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2
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Pioneer Fund.md
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@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ tags:
- DarkMoney
- WickliffeDraper
- MorganGuaranty
summary: "The Pioneer Fund is a New York foundation established in 1937 to promote eugenics and 'race betterment' that became the principal financier of race-and-intelligence research in the United States, funding many of the scholars cited in The Bell Curve and the journal Mankind Quarterly."
summary: "New York foundation created in 1937 by Wickliffe Draper to promote eugenics, which became the main financier of race and intelligence research in the United States and of many scholars cited in The Bell Curve."
location: "New York, New York"
created: 2026-06-19
updated: 2026-09-21

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20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Wackenhut Corporation.md
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@ -19,111 +19,120 @@ tags:
- CoverSupport
- JFKRecords
- GlomarExplorer
summary: "Wackenhut Corporation was a major private security and investigative firm founded in 1954 by former FBI agents whose board included former CIA, FBI, and NSA directors, and which was alleged to have hosted CIA front operations and the PROMIS software modification at its joint venture with the Cabazon Indian Reservation."
summary: "Florida security company founded in 1954 by former FBI agents, which gave the CIA cover in Miami from 1961 to 1967, kept files on millions of Americans, and allegedly modified PROMIS at Cabazon."
start: 1954-01-01
location: "Coral Gables, Florida"
---
Wackenhut Corporation is a security and investigative firm founded in 1954 by [[George R. Wackenhut]] and three other former [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] Special Agents. Initially named Special Agent Investigators, it expanded to physical security and was renamed Wackenhut Corporation in 1958. Headquartered in [[Coral Gables]], Florida, Wackenhut grew to become one of the world's largest security and investigative firms, with operations across the United States and internationally. The [[San Francisco]] Chronicle described it as being "led by former officials of the [[Central Intelligence Agency]], the Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Security Agency, Defense Department and federal law enforcement."[^1][^2]
Wackenhut Corporation is a security and investigative firm founded in 1954 by [[George R. Wackenhut]] and three other former [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] Special Agents. Initially named Special Agent Investigators, it expanded to physical security and was renamed Wackenhut Corporation in 1958. Headquartered in [[Coral Gables]], [[Florida]], Wackenhut grew to become one of the world's largest security and investigative firms, with operations across the United States and internationally. The [[San Francisco]] Chronicle described it as being "led by former officials of the [[Central Intelligence Agency]], the Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Security Agency, Defense Department and federal law enforcement."[^1][^2]
### Operations and Services
Wackenhut provides security and investigative services to businesses, industries, and various U.S. Government agencies. Its services include guard and electronic security for various facilities, personnel background reports, pre-employment screening, polygraph examinations, and criminal investigations. The company also develops sophisticated computerized security systems through its subsidiary, [[Wackenhut Electronic Systems Corporation]].[^1]
Wackenhut provides security and investigative services to businesses, industries, and various [[United States|U.S.]] Government agencies. Its services include guard and electronic security for various facilities, personnel background reports, pre-employment screening, polygraph examinations, and criminal investigations. The company also develops sophisticated computerized security systems through its subsidiary, [[Wackenhut Electronic Systems Corporation]].[^1]
Notable contracts include providing security for the [[Nevada Test Site]], the [[Alaskan Pipeline]], and [[Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory|Lawrence Livermore Labs]], as well as numerous American embassies abroad.[^1]
### Leadership and Government Connections
The company's leadership has historically included executives and managers with extensive backgrounds in the FBI, CIA, [[NSA|NSA]], and other military and governmental security fields. Its board of directors has featured prominent former government officials such as [[Stansfield Turner]] (former CIA director), [[Clarence Kelley]] (former FBI director), [[Frank Carlucci]] (former CIA deputy director and Defense Secretary), [[James Rowley]] (former [[United States Secret Service|Secret Service]] director), [[Bobby Ray Inman]] (former acting chairman of President Bush's foreign intelligence advisory board and former CIA deputy director), and [[Joseph Carroll]] (former Director, [[Defense Intelligence Agency|Defense Intelligence Agency]]).[^1]
The company's leadership has historically included executives and managers with extensive backgrounds in the FBI, CIA, [[NSA]], and other military and governmental security fields. Its board of directors has featured prominent former government officials such as [[Stansfield Turner]] (former CIA director), [[Clarence Kelley]] (former FBI director), [[Frank Carlucci]] (former CIA deputy director and Defense Secretary), [[James Rowley]] (former [[United States Secret Service|Secret Service]] director), [[Bobby Ray Inman]] (former acting chairman of President Bush's foreign intelligence advisory board and former CIA deputy director), and [[Joseph Carroll]] (former Director, [[Defense Intelligence Agency]]).[^1]
[[William J. Casey]], former CIA director under [[Ronald Reagan]], served as Wackenhut's outside legal counsel before his appointment.[^1]
### The CIA Security File
On March 14, 1963, [[Fred R. Youngblood]], chief of the nonofficial cover branch of the CIA's [[Central Cover Staff]], met George R. Wackenhut at the [[Arlington, Virginia|Arlington]] home of [[Wes Reynolds]], a former FBI agent who represented the company in Washington, "to explore its potential for cover support." His memorandum of March 26 records a firm of 1,100 employees with offices in eleven cities and [[Puerto Rico]]. Wackenhut "freely states that he trades on the reputation of the FBI by publicizing widely the 21 ex-FBI agents, including two former Assistant Directors of the FBI, in his management." He said he would be "willing to dispatch teams to set up personal security systems for foreign chiefs of state whom the Agency wants protected" and was "amenable to any reasonable application of his capabilities to Agency problems," including financing an overt operation set up at the agency's behest if it did not pay for itself. Youngblood found him "a clean-cut, energetic, ambitious young business man" who "is interested in profits, but it is my impression he is sincerely eager to do what he can to assist the government and feels that CIA offers one possible opportunity."[^3]
