vault backup: 2026-09-21 19:17:08

60 - PLACES/CITIES/Berlin.md

@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
----
+---
 category: "City"
 tags:
   - City
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ Berlin is the capital of [[Germany]], a city of approximately 3.7 million people
 
 ### CIA Berlin Base
 
-The CIA's Berlin Base, operating from the American sector, was one of the agency's largest and most important Cold War stations. In the early 1950s, [[Bill Harvey]], one of the CIA's most aggressive Cold War operators, ran Berlin Base and managed [[Operation Gold]] (1955-1956) - the CIA-MI6 project to dig a tunnel from West Berlin into East Berlin to tap Soviet military communication cables. The tunnel operated for approximately eleven months before the KGB, which had been tipped off by British mole [[George Blake]], allowed it to be discovered in April 1956 in a manner designed to protect Blake's identity.[^2]
+The CIA's Berlin Base, operating from the American sector, was one of the agency's largest and most important Cold War stations. In the early 1950s, [[William Harvey|Bill Harvey]], one of the CIA's most aggressive Cold War operators, ran Berlin Base and managed [[Operation Gold]] (1955-1956) - the CIA-MI6 project to dig a tunnel from West Berlin into East Berlin to tap Soviet military communication cables. The tunnel operated for approximately eleven months before the KGB, which had been tipped off by British mole [[George Blake]], allowed it to be discovered in April 1956 in a manner designed to protect Blake's identity.[^2]
 
 Berlin Base also managed defector operations, agent recruitment along the East-West border, and analysis of Soviet military movements. The base's access to East-West border crossing points made it uniquely positioned for human intelligence collection and defector handling. [[James Angleton]], the CIA's counterintelligence chief, used Berlin as a key location in his obsessive mole-hunting operations.[^1]
 

60 - PLACES/CITIES/Coral Gables, Florida.md

@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+---
+category: "City"
+tags:
+  - Place
+  - CoralGables
+  - Florida
+  - Wackenhut
+  - ITT
+  - MullenCompany
+alias:
+  - Coral Gables
+summary: "City adjoining Miami that was the headquarters of the Wackenhut Corporation and the site of an ITT public relations office about which the Watergate special prosecutor questioned the CIA in 1973."
+location: "Florida, United States"
+created: 2026-09-21
+updated: 2026-09-21
+---
+
+Coral Gables is a city in [[Dade County, Florida]], adjoining [[Miami]].
+
+The [[Wackenhut Corporation]], founded in 1954 by [[George R. Wackenhut]] and three other former agents of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]], had its headquarters there until it moved to [[Palm Beach Gardens, Florida|Palm Beach Gardens]]. The [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] used the company from 1961 to 1967 to give cover to officers of its Western Hemisphere Division stationed in the Miami area. On May 3, 1967, [[George Walker (Wackenhut)|George Walker]] of the Coral Gables office handed the FBI a letter from a Miami man who said that before the assassination of President [[John F. Kennedy]] a Cuban in his boarding house had remarked that to kill Kennedy one had only to excite a Cuban with a high-powered rifle.[^1][^2]
+
+On July 26, 1973, the office of the [[Watergate Special Prosecution Force|Watergate special prosecutor]] asked the CIA whether it had any working relationship with "the ITT Public Relations Office located at 495 Biltmore Way, Coral Gables, [[Florida]]," and whether [[Howard Hunt]] or [[G. Gordon Liddy]] had done undercover work for [[ITT Corporation|ITT]]. The agency's Cover and Commercial Staff answered on August 7 that it had no relationship with or information on the Coral Gables office and had never discussed ITT with the [[Robert R. Mullen Company]]. ITT's public relations man for [[Latin America]], [[Hal Hendrix]], a former Miami journalist, pleaded guilty in 1976 to withholding information from a Senate subcommittee about his CIA contacts.[^3]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: Central Intelligence Agency, "Wackenhut Corporation, SF# 493 364," memorandum for the record, July 28, 1975, JFK record 104-10130-10454; The Wackenhut Corporation, annual reports and Forms 10-K, Securities and Exchange Commission.
+[^2]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Miami, memorandum of May 10, 1967, headquarters file 62-109060, section 129, p. 166.
+[^3]: Ruth, Henry S., Jr., Watergate Special Prosecution Force, letter to John S. Warner, July 26, 1973, with the reply of August 7, 1973, CIA Reading Room document C01367838; House Committee on Armed Services, Special Subcommittee on Intelligence, *Inquiry into the Alleged Involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Watergate and Ellsberg Matters,* 1973.

