown, Jr. sold the chain off.

A 2004 letter from PETA to another devout evangelical right-wing Christian, David Novak, chairman of the holding company that oversees KFC, offers a glimpse of the inner-workings of the multi-national that Americans affectionately refer to as the "The Colonel." ...323

July 21, 2004
David Novak, CEO
Yum! Brands
1441 Gardiner Ln.
Louisville, KY 40213

"Dear Mr. Novak,

"Once again, we are writing to present you with new, horrifying footage from a slaughterhouse known to be one of KFC’s major suppliers. The enclosed video shows fully conscious chickens’ being violently kicked, stomped upon, and slammed into the floors and walls by workers. Eyewitness testimony from the facility reveals further torture in various forms by employees, including ripping birds’ beaks off, spray painting their faces, twisting their heads off, spitting tobacco into their mouths and eyes, and breaking them in half—all while the birds are still alive. The enclosed excerpts from our investigator’s affidavit describe these unthinkable acts in greater detail. ... "
Southeastern Assets Management, the Lord's Ranch operator, currently owns owns Yum! Brands and KFC through the Longleaf Partners Fund.


The Longleaf Partners Fund, seekers of 9/11 Truth will immediately recall, was the financial eminence gris of much-despised "The Path to 9/11," the Pixar/Disney propaganda piece that calls up the most dishonest anti-communist bandwagons of the Cold War.

Editor & Publisher declaimed with an offended air ...

COMPANIES DIRECTLY INVOLVED OR CONNECTED WITH THE MOVIE

"The Path to 9/11"
...
AKA Longleaf Partners Funds
6410 Poplar Ave., Suite 900, Memphis, TN 38119
O. Mason Hawkins, Chairman/CEO
http://forums.therandirhodesshow.com/lofiversion/index.php/t96251.html
...
Southeastern Asset Management, Inc.

TOP DISNEY INSTITUTIONAL SHAREHOLDERS

Vanguard Group, Inc.
Morgan Stanley
Barclays Global Investors UK Holdings Ltd
FMR Corp. (Fidelity Management & Research Corp)
Wellington Management Company, LLP
Capital Research and Management Company ...

TOP MUTUAL FUND HOLDERS

Longleaf Partners Fund
[see Southeastern Asset Management above]
Vanguard 500 Index Fund
[see Vanguard Group above]
College Retirement Equities Fund-stock Account
Administered by TIAA-CREF Investment Management, LLC(324)

ABC was cursed far-and-wide for the 9/11 "documentary" – particularly for the imaginary scene in which President Clinton casually waves off a chance to kill Osama bin Laden.

Most newswire reports said: "ABC responded Tuesday with a statement saying that the miniseries was 'a dramatization, not a documentary, drawn from a variety of sources, including the 9/11 commission report, other published materials and from personal interviews.'"

Governor Thomas Kean, chairman of the 9/11 Commission, chimed in with a statement that the scene was, after all, "a composite."325

That is, Pepsico's Thomas Kean, an all-too-familiar face in this story ... as it happens, the SAM/Longleaf affiliate, Yum! Brands, with Chickenfuehrer David Novak at its helm, is a spin-off of Pepsico. Interests are in conflict here ... with 9/11 ... and God ... in the middle of it.

The Massive Southeast Christian Church


Who is David Novak? The loyalist of another evangelical front, of course (can our old friend Howard Ahmanson, Jr. be far away?), Southeast Christian Church, the largest church in Godly Kentucky.

Sean Sellers, co-coordinator of the Student/Farmworker Alliance, writes: "Southeast Christian sent busloads of people to lobby the Kentucky legislature in favor of an anti-gay marriage amendment this year. The pastor of Southeast Christian, Bob Russell, said during the recent presidential campaign, 'We [evangelicals] have more reasons to start a revolution than they did in 1776... I don't see how you can be a dedicated Christian and remain neutral.' Mr. Novak is also is a proud and vocal evangelist of what he calls 'Jesus-Centered Leadership,' joining Reverend Russell to stage motivational workshops on the topic for thousands of people at a time."

