Het op grote schaal monitoren van mensen op online en social media kwam eind 2016 in de Verenigde Staten in het nieuws. De Amerikaanse burgerrechten beweging ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) publiceerde in oktober 2016 een rapport over het Amerikaanse bedrijf Geofeedia, dat data van Facebook, Instagram, Twitter en andere social media ter beschikking stelt aan Amerikaanse opsporingsdiensten. In reactie op het nieuws besloten Instagram, Facebook en Twitter Geofeedia geen toegang meer te geven tot openbare data van de social media bedrijven. In de Verenigde Staten laaide de discussie over social media surveillance bedrijven als Geofeedia op.
Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl
Special Report: “Secret” documents from the Reagan administration show how the U.S. embedded “political action,” i.e., the manipulation of foreign governments, in ostensibly well-meaning organizations, reports Robert Parry.
“Secret” documents, recently declassified by the Reagan presidential library, reveal senior White House officials reengaging a former CIA “proprietary,” The Asia Foundation, in “political action,” an intelligence term of art for influencing the actions of foreign governments.
Partially obscured by President Reagan, Walter Raymond Jr. was the CIA propaganda and disinformation specialist who oversaw “political action” and “psychological operations” projects at the National Security Council in the 1980s. Raymond is seated next to National Security Adviser John Poindexter. (Photo credit: Reagan presidential library)
The documents from 1982 came at a turning-point moment when the Reagan administration was revamping how the U.S. government endeavored to manipulate the internal affairs of governments around the world in the wake of scandals in the 1960s and 1970s involving the Central Intelligence Agency’s global covert operations.
Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl
Even for students of the history of the Intelligence Community (IC), Robert Blum is all but forgotten except as a bureaucrat, a professor, and the head of a philanthropic foundation with ties to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In reality, he was a counterintelligence chief who worked for several agencies, built large pieces of the United States’ foreign economic policies, had the Director of Central Intelligence fired, and redesigned a significant portion of the IC, including its mechanisms for covert action and propaganda.
Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl
The history of the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)—its coups, assassinations, “extraordinary rendition” kidnappings, use of torture, “black sites,” drone executions, dirty wars and sponsorship of dictatorial regimes [1]—not only underscores the bloody and reactionary role of American imperialism, but most especially the ruling elite’s mortal fear of the working class internationally.
From its founding in 1947, the agency recognized that global hegemony could not be achieved and sustained by brute repression alone. Accelerating anticolonial struggles, revolutionary struggles in Greece and across Europe, mass struggles and strikes across the world (not the least of which was the great strike wave of 1945-46 in the US [2]) were all deeply influenced by socialist views. Despite the collaboration of the Stalinist regime in the USSR in disarming these movements and assisting in reestablishing the authority of capitalist governments, the American bourgeoisie was well aware that the fate of its system hung in the balance.
Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl
MANILA — The engagement of The Asia Foundation in the on-and-off peace negotiations between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) signals the further deepening involvement of the United States in the Mindanao conflict.
Announced in a news release dated Nov. 13, The Asia Foundation’s involvement in the GRP-MILF peace negotiations will take the form of membership in the International Contact Group (ICG), which is “tasked with supporting the next stage of peace negotiations between the Philippine government and the MILF to end conflict in Mindanao.” Asia Foundation, the news release states, “will network with stakeholders in the negotiation, coordinate with the facilitator (Malaysia) to provide research input, and give feedback and advice for the peace process.”
US involvement in the GRP-MILF peace negotiations began in 2003 through the Philippine Facilitation Project (PFP) launched by the US Institute of Peace (USIP).
The USIP is an institute governed by a “bipartisan” board of directors whose members are appointed by the US president and confirmed by the US Senate, and four ex-officio members: the secretaries of state and defense, the president of the National Defense University, and the president of the institute.
In an 2007 report, “Toward Peace in the Southern Philippines: A Summary and Assessment of the Philippine Facilitation Project, 2003-2007”, G. Eugene Martin and Astrid Tuminez – PFP’s executive director and senior research associate, respectively – wrote that the US Department of State in 2003 engaged the USIP to facilitate a peace agreement between the GRP and the MILF.
“The State Department felt that the Institute’s status as a quasi-governmental… player would allow it to engage the parties more broadly than an official government entity could,” Martin and Tuminez wrote. “To accomplish its mandate, USIP launched the Philippine Facilitation Project…”
The PFP organized and facilitated a series of workshops, for members of both the GRP and MILF peace panels, on ancestral domain, which was first discussed only in 2004 but even then was emerging as the most contentious issue in the negotiations. These initiatives by the PFP produced what became the highly contentious Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MoA-AD).
Ancestral Domain and Deadlocks in the Talks
The GRP had consistently insisted that areas to be covered by the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity, the name of the territory that the MILF wanted to create, other than the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) should be subjected to a plebiscite. This repeatedly led to an impasse in the peace negotiations with the group. The impasse was broken only in November 2007, when the GRP and the MILF reached an agreement defining the land and maritime areas to be covered by the proposed BJE. Things seemed to be looking up after that, prompting lawyer Eid Kabalu, MILF spokesman, to make media statements to the effect that they expected a final agreement to be signed by mid-2008. But all hopes for forging a peace pact between the GRP and the MILF were dashed in December that year, when the peace talks hit a snag following the government’s insistence that the ancestral domain issue be settled through “constitutional processes” – a phrase which, according to MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal, had been inserted into the agreement without their consent.
The December 2007 deadlock on ancestral domain was followed by a series of clashes between government troops and the MILF, as well as a partial pullout of the Malaysian contingent from the International Monitoring Team (IMT), which is tasked with monitoring the implementation of agreements related to the peace talks, as well as development projects in the areas of conflict.
Even as the GRP-MILF conflict showed signs of re-escalation, however, both sides were talking about the possibility of signing an agreement on ancestral domain sometime in 2008.
Eventually, the series of ancestral domain workshops organized and facilitated by the PFP produced a draft Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MoA-AD) outlining the scope of the proposed BJE. The ARMM was to serve as the core of the new administrative region. The residents of the other areas sought to be covered by the BJE were to vote in a plebiscite sometime this year.
The MoA-AD was supposed to be signed by the GRP and the MILF on Aug. 5, 2008, but the Supreme Court a day before issued a temporary restraining order on its signing following a petition by North Cotabato Vice Gov. Emmanuel Piñol, supported by another petition filed by Zamboanga City Mayor Celso Lobregat and two congressmen. The Supreme Court later ruled that the MoA-AD is unconstitutional.
The non-signing of the MoA-AD gave rise to a re-escalation of armed confrontations between government troops and the MILF in Lanao del Norte, North Cotabato, and Maguindanao –- provinces known to be strongholds of the MILF. Following the outbreak of renewed hostilities, the government ordered a manhunt for Abdurahman Macapaar a. k. a. Commander Bravo, Ameril Ombra Cato, and Alim Pangalian – who were dubbed as “rogue MILF commanders” and leaders of “lost commands”.
The re-escalated conflict led to the displacements of hundreds of thousands in Mindanao.
Enter Asia Foundation
On Sept. 15 this year, the GRP and MILF panels agreed on the formation of an ICG that will provide “critical support” to the peace negotiations in the wake of the escalating conflict. This is where The Asia Foundation comes in.
The Asia Foundation’s entry into the ICG, however, is merely a new phase in its involvement in the Mindanao conflict.
“For more than 30 years, (the) Asia Foundation has led successful programs in Mindanao and has identified peace and development there as among the highest priorities for the Philippines,” reads its Nov. 13 news release. “Through its resident office in Manila, opened in 1954, and its satellite offices in Cotabato City and Zamboanga City, the Foundation has been working with local governments, civil society organizations, and private sector partners throughout Mindanao. The Foundation’s programs address issues related to conflict and development in Mindanao and building constructive relationships between Manila and Mindanao. Joining the ICG will enable the Foundation to play a direct, landmark role in the formal GRP-MILF peace process.
“The Asia Foundation supports a variety of activities, drawing on its long-standing relationships with many actors throughout Mindanao, and utilizes its on-the-ground presence to work toward peace and development in the region.”
CIA Front
Founded in 1951 as the Committee for Free Asia, The Asia Foundation “was unquestionably a product of the Cold War,” according to Japanese-American writer and researcher Kimberly Gould Ashizawa. In her 2006 essay “The Evolving Role of American Foundations in Japan: An Institutional Perspective,” Ishikawa cites a 1983 report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), which states that The Asia Foundation “was an ostensibly private body… sanctioned by the National Security Council and, with the knowledge of congressional oversight committees, supported with covert indirect (Central Intelligence Agency) funding.”
“In 1954, when it became apparent that a more long-term strategy to promote democratic development was needed, the Committee reorganized itself into a public charity called (the) Asia Foundation. The CIA remained the primary source of funds, but the anticommunist rhetoric diminished and the programming began to focus on indigenous needs in Asia and initiatives on education, civil society, and international exchanges.”
Gabriel Kaplan, who helped form the Committee for Free Asia that later became The Asia Foundation, had work closely with CIA operative Edward Lansdale in the US efforts to put Ramon Magsaysay to the Philippine presidency.
The CIA in the Philippines and Elsewhere
Roland Simbulan, a professor of development studies and public management at the University of the Philippines (UP) in Manila and an expert on Philippine-US relations, is instructive in his study of the CIA’s historical role in Philippine and international politics. In his 2000 paper, “The CIA’s Hidden History in the Philippines,” Simbulan writes that:
“Doing covert action that undermines Philippine national sovereignty and genuine democracy in order to prop up the tiny pro-US oligarchical minority that has cornered most of the wealth in their poor country is what the CIA is all about and is the real reason for its existence. It is no longer just the collection and analysis of foreign intelligence which is officially its mandate under the US National Security Act of 1947 that created the CIA.
“The CIA in the Philippines has engaged in countless covert operations for intervention and dirty tricks particularly in Philippine domestic politics…”
In the same paper, Simbulan mentions his 1996 interview with former CIA agent Ralph McGehee and other former CIA operatives assigned to the Manila station – the main CIA station in Southeast Asia – who, he said, confirmed to him that The Asia Foundation was among several agencies, including the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), through which CIA funds were channeled ostensibly for civic projects.
US Economic Interests
Moreover, the officers and trustees of The Asia Foundation — led by its chairman, Michael Armacost, the former US ambassador to the Philippines — are a mix of leaders and individuals representing American political and economic interests.
The involvement of a group that represents US corporate and economic interests underscores the continuing attractiveness of Mindanao to foreign business interests. As it is, Mindanao is one of the key areas of US investments in the Philippines, with the US government pouring in much of its aid money, through the USAid and such initiatives as the Growth with Equity in Mindanao, to identify areas of investments in the region. (Bulatlat.com)
Alexander Martin Remollino November 14, 2009
Find this story at 14 November 2009
© 2016 Bulatlat.com
Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl
These documents are from the U.S. State Department, Johnson Administration, Foreign Relations 1964-1968, Volume X, National Security Policy, published 15 August 2002.
These describe attempts to arrange for continued support of The Asia Foundation after public claims its funding by the CIA had ended.
Source: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/johnsonlb/x/9062.htm
132. Memorandum From the Central Intelligence Agency to the 303 Committee/1/
/1/Source: Department of State, INR/IL Historical Files, Minutes of 303 Committee, 6/22/66. Secret; Eyes Only.
Washington, June 22, 1966.
SUBJECT
The Asia Foundation: Proposed Improvements in Funding Procedures
1. Summary
The Asia Foundation (TAF), a Central Intelligence Agency proprietary, was established in 1954 to undertake cultural and educational activities on behalf of the United States Government in ways not open to official U.S. agencies. Over the past twelve years TAF has accomplished its assigned mission with increasing effectiveness and has, in the process, become a widely-known institution, in Asia and the United States. TAF is now experiencing inquiries regarding its sources of funds and connections with the U.S. Government from the aggressive leftist publication, Ramparts./2/ It is conceivable that such inquiries will lead to a published revelation of TAF’s CIA connection. In the present climate of national dissent and in the wake of recent critical press comment on CIA involvement with American universities, we feel a public allegation that CIA funds and controls TAF would be seized upon, with or without proof, and magnified beyond its actual significance to embarrass the Administration and U.S. national interests at home and abroad. Some immediate defensive and remedial measures are required [2-1/2 lines of source text not declassified].
/2/Regarding a later revelation by the magazine, see footnote 2, Document 176.
[3 paragraphs (11 lines of source text) not declassified]
In the long run, we feel TAF’s vulnerability to press attack can be reduced and its viability as an instrument of U.S. foreign policy in Asia can be assured by relieving it of its total dependence upon covert funding support from this Agency. In the belief that TAF contributes substantially to U.S. national interests in Asia, and can continue to contribute if its viability is sustained, CIA requests the Committee’s study and attention to possible alternative means of supporting it.
