vault backup: 2026-10-09 23:15:23

20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Scientology.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 ---
 created: 2025-07-22
-updated: 2026-10-05
+updated: 2026-10-09
 title: Scientology
 tags:
   - Organization
@@ -94,7 +94,7 @@ relations:
 
 ### Practices, structure and vessels
 
-The Associated Press described "auditing" as a process "in which a device that the church claims can read mental states is used in a process of purging negative thoughts."[^6] The [[Board of Inquiry into Scientology|Anderson Board]] and the [[Foster Enquiry|Foster enquiry]] each examined the Hubbard Association of Scientologists International, Hubbard's position as governing director, and the fees charged for processing.[^7][^4] The Foster report describes a "[[Sea Organization|Sea Org]]" cruising under the Panamanian flag, and a 1978 [[Los Angeles Times]] article in the CIA's clipping file calls the [[Apollo (Scientology ship)|Apollo]], a 3,280-ton vessel, the Church's flagship and "for nearly a decade the personal yacht" of Hubbard; it reports a June 25, 1971 death aboard the ship and [[United States Department of State|State Department]] correspondence about the inquiry of the woman's father at the Moroccan port of Safi.[^4][^8] The [[Los Angeles Superior Court]] wrote in 1984 that Hubbard "runs the Church in all ways through the Sea Organization, his role of Commodore, and the Commodore's Messengers."[^9] The [[Religious Technology Center]], whose director [[Mark Rathbun]] commented on the 1993 settlement, and a [[Flag Operations Liaison Office]], Eastern United States, described in its own letterhead as "a branch of the [[Church of Scientology of New York]]," appear as Church bodies in the AP report and in a 1974 letter to the Navy's records center.[^6][^10]
+The Associated Press described "auditing" as a process "in which a device that the church claims can read mental states is used in a process of purging negative thoughts."[^6] The [[Board of Inquiry into Scientology|Anderson Board]] and the [[Foster Enquiry|Foster enquiry]] each examined the Hubbard Association of Scientologists International, Hubbard's position as governing director, and the fees charged for processing.[^4][^7] The Foster report describes a "[[Sea Organization|Sea Org]]" cruising under the Panamanian flag, and a 1978 [[Los Angeles Times]] article in the CIA's clipping file calls the [[Apollo (Scientology ship)|Apollo]], a 3,280-ton vessel, the Church's flagship and "for nearly a decade the personal yacht" of Hubbard; it reports a June 25, 1971 death aboard the ship and [[United States Department of State|State Department]] correspondence about the inquiry of the woman's father at the Moroccan port of Safi.[^4][^8] The [[Los Angeles Superior Court]] wrote in 1984 that Hubbard "runs the Church in all ways through the Sea Organization, his role of Commodore, and the Commodore's Messengers."[^9] The [[Religious Technology Center]], whose director [[Mark Rathbun]] commented on the 1993 settlement, and a [[Flag Operations Liaison Office]], Eastern United States, described in its own letterhead as "a branch of the [[Church of Scientology of New York]]," appear as Church bodies in the AP report and in a 1974 letter to the Navy's records center.[^6][^10]
 
 ### Guardian's Office
 
@@ -122,7 +122,7 @@ Several people at [[Stanford Research Institute]] in the early remote viewing wo
 
 John L. Wilhelm wrote in the Washington Post in 1977, under the heading "The Scientology Link," that "one item that continues to trouble those in government who follow the SRI work is the unusually large number of Scientologists involved with the psychic tests there"; that Puthoff "is a high-ranking Scientologist and has written defenses of his organization's methods and beliefs"; that [[Pat Price]], who "died two years ago, also was a high-level 'Operating Thetan'"; that the laboratory assistant to Puthoff and [[Russell Targ]] during many of the [[Uri Geller]] experiments "was a Scientologist married to a 'minister' of Scientology"; that some of the initial funding came from a ranking Scientologist; that Swann "helped to establish Scientology's 'Celebrity Center' in Los Angeles, the headquarters recently raided by the FBI"; and that Swann at his original testing "revealed that there are 'fourteen Clears [a medium-high level of Scientology achievement], more than I would suspect,' working at SRI."[^18] Wilhelm wrote that the involvement of Scientologists "partially accounts for at least two government agencies pulling back from funding further work there."[^18]
 
