From 9173c41b7936ea53a67082ba762ca371157a5c79 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "disinfo.zone" Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2026 01:25:00 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] vault backup: 2026-10-16 01:25:00 --- 00 - META/CHANGELOG.md | 200 +++---- 10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Adolf Berle.md | 69 +-- 10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Aldrich Ames.md | 2 +- 10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Aleister Crowley.md | 2 +- 10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Alexander Acosta.md | 111 ++-- 10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Allan Boyak.md | 2 +- 10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Allen Dulles.md | 92 ++-- 10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Annie Farmer.md | 4 +- 10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Arif Durrani.md | 19 +- 10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ashley Gorski.md | 8 +- 10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Bill Gates.md | 9 +- 10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Danny Casolaro.md | 15 +- 10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Donald Gregg.md | 13 +- 10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Earl Brian.md | 12 +- 10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ernst David Bergmann.md | 2 +- 10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Faisal Saud al-Fulaij.md | 4 +- 10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/George H.W. 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Epstein & Co..md | 2 +- 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Kalshi.md | 4 +- 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Kobre & Kim.md | 2 +- .../PRIVATE/Leading the Future.md | 6 +- .../PRIVATE/Lockheed Aircraft Company.md | 7 +- 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Lockheed Martin.md | 289 +++++++++++ .../PRIVATE/Lockheed Skunk Works.md | 45 +- 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Microsoft.md | 283 ++++++++++ .../PRIVATE/Morgan Guaranty Trust.md | 2 +- .../PRIVATE/National Security Archive.md | 165 +++--- 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Newsweek.md | 5 +- ...ear Materials and Equipment Corporation.md | 6 +- 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/OpenAI.md | 136 ++--- .../PRIVATE/Ordo Templi Orientis.md | 2 +- .../PRIVATE/Palantir Technologies.md | 41 +- 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/PayPal Mafia.md | 17 +- .../PRIVATE/Princeton University.md | 272 ++++++++++ .../PRIVATE/Robert R. 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Epstein.md | 23 +- 40 - EVENTS/United States v. Hasbajrami.md | 10 +- .../Child sexual abuse material.md | 4 +- .../DRUGS_&_TRAFFICKING/Crack Cocaine.md | 5 +- .../INTELLIGENCE/Safehouses.md | 2 +- 50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/Lolita Express.md | 2 +- 60 - PLACES/CITIES/Beirut.md | 240 +++++++++ 60 - PLACES/CITIES/Jerusalem.md | 2 +- 60 - PLACES/CITIES/Philadelphia.md | 201 ++++++++ 60 - PLACES/COUNTRIES/Belgium.md | 15 +- 60 - PLACES/COUNTRIES/Israel.md | 4 +- 60 - PLACES/COUNTRIES/United Kingdom.md | 2 +- 60 - PLACES/LANDMARKS/Deep Creek Lodge.md | 2 +- 60 - PLACES/MILITARY_INSTALLATIONS/Area 51.md | 4 +- 60 - PLACES/REGIONS/Europe.md | 186 +++++++ 60 - PLACES/US_STATES/Delaware.md | 218 ++++++++ 60 - PLACES/US_STATES/New York.md | 214 ++++++++ 60 - PLACES/US_STATES/Ohio.md | 220 ++++++++ 60 - PLACES/US_STATES/Pennsylvania.md | 218 ++++++++ 199 files changed, 10378 insertions(+), 1741 deletions(-) create mode 100644 10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Dexter Lehtinen.md delete mode 100644 10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Dexter Leitenen.md create mode 100644 10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Barack Obama.md create mode 100644 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Democratic National Committee.md create mode 100644 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Department of Energy.md create mode 100644 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Supreme Court of the United States.md create mode 100644 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.md create mode 100644 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/United States Attorney.md create mode 100644 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.md create mode 100644 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.md create mode 100644 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/United States Senate.md create mode 100644 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Columbia University.md create mode 100644 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Facebook.md create mode 100644 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/General Motors.md create mode 100644 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/George Washington University.md create mode 100644 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Georgetown University.md create mode 100644 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Google.md create mode 100644 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Lockheed Martin.md create mode 100644 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Microsoft.md create mode 100644 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Princeton University.md create mode 100644 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/United Press International.md create mode 100644 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/University of Oxford.md create mode 100644 20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Yale University.md create mode 100644 60 - PLACES/CITIES/Beirut.md create mode 100644 60 - PLACES/CITIES/Philadelphia.md create mode 100644 60 - PLACES/REGIONS/Europe.md create mode 100644 60 - PLACES/US_STATES/Delaware.md create mode 100644 60 - PLACES/US_STATES/New York.md create mode 100644 60 - PLACES/US_STATES/Ohio.md create mode 100644 60 - PLACES/US_STATES/Pennsylvania.md diff --git a/00 - META/CHANGELOG.md b/00 - META/CHANGELOG.md index b149c29a..13ad0c92 100644 --- a/00 - META/CHANGELOG.md +++ b/00 - META/CHANGELOG.md @@ -1,100 +1,100 @@ -- 2026-10-15T1757 · [[The Finders]] -- 2026-10-15T1757 · [[National Bank of Oman]] -- 2026-10-15T1757 · [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] -- 2026-10-15T1757 · [[Abu Dhabi Investment Authority]] -- 2026-10-15T1757 · [[John Di Giorgio]] -- 2026-10-15T1755 · [[Marion Pettie]] -- 2026-10-15T1755 · [[Ramon J. Martinez]] -- 2026-10-15T1755 · [[Future Enterprises]] -- 2026-10-15T1750 · [[Robert Booth Nichols]] -- 2026-10-15T1750 · [[Peter Videnieks]] -- 2026-10-15T1750 · [[Danny Casolaro]] -- 2026-10-15T1750 · [[Bill Turner]] -- 2026-10-15T1750 · [[Bill Hamilton]] -- 2026-10-15T1748 · [[Joseph Cuellar]] -- 2026-10-15T1747 · [[R.C. Horsch]] -- 2026-10-15T1747 · [[Arcadia Theatre (Philadelphia)]] -- 2026-10-15T1747 · [[Bandbox Theater]] -- 2026-10-15T1747 · [[The Erotic Memoirs of a Male Chauvinist Pig]] -- 2026-10-15T1747 · [[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia]] -- 2026-10-15T1746 · [[John Krol]] -- 2026-10-15T1746 · [[Art Carduner]] -- 2026-10-15T1746 · [[Black Mass (1975 film)]] -- 2026-10-15T1745 · [[Iran-Contra Affair]] -- 2026-10-15T1745 · [[Rockefeller Commission 1975]] -- 2026-10-15T1745 · [[Dick Cheney]] -- 2026-10-15T1744 · [[Philip Arthur Thompson]] -- 2026-10-15T1744 · [[Michael Riconosciuto]] -- 2026-10-15T1743 · [[Robert Barnes]] -- 2026-10-15T1743 · [[Peter Zokosky]] -- 2026-10-15T1743 · [[Jimmy Hughes]] -- 2026-10-15T1743 · [[Ben Kalka]] -- 2026-10-15T1742 · [[Khalfan al-Mazrui]] -- 2026-10-15T1741 · [[Ghanim Faris al-Mazrui]] -- 2026-10-15T1741 · [[Zayed bin Sultan AL-Nahayan]] -- 2026-10-15T1700 · [[Karel Maasdam]] -- 2026-10-15T1659 · [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program]] -- 2026-10-15T1659 · [[Mellon Family]] -- 2026-10-15T1659 · [[Martin Gardner]] -- 2026-10-15T1659 · [[Arthur Koestler]] -- 2026-10-15T1658 · [[Synchronicity]] -- 2026-10-15T1657 · [[Martin Orne]] -- 2026-10-15T1657 · [[Project MKUltra]] -- 2026-10-15T1657 · [[Multiple Personality Disorder]] -- 2026-10-15T1657 · [[Hypnotism]] -- 2026-10-15T1657 · [[False Memory Syndrome]] -- 2026-10-15T1656 · [[Dissociative Identity Disorder]] -- 2026-10-15T1656 · [[Iron Gates]] -- 2026-10-15T1656 · [[Terrorgram Collective]] -- 2026-10-15T1656 · [[Martinet Press]] -- 2026-10-15T1656 · [[Order of Nine Angles]] -- 2026-10-15T1654 · [[Jean-Michel Nihoul]] -- 2026-10-15T1654 · [[Marc Dutroux]] -- 2026-10-15T1653 · [[Oakland County Child Killer]] -- 2026-10-15T1653 · [[John Wayne Gacy]] -- 2026-10-15T1653 · [[Serial Killer]] -- 2026-10-15T1652 · [[Rolodex Investigation]] -- 2026-10-15T1650 · [[Salvatore La Russa]] -- 2026-10-15T1650 · [[Georgina Spelvin]] -- 2026-10-15T1650 · [[Sam Lake]] -- 2026-10-15T1649 · [[Margaret Thatcher]] -- 2026-10-15T1649 · [[Syrian Embassy in London]] -- 2026-10-15T1648 · [[Robert Bigelow]] -- 2026-10-15T1648 · [[Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies]] -- 2026-10-15T1646 · [[Skinwalker Ranch]] -- 2026-10-15T1518 · [[Charlie Sargent]] -- 2026-10-15T1518 · [[Blood and Honour]] -- 2026-10-15T1518 · [[William Bradford Reynolds]] -- 2026-10-15T1518 · [[Searchlight Magazine]] -- 2026-10-15T1516 · [[Great St. James]] -- 2026-10-15T1516 · [[DP World]] -- 2026-10-15T1516 · [[David Myatt]] -- 2026-10-15T1516 · [[National Commercial Bank]] -- 2026-10-15T1516 · [[Scott Weekly]] -- 2026-10-15T1516 · [[Pablo Escobar]] -- 2026-10-15T1516 · [[Bo Gritz]] -- 2026-10-15T1516 · [[Felix Rodriguez]] -- 2026-10-15T1516 · [[Frigorificos de Puntarenas]] -- 2026-10-15T1516 · [[Robbie Van Der Plancken]] -- 2026-10-15T1516 · [[Morkhoven Workgroup]] -- 2026-10-15T1516 · [[Marcel Vervloesem]] -- 2026-10-15T1516 · [[Apollo Bulletin Board Service]] -- 2026-10-15T1516 · [[Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem]] -- 2026-10-15T1516 · [[Combat 18]] -- 2026-10-15T1516 · [[Khalid bin Mahfouz]] -- 2026-10-15T1516 · [[United States Army Intelligence Support Activity]] -- 2026-10-15T1516 · [[Ramon Milian Rodriguez]] -- 2026-10-15T1516 · [[Gerrit-Jan Ulrich]] -- 2026-10-15T1349 · [[Tempel ov Blood]] -- 2026-10-15T1349 · [[Atomwaffen Division]] -- 2026-10-15T1349 · [[Joshua Caleb Sutter]] -- 2026-10-15T1349 · [[Charles Manson]] -- 2026-10-15T1349 · [[Kaleb Cole]] -- 2026-10-15T1347 · [[Eugene Horsch]] -- 2026-10-15T1347 · [[Siege]] -- 2026-10-15T1345 · [[James Mason]] -- 2026-10-15T1345 · [[Oscar Guerrero]] -- 2026-10-15T1345 · [[Mordecai Vanunu]] -- 2026-10-15T1345 · [[Cindy Hanin Bentov]] -- 2026-10-15T1344 · [[Thomas Olmstead]] -- 2026-10-15T1342 · [[Martin Bacow]] +- 2026-10-15T2143 · [[Project Monarch]] +- 2026-10-15T2143 · [[Kalshi]] +- 2026-10-15T2142 · [[Battelle Memorial Institute]] +- 2026-10-15T2142 · [[Annie Farmer]] +- 2026-10-15T2142 · [[Project Blue Book]] +- 2026-10-15T2141 · [[Ohio]] +- 2026-10-15T2140 · [[Spencer Oliver]] +- 2026-10-15T2140 · [[Robert R. Mullen Company]] +- 2026-10-15T2139 · [[Democratic National Committee]] +- 2026-10-15T2137 · [[Department of Energy]] +- 2026-10-15T2137 · [[Norman Lamont]] +- 2026-10-15T2137 · [[Ruth Davis]] +- 2026-10-15T2137 · [[R. S. Hawke]] +- 2026-10-15T2137 · [[Gerald G. Oplinger]] +- 2026-10-15T2137 · [[Donald M. Kerr]] +- 2026-10-15T2131 · [[Princeton University]] +- 2026-10-15T2131 · [[Richard Secord]] +- 2026-10-15T2131 · [[NSA]] +- 2026-10-15T2131 · [[Area 51]] +- 2026-10-15T2131 · [[Nicholas J. Bua]] +- 2026-10-15T2131 · [[Danny Casolaro]] +- 2026-10-15T2130 · [[John Foster Dulles]] +- 2026-10-15T2130 · [[J. Edgar Hoover]] +- 2026-10-15T2130 · [[Jack Anderson]] +- 2026-10-15T2129 · [[National Security Archive]] +- 2026-10-15T2129 · [[HumRRO]] +- 2026-10-15T2128 · [[George Washington University]] +- 2026-10-15T2127 · [[General Motors]] +- 2026-10-15T2126 · [[Hughes Aircraft Company]] +- 2026-10-15T2126 · [[Joe Biden]] +- 2026-10-15T2126 · [[Business Plot]] +- 2026-10-15T2125 · [[Standard Oil]] +- 2026-10-15T2124 · [[Galo Plaza]] +- 2026-10-15T2124 · [[Rockefeller Commission 1975]] +- 2026-10-15T2124 · [[Project MKUltra]] +- 2026-10-15T2124 · [[Center for Security and Emerging Technology]] +- 2026-10-15T2124 · [[Geschickter Fund for Medical Research]] +- 2026-10-15T2122 · [[Georgetown University]] +- 2026-10-15T2024 · [[Lockheed Martin]] +- 2026-10-15T2024 · [[Yale University]] +- 2026-10-15T2024 · [[United States v. Hasbajrami]] +- 2026-10-15T2024 · [[Project FUBELT]] +- 2026-10-15T2022 · [[Beirut]] +- 2026-10-15T2022 · [[United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit]] +- 2026-10-15T2022 · [[Barack Obama]] +- 2026-10-15T2022 · [[Pennsylvania]] +- 2026-10-15T2022 · [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit]] +- 2026-10-15T2021 · [[Stargate Project]] +- 2026-10-15T2021 · [[Kenneth A. Kress]] +- 2026-10-15T2021 · [[George H.W. Bush]] +- 2026-10-15T2018 · [[IBM]] +- 2026-10-15T2018 · [[Ashley Gorski]] +- 2026-10-15T2018 · [[United States v. Epstein]] +- 2026-10-15T2018 · [[Laura Menninger]] +- 2026-10-15T2018 · [[Arif Durrani]] +- 2026-10-15T2017 · [[Jonathan Pollard]] +- 2026-10-15T2017 · [[Peter Videnieks]] +- 2026-10-15T2017 · [[Financial General Bankshares]] +- 2026-10-15T2016 · [[Rene Schneider]] +- 2026-10-15T2016 · [[Orlando Letelier]] +- 2026-10-15T2015 · [[Larry Summers]] +- 2026-10-15T2014 · [[Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation]] +- 2026-10-15T2014 · [[Leslie Kean]] +- 2026-10-15T2011 · [[George Knapp]] +- 2026-10-15T2011 · [[Sandia National Laboratories]] +- 2026-10-15T2011 · [[Lockheed Aircraft Company]] +- 2026-10-15T2011 · [[Lockheed Skunk Works]] +- 2026-10-15T2009 · [[Aerojet]] +- 2026-10-15T2009 · [[Jacques Vallee]] +- 2026-10-15T2009 · [[Jack Blum]] +- 2026-10-15T2009 · [[Kit Green]] +- 2026-10-15T2009 · [[Kamal Adham]] +- 2026-10-15T2009 · [[Faisal Saud al-Fulaij]] +- 2026-10-15T2009 · [[Advanced Theoretical Physics Working Group]] +- 2026-10-15T2009 · [[Southern Air Transport]] +- 2026-10-15T2009 · [[Atomic Energy Commission]] +- 2026-10-15T2009 · [[Francis Gary Powers]] +- 2026-10-15T2009 · [[Richard Bissell]] +- 2026-10-15T2008 · [[Robert Byck]] +- 2026-10-15T2008 · [[Crack Cocaine]] +- 2026-10-15T1920 · [[United States Attorney]] +- 2026-10-15T1919 · [[Toby Ord]] +- 2026-10-15T1919 · [[GRU]] +- 2026-10-15T1919 · [[Mark Zuckerberg]] +- 2026-10-15T1919 · [[Child sexual abuse material]] +- 2026-10-15T1919 · [[Palantir Technologies]] +- 2026-10-15T1919 · [[Cambridge Analytica]] +- 2026-10-15T1918 · [[Cantor Fitzgerald]] +- 2026-10-15T1918 · [[BGC Group]] +- 2026-10-15T1917 · [[Counter Extremism Project]] +- 2026-10-15T1917 · [[Anthropic]] +- 2026-10-15T1917 · [[Office of Technical Service]] +- 2026-10-15T1916 · [[Future of Humanity Institute]] +- 2026-10-15T1915 · [[OpenAI]] +- 2026-10-15T1915 · [[David Sacks]] +- 2026-10-15T1915 · [[Edward Snowden]] +- 2026-10-15T1915 · [[Bill Gates]] +- 2026-10-15T1915 · [[Eugene Jhong]] +- 2026-10-15T1914 · [[PayPal Mafia]] +- 2026-10-15T1914 · [[AdFin Solutions]] diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Adolf Berle.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Adolf Berle.md index c43299ae..8bdd20e9 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Adolf Berle.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Adolf Berle.md @@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ born: 1895-01-29 died: 1971-02-17 location: New York, NY / Washington, DC / Rio de Janeiro created: 2026-06-05 -updated: 2026-06-05 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Adolf Augustus Berle Jr. (January 29, 1895 - February 17, 1971) was one of the most consequential and least-publicized architects of US Cold War Latin American policy. A Harvard Law-trained academic and corporate lawyer, Berle served as assistant secretary of state for Latin American affairs under President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] from 1938 to 1944, built the State Department's wartime intelligence coordination apparatus, served as US ambassador to [[Brazil]] from 1945 to 1946, and in retirement remained active in the [[Rockefeller]] network as a lawyer, political operator, and coup coordinator until his death in 1971. His Manhattan townhouse was the site from which he monitored the 1964 Brazilian coup by shortwave radio as it unfolded alongside coup conspirator [[Alberto Byington]].[^1] @@ -23,75 +23,76 @@ Berle was a founder of the New Deal brain trust and co-author (with [[Gardiner M ### Early Career and the Brain Trust -Berle entered Harvard College at age 14, earning his bachelor's degree in 1913 and master's degree in 1914, then graduated from [[Harvard Law School]] in 1916 at age 21, reportedly the second youngest graduate in the school's history after [[Louis Brandeis]]. He served as an intelligence officer in [[World War I]] and attended the [[Paris Peace Conference]] in 1919 as a junior delegate, resigning over the treaty's terms. He subsequently joined the law firm Berle, Berle and Brunner in [[New York City]] and was appointed professor of corporate law at [[Columbia University]] in 1927, a position he held until 1964. +Berle entered Harvard College at age 14, earning his bachelor's degree in 1913 and master's degree in 1914, then graduated from [[Harvard Law School]] in 1916 at age 21, reportedly the second youngest graduate in the school's history after [[Louis Brandeis]]. He served as an intelligence officer in [[World War I]] and attended the [[Paris Peace Conference]] in 1919 as a junior delegate, resigning over the treaty's terms. He subsequently joined the law firm Berle, Berle and Brunner in [[New York City]] and was appointed professor of corporate law at [[Columbia University]] in 1927, a position he held until 1963, when he became professor emeritus.[^3] After the war he assisted such foundations as the Fund for the Republic, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Committee on Human Ecology during the 1950s and 1960s, and from 1948 to 1963 he was a trustee of the [[Free Europe Committee]].[^3] -From 1934 to 1938 he served as Chamberlain of New York City under Mayor [[Fiorello LaGuardia]], while simultaneously advising Roosevelt's presidential campaign in 1932 and helping draft New Deal legislation as a member of the original "Brains Trust."[^3] +From 1934 to 1938 he served as Chamberlain of New York City under Mayor [[Fiorello LaGuardia]], while simultaneously advising Roosevelt's presidential campaign in 1932 and helping draft New Deal legislation as a member of the original "Brains Trust."[^4] ### The State Department and Intelligence Architecture Berle joined the Roosevelt administration's State Department on March 7, 1938, appointed Assistant Secretary of State on March 5, and quickly established himself as the dominant figure on Latin American policy. By 1941 he had charge of intelligence coordination for the State Department, working with the FBI in Latin America and with the [[OSS]] in Europe. -He was the principal State Department advocate for the [[FBI Special Intelligence Service]] (SIS), which Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized on June 24, 1940 by presidential directive. The SIS extended FBI counterintelligence operations throughout Latin America as a counter to the German [[Abwehr]] and, by design, a counterweight to any future [[CIA]] encroachment on the Western Hemisphere. Under Berle's authority, SIS personnel were designated as "legal attaches" in nearly every US embassy in Latin America by the end of 1942, creating a network that placed over 340 undercover agents across the region.[^4] +He was the principal State Department advocate for the [[FBI Special Intelligence Service]] (SIS), which Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized on June 24, 1940 by presidential directive. The SIS extended FBI counterintelligence operations throughout Latin America as a counter to the German [[Abwehr]] and, by design, a counterweight to any future [[CIA]] encroachment on the Western Hemisphere. Under Berle's authority, SIS personnel were designated as "legal attaches" in nearly every US embassy in Latin America by the end of 1942, creating a network that placed over 340 undercover agents across the region.[^5] -Berle and [[J. Edgar Hoover]] jointly backed [[Nelson Rockefeller]]'s [[CIAA]] in its 1941 turf war with [[William J. Donovan]]'s Coordinator of Information, ensuring that Donovan's future OSS was restricted to Europe and Asia.[^5] Berle's appointment as assistant secretary terminated December 19, 1944 when Rockefeller took the position, but Berle's institutional creations remained. +Berle and [[J. Edgar Hoover]] jointly backed [[Nelson Rockefeller]]'s [[CIAA]] in its 1941 turf war with [[William J. Donovan]]'s Coordinator of Information, ensuring that Donovan's future OSS was restricted to Europe and Asia.[^6] Berle's appointment as assistant secretary terminated December 19, 1944 when Rockefeller took the position, but Berle's institutional creations remained. -The Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), the State Department's permanent intelligence analysis organization, formally emerged in September 1945 when [[Harry S. Truman]]'s Executive Order 9621 dissolved the OSS and transferred its Research and Analysis Branch to State. Berle's wartime coordination role was the institutional predecessor to this structure.[^6] +The Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), the State Department's permanent intelligence analysis organization, formally emerged in September 1945 when [[Harry S. Truman]]'s Executive Order 9621 dissolved the OSS and transferred its Research and Analysis Branch to State. Berle's wartime coordination role was the institutional predecessor to this structure.[^7] ### Brazil Appointment and the 1945 Coup When Rockefeller became assistant secretary of state in December 1944, he arranged for Berle to replace the existing US ambassador to Brazil, [[Jefferson Caffery]]. Berle was appointed January 18, 1945, presented his credentials to the Brazilian government on January 30, 1945, and took over the Rio de Janeiro embassy. -On September 28, 1945, Berle sent a lengthy telegram to Washington reporting on the political situation under [[Getulio Vargas]] and characterizing Vargas as endeavoring to keep things "on track" toward democratic elections. The following day he delivered a speech to the Associacao Brasileira de Imprensa in which he praised Brazil's promise of free elections. The opposition press immediately read the speech as a US warning to Vargas's queremista supporters, and Vargas later blamed Berle for encouraging the forces that moved against him.[^7] +On September 28, 1945, Berle sent a lengthy telegram to Washington reporting on the political situation under [[Getulio Vargas]] and characterizing Vargas as endeavoring to keep things "on track" toward democratic elections. The following day he delivered a speech to the Associacao Brasileira de Imprensa in which he praised Brazil's promise of free elections. The opposition press immediately read the speech as a US warning to Vargas's queremista supporters, and Vargas later blamed Berle for encouraging the forces that moved against him.[^8] -On October 29, 1945, [[General Pedro Goes Monteiro]] and the military high command forced Vargas to resign, ending his Estado Novo dictatorship. Berle's mission ended February 27, 1946. The episode is characterized in Brazilian historical scholarship as Latin America's first Cold War coup: the first postwar case in which the United States worked through diplomatic manipulation and military channels to remove a government pursuing economic nationalism rather than explicitly communist policies.[^8] +On October 29, 1945, [[General Pedro Goes Monteiro]] and the military high command forced Vargas to resign, ending his Estado Novo dictatorship. Berle's mission ended February 27, 1946. The episode is characterized in Brazilian historical scholarship as Latin America's first Cold War coup: the first postwar case in which the United States worked through diplomatic manipulation and military channels to remove a government pursuing economic nationalism rather than explicitly communist policies.[^9] ### The Kennedy Years -After his formal ambassadorship, Berle returned to Columbia and his law practice, but remained available for government service. In 1961, President [[John F. Kennedy]] named him Chairman of the Task Force on Latin America, an interdepartmental body that shaped US policy responses to [[Cuba]] and the broader hemispheric challenge. Berle attended the State Department planning meeting at which Kennedy asked [[William Fulbright]] to repeat his opposition to the [[Bay of Pigs]] invasion plan, with Berle and [[Thomas C. Mann]] in attendance and neither opposing the operation. He served as a consultant to the Secretary of State from 1961 to 1962.[^9] +After his formal ambassadorship, Berle returned to Columbia and his law practice, but remained available for government service. In 1961, President [[John F. Kennedy]] named him Chairman of the Task Force on Latin America, an interdepartmental body that shaped US policy responses to [[Cuba]] and the broader hemispheric challenge. Berle attended the State Department planning meeting at which Kennedy asked [[William Fulbright]] to repeat his opposition to the [[Bay of Pigs]] invasion plan, with Berle and [[Thomas C. Mann]] in attendance and neither opposing the operation. He served as a consultant to the Secretary of State from 1961 to 1962.[^10] -His oral history interview, conducted July 6, 1967 as part of the [[John F. Kennedy Presidential Library]]'s oral history program, covers his views on Latin American relations, the Bay of Pigs, and the [[Alliance for Progress]] during the Kennedy administration.[^10] +His oral history interview, conducted July 6, 1967 as part of the [[John F. Kennedy Presidential Library]]'s oral history program, covers his views on Latin American relations, the Bay of Pigs, and the [[Alliance for Progress]] during the Kennedy administration.[^11] ### Advisory Role and the 1964 Coup -After his formal government service, Berle continued to operate as an adviser to Rockefeller and as a private intermediary with Brazilian political and military figures. He was a founding trustee of the [[Institute for International Labor Research]], a Cold War anti-communist labor institution funded through [[AIFLD]] and other Rockefeller-network channels.[^11] +After his formal government service, Berle continued to operate as an adviser to Rockefeller and as a private intermediary with Brazilian political and military figures. He was a founding trustee of the [[Institute for International Labor Research]], a Cold War anti-communist labor institution funded through [[AIFLD]] and other Rockefeller-network channels.[^12] -On the night of March 30-31, 1964, as the Brazilian military began its coup against President [[Joao Goulart]], Berle was in his Manhattan townhouse monitoring the coup's progress by shortwave radio alongside Alberto Jackson Byington Jr. (1902-1964), a Sao Paulo businessman and Harvard graduate (class of 1924) who had been working to forestall a "Goulart dictatorship" and had, according to Berle's diary, "bought on his own credit a shipload of oil to make sure the Brazilian Navy would be able to function."[^12] +On the night of March 30-31, 1964, as the Brazilian military began its coup against President [[Joao Goulart]], Berle was in his Manhattan townhouse monitoring the coup's progress by shortwave radio alongside Alberto Jackson Byington Jr. (1902-1964), a Sao Paulo businessman and Harvard graduate (class of 1924) who had been working to forestall a "Goulart dictatorship" and had, according to Berle's diary, "bought on his own credit a shipload of oil to make sure the Brazilian Navy would be able to function."[^13] -Berle's diary entry of April 2, 1964, published in *Navigating the Rapids, 1918-1971: From the Papers of Adolf A. Berle* (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973, edited by Beatrice Bishop Berle and Travis Beal Jacobs), documents Byington's role in securing fuel for the navy and describes how Berle monitored the coup's unfolding. The published diary entry and its context appear on pages 788-789 of *Navigating the Rapids* and are cited in footnote 3 of FRUS 1964-68, Volume XXXI, Document 187, a March 28, 1964 telegram from Ambassador A. Lincoln Gordon to the Department of State and senior US officials.[^13] +Berle's diary entry of April 2, 1964, published in *Navigating the Rapids, 1918-1971: From the Papers of Adolf A. Berle* (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973, edited by Beatrice Bishop Berle and Travis Beal Jacobs), documents Byington's role in securing fuel for the navy and describes how Berle monitored the coup's unfolding. The published diary entry and its context appear on pages 788-789 of *Navigating the Rapids* and are cited in footnote 3 of FRUS 1964-68, Volume XXXI, Document 187, a March 28, 1964 telegram from Ambassador A. Lincoln Gordon to the Department of State and senior US officials.[^14] -The FRUS Document 187 identifies Colonel [[J.C. King]] (Joseph Caldwell King, October 5, 1900 - January 27, 1977) as a recipient of Gordon's sensitive reporting. King was Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division of the CIA during the 1950s and 1960s. Before joining the CIA, King had served as vice-president at [[Johnson and Johnson]] in charge of Brazil and Argentina, and had then joined Nelson Rockefeller's Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, establishing his Brazil connections in the same CIAA network where Berle had operated.[^14] +The FRUS Document 187 identifies Colonel [[J.C. King]] (Joseph Caldwell King, October 5, 1900 - January 27, 1977) as a recipient of Gordon's sensitive reporting. King was Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division of the CIA during the 1950s and 1960s. Before joining the CIA, King had served as vice-president at [[Johnson and Johnson]] in charge of Brazil and Argentina, and had then joined Nelson Rockefeller's Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, establishing his Brazil connections in the same CIAA network where Berle had operated.[^15] ### The Berle-King-Rockefeller Triangle -A persistent operational triangle linked Berle (the diplomatic and political coordinator), J.C. King (the CIA's Western Hemisphere clandestine operations chief), and Nelson Rockefeller (the political principal). All three had been active in Brazil since the CIAA years. Their combined assets, diplomatic relationships, intelligence infrastructure, corporate holdings, and personal military contacts built over two decades, made the 1964 coup possible without requiring direct US military intervention. Alongside the covert network, the Johnson administration's military contingency planning (Operation Brother Sam, authorized March 31, 1964, with a naval task force, aerial convoy, and tanker fleet positioned to support the new government) provided the material backstop.[^15] +A persistent operational triangle linked Berle (the diplomatic and political coordinator), J.C. King (the CIA's Western Hemisphere clandestine operations chief), and Nelson Rockefeller (the political principal). All three had been active in Brazil since the CIAA years. Their combined assets, diplomatic relationships, intelligence infrastructure, corporate holdings, and personal military contacts built over two decades, made the 1964 coup possible without requiring direct US military intervention. Alongside the covert network, the Johnson administration's military contingency planning (Operation Brother Sam, authorized March 31, 1964, with a naval task force, aerial convoy, and tanker fleet positioned to support the new government) provided the material backstop.[^16] His career demonstrates how informal personal networks, rather than formal institutional hierarchies, drove US Latin American policy, and how a single well-connected individual could move between government and private roles while maintaining operational continuity across administrations and decades. ### Primary Sources -Berle kept detailed diaries throughout his career. The complete Adolf A. Berle Papers, 1912-1974, held at the [[Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library]] in Hyde Park, New York, comprise 247 boxes arranged in 29 series and were donated between 1972 and 1982 by Mrs. Beatrice Berle. The collection covers his early career files, general and personal correspondence, State Department work, Brazil embassy files, and later advisory roles. The diaries for 1937-1971 form the core of the published volume *Navigating the Rapids* (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973).[^16] +Berle kept detailed diaries throughout his career. The complete Adolf A. Berle Papers, 1912-1974, held at the [[Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library]] in Hyde Park, New York, comprise 247 boxes arranged in 29 series and were donated between 1972 and 1982 by Mrs. Beatrice Berle. The collection covers his early career files, general and personal correspondence, State Department work, Brazil embassy files, and later advisory roles. The diaries for 1937-1971 form the core of the published volume *Navigating the Rapids* (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973).[^17] -The State Department's biographical entry confirms his appointment and departure dates for both the assistant secretaryship and the Brazil ambassadorship.[^17] +The State Department's biographical entry confirms his appointment and departure dates for both the assistant secretaryship and the Brazil ambassadorship.[^18] -FRUS 1964-68, Volume XXXI (South and Central America; Mexico) contains the primary declassified diplomatic record of the period surrounding the 1964 coup, including Gordon's March 28, 1964 telegram (Document 187) with its footnote citation to Berle's diary; Dean Rusk's March 31, 1964 telegram authorizing contingency measures (Document 198); and related documents covering the period January through April 1964.[^18] +FRUS 1964-68, Volume XXXI (South and Central America; Mexico) contains the primary declassified diplomatic record of the period surrounding the 1964 coup, including Gordon's March 28, 1964 telegram (Document 187) with its footnote citation to Berle's diary; Dean Rusk's March 31, 1964 telegram authorizing contingency measures (Document 198); and related documents covering the period January through April 1964.[^19] ### Footnotes [^1]: Adolf A. Berle diary, April 2, 1964, published in *Navigating the Rapids, 1918-1971: From the Papers of Adolf A. Berle*, ed. Beatrice Bishop Berle and Travis Beal Jacobs (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973), pp. 788-789. Also cited in Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett, *Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon* (HarperCollins, 1995), Ch. 29 ("Operation Brother Sam"). [^2]: Colby and Dennett, Introduction (2017); Ch. 8. Adolf A. Berle and Gardiner Means, *The Modern Corporation and Private Property* (New York: Macmillan, 1932). -[^3]: History.state.gov, "Adolf Augustus Berle Jr.," Office of the Historian biographical entry, https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/berle-adolf-augustus; Spartacus Educational, "Adolf Berle," https://spartacus-educational.com/SPYberle.htm. -[^4]: FBI Special Intelligence Service authorized June 24, 1940 by President Roosevelt; Berle's role as State Department overseer: FBI, "Special Intelligence Service," fbi.gov/history/brief-history/special-intelligence-service; "Special Intelligence Service of the Federal Bureau of Investigation," University of Florida Archives; Colby and Dennett, Ch. 8. -[^5]: Colby and Dennett, Ch. 8 ("Nelson's Grand Alliance"). -[^6]: State Department, "Department of State Intelligence," https://1997-2001.state.gov/about_state/history/intel/intro2.html; introduction to FRUS 1945-50, Intelligence series. -[^7]: Search result citing HAHR article: Stanley Hilton, "The Overthrow of Getulio Vargas in 1945: Diplomatic Intervention, Defense of Democracy, or Political Retribution?" *Hispanic American Historical Review* 67, no. 1 (1987): 1-37. Berle September 28, 1945 telegram to Washington cited therein. -[^8]: Colby and Dennett, Ch. 13 ("Latin America's First Cold War Coup"). Coup date: October 29, 1945. -[^9]: JFK Library, "Berle, Adolf A.: Oral History Interview - JFK #1, 7/6/1967," https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/jfkoh-aab-01; search results citing Kennedy School case study on Bay of Pigs; Powerbase.info, "Adolf A. Berle." -[^10]: JFK Library Oral History, interview conducted July 6, 1967, interviewer Joseph E. O'Connor. -[^11]: Colby and Dennett, Ch. 28-29. -[^12]: Berle diary, April 2, 1964, in *Navigating the Rapids*, pp. 788-789. Colby and Dennett, Ch. 29 (Byington's role and ALCOA connection). -[^13]: FRUS 1964-68, Vol. XXXI, Document 187: Telegram from Ambassador A. Lincoln Gordon (Rio de Janeiro) to the Department of State, March 28, 1964. Footnote 3 of that document cites Berle diary, April 2, 1964, *Navigating the Rapids*, pp. 788-789. Full text at https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v31/d187. -[^14]: J.C. King career: George W. Cullum, *Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy*, Supplement Vol. 8, No. 6992 (Class of 1923); Colby and Dennett, Ch. 8 (OCIAA role) and Ch. 29 (CIA Western Hemisphere Division); listed as addressee in FRUS 1964-68, Vol. XXXI, Document 187. -[^15]: Colby and Dennett, Ch. 8; Ch. 13; Ch. 29. Operation Brother Sam: FRUS 1964-68, Vol. XXXI, Document 198 (Dean Rusk to Embassy Brazil, March 31, 1964, 2:29 p.m.), authorizing naval tanker, task force, and ammunition airlift as contingency measures. -[^16]: FDR Presidential Library finding aid summary: Adolf A. Berle Papers, 1912-1974, 247 boxes, 29 series, donated by Beatrice Berle 1972-1982. Finding aid PDF: https://www.fdrlibrary.org/documents/356632/390886/findingaid_berle.pdf/14404a65-cb54-4e46-bc5d-063088cda701. -[^17]: History.state.gov, "Adolf Augustus Berle Jr.": Assistant Secretary of State appointed March 5, 1938, entry on duty March 7, 1938, terminated December 19, 1944; Ambassador to Brazil appointed January 18, 1945, credentials presented January 30, 1945, mission ended February 27, 1946. -[^18]: FRUS 1964-68, Vol. XXXI, South and Central America; Mexico. Chapter 5 covers Brazil, Documents 181-244, spanning January through April 1964. Full volume index: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v31. +[^3]: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, finding aid, Adolf A. Berle papers, biographical note (associate professor and professor of corporation law at Columbia, 1927-63; professor emeritus, 1963-71). https://www.fdrlibrary.org/documents/356632/390886/findingaid_berle.pdf/14404a65-cb54-4e46-bc5d-063088cda701 +[^4]: History.state.gov, "Adolf Augustus Berle Jr.," Office of the Historian biographical entry, https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/berle-adolf-augustus; Spartacus Educational, "Adolf Berle," https://spartacus-educational.com/SPYberle.htm. +[^5]: FBI Special Intelligence Service authorized June 24, 1940 by President Roosevelt; Berle's role as State Department overseer: FBI, "Special Intelligence Service," fbi.gov/history/brief-history/special-intelligence-service; "Special Intelligence Service of the Federal Bureau of Investigation," University of Florida Archives; Colby and Dennett, Ch. 8. +[^6]: Colby and Dennett, Ch. 8 ("Nelson's Grand Alliance"). +[^7]: State Department, "Department of State Intelligence," https://1997-2001.state.gov/about_state/history/intel/intro2.html; introduction to FRUS 1945-50, Intelligence series. +[^8]: Search result citing HAHR article: Stanley Hilton, "The Overthrow of Getulio Vargas in 1945: Diplomatic Intervention, Defense of Democracy, or Political Retribution?" *Hispanic American Historical Review* 67, no. 1 (1987): 1-37. Berle September 28, 1945 telegram to Washington cited therein. +[^9]: Colby and Dennett, Ch. 13 ("Latin America's First Cold War Coup"). Coup date: October 29, 1945. +[^10]: JFK Library, "Berle, Adolf A.: Oral History Interview - JFK #1, 7/6/1967," https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/jfkoh-aab-01; search results citing Kennedy School case study on Bay of Pigs; Powerbase.info, "Adolf A. Berle." +[^11]: JFK Library Oral History, interview conducted July 6, 1967, interviewer Joseph E. O'Connor. +[^12]: Colby and Dennett, Ch. 28-29. +[^13]: Berle diary, April 2, 1964, in *Navigating the Rapids*, pp. 788-789. Colby and Dennett, Ch. 29 (Byington's role and ALCOA connection). +[^14]: FRUS 1964-68, Vol. XXXI, Document 187: Telegram from Ambassador A. Lincoln Gordon (Rio de Janeiro) to the Department of State, March 28, 1964. Footnote 3 of that document cites Berle diary, April 2, 1964, *Navigating the Rapids*, pp. 788-789. Full text at https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v31/d187. +[^15]: J.C. King career: George W. Cullum, *Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy*, Supplement Vol. 8, No. 6992 (Class of 1923); Colby and Dennett, Ch. 8 (OCIAA role) and Ch. 29 (CIA Western Hemisphere Division); listed as addressee in FRUS 1964-68, Vol. XXXI, Document 187. +[^16]: Colby and Dennett, Ch. 8; Ch. 13; Ch. 29. Operation Brother Sam: FRUS 1964-68, Vol. XXXI, Document 198 (Dean Rusk to Embassy Brazil, March 31, 1964, 2:29 p.m.), authorizing naval tanker, task force, and ammunition airlift as contingency measures. +[^17]: FDR Presidential Library finding aid summary: Adolf A. Berle Papers, 1912-1974, 247 boxes, 29 series, donated by Beatrice Berle 1972-1982. Finding aid PDF: https://www.fdrlibrary.org/documents/356632/390886/findingaid_berle.pdf/14404a65-cb54-4e46-bc5d-063088cda701. +[^18]: History.state.gov, "Adolf Augustus Berle Jr.": Assistant Secretary of State appointed March 5, 1938, entry on duty March 7, 1938, terminated December 19, 1944; Ambassador to Brazil appointed January 18, 1945, credentials presented January 30, 1945, mission ended February 27, 1946. +[^19]: FRUS 1964-68, Vol. XXXI, South and Central America; Mexico. Chapter 5 covers Brazil, Documents 181-244, spanning January through April 1964. Full volume index: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v31. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Aldrich Ames.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Aldrich Ames.md index b4a5236b..a2615a8b 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Aldrich Ames.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Aldrich Ames.md @@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ Aldrich Hazen Ames (born May 26, 1941) was a [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] ### Background and CIA Career -Ames grew up in [[Wisconsin]] and [[Virginia]], son of [[Carleton Ames]], a CIA officer. He joined the CIA in 1962, following his father into the agency. His career trajectory was unremarkable: he served in [[Turkey]], [[Mexico City]], and [[New York]] in various Soviet-related capacities, developing expertise in Soviet intelligence tradecraft but advancing slowly. Colleagues described him as intelligent but undisciplined, a heavy drinker who had difficulty managing administrative responsibilities. Despite periodic poor performance reviews, the CIA retained him. +Ames grew up in [[Wisconsin]] and [[Virginia]], son of [[Carleton Ames]], a CIA officer. He joined the CIA in 1962, following his father into the agency. His career trajectory was unremarkable: he served in [[Turkey]], [[Mexico City]], and [[New York City|New York]] in various Soviet-related capacities, developing expertise in Soviet intelligence tradecraft but advancing slowly. Colleagues described him as intelligent but undisciplined, a heavy drinker who had difficulty managing administrative responsibilities. Despite periodic poor performance reviews, the CIA retained him. In 1981, Ames was assigned to a CIA counterintelligence position handling Soviet sources - ironically, the exact role in which a Soviet penetration agent would have maximum damage potential. He married [[Maria del Rosario Casas Dupuy]], a [[Colombia|Colombian]] national he had recruited as a CIA informant. Her expensive tastes created financial pressure he used to justify his subsequent decisions.[^1] diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Aleister Crowley.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Aleister Crowley.md index 7e98be9a..624ac065 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Aleister Crowley.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Aleister Crowley.md @@ -106,7 +106,7 @@ On July 17 and October 11, 1918, [[William Johnson]], an assistant to the New Yo In his statement of October 11, 1918, as summarized by Agent [[Frank X. O'Donnell]] of the Bureau of Investigation, Crowley said he had earlier tried to become associated with the British Secret Service, "detailing his dealings with Commodore Gaunt [[Guy Gaunt]] of the British Intelligence Office but admitted that he never succeeded in obtaining any official recognition." He described Reuss, the head of the Order, as an "out and out German" who had left England with the German ambassador and was reported to be running the [[Continental Times]] in [[Berlin]], and said that the Order's funds were deposited with the [[Title Guarantee and Trust Company]] in New York and had come through the law firm of [[Lord, Day and Lord]] from the sale of his property in [[Scotland]].[^14] -On September 6, 1939 Crowley wrote a letter applying for employment, addressed to an unknown recipient, in which he stated that at the end of 1914 he had gone to [[New York]], where he saw "Captain (later) Commodore Gaunt R.N.," to whom he "reported directly or indirectly until the Armistice"; that his work was to supply Viereck, [[Hugo Münsterberg]] and Count [[Johann von Bernstorff]] "with false information, and to wreck their propaganda by inducing them to commit psychological blunders"; that afterward he "was able to work directly for their Department of Justice, principally in discovering spy activities"; and that "In 1927 I began work for the [[Special Branch]], this time to watch and report on Communist activities, especially in Berlin, where I lived almost continuously for three years." An undated draft memorandum enclosed with it states that he had pretended to be a "rebel Irishman," that he confided the secret only to Gaunt and the Hon. [[Everard Feilding]], that Lieutenant Colonel [[John Carter]], then head of the Special Branch, had investigated and vindicated his conduct after he was publicly attacked on his return, and that on the outbreak of the war in 1939 he offered his services to the [[Naval Intelligence Department]], which refused.[^15] +On September 6, 1939 Crowley wrote a letter applying for employment, addressed to an unknown recipient, in which he stated that at the end of 1914 he had gone to [[New York City|New York]], where he saw "Captain (later) Commodore Gaunt R.N.," to whom he "reported directly or indirectly until the Armistice"; that his work was to supply Viereck, [[Hugo Münsterberg]] and Count [[Johann von Bernstorff]] "with false information, and to wreck their propaganda by inducing them to commit psychological blunders"; that afterward he "was able to work directly for their Department of Justice, principally in discovering spy activities"; and that "In 1927 I began work for the [[Special Branch]], this time to watch and report on Communist activities, especially in Berlin, where I lived almost continuously for three years." An undated draft memorandum enclosed with it states that he had pretended to be a "rebel Irishman," that he confided the secret only to Gaunt and the Hon. [[Everard Feilding]], that Lieutenant Colonel [[John Carter]], then head of the Special Branch, had investigated and vindicated his conduct after he was publicly attacked on his return, and that on the outbreak of the war in 1939 he offered his services to the [[Naval Intelligence Department]], which refused.[^15] Reports by Agent O'Donnell of July 8 to 19, 1919 (case 365985, radical activities, opened after an anonymous letter forwarded on June 6, 1919) reproduce a confidential report from the "British Secret Service Bureau" dated July 8, 1919. It states that he had "claimed to be on a British Mission," that "He has never been in the army," that "His claim has also been that he joined up with Viereck in order to obtain information for the British government. This is of course absurd," and that in July 1915 he, [[Leila Waddell]] and others went to the [[Statue of Liberty]], described themselves as the "Secret Revolutionary Committee of Public Safety of the Provisional Government of the Irish Republic," and he tore up his passport and renounced allegiance to the "alien tyrant." A further extract from a British file in the New York Attorney General's papers, reported July 18, 1919, states: "Crowley has never had anything whatever to do with any British official in this country. His offers of service have always been rejected, and he has been regarded as a harmless neurotic."[^16] A memorandum for [[J. Edgar Hoover]] dated January 7, 1920, signed [[T. E. Haynes]], summarizes the file and quotes a letter that Crowley wrote to [[J. W. Norwood]] of the [[International Magian Society]] in [[Louisville]]: "I was employed by the Secret Service, my main object being to bring America into the War, my main method to get the Germans to make asses of themselves by increasing their frightfulness until even the Americans kicked." It adds that British Military Intelligence denied that he was a member of the British Mission and stated that he would be detained if he returned to England.[^17] diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Alexander Acosta.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Alexander Acosta.md index 43454df8..789b243c 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Alexander Acosta.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Alexander Acosta.md @@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ summary: "Alexander Acosta is the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District born: 1969-01-16 location: "Miami, Florida (born)" created: 2026-06-20 -updated: 2026-10-12 +updated: 2026-10-15 relations: - type: head_of with: "[[United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida]]" @@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ relations: fn: 7 --- -Alexander Acosta (born January 16, 1969) is an American lawyer who served as [[United States Attorney]] for the [[United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida|Southern District of Florida]] from 2005 to 2009 and as United States Secretary of Labor from 2017 to 2019. As US Attorney he supervised the office that negotiated the [[Epstein non-prosecution agreement|2008 non-prosecution agreement]] with [[Jeffrey Epstein|Jeffrey Epstein]], an arrangement under which Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges in Florida, served a 13-month jail term with work release, and obtained federal immunity for himself and named co-conspirators. A federal judge later ruled that prosecutors violated the [[Crime Victims' Rights Act|Crime Victims' Rights Act]] by concealing the deal from victims, and Acosta resigned as Secretary of Labor in July 2019 amid renewed scrutiny of the agreement.[^1][^2] +Alexander Acosta (born January 16, 1969) is an American lawyer who served as [[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida|United States Attorney]] for the [[United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida|Southern District of Florida]] from 2005 to 2009 and as United States Secretary of Labor from 2017 to 2019. As US Attorney he supervised the office that negotiated the [[Epstein non-prosecution agreement|2007 non-prosecution agreement]] with [[Jeffrey Epstein|Jeffrey Epstein]], an arrangement under which Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges in Florida, served a 13-month jail term with work release, and obtained federal immunity for himself and named co-conspirators. A federal judge later ruled that prosecutors violated the [[Crime Victims' Rights Act|Crime Victims' Rights Act]] by concealing the deal from victims, and Acosta resigned as Secretary of Labor in July 2019 amid renewed scrutiny of the agreement.[^1][^2] ### Early Career and Kirkland & Ellis @@ -58,71 +58,71 @@ Acosta was born in [[Miami]] to Cuban refugee parents and received his undergrad As U.S. Attorney he oversaw the 2006 prosecution of the [[Cali Drug Cartel]] leaders [[Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela]] and [[Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela]], who pleaded guilty on September 26, 2006 and received thirty-year sentences; under the plea agreements 28 relatives gave up their interests in the family's businesses and the government agreed not to prosecute six of them.[^5] -### The 2008 Non-Prosecution Agreement +### The 2007 Non-Prosecution Agreement -Federal investigators in the [[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida|Southern District of Florida]] identified roughly 30, and ultimately more than 30, minors whom Epstein was alleged to have sexually abused, after the [[Palm Beach Police Department]] referred the case to the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] on concerns that the local prosecution would be too lenient. By May 2007 government lawyers had prepared an 82-page prosecution memorandum and a 53-page draft federal indictment charging Epstein with multiple federal sex offenses; the Justice Department later described the draft as a 60-count indictment. Acosta decided in 2007 to negotiate with Epstein's defense team rather than seek that indictment. At a July 31, 2007 meeting with Epstein's lawyers, his office offered to end the investigation if Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges, served at least two years, registered as a sex offender, and agreed to a damages mechanism for victims. Acosta did not sign the agreement but, according to the Justice Department's later review, "participated in its drafting and approved it, with knowledge of its terms."[^1][^6][^7] +Federal investigators in the Southern District of Florida identified roughly 30, and ultimately more than 30, minors whom Epstein was alleged to have sexually abused, after the [[Palm Beach Police Department]] referred the case to the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] on concerns that the local prosecution would be too lenient. By May 2007 government lawyers had prepared an 82-page prosecution memorandum and a 53-page draft federal indictment charging Epstein with multiple federal sex offenses; the Justice Department later described the draft as a 60-count indictment. Acosta decided in 2007 to negotiate with Epstein's defense team rather than seek that indictment. At a July 31, 2007 meeting with Epstein's lawyers, his office offered to end the investigation if Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges, served at least two years, registered as a sex offender, and agreed to a damages mechanism for victims. Acosta did not sign the agreement but, according to the Justice Department's later review, "participated in its drafting and approved it, with knowledge of its terms."[^1][^6][^7] The agreement was signed on September 24, 2007, and the state plea followed on June 30, 2008.[^8] -The non-prosecution agreement, negotiated through 2007 and executed in stages, required Epstein to plead guilty in Palm Beach County court, which he did in June 2008, to state charges including soliciting prostitution and procuring a person under 18 for prostitution. He was sentenced to 18 months, of which he served roughly 13, under conditions that allowed extensive work release. The Justice Department's review recorded that from October 2008 he spent "12 hours a day purportedly working at the '[[Florida Science Foundation]],' an entity Epstein had recently incorporated that was co-located at the West Palm Beach office of one of Epstein's attorneys"; later reporting on sheriff's records described him leaving the jail for up to 16 hours a day, seven days a week. The foundation paid the [[Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office]] 128,136 dollars during his incarceration. Epstein's defense team included high-profile lawyers such as [[Alan Dershowitz|Alan Dershowitz]], [[Kenneth Starr|Kenneth Starr]], and [[Roy Black|Roy Black]], who pressed the office for concessions.[^1][^6][^7][^8][^9][^10] +The non-prosecution agreement, negotiated through 2007 and executed in stages, required Epstein to plead guilty in Palm Beach County court, which he did in June 2008, to state charges including soliciting prostitution and procuring a person under 18 for prostitution. He was sentenced to 18 months, of which he served roughly 13, under conditions that allowed extensive work release. The Justice Department's review recorded that from October 2008 he spent "12 hours a day purportedly working at the '[[Florida Science Foundation]],' an entity Epstein had recently incorporated that was co-located at the West Palm Beach office of one of Epstein's attorneys"; later reporting on sheriff's records described him leaving the jail for up to 16 hours a day, seven days a week. The foundation paid the [[Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office]] 128,136 dollars during his incarceration. Epstein's defense team included high-profile lawyers such as [[Alan Dershowitz|Alan Dershowitz]], [[Kenneth Starr|Kenneth Starr]], and [[Roy Black|Roy Black]], who pressed the office for concessions.[^1][^6][^7][^9][^10][^11] -The agreement extended immunity from federal prosecution to Epstein, to four named co-conspirators, and to unnamed "potential co-conspirators," language read as shielding others who helped recruit or conceal the abuse. The terms were not disclosed to the identified victims while the deal was being finalized, and the agreement was sealed. The breadth of the immunity provisions, the sealing, and the leniency of the sentence became the basis for years of subsequent litigation and official review. The attorney [[Bradley Edwards|Bradley Edwards]], representing victims, led the legal challenge to the agreement.[^1][^11] +The agreement extended immunity from federal prosecution to Epstein, to four named co-conspirators, and to unnamed "potential co-conspirators," language read as shielding others who helped recruit or conceal the abuse. The terms were not disclosed to the identified victims while the deal was being finalized, and the agreement was sealed. The breadth of the immunity provisions, the sealing, and the leniency of the sentence became the basis for years of subsequent litigation and official review. The attorney [[Bradley Edwards|Bradley Edwards]], representing victims, led the legal challenge to the agreement.[^1][^12] ### The Negotiators and the Breakfast -Epstein's lead negotiator was [[Jay Lefkowitz]], a litigation partner at Kirkland & Ellis, Acosta's former firm, and a former director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. On August 19, 2005 Bush had named Lefkowitz the first Special Envoy for Human Rights in [[North Korea]], a part-time post he held while practicing law in New York until January 2009, so that he represented Epstein in 2007 and 2008 while serving in the administration that had appointed Acosta. Starr was also a Kirkland & Ellis partner.[^12][^13] +Epstein's lead negotiator was [[Jay Lefkowitz]], a litigation partner at Kirkland & Ellis, Acosta's former firm, and a former director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. On August 19, 2005 Bush had named Lefkowitz the first Special Envoy for Human Rights in [[North Korea]], a part-time post he held while practicing law in New York until January 2009, so that he represented Epstein in 2007 and 2008 while serving in the administration that had appointed Acosta. Starr was also a Kirkland & Ellis partner.[^13][^14] -The agreement's terms were settled in September 2007 in email between Lefkowitz and the line prosecutor, [[Ann Marie Villafana|A. Marie Villafaña]]. On September 21, three days before signing, Palm Beach State Attorney [[Barry Krischer]] wrote to her: "Glad we could get this worked out for reasons I won't put in writing." On September 24, as the agreement was executed, Lefkowitz asked her to "do whatever you can to keep this from becoming public," and she reported that she had forwarded his message "only to [United States Attorney] Alex, Andy, and Roland."[^14] +The agreement's terms were settled in September 2007 in email between Lefkowitz and the line prosecutor, [[Ann Marie Villafana|A. Marie Villafaña]]. On September 21, three days before signing, Palm Beach State Attorney [[Barry Krischer]] wrote to her: "Glad we could get this worked out for reasons I won't put in writing." On September 24, as the agreement was executed, Lefkowitz asked her to "do whatever you can to keep this from becoming public," and she reported that she had forwarded his message "only to [United States Attorney] Alex, Andy, and Roland."[^15] -On October 10, 2007 Lefkowitz wrote to Acosta that "[n]either federal agents nor anyone from your Office should contact the identified individuals." Acosta then met him for breakfast, and Lefkowitz's follow-up letter thanked Acosta "for the commitment you made to me during our October 12 meeting in which you . . . assured me that your Office would not . . . contact any of the identified individuals, potential witnesses, or potential civil claimants." The breakfast followed the September 24 signing, and the Justice Department's later review found no evidence that it "led to the NPA, which had been signed weeks earlier, or to any other significant decision that benefited Epstein."[^7][^14] +On October 10, 2007 Lefkowitz wrote to Acosta that "[n]either federal agents nor anyone from your Office should contact the identified individuals." Acosta then met him for breakfast, and Lefkowitz's follow-up letter thanked Acosta "for the commitment you made to me during our October 12 meeting in which you . . . assured me that your Office would not . . . contact any of the identified individuals, potential witnesses, or potential civil claimants." The breakfast followed the September 24 signing, and the Justice Department's later review found no evidence that it "led to the NPA, which had been signed weeks earlier, or to any other significant decision that benefited Epstein."[^7][^15] -On November 30, 2007 Acosta wrote to Starr: "I am directing our prosecutors not to issue victim notification letters until this Friday at 5 p.m., to provide you with time to review these options with your client." On December 19, 2007 he wrote to the defense lawyer [[Lilly Ann Sanchez]] that his office would provide notice of the federal resolution but would "defer to the discretion of the State Attorney regarding whether he wishes to provide victims with notices of the state proceedings." Epstein's lawyers then spent six months seeking review from the Criminal Division and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, which declined to intervene on June 23, 2008.[^7][^14] +On November 30, 2007 Acosta wrote to Starr: "I am directing our prosecutors not to issue victim notification letters until this Friday at 5 p.m., to provide you with time to review these options with your client." On December 19, 2007 he wrote to the defense lawyer [[Lilly Ann Sanchez]] that his office would provide notice of the federal resolution but would "defer to the discretion of the State Attorney regarding whether he wishes to provide victims with notices of the state proceedings." Epstein's lawyers then spent six months seeking review from the Criminal Division and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, which declined to intervene on June 23, 2008.[^7][^15] -In a 2011 letter defending the agreement, Acosta wrote that Epstein's team had waged "a year-long assault on the prosecution and the prosecutors," that "[d]efense counsel investigated individual prosecutors and their families," and that they would "obtain concessions as part of a negotiation and agree to proceed, only to change their minds, and appeal the office's position to Washington."[^8] +In a 2011 letter defending the agreement, Acosta wrote that Epstein's team had waged "a year-long assault on the prosecution and the prosecutors," that "[d]efense counsel investigated individual prosecutors and their families," and that they would "obtain concessions as part of a negotiation and agree to proceed, only to change their minds, and appeal the office's position to Washington."[^9] -On his retirement from Kirkland & Ellis in March 2026, Lefkowitz said: "Although I believe everyone is entitled to representation no matter how heinous their crimes, knowing what we all know now, I would not have taken on the Epstein matter." A Kirkland spokesperson said: "To say the least, we deeply regret the firm's 2007 representation of Jeffrey Epstein."[^15] +On his retirement from Kirkland & Ellis in March 2026, Lefkowitz said: "Although I believe everyone is entitled to representation no matter how heinous their crimes, knowing what we all know now, I would not have taken on the Epstein matter." A Kirkland spokesperson said: "To say the least, we deeply regret the firm's 2007 representation of Jeffrey Epstein."[^16] ### The Prosecutors' Chronology -A 51-page "Epstein Investigation Timeline," marked privileged and as containing grand jury material and stamped Exhibit A-1, logs Acosta's part in the negotiation document by document. In the summer of 2007 Criminal Division chief Matthew Menchel announced to the case team that Acosta would offer a two-year state plea, and in August the office told the defense that two years of incarceration was a non-negotiable minimum, that Acosta was not inclined to meet Epstein's counsel, and that Epstein had until August 17 to decide. In September 2007 Acosta, [[Drew Oosterbaan]], chief of the Justice Department's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, First Assistant [[Jeffrey Sloman]], Villafaña and John McMillan met Starr, Lefkowitz and Lilly Ann Sanchez, and on September 11 a draft agreement incorporating Acosta's edits went to [[Gerald Lefcourt]]. On September 23 Acosta told Lefkowitz to deal directly with [[Andrew Lourie]] and Villafaña, and on September 24 he sent his final edits before the signing.[^16] +A 51-page "Epstein Investigation Timeline," marked privileged and as containing grand jury material and stamped Exhibit A-1, logs Acosta's part in the negotiation document by document. In the summer of 2007 Criminal Division chief Matthew Menchel announced to the case team that Acosta would offer a two-year state plea, and in August the office told the defense that two years of incarceration was a non-negotiable minimum, that Acosta was not inclined to meet Epstein's counsel, and that Epstein had until August 17 to decide. In September 2007 Acosta, [[Drew Oosterbaan]], chief of the Justice Department's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, First Assistant [[Jeffrey Sloman]], Villafaña and John McMillan met Starr, Lefkowitz and Lilly Ann Sanchez, and on September 11 a draft agreement incorporating Acosta's edits went to [[Gerald Lefcourt]]. On September 23 Acosta told Lefkowitz to deal directly with [[Andrew Lourie]] and Villafaña, and on September 24 he sent his final edits before the signing.[^17] -After the signing the chronology records a November 30, 2007 letter from Acosta to Starr asking for a statement signed by Epstein that he would abide by every term by December 14 or the office would proceed with prosecution, a companion letter saying the office stood ready to unwind the agreement if Epstein was dissatisfied with it, and a December 14, 2007 draft letter from Acosta to Krischer about Epstein registering as a sex offender. In early January 2008, according to the chronology, Lefkowitz admitted to Acosta in a telephone call that he had never intended Epstein to plead guilty to an offense requiring sex offender registration. After the Criminal Division rejected Epstein's appeal in May 2008, Villafaña asked to indict, and Sloman and Acosta advised that Epstein would be given the chance to perform. On May 16, 2008 Sloman told Villafaña, "We got approved," adding: "Alex called to tell me. He said the ltr needs to be tweaked which we'll do on Monday. I wouldn't call the FBI yet."[^16][^17] +After the signing the chronology records a November 30, 2007 letter from Acosta to Starr asking for a statement signed by Epstein that he would abide by every term by December 14 or the office would proceed with prosecution, a companion letter saying the office stood ready to unwind the agreement if Epstein was dissatisfied with it, and a December 14, 2007 draft letter from Acosta to Krischer about Epstein registering as a sex offender. In early January 2008, according to the chronology, Lefkowitz admitted to Acosta in a telephone call that he had never intended Epstein to plead guilty to an offense requiring sex offender registration. After the Criminal Division rejected Epstein's appeal in May 2008, Villafaña asked to indict, and Sloman and Acosta advised that Epstein would be given the chance to perform. On May 16, 2008 Sloman told Villafaña, "We got approved," adding: "Alex called to tell me. He said the ltr needs to be tweaked which we'll do on Monday. I wouldn't call the FBI yet."[^17][^18] -The Office of Professional Responsibility recorded two recusal questions. In May 2008 the office's Professional Responsibility Officer asked the Department whether Acosta should step aside because he was considering a visiting professorship at [[Harvard Law School]] in 2009 while Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard Law professor, was representing Epstein "as a private, paying client"; the Department advised that there was no basis for recusal. In late 2008, "when Acosta anticipated leaving the USAO and was considering pursuing employment with Kirkland & Ellis," he told Sloman to stop copying him on Epstein emails, and the Department approved his recusal because he had "begun to discuss possible employment" with the firm that represented Epstein.[^18] +The Office of Professional Responsibility recorded two recusal questions. In May 2008 the office's Professional Responsibility Officer asked the Department whether Acosta should step aside because he was considering a visiting professorship at [[Harvard Law School]] in 2009 while Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard Law professor, was representing Epstein "as a private, paying client"; the Department advised that there was no basis for recusal. In late 2008, "when Acosta anticipated leaving the USAO and was considering pursuing employment with Kirkland & Ellis," he told Sloman to stop copying him on Epstein emails, and the Department approved his recusal because he had "begun to discuss possible employment" with the firm that represented Epstein.[^19] ### Crime Victims' Rights Act Ruling -In the case styled [[Doe v. United States]], No. 08-80736, brought by victims including [[Courtney Wild|Courtney Wild]] and [[Jane Doe 2|Jane Doe 2]] to enforce their rights, United States District Judge [[Kenneth Marra|Kenneth Marra]] ruled on February 21, 2019, that the government had violated the Crime Victims' Rights Act by failing to confer with the victims before entering the non-prosecution agreement. The opinion recorded that "[w]hile the Government spent untold hours negotiating the terms and implications of the NPA with Epstein's attorneys, scant information was shared with victims," and that "[t]he Court is not ruling that the decision not to prosecute was improper." After the ruling the Justice Department recused Acosta's former office from the litigation and assigned the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia to defend it. Marra wrote that "particularly problematic was the government's decision to conceal the existence of the" agreement and to "mislead the victims to believe that federal prosecution was still a possibility," finding that prosecutors had counseled the victims to have "patience" after the deal had been signed.[^7][^14] +In the case styled [[Doe v. United States]], No. 08-80736, brought by victims including [[Courtney Wild|Courtney Wild]] and [[Jane Doe 2|Jane Doe 2]] to enforce their rights, United States District Judge [[Kenneth Marra|Kenneth Marra]] ruled on February 21, 2019, that the government had violated the Crime Victims' Rights Act by failing to confer with the victims before entering the non-prosecution agreement. The opinion recorded that "[w]hile the Government spent untold hours negotiating the terms and implications of the NPA with Epstein's attorneys, scant information was shared with victims," and that "[t]he Court is not ruling that the decision not to prosecute was improper." After the ruling the Justice Department recused Acosta's former office from the litigation and assigned the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia to defend it. Marra wrote that "particularly problematic was the government's decision to conceal the existence of the" agreement and to "mislead the victims to believe that federal prosecution was still a possibility," finding that prosecutors had counseled the victims to have "patience" after the deal had been signed.[^7][^15] -In a later ruling on September 16, 2019, Marra declined to invalidate the non-prosecution agreement itself, noting that Epstein had died and that rescission would not restore the victims' position, and he held that the victims were not entitled to monetary damages from the government under the statute. He refused the victims' request to order Acosta to meet with them, writing: "The Court has no jurisdiction over Alexander Acosta, the former U.S. Attorney, who is now a private citizen." The decisions established the CVRA violation as a finding of fact while leaving the underlying agreement in place.[^19][^20] +In a later ruling on September 16, 2019, Marra declined to invalidate the non-prosecution agreement itself, noting that Epstein had died and that rescission would not restore the victims' position, and he held that the victims were not entitled to monetary damages from the government under the statute. He refused the victims' request to order Acosta to meet with them, writing: "The Court has no jurisdiction over Alexander Acosta, the former U.S. Attorney, who is now a private citizen." The decisions established the CVRA violation as a finding of fact while leaving the underlying agreement in place.[^20][^21] -The victims' broader effort to overturn the agreement ultimately failed at the appellate level. In its brief to the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit]], the Justice Department argued that "the legal obligations under the CVRA do not attach prior to the government charging a case," while conceding at oral argument that the office had "made a mistake in causing her to believe that the case was ongoing when in fact the NPA had been signed." A three-judge panel adopted the government's position in April 2020, holding that CVRA rights do not attach before charges, but the full court vacated that opinion in August 2020. On April 15, 2021 the en banc court denied Wild's petition by seven votes to four on a narrower ground: the Act does not authorize a victim to seek judicial enforcement of her rights in a freestanding civil action when no charges have been filed. The majority stated that it "needn't decide" whether the rights to confer and to fair treatment attach before charges, and the dissenting judges faulted it for that omission. The ruling left the district court's finding of a conferral violation undisturbed while denying the victims any remedy, and the [[Supreme Court of the United States]] denied certiorari on February 22, 2022.[^7][^21][^22] +The victims' broader effort to overturn the agreement ultimately failed at the appellate level. In its brief to the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit]], the Justice Department argued that "the legal obligations under the CVRA do not attach prior to the government charging a case," while conceding at oral argument that the office had "made a mistake in causing her to believe that the case was ongoing when in fact the NPA had been signed." A three-judge panel adopted the government's position in April 2020, holding that CVRA rights do not attach before charges, but the full court vacated that opinion in August 2020. On April 15, 2021 the en banc court denied Wild's petition by seven votes to four on a narrower ground: the Act does not authorize a victim to seek judicial enforcement of her rights in a freestanding civil action when no charges have been filed. The majority stated that it "needn't decide" whether the rights to confer and to fair treatment attach before charges, and the dissenting judges faulted it for that omission. The ruling left the district court's finding of a conferral violation undisturbed while denying the victims any remedy, and the [[Supreme Court of the United States]] denied certiorari on February 22, 2022.[^7][^22][^23] ### DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility Report The review originated in a December 3, 2018 letter from Senator [[Ben Sasse]], chairman of a Senate Judiciary oversight subcommittee, citing the [[Miami Herald]] series; OPR opened its investigation on February 6, 2019. It recorded that a victims' attorney had raised allegations of improper influence in December 2010 and that OPR had declined to open an inquiry then in deference to the pending litigation. The Justice Department's [[Office of Professional Responsibility|Office of Professional Responsibility]] released a report on November 12, 2020, examining the conduct of Acosta and his subordinates in the Epstein matter. The report concluded that Acosta exercised "poor judgment" in resolving the federal investigation through a state plea agreement, but it did not find professional misconduct, stating that his decision to decline federal prosecution was within the scope of his authority and that there was no evidence the decision was based on corruption or other impermissible considerations.[^2][^7] -OPR located the "poor judgment" specifically in Acosta's failure to ensure that the state would notify the federally identified victims of Epstein's plea hearing, leaving victims uninformed about the proceeding that resolved an investigation about which the office had communicated with them for months. The report described the non-prosecution agreement as "a flawed mechanism for satisfying the federal interest" that had prompted the investigation, and it documented extensive concessions made to Epstein's lawyers. OPR found that Acosta's "application of federalism principles was too expansive, his view of the federal interest in prosecuting Epstein was too narrow, and his understanding of the state system was too imperfect to justify the decision to use the NPA," and that the three other supervisory subjects "left the USAO, were transitioning to other jobs, or were absent at critical junctures." It also concluded that the government's handling "gave victims and the public the misimpression that the government had colluded with Epstein's counsel to keep the NPA secret from the victims."[^7] The Executive Summary states that Acosta "made the pivotal decision to resolve the federal investigation of Epstein" through a state-based plea, and that he "participated in its drafting and approved it, with knowledge of its terms." It states that as United States attorney he had "plenary authority" to resolve the case as he deemed appropriate, and that he did not commit professional misconduct. It found that he exercised poor judgment both in choosing the non-prosecution agreement as the mechanism and in failing to make certain that the state would notify victims identified in the federal investigation of the state plea hearing.[^23] The summary records the agreement signed on September 24, 2007, the defense's request for review by the Criminal Division and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, the June 23, 2008 determination that the deputy attorney general would not intervene, and the state plea of June 30, 2008.[^24] Before the report was final, the chief of the Public Corruption Unit of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the [[Southern District of New York]] reviewed the draft and on August 21, 2020 asked for two wording changes, which OPR accepted: "at least one victim known to be a minor" became "at least one victim believed to be a minor," described as "more accurately reflect[ing] our position in the bail arguments regarding Epstein," and a statement that investigators "were aware" Epstein used hidden cameras in his New York residence became that they "had learned" it.[^25] +OPR located the "poor judgment" specifically in Acosta's failure to ensure that the state would notify the federally identified victims of Epstein's plea hearing, leaving victims uninformed about the proceeding that resolved an investigation about which the office had communicated with them for months. The report described the non-prosecution agreement as "a flawed mechanism for satisfying the federal interest" that had prompted the investigation, and it documented extensive concessions made to Epstein's lawyers. OPR found that Acosta's "application of federalism principles was too expansive, his view of the federal interest in prosecuting Epstein was too narrow, and his understanding of the state system was too imperfect to justify the decision to use the NPA," and that the three other supervisory subjects "left the USAO, were transitioning to other jobs, or were absent at critical junctures." It also concluded that the government's handling "gave victims and the public the misimpression that the government had colluded with Epstein's counsel to keep the NPA secret from the victims."[^7] The Executive Summary states that Acosta "made the pivotal decision to resolve the federal investigation of Epstein" through a state-based plea, and that he "participated in its drafting and approved it, with knowledge of its terms." It states that as United States attorney he had "plenary authority" to resolve the case as he deemed appropriate, and that he did not commit professional misconduct. It found that he exercised poor judgment both in choosing the non-prosecution agreement as the mechanism and in failing to make certain that the state would notify victims identified in the federal investigation of the state plea hearing.[^24] The summary records the agreement signed on September 24, 2007, the defense's request for review by the Criminal Division and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, the June 23, 2008 determination that the deputy attorney general would not intervene, and the state plea of June 30, 2008.[^25] Before the report was final, the chief of the Public Corruption Unit of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the [[Southern District of New York]] reviewed the draft and on August 21, 2020 asked for two wording changes, which OPR accepted: "at least one victim known to be a minor" became "at least one victim believed to be a minor," described as "more accurately reflect[ing] our position in the bail arguments regarding Epstein," and a statement that investigators "were aware" Epstein used hidden cameras in his New York residence became that they "had learned" it.