[6 pages of source text not declassified]
Source: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/johnsonlb/x/9062.htm
134. Memorandum for the Record/1/
/1/Source: Department of State, INR/IL Historical Files, Minutes of 303 Committee, 8/5/66. Secret; Eyes Only. Prepared by Jessup on July 9. Copies were sent to U. Alexis Johnson, Vance, and Helms.
Washington, July 8, 1966.
SUBJECT
Minutes of the Meeting of the 303 Committee, 8 July 1966
PRESENT
Mr. Rostow, Ambassador Johnson, Mr. Vance, and Mr. Helms
Mr. Bill Moyers and Mr. Cord Meyer were present for Items 1 and 2
[Here follow a list of additional participants and discussion of agenda item 1.]
2. The Asia Foundation
a. Mr. Meyer capsuled the substantial accomplishments of The Asia Foundation and the endorsements it has received throughout the years. Ambassador Johnson supported these statements. Mr. Meyer pointed specifically to the vulnerability of The Asia Foundation cover and how a gadfly publication such as Ramparts had the capability to inflict considerable damage and apparently that was their intention.
[1 paragraph (4 lines of source text) not declassified]
c. There was some discussion of the real costs of a full endowment solution. Mr. Vance felt that the sum requested was too small. The others agreed that Mr. Meyer was instructed to arrive at a more appropriate figure which could then be checked with the principals for a telephonic vote./2/
/2/[text not declassified] (Department of State, INR/IL Historical Files, Minutes of 303 Committee, 9/15/66) [text not declassified] (Memorandum to Rostow, October 6; Johnson Library, National Security File, Intelligence File, CIA Budgets & 303 Committee, Box 2) [text not declassified]
d. Mr. Meyer then went on to point out that this was only one conspicuous example of a problem which would grow larger, and he specifically mentioned the need of a new institution created by legislation and based on [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] lines which could provide general support grants to this and similar organizations whose activities are of proven value to the United States abroad.
e. He cited a speech by Eugene R. Black at the recent Wesleyan University commencement dealing with grants in aid./3/ It was emphasized that substantial private contributions and those of foundations are inhibited, if not precluded, by CIA association with such organizations as The Asia Foundation. Mr. Rostow pointed out that the CIA had many times taken up the slack when other agencies were unable to come up with funds. Mr. Meyer’s suggestion was greeted with considerable interest, and Mr. Helms suggested that any committee on this subject be headed in the White House in order to give it sufficient impetus. Mr. Moyers agreed to approach Mr. Harry McPherson/4/ and urged that talks continue between Mr. Meyer, Mr. McPherson and other interested parties./5/ It was noted that although the committee would not operate under 303 aegis, its determinations and findings might well have a bearing on future proposals before the 303 Committee.
/3/A Presidential adviser on financial matters and former president of the World Bank, Black proposed the creation of an American council for education and industrial arts to manage some of the nation’s overseas programs. (The New York Times, June 5, 1966, p. 38)
/4/Special Counsel to the President.
/5/In his October 6 memorandum (see footnote 2 above), Jessup also reported that progress among Moyers, McPherson, and Thomas L. Farmer (AID General Counsel) to create a new institution to deal with such funding “has been extremely slow with the press of other business.”
[Here follows discussion of other agenda items.]
Peter Jessup
Source: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/johnsonlb/x/9098.htm
176. Memorandum From the Central Intelligence Agency to the 303 Committee/1/
/1/Source: Department of State, INR/IL Historical Files, 303 Committee, May 27, 1967. Secret; Eyes Only. No drafting information appears on the memorandum, which forms Tab A-1 to the proposed agenda for the May 27 meeting of the 303 Committee.
Washington, April 12, 1967.
SUBJECT
Termination of Covert Funding Relationship with The Asia Foundation
1. Summary
Pursuant to the recommendations of the Katzenbach Committee, as approved by the President of the United States,/2/ the Director of Central Intelligence has ordered that covert funding of The Asia Foundation (TAF) shall be terminated at the earliest practicable opportunity. In anticipation of TAF’s disassociation from the Agency the Board of Trustees on March 21, 1967, released to the American and foreign press a carefully limited statement of admission of past CIA support./3/ In so doing the Trustees sought to delimit the effects of an anticipated exposure of Agency support by the American press and, if their statement or some future expose does not seriously impair TAF’s acceptability in Asia, to continue operating in Asia with overt private and official support. To date, the March 21 statement has produced no serious threat to TAF operations in Asia, and the Trustees are now prepared to attempt to acquire the necessary support for TAF to go on as a private institution, partially supported by overt U.S. Government grants. This will take time and TAF meanwhile faces the immediate problem of the need for funds during FY 1968.
/2/On February 15 President Johnson appointed a committee composed of Under Secretary of State Katzenbach (Chairman), Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare John W. Gardner, and Director of Central Intelligence Helms to inquire into the relationships between government agencies and private organizations operating abroad. The panel was established in response to press reports, particularly Sol Stern’s article, “A Short Account of International Student Politics & the Cold War with Particular Reference to the NSA, CIA, etc.,” Ramparts magazine, 5 (March 1967), pp. 29-39, of CIA secret funding over the years of private organizations, which became involved in confrontations with Communist-influenced groups at international gatherings. (The New York Times, February 16, 1967, pp. 1, 26) Text of an interim report, February 22, as well as the final report of the Katzenbach Committee, March 29, are in American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1967, pp. 1214-1217. For text of the President’s statement accepting the committee’s proposed statement of policy and directing all agencies of the U.S. Government to implement it fully, see Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1967, pp. 403-404.
/3/This statement is summarized and quoted in part in The New York Times, March 22, 1967, p. 15.
TAF’s present resources are sufficient to sustain operations through July 31, 1967, the end of the Foundation’s fiscal year. [4-1/2 lines of source text not declassified] To meet these obligations, and to allow TAF management to plan rationally for FY 1968, immediate firm commitments must be acquired on future levels and sources of support. This Agency is prepared to provide whatever assistance remains within its authority and competence to offer. To undertake further necessary action, however, the Agency requests that the Committee now designate the Agency or official to whom TAF management should look for future guidance and direction with respect to United States Government interests.
2. Problem
Immediate Requirements
a. With the encouragement and support of CIA, and the guidance of other elements of the United States Government, the Trustees of The Asia Foundation on March 21, 1967, publicly declared that TAF is a private organization; that its Trustees have accepted funds from CIA intermediaries in the past and, by inference, can no longer do so; and that they fully intend to continue programming in Asia with support from both private and overt official sources. It is imperative that this declaration be supported by normal or near-normal TAF operations in Asia over the months ahead. [4 lines of source text not declassified] It has further authorized the Trustees to seek pledges of support from heads of private foundations and other prospective private donors; but, as a practical matter, no immediate results can be anticipated.
[4 paragraphs (22 lines of source text) not declassified]
Long-range Requirements
c. The above immediate arrangements would insure the continuance of TAF programs at near-normal levels during the critical year ahead, during which time TAF Trustees and appropriate agencies of the U.S. Government can endeavor to arrange adequate permanent sources of support from private and official sources for FY 1969 and beyond. If by December 31, 1967, it becomes apparent that adequate support is not forthcoming, the Agency recommends that serious consideration be given to phasing down or terminating the Foundation.
[Here follow paragraphs 3. “Factors Bearing on the Problem,” and 4. “Coordination.”]
5. Recommendation
The Agency recommends that actions proposed in paragraphs one and two above be approved.
Source: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/johnsonlb/x/9098.htm
180. Memorandum for the Record/1/
/1/Source: Department of State, INR/IL Historical Files, 303 Committee, May 27, 1967. Secret; Eyes Only. Drafted on May 31.
Washington, May 27, 1967.
SUBJECT
Minutes of the Meeting of the 303 Committee, 27 May 1967
PRESENT
Mr. Rostow, Ambassador Kohler, Mr. Vance, and Mr. Helms
Admiral Taylor was present for all items.
Mr. Cord Meyer was present for Item 1.
Mr. Charles Schultze was present for Items 1 and 2.
Mr. Donald Jamison was present for Item 3.
1. The Asia Foundation
a. In the discussion of the future of The Asia Foundation,/2/ the following points were made: The principals and the Director of the Bureau of the Budget felt that it was wiser to transfer [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] in its entirety in a secure manner to the Foundation’s account rather than filter portions through AID or State at this time.
/2/For the CIA paper that was the basis of discussion of this issue, see Document 176.
b. Ambassador Kohler agreed that the State Department would nominate a senior official to undertake the responsibility of liaison to tide the Foundation through its difficult realignment period and set it on its path to self-sufficiency in 1969. Mr. Rostow suggested the name of Ambassador Winthrop Brown (if his new responsibilities would permit an added chore). Mr. Meyer indicated that such a person would have the full cooperation of a CIA officer thoroughly conversant with the project.
c. It was fully agreed that the Foundation was definitely in the national interest and should be protected and nurtured.
d. Mr. Schultze pointed out that in the future TAF would have to count on multifarious sources and, regardless of the results of the Rusk Committee findings, there never would be a single solution. He also indicated that, [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] a proper husbanding of resources should leave the Foundation with sufficient assets to face the future in 1969. He also wanted it emphasized that the Foundation would be competing for federal funds with other worthy causes.
[Here follow agenda items 2-5.]
Peter Jessup
Source: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/johnsonlb/x/9101.htm
209. Memorandum From the Deputy Director of Coordination, Bureau of Intelligence and Research (Trueheart) to the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs (Bundy)/1/
/1/Source: Department of State, INR/IL Historical Files, 303 Committee, January-June 1968. Secret; Eyes Only.
Washington, June 27, 1968.
SUBJECT
Minutes of the Meeting of the 303 Committee, 21 June 1968
The Minutes of the Meeting of the 303 Committee, 21 June 1968, contained the following item:
“7. The Asia Foundation
a. Mr. Meyer called to the committee’s attention the financial predicament of The Asia Foundation, [1 line of source text not declassified]. Mr. Rostow felt that the Board of Directors contained some movers and shakers and wondered if they had done all they could to raise money in the private sector. He also felt that both State and AID should be told of the relative high priority of this project and should not be allowed to treat it as a routine item.
b. Mr. Bohlen indicated that he would discuss the matter with William Bundy and a meeting at State had been scheduled on The Asia Foundation for Thursday, 27 June 1968./2/
/2/No record of this meeting has been found.
c. [3-1/2 lines of source text not declassified] Since State and/or AID support may or may not constitute line items in their respective budgets, this is susceptible to congressional cuts. Thus, no one can accurately predict what, if any, federal monies will be allocated; this completes the vicious circle with potential Foundation support remaining in the wings until the picture is clearer.
d. If there were deep sighs for the good old days of straight covert funding, they were not audible due to the hum of the air conditioner in the White House Situation Room.”
15 August 2002
Find this document at 15 August 2002
Copyright https://cryptome.org/
Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl
Not long after :Cohn Kenneth Galbraith, the Harvard economist’, arrived in India in 1961 to take up his new post as American Ambassador, he became aware of a curious political journal called Quest that was floating around the Asian subcontinent.
The following oracle is bused on rcporting by John M. Crewdson and Joseph B.Treaster. It was written by Mr. Crewd son.
“It had a level of intellectual and political competence that was sub‐zero,” Mr. Galbraith recalled in an interview. “It would make.you yearn for the political sophistication of The National Enquirer.”
Though an English‐language publicaI ion, “it was only in some approximation to English,” he said. ‘The political damage it did was nothing compared to the literary damage.”
Then the new Ambassador discovered that Quest was being published with money from the Central Intelligence Agency. At his direction the C.I.A. closed it clown.
Continue reading the main story
Though perhaps less distinguished than most, Quest was one of dozens of English and foreign language publications around the world that have been owned, subsidized or influenced in some way by the C.I.A. over the past three decades.
Although the C.I.A. has employed, dozens of American journalists working abroad, a three‐month inquiry by a team of reporters and researchers for The New York Times has determined that, with a few notable exceptions, they were not used by the agency to further its worldwide propaganda campaign,
In its persistent efforts to snape world opinion, the C.I.A. has been able to call upon a separate and far more extensive network of newspapers, news services, magazines, publishing houses, broadcasting stations and other entities over which it has at various limes had some control.
A decade ago, when the agency’s corn
C.I.A.: Secret Shaper Of Public Opinion Second of a Series
munications empire was at its peak, embraced more than SOO news and public information organizations and individuals, According to one C.I.A. official, they ranged in importance “from Radio Free Europe to a third‐string guy in Quito who could get something in the local paper.”
Although the network was known officially as the “Propaganda Assets Inventory,” to those inside the C.I.A. it was “Wisner’s Wurlitzer.” Frank G. Wisner, who is now dead, was the first chief of the agency’s covert action staff.