Also, per The Ticker web site:

DAVID C. NOVAK BIOGRAPHY

"David C. Novak is chairman and CEO of Yum! Brands Inc., (NYSE: YUM), the world’s largest restaurant company in terms of system units with nearly 34,000 restaurants in over 100 countries and territories. In 2005, Yum! Brands generated more than $9 billion in total revenues, including company sales and franchise fees.

"Four of the company’s restaurant brands — KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and Long John Silver’s — are the global leaders of the chicken, pizza, Mexican-style food and quick- service seafood categories, respectively.... Since its spin-off from PepsiCo in 1997, Yum! Brands has more than tripled its earnings per share and now has one of the highest returns on invested capital in the restaurant industry.

"Prior to leading Yum! Brands, Novak was president at both KFC and Pizza Hut. He also held senior management positions at Pepsi-Cola Company, including chief operating officer, and executive vice president of marketing and sales."326

This was a curious set of connections. Longleaf Partners Fund – Lord's Ranch – Mike Huckabee – Thomas Keane – David Novak – "The Path to 9/11" ...

Much of the backround of these developments were known to Comair casualty Betty Joyce Bond Young.

Kenneth G. Langone

She must also have known of fromer NY Stock Market Chairman Kenneth Langone, a close associate of Novak's, and a key to unravelling the Gordian 9/11-5191 code.

[To be continued ... ]

NEXT:

THE PATH TO 9/11 (B)




NOTES

318.) "AR Governor Recounts Emergency Landing," Aero-News, June 8, 2006.
http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?ContentBlockID=e8127258-a5ff-471e-beec-68d66144dfef&source=www.lancetoland.com

319.) Michael Powell, "Air Huckabee" (undated).
http://mikehuckabee.com/

320.) Jennifer Barrett Reed, "State Medicaid contractor provided air service," Arkansas Times, June 15, 2006.
http://www.arktimes.com/Articles/ArticleViewer.aspx?ArticleID=0793c6f7-0408-4974-b3c9-544a772b1eec

321.) Anon., "Legislators Question Youth Ranch Director," AP release, July 18, 2006.
http://www.fox16.com/mostpopular/story.aspx?content_id=6D4C754C-122B-41E6-8FD4-861BB867C6F5

322.) "Fla. legislators sneak 'faith-based' aid into state budget bill," Church & State.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3944/is_200105/ai_n8952460

323.) http://www.peta.org/feat/moorefield/page/novakkfcletter.pdf

324.) "More on the Path to Football," The News Blog (reprint of the Editor & Publisher article), September 6, 2006.
http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2006/09/more-on-path-to-football.html

325.) Ibid.

326.) Sean Sellers, Yum Brand Hypocrisy: Values Voters, Desperate Housewives and Sweatshop Tacos," CounterPunch, December 18 /19, 2004.
http://www.counterpunch.org/sellers12182004.html

327.) http://www.wsw.com/mm/ticker/yum/126428.pdf

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

The Blabberbox on Gonzales, Feeney, Reed, etc./by Cheyenne Southerlin

Oy! The Blabberbox has gone into overdrive ... yaddah, yaddah, blah-blah ... Where's the stop button? ... Oy! ... - AC

... There was this bubba from Georgia named Ralph Reed, Jr. Well, he headed up the Republican Party for that state, and loved the Lord. He even headed up the Christian Coalition of true believers. He didn't like enemy folks none and said he'd put 'em in body bags and then he would sneak around in the dark to find 'em if he had to. Then I guess he just wrapped them up in the bags real tight.

Somebody said he used yard bags. He wanted to be the Governor's second hand man, and then he lost out when folks down there found out he was sly.

Ralph had this buddy named Mister Jack Abramoff and they shared their money to get the good Republican folks who loved the Lord elected. All the good folks voted for them and their friends because the Lord and the Christian Coalition knew they could be trusted. And Ralph headed up the Christian Coalition and had friends there everywhere.

Ended up we found out later, Mister Abramoff was tied in to all those folks in California, one's in prison now connected somehow to Goss the CIA boss, and his buddies with rich businesses. See, they had some kinda buddy system where they all got jobs and contracts for big time money from the government because they knew the right folks. Then they all spread the money round to all their friends and family members got all kinds of jobs and things all over Washington DC. Money all over the place.