[^26] -The report also recorded internal dissent. The line prosecutor Ann Marie Villafana had objected to the access granted to Epstein's defense counsel and to meeting with them, and was overruled by supervisors; a footnote recorded her belief that an email from her supervisor [[Matthew Menchel|Matthew Menchel]] was meant to "put [her] in [her] place," while Menchel described her as having a history of resisting supervisory authority. OPR declined to refer Acosta or other prosecutors for disciplinary action on professional-responsibility grounds, a conclusion that victims' advocates characterized as a whitewash.[^26] +The report also recorded internal dissent. The line prosecutor Ann Marie Villafana had objected to the access granted to Epstein's defense counsel and to meeting with them, and was overruled by supervisors; a footnote recorded her belief that an email from her supervisor [[Matthew Menchel|Matthew Menchel]] was meant to "put [her] in [her] place," while Menchel described her as having a history of resisting supervisory authority. OPR declined to refer Acosta or other prosecutors for disciplinary action on professional-responsibility grounds, a conclusion that victims' advocates characterized as a whitewash.[^27] -One of those supervisors was Matthew Menchel, chief of the office's Criminal Division, who left in August 2007, weeks before the agreement was signed, for the law firm [[Kobre & Kim]]. According to reporting on the full OPR report, Menchel had offered the 2007 plea terms to an Epstein lawyer he had formerly dated. Epstein estate records released by the [[House Oversight Committee]] in October 2025 show appointments, telephone calls, and dinners between Menchel and Epstein in 2011, 2013, and 2017. Menchel has said he had no business relationship with Epstein "at any point, not before, during or after my tenure," and has denied skiing with him, but did not deny meeting him after leaving the office.[^27] +One of those supervisors was Matthew Menchel, chief of the office's Criminal Division, who left in August 2007, weeks before the agreement was signed, for the law firm [[Kobre & Kim]]. According to reporting on the full OPR report, Menchel had offered the 2007 plea terms to an Epstein lawyer he had formerly dated. Epstein estate records released by the [[House Oversight Committee]] in October 2025 show appointments, telephone calls, and dinners between Menchel and Epstein in 2011, 2013, and 2017. Menchel has said he had no business relationship with Epstein "at any point, not before, during or after my tenure," and has denied skiing with him, but did not deny meeting him after leaving the office.[^28] ### Secretary of Labor and Resignation President [[Donald Trump|Donald Trump]] nominated Acosta as Secretary of Labor, and he was confirmed by the Senate on April 17, 2017 and sworn in that month, having previously chaired the National Labor Relations Board and served as dean of Florida International University's law school. The Florida agreement drew scrutiny during his 2017 confirmation but did not derail it; OPR recorded that at his March 2017 hearing he was "questioned only briefly about the Epstein case."[^1][^7] -After the November 2018 Miami Herald investigation "Perversion of Justice" by [[Julie K. Brown|Julie K. Brown]] revived attention to the agreement, and after Epstein's July 2019 federal arrest in New York on new sex-trafficking charges, Acosta held a July 10, 2019, press conference defending his handling of the case, arguing that the state alternative had at least secured Epstein's registration as a sex offender and some jail time, and saying that the Palm Beach State Attorney's Office "was ready to allow Epstein to walk free with no jail time, nothing." Krischer answered the same day that Acosta's "recollection of the matter is completely wrong" and that "Mr. Acosta should not be allowed to rewrite history." He resigned on July 12, 2019, two days later, saying he did not want the controversy to distract from the administration's work and that it would be "selfish" to remain.[^1][^28][^29] +After the November 2018 Miami Herald investigation "Perversion of Justice" by [[Julie K. Brown|Julie K. Brown]] revived attention to the agreement, and after Epstein's July 2019 federal arrest in New York on new sex-trafficking charges, Acosta held a July 10, 2019, press conference defending his handling of the case, arguing that the state alternative had at least secured Epstein's registration as a sex offender and some jail time, and saying that the Palm Beach State Attorney's Office "was ready to allow Epstein to walk free with no jail time, nothing." Krischer answered the same day that Acosta's "recollection of the matter is completely wrong" and that "Mr. Acosta should not be allowed to rewrite history." He resigned on July 12, 2019, two days later, saying he did not want the controversy to distract from the administration's work and that it would be "selfish" to remain.[^1][^29][^30] -On September 19, 2025 Acosta sat for a voluntary transcribed interview with the [[House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform|House Oversight Committee]] as part of its renewed inquiry into the federal handling of the Epstein and Maxwell cases; the committee released the transcript on October 17, 2025, together with Epstein estate records. Chairman [[James Comer|James Comer]] said Acosta had cooperated, and the committee separately sought records and testimony from other former officials. Acosta told the committee that prosecutors had avoided trial partly because some underage victims did not want to testify and a conviction was not assured, and he said he did not recall reading Villafaña's recommendation of a 60-count indictment. Lawmakers questioned him about the records of Menchel's later contacts with Epstein and about a photograph said to show the two skiing, which was not produced.[^27][^30] +On September 19, 2025 Acosta sat for a voluntary transcribed interview with the [[House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform|House Oversight Committee]] as part of its renewed inquiry into the federal handling of the Epstein and Maxwell cases; the committee released the transcript on October 17, 2025, together with Epstein estate records. Chairman [[James Comer|James Comer]] said Acosta had cooperated, and the committee separately sought records and testimony from other former officials. Acosta told the committee that prosecutors had avoided trial partly because some underage victims did not want to testify and a conviction was not assured, and he said he did not recall reading Villafaña's recommendation of a 60-count indictment. Lawmakers questioned him about the records of Menchel's later contacts with Epstein and about a photograph said to show the two skiing, which was not produced.[^28][^31] ### Intelligence Claim -In a July 2019 article for [[The Daily Beast|The Daily Beast]], journalist [[Vicky Ward|Vicky Ward]] reported that, according to an anonymous former senior [[White House]] official, Acosta had explained the lenient Epstein deal during his Labor Secretary vetting by saying he had been told that Epstein "belonged to intelligence" and to "leave it alone" because the matter was above his pay grade. Ward's report attributed the account to a single unnamed source, and commentators noted the source could not be independently confirmed. Ward had reported on Epstein for years and had earlier written a 2003 profile of him for Vanity Fair.[^31][^32] +In a July 2019 article for [[The Daily Beast|The Daily Beast]], journalist [[Vicky Ward|Vicky Ward]] reported that, according to an anonymous former senior [[White House]] official, Acosta had explained the lenient Epstein deal during his Labor Secretary vetting by saying he had been told that Epstein "belonged to intelligence" and to "leave it alone" because the matter was above his pay grade. Ward's report attributed the account to a single unnamed source, and commentators noted the source could not be independently confirmed. Ward had reported on Epstein for years and had earlier written a 2003 profile of him for Vanity Fair.[^32][^33] -Acosta disputed the characterization. Asked about the reporting at his July 2019 press conference, he said he would "hesitate to take this reporting as fact." Under oath to Justice Department investigators he answered "no" when asked whether he had knowledge of Epstein being an intelligence asset, and the OPR review reported that none of the subjects it interviewed believed Epstein to have been an intelligence asset.[^33][^34] +Acosta disputed the characterization. Asked about the reporting at his July 2019 press conference, he said he would "hesitate to take this reporting as fact." Under oath to Justice Department investigators he answered "no" when asked whether he had knowledge of Epstein being an intelligence asset, and the OPR review reported that none of the subjects it interviewed believed Epstein to have been an intelligence asset.[^34][^35] -At his September 19, 2025 transcribed interview with the House Oversight Committee, Acosta again denied the intelligence account. Asked whether anyone had told him Epstein could not be prosecuted because he was an asset, he said "No one approached me and said that," and he stated that if there had been classified or secure information bearing on the case, established procedures would have been triggered that were never triggered. The intelligence claim remains an attributed, disputed assertion sourced to a single anonymous account rather than an established finding.[^30][^33] +At his September 19, 2025 transcribed interview with the House Oversight Committee, Acosta again denied the intelligence account. Asked whether anyone had told him Epstein could not be prosecuted because he was an asset, he said "No one approached me and said that," and he stated that if there had been classified or secure information bearing on the case, established procedures would have been triggered that were never triggered. The intelligence claim remains an attributed, disputed assertion sourced to a single anonymous account rather than an established finding.[^31][^34] -[[William Barr]], Attorney General at the time of Epstein's 2019 arrest and death, was asked about the account in an August 18, 2025 deposition before the same committee. Asked whether he was aware of Acosta saying he had been told Epstein "belongs to intelligence and to leave it alone," Barr answered: "No. Other than what's ever been reported in articles over the years." He said he had "no reason to believe he was working for the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] or any intelligence agency, and I'm dubious about claims like that," offered the supposition that Epstein might, "like many other businessmen," have talked to intelligence officers who debrief well-connected people, and said that "if he was an American asset, as opposed to some businessman who shares stuff with the government, I would've heard about it from the intelligence agency."[^35] +[[William Barr]], Attorney General at the time of Epstein's 2019 arrest and death, was asked about the account in an August 18, 2025 deposition before the same committee. Asked whether he was aware of Acosta saying he had been told Epstein "belongs to intelligence and to leave it alone," Barr answered: "No. Other than what's ever been reported in articles over the years." He said he had "no reason to believe he was working for the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] or any intelligence agency, and I'm dubious about claims like that," offered the supposition that Epstein might, "like many other businessmen," have talked to intelligence officers who debrief well-connected people, and said that "if he was an American asset, as opposed to some businessman who shares stuff with the government, I would've heard about it from the intelligence agency."[^36] ### Footnotes @@ -133,31 +133,32 @@ At his September 19, 2025 transcribed interview with the House Oversight Committ [^5]: U.S. Department of Justice, "Cali Cartel Leaders Plead Guilty to Drug and Money Laundering Conspiracy Charges," press release 06-646, September 26, 2006. https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2006/September/06_crm_646.html [^6]: "Jeffrey Epstein 2008 plea deal: poor judgment," *Global News,* November 2020. https://globalnews.ca/news/7460232/jeffrey-epstein-2008-plea-deal-poor-judgment/ [^7]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility, "Investigation into the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida's Resolution of Its 2006-2008 Federal Criminal Investigation of Jeffrey Epstein," November 2020. https://www.justice.gov/opr/page/file/1336471/dl -[^8]: Conchita Sarnoff and Lee Aitken, "Jeffrey Epstein: How the Hedge Fund Mogul Pedophile Got Off Easy," *The Daily Beast,* March 25, 2011, quoting R. Alexander Acosta's 2011 letter. https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-epstein-how-the-hedge-fund-mogul-pedophile-got-off-easy/ -[^9]: "Jeffrey Epstein paid Palm Beach Sheriff's Office $128,000 during incarceration for prostitution charges," *WPTV,* 2019. https://www.wptv.com/news/region-c-palm-beach-county/new-jeffrey-epstein-paid-palm-beach-sheriffs-office-128-000-during-incarceration-for-prostitution -[^10]: "Florida authorities find no evidence of criminal activity in state's handling of Jeffrey Epstein case," *NBC News,* May 2021, on the sheriff's work-release program allowing Epstein out up to 16 hours a day, seven days a week. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/florida-authorities-no-evidence-criminal-activity-state-s-handling-jeffrey-n1266888 -[^11]: "How Bradley Edwards fought Alex Acosta's nonprosecution agreement with Jeffrey Epstein," *Slate,* July 2019. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/07/bradley-edwards-jeffrey-epstein-alexander-acosta.html -[^12]: U.S. Department of State, "Jay Lefkowitz, Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea," official biography, 2005. https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/66929.htm ; "Final Report of Jay Lefkowitz, U.S. Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea," January 2009. https://2009-2017.state.gov/s/senk/115268.htm -[^13]: "Jeffrey Epstein's Disgraced Lawyer Jay Lefkowitz Who Secured Sweetheart Deal Leaves Firm," *The Daily Beast,* March 2026, on Lefkowitz's three decades at Kirkland & Ellis and his Bush White House service. https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-epsteins-disgraced-lawyer-jay-lefkowitz-who-secured-sweetheart-deal-leaves-firm/ -[^14]: Opinion and Order, *Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 v. United States*, No. 9:08-cv-80736-KAM (S.D. Fla. Feb. 21, 2019), ECF No. 435 (Marra, J.), reported at 359 F. Supp. 3d 1201, quoting ECF No. 407 at paragraphs 33, 37, 52, 61, 63, 83, 90, and the court's analysis at 27-33. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.317867/gov.uscourts.flsd.317867.435.0.pdf -[^15]: "Jeffrey Epstein's Disgraced Lawyer Jay Lefkowitz Who Secured Sweetheart Deal Leaves Firm," *The Daily Beast,* March 2026, quoting Lefkowitz's retirement statement and a Kirkland & Ellis spokesperson. https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-epsteins-disgraced-lawyer-jay-lefkowitz-who-secured-sweetheart-deal-leaves-firm/ -[^16]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00224943, DataSet 9, "Epstein Investigation Timeline," Exhibit A-1, privileged chronology of the federal investigation, pp. 9 to 10, 12 to 13, 20, 24 to 29, 34. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00224943.pdf -[^17]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00214486, DataSet 9, email chain, Jeff Sloman and Ann Marie Villafana, "Re: Did u hear?," May 16, 2008. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00214486.pdf -[^18]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02847284, Prior DOJ Disclosures, Office of Professional Responsibility report on the Southern District of Florida's resolution of the Epstein investigation, November 2020, p. 152 and n. 224. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/Prior%20DOJ%20Disclosures/Memos.%20&%20Correspondence/EFTA02847284.pdf -[^19]: "Epstein accusers won't receive damages and plea deal won't be tossed, judge rules," *CNN,* September 16, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/16/us/jeffrey-epstein-florida-accusers-judge-ruling -[^20]: Opinion and Order, *Doe v. United States*, No. 9:08-cv-80736-KAM (S.D. Fla. Sept. 16, 2019), ECF No. 478 (Marra, J.). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-flsd-9_08-cv-80736/pdf/USCOURTS-flsd-9_08-cv-80736-2.pdf -[^21]: *In re Wild*, No. 19-13843, 994 F.3d 1244 (11th Cir. Apr. 15, 2021) (en banc), majority opinion at 2-3, 13; Branch, J., dissenting; Hull, J., dissenting. https://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/201913843.enb.pdf -[^22]: Supreme Court of the United States, docket No. 21-351, order of February 22, 2022 denying certiorari. https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/21-351.html -[^23]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility, Executive Summary of the investigation into the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida's resolution of the 2006-2008 federal investigation of Jeffrey Epstein (November 2020), pp. 10-12. https://www.justice.gov/opr/page/file/1336471/dl -[^24]: Same Executive Summary, pp. 2-3. -[^25]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00077309, DataSet 9, email, Chief, Public Corruption Unit, U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, and the Office of Professional Responsibility, "RE: Draft OPR Report," August 21, 2020. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00077309.pdf -[^26]: "US Attorney Alex Acosta showed 'poor judgment' when giving Jeffrey Epstein state-based plea deal in 2008: DOJ," *ABC News,* November 12, 2020. https://abcnews.com/US/us-attorney-alex-acosta-showed-poor-judgment-giving/story?id=74178029 ; the Villafaña footnote passage appears in the body of the full OPR report of November 2020, not in the executive summary cited at note 7. -[^27]: Debra Cassens Weiss, "Jeffrey Epstein had dinners with top criminal prosecutor in years following favorable deal, documents show," *ABA Journal,* October 20, 2025. https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/jeffrey-epstein-had-dinners-with-top-criminal-prosecutor-in-years-following-favorable-deal-documents-show -[^28]: "Trump's Labor Secretary Alex Acosta resigns after criticism over Epstein deal," *Euronews,* July 12, 2019. https://www.euronews.com/2019/07/12/trump-s-labor-secretary-alex-acosta-resigns-after-criticism-over-n1029226 -[^29]: "Former state's attorney pushes back against Acosta account of Epstein case," *The Hill,* July 10, 2019. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/452527-former-florida-state-attorney-pushes-back-against-acosta-account-of/ -[^30]: "Alex Acosta, former US attorney who negotiated Epstein's plea deal, appears before House Oversight Committee," *ABC News,* October 2025 (September 19, 2025 closed-door transcribed interview; transcript released October 17, 2025). https://abcnews.com/Politics/alex-acosta-former-us-attorney-negotiated-epsteins-plea/story?id=125731737 -[^31]: Vicky Ward, "Jeffrey Epstein's Sick Story Played Out for Years in Plain Sight," *The Daily Beast,* July 9, 2019. https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-epsteins-sick-story-played-out-for-years-in-plain-sight/ -[^32]: "Did Jeffrey Epstein 'Belong to Intelligence'?," *Skeptic,* analyzing Vicky Ward's July 2019 Daily Beast report. https://www.skeptic.com/article/did-jeffrey-epstein-belong-to-intelligence/ -[^33]: "Acosta once said Epstein 'belonged to intelligence,'" *Newsweek,* July 2019. https://www.newsweek.com/alex-acosta-epstein-sex-trafficking-department-labor-1448568 -[^34]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility, full report of November 2020 on the Southern District of Florida's resolution of the Epstein investigation (report body; the passage does not appear in the executive summary cited at note 7). https://www.justice.gov/opr/page/file/1336471/dl -[^35]: U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, deposition of William P. Barr, August 18, 2025, transcript released September 2025. https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Barr-Transcript.pdf +[^8]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility, Executive Summary of Report, *Investigation into the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida's Resolution of Its 2006-2008 Federal Criminal Investigation of Jeffrey Epstein,* November 2020 (NPA signed September 24, 2007; state plea June 30, 2008). https://www.justice.gov/opr/page/file/1336471/dl +[^9]: Conchita Sarnoff and Lee Aitken, "Jeffrey Epstein: How the Hedge Fund Mogul Pedophile Got Off Easy," *The Daily Beast,* March 25, 2011, quoting R. Alexander Acosta's 2011 letter. https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-epstein-how-the-hedge-fund-mogul-pedophile-got-off-easy/ +[^10]: "Jeffrey Epstein paid Palm Beach Sheriff's Office $128,000 during incarceration for prostitution charges," *WPTV,* 2019. https://www.wptv.com/news/region-c-palm-beach-county/new-jeffrey-epstein-paid-palm-beach-sheriffs-office-128-000-during-incarceration-for-prostitution +[^11]: "Florida authorities find no evidence of criminal activity in state's handling of Jeffrey Epstein case," *NBC News,* May 2021, on the sheriff's work-release program allowing Epstein out up to 16 hours a day, seven days a week. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/florida-authorities-no-evidence-criminal-activity-state-s-handling-jeffrey-n1266888 +[^12]: "How Bradley Edwards fought Alex Acosta's nonprosecution agreement with Jeffrey Epstein," *Slate,* July 2019. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/07/bradley-edwards-jeffrey-epstein-alexander-acosta.html +[^13]: U.S. Department of State, "Jay Lefkowitz, Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea," official biography, 2005. https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/66929.htm ; "Final Report of Jay Lefkowitz, U.S. Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea," January 2009. https://2009-2017.state.gov/s/senk/115268.htm +[^14]: "Jeffrey Epstein's Disgraced Lawyer Jay Lefkowitz Who Secured Sweetheart Deal Leaves Firm," *The Daily Beast,* March 2026, on Lefkowitz's three decades at Kirkland & Ellis and his Bush White House service. https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-epsteins-disgraced-lawyer-jay-lefkowitz-who-secured-sweetheart-deal-leaves-firm/ +[^15]: Opinion and Order, *Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 v. United States*, No. 9:08-cv-80736-KAM (S.D. Fla. Feb. 21, 2019), ECF No. 435 (Marra, J.), reported at 359 F. Supp. 3d 1201, quoting ECF No. 407 at paragraphs 33, 37, 52, 61, 63, 83, 90, and the court's analysis at 27-33. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.317867/gov.uscourts.flsd.317867.435.0.pdf +[^16]: "Jeffrey Epstein's Disgraced Lawyer Jay Lefkowitz Who Secured Sweetheart Deal Leaves Firm," *The Daily Beast,* March 2026, quoting Lefkowitz's retirement statement and a Kirkland & Ellis spokesperson. https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-epsteins-disgraced-lawyer-jay-lefkowitz-who-secured-sweetheart-deal-leaves-firm/ +[^17]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00224943, DataSet 9, "Epstein Investigation Timeline," Exhibit A-1, privileged chronology of the federal investigation, pp. 9 to 10, 12 to 13, 20, 24 to 29, 34. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00224943.pdf +[^18]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00214486, DataSet 9, email chain, Jeff Sloman and Ann Marie Villafana, "Re: Did u hear?," May 16, 2008. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00214486.pdf +[^19]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02847284, Prior DOJ Disclosures, Office of Professional Responsibility report on the Southern District of Florida's resolution of the Epstein investigation, November 2020, p. 152 and n. 224. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/Prior%20DOJ%20Disclosures/Memos.%20&%20Correspondence/EFTA02847284.pdf +[^20]: "Epstein accusers won't receive damages and plea deal won't be tossed, judge rules," *CNN,* September 16, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/16/us/jeffrey-epstein-florida-accusers-judge-ruling +[^21]: Opinion and Order, *Doe v. United States*, No. 9:08-cv-80736-KAM (S.D. Fla. Sept. 16, 2019), ECF No. 478 (Marra, J.). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-flsd-9_08-cv-80736/pdf/USCOURTS-flsd-9_08-cv-80736-2.pdf +[^22]: *In re Wild*, No. 19-13843, 994 F.3d 1244 (11th Cir. Apr. 15, 2021) (en banc), majority opinion at 2-3, 13; Branch, J., dissenting; Hull, J., dissenting. https://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/201913843.enb.pdf +[^23]: Supreme Court of the United States, docket No. 21-351, order of February 22, 2022 denying certiorari. https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/21-351.html +[^24]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility, Executive Summary of the investigation into the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida's resolution of the 2006-2008 federal investigation of Jeffrey Epstein (November 2020), pp. 10-12. https://www.justice.gov/opr/page/file/1336471/dl +[^25]: Same Executive Summary, pp. 2-3. +[^26]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00077309, DataSet 9, email, Chief, Public Corruption Unit, U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, and the Office of Professional Responsibility, "RE: Draft OPR Report," August 21, 2020. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00077309.pdf +[^27]: "US Attorney Alex Acosta showed 'poor judgment' when giving Jeffrey Epstein state-based plea deal in 2008: DOJ," *ABC News,* November 12, 2020. https://abcnews.com/US/us-attorney-alex-acosta-showed-poor-judgment-giving/story?id=74178029 ; the Villafaña footnote passage appears in the body of the full OPR report of November 2020, not in the executive summary cited at note 7. +[^28]: Debra Cassens Weiss, "Jeffrey Epstein had dinners with top criminal prosecutor in years following favorable deal, documents show," *ABA Journal,* October 20, 2025. https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/jeffrey-epstein-had-dinners-with-top-criminal-prosecutor-in-years-following-favorable-deal-documents-show +[^29]: "Trump's Labor Secretary Alex Acosta resigns after criticism over Epstein deal," *Euronews,* July 12, 2019. https://www.euronews.com/2019/07/12/trump-s-labor-secretary-alex-acosta-resigns-after-criticism-over-n1029226 +[^30]: "Former state's attorney pushes back against Acosta account of Epstein case," *The Hill,* July 10, 2019. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/452527-former-florida-state-attorney-pushes-back-against-acosta-account-of/ +[^31]: "Alex Acosta, former US attorney who negotiated Epstein's plea deal, appears before House Oversight Committee," *ABC News,* October 2025 (September 19, 2025 closed-door transcribed interview; transcript released October 17, 2025). https://abcnews.com/Politics/alex-acosta-former-us-attorney-negotiated-epsteins-plea/story?id=125731737 +[^32]: Vicky Ward, "Jeffrey Epstein's Sick Story Played Out for Years in Plain Sight," *The Daily Beast,* July 9, 2019. https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-epsteins-sick-story-played-out-for-years-in-plain-sight/ +[^33]: "Did Jeffrey Epstein 'Belong to Intelligence'?," *Skeptic,* analyzing Vicky Ward's July 2019 Daily Beast report. https://www.skeptic.com/article/did-jeffrey-epstein-belong-to-intelligence/ +[^34]: "Acosta once said Epstein 'belonged to intelligence,'" *Newsweek,* July 2019. https://www.newsweek.com/alex-acosta-epstein-sex-trafficking-department-labor-1448568 +[^35]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility, full report of November 2020 on the Southern District of Florida's resolution of the Epstein investigation (report body; the passage does not appear in the executive summary cited at note 7). https://www.justice.gov/opr/page/file/1336471/dl +[^36]: U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, deposition of William P. Barr, August 18, 2025, transcript released September 2025. https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Barr-Transcript.pdf diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Allan Boyak.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Allan Boyak.md index cf785f0e..0b93d7a9 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Allan Boyak.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Allan Boyak.md @@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ Boyak maintained contacts and performed legal work for former colleagues from hi Boyak became involved with [[Robert Booth Nichols]] when one of his clients, [[Cap Kressop]], a technical wizard, was approached by Nichols to manufacture a prototype laser site for a rifle. Kressop became suspicious when Nichols offered to pay him $200,000 in cash. Boyak contacted Nichols at his Marina Del Rey home/office, and their meeting was continuously interrupted by telephone calls and telex messages. Boyak became convinced that Nichols was involved in large-scale illegal drug operations.[^1] -After consulting with [[Dexter Leitenen]], then an assistant [[United States Attorney|U.S. Attorney]], Boyak went to the Los Angeles [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] office with his suspicions about Nichols' activities. However, an [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] background check on Nichols, reportedly conducted by [[Ted Gunderson]], found him "squeaky clean." Boyak later discovered that [[Harold Okimoto]], whom Nichols referenced as a business associate and personal friend, was believed by some of Boyak's sources to be a top Japanese organized crime figure based in [[Hawaii]] and a top agent in the [[Yakuza]] overseas.[^1] +After consulting with [[Dexter Lehtinen]], then an assistant [[United States Attorney|U.S. Attorney]], Boyak went to the Los Angeles [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] office with his suspicions about Nichols' activities. However, an [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] background check on Nichols, reportedly conducted by [[Ted Gunderson]], found him "squeaky clean." Boyak later discovered that [[Harold Okimoto]], whom Nichols referenced as a business associate and personal friend, was believed by some of Boyak's sources to be a top Japanese organized crime figure based in [[Hawaii]] and a top agent in the [[Yakuza]] overseas.[^1] Over the next two years, after the Los Angeles [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] dropped its interest in Nichols, Boyak's friend [[Art Suchesk]] repeatedly encountered Nichols in places like [[Singapore]], the [[Philippines]], and [[Taiwan]]. Boyak stated that information developed during this period indicated that Nichols was indeed a "bigtime drug dealer" who operated exclusively overseas and was well-insulated from U.S. law enforcement problems. Boyak described Nichols' rum importing business as a cover for large-scale heroin trafficking from the [[Golden Triangle]]. Nichols was also named as "Mr. Big" in the [[Medellin Cartel]] in drug prosecutions in [[Utah]] and [[Los Angeles]].[^1] diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Allen Dulles.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Allen Dulles.md index 705dcedd..915bd737 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Allen Dulles.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Allen Dulles.md @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ --- created: 2026-05-15 -updated: 2026-10-14 +updated: 2026-10-15 title: Allen Dulles aliases: - Allen Welsh Dulles @@ -27,12 +27,12 @@ relations: with: "[[American Committee on United Europe]]" start: 1949 role: "vice-chairman" - fn: 2 + fn: 4 - type: member_of with: "[[Warren Commission]]" start: 1963-11-29 end: 1964-09-24 - fn: 17 + fn: 19 --- Allen Welsh Dulles (April 7, 1893 - January 29, 1969) served as [[Director of Central Intelligence]] from February 26, 1953, to November 29, 1961 - the longest tenure of any DCI, the first civilian DCI, and the only brother of a sitting Secretary of State to hold the position. Dulles built the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] into the instrument of Cold War covert action that executed [[Operation AJAX]] in [[Iran]] (1953), [[Operation PBSUCCESS]] in [[Guatemala]] (1954), and the [[Bay of Pigs]] invasion of [[Cuba]] (1961). The Bay of Pigs disaster cost him his position - President [[John F. Kennedy]] forced his resignation, along with [[Richard Bissell]] and [[Charles P. Cabell|C.P. Cabell]] - and his subsequent appointment by President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] to the [[Warren Commission]] investigating Kennedy's assassination placed him in the remarkable position of overseeing the investigation of the event that had ended both his patron's life and his own career.[^1] @@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ Allen Welsh Dulles (April 7, 1893 - January 29, 1969) served as [[Director of Ce Dulles was born in Watertown, [[New York]], to a Presbyterian minister. His maternal grandfather [[John Watson Foster]] had been Secretary of State under President Harrison; his uncle [[Robert Lansing]] served as Secretary of State under Wilson. His elder brother [[John Foster Dulles]] became Secretary of State under Eisenhower, making the Dulles brothers the only siblings simultaneously to head the CIA and State Department. -After [[Princeton University|Princeton]] and brief missionary work in [[India]], Dulles entered the diplomatic service and served at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 as an intelligence analyst. He joined the law firm [[Sullivan & Cromwell]] - which also employed his brother [[John Foster]] - where Sullivan & Cromwell represented major corporate interests including [[United Fruit Company]]. This connection became significant two decades later when the Dulles brothers, now respectively CIA Director and Secretary of State, authorized operations against a Guatemalan government that had expropriated United Fruit's landholdings. +After [[Princeton University|Princeton]] (B.A. 1914, M.A. 1916)[^2] and brief missionary work in [[India]], Dulles entered the diplomatic service and served at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 as an intelligence analyst. He joined the law firm [[Sullivan & Cromwell]] - which also employed his brother [[John Foster]] - where Sullivan & Cromwell represented major corporate interests including [[United Fruit Company]]. This connection became significant two decades later when the Dulles brothers, now respectively CIA Director and Secretary of State, authorized operations against a Guatemalan government that had expropriated United Fruit's landholdings. He was a trustee of Princeton by August 1961.[^3] During World War II, Dulles served the [[Office of Strategic Services|OSS]] as station chief in [[Bern]], [[Switzerland]] from 1942 to 1945 - the most significant OSS posting in Europe, given Switzerland's position as a neutral intelligence hub. His operational achievements included: @@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ The unverifiable provenance of Gehlen's Soviet networks meant that the intellige ### American Committee on United Europe -Dulles was vice-chairman of the [[American Committee on United Europe]] (ACUE), which [[Richard Aldrich]] describes as formed to support [[Winston Churchill]] and the [[European Movement]] and officially incorporated in February 1949. [[William J. Donovan]] was its chairman, and [[Thomas W. Braden]], a former OSS officer, was its executive director.[^2] Aldrich reports Braden's assertion in the 1980s that ACUE funds originated with the CIA, and writes that the 1962 Oxford thesis of [[F. X. Rebattet]], son of the European Movement's secretary-general [[George Rebattet]], "confirms that most ACUE funds originated with the CIA."[^3] Dulles also corresponded with [[Max Ascoli]], whose papers index a photocopy of a typed letter from Dulles dated May 27 among the 1968 letters on the closing of [[The Reporter]].[^4] A February 7, 1958 letter to Dulles from the chairman of the President's Committee on Scientists and Engineers thanks him for addressing the Conference on America's Human Resources at [[Yale University]] and encloses a participant list that includes "Mr. Max Ascoli, Editor and Publisher, The Reporter."[^5] [[Hugh Wilford]] writes that The Reporter's deputy [[Philip Horton]] used contacts with Donovan, Dulles and James Jesus Angleton to enhance its foreign coverage.[^6] +Dulles was vice-chairman of the [[American Committee on United Europe]] (ACUE), which [[Richard Aldrich]] describes as formed to support [[Winston Churchill]] and the [[European Movement]] and officially incorporated in February 1949. [[William J. Donovan]] was its chairman, and [[Thomas W. Braden]], a former OSS officer, was its executive director.[^4] Aldrich reports Braden's assertion in the 1980s that ACUE funds originated with the CIA, and writes that the 1962 Oxford thesis of [[F. X. Rebattet]], son of the European Movement's secretary-general [[George Rebattet]], "confirms that most ACUE funds originated with the CIA."[^5] Dulles also corresponded with [[Max Ascoli]], whose papers index a photocopy of a typed letter from Dulles dated May 27 among the 1968 letters on the closing of [[The Reporter]].[^6] A February 7, 1958 letter to Dulles from the chairman of the President's Committee on Scientists and Engineers thanks him for addressing the Conference on America's Human Resources at [[Yale University]] and encloses a participant list that includes "Mr. Max Ascoli, Editor and Publisher, The Reporter."[^7] [[Hugh Wilford]] writes that The Reporter's deputy [[Philip Horton]] used contacts with Donovan, Dulles and James Jesus Angleton to enhance its foreign coverage.[^8] ### DCI: Iran, Guatemala, and the Covert Action Doctrine @@ -64,25 +64,25 @@ Dulles was named Deputy Director (Plans) in 1951 and became DCI on February 26, Operation AJAX (August 1953): Working with British intelligence, Dulles's CIA executed the coup that overthrew Iranian Prime Minister [[Mohammad Mosaddegh]] and returned [[Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi|Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi]] to full power. The operation was designed and led in the field by [[Kermit Roosevelt|Kermit Roosevelt Jr.]], grandson of Theodore Roosevelt. Operation AJAX established the operational template that Dulles and Bissell believed could be replicated elsewhere. -Operation PBSUCCESS (June 1954): The CIA's overthrow of Guatemalan President [[Jacobo Arbenz]] was presented to Eisenhower as a vindication of covert action - a small paramilitary force, CIA air assets, and psychological warfare had collapsed a government with minimal U.S. exposure. Dulles and his team drew exactly the wrong lesson: that the model was transferable. The direct organizational line from PBSUCCESS to the Bay of Pigs ran through the same personnel - [[Howard Hunt]], [[Tracy Barnes]], [[David Atlee Phillips]] - applying the same framework to a target that had fundamentally different characteristics.[^7] +Operation PBSUCCESS (June 1954): The CIA's overthrow of Guatemalan President [[Jacobo Arbenz]] was presented to Eisenhower as a vindication of covert action - a small paramilitary force, CIA air assets, and psychological warfare had collapsed a government with minimal U.S. exposure. Dulles and his team drew exactly the wrong lesson: that the model was transferable. The direct organizational line from PBSUCCESS to the Bay of Pigs ran through the same personnel - [[Howard Hunt]], [[Tracy Barnes]], [[David Atlee Phillips]] - applying the same framework to a target that had fundamentally different characteristics.[^9] [[MKULTRA]]: Dulles authorized the CIA's human experimentation program in April 1953 under Technical Services Staff chief [[Sidney Gottlieb]]. The program used LSD and other substances on unconsenting subjects, including mental patients, prisoners, and unwitting CIA employees. Dulles's authorization memorandum noted concerns about Soviet brainwashing capabilities and framed the program as defensive research. The program's scope - eventually comprising 150 subprojects at 80 institutions - far exceeded what Dulles's authorization documents described. -On August 26, 1960 Dulles cabled the Leopoldville station that the station officer was to be given "wider authority," including "even more aggressive action if it can remain covert," and wrote that "we realize that targets of opportunity may present themselves to you."[^8] The cable authorized up to $100,000 "to carry out any crash programs on which you do not have the opportunity to consult HQS," and assured the station officer that the message had been "seen and approved at competent level" in the State Department.[^8] The Church Committee documented the cable as one of a sequence that began with Tweedy's cable of August 18, 1960 and Bissell's of August 19.[^8] +On August 26, 1960 Dulles cabled the Leopoldville station that the station officer was to be given "wider authority," including "even more aggressive action if it can remain covert," and wrote that "we realize that targets of opportunity may present themselves to you."[^10] The cable authorized up to $100,000 "to carry out any crash programs on which you do not have the opportunity to consult HQS," and assured the station officer that the message had been "seen and approved at competent level" in the State Department.[^10] The Church Committee documented the cable as one of a sequence that began with Tweedy's cable of August 18, 1960 and Bissell's of August 19.[^10] ### Correspondence with Senator McCarthy, 1953 -In July 1953 [[Joseph McCarthy]], as chairman of the [[Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations]], wrote to Dulles about [[William P. Bundy]], an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency, whom McCarthy linked to a $400 contribution to the defense of [[Alger Hiss]].[^9] McCarthy's letter of July 27, 1953 said the contribution "raises the gravest question as to his holding a sensitive post in an intelligence agency."[^10] The CIA reply of July 22, 1953, signed by [[Alba W. Doan]] as director, gave the agency's account of Bundy's disclosure on his March 1951 application and of the field investigation and loyalty determinations that followed. It deferred comment on the reasons Bundy gave for the contribution until a review was complete.[^9] A newspaper article by [[Allen Drury]] dated August 4, 1953 reported that Dulles had refused to tell McCarthy Bundy's explanation.[^11] McCarthy replied on August 3 that Bundy's contributions to Hiss predated his CIA employment and that Congress was entitled to information about improper conduct by the agency's top officers.[^12] +In July 1953 [[Joseph McCarthy]], as chairman of the [[Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations]], wrote to Dulles about [[William P. Bundy]], an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency, whom McCarthy linked to a $400 contribution to the defense of [[Alger Hiss]].[^11] McCarthy's letter of July 27, 1953 said the contribution "raises the gravest question as to his holding a sensitive post in an intelligence agency."[^12] The CIA reply of July 22, 1953, signed by [[Alba W. Doan]] as director, gave the agency's account of Bundy's disclosure on his March 1951 application and of the field investigation and loyalty determinations that followed. It deferred comment on the reasons Bundy gave for the contribution until a review was complete.[^11] A newspaper article by [[Allen Drury]] dated August 4, 1953 reported that Dulles had refused to tell McCarthy Bundy's explanation.[^13] McCarthy replied on August 3 that Bundy's contributions to Hiss predated his CIA employment and that Congress was entitled to information about improper conduct by the agency's top officers.[^14] -On October 22, 1953 Dulles wrote to McCarthy that a check of the agency's reproduction facilities had found that "no classified CIA material is printed in the main GPO plant." The letter answered press reports that CIA classified material had been printed at the [[Government Printing Office]]. It said the agency's legislative counsel had informed the subcommittee's staff of these facts on August 12, 1953, and it asked that the letter be placed in the record.[^13] +On October 22, 1953 Dulles wrote to McCarthy that a check of the agency's reproduction facilities had found that "no classified CIA material is printed in the main GPO plant." The letter answered press reports that CIA classified material had been printed at the [[Government Printing Office]]. It said the agency's legislative counsel had informed the subcommittee's staff of these facts on August 12, 1953, and it asked that the letter be placed in the record.[^15] ### MKULTRA: The Sandoz Panic and the Olson Death -Dulles approved MKULTRA on April 13, 1953, ten days after Richard Helms proposed a program for the "covert use of biological and chemical materials," with an initial $300,000 exempt from normal financial controls and payable blindly on the signatures of Gottlieb and TSS chief [[Willis Gibbons]]. Acting in a climate of Cold War urgency, that same month Dulles approved a $240,000 payment after an intelligence report claimed [[Sandoz]] wanted to sell 10 kilograms of [[LSD]] on the open market; CIA officers flew to Switzerland with a black bag of cash only to learn Sandoz had produced barely 40 grams in fifteen years, the entire panic stemming from a military attaché who confused milligrams with kilograms. When [[Frank Olson]] died in November 1953 after Gottlieb dosed him with LSD at [[Deep Creek Lodge]], Dulles ordered Inspector General [[Lyman Kirkpatrick]] to investigate; the resulting reprimands were softened through six drafts and placed in no personnel file.[^14] +Dulles approved MKULTRA on April 13, 1953, ten days after Richard Helms proposed a program for the "covert use of biological and chemical materials," with an initial $300,000 exempt from normal financial controls and payable blindly on the signatures of Gottlieb and TSS chief [[Willis Gibbons]]. Acting in a climate of Cold War urgency, that same month Dulles approved a $240,000 payment after an intelligence report claimed [[Sandoz]] wanted to sell 10 kilograms of [[LSD]] on the open market; CIA officers flew to Switzerland with a black bag of cash only to learn Sandoz had produced barely 40 grams in fifteen years, the entire panic stemming from a military attaché who confused milligrams with kilograms. When [[Frank Olson]] died in November 1953 after Gottlieb dosed him with LSD at [[Deep Creek Lodge]], Dulles ordered Inspector General [[Lyman Kirkpatrick]] to investigate; the resulting reprimands were softened through six drafts and placed in no personnel file.[^16] ### Rockefeller's Special Group and the Human Ecology Front -Under Eisenhower, Dulles reported all CIA covert operations, including MKULTRA, the coups, and assassination planning, to the NSC "[[Special Group]]" chaired by [[Nelson Rockefeller]], the structure formalized by NSC 5412/2 in December 1955 that gave the president plausible deniability; in a 1955 "Family Jewels" briefing Dulles described the full range of covert programs to Rockefeller's board. When MKULTRA needed a research hospital, Dulles sought Rockefeller's approval for a scheme to channel CIA money through private foundations to win matching federal grants for a wing at [[Georgetown University Hospital]]. The program's primary funding front, the [[Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology]], was organized at Dulles's initiative through [[Harold Wolff]], the Cornell neurologist who had treated Dulles's brain-damaged son; Dulles attended one of its first board meetings. His relationship with [[D. Ewen Cameron]] predated the funding: in November 1945, still with the OSS, Dulles had sent Cameron to Nuremberg to assess whether [[Rudolf Hess]] was fit to stand trial.[^15] +Under Eisenhower, Dulles reported all CIA covert operations, including MKULTRA, the coups, and assassination planning, to the NSC "[[Special Group]]" chaired by [[Nelson Rockefeller]], the structure formalized by NSC 5412/2 in December 1955 that gave the president plausible deniability; in a 1955 "Family Jewels" briefing Dulles described the full range of covert programs to Rockefeller's board. When MKULTRA needed a research hospital, Dulles sought Rockefeller's approval for a scheme to channel CIA money through private foundations to win matching federal grants for a wing at [[Georgetown University Hospital]]. The program's primary funding front, the [[Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology]], was organized at Dulles's initiative through [[Harold Wolff]], the Cornell neurologist who had treated Dulles's brain-damaged son; Dulles attended one of its first board meetings. His relationship with [[D. Ewen Cameron]] predated the funding: in November 1945, still with the OSS, Dulles had sent Cameron to Nuremberg to assess whether [[Rudolf Hess]] was fit to stand trial.[^17] ### Bay of Pigs and Forced Resignation @@ -90,54 +90,56 @@ The Bay of Pigs invasion of April 17-19, 1961 was the catastrophic failure that Kennedy publicly accepted responsibility but was privately furious. He reportedly told aide [[Ted Sorensen]] that he wanted to "splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds" - a remark almost certainly apocryphal in its precise wording but consistent with his documented anger. The Taylor Commission's findings and the classified Kirkpatrick IG report both pointed to fundamental CIA failures in planning, execution, and judgment. -Dulles submitted his resignation in September 1961; it was formally accepted November 29, 1961. He was replaced by [[John McCone]]. The CIA's own history states that a "humiliated President Kennedy did not wait for either report before cleaning house at CIA" and that he accepted resignations from Dulles and from Deputy Director for Plans Richard Bissell, who stayed at their posts until their successors were selected a few months later.[^16] Bissell and Cabell were also forced out. CIA veterans viewed their dismissal as Kennedy scapegoating the agency for a failure the [[White House]] had co-created by canceling the air strikes.[^1] +Dulles submitted his resignation in September 1961; it was formally accepted November 29, 1961. He was replaced by [[John McCone]]. The CIA's own history states that a "humiliated President Kennedy did not wait for either report before cleaning house at CIA" and that he accepted resignations from Dulles and from Deputy Director for Plans Richard Bissell, who stayed at their posts until their successors were selected a few months later.[^18] Bissell and Cabell were also forced out. CIA veterans viewed their dismissal as Kennedy scapegoating the agency for a failure the [[White House]] had co-created by canceling the air strikes.[^1] ### The Warren Commission -On November 29, 1963 - exactly two years after Dulles's forced resignation - President Lyndon Johnson appointed the Warren Commission to investigate Kennedy's assassination. Among the seven commissioners Johnson named was Allen Dulles despite Kennedy’s firing of Dulles.[^17] +On November 29, 1963 - exactly two years after Dulles's forced resignation - President Lyndon Johnson appointed the Warren Commission to investigate Kennedy's assassination. Among the seven commissioners Johnson named was Allen Dulles despite Kennedy’s firing of Dulles.[^19] The investigation was examining whether CIA-connected parties (specifically the anti-Castro exile networks and organized crime figures that Dulles had directly overseen) had any role in the assassination. He was now in a position to shape what evidence the Commission sought, what witnesses it called, and what conclusions it reached regarding the CIA programs he had run. -Dulles was reportedly among the most active commissioners in shaping the investigation's scope. He briefed commissioners on CIA history and procedures. Book V of the Church Committee's final report states that, with the exception of Dulles, it is unlikely anyone on the Warren Commission knew of the CIA's assassination efforts, and that Dulles knew of the plots with underworld figures that had taken place during his tenure as Director of Central Intelligence.[^18] The Church Committee's 1975 interim report states that Dulles "did not inform the other members about the plots that had occurred during his term as DCI,"[^19] and also states that "it is not entirely certain that Dulles was ever made aware of the true nature of the underworld operation."[^20] The [[ZR/RIFLE]] assassination plotting program was, in the same period, not disclosed to the Commission at the agency level by [[Richard Helms]] as Deputy Director for Plans. Helms testified that Dulles "was sitting right there" in the Commission's deliberations and "knew about this," and that he did not know what Dulles had said to the Commission about the plots.[^21] The CIA's failure to disclose the assassination plots to the Warren Commission was documented by the Church Committee in 1975; Dulles's role as both a commissioner and the former DCI who had authorized the programs is the structural conflict of interest the Commission's composition created. +Dulles was reportedly among the most active commissioners in shaping the investigation's scope. He briefed commissioners on CIA history and procedures. Book V of the Church Committee's final report states that, with the exception of Dulles, it is unlikely anyone on the Warren Commission knew of the CIA's assassination efforts, and that Dulles knew of the plots with underworld figures that had taken place during his tenure as Director of Central Intelligence.[^20] The Church Committee's 1975 interim report states that Dulles "did not inform the other members about the plots that had occurred during his term as DCI,"[^21] and also states that "it is not entirely certain that Dulles was ever made aware of the true nature of the underworld operation."[^22] The [[ZR/RIFLE]] assassination plotting program was, in the same period, not disclosed to the Commission at the agency level by [[Richard Helms]] as Deputy Director for Plans. Helms testified that Dulles "was sitting right there" in the Commission's deliberations and "knew about this," and that he did not know what Dulles had said to the Commission about the plots.[^23] The CIA's failure to disclose the assassination plots to the Warren Commission was documented by the Church Committee in 1975; Dulles's role as both a commissioner and the former DCI who had authorized the programs is the structural conflict of interest the Commission's composition created. -Angleton testified that Dulles consulted him before agreeing to President Johnson's request that he serve, that the two were in frequent contact, and that they informally discussed the progress of the investigation and what further work the CIA could do.[^22] At the January 22, 1964 executive session, the Commission took up a report that [[Lee Harvey Oswald]] had been a paid FBI informant. Dulles asked whether the purpose of such a hire could have been to penetrate the [[Fair Play for Cuba Committee]]. He said that practically any American could obtain a passport good for anywhere, and that the Passport Bureau had no record of Oswald's defection. Near the end of the meeting, Dulles said: "I think this record ought to be destroyed."[^23] FBI Director [[J. Edgar Hoover]]'s files held an index card on Dulles that cross-referenced a November 29, 1963 memorandum.[^24] +Angleton testified that Dulles consulted him before agreeing to President Johnson's request that he serve, that the two were in frequent contact, and that they informally discussed the progress of the investigation and what further work the CIA could do.[^24] At the January 22, 1964 executive session, the Commission took up a report that [[Lee Harvey Oswald]] had been a paid FBI informant. Dulles asked whether the purpose of such a hire could have been to penetrate the [[Fair Play for Cuba Committee]]. He said that practically any American could obtain a passport good for anywhere, and that the Passport Bureau had no record of Oswald's defection. Near the end of the meeting, Dulles said: "I think this record ought to be destroyed."[^25] FBI Director [[J. Edgar Hoover]]'s files held an index card on Dulles that cross-referenced a November 29, 1963 memorandum.[^26] -The [[HSCA|House Select Committee on Assassinations]] (1979) found that the Warren Commission's failure to investigate adequately the possibility of a conspiracy was "attributable in part to the failure of the Commission to receive all the relevant information that was in the possession of other agencies and departments of the Government," and that the CIA "was deficient in its collection and sharing of information both prior to and subsequent to the assassination."[^25] The report does not name Dulles in those findings. It states that the committee did not ignore the possibility that certain CIA officials who knew that close scrutiny of United States-Cuban relations could have exposed the CIA-Mafia plots might have tried to keep the CIA's or the Warren Commission's inquiry from the question of Cuban complicity, and that it determined that only Deputy Director Helms was in a position to have both the knowledge and the power to accomplish such a cover-up and was satisfied, on the basis of its investigation, that it was "highly unlikely he in fact did so."[^26] It found that the details of the AMLASH plot and the CIA-Mafia plots should have been provided to the Warren Commission.[^27] +The [[HSCA|House Select Committee on Assassinations]] (1979) found that the Warren Commission's failure to investigate adequately the possibility of a conspiracy was "attributable in part to the failure of the Commission to receive all the relevant information that was in the possession of other agencies and departments of the Government," and that the CIA "was deficient in its collection and sharing of information both prior to and subsequent to the assassination."[^27] The report does not name Dulles in those findings. It states that the committee did not ignore the possibility that certain CIA officials who knew that close scrutiny of United States-Cuban relations could have exposed the CIA-Mafia plots might have tried to keep the CIA's or the Warren Commission's inquiry from the question of Cuban complicity, and that it determined that only Deputy Director Helms was in a position to have both the knowledge and the power to accomplish such a cover-up and was satisfied, on the basis of its investigation, that it was "highly unlikely he in fact did so."[^28] It found that the details of the AMLASH plot and the CIA-Mafia plots should have been provided to the Warren Commission.[^29] ### Death and Legacy Dulles spent his post-CIA years writing, lecturing, and defending the covert action programs he had built. His book *The Craft of Intelligence* (1963) was the first major public account of CIA operations by a former director. He died in Washington on January 29, 1969, of influenza complicated by pneumonia, eighteen months before the full extent of MKULTRA and the assassination plots became public. -The 2022 report of the United Nations Eminent Person summarized the argument of Greg Poulgrain's 2020 book, *JFK vs. Allen Dulles: Battleground Indonesia*, which posits that Dulles formed a motive to remove [[Dag Hammarskjöld]] following a policy conflict over the United Nations' intended intervention in the dispute over the sovereignty of West New Guinea.[^28] The report recorded Poulgrain's proposition that the Operation Celeste documents, which refer to a plan to kill Hammarskjöld by causing his plane to crash, mention Dulles by name, stating: "UNO is becoming troublesome and it is felt that Hammarskjöld should be removed. Allen Dulles agrees and has promised full cooperation from his people."[^28] Poulgrain compared this with the Church Committee's account of Dulles expressing a "wish [to] give every possible support" to a plan to kill Lumumba.[^28] The report stated that it was not necessary at that stage to assess the probative value of Poulgrain's information, and that it underscored the importance of "proving or disproving the veracity of the Operation Celeste hypothesis and Dulles's alleged involvement (as relied on by Poulgrain)."[^29] +The 2022 report of the United Nations Eminent Person summarized the argument of Greg Poulgrain's 2020 book, *JFK vs. Allen Dulles: Battleground Indonesia*, which posits that Dulles formed a motive to remove [[Dag Hammarskjöld]] following a policy conflict over the United Nations' intended intervention in the dispute over the sovereignty of West New Guinea.[^30] The report recorded Poulgrain's proposition that the Operation Celeste documents, which refer to a plan to kill Hammarskjöld by causing his plane to crash, mention Dulles by name, stating: "UNO is becoming troublesome and it is felt that Hammarskjöld should be removed. Allen Dulles agrees and has promised full cooperation from his people."[^30] Poulgrain compared this with the Church Committee's account of Dulles expressing a "wish [to] give every possible support" to a plan to kill Lumumba.[^30] The report stated that it was not necessary at that stage to assess the probative value of Poulgrain's information, and that it underscored the importance of "proving or disproving the veracity of the Operation Celeste hypothesis and Dulles's alleged involvement (as relied on by Poulgrain)."[^31] ### Footnotes [^1]: Kinzer, Stephen. *The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War.* Times Books, 2013 (covers both brothers, the Sullivan & Cromwell connections, and the covert action programs). Grose, Peter. *Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles.* Houghton Mifflin, 1994. -[^2]: Richard J. Aldrich, "OSS, CIA and European Unity: The American Committee on United Europe, 1948-60," Diplomacy & Statecraft 8, no. 1 (1997), p. 192, DOI 10.1080/09592299708406035, https://text.www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/people/aldrich/publications/oss_cia_united_europe_eec_eu.pdf. -[^3]: Aldrich (1997), pp. 211-212 (Braden's 1980s assertion at p. 211; Rabattet passage at p. 212), same URL. -[^4]: Senato della Repubblica, Archivio storico, Max Ascoli fonds, sottofascicolo 15, index of names, https://patrimonio.archivio.senato.it/inventario/scheda/max-ascoli/IT-AFS-005-002785/letters-expressing-regrets-upon-closing-of-the-reporter-from-personal-friends-of-max-ascoli-1968. -[^5]: Howard L. Bevis to Allen W. Dulles, February 7, 1958, CIA-RDP80B01676R003800020106-4, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01676r003800020106-4. -[^6]: Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer (Harvard University Press, 2008), pp. 230-231. -[^7]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. *Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba.* New Press, 1998. Church Committee. "Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders." Senate Report No. 94-465, 1975. Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy.* Random House, 1991. Chapter 4. -[^8]: United States Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders*, Senate Report No. 94-465, 1975, section on the Congo, quoting the CIA cables of August 18, August 19 and August 26, 1960. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94465.pdf -[^9]: Letter from Alba W. Doan, Director, Central Intelligence Agency, to Joseph R. McCarthy, July 22, 1953, CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP80M01009A000100080014-6. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80m01009a000100080014-6 -[^10]: Letter from Joseph R. McCarthy, Chairman, Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, to Allen W. Dulles, July 27, 1953, CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP80M01009A000100080022-7. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80m01009a000100080022-7 -[^11]: Allen Drury, "McCarthy Warns CIA Head Fight on Bundy Isn't Over," newspaper article, August 4, 1953, CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP74-00297R000401370024-4. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp74-00297r000401370024-4 -[^12]: Letter from Joseph R. McCarthy to Allen W. Dulles, August 3, 1953, CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP80M01009A000100080020-9. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80m01009a000100080020-9 -[^13]: Letter from Allen W. Dulles to Joseph R. McCarthy, October 22, 1953, CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP86B00269R000100130103-2. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp86b00269r000100130103-2 -[^14]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*. Times Books, 1979, Chapter 4; "Project MKULTRA, the CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification," Joint Senate Hearing, August 3, 1977. -[^15]: Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett, *Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon*. HarperCollins, 1995, Ch. 18; John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*. Times Books, 1979, Chapter 9. -[^16]: Warner, Michael, "The CIA's Internal Probe of the Bay of Pigs Affair: Lessons Unlearned," *Studies in Intelligence*, Winter 1998-1999. https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/Internal-Probe-Bay-Pigs.pdf -[^17]: Executive Order 11130, "Appointing a Commission To Report Upon the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy," November 29, 1963. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-11130-appointing-commission-report-upon-the-assassination-president-john-f -[^18]: U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *The Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: Performance of the Intelligence Agencies*, Book V, Final Report, April 23, 1976, pp. 67-68. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94755_V.pdf -[^19]: U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders: An Interim Report*, Senate Report No. 94-465, 1975, p. 269, note 1. https://archive.org/details/allegedassassina00unit -[^20]: *Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders*, p. 267. https://archive.org/details/allegedassassina00unit -[^21]: Book V, p. 70 (Helms testimony of July 18, 1975). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94755_V.pdf -[^22]: Book V, p. 69 (note 134, Angleton testimony of February 6, 1976, pp. 31-34). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94755_V.pdf -[^23]: Warren Commission, executive session transcript, January 22, 1964, 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. https://aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcexec/pdf/WcEx0122.pdf -[^24]: U.S. Assassination Records Review Board, memorandum by Ronald G. Haron, "Assassination Records Among the Files of J. Edgar Hoover (FBI-36)," January 8, 1998. https://documents3.theblackvault.com/documents/jfkfiles/NARA-Oct2017/ARRB/RHARON/HARON/FBIMEM.002.pdf -[^25]: House Select Committee on Assassinations, *Report,* H. Rept. 95-1828, 95th Cong., 2d sess. (1979), summary Findings I.D.4 and I.D.5(b) (p. 4). https://archive.org/details/reportofselectco1979unit -[^26]: House Select Committee on Assassinations, *Report,* H. Rept. 95-1828, p. 128. https://archive.org/details/reportofselectco1979unit -[^27]: House Select Committee on Assassinations, *Report,* H. Rept. 95-1828, pp. 112-116. https://archive.org/details/reportofselectco1979unit -[^28]: A/76/892, report of the Eminent Person, August 25, 2022, paragraphs 241 to 244. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2F76%2F892&l=en&t=pdf -[^29]: A/76/892, paragraph 246. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2F76%2F892&l=en&t=pdf +[^2]: *Allen W. Dulles Papers*, Public Policy Papers, Princeton University Library (MC019), biography/history and acquisition information. https://findingaids.library.upenn.edu/records/PRIN_MUDD_MC019 +[^3]: Allen W. Dulles to Hadley Cantril, August 28, 1961, replying to a letter of July 21, 1961. CIA reading room, CIA-RDP80B01676R003500040028-2. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01676r003500040028-2 +[^4]: Richard J. Aldrich, "OSS, CIA and European Unity: The American Committee on United Europe, 1948-60," Diplomacy & Statecraft 8, no. 1 (1997), p. 192, DOI 10.1080/09592299708406035, https://text.www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/people/aldrich/publications/oss_cia_united_europe_eec_eu.pdf. +[^5]: Aldrich (1997), pp. 211-212 (Braden's 1980s assertion at p. 211; Rabattet passage at p. 212), same URL. +[^6]: Senato della Repubblica, Archivio storico, Max Ascoli fonds, sottofascicolo 15, index of names, https://patrimonio.archivio.senato.it/inventario/scheda/max-ascoli/IT-AFS-005-002785/letters-expressing-regrets-upon-closing-of-the-reporter-from-personal-friends-of-max-ascoli-1968. +[^7]: Howard L. Bevis to Allen W. Dulles, February 7, 1958, CIA-RDP80B01676R003800020106-4, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01676r003800020106-4. +[^8]: Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer (Harvard University Press, 2008), pp. 230-231. +[^9]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. *Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba.* New Press, 1998. Church Committee. "Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders." Senate Report No. 94-465, 1975. Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy.* Random House, 1991. Chapter 4. +[^10]: United States Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders*, Senate Report No. 94-465, 1975, section on the Congo, quoting the CIA cables of August 18, August 19 and August 26, 1960. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94465.pdf +[^11]: Letter from Alba W. Doan, Director, Central Intelligence Agency, to Joseph R. McCarthy, July 22, 1953, CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP80M01009A000100080014-6. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80m01009a000100080014-6 +[^12]: Letter from Joseph R. McCarthy, Chairman, Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, to Allen W. Dulles, July 27, 1953, CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP80M01009A000100080022-7. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80m01009a000100080022-7 +[^13]: Allen Drury, "McCarthy Warns CIA Head Fight on Bundy Isn't Over," newspaper article, August 4, 1953, CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP74-00297R000401370024-4. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp74-00297r000401370024-4 +[^14]: Letter from Joseph R. McCarthy to Allen W. Dulles, August 3, 1953, CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP80M01009A000100080020-9. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80m01009a000100080020-9 +[^15]: Letter from Allen W. Dulles to Joseph R. McCarthy, October 22, 1953, CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP86B00269R000100130103-2. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp86b00269r000100130103-2 +[^16]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*. Times Books, 1979, Chapter 4; "Project MKULTRA, the CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification," Joint Senate Hearing, August 3, 1977. +[^17]: Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett, *Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon*. HarperCollins, 1995, Ch. 18; John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*. Times Books, 1979, Chapter 9. +[^18]: Warner, Michael, "The CIA's Internal Probe of the Bay of Pigs Affair: Lessons Unlearned," *Studies in Intelligence*, Winter 1998-1999. https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/Internal-Probe-Bay-Pigs.pdf +[^19]: Executive Order 11130, "Appointing a Commission To Report Upon the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy," November 29, 1963. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-11130-appointing-commission-report-upon-the-assassination-president-john-f +[^20]: U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *The Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: Performance of the Intelligence Agencies*, Book V, Final Report, April 23, 1976, pp. 67-68. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94755_V.pdf +[^21]: U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders: An Interim Report*, Senate Report No. 94-465, 1975, p. 269, note 1. https://archive.org/details/allegedassassina00unit +[^22]: *Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders*, p. 267. https://archive.org/details/allegedassassina00unit +[^23]: Book V, p. 70 (Helms testimony of July 18, 1975). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94755_V.pdf +[^24]: Book V, p. 69 (note 134, Angleton testimony of February 6, 1976, pp. 31-34). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94755_V.pdf +[^25]: Warren Commission, executive session transcript, January 22, 1964, 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. https://aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcexec/pdf/WcEx0122.pdf +[^26]: U.S. Assassination Records Review Board, memorandum by Ronald G. Haron, "Assassination Records Among the Files of J. Edgar Hoover (FBI-36)," January 8, 1998. https://documents3.theblackvault.com/documents/jfkfiles/NARA-Oct2017/ARRB/RHARON/HARON/FBIMEM.002.pdf +[^27]: House Select Committee on Assassinations, *Report,* H. Rept. 95-1828, 95th Cong., 2d sess. (1979), summary Findings I.D.4 and I.D.5(b) (p. 4). https://archive.org/details/reportofselectco1979unit +[^28]: House Select Committee on Assassinations, *Report,* H. Rept. 95-1828, p. 128. https://archive.org/details/reportofselectco1979unit +[^29]: House Select Committee on Assassinations, *Report,* H. Rept. 95-1828, pp. 112-116. https://archive.org/details/reportofselectco1979unit +[^30]: A/76/892, report of the Eminent Person, August 25, 2022, paragraphs 241 to 244. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2F76%2F892&l=en&t=pdf +[^31]: A/76/892, paragraph 246. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2F76%2F892&l=en&t=pdf diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Annie Farmer.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Annie Farmer.md index 23507b1d..799ab0fa 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Annie Farmer.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Annie Farmer.md @@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ relations: start: 2021-12-10 fn: 1 created: 2026-09-25 -updated: 2026-09-25 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Annie Farmer is an American woman who was sixteen in 1996 when [[Jeffrey Epstein]] met her in [[New York City]], where her older sister [[Maria Farmer]] was working for him, and who was abused that year by Epstein and [[Ghislaine Maxwell]] at Epstein's ranch in [[New Mexico]]. She was the fourth and last accuser to testify for the government at Maxwell's 2021 trial in the [[United States District Court for the Southern District of New York|Southern District of New York]], and the only one of the four to testify under her own name; the others were identified as "Jane," "Kate," and "Carolyn." Her sister had reported Epstein and Maxwell to the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] in August 1996, the same year.[^1][^2] @@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ The jury convicted Maxwell on December 29, 2021 of five of six counts, including ### The 1996 Reports -In August 1996 Maria Farmer reported to the [[New York City Police Department|New York Police Department]]'s Sixth Precinct and then by telephone to the FBI that Epstein and Maxwell had sexually assaulted her, that she feared they had abused one of her minor sisters, and that Epstein and Maxwell had stolen nude images she had made of her two minor sisters for her artwork and carried them from [[Ohio]] to New York. According to Maria Farmer's 2025 lawsuit against the [[United States]], the FBI took no action, and federal agents did not interview her until 2006. The FBI's record of her 1996 report was released in December 2025 in the first wave of disclosures under the [[Epstein Files Transparency Act]].[^2][^4] +In August 1996 Maria Farmer reported to the [[New York City Police Department|New York Police Department]]'s Sixth Precinct and then by telephone to the FBI that Epstein and Maxwell had sexually assaulted her, that she feared they had abused one of her minor sisters, and that Epstein and Maxwell had stolen nude images she had made of her two minor sisters for her artwork. According to Maria Farmer's 2025 lawsuit against the [[United States]], Epstein and Maxwell carried the images by airplane from [[Ohio]] to New York, the FBI took no action, and federal agents did not interview her until 2006. The FBI's record of her 1996 report was released in December 2025 in the first wave of disclosures under the [[Epstein Files Transparency Act]].[^2][^4] ### Footnotes diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Arif Durrani.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Arif Durrani.md index e8f71f4c..93042b76 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Arif Durrani.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Arif Durrani.md @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@ --- -updated: 2026-10-08 +updated: 2026-10-15 category: "Arms Dealers & Brokers" tags: - Person @@ -24,13 +24,13 @@ Beaty and Gwynne describe Durrani, until his arrest, as the managing director of ### Sentence and Appeal -In May 1987 Chief Judge [[T.F. Gilroy Daly]] of the federal court in [[Connecticut]] sentenced Durrani to ten years in prison and a fine of 2 million dollars for illegally exporting HAWK missile parts to Iran in 1986, with a concurrent ten years and 1 million dollars for selling arms without registering with the [[United States Department of State|State Department]]. The judge told him his testimony was riddled with "greed, lies, money, perjury, avarice and conniving" and that "your behavior was bordering on treason."[^14] In December 1987 the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit|Second Circuit]] rejected his defense that he had acted on the orders of Oliver North and [[John Poindexter]], the first use of what became known as the "Oliver North defense," and upheld the conviction (United States v. Durrani, 835 F.2d 410). A petition he filed in 2003, his fourth post-conviction attack on the sentence, was denied (Durrani v. United States, 294 F. Supp. 2d 204, D. Conn.).[^15][^16] +In May 1987 Chief Judge [[T.F. Gilroy Daly]] of the federal court in [[Connecticut]] sentenced Durrani to ten years in prison and a fine of 2 million dollars for illegally exporting HAWK missile parts to Iran in 1986, with a concurrent ten years and 1 million dollars for selling arms without registering with the [[United States Department of State|State Department]]. The judge told him his testimony was riddled with "greed, lies, money, perjury, avarice and conniving" and that "your behavior was bordering on treason."[^14] In December 1987 the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit|Second Circuit]] rejected his defense that he had acted on the orders of Oliver North and [[John Poindexter]], the first use of what became known as the "Oliver North defense," and upheld the conviction (United States v. Durrani, 835 F.2d 410). The opinion, written by Judge [[Irving R. Kaufman]], records that Durrani "claims to have been a cog in the wheel turned by Lt. Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter"; [[Alan Dershowitz|Alan M. Dershowitz]] argued the appeal for Durrani with Nathan Z. Dershowitz on the brief; the trial judge had excluded the report of the President's Special Review Board (the Tower report) and two memoranda contained in it as hearsay; and the court affirmed the conviction "on all counts."[^15] A petition he filed in 2003, his fourth post-conviction attack on the sentence, was denied (Durrani v. United States, 294 F. Supp. 2d 204, D. Conn.).[^16][^17] -He moved for a reduction of sentence under Rule 35 in July 1988, and the motion was denied on May 23, 1989. He filed a pro se petition under 28 U.S.C. 2255 on March 4, 1990, and on August 6, 1991 filed an amended petition with counsel, alleging that the government had withheld exculpatory material and that agents knew private individuals, including [[Manuel Pires]], were procuring weapons for Iran. On October 2, 1991, after in camera review, the district court ordered some documents produced by the Office of Independent Counsel to be disclosed to Durrani. On May 21, 1992 Durrani moved to dismiss the section 2255 petition voluntarily, saying he wanted to resolve his immigration proceedings first, and the court dismissed it without prejudice.[^16] +He moved for a reduction of sentence under Rule 35 in July 1988, and the motion was denied on May 23, 1989. He filed a pro se petition under 28 U.S.C. 2255 on March 4, 1990, and on August 6, 1991 filed an amended petition with counsel, alleging that the government had withheld exculpatory material and that agents knew private individuals, including [[Manuel Pires]], were procuring weapons for Iran. On October 2, 1991, after in camera review, the district court ordered some documents produced by the Office of Independent Counsel to be disclosed to Durrani. On May 21, 1992 Durrani moved to dismiss the section 2255 petition voluntarily, saying he wanted to resolve his immigration proceedings first, and the court dismissed it without prejudice.[^17] -On September 9, 1991 the United States Attorney's Office in Bridgeport objected to each of seven requests for production in Durrani's second request for documents. The objection characterizes the claims as a fishing expedition and states that the government had searched for any connection between Pires and the government up to August 1, 1987 without result.[^17] It also reports that defense counsel had taken the depositions of [[Barbara Studley]] and [[John Singlaub]] in Washington in August 1991, and states that neither witness had any knowledge of Durrani's claims and that both had met Pires only within the last two years. The same page states that a deposition of former CIA official [[George Cave]] would offer no greater prospect of usefulness than the Studley-Singlaub examinations, citing Cave's relationship with the CIA and exposure to classified information.[^17] +On September 9, 1991 the United States Attorney's Office in Bridgeport objected to each of seven requests for production in Durrani's second request for documents. The objection characterizes the claims as a fishing expedition and states that the government had searched for any connection between Pires and the government up to August 1, 1987 without result.