Like the Mighty Wurlitzer
Almost at the push of a button, or so Mr. Wisner liked to think, the “Wur‐1 litzer” became the means for orches‐1 tracing, in almost any language anywhere in the world, whatever tune the C.I.A.; was in a mood to hear.
Much of the Wurlitzer is now dismantled. Disclosures in 1967 of some of the C.I.A.’s financial ties to academic, cultural and publishing organizations resulted in some cutbacks, and more recent disclosures of the agency’s employment of American and foreign journalists have led to a phasing out of relationships with many of the individuals and news organizations overseas.
A smaller network of foreign journalists remains, and some undercover C.I.A. men may still roam the world, disguised as correspondents for obscure trade journals or business newsletters.
The C.I.A.’s propaganda operation was first headed by Tom Braden, who is now a syndicated columnist, and was run for many years by Cord Meyer Jr., a popular campus leader at Yale before he joined. the C.I.A.
Mr. Braden said in an interview that he had never really been sure that “there was anybody in charge” of the operation and that “Frank Wisner kind of handled it off the top of his head.” Mr. Meyer declined to talk about the operation.
However, several other former C.I.A. officers said that, while the agency was wary of telling its American journalistagents what to write, it never hesitated to manipulate the output of its foreignbased “assets.” Among those were number of English‐language publications read regularly by American correspondents abroad and by reporters and editors in the United States.
Most of the former officers said they had been concerned about but helpless to avoid the potential “blow‐back’—the possibility that the C.I.A. propaganda filtered through these assets, some of it purposely misleading or downright false,’ might be picked up by American reporters overseas and included in their dispatches to their publications at home.
The thread that linked the C.I.A. and its propaganda assets was money, and the money frequently bought a measure of editorial control, often complete control. In some instances the C.I.A. simply created a newspaper or news service and paid the bills through a bogus corporation. In other instances, directly or indirectly, the agency supplied capital to an entrepreneur or appeared at the right moment to bail out a financially troubled organization.
It gave them something to do,” one C.I.A. man said. “It’s the old business of Parkinson’s Law, a question of people having too much idle time and too much idle money. There were a whole lot of people who were underemployed.”
According to an agency official, the C.I.A. preferred where possible to put its money into an existing organization rather than found one of its own. “If a concern is a going concern,” the official said, “it’s a better cover, The important thing is to have an editor or someone else who’s receptive to your copy.”
Postwar Aid for Journals
The C.I.A., which evolved from the Office of Strategic Services of World War II, became involved in the mass communications field in the early postwar years, when agency officials became conterned that influential publications in ravaged Europe might succumb to the temptation of Communist money. Among the organizations subsidized in those early years, a C.I.A. source said, was the French journal Paris Match.
No one associated with Paris Match in that period could be reached for comment.
Recalling the concerns of those early clays, one former C.I.A. man said that :here was “hardly a left‐wing newspaper in Europe that wasn’t financed directly from Moscow.” He went on: “We knew when the courier was coming, we knew how much money he was bringing.”
One of the C.I.A.’s first major ventures was broadcasting, Although long suspected, it was reported definitively only a few years ago that until 1971 the agency supported both Radio Free Europe, which continues, with private financing, to broadcast to the nations of Eastern Europe, and Radio Liberty, which is beamed at the Soviet Union itself.
The C.I.A.’s participation in those operations was shielded from public view by two front groups, the Free Europe Committee and the American Committee for Liberation, both of which also engaged in a variety of lesser‐known propaganda operations.
The American Committee for Liberation financed a Munich‐based group, the Institute for the Study of the U.S.S.R., a publishing and research house that, among other• things, compiles the widely used reference volume “Who’s Who in the U.S.S.R.” The Free Europe Committee published the magazine East Europe, distributed in this country as well as abroad, and also operated the Free Europe Press Service.
Far more obscure were two other C.I.A. broadcasting ventures, Radio Free Asia and a rather tenuous operation known as Free Cuba Radio. Free Cuba Radio, established in the early 1960’s, did not broadcast from its own transmitters but purchased air time from a number of commercial radio stations in Florida and Louisiana.
Its propaganda broadcasts against the Government of Prime Minister Fidel Castro were carried over radio stations WMIE and WGBS in Miami, WKWF in Key West and WWL in New Orleans. They supplemented other C.I.A. broadcasts over a short‐wave station, WRUL, with offices in New York City, and Radio Swan, on a tiny island in the Caribbean.
The managements of those stations are largely changed, and it was not possible to establish whether any of them were aware of the source of the funds that paid for the programs. But sources in the Cuban community in Miami said it was known generally at the time that funds from some Federal agency were involved.
One motive for establishing the Free Cuba radio network, a former C.I.A. official said he recalled, was to have periods of air time available in advance in case Radio Swan, meant to be the main communications link for the Bay of Pigs invasion, was destroyed by saboteurs.
Radio Swan’s cover was thin enough to warrant such concern. The powerful station, whose broadcasts could be heard over much of the Western Hemisphere, was operated by a steamship company in New York that had not owned a steamship for some time.
Radio Swan was also besieged by potential advertisers eager to take advantage of its strong, clear signal. After months of turning customers away, the C.I.A. was finally forced to begin accepting some business to preserve what cover Radio Swan had left.
Radio Free Asia began broadcasting to mainland China in 1951 from an elaborate set of transmitters in Manila. It was an arm of the Committee for Free Asia, and the C.I.A. thought of it as the beginning of an operation in the Far East that would rival Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.
The Committee for Free Asia, according to former C.I.A. officials, was founded as the Eastern counterpart of the Free Europe Committee. It later changed its name to the Asia Foundation. It still exists, though its ties to the C.I.A. were severed a decade ago.
The Asia Foundation was headed for years by the ‘ late Robert Blum, who, several sources said, resigned from the C.I.A. to take it over. The foundation provided cover for at least one C.I.A. operative and carried out a variety of media‐related ventures, including a program, begun in 1955, of selecting and paying the expenses of Asian journalists for a year of study in Harvard’s prestigious Neiman Fellowship program.
Emergency Airlift Fails
It was only after Radio Free Asia’s transmitters were operating, according to sources familiar with the case, that the C.I.A. realized that there were almost no radio receivers in private hands in mainland China. An emergency plan was drawn up.
Balloons, holding small radios tuned to Radio Free Asia’s frequency, were lofted toward the mainland from the island of Taiwan, where the Chinese Nationalists had fled after the Communist takeover of the mainland in 1949. The plan was abandoned when the balloons were blown back to Taiwan across the Formosa Strait.
Radio Free Asia went off the air in 1955.
The C.I.A.’s involvement in the field of publishing extended around the world and embraced a wide variety of periodicals, some of them obscure and many of them now defunct. In some instances, sources said, there was no effort to mold editorial policy despite sizable subsidies, but in others policy was virtually dictated.
One of the C.I.A.’s ventures in this country involved the subsidization of several publications whose editors and publishers had fled from Havana to Miami after the Castro Government came to power in 1959. The subsidies — in some cases they amounted to several million dollars — were passed to the publica Lions through a C.I.A. front in New York called Foreign Publications Inc.
The dozen recipients of these subsidies reportedly included Avance, El Mundo, El Prensa Libre, Bohemia and El Diario de las Americas. In addition, the C.I.A. is said to have financed AIP, a radio news agency in Miami that produced programs sent free of charge to more than 100 small stations in Central and Latin America.
The C.I.A. intially intended to clandestinely distribute copies of the subsidized publications into Cuba, but that plan was dropped after the Cuban exiles who had agreed to take them by boat refused in the last minutes to approach the Cuban shore.
The subsidies continued anyway, and the publications were widely read in the Cuban community in Miami and, in the case of Bohemia,‐a weekly magazine that reecived more than $3 million altogether, throughout Latin America as well.
The intelligence agency’s onetime support of Encounter, the British journal, has been reported, but agency sources said that the Congress of Cultural Freedom, the Paris‐based group through which the C.I.A. channeled the funds, also supported a number of other publications, many of them now out of business.
Ties to Agency Were Cut
The congress, which was founded in 1950 as a response to a conference of Soviet writers that year in Berlin, has since cut its ties to the American agency, reconstituted itself and changed its name. But during the years when was a C.I.A. conduit, it provided financial support to the French magazine Preuves, Forum in Austria, Der Monat in West Germany, El Mundo Nuevo in Latin America and, in India, the publications Thought and Quest.
In the United States, Atlas magazine, digest of the world press, occasionally used translators employed by the C.I.A.
African Forum and Africa Report were published with C.I.A. money passed to the American Society of African Culture and the African‐American Institute. In Stockholm the publication Argumenten received C.I.A. funds through a channel so complex that even its editor was unaware of the source of the money. So did Combate, a Latin American bimonthly.
In Nairobi, Kenya, the C.I.A. set up The East African Legal Digest, less as a propaganda organ than as a cover for one of its operatives. In the United States, the Asia Foundation published newspaper, The Asian Student, that was distributed to students from the Far East who were attending American universities.
In Saigon, the Vietnam Council on Foreign Relations, modeled after the American version and financed entirely by the C.I.A., published a slick, expensively produced magazine that was distributed during the Vietnam War to the offices of all senators and representatives in Washington.
Among the more unusual of the C.I.A.’s relationships was the one it shared with a Princeton, N.J., concern called the Research Council. The council, founded by Hadley Cantril, the late chairman of the Princeton University psychology department, and his associate, Lloyd Free, derived nearly all its income from the C.I.A. in the decade in which it was active.
“They were considered an asset because we paid them so much money,” a former C.I.A. man said. Mr. Free confirmed that he 2nd Dr. Cantril, an acknowledged pioneer in public opinion polling, had “just sort of run” the council for the C.I.A.
The council’s activities, Mr. Free said, consisted of extensive public opinion surveys conducted in other countries on questions of interest to the C.I.A. Some, he said, were conducted inside Eastern Europe, the Soviet bloc.
The governments of the countries, Mr. Free said, “didn’t know anything about the C.I.A.” Nor, apparently, did Rutgers University Press, which published some of the results in a 1967 volume called “Pattern of Human Concerns.”
Book Publishing Ventures
The C.I.A.’s relationship with Frederick Praeger, the book publisher, has been reported in the past. But Praeger was only one of a number of publishing concerns, including some of the most prominent in the industry, that printed or distributed more than 1,000 volumes produced or subsidized in some way by the agency over the last three decades.
Some of the publishing houses were nothing more than C.I.A. “proprietaries.” Among these were Allied Pacific Printing, of Bombay, India, and the Asia Researcn Centre, one of several agency publishing ventures in Hong Kong, which was described by an agency source as “nothing but a couple of translators.”
Other, legitimate publishers that received C.I.A. subsidies according to former and current agency officials, were Franklin Books, a New York‐based house that specializes in translations of academic works, and Walker & Co., jointly owned by Samuel Sloan Walker Jr., a onetime vice president of the Free Europe Committee, and Samuel W. Meek, a retired executive of the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency and a man with close ties to the C.I.A.
A spokesman at Franklin confirmed that the publisher had received grants from the Asia Foundation and “from another small foundation for an African project, both of which were exposed in 1967 as being supported by C.I.A.” The spokesman added, “Franklin was unaware of that support then.”
Mr. Walker said through a secretary that his concern had never “printed books on behalf of the C.I.A. nor published any book from any source which was not worthy of publication on its merits.”
Other publishing houses that brought out books to which the C.I.A. had made editorial contributions included Charles Scribner’s Sons, which in 1951 published “The Yenan Way,” by Eudocio Ravines, from a translation supplied by William F. Buckley Jr., who was a C.I.A. agent for several years in the early 1950’s. Also in 1951, G. P. Putnam’s Sons published “Life and Death in Soviet Russia,” by Valentin Gonzalez, the famous “El Campesino” of the Spanish Civil War.
According to executives of both houses, Putnam and Scribner’s were unaware of any agency involvement in those books, as was Doubleday & Company, which in 1965 brought out, under the title “The Penkovskiy Papers,” what purported to be a diary kept by Col. Oleg Penkovsky, the Soviet double agent. The book even used C.I.A. style in the transliteration of the colonel’s name.
Also unaware of the C.I.A. connection was Ballantine Books, which published a modest volume on Finland, “Study in Sisu,” written by Austin Goodrich, an undercover C.I.A. man who posed for years in Scandinavia as a freelance author researching a book about Finland.
Authorship Used as Cover
Another C.I.A. operative who employed the cover of a freelance author in search of a book was Edward S. Hunter, who roamed Central Asia for years collecting material for a work on Afghanistan that eventually was published by the prestigious house of Hodder & Stoughton of London.
Other C.I.A. men worked abroad while writing books, including Lee White, an employee of the Middle Eastern Division who wrote a biography of General Mohammed Neguib of Egypt, and Peter Matthiessen, the writer and naturalist who began work on a novel, “Partisans,” while with the C.I.A. in Paris from 1951 until 1953, where he also helped George Plimpton found The Paris Review.