Then Ralph Reed headed up the Republican group in Georgia and a couple fellas helped him out named Ralph Gonzales and Todd Schnick.

They was puttin' Republicans in power left and right and then Abramoff got caught red-handed with his hand in more than jest one cookie jar. Plus all that he was stealin' from the Indians! Heck he even got caught up with some mob boys down in South Florida over some gamblin' boat and murder came up there with this Greek guy named Gus.

It blew that gamblin' - and it was a cut-throat deal operation - wide open and everybody had to go runnin' to the bank to protect what's left, prolly in Bermuda or Bahamas offshore.

Well then Ralph Gonzales went on down to Florida and opened up a politickin group called Strategums, and helped out all kinds of Republican folks in Alabama, Georgia, Florida and yes sir, gamblin' capitol of the world, Las Vegas Nevada.

He and his company "Strategum" helped out all kinds of folks in gettin' elected, like Congressmen, Senators, Judges, state senators, representatives and county commissioners: names like Feeney, and Troy King, Attorney General in Alabama, and Steve King Judge (ain't no kin.) Heck he had his fingers all over those gulf states and tied up with Las Vegas to boot, where gamblin' is king and Jack Abramoff and Ralph Gonzales ain't.

In the midst of it all then he had a buddy and house pardner named Abrami and then this man named Drake showed up, out of, some folks said North Carolina, and then shot 'em both before he killed his own self dead. All three's found in Ralph Gonzalez Florida house and nobody knows why.

And they ain't tellin.'

But then in the midst of it all way before all that, see soon to be Congressman Feeney's runnin in a Florida race, and this big rat shows up named Curtis and starts telling stuff about China an spies and scary stuff bein' hooked in to Feeney, then all of a sudden a guy's sent down to Florida to investigate what the rat was sayin'. Then, they find the investigator dead as four o'clock in a dang dirty South Georgia motel room, sayin' it's suicide and everybody knows different.

Heck they put on an investigation and then called it off real quick like they do. Ray's Lemme's dead, anybody else scared to investigate this mess. Besides that the Florida DOT Government would not allow it anyhow!

So then the guy named Jason Drake shot and killed Abrami and Gonzales both there cold in their own house, then somebody says he's got connections to Patrick McHenry, not that one up north, but the one in
North Carolina. He's a politician on the west side, and he's a Republican too. And he had this guy named Lay a friend fixed votes was livin' with him and
connected to Tennessee at the Kentucky line. So somebody said Drake, the Florida killer who suicided hisself, was workin for McHenry, so if that's true
how'd he get all tied up in this mess of knots and mats?

So then they put the Alabama Governor in prison then the senators, and everybody's sayin' it's all just dirty politics, but somehow they're havin' their own private wars on our turf. Don't make sense.

Other folks say if you dig deep enough you'll find cocaine before you get to China. And the trail goes all the way to the White House. And if you start
followin' that trail you might end up dead on Arkansas railroad tracks.

So then the good folks who love the Lord found out they'd been had by a bunch of Greedy Devils down South, and decided they ain't votin' for just anybody from now on.

And we ain't gettin' much outta the news other than every once and again another rotten potato shows up and everbody says, "Yep I knew that was comin," and then they all say, nothing but a bunch of low life scum runnin' anything these days.

They sold us out to China and gave our kid's jobs away. But we gave 'em our kids to fight in their wars. And we gave em best health care, and benefits, and they got the finest security folks in the world. They got drugs all over and put ours in prison, run our families broke, and take everything they can git. It ain't never enough.

They just take and they ain't givin' back. And they ain't gonna figure out all this mess. They just let it all run its course and then nothin' happens. They
just shove it down under the rug for the grandkids to find out.

Those drug boys runnin this town got their grandkids at the courthouse, now they'ze big time lawyers. Time goes on just keep yore mouth shut so's you won't be troubled. ....

PORTRAITS IN CARNAGE: THE END OF THE ROCK FESTIVALS

Excerpt: THE COVERT WAR AGAINST ROCK
By Alex Constantine © 2007

CHAPTER SIX

I'm very proud to be called a "pig." - Ronald Reagan.