60 - PLACES/CITIES/Little Rock, Arkansas.md

@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+---
+category: "City"
+tags:
+  - Place
+  - LittleRock
+  - Arkansas
+  - StephensInc
+  - WorthenBank
+  - RoseLawFirm
+  - BCCI
+  - LippoGroup
+alias:
+  - Little Rock
+summary: "Capital of Arkansas and seat of Stephens Inc., Worthen Bank, Systematics, and the Rose Law Firm, where BCCI's emissary met Jackson Stephens and Bert Lance in 1977 and the Riady family entered American banking."
+location: "Arkansas, United States"
+created: 2026-09-21
+updated: 2026-09-21
+---
+
+Little Rock is the capital of [[Arkansas]].
+
+### The Stephens Interests
+
+[[Witt Stephens]] began trading municipal bonds in the city in 1932 and founded the firm that became [[Stephens Inc.]] the next year. His brother [[Jackson Stephens]] ran it from 1957. The bank data processor [[Systematics]], the telephone company [[ALLTEL]], and the [[Worthen Bank|Worthen Banking Corporation]] had their headquarters there, as does the [[Rose Law Firm]], which traces its origin to 1820.[^1]
+
+On November 9, 1977, Jackson Stephens, his officer [[Curt Bradbury]], and [[Bert Lance]] met [[Abdus Sami]] of the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] in Little Rock. Within two months four of that bank's clients had bought into [[Financial General Bankshares]] of Washington through an account at Stephens Inc.[^2]
+
+### The Riadys
+
+[[Mochtar Riady]] of [[Indonesia]] met the Stephens brothers in 1976, and the two families took control of Worthen together in 1983. [[James Riady]], who had been an intern at Stephens Inc., moved to the city to run the bank's international division, with [[John Huang]] as his [[Far East]] manager from February 1985. "One of them even lived in Little Rock for a few years," two reporters wrote of the Riadys in 1992. Huang, Riady, and the Little Rock lawyer [[Mark Grobmyer]] called on President [[Bill Clinton]] at the [[White House]] on June 23, 1994.[^2][^3]
+
+### 1992 and After
+
+In 1992 Worthen, under Bradbury, gave the Clinton campaign a line of credit of 3.5 million dollars, and Bradbury and [[Mack McLarty]] of [[Arkla]] organized Little Rock dinners that raised two million. After the election the Rose partners [[Hillary Rodham Clinton]], [[Vince Foster]], and [[Webster Hubbell]] went to Washington. The firm's remaining members "found irregularities in Hubbell's billings for 1989-92," and on December 6, 1994, he pleaded guilty in the federal court at Little Rock.[^4][^5]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: "Witt Stephens (1907-1991)," "Stephens Inc.," and "Rose Law Firm," *Encyclopedia of Arkansas.*
+[^2]: Truell, Peter, and Larry Gurwin. *False Profits: The Inside Story of BCCI, the World's Most Corrupt Financial Empire*. Houghton Mifflin, 1992; Financial General Bankshares, Inc. v. Metzger, 523 F. Supp. 744 (D.D.C. 1981).
+[^3]: House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, *Investigation of Political Fundraising Improprieties and Possible Violations of Law,* H. Rept. 105-829, 1998, vol. 2.
+[^4]: "Meet The Family That Bankrolled Clinton," *The Seattle Times,* January 31, 1993.
+[^5]: Office of the Independent Counsel, *Final Report of the Independent Counsel In Re: Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan Association,* vol. 3, part C.