A memorandum for the record of July 28, 1975, summarizes the file. The agency opened files on Wackenhut and his company in May 1960 "for the purpose of obtaining cover support for Western Hemisphere Agency employees assigned to Florida." He "was investigated by this Agency with favorable results, and a Covert Security Approval for his use was granted on 21 November 1961. Subsequently, his company provided cover backstopping to Western Hemisphere employees stationed in the [[Miami]], Florida, area. In April of 1967 due to the notoriety that Mr. Wackenhut had received in connection with his activities in Florida, Mr. Wackenhut's Covert Security Approval was rescinded and this Agency severed our relations with him." That January Governor [[Claude Kirk]] had made Wackenhut the unpaid director of a privately financed "war on crime," staffed by the company's investigators.[^4][^5]
Routing slips of September and December 1969 added to the file the card of the manager of [[Wackenhut Protective Systems]] in [[Rockville, Maryland]]. In March 1971 the agency's security office approved a contact clearance for a Wackenhut employee. On April 20, 1971, the special agent in charge, [[Arthur C. Sheridan]], wrote to the Miami field office that "restrictions imposed on the use of Subject corporation in 1967 still apply and were recently reaffirmed in a cable dated 16 July 1970." The chief of a project with the cryptonym VENOM wanted contact with two Wackenhut men, [[Manuel J. Chavez]] and [[Junius Jaffe Mallin]]. "It is recognized that Subject firm could be an operational asset to [[Project VENOM]] in certain circumstances," Sheridan wrote, but "this office can accomplish its mission without the necessity of utilizing Subject corporation." Other records of the same Miami security office show VENOM collecting on the armed exile groups in the city: on [[Gerald Patrick Hemming|Gerry Hemming]] and [[Roy Hargraves]] in July 1970, when they were reported to be planning a missile attack on [[Guantanamo Bay Naval Base|Guantanamo]] to be blamed on [[Cuba]], and on [[Ricardo Morales Navarrete|Ricardo Morales]], whom the project had used briefly in 1964 and who in May 1971 was presenting himself at a Miami hotel as an agency operative "with mission to make an approach to local mafia."[^6]
The 1975 memorandum ends: "In November of 1974 it was learned that Wackenhut Corporation was providing guard coverage to Global Marine Development, Incorporated (GMDI), [[Los Angeles]], [[California]], a firm that the Agency office of DDS&T was dealing with. This Agency made no attempt to persuade GMDI to terminate their contract with Wackenhut Corporation, and it is assumed that GMDI is still receiving guard coverage from them." Global Marine Development built and operated the [[Hughes Glomar Explorer]] for the [[Directorate of Science and Technology]], which used the ship in the summer of 1974 to raise part of a sunken Soviet submarine in [[Project Azorian]]. The [[Los Angeles Times]] disclosed the operation on February 7, 1975.[^4][^7]
### Federal Contracts, the Board, and the Files
The law firm of Senator [[George Smathers]] of Florida found the way around the 1893 federal statute that barred employees of private detective agencies from government work by creating a Wackenhut subsidiary that supplied only guards. The first large federal contracts, at [[Cape Canaveral]] and the Nevada Test Site, followed. The early board included Captain [[Eddie Rickenbacker]], General [[Mark W. Clark|Mark Clark]], and the [[John Birch Society]] leader [[Ralph E. Davis]]. After the [[Fair Credit Reporting Act]] took effect in 1971 the company cut its files from about 2.5 million names to about 250,000, and in 1975 it gave them to the [[Church League of America]] of [[Wheaton, Illinois]], to which [[George Wackenhut]] was a major contributor, keeping the right to consult them. The files are now in the [[Tamiment Library]] at [[New York University]].[^8][^9]
The retired FBI agent [[William Hinshaw]] told Connolly: "It is known throughout the industry that if you want a dirty job done, call Wackenhut." [[Philip Agee]] said: "I don't have the slightest doubt that the CIA and Wackenhut overlap." Asked whether his company was an arm of the CIA, George Wackenhut answered, "No!" At the end of the interview he said to the reporter: "You've done an awful lot of research. How would you like to run all our [[New York City|New York]] operations?" Connolly reported that in June 1991 the head of the company's special investigations division, [[Wayne Black]], traveled to [[Caracas]] on an [[Abu Dhabi]] passport for a client, [[Blanca Ibanez]], to discredit the security chief of President [[Carlos Andres Perez]].[^8]
### Horsch
The [[Philadelphia]] filmmaker [[R.C. Horsch]] said in a recorded interview that after leaving high school in 1961 he worked freelance for Wackenhut, "a security firm staffed by FBI agents," until about 1965. "I bugged telephones and committed burglaries for them," he said. "The burglaries were mostly to install electronics or bug telephones or just things like burglarizing a potential client to demonstrate that their security was not up to par." He said one regular client, introduced as "Mr. Smith," was [[Howard Hunt|E. Howard Hunt]] of the CIA, and described jobs at the [[Fairchild Hiller]] plant in [[Hagerstown, Maryland]], in [[Trenton, New Jersey]], and in Philadelphia. Horsch was convicted in later years of forgery, counterfeiting, and passport fraud.[^10]
### Florida, 1967
On January 13, 1967, FBI headquarters instructed its Florida offices to give Kirk's investigators nothing: "The Bureau does not recognize the Wackenhut Corporation as a properly constituted law enforcement agency." The order was repeated by telephone on April 3, after Kirk had seen the attorney general. [[Hank Messick]], the [[Miami Herald]] crime reporter whose articles had led to the indictment of two county sheriffs in 1966, and to whom the bureau had itself been passing leads, joined Wackenhut that December and left after six weeks. "I quit the Wackenhut Corp. because I have reluctantly concluded a cruel hoax is being perpetrated upon the people of Florida," he said. He objected that the company kept as a private client Sir [[Stafford Sands]], the former Bahamian minister with gambling interests, while it was supposed to be pursuing [[Meyer Lansky]]. Wackenhut replied: "I do not find it necessary to dignify Mr. Messick's remarks with a reply." A former Wackenhut detective, [[Norman Casper]], later worked as an informant for the [[Internal Revenue Service]] against the [[Castle Bank and Trust|Castle Bank]] in the [[Bahamas]].[^11]