[^18] It also reports that defense counsel had taken the depositions of [[Barbara Studley]] and [[John Singlaub]] in Washington in August 1991, and states that neither witness had any knowledge of Durrani's claims and that both had met Pires only within the last two years. The same page states that a deposition of former CIA official [[George Cave]] would offer no greater prospect of usefulness than the Studley-Singlaub examinations, citing Cave's relationship with the CIA and exposure to classified information.[^18] -From prison he told *[[Time (magazine)|Time]]* in 1991 that "Asaf is B.C.C.I.'s man in the weapons business," referring to Asaf Ali.[^18] +From prison he told *[[Time (magazine)|Time]]* in 1991 that "Asaf is B.C.C.I.'s man in the weapons business," referring to Asaf Ali.[^19] ### Footnotes @@ -48,7 +48,8 @@ From prison he told *[[Time (magazine)|Time]]* in 1991 that "Asaf is B.C.C.I.'s [^12]: Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. *The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI*. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 305. [^13]: Christopher Byron, "Did Convict Arif Durrani Help Set the Stage for Iran/Contra?," *New York*, December 16, 1991, pp. 38-44, GeoMiliTech passages on pp. 42-44. https://books.google.com/books?id=6ugCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA42 [^14]: "Arms dealer sentenced to 10 years," United Press International, May 13, 1987. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/05/13/Arms-dealer-sentenced-to-10-years/6753547876800/ -[^15]: "Court rejects arms merchant's use of 'Oliver North defense,'" United Press International, December 4, 1987. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/12/04/Court-rejects-arms-merchants-use-of-Oliver-North-defense/3615565592400 -[^16]: *Durrani v. United States*, 294 F. Supp. 2d 204 (D. Conn. 2003), Background. https://www.ctd.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions/112503.SRU_.Durrani.pdf -[^17]: Government's Objection to Arif Durrani's Second Request for Production of Documents, *United States v. Arif Durrani*, D. Conn., B-90-090 (TFGD) and B-86-59 (TFGD), September 9, 1991, pp. 1-11. CIA CREST document 0001474388. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/0001474388 -[^18]: "Scandals: Not Just a Bank," *Time,* September 2, 1991. https://time.com/archive/6718475/scandals-not-just-a-bank/ +[^15]: *United States v. Durrani*, 835 F.2d 410 (2d Cir. Dec. 3, 1987) (Kaufman, Pierce and Miner, JJ.), counsel block and opinion. https://static.case.law/f2d/835/cases/0410-01.json +[^16]: "Court rejects arms merchant's use of 'Oliver North defense,'" United Press International, December 4, 1987. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/12/04/Court-rejects-arms-merchants-use-of-Oliver-North-defense/3615565592400 +[^17]: *Durrani v. United States*, 294 F. Supp. 2d 204 (D. Conn. 2003), Background. https://www.ctd.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions/112503.SRU_.Durrani.pdf +[^18]: Government's Objection to Arif Durrani's Second Request for Production of Documents, *United States v. Arif Durrani*, D. Conn., B-90-090 (TFGD) and B-86-59 (TFGD), September 9, 1991, pp. 1-11. CIA CREST document 0001474388. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/0001474388 +[^19]: "Scandals: Not Just a Bank," *Time,* September 2, 1991. https://time.com/archive/6718475/scandals-not-just-a-bank/ diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ashley Gorski.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ashley Gorski.md index 1119946a..f9ccd742 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ashley Gorski.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ashley Gorski.md @@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ tags: - FourthAmendment - Attorney created: 2026-05-22 -updated: 2026-05-22 +updated: 2026-10-15 summary: "Ashley Gorski is a senior staff attorney in the ACLU's National Security Project who has led the organization's Fourth Amendment litigation against Section 702 backdoor searches, including joining the defense in United States v. Russell." --- @@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ The ACLU's basis for inferring Section 702 collection was an [[ODNI]] document, ### United States v. Hasbajrami -Gorski and the ACLU National Security Project also represented [[Agron Hasbajrami]] in the extended constitutional litigation in the [[Second Circuit]] and the [[Eastern District of New York]] over whether Section 702 backdoor searches require a warrant. The Second Circuit's 2019 ruling in that case held that U.S. person queries constitute "separate Fourth Amendment events," and the subsequent January 2025 district court ruling (the first federal decision imposing a warrant requirement on Section 702 queries) was a direct product of the ACLU's litigation strategy in Hasbajrami.[^2] +Gorski and the ACLU National Security Project also represented [[Agron Hasbajrami]] in the extended constitutional litigation in the [[Second Circuit]] and the [[Eastern District of New York]] over whether Section 702 backdoor searches require a warrant. The Second Circuit's 2019 ruling in that case held that U.S. person queries constitute "separate Fourth Amendment events," and the subsequent January 2025 district court ruling (the first federal decision imposing a warrant requirement on Section 702 queries) was a direct product of the ACLU's litigation strategy in Hasbajrami.[^2] The Second Circuit's opinion of December 18, 2019 lists Gorski and Patrick Toomey of the ACLU, with Mark Rumold and Andrew Crocker of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as counsel for amici curiae the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation; Michael K. Bachrach, Joshua L. Dratel and Steve Zissou appeared for Hasbajrami.[^2] ### ACLU v. NSA and Related FOIA Work @@ -36,7 +36,5 @@ Gorski has led ACLU FOIA litigation seeking the public release of classified FIS ### Footnotes [^1]: Baltimore Banner, "ACLU Signs On to Defend Neo-Nazi Charged with Power Grid Plot." https://www.thebanner.com/community/criminal-justice/neo-nazi-baltimore-power-grid-aclu-national-security-defense-PA277N47ANCLPAMBKAFHXNZ45U/; Baltimore Sun, June 27, 2024. https://www.baltimoresun.com/2024/06/27/prosecutors-will-say-in-secret-whether-they-used-controversial-spying-tool-against-neo-nazi-accused-in-baltimore-power-grid-plot/ - -[^2]: United States v. Hasbajrami, 945 F.3d 641 (2d Cir. 2019); United States v. Hasbajrami, 11-cr-00623-LDH (E.D.N.Y.), Memorandum and Order (declassified Jan. 21, 2025). ACLU press release: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/court-rules-warrantless-section-702-searches-violated-the-fourth-amendment - +[^2]: United States v. Hasbajrami, 945 F.3d 641 (2d Cir. 2019); United States v. Hasbajrami, 11-cr-00623-LDH (E.D.N.Y.), Memorandum and Order (declassified Jan. 21, 2025). ACLU press release: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/court-rules-warrantless-section-702-searches-violated-the-fourth-amendment ; counsel block of the opinion, https://www.govinfo.gov/metadata/pkg/USCOURTS-ca2-17-02669/mods.xml [^3]: ACLU, "Government Releases New Court Opinions Highlighting Further Abuse of Warrantless FISA Surveillance Program," September 2023. https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/government-releases-new-court-opinions-highlighting-further-abuse-of-warrantless-fisa-surveillance-program; ACLU v. United States (SDNY, filed April 2024). https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2024/04/2024-04-25-Complaint-Filed.pdf diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Bill Gates.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Bill Gates.md index 11876458..fadbe35b 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Bill Gates.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Bill Gates.md @@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ relations: role: "chief science and technology adviser" fn: 4 created: 2026-09-25 -updated: 2026-09-25 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Bill Gates (William H. Gates III, born October 28, 1955, in [[Seattle]], [[Washington]]) is the co-founder of [[Microsoft]] and co-chair of the [[Gates Foundation]].[^1] Beginning in 2011, three years after [[Jeffrey Epstein]]'s Florida guilty plea, Gates met Epstein on numerous occasions, at least three times at Epstein's Manhattan townhouse.[^2] Epstein sought to bring Gates into a multibillion-dollar charitable fund he was trying to build with [[JPMorgan Chase]], and after Gates declined, Epstein wrote to him in 2017 in terms that implied knowledge of Gates's past relationship with a Russian bridge player whose training Epstein had paid for.[^3] Gates testified before the [[House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform|House Oversight Committee]] in June 2026 that the meetings were "a grave error in judgment."[^1] @@ -72,6 +72,12 @@ Gates appeared voluntarily for a closed-door interview with the House Oversight The committee's ranking member, [[Robert Garcia]], said Gates had known of the conviction and "continued to interact with him to seek money for his foundation," which he called "a horrific judgment call." Representative [[Raja Krishnamoorthi]] called Gates "combative" and "not terribly forthcoming or candid"; Representative [[Melanie Stansbury]] said Gates described a "narrow relationship" he regarded as "an acceptable means to access wealthy donors"; Representative [[Tim Burchett]] called the questioning "intense."[^1] Comer said afterward that he would ask [[Alan Dershowitz]] to testify and was in talks with the Justice Department about testimony from the acting attorney general, [[Todd Blanche]].[^1] +### Microsoft Board Review + +In May 2021 Microsoft said that it had received a concern in the latter half of 2019 that Gates sought to initiate an intimate relationship with a company employee in the year 2000. "A committee of the Board reviewed the concern, aided by an outside law firm, to conduct a thorough investigation," the company said, and it did not reach a conclusion because Gates had stepped down from the board before the inquiry was completed.[^12] [[Dow Jones]] had reported that directors found the involvement inappropriate and decided he should leave the board, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter; a Gates spokeswoman said "There was an affair almost 20 years ago which ended amicably" and that his "decision to transition off the board was in no way related to this matter."[^12] Gates had announced in March 2020 that he was leaving the board to devote more time to philanthropy.[^12] + +In the same Bloomberg report, a spokeswoman for Gates said the "characterization of his meetings with Epstein and others about philanthropy is inaccurate," and a person familiar with the matter said Gates's dealings with Epstein "weren't a part of the scope of the Microsoft investigation," although "it was discussed by some board members."[^12] The *Times* had reported on October 12, 2019 that Gates met Epstein many times from 2011.[^2] + ### Footnotes [^1]: "Gates testifies on Epstein: previous Fortune investigation reveals payments to his ex-girlfriend, $1M Microsoft deal." *Fortune,* June 10, 2026. https://fortune.com/2026/06/10/bill-gates-epstein-mistress-bankrolled-testifying-congress/ @@ -85,3 +91,4 @@ The committee's ranking member, [[Robert Garcia]], said Gates had known of the c [^9]: Farrow, Ronan. "How an Elite University Research Center Concealed Its Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein." *The New Yorker,* September 6, 2019. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-an-elite-university-research-center-concealed-its-relationship-with-jeffrey-epstein [^10]: Goodwin Procter LLP. *Report Concerning Jeffrey Epstein's Interactions with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.* January 10, 2020. https://facultygovernance.mit.edu/sites/default/files/20200121GoodwinProcterReport.pdf [^11]: *Al Jazeera,* May 10, 2021, summarizing the *Wall Street Journal* on Melinda French Gates and Epstein. https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/5/10/melinda-gates-discussed-divorcing-bill-over-epstein-ties-wsj +[^12]: Bass, Dina and Ian King, "Microsoft investigated Bill Gates's involvement with an employee," *Bloomberg,* May 17, 2021, as published by *Al Jazeera.* https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/5/17/bmicrosoft-investigated-bill-gatess-involvement-with-an-employee diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Danny Casolaro.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Danny Casolaro.md index d9648e0a..681aacb3 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Danny Casolaro.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Danny Casolaro.md @@ -77,6 +77,8 @@ The Bua Report, completed in March 1993, stated that "the physical evidence in C The Bua report listed the tests it relied on: handwriting analysis confirming that Casolaro wrote the note found in the room; fingerprint analysis finding his prints and none other except a single print on an ash tray; hair and fiber analysis; an analysis of the bloodstains by Dr. Lee of the Connecticut State Police Forensic Science Laboratory consistent with suicide; and an autopsy finding hemorrhage from the wrist wounds as the cause of death and no evidence that he was unconscious or debilitated when cut. It addressed criticisms that the room was not sealed, that notification of next of kin was delayed while the body was embalmed, and that Martinsburg authorities discounted suspicions about his "sources," stating that "no credible evidence suggested that any of Casolaro's 'sources' played any role in his death." The report also records that Michael Riconosciuto, in a lawsuit against Bua, alleged that one of the FBI agents assigned to the investigation had murdered Casolaro; the district court dismissed the suit as patently frivolous (*Riconosciuto v. Bua*, No. 92 C 6217, N.D. Ill.).[^13] +The Bua report records that several months after the autopsy a group of Washington journalists asked Professor [[James E. Starrs]] of the [[George Washington University]] law school to review the autopsy report. In the *Washington Business Journal* of November 9 to 15, 1992, Starrs agreed that the wounds were self-inflicted, said that the contusions were caused by embalming fluid (criticizing the quick embalming) and said: "if this was a homicide, it would be the most singularly remarkable murder on record, either in fiction or nonfiction." The conclusion of the report prints his name as "James E. Starr."[^14] + FBI task force members assigned to examine Casolaro's death privately "questioned the conclusion of suicide" and recommended further investigation; expressing doubt about the ruling reportedly "risked one's career" within the Bureau as of December 1992. FBI documents related to Casolaro remain partially withheld from public release under national security exemptions, while the Bureau simultaneously claims the files are missing - a contradiction noted by MuckRock journalists who filed FOIA requests.[^1] In early 1994, the Department of Justice announced it was opening "a nationwide investigation" into Casolaro's death, ordered by associate attorney general [[Webster Hubbell|Webb Hubbell]]. Shortly thereafter, Hubbell pleaded guilty to crimes committed while an Arkansas lawyer and resigned from DOJ. Whether the Casolaro investigation proceeded or produced findings was never made public.[^3] @@ -87,9 +89,9 @@ Casolaro's investigation intersected with the drug-trafficking networks document ### The research files -Casolaro's research files, photographed by Christian Hansen at the Missouri State Historical Society and published on the Internet Archive, include a folder labelled "Promotional Material" of corporate and weapons literature, hand-numbered "BD|AI|PM-01" onward. Its items are a brochure for the Inter-Probe modular energy transfer catalyzer (PM-01), a printed page numbered 207 on fuel air munitions (PM-02), a [[Brunswick Corporation]] defense division cover sheet and drawing for the Rifleman's Assault Weapon for urban warfare dated October 1976 (PM-03), a sales sheet of the defense division of the Chilean firm [[Industrias Cardoen]] (PM-04) and a fax of the resumes of the associates of [[Counter Terrorism Consultants, Inc.]], whose fax counters run 141 P01 to 141 P12 (PM-05) and whose page headers carry the date June 20, 1990 and times from 16:53 to 17:01.[^14] In the order of the photographs the folder runs PM-04, PM-02, PM-03, PM-05, PM-01.[^14] The packet names [[Carter Cornick]], [[Eugene Propper]], [[E. Lawrence Barcella, Jr.|E. Lawrence Barcella]], [[Francis J. McNeil]], [[James B. Motley]] (a vice president of [[Wackenhut Advanced Technologies Corporation]]), [[Mayer Nudell]] and a former CIA counterterrorism chief whose entry carries no name.[^14] The files also contain a folder of 1980s newspaper and magazine material on [[Frank Terpil]] and [[Edwin Wilson]], folders of Wackenhut annual reports, correspondence, profiles and newsletters, and, in a folder of Department of Defense publications, a magazine article by David Corn on Barcella and the Pan Am 103 bombing.[^15] +Casolaro's research files, photographed by Christian Hansen at the Missouri State Historical Society and published on the Internet Archive, include a folder labelled "Promotional Material" of corporate and weapons literature, hand-numbered "BD|AI|PM-01" onward. Its items are a brochure for the Inter-Probe modular energy transfer catalyzer (PM-01), a printed page numbered 207 on fuel air munitions (PM-02), a [[Brunswick Corporation]] defense division cover sheet and drawing for the Rifleman's Assault Weapon for urban warfare dated October 1976 (PM-03), a sales sheet of the defense division of the Chilean firm [[Industrias Cardoen]] (PM-04) and a fax of the resumes of the associates of [[Counter Terrorism Consultants, Inc.]], whose fax counters run 141 P01 to 141 P12 (PM-05) and whose page headers carry the date June 20, 1990 and times from 16:53 to 17:01.[^15] In the order of the photographs the folder runs PM-04, PM-02, PM-03, PM-05, PM-01.[^15] The packet names [[Carter Cornick]], [[Eugene Propper]], [[E. Lawrence Barcella, Jr.|E. Lawrence Barcella]], [[Francis J. McNeil]], [[James B. Motley]] (a vice president of [[Wackenhut Advanced Technologies Corporation]]), [[Mayer Nudell]] and a former CIA counterterrorism chief whose entry carries no name.[^15] The files also contain a folder of 1980s newspaper and magazine material on [[Frank Terpil]] and [[Edwin Wilson]], folders of Wackenhut annual reports, correspondence, profiles and newsletters, and, in a folder of Department of Defense publications, a magazine article by David Corn on Barcella and the Pan Am 103 bombing.[^16] -The INSLAW folder of the research files includes a *St. Louis Post-Dispatch* report of February 19, 1991 that names Industrias Cardoen and its owner [[Carlos Cardoen]]. It states that [[Ari Ben-Menashe]], in an affidavit filed in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Columbia, said that Cardoen told him in January 1989 that Cardoen had brokered a deal between Earl Brian and an Iraqi military intelligence representative for the use of PROMIS, and that the sale was consummated in Santiago, Chile.[^16] Brian called the allegations "nonsense," according to the report.[^16] The report of Special Counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] dates the affidavit February 17, 1991.[^17] +The INSLAW folder of the research files includes a *St. Louis Post-Dispatch* report of February 19, 1991 that names Industrias Cardoen and its owner [[Carlos Cardoen]]. It states that [[Ari Ben-Menashe]], in an affidavit filed in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Columbia, said that Cardoen told him in January 1989 that Cardoen had brokered a deal between Earl Brian and an Iraqi military intelligence representative for the use of PROMIS, and that the sale was consummated in Santiago, Chile.[^17] Brian called the allegations "nonsense," according to the report.[^17] The report of Special Counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] dates the affidavit February 17, 1991.[^18] ### Bibliography @@ -110,7 +112,8 @@ The INSLAW folder of the research files includes a *St. Louis Post-Dispatch* rep [^11]: U.S. Department of Justice. Review of the *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua*, September 27, 1994, pp. 159-160, 162. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993 [^12]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.* March 1993, pp. 246-250 ("B. The Death of Joseph Daniel Casolaro"). [^13]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.* March 1993, pp. 246-250 and p. 69. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993 -[^14]: Danny Casolaro papers, folder "Promotional Material," Internet Archive items casolaro-notebooks (PromotionalMaterial.pdf) and PromotionalMaterial, https://archive.org/details/casolaro-notebooks. -[^15]: Danny Casolaro papers, folders "CIA Frank Terpil Renegades," "Wackenhut - Newsletters" and "DOD PUBLICATIONS," https://archive.org/details/ddosecrets_casolaro_files (the Corn item is headed "SPECIAL EDITION - TERRORISM / Did It Blow Up Flight 103?"). -[^16]: *St. Louis Post-Dispatch*, February 19, 1991, "Stolen Software Scattered: Affidavits Allege Sales To Iraqis And Israelis," clipping in the INSLAW folder, https://archive.org/download/casolaro-notebooks/InslawIi_djvu.txt. -[^17]: Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General regarding the allegations of INSLAW, Inc. (March 1993), pp. 73-74. +[^14]: U.S. Department of Justice, *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.*, March 1993, p. 126 note 4 (citing *Washington Business Journal*, November 9-15, 1992, p. 13) and pp. 248-250. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993 +[^15]: Danny Casolaro papers, folder "Promotional Material," Internet Archive items casolaro-notebooks (PromotionalMaterial.pdf) and PromotionalMaterial, https://archive.org/details/casolaro-notebooks. +[^16]: Danny Casolaro papers, folders "CIA Frank Terpil Renegades," "Wackenhut - Newsletters" and "DOD PUBLICATIONS," https://archive.org/details/ddosecrets_casolaro_files (the Corn item is headed "SPECIAL EDITION - TERRORISM / Did It Blow Up Flight 103?"). +[^17]: *St. Louis Post-Dispatch*, February 19, 1991, "Stolen Software Scattered: Affidavits Allege Sales To Iraqis And Israelis," clipping in the INSLAW folder, https://archive.org/download/casolaro-notebooks/InslawIi_djvu.txt. +[^18]: Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General regarding the allegations of INSLAW, Inc. (March 1993), pp. 73-74. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Donald Gregg.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Donald Gregg.md index a84c23c8..6bec8229 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Donald Gregg.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Donald Gregg.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ aliases: - Donald Gregg - Donald Phinney Gregg created: 2026-05-17 -updated: 2026-05-17 +updated: 2026-10-15 category: "Intelligence & Government" tags: - Person @@ -34,15 +34,15 @@ Gregg's most significant Iran-Contra connection was through [[Felix Rodriguez]] Gregg testified before Congress that he had not known Rodriguez was involved in Contra resupply, stating that Rodriguez had briefed him on his activities but had not disclosed the specific Contra connection until after the Hasenfus shootdown. Congressional investigators questioned whether this was plausible given Rodriguez's documented communications with Gregg and a schedule notation in Gregg's files that appeared to reference a "resupply" operation. The discrepancy became a central issue in Gregg's Senate confirmation hearings for the Korea ambassadorship.[^1] -The [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee]] confirmed Gregg's ambassadorial nomination in June 1989 after protracted hearings. Senator John Kerry, who was conducting a parallel investigation into Contra drug trafficking, had used the nomination hearings to press Gregg on his knowledge of Contra operations. Gregg maintained throughout that he had not known Rodriguez was running a covert supply network.[^1] +The [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee]] acted on Gregg's ambassadorial nomination in June 1989 after protracted hearings, and the full Senate confirmed him on September 12, 1989, by 66 votes to 33.[^2] Senator John Kerry, who was conducting a parallel investigation into Contra drug trafficking, had used the nomination hearings to press Gregg on his knowledge of Contra operations. Gregg maintained throughout that he had not known Rodriguez was running a covert supply network.[^1] ### October Surprise Allegations -Arms dealer and self-described CIA contractor [[Richard Brenneke]] claimed that Donald Gregg had attended the October 1980 Paris meetings at which Reagan campaign officials allegedly negotiated a delay in the Iranian hostage release. Brenneke submitted a sworn affidavit to this effect in a Denver federal court in February 1988, at the sentencing hearing of convicted bank fraudster Heinrich Rupp, another self-described CIA contractor who also claimed to have been at the Paris meetings.[^2] +Arms dealer and self-described CIA contractor [[Richard Brenneke]] claimed that Donald Gregg had attended the October 1980 Paris meetings at which Reagan campaign officials allegedly negotiated a delay in the Iranian hostage release. Brenneke submitted a sworn affidavit to this effect in a Denver federal court in February 1988, at the sentencing hearing of convicted bank fraudster Heinrich Rupp, another self-described CIA contractor who also claimed to have been at the Paris meetings.[^3] -Gregg denied any participation in or knowledge of October Surprise negotiations. The claim that Gregg attended the Paris meetings was one of five counts of perjury for which Brenneke was indicted in December 1989. Brenneke was acquitted of all five counts in August 1990 by a Denver jury, a result that his supporters characterized as vindicating his credibility and that the government characterized as insufficient to prove false statements rather than affirmative proof that Gregg had attended the meetings.[^2] +Gregg denied any participation in or knowledge of October Surprise negotiations. The claim that Gregg attended the Paris meetings was one of five counts of perjury for which Brenneke was indicted in December 1989. Brenneke was acquitted of all five counts in August 1990 by a Denver jury, a result that his supporters characterized as vindicating his credibility and that the government characterized as insufficient to prove false statements rather than affirmative proof that Gregg had attended the meetings.[^3] -The House October Surprise Task Force (1992-1993) found Brenneke "totally lacking in credibility" and cleared Gregg of the Paris allegation. The Task Force's conclusions have been contested on methodological grounds by Robert Parry and others who investigated the investigation's handling of evidence.[^2] +The House October Surprise Task Force (1992-1993) found Brenneke "totally lacking in credibility" and cleared Gregg of the Paris allegation. The Task Force's conclusions have been contested on methodological grounds by Robert Parry and others who investigated the investigation's handling of evidence.[^3] ### South Korea Ambassadorship @@ -51,4 +51,5 @@ Gregg served as Ambassador to the Republic of Korea from 1989 to 1993 under Pres ### Footnotes [^1]: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, ambassadorial records; Clarridge, Duane R. *A Spy for All Seasons*. Scribner, 1997 (on CIA East Asia network context). Kerry-Brown Senate Report on Contra Drug Trafficking, 1989. -[^2]: U.S. House of Representatives, October Surprise Task Force. *Joint Report of the Task Force to Investigate Certain Allegations Concerning the Holding of American Hostages by Iran in 1980*. 102nd Congress, 2nd Session, January 1993. Sick, Gary. *October Surprise: America's Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan*. Times Books, 1991, pp. 143-148. +[^2]: U.S. Senate, Roll Call Vote 174, 101st Congress, 1st session, September 12, 1989, on the nomination of Donald Phinney Gregg to be Ambassador to the Republic of Korea: Nomination Confirmed, 66 yeas, 33 nays. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1011/vote_101_1_00174.htm +[^3]: U.S. House of Representatives, October Surprise Task Force. *Joint Report of the Task Force to Investigate Certain Allegations Concerning the Holding of American Hostages by Iran in 1980*. 102nd Congress, 2nd Session, January 1993. Sick, Gary. *October Surprise: America's Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan*. Times Books, 1991, pp. 143-148. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Earl Brian.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Earl Brian.md index ebe7e17e..40fa6c6a 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Earl Brian.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Earl Brian.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ aliases: - Earl Brian - Earl W. Brian created: 2024-04-25 -updated: 2026-10-08 +updated: 2026-10-15 category: "Business & Finance" tags: - KeyFigure @@ -58,7 +58,9 @@ Brian was never charged with any crime in connection with the PROMIS affair. His ### Financial News Network and UPI -In July 1993 the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] charged Brian and three others with fraudulently inflating the revenue and earnings of the [[Financial News Network]], the [[Los Angeles]] cable channel controlled with [[United Press International]] by his holding company Infotechnology, Inc.; he settled without admitting or denying the charges and consented to a permanent injunction. A federal grand jury in the Central District of California returned a 24-count indictment in June 1994, unsealed on September 5, 1995, charging Brian, then Infotechnology's chairman, and its chief operating officer John F. Berentson with lying to obtain 56 million dollars in loans from Security Pacific and Toronto-Dominion in 1989 by falsifying FNN's books through fictitious equipment leases and inter-company billings; FNN's chief financial officer C. Steven Bolen and Gary A. Prince pleaded guilty and cooperated. FNN, which lost 72.4 million dollars in fiscal 1990, and UPI, whose management rights Infotechnology had bought in February 1988, both entered Chapter 11 in 1991. On October 17, 1996, after a four-month trial in Los Angeles, a jury convicted Brian on ten counts including conspiracy and bank and securities fraud, deadlocking on the rest; he was ordered to report to prison on August 18 of the following year to serve a term reported as four and a half years, and appealed. On October 3, 2000, he moved to vacate his sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 in the Central District of California; the motion, assigned to Judge Ronald S. W. Lew, was closed on February 22, 2001.[^9] Hadron continued as a public company, was renamed Analex Corporation in 2002 and ceased reporting in 2007.[^10] +In July 1993 the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] charged Brian and three others with fraudulently inflating the revenue and earnings of the [[Financial News Network]], the [[Los Angeles]] cable channel controlled with [[United Press International]] by his holding company Infotechnology, Inc.; he settled without admitting or denying the charges and consented to a permanent injunction. A federal grand jury in the Central District of California returned a 24-count indictment in June 1994, unsealed on September 5, 1995, charging Brian, then Infotechnology's chairman, and its chief operating officer John F. Berentson with lying to obtain 56 million dollars in loans from Security Pacific and Toronto-Dominion in 1989 by falsifying FNN's books through fictitious equipment leases and inter-company billings; FNN's chief financial officer C. Steven Bolen and Gary A. Prince pleaded guilty and cooperated. FNN, which lost 72.4 million dollars in fiscal 1990, and UPI, whose management rights Infotechnology had bought in February 1988, both entered Chapter 11 in 1991. On October 17, 1996, after a twelve-week trial in Los Angeles, a jury convicted Brian on ten counts including conspiracy and bank and securities fraud, deadlocking on the rest; he was ordered to report to prison on August 18 of the following year to serve a term of four years and nine months, reported that year as nearly five years, and appealed.[^9] On October 3, 2000, he moved to vacate his sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 in the Central District of California; the motion, assigned to Judge Ronald S. W. Lew, was closed on February 22, 2001.[^10] Hadron continued as a public company, was renamed Analex Corporation in 2002 and ceased reporting in 2007.[^11] + +In 1990 Brian contacted [[Patricof and Company]] with a deal proposal regarding UPI. [[Patricia Cloherty]] told the Bua inquiry that she never met with Brian directly and sent an associate to look into the proposal, and that the firm decided not to pursue it.[^12] ### Footnotes @@ -70,5 +72,7 @@ In July 1993 the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] charged Brian and three [^6]: U.S. Senate, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. *The Inslaw Affair.* September 1989. [^7]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations. *The "October Surprise" Allegations and the Circumstances Surrounding the Release of the American Hostages Held in Iran: Report of the Special Counsel to Senator Terry Sanford and Senator James M. Jeffords,* S. Prt. 102-125, November 19, 1992, pp. v, 17 and appendix 22, "Earl Brian Passports," p. 287. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/pst.000021071829 [^8]: *Brian v. Richardson,* 87 N.Y.2d 46, 660 N.E.2d 1126 (N.Y. 1995). https://www.law.cornell.edu/nyctap/I95_0246.htm -[^9]: *Earl W. Brian v. United States,* No. 2:00-cv-10607 (C.D. Cal.), docket and Federal Judicial Center Integrated Database record, CourtListener. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/11266534/earl-w-brian-v-united-states/ The disposition of the motion is recorded only as "Other". -[^10]: "Former UPI execs charged with fraud," United Press International, September 6, 1995. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1995/09/06/Former-UPI-execs-charged-with-fraud/3824810360000/ ; Gersh, Debra, "SEC Accuses Former UPI Chief of Fraud," *Editor & Publisher,* July 10, 1993 (headline and date only); Fricker, Richard L., "Earl Brian: Reagan's 'Scandal Man' Off to Jail," *The Consortium,* 1997. https://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/xfile11.html ; Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR filing history for Hadron, Inc., CIK 0000044800. Fricker gives the reporting date as "Aug. 18" without a year. +[^9]: United Press International, "Ex-UPI chief gets prison term," May 20, 1997, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1997/05/20/Ex-UPI-chief-gets-prison-term/7027864100800/ +[^10]: *Earl W. Brian v. United States,* No. 2:00-cv-10607 (C.D. Cal.), docket and Federal Judicial Center Integrated Database record, CourtListener. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/11266534/earl-w-brian-v-united-states/ The disposition of the motion is recorded only as "Other". +[^11]: "Former UPI execs charged with fraud," United Press International, September 6, 1995. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1995/09/06/Former-UPI-execs-charged-with-fraud/3824810360000/ ; Gersh, Debra, "SEC Accuses Former UPI Chief of Fraud," *Editor & Publisher,* July 10, 1993 (headline and date only); Fricker, Richard L., "Earl Brian: Reagan's 'Scandal Man' Off to Jail," *The Consortium,* 1997. https://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/xfile11.html ; Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR filing history for Hadron, Inc., CIK 0000044800. Fricker gives the reporting date as "Aug. 18" without a year. +[^12]: U.S. Department of Justice, *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.* (March 1993), p. 96, https://archive.org/download/InslawPROMISBuaReport/Inslaw%3APROMIS%20Bua%20Report_djvu.txt diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ernst David Bergmann.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ernst David Bergmann.md index 2975cb9a..754953ca 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ernst David Bergmann.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ernst David Bergmann.md @@ -90,7 +90,7 @@ A memorandum of February 13, 1963 by the embassy's science attache Robert Webber Hersh wrote that Bergmann was a founding member of [[Rafi]] in 1965 and that "Ben-Gurion was quoting Bergmann all the time," according to an Israeli, about the dangers of not producing a nuclear arsenal.[^8] By the spring of 1966, he wrote, Bergmann resigned under pressure from the commission and his two defense science posts; a Defense Ministry official came to his apartment within the hour to retrieve his government car; Eshkol moved responsibility for the commission to the prime minister's staff and became its chairman; and Bergmann gave an interview to the newspaper Maariv, of which the New York Times reported that he spoke of the Eshkol government's lack of funds for research and "the risk of dependence on foreign sources." In that interview Bergmann said: "It's very important to understand that by developing atomic energy for peaceful uses, you reach the nuclear option. There are no two atomic energies."[^8][^9] -Hersh wrote that in the fall of 1966 Strauss used his influence at the Institute for Advanced Study at [[Princeton University]] to obtain for Bergmann a two-month visiting fellowship, although the institute rarely took chemists; that the institute's new director [[Carl Kaysen]] recalled that Strauss "had nudged me about Bergmann" and that Bergmann "was working on [the Israeli nuclear] weapons program. He was very relaxed about it"; and that neither Strauss's biographer nor his son knew the two had met.[^10] In 1968, Hersh wrote, Bergmann spoke at the South African Institute of International Affairs in Johannesburg on "the move toward international collaboration," saying of Israel and South Africa that "neither of us has neighbors to whom we can speak."[^11] +Hersh wrote that in the fall of 1966 Strauss used his influence at the [[Institute for Advanced Study]] at [[Princeton, New Jersey|Princeton]] to obtain for Bergmann a two-month visiting fellowship, although the institute rarely took chemists; that the institute's new director [[Carl Kaysen]] recalled that Strauss "had nudged me about Bergmann" and that Bergmann "was working on [the Israeli nuclear] weapons program. He was very relaxed about it"; and that neither Strauss's biographer nor his son knew the two had met.[^10] In 1968, Hersh wrote, Bergmann spoke at the South African Institute of International Affairs in Johannesburg on "the move toward international collaboration," saying of Israel and South Africa that "neither of us has neighbors to whom we can speak."[^11] ### After his death diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Faisal Saud al-Fulaij.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Faisal Saud al-Fulaij.md index 93881224..d38db1cd 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Faisal Saud al-Fulaij.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Faisal Saud al-Fulaij.md @@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ relations: start: 1992-07-29 fn: 2 created: 2026-09-23 -updated: 2026-09-23 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Faisal Saud al-Fulaij was a Kuwaiti businessman who acted as a nominee for the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] (BCCI) in its secret acquisition of [[Financial General Bankshares]], later [[First American Bank|First American]], through the holding company [[Credit and Commerce American Holdings]] (CCAH). He was one of the four "persons of substance" named in the January 1978 memorandum of the BCCI officer [[Abdus Sami]], testified before the [[Federal Reserve Board|Federal Reserve]] in April 1981, and in July 1992 was indicted in New York with [[Clark Clifford]], [[Robert Altman]], [[Agha Hasan Abedi]], [[Swaleh Naqvi]] and [[Ghaith R. Pharaon]].[^1][^2] @@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ At the Federal Reserve hearing of April 23, 1981, Fulaij followed [[Kamal Adham] The Federal Reserve found in 1991 that Adham, Fulaij, [[A. R. (Abdul Raouf) Khalil|Khalil]] and the other Middle Eastern nominees "had secretly done precisely what the Federal Reserve had sought to assure they would not do." After the acquisition BCCI added capital to First American partly through loans to its nominees Fulaij, Khalil and Shorafa, and in later planning for the purchase of the Eagle Bank in Florida, Naqvi and BCCI's New York manager [[Abdur Sakhia]] discussed using Fulaij as the nominee in place of Pharaon, in Altman's presence.[^1][^5][^6] -The Senate report also recorded that the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] did not tell the Federal Reserve that Adham and Fulaij had been the subjects of a [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] inquiry under the [[Foreign Corrupt Practices Act]] into arms sales to [[Saudi Arabia]] by [[Boeing]] and [[Lockheed Corporation|Lockheed]].[^7] +The Senate report also recorded that the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] did not tell the Federal Reserve that Adham and Fulaij had been the subjects of a [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] inquiry under the [[Foreign Corrupt Practices Act]] into arms sales to [[Saudi Arabia]] by [[Boeing]] and [[Lockheed Aircraft Company|Lockheed]].[^7] ### Indictment diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/George H.W. Bush.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/George H.W. Bush.md index c5ab9716..a05c60c7 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/George H.W. Bush.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/George H.W. Bush.md @@ -2,19 +2,23 @@ title: George H.W. Bush aliases: - George H.W. Bush + - George H. W. Bush - George Herbert Walker Bush - President Bush - Bush 41 category: "Political Figure" created: 2024-04-25 -updated: 2026-09-21 +updated: 2026-10-15 tags: - KeyFigure - Person - Israel - DarkAllianceInvestigation - OctoberSurprise -summary: "Vice President under Reagan and 41st U.S. President who dealt with Israel's nuclear program, the VELA incident, and sanctions discussions after Osirak bombing, while simultaneously overseeing anti-drug efforts as Contra-connected drug traffickers operated with impunity." + - IranContra + - Stargate + - BCCI +summary: "Director of Central Intelligence in 1976 and 1977, Vice President and 41st President, whose record includes Israel's nuclear program, the Vela incident, Iran-Contra, October Surprise, BCCI and BNL." born: 1924-06-12 died: 2018-11-30 location: "Milton, Massachusetts" @@ -23,27 +27,453 @@ relations: with: "[[Gerald R. Ford]]" role: "Director of Central Intelligence" start: 1976-01-30 - fn: 5 + fn: 26 + - type: director_of + with: "[[Central Intelligence Agency]]" + role: "Director of Central Intelligence" + start: 1976-01-30 + end: 1977-01-20 + fn: 26 + - type: reported_to + with: "[[Ronald Reagan]]" + role: "Vice President" + start: 1981-01-20 + end: 1989-01-20 + fn: 108 + - type: head_of + with: "[[United States]]" + role: "President of the United States" + start: 1989-01-20 + end: 1993-01-20 + fn: 108 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[October Surprise]]" + start: 1993-01-03 + fn: 93 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Skull and Bones]]" + fn: 4 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[The Carlyle Group]]" + role: "Senior adviser on Asia" + fn: 147 + - type: participant_in + with: "[[South Florida Drug Task Force]]" + start: 1982-01-28 + fn: 17 --- -George H.W. Bush served as the Vice President under President [[Ronald Reagan]] and later as the 41st President of the United States. He was present at a meeting of Reagan's high command following the Israeli bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor at [[Osirak bombing]] in June 1981, where he agreed that some sanctions against [[Israel]] were essential.[^1] + +George H.W. Bush served as the Vice President under President [[Ronald Reagan]] and later as the 41st President of the United States. He was present at a meeting of Reagan's high command following the Israeli bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor at [[Osirak bombing]] in June 1981, where he agreed that some sanctions against [[Israel]] were essential.[^1] The same history of Israel's nuclear program includes the Vela incident of September 1979, the double flash recorded by an American Vela satellite over the South Atlantic.[^1] + +Bush directed the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] from January 1976 to January 1977. His name recurs in the record of the [[Iran-Contra Affair]], the [[October Surprise]] allegations, the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]], the Atlanta branch of [[Banca Nazionale del Lavoro]], and the [[Contras]] supply network. + +### Early Life, Yale and Skull and Bones + +Bush was the son of [[Prescott Bush]], an investment banker who represented Connecticut in the [[United States Senate]] from 1952 until 1963.[^2] He graduated from [[Phillips Academy]] on his eighteenth birthday in 1942 and enlisted in the [[United States Navy]] the same day. He became a naval pilot in July 1943, flew torpedo bombers in the Pacific, and was shot down on September 2, 1944 on a mission against a radio site; a submarine rescued him and he received the Distinguished Flying Cross. He married [[Barbara Bush|Barbara Pierce]] on January 6, 1945, and after his discharge in September 1945 enrolled at [[Yale University]], where he completed an economics degree on an accelerated program by 1948, captained the baseball team, and joined the Skull and Bones society.[^2] The couple's children were [[George W. Bush|George Walker]] (born July 6, 1946, the eldest son and later the 43rd President), Robin (1949 to 1953), John Ellis ([[Jeb Bush]]), [[Neil Bush]], Marvin and Dorothy.[^2][^3] + +The George H. W. Bush Presidential Library's response to a 2009 request for records on the [[Skull and Bones]] Society, filed as FOIA 2009-0116-F, describes the society as one "of which George H. W. Bush and his father Prescott Bush were both members."[^4] The same response describes a rumor about the skull of the Apache leader [[Geronimo]] and the society, and does not endorse it.[^4] The file contains correspondence from President Bush to [[William F. Buckley Jr.]] and [[Thomas W. Ludlow Ashley]] about a Buckley article in [[National Review]] answering [[Pat Buchanan]]'s characterization of Bush's foreign policy as "Skull and Bones foreign policy" during the 1992 campaign, and administrative forms for a Skull and Bones tea held at the White House on October 20, 1989.[^4] + +On October 20, 1942 at Washington, the [[Alien Property Custodian]], Leo T. Crowley, signed Vesting Order No. 248, which vested the capital stock of the [[Union Banking Corporation]], a New York corporation, in the Custodian. The order was published in the [[Federal Register]] on November 7, 1942. It lists 4,000 shares. [[E. Roland Harriman]] held 3,991 of them and Prescott S. Bush held one. The order states that all of the shares were held for the benefit of [[Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart]], N.V., of Rotterdam, "which bank is owned or controlled by members of the Thyssen family, nationals of Germany and/or Hungary."[^5] + +### Zapata Petroleum and Zapata Off-Shore + +Bush moved to Odessa, Texas in 1948, worked for Dresser Industries from 1950, and that year formed an oil development company in Midland that merged with another company three years later to create [[Zapata Petroleum]]. In 1954 he became president of the subsidiary Zapata Off-Shore Company and moved the company and his family to Houston.[^2] WhoWhatWhy reports that Zapata Petroleum began in 1953 "through joint efforts with Thomas J. Devine, a CIA staffer who had resigned his agency position that same year." The article quotes a CIA memorandum of November 29, 1975 that describes Devine as an "oil wild-catting associate of Mr. Bush."[^6] The same article quotes a 1968 memorandum that places Devine back in agency work under commercial cover from 1963.[^7] WhoWhatWhy also reports that the CIA documents were released in 1998 from a batch of records provided to the [[House Select Committee on Assassinations]].[^7] + +The corporation that later carried the Zapata name filed with the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] under the former conformed names Zapata Off Shore Co, dated from January 15, 1969, and Zapata Norness Inc, dated from March 14, 1972. Its fiscal 1994 annual report states that "Zapata Corporation is a Delaware corporation organized in 1954."[^8] Electronic filings on EDGAR begin on February 8, 1994, and the company's record under Central Index Key 109177 starts from that period.[^9] + +### The 1963 Hoover Memorandum + +In 1997 the [[Assassination Records Review Board]] asked the CIA about a memorandum dated November 29, 1963 that carries the name of [[J. Edgar Hoover]]. The Review Board's letter of December 18, 1997 quotes the memorandum's statement that "the substance of the foregoing information [on the assassination of President Kennedy] was orally furnished to Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency."[^10] The letter describes the document as "dated November 29,1963, prepared under the name of John Edgar Hoover."[^10] + +The routing of the memorandum is recorded in two conflicting ways. A Review Board staff memorandum of January 8, 1998 describes it as concerning Hoover's conversation with President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] about the assassination, and says the memorandum is located in Johnson O&C File 92.[^11] A CIA memorandum by Michelle Combs to T. Jeremy Gunn, dated July 15, 1998, describes it as a memorandum from Hoover to the director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the State Department.[^12] + +The Review Board's letter quotes the CIA as having confirmed that "the search query included George Herbert Walker Bush prior to 1970." The letter asks the agency to determine whether George Herbert Walker Bush is the person to whom the memorandum refers.[^10] A CIA memorandum from J. Barry Harrelson to Gunn, dated February 25, 1998, states that the search "determined the Agency has no record of any association with George Herbert Walker Bush during the 1963 time period."[^13] + +The Combs memorandum records that the only other "George Bush" serving in the CIA in 1963 was a junior analyst who has repeatedly denied being the "George Bush" referenced in the memorandum. It also cites an entry in the calendar of Director [[Allen Dulles]] for October 4, 1961 that names an Army major general George Bush, with "no indication if this General Bush could be the referenced George Bush."[^12] + +An undated Review Board draft request bearing Gunn's name refers to an affidavit of George William Bush dated September 21, 1988.[^14] + +In 1988 Stephen Hart issued a statement answering a report by [[Joseph McBride]] that appeared in The Nation on July 16, 1988. WhoWhatWhy quotes the statement as concluding: "Must be another George Bush."[^15] McBride described the response as "rather detailed for a ritual non-denial."[^15] + +The CIA's 1998 answer, the Review Board staff's account of it, the 1988 statement and the 1988 affidavit all concern the same name. The records do not establish which George Bush the memorandum means. ### The South Florida Drug Task Force and the Medellín Cartel -As Vice President, Bush oversaw anti-drug efforts as head of the South Florida Drug Task Force while the administration simultaneously protected [[Contras|Contra]]-connected drug traffickers. The contradiction between Bush's public anti-drug posture and the covert reality of the Contra supply chain became a recurring theme in the [[Dark Alliance]] narrative.[^2] +As Vice President, Bush oversaw anti-drug efforts as head of the South Florida Drug Task Force while the administration simultaneously protected Contra-connected drug traffickers. The contradiction between Bush's public anti-drug posture and the covert reality of the Contra supply chain became a recurring theme in the [[Dark Alliance]] narrative.[^16] -The [[Medellin Cartel|Medellín Cartel]] reportedly made a deal with Vice President Bush. Informant Allen Raul Rudd told federal officials that Pablo Escobar described "an agreement or relationship between Bush and the American government and members of the Medellín cartel which resulted in planes flying guns to the cartel in [[Colombia]]." Escobar claimed to have a picture of Bush posing with Medellín cartel leader [[Jorge Ochoa]] in front of suitcases full of money, held as blackmail to be released at "the appropriate time."[^2] +Reagan's statement of January 28, 1982 announced the federal anticrime task force for southern Florida: "To coordinate this effort, I am today announcing the establishment of a special task force, headed by Vice President George Bush, to analyze the problems and determine what steps we must take during the period of aggravated crime incidence."[^17] In a statement to a 1988 Senate subcommittee, Admiral [[Daniel Murphy]] said: "The President appointed Vice President Bush to direct the task force comprised of the Secretaries of State, Defense, Transportation, Treasury, Health and Human Service, and the Attorney General."[^18] + +The [[Kerry Committee]] report, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy* (1988), states: "These cables led to a 1982 meeting between Vice President Bush, Admiral Daniel Murphy and Bahamian Prime Minister [[Lynden Pindling]], at which the Norman's Cay problem was raised. The Vice President chastised the Prime Minister for what was taking place."[^19] + +The [[Medellin Cartel|Medellín Cartel]] reportedly made a deal with Vice President Bush. Informant Allen Raul Rudd told federal officials that [[Pablo Escobar]] described "an agreement or relationship between Bush and the American government and members of the Medellín cartel which resulted in planes flying guns to the cartel in [[Colombia]]." Escobar claimed to have a picture of Bush posing with Medellín cartel leader [[Jorge Ochoa]] in front of suitcases full of money, held as blackmail to be released at "the appropriate time."[^16] ### Contra Connections and the War on Drugs -At the same time Reagan and Bush were publicly whipping the American public into a frenzy over street-corner crack dealers, [[Oliver North]] and other top administration officials were livid that Contra-connected drug trafficker General [[Jose Bueso Rosa]] had even been charged with a crime. North's computer messages about Bueso Rosa illustrated how skewed the Reagan administration's sense of justice had become regarding its "War on Drugs." [[Scott Weekly]], a figure connected to the CIA and the Hasenfus shootdown, claimed on tape that he reported to people who reported to Bush.[^3] +At the same time Reagan and Bush were publicly whipping the American public into a frenzy over street-corner crack dealers, [[Oliver North]] and other top administration officials were livid that Contra-connected drug trafficker General [[Jose Bueso Rosa]] had even been charged with a crime. North's computer messages about Bueso Rosa illustrated how skewed the Reagan administration's sense of justice had become regarding its "War on Drugs." [[Scott Weekly]], a figure connected to the CIA and the Hasenfus shootdown, claimed on tape that he reported to people who reported to Bush.[^20] -On November 3, 1975 President [[Gerald R. Ford]] announced at a news conference that he intended to nominate Ambassador Bush, then the United States representative to the People's Republic of China, as Director of Central Intelligence, succeeding [[William Colby]].[^4] Bush was sworn in as Director of Central Intelligence on January 30, 1976.[^5] As director of central intelligence in 1976 Bush was briefed on the CIA's remote-viewing research at [[Stanford Research Institute]] after the agency learned that Soviet visitors were "questioning Puthoff and Targ at SRI," and left office before reacting. As vice president, in 1983 (the chronology's date reads as March 31 or August 3), he "was briefed for thirty minutes concerning [[Center Lane|CENTER LANE]] related activities by Dr. [[Jack Vorona]], DIA," the Army's remote-viewing unit, with "Adm. Murphy, C/S," and "Mr. Gregg" present; INSCOM's chronology records that "the briefing was well received and the Vice President was interested and impressed."[^6] +### Political Career Before the CIA + +Bush became Republican Party chairman in Harris County, Texas, lost the 1964 Senate race to Ralph Yarborough, won the House seat for Houston's Seventh District in 1966 and was reelected in 1968. He lost the 1970 Senate race to [[Lloyd Bentsen]]. In December 1970 President [[Richard Nixon]] nominated him as ambassador to the [[United Nations]]; in 1973 Nixon moved him to the chairmanship of the [[Republican National Committee]], which he held through the Watergate period until Nixon's resignation in August 1974. President [[Gerald R. Ford]] then made him chief of the U.S. Liaison Office in the People's Republic of China, and in 1975 asked him to direct the CIA. After Ford lost in 1976, Bush offered to stay as director and [[Jimmy Carter]] declined.[^2] [[James C. Oberwetter]], the spokesman for [[Hunt Oil Company]] in a 1977 episode involving the FBI, had been press secretary to Congressman Bush.[^21] + +### Out of Office, 1977 to 1981 + +In January 1977, as chairman of the [[National Foreign Intelligence Board]], Bush wrote to Vice Admiral [[Bobby Ray Inman]], then vice director of the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]], thanking him for a year of advice to the board.[^22] [[U.S. News & World Report]] stated on April 7, 1980 that Bush was a present or former member of the [[Trilateral Commission]]; the magazine reported that he "resigned from the organization in 1978" and quoted him as saying that "to suggest that those that belong to the commission . . . are involved in a conspiracy is absurd."[^23] Bush announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination on May 1, 1979.[^2] [[William H. Draper III]] was national cochairman of the finance committee for Bush's 1980 presidential campaign, according to the White House announcement of March 18, 1981 nominating Draper to head the [[Export-Import Bank of the United States]].[^24] Bush ran on the Reagan ticket and won the vice presidency in the November 1980 election.[^2] + +### Director of Central Intelligence, 1976 to 1977 + +On November 3, 1975 President Gerald R. Ford announced at a news conference that he intended to nominate Ambassador Bush, then the [[United States]] representative to the People's Republic of China, as [[Director of Central Intelligence]], succeeding [[William Colby]].[^25] Bush was sworn in as Director of Central Intelligence on January 30, 1976.[^26] As director of central intelligence in 1976 Bush was briefed on the CIA's remote-viewing research at [[Stanford Research Institute]] after the agency learned that Soviet visitors were "questioning Puthoff and Targ at SRI," and left office before reacting.[^27] + +The Senate Armed Services Committee reported the nomination through Senator [[John Tower]]. Hearings were held on December 15 and 16, 1975. Bush told the committee that "I do feel we need a covert capability," and pledged to "faithfully try to testify before the appropriate oversight committees of the U.S. Congress."[^28] The committee's report of December 18, 1975 recommends confirmation "subject to the nominee's commitment to respond to requests to appear and testify before any duly constituted committee."[^28] The committee approved him 12 to four. The full United States Senate followed in January with a 64 to 27 vote, after a two-hour debate, according to [[Studies in Intelligence]].[^29] + +In a memorandum to the recipients of National Intelligence Estimate 11-3/8-76, Bush called the estimate "the official appraisal of the Director of Central Intelligence." He wrote that "there is a negative aspect that is already clear and which concerns me deeply; namely, the selective leaks regarding the details of the process and, worse, the substantive conclusions developed by the 'Team B' panel that was concerned with Soviet strategic objectives." He added: "There is no truth to such allegations."[^30] + +The Team B report, "Soviet Strategic Objectives: An Alternative View," describes the experiment as "undertaken by the DCI on behalf of the [[President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board]]." It names [[Richard Pipes]] as team leader and lists William Van Cleave, [[Daniel O. Graham]], Thomas Wolfe and John Vogt as members. An advisory panel included Foy Kohler, Paul Nitze, Seymour Weiss, Jasper Welch and Paul Wolfowitz. The report states that its views "do not represent either coordinated National Intelligence or the views of the Director of Central Intelligence."[^31] + +William Beecher broke the Team B story in the [[Boston Globe]] on October 20, 1976, according to the editors' note in the Foreign Relations volume. A story by [[David Binder]] in the [[New York Times]] of December 26, 1976 reported the estimate's findings and drew in part on an interview with Bush.[^30] On January 19, 1977 Bush wrote to Cherne, chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, about Team B's recommendations.[^32] + +On February 11, 1976 Bush announced new guidelines governing the agency's relations with the American press. The guideline states: "Effective immediately, CIA will not enter into any paid or contractual relationship with any full-time or part-time news correspondent accredited by any U.S. news service, newspaper, periodical, radio or television network or station."[^33] The report of the [[Church Committee]], chaired by [[Frank Church]], also states that the CIA had maintained covert relationships with about 50 journalists, and that Bush "undertook as one of his first actions to recognize the 'special status afforded the American media under our Constitution.'"[^34] + +On February 10, 1976 the [[Washington Star]] reported that Bush, according to a CIA spokesman, "has urged executives of The New York Times and CBS news to support the agency's efforts to keep secret the names of journalists who have aided intelligence operations."[^35] + +In June 1976 the Washington Star reported that U.S. District Judge [[June Green]] ordered CIA Director Bush "not to destroy the files gathered by the CIA." Green also granted an appeal that the files be "protected" pending a civil action by the [[American Civil Liberties Union]]. The files were part of [[Operation CHAOS]] and had been gathered by the CIA at the request of Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon, who feared extensive foreign influence on domestic unrest.[^36] + +The [[Letelier assassination]] in Washington in September 1976 brought Chile into the Director's correspondence. On September 29, 1976 Senator [[Daniel Inouye]] wrote to Bush thanking him for a briefing, and noted that [[Orlando Letelier]] "was recently discussed at a high-level policy meeting within the Chilean government."[^37] On October 9, 1976 [[U.S. Attorney General|Attorney General]] [[Edward Levi]] wrote to Bush that "the Central Intelligence Agency may be in a position to obtain information bearing on these violent activities."[^38] [[Brent Scowcroft]] endorsed the request on October 21, 1976.[^38] + +A 1980 radio interview transcript in the CIA reading room quotes a speaker, identified only as "MAN," who refers to "our book" and says: "we've been able to establish that George Bush personally handled the information from Paraguay in this intervening week, and discussed it with [[Vernon Walters]], and together made the decision, first of all, to say, 'No, we have nothing to do with this mission.'"[^39] The transcript does not identify the speaker further. + +The Paraguayan material concerned two Chileans traveling on Paraguayan passports under false names. A later Foreign Relations volume records that in July 1976 presidential adviser Conrado Pappalardo approached Ambassador [[George Landau|George W. Landau]] in Asunción about the two. Pappalardo said they would contact "then-U.S. Deputy Director of Central Intelligence General Vernon Walters."[^40] A memorandum by [[Eugene Propper|Propper]], quoted in the same volume, states that the CIA advised that Walters had retired from the agency on July 2, 1976.[^41] + +On August 11, 1976 Bush wrote a memorandum headed "The Death of Roselli," concerning the murder of [[Johnny Roselli]]. In it he wrote, "I told him that I would like to see the FBI get into the Roselli case." He wrote that he was "most anxious to see the matter fully investigated so that the CIA would be officially exonerated."[^42] + +The memorandum records that calls to Senators had suggested that the CIA was involved in the murder, and that he had asked Attorney General Levi to bring the FBI into the case.[^42] + +On the Letelier investigation, Propper, Assistant Attorney General [[J. Stanley Pottinger]] and Bush met to decide how far the CIA could help with the Cuban exile side of the inquiry.[^43] Newspaper clippings that the defendants in *United States v. Sampol* filed to show prejudicial publicity described "a carefully worded agreement placing the Letelier case in a 'national security' status." Defense counsel for [[Guillermo Novo]] and others told the jury that "the CIA and not the Chilean government masterminded the Letelier assassination," and the appeal brief rested the theory on Michael Townley's CIA contacts and on a Fort Lauderdale firm, [[Audio Intelligence Devices]], where Townley spent the morning of September 21, 1976.[^44] The Washington Post reported on November 1, 1976 a belief at the CIA that Chilean operatives had not carried out the bombing, which Bush was said to have expressed to Secretary of State [[Henry A. Kissinger]] the week before.[^45] On November 5, 1976 Assistant Attorney General [[Richard Thornburgh]] asked the State Department to arrange interviews in Caracas of [[Orlando Bosch]], [[Luis Posada Carriles]] and two others held in connection with the [[Cubana Flight 455 bombing]], naming Propper and FBI special agents [[Carter Cornick]] and Raul Salinas as the investigators to be sent.[^46] + +When Bosch entered the United States on February 18, 1988, Acting Associate Attorney General [[Joe D. Whitley]] ordered him excluded on January 23, 1989, writing that "For 30 years Bosch has been resolute and unwavering in his advocacy of terrorist violence." In 1990, over the Justice Department's objection, the Bush White House released him.[^47] The Bush administration also agreed in 1990 to lift sanctions on Chile if the new civilian government prosecuted [[Manuel Contreras]] and [[Pedro Espinoza]] for the Letelier murder, in which [[Ronni Moffitt]] also died; the two served their terms at [[Punta Peuco]].[^48] + +The Foreign Relations volume on Panama prints a memorandum of conversation dated October 6, 1976 that is catalogued among the "DCI (Bush) Files on Noreiga." Its source note records "Three pages not declassified."[^49] The document concerns [[Manuel Noriega]], whose relations with the agency the volume documents. + +On October 18, 1976 Bush wrote to Defense Secretary [[Donald Rumsfeld]] on the subject of leaks, in a letter that refers to "where these vicious leaks came from."[^50] + +[[Joseph Trento]] wrote in *Prelude to Terror* that in 1976, after the Church Committee hearings, [[Alexandre de Marenches]] of the French [[SDECE]] organized an informal consortium, the [[Safari Club]], in coordination with Bush. Trento lists its members as the SDECE, Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Directorate under [[Kamal Adham]], Egypt's [[Mukhabarat]], Morocco's DST under Ahmed Dlimi, and the CIA, with the purpose of continuing anti-Soviet covert operations in Africa and the [[Middle East]] that congressional restrictions had made difficult for the agency; he places Egypt's service in the group as the supplier of Soviet-compatible weapons for operations in the Horn of Africa.[^51] De Marenches maintained personal relationships with American directors including Bush and [[William J. Casey]].[^52] + +In Angola the CIA's Operation IAFEATURE (1975 to 1976) supported [[UNITA]] and the [[FNLA]] against the [[MPLA]], with [[Congo|Zaire]] as the logistics base; the Church Committee and later writers record William Colby and then Bush as the directors who managed it. The program was ended by the [[Clark Amendment]], section 404 of Public Law 94-329, enacted June 30, 1976.[^53] + +[[William Barr|William P. Barr]] worked at the agency from 1973 to 1977 while attending law school, and as assistant legislative counsel under Director Bush in 1976 worked against legislation of Representatives [[Michael Harrington]] and [[Bella Abzug]] that would have required notice to people whose mail the agency had opened under [[HTLINGUAL]]. Barr later joined the White House domestic policy staff, where he worked with [[C. Boyden Gray]], counsel to Vice President Bush, and in 1988 helped screen vice-presidential candidates through [[Robert Kimmitt]].[^54] + +### Israel's Nuclear Program and Israeli Channels + +In March 1976 [[Carl E. Duckett]] openly discussed Israel's nuclear weapons at an informal seminar, stating that Israel was estimated to have ten to twenty nuclear weapons "available for use." Hersh wrote that the disclosure forced Bush, the newly installed director, to issue a public statement assuming "full responsibility," and that it led to Duckett's retirement. Duckett later acknowledged that rumors of his drinking were the stated reason for his departure but insisted that the real issue was Bush's unwillingness to promote him. Hersh adds that Duckett's 1974 estimate remained the official American estimate until the early 1980s.[^55] + +[[Ari Ben-Menashe]] wrote that he briefed [[Nachum Admoni]] in July 1986 on the Israeli intelligence network's arms sales to Iran for Vice President Bush.[^56] The Israeli arms dealer [[Al Schwimmer]], a special adviser to Prime Minister [[Shimon Peres]] from September 1984 at a salary of one shekel a year, met President Reagan and Vice President Bush in that capacity.[^57] Ben-Menashe also wrote that Israeli intelligence believed [[Amiram Nir]]'s death in 1988 to have been a CIA operation intended to keep his testimony from embarrassing Peres, Reagan or Bush.[^56] + +On January 20, 1991 President Bush telephoned Prime Minister [[Yitzhak Shamir]] twice from Camp David, at 3 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. Washington time, to thank Israel for its "restraint" in not retaliating for the Iraqi Scud attacks. The spokesman [[Marlin Fitzwater]] quoted the president as telling Shamir: "I understand the anguish of your people and your Government." [[Lawrence Eagleburger]] and [[Paul Wolfowitz]] were sent to Israel, and American crews arrived to operate [[Patriot]] missile batteries.[^58] According to the counterintelligence history "Decade of the Spy," Bush denied clemency to [[Jonathan Pollard]] in January 1993.[^59] + +### Stargate, Center Lane, and the Army + +The [[Stargate Project]] appears in the record through the agency's own accounts. [[Kenneth A. Kress]], writing in Studies in Intelligence for the winter of 1977, states that "During November of 1976, Director George Bush became aware that official Soviets were visiting and questioning Puthoff and Targ at SRI about their work in parapsychology. Mr. Bush requested and received a briefing on CIA's investigations into parapsychology. Before there was any official reaction, he left the Agency."[^27] + +Kress also writes that Director [[Stansfield Turner]] stated publicly that the CIA "has had operational interest in parapsychology."[^60] + +As vice president, in 1983 (the chronology's date reads as March 31 or August 3), Bush "was briefed for thirty minutes concerning [[Center Lane|CENTER LANE]] related activities by Dr. [[Jack Vorona]], DIA," the Army's remote-viewing unit, with "Adm. Murphy, C/S," and "Mr. Gregg" present ([[Donald Gregg]]). The [[United States Army Intelligence and Security Command]] (INSCOM) chronology records that "the briefing was well received and the Vice President was interested and impressed."[^61] A memorandum for the record by Major Gerald Fox dated April 1, 1983 lists the three projects used on March 31, 1983 to brief the Vice President, among them Project 8034, described as a "[[KGB]] agent."[^62] Vorona of the DIA is the first-named member of the November 1978 oversight group of the [[Grill Flame]] committee and the first-listed attendee in February 1979.[^63] + +According to an Air War College research report by Dolan M. McKelvy citing Ronald McRae's *Mind Wars* (1984), CIA director Bush in 1976 enthusiastically gave [[Edgar Mitchell]] "permission to organize high-level seminars at the CIA to discuss possible intelligence applications" of parapsychology; the report says that interest waned in 1977 when Stansfield Turner replaced Bush.[^64] + +### The Vice President's Briefings and Travel + +On April 2, 1982 Casey sent Secretary of State [[Alexander M. Haig, Jr.]] a "Quick Intelligence Assessment on Falkland Affairs" referring to "the Argentine invasion Friday," with a copy to Vice President Bush.[^65] In a letter to *Time* in January 1982, Assistant Secretary of State [[John H. Holdridge]] wrote that Bush had confirmed during a visit to Australia that there had been no CIA involvement in the [[Nugan Hand Bank]], and that Frank Church had said the Senate committee found no evidence implicating the agency. A CBS broadcast of September 22, 1982 quoted former bank executive [[Neil Evans]], who had immunity, as saying: "We were to become the paymasters for the CIA around the world."[^66] [[Michael Hand]] was the bank's co-founder. + +On April 12, 1986 Vice President Bush flew to Marib in North Yemen and dedicated the refinery of the Alif field that Hunt Oil had found in 1984, the first oil discovered in the country. [[Ray Hunt]], head of the company, sat on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board from 2001.[^67] + +On January 20, 1987 Bush said that an American "in terrorist hands is tortured and, in the case of William Buckley, killed," referring to the CIA's Beirut station chief [[William Buckley]].[^68] On August 17, 1988 he called the death of Pakistan's President [[Zia ul-Haq]] in a [[C-130]] explosion "a great tragedy."[^69] [[Celerino Castillo]] said that on or about January 14, 1986 he tried to alert Vice President Bush at a U.S. embassy party in Guatemala that "something funny" was going on at [[Ilopango Airbase]], and described what followed: "But he just shook my hand, smiled and walked away from me."[^70] + +### Gregg, Rodriguez, and the Vice President's Office + +At a February 1988 hearing on the testimony of [[Danilo Blandon]], Senator [[John Kerry]] addressed a call to Castro: "while Vice President Bush denied that he made the call, and I do accept his word, it also was learned last night on McNeil-Lehrer that a former NSC staffer admitted that, indeed, there was prior notice given to Castro."[^71] + +Blandon also described [[Felix Rodriguez]] as "the liaison for providing weapons to the Contras in El Salvador."[^72] Walsh's chapter 29 states that Gregg "arranged for Rodriguez to meet Vice President Bush on January 22, 1985. According to Gregg, the purpose of the meeting was to inform Bush that Rodriguez wanted to work in El Salvador against the guerrillas."[^73] The meeting took place in the Old Executive Office Building, where Rodriguez was "watching a television report on the Bush family."[^73] + +The 1988 hearing record gives the date of that meeting as February 22, a month later than Walsh's date. In the July 1988 hearings Rodriguez said that he had passed to the FBI and CIA, early in 1985, information from [[Ramon Milian Rodriguez]], whom he called a liar, and in later questioning by Kerry said he met Vice President Bush on February 22.[^74] Rodriguez also answered a question from Kerry: "No, sir. I didn't go there that often as people have publicized."[^74] + +Part IX of Walsh's report states that Gregg "claimed that, notwithstanding the Administration's interest in the success of the contras, he never mentioned any information regarding contra resupply to Vice President Bush."[^75] The Kerry report says that before Murphy's 1987 trips to Panama he met with officials including "the Vice President's National Security Advisor, Donald Gregg."[^76] + +### Iran-Contra and the Pardons + +The executive summary of the final report of the [[Lawrence Walsh|Independent Counsel]] states that the investigation "did not develop evidence that proved that Vice President Bush violated any criminal statute. Contrary to his public pronouncements, however, he was fully aware of the Iran arms sales."[^77] The summary adds that "Bush was regularly briefed, along with the President, on the Iran arms sales, and he participated in discussions to obtain third-country support for the contras." It states that the Independent Counsel "obtained no evidence that Bush was aware of the diversion."[^77] The same summary says that the pardon of [[Caspar Weinberger]] on December 24, 1992 "pre-empted a trial in which defense counsel indicated that they intended to call Bush as a witness."[^77] + +Chapter 28 of the report, headed "George Bush," records that Bush told the FBI in December 1986, and was deposed by the Independent Counsel on January 11, 1988, that he had been regularly informed of events connected with the arms sales, including the 1985 Israeli missile shipments. Walsh writes that these statements "conflicted with his more extreme public assertions that he was 'out of the loop' regarding the operational details of the Iran initiative."[^78] Walsh also writes that "The criminal investigation of Bush was regrettably incomplete."[^78] + +In 1988 Bush told the [[Washington Post]], "The President and I cooperated fully with the various investigations, turned over thousands of documents and directed our staffs to do the same."[^79] In September 1992 he said, "I have nothing to explain."[^79] + +Part IX of the report, on the White House investigations, states that the Independent Counsel "concluded that no criminal charges should be brought against President Reagan, Vice President Bush, Meese or Regan because the belated production of notes and other documents delayed the investigation beyond the point where it could be effective."[^80] The same part states that senior advisers including Vice President Bush "were informed in 1985 of presidential approval of the transactions." It also says that the Independent Counsel "found considerable evidence that the President and the Vice President knew about and, in some instances, directly participated in contra-funding efforts during this period."[^80] + +The diary is the subject of a separate passage. Walsh writes that "[t]he personal diary of Vice President Bush was disclosed to Independent Counsel only in December 1992, despite early and repeated requests for such documents."[^81] On December 11, 1992 [[Chester Paul Beach]], associate counsel to President Bush, informed the Independent Counsel that a diary kept by Bush from his vice presidency had not been produced. The report describes it as consisting of "Bush's nightly dictation concerning the events of the day."[^81] The first entry, dated November 4, 1986, describes "the beginning of what I hope will be an accurate diary." An entry for November 5, 1986 reads: "I'm one of the few people that know fully the details."[^82] + +The report records a document request that reached the vice president's office. C. Boyden Gray and John Schmitz told office heads that the request "covers all personal and official records of OVP staff members."[^83] + +After the pardons, Bush refused to be interviewed unless the interview was limited to his non-production of the diary and personal notes. The Independent Counsel declined those conditions. In late February 1993 Bush's counsel set out six professed obstacles to a deposition.[^79] The report states that a grand jury subpoena was not issued because the office did not believe there was an appropriate likelihood of a criminal prosecution.[^81] + +On December 24, 1992 Bush issued Proclamation 6518, granting pardons to Caspar Weinberger, [[Robert McFarlane]], [[Elliott Abrams]], [[Dewey Clarridge]], [[Clair George]] and [[Alan Fiers]]. In the proclamation Bush wrote that "the common denominator of their motivation ... was patriotism." He described the prosecutions as "a profoundly troubling development in the political and legal climate of our country: the criminalization of policy differences. ... The proper target is the President, not his subordinates; the proper forum is the voting booth, not the courtroom."[^84] + +Walsh responded that the pardon of Weinberger "undermines the principle that no man is above the law."[^85] The Fourth Interim Report of February 8, 1993 includes the phrase "prevent full disclosure of some new key fact to the American people," and states that the pardon "thwarted the public airing of new and disturbing facts about the actions of Weinberger and other senior Executive Branch officials."[^86] + +The [[Tower Commission]] also examined the Vice President's contacts with Israeli channels. Its report records that "The Vice President was in Israel on July 29. While there, he met with Nir." The Vice President told the board that, before the meeting, he had been uneasy and tried to call [[John Poindexter]].[^87] Bush related that his discussion with Amiram Nir "was generally about counterterrorism. There was no discussion of specifics relating to arms going to the Iranians, e.g., the price of TOW missiles was never raised."[^87] The report also contains the phrase that the interests of the United States were "in the grip of the Israelis."[^87] + +At the National Security Planning Group meeting of June 25, 1984, the minutes record Casey saying: "We need the legal opinion which makes clear that the US has the authority to facilitate third country funding for the anti-Sandinistas." Vice President Bush asked: "How can anyone object to the US encouraging third parties to provide help to the anti-Sandinistas under the finding? The only problem that might come up is if the United States were to promise to give these third parties something in return so that some people could interpret this as some kind of an exchange." Robert McFarlane proposed "that there be no authority for anyone to seek third party support for the anti-Sandinistas until we have the information we need," and Reagan said: "If such a story gets out, we'll all be hanging by our thumbs in front of the White House until we find out who did it." The meeting took place under the [[Boland Amendment]].