As with Mr. Hunter, Mr. White and Mr. Matthiessen used their careers as authors only as covers for their intelligence activities. There is no evidence that the C.I.A. attempted to control what they wrote or that it atempted through Mr. Matthiessen to influence the Paris Review.
Several C.I.A. efforts in book publishing were well received by critics, and a few were commercial successes. “At least once,” according to a report by the Senate intelligence committee, “a book review for an agency book which appeared in The New York Times was written by a C.I.A. writer under contract” to the agency.
The report did not identify the volume or the reviewer, but the book is said to have been “Escape from Red China,” the story of a defector from China published by Coward, McCann and Geoghegan. Jack Geoghegan, president of the company, said he never knew that the book had been prepared for publication by the C.I.A.
The book was reviewed by The Times on Sunday, Nov. 11, 1962, by Richard L. Walker, who is now director of the Institute of International Studies at the University of South Carolina and is a frequent book reviewer for the newspaper. Professor Walker said in a telephone interview that he had been under contract to the C.I.A. as a consultant and lecturer before and after the review appeared, but not at the time he wrote it. Nor, he said, did he know that the book had been produced by the C.I.A.
Another successful book that intelligence sources said was published in 1962 with the assistance of the C.I.A. is “On the Tiger’s Back” by Aderogba Ajao, Nigerian who had studied at an East German University and returned home to write about his disillusionment.
A Yugoslavian Connection
The Praeger organization, which was purchased by Encyclopaedia Brittanica in 1966, first became involved with the C.I.A. in 1957 when it published “The New Class,” a landmark work by Milovan Djilas, a disillusioned official of the Yugoslav Government who wrote extensively about his personal rejection of Communism.
Mr. Djilas, who had become a source of embarrassment to his Government before the work was published, had difficulty getting the last portion of the manuscript out of Yugoslavia.
Mr. Praeger said that he had appealed to II friend in the American Government (though not in the C.I.A.) for assistance in obtaining the final pages. The manuscript was eventually carried from Belgrade to Vienna by Edgar Clark, then a correspondent for Time magazine, and his wife, Katherine.
Mr. Clark said that neither he nor his wife had ever had anything to do with the C.I.A. But the manuscript ultimately reached the hands of’ a C.I.A. officer named Arthur Macy Cox. Mr. Cox, who later worked under Praeger cover in Geneva, set in motion an effort by the agency to have the book translated into variety of languages and distributed around the world.
“It was my first contact with the 1 C.I.A.,” Mr. Praeger said, but he added that at the time he had “no idea there even was a C.I.A.”
Mr. Praeger said that he later published 20 to 25 volumes in which the C.I.A. had had an interest, either in the writing, the publication itself or the postpublication distribution.
The agency’s involvement, he said, might have been manifested in a variety of ways—reimbursing him directly for the expenses of publication or guaranteeing, perhaps through a foundation of some sort, the purchase of enough copies to make publication worthwhile.
Among the Praeger books in which the C.I.A. had a hand were “The Anthill,” a work about China by the French writer Suzanne Labin, and two books on the Soviet Union by Giinther Nollau, a member of the West German security service and later its chief. Mr. Nollau was identified in a New York Times review only as “a West German lawyer who fled some years ago from East Germany.”
Dozens of foreign- language newspapers, news services and other organizations were financed and operated by the C.I.A.—two of the most prominent were said to have been DENA, the West German news agency, and Agenda Orbe Latino American, the Latin American feature service.
The C.I.A.’s Newspapers
In addition, the C.I.A. had heavy investments in a variety of English-language news organizations. Asked why the agency had had a preference for these, a former senior official of the agency explained that it was less difficult to conceal the ownership of publications that had ostensible reasons for belonging to an American and easier to place American agents in those publications as reporters and editors.
The Rome Daily American, which the C.I.A. partly owned from 1956 to 1964, when it was purchased by Samuel W. Meek, a J. Walter Thompson executive, was only one of the agency’s “’proprietary” English‐language newspapers.
There were, it was said, such “proprietaries” in other capitals, including Athens and Rangoon. They usually served a dual role—providing cover fur intelligence operatives and at the same time publishing agency propaganda.
But the C.I.A.’s ownership of newspapers was generally viewed as costly and difficult to conceal, and all such relationships are now said to have been ended.
The Rome Daily American was taken over by the C.I.A., it was said, to keep it from failing into the hands of Italian Communists. But the agency eventually tired of trying to maintain the fiction that the newspaper was privately owned and, as soon as the perceived threat from the Communists had passed, sold it to Mr. Meek.
Even after the agency sold the newspaper, however, it was managed for several years by Robert H. Cunningham, a C.I.A. officer who had resigned from the agency and had been rehired as a contract employee.
A former C.I.A. official said that the agency passed up an opportunity to purchase another English‐language newspaper, The Brussels Times, which was being run by a C.I.A. man but had no other ties to the agency. The official said the agency responded to the offer by saying that it was “easier to buy a reporter, which we’ve done, than to buy a newspaper.”
In addition to the C.I.A.’s “proprietary” newspapers in Athens, Rangoon and Rome, agency sources said it had also had investments in The Okinawa Morning Star, used more for cover purposes than for propaganda; The Manila Times and The Bangkok World, now both defunct, and The Tokyo Evening News in the days before it was purchased by Asahi, the publishing organization.
“We ‘had’ at least one newspaper in every foreign capital at any given time,” one C.I.A. man said, and those that the agency did not own outright or subsidize heavily it infiltrated with paid agents or staff officers who could have stories printed that were useful to the agency and not print those it found detrimental.
Agents Placed on Staffs
In Santiago, Chile, The South Pacific Mail, though apparently never owned by the C.I.A, provided cover for two operatives: David A. Phillips, who eventually rose to become chief of the C.I.A.’s Western Hemisphere Division, and David C. Hellyer, who resigned as Latin American editor for the Copley newspaper organization to join the C.I.A.
Other newspapers on whose staffs the C.I.A. is said to have placed agents over the years included The Guyana Chronicle, The Haiti Sun, The Japan Times, The Nation of Rangoon, The Caracas Daily Journal and The Bangkok Post.
And before the 1959 revolution The Times of Havana, owned by a former C.I.A. man, contributed to the “cover” of Mr. Phillips by signing him on as columnist.
The C.I.A. reportedly had agents within a number of foreign news services, including LATIN, a Catin American agency operated by the British news agency, Reuters, and the Ritzhaus organization in Scandanavia.
Although there were C.I.A agents in the overeas bureaus of The Associated Press and United Press International, the C.I.A. is said to have had none in Reuters because that agency is British and thus a potential target of the British Secret Intelligence Service.
But sources familiar with the situation said that the C.I.A occasionally “borrowed” British “assets” inside Reuters for the purpose of planting news articles. Asked about the much‐publicized assertion by William E. Colby, the former Di‘ rector of Central Intelligence, that the agency never “manipulated” Reuters, one official replied that “it wasn’t manipulation because Reuters knew” that the stories were being planted by the C.I.A. and that some were bogus.
Desmond Manerly, Reuters’s managing editor for North America, has said that such charges were “old‐hat stuff to us.” He noted that Reuters’s managing director, for Gerald Long, had asked for evidence of such manipulation but that none had been forthcoming.
A number of news agencies were owned outright or were heavily financed by the C.I.A. One, the Foreign News Service, produced articles written by a group of journalists who had been exiled from Eastern European nations. In the early 1960’s the articles were sold to as many as 300 newspapers around the world, including The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor and The New York Herald Tribune.
Boleslaw Wierzbianski, a former Polish Minister of Information and the onetime head of the news service, said that as far as he knew, the C.I.A.’s only involvement was financial and the agency never tried to control the service’s output or use it as a cover.
Press Credentials Supplied
By contrast, an outright C.I.A. proprietary was the Continental Press Service, which had headquarters in Washington and was run by a C.I.A. man named Fred Zusy. One of its principal functions was to supply official — looking, laminated press credentials to agency operatives in urgent need of cover.
Editors Press Service was an established feature news service with clients throughout Latin America when, accordmg to two former C.I.A. officials and third authoritative source, it became channel of dissemination for agency-inspired propaganda. One former C.I.A. man said that the service, owned at the time by Joshua B. Powers Sr„ was an outlet for what he called “cliché stories, news stories prepared by the agency or for the agency.”
Mr. Powers acknowledged that for years he was a close friend of the late Col. J. C. King, longtime chief of the agency’s Western Hemisphere Division; that he had served as an officer of the C.I.A.financed Henry Clay foundation, and that it was he who had purchased The South Pacific Mail from David A. Phillips and owned it during the period, in the mid1960’s, when it was being used for cover by David Hellyer.
Mr. Powers could recall only a single connection, however, between Editors Press and the C.I.A. He said that in the mid‐1960’s he had used C.I.A. funds to finance the Latin American travels of one of his writers, Guillermo Martinez Marquez, the exiled editor of a Cuban newspaper. Mr. Marquez said that he had never known that the money he received from Mr. Powers had come team the C.I.A.
Perhaps the most widely circulated of the C.1.A.‐owned news services was Forum World Features, founded in 1958 as a Delaware corporation, Forum Information Service, with offices in London. Forum was ostensibly owned during much of its life by John Hay Whitney, the publisher of The New York Herald Tribune, which ceased publication in 1966. According to several C.I.A. sources, Mr. Whitney was “witting” of the agency’s true role.
A secretary to Mr. Whitney said that he was too ill to respond to questions about his involvement with Forum.
Also aware of a C.I.A. role, according to former and current agency officials, was Brian Crozier, the conservative British journalist who the officials said had been a contract employee of the agency, and Robert G. Gately. Mr. Gately, Forum’s executive director in the early 1960’s, was a career C.I.A. man who went on to hold cover jobs with Newsweek, as Far Eastern business manager, and with Asia Magazine in Tokyo.
Newsweek executives, like those of nearly all the major news‐gathering organizations said to have been involved with the C.I.A., have said that while they are certain that no one presently employed has any ties to the agency, there is no way to be certain that no such connections existed in the past.
U.S. Papers Among Clients
Though the C.I.A. has insisted that never attempted directly to place its propaganda in the American press, at one time Forum World Features had 30 domestic newspapers among its clients, including The Washington Post, and tried, without success, to sell its material to The New York Times.
The sale of Forum’s material to The Washington Post and other American newspapers, one C.I.A. official said, “put us in a hell of a dilemma,” The sales, he went on, were considered necessary to preserve the organization’s cover, and they occasioned a continuing and somewhat frantic effort to insure that the domestic clients were given only legitimate news stories.
Another major foreign news organization that C.I.A. officials said they once subsidized was Vision, the weekly news magazine that is distributed throughout Europe and Latin America. However, none of those associated with the founding of Vision or its management over the years Said they had ever had any indication that the C.I.A. had put money intp the magazine.
SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMESDEC. 26, 1977
Find this story at 26 December 1977
© 2017 The New York Times Company
Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl
Soldiers from the U.S.-led coalition tasked with battling the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) engaged in a firefight in northern Syria Tuesday with Syrian rebels whose movement was once supported by the CIA.
Ryan Dillon, a spokesperson for the Kuwait-based Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, said the insurgents opened fire first near the city of Manbij, prompting coalition forces to shoot back before taking cover elsewhere. The belligerent Syrian fighters were not identified, but they were believed to have been part of a Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army group opposed to ISIS, the Syrian military and the mostly Kurdish forces supported by the Pentagon, all of which are vying for control in northern Syria.
“Our forces did receive fire and return fire and then moved to a secure location,” Dillon told Reuters, adding that the coalition has admonished Turkey and told it to tell its allies that such an incident “is not acceptable.”
Dillon went on to say that coalition forces trying to defuse tensions between Syrian Arab rebels and the mostly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces “received fire multiple times over the course of the last two weeks,” even though the U.S. and Turkey are NATO allies. Turkey has criticized U.S. support for Kurdish militias such as the People’s Protection Units (YPG), because it considers them connected to an insurgent Kurdish nationalist movement at home.
While it’s uncertain if there is any link between the two events, the Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army’s Ninth Brigade special forces released images of its fighters conducting training drills in northern Syria around the time reports emerged of the clash. The Free Syrian Army, a loosely knit band of armed opposition groups, was once one of the most powerful revolutionary groups in Syria, but it has suffered years of defections and defeats to jihadist groups also trying to overthrow the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since 2011.
The Free Syrian Army was also the primary recipient of CIA funding to overthrow Assad, but this support diminished as ISIS and Al-Qaeda became increasingly influential among rebels. Turkey attempted to unify the remains of the Free Syrian Army in northern Syria in May, and reports emerged in July that the Trump administration had cut all CIA funding to rebel groups that refused to stop fighting Assad and at times clashed with the Pentagon-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which is now the U.S.’s primary partner in Syria.