Five months after the drowning death of Brian Jones, a music festival held near San Francisco turned murderous, smothering Aquarius and its political anthems with a handful of apocalyptic screen images, "restless youth" seemingly devouring itself. The rolling Stones were the centerpiece of the hellish fiasco at Atlamont on December 6, 1969. The band would forevermore be tainted by the surreal violence of Gimme Shelter, the documentary film that chronicled the disaster, and so would the counterculture the Stones had done much to inspire.

The festival was conceived in the first place to redeem the group's flagging image. The press had laid into Jagger and crew, emphasizing their greed. "The stories of the Stones' avarice spread," journalist Robert Sam Anson reported, and critics pointed to Mick's $250,000 townhouse, the collection of glittering Rolls Royces, "and [they] wondered how revolutionary `a man of wealth and taste' could be. A token free appearance would still those critics. The concert, problems and all, was going to happen. For the Stones' sake, it had to."

The group's management set out to select a site for the event. They consulted Jan Wenner, the editor of Rolling Stone, who sent them to several professional concert promoters, and they in turn put them in touch with famed San Francisco attorney Melvin Belli, fixture of California's well-heeled "conservative" power base.

This was the first Big Mistake. Belli was summed up at his funeral in July, 1996 by Bishop William Swing, in a eulogy stitched with irony in the context of Operation CHAOS, at Grace Cathedral. Over the infamous attorney's pale cadaver, the Bishop bid farewell to Belli:

A man of law against the chaos of life,
A man of chaos against the laws of life.1

A cartoon that appeared after Belli's death in the San Diego Union Tribune was an eloquent expression of his ethical standards. It depicted St. Peter on the telephone, reported in, "I've got a guy here claiming he was struck and injured by one of the Pearly Gates," and there, smiling like an angel, stood a well-groomed soul identified by the nametag on his briefcase: "M. Belli." 2 The San Francisco Chronicle bid him farewell with a letter to the editor that appeared on the Op Ed page: "Melvin Belli helped establish the principles of the plaintiff attorney: avarice, immunity to logic, self- aggrandizement and perfect contempt for the interests of society."3

He was not only an ambulance chaser par excellence. The legendary Melvin Belli was one of the CIA's most trusted courtroom wonders until hypertension and cardiovascular disease claimed him on July 9, 1996. His client roster included Jack Ruby, Sirhan Sirhan, Martha Mitchell and Jim Bakker. His first high-profile client was Errol Flynn, who, according to documents released under FOIA to biographer Charles Higham, was an avid admirer of Adolph Hitler, recruited by Dr. Hermann Friedrich Erben, an Abwher intelligence agency, to spy on the United States. The FBI, Higham discovered in the midst of poring through the many boxes of FOIA documents dropped on his doorstep, pestered Flynn and the studio employing him over his wartime association with a Nazi, "but there was little doubt that Will Hays and Colonel William Guthrie, a high-ranking Army officer on the studio payroll as Jack Warner's troubleshoot in all matters connected with politics, were responsible for the cover-up... Hays and Guthrie managed to smother the numerous inquiries that began seriously to threaten Errol's career." 4 Melvin Belli, Flynn's attorney, could also be counted on to button his lip, and he did repeatedly as a CIA-Mafia legal counsel in a number of assassination cover-ups." 5

It was Melvin Belli who chose the speedway at Altamont for the festival. "As a staging ground for a rock concert," Anson concluded, "especially one expected to draw 300,000 people or more, Altamont could hardly have been worse. The raceway, which was on the brink of bankruptcy, was small, cramped, and difficult to reach. Its acres were littered with the rusting hulks of junked automobiles and thousands of shards of broken glass. In appearance, it had all the charm of a graveyard. Worst of all, though, the deal for its use had not been sealed until the final moment. Whereas Woodstock had taken months to prepare, Altamont had to be ready within twenty-four hours." 6

The second Big Mistake of Altamont was the hiring of Ralph "Sonny" Barger and a contingent of Hell's Angels to keep the peace.