[^88] + +The [[The Enterprise (Iran-Contra)|Enterprise]] ran the Contra supply operation through the Ilopango Airbase in [[El Salvador]], where CIA Hangar No. 4 was turned over to its operations in 1985; Felix Rodriguez, who had connections to Gregg, then National Security Adviser to the Vice President, coordinated aircraft and logistics there.[^89] + +In 1992 Bush asked former Attorney General [[Griffin Bell]] to assist in seeking the release of Bush's Iran-Contra deposition, and on December 30, 1992 the White House press secretary issued a statement on the investigation.[^90] Barr later said that at the end of the administration he advised Bush to pardon Weinberger "and about five others," and of the Iran-Contra pardons: "I certainly did not oppose any of them."[^91] [[Christopher Drogoul]], the Atlanta BNL manager, was indicted on February 28, 1991, the day after Bush ordered the ceasefire in the [[Gulf War]].[^92] + +### The October Surprise + +The October Surprise allegation concerns whether the 1980 Reagan campaign delayed the release of the American hostages held in Iran until after the election. The [[House October Surprise Task Force]] issued its joint report on January 3, 1993 as Calendar No. 634 of the 102d Congress.[^93] + +In the task force's account of Ari Ben-Menashe's claims about the Paris meetings of October 1980, he remained in the foyer, and "[j]ust prior to the meeting Mehdi Karrubi arrived, followed shortly by George Bush and William Casey by way of an elevator reserved for this purpose."[^94] The report records that Ben-Menashe "had told reporters for [[Newsweek]] magazine that he was positive he had seen George Bush at the Paris meetings on both October 19 and October 20, 1980." The report also notes that Sukkot fell on September 25 in 1980.[^94] + +The task force concludes that Ben-Menashe's account of the October meetings, "like his other October Surprise allegations, is a total fabrication."[^94] On Ben-Menashe's account of a meeting at the L'Enfant Plaza hotel in Washington, which he tied to the [[Iran-Israel Joint Committee]], the task force wrote that "Ben-Menashe's account is demonstrably false from beginning to end."[^95] It states that the personnel records supplied by the Government of Israel, with Ben-Menashe's contemporaneous handwritten answers to the questions he had to answer for the External Relations Department when traveling abroad, showed that he did not travel outside Israel in October 1980, and that exit stamps on his civilian passport indicated the same.[^94] + +On Bush's whereabouts the task force reports that Secret Service records place him in Washington on October 19 and campaigning on October 20, 1980. It states that "these records and testimony conclusively prove candidate George Bush's whereabouts in October, 1980," and that "The Task Force has determined that Bush did not travel to Paris during the period of time in question as has been alleged by many October Surprise witnesses."[^96] The report generalizes the point: "In almost all instances, the evidence clearly establishes the presence of major alleged participants in Paris meetings to be someplace else, doing something else."[^97] + +[[Richard Brenneke]] testified that a pilot, Rupp, flew Bush, Casey and others to Paris. The task force records that at Brenneke's trial in Oregon in 1990 he retracted his earlier testimony that he had seen Bush and Allen at the meeting.[^98] The task force states that "Brenneke's testimony that he was in Paris is false." Brenneke's 1980 daily calendar "indicates that he was in the Pacific Northwest when he claimed to have been in Paris."[^99] The report also says that Brenneke "played a central role in falsely propagating the October Surprise allegations for financial and personal reasons."[^99] + +A 1988 Senate subcommittee report summarizes Brenneke's claims that he had "personally discussed the operation with members of the Vice President's staff." The subcommittee concluded that although Brenneke produced thousands of pages of documents relating to proposed arms deals, "there is no evidence that any of them ever came to fruition." It also found that Brenneke "received completely fabricated information about arms deals from undercover agents of the Customs Service."[^100] + +The task force examined the calendar of William J. Casey. It records a July 30, 1980 entry for a 6:45 p.m. dinner with George Bush at the Alibi Club.[^101] The report's analysis of Casey's movements states that "The evidence strongly indicates that Casey departed the United States on July 27, arrived in London on July 28, and departed London for the United States on July 29."[^102] Loose calendar pages for July 26 and 27, October 21, October 29, November 3 through 11, and November 13 are listed as missing. The task force states that "[t]he dates July 26th and October 21st are of particular interest to the Task Force."[^103] + +[[Robert Parry]] reported in 2011 on a memorandum for the record that Beach wrote on November 4, 1991. The memorandum records that State Department legal adviser Edwin D. Williamson told Beach that the department held material that included "a cable from the Madrid embassy indicating that Bill Casey was in town, for purposes unknown."[^104] Parry writes that "there's no indication that the White House told investigators about Williamson's information," and that the Bush library withholds nearly a quarter of its roughly 4,800 pages.[^104] + +The task force also records Reagan's statements. In a June 15, 1991 interview Reagan said, "I did some things actually the other way, to try and be of help in getting those hostages." In a sworn written answer dated October 23, 1992 he wrote that "I and Reagan/Bush campaign officials made it clear by our conduct and statements during the campaign that we were supportive of the Carter administration efforts to secure the release of American hostages held in Iran."[^105] + +Ben-Menashe's account of the Paris meeting names others besides Bush and Casey. He wrote that [[George Cave]], Robert McFarlane and Donald Gregg attended; that [[Simon Gabbay]] coordinated the October 1980 meeting between Israeli and Iranian delegations that included Bush, Casey and [[Mehdi Karrubi]], with the aim of eliminating direct contact between Israeli and Iranian embassy personnel; and that [[Uri Simchoni]] was part of the Israeli delegation.[^56] Cave also attended a meeting in [[Santiago]] in late 1986, according to Ben-Menashe, where American officials reaffirmed their intention to maintain arms channels to Iraq.[^56] [[Barbara Honegger]] published *October Surprise* (Tudor Publishing, 1989), one of the first extended accounts of the allegations; she alleged meetings in Madrid in July 1980 and in Paris in October 1980 involving Casey, Bush and European intermediaries including de Marenches.[^106] + +[[Cheri Seymour]] wrote in *The Last Circle* that the attorney [[Paul Wilcher]] believed his client [[Gunther Karl Russbacher]] to be a political prisoner persecuted because he allegedly flew former President Bush to Paris to meet leading Iranians to make a deal to supply Iran with weapons in exchange for keeping the 52 American hostages until after the November election. On or about May 21, 1993 Wilcher hand-delivered a 100-page letter to Attorney General [[Janet Reno]] claiming that holdover Justice Department employees from the Reagan-Bush era were responsible for government cover-ups; he was interviewed by [[Carl Stern]], Reno's public relations officer, on or about June 11, and his body was found in his apartment on June 23, 1993. [[Sarah McClendon]], a White House correspondent and friend of Wilcher, wrote that Wilcher held the Russbacher belief.[^107] Seymour also wrote that [[Michael Riconosciuto]], a source of [[Danny Casolaro]]'s investigation of [[The Octopus]], claimed that he and an associate named Brian personally carried $40 million to Iranian officials for that purpose.[^107] + +### The Presidency: Panama, Appointees and Executive Actions + +Bush was inaugurated as the 41st President on January 20, 1989.[^108] [[Dick Cheney]] recalled in the Miller Center oral history of the Bush presidency that "Panama was a great training experience for us as an administration. We had the opportunity to have an objective, have to use force, coordinate with the Congress, deal with the public, all of those things that come with using the force." The invasion of [[Panama]] in December 1989 removed Manuel Noriega; [[Colin Powell]], then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in the same project: "Nobody even remembers the Panama war. You don't ever hear of it. But I viewed it as the template of how we should do things."[^109] Seymour wrote that the [[Cali Drug Cartel]] was contrasted with the Medellin Cartel, which Noriega chose to support, ultimately leading to his ousting by Bush; she wrote that the DEA's Centac 21 task force, which had targeted [[Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela]] and [[Jose Santacruz Londono]] in the 1978 indictments, was dismantled under the Reagan and Bush administrations, leaving disgruntled agents to suspect a CIA connection.[^107] Seymour added that Bush reportedly made secret visits to Damascus for hostage negotiations, and that after Desert Storm Bush and Secretary of State [[James A. Baker III]] encouraged [[Syria]] and Israel to recognize each other's Lebanese occupation zones under a 1990 accord that left Syria in control of the Bekaa Valley.[^107] + +The Cox Committee counted twelve national-interest determinations for launches of commercial satellites on Chinese rockets between 1989 and early 1998, three by President Bush and nine by [[Bill Clinton]]; the last, of February 18, 1998, applied to the Loral-built [[Chinasat-8]] satellite, a company then headed by [[Bernard L. Schwartz]].[^110] [[National Security Directive 67]], signed by Bush on March 30, 1992, replaced the lettered programs of the [[National Reconnaissance Office]] with three functional directorates, and the existence of the office was declassified on September 18, 1992.[^111] Bush's report to Congress of September 1991 under the [[Iraq Sanctions Act of 1990]] stated that "United States suppliers did not contribute directly to Iraq's conventional or nonconventional weapons capability." Gonzalez said that after Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, [[SerVaas Inc.]] renegotiated a brass-plant contract with its Iraqi counterparts and sold it through a foreign holding company to escape the president's order freezing Iraqi assets.[^112] The prime minister of [[Jamaica]], [[Michael Manley]], sworn in again on February 13, 1989, said that he planned to travel to Washington to meet Bush, congressional leaders and officials of the [[Drug Enforcement Administration]].[^113] + +Richard Thornburgh continued as Attorney General under Bush through 1991, resigning in August 1991 to run for the Senate.[^114] [[Kenneth Starr]] was the 39th Solicitor General from 1989 to 1993 under Bush.[^115] [[Steve Forbes|Malcolm S. Forbes Jr.]], president of [[Forbes]] magazine, was renominated to the Board for International Broadcasting, which oversees [[Radio Free Europe]], by the Bush White House on January 4, 1990 and again on June 19, 1992, each time with designation as chairman.[^116] [[Jay Lefkowitz]] served under Bush as deputy executive secretary of the [[Domestic Policy Council]] and director of cabinet affairs.[^117] [[Loretta Preska]] was appointed a judge of the [[U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York]] by Bush in 1992.[^118] Lawrence Eagleburger, president of [[Kissinger Associates]] from 1984 to 1989, was deputy secretary of state under Baker and secretary of state in the last weeks of the administration; Brent Scowcroft, vice chairman of the firm's Washington office, became national security adviser in January 1989.[^119] + +### Iraq, Osirak, and the Teicher Declaration + +The Teicher declaration of January 31, 1995, on the [[Iran-Iraq War]], filed in the Florida prosecution of [[Carlos Cardoen]] and others, states in paragraph 7 that a secret 1986 message from Reagan to [[Saddam Hussein]], urging a stepped-up air war against Iran, was delivered by Vice President Bush to [[Hosni Mubarak]], who passed it to Saddam Hussein. The declaration also states that Teicher wrote Bush's talking points for the 1986 meeting with Mubarak.[^120] A corrective declaration filed in October 1996 addresses paragraphs 15 through 18.[^121] + +### The BNL and Iraqgate Record + +The Atlanta branch of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro extended credits to [[Iraq]] that the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] examined in February 1993. The committee reports that a National Security Council Deputies Committee meeting on May 29, 1990 was held "to resolve the issue of the second $500 million tranche," and that [[Robert M. Gates]] chaired it.[^122] Barr and Richard opposed going forward with the second tranche, citing the prosecutor's intent to indict Iraqi officials who were involved in "significant criminal violations." The meeting's conclusion was "that the Iraqi government simply be advised that the U.S. would not go forward with the second tranche until the investigation in Atlanta was completed."[^122] The indictment in Atlanta was returned on February 28, 1991.[^122] + +On October 2, 1989 Bush signed [[National Security Directive 26]], classified SECRET. It states that the government "should propose economic and political incentives for Iraq to moderate its behavior and to increase our influence with Iraq," and that "any illegal use of chemical and/or biological weapons will lead to economic and political sanctions."[^123] + +The [[Commodity Credit Corporation Iraq Program]] ran alongside the BNL loans. On October 6, 1989 Secretary of State Baker assured [[Tariq Aziz]] that American concern over proliferation was worldwide and not directed at Iraq; the department then offered Iraq 500 million dollars in guarantees, with a second 500 million to follow "after successful conclusion of the BNL investigation," a condition Iraq rejected.[^124] Friedman wrote in *Spider's Web* on the [[BNL Scandal]] that the House Banking Committee under Gonzalez documented the Reagan administration's and the early Bush administration's consistent support for Iraq's weapons procurement networks, including knowledge of chemical weapons use.[^125] + +In a 1992 statement in the House, Representative [[Henry B. Gonzalez]] quoted the sentence "United States suppliers did not contribute directly to Iraq's conventional or nonconventional weapons capability." He added that "[s]everal Bush administration officials in a position to know the truth have testified before Congress about the United States role in enhancing Iraq's military capability."[^126] The White House's unclassified summary of September 1991 uses different language on the same question.[^127] + +### BCCI and the Gulf Finance Network + +The Senate report on the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, prepared by Senators John Kerry and [[Hank Brown]] and published in December 1992, describes a figure named Lake who "received $200,000 in payments from Abu Dhabi last fall in connection with this work." The report says he was performing, "as a volunteer, in an unpaid position," the job of "deputy manager to President Bush's re-election campaign."[^128] Kerry, then subcommittee chairman, said at a hearing on March 18, 1992: "I do not believe that Mr. Lake should be sitting in on White House campaign strategy meetings while he is also providing strategy to Sheikh Zayed on how to deal with problems arising out of his ownership of BCCI."[^128] + +The report's chapter on [[Ed Rogers]] quotes Rogers's resignation letter, which states that "The ethics atmosphere at the Bush White House was to go the extra mile...."[^129] The report places [[Sam Bamieh]] in Bush's Team 100 fundraising program in 1988.[^130] It also records that [[Richard Helms]] wrote to Vice President Bush on behalf of [[Mohammed Rahim Motaghi Irvani|Irvani]] on October 29, 1987.[^131] + +The Justice Department's response to Kerry's inquiry about its February 1990 letters states that "The first letter by Mr. Saphos is obviously worded poorly."[^132] A July 24, 1990 letter from Deputy Assistant Attorney General [[Bruce Navarro]] to Kerry also appears in the record.[^133] The report asks whether the Customs undercover investigation of BCCI "is the kind of investigation that President Bush and the Congress desire."[^134] + +### Stephens, Bath and the Gulf Financiers + +[[Jackson Stephens]] of [[Stephens Inc.]] gave to Reagan, Bush and Clinton, and in 1977 introduced the Bank of Credit and Commerce International to the American bank it would secretly acquire.[^135] [[Peter Truell]] and [[Larry Gurwin]] wrote in 1992 that Stephens backed Bush that year while employees of Stephens Inc. gave more money to the Clinton campaign than the employees of all but two other firms; they also wrote that [[Hillary Clinton]], then Hillary Rodham, did legal work in 1978 for Systematics Inc. when it was sued over the stock accumulation for [[Agha Hasan Abedi]].[^136] The firm gave 100,000 dollars to a dinner for President Bush in May 1991, and family members and employees gave more than 83,000 dollars to Clinton by the summer of 1992; [[Worthen Bank]], whose chairman [[Curt Bradbury]] had been a Stephens officer, extended the Clinton campaign a 3.5 million dollar line of credit.[^137] + +[[James R. Bath]] told *Time* in 1991 that his friendship with Bush dated from their service in the Guard and that he was only "slightly" acquainted with the then-President.[^138] [[Craig Unger]] wrote in *Salon* in 2004 that the second name on a Guard order, released earlier under the Freedom of Information Act to the researcher Marty Heldt, was Bath's, and that the White House redacted it when it released George W. Bush's military records in March 2004; Bath confirmed that he was the man named and said: "Geo did not use drugs."[^139] [[Lucy Komisar]] wrote in 2007 that in 1976, when Bush headed the CIA, the agency sold some planes of its proprietary airline [[Air America]] to Skyway, "a company owned by Bath and Bin Mahfouz"; she wrote that [[Khalid bin Mahfouz]]'s family bought 20 to 30 percent of BCCI for nearly one billion dollars, and that when [[Harken Energy]] got into financial trouble in 1987 Stephens helped it obtain 25 million dollars from [[Union Bank of Switzerland]] and a board seat went to the Harken shareholder [[Abdullah Taha Bakhsh]], "whose chief banker was BCCI shareholder Bin Mahfouz." Harken's proxy statement of April 25, 1994 listed Bakhsh with 6,935,364 shares, 11.66 percent of its common stock.[^140] *Time* described Bakhsh as the reclusive Saudi who bought an 11 percent stake in Harken, of which George W. Bush was a director.[^141] + +### Hinckley + +John W. Hinckley Jr. shot President Reagan on March 30, 1981. The [[Houston Post]] reported that Neil Bush, a son of Vice President Bush, had been scheduled to have dinner the day after the shooting with [[Scott Hinckley]], the brother of the gunman. WhoWhatWhy reports that the story was picked up by the Associated Press and UPI.[^142] + +At a press conference the day after the shooting, Neil Bush acknowledged that Scott Hinckley had also been at his house "a couple of months earlier, at his surprise birthday party." Neil Bush said, "I have no idea."[^142] + +The vice president's press secretary, [[Peter Teeley]], told a UPI reporter, as WhoWhatWhy quotes him: "I don't know a damn thing about it. All I know is what you're telling me." Teeley said that the vice president "made no mention of it whatsoever."[^142] + +The diary of [[Chase Untermyer]], a Bush aide, records that "Neil and Sharon do know Hinckley's brother (in Denver) and were planning to have dinner with them tomorrow night."[^142] + +WhoWhatWhy also reports, citing an Associated Press item of April 1, 1981, that the Department of Energy told the Hinckley family's oil business that it might be penalized about $2 million.[^143] + +### Franklin Cover-Up Allegations + +[[John DeCamp]] wrote on the Franklin matter in Nebraska. An advertisement for his book, reproduced in a compilation of material gathered by [[Ted Gunderson]], states that the book "contains numerous references to President George Bush."[^144] + +The same compilation relays a 1989 report in the [[Washington Times]] by [[George Archibald]] that key Reagan and Bush administration officials were ensnared in a federal probe tied to an escort service and [[Craig Spence]].[^145] + +### Allegations in the Casolaro and Mind-Control Literature + +Seymour wrote that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police inquirer [[Sean McDade]] told her that Canadian officials might have bought the PROMIS software unlawfully from officials of the Reagan and Bush administrations, that the RCMP had traced banking transactions supporting this, and that a successful inquiry "could cause the entire U.S. Republican Party to be dismantled."[^107] In September 2001 Admiral Daniel Murphy, who had served as chief of staff to Vice President Bush during the first Reagan term when the PROMIS misappropriations began, told [[Bill Hamilton]] of [[INSLAW]] that he had a "hunch" that there was still another use of PROMIS that INSLAW had not yet discovered; Murphy died on September 21, 2001.[^107] + +[[Project Monarch]] is described in a 1996 PROBE article by A.B.H. Alexander, which reports the claim of Cathy O'Brien that she delivered messages to foreign leaders including Mexican President [[Carlos Salinas]] on behalf of Vice President Bush, using keyword-triggered personality compartments.[^146] + +### The Carlyle Group + +In March 2002 Tim Shorrock wrote in [[The Nation]] that "Bush is Carlyle's senior adviser on Asia and makes his money by giving speeches at Carlyle's investment conferences."[^147] The article quotes [[William Conway]] of [[The Carlyle Group]] describing "the cast of ex-Presidents and former officials, including George H.W. Bush, James Baker III and Frank Carlucci, on its payroll."[^147] + +### Appointees in the Epstein Record + +Lefkowitz, who served under Bush at the Domestic Policy Council, was later the principal defense negotiator of the September 2007 [[Epstein non-prosecution agreement]] between [[Jeffrey Epstein]] and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida; he retired from [[Kirkland & Ellis]] in March 2026, saying he would not have taken the Epstein matter "knowing what we all know now."[^148] Starr was a partner at Kirkland before and after his service as Solicitor General.[^148] Preska, whom Bush appointed in 1992, took over [[Giuffre v. Maxwell]] after the death of Judge Robert W. Sweet in 2019 and ruled until 2026 on the release of its sealed discovery.[^149] Federal Election Commission records show a 1988 contribution to Bush by [[Philip Scaturro]], whose contributions otherwise went mostly to Democratic candidates.[^150] + +### Unidentified Aerial Phenomena and the FBI Vault + +A letter to FBI Director [[William S. Sessions]], held in the Bureau's vault, is quoted by [[Larry Holzwarth]] in a HistoryCollection article. The letter states that "President Bush (George H. W. Bush), when asked about UFOs, told the person asking 'You don't know the half of it.'" The letter writer reminds the director that Bush "was formerly with the CIA." Because the letter calls Bush "President," it can date only from January 1989 onward.[^151] + +The astrophysicist [[Eric Davis]] recalled Bush telling him that humans made contact with aliens at a secretive New Mexico air base in 1964. The account was published by OK! Magazine on November 24, 2025 and carried by AOL, and is tied to the documentary *The Age of Disclosure*. When Bush asked for more details, he was told that he did not have a need-to-know.[^152] ### Footnotes -[^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. -[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 13: "The wrong kind of friends" -[^3]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 20: "It is a sensitive matter" -[^4]: The President's News Conference, November 3, 1975, including the statement announcing personnel changes. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/the-presidents-news-conference-60 -[^5]: Remarks at the Swearing In of George Bush as Director of Central Intelligence, January 30, 1976. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-the-swearing-george-bush-director-central-intelligence -[^6]: Kress, Kenneth A. "Parapsychology in Intelligence: A Personal Review and Conclusions," *Studies in Intelligence,* vol. 21, no. 4, winter 1977, declassified, document NSA-RDP96X00790R000100010031-3; reprinted with the author's postscript of January 1999 in *Journal of Scientific Exploration,* vol. 13, no. 1, 1999. US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "List of Events from September 1977 to January 1986," CIA-RDP96-00788R001100020001-8. +[^1]: Seymour M. Hersh, *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy* (Random House, 1991). +[^2]: Miller Center, University of Virginia, "George H. W. Bush: Life Before the Presidency." Phillips Academy, Navy service 1942 to 1945, marriage of January 6, 1945, Yale economics degree by 1948, baseball captain, Skull and Bones, Prescott Bush's Senate service 1952 to 1963, the Texas oil years, the 1964 to 1974 political offices, the CIA appointment, the May 1, 1979 announcement, and the children's names and birth years. https://millercenter.org/president/bush/life-before-the-presidency +[^3]: White House, "Biography of President George W. Bush" (archived, georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov). Born July 6, 1946, in New Haven; sworn in January 20, 2001 and January 20, 2005. +[^4]: George H. W. Bush Presidential Library, FOIA response 2009-0116-F, records relating to the Skull and Bones Society. https://bush41library.gov/download/file/4777 +[^5]: Alien Property Custodian, Vesting Order No. 248, Washington, October 20, 1942, *Federal Register*, November 7, 1942, pp. 9097-9098. +[^6]: Russ Baker, "CIA Helped Bush Senior In Oil Venture," WhoWhatWhy, January 7, 2007, quoting a CIA memorandum of November 29, 1975. https://whowhatwhy.org/2007/01/07/cia-bush-senior-oil-venture/ +[^7]: Russ Baker, "CIA Helped Bush Senior In Oil Venture," WhoWhatWhy, January 7, 2007, citing a 1968 memorandum and the 1998 release of CIA documents. https://whowhatwhy.org/2007/01/07/cia-bush-senior-oil-venture/ +[^8]: Zapata Corporation, annual report on Form 10-K for fiscal 1994, filed December 29, 1994, accession 0000899243-94-000388, Item 1 and filer header (former conformed names), CIK 109177. +[^9]: SEC EDGAR filing history for CIK 109177 (Zapata Corporation and successor names); start of electronic filings February 8, 1994. +[^10]: Assassination Records Review Board, letter to John Pereira, December 18, 1997, CIA release 104-10336-10008. +[^11]: Assassination Records Review Board staff memorandum by Haron, January 8, 1998 (FBIMEM.002). +[^12]: CIA memorandum from Michelle Combs to T. Jeremy Gunn, July 15, 1998 (CIA-IR09). +[^13]: CIA memorandum from J. Barry Harrelson to T. Jeremy Gunn, February 25, 1998, within release 104-10336-10008. +[^14]: Assassination Records Review Board draft request, "George Bush," undated, bearing Gunn's name. +[^15]: WhoWhatWhy, "Classic Who: GHW Bush and the JFK Assassination," October 24, 2017, reporting Stephen Hart's 1988 statement and Joseph McBride's report in *The Nation*, July 16, 1988. https://whowhatwhy.org/2017/10/24/classic-ghw-bush-jfk-assassination/ +[^16]: Gary Webb, *Dark Alliance* (Seven Stories Press, 1998), ch. 13, "The wrong kind of friends." +[^17]: Ronald Reagan, "Statement Announcing the Establishment of a Federal Anticrime Task Force for Southern Florida," January 28, 1982. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/statement-announcing-the-establishment-federal-anticrime-task-force-for-southern-florida +[^18]: *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy*, S. Hrg. 100-773, pt. 4 (July 1988), statement of Adm. Daniel J. Murphy, pp. 224-225. https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152832_0009 +[^19]: Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy*, S. Prt. 100-165 (1988), p. 19. https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras +[^20]: Gary Webb, *Dark Alliance* (Seven Stories Press, 1998), ch. 20, "It is a sensitive matter." +[^21]: FBI Headquarters file on H.L. Hunt, part 2 (FOIA release), Hunt Oil Company and Estate of H.L. Hunt press releases, March 4 and April 1, 1977, https://archive.org/details/foia_Hunt_H.L.-HQ-2 ; Marie Fagnant (Assassination Records Review Board staff), "Summary of Dallas Figures," memorandum, July 31, 1997; Bill Porterfield, "H.L. Hunt's Long Goodbye," *Texas Monthly*, March 1975. https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/h-l-hunts-long-goodbye/ +[^22]: George Bush, Chairman, National Foreign Intelligence Board, letter to Vice Admiral Bobby R. Inman, January 1977 (DCI/IC 77-0402), CIA CREST copy CIA-RDP80M00165A002600030024-8. https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP80M00165A002600030024-8 +[^23]: "We've Been Asked: What Is the Trilateral Commission?" *U.S. News & World Report*, April 7, 1980, p. 37, reprinted in Congressional Research Service, *The Trilateral Commission*, Issue Packet IP0092 (Library of Congress, 1981). +[^24]: Ronald Reagan, "Nomination of William H. Draper III To Be President and Chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States," March 18, 1981, The American Presidency Project. https://presidency.ucsb.edu/node/247393 +[^25]: "The President's News Conference," November 3, 1975. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/the-presidents-news-conference-60 +[^26]: "Remarks at the Swearing In of George Bush as Director of Central Intelligence," January 30, 1976. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-the-swearing-george-bush-director-central-intelligence +[^27]: Kenneth A. Kress, "Parapsychology in Intelligence: A Personal Review and Conclusions," *Studies in Intelligence* 21, no. 4 (winter 1977), p. 15. CIA reading room CIA-RDP96-00791R000200030040-0. Reprinted with the author's January 1999 postscript in *Journal of Scientific Exploration* 13, no. 1 (1999). +[^28]: Senate nomination record for George H. W. Bush as Director of Central Intelligence, hearings of December 15-16, 1975, and committee report of December 18, 1975. CIA reading room CIA-RDP91-00901R000100050001-3. +[^29]: Center for the Study of Intelligence, "Intelligence and Congress: The Nomination of George H. W. Bush as DCI," *Studies in Intelligence* 65, no. 4 (December 2021). https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/Article_Intel_Congress_Nomination_ofGHWBush_as_DCI_Studies_65_4_December2021.pdf +[^30]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976*, vol. XXXV, doc. 170, memorandum from Director of Central Intelligence Bush to recipients of National Intelligence Estimate 11-3/8-76, with editorial note citing William Beecher, *Boston Globe*, October 20, 1976, and David Binder, *New York Times*, December 26, 1976. +[^31]: "Soviet Strategic Objectives: An Alternative View, Report of Team B." CIA reading room CIA-RDP91M00696R001000110006-8. +[^32]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976*, vol. XXXV, doc. 174, Bush to Cherne, January 19, 1977. +[^33]: Church Committee, *Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities*, Book I, p. 455 (1976). https://archive.org/details/finalreportofsel01unit +[^34]: Church Committee, *Final Report*, Book I, p. 193. https://archive.org/details/finalreportofsel01unit +[^35]: Norman Kempster, *Washington Star*, February 10, 1976. CIA reading room CIA-RDP99-00498R000100040124-3. +[^36]: "'Operation Chaos' Files Ordered Held," *Washington Star*, June 16, 1976. CIA reading room CIA-RDP90-01208R000100170029-4. +[^37]: Letter from Daniel K. Inouye to George Bush, September 29, 1976. CIA reading room 03303946. +[^38]: Letter from Edward H. Levi to George Bush, October 9, 1976, with Scowcroft's endorsement of October 21, 1976. *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976*, vol. E-11, pt. 2, doc. 250. +[^39]: CIA reading room document 05535911, 1980 radio interview transcript (speaker identified as "MAN"). +[^40]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980*, vol. XXIV, doc. 209. +[^41]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980*, vol. XXIV, doc. 217, memorandum quoted in the volume. +[^42]: Memorandum by George Bush, "The Death of Roselli," August 11, 1976. CIA reading room 00508811. +[^43]: Timothy S. Robinson, "The Letelier Case," *The Washington Post*, May 21, 1978, p. A4, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP99-00498R000100050048-7, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp99-00498r000100050048-7. +[^44]: Brief for Appellants, *United States v. Sampol*, Nos. 79-1541 and 79-1542 (D.C. Cir. 1979), https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Letelier-appeal.pdf ; Petition of the United States for Rehearing and Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc, *United States v. Sampol* (D.C. Cir., October 29, 1980), https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Letelier-rehearing.pdf. +[^45]: "No New Leads Uncovered by Letelier Probe," *The Washington Post*, November 1, 1976, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP99-00498R000100020097-6. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp99-00498r000100020097-6 +[^46]: Secretary of State to American Embassy Caracas, "Interrogation of Bosch," telegram 1976STATE277225, November 11, 1976, quoting Richard L. Thornburgh's letter of November 5, 1976, Department of State, released 2006; Zach Dorfman, "Codename: Chilbom," *The Atavist Magazine*, no. 59, June 21, 2016. https://magazine.atavist.com/2016/codename-chilbom +[^47]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Associate Attorney General, *In the Matter of Orlando Bosch-Avila*, decision of Acting Associate Attorney General Joe D. Whitley in exclusion proceedings, January 23, 1989; National Security Archive, "Bombing of Cuban Jetliner 30 Years Later," Electronic Briefing Book 202, October 5, 2006. +[^48]: Peter Kornbluh, "A Modicum of Justice for Ronni Karpen Moffitt," *The Nation*, September 2026. +[^49]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976*, vol. XXII, Panama, doc. 133, memorandum of conversation, October 6, 1976, source note. +[^50]: Letter from George Bush to Donald H. Rumsfeld, October 18, 1976. CIA reading room CIA-RDP79-00498A000600090009-7. +[^51]: Joseph Trento, *Prelude to Terror: The Rogue CIA and the Legacy of America's Private Intelligence Network* (Carroll & Graf, 2005), pp. 52-108; Alexandre de Marenches and David Andelman, *The Fourth World War* (Random House, 1992); Church Committee, S. Rept. 94-755, 1976. +[^52]: Roger Faligot and Pascal Krop, *La Piscine: Les Services Secrets Français, 1944-1984* (Seuil, 1985); Alexandre de Marenches and Christine Ockrent, *Dans le Secret des Princes* (Stock, 1986). +[^53]: Church Committee, *Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders*, S. Rept. 94-465, 1975; Ludo De Witte, *The Assassination of Lumumba* (Verso, 2001); International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act of 1976, Public Law 94-329, 90 Stat. 729 (June 30, 1976), sec. 404. +[^54]: Miller Center, University of Virginia, "William P. Barr Oral History," interview of April 5, 2001, George H. W. Bush Oral History Project. https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-oral-histories/william-p-barr-oral-history +[^55]: Seymour M. Hersh, *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy* (Random House, 1991), ch. 18. +[^56]: Ari Ben-Menashe, *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network* (Sheridan Square Press, 1992; TrineDay reprint, 2015). +[^57]: *The Tower Commission Report: The Full Text of the President's Special Review Board* (New York: Bantam Books and Times Books, 1987), pp. 24-25, 30-31; Tom Tugend, "Al Schwimmer, Israel Air Force pioneer, dies at 94," *Jewish Journal* (Los Angeles), June 12, 2011; JTA Staff, "Pardoned American served Israel in 1948," Jewish Telegraphic Agency, February 28, 2001. +[^58]: Maureen Dowd, "War in the Gulf: The President; Bush Urges Israeli Restraint in Phone Appeals to Shamir," *The New York Times*, January 20, 1991, p. 16. https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/20/world/war-gulf-president-bush-urges-israeli-restraint-phone-appeals-shamir.html +[^59]: "Decade of the Spy," undated counterintelligence history extract, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book 407, Doc. 14. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB407/docs/EBB-PollardDoc14.pdf +[^60]: Kress, "Parapsychology in Intelligence," *Studies in Intelligence* 21, no. 4 (winter 1977), p. 16. CIA reading room CIA-RDP96-00791R000200030040-0. +[^61]: US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "List of Events from September 1977 to January 1986," entry for 1983. CIA reading room CIA-RDP96-00788R001100020001-8. +[^62]: Memorandum for the record, "Briefing," Major Gerald Fox, April 1, 1983, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700270002-4. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001700270002-4 +[^63]: Defense Intelligence Agency, S-1004/DT-1, "Minutes of the Meeting, DoD Grill Flame Committee," November 28, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000130006-1; "Minutes of the Grill Flame Committee Meeting, 14 Feb 79," CIA-RDP96-00788R002000130002-5. +[^64]: Dolan M. McKelvy, *Psychic Warfare: Exploring the Mind Frontier*, Air War College research report, Air University, CIA-RDP96-00789R001001420001-3, citing Ronald M. McRae, *Mind Wars* (1984), p. 103. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00789r001001420001-3 +[^65]: William J. Casey to Alexander M. Haig, Jr., April 2, 1982, with "Quick Intelligence Assessment on Falkland Affairs (April 2, 1982)," CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP84B00049R000701780017-6. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp84b00049r000701780017-6 +[^66]: John H. Holdridge, letter, "Australian Intrigue," *Time*, January 3, 1982, CIA-RDP90-00806R000200820017-1, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00806r000200820017-1 ; CBS, "The Nugan Hand Bank," Evening News transcript, September 22, 1982, CIA-RDP90-00552R000201840002-6, https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP90-00552R000201840002-6 +[^67]: "Vice President George Bush, completing a 10-day trip aimed...," United Press International, April 12, 1986, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/04/12/Vice-President-George-Bush-completing-a-10-day-trip-aimed/5692513666000/ ; "Top-secret cronies," *Salon*, November 17, 2005, https://www.salon.com/2005/11/17/pfiab/ +[^68]: Bill Gertz, "Vice President confirms Buckley was tortured and killed," *Washington Times*, January 21, 1987, CIA-RDP90-00965R000302310058-3. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000302310058-3 +[^69]: Denholm Barnetson, "President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel and...," United Press International, August 17, 1988. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/08/17/President-Mohammad-Zia-ul-Haq-US-Ambassador-Arnold-Raphel-and/3467587793600/ +[^70]: Dennis Bernstein and Robert Knight (Pacific News Service), report published by *Salon*, October 8, 1996. https://www.salon.com/1996/10/08/news_555/ +[^71]: *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy*, S. Hrg. 100-773, pt. 2 (February 1988), Senator Kerry, pp. 265-266. +[^72]: *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy*, S. Hrg. 100-773, pt. 2 (February 1988), testimony of Danilo Blandon, pp. 136-137. +[^73]: Lawrence E. Walsh, *Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters*, vol. I, ch. 29, citing Gregg grand jury testimony of October 9, 1987 and Rodriguez grand jury testimony of December 4, 1987. https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_29.htm +[^74]: *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy*, S. Hrg. 100-773, pt. 4 (July 1988), Rodriguez testimony, p. 344. +[^75]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, Part IX, p. 443. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/part_ix.htm +[^76]: Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy*, S. Prt. 100-165 (1988), p. 96. https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras +[^77]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, Executive Summary, p. xviii. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/execsum.htm +[^78]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, ch. 28, "George Bush," pp. 473-474. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_28.htm +[^79]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, ch. 28, p. 479 and note 67 (*Los Angeles Times*, September 11, 1992; *Washington Post*, 1988). +[^80]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, Part IX, "Investigations of the White House," pp. 443-444. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/part_ix.htm +[^81]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, ch. 28, pp. 474-475, on the diary, the pardons and the grand jury. +[^82]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, ch. 28, p. 480 and note 74 (diary entries of November 4 and 5, 1986). +[^83]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, ch. 28, p. 478. +[^84]: Proclamation 6518, Granting Pardons, December 24, 1992, 107 *Stat.* 2606-2607. +[^85]: Brown University, Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, Iran-Contra materials, "The Pardons," quoting Walsh's response to the pardon of Caspar Weinberger. https://webhelper.brown.edu/cheit/ +[^86]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. II, Fourth Interim Report to Congress, February 8, 1993, pp. 585-587. +[^87]: *The Tower Commission Report*, February 26, 1987, pp. 383-384. https://archive.org/details/towercommission00unit +[^88]: National Security Planning Group minutes, June 25, 1984, "Central America," National Security Archive, *The Iran-Contra Affair 20 Years On*, EBB 210, document 2 (IC 00463), pp. 12, 14. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB210/2-NSPG%20minutes%206-25-84%20(IC%2000463).pdf ; Iran-Contra report, ch. 26, pp. 403-404. +[^89]: Walsh, *Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters*, vol. I, ch. 29 (Gregg and Rodriguez); Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Narcotics, Terrorism and International Operations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy*, S. Prt. 100-165 (1989), p. 96. +[^90]: George Bush, "Statement by Press Secretary Fitzwater on the Iran-Contra Investigation," December 30, 1992, The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/statement-press-secretary-fitzwater-the-iran-contra-investigation ; U.S. Department of Justice, "Griffin Boyette Bell," Attorneys General biographies. +[^91]: Miller Center, University of Virginia, "William P. Barr Oral History," interview of April 5, 2001, George H. W. Bush Oral History Project (remarks on Bua, Lacey, Civiletti, inherent authority, and the pardons). https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-oral-histories/william-p-barr-oral-history +[^92]: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *The Intelligence Community's Involvement in the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) Affair*, S. Prt. 103-12 (February 1993), pp. 4-5, 10; Lacey, Report of the Independent Counsel, Serial No. 103-95, pp. 344-345; "Drogoul gets 37 months in BNL bank scandal," United Press International, December 9, 1993; *United States v. Drogoul*, 1 F.3d 1546 (11th Cir. 1993). +[^93]: *Joint Report of the Task Force to Investigate Certain Allegations Concerning the Holding of American Hostages by Iran in 1980*, 102d Cong., 2d sess., January 3, 1993, Calendar No. 634. https://archive.org/details/6199732-Joint-Report-of-the-October-Surprise-Task-Force +[^94]: Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force, p. 148. +[^95]: Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force, p. 110. +[^96]: Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force, pp. 172-173. +[^97]: Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force, p. 175. +[^98]: Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force, p. 149, citing the Rupp sentencing (D. Colo., September 23, 1988) and the Brenneke trial (D. Or., May 3, 1990). +[^99]: Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force, pp. 150-151. +[^100]: Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy*, S. Prt. 100-165 (1988), pp. 131-132. https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras +[^101]: Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force, p. 90, Casey calendar. +[^102]: Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force, p. 102. +[^103]: Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force, pp. 20-21, missing calendar pages. +[^104]: Robert Parry, "October Surprise Evidence Surfaces," *Consortium News*, July 14, 2011. https://consortiumnews.com/2011/07/14/october-surprise-evidence-surfaces/ +[^105]: Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force, pp. 173-174, Reagan statements. +[^106]: Barbara Honegger, *October Surprise* (New York: Tudor Publishing, 1989). +[^107]: Cheri Seymour, *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal* (TrineDay, 2010). +[^108]: Miller Center, University of Virginia, "George H. W. Bush: Key Events." https://millercenter.org/president/bush/key-events +[^109]: Miller Center, "Statecraft: The Bush 41 Team," "Proving ground: How the December 1989 invasion of Panama shaped the Bush 41 foreign policy team," quoting Richard Cheney and Colin Powell in the George H. W. Bush Oral History Project. https://millercenter.org/statecraftmovie/proving-ground +[^110]: U.S. House of Representatives, Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China, Report (H. Rept. 105-851), vol. III, ch. 9, p. 50. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRPT-105hrpt851/pdf/GPO-CRPT-105hrpt851.pdf +[^111]: Bruce Berkowitz, *The National Reconnaissance Office at 50 Years: A Brief History* (Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance, September 2011), pp. 20-21, 23-26. +[^112]: Henry B. Gonzalez, "Brass Factory in Iraq," *Congressional Record*, House, September 25, 1992, p. H9502; Gonzalez floor statement of August 10, 1992. +[^113]: Gayle Young, "Socialists Take the Helm in Jamaica. Manley hopes to strengthen US ties by aiding war on drugs," *The Christian Science Monitor*, February 14, 1989. https://www.csmonitor.com/1989/0214/ojam.html +[^114]: "Richard Lewis Thornburgh," Office of the Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, *Attorneys General of the United States*; Miller Center, "Richard Thornburgh." +[^115]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Solicitor General, "Solicitor General: Kenneth W. Starr," historical biography (updated September 18, 2023). https://www.justice.gov/osg/bio/kenneth-w-starr +[^116]: George Bush, "Nomination of Malcolm S. Forbes, Jr., To Be a Member of the Board for International Broadcasting, and Designation as Chairman," January 4, 1990, The American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/264564 ; George Bush, "Digest of Other White House Announcements," June 19, 1992, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/391789 +[^117]: U.S. Department of State, "Jay Lefkowitz, Special Envoy, Human Rights in North Korea," biography, released May 25, 2006. https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/66929.htm ; The White House (George W. Bush archives), "Personnel Announcement," January 31, 2002. +[^118]: Federal Judicial Center, "Preska, Loretta A.," Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/preska-loretta +[^119]: Henry B. Gonzalez, "Kissinger Associates, Scowcroft, Eagleburger, Stoga, Iraq, and BNL," *Congressional Record*, House, April 28, 1992, pp. H2694-H2701. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/1992_cr/h920428g.htm +[^120]: Declaration of Howard R. Teicher, *United States v. Carlos Cardoen et al.*, No. 93-241-CR-Highsmith (S.D. Fla., January 31, 1995), para. 7. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/iraq61.pdf +[^121]: Corrective declaration of Howard R. Teicher, docket 679, *United States v. Cardoen* (October 31, 1996). Archive.org item utf-893cr-241-de-679. +[^122]: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *The Intelligence Community's Involvement in the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) Affair*, S. Prt. 103-12 (February 1993). https://intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/publications/10312.pdf +[^123]: National Security Directive 26, "U.S. Policy Toward the Persian Gulf," October 2, 1989, classified SECRET. George H. W. Bush Presidential Library copy. +[^124]: General Accounting Office, report on Iraq's participation in the Commodity Credit Corporation's GSM-102 and GSM-103 export credit guarantee programs, GAO/NSIAD-91-76, November 1990, appendix I; Henry B. Gonzalez, "Continuing Saga of Attempts to Thwart BNL Investigation," *Congressional Record*, House, May 18, 1992, pp. H3370-H3373; "Bush's embarrassing Lavoro scandal," *The Baltimore Sun*, April 28, 1992. +[^125]: Alan Friedman, *Spider's Web: The Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq* (Bantam Books, 1993). +[^126]: Representative Henry B. Gonzalez, *Congressional Record*, 1992. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/1992_cr/h920925g.htm +[^127]: White House, unclassified summary of Iraq sanctions and weapons exports, September 1991. +[^128]: Senate Foreign Relations Committee, *The BCCI Affair*, S. Prt. 102-140 (December 1992), p. 461. https://archive.org/details/thebcciaffair_202003 +[^129]: *The BCCI Affair*, S. Prt. 102-140, p. 542, chapter on Ed Rogers. +[^130]: *The BCCI Affair*, S. Prt. 102-140, p. 538. +[^131]: *The BCCI Affair*, S. Prt. 102-140, Helms letters to Vice President Bush, October 29, 1987. +[^132]: *The BCCI Affair*, S. Prt. 102-140, Justice Department response on the February 1990 letters by Mr. Saphos. +[^133]: *The BCCI Affair*, S. Prt. 102-140, letter of Deputy Assistant Attorney General Bruce Navarro to Senator Kerry, July 24, 1990. +[^134]: *The BCCI Affair*, S. Prt. 102-140, p. 508. +[^135]: "Jackson Thomas Stephens (1923-2005)," *Encyclopedia of Arkansas*; *Financial General Bankshares, Inc. v. Metzger*, 523 F. Supp. 744 (D.D.C. 1981); 680 F.2d 768 (D.C. Cir. 1982). +[^136]: Peter Truell and Larry Gurwin, *False Profits: The Inside Story of BCCI, the World's Most Corrupt Financial Empire* (Houghton Mifflin, 1992), ch. 18 and p. 428. https://archive.org/details/bypetertruellauthorlarrygurwinauthorfalseprofitsth +[^137]: "Meet The Family That Bankrolled Clinton," *The Seattle Times*, January 31, 1993, https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19930131&slug=1682819 ; House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, *Investigation of Political Fundraising Improprieties and Possible Violations of Law*, H. Rept. 105-829 (1998), vol. 2; Roger Morris, *Partners in Power* (Henry Holt, 1996); Truell and Gurwin, *False Profits*, pp. 41 and 428. +[^138]: Jonathan Beaty, "A Mysterious Mover of Money and Planes," *Time*, October 28, 1991. https://time.com/archive/6718843/a-mysterious-mover-of-money-and-planes/ +[^139]: Craig Unger, "Mystery man," *Salon*, April 28, 2004. https://www.salon.com/2004/04/28/james_bath/ +[^140]: Lucy Komisar, "Questions Linger About Bushes and BCCI," Inter Press Service, April 4, 2007, https://www.ipsnews.net/2007/04/finance-questions-linger-about-bushes-and-bcci/ ; Harken Energy Corporation, proxy statement (Schedule 14A), filed April 25, 1994, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/313478/0000950134-94-000454.txt +[^141]: Richard Behar, "Global Intrigue: The Wackiest Rig in Texas," *Time*, October 28, 1991. https://time.com/archive/6718865/global-intrigue-the-wackiest-rig-in-texas/ +[^142]: WhoWhatWhy, "Bush Angle to Reagan Shooting Still Unresolved as Hinckley Walks," August 16, 2016, reporting the *Houston Post* story, Neil Bush's press conference, Peter Teeley's statement to UPI, and the Untermyer diary. https://whowhatwhy.org/2016/08/16/bush-angle-reagan-shooting-still-unresolved-hinckley-walks/ +[^143]: WhoWhatWhy (2016), citing an Associated Press item of April 1, 1981, on the Department of Energy notice to the Hinckley family business. +[^144]: Ted L. Gunderson compilation, *FBI The Finders*, advertisement for John DeCamp's book. https://archive.org/details/ted-gunderson-fbi-the-finders +[^145]: Ted L. Gunderson compilation, *FBI The Finders*, relaying a *Washington Times* report by George Archibald (1989). +[^146]: A.B.H. Alexander, "Sex, Drugs, the CIA, MIND CONTROL and Your Children," *PROBE*, c. 1996. +[^147]: Tim Shorrock, "Crony Capitalism Goes Global," *The Nation*, March 14, 2002. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/crony-capitalism-goes-global/ +[^148]: "Jeffrey Epstein's Disgraced Lawyer Jay Lefkowitz Who Secured Sweetheart Deal Leaves Firm," *The Daily Beast*, March 2026; U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Solicitor General, "Solicitor General: Kenneth W. Starr"; U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02847284. +[^149]: *Brown v. Maxwell; Dershowitz v. Giuffre*, 929 F.3d 41 (2d Cir. 2019), Nos. 18-2868, 16-3945-cv(L) (July 3, 2019). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4636340/brown-v-maxwell-dershowitz-v-giuffre/ +[^150]: Federal Election Commission, Schedule A individual contributions, API query contributor_name "SCATURRO, PHILIP" (41 results). https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/?contributor_name=SCATURRO%2C%20PHILIP +[^151]: Larry Holzwarth, "FBI Files: Unexplained Phenomenon Files from the FBI's Vault," HistoryCollection, quoting an anonymous letter to FBI Director William S. Sessions. https://historycollection.com/unexplained-phenomenon-files-from-the-fbis-vault/6/ +[^152]: Allie Fasanella, "George H. W. Bush 'Knew' Humans Made Contact With Aliens in 1964," *OK! Magazine*, November 24, 2025, carried by AOL. https://www.aol.com/articles/george-h-w-bush-knew-161144400.html diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Gerald Feinberg.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Gerald Feinberg.md index 79812c5d..8d0765cf 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Gerald Feinberg.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Gerald Feinberg.md @@ -14,5 +14,14 @@ Gerald Feinberg was a physics professor at [[Columbia University]]. He was worki His work, along with that of [[Yakov Terletsky]], attracted the attention of [[Hal Puthoff]], who was interested in whether the tachyon flow could account for an "extra field" or force that physics couldn't yet see, potentially explaining [[Extrasensory Perception|ESP]] and other anomalous mental phenomena[^1]. +### Columbia tachyon work and the SRI contracts + +Feinberg was a physicist in Columbia's Department of Physics. In February 1970 [[Scientific American]] published his article "Particles That Go Faster Than Light," which describes a search for tachyons by a group at Columbia that examined bubble-chamber photographs for indirect evidence of neutral tachyons.[^2] A technical proposal dated October 1, 1973 for a "Perceptual Augmentation Techniques" program, prepared by Puthoff and [[Russell Targ]] at the [[Stanford Research Institute]], named Feinberg and [[Charles Tart]] as professors who "may be called upon to act as consultants."[^3] In 1974 Feinberg presented "Precognition: A Memory of Things Future?" at the twenty-third annual conference of the [[Parapsychology Foundation]] in Geneva. The paper suggested that precognition might be knowledge of a future state of the percipient's mind rather than of an objective state of the physical world.[^4] Later SRI remote-viewing documents attribute an "extradimensional hypothesis" to "Targ, Puthoff, and May (SRI), G. Feinberg (Columbia University), and E. Rauscher (University of California Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory)," and a December 1979 [[Grill Flame]] Scientific Evaluation Committee report reproduces the passage.[^5] + ### Footnotes + [^1]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis*. Little, Brown and Company, 2017. +[^2]: Gerald Feinberg, "Particles That Go Faster Than Light," *Scientific American*, vol. 222, no. 2 (February 1970), CIA reading room copy CIA-RDP96-00787R000100030001-9. +[^3]: Harold E. Puthoff and Russell Targ, *Perceptual Augmentation Techniques*, Part One, Technical Proposal, SRI No. ISH 73-146, October 1, 1973, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200210001-8. +[^4]: Gerald Feinberg, "Precognition: A Memory of Things Future?", 23rd Annual International Conference of the Parapsychology Foundation, Geneva, August 26-27, 1974, CIA summary CIA-RDP96-00787R000200090021-0 (October 28, 1974). +[^5]: Puthoff and Targ, research approaches document, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000010006-4 (undated); Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee report, December 1979, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Harold Blauer.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Harold Blauer.md index 7d1f94dd..a29545d0 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Harold Blauer.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Harold Blauer.md @@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ born: 1910 died: 1953-01-08 location: New York, New York created: 2026-06-03 -updated: 2026-06-04 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Harold Blauer was a professional tennis player who died on January 8, 1953, after receiving a massive intravenous injection of EA-1298, a mescaline derivative (3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine, or MDA) designated by the [[U.S. Army|Army]] Chemical Corps as a candidate chemical warfare agent. Blauer had checked into the [[New York State Psychiatric Institute]] (NYSPI) in late 1952 seeking treatment for depression following a divorce. He was enrolled as a test subject in classified chemical warfare experiments conducted under an Army Chemical Corps contract with NYSPI, without his knowledge or consent. [[Paul Hoch]], director of experimental research at NYSPI, was the medical official in charge of administering the compound. The dose administered was approximately 450 milligrams, a massive quantity for a substance still in early development. Blauer died within two hours of the injection.[^1][^2] @@ -21,12 +21,18 @@ Harold Blauer was a professional tennis player who died on January 8, 1953, afte Within 48 hours of Blauer's death, Army Chemical Corps contract officer Amedeo Marrazzi directed efforts to conceal the Army's involvement. At a July 1954 meeting attended by federal counsel, Hoch, and Marrazzi, those present expressed concern about anticipated malpractice claims. The death certificate listed the cause as "coronary arteriosclerosis; sudden death after intravenous injection of a mescaline derivative," omitting any reference to the Army Chemical Corps contract or the compound's experimental status.[^1] -The full circumstances of Blauer's death remained hidden for 22 years. The Army, NYSPI, and the [[CIA]] all participated in concealing the cause of death from Blauer's family. An initial settlement of $18,000 was paid to the family in 1955, with the U.S. government covertly paying half. In August 1975, the Army first disclosed the true circumstances to Blauer's daughter Elizabeth Barrett, who filed a lawsuit. In 1987 a federal judge awarded over $700,000 to Blauer's estate.[^2][^3] +The opinion in *Barrett* records that Blauer, 42, was admitted voluntarily to the institute in December 1952 for depression after shock therapy at another hospital had failed, that the institute's record described the drug study as "for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes," and that, according to the estate, the fatal injection was the fifth in a series to which he had reacted unfavorably and the estate was never told of the Army Chemical Corps' involvement.[^3] The administratrix of the estate sued the State of New York in the [[New York Court of Claims]] in April 1953. [[David Marcus]], then an assistant attorney general, was assigned to defend the case and his investigation uncovered the Army's role. On January 4, 1954 the court authorized production of the institute's records and examination of its doctors. A conference of federal counsel and medical personnel in early July 1954 recorded apprehension, expressed by Dr. Amedeo Marazzi of the Chemical Corps and by Hoch, about anticipated malpractice claims. At a meeting in Washington on July 12, 1954, Hoch stated that he would not have used the new compound for experimental purposes but for the institute's contract with the Army. An attorney in the Justice Department's Civil Division advised that the case was worth $60,000 to $75,000 if the full circumstances were revealed and should be settled to avoid disclosure of the Army's interest, and an Army Judge Advocate General attorney recommended moving the Chemical Corps contracts from New York to Maryland, where they would be "beyond subpoena power."[^3] -The Second Circuit Court of Appeals found in *Barrett v. United States* (798 F.2d 565, 1986) that Hoch "was well aware that the mescaline derivative was a new compound not being administered for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes but as an experiment to study its effect for chemical warfare purposes." James Cattell, who administered the injection, told Army investigators: "We didn't know whether it was dog piss or what it was we were giving him."[^1] +The full circumstances of Blauer's death remained hidden for 22 years. The Army, NYSPI, and the [[CIA]] all participated in concealing the cause of death from Blauer's family. An initial settlement of $18,000 was paid to the family in 1955, with the U.S. government covertly paying half. In August 1975, the Army first disclosed the true circumstances to Blauer's daughter Elizabeth Barrett, who filed a lawsuit. In 1987 a federal judge awarded over $700,000 to Blauer's estate.[^2][^4] + +A tentative settlement of $15,000 was raised to $18,000 after Marcus told the judge of the Army's involvement in an ex parte conference. The Court of Claims entered the order on July 7, 1955, and the Army had paid $9,000 of the sum to the State on June 9, 1955. The release covered the "governmental body or agency which furnished the drug."[^3] The Secretary of the Army disclosed the Army's role on August 12, 1975. A CIA inspector general's memorandum of August 13, 1975 found no CIA association with the death beyond funds the Agency transferred to the Army annually from fiscal year 1953, and records that the estate "sued New York State for $500 K" and that the claim "was settled out of court for $125 K."[^5] Blauer's daughter failed in an effort to reopen the Court of Claims case in 1976 and brought three actions in the Southern District of New York. On July 31, 1986 the Second Circuit upheld Marcus's absolute immunity and held that if the estate proved its allegations the four federal attorneys would not be entitled to absolute or qualified immunity.[^3] + +In *Barrett v. United States* (798 F.2d 565, 1986) the Second Circuit recited the estate's allegation that Hoch, who testified before the Court of Claims that the drug had been given for diagnostic purposes, "was well aware that the mescaline derivative was a new compound not being administered for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes but as an experiment to study its effect for chemical warfare purposes."[^3] According to Marks, James Cattell, who gave the injection, told Army investigators: "We didn't know whether it was dog piss or what it was we were giving him."[^1] ### Footnotes [^1]: *Barrett v. United States*, 798 F.2d 565 (2d Cir. 1986); John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*. Times Books, 1979. Chapter 4. [^2]: *Barrett v. United States*, 646 F.Supp. 1345 (S.D.N.Y. 1986). -[^3]: *Los Angeles Times*, May 5, 1987; UPI Archives, May 5, 1987. +[^3]: *Barrett v. United States,* 798 F.2d 565 (2d Cir. July 31, 1986). https://static.case.law/f2d/798/cases/0565-01.json +[^4]: *Los Angeles Times*, May 5, 1987; UPI Archives, May 5, 1987. +[^5]: Central Intelligence Agency, Office of the Inspector General, memorandum to the Legislative Counsel, "Drug-Related Death of Harold Blauer," August 13, 1975, CIA Reading Room document 00146161. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00146161 diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Humberto Castelo Branco.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Humberto Castelo Branco.md index 1f756816..af8b1cf2 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Humberto Castelo Branco.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Humberto Castelo Branco.md @@ -53,7 +53,7 @@ Brazil broke off relations with Cuba in July 1964 and joined the Johnson adminis ### Second Institutional Act -The Second Institutional Act, signed on October 27, 1965, came in response to the military government's poor showing in that year's gubernatorial elections, in which opposition candidates won two state contests. The act banned all existing political parties, provided for indirect election of the president, restricted the time Congress could consider legislation before it automatically became law, stipulated that persons accused of crimes against national security would be subject to military justice, and expanded the [[Supreme Court]] to secure favorable rulings, including the restoration of Hanna Mining's concessions.[^17] +The Second Institutional Act, signed on October 27, 1965, came in response to the military government's poor showing in that year's gubernatorial elections, in which opposition candidates won two state contests. The act banned all existing political parties, provided for indirect election of the president, restricted the time Congress could consider legislation before it automatically became law, stipulated that persons accused of crimes against national security would be subject to military justice, and expanded the [[Supremo Tribunal Federal|Supreme Court]] to secure favorable rulings, including the restoration of Hanna Mining's concessions.[^17] Ambassador Gordon reported on the act in a cable to Washington dated November 3, 1965, describing his private conversation with Castelo Branco about it. According to Gordon's account, Castelo Branco explained that Congress and some Supreme Court justices had misunderstood his commitment to constitutional normality as willingness to reverse the revolution, and determined by mid-October that corrective action was necessary. Gordon expressed concern about "arbitrary powers assumed through the act" and the risks of sliding toward military dictatorship rather than maintaining the armed forces' traditional moderating role.[^18] diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Jack Anderson.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Jack Anderson.md index 9a482ced..fc126316 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Jack Anderson.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Jack Anderson.md @@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ born: 1922-10-19 died: 2005-12-17 location: "Long Beach, California" created: 2026-10-09 -updated: 2026-10-09 +updated: 2026-10-15 relations: - type: employed_by with: "[[Drew Pearson]]" @@ -120,11 +120,11 @@ On March 18, 1975 Anderson mentioned the [[Hughes Glomar Explorer]], the CIA sal ### FBI files and papers -After Anderson's death, agents of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] told his family that the Bureau wanted to review his files and to remove any documents it judged classified before they were opened to the public; the request became public in April 2006. The [[Federation of American Scientists]] reported the request.[^28] On April 20, 2006 an FBI assistant director, [[John Miller]], told NPR the bureau wanted access before the archive was made public. NPR reported that FBI agents had told the family that the papers included a document that could bear on a current espionage case involving pro-Israel lobbyists, and that 188 boxes were held by George Washington University.[^29] +After Anderson's death, agents of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] told his family that the Bureau wanted to review his files and to remove any documents it judged classified before they were opened to the public; the request became public in April 2006. The [[Federation of American Scientists]] reported the request.[^28] On April 20, 2006 an FBI assistant director, [[John Miller]], told NPR the bureau wanted access before the archive was made public. NPR reported that FBI agents had told the family that the papers included a document that could bear on a current espionage case involving pro-Israel lobbyists, and that 188 boxes were held by George Washington University.[^29] A student newspaper report of October 27, 2008 quotes the university's University Archivist, [[Sylvia Augusteijn]], as stating that the library had been working since April 2006 to categorize and re-file the documents in 186 boxes bequeathed by the Anderson family.[^30] -When the [[Senate Judiciary Committee]] asked under what law the FBI was proceeding, the Bureau replied that it had abandoned its effort. The Associated Press reported that the revelation came in a letter dated November 30, 2006 from Acting Associate Attorney General [[James H. Clinger]] to Chairman [[Arlen Specter]], which stated: "At this time, the FBI is not seeking to reclaim any documents." The AP reported that Anderson's son and his biographer said agents had expressed interest in documents that would aid the government's case against two former lobbyists for the [[American Israel Public Affairs Committee]]. The family then arranged for the papers to go to George Washington University for archiving.[^30][^31][^32] +When the [[Senate Judiciary Committee]] asked under what law the FBI was proceeding, the Bureau replied that it had abandoned its effort. The Associated Press reported that the revelation came in a letter dated November 30, 2006 from Acting Associate Attorney General [[James H. Clinger]] to Chairman [[Arlen Specter]], which stated: "At this time, the FBI is not seeking to reclaim any documents." The AP reported that Anderson's son and his biographer said agents had expressed interest in documents that would aid the government's case against two former lobbyists for the [[American Israel Public Affairs Committee]]. The family then arranged for the papers to go to George Washington University for archiving.[^31][^32][^33] -In 2008 the FBI released its files on Anderson to the [[Associated Press]] under a Freedom of Information Act request, a collection of more than 2,000 heavily redacted documents tracing Hoover's attempts to catch the reporter. Feldstein planned to add the collection to the university's Anderson papers.[^33] +In 2008 the FBI released its files on Anderson to the [[Associated Press]] under a Freedom of Information Act request, a collection of more than 2,000 heavily redacted documents tracing Hoover's attempts to catch the reporter. Feldstein planned to add the collection to the university's Anderson papers.[^30] ### Death @@ -161,7 +161,7 @@ Anderson died at his home in [[Bethesda, Maryland]] on December 17, 2005, at the [^27]: National Security Archive, "The CIA's Declassified History of the Glomar Explorer," Electronic Briefing Book No. 305, February 12, 2010, introduction. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb305/index.htm [^28]: Steven Aftergood, "FBI Seeks Access to Jack Anderson Files," Federation of American Scientists, April 19, 2006. https://fas.org/publication/fbi_seeks_access_to_jack_ander [^29]: David Folkenflik, "FBI Defends Request for Columnist's Papers," NPR, *All Things Considered*, April 20, 2006. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/5353604 -[^30]: "FBI Abandons Its Effort to Obtain Jack Anderson's Files," Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, January 4, 2007. https://rcfp.org/?p=39395 -[^31]: "FBI Drops Demands For Jack Anderson Papers," Associated Press, January 4, 2007. https://cbsnews.com/news/fbi-drops-demands-for-jack-anderson-papers -[^32]: Niketa Kumar, "FBI ends pursuit of GW housed Jack Anderson documents," *The GW Hatchet*, January 18, 2007. https://www.gwhatchet.com/2007/01/18/fbi-ends-pursuit-of-gw-housed-jack-anderson-documents/ -[^33]: Lauren French, "Gelman Library to receive FBI files on columnist Jack Anderson," *The GW Hatchet*, October 27, 2008. https://www.gwhatchet.com/2008/10/27/gelman-library-to-receive-fbi-files-on-columnist-jack-anderson/ +[^30]: Lauren French, "Gelman Library to receive FBI files on columnist Jack Anderson," *The GW Hatchet*, October 27, 2008. https://www.gwhatchet.com/2008/10/27/gelman-library-to-receive-fbi-files-on-columnist-jack-anderson/ +[^31]: "FBI Abandons Its Effort to Obtain Jack Anderson's Files," Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, January 4, 2007. https://rcfp.org/?p=39395 +[^32]: "FBI Drops Demands For Jack Anderson Papers," Associated Press, January 4, 2007. https://cbsnews.com/news/fbi-drops-demands-for-jack-anderson-papers +[^33]: Niketa Kumar, "FBI ends pursuit of GW housed Jack Anderson documents," *The GW Hatchet*, January 18, 2007. https://www.gwhatchet.com/2007/01/18/fbi-ends-pursuit-of-gw-housed-jack-anderson-documents/ diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Jack Blum.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Jack Blum.md index 780ec88c..8563be0f 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Jack Blum.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Jack Blum.md @@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ title: Jack Blum aliases: - Jack Blum created: 2026-05-17 -updated: 2026-10-14 +updated: 2026-10-15 category: "Law Enforcement & Legal" tags: - Person @@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ Jack Blum is a former Senate investigator and special counsel to [[Senator John Blum began his career in Washington in 1965 after graduating from Columbia Law School, working as an investigator for Senator [[Phil Hart]]'s antitrust subcommittee. His work gained the attention of Senator [[J. W. Fulbright]], who moved him to the [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee]]. By the mid-1970s, Blum had established himself as a counsel to Senator [[Frank Church]]'s subcommittee on multinational corporations.[^1] -His investigations during this period were far-reaching, contributing to the downfall of a Japanese government and the imprisonment of Japanese Prime Minister [[Kakuei Tanaka]] due to the [[Lockheed payoff scandals]]. He also played a key role in exposing [[ITT]]'s improper activities in [[Chile]], identifying [[Robert Vesco]] and the $3-billion global [[IOS (Investors' Overseas Services)|Ponzi scheme]] as central figures, and was a driving force behind the creation of the [[Foreign Corrupt Practices Act]]. Notably, his questioning led to the indictment of former [[Central Intelligence Agency]] Director [[Richard Helms]] for perjury.[^1] +His investigations during this period were far-reaching, contributing to the downfall of a Japanese government and the imprisonment of Japanese Prime Minister [[Kakuei Tanaka]] due to the [[Lockheed bribe scandal|Lockheed payoff scandals]]. He also played a key role in exposing [[ITT]]'s improper activities in [[Chile]], identifying [[Robert Vesco]] and the $3-billion global [[IOS (Investors' Overseas Services)|Ponzi scheme]] as central figures, and was a driving force behind the creation of the [[Foreign Corrupt Practices Act]]. Notably, his questioning led to the indictment of former [[Central Intelligence Agency]] Director [[Richard Helms]] for perjury.[^1] ### Kerry Committee and Contra Drug Trafficking diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/James Jesus Angleton.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/James Jesus Angleton.md index 18565231..70f83d18 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/James Jesus Angleton.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/James Jesus Angleton.md @@ -77,7 +77,7 @@ The CIA's Soviet division eventually concluded Nosenko was genuine. [[Tennent Ba ### HT/LINGUAL: Twenty-One Years of Illegal Mail Opening -From 1952 to 1973, Angleton ran HT/LINGUAL, a covert CIA program that intercepted and opened first-class mail between the [[United States]] and the Soviet Union, operating from facilities at Idlewild (later JFK) Airport in [[New York]]. The program was illegal under the Fourth Amendment and Title 18 of the U.S. Code, which criminalized opening sealed mail without a warrant. +From 1952 to 1973, Angleton ran HT/LINGUAL, a covert CIA program that intercepted and opened first-class mail between the [[United States]] and the Soviet Union, operating from facilities at Idlewild (later JFK) Airport in [[New York City|New York]]. The program was illegal under the Fourth Amendment and Title 18 of the U.S. Code, which criminalized opening sealed mail without a warrant. Over its operation, HT/LINGUAL opened approximately 215,820 letters and photographed the exterior envelopes of nearly 2.7 million pieces of mail. Recipients and senders included U.S. senators, journalists, academics, and private citizens with no intelligence connection. [[Richard Helms]] was briefed and approved continuation on multiple occasions. The Postmaster General was kept uninformed or given misleading characterizations of the program's scope. CIA lawyers repeatedly warned the program was illegal; it continued anyway. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Jeffrey Epstein.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Jeffrey Epstein.md index 89201071..976eb2e1 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Jeffrey Epstein.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Jeffrey Epstein.md @@ -135,7 +135,7 @@ relations: role: "state solicitation charges" fn: 34 - type: prosecuted - with: "[[Southern District of New York]]" + with: "[[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York]]" reverse: true start: 2019 end: 2019 diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Joe Biden.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Joe Biden.md index 1b9f0fa1..30805c81 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Joe Biden.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Joe Biden.md @@ -12,7 +12,10 @@ location: "Scranton, Pennsylvania" Joe Biden was a United States President and Senator from Delaware whose political career was closely tied to the [[DuPont]] family. Biden's first senatorial campaign was fully funded and staffed by DuPont employees in the early 1970s. His victory party was held and celebrated in a DuPont ballroom, and soon after his family moved into an old DuPont family mansion. As Biden put it himself in the 1980s, he prostituted himself to these people. When a member of the DuPont family raped his three-year-old daughter, Biden's son Beau as district attorney decided not to prosecute the case.[^1] -The DuPont chemical firm maintained cartel arrangements with the Nazi chemicals conglomerate I.G. Farben throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Alfred P. Sloan was personally involved in the patent transfer of Ethyl lead to I.G. Farben during that period, a compound used to improve the engine efficiency of planes and automobiles. As late as 1938 Sloan had authorised the transfer of 500 tons of the stuff to the Luftwaffe. The DuPont-controlled [[Business Plot]] of 1934 was designed to relegate the Presidency to a purely ceremonial role like that played by Biden in 2023. The largest tank manufacturer in Nazi Germany was a wholly-owned subsidiary of [[General Motors]] called Opel, which persisted its operations under the GM umbrella throughout World War II where its factories had been mostly spared during Allied bombing raids.[^1] +The DuPont chemical firm maintained cartel arrangements with the Nazi chemicals conglomerate I.G. Farben throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Alfred P. Sloan was personally involved in the patent transfer of Ethyl lead to I.G. Farben during that period, a compound used to improve the engine efficiency of planes and automobiles. As late as 1938 Sloan had authorised the transfer of 500 tons of the stuff to the Luftwaffe. The DuPont-controlled [[Business Plot]] of 1934 was designed to relegate the Presidency to a purely ceremonial role like that played by Biden in 2023. S. Dovey wrote in 2023 that the largest tank manufacturer in Nazi Germany was a wholly owned subsidiary of [[General Motors]] called Opel, which persisted its operations under the GM umbrella throughout World War II where its factories had been mostly spared during Allied bombing raids.[^1] General Motors' own 1974 correspondence states that the Nazi government took over the Opel works before the war and that American management was reassigned in the autumn of 1939.[^2] The Foreign Claims Settlement Commission recorded that Opel's main plant at Russelsheim "sustained severe war damage as a result of allied bombing raids in 1942 and 1944."[^3] A 1974 Senate report by [[Bradford C. Snell]] states, as quoted in a GM reply, that GM "was in complete management control of its Russelsheim war plane factory for nearly a full year after Germany's declaration of war against the United States on December 11, 1941."[^4] ### Footnotes [^1]: Dovey, S. (2023). *Eye of the Chickenhawk*. United States: Thehotstar. +[^2]: Copelin, Philip W., letter to Richard C. Gerstenberg, April 5, 1974, Exhibit 2, pp. 2386-2387; Mooney, Michael M., letter to Senator Philip A. Hart, Exhibit 3, p. 2388; *The Industrial Reorganization Act: Hearings on S. 1167, Part 4, Ground Transportation Industries* (1974), https://archive.org/details/industrialreorga04unit. +[^3]: Foreign Claims Settlement Commission of the United States, *Annual Report to the Congress for the Period January 1-December 31, 1967*, excerpt re General Motors Corporation and General Motors Overseas Corporation, Exhibit 9, *Hearings on S. 1167, Part 4*, p. 2396, https://archive.org/details/industrialreorga04unit. +[^4]: Stradella, C. G., letter to Richard C. Gerstenberg, April 10, 1974, Exhibit 4, *Hearings on S. 1167, Part 4*, pp. 2390-2392, quoting the Snell report, p. 22, https://archive.org/details/industrialreorga04unit. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/John Foster Dulles.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/John Foster Dulles.md index 8996acfa..d32c0492 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/John Foster Dulles.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/John Foster Dulles.md @@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ born: 1888-02-25 died: 1959-05-24 location: "Washington, D.C." created: 2025-08-05 -updated: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-10-15 relations: - type: member_of role: "trustee" @@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ John Foster Dulles served as the Secretary of State under President [[Dwight D. John Foster Dulles was born on February 25, 1888, in Washington, D.C. He died on May 24, 1959, at [[Walter Reed Army Medical Center]], Washington, D.C., from colon cancer. Funeral services were held on May 27, 1959, at [[Washington National Cathedral]]. He is buried at [[Arlington National Cemetery]].