In the course of Governor Kirk's campaign Wackenhut told the legislature that "overlord of the whole state's criminal syndicates" was [[Santo Trafficante Jr.|Santo Trafficante]], "longtime [[Trafficante crime family|Tampa Mafia]] boss, now living in Miami." The clippings are in the FBI's Miami file on the company. Trafficante's casino manager in [[Havana]], [[Lewis McWillie]], had been visited there in 1959 by his friend [[Jack Ruby]], and a CIA memorandum in the [[Warren Commission]]'s files reported that Trafficante, while held by [[Fidel Castro]]'s government that year, was "frequently visited" by "an American gangster" named "Ruby." McWillie told the House committee in 1978 that he had twice visited the detention camp and seen Trafficante there, and was not clear whether Ruby had gone with him. The FBI's four files on the company contain no reference to Ruby, to McWillie, or to a Wackenhut office in [[Texas]] before 1968.[^11][^12][^13]
### The Assassinations Committee
The security file reached the public through the [[House Select Committee on Assassinations]]. On January 6, 1978, the committee's chief counsel, [[G. Robert Blakey]], sent the CIA a request for 38 files. Item 18 was E. Howard Hunt. Item 19 was "[[Jim Garrison]] aka Wackenhut Corp.," item 28 "Garrison 1967 investigation," and item 36 "Southern Research Corp." The [[National Photographic Interpretation Center]] answered on January 30 that it had "no documented information or files on the [[Southern Research Company|Southern Research Corporation]], presently known as the Wackenhut Corporation." The [[CIA Office of Logistics|Office of Logistics]] found under item 36 contract actions with Wackenhut for 1970 to 1975 in the management information system of the Directorate of Science and Technology. [[Bruce Solie]] of the [[CIA Office of Security|Office of Security]] certified on July 18, 1978, that committee staff had reviewed the Wackenhut file "in conjunction with the HSCA's investigation into the deaths of President [[John F. Kennedy]] and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr."[^14]
The pairing of the names goes back to [[New Orleans]]. The lawyers who defended [[Clay Shaw]] against District Attorney Garrison's conspiracy charge, [[Edward Wegmann]] and his brother William, engaged two firms of former federal agents, Wackenhut and [[Holloway Associates]] of Texas. Edward Wegmann's files, given to the [[Assassination Records Review Board]] by his daughter in 1995, show Wackenhut men reporting to the defense with the WDSU television reporter [[Rick Townley]] on April 19, 1967, and interviewing the Cuban exile [[Carlos Bringuier]] on May 9. The researcher who first went through the files wrote that Wackenhut "was the same company that did the reports for [[Eastern Air Lines|Eastern Airlines]] in the dismissal proceedings against [[David Ferrie]]. The firm was then called Southern Research." The company's own histories do not mention the name, and the phrase "presently known as" first appears in Blakey's letter. [[Louisiana]]'s corporate register shows a Southern Research Company, Inc., chartered in [[Shreveport, Louisiana|Shreveport]] on December 2, 1958, which absorbed a polygraph firm, [[Truth Verification of Louisiana]], in 1973 and is still in business, with sister companies in [[Baton Rouge]] and [[Lake Charles, Louisiana|Lake Charles]]. Its New Orleans company, Southern Research Company of New Orleans, Inc., was chartered on September 5, 1963. It filed notice of dissolution on October 5, 1967, and was dissolved on December 13. The Wackenhut Corporation had qualified to do business in Louisiana on May 3, 1965. Shaw was arrested on March 1, 1967. The CIA rescinded George Wackenhut's security approval the following month.[^15]
The New Orleans office of Southern Research was run by [[Joseph Oster]], a former city police detective who had worked for [[Guy Banister]]. A credit report of July 1960 in a CIA security file describes him as vice president of "Southern Research, Inc., whose home office is in Shreveport," a firm of ten or twelve employees, and as having come to it from "[[Guy Banister Associates|Guy B------ Associates]], Inc." Oster told a lawyer for the Assassination Records Review Board in January 1996 that he had left Banister "because Banister was getting more involved in controversial political causes, to the detriment of attracting paying clients," that he had investigated Ferrie for Eastern Air Lines in 1962 and 1963, and that he had gone with the district attorney's men to Ferrie's house on the night of the assassination. He left the firm in the middle 1960s. The president of the Shreveport company, [[Thomas Ostendorff]], gave the board its file on Ferrie, number 11-N-224. Wegmann's records, the board wrote, "indicate that the Shaw defense team had retained Southern Research Company as of mid-1967," a witness before the [[Orleans Parish]] grand jury was asked in January 1969 whether he had been "interviewed by Southern Research or any investigating firm that is doing Shaw's investigation," and a file on [[Gordon Novel]] records that Southern Research interviewed his lawyer, [[Steven Plotkin]], on April 7, 1967. "Mr. Oster stated that neither he nor Southern Research had worked for the Clay Shaw defense team." The board's lawyer noted "the conflicting accounts we have found."[^16]
On April 14, 1967, the FBI's [[FBI Domestic Intelligence Division|Domestic Intelligence Division]] recorded that [[United States Attorney General|Attorney General]] [[Ramsey Clark]] had told reporters the bureau had investigated Shaw and cleared him. "This is not true and we so informed the Attorney General." The New Orleans office, it went on, had told "[[Charles R. Carson (Wackenhut)|Charles R. Carson]], a Wackenhut Corporation investigator, and [[Dean Andrews]]" only that it had no comment, and the bureau "has no intention of telling these or any other individuals that the Attorney General's statement is incorrect." A witness told the review board at a public hearing that the former FBI employee [[William Walter]] had said to Garrison in 1973 "that the FBI through Wackenhut, the [[Metropolitan Crime Commission]] and [[Aaron Kohn]], had wire tapped his office." On May 3, 1967, [[George Walker (Wackenhut)|George Walker]] of the company's [[Coral Gables, Florida|Coral Gables]] headquarters gave the FBI in Miami a letter from a man who said that before the assassination a Cuban in his boarding house, known as "Cash," had remarked that to kill Kennedy one had only to excite a Cuban with a high-powered rifle.[^17]
In November 1967 [[William Harvey]], the former head of the CIA's [[Task Force W]], who was planning a law practice, asked the FBI's liaison officer, [[Sam Papich]], about "reputable private investigators that might be willing to use Harvey's services to establish contacts and investigative coverage on the Continent." The CIA's director of security, [[Howard Osborn]], recorded the answer: "Mr. Papich suggested Wackenhut Corporation or the [[Fidelifax|Fidelifax Company]] as having a good reputation in the trade." The same memorandum reports two telephone calls in October from [[John Roselli]] asking Harvey to act as his lawyer.[^18]
### Controversies and Allegations
Despite its public profile as a security firm, Wackenhut Corporation has been associated with several significant controversies and allegations, particularly concerning its political leanings and its alleged role in covert government operations.