-On November 16, 1977 officers of the CIA's [[Office of Technical Service]] briefed staff of the [[House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence]] on OTS involvement in ESP research, after a Washington Post Parade article of August 7, 1977 titled "Psychic Spying," and left a written outline, an [[IEEE]] article on the SRI work and "a brief article on Mr. Pat Price." The article on Price describes him as the new president of a [[West Virginia]] coal company and quotes him: "He credits Scientology for 'opening new vistas and abilities of self to me and which I now use as a matter of fact.'"[^18] An SRI session transcript of October 4, 1973 has Price tracking Targ, [[Hugh Crane]] and Ann Price and Puthoff through [[Menlo Park]] and saying: "Just took a look at the Scientology Center. They're not there."[^19]
+On November 16, 1977 officers of the CIA's [[Office of Technical Service]] briefed staff of the [[House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence]] on OTS involvement in ESP research, after the Washington Post article "Psychic Spying?" by John L. Wilhelm of August 7, 1977 (Outlook section), and left a written outline, an [[IEEE]] article on the SRI work and "a brief article on Mr. Pat Price." The article on Price describes him as the new president of a [[West Virginia]] coal company and quotes him: "He credits Scientology for 'opening new vistas and abilities of self to me and which I now use as a matter of fact.'"[^18] An SRI session transcript of October 4, 1973 has Price tracking Targ, [[Hugh Crane]] and Ann Price and Puthoff through [[Menlo Park]] and saying: "Just took a look at the Scientology Center. They're not there."[^19]
 
 [[Jon Atack]] wrote that Puthoff posted a reply saying his involvement with Scientology was trivial, and that he answered by stating Puthoff was OT III; [[Tony Ortega]]'s introduction to Atack's comments adds an editorial note, citing [[Hugh Urban]]'s history of Scientology, that Puthoff "was OT VII by 1971, the highest level then attainable." Ortega also published a paper by Swann, "Scientological Techniques: A Model Paradigm for the Exploration of Consciousness and Psychic Integration," which he said Swann gave in 1973 at the First Conference on Psychotronic Research in [[Czechoslovakia]].[^20] [[Jim Schnabel]]'s Remote Viewers (1997) writes that Puthoff and Swann had both joined Scientology in the 1960s; that Puthoff resigned his membership in the mid-1970s and afterward supported a group of anti-Scientologists, and that Swann later resigned as well; that Price "up to his death, had been deeply involved in Scientology" and had been known to Puthoff through a Scientology course in Los Angeles; that one of Puthoff's laboratory assistants was a Scientologist; that the astronaut [[Edgar Mitchell]], whose private foundation had funded some of SRI's work with Uri Geller, "had briefly taken an interest in Scientology"; and that a senior official of Price's West Virginia coal company "had heard about Price on the Scientology grapevine." Schnabel dates the conversion of Hubbard's Dianetics organization into the Church of Scientology to 1953.[^21]
 

20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/The Enterprise (Iran-Contra).md

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ aliases:
   - The Enterprise
   - Enterprise (Iran-Contra)
 created: 2026-05-17
-updated: 2026-05-17
+updated: 2026-10-09
 category: "Private Organization"
 tags:
   - Organization
@@ -29,9 +29,9 @@ Stanford Technology Trading Group International (STTGI), a Secord-Hakim joint ve
 
 Lake Resources S.A., a Swiss shell company established by Hakim, served as the Enterprise's primary financial account. Iranian payments for weapons were deposited into Lake Resources accounts; disbursements to Contra supply operations and to Secord's and Hakim's other activities were made from those same accounts. The Swiss account structure provided both secrecy and distance from American banking oversight.
 