[^bio1] -He graduated from [[Princeton University]] in 1908, a member of Phi Beta Kappa. As an undergraduate he attended the Second Hague Conference in 1907 with his grandfather [[John Watson Foster]], who had served as Secretary of State under President Benjamin Harrison. After a year at the [[Sorbonne]], he completed a law degree at [[George Washington University Law School]] in two years, graduating in 1911. He was admitted to the New York bar the same year and joined [[Sullivan and Cromwell]], then New York's preeminent international corporate law firm, where he would remain for over four decades.[^bio2] +He graduated from [[Princeton University]] in 1908, a member of Phi Beta Kappa. As an undergraduate he attended the Second Hague Conference in 1907 with his grandfather [[John Watson Foster]], who had served as Secretary of State under President Benjamin Harrison. After a year at the [[Sorbonne]], he completed a law degree at [[George Washington University Law School]] in two years, graduating in 1911.[^mc016] He was admitted to the New York bar the same year and joined [[Sullivan and Cromwell]], then New York's preeminent international corporate law firm, where he would remain for over four decades.[^bio2] At the [[Paris Peace Conference]] of 1919, Dulles served as chief legal adviser to [[Bernard Baruch]] on the [[Reparations Commission]], drafting treaty clauses that sought to limit German compensation obligations. He predicted the punishing reparations imposed by the European powers would produce another war. Baruch later paid Dulles $10,000 to ghostwrite his account of the negotiations, *The Making of the Reparation and Economic Sections of the Treaty*.[^bio3] @@ -121,3 +121,4 @@ The FRUS volume *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954, Guatemala* ( [^arch1]: Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, "John Foster Dulles Papers: Scope and Content Note," finding aid, Abilene, Kansas, https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/finding-aids/pdf/dulles-john-foster-papers/scope-and-content.pdf. Telephone Conversations Series finding aid, https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/finding-aids/pdf/dulles-john-foster-papers/telephone-conversations-series.pdf. [^arch2]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954, Guatemala*, ed. Susan Holly (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2003), 287 documents, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54Guat. *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951-1954, Iran*, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1951-54Iran. [^rfar]: The Rockefeller Foundation. *Annual Report 1951,* "President's Review," pp. 95-96, https://archive.org/details/the-rockefeller-foundation-annual-report-1951; *Annual Report 1952,* "President's Review," https://archive.org/details/the-rockefeller-foundation-annual-report-1952; *Annual Report 1960,* on Rusk's resignation, https://archive.org/details/the-rockefeller-foundation-annual-report-1960; *Annual Report 1935,* list of trustees, https://archive.org/details/the-rockefeller-foundation-annual-report-1935. The 1947 report lists Walter W. Stewart as chairman of the board, with Dulles a trustee, https://archive.org/details/the-rockefeller-foundation-annual-report-1947. +[^mc016]: Princeton University Library, John Foster Dulles papers, Mudd Manuscript Library, finding aid MC016, biographical note (LL.B., George Washington University Law School, 1911; Sullivan and Cromwell 1911 to 1949; secretary to his grandfather John Watson Foster at the Second Hague Conference, 1907). https://findingaids.library.upenn.edu/records/PRIN_MUDD_MC016 diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Kamal Adham.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Kamal Adham.md index f7e31baa..cebffd0f 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Kamal Adham.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Kamal Adham.md @@ -80,7 +80,7 @@ Adham was the CIA's principal liaison for the Middle East from the mid-1960s thr ### Intelligence Background -The Senate report recorded that the CIA, asked about the CCAH shareholders, told the Federal Reserve it had no derogatory information on them, without telling it that Adham and Abdul Raouf Khalil were "the past and then-current Saudi intelligence liaisons to the United States," or that Adham and Fulaij had been the subject of a Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act into arms sales to Saudi Arabia by Boeing and [[Lockheed Corporation|Lockheed]]. Paul Volcker, who as chairman of the Federal Reserve signed the 1981 approval, testified in 1991 that he "wasn't aware" of Adham's intelligence background and that it "might send an eyebrow or two up." The Virginia bank regulator Sidney Bailey asked the [[State Department]] and the CIA for information on the shareholders and received none; "at the time," the report found, "the CIA knew precisely who Adham was."[^17][^23] +The Senate report recorded that the CIA, asked about the CCAH shareholders, told the Federal Reserve it had no derogatory information on them, without telling it that Adham and Abdul Raouf Khalil were "the past and then-current Saudi intelligence liaisons to the United States," or that Adham and Fulaij had been the subject of a Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act into arms sales to Saudi Arabia by Boeing and [[Lockheed Aircraft Company|Lockheed]]. Paul Volcker, who as chairman of the Federal Reserve signed the 1981 approval, testified in 1991 that he "wasn't aware" of Adham's intelligence background and that it "might send an eyebrow or two up." The Virginia bank regulator Sidney Bailey asked the [[State Department]] and the CIA for information on the shareholders and received none; "at the time," the report found, "the CIA knew precisely who Adham was."[^17][^23] ### Plea diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Kit Green.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Kit Green.md index a743af56..ed03e611 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Kit Green.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Kit Green.md @@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ aliases: - Christopher Canfield Green - Richard Kennett created: 2026-05-17 -updated: 2026-10-05 +updated: 2026-10-15 category: "Intelligence & Government" tags: - Person @@ -122,7 +122,7 @@ His later General Motors positions, as listed in the CV, were director of resear The same CV lists Army and academy advisory service: member of the Army Science Board, 1985 to 1995; member of the National Research Council's Board on Army Science and Technology from 1988, with the CV giving chairmanships of the board as 1990 to 1999 in one entry and 1997 to 1999 in another; chairman of the Committee on Biotechnology in the Year 2020 (STAR/BAST), 1989 to 1992; chairman of an Independent Science Panel in the Office of the Undersecretary of the Army, Operations Research, from 1989; member of the Air Force Studies Board (1995 to 1997); member of the Institute of Medicine commission on Persian Gulf mystery illness (1998); and scientific advisor to the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence and to the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. It also lists chairmanship of the Science Advisory Board of the [[National Institute for Discovery Science]] (1995 to 1999), membership of the Committee for Frontier Medicine of the [[Fetzer Institute]] (1995 to 1998), and, among current clients in 2007, the Department of Defense, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, General Motors, Ford, the Fetzer Institute, the [[Institute for Advanced Physics]], [[EarthTech International]] and the [[Potomac Institute for Policy Studies]].[^6] -The report *STAR 21* (National Academy Press, 1992) of the Board on Army Science and Technology lists Green, of General Motors Research Labs, as lead expert of the Biotechnology and Biochemistry Technology Group, with Joseph F. Soukup of [[Science Applications International Corporation]], Bertram W. Maidment Jr. of the Midwest Research Institute and Gregory A. Petsko of [[Brandeis University]], and as one of the members of the Study Committee on STAR chaired by Walter B. LaBerge, formerly of [[Lockheed Corporation]].[^10] +The report *STAR 21* (National Academy Press, 1992) of the Board on Army Science and Technology lists Green, of General Motors Research Labs, as lead expert of the Biotechnology and Biochemistry Technology Group, with Joseph F. Soukup of [[Science Applications International Corporation]], Bertram W. Maidment Jr. of the Midwest Research Institute and Gregory A. Petsko of [[Brandeis University]], and as one of the members of the Study Committee on STAR chaired by Walter B. LaBerge, formerly of [[Lockheed Aircraft Company|Lockheed Corporation]].[^10] ### UFO-Related Contacts, 1986 to 1997 diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Leon Black.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Leon Black.md index 2b063464..a934756a 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Leon Black.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Leon Black.md @@ -119,7 +119,7 @@ In 2021 Guzel Ganieva, a Russian former model, publicly accused Black of years o In November 2022 [[Cheri Pierson]], a [[New Jersey]] woman represented by the [[Wigdor]] law firm, sued Black and Epstein's estate under her own name in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, alleging that Black assaulted her in early 2002 at Epstein's townhouse after Epstein arranged for her to give Black a massage. The suit was discontinued with prejudice in February 2024 without any payment by Black, who said, "I have never met Ms. Pierson."[^22][^23] -A separate federal lawsuit, Doe v. Black, No. 1:23-cv-06418 in the [[Southern District of New York]], filed by Wigdor in July 2023, alleged that Black had raped a then-16-year-old girl with autism at Epstein's Manhattan townhouse in 2002. Black's lawyer, [[Susan Estrich]], said Black had never met the accuser and called the suit a fabrication by Wigdor. In April 2025 Wigdor asked to withdraw as the plaintiff's counsel days before a hearing on whether it should be sanctioned, and Judge [[Jessica Clarke]] granted the request. Black has denied every allegation of sexual misconduct.[^22][^24] +A separate federal lawsuit, Doe v. Black, No. 1:23-cv-06418 in the [[U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York|Southern District of New York]], filed by Wigdor in July 2023, alleged that Black had raped a then-16-year-old girl with autism at Epstein's Manhattan townhouse in 2002. Black's lawyer, [[Susan Estrich]], said Black had never met the accuser and called the suit a fabrication by Wigdor. In April 2025 Wigdor asked to withdraw as the plaintiff's counsel days before a hearing on whether it should be sanctioned, and Judge [[Jessica Clarke]] granted the request. Black has denied every allegation of sexual misconduct.[^22][^24] ### The Virgin Islands Settlement diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Nicholas J. Bua.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Nicholas J. Bua.md index 8d3fd3f3..9eb4fc73 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Nicholas J. Bua.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Nicholas J. Bua.md @@ -1,7 +1,7 @@ --- category: "Law Enforcement & Legal" created: 2024-04-25 -updated: 2026-10-09 +updated: 2026-10-15 tags: - Person - PROMIS @@ -207,25 +207,25 @@ Danny Casolaro, a self-styled free-lance author and investigative reporter, inve The report found "nothing unusual" in DOJ's decision not to investigate a private citizen's death, which it described as a state or local matter. It found no evidence of federal government influence on the local investigation. "[T]he physical evidence in Casolaro's hotel room strongly supports the conclusion of the local authorities that the death was a suicide." That evidence included no sign of forced entry or struggle, a note found in the room, and the absence of footprints or other evidence that others were present when the wrists were slashed.[^83] The tests and analyses cited were handwriting analysis confirming that Casolaro wrote the note; fingerprint analysis finding his prints and no others except a single print on an ash tray; hair and fiber analysis; a blood analysis by Dr. Lee of the Connecticut State Police Forensic Science Laboratory consistent with suicide; and an autopsy that found hemorrhage from the wrist wounds as the cause of death and no evidence that he was unconscious or debilitated when cut.[^84] -The report stated, as the fifth of its points, that "there was ample reason to believe Casolaro had a motive to commit suicide." It noted that he had been unemployed for months, was dependent on financial assistance from his family, faced a balloon mortgage on his home, and had been told shortly before his death by a prospective publisher that it would not advance him any money on his proposed book about the "Octopus."[^85] The report also noted that [[James E. Starr]], a professor of law and forensic sciences at George Washington University, reportedly reached the same opinion in an independent review of the autopsy. It addressed criticisms that the room was not sealed, that notification of next of kin was delayed while the body was embalmed, and that Martinsburg authorities gave insufficient weight to suspicions about Casolaro's "sources," and stated that "no credible evidence suggested that any of Casolaro's 'sources' played any role in his death."[^86] +The report stated, as the fifth of its points, that "there was ample reason to believe Casolaro had a motive to commit suicide." It noted that he had been unemployed for months, was dependent on financial assistance from his family, faced a balloon mortgage on his home, and had been told shortly before his death by a prospective publisher that it would not advance him any money on his proposed book about the "Octopus."[^85] The report also noted that [[James E. Starrs]], a professor of law and forensic sciences at [[George Washington University]], reportedly reached the same opinion in an independent review of the autopsy.[^86] It addressed criticisms that the room was not sealed, that notification of next of kin was delayed while the body was embalmed, and that Martinsburg authorities gave insufficient weight to suspicions about Casolaro's "sources," and stated that "no credible evidence suggested that any of Casolaro's 'sources' played any role in his death."[^87] ### House Judiciary Committee report, 1992 -The House Committee on the Judiciary issued "The INSLAW Affair" as House Report 102-857 on September 10, 1992, under Chairman [[Jack Brooks]].[^87] The committee's report described the Department's handling of the matter in terms that stand against the Bua report's conclusions. It wrote that Attorneys General Meese and [[Dick Thornburgh]] "blocked or restricted congressional inquiries into the matter, ignored the findings of two courts and refused to ask for the appointment of an independent counsel."[^8] +The House Committee on the Judiciary issued "The INSLAW Affair" as House Report 102-857 on September 10, 1992, under Chairman [[Jack Brooks]].[^88] The committee's report described the Department's handling of the matter in terms that stand against the Bua report's conclusions. It wrote that Attorneys General Meese and [[Dick Thornburgh]] "blocked or restricted congressional inquiries into the matter, ignored the findings of two courts and refused to ask for the appointment of an independent counsel."[^8] -The committee wrote that it had "no reason to doubt the commitment of Judge Bua or Attorney General Barr to do a thorough investigation of this matter," but that "as long as the investigation of wrongdoing by former and current high level Justice officials remains under the control of the Department, there will always be serious doubt about the objectivity and thoroughness of the work." The committee's position was that "the only way the INSLAW allegations can be adequately and fully investigated is by the appointment of an independent counsel," and that the independent counsel should investigate all matters related to the allegations, "including Mr. Casolaro's death and its possible link to individuals associated with organized crime."[^8] On Casolaro, the committee wrote that it had not included the death in its formal investigation, that local authorities had ruled it a suicide a second time on January 25, 1992, after more than 1,000 man-hours, and that the controversy continued to be discussed in the press and the Martinsburg Police Department's investigation had been criticized.[^88] +The committee wrote that it had "no reason to doubt the commitment of Judge Bua or Attorney General Barr to do a thorough investigation of this matter," but that "as long as the investigation of wrongdoing by former and current high level Justice officials remains under the control of the Department, there will always be serious doubt about the objectivity and thoroughness of the work." The committee's position was that "the only way the INSLAW allegations can be adequately and fully investigated is by the appointment of an independent counsel," and that the independent counsel should investigate all matters related to the allegations, "including Mr. Casolaro's death and its possible link to individuals associated with organized crime."[^8] On Casolaro, the committee wrote that it had not included the death in its formal investigation, that local authorities had ruled it a suicide a second time on January 25, 1992, after more than 1,000 man-hours, and that the controversy continued to be discussed in the press and the Martinsburg Police Department's investigation had been criticized.[^89] ### DOJ review, September 1994 -Reno ordered a senior-level Justice Department review of Bua's report and of INSLAW's analysis of it, including INSLAW's July 12, 1993, "Analysis and Rebuttal of the Bua Report" and its February 14, 1994, Addendum. The review was issued on September 27, 1994, with the Bua report attached as Addendum A.[^89] Its summary recommended that the Attorney General "adopt the Special Counsel's report in its entirety," along with specified conclusions that the review described as "fully supported by the available evidence."[^90] +Reno ordered a senior-level Justice Department review of Bua's report and of INSLAW's analysis of it, including INSLAW's July 12, 1993, "Analysis and Rebuttal of the Bua Report" and its February 14, 1994, Addendum. The review was issued on September 27, 1994, with the Bua report attached as Addendum A.[^90] Its summary recommended that the Attorney General "adopt the Special Counsel's report in its entirety," along with specified conclusions that the review described as "fully supported by the available evidence."[^91] -The review restated that there was no credible evidence of a conspiracy with anyone to steal PROMIS or to injure Inslaw. It found no credible evidence that the [[Office of Special Investigations]] was engaged in covert intelligence activities, in illegal trafficking of PROMIS software, or in the death of Casolaro. It stated that the Martinsburg conclusion that Casolaro's death was a suicide "is fully supported by the facts surrounding his death," and that there was "no credible evidence that Mr. Casolaro was murdered."[^90] The review devoted pp. 107 to 168 to Casolaro's death, covering the death scene, hotel employees, coroner, embalming, notification of next of kin, autopsy, further police investigation and the review's own interviews.[^91] +The review restated that there was no credible evidence of a conspiracy with anyone to steal PROMIS or to injure Inslaw. It found no credible evidence that the [[Office of Special Investigations]] was engaged in covert intelligence activities, in illegal trafficking of PROMIS software, or in the death of Casolaro. It stated that the Martinsburg conclusion that Casolaro's death was a suicide "is fully supported by the facts surrounding his death," and that there was "no credible evidence that Mr. Casolaro was murdered."[^91] The review devoted pp. 107 to 168 to Casolaro's death, covering the death scene, hotel employees, coroner, embalming, notification of next of kin, autopsy, further police investigation and the review's own interviews.[^92] -The review found "no basis for the appointment of an independent prosecutor" and recommended against waiving statutory time bars on INSLAW's monetary claims. It recommended that the Attorney General "take those steps necessary to bring this entire affair to closure from the Department's perspective," and wrote that the Special Counsel concluded, and the review concurred, that virtually all of the allegations "were based on nothing more than uncorroborated conjecture, on hearsay information from anonymous sources or on information received from patently unreliable sources."[^92] +The review found "no basis for the appointment of an independent prosecutor" and recommended against waiving statutory time bars on INSLAW's monetary claims. It recommended that the Attorney General "take those steps necessary to bring this entire affair to closure from the Department's perspective," and wrote that the Special Counsel concluded, and the review concurred, that virtually all of the allegations "were based on nothing more than uncorroborated conjecture, on hearsay information from anonymous sources or on information received from patently unreliable sources."[^93] -On the Johnson contact, the review wrote that Johnson had at first failed to recall the contact with Lamberth. It stated that Lamberth had already been nominated to the federal bench when he was sworn in on November 16, 1987, and it concurred "with the opinion of the Special Counsel that there is no evidence of any effort by the Justice Department to improperly influence the bankruptcy judge selection process."[^93] +On the Johnson contact, the review wrote that Johnson had at first failed to recall the contact with Lamberth. It stated that Lamberth had already been nominated to the federal bench when he was sworn in on November 16, 1987, and it concurred "with the opinion of the Special Counsel that there is no evidence of any effort by the Justice Department to improperly influence the bankruptcy judge selection process."[^94] -On May 3, 1995, by S. Res. 114, the Senate referred S. 740, a bill for the relief of INSLAW, to the Chief Judge of the Court of Federal Claims as Congressional Reference No. 95-338X, and Hearing Officer [[Christine Odell Cook Miller|Christine Cook Miller]] described the two Justice Department inquiries as the "Bua and Dwyer investigations": Bua's investigation on behalf of Barr, and a second investigation, in response to INSLAW's criticisms of Bua's report, that Reno asked the Assistant Associate Attorney General to undertake.[^44] Miller's report of July 31, 1997, was reviewed by a panel of the court, whose report is dated May 11, 1998.[^94] +On May 3, 1995, by S. Res. 114, the Senate referred S. 740, a bill for the relief of INSLAW, to the Chief Judge of the Court of Federal Claims as Congressional Reference No. 95-338X, and Hearing Officer [[Christine Odell Cook Miller|Christine Cook Miller]] described the two Justice Department inquiries as the "Bua and Dwyer investigations": Bua's investigation on behalf of Barr, and a second investigation, in response to INSLAW's criticisms of Bua's report, that Reno asked the Assistant Associate Attorney General to undertake.[^44] Miller's report of July 31, 1997, was reviewed by a panel of the court, whose report is dated May 11, 1998.[^95] ### Footnotes @@ -314,12 +314,13 @@ On May 3, 1995, by S. Res. 114, the Senate referred S. 740, a bill for the relie [^83]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.* March 1993, p. 247. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993 [^84]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.* March 1993, pp. 247-248. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993 [^85]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.* March 1993, p. 248. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993 -[^86]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.* March 1993, pp. 249-250. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993 -[^87]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary. *The INSLAW Affair.* H. Rept. 102-857, 102d Cong., 2d sess., September 10, 1992, title page. -[^88]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary. *The INSLAW Affair.* H. Rept. 102-857, 102d Cong., 2d sess., September 10, 1992, pp. 69-72, Part IV.C.1. -[^89]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of the United States Department of Justice on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report on the Allegations of INSLAW, Inc.* September 27, 1994, pp. 1-4. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993 -[^90]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of the United States Department of Justice on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report on the Allegations of INSLAW, Inc.* September 27, 1994, pp. 7-9, III. Summary of Conclusions and Recommendations. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993 -[^91]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of the United States Department of Justice on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report on the Allegations of INSLAW, Inc.* September 27, 1994, pp. 107-168, V. The Weight of the Evidence Indicates That J. Daniel Casolaro Committed Suicide. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993 -[^92]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of the United States Department of Justice on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report on the Allegations of INSLAW, Inc.* September 27, 1994, pp. 9-10, III. Summary of Conclusions and Recommendations. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993 -[^93]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of the United States Department of Justice on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report on the Allegations of INSLAW, Inc.* September 27, 1994, pp. 101-102. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993 -[^94]: U.S. Court of Federal Claims. *INSLAW, Inc. v. United States*, No. 95-338X, Report of the Review Panel, May 11, 1998, 40 Fed. Cl. 843. https://static.case.law/fed-cl/40/cases/0843-01.json +[^86]: U.S. Department of Justice, *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.*, March 1993, p. 126 note 4, naming "Professor James E. Starrs, a noted forensic pathology expert at the George Washington University law school" (citing *Washington Business Journal*, November 9-15, 1992, p. 13); the conclusion at pp. 248-250 prints the surname as "Starr." https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993 +[^87]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.* March 1993, pp. 249-250. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993 +[^88]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary. *The INSLAW Affair.* H. Rept. 102-857, 102d Cong., 2d sess., September 10, 1992, title page. +[^89]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary. *The INSLAW Affair.* H. Rept. 102-857, 102d Cong., 2d sess., September 10, 1992, pp. 69-72, Part IV.C.1. +[^90]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of the United States Department of Justice on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report on the Allegations of INSLAW, Inc.* September 27, 1994, pp. 1-4. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993 +[^91]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of the United States Department of Justice on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report on the Allegations of INSLAW, Inc.* September 27, 1994, pp. 7-9, III. Summary of Conclusions and Recommendations. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993 +[^92]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of the United States Department of Justice on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report on the Allegations of INSLAW, Inc.* September 27, 1994, pp. 107-168, V. The Weight of the Evidence Indicates That J. Daniel Casolaro Committed Suicide. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993 +[^93]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of the United States Department of Justice on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report on the Allegations of INSLAW, Inc.* September 27, 1994, pp. 9-10, III. Summary of Conclusions and Recommendations. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993 +[^94]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of the United States Department of Justice on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report on the Allegations of INSLAW, Inc.* September 27, 1994, pp. 101-102. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993 +[^95]: U.S. Court of Federal Claims. *INSLAW, Inc. v. United States*, No. 95-338X, Report of the Review Panel, May 11, 1998, 40 Fed. Cl. 843. https://static.case.law/fed-cl/40/cases/0843-01.json diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Nick Beckstead.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Nick Beckstead.md index cba99074..95cf9bfc 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Nick Beckstead.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Nick Beckstead.md @@ -107,7 +107,7 @@ Knutsson wrote in 2019 that Beckstead "was one of the grant investigators for th On November 19, 2022 the charity reported to the [[Charity Commission for England and Wales|Charity Commission]] that FTX and affiliated entities, among its funders, had filed for bankruptcy, that it held 3.3 million pounds and 300,000 dollars in funding from them, and that two of its trustees were connected with FTX, one as chief executive of the FTX Foundation and the other as an unpaid adviser to the Future Fund. The Commission opened a statutory inquiry on December 19, 2022. Its report, published May 22, 2024, does not name the trustees. It records that the charity ringfenced the funds, obtained a defence against money laundering from the [[National Crime Agency]], and returned 4,246,503.16 dollars to FTX under a settlement; that the two FTX-connected trustees had been excluded from decisions on the bankruptcy and resigned during the inquiry; that their connections had produced "a lack of clarity as to whether they were acting for the charity or on behalf of FTX Foundation at any given time"; that trustees had not been required to disclose potential conflicts on joining the board until October 2022; and that there was nonetheless no evidence of unmanaged conflicts regarding funds received from the FTX Foundation.[^9] -*[[Civil Society]]* reported in April 2024, citing the charity's accounts, that Effective Ventures Foundation bought [[Wytham Abbey]], near [[Oxford]], in April 2022 after receiving 17 million pounds from Open Philanthropy to support the purchase.[^10] *[[Third Sector]]* reported on February 18, 2026 that the charity had paid almost 15 million pounds for the abbey, recorded an impairment loss of 8.6 million pounds as of June 30, 2025, and sold it to an unnamed buyer for 6 million pounds in November 2025.[^11] The charity's announcement of March 25, 2024 stated that the Wytham Abbey Project had not met "the funding bar of our major funders" and that the board had decided to sell the property; an update of November 11, 2025 recorded completion of the sale.[^12] Beckstead was recorded as a director of the charity from July 2021 through the purchase and until August 2023.[^1] +*[[Civil Society]]* reported in April 2024, citing the charity's accounts, that Effective Ventures Foundation bought [[Wytham Abbey]], near [[Oxford, England|Oxford]], in April 2022 after receiving 17 million pounds from Open Philanthropy to support the purchase.[^10] *[[Third Sector]]* reported on February 18, 2026 that the charity had paid almost 15 million pounds for the abbey, recorded an impairment loss of 8.6 million pounds as of June 30, 2025, and sold it to an unnamed buyer for 6 million pounds in November 2025.[^11] The charity's announcement of March 25, 2024 stated that the Wytham Abbey Project had not met "the funding bar of our major funders" and that the board had decided to sell the property; an update of November 11, 2025 recorded completion of the sale.[^12] Beckstead was recorded as a director of the charity from July 2021 through the purchase and until August 2023.[^1] ### The FTX Foundation diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Richard Bissell.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Richard Bissell.md index da6331da..cf0c0513 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Richard Bissell.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Richard Bissell.md @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ aliases: - Dick Bissell - Richard Bissell Jr. created: 2026-05-15 -updated: 2026-10-09 +updated: 2026-10-15 category: "Intelligence & Government" tags: - Person @@ -100,7 +100,7 @@ His first association with the agency came in late 1953 with a contract study of ### The U-2 and the Development Projects Staff -On November 26, 1954 Dulles told Bissell that [[Dwight D. Eisenhower|Eisenhower]] had approved a secret program and that Bissell was to run it; on December 3 Bissell and Herbert Miller of the Office of Scientific Intelligence went to the Pentagon for the first interagency meeting. Dulles had no answer to the questions who would run the project or pay for it ("You'll have to work that out"). Bissell built a self-sufficient project staff, Project AQUATONE, with its own contracting, finance, logistics, communications and security personnel and funds kept separate from the agency's regular accounts, and reported directly to the DCI, though the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, General [[Charles Pearre Cabell]], supervised its daily affairs. On April 29, 1955 he signed an agreement with the [[U.S. Air Force]] and, to keep work moving at [[Lockheed]], wrote Kelly Johnson's company an advance check. The first test flight was in August 1955.[^1] +On November 26, 1954 Dulles told Bissell that [[Dwight D. Eisenhower|Eisenhower]] had approved a secret program and that Bissell was to run it; on December 3 Bissell and Herbert Miller of the Office of Scientific Intelligence went to the Pentagon for the first interagency meeting. Dulles had no answer to the questions who would run the project or pay for it ("You'll have to work that out"). Bissell built a self-sufficient project staff, Project AQUATONE, with its own contracting, finance, logistics, communications and security personnel and funds kept separate from the agency's regular accounts, and reported directly to the DCI, though the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, General [[Charles Pearre Cabell]], supervised its daily affairs. On April 29, 1955 he signed an agreement with the [[U.S. Air Force]] and, to keep work moving at [[Lockheed Aircraft Company|Lockheed]], wrote Kelly Johnson's company an advance check. The first test flight was in August 1955.[^1] The first flights over the Soviet Union began on Wednesday, July 4, 1956 (a June 20, 1956 mission had covered Poland and East Germany). Bissell gave the "Go" decision at the project headquarters just before midnight Washington time on July 3. When Dulles asked on July 5 whether the overflights of Moscow and Leningrad had been wise the first time, Bissell replied: "Allen, the first is the safest." The program continued, with Bissell bringing maps of proposed routes to Eisenhower in the Oval Office, until [[Francis Gary Powers]] was shot down near Sverdlovsk on May 1, 1960; the Paris summit that opened on May 16 ended when Eisenhower refused [[Nikita Khrushchev]]'s demand for an apology.[^1] diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Richard M. Berman.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Richard M. Berman.md index 6ed34b8d..d5d320fd 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Richard M. Berman.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Richard M. Berman.md @@ -43,9 +43,9 @@ relations: with: "[[United States v. Halkbank]]" role: "presiding judge" start: 2019 - fn: 9 + fn: 10 created: 2026-09-25 -updated: 2026-09-25 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Richard M. Berman (born 1943, in [[New York City]]) is a senior judge of the [[U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York]], appointed by [[Bill Clinton]] in 1998. He presided over [[United States v. Epstein]], the 2019 sex-trafficking indictment of [[Jeffrey Epstein]], ordering Epstein detained on July 18, 2019 and, after Epstein's death in federal custody, holding a public hearing on August 27, 2019 at which victims spoke before he dismissed the indictment. In 2025 he first refused and then, after the [[Epstein Files Transparency Act]], granted the government's motions to unseal the case's grand jury record. He also presided over the Iran-sanctions prosecution of the Turkish state-owned bank [[Halkbank]]. He is not related to [[Geoffrey Berman]], the U.S. Attorney whose office brought the Epstein case.[^1][^2][^3] @@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ After the Epstein Files Transparency Act became law, the government renewed its ### Halkbank -In 2019 the [[United States]] indicted Türkiye Halk Bankası, a bank majority-owned through the Turkish Wealth Fund by the Republic of [[Turkey]], for a multi-year conspiracy to evade sanctions on [[Iran]]; the indictment alleged that the bank, "with the assistance of high-ranking Turkish government officials, laundered billions of dollars of Iranian oil and gas proceeds through the global financial system." The prosecution proceeded before Berman in the case captioned United States v. Zarrab. On October 1, 2020 he denied Halkbank's motion to dismiss, reasoning that the [[Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act]] "does not appear to grant immunity in criminal proceedings." The Second Circuit affirmed on October 22, 2021 (16 F.4th 336), and on April 19, 2023 the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] held that the Act does not apply to criminal cases but remanded on common-law immunity, Justice [[Neil Gorsuch]] writing in partial dissent that the decision "overcomplicates the law for no good reason." The Second Circuit ruled again on October 22, 2024 (120 F.4th 41).[^9] +In 2019 the [[United States]] indicted Türkiye Halk Bankası, a bank majority-owned through the Turkish Wealth Fund by the Republic of [[Turkey]], for a multi-year conspiracy to evade sanctions on [[Iran]]; the indictment alleged that the bank, "with the assistance of high-ranking Turkish government officials, laundered billions of dollars of Iranian oil and gas proceeds through the global financial system." The prosecution proceeded before Berman in the case captioned United States v. Zarrab. On October 1, 2020 he denied Halkbank's motion to dismiss, reasoning that the [[Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act]] "does not appear to grant immunity in criminal proceedings." The Second Circuit affirmed on October 22, 2021 (16 F.4th 336), and on April 19, 2023 the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]], in an opinion by Justice [[Brett Kavanaugh]], held that the Act does not apply to criminal cases and remanded the common-law immunity question; Justice [[Neil Gorsuch]], joined by Justice [[Samuel Alito]], concurred in part and dissented in part, writing that the decision "overcomplicates the law for no good reason."[^9] The Second Circuit ruled again on October 22, 2024 (120 F.4th 41).[^10] ### Footnotes @@ -88,4 +88,5 @@ In 2019 the [[United States]] indicted Türkiye Halk Bankası, a bank majority-o [^6]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02733081, Court Records (CA Florida Holdings, LLC, Publisher of the Palm Beach Post v. Aronberg, No. 50-2019-CA-014681-XXXX-MB (Fla. 15th Cir. Ct. 2019)), appendix item 11, transcript of hearing, United States v. Jeffrey Epstein, 19 Cr. 490 (RMB) (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 27, 2019), beginning at EFTA02733613. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/Court%20Records/CA%20Florida%20Holdings%2C%20LLC%2C%20Publisher%20of%20the%20Palm%20Beach%20Post%20v.%20Aronberg%2C%20No.%2050-2019-CA-014681-XXXX-MB%20(Fla.%2015th%20Cir.%20Ct.%202019)/EFTA02733081.pdf [^7]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02810827, Court Records (Government of the United States Virgin Islands v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., No. 1:22-cv-10904), Expert Report of Jorge Amador, June 16, 2023, Document 238-31, n. 53. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/Court%20Records/Government%20of%20the%20United%20States%20Virgin%20Islands%20v.%20JPMorgan%20Chase%20Bank%2C%20N.A.%2C%20No.%20122-cv-10904%20(S.D.N.Y.%202022)/EFTA02810827.pdf [^8]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00030338, DataSet 8, internal U.S. Attorney's Office email chain, "RE: The Prince and the Proffer | New York Law Journal," May 6, 2020. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%208/EFTA00030338.pdf ; duplicate at EFTA00018735. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%208/EFTA00018735.pdf -[^9]: Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S. v. United States, No. 21-1450, 598 U.S. 264 (April 19, 2023), slip op. at 1-3, and Gorsuch, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1450_5468.pdf ; United States v. Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S., No. 20-3499, 16 F.4th 336 (2d Cir. Oct. 22, 2021), on appeal from the Decision and Order of Oct. 1, 2020 (Berman, J.). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/5291813/united-states-v-bankasi/ ; United States v. Zarrab (Turkiye Halk Bankasi), No. 20-3499, 120 F.4th 41 (2d Cir. Oct. 22, 2024). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10152619/united-states-v-zarrab-turkiye-halk-bankasi/ +[^9]: Supreme Court of the United States, docket No. 21-1450, *Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S. v. United States*, argued January 17, 2023; decided April 19, 2023 (Kavanaugh, J., for the Court; Gorsuch, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part, joined by Alito, J.). https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/21-1450.html +[^10]: Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S. v. United States, No. 21-1450, 598 U.S. 264 (April 19, 2023), slip op. at 1-3, and Gorsuch, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1450_5468.pdf ; United States v. Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S., No. 20-3499, 16 F.4th 336 (2d Cir. Oct. 22, 2021), on appeal from the Decision and Order of Oct. 1, 2020 (Berman, J.). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/5291813/united-states-v-bankasi/ ; United States v. Zarrab (Turkiye Halk Bankasi), No. 20-3499, 120 F.4th 41 (2d Cir. Oct. 22, 2024). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10152619/united-states-v-zarrab-turkiye-halk-bankasi/ diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Robert Byck.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Robert Byck.md index 8d601df7..ff3de473 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Robert Byck.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Robert Byck.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ aliases: - Robert Byck - Dr. Robert Byck created: 2026-05-17 -updated: 2026-05-17 +updated: 2026-10-15 category: "Medicine & Psychology" tags: - Person @@ -17,7 +17,11 @@ born: 1933-01-01 died: 1999-08-09 location: "Newark, New Jersey" --- -Dr. Robert Byck was a [[Yale University]] cocaine expert who testified before Congress in 1979 to warn of an impending drug epidemic from smokable cocaine, seven years before the 1986 crack panic. His warnings were completely ignored.[^1] +Dr. Robert Byck was a [[Yale University]] cocaine expert who testified before Congress in 1979 to warn of an impending drug epidemic from smokable cocaine, seven years before the 1986 crack panic. [[Gary Webb]] wrote that Byck's warnings were ignored.[^1] + +### The 1979 hearing + +Byck testified as a member of the Department of Pharmacology, [[Yale University]] School of Medicine, before the [[House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control]] at its hearings on cocaine published as *Cocaine: A Major Drug Issue of the Seventies*. He testified on Thursday, July 26, 1979, where the record also describes him as a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at Yale who had just returned from an international conference on cocaine in Peru. He opened by stating that, as then used in the United States, cocaine was not dangerous in the usual sense. His prepared statement, printed in the volume, says that freebase smoking "can represent the same threat that the speed epidemics of the 1960's represented in their time," that there was "a danger of a drug abuse epidemic of cocaine because of a new route of administration rather than because of new properties of the drug" and, "The possibility is strong that this might occur. It is occurring in the countries of South America."[^2] ### 1979 Warning @@ -34,3 +38,4 @@ Byck later criticized the 100-to-1 sentencing disparity between crack and powder ### Footnotes [^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 15: "This thing is a tidal wave" +[^2]: *Cocaine: A Major Drug Issue of the Seventies*, Hearings before the Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control, House of Representatives, Ninety-sixth Congress, first session, July 24, 26 and October 10, 1979, testimony of Robert Byck, M.D. NCJ 65411. https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/65411NCJRS.pdf diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Robert M. Collins.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Robert M. Collins.md index cc4e6be9..d7941946 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Robert M. Collins.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Robert M. Collins.md @@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ Collins wrote that his FTD assignment began in the summer of 1985 and that he ha Collins wrote that FTD led him to ask about stories of bodies stored at Wright-Patterson, and so to retired Lieutenant Colonel [[Ernie Kellerstrauss|Ernie Kellerstrass]], whose last assignment had been FTD and who in 1985 worked for [[Systems Research Laboratories]] in [[Dayton, Ohio|Dayton]]. According to Collins, Kellerstrass named [[Anthony J. Cacioppo]], then chief FTD scientist, and [[Dale Graff]], reassigned from FTD to the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]], as informed, and described a meeting at a ski lodge north of [[Albuquerque]] in 1968 about a wave of sightings.[^1] In the spring of 1986, on a temporary duty trip to consult the technical staff of [[TRW]] in [[Los Angeles]], Collins met Moore in his motel room for about an hour; Moore mentioned a "Mr. X" who had contacted him in 1980.[^1] Collins wrote that from 1986 onward Moore, [[Jaime Shandera]], Kellerstrass, Doty, [[Hal Puthoff]] (from 1987), [[Kit Green]] (from 1989) and he held a series of meetings, referring to MJ-12 as "the Committee," while the introduction to the same book dates the group's coming together to 1985.[^1] -In the fall of 1987, he wrote, Kellerstrass hosted Moore, Shandera, Puthoff, Colonel [[John B. Alexander]], "Scott Jones (assistant for Senator Pell)" ([[C.B. Scott Jones]], aide to [[Claiborne Pell]]) and Collins at dinner at his house in [[Beavercreek, Ohio]].[^1] The bird names, by his account, were Doty "the surrogate 'Falcon' when the real Falcon (DIA's, Dale Graff?) couldn't be found," Kellerstrass "Hawk," Puthoff "Partridge," Jones "Hummingbird," Green "Blue Jay," Alexander "Chickadee," and himself "Condor."[^1] He also wrote of "Heron ([[Jerry Miller]])."[^1] In the references he wrote that "in June/July 2012 the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] Falcon was disclosed as none other than" [[Harry Rositzke]], who died on November 4, 2002 in [[Warrenton, Virginia]]; that "very few people were in a position to know who the real Falcon was," the two he knew of being Moore and Doty; that Moore "provided a name to his friend [[Greg Bishop]] in 2005"; that [[Brian Parks]], who had known Moore closely from the early 1980s until he left UFO research around 1994, "gave Brian the very same name as Bishop had"; and, in another reference, that "according to Bill Moore and known by Rick Doty it's Harry August Rositzke, born in [[New York]], 1910." He added a redacted 1961 [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] memorandum on Rositzke supplied by Parks and Parks's statement of "07-20-012." The name is Collins's report of what Moore said to others; Moore did not publish it.[^1] Moore had said in 1989 that he and Jaime Shandera invented the name Falcon in 1984 and that hints in 1987 that Doty was Falcon were a diversion.[^4] Pilkington asked whether Colonel [[Barry Hennessey]], who ran the AFOSI special projects unit at the [[Pentagon]] during the MJ-12 release and the Bennewitz affair and later directed Air Force counterintelligence and special program security, was Falcon, and wrote that Hennessey and Moore had both denied it.[^3] +In the fall of 1987, he wrote, Kellerstrass hosted Moore, Shandera, Puthoff, Colonel [[John B. Alexander]], "Scott Jones (assistant for Senator Pell)" ([[C.B. Scott Jones]], aide to [[Claiborne Pell]]) and Collins at dinner at his house in [[Beavercreek, Ohio]].[^1] The bird names, by his account, were Doty "the surrogate 'Falcon' when the real Falcon (DIA's, Dale Graff?) couldn't be found," Kellerstrass "Hawk," Puthoff "Partridge," Jones "Hummingbird," Green "Blue Jay," Alexander "Chickadee," and himself "Condor."[^1] He also wrote of "Heron ([[Jerry Miller]])."[^1] In the references he wrote that "in June/July 2012 the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] Falcon was disclosed as none other than" [[Harry Rositzke]], who died on November 4, 2002 in [[Warrenton, Virginia]]; that "very few people were in a position to know who the real Falcon was," the two he knew of being Moore and Doty; that Moore "provided a name to his friend [[Greg Bishop]] in 2005"; that [[Brian Parks]], who had known Moore closely from the early 1980s until he left UFO research around 1994, "gave Brian the very same name as Bishop had"; and, in another reference, that "according to Bill Moore and known by Rick Doty it's Harry August Rositzke, born in [[New York City|New York]], 1910." He added a redacted 1961 [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] memorandum on Rositzke supplied by Parks and Parks's statement of "07-20-012." The name is Collins's report of what Moore said to others; Moore did not publish it.[^1] Moore had said in 1989 that he and Jaime Shandera invented the name Falcon in 1984 and that hints in 1987 that Doty was Falcon were a diversion.[^4] Pilkington asked whether Colonel [[Barry Hennessey]], who ran the AFOSI special projects unit at the [[Pentagon]] during the MJ-12 release and the Bennewitz affair and later directed Air Force counterintelligence and special program security, was Falcon, and wrote that Hennessey and Moore had both denied it.[^3] ### Howe and Lear, November 1987 diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ruth Davis.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ruth Davis.md index 17dba01c..36918b62 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ruth Davis.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ruth Davis.md @@ -10,15 +10,30 @@ tags: - RemoteViewing summary: "Deputy under secretary of defense for research and advanced technology who in 1978 set the managerial questions for the Pentagon's remote-viewing oversight and in 1979 widened the Gale Committee's mandate to the whole department." location: "Washington, D.C." +relations: + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Department of Energy]]" + start: 1979-09 + role: "nominated September 12, 1979 as Assistant Secretary of Energy for Resource Applications" + fn: 6 created: 2026-09-22 -updated: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Ruth M. Davis was Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (Research and Advanced Technology) in 1978 and 1979. On October 25, 1978, Representative [[Charlie Rose]], chairman of the evaluation subcommittee of the [[House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence]], wrote to her that he had "recently had occasion to become acquainted with some interesting research involving paranormal phenomena, specifically that relating to remote viewing," that "we have a strong obligation also to learn what Soviet research is underway," and that "I would therefore like to see the Department of Defense undertake those efforts deemed necessary and appropriate to investigate remote viewing and other related phenomena." On November 20, 1978, ahead of a [[Defense Intelligence Agency|DIA]] meeting on the subject set for November 28, she sent [[Jack Vorona]] eight "topics or issues that appear to me to demand immediate attention from the oversight groups you will establish": "a clear cut statement of objectives sought by the Intelligence Community"; "a rationale for continued exploration of remote viewing phenomena, e.g., in terms of understanding the impact of success by others on U.S. vulnerabilities"; "the scientific status of remote viewing experiments treating such issues as the apparent non-reproducibility of results, the lack of documented and/or accepted scientific protocols, the seeming lack of consistent criteria for accepting and treating subjects"; measures of progress "developed by other than the current experimenters" that "ensure that the magicians' processes of deception, feedback to subjects, etc. are not inadvertantly allowed"; evaluation "by other than the experimenters"; "a past, present and future funding profile justifiable in terms of DoD objectives"; "a stark clear statement of events, data, etc. that will justify termination of continued funding of the project"; and "the related legal issues of individual privacy, controlled surveillance, etc." "As you know, I have had highlighted to me both the potential afforded by success in remote viewing as well as the current scientific skepticism about the ongoing activity." Copies went to [[Walter LaBerge]], Jill Wine-Volner and Major General [[Edmund Thompson]].[^1] She sat on the Grill Flame steering committee at its first meeting on February 13, 1979, with the service intelligence chiefs, LaBerge and Vorona, and "in early July 1979, Dr. Ruth Davis recommended that because of the special interest of the Secretary of Defense, that the Committee review the total DOD posture and report directly to the GRILL FLAME Oversight Committee," which set the mandate of the [[Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee]].[^2] +Davis's name appears in the Grill Flame file again in 1979. In a memorandum of July 9, 1979, signed as deputy under secretary of defense for research and engineering (research and advanced technology), she proposed inviting [[Frank Press]] to be advised of the Grill Flame work.[^3] The steering committee minutes of October 30, 1979 list "Dr. Ruth Davis (DOE)" among the attendees and record that "Dr. Perry wants little to do with the subject."[^4] A note in the same file, undated, records that Davis could not attend a meeting because she had to meet Mr Duncan in DOE.[^5] + +On September 12, 1979 the White House announced the President's intention to nominate Ruth M. Davis, then Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Advanced Technology, as Assistant Secretary of Energy for Resource Applications.[^6] On December 26, 1979 [[R. S. Hawke]] wrote to Dr. Ruth M. Davis, whom he identified as "Assistant for Research Applications, Department of Energy."[^7] + ### Footnotes [^1]: Davis, Ruth M., Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (Research and Advanced Technology), memorandum for Dr. Jack Vorona, "'Remote Viewing' Project," November 20, 1978, with the letter of Charlie Rose, Chairman, Subcommittee on Evaluation, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, to Davis, October 25, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00787R000500240017-5. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. [^2]: *Report by the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee,* December 1979, Manfred Gale, chairman, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. +[^3]: Davis, Ruth M., memorandum, July 9, 1979, signed as deputy under secretary of defense for research and engineering (research and advanced technology), CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230005-0. +[^4]: Minutes of steering committee meeting, October 30, 1979, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000100007-3 and CIA-RDP96-00788R002000250021-1. +[^5]: Stoner note, undated, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000250019-4. +[^6]: Jimmy Carter, "Department of Energy: Nomination of Ruth M. Davis To Be an Assistant Secretary," announcement of September 12, 1979, The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/department-energy-nomination-ruth-m-davis-be-assistant-secretary +[^7]: R. S. Hawke to Dr. Ruth M. Davis, letter EMS79-0117, December 26, 1979, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100100003-7. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ted Cruz.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ted Cruz.md index 0678e7c4..50c1a5b2 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ted Cruz.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ted Cruz.md @@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ The relationship drew criticism inside Texas Republican politics because Thiel p Cruz's 2016 presidential campaign was the first major American political operation to deploy Cambridge Analytica, the data-analytics firm whose primary investor was the hedge-fund executive Robert Mercer and whose vice president was [[Steve Bannon]]. [[Federal Election Commission]] records show the Cruz campaign paid Cambridge Analytica more than 5.8 million dollars for data analysis and online advertising during the 2016 cycle, with an additional 570,000 dollars paid by the pro-Cruz super PAC Keep the Promise II. Mercer donated approximately eleven million dollars to super PACs supporting Cruz's presidential bid.[^2][^5] -The firm built psychographic voter profiles, dividing the electorate into psychological categories, work later tied to the harvesting of data from tens of millions of [[Facebook]] users. After Cruz dropped out in 2016, Mercer, Bannon, and Cambridge Analytica shifted to the Trump campaign. When the [[Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal]] broke in March 2018, Cruz said the firm had assured his campaign its methods were legal: "Cambridge Analytica represented to the campaign that all data in their possession were legally obtained and that they were in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations, and the campaign relied on those representations." His spokeswoman, Catherine Frazier, said the campaign had included explicit contractual language requiring lawful conduct.[^2][^5][^6] +The firm built psychographic voter profiles, dividing the electorate into psychological categories, work later tied to the harvesting of data from tens of millions of [[Facebook]] users. After Cruz dropped out in 2016, Mercer, Bannon, and Cambridge Analytica shifted to the Trump campaign. When the [[Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal]] broke in March 2018, Cruz said the firm had assured his campaign its methods were legal: "Cambridge Analytica represented to the campaign that all data in their possession were legally obtained and that they were in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations, and the campaign relied on those representations." His spokeswoman, Catherine Frazier, said the campaign had included explicit contractual language requiring lawful conduct.[^2][^5][^6] ### The 2026 Dialog Leak diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Thomas A. Flannery.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Thomas A. Flannery.md index bbf52b7f..e5637ac3 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Thomas A. Flannery.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Thomas A. Flannery.md @@ -1,30 +1,30 @@ --- category: "Law Enforcement & Legal" created: 2026-05-01 -updated: 2026-10-14 +updated: 2026-10-15 tags: - Person - PROMIS - INSLAW - Lawyer - Judge -summary: "Thomas A. Flannery was U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia from 1967 to 1970, commissioned the system that became PROMIS in 1969, and was a federal district judge from 1970 until 1993." -born: 1918-01-05 -died: 1993-06-25 +summary: "Thomas A. Flannery was U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia from 1969 to 1971, commissioned the system that became PROMIS in 1969, and was a federal district judge from December 1971." +born: 1918-05-10 +died: 2007-09-20 location: "Washington, D.C." --- -Thomas A. Flannery was born January 5, 1918, in Washington, D.C. He served as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia from 1967 to March 1970, appointed under President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]]. In that capacity, he directed the formation of the team that designed the [[PROMIS|Prosecutor's Management Information System (PROMIS)]], the case management software that became the center of the [[PROMIS Software Scandal|INSLAW affair]] a decade later.[^1] +Thomas A. Flannery was born May 10, 1918, in Washington, D.C. He was an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia from 1950 to 1962, in private practice from 1962 to 1969, and U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia from 1969 to 1971, appointed under President [[Richard Nixon]].[^1] In that capacity, he directed the formation of the team that designed the [[PROMIS|Prosecutor's Management Information System (PROMIS)]], the case management software that became the center of the [[PROMIS Software Scandal|INSLAW affair]] a decade later.[^2] ### Role in PROMIS Development -In 1969, Flannery commissioned a team from [[Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co]] to design a computer-based case management system for the [[U.S. Attorney's office|DC U.S. Attorney's Office]], funded by a $60,000 grant (70-DF-047) from the [[Office of Crime Analysis of the District of Columbia]] administered through the [[LEAA|Law Enforcement Assistance Administration]]. The team was co-directed by [[Joan E. Jacoby]] (Director of the Office of Crime Analysis) and [[Charles R. Work]] (Deputy Director of the Superior Court Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office), with [[Bill Hamilton]] serving as project manager.[^1][^3] The system, named the Prosecutor's Management Information System, was deployed on January 1, 1971.[^3] +In 1969, Flannery commissioned a team from [[Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co]] to design a computer-based case management system for the [[U.S. Attorney's office|DC U.S. Attorney's Office]], funded by a $60,000 grant (70-DF-047) from the [[Office of Crime Analysis of the District of Columbia]] administered through the [[LEAA|Law Enforcement Assistance Administration]]. The team was co-directed by [[Joan E. Jacoby]] (Director of the Office of Crime Analysis) and [[Charles R. Work]] (Deputy Director of the Superior Court Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office), with [[Bill Hamilton]] serving as project manager.[^2][^3] The system, named the Prosecutor's Management Information System, was deployed on January 1, 1971.[^3] ### Judicial Career -President [[Richard Nixon]] nominated Flannery to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in July 1970. He was confirmed by the Senate and began judicial service in December 1970. He served as Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia from 1977 until approximately 1987, and continued as a senior judge thereafter. He died June 25, 1993.[^2] +President Nixon nominated Flannery to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on November 18, 1971. The Senate confirmed him on December 1, 1971, and his commission issued on December 6, 1971. He assumed senior status on May 10, 1985 and died on September 20, 2007.[^1] He served as Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia from 1977 until approximately 1987, and continued as a senior judge thereafter. ### Footnotes -[^1]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary. *The INSLAW Affair: Investigative Report.* House Report 102-857, 102nd Congress, 2nd Session, September 10, 1992. -[^2]: Federal Judicial Center. "Thomas A. Flannery." History of the Federal Judiciary. fjc.gov. +[^1]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, entry for Flannery, Thomas Aquinas (assistant U.S. attorney, D.C., 1950 to 1962; U.S. attorney, D.C., 1969 to 1971; nominated November 18, 1971; senior status May 10, 1985; died September 20, 2007). https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/flannery-thomas-aquinas +[^2]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary. *The INSLAW Affair: Investigative Report.* House Report 102-857, 102nd Congress, 2nd Session, September 10, 1992. [^3]: Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co., *System Overview and Report Formats for PROMIS* (May 1971), prepared for the District of Columbia Government Office of Crime Analysis under LEAA Grant No. 70-DF-047, note 1 to the passage on the design team, NCJ 32469. https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/32469NCJRS.pdf diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Adnan Khashoggi.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Adnan Khashoggi.md index 2aec2787..629e0f9a 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Adnan Khashoggi.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Adnan Khashoggi.md @@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ relations: start: 1988 fn: 1 - type: prosecuted - with: "[[Southern District of New York]]" + with: "[[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York]]" reverse: true role: "racketeering and fraud; acquitted with Imelda Marcos" end: 1990 diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Adolf Hitler.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Adolf Hitler.md index 8d6a622e..74fa0cb8 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Adolf Hitler.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Adolf Hitler.md @@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ born: 1889-04-20 died: 1945-04-30 location: "Braunau am Inn, Austria" created: 2026-10-14 -updated: 2026-10-14 +updated: 2026-10-15 relations: - type: head_of with: "[[Nazi Germany]]" @@ -34,32 +34,32 @@ relations: with: "[[Eva Braun]]" start: 1945-04-29 role: "married in the Berlin bunker on the date of his private will, which names her as his wife" - fn: 21 + fn: 22 - type: appointed with: "[[Karl Dönitz]]" start: 1945-04-29 role: "named President of the Reich and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces in the political testament" - fn: 22 + fn: 23 - type: appointed with: "[[Martin Bormann]]" start: 1945-04-29 role: "named executor of the private will with full legal authority, and Party Minister in the testament's cabinet list" - fn: 21 + fn: 22 - type: subject_of with: "[[Office of Strategic Services]]" start: 1943 role: "subject of the 1943 psychoanalytic profile by Walter Langer and the October 1943 personality analysis by Henry Murray, both prepared for the OSS" - fn: 11 + fn: 12 - type: subject_of with: "[[Federal Bureau of Investigation]]" start: 1945-09-21 role: "Los Angeles report titled Hitler Hideout, file 105-410, on a claim that he was in hiding in Argentina" - fn: 30 + fn: 31 - type: subject_of with: "[[Central Intelligence Agency]]" start: 1955-10-03 role: "Maracaibo station dispatch forwarding a claim that he was alive in South America" - fn: 33 + fn: 34 --- Adolf Hitler (born April 20, 1889, in [[Braunau am Inn]], Austria; died April 30, 1945, in [[Berlin]]) was the leader of the [[Nazi Party]] and the dictator of [[Nazi Germany]] from 1934 to 1945.[^1] He was the central figure in the rise of Nazism, the Holocaust, and World War II.[^2] @@ -68,67 +68,67 @@ The International Military Tribunal at [[Nuremberg]] described the [[SS]] as cre ### Nuremberg luncheon, 1936 -[[Richard Helms]], then a [[United Press]] correspondent sent alone to cover the 1936 Nazi Party Congress at Nuremberg, received an invitation from Hitler's press representative to a light luncheon with the Fuehrer at the Nuremberg Castle. Helms was introduced to [[Rudolf Hess]] and [[Joachim von Ribbentrop]]. Asked why he staged the annual congress, Hitler answered that the party leaders worked hard all year, that "Money prizes would break the Treasury," and that he brought them to the congress to give them the show and a chance to meet one another.[^4] +[[Richard Helms]], then a [[United Press]] correspondent sent alone to cover the 1936 Nazi Party Congress at Nuremberg, received an invitation from Hitler's press representative to a light luncheon with the Fuehrer at the Nuremberg Castle. Helms was introduced to [[Rudolf Hess]] and [[Joachim von Ribbentrop]]. Asked why he staged the annual congress, Hitler answered that the party leaders worked hard all year, that "Money prizes would break the Treasury," and that he brought them to the congress to give them the show and a chance to meet one another.[^4][^5] ### Occult milieu and the Hess flight -Hitler was reportedly dismissive of mysticism. [[Albert Speer]] wrote that when [[Heinrich Himmler]] mythologized the SS, Hitler remarked: "What nonsense! Here we have at last reached an age that has left all mysticism behind it, and now he wants to start that all over again. We might just as well have stayed with the church."[^5] Himmler was deeply invested in paranormal research. The [[Ahnenerbe]], the research body he founded in 1935, investigated extrasensory perception, astrology and map dowsing, according to [[Annie Jacobsen]].[^6] The regime had a complex relationship with the occult, and the Nazi government's use of astrology and other forms of divination for propaganda purposes is well-documented.[^6] +Hitler was reportedly dismissive of mysticism. [[Albert Speer]] wrote that when [[Heinrich Himmler]] mythologized the SS, Hitler remarked: "What nonsense! Here we have at last reached an age that has left all mysticism behind it, and now he wants to start that all over again. We might just as well have stayed with the church."[^6] Himmler was deeply invested in paranormal research. The [[Ahnenerbe]], the research body he founded in 1935, investigated extrasensory perception, astrology and map dowsing, according to [[Annie Jacobsen]].[^7] The regime had a complex relationship with the occult, and the Nazi government's use of astrology and other forms of divination for propaganda purposes is well-documented.[^7] -Jacobsen wrote that Hitler's reaction to Rudolf Hess's flight to [[Scotland]], which he attributed to the influence of astrologers, led to a crackdown on occult practices in Germany.[^6] Accounts of the flight name two astrologers. [[Karl Krafft]], a Swiss astrologer, is said to have produced a star chart that fixed the date of the flight, and [[Sybil Leek]], a British astrologer working for British intelligence, is said to have written a phony horoscope that drew Hess toward Scotland.[^6] The arrests that followed, under the name [[Special Action Hess|Sonderaktion Heß]], reportedly took in more than 600 astrologers, fortune tellers, clairvoyants and faith healers, among them [[Wilhelm Wulff]], who had become Himmler's personal astrologer.[^6] The historian [[Eric Kurlander]] wrote that the action had the Gestapo round up astrologers, clairvoyants and occultists, that hundreds were detained or arrested, and that thousands of books and items of esoteric paraphernalia were confiscated.[^7] +Jacobsen wrote that Hitler's reaction to Rudolf Hess's flight to [[Scotland]], which he attributed to the influence of astrologers, led to a crackdown on occult practices in Germany.[^7] Accounts of the flight name two astrologers. [[Karl Krafft]], a Swiss astrologer, is said to have produced a star chart that fixed the date of the flight, and [[Sybil Leek]], a British astrologer working for British intelligence, is said to have written a phony horoscope that drew Hess toward Scotland.[^7] The arrests that followed, under the name [[Special Action Hess|Sonderaktion Heß]], reportedly took in more than 600 astrologers, fortune tellers, clairvoyants and faith healers, among them [[Wilhelm Wulff]], who had become Himmler's personal astrologer.[^7] The historian [[Eric Kurlander]] wrote that the action had the Gestapo round up astrologers, clairvoyants and occultists, that hundreds were detained or arrested, and that thousands of books and items of esoteric paraphernalia were confiscated.[^8] -A CIA-released survey of parapsychology research states that [[Louis Pauwels]] and [[Jacques Bergier]], in [[The Morning of the Magicians]] (1960), maintained that Hitler was clairvoyant and surrounded himself with astrologers and prophets. The same survey says that [[Erik Jan Hanussen]], a stage clairvoyant, was assassinated by the Nazis because his ability to see their secret projects threatened the regime.[^8] A 1930 and 1931 report by the Dutch researcher [[P.A. Dietz]] on a test of Hanussen's psychometric ability appears in an annotated CIA-released abstract. The annotator described Hanussen, who visited the [[Netherlands]] in 1930, as someone who "later would often be consulted by Adolph Hitler."[^9] +A CIA-released survey of parapsychology research states that [[Louis Pauwels]] and [[Jacques Bergier]], in [[The Morning of the Magicians]] (1960), maintained that Hitler was clairvoyant and surrounded himself with astrologers and prophets. The same survey says that [[Erik Jan Hanussen]], a stage clairvoyant, was assassinated by the Nazis because his ability to see their secret projects threatened the regime.[^9] A 1930 and 1931 report by the Dutch researcher [[P.A. Dietz]] on a test of Hanussen's psychometric ability appears in an annotated CIA-released abstract. The annotator described Hanussen, who visited the [[Netherlands]] in 1930, as someone who "later would often be consulted by Adolph Hitler."[^10] ### Profiles by the OSS and Harvard -In 1943 [[William J. Donovan|William Donovan]] of the [[Office of Strategic Services]] asked the [[Cambridge, Massachusetts|Cambridge]] psychoanalyst [[Walter Langer]] to analyze Hitler without direct access to him. Langer wrote in his 1972 book that Donovan asked, "What light could psychoanalysis shed on these pressing problems?" and then, "And how would you go about getting it?"[^10] The OSS report of 1943, A Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler: His Life and Legend, lists as collaborators [[Henry Murray]] of the Harvard Psychological Clinic, [[Ernst Kris]] of the [[New School for Social Research]] and [[Bertram Lewin]] of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute.[^11] +In 1943 [[William J. Donovan|William Donovan]] of the [[Office of Strategic Services]] asked the [[Cambridge, Massachusetts|Cambridge]] psychoanalyst [[Walter Langer]] to analyze Hitler without direct access to him. Langer wrote in his 1972 book that Donovan asked, "What light could psychoanalysis shed on these pressing problems?" and then, "And how would you go about getting it?"[^11] The OSS report of 1943, A Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler: His Life and Legend, lists as collaborators [[Henry Murray]] of the Harvard Psychological Clinic, [[Ernst Kris]] of the [[New School for Social Research]] and [[Bertram Lewin]] of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute.[^12] -The 1943 report stated that there was "unanimous agreement among the four psychoanalysts who have studied the material that Hitler is an hysteric bordering on schizophrenia and not a true paranoiac as so frequently supposed."[^12] In the 1972 book the same passage reads "general agreement among the collaborators that Hitler is probably a neurotic psychopath bordering on schizophrenia."[^13] The 1943 report described his behavior as "masochistic in the extreme" and stated that "there is a large feminine component in his physical makeup."[^14] Its eighth prediction read: "Hitler might commit suicide. This is the most plausible outcome."[^15] +The 1943 report stated that there was "unanimous agreement among the four psychoanalysts who have studied the material that Hitler is an hysteric bordering on schizophrenia and not a true paranoiac as so frequently supposed."[^13] In the 1972 book the same passage reads "general agreement among the collaborators that Hitler is probably a neurotic psychopath bordering on schizophrenia."[^14] The 1943 report described his behavior as "masochistic in the extreme" and stated that "there is a large feminine component in his physical makeup."[^15] Its eighth prediction read: "Hitler might commit suicide. This is the most plausible outcome."[^16] -In October 1943 Murray of the [[Harvard University|Harvard]] Psychological Clinic completed a memorandum titled *Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler*, marked "O.S.S. Confidential," with predictions of his future behavior and suggestions for dealing with him now and after [[Germany]]'s surrender.[^16] Murray wrote that Hitler's neurotic spells would increase in frequency and duration, and that there was some evidence his mental powers had been deteriorating since November 1942.[^17] He considered it possible that the military command or a revolutionary faction might seize Hitler and immure him in a prison fortress, an outcome that would end the myth of the invincible hero. He judged that Hitler being shot by a German was "possible but not very likely."[^17] +In October 1943 Murray of the [[Harvard University|Harvard]] Psychological Clinic completed a memorandum titled *Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler*, marked "O.S.S. Confidential," with predictions of his future behavior and suggestions for dealing with him now and after [[Germany]]'s surrender.[^17] Murray wrote that Hitler's neurotic spells would increase in frequency and duration, and that there was some evidence his mental powers had been deteriorating since November 1942.[^18] He considered it possible that the military command or a revolutionary faction might seize Hitler and immure him in a prison fortress, an outcome that would end the myth of the invincible hero. He judged that Hitler being shot by a German was "possible but not very likely."[^18] -Murray proposed that Hitler might arrange to be killed by a German, perhaps by a Jew, completing the myth of the hero's death at the hand of a trusted follower, on the pattern of Siegfried stabbed by Hagen, Caesar by Brutus, and Christ betrayed by Judas.[^18] On suicide, Murray wrote that Hitler had often vowed he would kill himself if his plans miscarried, but that if he chose that course he would do it at the last moment and in the most dramatic possible manner.[^18] In the closing section Murray named insanity to some extent, dramatic suicide and death at the front as the outcomes that seemed most probable, on the assumption that Hitler's chief concern was the immortality of his legend.[^19] +Murray proposed that Hitler might arrange to be killed by a German, perhaps by a Jew, completing the myth of the hero's death at the hand of a trusted follower, on the pattern of Siegfried stabbed by Hagen, Caesar by Brutus, and Christ betrayed by Judas.[^19] On suicide, Murray wrote that Hitler had often vowed he would kill himself if his plans miscarried, but that if he chose that course he would do it at the last moment and in the most dramatic possible manner.[^19] In the closing section Murray named insanity to some extent, dramatic suicide and death at the front as the outcomes that seemed most probable, on the assumption that Hitler's chief concern was the immortality of his legend.[^20] ### Assassination schemes -[[Stanley Lovell]], who headed OSS Research and Development, wrote in his memoir of several schemes to kill Hitler. He took up Langer's idea that Hitler had feminine tendencies and got permission to try to push him over the gender line with female hormones, hoping his moustache would fall off and his voice would rise. The OSS agent network was used to try to slip the hormones into Hitler's food. Other plans included blinding him with mustard gas and a drug to aggravate his suspected epilepsy, and a plan to hypnotize a German prisoner into assassinating him, which a consulting psychiatrist judged unworkable. Lovell also reported that the main problem in these operations was getting Hitler to take the medicine.[^20] +[[Stanley Lovell]], who headed OSS Research and Development, wrote in his memoir of several schemes to kill Hitler. He took up Langer's idea that Hitler had feminine tendencies and got permission to try to push him over the gender line with female hormones, hoping his moustache would fall off and his voice would rise. The OSS agent network was used to try to slip the hormones into Hitler's food. Other plans included blinding him with mustard gas and a drug to aggravate his suspected epilepsy, and a plan to hypnotize a German prisoner into assassinating him, which a consulting psychiatrist judged unworkable. Lovell also reported that the main problem in these operations was getting Hitler to take the medicine.[^21] ### Marriage, will and testament, April 1945 -The document the prosecution at Nuremberg numbered 3569-PS is a translation of a private will and a political testament dated April 29, 1945, with a covering note from Martin Bormann of the same date. In the private will Hitler wrote that he had decided to take as his wife the woman who had entered the besieged city to share his fate, that at her desire she went with him into death, and that he and his wife chose death "in order to escape the disgrace of deposition or capitulation" and wished to be burnt on the spot. He named Bormann executor, and left his picture collections to a gallery in [[Linz]]. The will bears the signatures of Bormann, Dr. Fuhr and [[Nicolaus von Below]] as witnesses.[^21] +The document the prosecution at Nuremberg numbered 3569-PS is a translation of a private will and a political testament dated April 29, 1945, with a covering note from Martin Bormann of the same date. In the private will Hitler wrote that he had decided to take as his wife the woman who had entered the besieged city to share his fate, that at her desire she went with him into death, and that he and his wife chose death "in order to escape the disgrace of deposition or capitulation" and wished to be burnt on the spot. He named Bormann executor, and left his picture collections to a gallery in [[Linz]]. The will bears the signatures of Bormann, Dr. Fuhr and [[Nicolaus von Below]] as witnesses.