The Kurd-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces have taken more than half of ISIS’s de facto capital of Raqqa since storming the city in June. Syria’s armed forces, backed by Russia and Iran, have also managed to return to Assad large swaths of the country lost to rebels and jihadists. Both sides have their eyes set on the eastern city of Deir ez-Zor, which has been under ISIS siege since at least 2014.
Despite tensions and even violence between the U.S.-led coalition and pro-government forces in past months, the Trump administration has expressed its willingness to work with Russia in order to find a political solution to the six-year war that’s already killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions more. The two powers have established a cooperation center in neighboring Jordan and have committed to a ceasefire between the Syrian military and a separate Free Syrian Army faction in the southwestern city of Daraa.
Manbij was also the site of early, informal cooperation between the U.S. and Russia when both sent personnel to support their respective partners on the ground from a Free Syrian Army advance in March. Both the U.S. and the Russian military have conducted patrols in the city, which is administrated by a council backed by the Syrian Democratic Forces.
A U.N.-led effort to end the Syrian conflict in Geneva has repeatedly stalled as opposition groups grow frustrated with Assad’s refusal to step down, especially as the military regains control over much of the country. Russia, Iran and Turkey are involved in separate ongoing talks between the Syrian government and the opposition in the Kazakh capital of Astana. This dialogue has produced four “de-escalation zones” not formally recognized by the U.S.
BY TOM O’CONNOR ON 8/29/17 AT 3:40 PM
Find this story at 29 August 2017
© 2017 NEWSWEEK LLC
Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl
BEIRUT (Reuters) – U.S.-led coalition forces returned fire after being repeatedly shot at near Manbij in northern Syria, where they are patrolling near areas held by Turkish-backed rebels, coalition spokesman Colonel Ryan Dillon said on Tuesday.
“Our forces did receive fire and return fire and then moved to a secure location,” he said by phone.
The incident reflects the complexity of the battlefield in northern Syria, where the Russia-backed Syrian army, Kurdish forces aided by the U.S.-led coalition and Syrian rebels supported by Washington’s ally Turkey are all operating.
The coalition has told Turkey to tell the rebels it backs there that firing on U.S.-led coalition forces “is not acceptable”, Dillon said.
U.S. ground forces are in northern Syria as part of the U.S.-led coalition supporting the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a local alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias battling Islamic State.
Last year, Turkey backed Syrian rebel groups in an offensive next to SDF-held areas aimed at both pushing Islamic State from the border and quelling the expansion of Kurdish influence.
The Turkish-backed rebels and the SDF have often exchanged small arms and artillery fire in other parts of northern Syria where U.S.-led coalition forces are not patrolling.
“Our overt patrols that have been conducting patrols in that area to keep tensions down received fire multiple times over the course of the last two weeks,” Dillon said.
“We let our counterparts in Turkey know this and we continue to conduct these patrols but are always prepared and ready to defend ourselves in that area.”
U.S. forces have been filmed since last year patrolling near Turkey-backed rebel areas while clearly displaying the U.S. flag.
Russian military police have also carried out patrols in northern areas held by the Syrian army and by the Kurdish YPG militia, the main component of the SDF.
Coalition and U.S. jets have carried out operations to prevent potential attacks on local forces they support.
A year ago, they scrambled to protect U.S. special operations forces in northern Syria from attack by government jets during rare clashes between the Syrian army and the YPG.
In May, the U.S. military carried out an air strike against militia supported by the Syrian government that posed a threat to U.S. and U.S.-backed fighters in southern Syria.
Reporting by Angus McDowall; Editing by Andrew Roche
AUGUST 29, 2017 / 6:05 PM / 24 DAYS AGO
Find this story at 29 August 2017
Copyright https://www.reuters.com/
Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl
A SHIFT IN THOUGHT Suspension of a CIA program that armed and trained the rebels leaves them with few options. Some may join the US-backed anti-ISIS campaign, but others may join jihadists to pursue their campaign against Assad. Some already have.
President Trump’s reported suspension of a covert CIA program to fund, arm, and train Syrian rebels is seen as signaling the end of US efforts to pressure Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on the battlefield.
But the cutting of US ties – and likely those of US allies who also provided the rebels material support – also calls into question the fate of thousands of armed fighters who have grown reliant on US support and direction.
The move, which some commentators have characterized as appeasing Russia, Mr. Assad’s most powerful backer, has left thousands of mainstream rebels struggling to navigate a battlefield suddenly tipped against them, without a patron, without guidance – and for some – without a cause.
Among the options for the rebels, looking to evolve to survive: join the US-led battle against the so-called Islamic State, or, for the fervently anti-Assad fighters, even join the ranks of jihadist and Islamist groups, which have retained their shadowy funding and supply lines.
Abu Mohammed al Darrawi, the nom de guerre of a Free Syrian Army (FSA) intelligence official who has spent the past four years shuttling between southern Syria and Jordan to negotiate for arms and support, says many “emotional” fighters and commanders will begin considering outreach by Al Qaeda and other well-funded Islamist militias.
How well do you understand the conflict in Syria? Take our quiz.
“We lost our brothers, our sisters, our children; we went through hell just to end this regime and see an end to Assad,” Darrawi said.
“If Al Qaeda, if Ahrar al Sham, if the devil himself is fighting Assad and will help us in this fight, we will side with them.”
Timber Sycamore
When the CIA launched the covert training and arming program, known as Timber Sycamore, in early 2013, it was designed to pressure Assad on the battlefield while regulating the flow of arms and cash that had already been pouring in from Gulf countries and from Turkey.
The CIA, along with the US allies, vetted and trained thousands of rebels from the FSA and affiliated militias at bases within Turkey to the north and Jordan to the south.
Every operation, every battlefield movement, was micromanaged from Military Operations Centers (MOCs), in Jordan and Turkey that featured US, French, British, Saudi, and Emirati intelligence and military officials.
The US and its allies provided the rebels with light arms, including heavy machine guns, mortars, sniper rifles, and vehicles. But, due to Washington’s concerns, they did not provide them with the anti-aircraft weapons they needed to counter regime airstrikes and turn the tide on the battlefield.
The Trump administration’s suspension of Timber Sycamore followed months of scaling down the program and was seen by many as an inevitable divorce. Mr. Trump referred this week on Twitter to his “ending massive, dangerous, and wasteful payments” to the rebels.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE, staunch supporters of the rebels, will be unable or unwilling to go against their ally Washington and continue arming or financing the fighters, say Arab security sources close to the MOC in Amman.
Jordan will no longer offer a land corridor to provide weapons to the south, Turkey is pressuring moderate rebels in the north to fight a proxy war with Kurdish groups, while Qatar, a major backer of Islamist rebels, will also be unwilling to throw its support behind the FSA.
The mood in the northern Jordanian town of Irbid, 12 miles from the Syrian border, where commanders of the FSA’s Southern Front have lived and operated, is one of weariness as they consider their options.
“We have 54 factions in the south alone without support, without arms, and without salaries,” says Abdul Hadi Sari, a former Syrian air force general who has been an adviser to FSA’s Southern Front and a military analyst based in Jordan.
“When the US says stop, they all stop.”
Fighting against, with jihadists
According to rebel commanders close to the MOC in Amman, rebels have been negotiating with Saudi Arabia and the UAE to continue salaries to fighters in order to prevent them from breaking ranks and joining jihadist groups. There have been 50 reported defections already this month.
The end of the CIA program meanwhile may also boost efforts to build a fighting force to oust ISIS from Syria, analysts and rebels say, the only way mainstream rebels can secure US support or that of its allies.
According to Syrian rebel commanders close to operations, the US has been redirecting vetted rebels to bases established near Tanf in the triangle between south-eastern Syria, western Iraq, and northern Jordan to train and take up the fight against ISIS in Raqqa and Deir ez-Zour.
“The CIA program was aimed at Assad, while the Department of Defense’s program was aimed at ISIS,” Faysal Itani, a Syria expert and senior fellow at the Rafiq Hairiri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council, says via email.
“Ending the former will, if anything, pressure fighters to join the latter in order to get paid and receive US protection.”
As the CIA program was winding down over the past three months, 200 vetted Syrian rebels traveled to Tanf to join the US-formed Jaysh Maghawir al-Thawra (Revolutionary Commandos Army) for training, according to Syrian rebel commanders. Hundreds more are said to be considering the offer, but travel from southwest and northwest Syria to the southeast is a dangerous proposition given that swathes of territory are held by pro-regime Shiite militias or ISIS.
“Entering at-Tanf for many would be a suicide mission,” says Mr. Sari, the former air force general. “But if you are starving and worn down by four years of war, many may take that risk.”
Police force?
One proposal allegedly backed by both Russia and the US, which came as part of Russia-US-Jordan tripartite talks in Amman that reached a cease-fire in south Syria, is the transformation of the Free Syrian Army and moderate rebels from a militia to a “police force.”
Under the proposal, which according to those close to the ongoing tripartite talks has gained the support of Jordan, the rebels would change their mission from overthrowing Assad to keeping the peace in recently-announced truce zones in southern Syria and east of Damascus.
As part of the switch, as envisioned by the West, rebels would receive police training within southern Syria and salaries to both police and prevent extremist groups from filling the vacuum. Should it prove successful, the model would be replicated in central and northern Syria, with the presence of a non-regime police force facilitating the return of Syrian refugees from Jordan and Turkey, according to those close to the talks.
Syrian rebel commanders are divided on the initiative; some say they would rather fight to the “last bullet” than abandon their cause.
“Many would rather die as martyrs than live as policemen,” says Abu Kamal, the nom de guerre of a FSA rebel commander in the Damascus countryside, whose fighters came to a standstill due to funding cuts last month, ahead of the Trump decision.
But, while the mission would be a far cry from overthrowing a regime that has committed atrocities, rebels say many fighters, worn down from broken promises and an increasingly sectarian fight, may be ready to accept the offer.
“When we went out and protested for freedom, we did not know that we would be facing jihadists, the world’s Shiite militias, Russia, a civil war, and a sectarian war,” Sari says.
“Right now, if you offer us security and peace on our homeland, many will take it.”
Alaa Al-Faqir/Reuters
Taylor Luck
JULY 26, 2017 IRBID, JORDAN—
Find this story at 26 July 2017
© The Christian Science Monitor
Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl
Part I
Latvian Forest BrothersRecently declassified documents from the archive of the Central Intelligence Agency detail financial and material support given by the United States to groups of armed guerrillas in Soviet Latvia in the 1950s. The documents, initially marked ‘Top Secret’ but now declassified, show that the CIA was aware and supported the activities of an anti-Soviet guerrilla army known as ‘the Forest Brothers’. Known also as ‘the Forest Brethren’, the group was formed in the Baltic States in 1944, as the Soviet Red Army established Soviet control over the previously German-occupied states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The Soviet Union had previously occupied and annexed the three Baltic countries, in a failed attempt to pre-empt Germany’s eastward military expansion. Groups like the Forest Brothers consisted of the most militant members of anti-Soviet groups in the Baltic States, many of whom were ideologically opposed to Soviet Communism.
The role of the CIA in funding and helping to organize anti-Soviet groups inside the USSR has been known for decades. But the recently released documents, unearthed by Russian-language service of Latvian state television, shed light into the CIA’s early understanding of the identity, strength and operations of these groups. They also contain new information about the background and structure of underground anti-Soviet groups like the Forest Brothers in Latvia.
The first declassified CIA document that contains information on anti-Soviet resistance in Latvia is dated November 29, 1949, and is titled “The Organization of the Underground Resistance Movement in Eastern Europe”. It was soon followed by two other documents, entitled “Latvian Resistance to Russian Occupation” and “Request for [Support] to the Latvian Resistance Movement”. The latter document was produced in mid-1950, after the CIA was able to establish contact with anti-Soviet Latvian expatriates living in Germany and Sweden. From these contacts, the CIA was able to determine that active (and possibly armed) resistance to the Soviet Red Army in Latvia was limited to approximately 5,000 individuals, many of whom conducted periodic guerrilla attacks against Soviet troops or installations. However, the CIA report said that, as of 1950, the majority of these armed guerrillas remained dormant, “waiting for a more opportune moment” to return to action. The CIA memorandum also stated that clandestine radio communication existed between the leadership of Latvia’s anti-Soviet underground in Riga and exile Latvian communities in Sweden.
Part II
Latvia Forest BrothersThe role of the CIA in funding and helping to organize anti-Soviet groups inside the USSR has been known for decades. But, as intelNews explained in part I of this article, a batch of recently released documents, unearthed by Russian-language service of Latvian state television, sheds light into the CIA’s early understanding of the identity, strength and operations of these groups. They also contain new information about the background and structure of underground anti-Soviet groups like the Forest Brothers in Latvia.