Barger, it has since been divulged, was an informant and hit man on the payroll of the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). When Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver fled the country for Algeria, the ATF negotiated with Barger to "bring Cleaver home in a box." He often made deals with law enforcement in exchange for dismissal of charges against fellow Angeles. Barger was even hired by federal agents to kill immigrant farm labor activist Cesar Chavez, and may well have if Barger hadn't first been arrested by police into the Bay area on a prior homicide charges. 7

The accusation arose in the death of Servios Winston Agero, a drug dealer. In a surprise courtroom maneuver, Sonny took the witness stand and confessed to his arrangement with local police and federal agents. Over a period of several years, he testified, he had brokered deals with Oakland authorities to give up the location of hidden cache's of automatic weapons, mortars and dynamite in exchange for the dismissal of all charges against member of his motorcycle gang. This was a deal he had brokered with Edward Hilliard, then a sergeant at the Oakland Police Department's vice squad. Hilliard refused to comment when questioned by reporters. The defendant admitted for the record that he sold narcotics for a living, forged IDs, and slept with a pistol under his pillow. On several occasions, though, Barger refused to respond to questioning and was fined $3,000 by Judge William J. Hayes for each demurral.

Deputy prosecutor Donald Whyte asked the "spiritual" leader of the Hell's Angeles, an admitted federal operative, to name officers who asked him to "kill someone." Barger squired and claimed that he could not recall, exactly, but att5empted several phonetic variations of a possible name. 8 Even in the courtroom, it seems, he was not about to risk retaliation by government contacts.

But the deal was exposed anyway by ATF whistle-blower Larry Shears. The agent told his story to narcotics agents, and they gathered evidence on the murder plan before talking to the press. Shears announced that Barger had been contracted to kill Chavez, an assassination ordered by agribusiness magnates in the San Joaquin Valley. Chavez was only alive, Shears reported, because there had been delays. The first came when AFT agents insisted that certain files first be stolen from the farm union. The arson of union offices was attempted by hired hands, another delay. Confirmation of these allegations came three weeks later when union officials complained to reporters that there had been recent "arson attempts against [farm] union offices. Others have been riddle with bullet holes, and on at least two occasions, attempts were made to steal records in the union offices."

The next glitch in the Chavez assassination, Shears said, came when the hit man, Sonny Barger, was arrested for the Agero murder. To support his statements, Shears waved a federal voucher at reporters signed by Senator Edward Kennedy, a payment of $10,000 to Shears for services rendered as an informant to narcotics agents and the IRS." 9

In March 1989, according to wire releases, Sonny Barger was convicted with four other Angels for conspiracy to violate federal firearms and explosives laws in a variety of plots to kill members of rival motorcycle clubs.

Barger and Michael Vincent O'Farrell were sentenced in US District Court, Louisville, Kentucky, for their part in the transport of explosives with intent to kill. Barger and three others were slapped with additional counts for "dealing with a stolen government manual." Barger was freed on parole three years later. The mystery of his early release was dispelled by the Tucson Weekly in 1996--it seems Barger had a political guardian: "You can talk about the biker tradition," a law enforcement source explained, "the Harley, the patch that they've killed for, but in the end, what's most important is money. Hell's Angeles is represented in 18 countries now. They're probably the largest organized crime family that we export from the US. At the center of this global expansion is Oakland-based International President "Sonny" Barger, who's had his hand on the throttle of Hells Angels' money and mayhem machine since the late '50s, despite occasional prison stints. When Barger was released from prison in 1992, an estimated 3,000 people attended his party.... Some influential people might get bought. I can't tell you that Colorado Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell received any money.... I do know that he used his influence to try to get Sonny Barger out of prison." 10