-Additional entities included Udall Research Corporation (another Hakim vehicle) and Energy Resources International. [[Monzer al-Kassar]], a Syrian arms dealer, was paid approximately $1.2 million by Secord to facilitate the movement of weapons from [[Israel]] to Contra forces through Eastern European sources.[^1]
+Additional entities included Udall Research Corporation (another Hakim vehicle) and Energy Resources International. In July 1986 the Enterprise paid the Portuguese supplier Defex 2.6 million dollars and paid [[Monzer Al-Kassar]], a Syrian arms dealer, 500,000 dollars for contra weapons.[^2]
 
-North maintained a private communications channel with Secord using KL-43 encryption devices, through which operational details were coordinated outside normal NSC channels. North's notebooks, seized during the investigation, documented the Enterprise's activities and formed a critical part of Walsh's evidence.[^2]
+North maintained a private communications channel with Secord using KL-43 encryption devices, through which operational details were coordinated outside normal NSC channels. North's notebooks, seized during the investigation, documented the Enterprise's activities and formed a critical part of Walsh's evidence.[^3]
 
 ### Iran Side
 
@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ The arms-for-hostages dimension of the Enterprise began in August 1985, when Isr
 
 Subsequent transfers included 408 more TOW missiles in September 1985, a failed [[HAWK missile]] shipment in November 1985 that became an operational embarrassment requiring CIA aircraft for the logistics, and multiple TOW shipments in 1986. Approximately 2,000 TOW missiles and other weapons were transferred to Iran in total. The Enterprise generated the profits from the markup between its acquisition costs and the prices charged to Iran.[^1]
 
-In October 1986, Albert Hakim conducted unauthorized negotiations in Geneva with a representative of Iranian speaker [[Hashemi Rafsanjani]] (identified in documents as "the Relative") that produced a Nine-Point Plan expanding U.S. commitments to Iran far beyond what North, Poindexter, or Reagan had authorized. The Geneva negotiations, when discovered, alarmed NSC officials who felt Hakim had made policy commitments without authorization.[^2]
+In October 1986, Albert Hakim conducted unauthorized negotiations in Geneva with a representative of Iranian speaker [[Hashemi Rafsanjani]] (identified in documents as "the Relative") that produced a Nine-Point Plan expanding U.S. commitments to Iran far beyond what North, Poindexter, or Reagan had authorized. The Geneva negotiations, when discovered, alarmed NSC officials who felt Hakim had made policy commitments without authorization.[^3]
 
 ### Contra Side
 
@@ -47,11 +47,15 @@ Enterprise revenues from the Iran arms sales were to be diverted to Contra resup
 
 The Contra supply operation was conducted through [[Ilopango Airbase]] in [[El Salvador]], where CIA Hangar No. 4 was turned over to the Enterprise's operations in 1985. [[Felix Rodriguez]], a former CIA officer with connections to [[Donald Gregg]] (then serving as National Security Adviser to Vice President [[George H.W. Bush]]), coordinated aircraft and logistics at Ilopango.
 
-The Contra resupply network used multiple aircraft and crews. [[Eugene Hasenfus]], a cargo handler with prior [[Air America]] experience, was aboard a Fairchild C-123K transport when it was shot down by Sandinista forces over Nicaragua on October 5, 1986. Hasenfus survived, was captured, and provided the [[Nicaragua|Nicaraguan]] government with information about the network that broke the Contra supply operation into public view.[^3]
+The Contra resupply network used multiple aircraft and crews. [[Eugene Hasenfus]], a cargo handler with prior [[Air America]] experience, was aboard a Fairchild C-123K transport when it was shot down by Sandinista forces over Nicaragua on October 5, 1986. Hasenfus survived, was captured, and provided the [[Nicaragua|Nicaraguan]] government with information about the network that broke the Contra supply operation into public view.[^4]
 