### Political Leanings and Dossier Collection
George R. Wackenhut, the company's founder, was characterized as a "hard-line right-winger" whose political values were reflected in the company's operations. Wackenhut actively built dossiers on suspected dissidents and sold this information to interested parties. By 1965, Wackenhut claimed to maintain files on 2.5 million suspected dissidents. This number grew to over 4 million by 1966, following the acquisition of the private files of [[Karl Barslaag]], a former staff member of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. The company's monthly publication, the "Wackenhut Security Review," consistently criticized protest movements of the 1960s, earning accolades from right-wing organizations such as the John Birch Society and the All-American Conference to Combat Communism.[^1]
### Allegations of CIA Front Operations
Multiple sources have alleged that Wackenhut served as a front for the CIA and other intelligence agencies. [[Richard Babayan]], identified as a CIA contract employee, claimed that Wackenhut had been used by the CIA for years to provide cover for clandestine operations. [[Bruce Berckmans]], a former CIA agent who later became a Wackenhut international-operations vice president, reportedly saw a formal proposal from [[George Wackenhut]] to the CIA offering Wackenhut offices worldwide as fronts for CIA activities. [[William Corbett]], a terrorism expert and former CIA analyst, further stated that Wackenhut allowed the CIA to occupy positions within the company to conduct clandestine operations and supplied intelligence agencies with information in exchange for lucrative government contracts.[^1]
Multiple sources have alleged that Wackenhut served as a front for the CIA and other intelligence agencies. [[Richard Babayan]], identified as a CIA contract employee, claimed that Wackenhut had been used by the CIA for years to provide cover for clandestine operations. [[Bruce Berckmans]], a former CIA agent who later became a Wackenhut international-operations vice president, reportedly saw a formal proposal from George Wackenhut to the CIA offering Wackenhut offices worldwide as fronts for CIA activities. [[William Corbett]], a terrorism expert and former CIA analyst, further stated that Wackenhut allowed the CIA to occupy positions within the company to conduct clandestine operations and supplied intelligence agencies with information in exchange for lucrative government contracts.[^1]
### El Salvador Operations
Wackenhut was very active in [[El Salvador]] during the Contra war, providing employees to protect the U.S. embassy and other installations, and doing "things you wouldn't want your mother to know about," one Wackenhut employee told *Spy* magazine in 1992.[^2]
### The Cabazon Joint Venture
A particularly controversial aspect of Wackenhut's operations was its joint venture with the [[Cabazon Indian Reservation|Cabazon Indian tribe]] in Indio, [[California]]. Formalized on April 1, 1981, this partnership aimed to leverage the sovereign nation status of the Indian reservation to bypass federal jurisdiction and congressional prohibitions on arms exports. The venture, known as "Cabazon Arms," sought to establish a production facility for high-tech armaments and explosives for export to third-world countries, including the [[Contras]] in Nicaragua and nations in the Middle East. The firm was using the Cabazon reservation's tax-exempt status and its freedom from federal oversight to gain a competitive advantage in soliciting federal weapons projects.[^1][^2]
[[Dr. John Nichols]], the Cabazon tribal administrator and a former CIA agent who claimed experience going back to the Chilean destabilization program in the 1970s, secured a [[Department of Defense|Department of Defense]] secret facility clearance for the reservation. He then proposed to Wackenhut the manufacture of various weapons systems, including 120mm combustible cartridge cases, 9mm machine pistols, laser-sighted assault weapons, sniper rifles, and portable rocket systems. The venture also explored the development of biological weapons. [[Michael Riconosciuto]] served as the Director of Research for this joint venture, and was involved in meetings with figures like [[Robert Frye]] (Wackenhut VP), [[John P. Nichols]], and [[Peter Zokosky]], and [[Dr. Harry Fair]] of the U.S. Army's Railgun Project at Picatinny Arsenal, where Riconosciuto's scientific expertise was noted.[^1]
A particularly controversial aspect of Wackenhut's operations was its joint venture with the [[Cabazon Indian Reservation|Cabazon Indian tribe]] in Indio, California. Formalized on April 1, 1981, this partnership aimed to leverage the sovereign nation status of the Indian reservation to bypass federal jurisdiction and congressional prohibitions on arms exports. The venture, known as "Cabazon Arms," sought to establish a production facility for high-tech armaments and explosives for export to third-world countries, including the [[Contras]] in Nicaragua and nations in the Middle East. The firm was using the Cabazon reservation's tax-exempt status and its freedom from federal oversight to gain a competitive advantage in soliciting federal weapons projects.[^1][^2]
[[Dr. John Nichols]], the Cabazon tribal administrator and a former CIA agent who claimed experience going back to the Chilean destabilization program in the 1970s, secured a [[Department of Defense]] secret facility clearance for the reservation. He then proposed to Wackenhut the manufacture of various weapons systems, including 120mm combustible cartridge cases, 9mm machine pistols, laser-sighted assault weapons, sniper rifles, and portable rocket systems. The venture also explored the development of biological weapons. [[Michael Riconosciuto]] served as the Director of Research for this joint venture, and was involved in meetings with figures like [[Robert Frye]] (Wackenhut VP), [[John P. Nichols]], and [[Peter Zokosky]], and [[Dr. Harry Fair]] of the U.S. Army's Railgun Project at Picatinny Arsenal, where Riconosciuto's scientific expertise was noted.[^1]
### PROMIS Software Modification
Within the Cabazon Joint Venture, Michael Riconosciuto claimed to have modified the proprietary [[PROMIS]] computer software. This modification, allegedly spearheaded by [[Earl Brian]] and made available through [[Peter Videnieks]] of the [[Department of Justice|U.S. Department of Justice]], was intended to facilitate the worldwide implementation of PROMIS in law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Riconosciuto's affidavit detailed his work on the software, including specific modifications for the [[Royal Canadian Mounted Police|RCMP]] and the [[Canadian Security Intelligence Service|CSIS]] in [[Canada]]. This alleged pirating and modification of the PROMIS software became a central component of the [[PROMIS Software Scandal]].[^1]
It was here that the "trap door" was built into the [[United States|U.S.]] version of PROMIS, based on [[Israel|Israeli]] information. This operation was conducted by a small CIA group, headed by [[Robert Gates]], who sought to keep it secret from the NSA due to interagency competition.[^3]