Barger's booze-swaggling, two-wheeling entourage were paid killers. And since the carnage at Altamont, the Hell's Angels have twice attempted to kill the Rolling Stones. In March, 1983, a witness called himself "Butch," his true identity protected by the federal witness program, testified before a Senate Judiciary Committee about plots to kill the Stones. "There's always been a contract on the band," he admitted under questioning. There were "two attempts to kill them that I know about. They will some day. They wear they will do it." The vendetta, Butch said, originated with the killing at the Speedway concert, and was motivated by the failure of the Stones to back the Angel prosecuted for the killing. The first attempt to assassinate the entire band took place in the mid-'70s. "They sent a member with a gun and a silencer" to a hotel where the Stones were staying. The hit-man "staked out the hotel, but [the Stones] never showed up," said the government informant. And in 1979, the Angels' New York chapter "were going to put a bomb in the house and blow everybody up and kill everybody at the party." But this conspiracy sank with a cache of plastic explosives, accidentally dropped overboard from a rubber raft. Killing the Stones, he testified, was an "obsession" with the bike gang." 11

Who in 1969 suspected that the Hell's Angels was in reality a death squad leader in the pay of "conservative" political operatives? The swastika tattoos and gothic jewelry? Window dressing. The roughing up of peace demonstrators? The shootouts? The terrorizing of small towns? The rapings? The drugs? A refreshing break from the status quo.

A supplier from Berkeley donated 1,000 hits of LSD laced with speed to Barger's Altamont security force, and the Angels toted along several cases of red wine and a generous supply of barbiturates. The concert commenced at 1 p.m. with a set by Santana, and before long the beatings began. By the time Santana ripped to a close, the first casualties limped into the first aid station. There were broken arms, open wounds, shattered jaws and ribs, and bad LSD trips that left joy-seekers screaming in terror. There were so many of these that the Thorazine cache ran dry within a few hours, leaving the overdosed untreated." 12

The Jefferson Airplane played songs about social unity and revolution and a flung beer bottle fractured a woman's skull. She reeled, fell, stood and collapsed again.

Jagger arrived in helicopter. Anson writes: "Kids got up, yelled, and started running, bursting past the Angeles to get close to him. Jqagger emerged, smiling, waving, calling greetings, with Timothy Leary at his side flashing the peace symbol." 13

Jagger hurried to the safety of his trailer. The Angels resumed beating concert-goers. A photographer was told to stop shooting the violence and give up the film. He refused and an Angel smashed him in the face with his camera.

Crosby, Stills and Nash preceded the Stones, but the escalating violence forced them to cut their set short. The Stones would not play until the sun went down and delayed their appearance some 90 minutes, aggravating the macabre tension of the event. The Angels, riding on electric currents of met amphetamine and lysergic acid, bludgeoned the audience with lead-filled pool cues. At long last, Jagger strutted across the stage, sporting a red, white and blue stovepipe hat, silver pants, black boots, an Omega symbol emblazoned on his chest.

The Rolling Stones packaged the occult education they had received from Satanist Kenneth Anger. "The top hat," explains Anger biographer Bill Landis, "was snatched from the legend of [Bobby] Beausoleil," The Mansonite killer of L.A. guitarist Gary Hinman. "The Crowleyan personal power tripping" was amplified by "pop iconography and massive amounts of cocaine to fuel Jagger's attempt at incarnating Lucifer." 14

The Stones managed to lumber through "Jumpin" Jack Flash" and "Carol," but "Sympathy for the Devil" was accompanied by howls from the crowd directly in front of the stage. Jagger urged the audience repeatedly to "cool down, cool down, now..." Another outbreak accompanied "under My Thumb." The source of the commotion was the stabbing death of Meredith Hunter,18, who pulled a gun and reportedly took aim at Jagger.

"As Mick peered out," Ben Fong-Torres recalls, "there were kids staring at him in incredulous silence, mouthing the word, `Why?'"

After the concert, reports Anson, "there was a mysterious shake-up in the Angel hierarchy, and the suicide of one Angel who had been particularly close to the rock scene." Alan David Passaro, 24, one of Barger's soldiers and an ex-convict, was charged with Hunter's murder. But Barger himself was unapologetic. "I'm no peace creep by any sen\se of the word. Ain't nobody gonna kick my motorcycle." 15 Passaro, already serving a prison sentence on an unrelated offense when served, was eventually acquitted on grounds of self-defense.