Judging that Latvia’s anti-Soviet underground movement could be “of considerable operational value”, the CIA initiated project ZRLYNCH in the summer of 1950. Operated out of the CIA’s Munich station in Germany, ZRLYNCH was intended as a long-term project supervised by the Office of Policy Coordination, an early Cold War covert operations outfit that in 1952 was absorbed into the CIA’s Directorate of Operations. The Latvia operation was part of a wider effort by the CIA, which was aimed at subverting Soviet power in Eastern Europe.
For the first year of ZRLYNCH, the CIA’s Office of Policy Coordination asked for —and received— a budget of $30,000. The top-secret document unearthed recently by Latvian state television states that the budget was to be used primarily for intelligence collection inside Soviet territory, as well as for covert operations by the Forest Brothers (for information about the group, see part I of this post). The latter were to conduct sabotage activities as part of organized guerrilla warfare. These activities are not specified in the CIA documents. By the end of the first year, it appears that the CIA had recruited three Latvian agents in Europe (one in Sweden and two in Germany), who were acting as mediators between the CIA and the Forest Brothers inside the USSR. Less than three years later, the ZRLYNCH budget had risen to $134,000, with $52,000 going toward covert —mostly psychological— operations and the rest being used to fund intelligence collection efforts. The CIA was also funding the travel expenses of leading Latvian émigré figures in the US, and was diverting tens of thousands of dollars toward Latvian émigré conferences in America, which aimed to unite the various political factions of the fragmented Latvian community in the States.
But the CIA officers behind ZRLYNCH were extremely concerned about operational security. They did not want the Kremlin finding out that the Agency was behind efforts to stir up armed resistance against Soviet power in the Baltic region. One CIA document states that there would be no tolerance for “any breaches of security” that compromised ZRLYNCH. Consequently, any action that uncovered the link between the US government and the Forest Bothers would lead “to an immediate cessation of financial support” for ZRLYNCH, states the memo.
Ultimately, ZRLYNCH failed to seriously challenge Soviet power in Latvia. Most of the members of the Forest Brothers were killed during Red Army counterinsurgency operations, and much of the organization’s structure was penetrated by agents of Soviet intelligence. Eventually, the Forest Brothers became extinct in 1957, when their last members emerged from the forest and surrendered to Latvian and Soviet authorities.
AUGUST 10, 2017 BY JOSEPH FITSANAKIS
Find this story at 10 August 2017
Find this story at 11 August 2017
Copyright https://intelnews.org/
Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl
A memoir by a former CIA operative that details the broad daylight killing of two Pakistanis and the alleged government role in spiriting him away from murder charges is stirring outrage in this politically polarized country.
The startling revelations by Raymond Davis have proven to be a major embarrassment for many in the government and intelligence communities who, according to the former contractor, worked to secure his release and quell extended political turbulence between Washington and Islamabad.
Davis was contracted by the CIA and stationed in Pakistan when he fatally shot two Pakistanis in January 2011 — triggering a diplomatic crisis between the two countries.
He also killed a third person in a hit-and-run before being arrested.
Two of Davis’ victims, Mohammad Faheem and Faizan Haider, were reportedly agents of Pakistan’s top intelligence service, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), who were pursuing him. There has been no official confirmation regarding their alleged association with the spy agency.
Following a flurry of backdoor efforts involving top Pakistani and U.S. officials, Davis, facing murder charges, was released in March 2011 after the victims’ families were paid a collective “compensation” sum of $2.4 million after being “coerced” by Pakistani officials, according to Davis.
In The Contractor: How I Landed in a Pakistani Prison and Ignited a Diplomatic Crisis, which recently hit bookstores, Davis provides insight into his experience in Pakistan, and especially the series of events that placed him at the center of a diplomatic controversy.
Official help for release claimed
Davis explosively claims that Pakistan’s civilian and military leadership at the time — including President Asif Zardari, Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani, Punjab’s Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and ISI head Gen. Shuja Pasha — were “on board,” and “helpful” in arranging his release from prison by exploiting a feature of Islamic law that permits paying blood money to victims’ families.
Neither Pasha nor Leon Panetta — who led the CIA from February 2009 to June 2011 — could not be reached for comment.
Adding fuel to the fire, Qamar Zaman Kaira, former information minister and current Punjab head of the Pakistan Peoples Party, the ruling party at time of Davis’ arrest and release, told local Geo TV on Saturday that the U.S. had used its influence over the government and army for Davis’ release. He claimed that the intelligence agencies had pressured the victims’ families to accept the blood money, which was provided by the federal government.
For his release, Davis gives special credit to Pakistani intelligence.
“ISI … orchestrated my exit. Several guards led me out of the courtroom through a back entrance,” he writes about the last hearing in the triple-murder case against him in Lahore.
“One of the men opened the door, stepped out into a courtyard, and scanned the horizon … once he’d cleared the area, I was waved through door and directed to the SUV idling in the courtyard,” he says in the final chapter of his tell-all memoir.
Davis writes that just a few political parties, particularly Jamat-e-Islami (JI) — the country’s main Islamic party — were opposed to his release, and had arranged huge protests demanding his conviction and execution.
The book’s cover shows a photo of JI demonstrators carrying a banner with the words “HANG RAYMOND DAVIS” emblazoned in red.
Government denial
The government has rejected Davis’ sensational claims as nothing more than “fiction”.
“What should I comment on that,” Mussadiq Malik, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, told Anadolu Agency.
“He has framed each and every institution of Pakistan, whether it is the government, judiciary, army or intelligence agencies without any cogent proof. I don’t think this book deserves even a contradiction,” he said.
‘Shameful’
Despite the denials, opposition parties and the media have reacted sharply to Davis’ claims and demanded an inquiry and action against those who allegedly brokered his release.
“A shameful account of how our top political and military leadership collaborated to let a cold-blooded killer, responsible for four deaths, go scot-free,” tweeted Imran Khan, a former cricket hero and head of the Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI), Pakistan’s second-largest opposition party. (The fourth death he refers to may be the widow of Davis victim Faizan Haider, who committed suicide, fearing justice would not be done.)
“This book should be read by Pakistanis to understand why we are treated with so little respect internationally,” he added.
“This is one of the most shameful chapters in Pakistan’s history. It shows that Pakistan’s civilian and military leadership is so much under U.S. influence that they even dare to exploit Sharia law to appease America,” Jamat-e-Islami spokesman Amir-ul-Azeem told Anadolu Agency in a telephone interview.
“We already knew the whole story, but Raymond Davis has formally confirmed that,” he added.
Opposition Pakistan Peoples Party leader Khursheed Shah — whose former chairman, former President Asif Zardari, and vice chairman, Yousaf Raza Gilani, Davis implicates in his release — has called for an inquiry.
“Helping an American spy is tantamount to treachery. Stern action should be taken against all those who were instrumental in his release,” Shah was quoted as saying by Pakistani daily Dunya.
Social media outrage
Heated debate over Davis’ allegations has not only erupted in Pakistan’s electronic and print media but led hundreds of thousands of social media users to express their anger.
“This is one of the most disgraceful moment(s) in Pakistan history and I feel ashamed of this decision he should have been charged for murder and shame on the victims of the family this case let our nation down. Our blood cannot be replaced with money,” one user wrote.
In a July 1 editorial, right-wing Urdu daily Nawa-I-Waqt raised the question if convicted Indian spy Kalbushan Jhadav — who was sentenced to death this April — would be released in the same manner.
Jadhav, an Indian naval officer, was arrested in the southwestern Balochistan province last year for orchestrating terrorist activities across Pakistan.
Dr. Tauseef Ahmed Khan, a Karachi-based political analyst, told Anadolu Agency that he believes Davis’ disclosures raise serious questions about Pakistan’s judicial system and the inner working of its intelligence agencies.
“If his claim that the victims’ families were forced to take blood money is true, then it is a shame for all of us, especially the judicial system,” he said.
02.07.2017
By Aamir Latif
KARACHI, Pakistan
Find this story at 2 July 2017
© Anadolu Agency 2017
Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl
CIA contractor Raymond Davis was held captive in Lahore, Pakistan after killing Faizan Haider, 22, and Faheem Shamshad, 26, in self-defense January 2011
The former security contractor had been driving in the city area when two men in a motorbike brandished a gun at him and in fear he fired back
He was followed an angry mob of locals, thje window in his car broke, and he was only saved when two Pakistani soldiers came to his help – but then arrested him
He was kept in Pakistan’s Kot Lahkpat jail – which is notorious for its brutal regime, murders, and beatings of prisoners
Davis was eventually released from prison in March 2011 in a controversial $2.4million blood-money deal – known as Diya under Islamic law
Incident inspired start of Homelands fourth series
Now he breaks his silence in exclusive DailyMail.com interview
A CIA contractor, a double killing in a hail of bullets on a crowded Pakistani street and a diplomatic crisis that set US-Pakistan relations back years.
It could easily be the plot line of Homeland – and in fact helped inspire a key incident in the CIA spy drama.
But for Raymond Davis – who shot two men in self-defense on a busy Lahore street on January 25, 2011 – it was a dramatic episode in his life that he’s not likely to forget.
Now he is breaking his silence at last in an exclusive DailyMail.com interview.
Speaking for the first time about the incident that made worldwide headlines and sparked a diplomatic nightmare for the U.S., Davis recounts his ‘hell’ of being jailed and ‘tortured’ in a Lahore prison for 49 days and how he was accused of being a spy and interrogated by agents from Pakistan’s feared Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.
He recalls in detail the harrowing moment he feared being stoned to death.
And in an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com Davis also discusses the emotional toll his incarceration took revealing that, at his lowest point, he believed his country had abandoned him, leaving him to rot in a Pakistani hell-hole jail for the rest of his days.
Davis said: ‘I shot two men in self-defense, was almost dragged out of a car and beaten by an angry crowd, I was thrown in prison for 49 days and accused of being a CIA spy – it was as close to hell as I ever want to get.
‘I had lost my liberty and there were times I thought I’d never see my son again.’
I shot two men in self-defense, was almost dragged out of a car and beaten by an angry crowd, I was thrown in prison for 49 days and accused of being a CIA spy – it was as close to hell as I ever want to get
Davis was eventually released from prison in March, 2011 in a controversial $2.4million blood-money deal – known as Diya under Islamic law – and he believes that if it weren’t for the US Government’s secret plan to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan just months later he may not have made it home.
That Tuesday in January was like any other for Davis.
The former special forces soldier, who was working as a security contractor for the US Consulate in Lahore, woke up, ate hard boiled eggs and drank orange juice before heading out of the secure consulate compound on to the streets of Pakistan’s second most populous city.
The sun was out and the streets of Lahore – a city of some six million people – were as bustling as usual.
Davis, whose call sign was Jinx, wanted to recce a route for a journey he needed to take someone on – a routine security job.
But before he set off he made a decision he now lives to regret.
‘It was a normal, quiet day so I asked for a vehicle,’ he recalls. ‘But all of the hard cars, the armored vehicles that we had, were already taken so ‘I chose to take a soft skin car, just a normal car we drive every day.’
He says it wasn’t a decision he took lightly but Davis had no choice but to drive the white Honda Civic made available to him that morning.
‘I remember I was driving and there was nothing out of the ordinary,’ says Davis. ‘Heading up the road there was a song that came on the radio, it was Katy Perry’s ‘I Kissed a Girl’.
‘It was very funny because she gets to the part where she says, ‘I Kissed a Girl’, but a man’s voice cuts in and says ‘person’ instead of girl. I always got a chuckle out of that every time I heard it.
‘The traffic was bumper to bumper, all the lanes were full, motorcycles, tuk-tuks, everyone is riding in between lanes and racing as they take off from a red light, it is a sight to see.’
But things quickly turned sour for Davis, who says he was always on ‘yellow alert’ while in Pakistan.
‘I’m approaching an intersection in traffic,’ he recalls.
‘I’m sitting there, checking my mirrors, making sure everything is alright, when in front of me I saw a gun come out and begin to rack.’
As Davis waited in traffic at the junction known as Mozang Chowk, two men on a motorbike pulled up in front of him.
The pillion passenger removed a pistol from under his shirt and ‘racked’ the weapon – the action taken to put the first round in the chamber.
Davis says what happened next went down in the blink of an eye.
His Special Forces marksman training kicked in and he removed his own gun from his holster, a brand new semi-automatic 9mm Glock 17 pistol, and opened fire on the two men.
‘It happens very, very quickly,’ he explains. ‘The moment you see threat, the adrenaline dump hits, everything happens in microseconds and you go from there, there’s no time to second guess and make decisions. It’s a ground view perspective.’
Davis fired ten shots in rapid succession hitting the men in the head, chest and legs with expert precision – they both died.
Davis, who has cropped gray hair, says he has no regrets.