It was here that the "trap door" was built into the U.S. version of PROMIS, based on [[Israel|Israeli]] information. This operation was conducted by a small CIA group, headed by [[Robert Gates]], who sought to keep it secret from the NSA due to interagency competition.[^19]
### Danny Casolaro Investigation
Investigative reporter [[Danny Casolaro]] was investigating the Wackenhut/Cabazon weapons projects as part of his "[[The Octopus]]" investigation when he was found dead in a West Virginia motel room in 1991. The probe into his death was ordered by associate attorney general [[Webb Hubbell]], who had his own connections to weapons manufacturing for the Contras through [[Park On Meter]] in [[Arkansas]].[^2]
### End of Wackenhut
The Wackenhut/Cabazon Joint Venture was terminated on October 1, 1984, following Robert Frye's heart attack. Its activities subsequently became the subject of numerous investigations by entities such as the U.S. Department of Justice, the [[United States House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary|House Judiciary Committee on Inslaw]], [[U.S. Customs|U.S. Customs]], and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, as well as various police agencies and media outlets worldwide.[^1]
### Other Allegations
Beyond the Cabazon venture, Wackenhut was also implicated in other international controversies. A 1992 *SPY* magazine article by [[John Connolly]] alleged that Wackenhut secretly assisted [[Iraq]] in its efforts to obtain sophisticated weapons and contributed to unrest in [[Venezuela]].[^1]
### The CIA Security File
On March 14, 1963, [[Fred R. Youngblood]], chief of the nonofficial cover branch of the CIA's [[Central Cover Staff]], met George R. Wackenhut at the [[Arlington, Virginia|Arlington]] home of [[Wes Reynolds]], a former FBI agent who represented the company in Washington, "to explore its potential for cover support." His memorandum of March 26 records a firm of 1,100 employees with offices in eleven cities and [[Puerto Rico]]. Wackenhut "freely states that he trades on the reputation of the FBI by publicizing widely the 21 ex-FBI agents, including two former Assistant Directors of the FBI, in his management." He said he would be "willing to dispatch teams to set up personal security systems for foreign chiefs of state whom the Agency wants protected" and was "amenable to any reasonable application of his capabilities to Agency problems," including financing an overt operation set up at the agency's behest if it did not pay for itself. Youngblood found him "a clean-cut, energetic, ambitious young business man" who "is interested in profits, but it is my impression he is sincerely eager to do what he can to assist the government and feels that CIA offers one possible opportunity."[^4]
### End of Wackenhut
A memorandum for the record of July 28, 1975, summarizes the file. The agency opened files on Wackenhut and his company in May 1960 "for the purpose of obtaining cover support for Western Hemisphere Agency employees assigned to [[Florida]]." He "was investigated by this Agency with favorable results, and a Covert Security Approval for his use was granted on 21 November 1961. Subsequently, his company provided cover backstopping to Western Hemisphere employees stationed in the Miami, Florida, area. In April of 1967 due to the notoriety that Mr. Wackenhut had received in connection with his activities in Florida, Mr. Wackenhut's Covert Security Approval was rescinded and this Agency severed our relations with him." That January Governor [[Claude Kirk]] had made Wackenhut the unpaid director of a privately financed "war on crime," staffed by the company's investigators.[^5][^6]
Routing slips of September and December 1969 added to the file the card of the manager of [[Wackenhut Protective Systems]] in [[Rockville, Maryland]]. In March 1971 the agency's security office approved a contact clearance for a Wackenhut employee. On April 20, 1971, the special agent in charge, [[Arthur C. Sheridan]], wrote to the [[Miami]] field office that "restrictions imposed on the use of Subject corporation in 1967 still apply and were recently reaffirmed in a cable dated 16 July 1970." The chief of a project with the cryptonym VENOM wanted contact with two Wackenhut men, [[Manuel J. Chavez]] and [[Junius Jaffe Mallin]]. "It is recognized that Subject firm could be an operational asset to [[Project VENOM]] in certain circumstances," Sheridan wrote, but "this office can accomplish its mission without the necessity of utilizing Subject corporation." Other records of the same Miami security office show VENOM collecting on the armed exile groups in the city: on [[Gerald Patrick Hemming|Gerry Hemming]] and [[Roy Hargraves]] in July 1970, when they were reported to be planning a missile attack on [[Guantanamo Bay Naval Base|Guantanamo]] to be blamed on [[Cuba]], and on [[Ricardo Morales Navarrete|Ricardo Morales]], whom the project had used briefly in 1964 and who in May 1971 was presenting himself at a Miami hotel as an agency operative "with mission to make an approach to local mafia."[^7]
The 1975 memorandum ends: "In November of 1974 it was learned that Wackenhut Corporation was providing guard coverage to Global Marine Development, Incorporated (GMDI), [[Los Angeles]], California, a firm that the Agency office of DDS&T was dealing with. This Agency made no attempt to persuade GMDI to terminate their contract with Wackenhut Corporation, and it is assumed that GMDI is still receiving guard coverage from them." Global Marine Development built and operated the [[Hughes Glomar Explorer]] for the [[Directorate of Science and Technology]], which used the ship in the summer of 1974 to raise part of a sunken Soviet submarine in [[Project Azorian]]. The [[Los Angeles Times]] disclosed the operation on February 7, 1975.[^5][^8]
### The Assassinations Committee
The security file reached the public through the [[House Select Committee on Assassinations]]. On January 6, 1978, the committee's chief counsel, [[G. Robert Blakey]], sent the CIA a request for 38 files. Item 18 was [[Howard Hunt|E. Howard Hunt]]. Item 19 was "[[Jim Garrison]] aka Wackenhut Corp.," item 28 "Garrison 1967 investigation," and item 36 "Southern Research Corp." The [[National Photographic Interpretation Center]] answered on January 30 that it had "no documented information or files on the [[Southern Research Company|Southern Research Corporation]], presently known as the Wackenhut Corporation." The [[CIA Office of Logistics|Office of Logistics]] found under item 36 contract actions with Wackenhut for 1970 to 1975 in the management information system of the Directorate of Science and Technology. [[Bruce Solie]] of the [[CIA Office of Security|Office of Security]] certified on July 18, 1978, that committee staff had reviewed the Wackenhut file "in conjunction with the HSCA's investigation into the deaths of President [[John F. Kennedy]] and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr."[^9]