A platoon of cinematographers was assembled by directors Albert and David Maysles to shoot Gimme Shelter, the Altamont documentary. They were directed to concentrate on the violence, not the performances on stage. A recent TV Guide review of the video complains that the crew "focused resolutely on the mayhem and discord." 16

"Sympathy for the Devil" was the last-grasp anthem of the festival scene in America. A repeat of the disaster was visited upon Louisiana a few months later, when an excess of 50,000 young people turned out for a "Celebration of Life" on the Atchafalaya River. The Galloping Gooses motorcycle club, hired to attend to security, chain-whipped the celebrants, leaving three dead and many wounded. 17

A cancer was growing on the counter-culture.

Notes:

1. Herb Caen, "Above and Beyond," San Francisco Chronicle, July 24, 1996, p. B-1.
2. Ibid.
3. Letter to the editor, San Francisco Chronicle, July 19, 1996, p. A-16.
4. Charles Higham, Errol Flynn: The Untold Story, New York Doubleday, 1980, pp. 91-92. Background on Higham and the government documents released to him come from author's interviews of Higham.
5. San Francisco columnist Herb Caen reminisced about Belli's bosom friendship with the screen idol, both of whom had a keen interest in teenage girls: "When he and his close friend and client, Errol Flynn, were out on the town, no young lady was safe. Two Rogue Scholars on the loose, both exceedingly handsome and dangerous to know too well. Every time I saw Mel on eh make I thought of Dorothy Parkers' line about the girl who lost her virginity sliding down a barrister. One night at Cal-Neva, the Tahoe gambling joint with the California-Nevada state line running through the lobby, I saw Mel crossing that line with a very young girl. Referring to the then-statute against crossing a state line with a minor for immoral purposes, I asked him `Does she know about the Mann Act?' `Know about it?' he whooped. `She loves it!" Herb caen, Friday's Fractured Flicker, San Francisco Chronicle, July 12, 1996, p. C-1. For background on Melvin Belli's interaction with the Central Intelligence Agency and the Mafia, see: Constatntine, A., Psychic Dictatorship in the U.S.A. 1995, p. 191. Diamond, S. Spiritual Warfare, 1989, p. 30; Hinckle, W., If You Have a Lemon, Make Lemonade, 1990, p. 200, Johnson, R.W. Shootdown, 1987, pp. 377-8, 394-5; Kantor, S. The Ruby Cover-up, 1992, pp. 224-35, 415-6; Marrs, J., Crossfire, 1990, pp. 414, 424; Pipe, M.C. Final Judgment, 1993, pp. 161, 172-5, Ragano, F. Raab, S. Mob Lawyer, 1994, pp 241-8, 360, Scheim, D., Contract on America, 1988, p. 154, Scott, P.D. Deep Politics, 1993, p. 233.
6. Rogbert Sam Anson, Gone Crazy and Back Again, New York: Doubleday, 1981, p. 141.
7. Account of Larry Shears, ATF agent, alleging that Barge was recruited by ATF agents--at a time when G. Gordon Liddy worked for the ATF, a division of the Treasury Department--to assassinate Eldridge Cleaver; December 17, 1971 news broadcast, Channel 23, Los Angeles, CA.
8. Drew McKillips, Amazing Story by Hells' Angels Chief, San Francisco Chronicle, December 12, 1972, p. 1.
9. ATF Agent Says He Was Part of Coast Plot to Kill Cesar Chavez, New York Times, January 2, 1972, p. 31.
10. Karen Brandel, Angels in Arizona, Tucson Weekly, August 15, 1996, p. 1.
11. Hotchner, p. 320.
12. Anson. p. 148.
13. Anson, p. 149.
14. Bill Landis, Anger, The Unauthorized Biography of Kenneth Anger, New York: Harper Collins, 1995, p. 177. It is ironic that with Scorpio Rising (1964), Anger the Satanist had launched the popular mythos surrounding the Hell's Angels. Anger's cultural oddity, Landis writes, "made them seem more lyrical after all the media reports on gang rapes, chain whipping and stomping they were doing." (pp. 118-19).
15. Anson, pp. 156-57.
16. Gimme Shelter 1970. TV Guide Movie Database, Internet posting.
17. David P. Szatmary, Rockin' in Time: A Social History of Rock and Roll, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1987. p. 149.