[^22] -In the political testament Hitler attributed the outbreak of the war to international statesmen of Jewish descent or working for Jewish interests, and stated that he would remain in Berlin and choose death. In the second part he expelled Göring and Himmler from the party for secret negotiations with the enemy, appointed Grand Admiral [[Karl Dönitz]] President of the Reich and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, [[Joseph Goebbels]] Chancellor, Bormann Party Minister, and named [[Karl Hanke]] to succeed Himmler as Reichsführer-SS. The testament is witnessed by Josef Fuhr, [[Wilhelm Burgdorf]], Bormann and [[Hans Krebs]]. The editors of the Nuremberg volume noted that the document was not introduced into evidence because there was not sufficient time to verify its authenticity.[^22] +In the political testament Hitler attributed the outbreak of the war to international statesmen of Jewish descent or working for Jewish interests, and stated that he would remain in Berlin and choose death. In the second part he expelled Göring and Himmler from the party for secret negotiations with the enemy, appointed Grand Admiral [[Karl Dönitz]] President of the Reich and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, [[Joseph Goebbels]] Chancellor, Bormann Party Minister, and named [[Karl Hanke]] to succeed Himmler as Reichsführer-SS. The testament is witnessed by Josef Fuhr, [[Wilhelm Burgdorf]], Bormann and [[Hans Krebs]]. The editors of the Nuremberg volume noted that the document was not introduced into evidence because there was not sufficient time to verify its authenticity.[^23] -The FBI file on Hitler contains a March 6, 1946 memorandum recording that the Army's Military Intelligence Service had prepared a bound brochure of the marriage certificate, private will and political testament from captured documents, that General Vandenberg wanted the Bureau to compare the signatures with captured official documents, and that the Army asked that its possession of the documents be kept secret until the President announced it. The Bureau's laboratory report of March 13, 1946, addressed to the Chief of Staff, G-2, War Department, analyzed paper, condition, typewriting and handwriting. It stated that the paper was consistent in every respect with the ostensible source, that the marriage form had been completed in ink by a registrar, Walter Wagner, and that entries in other inks and hands were evidence of the impromptu nature of the ceremony.[^23] +The FBI file on Hitler contains a March 6, 1946 memorandum recording that the Army's Military Intelligence Service had prepared a bound brochure of the marriage certificate, private will and political testament from captured documents, that General Vandenberg wanted the Bureau to compare the signatures with captured official documents, and that the Army asked that its possession of the documents be kept secret until the President announced it. The Bureau's laboratory report of March 13, 1946, addressed to the Chief of Staff, G-2, War Department, analyzed paper, condition, typewriting and handwriting. It stated that the paper was consistent in every respect with the ostensible source, that the marriage form had been completed in ink by a registrar, Walter Wagner, and that entries in other inks and hands were evidence of the impromptu nature of the ceremony.[^24] -In notes that Bormann took during the final months, published by [[François Genoud]], Hitler recalled [[Frederick the Great]]'s winter of 1762, when Frederick resolved to take poison if no change came by a date he had fixed. A few days before that date the Tsarina died, and the situation reversed.[^24] +In notes that Bormann took during the final months, published by [[François Genoud]], Hitler recalled [[Frederick the Great]]'s winter of 1762, when Frederick resolved to take poison if no change came by a date he had fixed. A few days before that date the Tsarina died, and the situation reversed.[^25] ### Death in Berlin and the Soviet record [[Morris Leikind]], whose medical study of Hitler was released by the CIA, wrote that it is generally believed he shot himself, and that information published in [[Russia]] alleged death by cyanide poisoning rather than a gunshot wound.[^1] Leikind wrote that Hitler died by suicide in his bunker beneath the ruins of the Chancellery on April 30, 1945, with his newly wedded wife, [[Eva Braun]].[^1] -A Soviet forensic commission sitting at [[Berlin-Buch]] on May 8, 1945 examined a fire-damaged male corpse presumed to be Hitler's. It concluded that death was caused by poisoning with cyanide compounds, and the identification that followed rested in part on dental bridgework and jawbone fragments.[^25] The commission's summary reached the same conclusion for the female corpse presumed to be Braun's.[^26] Leikind wrote that, contrary to other published reports, the protocols showed poisoning, with the odor of cyanide still detectable in the mouth and slivers of glass from a capsule present, and that the protocols seemed to have been "edited."[^27] +A Soviet forensic commission sitting at [[Berlin-Buch]] on May 8, 1945 examined a fire-damaged male corpse presumed to be Hitler's. It concluded that death was caused by poisoning with cyanide compounds, and the identification that followed rested in part on dental bridgework and jawbone fragments.[^26] The commission's summary reached the same conclusion for the female corpse presumed to be Braun's.[^27] Leikind wrote that, contrary to other published reports, the protocols showed poisoning, with the odor of cyanide still detectable in the mouth and slivers of glass from a capsule present, and that the protocols seemed to have been "edited."[^28] -An OSS cable of August 7, 1945 discussed transmitting a report on Hitler's dentition to Soviet officers, and suggested that [[Allen Dulles]] be instructed to give copies of the reports directly to Russian officers in Berlin. According to the OSS message, the War Department was disturbed over the exchange of communications through [[John R. Deane]].[^28] A related message in the same file concerns fingerprints that were to be obtained from [[Munich]] police records.[^28] +An OSS cable of August 7, 1945 discussed transmitting a report on Hitler's dentition to Soviet officers, and suggested that [[Allen Dulles]] be instructed to give copies of the reports directly to Russian officers in Berlin. According to the OSS message, the War Department was disturbed over the exchange of communications through [[John R. Deane]].[^29] A related message in the same file concerns fingerprints that were to be obtained from [[Munich]] police records.[^29] ### Claims of survival -On September 21, 1945, the Los Angeles office of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] filed a report titled "Hitler Hideout" on information obtained from a [[Hollywood]] source in July 1945. The source reported that a friend, talking in front of the Melody Lane restaurant, said he was one of four men who met Hitler when he landed from two submarines in [[Argentina]] about two and a half weeks after the fall of Berlin. The account described a ranch in the foothills of the southern Andes, six Argentine officials who had aided the party, and a payment of $15,000 for helping in the hiding place. According to the source, Hitler suffered from asthma and ulcers and had shaved off his mustache.[^29] The information was given to a reporter for the [[Los Angeles Examiner]] on July 29, 1945.[^29] The Bureau's summary says that the information could not be verified, that efforts to locate the friend were negative, and that there was no record of Hitler in police or [[Immigration and Naturalization Service]] files.[^30] +On September 21, 1945, the Los Angeles office of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] filed a report titled "Hitler Hideout" on information obtained from a [[Hollywood]] source in July 1945. The source reported that a friend, talking in front of the Melody Lane restaurant, said he was one of four men who met Hitler when he landed from two submarines in [[Argentina]] about two and a half weeks after the fall of Berlin. The account described a ranch in the foothills of the southern Andes, six Argentine officials who had aided the party, and a payment of $15,000 for helping in the hiding place. According to the source, Hitler suffered from asthma and ulcers and had shaved off his mustache.[^30] The information was given to a reporter for the [[Los Angeles Examiner]] on July 29, 1945.[^30] The Bureau's summary says that the information could not be verified, that efforts to locate the friend were negative, and that there was no record of Hitler in police or [[Immigration and Naturalization Service]] files.[^31] -The same file holds translations dated July 28, 1948 of two newspaper items from [[Bogotá]], [[Colombia]]. The first summarized a letter dated April 27, 1948 from [[Oranjestad]], [[Aruba]], addressed to the newspaper [[El Tiempo]] and signed "Amigo, amigo, amigo," which stated that Hitler was in Bogotá, had landed from a submarine on the coast of the Guajira on July 19, 1945 with six men and three million dollars, and intended after a war between the United States and the Soviet Union to head a western crusade against Bolshevism.[^31] In El Tiempo of June 20, 1948, under a headline connecting the story to the assassination of [[Jorge Eliécer Gaitán]], a second correspondent who claimed to be Colombian wrote that he had known of Hitler's plans since January 1945 and that the death of Gaitán would have been a master coup against Communism on Hitler's part; the newspaper reported that the first writer had demanded 50,000 dollars to reveal more.[^31] The Director of the Bureau forwarded translations of the clippings to the State Department's Division of Foreign Activity Correlation, with a copy to the Director of Central Intelligence.[^31] +The same file holds translations dated July 28, 1948 of two newspaper items from [[Bogotá]], [[Colombia]]. The first summarized a letter dated April 27, 1948 from [[Oranjestad]], [[Aruba]], addressed to the newspaper [[El Tiempo]] and signed "Amigo, amigo, amigo," which stated that Hitler was in Bogotá, had landed from a submarine on the coast of the Guajira on July 19, 1945 with six men and three million dollars, and intended after a war between the United States and the Soviet Union to head a western crusade against Bolshevism.[^32] In El Tiempo of June 20, 1948, under a headline connecting the story to the assassination of [[Jorge Eliécer Gaitán]], a second correspondent who claimed to be Colombian wrote that he had known of Hitler's plans since January 1945 and that the death of Gaitán would have been a master coup against Communism on Hitler's part; the newspaper reported that the first writer had demanded 50,000 dollars to reveal more.[^32] The Director of the Bureau forwarded translations of the clippings to the State Department's Division of Foreign Activity Correlation, with a copy to the Director of Central Intelligence.[^32] -On October 3, 1955, the acting chief of a CIA station forwarded a report to the chief of the [[Western Hemisphere Division]] from a source in [[Maracaibo]], identified by the codename MELODY-3. In the latter part of September 1955 a friend who had served under the source in Europe told him that a former German SS trooper, identified by the codename CITROEN, had said that Hitler was still alive. CITROEN was said to have contacted Hitler about once a month in Colombia while working for a Dutch shipping company in Maracaibo, and to have said that Hitler left Colombia for Argentina around January 1955.[^32] The friend obtained a photograph that CITROEN referred to. On September 29 the source was shown it to obtain his reaction to the possible veracity of the story, and the station made photostats before the photograph went back to its owner the next day. The station's assessment was that the man on the right is "undoubtedly the person which CITROEN claims is HITLER." The reverse carried an inscription with the first name Adolf, a town in Colombia and the year 1954.[^32] The station wrote that neither it nor the source was in a position to give an intelligent evaluation of the information, which was forwarded as of possible interest.[^33] +On October 3, 1955, the acting chief of a CIA station forwarded a report to the chief of the [[Western Hemisphere Division]] from a source in [[Maracaibo]], identified by the codename MELODY-3. In the latter part of September 1955 a friend who had served under the source in Europe told him that a former German SS trooper, identified by the codename CITROEN, had said that Hitler was still alive. CITROEN was said to have contacted Hitler about once a month in Colombia while working for a Dutch shipping company in Maracaibo, and to have said that Hitler left Colombia for Argentina around January 1955.[^33] The friend obtained a photograph that CITROEN referred to. On September 29 the source was shown it to obtain his reaction to the possible veracity of the story, and the station made photostats before the photograph went back to its owner the next day. The station's assessment was that the man on the right is "undoubtedly the person which CITROEN claims is HITLER." The reverse carried an inscription with the first name Adolf, a town in Colombia and the year 1954.[^33] The station wrote that neither it nor the source was in a position to give an intelligent evaluation of the information, which was forwarded as of possible interest.[^34] ### Neo-Nazi veneration -[[James Mason]]'s *[[Siege]]*, the collected newsletters of the [[National Socialist Liberation Front]], names Hitler throughout. In an issue dated August 1980 Mason wrote that [[Joseph Tommasi]] "did the very same thing as Adolf Hitler" and that "perhaps his is the closest comparison to Hitler's methodology to date."[^34] The 2021 edition carries a foreword by Mason that closes "Heil Hitler!"[^34] The [[International Centre for Counter-Terrorism]] study by Bethan Johnson and Matthew Feldman states that propaganda of the "Siege Culture" milieu falls into three categories, the first being praise of Nazi and neo-Nazi predecessors, in which images of Hitler, Mason, Tommasi and Charles Manson are often featured in imposing stances.[^35] The same study records that activists of the [[Iron March]] forum released what became the third edition of Siege in 2015, and that [[Atomwaffen Division]], which publicly emerged that year, made the book required reading for new members.[^36] The [[Counter Extremism Project]] reports that the original Siege Culture website's library included Hitler's *Mein Kampf*, and that Atomwaffen Division posted a video in 2017 of masked members raising their arms in a "Heil Hitler" salute before a swastika flag with the message "Join your local Nazis."[^37] +[[James Mason]]'s *[[Siege]]*, the collected newsletters of the [[National Socialist Liberation Front]], names Hitler throughout. In an issue dated August 1980 Mason wrote that [[Joseph Tommasi]] "did the very same thing as Adolf Hitler" and that "perhaps his is the closest comparison to Hitler's methodology to date."[^35] The 2021 edition carries a foreword by Mason that closes "Heil Hitler!"[^35] The [[International Centre for Counter-Terrorism]] study by Bethan Johnson and Matthew Feldman states that propaganda of the "Siege Culture" milieu falls into three categories, the first being praise of Nazi and neo-Nazi predecessors, in which images of Hitler, Mason, Tommasi and Charles Manson are often featured in imposing stances.[^36] The same study records that activists of the [[Iron March]] forum released what became the third edition of Siege in 2015, and that [[Atomwaffen Division]], which publicly emerged that year, made the book required reading for new members.[^37] The [[Counter Extremism Project]] reports that the original Siege Culture website's library included Hitler's *Mein Kampf*, and that Atomwaffen Division posted a video in 2017 of masked members raising their arms in a "Heil Hitler" salute before a swastika flag with the message "Join your local Nazis."[^38] -[[Combat 18]], founded in early 1992 by [[Charlie Sargent]] and [[Wilf Browning]] as a stewarding group for the [[British National Party]], takes its name from the initials of Adolf Hitler (A=1, H=8), according to [[Nick Lowles]].[^38] The German [[Federal Ministry of the Interior]] banned the association Combat 18 Deutschland on January 23, 2020; Combat 18 does not appear in Schedule 2 of the Terrorism Act 2000.[^39] [[Jack Reed]] described himself in writing as a "natural sadist" and expressed admiration for Hitler, according to press reports of his case.[^40] [[Jacek Tchorzewski]] kept a collection of extreme right-wing material that praised Hitler, neo-Nazism and Satanism, including antisemitic content calling for genocide, according to the [[Campaign Against Antisemitism]].[^41] +[[Combat 18]], founded in early 1992 by [[Charlie Sargent]] and [[Wilf Browning]] as a stewarding group for the [[British National Party]], takes its name from the initials of Adolf Hitler (A=1, H=8), according to [[Nick Lowles]].[^39] The German [[Federal Ministry of the Interior]] banned the association Combat 18 Deutschland on January 23, 2020; Combat 18 does not appear in Schedule 2 of the Terrorism Act 2000.[^40] [[Jack Reed]] described himself in writing as a "natural sadist" and expressed admiration for Hitler, according to press reports of his case.[^41] [[Jacek Tchorzewski]] kept a collection of extreme right-wing material that praised Hitler, neo-Nazism and Satanism, including antisemitic content calling for genocide, according to the [[Campaign Against Antisemitism]].[^42] ### Postwar continuities -[[Edwin Black]] wrote that after the Nazi government awarded [[Thomas J. Watson]], chairman of [[IBM]], the Merit Cross of the German Eagle with Star in 1937, Watson on May 16, 1940 asked Secretary of State [[Cordell Hull]] whether the government wanted him to return the medal. Hull replied that the decision "will have to rest entirely with you, and is not one upon which this Government would be able to take a position." Watson returned the medal to Hitler on June 6, 1940 with a letter, released to the newspapers, stating that "the present policies of your government are contrary to the causes for which I have been working and for which I received the decoration."[^42] +[[Edwin Black]] wrote that after the Nazi government awarded [[Thomas J. Watson]], chairman of [[IBM]], the Merit Cross of the German Eagle with Star in 1937, Watson on May 16, 1940 asked Secretary of State [[Cordell Hull]] whether the government wanted him to return the medal. Hull replied that the decision "will have to rest entirely with you, and is not one upon which this Government would be able to take a position." Watson returned the medal to Hitler on June 6, 1940 with a letter, released to the newspapers, stating that "the present policies of your government are contrary to the causes for which I have been working and for which I received the decoration."[^43] -[[Reinhard Gehlen]], who had headed the [[Wehrmacht]]'s [[Fremde Heere Ost]] directorate, wrote in his memoir that Hitler ordered his dismissal about a month after March 5, 1945, that his staff held a farewell party on April 12, and that he supervised the microfilming and burying of the directorate's files in secret locations in the Bavarian mountains, with three hideouts for his staff in the Alps.[^43] A statement by his deputy [[Gerhard Wessel]], reproduced in a CIA documentary history, records that Hitler relieved Gehlen on April 9, 1945 after Gehlen was presented to him in February or March, and that the microfilmed files were moved to three sites in southern Germany, near Schliersee, the Wilder Kaiser and Marquartstein.[^44] +[[Reinhard Gehlen]], who had headed the [[Wehrmacht]]'s [[Fremde Heere Ost]] directorate, wrote in his memoir that Hitler ordered his dismissal about a month after March 5, 1945, that his staff held a farewell party on April 12, and that he supervised the microfilming and burying of the directorate's files in secret locations in the Bavarian mountains, with three hideouts for his staff in the Alps.[^44] A statement by his deputy [[Gerhard Wessel]], reproduced in a CIA documentary history, records that Hitler relieved Gehlen on April 9, 1945 after Gehlen was presented to him in February or March, and that the microfilmed files were moved to three sites in southern Germany, near Schliersee, the Wilder Kaiser and Marquartstein.[^45] ### Footnotes @@ -136,43 +136,44 @@ On October 3, 1955, the acting chief of a CIA station forwarded a report to the [^2]: International Military Tribunal, Judgment, October 1, 1946. Avalon Project, Yale Law School. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/judnazi.asp [^3]: International Military Tribunal, Judgment, October 1, 1946, section on the Gestapo. Avalon Project, Yale Law School. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/judnazi.asp [^4]: Helms, Richard, with William Hood. *A Look Over My Shoulder: A Life in the Central Intelligence Agency*. New York: Random House, 2003, pp. 22-25. -[^5]: Speer, Albert. *Inside the Third Reich*. Translated by Richard and Clara Winston. Macmillan, 1970, pp. 94-95. https://archive.org/details/inside-the-third-reich-memoirs-by-albert-speer -[^6]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis*. Little, Brown and Company, 2017. -[^7]: Kurlander, Eric. "The Nazi Magicians' Controversy: Enlightenment, 'Border Science,' and Occultism in the Third Reich." *Central European History* 48, no. 4 (December 2015): 498-522, as quoted in Frey, Angelica. "Border Science vs. Commercial Occultism: A Nazi Debate." JSTOR Daily. https://daily.jstor.org/border-science-vs-commercial-occultism-a-nazi-debate/ -[^8]: CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230018-6, p. 208, chapter "New Psychic Frontiers," citing Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier, *The Morning of the Magicians* (1960). -[^9]: Dietz, P.A. "A successful psychometric experiment with the clairvoyant E. Hanussen." *Tijdschrift voor Parapsychologie*, 1930/31, 3, 70-76, as annotated in CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP96-00792R000700700002-2, item 01377. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00792r000700700002-2 -[^10]: Langer, Walter C. *The Mind of Adolf Hitler: The Secret Wartime Report*. Basic Books, 1972, chapter on the OSS request. -[^11]: Langer, Walter C. *A Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler: His Life and Legend*. Office of Strategic Services, 1943 (title page). CIA Reading Room document C02571145. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-02571145 -[^12]: Langer, *A Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler*, 1943, p. 86 as paginated in the CIA copy. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-02571145 -[^13]: Langer, *The Mind of Adolf Hitler*, 1972, chapter on the collaborators' diagnosis. -[^14]: Langer, *A Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler*, 1943, section "Femininity," p. 122 as paginated in the CIA copy. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-02571145 -[^15]: Langer, *A Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler*, 1943, p. 155 as paginated in the CIA copy; repeated in *The Mind of Adolf Hitler*, 1972, section "Hitler's Death." https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-02571145 -[^16]: Murray, Henry A. *Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler, with Predictions of His Future Behavior and Suggestions for Dealing with Him Now and after Germany's Surrender*. Harvard Psychological Clinic, October 1943. https://archive.org/details/AnalysisOfThePersonalityOfAdolphHitler. Same text in CIA Reading Room document 02617886. -[^17]: Murray, *Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler*, pp. 29-30. https://archive.org/details/AnalysisOfThePersonalityOfAdolphHitler -[^18]: Murray, *Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler*, pp. 30-32. https://archive.org/details/AnalysisOfThePersonalityOfAdolphHitler -[^19]: Murray, *Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler*, p. 33. https://archive.org/details/AnalysisOfThePersonalityOfAdolphHitler -[^20]: Lovell, Stanley P. *Of Spies and Stratagems*. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963, pp. 84-85 and 89-90. https://archive.org/details/ofspiesstratagem0000stan -[^21]: Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality. *Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression*, vol. VI. Government Printing Office, 1946. Document 3569-PS, translation of the covering letter of Martin Bormann, April 29, 1945, and Hitler's "Private Will and Testament," pp. 257-259. https://archive.org/details/naziconspiracyag06unit -[^22]: Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, vol. VI, document 3569-PS, "My political Testament" and "Second Part of the Political Testament," pp. 259-262, with the editors' note on authentication. https://archive.org/details/naziconspiracyag06unit -[^23]: FBI Vault, Adolf Hitler file: office memorandum of March 6, 1946 and Laboratory report of March 13, 1946 on the examination of the bound "Adolf Hitler: Certificate of Marriage, Private Will and Political Testament" for the War Department. https://vault.fbi.gov/adolf-hitler -[^24]: Martin Bormann's notes of Hitler's conversations, February to April 1945, published as *The Political Testament of Adolf Hitler*, edited by François Genoud (1961 edition). https://archive.org/details/PoliticalTestamentOfAdolfHitler -[^25]: CIA Reading Room document C00416337, "The Death of Adolf Hitler: Unknown Documents from Soviet Archives," Document No. 12, forensic examination of a male corpse at Berlin-Buch, May 8, 1945. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00416337 -[^26]: CIA Reading Room document C00416337, "The Death of Adolf Hitler: Unknown Documents from Soviet Archives," Document No. 13 and the commission summary. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00416337 -[^27]: Leikind, Morris. "Studies in Pathography II: Adolph Hitler," p. 32. CIA Reading Room document C00416336. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00416336 -[^28]: OSS cable of August 7, 1945, in CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP13X00001R000100200005-7. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp13x00001r000100200005-7 -[^29]: FBI Vault, "Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)," Part 01 of 04, "Report on Hitler Hideout," Los Angeles file 105-410, September 21, 1945, p. 2. https://vault.fbi.gov/adolf-hitler -[^30]: FBI Vault, "Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)," Part 01 of 04, "Report on Hitler Hideout," Los Angeles file 105-410, September 21, 1945, p. 1 (synopsis). https://vault.fbi.gov/adolf-hitler -[^31]: FBI Vault, Adolf Hitler file: translations summarized July 28, 1948 of "Nueva York al Dia," May 22, 1948, and *El Tiempo* (Bogotá), June 20, 1948, with the Director's transmittal to the Division of Foreign Activity Correlation, State Department, copy to the Director of Central Intelligence. https://archive.org/details/fbi-hitler-adolf-ocr -[^32]: CIA Reading Room document C00460209, dispatch No. 2592 from the acting chief of station to the Chief, WHD, dated October 3, 1955. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00460209 -[^33]: CIA Reading Room document C00460209, dispatch of October 3, 1955, closing paragraph. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00460209 -[^34]: Mason, James. *Siege: The Collected Writings of James Mason*, 2021 edition, foreword and "Serious Steps," *Siege* vol. IX, no. 4 (August 1980). https://archive.org/details/siege-the-collected-writings-james-mason -[^35]: Johnson, Bethan, and Matthew Feldman. "Siege Culture After Siege: Anatomy of a Neo-Nazi Terrorist Doctrine." International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, p. 12. https://icct.nl/sites/default/files/2022-12/siege-culture-neo-nazi-terrorist-doctrine.pdf -[^36]: Johnson and Feldman, "Siege Culture After Siege," pp. 12-13. https://icct.nl/sites/default/files/2022-12/siege-culture-neo-nazi-terrorist-doctrine.pdf -[^37]: Counter Extremism Project. "James Mason's Siege: Ties to Extremists," March 4, 2022. https://www.counterextremism.com/themes/custom/cep/templates/reports/sieges_ties_to_extremists/files/James_Mason_Siege_Ties_to_Extremists_030422.pdf -[^38]: Lowles, Nick. *White Riot: The Violent Story of Combat 18*. Milo Books, 2001. -[^39]: Beck-aktuell. "Seehofer verbietet rechtsextremistischen Verein 'Combat 18 Deutschland,'" January 23, 2020. https://www.beck-aktuell.de/heute-im-recht/rechtsgeschehen/seehofer-verbietet-rechtsextremistischen-verein-combat-18-deutschland-2020-01-23; Terrorism Act 2000, Schedule 2, as amended, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/schedule/2; Home Office, "Proscribed terrorist groups or organisations," updated July 7, 2026. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/proscribed-terror-groups-or-organisations--2 -[^40]: Enfield Independent. "Nazi terrorist named after judge rejects anonymity bid." 2021. https://www.enfieldindependent.co.uk/news/national/19002125.nazi-terrorist-named-judge-rejects-anonymity-bid/ -[^41]: Campaign Against Antisemitism. "Hitler-loving neo-Nazi who said it was his 'dream' to create a bloodbath arrested at Luton Airport and sentenced to four years." September 2019. https://antisemitism.org/hitler-loving-neo-nazi-who-said-it-was-his-dream-to-create-a-bloodbath-arrested-at-luton-airport-and-sentenced-to-four-years-in-prison -[^42]: Black, Edwin. *IBM and the Holocaust*. Crown, 2001, chapters on 1940. https://archive.org/details/ibm-and-the-holocaust-the-strategic-alliance-between-nazi-germany-and-americas-m -[^43]: Gehlen, Reinhard. *The Service: The Memoirs of General Reinhard Gehlen*. World Publishing, 1972. https://archive.org/details/theservicethememoirsofgeneralreinhardgehlen -[^44]: Central Intelligence Agency. *Forging an Intelligence Partnership: CIA and the Origins of the BND, 1945-49*, vol. I, Document 1, "Statement of Gerhard Wessel on Development of the German Organization," and chronology. https://archive.org/details/CIAANDTHEORIGINSOFTHEBND1945-49VOL1-0001 +[^5]: Georgetown University Library, Booth Family Center for Special Collections, "Richard M. Helms Papers," biographical note, https://findingaids.library.georgetown.edu/repositories/15/resources/10290 (United Press staff correspondent 1935 to 1937; "he attended a lunch given by Adolph Hitler in 1936"). +[^6]: Speer, Albert. *Inside the Third Reich*. Translated by Richard and Clara Winston. Macmillan, 1970, pp. 94-95. https://archive.org/details/inside-the-third-reich-memoirs-by-albert-speer +[^7]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis*. Little, Brown and Company, 2017. +[^8]: Kurlander, Eric. "The Nazi Magicians' Controversy: Enlightenment, 'Border Science,' and Occultism in the Third Reich." *Central European History* 48, no. 4 (December 2015): 498-522, as quoted in Frey, Angelica. "Border Science vs. Commercial Occultism: A Nazi Debate." JSTOR Daily. https://daily.jstor.org/border-science-vs-commercial-occultism-a-nazi-debate/ +[^9]: CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230018-6, p. 208, chapter "New Psychic Frontiers," citing Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier, *The Morning of the Magicians* (1960). +[^10]: Dietz, P.A. "A successful psychometric experiment with the clairvoyant E. Hanussen." *Tijdschrift voor Parapsychologie*, 1930/31, 3, 70-76, as annotated in CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP96-00792R000700700002-2, item 01377. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00792r000700700002-2 +[^11]: Langer, Walter C. *The Mind of Adolf Hitler: The Secret Wartime Report*. Basic Books, 1972, chapter on the OSS request. +[^12]: Langer, Walter C. *A Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler: His Life and Legend*. Office of Strategic Services, 1943 (title page). CIA Reading Room document C02571145. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-02571145 +[^13]: Langer, *A Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler*, 1943, p. 86 as paginated in the CIA copy. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-02571145 +[^14]: Langer, *The Mind of Adolf Hitler*, 1972, chapter on the collaborators' diagnosis. +[^15]: Langer, *A Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler*, 1943, section "Femininity," p. 122 as paginated in the CIA copy. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-02571145 +[^16]: Langer, *A Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler*, 1943, p. 155 as paginated in the CIA copy; repeated in *The Mind of Adolf Hitler*, 1972, section "Hitler's Death." https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-02571145 +[^17]: Murray, Henry A. *Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler, with Predictions of His Future Behavior and Suggestions for Dealing with Him Now and after Germany's Surrender*. Harvard Psychological Clinic, October 1943. https://archive.org/details/AnalysisOfThePersonalityOfAdolphHitler. Same text in CIA Reading Room document 02617886. +[^18]: Murray, *Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler*, pp. 29-30. https://archive.org/details/AnalysisOfThePersonalityOfAdolphHitler +[^19]: Murray, *Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler*, pp. 30-32. https://archive.org/details/AnalysisOfThePersonalityOfAdolphHitler +[^20]: Murray, *Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler*, p. 33. https://archive.org/details/AnalysisOfThePersonalityOfAdolphHitler +[^21]: Lovell, Stanley P. *Of Spies and Stratagems*. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963, pp. 84-85 and 89-90. https://archive.org/details/ofspiesstratagem0000stan +[^22]: Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality. *Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression*, vol. VI. Government Printing Office, 1946. Document 3569-PS, translation of the covering letter of Martin Bormann, April 29, 1945, and Hitler's "Private Will and Testament," pp. 257-259. https://archive.org/details/naziconspiracyag06unit +[^23]: Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, vol. VI, document 3569-PS, "My political Testament" and "Second Part of the Political Testament," pp. 259-262, with the editors' note on authentication. https://archive.org/details/naziconspiracyag06unit +[^24]: FBI Vault, Adolf Hitler file: office memorandum of March 6, 1946 and Laboratory report of March 13, 1946 on the examination of the bound "Adolf Hitler: Certificate of Marriage, Private Will and Political Testament" for the War Department. https://vault.fbi.gov/adolf-hitler +[^25]: Martin Bormann's notes of Hitler's conversations, February to April 1945, published as *The Political Testament of Adolf Hitler*, edited by François Genoud (1961 edition). https://archive.org/details/PoliticalTestamentOfAdolfHitler +[^26]: CIA Reading Room document C00416337, "The Death of Adolf Hitler: Unknown Documents from Soviet Archives," Document No. 12, forensic examination of a male corpse at Berlin-Buch, May 8, 1945. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00416337 +[^27]: CIA Reading Room document C00416337, "The Death of Adolf Hitler: Unknown Documents from Soviet Archives," Document No. 13 and the commission summary. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00416337 +[^28]: Leikind, Morris. "Studies in Pathography II: Adolph Hitler," p. 32. CIA Reading Room document C00416336. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00416336 +[^29]: OSS cable of August 7, 1945, in CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP13X00001R000100200005-7. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp13x00001r000100200005-7 +[^30]: FBI Vault, "Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)," Part 01 of 04, "Report on Hitler Hideout," Los Angeles file 105-410, September 21, 1945, p. 2. https://vault.fbi.gov/adolf-hitler +[^31]: FBI Vault, "Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)," Part 01 of 04, "Report on Hitler Hideout," Los Angeles file 105-410, September 21, 1945, p. 1 (synopsis). https://vault.fbi.gov/adolf-hitler +[^32]: FBI Vault, Adolf Hitler file: translations summarized July 28, 1948 of "Nueva York al Dia," May 22, 1948, and *El Tiempo* (Bogotá), June 20, 1948, with the Director's transmittal to the Division of Foreign Activity Correlation, State Department, copy to the Director of Central Intelligence. https://archive.org/details/fbi-hitler-adolf-ocr +[^33]: CIA Reading Room document C00460209, dispatch No. 2592 from the acting chief of station to the Chief, WHD, dated October 3, 1955. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00460209 +[^34]: CIA Reading Room document C00460209, dispatch of October 3, 1955, closing paragraph. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00460209 +[^35]: Mason, James. *Siege: The Collected Writings of James Mason*, 2021 edition, foreword and "Serious Steps," *Siege* vol. IX, no. 4 (August 1980). https://archive.org/details/siege-the-collected-writings-james-mason +[^36]: Johnson, Bethan, and Matthew Feldman. "Siege Culture After Siege: Anatomy of a Neo-Nazi Terrorist Doctrine." International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, p. 12. https://icct.nl/sites/default/files/2022-12/siege-culture-neo-nazi-terrorist-doctrine.pdf +[^37]: Johnson and Feldman, "Siege Culture After Siege," pp. 12-13. https://icct.nl/sites/default/files/2022-12/siege-culture-neo-nazi-terrorist-doctrine.pdf +[^38]: Counter Extremism Project. "James Mason's Siege: Ties to Extremists," March 4, 2022. https://www.counterextremism.com/themes/custom/cep/templates/reports/sieges_ties_to_extremists/files/James_Mason_Siege_Ties_to_Extremists_030422.pdf +[^39]: Lowles, Nick. *White Riot: The Violent Story of Combat 18*. Milo Books, 2001. +[^40]: Beck-aktuell. "Seehofer verbietet rechtsextremistischen Verein 'Combat 18 Deutschland,'" January 23, 2020. https://www.beck-aktuell.de/heute-im-recht/rechtsgeschehen/seehofer-verbietet-rechtsextremistischen-verein-combat-18-deutschland-2020-01-23; Terrorism Act 2000, Schedule 2, as amended, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/schedule/2; Home Office, "Proscribed terrorist groups or organisations," updated July 7, 2026. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/proscribed-terror-groups-or-organisations--2 +[^41]: Enfield Independent. "Nazi terrorist named after judge rejects anonymity bid." 2021. https://www.enfieldindependent.co.uk/news/national/19002125.nazi-terrorist-named-judge-rejects-anonymity-bid/ +[^42]: Campaign Against Antisemitism. "Hitler-loving neo-Nazi who said it was his 'dream' to create a bloodbath arrested at Luton Airport and sentenced to four years." September 2019. https://antisemitism.org/hitler-loving-neo-nazi-who-said-it-was-his-dream-to-create-a-bloodbath-arrested-at-luton-airport-and-sentenced-to-four-years-in-prison +[^43]: Black, Edwin. *IBM and the Holocaust*. Crown, 2001, chapters on 1940. https://archive.org/details/ibm-and-the-holocaust-the-strategic-alliance-between-nazi-germany-and-americas-m +[^44]: Gehlen, Reinhard. *The Service: The Memoirs of General Reinhard Gehlen*. World Publishing, 1972. https://archive.org/details/theservicethememoirsofgeneralreinhardgehlen +[^45]: Central Intelligence Agency. *Forging an Intelligence Partnership: CIA and the Origins of the BND, 1945-49*, vol. I, Document 1, "Statement of Gerhard Wessel on Development of the German Organization," and chronology. https://archive.org/details/CIAANDTHEORIGINSOFTHEBND1945-49VOL1-0001 diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Alexander M. Haig, Jr..md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Alexander M. Haig, Jr..md index 000bc348..249575bd 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Alexander M. Haig, Jr..md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Alexander M. Haig, Jr..md @@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ relations: - type: reported_to with: "[[Henry A. Kissinger]]" role: "assistant and deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs" - fn: 5 + fn: 6 - type: participant_in with: "[[Halperin v. Kissinger]]" start: 1973-06 @@ -43,14 +43,14 @@ relations: start: 1973 end: 1974 role: "white house chief of staff" - fn: 13 + fn: 14 - type: investigated with: "[[Church Committee]]" reverse: true start: 1975-08-15 end: 1975-08-15 role: "testified on chile track ii" - fn: 5 + fn: 6 - type: head_of with: "[[Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe]]" start: 1974 @@ -68,12 +68,12 @@ relations: reverse: true end: 1982-06-25 role: "secretary of state" - fn: 22 + fn: 23 - type: participant_in with: "[[Haig v. Agee]]" end: 1981-06-29 role: "petitioner as secretary of state" - fn: 17 + fn: 18 - type: head_of with: "[[Worldwide Associates]]" start: 1984 @@ -85,37 +85,37 @@ relations: start: 1988-01-27 end: 1988-01-27 role: "$1,000 to haig for president" - fn: 14 + fn: 15 - type: director_of with: "[[MGM Mirage]]" start: 1990 role: "director" - fn: 29 + fn: 30 - type: contractor_to with: "[[MGM Mirage]]" start: 1990-05 role: "consultant; fees of $50,000 in 2000" - fn: 29 + fn: 30 - type: funded with: "[[MGM Mirage PAC]]" start: 2000-12-19 end: 2004-05-04 role: "three contributions totaling $2,500" - fn: 14 + fn: 15 - type: director_of with: "[[Interneuron Pharmaceuticals]]" role: "director" - fn: 29 + fn: 30 - type: contractor_to with: "[[SDC International]]" start: 1999-05 role: "strategic advisor; 1 to 2 percent of contracts obtained through his efforts" - fn: 13 + fn: 14 - type: director_of with: "[[SDC International]]" start: 2002-01 role: "director and proxy holder" - fn: 13 + fn: 14 - type: head_of with: "[[DOR BioPharma]]" start: 2002-12-23 @@ -126,15 +126,15 @@ relations: start: 1994-01-11 end: 2008-05-07 role: "contributions of $750 to $5,000 listing worldwide associates as employer" - fn: 14 + fn: 15 - type: contractor_to with: "[[International Signal and Control]]" start: 1985 end: 1987 role: "consulting work through Worldwide Associates, according to Haig's 1988 candidate filing" - fn: 27 + fn: 28 created: 2026-10-01 -updated: 2026-10-08 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Alexander Meigs Haig Jr. was born on December 2, 1924, in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, and died at about 1:30 a.m. on February 20, 2010, at [[Johns Hopkins Hospital]] in [[Baltimore]], at the age of 85; a hospital spokesman attributed his death to complications of an infection.[^1] He was military adviser and then deputy to [[Henry A. Kissinger]] at the [[National Security Council]], [[White House]] chief of staff to [[Richard Nixon]], Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, president of [[United Technologies Corporation]], and Secretary of State under President [[Ronald Reagan]].[^1][^2] Nixon promoted him in 1972 from two-star to four-star rank, passing over 240 officers with greater seniority.[^1] @@ -149,105 +149,106 @@ A memorandum from Haig to Kissinger dated June 4, 1969, supplied "talking points Halperin and his family sued in the [[United States District Court for the District of Columbia]] in June 1973 (Civil Action No. 1187-73), within a month of the government's admission at the trial of [[Daniel Ellsberg]] that Ellsberg had been overheard on the tap. The defendants were Nixon, Mitchell, Kissinger, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Haig, [[Jeb Magruder]], FBI Director [[Clarence Kelley]], the FBI official [[William C. Sullivan]] and Assistant Attorney General [[Robert Mardian]]; the [[Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company]] was also named. On cross-motions for summary judgment in December 1976 the district court ruled for all defendants except Nixon, Mitchell and Haldeman (424 F.Supp. 838), and in August 1977 it awarded $1 in nominal damages.[^3] -On July 12, 1979, the court of appeals (606 F.2d 1192) reversed on the application of Title III of the [[Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968]], on damages and on the summary judgment for Kissinger.[^3] The [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] affirmed in 1981 by an equally divided Court and dismissed certiorari as to Haldeman (452 U.S. 713). On remand the district court granted summary judgment to all defendants on qualified immunity (578 F.Supp. 231 (1984)). On December 5, 1986, in an opinion by Circuit Justice [[Antonin Scalia]] (807 F.2d 180), the court of appeals held that summary judgment was proper as to the initiation of the wiretap but not as to its continuation after May 1970, and remanded.[^4] +On July 12, 1979, the court of appeals (606 F.2d 1192) reversed on the application of Title III of the [[Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968]], on damages and on the summary judgment for Kissinger.[^3] In [[Kissinger v. Halperin]], 452 U.S. 713 (1981), decided per curiam on June 22, 1981, the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] affirmed the judgment as to Kissinger, Nixon and [[John N. Mitchell]] by an equally divided Court, and dismissed the writ of certiorari as to Haldeman as improvidently granted.[^4] On remand the district court granted summary judgment to all defendants on qualified immunity (578 F.Supp. 231 (1984)). On December 5, 1986, in an opinion by Circuit Justice [[Antonin Scalia]] (807 F.2d 180), the court of appeals held that summary judgment was proper as to the initiation of the wiretap but not as to its continuation after May 1970, and remanded.[^5] ### Laos and Chile, 1970 and 1971 -The Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, the [[Church Committee]], described Haig as "Kissinger's deputy" and recorded his contacts with [[Thomas Karamessines]], the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]'s Deputy Director for Plans, in October 1970, during the CIA's effort to prevent the inauguration of [[Salvador Allende]] in [[Chile]], the operation the Committee called Track II and the CIA's memoranda carried as [[Project FUBELT]]. Karamessines's calendar showed a lunch with Haig on October 8 and meetings on October 15, 19 and 22; on October 10 Karamessines told Haig by telephone, according to a CIA memorandum, that the Station had "made direct contact with a number of the senior military officers" and "received pessimistic reactions from all." At the October 15 meeting of Kissinger, Haig and Karamessines, the CIA memorandum recorded that General [[Roberto Viaux]] did not have more than one chance in twenty of a successful coup, that a message would be sent warning him against precipitate action, and that Kissinger instructed Karamessines to preserve Agency assets in Chile and keep up the pressure on Allende. The CIA cable sent to the Station on October 16 stated that it was "firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup."[^5] +The Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, the [[Church Committee]], described Haig as "Kissinger's deputy" and recorded his contacts with [[Thomas Karamessines]], the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]'s Deputy Director for Plans, in October 1970, during the CIA's effort to prevent the inauguration of [[Salvador Allende]] in [[Chile]], the operation the Committee called Track II and the CIA's memoranda carried as [[Project FUBELT]]. Karamessines's calendar showed a lunch with Haig on October 8 and meetings on October 15, 19 and 22; on October 10 Karamessines told Haig by telephone, according to a CIA memorandum, that the Station had "made direct contact with a number of the senior military officers" and "received pessimistic reactions from all." At the October 15 meeting of Kissinger, Haig and Karamessines, the CIA memorandum recorded that General [[Roberto Viaux]] did not have more than one chance in twenty of a successful coup, that a message would be sent warning him against precipitate action, and that Kissinger instructed Karamessines to preserve Agency assets in Chile and keep up the pressure on Allende. The CIA cable sent to the Station on October 16 stated that it was "firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup."[^6] -Kissinger and Haig testified that the October 15 meeting turned off the Agency's coup efforts and that afterwards they were neither informed of nor authorized Track II activities; CIA officials testified that their activities after October 15 were known to and authorized by the White House, and the Committee reported that it could not resolve the conflict. Haig testified on August 15, 1975, that he left the October 15 meeting "with the impression that there was nothing authorized," that he was not familiar with the Valenzuela plan or "$50,000" and had no recollection of a meeting with Karamessines on October 19, the afternoon of the day the Station's cable outlining the plan arrived, that word of the shooting of General [[Rene Schneider]] on October 22 came as "a great shock," and, asked whether he was informed before the attempted abduction, "I don't believe I was at all."[^5] +Kissinger and Haig testified that the October 15 meeting turned off the Agency's coup efforts and that afterwards they were neither informed of nor authorized Track II activities; CIA officials testified that their activities after October 15 were known to and authorized by the White House, and the Committee reported that it could not resolve the conflict. Haig testified on August 15, 1975, that he left the October 15 meeting "with the impression that there was nothing authorized," that he was not familiar with the Valenzuela plan or "$50,000" and had no recollection of a meeting with Karamessines on October 19, the afternoon of the day the Station's cable outlining the plan arrived, that word of the shooting of General [[Rene Schneider]] on October 22 came as "a great shock," and, asked whether he was informed before the attempted abduction, "I don't believe I was at all."[^6] -On February 3, 1971, Karamessines sent Brigadier General Haig, then Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, two "Top Secret Sensitive/Exclusively Eyes Only" messages for Haig from Ambassador [[William H. Godley]] in [[Laos]], captioned "Operation Gold," received through CIA channels. One reported that a Lao official, Sisouk, had let Godley glance at the Royal Lao Government's draft declaration to be issued after the operation against Tchepone began, and that the Prime Minister had agreed on the need for discretion but wondered whether anything could be kept secret.[^6] +On February 3, 1971, Karamessines sent Brigadier General Haig, then Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, two "Top Secret Sensitive/Exclusively Eyes Only" messages for Haig from Ambassador [[William H. Godley]] in [[Laos]], captioned "Operation Gold," received through CIA channels. One reported that a Lao official, Sisouk, had let Godley glance at the Royal Lao Government's draft declaration to be issued after the operation against Tchepone began, and that the Prime Minister had agreed on the need for discretion but wondered whether anything could be kept secret.[^7] -On January 12, 1972, the CIA's Office of Legislative Counsel recorded that the [[Director of Central Intelligence]] had telephoned Haig about the nomination of a new Deputy Director of Central Intelligence. Haig said the nomination might be presented in the very near future, that he was unaware of plans to alert key senators in advance but thought Senator [[John Stennis]] might be advised, and that he would tell the Director the White House "game plan" once it was decided.[^7] +On January 12, 1972, the CIA's Office of Legislative Counsel recorded that the [[Director of Central Intelligence]] had telephoned Haig about the nomination of a new Deputy Director of Central Intelligence. Haig said the nomination might be presented in the very near future, that he was unaware of plans to alert key senators in advance but thought Senator [[John Stennis]] might be advised, and that he would tell the Director the White House "game plan" once it was decided.[^8] ### Chief of staff and the August 1974 meetings with Ford -Haig succeeded Haldeman as White House chief of staff in 1973.[^1] In sworn testimony to the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice of the House Judiciary Committee on October 17, 1974, President [[Gerald R. Ford]] described two meetings with Haig on August 1, 1974, when Ford was Vice President. In the early morning Haig told him of additional tape evidence due to be delivered to Judge [[John Sirica]] on Monday, August 5. Haig came again at about 3:30 in the afternoon for roughly three-quarters of an hour and told him of the damaging nature of a June 23, 1972, conversation on one of the tapes, of which White House lawyers had told him. Ford testified that Haig outlined the courses under discussion in the White House, among them the President stepping aside under the 25th Amendment, a censure vote, "the question of whether the President could pardon himself," "pardoning various Watergate defendants, then himself, followed by resignation," and "a pardon to the President, should he resign"; that Haig "indicated he was not advocating any of the options"; and that, asked about the pardon power, Haig said it was his understanding from a White House lawyer that a President could grant a pardon before any criminal action was taken. Ford testified that on the morning of August 2 the Nixon lawyer [[James St. Clair]] told him he had not been the source of any opinion about the pardon power, and that late on August 2 he telephoned Haig to say that nothing they had discussed should be given any consideration in Nixon's decision, to which Haig replied that he was in full agreement. Asked whether Haig had discussed a pardon with Nixon or his representatives during the week of August 4 or afterward, Ford answered: "not to my knowledge."[^8] +Haig succeeded Haldeman as White House chief of staff in 1973.[^1] In sworn testimony to the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice of the House Judiciary Committee on October 17, 1974, President [[Gerald R. Ford]] described two meetings with Haig on August 1, 1974, when Ford was Vice President. In the early morning Haig told him of additional tape evidence due to be delivered to Judge [[John Sirica]] on Monday, August 5. Haig came again at about 3:30 in the afternoon for roughly three-quarters of an hour and told him of the damaging nature of a June 23, 1972, conversation on one of the tapes, of which White House lawyers had told him. Ford testified that Haig outlined the courses under discussion in the White House, among them the President stepping aside under the 25th Amendment, a censure vote, "the question of whether the President could pardon himself," "pardoning various Watergate defendants, then himself, followed by resignation," and "a pardon to the President, should he resign"; that Haig "indicated he was not advocating any of the options"; and that, asked about the pardon power, Haig said it was his understanding from a White House lawyer that a President could grant a pardon before any criminal action was taken. Ford testified that on the morning of August 2 the Nixon lawyer [[James St. Clair]] told him he had not been the source of any opinion about the pardon power, and that late on August 2 he telephoned Haig to say that nothing they had discussed should be given any consideration in Nixon's decision, to which Haig replied that he was in full agreement. Asked whether Haig had discussed a pardon with Nixon or his representatives during the week of August 4 or afterward, Ford answered: "not to my knowledge."[^9] -The Associated Press obituary states that Haig "suggested to President Gerald Ford that he pardon his predecessor," that he played a key role in persuading Nixon to resign, and that he repeatedly denied speculation that he was "Deep Throat."[^1] It states that he stayed about six weeks with the Ford administration.[^1] [[Donald Rumsfeld]] became Ford's chief of staff on September 27, 1974.[^9] +The Associated Press obituary states that Haig "suggested to President Gerald Ford that he pardon his predecessor," that he played a key role in persuading Nixon to resign, and that he repeatedly denied speculation that he was "Deep Throat."[^1] It states that he stayed about six weeks with the Ford administration.[^1] [[Donald Rumsfeld]] became Ford's chief of staff on September 27, 1974.[^10] ### Supreme Allied Commander Europe -Haig was Supreme Allied Commander in Europe from 1974 to 1979.[^2] On December 5, 1975, George A. Carver Jr., the CIA's Deputy for National Intelligence Officers, informed Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld in writing that, at General Haig's request, the CIA had arranged to provide him intelligence support tailored to his needs, concentrating on current political and economic developments and supplementary to the support he received through military channels, and that the arrangements had been endorsed by Rumsfeld's predecessor and the Chairman of the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]] and set up with the knowledge of the Director of the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]]. A copy went to a CIA file labeled "HAIG SUPPORT."[^10] A CIA reminder of March 6, 1978, directed that General Haig be sent a personal copy of National Intelligence Estimate 4-1 when it came off the press.[^11] +Haig was Supreme Allied Commander in Europe from 1974 to 1979.[^2] On December 5, 1975, George A. Carver Jr., the CIA's Deputy for National Intelligence Officers, informed Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld in writing that, at General Haig's request, the CIA had arranged to provide him intelligence support tailored to his needs, concentrating on current political and economic developments and supplementary to the support he received through military channels, and that the arrangements had been endorsed by Rumsfeld's predecessor and the Chairman of the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]] and set up with the knowledge of the Director of the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]]. A copy went to a CIA file labeled "HAIG SUPPORT."[^11] A CIA reminder of March 6, 1978, directed that General Haig be sent a personal copy of National Intelligence Estimate 4-1 when it came off the press.[^12] -[[Rowland Evans]] and [[Robert Novak]] wrote in a column printed in the [[Boston Globe]] on January 25, 1981, that in his last days as President, [[Jimmy Carter]] summoned General [[Robert Huyser]], Haig's deputy at [[NATO]] whom Carter had sent to [[Tehran]] in January 1979 over Haig's objections, for a conversation the columnists described as an unsuccessful ploy against Haig's confirmation as Secretary of State; they cited "an intimate of both Huyser and Haig" as saying Huyser was "unshakable" in praising Haig.[^12] +[[Rowland Evans]] and [[Robert Novak]] wrote in a column printed in the [[Boston Globe]] on January 25, 1981, that in his last days as President, [[Jimmy Carter]] summoned General [[Robert Huyser]], Haig's deputy at [[NATO]] whom Carter had sent to [[Tehran]] in January 1979 over Haig's objections, for a conversation the columnists described as an unsuccessful ploy against Haig's confirmation as Secretary of State; they cited "an intimate of both Huyser and Haig" as saying Huyser was "unshakable" in praising Haig.[^13] ### United Technologies -Haig's later corporate biographies give different dates for his presidency of United Technologies: the 2004 proxy statement of DOR BioPharma gives 1978 to 1981, and the 2002 proxy statement of SDC International gives 1979 to 1981 and states that he "remains as a consultant."[^2][^13] The Associated Press obituary places the move after he briefly explored a presidential run in 1979.[^1] On August 15, 1980, "Haig, Alexander M Jr" of Farmington, Connecticut, employer United Technologies, gave $500 to the United Technologies Corporation political action committee.[^14] +Haig's later corporate biographies give different dates for his presidency of United Technologies: the 2004 proxy statement of DOR BioPharma gives 1978 to 1981, and the 2002 proxy statement of SDC International gives 1979 to 1981 and states that he "remains as a consultant."[^2][^14] The Associated Press obituary places the move after he briefly explored a presidential run in 1979.[^1] On August 15, 1980, "Haig, Alexander M Jr" of Farmington, Connecticut, employer United Technologies, gave $500 to the United Technologies Corporation political action committee.[^15] ### Secretary of State -A memorandum by [[Robert Gates]] records the subjects raised at a breakfast between Director of Central Intelligence [[William J. Casey]] and Haig on March 20, 1981, among them NATO security, with State to work with NATO Secretary General [[Joseph Luns]].[^15] On March 30, 1981, after the attempted assassination of Reagan, Haig told reporters in the White House briefing room: "Constitutionally gentlemen, you have the president, the vice president and the secretary of state, in that order, and should the president decide he wants to transfer the helm to the vice president, he will do so. As for now, I'm in control here, in the White House, pending the return of the vice president and in close touch with him. If something came up, I would check with him, of course."[^1] +A memorandum by [[Robert Gates]] records the subjects raised at a breakfast between Director of Central Intelligence [[William J. Casey]] and Haig on March 20, 1981, among them NATO security, with State to work with NATO Secretary General [[Joseph Luns]].[^16] On March 30, 1981, after the attempted assassination of Reagan, Haig told reporters in the White House briefing room: "Constitutionally gentlemen, you have the president, the vice president and the secretary of state, in that order, and should the president decide he wants to transfer the helm to the vice president, he will do so. As for now, I'm in control here, in the White House, pending the return of the vice president and in close touch with him. If something came up, I would check with him, of course."[^1] -[[Seymour Hersh]] wrote that Haig was present at a meeting of Reagan's high command following the Israeli bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak in June 1981 (the [[Osirak bombing]]), and that while the [[State Department]] formally condemned the bombing, Haig was privately forbearing.[^16] +[[Seymour Hersh]] wrote that Haig was present at a meeting of Reagan's high command following the Israeli bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak in June 1981 (the [[Osirak bombing]]), and that while the [[State Department]] formally condemned the bombing, Haig was privately forbearing.[^17] -On June 29, 1981, the Supreme Court decided [[Haig v. Agee]], in which Haig, as Secretary of State, was the petitioner. The Court upheld the revocation of the passport of [[Philip Agee]], a CIA employee from 1957 to 1968 who had announced a campaign to expose CIA officers and agents; the revocation had been ordered in December 1979, before Haig took office.[^17] +On June 29, 1981, the Supreme Court decided [[Haig v. Agee]], in which Haig, as Secretary of State, was the petitioner. The Court upheld the revocation of the passport of [[Philip Agee]], a CIA employee from 1957 to 1968 who had announced a campaign to expose CIA officers and agents; the revocation had been ordered in December 1979, before Haig took office.[^18] -CIA scheduling memoranda record that Casey planned a meeting with Haig on October 1, 1981, at 3:30 p.m., and that Casey and his deputy, Admiral [[Bobby Ray Inman]], were scheduled for breakfast with Haig on October 6, 1981, and again on January 26, 1982.[^18] The National Intelligence Officer for [[Latin America]] prepared Casey for the October 1 meeting with a memorandum listing four policy alternatives on Cuba and [[Central America]], the third being increased support for [[El Salvador]], Guatemala and Honduras "plus replacement of Sandinista Directorate by Third Force moderates to include the use of US forces to deter or interdict Cuban reinforcement of Nicaragua," and the fourth "direct pressure on Cuba," including an oil blockade. The memorandum stated that there was "virtual consensus among Defense, most of CIA and State" for the third alternative.[^19] +CIA scheduling memoranda record that Casey planned a meeting with Haig on October 1, 1981, at 3:30 p.m., and that Casey and his deputy, Admiral [[Bobby Ray Inman]], were scheduled for breakfast with Haig on October 6, 1981, and again on January 26, 1982.[^19] The National Intelligence Officer for [[Latin America]] prepared Casey for the October 1 meeting with a memorandum listing four policy alternatives on Cuba and [[Central America]], the third being increased support for [[El Salvador]], Guatemala and Honduras "plus replacement of Sandinista Directorate by Third Force moderates to include the use of US forces to deter or interdict Cuban reinforcement of Nicaragua," and the fourth "direct pressure on Cuba," including an oil blockade. The memorandum stated that there was "virtual consensus among Defense, most of CIA and State" for the third alternative.[^20] -On April 2, 1982, Casey sent Haig ("Dear Al") a quick intelligence assessment of the military aspects of the "Falkland affair" in the [[Falkland Islands]], which referred to "the Argentine invasion Friday," with a copy to Vice President [[George H.W. Bush]].[^20] On April 14, 1982, Prime Minister [[Margaret Thatcher]] told the House of Commons that Haig had made two visits to the [[United Kingdom]] and one to [[Buenos Aires]], praised his "tireless efforts," and said that on his second visit he had put forward ideas concerning the withdrawal of troops and an interim period for negotiations. On April 29 she said that Haig had put formal American proposals to the [[Argentina|Argentine]] government, and on May 4 that he was pursuing initiatives through the Peruvian government.[^21] +On April 2, 1982, Casey sent Haig ("Dear Al") a quick intelligence assessment of the military aspects of the "Falkland affair" in the [[Falkland Islands]], which referred to "the Argentine invasion Friday," with a copy to Vice President [[George H.W. Bush]].[^21] On April 14, 1982, Prime Minister [[Margaret Thatcher]] told the House of Commons that Haig had made two visits to the [[United Kingdom]] and one to [[Buenos Aires]], praised his "tireless efforts," and said that on his second visit he had put forward ideas concerning the withdrawal of troops and an interim period for negotiations. On April 29 she said that Haig had put formal American proposals to the [[Argentina|Argentine]] government, and on May 4 that he was pursuing initiatives through the Peruvian government.[^22] -Reagan accepted Haig's resignation by letter on June 25, 1982. Haig's letter of the same date states that he and Reagan had agreed that "consistency, clarity and steadiness of purpose were essential to success" and that "in recent months, it has become clear to me that the foreign policy on which we embarked together was shifting from that careful course which we had laid out."[^22] [[George P. Shultz]] succeeded him.[^1] +Reagan accepted Haig's resignation by letter on June 25, 1982. Haig's letter of the same date states that he and Reagan had agreed that "consistency, clarity and steadiness of purpose were essential to success" and that "in recent months, it has become clear to me that the foreign policy on which we embarked together was shifting from that careful course which we had laid out."[^23] [[George P. Shultz]] succeeded him.[^1] ### Worldwide Associates and the CIA, 1984 and 1985 -[[Worldwide Associates]], a Washington international advisory firm, had Haig as chairman and president from 1984.[^2] Deputy Director of Central Intelligence [[John McMahon|John N. McMahon]] wrote to Haig ("Al") on January 5, 1984, at 1155 15th Street, N.W., Suite 800, that a doctoral candidate and former military officer whose resume Haig had passed to the Agency, whose name is redacted, would join the CIA as a career trainee on April 16, adding: "We're always on the lookout for good people and appreciate your keeping us in mind."[^23] The same address is given for Haig in the 2002 proxy statement of SDC International.[^13] +[[Worldwide Associates]], a Washington international advisory firm, had Haig as chairman and president from 1984.[^2] Deputy Director of Central Intelligence [[John McMahon|John N. McMahon]] wrote to Haig ("Al") on January 5, 1984, at 1155 15th Street, N.W., Suite 800, that a doctoral candidate and former military officer whose resume Haig had passed to the Agency, whose name is redacted, would join the CIA as a career trainee on April 16, adding: "We're always on the lookout for good people and appreciate your keeping us in mind."[^24] The same address is given for Haig in the 2002 proxy statement of SDC International.[^14] -The appointment log of Director of Central Intelligence Casey for 1985, as released, lists under Haig a reception and screening of "That's Dancing" hosted by Mr. and Mrs. Haig at the [[Motion Picture Association]], 1600 I Street, N.W., on January 22; a breakfast with Haig at the Madison Hotel on April 10; a reception and screening of "A View to a Kill" at the same address hosted by General and Mrs. Haig on May 31; a breakfast with General Haig at CIA headquarters on November 13; and a cocktail buffet hosted by General and Mrs. Haig on December 20.[^24] +The appointment log of Director of Central Intelligence Casey for 1985, as released, lists under Haig a reception and screening of "That's Dancing" hosted by Mr. and Mrs. Haig at the [[Motion Picture Association]], 1600 I Street, N.W., on January 22; a breakfast with Haig at the Madison Hotel on April 10; a reception and screening of "A View to a Kill" at the same address hosted by General and Mrs. Haig on May 31; a breakfast with General Haig at CIA headquarters on November 13; and a cocktail buffet hosted by General and Mrs. Haig on December 20.[^25] -No registrant named Worldwide Associates, and none named Haig, appears in the [[Foreign Agents Registration Act]] registrant lists, active or terminated, retrieved from the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]]'s FARA e-file interface on October 1, 2026; the only near matches are the law firm Haight, Gardner, Poor & Havens and related Haight registrants.[^25] The Senate and House lobbying disclosure database, which begins in 1999, returns no registrant named Worldwide Associates and no lobbyist named Haig.[^26] +No registrant named Worldwide Associates, and none named Haig, appears in the [[Foreign Agents Registration Act]] registrant lists, active or terminated, retrieved from the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]]'s FARA e-file interface on October 1, 2026; the only near matches are the law firm Haight, Gardner, Poor & Havens and related Haight registrants.[^26] The Senate and House lobbying disclosure database, which begins in 1999, returns no registrant named Worldwide Associates and no lobbyist named Haig.[^27] ### International Signal and Control, 1985 to 1987 -Worldwide Associates did consulting work for [[International Signal and Control]] between 1985 and 1987, according to a filing Haig made when he ran for president in 1988.[^27] Haig and Bobby Ray Inman were among the well-known Washingtonians who had lent their names to the business of [[James Guerin]].[^27] +Worldwide Associates did consulting work for [[International Signal and Control]] between 1985 and 1987, according to a filing Haig made when he ran for president in 1988.[^28] Haig and Bobby Ray Inman were among the well-known Washingtonians who had lent their names to the business of [[James Guerin]].[^28] -At the 1992 trial of [[Thomas P. Jasin]], Jasin's attorney, Gaar Steiner, told the court that Haig, a consultant for ISC, and officials of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Army were aware of plans to import South African Striker missile components into the United States and that no one objected. The Assistant U.S. Attorney, [[Robert E. Goldman]], replied: "Haig was never told they were bringing in missile parts from South Africa."[^28] +At the 1992 trial of [[Thomas P. Jasin]], Jasin's attorney, Gaar Steiner, told the court that Haig, a consultant for ISC, and officials of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Army were aware of plans to import South African Striker missile components into the United States and that no one objected. The Assistant U.S. Attorney, [[Robert E. Goldman]], replied: "Haig was never told they were bringing in missile parts from South Africa."[^29] ### Corporate boards -The proxy statement of [[MGM Mirage]] filed March 27, 2001, lists Haig as a director since 1990 and a consultant to the company since May 1990, holder of options on 10,000 shares, and recipient in 2000 of $50,000 in consulting fees; it describes him as chairman of Worldwide Associates, host of the weekly television program "World Business Review," and a director of [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer]] Inc., CompuServe Interactive Services and [[Interneuron Pharmaceuticals]]. [[Tracinda]], of which [[Kirk Kerkorian]] was sole director and stockholder, owned 91,221,432 MGM Mirage shares.[^29] +The proxy statement of [[MGM Mirage]] filed March 27, 2001, lists Haig as a director since 1990 and a consultant to the company since May 1990, holder of options on 10,000 shares, and recipient in 2000 of $50,000 in consulting fees; it describes him as chairman of Worldwide Associates, host of the weekly television program "World Business Review," and a director of [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer]] Inc., CompuServe Interactive Services and [[Interneuron Pharmaceuticals]]. [[Tracinda]], of which [[Kirk Kerkorian]] was sole director and stockholder, owned 91,221,432 MGM Mirage shares.[^30] -[[SDC International]] named Haig a director in January 2002; he had been its strategic advisor since May 1999. Its proxy statement filed December 6, 2002, discloses that SDC paid him $85,000 in September 2001 for past services, issued him fully vested options on 300,000 shares at $0.40 when the agreement was renewed on September 9, 2001, and agreed to pay him "between one and two percent of the total gross contract amount of any contract entered into by SDC or any of its subsidiaries which was obtained through the efforts of General Haig." SDC's principal operating entity was its Czech subsidiary [[Tatra]]; [[Terex Corporation]], which had received shares as a strategic advisor, held 12 percent. Haig held 505,000 shares, 2.47 percent, and was one of the two persons named to vote stockholders' proxies.[^13] +[[SDC International]] named Haig a director in January 2002; he had been its strategic advisor since May 1999. Its proxy statement filed December 6, 2002, discloses that SDC paid him $85,000 in September 2001 for past services, issued him fully vested options on 300,000 shares at $0.40 when the agreement was renewed on September 9, 2001, and agreed to pay him "between one and two percent of the total gross contract amount of any contract entered into by SDC or any of its subsidiaries which was obtained through the efforts of General Haig." SDC's principal operating entity was its Czech subsidiary [[Tatra]]; [[Terex Corporation]], which had received shares as a strategic advisor, held 12 percent. Haig held 505,000 shares, 2.47 percent, and was one of the two persons named to vote stockholders' proxies.[^14] [[DOR BioPharma]] entered into a letter agreement with Haig on December 23, 2002, making him chairman of its board for a retainer of $50,000 a year and options on 2,000,000 shares; its 2004 proxy statement adds that he received a further $50,000 a year for consulting services. The company had executed licence agreements for ricin and botulinum toxin vaccines in January 2003, and its 2003 private placement was handled by [[Paramount Capital]], an investment bank affiliated with its largest stockholder, [[Lindsay Rosenwald]]. The statement lists Haig, then 79, as a director of MGM Mirage, [[Indevus Pharmaceuticals]], SDC International and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and gives Worldwide Associates' address as 4301 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, Virginia.[^2] ### Political contributions and the 1988 campaign -Haig for President (FEC committee C00214189), with treasurer Dominic J. Saraceno of Virginia, reported receipts of $2,633,083 for the 1988 cycle, including $140,442 in federal matching funds, and remained registered through 2000.[^30] Rumsfeld gave it $1,000 on January 27, 1988.[^14] The Associated Press obituary records that Haig ran unsuccessfully for president in 1988.[^1] +Haig for President (FEC committee C00214189), with treasurer Dominic J. Saraceno of Virginia, reported receipts of $2,633,083 for the 1988 cycle, including $140,442 in federal matching funds, and remained registered through 2000.[^31] Rumsfeld gave it $1,000 on January 27, 1988.[^15] The Associated Press obituary records that Haig ran unsuccessfully for president in 1988.[^1] -[[Federal Election Commission]] records list contributions by entries in the name of Haig giving Worldwide Associates as employer, among them $750 to the [[Republican National Committee]] on January 11, 1994, $1,000 to Pete Wilson for President on May 1, 1995, $5,000 to the RNC on July 19, 1996, November 10, 1998, and February 1, 2000, and $2,300 to John McCain 2008 on April 10, 2007. A $1,000 contribution to McCain 2000 dated June 15, 1999, comes from "Haig, Alexander M. Mr. Jr." of [[Palm Beach, Florida|Palm Beach]] with no employer listed. The records list contributions to the MGM Mirage political action committee of $500 on December 19, 2000, $1,000 on January 31, 2002, and $1,000 on May 4, 2004.[^14] +[[Federal Election Commission]] records list contributions by entries in the name of Haig giving Worldwide Associates as employer, among them $750 to the [[Republican National Committee]] on January 11, 1994, $1,000 to Pete Wilson for President on May 1, 1995, $5,000 to the RNC on July 19, 1996, November 10, 1998, and February 1, 2000, and $2,300 to John McCain 2008 on April 10, 2007. A $1,000 contribution to McCain 2000 dated June 15, 1999, comes from "Haig, Alexander M. Mr. Jr." of [[Palm Beach, Florida|Palm Beach]] with no employer listed. The records list contributions to the MGM Mirage political action committee of $500 on December 19, 2000, $1,000 on January 31, 2002, and $1,000 on May 4, 2004.[^15] ### Footnotes [^1]: "Alexander Haig, Presidential Adviser, Dies," CBS News and Associated Press, February 20, 2010, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alexander-haig-presidential-adviser-dies/ [^2]: DOR BioPharma, Inc., Definitive Proxy Statement (DEF 14A), filed April 28, 2004, accession 0000812796-04-000012, nominee table and biography of General Alexander M. Haig, Jr., "Board of Directors Agreements," "Director Compensation," "Related Party Transactions" and beneficial ownership table, note 8, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/812796/000081279604000012/defproxy.htm [^3]: Halperin v. Kissinger, 606 F.2d 1192 (D.C. Cir. 1979), Nos. 77-2014 and 77-2015, argued February 9, 1979, decided July 12, 1979, appeal from Civil Action No. 1187-73 (D.D.C.), Part I (statement of facts) and notes 1, 4, 17 to 20, 39 to 41, 82 and 84 (June 4, 1969 memorandum, Joint Appendix 57; H. Rept. 93-1305 at 35 and 146), https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F2/606/606.F2d.1192.77-2015.77-2014.html -[^4]: Halperin v. Kissinger, 807 F.2d 180 (D.C. Cir. 1986), No. 84-5095, argued May 1, 1985, decided December 5, 1986, opinion of Circuit Justice Scalia (procedural history citing 424 F.Supp. 838, 434 F.Supp. 1193, 452 U.S. 713 and 578 F.Supp. 231), https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F2/807/807.F2d.180.84-5095.html -[^5]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, "Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders: An Interim Report," S. Rept. 94-465, November 20, 1975, chapter on Chile, findings and section "CIA/White House Communication During Track II" (chronology for October 8, 10, 15, 16, 19 and 22, 1970), citing Haig testimony of August 15, 1975, pp. 12, 13, 26-27, 36 and 38-39, https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94465.pdf -[^6]: Thomas H. Karamessines, Deputy Director for Plans, memorandum for Brigadier General Alexander M. Haig, February 3, 1971, with two attached messages from Ambassador Godley, "Operation Gold," CIA Reading Room, LOC-HAK-477-18-13-9, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-loc-hak-477-18-13-9 -[^7]: Legislative Counsel, memorandum for the record, "Director's Conversation with General Al Haig, White House Staff, Re DDCI Nomination," OLC 72-0040, January 12, 1972, CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP75B00380R000100020156-1, https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP75B00380R000100020156-1 -[^8]: Gerald R. Ford, statement before the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, House Committee on the Judiciary, October 17, 1974, typescript pp. 6-14, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, Philip Buchen Files, Box 34, "Nixon Pardon Hungate Subcommittee, Ford Testimony, 1974/10/17," https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0019/4520699.pdf -[^9]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Armed Services, S. Hrg. 107-749, hearing of January 11, 2001, Committee on Armed Services Form for Donald H. Rumsfeld, Part A, items 9 and 10 (Assistant to the President under Ford, September 27, 1974, to November 18, 1975), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-107shrg75903/html/CHRG-107shrg75903.htm -[^10]: George A. Carver Jr., Deputy for National Intelligence Officers, memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, "Intelligence Support for General Haig," December 5, 1975, CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP91M00696R000500010003-8, https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP91M00696R000500010003-8 -[^11]: CIA reminder memo, March 6, 1978 ("Send General Haig a personal copy of NIE 4-1"), CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP80B01554R003200280018-2, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01554r003200280018-2 -[^12]: Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, "Carter failed in effort to block Haig," Boston Globe, January 25, 1981, CIA Reading Room clipping, CIA-RDP90-00965R000301900078-7, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000301900078-7 -[^13]: SDC International, Inc., preliminary proxy statement (PRE 14A), filed December 6, 2002, accession 0000943440-02-000519, questions and answers, beneficial ownership table, director biographies and "Certain Transactions with Management," https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1005841/000094344002000519/proxy-1202.txt -[^14]: Federal Election Commission, Schedule A itemized receipts, API queries for contributor names "Haig, Alexander" (two-year periods 1980 to 2010; New Jersey donors of the same name excluded) and "Rumsfeld, Donald" (HAIG FOR PRESIDENT, January 27, 1988), run October 1, 2026, https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/ -[^15]: Robert M. Gates, Director, DCI/DDCI Executive Staff, memorandum, "Haig Breakfast, 20 March 1981," CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP89G00720R000100040085-3, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp89g00720r000100040085-3 -[^16]: Seymour M. Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy (New York: Random House, 1991). -[^17]: Haig v. Agee, 453 U.S. 280 (1981), No. 80-83, argued January 24, 1981, decided June 29, 1981, opinion of Chief Justice Burger, Part I, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/453/280 -[^18]: CIA Executive Secretary, memoranda "DCI Meeting with Secretary of State Haig, Thursday, 1 October 1981" (September 28, 1981), CIA-RDP84B00890R000300080052-2; "DCI and DDCI Meeting with Secretary of State Haig, Tuesday, 6 October 1981" (September 29, 1981), CIA-RDP84B00890R000300080051-3; and "DCI and DDCI Meeting with Secretary of State Haig, Tuesday, 26 January 1982" (January 19, 1982), CIA-RDP84M00395R000600260026-0, CIA Reading Room, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp84b00890r000300080052-2 -[^19]: National Intelligence Officer for Latin America, memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence, "Cuba/Central America Strategy Issues for Your Meeting with Secretary Haig, 1 October 1981," September 30, 1981, secret, CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP84B00049R001203100015-4, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp84b00049r001203100015-4 -[^20]: William J. Casey to Alexander M. Haig, Jr., April 2, 1982, with "Quick Intelligence Assessment on Falkland Affairs (April 2, 1982)," CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP84B00049R000701780017-6, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp84b00049r000701780017-6 -[^21]: House of Commons, "Falkland Islands," HC Deb 14 April 1982 vol 21 cc1146-208, HC Deb 29 April 1982 vol 22 cc980-1059, and HC Deb 4 May 1982 vol 23 cc16-8 (statements of the Prime Minister), https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1982/apr/14/falkland-islands, https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1982/apr/29/falkland-islands and https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1982/may/04/falkland-islands -[^22]: Ronald Reagan, "Letter Accepting the Resignation of Alexander M. Haig, Jr., as Secretary of State," June 25, 1982, with Haig's letter of resignation of the same date, Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/letter-accepting-the-resignation-alexander-m-haig-jr-secretary-state -[^23]: John N. McMahon, Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, to General Alexander M. Haig, Jr., USA (Ret.), January 5, 1984, CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP86B00885R000100060077-6, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp86b00885r000100060077-6 -[^24]: Director of Central Intelligence, appointment and contact log for 1985, entries under "HAIG, Alexander," CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP93-00415R000200210008-9, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp93-00415r000200210008-9 -[^25]: U.S. Department of Justice, FARA e-file API, Registrants (Active, 537 rows) and Registrants (Terminated, 6,552 rows), retrieved October 1, 2026, https://efile.fara.gov/api/v1/Registrants/json/Active and https://efile.fara.gov/api/v1/Registrants/json/Terminated (name search; short-form registrants and foreign principals not searched). -[^26]: Lobbying Disclosure Act filings database, API queries for registrant name "Worldwide Associates" and lobbyist name "Haig," run October 1, 2026, https://lda.gov/api/v1/filings/ -[^27]: Glenn Frankel, "British Firm Claims It Was Duped by Pa. Arms Maker," *Washington Post*, September 29, 1989. The article describes the filing as one "Haig made when running for president last year." https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1989/09/29/british-firm-claims-it-was-duped-by-pa-arms-maker/5b675f69-e5e0-4c25-9aee-ced8b8e07efa/ -[^28]: "Weapons-smuggling plot tied to Pa. executive on trial for trade violations," Knight-Ridder News Service, *Baltimore Sun*, November 10, 1992. The article describes Haig as "a consultant for ISC" in reporting the attorney's statement; the quoted reply is Goldman's. https://www.baltimoresun.com/1992/11/10/weapons-smuggling-plot-tied-to-pa-executive-on-trial-for-trade-violations/ -[^29]: MGM Mirage, Definitive Proxy Statement (DEF 14A), filed March 27, 2001, accession 0000912057-01-008537, nominee table, notes on options, and "Certain Transactions," https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/789570/000091205701008537/a2041387zdef14a.htm -[^30]: Federal Election Commission, committee C00214189, Haig for President, committee record and financial totals by cycle, https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/committee/C00214189/totals/ +[^4]: *Kissinger v. Halperin*, 452 U.S. 713 (1981) (per curiam), decided June 22, 1981. https://static.case.law/us/452/cases/0713-01.json +[^5]: Halperin v. Kissinger, 807 F.2d 180 (D.C. Cir. 1986), No. 84-5095, argued May 1, 1985, decided December 5, 1986, opinion of Circuit Justice Scalia (procedural history citing 424 F.Supp. 838, 434 F.Supp. 1193, 452 U.S. 713 and 578 F.Supp. 231), https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F2/807/807.F2d.180.84-5095.html +[^6]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, "Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders: An Interim Report," S. Rept. 94-465, November 20, 1975, chapter on Chile, findings and section "CIA/White House Communication During Track II" (chronology for October 8, 10, 15, 16, 19 and 22, 1970), citing Haig testimony of August 15, 1975, pp. 12, 13, 26-27, 36 and 38-39, https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94465.pdf +[^7]: Thomas H. Karamessines, Deputy Director for Plans, memorandum for Brigadier General Alexander M. Haig, February 3, 1971, with two attached messages from Ambassador Godley, "Operation Gold," CIA Reading Room, LOC-HAK-477-18-13-9, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-loc-hak-477-18-13-9 +[^8]: Legislative Counsel, memorandum for the record, "Director's Conversation with General Al Haig, White House Staff, Re DDCI Nomination," OLC 72-0040, January 12, 1972, CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP75B00380R000100020156-1, https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP75B00380R000100020156-1 +[^9]: Gerald R. Ford, statement before the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, House Committee on the Judiciary, October 17, 1974, typescript pp. 6-14, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, Philip Buchen Files, Box 34, "Nixon Pardon Hungate Subcommittee, Ford Testimony, 1974/10/17," https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0019/4520699.pdf +[^10]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Armed Services, S. Hrg. 107-749, hearing of January 11, 2001, Committee on Armed Services Form for Donald H. Rumsfeld, Part A, items 9 and 10 (Assistant to the President under Ford, September 27, 1974, to November 18, 1975), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-107shrg75903/html/CHRG-107shrg75903.htm +[^11]: George A. Carver Jr., Deputy for National Intelligence Officers, memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, "Intelligence Support for General Haig," December 5, 1975, CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP91M00696R000500010003-8, https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP91M00696R000500010003-8 +[^12]: CIA reminder memo, March 6, 1978 ("Send General Haig a personal copy of NIE 4-1"), CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP80B01554R003200280018-2, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01554r003200280018-2 +[^13]: Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, "Carter failed in effort to block Haig," Boston Globe, January 25, 1981, CIA Reading Room clipping, CIA-RDP90-00965R000301900078-7, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000301900078-7 +[^14]: SDC International, Inc., preliminary proxy statement (PRE 14A), filed December 6, 2002, accession 0000943440-02-000519, questions and answers, beneficial ownership table, director biographies and "Certain Transactions with Management," https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1005841/000094344002000519/proxy-1202.txt +[^15]: Federal Election Commission, Schedule A itemized receipts, API queries for contributor names "Haig, Alexander" (two-year periods 1980 to 2010; New Jersey donors of the same name excluded) and "Rumsfeld, Donald" (HAIG FOR PRESIDENT, January 27, 1988), run October 1, 2026, https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/ +[^16]: Robert M. Gates, Director, DCI/DDCI Executive Staff, memorandum, "Haig Breakfast, 20 March 1981," CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP89G00720R000100040085-3, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp89g00720r000100040085-3 +[^17]: Seymour M. Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy (New York: Random House, 1991). +[^18]: Haig v. Agee, 453 U.S. 280 (1981), No. 80-83, argued January 24, 1981, decided June 29, 1981, opinion of Chief Justice Burger, Part I, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/453/280 +[^19]: CIA Executive Secretary, memoranda "DCI Meeting with Secretary of State Haig, Thursday, 1 October 1981" (September 28, 1981), CIA-RDP84B00890R000300080052-2; "DCI and DDCI Meeting with Secretary of State Haig, Tuesday, 6 October 1981" (September 29, 1981), CIA-RDP84B00890R000300080051-3; and "DCI and DDCI Meeting with Secretary of State Haig, Tuesday, 26 January 1982" (January 19, 1982), CIA-RDP84M00395R000600260026-0, CIA Reading Room, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp84b00890r000300080052-2 +[^20]: National Intelligence Officer for Latin America, memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence, "Cuba/Central America Strategy Issues for Your Meeting with Secretary Haig, 1 October 1981," September 30, 1981, secret, CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP84B00049R001203100015-4, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp84b00049r001203100015-4 +[^21]: William J. Casey to Alexander M. Haig, Jr., April 2, 1982, with "Quick Intelligence Assessment on Falkland Affairs (April 2, 1982)," CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP84B00049R000701780017-6, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp84b00049r000701780017-6 +[^22]: House of Commons, "Falkland Islands," HC Deb 14 April 1982 vol 21 cc1146-208, HC Deb 29 April 1982 vol 22 cc980-1059, and HC Deb 4 May 1982 vol 23 cc16-8 (statements of the Prime Minister), https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1982/apr/14/falkland-islands, https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1982/apr/29/falkland-islands and https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1982/may/04/falkland-islands +[^23]: Ronald Reagan, "Letter Accepting the Resignation of Alexander M. Haig, Jr., as Secretary of State," June 25, 1982, with Haig's letter of resignation of the same date, Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/letter-accepting-the-resignation-alexander-m-haig-jr-secretary-state +[^24]: John N. McMahon, Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, to General Alexander M. Haig, Jr., USA (Ret.), January 5, 1984, CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP86B00885R000100060077-6, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp86b00885r000100060077-6 +[^25]: Director of Central Intelligence, appointment and contact log for 1985, entries under "HAIG, Alexander," CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP93-00415R000200210008-9, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp93-00415r000200210008-9 +[^26]: U.S. Department of Justice, FARA e-file API, Registrants (Active, 537 rows) and Registrants (Terminated, 6,552 rows), retrieved October 1, 2026, https://efile.fara.gov/api/v1/Registrants/json/Active and https://efile.fara.gov/api/v1/Registrants/json/Terminated (name search; short-form registrants and foreign principals not searched). +[^27]: Lobbying Disclosure Act filings database, API queries for registrant name "Worldwide Associates" and lobbyist name "Haig," run October 1, 2026, https://lda.gov/api/v1/filings/ +[^28]: Glenn Frankel, "British Firm Claims It Was Duped by Pa. Arms Maker," *Washington Post*, September 29, 1989. The article describes the filing as one "Haig made when running for president last year." https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1989/09/29/british-firm-claims-it-was-duped-by-pa-arms-maker/5b675f69-e5e0-4c25-9aee-ced8b8e07efa/ +[^29]: "Weapons-smuggling plot tied to Pa. executive on trial for trade violations," Knight-Ridder News Service, *Baltimore Sun*, November 10, 1992. The article describes Haig as "a consultant for ISC" in reporting the attorney's statement; the quoted reply is Goldman's. https://www.baltimoresun.com/1992/11/10/weapons-smuggling-plot-tied-to-pa-executive-on-trial-for-trade-violations/ +[^30]: MGM Mirage, Definitive Proxy Statement (DEF 14A), filed March 27, 2001, accession 0000912057-01-008537, nominee table, notes on options, and "Certain Transactions," https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/789570/000091205701008537/a2041387zdef14a.htm +[^31]: Federal Election Commission, committee C00214189, Haig for President, committee record and financial totals by cycle, https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/committee/C00214189/totals/ diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Daniel Inouye.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Daniel Inouye.md index 71e97ab2..cae4e2aa 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Daniel Inouye.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Daniel Inouye.md @@ -15,5 +15,10 @@ location: "Honolulu, Hawaii" As a highly respected and influential senator, and a decorated World War II veteran who had lost an arm in combat, Inouye was a key member of the bipartisan trio that controlled congressional spending for "black budget" programs within the [[Pentagon]]. His support was crucial in securing the $22 million appropriation that established AAWSAP in 2007. His involvement, along with that of his colleagues, ensured that the program had the necessary resources to begin its investigation into the [[Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena|UAP]] issue.[^1] +A [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] talking paper of May 4, 2009, "Senator Reid Visit to Director, DIA," states that Senator Inouye and Senator Reid sponsored language in the July 2008 supplemental appropriation bill for the agency to initiate an investigation of foreign advanced aerospace weapon threats from the present out to 40 years in the future.[^2] A 2010 DIA information memorandum, U-10-2552, states that the program was first sponsored in the fiscal year 2008 Defense Supplemental Appropriation Act by Senators Reid and Inouye with a $10 million add.[^3] + ### Footnotes + [^1]: Elizondo, Luis. *Imminent*. William Morrow, 2024. +[^2]: Defense Intelligence Agency, talking paper, "(U) Senator Reid Visit to Director, DIA," May 4, 2009, paragraph 2, "Background." https://documents2.theblackvault.com/documents/dia/AAWSAP/DR_Reid_Mtg_May09.pdf +[^3]: Defense Intelligence Agency, Information Memorandum U-10-2552, "Advanced Aerospace Threat and Identification Program," 2010. https://documents2.theblackvault.com/documents/dia/AAWSAP/U-10-2552CE-IM-ATL.pdf diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/David F. Levi.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/David F. Levi.md index 1638c145..750b4739 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/David F. Levi.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/David F. Levi.md @@ -5,10 +5,12 @@ tags: - PROMIS - Lawyer summary: "U.S. Attorney named in a Writ of Mandamus for refusing to investigate corruption in Mariposa County tied to the Queen's Accident case." +updated: 2026-10-15 --- -[[David F. Levi]] was a [[United States Attorney|United States Attorney]]. He was named in a Writ of Mandamus filed by [[Ben Wagner]] for refusing to investigate corruption in Mariposa County.[^1] +[[David F. Levi]] was [[United States Attorney|United States Attorney]] for the [[Eastern District of California]] from 1986 to 1990, after serving as an assistant United States attorney in the same district from 1983 to 1986, and became a federal district judge in 1990.[^1] He was named in a Writ of Mandamus filed by [[Ben Wagner]] for refusing to investigate corruption in Mariposa County.[^2] --- ### Footnotes -[^1]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro’s Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal*. First Edition. TrineDay, 2010. \ No newline at end of file +[^1]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, entry for David F. Levi (service as assistant U.S. attorney, E.D. Cal., 1983 to 1986; U.S. attorney, E.D. Cal., 1986 to 1990; judge from October 1, 1990; nominated by George H.W. Bush August 3, 1990; resigned June 30, 2007; chief judge 2003 to 2007; dean of Duke Law 2007 to 2018). https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/levi-david-f +[^2]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro’s Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal*. First Edition. TrineDay, 2010. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Dexter Lehtinen.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Dexter Lehtinen.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..fbc2518a --- /dev/null +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Dexter Lehtinen.md @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +--- +aliases: + - Dexter Leitenen +category: "Law Enforcement & Legal" +tags: + - Person + - Lawyer + - FBI + - LawEnforcement +summary: "Assistant U.S. Attorney and former Green Beret, legal confidant to Allan Boyak before Boyak approached the FBI about Robert Booth Nichols, later Interim U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida." +updated: 2026-10-15 +relations: + - type: head_of + with: "[[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida]]" + start: 1988-06-17 + role: "Interim United States Attorney" + fn: 1 +--- + +[[Dexter Lehtinen]] was an assistant [[United States Attorney|U.S. Attorney]] and a close friend of [[Allan Boyak]] from his Green Beret days. He later became the Miami [[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida|U.S. Attorney]]. He was named Interim United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida effective June 17, 1988.[^1] The Senate's 1992 report on [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International|BCCI]] calls him "the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Dexter Lehtinen," among the critics of the Justice Department's handling of the bank.[^2] Boyak consulted with Lehtinen before going to the Los Angeles [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] office with his suspicions about [[Robert Booth Nichols]]' activities.[^3] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: *United States Attorneys' Bulletin,* vol. 36, July 15, 1988, p. 166, "Personnel": Dexter Lehtinen took the oath of office, effective June 17, 1988, as Interim United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/usao/legacy/2010/10/12/usab3607.pdf +[^2]: Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, *The BCCI Affair* (Kerry-Brown report), 1992, ch. 8 ("the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Dexter Lehtinen"). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/08just.htm +[^3]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro’s Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal*. First Edition. TrineDay, 2010 (the text spells the name "Leitenen"). diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Dexter Leitenen.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Dexter Leitenen.md deleted file mode 100644 index 420939cf..00000000 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Dexter Leitenen.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,15 +0,0 @@ ---- -category: "Law Enforcement & Legal" -tags: - - Person - - Lawyer - - FBI - - LawEnforcement -summary: "Assistant U.S. Attorney and former Green Beret who served as legal confidant to Allan Boyak before Boyak approached the FBI about Robert Booth Nichols." ---- - -[[Dexter Leitenen]] was an assistant [[United States Attorney|U.S. Attorney]] and a close friend of [[Allan Boyak]] from his Green Beret days. He later became the Miami [[United States Attorney|U.S. Attorney]]. Boyak consulted with Leitenen before going to the Los Angeles [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] office with his suspicions about [[Robert Booth Nichols]]' activities.[^1] - -### Footnotes - -[^1]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro’s Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal*. First Edition. TrineDay, 2010. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Donald M. Kerr.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Donald M. Kerr.md index 39bb373f..3458d4d9 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Donald M. Kerr.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Donald M. Kerr.md @@ -9,6 +9,21 @@ tags: - Israel summary: "Acting director of defense programs at the Department of Energy, identified by Hersh, Richelson and Weiss as head of the Nuclear Intelligence Panel review of the 1979 Vela satellite flash." relations: + - type: member_of + with: "[[Psychoenergetics Science Advisory Panel]]" + start: 1984-02 + role: "member, Psychoenergetics Science Advisory Panel, listed as director of Los Alamos National Laboratory" + fn: 5 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Department of Energy]]" + start: 1979 + end: 1980 + role: "acting director of defense programs, according to the National Security Archive's account" + fn: 8 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Science Applications International Corporation]]" + role: "corporate executive vice president (listed in the fiscal 1995 Form 10-K)" + fn: 6 - type: investigated with: "[[VELA Satellite]]" role: "identified by Richelson and Weiss as head of the Nuclear Intelligence Panel review of the event" @@ -23,9 +38,15 @@ Donald M. Kerr, Jr. served in the [[Jimmy Carter|Carter]] administration as acti Donald M. Kerr was the director of [[Los Alamos National Laboratory]] in [[New Mexico]]. He was a member of the new science panel for the [[Stargate Project|Sun Streak]] program, which was established on January 31, 1986[^4]. +An SRI document of February 1984 describes a Psychoenergetics Science Advisory Panel "composed of Dr. Donald Kerr, Director, Los Alamos National Laboratory," with [[Fred Zachariasen]] and [[W. Ross Adey|Ross Adey]]. The document places Kerr as the Los Alamos director in that month.[^5] The Science Applications International Corporation Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 31, 1995 describes him as formerly president of [[EG&G]] and as its corporate executive vice president.[^6] The National Security Archive's narrative of the Vela incident describes the Nuclear Intelligence Panel as chaired by Donald Kerr, who had served in the Carter administration as acting director of defense programs at the Energy Department, while the committee memorandum of February 14, 1980 names Louis H. Roddis, Jr. as Panel Chairman.[^7][^8] + ### Footnotes [^1]: Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Committee, memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence, "Judgments of the DCI's Nuclear Intelligence Panel on the 22 September 1979 Event," February 14, 1980, Secret. Document 6 in Richelson, Jeffrey T., ed., "The Vela Incident: Nuclear Test or Meteoroid?" National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 190, May 5, 2006, whose narrative names Kerr as chairman. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB190/06.pdf [^2]: Weiss, Leonard. "Flash from the Past: Why an Apparent Israeli Nuclear Test in 1979 Matters Today." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, September 8, 2015. https://thebulletin.org/2015/09/flash-from-the-past-why-an-apparent-israeli-nuclear-test-in-1979-matters-today/ [^3]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 20. [^4]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis*. Little, Brown and Company, 2017. +[^5]: SRI document on the Psychoenergetics Science Advisory Panel, February 1984, CIA-RDP96-00792R000600310001-7. +[^6]: Science Applications International Corporation, Form 10-K, fiscal year ended January 31, 1995, executive officer listing. +[^7]: Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Committee, memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence, February 14, 1980, "Judgments of the DCI's Nuclear Intelligence Panel on the 22 September 1979 Event," Secret, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 190, doc. 6, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB190/06.pdf +[^8]: Jeffrey T. Richelson, ed., "The Vela Incident: Nuclear Test or Meteoroid?" National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 190, May 5, 2006, narrative, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB190/index.htm diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Erika Kellerhals.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Erika Kellerhals.md index 2dbd7343..d2164e1e 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Erika Kellerhals.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Erika Kellerhals.md @@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ On September 21, 2012 Epstein's bookkeeper [[Harry Beller]] faxed [[JPMorgan Cha ### Trusts and the Foundation -A [[Deutsche Bank]] know-your-customer page headed "The 2013 Butterfly Trust," produced to a federal grand jury in the [[Southern District of New York]], lists Kellerhals as a current trustee with the note "(Deutsche Bank already has on file)," and names among the trust's "Current Potential Beneficiaries" Epstein's assistant [[Lesley Groff]], his pilot [[Larry Visoski|Lawrence Paul Visoski Jr.]] and his lawyer [[Darren Indyke]]. The Internal Revenue Service record of Gratitude America Ltd, recognized as a private foundation in September 2012, gives its address as 9053 Estate Thomas, Suite 101, St. Thomas, "in care of Erika Kellerhals." It reported revenue and assets of one dollar for 2012 through 2014 and gross contributions of 10,003,000 dollars for 2015.[^5][^8] +A [[Deutsche Bank]] know-your-customer page headed "The 2013 Butterfly Trust," produced to a federal grand jury in the [[U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York|Southern District of New York]], lists Kellerhals as a current trustee with the note "(Deutsche Bank already has on file)," and names among the trust's "Current Potential Beneficiaries" Epstein's assistant [[Lesley Groff]], his pilot [[Larry Visoski|Lawrence Paul Visoski Jr.]] and his lawyer [[Darren Indyke]]. The Internal Revenue Service record of Gratitude America Ltd, recognized as a private foundation in September 2012, gives its address as 9053 Estate Thomas, Suite 101, St. Thomas, "in care of Erika Kellerhals." It reported revenue and assets of one dollar for 2012 through 2014 and gross contributions of 10,003,000 dollars for 2015.[^5][^8] In September 2025 Senator [[Ron Wyden]] introduced the Produce Epstein Treasury Records Act, S. 2746, which would require the Treasury to produce suspicious activity reports relating to Epstein and a list of individuals and entities that includes "Erika Kellerhals," alongside Indyke, [[Richard Kahn]], Beller, Southern Trust Company, the Butterfly Trust and Gratitude America Ltd.[^9] diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ethan Phelan Melzer.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ethan Phelan Melzer.md index 85b663de..0b6beadb 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ethan Phelan Melzer.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ethan Phelan Melzer.md @@ -30,7 +30,7 @@ The stated purpose of providing this information was to enable ISIS to plan and ### Case Number and Court -The case was filed in the [[Southern District of New York]] as United States v. Melzer, 1:20-cr-00314-GHW. The presiding judge was [[U.S. District Judge Gregory H. Woods]], an Obama appointee. The prosecution was handled by the SDNY [[National Security Unit]].[^3] +The case was filed in the [[U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York|Southern District of New York]] as United States v. Melzer, 1:20-cr-00314-GHW. The presiding judge was [[U.S. District Judge Gregory H. Woods]], an Obama appointee. The prosecution was handled by the SDNY [[National Security Unit]].[^3] ### Charges in the Superseding Indictment diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Eugene Jhong.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Eugene Jhong.md index a36ea01e..f06a3e26 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Eugene Jhong.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Eugene Jhong.md @@ -21,28 +21,28 @@ relations: with: "[[Blake Masters]]" role: "5,800 dollars on December 27, 2021 (two 2,900 dollar entries earmarked through WinRed) to Blake Masters for Senate, per FEC records under the name \"Jhong, Eugene\" of Los Altos" start: 2021-12-27 - fn: 3 + fn: 4 - type: funded with: "[[Brian Forde]]" role: "2,700 dollars on May 10, 2018, with the memo \"0.59101569 bitcoins received, not liquidated,\" to Brian Forde for Congress, per FEC records under the name \"Jhong, Eugene\" of Los Altos" start: 2018-05-10 - fn: 3 + fn: 4 created: 2026-10-03 -updated: 2026-10-03 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- [[Eugene Jhong]] is listed first among the members of the Philanthropic Advisory Board of Harvard's [[Galileo Project]], with the credentials "Undergraduate (AB) and law degree (JD) from [[Harvard University]]" and "MS in Computer Science, [[Stanford University]]."[^1] The advisory board is described as providing "philanthropic advice to The Galileo Project." Its other listed entries are Vinny Jain, Teddy Jones, the [[Laukien Science Foundation]], Joerg Laukien, [[William A. Linton]] of [[Promega Corporation]] and the [[Usona Institute]], and Adnan Sen. The project's July 26, 2021 release states that it has "initial funding from generous donations and pledges by individuals and foundations listed on the Galileo Project website."[^1][^2] ### Patent -The [[United States Patent and Trademark Office]] granted U.S. Patent 6,259,458 B1, "Method of generating and navigating a 3-D representation of a hierarchical data structure," on July 10, 2001 to an inventor named Eugene Jhong (with co-inventor Karen E. Theisen), assignee Elastic Technology, Inc.; the application was filed January 29, 1999 and claims priority to August 6, 1997. The patent record does not tie the inventor to the Galileo Project or to [[Google]], and no source read for this page states that Jhong worked at Google.[^4] +The [[United States Patent and Trademark Office]] granted U.S. Patent 6,259,458 B1, "Method of generating and navigating a 3-D representation of a hierarchical data structure," on July 10, 2001 to an inventor named Eugene Jhong (with co-inventor Karen E. Theisen), assignee Elastic Technology, Inc.; the application was filed January 29, 1999 and claims priority to August 6, 1997.[^3] ### Federal Election Commission records -The [[Federal Election Commission|FEC]]'s itemized receipts list contributions under the name "Jhong, Eugene" of Los Altos, California; no record read states that this donor is the Galileo adviser, though the Galileo biography (Stanford master's in computer science) and the occupation fields (engineer in 2012, retired or investor later) are consistent with it. The entries: 201.20 dollars to the Ron Paul 2012 presidential campaign (January 14, 2012; occupation engineer, employer self); 2,700 dollars to Brian Forde for Congress on May 10, 2018 with the memo "0.59101569 bitcoins received, not liquidated" (the itemization also carries offsetting negative entries of the same amount, which appear to be amendment reporting), and on July 14, 2018 a 2,700 dollar entry and its reversal marked "redesignation of general 2018 contribution"; 8,302.24 dollars on May 22, 2018 to the 314 Action Fund, itemized as a "non-contribution account" of 1.00 bitcoin, not liquidated; 500 dollars on March 5, 2019, 2,000 dollars on October 28, 2019 and 250 dollars on December 31, 2019 to Friends of Andrew Yang; 5,800 dollars on December 27, 2021 to Blake Masters for Senate (two 2,900 dollar entries earmarked through WinRed, with a matching 5,800 dollar WinRed conduit entry); 2,900 dollars on April 25, 2022 to Bruce Fenton for Liberty (occupation investor, employer self); and 2,900 dollars on November 3, 2022 to Gillibrand for Senate.[^3] +The [[Federal Election Commission|FEC]]'s itemized receipts list contributions under the name "Jhong, Eugene" of Los Altos, California; no record read states that this donor is the Galileo adviser, though the Galileo biography (Stanford master's in computer science) and the occupation fields (engineer in 2012, retired or investor later) are consistent with it. The entries: 201.20 dollars to the Ron Paul 2012 presidential campaign (January 14, 2012; occupation engineer, employer self); 2,700 dollars to Brian Forde for Congress on May 10, 2018 with the memo "0.59101569 bitcoins received, not liquidated" (the itemization also carries offsetting negative entries of the same amount, which appear to be amendment reporting), and on July 14, 2018 a 2,700 dollar entry and its reversal marked "redesignation of general 2018 contribution"; 8,302.24 dollars on May 22, 2018 to the 314 Action Fund, itemized as a "non-contribution account" of 1.00 bitcoin, not liquidated; 500 dollars on March 5, 2019, 2,000 dollars on October 28, 2019 and 250 dollars on December 31, 2019 to Friends of Andrew Yang; 5,800 dollars on December 27, 2021 to Blake Masters for Senate (two 2,900 dollar entries earmarked through WinRed, with a matching 5,800 dollar WinRed conduit entry); 2,900 dollars on April 25, 2022 to Bruce Fenton for Liberty (occupation investor, employer self); and 2,900 dollars on November 3, 2022 to Gillibrand for Senate.[^4] ### Footnotes [^1]: "Advisory Boards." The Galileo Project website, snapshot of December 25, 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20221225170229/https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/galileo/organization/advisory-boards [^2]: The Galileo Project. "Press Release and Press Conference Announcement," July 26, 2021. https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/galileo/files/galileo_project-announcement_pr-7.26.21.pdf (Internet Archive copy). -[^3]: Federal Election Commission, schedule A receipts, contributor name "JHONG, EUGENE" (OpenFEC API query run October 3, 2026). https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/?contributor_name=JHONG%2C%20EUGENE -[^4]: Jhong, Eugene, and Karen E. Theisen. U.S. Patent 6,259,458 B1, granted July 10, 2001. https://patents.google.com/patent/US6259458B1/en (patent record; the Google Patents site is used only to display the USPTO document). +[^3]: Jhong, Eugene, and Karen E. Theisen. U.S. Patent 6,259,458 B1, granted July 10, 2001. https://patents.google.com/patent/US6259458B1/en (patent record; the Google Patents site is used only to display the USPTO document). +[^4]: Federal Election Commission, schedule A receipts, contributor name "JHONG, EUGENE" (OpenFEC API query run October 3, 2026). https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/?contributor_name=JHONG%2C%20EUGENE diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/George Knapp.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/George Knapp.md index fe11f053..f643c200 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/George Knapp.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/George Knapp.md @@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ tags: summary: "George Knapp is the chief investigative reporter of KLAS-TV in Las Vegas, whose UFO coverage began with the 1989 Bob Lazar series and who testified before a House task force on September 9, 2025." location: "Las Vegas, Nevada" created: 2026-10-09 -updated: 2026-10-09 +updated: 2026-10-15 relations: - type: employed_by with: "[[KLAS-TV]]" @@ -141,7 +141,7 @@ On October 13, 2022 KLAS posted a Knapp report on [[Radiance Technologies]] unde [^17]: Senator Harry Reid to Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn, June 24, 2009, released by DIA to The Black Vault, https://documents2.theblackvault.com/documents/dia/AAWSAP/20090624_Reid_to_DEPSECDEF_ref_AAITP_in_SAP.pdf [^18]: George Knapp and Matt Adams, "EXCLUSIVE: I-Team obtains some key documents related to Pentagon UFO study," originally aired July 25, 2018, KLAS-TV, republished on Mystery Wire September 27, 2019, https://www.mysterywire.com/ufo/exclusive-i-team-obtains-some-key-documents-related-to-pentagon-ufo-study/ [^19]: The Black Vault, "The Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) Documentation," originally published April 2022 and updated, https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/the-advanced-aerospace-weapon-system-applications-program-aawsap-documentation/ -[^20]: Knapp's September 9, 2025 written testimony (note 4) gives the 2023 Lacatski revelation and the Lockheed negotiation, relying for the Lockheed discussion on a source who was present. The 2011 date is from Keith Basterfield, "Lockheed Martin and BAASS," November 30, 2023, quoting Lacatski, Kelleher and Knapp, Inside the US Government Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations (2023), https://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com/2023/11/lockheed-martin-and-baass.html +[^20]: Knapp's September 9, 2025 written testimony (note 4) gives the 2023 Lacatski revelation and the Lockheed negotiation, relying for the Lockheed discussion on a source who was present. The 2011 date attaches to Lacatski's craft statement at his meeting with a senator and an under secretary, and is from Keith Basterfield, "Lockheed Martin and BAASS," November 30, 2023, quoting Lacatski, Kelleher and Knapp, Inside the US Government Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations (2023), https://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com/2023/11/lockheed-martin-and-baass.html [^21]: U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, hearing "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency," July 26, 2023, GovInfo CHRG-118hhrg53022, index entry "Statement for the Record, by George Knapp; submitted by Rep. Burchett," https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-118hhrg53022/html/CHRG-118hhrg53022.htm [^22]: House Committee Repository, hearing of July 26, 2023, witnesses Fravor, Graves and Grusch and support documents "UC - Burchett - Statement for the Record - George Knapp" and "UC - Burchett - Report - 'The UAP Puzzle' - Jeremy Corbell" (added August 21, 2023), https://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=116282 [^23]: U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, hearing page "Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection," Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, September 9, 2025, 10:00 am, HVC-210, https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/restoring-public-trust-through-uap-transparency-and-whistleblower-protection/ ; Luna opening remarks, press release of September 9, 2025, https://oversight.house.gov/release/luna-opens-hearing-on-restoring-public-trust-through-uap-transparency/ diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ghislaine Maxwell.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ghislaine Maxwell.md index e05e135c..a23a34c9 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ghislaine Maxwell.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ghislaine Maxwell.md @@ -89,7 +89,7 @@ Robert Maxwell was accused across multiple documented sources of operating as an ### The Intelligence-Operation Question -Ghislaine Maxwell moved to [[New York|New York]] in 1991 after her father's death and the collapse of the family's reputation, reportedly with a financial settlement from the family estate. She met Epstein shortly after. Her lawyers have argued that her father's death "set her on a path" toward Epstein. The documented combination of Robert Maxwell's intelligence legacy, Ghislaine's role as Epstein's social partner and the principal recruiter of the trafficking operation, the documented [[Ehud Barak|Israeli-intelligence]] contacts through Epstein, and the broader pattern of Epstein's relationships with intelligence officials ([[William Burns]]) and technology principals ([[Peter Thiel|Thiel]], [[Elon Musk|Musk]]) has produced the recurring analytical question of whether the Epstein-Maxwell operation functioned as an intelligence-linked compromise or "honeypot" operation. The question is not confirmed in any primary document and is flagged here as a documented analytical thread.[^3][^14] +Ghislaine Maxwell moved to [[New York City|New York]] in 1991 after her father's death and the collapse of the family's reputation, reportedly with a financial settlement from the family estate. She met Epstein shortly after. Her lawyers have argued that her father's death "set her on a path" toward Epstein. The documented combination of Robert Maxwell's intelligence legacy, Ghislaine's role as Epstein's social partner and the principal recruiter of the trafficking operation, the documented [[Ehud Barak|Israeli-intelligence]] contacts through Epstein, and the broader pattern of Epstein's relationships with intelligence officials ([[William Burns]]) and technology principals ([[Peter Thiel|Thiel]], [[Elon Musk|Musk]]) has produced the recurring analytical question of whether the Epstein-Maxwell operation functioned as an intelligence-linked compromise or "honeypot" operation. The question is not confirmed in any primary document and is flagged here as a documented analytical thread.[^3][^14] The strongest version of the intelligence claim traces to [[Ari Ben-Menashe]], a self-described former Israeli Military Intelligence figure, who alleged in interviews and in his book *Profits of War* (1992) that Robert Maxwell was a "full-service" Mossad asset and that Epstein and Ghislaine were introduced into Israeli intelligence work through the Maxwell connection.[^15] Ben-Menashe's reliability is contested: his account is uncorroborated by any declassified file, he has made other claims that proved unverifiable, and no intelligence service has confirmed any of it, so the assertion that Ghislaine inherited her father's intelligence ties is reported allegation rather than established fact.[^15] What is documented in the trial record and contemporaneous reporting is narrower: that Maxwell maintained the social access (to figures including Prince Andrew and a transatlantic donor class) through which Epstein's operation functioned, and that Epstein separately cultivated relationships with Barak and others. Whether that access was directed by any service, or was simply the by-product of inherited wealth and connections weaponized for blackmail-adjacent leverage, remains unproven in any primary source.[^3][^14] diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Howard Hunt.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Howard Hunt.md index 8c9fe7a6..bfe55e18 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Howard Hunt.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Howard Hunt.md @@ -51,7 +51,7 @@ Hunt also managed the political exile leadership, working to maintain cohesion a ### Bay of Pigs -Hunt was assigned as the CIA's political officer for the Bay of Pigs invasion, responsible for the [[Cuban Revolutionary Council]] - the exile political organization that would form a provisional government after the expected overthrow of [[Fidel Castro]]. He worked with the exile leadership in [[Miami]] and later in [[New York]], managing their political expectations and organizational disputes. +Hunt was assigned as the CIA's political officer for the Bay of Pigs invasion, responsible for the [[Cuban Revolutionary Council]] - the exile political organization that would form a provisional government after the expected overthrow of [[Fidel Castro]]. He worked with the exile leadership in [[Miami]] and later in [[New York City|New York]], managing their political expectations and organizational disputes. The Bay of Pigs was a catastrophic failure, and Hunt's political operation collapsed along with the military operation. The exile political leadership was not told the operation was under way until it had already failed, and Hunt's management of their expectations was blamed by exile leaders for contributing to the political disorder. His role in the operation was not publicly acknowledged.[^1] diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/J. Edgar Hoover.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/J. Edgar Hoover.md index 77d8012d..9019f0e8 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/J. Edgar Hoover.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/J. Edgar Hoover.md @@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ aliases: - John Edgar Hoover - Edgar Hoover created: 2026-05-17 -updated: 2026-10-12 +updated: 2026-10-15 category: "Law Enforcement & Legal" tags: - KeyFigure @@ -23,31 +23,34 @@ location: "Washington, D.C." J. Edgar Hoover served as the first Director of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] (and its predecessor, the Bureau of Investigation) for 48 years, from 1924 until his death in 1972. His long tenure was marked by both his law enforcement activities and his connections to influential political and business figures. +Hoover worked at the [[Library of Congress]] and attended night classes at the [[George Washington University]] law school, and was awarded the LL.B. in 1916 and the LL.M. in 1917.[^1] He entered on duty with the [[Department of Justice]] on July 26, 1917 and in 1919 led its General Intelligence Division.[^1] + ### COINTELPRO -Hoover created [[COINTELPRO]] (Counter Intelligence Program) in 1956, initially targeting the Communist Party USA. The program expanded to target the Socialist Workers Party (1961), white hate groups (1964), Black nationalist organizations (1967), and New Left groups (1968). COINTELPRO used infiltration, fabricated communications designed to sow internal discord, coordination with local law enforcement, and referrals for prosecution. A 1967 Hoover memo described the program's objective regarding Black activists as preventing "the rise of a 'messiah' who could unify and electrify the militant Black Nationalist movement." The program was formally terminated by Hoover on April 27, 1971, after documents were stolen from the FBI's Media, Pennsylvania field office by the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI on March 8, 1971, and distributed to the press. The Church Committee subsequently documented COINTELPRO as a systematic campaign against legal political activity.[^1] +Hoover created [[COINTELPRO]] (Counter Intelligence Program) in 1956, initially targeting the Communist Party USA. The program expanded to target the Socialist Workers Party (1961), white hate groups (1964), Black nationalist organizations (1967), and New Left groups (1968). COINTELPRO used infiltration, fabricated communications designed to sow internal discord, coordination with local law enforcement, and referrals for prosecution. A 1967 Hoover memo described the program's objective regarding Black activists as preventing "the rise of a 'messiah' who could unify and electrify the militant Black Nationalist movement." The program was formally terminated by Hoover on April 27, 1971, after documents were stolen from the FBI's Media, Pennsylvania field office by the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI on March 8, 1971, and distributed to the press. The Church Committee subsequently documented COINTELPRO as a systematic campaign against legal political activity.[^2] ### Relationship with British Security Coordination -During World War II, Hoover initially cooperated with [[British Security Coordination]] (BSC), reportedly suggesting the organization's name and permitting BSC to use FBI radio channels. He became increasingly hostile as evidence accumulated that BSC was conducting unilateral covert operations on U.S. soil, which he regarded as exclusively FBI territory. The Berle surveillance incident (1942), in which, according to the biographer Richard Gid Powers, the BSC operative Dennis Paine surveilled Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle, was one documented flashpoint. Hoover eventually refused further dealings with BSC and had to rebuild intelligence relationships with MI5 and MI6 from scratch post-war.[^1] +During World War II, Hoover initially cooperated with [[British Security Coordination]] (BSC), reportedly suggesting the organization's name and permitting BSC to use FBI radio channels. He became increasingly hostile as evidence accumulated that BSC was conducting unilateral covert operations on U.S. soil, which he regarded as exclusively FBI territory. The Berle surveillance incident (1942), in which, according to the biographer Richard Gid Powers, the BSC operative Dennis Paine surveilled Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle, was one documented flashpoint. Hoover eventually refused further dealings with BSC and had to rebuild intelligence relationships with MI5 and MI6 from scratch post-war.[^2] ### Secret Files and Political Durability -The Church Committee documented that Hoover maintained extensive personal files on political figures, and that these files provided leverage that contributed to his ability to remain as FBI Director across eight presidential administrations despite periodic efforts to remove him. He died on May 2, 1972, in office, while COINTELPRO was under investigation.[^1] +The Church Committee documented that Hoover maintained extensive personal files on political figures, and that these files provided leverage that contributed to his ability to remain as FBI Director across eight presidential administrations despite periodic efforts to remove him. He died on May 2, 1972, in office, while COINTELPRO was under investigation.[^2] ### Hotel Del Charro Connections -Hoover was a frequent visitor to the Hotel Del Charro in La Jolla, California, an exclusive hotel opened by [[Clint Murchison, Sr.]] in the early 1950s. Hoover visited the hotel every summer between 1953 and 1959. During these visits, Clint Murchison, Sr. covered Hoover's tab, which amounted to approximately $19,000 in free vacations over those years. [[Richard Nixon]] and Senator [[Joseph McCarthy]] were also often seen at Murchison's Hotel Del Charro.[^2] +Hoover was a frequent visitor to the Hotel Del Charro in La Jolla, California, an exclusive hotel opened by [[Clint Murchison, Sr.]] in the early 1950s. Hoover visited the hotel every summer between 1953 and 1959. During these visits, Clint Murchison, Sr. covered Hoover's tab, which amounted to approximately $19,000 in free vacations over those years. [[Richard Nixon]] and Senator [[Joseph McCarthy]] were also often seen at Murchison's Hotel Del Charro.[^3] ### NUMEC Investigation and CIA Conflicts -In October 1965, the [[Atomic Energy Commission|AEC]] referred the [[Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation|NUMEC]] losses to the FBI. However, Hoover saw no basis for an investigation, concluding that the situation was an administrative matter. He was in the midst of a bitter dispute with [[James Jesus Angleton]]'s counterintelligence shop over the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]'s handling of defectors and illegal spying inside the [[United States]]. Hoover chose to spar with [[Richard Helms|Helms]] over the [[Zalman Mordecai Shapiro|Shapiro]] issue, telling the CIA to go to [[Israel]] and get inside [[Dimona]] to find evidence of the alleged uranium diversion.[^3] +In October 1965, the [[Atomic Energy Commission|AEC]] referred the [[Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation|NUMEC]] losses to the FBI. However, Hoover saw no basis for an investigation, concluding that the situation was an administrative matter. He was in the midst of a bitter dispute with [[James Jesus Angleton]]'s counterintelligence shop over the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]'s handling of defectors and illegal spying inside the [[United States]]. Hoover chose to spar with [[Richard Helms|Helms]] over the [[Zalman Mordecai Shapiro|Shapiro]] issue, telling the CIA to go to [[Israel]] and get inside [[Dimona]] to find evidence of the alleged uranium diversion.[^4] -A June 10, 1970 Central Intelligence Agency memorandum on releasing the Trace Metal Detection Technique to police gave friction between a police professional association and Hoover as one reason for choosing the [[LEAA|Law Enforcement Assistance Administration]] as the distribution channel. The memorandum stated that "it is probable that Mr. Hoover would resent our use of the Association in invading what he has traditionally considered his exclusive domain."[^4] +A June 10, 1970 Central Intelligence Agency memorandum on releasing the Trace Metal Detection Technique to police gave friction between a police professional association and Hoover as one reason for choosing the [[LEAA|Law Enforcement Assistance Administration]] as the distribution channel. The memorandum stated that "it is probable that Mr. Hoover would resent our use of the Association in invading what he has traditionally considered his exclusive domain."[^5] ### Footnotes -[^1]: Church Committee, S. Rept. 94-755, April 26, 1976. Powers, Richard Gid. *Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover*. Free Press, 1987. Medsger, Betty. *The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI*. Knopf, 2014. "British Security Coordination: The Secret History of British Intelligence in the Americas, 1940-45." Fromm International Publishing, 1998. -[^2]: Seymour, Cheri. _The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal_. First Edition. TrineDay, 2010. -[^3]: Hersh, Seymour M. _The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy_. Random House, 1991. Chapter 18. -[^4]: Central Intelligence Agency, memorandum to the Director of Central Intelligence, "Release of Trace Metal Detection Technique to Law Enforcement Officials," June 10, 1970, CIA-RDP83B00823R000600150029-5. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp83b00823r000600150029-5 +[^1]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, "J. Edgar Hoover, May 10, 1924 - May 2, 1972," Directors, Then and Now. https://www.fbi.gov/history/directors/j-edgar-hoover ("J. Edgar Hoover's GW Years," GW Today, December 11, 2011, https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/j-edgar-hoovers-gw-years, gives fall 1913 entry and the bar examination of July 25, 1917.) +[^2]: Church Committee, S. Rept. 94-755, April 26, 1976. Powers, Richard Gid. *Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover*. Free Press, 1987. Medsger, Betty. *The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI*. Knopf, 2014. "British Security Coordination: The Secret History of British Intelligence in the Americas, 1940-45." Fromm International Publishing, 1998. +[^3]: Seymour, Cheri. _The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal_. First Edition. TrineDay, 2010. +[^4]: Hersh, Seymour M. _The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy_. Random House, 1991. Chapter 18. +[^5]: Central Intelligence Agency, memorandum to the Director of Central Intelligence, "Release of Trace Metal Detection Technique to Law Enforcement Officials," June 10, 1970, CIA-RDP83B00823R000600150029-5. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp83b00823r000600150029-5 diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Kenneth A. Kress.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Kenneth A. Kress.md index 8320f7a4..4358cabb 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Kenneth A. Kress.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Kenneth A. Kress.md @@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ tags: - CIA - SRI summary: "Kress was the lead analyst assigned to the operation involving Pat Price's Remote Viewing of URDF-3, a highly classified Soviet research and development facility in Kazakhstan." -updated: 2026-10-08 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Kenneth A. Kress was a physicist, engineer, and analyst with the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]. He is considered by some to be the "father of America's remote-viewing program" as he was responsible for giving [[Stanford Research Institute|SRI]] its first [[Psi]] research contract in 1972[^1]. Kress, then a young, dark-haired engineer, was instrumental in bringing [[Hal Puthoff]] and [[Ingo Swann]] into the Central Intelligence Agency's orbit for psychic research[^1]. @@ -45,5 +45,5 @@ In the review Kress wrote that the [[DARPA|Defense Advanced Research Projects Ag ### Footnotes [^1]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis*. Little, Brown and Company, 2017. -[^2]: Kress, Kenneth A. "Parapsychology in Intelligence: A Personal Review and Conclusions," *Studies in Intelligence,* vol. 21, no. 4, winter 1977, declassified, document NSA-RDP96X00790R000100010031-3; reprinted with the author's postscript of January 1999 in *Journal of Scientific Exploration,* vol. 13, no. 1, 1999. +[^2]: Kress, Kenneth A. "Parapsychology in Intelligence: A Personal Review and Conclusions," *Studies in Intelligence,* vol. 21, no. 4, winter 1977, declassified, document CIA-RDP96-00791R000200030040-0; reprinted with the author's postscript of January 1999 in *Journal of Scientific Exploration,* vol. 13, no. 1, 1999. [^3]: Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Legislative Counsel, "Briefing of Representative Charles Rose (D., N.C.), Member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, 9 February 1978," OLC 78-0576, CIA-RDP81M00980R000600250087-4, first page only. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Kenneth Mapp.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Kenneth Mapp.md index fa5e0d59..a015cabb 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Kenneth Mapp.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Kenneth Mapp.md @@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ created: 2026-09-25 updated: 2026-09-25 --- -Kenneth E. Mapp (born November 2, 1955, in [[New York]]) is a [[U.S. Virgin Islands]] politician who was governor of the territory from January 5, 2015 to January 7, 2019, between [[John de Jongh]] and [[Albert Bryan]]. He governed while [[Jeffrey Epstein]], a registered sex offender in the territory, bought and built on [[Great St. James]], and [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]] releases in 2026 showed years of direct correspondence between the two, including a 2016 request that Epstein lend the territorial government 275 million dollars and a 2018 request for 50,000 dollars for his political action committee. Deposed in 2023 in the territory's suit against [[JPMorgan Chase]], Mapp, like the other officials deposed, said he had no knowledge of Epstein's crimes. A federal trafficking suit naming him was dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction in 2025.[^1][^2][^3][^4] +Kenneth E. Mapp (born November 2, 1955, in [[New York City|New York]]) is a [[U.S. Virgin Islands]] politician who was governor of the territory from January 5, 2015 to January 7, 2019, between [[John de Jongh]] and [[Albert Bryan]]. He governed while [[Jeffrey Epstein]], a registered sex offender in the territory, bought and built on [[Great St. James]], and [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]] releases in 2026 showed years of direct correspondence between the two, including a 2016 request that Epstein lend the territorial government 275 million dollars and a 2018 request for 50,000 dollars for his political action committee. Deposed in 2023 in the territory's suit against [[JPMorgan Chase]], Mapp, like the other officials deposed, said he had no knowledge of Epstein's crimes. A federal trafficking suit naming him was dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction in 2025.[^1][^2][^3][^4] ### Career diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Laura Menninger.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Laura Menninger.md index b0383672..428507b3 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Laura Menninger.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Laura Menninger.md @@ -47,14 +47,14 @@ relations: start: 2020 fn: 8 created: 2026-09-25 -updated: 2026-09-25 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Laura A. Menninger is an American trial lawyer, a shareholder of the [[Denver]] firm [[Haddon, Morgan and Foreman]], who with her partner Jeffrey S. Pagliuca represented [[Ghislaine Maxwell]] in [[Virginia Giuffre]]'s 2015 defamation suit, [[Giuffre v. Maxwell]], and in the 2020 criminal prosecution [[United States v. Maxwell]] in the [[U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York]]. Before law school she was a financial analyst at [[Goldman Sachs]]; after it she clerked for Judge [[Lewis A. Kaplan]] of the same court. In 2022 her firm sued Maxwell, her brother [[Kevin Maxwell]] and her husband [[Scott Borgerson]] for more than 878,000 dollars in unpaid fees.[^1][^2][^3] ### Education and Career -Menninger graduated magna cum laude from [[Duke University]] in 1991 and worked as a financial analyst in the Corporate Finance Department of Goldman, Sachs & Co. in [[New York]]. She took her J.D. with distinction from [[Stanford Law School]] in 1997, where she was an associate editor of the Stanford Law Review, and clerked for Kaplan in 1997 and 1998. She was a litigation associate at [[Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison]] in New York from 1998 to 2002, then moved to [[Colorado]], where she spent five years as a trial lawyer with the Colorado State Public Defender before joining [[Holland & Hart]]. She joined Haddon, Morgan and Foreman as a shareholder in 2012. She is a Fellow of the [[American College of Trial Lawyers]] and has chaired the Criminal Justice Act Standing Committee of the [[U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado]].[^1] +Menninger graduated magna cum laude from [[Duke University]] in 1991 and worked as a financial analyst in the Corporate Finance Department of Goldman, Sachs & Co. in [[New York City|New York]]. She took her J.D. with distinction from [[Stanford Law School]] in 1997, where she was an associate editor of the Stanford Law Review, and clerked for Kaplan in 1997 and 1998. She was a litigation associate at [[Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison]] in New York from 1998 to 2002, then moved to [[Colorado]], where she spent five years as a trial lawyer with the Colorado State Public Defender before joining [[Holland & Hart]]. She joined Haddon, Morgan and Foreman as a shareholder in 2012. She is a Fellow of the [[American College of Trial Lawyers]] and has chaired the Criminal Justice Act Standing Committee of the [[U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado]].[^1] ### Giuffre v. Maxwell @@ -70,7 +70,7 @@ Maxwell's lead pretrial motion, filed over the signatures of Mark S. Cohen of [[ ### The Fee Suit -On August 22, 2022 Haddon, Morgan and Foreman sued Maxwell, Kevin Maxwell and Borgerson in Denver, alleging that it had not been paid more than 878,000 dollars for defending her at trial and on appeal. The complaint alleged that Maxwell had put her brother in charge of paying her legal fees after her 2020 arrest, that he paid "a fraction" of what was billed through trial while urging the firm to keep working on appeal issues, that he blamed Borgerson for obstructing payment, and that Borgerson formed a limited liability company to buy real estate in order to shield his wife's assets from creditors. Menninger and Pagliuca were named as members of the trial team. [[Ian Maxwell]] said that no family member, including Ghislaine, would comment on the litigation.[^3] +On August 22, 2022 Haddon, Morgan and Foreman sued Maxwell, Kevin Maxwell and Borgerson in Denver, alleging that it had not been paid more than 878,000 dollars for defending her at trial and on appeal. The complaint alleged that Maxwell had put her brother in charge of paying her legal fees after her 2020 arrest, that he paid "a fraction" of what was billed through trial while urging the firm to keep working on appeal issues, that he blamed Borgerson for obstructing payment, and that Borgerson formed a limited liability company to buy real estate in order to shield his wife's assets from creditors. Menninger and Pagliuca were named as members of the trial team. In the Second Circuit appeals in the civil case, the opinions of July 3, 2019, October 19, 2020 and July 23, 2025 list Adam Mueller of the firm as counsel for Maxwell.[^10] [[Ian Maxwell]] said that no family member, including Ghislaine, would comment on the litigation.[^3] ### Footnotes @@ -83,3 +83,4 @@ On August 22, 2022 Haddon, Morgan and Foreman sued Maxwell, Kevin Maxwell and Bo [^7]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00088205, DataSet 9, letter, Jeffrey S. Pagliuca, Haddon, Morgan and Foreman, P.C., to Hon. Alison J. Nathan, "Re: Reply in Support of Request to Modify Protective Order (Under Seal), United States v. Ghislaine Maxwell, 20 Cr. 330 (AJN)," August 24, 2020. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00088205.pdf [^8]: United States v. Maxwell, No. 1:20-cr-00330 (S.D.N.Y.), Notice of Motion to Dismiss Superseding Indictment for Breach of Non-Prosecution Agreement, ECF No. 141 (filed Feb. 4, 2021). https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.539612/gov.uscourts.nysd.539612.141.0.pdf ; Opinion and Order, ECF No. 207 (April 16, 2021). https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17318376/united-states-v-maxwell/ [^9]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00016268, DataSet 8, letter, Haddon, Morgan and Foreman, P.C., defense expert disclosure, United States v. Maxwell, 20 Cr. 330 (S.D.N.Y.), November 1, 2021 (duplicate at EFTA02835304, Court Records). https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%208/EFTA00016268.pdf +[^10]: *Brown v. Maxwell*, 929 F.3d 41 (2d Cir. July 3, 2019), counsel block (Ty Gee and Adam Mueller, Haddon, Morgan and Foreman, for Maxwell), https://static.case.law/f3d/929/cases/0041-01.json ; *Giuffre v. Maxwell*, summary order, No. 20-2413-cv (2d Cir. Oct. 19, 2020), counsel for defendant-appellant: Adam Mueller (Ty Gee on the brief), Haddon, Morgan and Foreman, P.C.; *Giuffre v. Maxwell*, consolidated appeals decided July 23, 2025, counsel block (Adam Mueller, Haddon, Morgan & Foreman, P.C.). diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Leslie Kean.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Leslie Kean.md index 59e20f02..83a41ac8 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Leslie Kean.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Leslie Kean.md @@ -18,30 +18,32 @@ relations: start: 2017-12-16 fn: 1 created: 2026-10-03 -updated: 2026-10-03 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- [[Leslie Kean]] grew up in [[New York City]], attended the [[Spence School]] and [[Bard College]], helped found a Zen center in upstate New York, and worked as a photographer at the [[Cornell Lab of Ornithology]], before a 1990s trip to [[Myanmar|Burma]] to interview political prisoners led to investigative journalism, according to *[[The New Yorker]]*. She worked as a producer and host of "[[Flashpoints]]" at the [[Berkeley, California|Berkeley]] radio station [[KPFA]]. Her grandfather [[Robert Winthrop Kean]] served ten terms in [[United States Congress|Congress]] and her uncle [[Thomas Kean]] was governor of [[New Jersey]] and chaired the [[9/11 Commission]].[^1] ### Early UFO work -In 1999 a journalist friend in Paris sent Kean the report of the French group [[COMETA]], "Les OVNI et la Défense," and in 2000 she wrote a summary for the *[[Boston Globe]]* Focus section, published May 21, 2000.[^1] *The New Yorker* described her as "an independent investigative journalist and a novice U.F.O. researcher who had worked with Greer" ([[Steven Greer]]) when she watched his May 9, 2001 [[Disclosure Project]] event at the [[National Press Club]], where she "knew then that I had to walk away" because of speakers' "outrageous, grandiose claims."[^1] In 2002 [[Larry Landsman]], director of projects for the [[Syfy|Sci Fi Channel]] (now Syfy), invited her to lead a public effort to obtain government records on the [[Kecksburg incident|Kecksburg]], [[Pennsylvania]] incident of December 9, 1965. Sci Fi hired lawyers, researchers and the Washington firm [[PodestaMattoon]]; its [[Edwin S. Rothschild]] introduced her to [[John Podesta]], who agreed to support publicly her lawsuit against [[NASA]]. The case ran four years and ended in a settlement; Kean received "hundreds of largely irrelevant documents."[^1][^2] By March 2003 the effort included an online petition at signpetition.com asking [[United States Congress|Congress]] to direct the [[Government Accountability Office|General Accounting Office]] to examine Kecksburg and a plan to sue, through a law firm doing freedom-of-information work, wherever agencies short-changed requests for declassified files. Kean said of the case, "This case is so incredibly fascinating. Even now, the trail is not cold." [[Stan Gordon]] of Greensburg, then 53, was also part of the records effort, and Landsman said, "We're committed to solving this." The drive was "bankrolled by" the Sci Fi Channel, and Kean was described as a San Francisco-area freelance journalist whose writing had appeared on the opinion pages of the *[[Atlanta Journal-Constitution]]* and the news pages of the *Boston Globe*.[^3] Podesta wrote the foreword to her 2010 book *UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record* ([[Random House]] imprint), and in June 2011 invited her to make a confidential presentation at the [[Center for American Progress]], which he had founded. In August 2014 she met Podesta, then an adviser to [[Barack Obama]], in the West Wing and proposed that one person in the [[Office of Science and Technology Policy]] be assigned to the subject; the proposal went nowhere.[^1] +In 1999 a journalist friend in Paris sent Kean the report of the French group [[COMETA]], "Les OVNI et la Défense," and in 2000 she wrote a summary for the *[[Boston Globe]]* Focus section, published May 21, 2000.[^1] *The New Yorker* described her as "an independent investigative journalist and a novice U.F.O. researcher who had worked with Greer" ([[Steven Greer]]) when she watched his May 9, 2001 [[Disclosure Project]] event at the [[National Press Club]], where she "knew then that I had to walk away" because of speakers' "outrageous, grandiose claims."[^1] In 2002 [[Larry Landsman]], director of projects for the [[Syfy|Sci Fi Channel]] (now Syfy), invited her to lead a public effort to obtain government records on the [[Kecksburg incident|Kecksburg]], [[Pennsylvania]] incident of December 9, 1965. Sci Fi hired lawyers, researchers and the Washington firm [[PodestaMattoon]]; its [[Edwin S. Rothschild]] introduced her to [[John Podesta]], who agreed to support publicly her lawsuit against [[NASA]]. The case ran four years and ended in a settlement; Kean received "hundreds of largely irrelevant documents."[^1][^2] The suit, *Kean v. National Aeronautics and Space Administration*, Civil Action No. 03-2509 (EGS), was heard in the [[United States District Court for the District of Columbia]] by Judge [[Emmet G. Sullivan]] on a request Kean submitted to NASA on January 31, 2003. The court's memorandum opinion of March 27, 2007 recites that NASA admitted that its first two searches were inadequate, that three of nineteen boxes of archived records sought from the Washington National Record Center were "reported as having been missing for quite some time," and that the parties were to propose search procedures by April 30, 2007.[^3] The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reported in October and December 2007 that NASA had agreed, and been ordered, to search its archives again.[^4] By March 2003 the effort included an online petition at signpetition.com asking [[United States Congress|Congress]] to direct the [[Government Accountability Office|General Accounting Office]] to examine Kecksburg and a plan to sue, through a law firm doing freedom-of-information work, wherever agencies short-changed requests for declassified files. Kean said of the case, "This case is so incredibly fascinating. Even now, the trail is not cold." [[Stan Gordon]] of Greensburg, then 53, was also part of the records effort, and Landsman said, "We're committed to solving this." The drive was "bankrolled by" the Sci Fi Channel, and Kean was described as a San Francisco-area freelance journalist whose writing had appeared on the opinion pages of the *[[Atlanta Journal-Constitution]]* and the news pages of the *Boston Globe*.[^5] Podesta wrote the foreword to her 2010 book *UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record* ([[Random House]] imprint), and in June 2011 invited her to make a confidential presentation at the [[Center for American Progress]], which he had founded. In August 2014 she met Podesta, then an adviser to [[Barack Obama]], in the West Wing and proposed that one person in the [[Office of Science and Technology Policy]] be assigned to the subject; the proposal went nowhere.[^1] -Her later [[Huffington Post]] work drew on material from the [[Chilean government]]'s [[Comité de Estudios de Fenómenos Aéreos Anómalos]] (CEFAA). Her January 6, 2017 piece "Groundbreaking UFO Video Just Released by Chilean [[United States Navy|Navy]]" was analyzed on the forum [[Metabunk]] by [[Mick West]] and others, who concluded by January 11 that the object was [[Iberia]] flight IB6830 from [[Santiago]] to [[Madrid]]; Kean said of West that "if Mick were really interested in this stuff, he wouldn't debunk every single video."[^1] *[[New York Magazine]]* describes her late partner as [[Budd Hopkins]], the abduction researcher, in connection with her book *[[Surviving Death]]*.[^4] +Her later [[Huffington Post]] work drew on material from the [[Chilean government]]'s [[Comité de Estudios de Fenómenos Aéreos Anómalos]] (CEFAA). Her January 6, 2017 piece "Groundbreaking UFO Video Just Released by Chilean [[United States Navy|Navy]]" was analyzed on the forum [[Metabunk]] by [[Mick West]] and others, who concluded by January 11 that the object was [[Iberia]] flight IB6830 from [[Santiago]] to [[Madrid]]; Kean said of West that "if Mick were really interested in this stuff, he wouldn't debunk every single video."[^1] *[[New York Magazine]]* describes her late partner as [[Budd Hopkins]], the abduction researcher, in connection with her book *[[Surviving Death]]*.[^6] ### The December 2017 placement Kean told [[Gideon Lewis-Kraus]] that on October 4, 2017, at the behest of [[Christopher Mellon]], she was called to a confidential meeting in the bar of a hotel near the [[Pentagon]], where [[Hal Puthoff]] and [[Jim Semivan]] introduced her to [[Luis Elizondo]], who had left the Pentagon the previous day. She was shown documents for three hours and told she could have the videos, with chain-of-custody documentation, "if she could place a story in the Times." She telephoned [[Ralph Blumenthal]], who wrote to executive editor [[Dean Baquet]]; the *[[New York Times]]* assigned [[Helene Cooper]], and the three published "Glowing Auras and 'Black Money': The Pentagon's Mysterious U.F.O. Program" on December 16, 2017. Kean told Lewis-Kraus: "I never would have ever imagined I could have ended up writing for the Times," and gave "all the credit to Elizondo and Mellon for coming forward." She also said she developed doubts about [[Tom DeLonge]] after his appearance on [[Joe Rogan]]'s podcast, while having "full confidence" in Elizondo.[^1] See [[December 2017 New York Times AATIP Report]]. -[[Keith Kloor]] reported in *[[The Intercept]]* in 2019 that Kean "wrote in 2016 that she was 'privileged to welcome' Chris Mellon into the UFO organization to which she belonged."[^5] The Pentagon's 2019 statements that Elizondo had "no responsibilities" for [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program|AATIP]] while in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, and the dispute with [[Bryan Bender]]'s December 2017 reporting, are set out on the event page. +[[Keith Kloor]] reported in *[[The Intercept]]* in 2019 that Kean "wrote in 2016 that she was 'privileged to welcome' Chris Mellon into the UFO organization to which she belonged."[^7] The Pentagon's 2019 statements that Elizondo had "no responsibilities" for [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program|AATIP]] while in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, and the dispute with [[Bryan Bender]]'s December 2017 reporting, are set out on the event page. ### After 2017 -Kean has since covered the subject for the Times, sharing bylines with Blumenthal. A July 2020 article by the two referred to unclassified slides shown at congressional briefings that mentioned "off-world" vehicles and "crash retrievals" and said [[Harry Reid]] "believed that crashes of vehicles from other worlds had occurred and that retrieved materials had been studied secretly for decades, often by aerospace companies under government contracts." The Times corrected the sentence the next day. Reid told Lewis-Kraus he had never seen proof of remnants and that he had "been told for decades that [[Lockheed Martin|Lockheed]] had some of these retrieved materials." A former Pentagon official told Lewis-Kraus that terms in Kean's slides were ones "we would never say." Kean told Lewis-Kraus she had come to believe that fragments had been "hoarded somewhere" and cited [[Jacques Vallee]], who is working with [[Stanford University|Stanford]] immunologist [[Garry Nolan]] on purported crash material.[^1] In June 2023 she and Blumenthal published the first account of the claims of [[David Grusch]] on [[The Debrief]].[^4] +Kean has since covered the subject for the Times, sharing bylines with Blumenthal. A July 2020 article by the two referred to unclassified slides shown at congressional briefings that mentioned "off-world" vehicles and "crash retrievals" and said [[Harry Reid]] "believed that crashes of vehicles from other worlds had occurred and that retrieved materials had been studied secretly for decades, often by aerospace companies under government contracts." The Times corrected the sentence the next day. Reid told Lewis-Kraus he had never seen proof of remnants and that he had "been told for decades that [[Lockheed Martin|Lockheed]] had some of these retrieved materials." A former Pentagon official told Lewis-Kraus that terms in Kean's slides were ones "we would never say." Kean told Lewis-Kraus she had come to believe that fragments had been "hoarded somewhere" and cited [[Jacques Vallee]], who is working with [[Stanford University|Stanford]] immunologist [[Garry Nolan]] on purported crash material.[^1] In June 2023 she and Blumenthal published the first account of the claims of [[David Grusch]] on [[The Debrief]].[^6] ### Footnotes [^1]: Lewis-Kraus, Gideon. "How the Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously." *The New Yorker,* May 10, 2021. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/how-the-pentagon-started-taking-ufos-seriously. The date of the Reid correction and the July 2020 article are inferred from the text ("published last July") of a May 2021 piece. [^2]: Same, on the 2002 PodestaMattoon engagement, Rothschild's introduction and Podesta's support of the lawsuit. -[^3]: Gibb, Tom. "Reality 'X-file': People in Kecksburg want to resolve what fell from the sky in 1965." *Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,* March 9, 2003, p. 21, via newspapers.com image 90896474. Quotations as printed. -[^4]: Baker, Nicholson. "How We Lost Our Minds About UFOs." *New York Magazine,* January 31, 2024. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/leslie-kean-ufo-sightings-aliens.html -[^5]: Kloor, Keith. "The Media Loves This UFO Expert Who Says He Worked for an Obscure Pentagon Program. Did He?" *The Intercept,* June 1, 2019. https://theintercept.com/2019/06/01/ufo-unidentified-history-channel-luis-elizondo-pentagon/. Kloor does not name the organization or the venue of Kean's 2016 statement; his article is the only source read for it. +[^3]: *Kean v. National Aeronautics and Space Administration*, Civil Action No. 03-2509 (EGS) (D.D.C.), Memorandum Opinion, Document 45, filed March 27, 2007 (Sullivan, J.), pp. 1 to 10 and 19 to 21. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.106063/gov.uscourts.dcd.106063.45.0.pdf +[^4]: Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, "Was It a UFO? NASA Agrees to Search Its Files on 1965 Incident Again," October 29, 2007, https://www.rcfp.org/was-it-ufo-nasa-agrees-search-its-files-1965-incident-again/ ; "NASA Ordered to Review Its Records for Data on 'UFO' Sighting," December 10, 2007, https://www.rcfp.org/nasa-ordered-review-its-records-data-ufo-sighting/ +[^5]: Gibb, Tom. "Reality 'X-file': People in Kecksburg want to resolve what fell from the sky in 1965." *Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,* March 9, 2003, p. 21, via newspapers.com image 90896474. Quotations as printed. +[^6]: Baker, Nicholson. "How We Lost Our Minds About UFOs." *New York Magazine,* January 31, 2024. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/leslie-kean-ufo-sightings-aliens.html +[^7]: Kloor, Keith. "The Media Loves This UFO Expert Who Says He Worked for an Obscure Pentagon Program. Did He?" *The Intercept,* June 1, 2019. https://theintercept.com/2019/06/01/ufo-unidentified-history-channel-luis-elizondo-pentagon/. Kloor does not name the organization or the venue of Kean's 2016 statement; his article is the only source read for it. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Linda Moulton Howe.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Linda Moulton Howe.md index fc9c5907..8d37f858 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Linda Moulton Howe.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Linda Moulton Howe.md @@ -41,7 +41,7 @@ Linda Moulton Howe is a television documentary producer who, as Director of Spec ### A Strange Harvest and the HBO contract -Howe wrote that the research began on September 1, 1979 as an environmental story and became an accumulation of testimony that "implicated the presence of extraterrestrial mutilators," and that after the program she received hundreds of calls and letters.