The pairing of the names goes back to [[New Orleans]]. The lawyers who defended [[Clay Shaw]] against District Attorney Garrison's conspiracy charge, [[Edward Wegmann]] and his brother William, engaged two firms of former federal agents, Wackenhut and [[Holloway Associates]] of [[Texas]]. Edward Wegmann's files, given to the [[Assassination Records Review Board]] by his daughter in 1995, show Wackenhut men reporting to the defense with the WDSU television reporter [[Rick Townley]] on April 19, 1967, and interviewing the Cuban exile [[Carlos Bringuier]] on May 9. The researcher who first went through the files wrote that Wackenhut "was the same company that did the reports for [[Eastern Air Lines|Eastern Airlines]] in the dismissal proceedings against [[David Ferrie]]. The firm was then called Southern Research." The company's own histories do not mention the name, and the phrase "presently known as" first appears in Blakey's letter. [[Louisiana]]'s corporate register shows a Southern Research Company, Inc., chartered in [[Shreveport, Louisiana|Shreveport]] on December 2, 1958, which absorbed a polygraph firm, [[Truth Verification of Louisiana]], in 1973 and is still in business, with sister companies in [[Baton Rouge]] and [[Lake Charles, Louisiana|Lake Charles]]. Its New Orleans company, Southern Research Company of New Orleans, Inc., was chartered on September 5, 1963. It filed notice of dissolution on October 5, 1967, and was dissolved on December 13. The Wackenhut Corporation had qualified to do business in Louisiana on May 3, 1965. Shaw was arrested on March 1, 1967. The CIA rescinded George Wackenhut's security approval the following month.[^10]
The New Orleans office of Southern Research was run by [[Joseph Oster]], a former city police detective who had worked for [[Guy Banister]]. A credit report of July 1960 in a CIA security file describes him as vice president of "Southern Research, Inc., whose home office is in Shreveport," a firm of ten or twelve employees, and as having come to it from "[[Guy Banister Associates|Guy B------ Associates]], Inc." Oster told a lawyer for the Assassination Records Review Board in January 1996 that he had left Banister "because Banister was getting more involved in controversial political causes, to the detriment of attracting paying clients," that he had investigated Ferrie for Eastern Air Lines in 1962 and 1963, and that he had gone with the district attorney's men to Ferrie's house on the night of the assassination. He left the firm in the middle 1960s. The president of the Shreveport company, [[Thomas Ostendorff]], gave the board its file on Ferrie, number 11-N-224. Wegmann's records, the board wrote, "indicate that the Shaw defense team had retained Southern Research Company as of mid-1967," a witness before the [[Orleans Parish]] grand jury was asked in January 1969 whether he had been "interviewed by Southern Research or any investigating firm that is doing Shaw's investigation," and a file on [[Gordon Novel]] records that Southern Research interviewed his lawyer, [[Steven Plotkin]], on April 7, 1967. "Mr. Oster stated that neither he nor Southern Research had worked for the Clay Shaw defense team." The board's lawyer noted "the conflicting accounts we have found."[^11]
On April 14, 1967, the FBI's [[FBI Domestic Intelligence Division|Domestic Intelligence Division]] recorded that [[United States Attorney General|Attorney General]] [[Ramsey Clark]] had told reporters the bureau had investigated Shaw and cleared him. "This is not true and we so informed the Attorney General." The New Orleans office, it went on, had told "[[Charles R. Carson (Wackenhut)|Charles R. Carson]], a Wackenhut Corporation investigator, and [[Dean Andrews]]" only that it had no comment, and the bureau "has no intention of telling these or any other individuals that the Attorney General's statement is incorrect." A witness told the review board at a public hearing that the former FBI employee [[William Walter]] had said to Garrison in 1973 "that the FBI through Wackenhut, the [[Metropolitan Crime Commission]] and [[Aaron Kohn]], had wire tapped his office." On May 3, 1967, [[George Walker (Wackenhut)|George Walker]] of the company's [[Coral Gables, Florida|Coral Gables]] headquarters gave the FBI in Miami a letter from a man who said that before the assassination a Cuban in his boarding house, known as "Cash," had remarked that to kill Kennedy one had only to excite a Cuban with a high-powered rifle.[^12]
In November 1967 [[William Harvey]], the former head of the CIA's [[Task Force W]], who was planning a law practice, asked the FBI's liaison officer, [[Sam Papich]], about "reputable private investigators that might be willing to use Harvey's services to establish contacts and investigative coverage on the Continent." The CIA's director of security, [[Howard Osborn]], recorded the answer: "Mr. Papich suggested Wackenhut Corporation or the [[Fidelifax|Fidelifax Company]] as having a good reputation in the trade." The same memorandum reports two telephone calls in October from [[John Roselli]] asking Harvey to act as his lawyer.[^13]
### Florida, 1967
On January 13, 1967, FBI headquarters instructed its Florida offices to give Kirk's investigators nothing: "The Bureau does not recognize the Wackenhut Corporation as a properly constituted law enforcement agency." The order was repeated by telephone on April 3, after Kirk had seen the attorney general. [[Hank Messick]], the [[Miami Herald]] crime reporter whose articles had led to the indictment of two county sheriffs in 1966, and to whom the bureau had itself been passing leads, joined Wackenhut that December and left after six weeks. "I quit the Wackenhut Corp. because I have reluctantly concluded a cruel hoax is being perpetrated upon the people of Florida," he said. He objected that the company kept as a private client Sir [[Stafford Sands]], the former Bahamian minister with gambling interests, while it was supposed to be pursuing [[Meyer Lansky]]. Wackenhut replied: "I do not find it necessary to dignify Mr. Messick's remarks with a reply." A former Wackenhut detective, [[Norman Casper]], later worked as an informant for the [[Internal Revenue Service]] against the [[Castle Bank and Trust|Castle Bank]] in the [[Bahamas]].[^14]
In the course of Governor Kirk's campaign Wackenhut told the legislature that "overlord of the whole state's criminal syndicates" was [[Santo Trafficante Jr.|Santo Trafficante]], "longtime [[Trafficante crime family|Tampa Mafia]] boss, now living in Miami." The clippings are in the FBI's Miami file on the company. Trafficante's casino manager in [[Havana]], [[Lewis McWillie]], had been visited there in 1959 by his friend [[Jack Ruby]], and a CIA memorandum in the [[Warren Commission]]'s files reported that Trafficante, while held by [[Fidel Castro]]'s government that year, was "frequently visited" by "an American gangster" named "Ruby." McWillie told the House committee in 1978 that he had twice visited the detention camp and seen Trafficante there, and was not clear whether Ruby had gone with him. The FBI's four files on the company contain no reference to Ruby, to McWillie, or to a Wackenhut office in Texas before 1968.[^14][^15][^16]