He said his training and experience led him to believe that the men posed a threat to his life and he acted in self-defense.
‘In war zones everyone has a gun, but (in this instance) the gun goes from a concealed position to an open position, this happens in microseconds.
‘The next actions you see is, he charges the gun, that tells me he knows how to use it and there’s an intent there, why would you rack a gun on someone if you are not going to use it?
‘The gun is racked and it starts to be aimed. You could say he didn’t have ammunition, he was just trying to scare you, but in that moment you don’t have the luxury to second guess, you have to make a choice, make a decision.’
Davis says there were multiple threats in Pakistan during that time from various terror groups keen to kill westerners, especially US Government targets.
‘Western male, usually has tattoos, well-built, generally wears sunglasses or a ball cap. They automatically assume you are contractor and if they can kill or capture you, there’s a bounty for that,’ he says.
‘Do I feel I acted appropriately given the situation? Absolutely.
‘I don’t regret pulling my gun and defending myself. At the end of the day I had a two-and-a-half year old son at the time, I’m going to work, then I’m coming home to see him.’
In the moments after the shooting the situation escalated rapidly.
Davis got out of his car to check for any further threats before putting his gun away.
But crowds of people began to gather around him – and the air thickened with tension.
HOW BLOOD-MONEY WORKS
Raymond Davis was eventually released from prison in March 2011 in a controversial $2.4million blood-money deal – known as Diya under Islamic law.
The law requires the assailant to compensate the family of victims in cases of murder or property damage
The fines completely protect the offender, and his family, from the vengeance of the injured family.
The Islamic term for the money is a Qisa
The payment goes hand in hand with the idea of ‘blood feuds’ and honor killings, where aggrieved families descend into a spiral of revenge attacks in order to uphold family honor
It was initially believed the money had come from the U.S., but thenSecretary of State Hillary Clinton said America had not paid the grieving families
Instead, the U.S. agreed to reimburse Pakistan after Pakistani officials urged the victims’ families to accept cash and drop the case
Davis got back in his car but in doing so the vehicle accidentally rolled forward because he hadn’t pulled the parking brake.
He said: ‘That’s when they thought I was leaving and they started beating on the car and trying to pull me out,’ Davis recalls. ‘Up until that point there was no mob, but after the car rolled they busted out the window and started pulling me out. I decided I had to leave.’
Davis began moving off through the traffic but he kept getting held up – and the mob followed.
‘There was about 200-300 people there and a motorcyclist came up to my car and started yelling, this whipped the crowd up into a frenzy, it became very intense, very quickly.’
Members of the crowd started reaching into the car trying to open the doors and pull Davis out – he frantically fought them off, kicking and punching every arm that reached in.
It wasn’t until a local police officer and two Punjabi Rangers arrived and got into Davis’ car.
They took over and managed to guide him away from the crowd.
‘At that point I thought we’re going to spend some time at the police station, we’ll call the Regional Security Officer and then I’ll be able to leave,’ he said.
‘But it drastically changed because they didn’t call the consulate or get the RSO there. It was just a barrage of questions and very chaotic.’
Rather than let Davis make contact with consulate officials the police decided to move him to the Lahore military police training college in a bid to keep him out of U.S. control.
It was the beginning of a dark period for Davis – 49 days of confinement that would test his character and resolve.
Once at the training college Davis was confined in a bunk room and questioned some more by police before being taken to court the next morning, where he had no lawyer or representation.
Pakistani authorities wanted to charge Davis with murder, but the Obama administration insisted he was an ‘administrative and technical official’ attached to its Lahore consulate and had diplomatic immunity.
What followed was a complex battle of wills between the Pakistan and US governments during which Davis became a high value political pawn.
Pakistani prosecutors accused Davis of excessive force, saying he fired 10 shots and jumped out of his car to shoot one man twice in the back as he fled. The man’s body was found 30 feet from his motorbike, it was claimed.
The two men Davis killed were later identified as Faizan Haider, 22 and Faheem Shamshad (also known as Muhammad Faheem), aged 26. Both men had been arrested more than 50 times in connection with street robberies.
To add to the mess a third entirely innocent man, motorcycle rider Ibad-ur-Rehman, was crushed by an American Toyota Land Cruiser as it rushed to Davis’s aid.
The two men in it were contractor colleagues Davis had summoned to help him.
After the accident, the vehicle fled the scene and headed without stopping to the US Consulate, jettisoning items outside Faletti’s Hotel in the city.
Police say they included four ammunition magazines containing 100 bullets, various battery cells, a baton, scissors, a pair of gloves, a compass with knife, a black colored mask/blindfold, and a piece of cloth bearing the American flag.
Pakistani officials believed the men were CIA and the U.S. refused their demands to interrogate them, saying they had already left the country.
It also later transpired that the grieving widow of one of the men Davis shot had taken her own life.
With four deaths linked to the incident, the pressure on both countries mounted.
Davis became subject to widespread speculation in Pakistani media, with reports that he was a CIA spy on a mission, that he was somehow involved with America’s controversial drone program or that he was an assassin and the two men were his intended targets.
Such was the suspicion surrounding Davis’ role in Pakistan that he was interrogated several times by agents of Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s equivalent of the CIA.
Davis’ background and training helped him get through the interrogations but his history also led many to come up with wild conclusions.
Born in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, Davis spent ten years in the US Army, first as an infantryman before joining the special forces for the last six.
But after sustaining an injury to his right lung during special forces training that got worse as the years past, he was discharged from the Army in 2003 before joining the private sector.
‘I wanted to do more for the war on terror so I joined up as a contractor, a group of guys with a special skill set that’s needed in war zones,’ he explains.
Davis worked as a private contractor providing operational security in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
His work took him to Lahore in 2011 where he provided protection for CIA operatives and political figures.
But now he was a prisoner – held at a military police training college and watched by four guards wielding AK47 machine guns.
His future looked bleak.
‘You don’t allow your mind to think about how long it will be before you get out, you live day to day, moment to moment,’ says Davis.
‘You always hope every time for that couple of hours that the embassy personnel shows up that they’re going to put you in the car and take you with them.
Inspiration: The first episode of Homeland’s fourth season was partly inspired by what happened to Davis, with a CIA operative dragged from a car by a baying mob +13
Inspiration: The first episode of Homeland’s fourth season was partly inspired by what happened to Davis, with a CIA operative dragged from a car by a baying mob
‘There’s always hope but you can never be disappointed when they leave without you.’
Davis had pinned his hopes that the staff at the US Consulate, who were working tirelessly to get him out, would have him released in a matter of days.
But after two weeks and another court hearing he was placed on physical remand and thrown into Lahore’s tough Kot Lakhpat jail.
The notorious jail is rammed with more than four times its 4,000-prisoner capacity and it has a reputation for its brutal regime, murders and beatings, especially mistreatment of Indian prisoners held there.
Davis says because he was a high profile prisoner the Pakistani authorities gave him a whole wing of the prison to himself.
But while he says he wasn’t physically harmed during his incarceration, he was ‘tortured’ – by the definition of the term – in several other ways.
Sleep deprivation was the worst, with guards keeping the lights on 24/7 and the Islamic call to prayer pumping out through a loud speaker all day long.
Davis says the cell was basic and he was fed chicken curry every day, twice a day, which in itself he found tortuous.
There was no hot water or heating, leaving him freezing on the cold winter nights.
The guards also played mind games with Davis, depriving him of items he had been given just to exert their power and mess with his head.
‘All of these things you could say was torture, but I was never beaten,’ says Davis.
‘I think because of my having a diplomatic passport I think if they did put their hands on me it wouldn’t look good for either government.
‘But if that’s what hell looks like I’m not going back.’
The experience began to weigh on Davis’ mental health.
He said: ‘Initially my mindset was this is easier than I thought, but when they put you in a jail cell, the closing of the door echoes. You’ve lost your liberty, you can’t leave.’
Davis said he even began talking with small animals that would wonder into his cell.
‘Two birds would come in, I called them my snowbirds and they would visit and fly around the room. I called them Margaret and George.
‘I also had a lizard, Larry the lizard, who would show up and we’d chat a little bit.
‘I wouldn’t say I was going insane but with no one else there it was my way of coping.’
Towards the end the strain began to show.
Sick of the power struggle with the guards who would constantly toy with Davis, he went on a three-day hunger strike.
He explained: ‘The game was that they wanted to show me that they controlled everything about me, ‘You are owned by us’.
‘I went on hunger strike, I wanted to show them that I didn’t need anything from them, that they couldn’t control me.’
Consulate staff eventually persuaded Davis to eat again.
‘Emotionally there was ups and downs that are hard to describe,’ he says.
‘You think through all of your training if this happens I’m going to do this and I’ll make it, but it gets very cloudy in your mind if you’re going to come through all that unscathed, it’s very difficult the amount of stress that is put on you.’
Asked whether he missed his son while in jail, Davis’ tough exterior begins to crack and his eyes well up.
The thought of not seeing his wife Rebecca and son Braeden for years burdened him.
‘The hardest thing to hear was that I was going to be charged with murder,’ he said.
‘Now I’m charged with a crime all of a sudden they start saying he’s not leaving, he’s here, we’ve already convicted him and now I’m here for five, 10, 15, 20 years and I’ll never see my son grow up. That was the hardest thing to hear.
‘There’s a point in time that you’re sat there in the jail cell and the walls are closing in and you’re thinking, ‘I’m never going to get out of here, my country has turned its back on me and I’m never going to see my son again’.
‘My dad died when I was young I was 14. It starts to pull at you and it has you really hard.’
Unknown to Davis lawyers, working behind the scenes for the US Government had come up with a contingency plan to get him out.
They pushed the court to try his case under Islamic sharia law – Pakistan’s criminal law is similar to that of the United States but regular courts can pass their cases to sharia ones – and Davis was to plead guilty to the double murder.
‘My initial thought was, ‘Oh no, sharia law, I’m going to get stoned, killed, beheaded, they already have a court outside – a tree waiting,’ recalls Davis.
‘All of these things were running through my head until it was all explained.’
The plan was to pay the families of the victims blood-money – known as Diyya under Islamic law.
This didn’t sit well with Davis though.
‘My attorney ran up to me and said, ‘They’re going to accept blood money – we’re going to get you out of here today’.
‘And he leaves – I was shocked. I thought, ‘What does that mean, I don’t understand.’
‘There was a bit of anger because I did nothing wrong, all I did was defend myself but we’re going to pay money to these people – we shouldn’t have to, I did nothing wrong.
‘But Carmela Conroy (US Consul General) turned to me and said, ‘There is no other way, the solution is bigger than anyone in this room, it’s at the presidential level.’
‘It needed to be taken care of so everyone saves face so that a diplomat was not charged with a crime that he shouldn’t have been.’
A sum of $2.4million was paid and distributed to the families of the dead, although the US Government later denied it had paid anything.
It later emerged that the Pakistanis had covered the cost only to retrieve the money later.
After 49 days Davis was released.
‘When they finally told me I was going home, I broke down in tears, I was so relieved this ordeal was soon going to be over,’ he says.
‘The tears were also out of gratitude for all the hard work that everyone did to get me out and it was also because I knew I was going home to see my son and my family.’
Davis believes his release was in part because the US Government had their sights on killing Al-Qaeda boss Osama Bin Laden and didn’t want his situation to in any way disrupt the secret mission they had planned.
Bin Laden was killed two months after Davis’ release in a raid by SEAL Team Six in a CIA-led operation on the 9/11 mastermind’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
‘There was too much at stake,’ says Davis.
‘I also believe the US Government didn’t want to lose face, simple as that.’
When the dust settled Davis learned a lot of the hard work that had gone into getting him released.
But he was also told the higher-echelons of the State Department, run by Hillary Clinton at the time, had actually discussed disavowing him.
He said: ‘I heard that – and it was a hard pill to swallow. I was like ‘Did I just dodge a big bullet?’
‘It was mentioned by high-level people at the State Department, ‘Why don’t we just disavow him and say he’s not ours?’ I think Leon Panetta (the then Secretary of Defense) had the hardest time with that. He was like, ‘He’s got a passport, he wasn’t over there doing nefarious things, we’re not going to disavow anybody, it doesn’t matter who he works for, if he worked for us we protect him.’
‘I thought it was very admirable to have someone who has no vested interest in you to take that stance. That was very comforting to know we had leadership that would do that. It reassured me a great deal.’
He added: ‘There are many things that happened behind the scenes that I have no idea about and probably never will.’
Davis thanks the many people involved in his release, and reserves special praise for former Consul General Carmella Conroy, who he describes as an ‘incredible person and diplomat.’
Davis said his return to America was an emotional time.
‘He didn’t know what was happening he was two-and-a-half years old. It was a good hug when I finally got to hold him in my arms, it was different than anything else I have to admit. It was pretty incredible.’