60 - PLACES/CITIES/Newport Beach, California.md

@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
----
+---
 category: "City"
 tags:
   - geography
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ tags:
 summary: Newport Beach, California was where Ron Lister lived and operated his security business that was connected to Danilo Blandón's cocaine trafficking and weapons procurement network.
 ---
 
-Newport Beach, [[California]] was where [[Ron Lister]] maintained connections and operated in the Orange County area near his Laguna Beach base. The affluent coastal community was part of the geography of Lister's drug trafficking and weapons procurement activities with [[Danilo Blandon|Danilo Blandón]].[^1]
+Newport Beach, [[California]] was where [[Ronald Lister|Ron Lister]] maintained connections and operated in the Orange County area near his Laguna Beach base. The affluent coastal community was part of the geography of Lister's drug trafficking and weapons procurement activities with [[Danilo Blandon|Danilo Blandón]].[^1]
 
 ### Lister's Operations
 

60 - PLACES/CITIES/Shreveport, Louisiana.md

@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+---
+category: "City"
+tags:
+  - Place
+  - Shreveport
+  - Louisiana
+  - HuntOil
+  - HLHunt
+  - SouthernResearchCompany
+  - PrivateInvestigators
+alias:
+  - Shreveport
+summary: "Louisiana city where H.L. Hunt kept his second household and met his third wife, where Frania Tye Lee's suit was tried in 1978, and where the Southern Research detective firm was chartered in 1958."
+location: "Louisiana, United States"
+created: 2026-09-21
+updated: 2026-09-21
+---
+
+Shreveport is a city in northwestern [[Louisiana]], the commercial center of the oil country that runs into [[East Texas]] and southern [[Arkansas]].
+
+### The Hunts
+
+[[H.L. Hunt]] married [[Frania Tye Lee|Frania Tye]] in [[Florida]] in 1925 under the name [[Franklin Hunt]], while married to [[Lyda Bunker Hunt]]. They lived in Shreveport and then in [[Dallas, Texas|Dallas]] and had four children. [[Hunt Oil Company]] kept an office in the city. In 1940 [[Ruth Ray Hunt|Ruth Ray]], of [[Idabel, Oklahoma]], came to Shreveport to find work, became a legal secretary at Blanchard, Goldstein, Walker and O'Quinn, and went to Hunt Oil when the partner Claude O'Quinn did. Hunt said he first noticed her waiting for a bus outside the office. She left in the fall of 1942 and bore his son [[Ray Hunt|Ray]] in [[New York City|New York]] the next April. In the first years of the [[World War II|Second World War]] Hunt had two employees move his son [[Hassie Hunt|Hassie]] from Dallas to Shreveport to [[Jackson, Mississippi]], "changing draft boards with each move."[^1][^2]
+
+On November 11, 1975, the fiftieth anniversary of the Florida wedding, Frania Tye Lee sued Hunt's estate in the federal court in Shreveport, claiming a wife's share. At the trial in January 1978 Ray Hunt, as executor, acknowledged from the witness stand that his father was the father of her children. [[Margaret Hunt Hill]] waited in a motel, and Ruth Hunt stayed in Dallas on the advice of lawyers who feared she would be asked about the birth of her own children.[^1][^3]
+
+### Southern Research
+
+The [[Southern Research Company]], Inc., a private detective firm, was chartered in Shreveport on December 2, 1958, and still operates there. A credit report of 1960 in a [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] security file describes its [[New Orleans]] branch, managed by [[Joseph Oster]], a former associate of [[Guy Banister]], as the office of a firm "whose home office is in Shreveport." That branch investigated [[David Ferrie]] for [[Eastern Air Lines]] in 1962 and 1963. In 1996 the Shreveport company's president, [[Thomas Ostendorff]], gave its Ferrie file, number 11-N-224, to the [[Assassination Records Review Board]].[^4]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: Hurt, Harry, III. *Texas Rich: The Hunt Dynasty from the Early Oil Days through the Silver Crash*. W.W. Norton, 1981, pp. 16-17, 131-133, 135.
+[^2]: Hurt, Harry, III. "Daddy's Money," *Texas Monthly,* April 1978. https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/daddys-money/
+[^3]: Lee v. Hunt, 431 F. Supp. 371 (W.D. La. 1977); Lee v. Hunt, 631 F.2d 1171 (5th Cir. 1979).
+[^4]: Louisiana Secretary of State, business filings, charter 24407110D; Central Intelligence Agency, report of investigation, September 13, 1960, JFK record 104-10109-10379, p. 14; Golrick, Philip D. Memorandum to David G. Marwell, "Phone Conversation with Joseph Oster," January 19, 1996, Assassination Records Review Board electronic files.