### Federal Contracts, the Board, and the Files
The law firm of Senator [[George Smathers]] of Florida found the way around the 1893 federal statute that barred employees of private detective agencies from government work by creating a Wackenhut subsidiary that supplied only guards. The first large federal contracts, at [[Cape Canaveral]] and the Nevada Test Site, followed. The early board included Captain [[Eddie Rickenbacker]], General [[Mark W. Clark|Mark Clark]], and the [[John Birch Society]] leader [[Ralph E. Davis]]. After the [[Fair Credit Reporting Act]] took effect in 1971 the company cut its files from about 2.5 million names to about 250,000, and in 1975 it gave them to the [[Church League of America]] of [[Wheaton, Illinois]], to which George Wackenhut was a major contributor, keeping the right to consult them. The files are now in the [[Tamiment Library]] at [[New York University]].[^17][^18]
The retired FBI agent [[William Hinshaw]] told Connolly: "It is known throughout the industry that if you want a dirty job done, call Wackenhut." [[Philip Agee]] said: "I don't have the slightest doubt that the CIA and Wackenhut overlap." Asked whether his company was an arm of the CIA, George Wackenhut answered, "No!" At the end of the interview he said to the reporter: "You've done an awful lot of research. How would you like to run all our [[New York City|New York]] operations?" Connolly reported that in June 1991 the head of the company's special investigations division, [[Wayne Black]], traveled to [[Caracas]] on an [[Abu Dhabi]] passport for a client, [[Blanca Ibanez]], to discredit the security chief of President [[Carlos Andres Perez]].[^17]
### Horsch
The Philadelphia filmmaker [[R.C. Horsch]] said in a recorded interview that after leaving high school in 1961 he worked freelance for Wackenhut, "a security firm staffed by FBI agents," until about 1965. "I bugged telephones and committed burglaries for them," he said. "The burglaries were mostly to install electronics or bug telephones or just things like burglarizing a potential client to demonstrate that their security was not up to par." He said one regular client, introduced as "Mr. Smith," was E. Howard Hunt of the CIA, and described jobs at the [[Fairchild Hiller]] plant in [[Hagerstown, Maryland]], in [[Trenton, New Jersey]], and in [[Philadelphia]]. Horsch was convicted in later years of forgery, counterfeiting, and passport fraud.[^19]
The Wackenhut/Cabazon Joint Venture was terminated on October 1, 1984, following Robert Frye's heart attack. Its activities subsequently became the subject of numerous investigations by entities such as the U.S. Department of Justice, the [[United States House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary|House Judiciary Committee on Inslaw]], [[U.S. Customs]], and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, as well as various police agencies and media outlets worldwide.[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal*. First Edition. TrineDay, 2010.
[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 6: "They were doing their patriotic duty."
[^3]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network*. TrineDay, 1992.
[^4]: Youngblood, Fred R. "The Wackenhut Corporation," CIA memorandum for the record, CS-2793, March 26, 1963. JFK Assassination Records Collection, record 104-10130-10472.
[^5]: Central Intelligence Agency, "Wackenhut Corporation, SF# 493 364," memorandum for the record, July 28, 1975. JFK Assassination Records Collection, record 104-10130-10454, released in full March 18, 2025. https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2025/0318/104-10130-10454.pdf
[^6]: "Florida: I, Claudius," *Time,* 1967.
[^7]: Central Intelligence Agency, transmittal and routing slips, September 5 and December 10, 1969, records 104-10130-10470 and 104-10130-10471; request for contact security approval, February to March 1971, record 104-10130-10468; Sheridan, Arthur C., memorandum to SAC, Miami Field Office, "Wackenhut Corporation #493364," April 20, 1971, record 104-10130-10469. JFK Assassination Records Collection. On VENOM: CIA memoranda of July 23, 1970 (104-10120-10117), March 19, 1971 (104-10117-10341), and May 5, 1971 (104-10122-10166), as summarized in the Mary Ferrell Foundation cryptonym database, entry "VENOM."
[^8]: Burr, William, ed. "Project Azorian: The CIA's Declassified History of the Glomar Explorer," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 305, 2010. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb305/index.htm
[^9]: Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Security, "HSCA Chrono for 1977-1978 of Reports and Requests," CIA Reading Room document 00548292; Office of Legislative Counsel, HSCA request OLC 78-0070/1, January 12, 1978, with National Photographic Interpretation Center memorandum of January 30, 1978, document 00491180; McDonald, James H., Director of Logistics, memorandum on item 36, JFK record 104-10135-10200; Solie, Bruce L. "Wackenhut Corp.," memorandum for the record, July 18, 1978, JFK record 104-10130-10450.
[^10]: DiEugenio, James. "The Wegmann Files," *Probe,* vol. 4, no. 4, May-June 1997, pp. 8-9, in the Harold Weisberg Collection, Hood College; Central Intelligence Agency, "Names Traces on OLC Requests," February 6, 1978, CIA Reading Room document 00419231, listing item 36 as "Southern Research Corp (Wachenhut Corp)." Louisiana Secretary of State, business filings, charters 24407110D (Southern Research Company, Inc.), 26310590D (Southern Research Company of New Orleans, Inc.), and 27005970F (The Wackenhut Corporation), consulted September 21, 2026.
[^11]: Golrick, Philip D. Memorandum to David G. Marwell, "Phone Conversation with Joseph Oster," January 19, 1996, and letters and subpoena to Southern Research Company, Assassination Records Review Board electronic files of Philip G. Golrick (OSTER.WPD, SOURES.WPD); Central Intelligence Agency, report of investigation, September 13, 1960, JFK record 104-10109-10379, p. 14; Orleans Parish Grand Jury, testimony of Arthur Bidderson, January 9, 1969; Assassination Records Review Board, file inventory (082395.WPD). All consulted at the Mary Ferrell Foundation archive.
[^12]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Domestic Intelligence Division, informative note, April 14, 1967, JFK record 124-10369-10048; Assassination Records Review Board, public hearing transcript, testimony of James DiEugenio, p. 89; FBI Miami, memorandum of May 10, 1967, headquarters file 62-109060, section 129, p. 166.
[^13]: Osborn, Howard J. Memorandum for the record, November 8, 1967, JFK record 104-10133-10076.
[^14]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, airtel to SAC Jacksonville, January 13, 1967, and memorandum recording the instruction of April 3, 1967, headquarters file on the Wackenhut Corporation; "Wackenhut Aide Quits; 'Cruel Hoax,'" *The Tampa Tribune,* February 17, 1967, and *St. Petersburg Times* clipping, Tampa file. https://archive.org/details/WackenhutCorporation ; Hougan, Jim. *Spooks*. William Morrow, 1978; House Select Committee on Assassinations, *Report,* vol. 9, pp. 802-805, and testimony of Lewis McWillie, vol. 5.