These days Davis lives a quiet life in Colorado Springs where he works as a firearms instructor, contracting for the US government.
He has separated from his wife Rebecca but they have joint custody of their son Braeden.
Davis has recounted his experience in his book The Contractor, but even that was hard fought.
The co-author of the book Storms Reback and Davis accuse the CIA of political bias by trying to stall it publication in case it damaged Hillary Clinton’s chances of reaching the White House in the November, 2016 election.
The CIA held the book manuscript for several months before demanding a swathe of redactions – even on information that is publicly available – pushing the publication of the book from September 2016 to March 2017 and then to June.
They also accuse the State Department – under Clinton’s rule – of withholding two key interviews carried out for the book, which almost prevented the memoir from being written at all.
The Contractor: How I Landed in a Pakistani Prison and Ignited a Diplomatic Crisis is available on Amazon.com.
By RYAN PARRY, WEST COAST CORRESPONDENT, IN COLORADO, FOR DAILYMAIL.COM and EMMA FOSTER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 18:12 BST, 30 June 2017 | UPDATED: 20:22 BST, 30 June 2017
Find this story at 30 June 2017
© Associated Newspapers Ltd
Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl
When wayward contract employees at the CIA began pilfering snacks from vending machines back in 2013, the Office of the Inspector General sprang into action. Surveillance cameras went up, the culprits were nabbed, and all lost their jobs.
From start to finish, the case of the $3,314.40 in stolen snacks lasted two months.
When more serious allegations of wrongdoing arise at the CIA, though, inspectors may be far less speedy, especially when their findings could embarrass the Langley, Va., spy agency.
In one notable case, that of John Reidy, a contractor whose resume shows that he worked with spies deep inside Iran’s mullah-run regime, charges of wrongdoing have sat idle in the hands of CIA inspectors. Details of Reidy’s charges remain highly classified. The case is now seven years old, and seems only to gather dust.
Reidy, 46, anguishes over his charges, angry at the years-long delay in resolving his complaints but also wary of crossing a line and revealing anything classified beyond his allegations of a “catastrophic intelligence failure” overseas.
“I cannot talk about the 2007 incident. It is classified. I risk incarceration. I have a family,” Reidy wrote in an email before meeting with a reporter.
But in addition to his whistleblower case, Reidy presses a larger issue, one that is pertinent to the era of President Donald Trump and his persistent charges that sensitive leaks cripple his six-month-old administration. Leaks may grow worse if intelligence agencies don’t learn how to channel dissent and protect those who offer it in a constructive spirit.
I PLAYED BY THE RULES. THEY ARE BROKEN.
John Reidy, a CIA contractor and whistleblower
“I played by the rules,” Reidy said. “They are broken. … The public has to realize that whistleblowers [like me] can follow all the rules and nothing gets done.” In frustration, Reidy last month sent a 90-page letter and documentation about his case to the chairman of the Senate’s powerful Judiciary Committee, lambasting its lack of resolution.
“They have enough time to look into who is stealing candy from a vending machine but they can’t look into billion-dollar contract fraud?” Reidy asked in an interview.
The CIA refused to comment on Reidy’s case.
“As a general matter, we do not comment on ongoing litigation,” said spokesperson Heather Fritz Horniak.
CIA Director says WikiLeaks is a ‘hostile intelligence service’
In his first public remarks since becoming CIA director, Mike Pompeo called WikiLeaks a ”non-state hostile intelligence service.”
AP
Even if CIA officials have a far different version of events, perhaps contradicting some of Reidy’s allegations, the secrecy with which the agency operates impedes them from speaking out. CIA Director Mike Pompeo said in a speech Tuesday night that his agency finds it difficult to “push back” against misleading or wrong news reports.
“At CIA we’re often limited in what we can say, given the need to protect classified information. In many cases we can’t set the record straight because doing so could harm national security,” Pompeo told a gathering of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, a nonpartisan group in support of the intelligence community.
It took a lawsuit to release the information about the theft from CIA vending machines. The agency released a declassified report about the case as part of hundreds of documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed in 2015 by BuzzFeed News.
Pilfering from the vending machines began in 2012, and by March 2013, inspectors began looking into the thefts, discovering that the culprits were unplugging a cable linking the machines to a payment system, FreedomPay, letting them obtain snacks at no charge.
“Video footage recovered from the surveillance cameras captured numerous perpetrators engaged in the FreedomPay theft scheme, all of whom were readily identifiable as Agency contract personnel,” the inspectors’ report says.
The vending machine thievery wrapped up neatly. But Reidy still waits for resolution of the seemingly far more significant issues he has raised.
Reidy is more straight arrow than troublemaker. A native of Worcester, Massachusetts, he was educated in Catholic schools, then attended St. Anselm College in New Hampshire and obtained a law degree from the University of San Francisco. Law degree in hand, he dreamed of joining the FBI.
After a stint in the Army, where he worked in a criminal investigations division, Reidy applied for jobs at both the FBI and the CIA. The CIA called more quickly, and Reidy joined in 2003, leaving six months later for a private contractor that dealt in security policy.
Reidy formed his own company in 2006, Form III Defense Solutions, and worked as a subcontractor, piggybacking on contracts won by bigger companies for intelligence collection, tactical targeting guidance and other matters, usually with the CIA.
A resume he gave to McClatchy shows that from 2006 to 2009, Reidy developed an “Iran Study Guide” and worked on “humint” — or human intelligence. Reidy said intelligence community secrecy rules bar him from naming the country where he handled a “complex agency operation,” but he does say he studied some Farsi language. He hasn’t done any classified work since 2012.
Two different issues led Reidy in 2010 to submit a complaint to the CIA’s internal watchdog, the Inspector General’s Office. One issue involved what Reidy alleged was fraud between elements within the CIA and contractors. Another issue involved what he called a “massive” and “catastrophic” intelligence failure due to a bungled foreign operation, according to his 2014 appeal to an office under the director of national intelligence.
Reidy said he sent the Inspector General’s Office 80 emails and 56 documents to back up his complaints.
Legal protections for whistleblowers in the intelligence community grew stronger in 2012, when then-President Barack Obama signed a presidential directive protecting people from various forms of retaliation, including demotions, termination or reassignment. Reidy took heart at the move.
HE WAS THE POSTER CHILD OF THE PERSON THE SYSTEM IS SUPPOSED TO WORK FOR.
Kel McClanahan, former attorney for whistleblower John Reidy
“He was the poster child of the person the system is supposed to work for,” said Kel McClanahan, a Maryland attorney who represented Reidy until 2016.
Despite the Obama directive, experts working in the national security arena say employees still confront obstacles. Employees’ lawyers have no access to classified documents around which a case may rest. Classified matters cannot even be discussed between client and attorney. The CIA sees its Inspector General’s Office as impartial and makes it difficult for employees who hire attorneys, although Reidy did so for years.
Often, CIA employees or contractors find their careers put on hold.
“You will likely find yourself a pariah because nobody likes someone who rocks the boat,” said Bradley P. Moss, a Washington lawyer who handles some national security cases involving whistleblowers.
Employees disgruntled over fraud, abuse or other matters cannot easily look to obtain redress from outside the intelligence community.
IF YOU’RE AN EMPLOYEE WHO SEES SOMETHING EGREGIOUS, THEY DON’T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING WITH IT.
Kathleen McClellan of Expose Facts, a whistleblower advocacy group
“There’s no outside review of whistleblower cases in the intelligence community,” said Kathleen McClellan, deputy director at Expose Facts, a whistleblower advocacy group. “If you’re an employee who sees something egregious, they don’t have to do anything with it. They can flush it down the toilet for all you know.”
As Reidy found out, an internal investigation can drag on without time limit.
“They can go on for years. They can go on for decades,” said Jesselyn Radack, a former Justice Department ethics attorney who also works at Expose Facts.
Reidy has also told his story to staffers with security clearances for the House and Senate intelligence committees, and seen his case bounce between the CIA inspector general and the inspector general for the Directorate of National Intelligence.
Desperate for an outcome, Reidy increasingly warns that the failure of whistleblowing channels may lead disgruntled employees and contractors to go public with secrets, posing a danger to national security.
The CIA and the National Security Agency have been hit with numerous cases of leaks since the ground-shaking case of Edward Snowden, the NSA contractor who in 2013 leaked to the media details of extensive surveillance, including of tens of millions of Americans.
This year, another NSA contractor, Harold T. Martin, was indicted for amassing secret stolen documents and data at his Maryland home over a 20-year period. He awaits trial.
Prosecutors in early June charged another NSA contractor, 25-year-old Reality Winner, with sending a classified report about Russia’s meddling in the 2016 elections to The Intercept, a national security news outlet. She could face 10 years in prison.
For its part, WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy group, began publishing in March a series of cyber-espionage documents that it claimed were taken from the CIA’s elite hacking unit. Speculation rose that a CIA contractor stole the documents and leaked them.
Seeking to spur action in his case, Reidy last month fired off letters to the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, warning that working through the CIA Inspector General’s Office has been a dead end.
THEY JUST DELAY, DELAY, AND DELAY AND HOPE THE PROBLEM GOES AWAY.
John Reidy, a CIA contractor and whistleblower
“They just delay, delay, and delay and hope the problem goes away,” Reidy said in a June 5 letter to Sen. Charles Grassley, the Judiciary panel’s chairman.
Reidy said his own example bodes poorly for those who want to report fraud or abuse.
“If you are contemplating whistleblowing … you’re going to sit there and say, ‘If I go through that system, it will not end well for me. I’m going to lose my career and I’m going to be financially devastated,’” Reidy said.
BY TIM JOHNSON
tjohnson@mcclatchydc.com
JULY 13, 2017 12:06 PM
Find this story at 13 July 2017
Copyright http://www.sacbee.com/
Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl
The CIA found itself in some rough waters in the Middle East last week. On Thursday, an influential member of Iran’s parliament announced that the Islamic republic had arrested 12 “CIA agents” who had allegedly been targeting Iran’s military and its nuclear program. The lawmaker didn’t give the nationality of the agents, but the presumption is that they were Iranians recruited to spy for the CIA. The agency hasn’t yet commented, but from what I’ve heard it was a serious compromise, one which the CIA is still trying to get to the bottom of.
Even more curious was the flap in Lebanon. In June, Hizballah’s secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah announced that the movement had arrested two of its own members as CIA spies. But it wasn’t until last week that the story got traction in Washington. The CIA confirmed that operations in Beirut had been compromised but declined to offer details. As in the case of the alleged Iranian debacle, it’s no doubt still doing a “damage assessment” — a process that can take years. Even then, it will be difficult to determine exactly what happened.
From what I’ve been able to piece together, Hizballah aggressively went after the CIA in Lebanon using telephone “link analysis.” That’s a form of electronic intelligence gathering that uses software capable of combing through trillions of gigabytes of phone-call data in search of anomalies — prepaid cell phones calling each other, series of brief calls, analysis of a cell-phone company’s GPS tracking. Geeks who do this for a living understand how it works, and I’ll take their word for it.
But it’s not the technology that’s remarkable, as much as the idea that it’s being employed by Hizballah, a militant Islamic organization better known for acts of terror than for electronic counterespionage. That’s another reminder that Hizballah has effectively supplanted the Lebanese state, taking over police and security functions that in other countries are the exclusively the domain of sovereign authority. Indeed, since Nasrallah’s announcement of catching the CIA agents, no Lebanese authority has questioned why Hizballah, rather than Lebanese intelligence, would be responsible for catching alleged spies for foreign powers in Lebanon. Nobody bothers to ask what would be a pointless question; everyone knows that when it comes to military and security functions, Hizballah might as well be the state.
(Watch a video of Hizballah’s theme park.)
Since I served in Beirut during the ’80s, I’ve been struck by the slow but inexorable shift of sovereign power to Hizballah. Not only does the movement have the largest military, with nearly 50,000 rockets pointed at Israel; it has de facto control over Lebanon’s spies, both military and civilian. It green-lights senior appointments. Hizballah also is wired into all the databases, keeping track of who enters the country, who leaves, where they stay, whom they see and call. It’s capable of monitoring every server in the country. It can even tap into broadband communications like Skype. And, of course, it doesn’t bother with such legal niceties as warrants. If foreigners are going to be caught spy in Lebanon, it will be Hizballah that catches them.
I have a feeling last week’s events bodes ill for U.S. intelligence because it suggests that anyone capable from organized crime to terrorist groups can greatly enhance their counterintelligence capability by simply buying off-the-shelf equipment and the know-how to use it. Like a lot of people, I thought it would be easy coasting at the end of the Cold War after the KGB was defanged. Instead, globalization and the rapid spread of sophisticated technologies have opened an espionage Pandora’s box.
By Robert Baer Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011
Find this story at 30 November 2011
© 2016 Time Inc.