 ### Finances and the Diversion
 
-Walsh's investigation documented that the Enterprise generated approximately $48 million in revenues from the Iran weapons sales. Of this amount, only approximately $3.8 million was delivered to Contra supply operations. The remainder was retained in Enterprise accounts, disbursed to Secord and Hakim, used for operational expenses, and in part used to pay Oliver North a salary supplement - the basis for one of the criminal charges against Hakim.
+The congressional committees reported that the Enterprise received nearly $48 million from the sale of arms to the Contras and Iran and in contributions directed to it by North, and that of the $16.1 million profit from the sales of arms to Iran only about $3.8 million went to support the Contras (the amount representing "the diversion"). A total of $16.5 million was used to support the Contras or to purchase arms sold to the Contras, $15.2 million was spent on Iran, and Hakim, Secord and their associate [[Tom Clines|Thomas Clines]] took $6.6 million in commissions and other profit distributions.[^5] The Enterprise's funds were also used for operational expenses and in part to pay Oliver North a salary supplement, the basis for one of the criminal charges against Hakim.
+
+Walsh found that more than 47.6 million dollars flowed from the Iran and contra operations into the Enterprise's Swiss accounts: Lake Resources Inc. (31.5 million), Energy Resources International (11.3 million) and Hyde Park Square Corporation (4.8 million); 12.2 million dollars was returned to a CIA Swiss account for the weapons sold to Iran, and 17.6 million dollars was disbursed for contra weapons and contra-related expenses. When the Swiss government froze the accounts in late November 1986, 16 of 21 accounts held 7.8 million dollars.[^2]
+
+In spring 1986 Secord asked the resupply manager [[Robert Dutton]] to describe the Enterprise's assets for sale to the CIA; Dutton valued them at 4.089 million dollars and proposed sale or a lease at 311,500 dollars a month. According to Dutton, a later reorganization under the name "B.C. Washington" was meant to disguise the roles of Secord and North after the Avirgan and Honey lawsuit named Secord.[^2][^6]
 
 The large gap between revenues and Contra deliveries was a finding of significant consequence: it indicated that the Enterprise was operating substantially as a profit-making private venture rather than purely as a mechanism for funding the Contras, as its participants had represented to congressional investigators.[^1]
 
@@ -59,10 +63,13 @@ The large gap between revenues and Contra deliveries was a finding of significan
 
 The Enterprise collapsed in the fall of 1986 from two nearly simultaneous exposures. The Hasenfus shootdown on October 5, 1986, exposed the Contra supply network. On November 3, 1986, a Lebanese magazine, Al-Shiraa, published an account of the U.S. arms sales to Iran, prompted by information from an Iranian official. Within weeks, the entire structure became the subject of the Tower Commission investigation, parallel congressional inquiries, and eventually the Independent Counsel investigation of [[Lawrence Walsh]].
 
-North shredded documents and altered computer records in November 1986 in an attempt to conceal the Enterprise's activities, an act that formed part of the obstruction charges against him. Poindexter approved North's diversion memo and then destroyed it. Walsh's investigation eventually produced 14 criminal cases and 11 convictions; the Bush Christmas Eve 1992 pardons of [[Caspar Weinberger]], [[Robert McFarlane]], [[Elliott Abrams]], [[Clair George]], [[Alan Fiers]], and [[Dewey Clarridge]] blocked the final phases of the prosecution.[^2]
+North shredded documents and altered computer records in November 1986 in an attempt to conceal the Enterprise's activities, an act that formed part of the obstruction charges against him. Poindexter approved North's diversion memo and then destroyed it. Walsh's investigation eventually produced 14 criminal cases and 11 convictions; the Bush Christmas Eve 1992 pardons of [[Caspar Weinberger]], [[Robert McFarlane]], [[Elliott Abrams]], [[Clair George]], [[Alan Fiers]], and [[Dewey Clarridge]] blocked the final phases of the prosecution.[^3]
 
 ### Footnotes
 
 [^1]: Walsh, Lawrence E. *Iran-Contra: The Final Report.* Random House, 1994. Tower Commission Report (President's Special Review Board). *The Tower Commission Report.* Bantam Books/Times Books, 1987.
-[^2]: Walsh, Lawrence E. *Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-Up.* W.W. Norton, 1997, pp. 3-45.
-[^3]: Kerry, Senator John. Testimony and Report, Senate Foreign Relations Committee. *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy.* U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989.
+[^2]: Lawrence E. Walsh, Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters, vol. I, pt. V, ch. 8, pp. 159-172, https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_08.htm.
+[^3]: Walsh, Lawrence E. *Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-Up.* W.W. Norton, 1997, pp. 3-45.
+[^4]: Kerry, Senator John. Testimony and Report, Senate Foreign Relations Committee. *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy.* U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989.
+[^5]: Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, H. Rept. 100-433 / S. Rept. 100-216 (1987), Executive Summary, conclusions on the Enterprise's finances, https://archive.org/details/reportofcongress87unit.
+[^6]: Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, H. Rept. 100-433 / S. Rept. 100-216 (1987), ch. 3, pp. 66-67, https://archive.org/details/reportofcongress87unit.