60 - PLACES/COUNTRIES/Fiji.md

@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ tags:
 category: "Country"
 summary: "Fiji is a Pacific island nation that served as the first destination for Michael Hand's June 14, 1980 flight out of Australia under a false identity after Nugan Hand Bank's collapse."
 ---
-[[Fiji]] is an island nation in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean. [[Michael Hand]] reportedly fled [[Australia]] under a false identity on June 14, 1980, on a flight to [[Fiji]]. He was allegedly helped to escape by an American code-named "Charlie," identified as a former member of the [[United States Army Special Forces|U.S. Special Forces]] and ex-[[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] operative.[^1]
+[[Fiji]] is an island nation in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the [[Pacific Ocean]]. [[Michael Hand]] reportedly fled [[Australia]] under a false identity on June 14, 1980, on a flight to [[Fiji]]. He was allegedly helped to escape by an American code-named "Charlie," identified as a former member of the [[United States Army Special Forces|U.S. Special Forces]] and ex-[[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] operative.[^1]
 
 ---
 ### Footnotes

60 - PLACES/COUNTRIES/Iran.md

@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
----
+---
 category: "Country"
 tags:
   - event
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ The [[Iran-Contra Affair|Iran-Contra scandal]] erupted in November 1986 when it
 
 ### The Scandal Breaks
 
-The same morning that [[Ricky Ross]]'s money launderer was writing to the IRS about Blandón's drug operations, President Ronald Reagan and Attorney General Edwin Meese were announcing to reporters that millions of dollars from missile sales to the Iranian government had been illegally diverted to the Contras. The Iran-Contra scandal was "bursting open at the seams," and suddenly the strange papers found in [[Danilo Blandon|Blandón]]'s and [[Ron Lister]]'s houses during earlier raids took on new significance. The crash of a C-123K cargo plane over [[Nicaragua]] in October 1986, which had been based at Ilopango Air Base in [[San Salvador]], broke the scandal wide open.[^2]
+The same morning that [[Ricky Ross]]'s money launderer was writing to the IRS about Blandón's drug operations, President Ronald Reagan and Attorney General Edwin Meese were announcing to reporters that millions of dollars from missile sales to the Iranian government had been illegally diverted to the Contras. The Iran-Contra scandal was "bursting open at the seams," and suddenly the strange papers found in [[Danilo Blandon|Blandón]]'s and [[Ronald Lister|Ron Lister]]'s houses during earlier raids took on new significance. The crash of a C-123K cargo plane over [[Nicaragua]] in October 1986, which had been based at Ilopango Air Base in [[San Salvador]], broke the scandal wide open.[^2]
 
 ### Footnotes
 

60 - PLACES/COUNTRIES/Russia.md

@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ updated: 2026-05-17
 location: "Moscow, Russia"
 ---
 