[^15]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Miami file 80-1229, "The Wackenhut Corporation," with clipping "Wackenhut Is 'Shocked' At Crime's Extent In State," Times-Miami Herald Service, 1967. https://archive.org/details/WackenhutCorporation
[^16]: Hougan, Jim. *Spooks: The Haunting of America: The Private Use of Secret Agents*. William Morrow, 1978, pp. 345-346, citing Warren Commission Document 206 and Commission Exhibit 1697.
[^17]: Connolly, John. "Inside the Shadow CIA," *Spy,* September 1992, pp. 46-54.
[^18]: Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University, finding aid to the Church League of America Collection of the Research Files of Counterattack, the Wackenhut Corporation, and Karl Baarslag, TAM 148. https://findingaids.library.nyu.edu/tamwag/tam_148/
[^19]: West, Ashley. "Unknowing Ray Horsch, Episode 1: Youth," *The Rialto Report,* Podcast 171, September 13, 2026, audio at 18:34 to 22:49. https://www.therialtoreport.com/2026/09/13/ray-horsch-2/
[^3]: Youngblood, Fred R. "The Wackenhut Corporation," CIA memorandum for the record, CS-2793, March 26, 1963. JFK Assassination Records Collection, record 104-10130-10472.
[^4]: Central Intelligence Agency, "Wackenhut Corporation, SF# 493 364," memorandum for the record, July 28, 1975. JFK Assassination Records Collection, record 104-10130-10454, released in full March 18, 2025. https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2025/0318/104-10130-10454.pdf
[^5]: "Florida: I, Claudius," *Time,* 1967.
[^6]: Central Intelligence Agency, transmittal and routing slips, September 5 and December 10, 1969, records 104-10130-10470 and 104-10130-10471; request for contact security approval, February to March 1971, record 104-10130-10468; Sheridan, Arthur C., memorandum to SAC, Miami Field Office, "Wackenhut Corporation #493364," April 20, 1971, record 104-10130-10469. JFK Assassination Records Collection. On VENOM: CIA memoranda of July 23, 1970 (104-10120-10117), March 19, 1971 (104-10117-10341), and May 5, 1971 (104-10122-10166), as summarized in the Mary Ferrell Foundation cryptonym database, entry "VENOM."
[^7]: Burr, William, ed. "Project Azorian: The CIA's Declassified History of the Glomar Explorer," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 305, 2010. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb305/index.htm
[^8]: Connolly, John. "Inside the Shadow CIA," *Spy,* September 1992, pp. 46-54.
[^9]: Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University, finding aid to the Church League of America Collection of the Research Files of Counterattack, the Wackenhut Corporation, and Karl Baarslag, TAM 148. https://findingaids.library.nyu.edu/tamwag/tam_148/
[^10]: West, Ashley. "Unknowing Ray Horsch, Episode 1: Youth," *The Rialto Report,* Podcast 171, September 13, 2026, audio at 18:34 to 22:49. https://www.therialtoreport.com/2026/09/13/ray-horsch-2/
[^11]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, airtel to SAC Jacksonville, January 13, 1967, and memorandum recording the instruction of April 3, 1967, headquarters file on the Wackenhut Corporation; "Wackenhut Aide Quits; 'Cruel Hoax,'" *The Tampa Tribune,* February 17, 1967, and *St. Petersburg Times* clipping, Tampa file. https://archive.org/details/WackenhutCorporation ; Hougan, Jim. *Spooks*. William Morrow, 1978; House Select Committee on Assassinations, *Report,* vol. 9, pp. 802-805, and testimony of Lewis McWillie, vol. 5.
[^12]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Miami file 80-1229, "The Wackenhut Corporation," with clipping "Wackenhut Is 'Shocked' At Crime's Extent In State," Times-Miami Herald Service, 1967. https://archive.org/details/WackenhutCorporation
[^13]: Hougan, Jim. *Spooks: The Haunting of America: The Private Use of Secret Agents*. William Morrow, 1978, pp. 345-346, citing Warren Commission Document 206 and Commission Exhibit 1697.
[^14]: Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Security, "HSCA Chrono for 1977-1978 of Reports and Requests," CIA Reading Room document 00548292; Office of Legislative Counsel, HSCA request OLC 78-0070/1, January 12, 1978, with National Photographic Interpretation Center memorandum of January 30, 1978, document 00491180; McDonald, James H., Director of Logistics, memorandum on item 36, JFK record 104-10135-10200; Solie, Bruce L. "Wackenhut Corp.," memorandum for the record, July 18, 1978, JFK record 104-10130-10450.
[^15]: DiEugenio, James. "The Wegmann Files," *Probe,* vol. 4, no. 4, May-June 1997, pp. 8-9, in the Harold Weisberg Collection, Hood College; Central Intelligence Agency, "Names Traces on OLC Requests," February 6, 1978, CIA Reading Room document 00419231, listing item 36 as "Southern Research Corp (Wachenhut Corp)." Louisiana Secretary of State, business filings, charters 24407110D (Southern Research Company, Inc.), 26310590D (Southern Research Company of New Orleans, Inc.), and 27005970F (The Wackenhut Corporation), consulted September 21, 2026.
[^16]: Golrick, Philip D. Memorandum to David G. Marwell, "Phone Conversation with Joseph Oster," January 19, 1996, and letters and subpoena to Southern Research Company, Assassination Records Review Board electronic files of Philip G. Golrick (OSTER.WPD, SOURES.WPD); Central Intelligence Agency, report of investigation, September 13, 1960, JFK record 104-10109-10379, p. 14; Orleans Parish Grand Jury, testimony of Arthur Bidderson, January 9, 1969; Assassination Records Review Board, file inventory (082395.WPD). All consulted at the Mary Ferrell Foundation archive.
[^17]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Domestic Intelligence Division, informative note, April 14, 1967, JFK record 124-10369-10048; Assassination Records Review Board, public hearing transcript, testimony of James DiEugenio, p. 89; FBI Miami, memorandum of May 10, 1967, headquarters file 62-109060, section 129, p. 166.
[^18]: Osborn, Howard J. Memorandum for the record, November 8, 1967, JFK record 104-10133-10076.
[^19]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network*. TrineDay, 1992.