20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Washington Post.md

@@ -16,9 +16,9 @@ tags:
   - MediaBurglary
   - DarkAlliance
   - IranContra
-summary: "Washington newspaper whose reporters the CIA surveilled in 1971 and 1972, which published the 1971 FBI burglary documents, the 1996 Dark Alliance rebuttal and the 1977 Parade item behind a House briefing on psychic research."
+summary: "Washington newspaper whose reporters the CIA surveilled in 1971 and 1972, which published the 1971 FBI burglary documents, the 1996 Dark Alliance rebuttal and the 1977 Outlook article behind a House briefing on psychic research."
 created: 2026-10-05
-updated: 2026-10-05
+updated: 2026-10-09
 relations:
   - type: head_of
     with: "[[Katharine Graham]]"
@@ -67,7 +67,7 @@ The State Department's Foreign Relations series records that on March 19, 1975,
 
 ### Bush, the Post and the press executives, 1976
 
-The [[Washington Star]] reported on February 10, 1976 that, according to the Post, officials of the New York Times and [[CBS]] had offered general support to Director [[George H.W. Bush|George Bush]]'s appeal to keep secret the names of journalists who had worked for the Agency, and that the [[Church Committee|Senate Intelligence Committee]] had been informed that one news executive told Bush: "We protect our (news) sources. You protect yours." The Star reported that CBS's [[Walter Cronkite]] believed the names should be put on the table.[^8]
+The [[Washington Star]] reported on February 10, 1976 that, according to the Post, officials of the New York Times and [[CBS]] had offered general support to Director [[George H.W. Bush|George Bush]]'s appeal to keep secret the names of journalists who had worked for the Agency, and that the Senate Intelligence Committee had been informed that one news executive told Bush: "We protect our (news) sources. You protect yours." The Star reported that CBS's [[Walter Cronkite]] believed the names should be put on the table.[^8]
 
 ### Pincus, Woodward and Iran-Contra
 
@@ -79,7 +79,7 @@ A CIA memorandum of November 3, 1987 records that on November 2 [[Bob Woodward]]
 
 In November 1976 the Post reported that the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]] had charged [[Hal Hendrix]], described as a former [[Pulitzer Prize]]-winning newsman who lived in Miami, with withholding information from a Senate subcommittee investigating [[International Telephone and Telegraph]] and the CIA in [[Chile]]. An [[Associated Press]] report carried by the same paper stated that at the November 30, 1976 hearing in Miami, at which Hendrix pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, a Justice Department lawyer said the CIA had been told of his intention to withhold from the committee that he had been in contact with the Agency, and that the court record "makes clear" that CIA cables revealed his information "came from the CIA station chief [in] Santiago and to some extent from the American ambassador himself."[^12] A Post article of November 1, 1976 on the [[Orlando Letelier]] investigation reported that the CIA believed the Chilean military did not take part in the killing, and that Bush had expressed this view to Secretary of State [[Henry Kissinger]].[^13]
 
-A CIA Office of Technical Service memorandum of November 17, 1977 records that the [[House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence]]'s interest in the Agency's research on extrasensory perception "was occasioned by the article 'Psychic Spying' which appeared in the Parade Section of the Washington Post on 7 August 1977." Committee staff were briefed on November 16, 1977 by [[David Brandwein]] and left with "a brief article on Mr. [[Pat Price]]," the [[Stanford Research Institute]] subject.[^14]
+A CIA Office of Technical Service memorandum of November 17, 1977 records that the [[House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence]]'s interest in the Agency's research on extrasensory perception "was occasioned by the article 'Psychic Spying' which appeared in the Parade Section of the Washington Post on 7 August 1977." The article, "Psychic Spying?" by [[John L. Wilhelm]], a former *Time* science correspondent, ran in the Post's Outlook section (pp. 1-5). Committee staff were briefed on November 16, 1977 by [[David Brandwein]] and left with "a brief article on Mr. [[Pat Price]]," the [[Stanford Research Institute]] subject.[^14]
 
 ### Dark Alliance, 1996 to 1998