-Russia (the Russian Federation) is the world's largest country by area, spanning eleven time zones across northern Eurasia from the Baltic to the Pacific. The Russian Federation emerged from the dissolution of the [[Soviet Union]] on December 25, 1991, when the Soviet flag was lowered over the Kremlin in [[Moscow]] for the last time. Russia inherited the Soviet Union's permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, its nuclear arsenal (under START treaty limitations), and the bulk of Soviet institutional infrastructure - including its intelligence agencies.[^1]
+Russia (the Russian Federation) is the world's largest country by area, spanning eleven time zones across northern Eurasia from the Baltic to the Pacific. The Russian Federation emerged from the dissolution of the [[Soviet Union]] on December 25, 1991, when the Soviet flag was lowered over the Kremlin in [[Moscow]] for the last time. Russia inherited the Soviet Union's permanent seat on the [[United Nations Security Council]], its nuclear arsenal (under START treaty limitations), and the bulk of Soviet institutional infrastructure - including its intelligence agencies.[^1]
 
 ### Post-Soviet Intelligence Agencies
 

60 - PLACES/MILITARY_INSTALLATIONS/Fort Meade.md

@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ description: Fort George G. Meade is a United States Army installation in Maryla
 category: "Military Installation"
 summary: "Fort Meade is a sprawling U.S. Army installation in Maryland that houses the NSA, INSCOM, and was the home base for the STARGATE remote viewing unit from 1977 to 1995."
 ---
-[[Fort Meade]] (officially Fort George G. Meade) is a United States Army installation located in Maryland, approximately twenty-five miles northeast of Washington, D.C. It is a sprawling, town-like base that houses, among other things, the [[NSA]], the U.S. First Army, and a part of the Army's [[United States Army Intelligence and Security Command|Intelligence and Security Command]] (INSCOM).[^1]
+[[Fort Meade]] (officially Fort George G. Meade) is a [[United States Army]] installation located in Maryland, approximately twenty-five miles northeast of Washington, D.C. It is a sprawling, town-like base that houses, among other things, the [[NSA]], the U.S. First Army, and a part of the Army's [[United States Army Intelligence and Security Command|Intelligence and Security Command]] (INSCOM).[^1]
 
 Fort Meade served as a primary location for the [[STARGATE PROJECT]], the U.S. Army's secret psychic research program. The remote viewing unit, initially codenamed [[STARGATE PROJECT|Gondola Wish]] and later [[STARGATE PROJECT|Grill Flame]], was established here in 1977. The unit's offices were initially located in building 4554, and later moved to buildings 2560 and 2561 on Llewellyn Street, which were refurbished by the remote viewers themselves to create quiet, secure spaces for their sessions.[^1]
 

60 - PLACES/US_STATES/Arkansas.md

@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ Seal moved in 1982 from [[Baton Rouge, Louisiana]] to a tiny airfield at isolate
 
 ### Protection from Prosecution
 
-A Senate subcommittee later concluded that despite the availability of evidence sufficient for an indictment on money laundering charges, and over the strong protests of state and federal law enforcement officials, the cases against Seal were dropped. The apparent reason was that prosecution might have revealed national security information. Arkansas state trooper Larry Patterson testified that troopers were aware that large quantities of drugs were being flown into the Mena airport and that it was a [[Central Intelligence Agency]] operation. Bill Clinton's close friend Danny Lasater was convicted as part of a major drug ring in Little Rock.[^3]
+A Senate subcommittee later concluded that despite the availability of evidence sufficient for an indictment on money laundering charges, and over the strong protests of state and federal law enforcement officials, the cases against Seal were dropped. The apparent reason was that prosecution might have revealed national security information. Arkansas state trooper Larry Patterson testified that troopers were aware that large quantities of drugs were being flown into the Mena airport and that it was a [[Central Intelligence Agency]] operation. Bill Clinton's close friend Danny Lasater was convicted as part of a major drug ring in [[Little Rock, Arkansas|Little Rock]].[^3]
 
 ### Iran-Contra Connection