[^1] During the fall of 1982, she wrote, an HBO executive who had screened the documentary asked for a proposal that "went beyond the mutilation investigation and focused primarily on evidence for extraterrestrial interactions." On March 20, 1983, in [[New York]], she had dinner with the attorney [[Peter Gersten]] of [[Citizens Against UFO Secrecy]] (CAUS), who told her he had an Air Force contact, Richard Doty, who might discuss a 1977 landing at [[Ellsworth Air Force Base]]; Gersten had met Doty in [[Albuquerque]] on January 10, 1983. The next afternoon [[Jean Abounader]], director of HBO's documentary unit and previously with CBS, with an assistant, accepted a proposal titled *UFOS: The E.T. Factor* and asked her to sign a development contract to deliver a shooting script.[^2] Gersten then called Doty, who in a telephone call was "cordial" and agreed to meet on April 9.[^2] On March 26, 1983 Howe and [[Larry Fawcett]] visited [[Robert Emenegger]] in [[Los Angeles]] about the 1964 [[Holloman Air Force Base|Holloman]] landing; two weeks later, she wrote, Emenegger told her that his [[Department of Defense]] sources had told him not to take part.[^2] +Howe wrote that the research began on September 1, 1979 as an environmental story and became an accumulation of testimony that "implicated the presence of extraterrestrial mutilators," and that after the program she received hundreds of calls and letters.[^1] During the fall of 1982, she wrote, an HBO executive who had screened the documentary asked for a proposal that "went beyond the mutilation investigation and focused primarily on evidence for extraterrestrial interactions." On March 20, 1983, in [[New York City|New York]], she had dinner with the attorney [[Peter Gersten]] of [[Citizens Against UFO Secrecy]] (CAUS), who told her he had an Air Force contact, Richard Doty, who might discuss a 1977 landing at [[Ellsworth Air Force Base]]; Gersten had met Doty in [[Albuquerque]] on January 10, 1983. The next afternoon [[Jean Abounader]], director of HBO's documentary unit and previously with CBS, with an assistant, accepted a proposal titled *UFOS: The E.T. Factor* and asked her to sign a development contract to deliver a shooting script.[^2] Gersten then called Doty, who in a telephone call was "cordial" and agreed to meet on April 9.[^2] On March 26, 1983 Howe and [[Larry Fawcett]] visited [[Robert Emenegger]] in [[Los Angeles]] about the 1964 [[Holloman Air Force Base|Holloman]] landing; two weeks later, she wrote, Emenegger told her that his [[Department of Defense]] sources had told him not to take part.[^2] ### April 9, 1983 diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Michael Mastromarino.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Michael Mastromarino.md index 71d40de4..02e5d773 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Michael Mastromarino.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Michael Mastromarino.md @@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ relations: end: 2008-10-22 fn: 1 created: 2026-09-23 -updated: 2026-09-23 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Michael Mastromarino (died July 7, 2013) was a [[New Jersey]] oral surgeon who, after losing his dental license, founded [[Biomedical Tissue Services]] (BTS) in 2002 and ran it as a business "selling human tissue from cadavers to tissue banks around the country." Between 2001 and 2005, by his own admission, he and a team of "cutters" removed bone, skin, tendon and other tissue from the bodies of people who had not consented to donation, forged consent forms and death records, and sold the tissue to processors whose products were transplanted into patients. He pleaded guilty in [[Brooklyn]] in March 2008 and in [[Philadelphia]] in August 2008, and was serving concurrent sentences of 18 to 54 years in [[New York (state)|New York]] and 25 to 58 years in [[Pennsylvania]] when he died of cancer, aged 49.[^1][^2][^3] @@ -63,7 +63,7 @@ Among the bodies was that of the broadcaster [[Alistair Cooke]], who died in Mar On February 23, 2006, the Kings County District Attorney, [[Charles J. Hynes]], announced a 122-count indictment of Mastromarino, Nicelli, Cruceta and Christopher Aldorasi for enterprise corruption, body stealing, opening graves, unlawful dissection, forgery, grand larceny and falsifying business records. "What happened here," Hynes said, "is like something out of a cheap horror movie."[^5] The four were charged with removing bone and tissue from 1,077 bodies at funeral homes without the permission of families.[^8] On March 18, 2008, Mastromarino pleaded guilty in Brooklyn to fourteen counts including enterprise corruption, body stealing and reckless endangerment, admitting that he had carried out the scheme from 2001 to 2005 and had forged records of the time of death and ages of the dead and switched blood and tissue samples; he agreed to forfeit 4.68 million dollars, and his wife, Barbra, 190,000 dollars. "What he did was wrong," said his lawyer, Mario Gallucci.[^2] At his sentencing to 18 to 54 years before Judge Albert Tomei, relatives of the dead addressed him; a woman who said she had contracted hepatitis from one of his bones implanted in her back called his actions "sick, disgusting, appalling." Mastromarino said: "I'd just like to take the opportunity to apologize for the pain and grief I've caused to the donor families and the donor recipients... God have mercy on my soul."[^9] Aldorasi was sentenced to 9 to 27 years; Cruceta pleaded guilty and testified against him.[^10] -In Philadelphia, after a grand jury investigation begun on May 4, 2006, Mastromarino entered an open plea of guilty on August 29, 2008, and on October 22, 2008, was sentenced to 25 to 58 years, concurrent with his New York sentence. The judge sentenced him on 32 of the 244 theft counts consecutively and gave aggravated sentences for abuse of corpse because the conduct was "so beyond the pale of what the guidelines contemplate." Because he had forfeited 300,000 dollars in cash, the Commonwealth sought no further restitution. The [[Superior Court of Pennsylvania|Superior Court]] affirmed the sentence on July 21, 2010.[^1] +In Philadelphia, after a grand jury investigation begun on May 4, 2006, Mastromarino entered an open plea of guilty on August 29, 2008, and on October 22, 2008, was sentenced to 25 to 58 years, concurrent with his New York sentence. The judge sentenced him on 32 of the 244 theft counts consecutively and gave aggravated sentences for abuse of corpse because the conduct was "so beyond the pale of what the guidelines contemplate." Because he had forfeited 300,000 dollars in cash, in one account of the sentencing, the Commonwealth sought no further restitution; the Superior Court's opinion records the forfeited sum as 800,000 dollars in cash. The [[Superior Court of Pennsylvania|Superior Court]] affirmed the sentence on July 21, 2010.[^1] ### Death diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Mike Harari.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Mike Harari.md index 779b3551..d51e42d3 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Mike Harari.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Mike Harari.md @@ -17,22 +17,22 @@ born: 1927-02-18 died: 2014-09-21 location: "Tel Aviv, Israel" created: 2026-09-22 -updated: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Mike Harari (February 18, 1927, [[Tel Aviv]], to September 21, 2014) was the [[Mossad]] officer who ran its special operations section in the years after the Munich massacre and who led the team that killed Ahmed Bouchiki, a Moroccan waiter mistaken for the [[Black September]] planner Ali Hassan Salameh, at Lillehammer, [[Norway]], in July 1973. [[Ari Ben-Menashe]] writes that Harari "had just left Israel because of his failure in the 'Moroccan Waiter Affair'" when he joined the private arms network that [[Ariel Sharon]] ran in [[Central America]] from the late 1970s, and that he "was a close associate of Panama's military intelligence chief, [[Manuel Noriega]]." By 1981, in Ben-Menashe's account, "Sharon and Harari were running what Harari described as more of a [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] network than an Israeli operation," supplying the [[Contras]] and financing itself, "according to Harari," by "transporting cocaine from [[South America]] to the [[United States]] via Central America," with Noriega "a major player."[^1] ### Panama -In February 1988 [[Jose Blandon]], Noriega's former consul general in New York, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee|Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations]] under Senator [[John Kerry]]. On February 9 he named "Mike Harari" among those with "legal dealings" with Noriega, "an Israeli general who retired and worked for 10 years with the Israel intelligence forces services, and he now works for Noriega"; asked by Kerry whether Harari trained Noriega's personal guards, he answered, "Yes. But more than training Noriega's personal guards, he has very important dealings with Noriega in the area of weapons trafficking, because he uses what is called the end user certificate," and said that "his signature on those certificates produces millions of dollars." On February 10 he said that falsifying end-user certificates was "one of Noriega's businesses. I told you that with Harari he has that business."[^4] He was also quoted as saying that "Michael Harare" had "close contacts with Noriega and was Panama's honorary consul in Tel Aviv," and that his network did "business with Noriega in Panama for a series of companies for arms contraband, smuggling to supply arms to Central America and to the counterrevolution, the Nicaragua counterrevolution." Asked by Kerry what "other things" the network handled, Blandon answered, "Drugs," and confirmed "a direct linkage" between "the Harare network and these airstrips, in which guns would go in one shipment and drugs would come out in another." "The Harare network is a network that was established with Israeli citizens, Panamanians and U.S. citizens for arms supply purposes," he said. The Israeli embassy spokesman Yosef Gal replied that Harari was "acting as a private citizen" and that Israel "had no knowledge of his activities." Harari was not named in the Miami and Tampa indictments of Noriega that month, left [[Panama]] at the time of the American invasion of December 1989 and returned to [[Israel]].[^2][^3] +In February 1988 [[Jose Blandon]], Noriega's former consul general in New York, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee|Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations]] under Senator [[John Kerry]]. On February 9 he named "Mike Harari" among those with "legal dealings" with Noriega, "an Israeli general who retired and worked for 10 years with the Israel intelligence forces services, and he now works for Noriega"; asked by Kerry whether Harari trained Noriega's personal guards, he answered, "Yes. But more than training Noriega's personal guards, he has very important dealings with Noriega in the area of weapons trafficking, because he uses what is called the end user certificate," and said that "his signature on those certificates produces millions of dollars." On February 10 he said that falsifying end-user certificates was "one of Noriega's businesses. I told you that with Harari he has that business."[^2] He was also quoted as saying that "Michael Harare" had "close contacts with Noriega and was Panama's honorary consul in Tel Aviv," and that his network did "business with Noriega in Panama for a series of companies for arms contraband, smuggling to supply arms to Central America and to the counterrevolution, the Nicaragua counterrevolution." Asked by Kerry what "other things" the network handled, Blandon answered, "Drugs," and confirmed "a direct linkage" between "the Harare network and these airstrips, in which guns would go in one shipment and drugs would come out in another." "The Harare network is a network that was established with Israeli citizens, Panamanians and U.S. citizens for arms supply purposes," he said. The Israeli embassy spokesman Yosef Gal replied that Harari was "acting as a private citizen" and that Israel "had no knowledge of his activities." Harari was not named in the Miami and Tampa indictments of Noriega that month, left [[Panama]] at the time of the American invasion of December 1989 and returned to [[Israel]].[^3][^4] ### PROMIS -Ben-Menashe's account of the sale of a modified [[PROMIS]] to [[Guatemala]] states that "the price Israel had to pay for this agreement was that the [[Eagle]] company, run by [[Pesach Ben-Or]] in Guatemala and his associate Mike Harari in Panama, and overseen by Ariel Sharon, would continue selling weapons to the Guatemalan government." The special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] found Ben-Menashe's PROMIS affidavits contradicted by his later testimony, and no official inquiry examined Harari's part. He received the Mossad chief's medal of distinction in 2007 and was the subject of a 2014 Hebrew biography by Aaron J. Klein.[^1][^3] +Ben-Menashe's account of the sale of a modified [[PROMIS]] to [[Guatemala]] states that "the price Israel had to pay for this agreement was that the [[Eagle]] company, run by [[Pesach Ben-Or]] in Guatemala and his associate Mike Harari in Panama, and overseen by Ariel Sharon, would continue selling weapons to the Guatemalan government." The special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] found Ben-Menashe's PROMIS affidavits contradicted by his later testimony, and no official inquiry examined Harari's part. He received the Mossad chief's medal of distinction in 2007 and was the subject of a 2014 Hebrew biography by Aaron J. Klein.[^1][^4] ### Footnotes [^1]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network,* Sheridan Square, 1992, chs. "The First Billion" and "Promis." https://archive.org/details/profits-of-war-1992-ari-ben-menashe -[^2]: "Ex-agent of the Mossad Implicated in Drug Deals with Panamanian," *Jewish Telegraphic Agency,* February 1988. https://www.jta.org/archive/ex-agent-of-the-mossad-implicated-in-drug-deals-with-panamanian The subcommittee's report, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy,* December 1988, does not mention Harari. -[^3]: U.S. Department of Justice, *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua,* March 1993. Harari's birth and death dates, the Lillehammer role, his absence from the 1988 Noriega indictments, his departure from Panama in December 1989, the 2007 medal and the Klein biography are as given in obituaries and press accounts. -[^4]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Communications. *Drugs, Law Enforcement, and Foreign Policy: Panama,* hearings, 100th Cong., 2nd sess., part 2, February 8-11, 1988, pp. 93-94 (February 9) and 169 (February 10). https://hdl.handle.net/2027/pur1.32754076926512 +[^2]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Communications. *Drugs, Law Enforcement, and Foreign Policy: Panama,* hearings, 100th Cong., 2nd sess., part 2, February 8-11, 1988, pp. 93-94 (February 9) and 169 (February 10). https://hdl.handle.net/2027/pur1.32754076926512 +[^3]: "Ex-agent of the Mossad Implicated in Drug Deals with Panamanian," *Jewish Telegraphic Agency,* April 14, 1988. https://www.jta.org/archive/ex-agent-of-the-mossad-implicated-in-drug-deals-with-panamanian The subcommittee's report, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy,* December 1988, does not mention Harari. +[^4]: U.S. Department of Justice, *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua,* March 1993. Harari's birth and death dates, the Lillehammer role, his absence from the 1988 Noriega indictments, his departure from Panama in December 1989, the 2007 medal and the Klein biography are as given in obituaries and press accounts. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Morris K. Jessup.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Morris K. Jessup.md index 31996de3..2e7c3dfe 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Morris K. Jessup.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Morris K. Jessup.md @@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ relations: role: "Varo retyped the annotated paperback; Barker wrote that Jessup was called in by Varo, shown the book and given several copies" fn: 2 created: 2026-10-02 -updated: 2026-10-03 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Morris Ketchum Jessup (born March 2, 1900) wrote four books on unidentified flying objects, the first of which, [[The Case for the UFO]], was published in 1955.[^1][^2] A copy of the paperback reprint carrying handwritten annotations in three inks reached the [[Office of Naval Research]] (ONR), and the [[Varo Manufacturing Company]] of [[Garland, Texas]] retyped it with the annotations in red type for a small number of copies, now called the Varo Edition or Annotated Edition.[^3] [[Gray Barker]] wrote that on the evening of April 20, 1959, Jessup died in his station wagon in a [[Dade County, Florida]] park from automobile exhaust piped in by hose, and described the death as a suicide; he added that after the death ufologists began delving into it and into its connection with the book.[^2] @@ -54,9 +54,11 @@ Barker's preface to the 1973 facsimile gives a different sequence. He wrote that The annotations are in three hands, identified in the introduction as Mr. A, Mr. B and "Jemi," and are said there to refer to two kinds of space people, "L-M's" and "S-M's," the first described as peaceful and the second as not, as well as undersea cities and a "stasis neutral." The introduction proposes that the writers were Gypsies and that two of them may have been twins.[^3] Barker wrote that a copy had been given to the late [[Bryant H. Reeves]], an author published by [[Ray Palmer]]; that [[Riley H. Crabb]], director of [[Borderland Sciences Research Foundation]], told him he saw it while visiting Reeves in [[Virginia Beach, Virginia]], that Crabb said he and Reeves felt "under surveillance," and that a loaned copy Crabb posted to himself in [[California]] was lost in the mail.[^2] +The Office of Naval Research states that the origin of the [[Philadelphia Experiment]] story dates to 1955 with the publication of *The Case for the UFO*, after which Jessup received correspondence from a Carlos Miquel Allende describing a 1943 naval experiment in Philadelphia, and that in 1956 a copy of the book with hand-written annotations was mailed anonymously to ONR, where two officers "took a personal interest in the book," showed it to Jessup, and arranged for a typewritten reprint of 25 copies. ONR's information sheet of September 8, 1996 states that "ONR has never conducted any investigations on invisibility, either in 1943 or at any other time," and the Naval Historical Center's statement of June 17, 1996 states that the ship named in the account, the USS Eldridge, was commissioned on August 27, 1943 at the New York Navy Yard and was "never in Philadelphia" during the period reviewed.[^6][^7] + ### Death -Barker's 1973 preface opens with the statement that "on the evening of April 20, 1959, an astronomer committed suicide in Dade County Park, Florida," that he inhaled automobile exhaust which he had run by hose from the tail pipe into his station wagon, and that he died "unheralded and almost unrecognized in his discipline."[^2] The [[Miami Herald]] of April 22, 1959 reported under the headline "Author A Suicide, Police Say" that Metro detectives said on Tuesday, April 21, that Morris K. Jessup, 59, an astronomer and author of several books on flying space objects, had committed suicide by asphyxiating himself; that his body was found on Monday, April 20, in his parked car at [[Matheson Hammock Park|Matheson Hammock]]; and that investigators said a hose ran from the car's exhaust pipe to the inside of the automobile. The item states that he was survived by his wife, Ruby, that he lived at 1531 Saragossa Avenue in [[Coral Gables, Florida|Coral Gables]], having moved there six months earlier, and that he was a onetime instructor at the University of Michigan and Drake University and the author of The Case for the UFO, a 1955 publication, with another book on outer space flight before his publishers at his death. It gives no time of death and does not mention Varo or Allende. The Herald calls the vehicle a car and gives Monday as the day of discovery; Barker calls it a station wagon and gives the evening of April 20 as the time of death.[^6] Barker added that a "tradition of bad luck or strange circumstances" attached to owners of the Varo Edition: a house destroyed by fire, the heart attack of Captain [[Edward J. Ruppelt]], former head of [[Project Blue Book]], "allegedly shortly after he read a borrowed copy," and the early death of the author [[Robert Loftin]]. He wrote that "except for the deaths, this is purely hearsay."[^2] Barker also wrote that "at least two national magazine articles explored Jessup's death and his connection with the book," and that [[Brad Steiger]] published reduced reproductions of three pages in [[Saga]] magazine for November 1967, in the article "Fantastic Key to the Flying Saucer Mystery," from a microfilm copy owned by [[Stephen Yankee]].[^2] +Barker's 1973 preface opens with the statement that "on the evening of April 20, 1959, an astronomer committed suicide in Dade County Park, Florida," that he inhaled automobile exhaust which he had run by hose from the tail pipe into his station wagon, and that he died "unheralded and almost unrecognized in his discipline."[^2] The [[Miami Herald]] of April 22, 1959 reported under the headline "Author A Suicide, Police Say" that Metro detectives said on Tuesday, April 21, that Morris K. Jessup, 59, an astronomer and author of several books on flying space objects, had committed suicide by asphyxiating himself; that his body was found on Monday, April 20, in his parked car at [[Matheson Hammock Park|Matheson Hammock]]; and that investigators said a hose ran from the car's exhaust pipe to the inside of the automobile. The item states that he was survived by his wife, Ruby, that he lived at 1531 Saragossa Avenue in [[Coral Gables, Florida|Coral Gables]], having moved there six months earlier, and that he was a onetime instructor at the University of Michigan and Drake University and the author of The Case for the UFO, a 1955 publication, with another book on outer space flight before his publishers at his death. It gives no time of death and does not mention Varo or Allende. The Herald calls the vehicle a car and gives Monday as the day of discovery; Barker calls it a station wagon and gives the evening of April 20 as the time of death.[^8] Barker added that a "tradition of bad luck or strange circumstances" attached to owners of the Varo Edition: a house destroyed by fire, the heart attack of Captain [[Edward J. Ruppelt]], former head of [[Project Blue Book]], "allegedly shortly after he read a borrowed copy," and the early death of the author [[Robert Loftin]]. He wrote that "except for the deaths, this is purely hearsay."[^2] Barker also wrote that "at least two national magazine articles explored Jessup's death and his connection with the book," and that [[Brad Steiger]] published reduced reproductions of three pages in [[Saga]] magazine for November 1967, in the article "Fantastic Key to the Flying Saucer Mystery," from a microfilm copy owned by [[Stephen Yankee]].[^2] Barker acquired an original copy in 1971 from a friend of Jessup to whom Jessup had given one, decided in July 1972 to publish, and issued a facsimile through [[Saucerian Press]] in 1973, stating the run would be no more than 500 copies.[^2] The transcription at the [[Internet Archive]] was prepared by the [[Quantum Future Group]] of Castelnau-Barbarens, [[France]], in 2003.[^2] @@ -67,4 +69,6 @@ Barker acquired an original copy in 1971 from a friend of Jessup to whom Jessup [^3]: Unsigned "Introduction" to the Annotated Edition, in the same volume, pp. 7 to 9; Barker's preface states that the original gives no information on its authorship. [^4]: "Appendix: The first letter received by Mr. Jessup from Carlos Allende," and "Days Later," in M. K. Jessup, The Case for the UFO, Varo Edition, transcribed by the Quantum Future Group, Castelnau-Barbarens, 2003, from the Saucerian Press facsimile of 1973, pp. 15 to 18, https://archive.org/details/THECASEFORTHEUFOVaroEditionM.K.Jessup (djvu text, reread 2026-10-03). [^5]: Naval Research Reviews, vol. 9, no. 1 (January 1956), cover caption and "New Chief of Naval Research" and "Admiral Furth Goes Ashore," pp. 22 to 23, Office of Naval Research, https://www.onr.navy.mil/media/document/naval-research-reviews-vol-9-no-1-january-1956 (reopened 2026-10-03). -[^6]: "Author A Suicide, Police Say," Miami Herald (Miami), April 22, 1959, p. 9, https://www.newspapers.com/image/619508003/ +[^6]: Office of Naval Research, "Information Sheet: Philadelphia Experiment," September 8, 1996, as published by the Naval Historical Center, https://web.archive.org/web/19981203102110/http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq21-2.htm. +[^7]: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, "The 'Philadelphia Experiment'," June 17, 1996, https://web.archive.org/web/19981203102110/http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq21-1.htm. +[^8]: "Author A Suicide, Police Say," Miami Herald (Miami), April 22, 1959, p. 9, https://www.newspapers.com/image/619508003/ diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Norman Lamont.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Norman Lamont.md index e49e1283..bbdfeccb 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Norman Lamont.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Norman Lamont.md @@ -66,7 +66,7 @@ relations: start: 1991 fn: 3 created: 2026-09-23 -updated: 2026-09-23 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Norman Stewart Hughson Lamont, Lord Lamont of Lerwick (born May 8, 1942), is a British [[Conservative Party]] politician who sat as Member of Parliament for [[Kingston upon Thames]] from 1972 to 1997 and was [[Chancellor of the Exchequer]] from November 28, 1990, to May 27, 1993. As Chancellor he answered in the [[House of Commons]] for the government after the [[Bank of England]] closed the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] (BCCI) in July 1991, and with the Governor of the Bank, [[Robin Leigh-Pemberton]], he commissioned the inquiry of Lord Justice [[Thomas Bingham]] into the supervision of the bank.[^1][^2][^3] @@ -83,7 +83,7 @@ In the Commons Lamont was parliamentary private secretary to [[Norman St John-St His government posts, as recorded by Parliament, were:[^1] -- Parliamentary Under-Secretary, [[Department of Energy]], May 7, 1979, to September 5, 1981 +- Parliamentary Under-Secretary, [[United Kingdom Department of Energy|Department of Energy (United Kingdom)]], May 7, 1979, to September 5, 1981 - Minister of State, [[Department of Industry]], September 14, 1981, to June 12, 1983 - Minister of State, [[Department of Trade and Industry]], June 13, 1983, to September 2, 1985 - Minister of State for Defence Procurement, [[Ministry of Defence]], September 2, 1985, to May 20, 1986 diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Orlando Letelier.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Orlando Letelier.md index cd2ede7b..81511608 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Orlando Letelier.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Orlando Letelier.md @@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ summary: "Former Chilean foreign minister killed with his colleague Ronni Moffit died: 1976-09-21 location: "Washington, D.C." created: 2026-09-21 -updated: 2026-09-21 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Orlando Letelier was ambassador to the [[United States]] and then foreign and defense minister in the government of [[Salvador Allende]]. After a year in the prison camps of the junta he settled in Washington at the [[Institute for Policy Studies]]. On September 21, 1976, a bomb fixed under his car exploded at [[Sheridan Circle]] and killed him and his American colleague [[Ronni Moffitt]]. The bomb was placed by [[Michael Townley]], an American working for the Chilean secret police, [[DINA]], with men from the [[Cuban Nationalist Movement]]. Six weeks earlier the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] had received photographs of the passports with which DINA first tried to send its agents to Washington.[^1][^2] @@ -37,15 +37,15 @@ On August 23, 1976, the [[State Department]] drafted an instruction to the ambas Assistant U.S. Attorney [[Eugene Propper]] met Letelier's widow, [[Isabel Letelier]], and his colleagues at the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]] on October 21, 1976. They asked [[United States Attorney General|Attorney General]] [[Edward Levi]] to subpoena the CIA's records, and Levi declined, saying the agency was cooperating. The [[Washington Post|Washington Post]] reported on November 1 that the agency believed Chilean operatives had not carried out the bombing, and that "[[Director of Central Intelligence|CIA Director]] Bush expressed this view in a conversation late last week with [[United States Secretary of State|Secretary of State]] Kissinger." The agency's first report naming Contreras as a suspect is dated October 6, 1976. It met him about six times in 1977, three of them to ask about the murder, and broke contact on November 3, 1977, when he was moved out of intelligence work.[^4][^7] -Townley was expelled from [[Chile]] in 1978, pleaded guilty, and testified for the government. Chile refused to extradite Contreras and his deputy, [[Pedro Espinoza]]. [[Guillermo Novo]] and [[Alvin Ross Díaz]] were convicted of the murders and [[Ignacio Novo]] of lying to the grand jury. The [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit|D.C. Circuit]] reversed all three convictions on December 9, 1980. The case against Guillermo Novo and Ross had rested on cellmates who were working for the government, testimony the Supreme Court had ruled inadmissible six months earlier, and Ignacio Novo should have been tried separately. [[Armando Fernandez Larios]], the DINA officer who had conducted the surveillance and met Townley at [[John F. Kennedy International Airport|Kennedy Airport]] on September 9, 1976, pleaded guilty in 1987 to being an accessory after the fact and was paroled after five months. A federal court held Chile liable to the families in 1980.[^8][^9][^10] +Townley was expelled from [[Chile]] in 1978, pleaded guilty, and testified for the government. Chile refused to extradite Contreras and his deputy, [[Pedro Espinoza]]. [[Guillermo Novo]] and [[Alvin Ross Díaz]] were convicted of the murders and [[Ignacio Novo]] of lying to the grand jury. The [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit|D.C. Circuit]] reversed all three convictions on September 15, 1980 and denied rehearing on December 9, 1980.[^8] The case against Guillermo Novo and Ross had rested on cellmates who were working for the government, testimony the Supreme Court had ruled inadmissible six months earlier, and Ignacio Novo should have been tried separately. [[Armando Fernandez Larios]], the DINA officer who had conducted the surveillance and met Townley at [[John F. Kennedy International Airport|Kennedy Airport]] on September 9, 1976, pleaded guilty in 1987 to being an accessory after the fact and was paroled after five months. A federal court held Chile liable to the families in 1980.[^9][^10][^11] ### Compensation -The families sued Chile in 1978. Chile defaulted, and Judge [[Joyce Hens Green]] entered judgment on November 5, 1980, for more than five million dollars. Townley, Ross, and Ignacio Novo had been in default since September 20, 1978, and Guillermo Novo since October 24; Contreras, Espinoza, and Fernández Larios, served by registered mail in 1978 and by letters rogatory on September 22, 1980, were defaulted on October 23. The judgment against Chile, Contreras, Espinoza, Fernández, Townley, Ross, and Guillermo Novo, jointly and severally, included 30,000 dollars for Letelier's pain and suffering, one million in punitive damages, and 1,526,479 dollars in wrongful death, and for Ronni Moffitt 80,000, one million, and 916,096 dollars. They then tried to collect from the [[New York City|New York]] assets of the state airline, [[LAN Chile]], which the district court found had carried Townley, his explosives, and his money. Judge [[Morris Lasker]] called Chile's use of the airline a "gross abuse of the corporate form." The [[United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit|Second Circuit]] reversed him on November 20, 1984, finding only that "Michael Townley was able to enlist the cooperation of certain LAN pilots and officials with whom he had a pre-existing social relationship," and added that "hard cases make bad law." After Pinochet left office the two governments agreed on June 11, 1990, that Chile, "without admitting liability," would make an ex gratia payment to be fixed by a commission under a treaty of 1914. The commission awarded 2,611,892 dollars on January 11, 1992: 1.2 million to Isabel Letelier and her four sons for lost support, with 160,000 to her and 80,000 to each of them in moral damages, 483,000 to [[Michael Moffitt]], and 300,000 to Ronni Moffitt's parents. It excluded Letelier's income from lectures and publications and "took into account the significant steps undertaken by the Chilean Government and Congress to remedy human rights problems." The payment extinguished all other claims.[^11] +The families sued Chile in 1978. Chile defaulted, and Judge [[Joyce Hens Green]] entered judgment on November 5, 1980, for more than five million dollars. Townley, Ross, and Ignacio Novo had been in default since September 20, 1978, and Guillermo Novo since October 24; Contreras, Espinoza, and Fernández Larios, served by registered mail in 1978 and by letters rogatory on September 22, 1980, were defaulted on October 23. The judgment against Chile, Contreras, Espinoza, Fernández, Townley, Ross, and Guillermo Novo, jointly and severally, included 30,000 dollars for Letelier's pain and suffering, one million in punitive damages, and 1,526,479 dollars in wrongful death, and for Ronni Moffitt 80,000, one million, and 916,096 dollars. They then tried to collect from the [[New York City|New York]] assets of the state airline, [[LAN Chile]], which the district court found had carried Townley, his explosives, and his money. Judge [[Morris Lasker]] ruled that Chile's alleged use of the airline to transport Townley and explosives to the United States, if proven, "would constitute a gross abuse of the corporate form." The [[United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit|Second Circuit]] reversed him on November 20, 1984, finding only that "Michael Townley was able to enlist the cooperation of certain LAN pilots and officials with whom he had a pre-existing social relationship," and added that "hard cases make bad law." After Pinochet left office the two governments agreed on June 11, 1990, that Chile, "without admitting liability," would make an ex gratia payment to be fixed by a commission under a treaty of 1914. The commission awarded 2,611,892 dollars on January 11, 1992: 1.2 million to Isabel Letelier and her four sons for lost support, with 160,000 to her and 80,000 to each of them in moral damages, 483,000 to [[Michael Moffitt]], and 300,000 to Ronni Moffitt's parents. It excluded Letelier's income from lectures and publications and "took into account the significant steps undertaken by the Chilean Government and Congress to remedy human rights problems." The payment extinguished all other claims.[^12] ### The 1987 Assessment -In 1987 Secretary of State [[George Shultz]] asked the CIA to assess responsibility. Its report of May 1, 1987, "Pinochet's Role in the Letelier Assassination and Subsequent Coverup," concluded that [[Augusto Pinochet]] "personally ordered" the killing and had afterward considered eliminating Contreras. Shultz wrote to President [[Ronald Reagan]] on October 6 that the agency had "convincing evidence" and called the murder "a blatant example of a chief of state's direct involvement in an act of state terrorism." A State Department cable of January 22, 1987, quoted Contreras as saying he "authorized the assassination of Letelier on orders from Pinochet." The documents were withheld until 2015 and 2016, when they were given to President [[Michelle Bachelet]]. Most of the underlying intelligence remains classified.[^12] +In 1987 Secretary of State [[George Shultz]] asked the CIA to assess responsibility. Its report of May 1, 1987, "Pinochet's Role in the Letelier Assassination and Subsequent Coverup," concluded that [[Augusto Pinochet]] "personally ordered" the killing and had afterward considered eliminating Contreras. Shultz wrote to President [[Ronald Reagan]] on October 6 that the agency had "convincing evidence" and called the murder "a blatant example of a chief of state's direct involvement in an act of state terrorism." A State Department cable of January 22, 1987, quoted Contreras as saying he "authorized the assassination of Letelier on orders from Pinochet." The documents were withheld until 2015 and 2016, when they were given to President [[Michelle Bachelet]]. Most of the underlying intelligence remains classified.[^13] ### Footnotes @@ -56,8 +56,9 @@ In 1987 Secretary of State [[George Shultz]] asked the CIA to assess responsibil [^5]: O'Leary, Jeremiah. "U.S. Envoy's Testimony Puts CIA Twist in Letelier Case," *The Washington Star,* February 9, 1979, and Burnham, David, report of the same date in *The New York Times,* CIA Reading Room clipping. [^6]: Department of State, cable State 209192, "Operation Condor," August 23, 1976; cable SECTO 27128, "Actions Taken," September 16, 1976; cable San José 4526, "Operation Condor," September 20, 1976, in Osorio, Carlos, ed. "Kissinger Blocked Demarche on International Assassinations to Condor States," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 312, 2010. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB312/ ; Inouye, Daniel K., letter to George Bush, September 29, 1976, CIA Reading Room document 03303946. [^7]: "No New Leads Uncovered by Letelier Probe," *The Washington Post,* November 1, 1976, in CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP99-00498R000100020097-6. -[^8]: De Letelier v. Republic of Chile, 488 F. Supp. 665 (D.D.C. 1980). -[^9]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. "'Worst of the Worst': ICE and the Case of Chilean Intelligence Operative Armando Fernandez Larios," National Security Archive, July 10, 2026. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2026-07-10/worst-worst-ice-and-case-chilean-intelligence-operative-armando -[^10]: United States v. Henry, 447 U.S. 264 (1980). -[^11]: *Letelier v. Republic of Chile,* 502 F. Supp. 259 (D.D.C. 1980), memorandum opinion of November 5, 1980. De Letelier v. Republic of Chile, 748 F.2d 790 (2d Cir. 1984); "Dispute Concerning Responsibility for the Deaths of Letelier and Moffitt (United States, Chile)," decision of January 11, 1992, *Reports of International Arbitral Awards,* vol. XXV, pp. 1-19. https://legal.un.org/riaa/cases/vol_XXV/1-19.pdf -[^12]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. "CIA: 'Pinochet personally ordered' Letelier bombing," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 560, September 23, 2016. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2016-09-23/cia-pinochet-personally-ordered-letelier-bombing ; "The Pinochet File: U.S. Declassifies Missing Documents in the Letelier-Moffitt Case," Electronic Briefing Book No. 532, October 8, 2015. +[^8]: *United States v. Novo Sampol*, 636 F.2d 621 (D.C. Cir. 1980) (Nos. 79-1541, 79-1542 and 79-1808; per curiam; MacKinnon and Robb, JJ., and Corcoran, D.J.), argued June 10, 1980, decided September 15, 1980, rehearing denied December 9, 1980. https://cite.case.law/f2d/636/621/ +[^9]: De Letelier v. Republic of Chile, 488 F. Supp. 665 (D.D.C. 1980). +[^10]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. "'Worst of the Worst': ICE and the Case of Chilean Intelligence Operative Armando Fernandez Larios," National Security Archive, July 10, 2026. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2026-07-10/worst-worst-ice-and-case-chilean-intelligence-operative-armando +[^11]: United States v. Henry, 447 U.S. 264 (1980). +[^12]: *Letelier v. Republic of Chile,* 502 F. Supp. 259 (D.D.C. 1980), memorandum opinion of November 5, 1980. De Letelier v. Republic of Chile, 748 F.2d 790 (2d Cir. 1984), https://static.case.law/f2d/748/cases/0790-01.json ; "Dispute Concerning Responsibility for the Deaths of Letelier and Moffitt (United States, Chile)," decision of January 11, 1992, *Reports of International Arbitral Awards,* vol. XXV, pp. 1-19. https://legal.un.org/riaa/cases/vol_XXV/1-19.pdf +[^13]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. "CIA: 'Pinochet personally ordered' Letelier bombing," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 560, September 23, 2016. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2016-09-23/cia-pinochet-personally-ordered-letelier-bombing ; "The Pinochet File: U.S. Declassifies Missing Documents in the Letelier-Moffitt Case," Electronic Briefing Book No. 532, October 8, 2015. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Paul Hoch.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Paul Hoch.md index 66ff88e1..a3320fd6 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Paul Hoch.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Paul Hoch.md @@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ born: 1902-10-31 died: 1964-12-15 location: Budapest, Hungary created: 2026-06-03 -updated: 2026-06-04 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Paul Hoch was born on October 31, 1902, in Budapest, Hungary, and received his medical degree from the University of Göttingen in 1926. He trained at the Psychiatric Clinic in [[Zurich]] from 1928 to 1930 before emigrating to the [[United States]] in 1933. He joined the [[New York State Psychiatric Institute]] (NYSPI) as an assistant physician in 1943 and served as director of experimental research from 1948 to 1955, holding simultaneous appointments at [[Columbia University]]'s College of Physicians and Surgeons, eventually as clinical professor of psychiatry from 1956. In 1955 he was appointed [[New York]] State Commissioner of Mental Hygiene, overseeing 28 state hospitals and approximately 100,000 patients. He died on December 15, 1964, in New York City. @@ -35,13 +35,15 @@ Under this contract, Hoch administered high doses of mescaline and LSD to psychi [[Harold Blauer]], a New York tennis professional admitted to NYSPI for depression, died on January 8, 1953, after Hoch administered a mescaline derivative supplied by the Army Chemical Corps. The compound had been provided for NYSPI to test its psychiatric effects so the Chemical Corps could determine its suitability as a chemical warfare agent. -The Second Circuit Court of Appeals found in *Barrett v. United States* (798 F.2d 565, 1986) that Hoch "was well aware that the mescaline derivative was a new compound not being administered for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes but as an experiment to study its effect for chemical warfare purposes." Hoch later testified that Blauer's death was caused by the injection and that its administration "was not in accordance with generally accepted medical practice." Cattell, Hoch's collaborator on the experiments, told Army investigators: "We didn't know whether it was dog piss or what it was we were giving him."[^5] +In *Barrett v. United States* (798 F.2d 565, 1986) the Second Circuit recited the estate's allegation that Hoch, while conceding that the injections were not in accordance with generally accepted medical routine, testified before the [[New York Court of Claims]] that the drug had been administered "for diagnostic purposes to Mr. Blauer," and that "in fact, according to the estate, Dr. Hoch was well aware that the mescaline derivative was a new compound not being administered for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes but as an experiment to study its effect for chemical warfare purposes."[^5] The opinion describes Hoch as "the NYSPI medical official in charge of administering the mescaline compound to Blauer."[^5] At the Court of Claims hearing, Hoch testified that Blauer's death was caused by the injection and that its administration "was not in accordance with generally accepted medical practice."[^5] Cattell, Hoch's collaborator on the experiments, told Army investigators: "We didn't know whether it was dog piss or what it was we were giving him."[^6] -Within 48 hours of Blauer's death, Army Chemical Corps contract officer Amedeo Marrazzi directed efforts to conceal the Army's involvement. At a July 1954 meeting of federal counsel and medical personnel, Hoch and Marrazzi discussed apprehension about anticipated malpractice claims. The death certificate listed the cause as "coronary arteriosclerosis; sudden death after intravenous injection of a mescaline derivative," omitting the Army's role.[^5] +Within 48 hours of Blauer's death, Army Chemical Corps contract officer Amedeo Marrazzi directed efforts to conceal the Army's involvement. At a July 1954 meeting of federal counsel and medical personnel, Hoch and Marrazzi discussed apprehension about anticipated malpractice claims. The death certificate listed the cause as "coronary arteriosclerosis; sudden death after intravenous injection of a mescaline derivative," omitting the Army's role.[^6] + +The opinion in *Barrett* places a conference of federal counsel and medical personnel in early July 1954, at which, according to records relied on by the estate, Dr. Amedeo Marazzi of the Chemical Corps and Hoch expressed apprehension about anticipated malpractice claims. At a meeting in Washington on July 12, 1954, Hoch stated that he would not have used the new compound for experimental purposes but for the institute's contract with the Army, and that the experimental nature of the treatment made it a departure from accepted medical practice.[^5] The Second Circuit records that the Court of Claims ordered an $18,000 settlement on July 7, 1955, of which the Army paid $9,000 on June 9, 1955, in an action filed in April 1953. The CIA inspector general's memorandum of August 13, 1975 gives other figures: "The estate sued New York State for $500 K; it was settled out of court for $125 K."[^5][^7] ### Commissioner of Mental Hygiene and the 1959 LSD Conference -Hoch was appointed New York State Commissioner of Mental Hygiene in 1955, the year after the internal cover-up meeting. He oversaw the state's entire psychiatric hospital system while maintaining his CIA consulting relationship and Army Chemical Corps affiliation. In 1959 he chaired the first international LSD therapy conference, held under [[Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation|Macy Foundation]] sponsorship, with [[Harold Abramson]] serving as recording secretary.[^6] +Hoch was appointed New York State Commissioner of Mental Hygiene in 1955, the year after the July 1954 conference of federal counsel. [[Averell Harriman]] was elected governor in 1954; [[Mary Lasker]] recalled that [[Lester Markel]] of the [[New York Times]] telephoned to ask whether she knew Hoch, then in charge of research at the institute, and that the appointment was "finally announced in July of '55."[^8] A 1956 University at Albany record identifies him as Commissioner of Mental Hygiene.[^9] He oversaw the state's entire psychiatric hospital system while maintaining his CIA consulting relationship and Army Chemical Corps affiliation. In 1959 he chaired the first international LSD therapy conference, held under [[Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation|Macy Foundation]] sponsorship, with [[Harold Abramson]] serving as recording secretary.[^10] ### Footnotes @@ -49,5 +51,9 @@ Hoch was appointed New York State Commissioner of Mental Hygiene in 1955, the ye [^2]: Hoch, Paul H., Cattell, James P., and Pennes, Harry H. "Effects of mescaline and lysergic acid (d-LSD-25)." *American Journal of Psychiatry* 108(8):579-584, February 1952; Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain, *Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond*. Grove Press, 1985. Chapter 1. [^3]: H.P. Albarelli Jr., *A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments*. Trine Day, 2009; CIA memorandum, January 1954, uncovered 2000 by the New York City Attorney General's Office. [^4]: Lee and Shlain, *Acid Dreams*, Chapter 1; Alan Scheflin and Edward Opton, *The Mind Manipulators*. Paddington Press, 1978. -[^5]: *Barrett v. United States*, 798 F.2d 565 (2d Cir. 1986); John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*. Times Books, 1979. Chapter 4. -[^6]: Lee and Shlain, *Acid Dreams*, Chapters 1 and 2. +[^5]: *Barrett v. United States,* 798 F.2d 565 (2d Cir. July 31, 1986), statement of facts and discussion. https://static.case.law/f2d/798/cases/0565-01.json +[^6]: *Barrett v. United States*, 798 F.2d 565 (2d Cir. 1986); John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*. Times Books, 1979. Chapter 4. +[^7]: Central Intelligence Agency, Office of the Inspector General, memorandum, "Drug-Related Death of Harold Blauer," August 13, 1975, CIA Reading Room document 00146161. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00146161 +[^8]: Columbia University Libraries, Oral History Research Office, Mary Lasker oral history, transcript pages laskerm_1_19_570 and laskerm_1_19_572. https://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/digital/collections/nny/laskerm/transcripts/laskerm_1_19_572.html +[^9]: University at Albany, M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives, record of a 1956 interview of Dr. Paul H. Hoch, Commissioner of Mental Hygiene. https://archives.albany.edu/description/catalog/apap015aspace_033e27487bc26a06ec8cf9fd535fb0c3 +[^10]: Lee and Shlain, *Acid Dreams*, Chapters 1 and 2. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/R. S. Hawke.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/R. S. Hawke.md index 7314a80d..451a6cfd 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/R. S. Hawke.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/R. S. Hawke.md @@ -41,7 +41,7 @@ relations: role: "laboratory visited by committee members; Annex 7 of the December 1979 report evaluates his experiments" fn: 11 created: 2026-09-22 -updated: 2026-10-05 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Ronald S. Hawke, who signed his technical writing "R. S. Hawke," was a research physicist in the Engineering Research Division of the Electronics Engineering Department at [[Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory]] (then Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, University of California) in the 1970s.[^1] His published and patented work at the laboratory concerned electromagnetic railguns and hypervelocity launchers: the May 8, 1979 preprint UCRL-82677, "Magnetic Propulsion Railguns: Their Design and Capabilities," written with Jonathan K. Scudder for the Second International Conference on Megagauss Magnetic Field Generation, concluded that projectiles could be accelerated to more than 20 kilometers per second; a July 1979 companion paper (UCRL-82296) examined railgun impactors for generating pressures of 1 to 10 terapascals; and United States Patent 4,343,223, "Multiple stage railgun," was filed May 23, 1980 by Hawke, Scudder and Kristian Aaland and issued August 10, 1982.[^1][^2] The laboratory's report series carries his name on railgun and plasma armature papers through 1991, among them "Results of Railgun Experiments" (UCRL-88703, 1983, with [[Los Alamos]] authors) and a 1991 progress report on a transition armature technology project.[^2] @@ -70,13 +70,17 @@ A routing note in the same file, unsigned, reads: "This piece may offer us excel The Army's [[Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee]], chaired by [[Manfred Gale]], listed Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and "Dr. Hawke" among the places and individuals contacted in the autumn of 1979 (Annex 2). Its December 1979 report states that "Committee members who visited Dr. Hawke's laboratory were very impressed by the scientific approach used in his investigations," and that his experiments were "considerably more valuable than PK effects on random number generators." Annex 7 records that "highly specific physical phenomena are recovered by instruments while PK 'intent' is being 'exerted' by a Subject," with control experiments performed and no mechanisms adduced; "Hawke's experiments are the most objective and scientific of the investigations we have reviewed... vastly more valuable than the PK effects on random number generators." The annex adds: "A means exists for conduct of these experiments on a compartmentalized basis: Since the experiments utilize measuring equipment commonly used in weapons development, 'cover' and access restrictions are relatively straightforward," proposing as an example that Naval Weapons Center, China Lake, which "is just now initiating development of contact fuzing utilizing... acoustic emission of materials transitioning the plastic deformation regime," could host "a small development project on 'AE applications to guided missile fuzing'" that "would provide easily administered and controlled PK experiments by Hawke." Elsewhere in the report, the committee's discussion of the Army MICOM random-number experiment says that an experiment using "the modification of the physical aspect of a structure" might be more convincing, and that "the acoustic emission experiment by Hawke might be an example of an attempt to do this."[^11][^12] -On November 28, 1979, Hawke met Dr. Ruth M. Davis, Assistant for Research Applications at the [[Department of Energy]], and Dr. W. LaBerge of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. In a letter of December 26, 1979 (EMS79-0117) he wrote that, after talking to the laboratory's acoustic emission, metallurgy and ceramics staff, "the equivalent of 5-7 full employees would be the optimum," with tasks distributed "among 10-15 researchers, technicians and other consultants and advisors," enough in a one-year program "to obtain reliable data or nearly exhaust the possibility of obtaining such data." He had sounded out Henry McDonald (Associate Director for Engineering) and Dale Nielsen (Associate Director for Administration), who said "such types of multidisciplinary and discrete research are within the capability of LLL," and reported that director Roger Batzel "has been informed that such a project might be suggested by DOE and/or DOD"; Batzel was named as the person to contact. Copies went to Batzel, McDonald, Nielsen and LaBerge.[^13] +An Army memorandum of October 22, 1979 set the visit to Hawke's laboratory for November 6, 1979.[^13] + +Two Defense Intelligence Agency documents from 1984 list the Livermore work on psychoenergetics. An undated DIA summary of American psychoenergetics research facilities gives "Lawrence Livermore Laboratories (L3), Livermore, CA (Lab of R. Hawke)" and adds the note "Not willing to do classified work."[^14] A DIA document of August 7, 1984 lists Livermore among laboratories "under consideration for contracts in FY 1985," together with [[McDonnell Douglas]] and the [[Mind Science Foundation]].[^15] + +On November 28, 1979, Hawke met Dr. Ruth M. Davis, Assistant for Research Applications at the [[Department of Energy]], and Dr. W. LaBerge of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. In a letter of December 26, 1979 (EMS79-0117) he wrote that, after talking to the laboratory's acoustic emission, metallurgy and ceramics staff, "the equivalent of 5-7 full employees would be the optimum," with tasks distributed "among 10-15 researchers, technicians and other consultants and advisors," enough in a one-year program "to obtain reliable data or nearly exhaust the possibility of obtaining such data." He had sounded out Henry McDonald (Associate Director for Engineering) and Dale Nielsen (Associate Director for Administration), who said "such types of multidisciplinary and discrete research are within the capability of LLL," and reported that director Roger Batzel "has been informed that such a project might be suggested by DOE and/or DOD"; Batzel was named as the person to contact. Copies went to Batzel, McDonald, Nielsen and LaBerge.[^16] ### After 1979 After the December 1979 letter, the laboratory's published record under Hawke's name consists of the railgun and launcher papers listed above.[^2] -Accounts of a Livermore group that experienced apparitions after its Geller sessions come from [[Jim Schnabel]], who gives the physicists the pseudonyms [[Peter Crane]], [[Mike Russo]] and [[Don Curtis]]; Schnabel's account does not name Hawke.[^14] +Accounts of a Livermore group that experienced apparitions after its Geller sessions come from [[Jim Schnabel]], who gives the physicists the pseudonyms [[Peter Crane]], [[Mike Russo]] and [[Don Curtis]]; Schnabel's account does not name Hawke.[^17] ### Footnotes @@ -92,5 +96,8 @@ Accounts of a Livermore group that experienced apparitions after its Geller sess [^10]: Envelope addressed to Maj. Bill Stoner, DAMI 2E453, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100100005-5; Army routing slip, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100100008-2. [^11]: *Report by the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee*, December 1979, Manfred Gale, chairman, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5, Chapter 2 paragraph 4b, Annex 2 (places visited, p. 43) and Annex 7 (pp. 66-67). https://archive.org/download/CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5/CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5_djvu.txt. [^12]: Same report, critique of the Army [[MICOM]] random-number experiment. -[^13]: R. S. Hawke to Dr. Ruth M. Davis, December 26, 1979, EMS79-0117, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100100003-7, https://archive.org/download/CIA-RDP96-00788R001100100003-7/CIA-RDP96-00788R001100100003-7_djvu.txt. -[^14]: Jim Schnabel, *Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America's Psychic Spies* (Dell, 1997), as excerpted in Rudy Havenstein, "Dr. Green and the Goblins of Langley," July 11, 2025, https://rudy.substack.com/p/dr-green-and-the-goblins-of-langley. +[^13]: Army memorandum, October 22, 1979, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230014-0. +[^14]: Undated Defense Intelligence Agency summary of American psychoenergetics research facilities, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100260003-0. +[^15]: Defense Intelligence Agency document, August 7, 1984, CIA-RDP96-00788R001800210001-0. +[^16]: R. S. Hawke to Dr. Ruth M. Davis, December 26, 1979, EMS79-0117, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100100003-7, https://archive.org/download/CIA-RDP96-00788R001100100003-7/CIA-RDP96-00788R001100100003-7_djvu.txt. +[^17]: Jim Schnabel, *Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America's Psychic Spies* (Dell, 1997), as excerpted in Rudy Havenstein, "Dr. Green and the Goblins of Langley," July 11, 2025, https://rudy.substack.com/p/dr-green-and-the-goblins-of-langley. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Richard Helms.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Richard Helms.md index 94308d6e..0c960c13 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Richard Helms.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Richard Helms.md @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ --- created: 2026-05-15 -updated: 2026-10-14 +updated: 2026-10-15 title: Richard Helms aliases: - Richard McGarrah Helms @@ -27,14 +27,22 @@ relations: - type: partner_of with: "[[Mohammed Rahim Motaghi Irvani]]" role: "principal partner in Safeer, the consulting firm Helms founded; Irvani was also its chief financier" - fn: 28 + fn: 30 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[United Press International]]" + start: 1935 + end: 1937 + role: "United Press staff correspondent" + fn: 3 --- Richard McGarrah Helms (March 30, 1913 - October 22, 2002) served as [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] [[Director of Central Intelligence]] from June 30, 1966, to February 2, 1973 - the only career CIA clandestine officer ever to hold that position, and the only DCI ever convicted of a criminal offense related to his service. A professional intelligence officer who entered the [[Office of Strategic Services|OSS]] during [[World War II]] and spent thirty years in the CIA, Helms authorized [[Operation CHAOS]] domestic surveillance, approved continuation of the [[MKULTRA]] human experimentation program, ordered the destruction of both programs' records before congressional investigators could access them, and in 1977 pleaded no contest to making false statements to Congress about CIA operations against Chilean President [[Salvador Allende]]. He simultaneously held the personal conviction, disclosed to his deputies, that [[Israel]] was using American intelligence as "an open pipeline for pumping intelligence to [[Moscow]]" - a view he never officially reported.[^1] ### OSS and Early CIA Career -Helms attended Williams College and briefly worked as a journalist in [[Germany]], interviewing [[Adolf Hitler]] for United Press in 1936. Sent alone to the Nazi Party Congress at Nuremberg that year, he received an invitation to a luncheon with Hitler at the Nuremberg Castle, where he was introduced to [[Rudolf Hess]] and [[Joachim von Ribbentrop]].[^2] Commissioned into the [[U.S. Navy]] during World War II, he was transferred to the OSS and worked in London and the European theater on propaganda and agent operations. He joined the [[Central Intelligence Group]] (the CIA's predecessor organization) in 1947 and transferred into the CIA at its founding. +Helms attended Williams College and briefly worked as a journalist in [[Germany]], interviewing [[Adolf Hitler]] for United Press in 1936. Sent alone to the Nazi Party Congress at Nuremberg that year, he received an invitation to a luncheon with Hitler at the Nuremberg Castle, where he was introduced to [[Rudolf Hess]] and [[Joachim von Ribbentrop]].[^2] The Georgetown University finding aid for Helms's papers records that he was a United Press staff correspondent from 1935 to 1937, covered the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and attended a lunch given by Hitler in 1936; from 1937 to 1942 he wrote for the [[Indianapolis Times]].[^3] Commissioned into the [[U.S. Navy]] during World War II, he was transferred to the OSS and worked in London and the European theater on propaganda and agent operations. He joined the [[Central Intelligence Group]] (the CIA's predecessor organization) in 1947 and transferred into the CIA at its founding. + +In 1977 [[Carl Bernstein]] identified Helms, whom he described as a former UPI correspondent, among the deputy directors and division chiefs who initiated contacts with the heads of news-gathering organizations.[^4] His career progressed through the CIA's clandestine service. By the late 1950s he was serving as Deputy Director of Plans (DDP), the agency's chief of covert operations - a position he held through the [[Bay of Pigs]] invasion of 1961 and the early Kennedy years. As DDP he oversaw the [[ZR/RIFLE]] assassination planning program targeting [[Fidel Castro]] through the CIA-organized crime connection, and he personally knew about the CIA-Mafia assassination plots that he subsequently failed to disclose to the [[Warren Commission]] investigating Kennedy's death. @@ -42,33 +50,33 @@ President [[Lyndon B. Johnson|Lyndon Johnson]] appointed Helms as DCI in 1966, t ### The Warren Commission and ZR/RIFLE -When the Warren Commission was established in November 1963 to investigate Kennedy's assassination, Helms as DDP was the CIA officer most directly responsible for the ZR/RIFLE program - the CIA's ongoing assassination plots against Castro using organized crime intermediaries [[Johnny Roselli]], [[Sam Giancana]], and [[Santos Trafficante, Jr.|Santo Trafficante Jr.]] Helms did not disclose the existence of these plots to the Commission. The [[Church Committee]]'s final report states that neither the CIA nor the FBI told the Commission about the CIA attempts to assassinate Castro, and that none of the testimony or documents the Commission received mentioned them.[^3] [[David Belin]], the Commission's counsel, wrote in 1975 that "[a]t no time did the CIA disclose to the Warren Commission any facts which pertained to alleged assassination plans to kill Fidel Castro."[^4] +When the Warren Commission was established in November 1963 to investigate Kennedy's assassination, Helms as DDP was the CIA officer most directly responsible for the ZR/RIFLE program - the CIA's ongoing assassination plots against Castro using organized crime intermediaries [[Johnny Roselli]], [[Sam Giancana]], and [[Santos Trafficante, Jr.|Santo Trafficante Jr.]] Helms did not disclose the existence of these plots to the Commission. The [[Church Committee]]'s final report states that neither the CIA nor the FBI told the Commission about the CIA attempts to assassinate Castro, and that none of the testimony or documents the Commission received mentioned them.[^5] [[David Belin]], the Commission's counsel, wrote in 1975 that "[a]t no time did the CIA disclose to the Warren Commission any facts which pertained to alleged assassination plans to kill Fidel Castro."[^6] -The Church Committee's 1975 interim report states that Helms "failed to inform the Warren Commission of the plots because the precise question was not asked."[^5] Helms testified to the committee in July 1975. Asked by Senator Morgan whether he was charged with furnishing the Commission information from the CIA that he thought was relevant, he answered: "No sir. I was instructed to reply to inquiries from the Warren Commission for information from the Agency. I was not asked to initiate any particular thing." To Morgan's statement "if you weren't asked for it, you didn't give it," he answered: "That's right, sir." He said he did not recall being instructed, or deciding on his own, to cover the precise details of the Agency's operations with the Commission, and that his recollection at the time was that it was public knowledge the United States was trying to get rid of Castro.[^6] He said that [[Allen Dulles]] "was sitting right there" in the Commission's deliberations and "knew about this," and that he did not know what Dulles had said to the Commission about the plots.[^6] Book V records that Helms was the only CIA official who was both in contact with the Commission and knowledgeable of the AMLASH operation, although he would not characterize that operation as an assassination plot.[^6][^7] +The Church Committee's 1975 interim report states that Helms "failed to inform the Warren Commission of the plots because the precise question was not asked."[^7] Helms testified to the committee in July 1975. Asked by Senator Morgan whether he was charged with furnishing the Commission information from the CIA that he thought was relevant, he answered: "No sir. I was instructed to reply to inquiries from the Warren Commission for information from the Agency. I was not asked to initiate any particular thing." To Morgan's statement "if you weren't asked for it, you didn't give it," he answered: "That's right, sir." He said he did not recall being instructed, or deciding on his own, to cover the precise details of the Agency's operations with the Commission, and that his recollection at the time was that it was public knowledge the United States was trying to get rid of Castro.[^8] He said that [[Allen Dulles]] "was sitting right there" in the Commission's deliberations and "knew about this," and that he did not know what Dulles had said to the Commission about the plots.[^8] Book V records that Helms was the only CIA official who was both in contact with the Commission and knowledgeable of the AMLASH operation, although he would not characterize that operation as an assassination plot.[^8][^9] -The Church Committee's final report of 1976 states that why senior FBI and CIA officials permitted the Commission to reach its conclusion without all relevant information "is still unclear," and that "the possibility exists that senior officials in both agencies made conscious decisions not to disclose potentially important information."[^8] The House Select Committee on Assassinations reported that Helms indicated he did not inform the Commission of the anti-Castro plots because he was never asked to testify before it about operations, and stated in a note that it considered this an unacceptable explanation, since the Commission was unaware of the plots and could not make a specific request about them. The same committee stated that only Helms would have been in a position to have both the knowledge and the power to cover up the plots, and that it was satisfied, on the basis of its investigation, that it was highly unlikely he did.[^9][^10] +The Church Committee's final report of 1976 states that why senior FBI and CIA officials permitted the Commission to reach its conclusion without all relevant information "is still unclear," and that "the possibility exists that senior officials in both agencies made conscious decisions not to disclose potentially important information."[^10] The House Select Committee on Assassinations reported that Helms indicated he did not inform the Commission of the anti-Castro plots because he was never asked to testify before it about operations, and stated in a note that it considered this an unacceptable explanation, since the Commission was unaware of the plots and could not make a specific request about them. The same committee stated that only Helms would have been in a position to have both the knowledge and the power to cover up the plots, and that it was satisfied, on the basis of its investigation, that it was highly unlikely he did.[^11][^12] -The CIA Inspector General's report of May 23, 1967 on plots to assassinate Castro, which according to its covering memorandum had been read only by Helms, the Inspector General and two of its authors, records that according to [[Desmond FitzGerald]], he discussed the planned October 29, 1963 meeting with the Cuban official code-named AMLASH with Helms, who decided it was not necessary to seek [[Robert Kennedy]]'s approval for FitzGerald to speak in his name.[^11] It states that "it is likely that at the very moment President Kennedy was shot a CIA officer was meeting with a Cuban agent in Paris and giving him an assassination device for use against Castro," and that "The AMLASH project was probably about as widely known within the Clandestine Services as any other project of a similar nature."[^12] +The CIA Inspector General's report of May 23, 1967 on plots to assassinate Castro, which according to its covering memorandum had been read only by Helms, the Inspector General and two of its authors, records that according to [[Desmond FitzGerald]], he discussed the planned October 29, 1963 meeting with the Cuban official code-named AMLASH with Helms, who decided it was not necessary to seek [[Robert Kennedy]]'s approval for FitzGerald to speak in his name.[^13] It states that "it is likely that at the very moment President Kennedy was shot a CIA officer was meeting with a Cuban agent in Paris and giving him an assassination device for use against Castro," and that "The AMLASH project was probably about as widely known within the Clandestine Services as any other project of a similar nature."[^14] ### Operation CHAOS Authorization and Records Destruction In August 1967, Helms received President Johnson's instruction to determine whether foreign powers were directing the American antiwar movement. He tasked [[James Jesus Angleton|James Angleton]]'s Counterintelligence Staff with establishing the Special Operations Group that became MHCHAOS. He subsequently expanded the program under President Nixon's administration, approving Project MERRIMAC (domestic infiltration of antiwar organizations) and [[Project RESISTANCE]] (coordination with campus administrators and local police to compile dossiers on student organizations). -In December 1972, knowing that Watergate-related congressional investigations were expanding, Helms ordered the operational records of MHCHAOS destroyed. A partial cache of budget and administrative documents survived only because it had been misfiled in a different location. The records of MKULTRA, the CIA's two-decade human experimentation program using LSD and other substances on unwitting subjects, were destroyed in January 1973. Technical Services Division personnel destroyed them on the verbal orders of [[Sidney Gottlieb]]. Gottlieb testified that he was carrying out a verbal order from Helms in doing so, and Helms confirmed that the order was his.[^13] The Church Committee found that these records destructions had permanently deprived investigators of a complete documentary record of both programs.[^1] +In December 1972, knowing that Watergate-related congressional investigations were expanding, Helms ordered the operational records of MHCHAOS destroyed. A partial cache of budget and administrative documents survived only because it had been misfiled in a different location. The records of MKULTRA, the CIA's two-decade human experimentation program using LSD and other substances on unwitting subjects, were destroyed in January 1973. Technical Services Division personnel destroyed them on the verbal orders of [[Sidney Gottlieb]]. Gottlieb testified that he was carrying out a verbal order from Helms in doing so, and Helms confirmed that the order was his.[^15] The Church Committee found that these records destructions had permanently deprived investigators of a complete documentary record of both programs.[^1] ### Proposing and Protecting MKULTRA -Helms was the program's originator as much as its protector. On April 3, 1953 he formally proposed to Director Allen Dulles a program under Sidney Gottlieb for the "covert use of biological and chemical materials," arguing that "the development of a comprehensive capability in this field gives us a thorough knowledge of the enemy's theoretical potential" against "a foe who might not be as restrained ... as we are"; Dulles approved it as MKULTRA ten days later. Helms nurtured Gottlieb as his personal specialist and, bypassing the layers of command between them, dealt with him directly, embodying the conviction he later voiced in Senate testimony, that a clandestine operator "can't count on the honesty of your agent ... unless you own him body and soul." When the program needed a new charter in 1964 he agreed to rename it [[MKSEARCH]] on the condition that its substance remain the same.[^14] +Helms was the program's originator as much as its protector. On April 3, 1953 he formally proposed to Director Allen Dulles a program under Sidney Gottlieb for the "covert use of biological and chemical materials," arguing that "the development of a comprehensive capability in this field gives us a thorough knowledge of the enemy's theoretical potential" against "a foe who might not be as restrained ... as we are"; Dulles approved it as MKULTRA ten days later. Helms nurtured Gottlieb as his personal specialist and, bypassing the layers of command between them, dealt with him directly, embodying the conviction he later voiced in Senate testimony, that a clandestine operator "can't count on the honesty of your agent ... unless you own him body and soul." When the program needed a new charter in 1964 he agreed to rename it [[MKSEARCH]] on the condition that its substance remain the same.[^16] ### MKULTRA Continuation and Psychic Research -Helms had approved continuation of MKULTRA through his DDP years and as DCI. He was aware of the program's scope, including the experiments conducted on unconsenting patients at Canadian psychiatric facilities under the direction of Dr. [[D. Ewen Cameron]] at McGill University's [[Allan Memorial Institute]] (Subproject 68), and the experiments using unwitting American subjects in safe houses operated through the Sexual Freedom Project in [[San Francisco]] and [[New York]]. +Helms had approved continuation of MKULTRA through his DDP years and as DCI. He was aware of the program's scope, including the experiments conducted on unconsenting patients at Canadian psychiatric facilities under the direction of Dr. [[D. Ewen Cameron]] at McGill University's [[Allan Memorial Institute]] (Subproject 68), and the experiments using unwitting American subjects in safe houses operated through the Sexual Freedom Project in [[San Francisco]] and [[New York City|New York]]. -Separately, Helms authorized and expanded the CIA's psychic research program based in part on assessments of Soviet parapsychology research. He approved testing of [[Uri Geller]] at [[Stanford Research Institute|SRI]] and the broader program that evolved into [[Project Stargate]]. His authorization reflected a characteristically pragmatic judgment: if the Soviets were investing in the capability, the CIA needed to assess whether it was real.[^15] +Separately, Helms authorized and expanded the CIA's psychic research program based in part on assessments of Soviet parapsychology research. He approved testing of [[Uri Geller]] at [[Stanford Research Institute|SRI]] and the broader program that evolved into [[Project Stargate]]. His authorization reflected a characteristically pragmatic judgment: if the Soviets were investing in the capability, the CIA needed to assess whether it was real.[^17] ### Chile: Covert Action and Congressional Perjury -In September 1970, following the election of Socialist candidate Salvador Allende in [[Chile]], President Nixon instructed Helms in a meeting at the [[White House]] to conduct covert operations to prevent Allende from assuming the presidency. At the White House meeting of September 15, 1970, attended by [[Henry A. Kissinger|Henry Kissinger]] and Attorney General [[John N. Mitchell]], Helms's notes record "1 in 10 chance perhaps, but save Chile!", "$10,000,000 available, more if necessary" and "game plan make the economy scream." The Church Committee wrote that Nixon instructed the CIA at that meeting to play a direct role in organizing a military coup.[^16][^17] In his August 12, 1975 testimony Kissinger said that at that meeting "President Nixon did almost all of the talking."[^18] On September 12, 1970, Kissinger told Helms by telephone that he was calling a [[40 Committee]] meeting for the following Monday, and said: "We will not let Chile go down the drain."[^19] A CIA memorandum for the record of September 16, 1970, "Genesis of Project FUBELT," records Helms telling CIA officials that "President Nixon had decided that an Allende regime in Chile was not acceptable to the United States."[^20] +In September 1970, following the election of Socialist candidate Salvador Allende in [[Chile]], President Nixon instructed Helms in a meeting at the [[White House]] to conduct covert operations to prevent Allende from assuming the presidency. At the White House meeting of September 15, 1970, attended by [[Henry A. Kissinger|Henry Kissinger]] and Attorney General [[John N. Mitchell]], Helms's notes record "1 in 10 chance perhaps, but save Chile!", "$10,000,000 available, more if necessary" and "game plan make the economy scream." The Church Committee wrote that Nixon instructed the CIA at that meeting to play a direct role in organizing a military coup.[^18][^19] In his August 12, 1975 testimony Kissinger said that at that meeting "President Nixon did almost all of the talking."[^20] On September 12, 1970, Kissinger told Helms by telephone that he was calling a [[40 Committee]] meeting for the following Monday, and said: "We will not let Chile go down the drain."[^21] A CIA memorandum for the record of September 16, 1970, "Genesis of Project FUBELT," records Helms telling CIA officials that "President Nixon had decided that an Allende regime in Chile was not acceptable to the United States."[^22] The CIA subsequently funded opposition media, political parties, and military factions. General [[Augusto Pinochet]] seized power in a coup on September 11, 1973 - the same year Helms was replaced as DCI and sent as U.S. Ambassador to [[Iran]]. @@ -76,19 +84,19 @@ In February 1973, when Helms testified before the [[Senate Foreign Relations Com ### The Israeli estimate and the June 1967 warning -On May 25, 1967, Helms had the [[Office of National Estimates]] appraise an Israeli intelligence estimate within five hours. The appraisal stated: "We do not believe that the Israeli appreciation . . . was a serious estimate of the sort they would submit to their own high officials. We think it is probably a gambit intended to influence the US to do one or more of the following: (a) provide military supplies, (b) make more public commitments to Israel, (c) approve Israeli military initiatives, and (d) put more pressure on Nasser." [[David S. Robarge]], the CIA's chief historian, describes the Israeli paper as a [[Mossad]] estimate and writes that the Israelis may have been exploiting their special relationship with James Jesus Angleton.[^21][^22] +On May 25, 1967, Helms had the [[Office of National Estimates]] appraise an Israeli intelligence estimate within five hours. The appraisal stated: "We do not believe that the Israeli appreciation . . . was a serious estimate of the sort they would submit to their own high officials. We think it is probably a gambit intended to influence the US to do one or more of the following: (a) provide military supplies, (b) make more public commitments to Israel, (c) approve Israeli military initiatives, and (d) put more pressure on Nasser." [[David S. Robarge]], the CIA's chief historian, describes the Israeli paper as a [[Mossad]] estimate and writes that the Israelis may have been exploiting their special relationship with James Jesus Angleton.[^23][^24] -On June 1, 1967, Helms's deputy, Vice Admiral [[Rufus Taylor]], wrote the memorandum of the conversation between Major General [[Meir Amit]] and Secretary of Defense [[Robert S. McNamara]], captioned "Personal and Eyes Only for the Secretary of Defense and the Director of Central Intelligence."[^23] Robarge writes that Helms met a senior Israeli official on June 1 who hinted that Israel could no longer avoid a decision, that the official left the United States on June 2, and that that morning Helms wrote an "Eyes Only" letter to President Johnson forewarning that Israel probably would start a war within a few days.[^24] Helms was awakened at 3:00 a.m. on June 5 by a call from the CIA Operations Center. He recalled that "in the midst of one meeting" during the war Johnson asked how accurate his intelligence on the progress of the war was, and that he answered: "It's accurate just as long as the Israelis are winning."[^22] +On June 1, 1967, Helms's deputy, Vice Admiral [[Rufus Taylor]], wrote the memorandum of the conversation between Major General [[Meir Amit]] and Secretary of Defense [[Robert S. McNamara]], captioned "Personal and Eyes Only for the Secretary of Defense and the Director of Central Intelligence."[^25] Robarge writes that Helms met a senior Israeli official on June 1 who hinted that Israel could no longer avoid a decision, that the official left the United States on June 2, and that that morning Helms wrote an "Eyes Only" letter to President Johnson forewarning that Israel probably would start a war within a few days.[^26] Helms was awakened at 3:00 a.m. on June 5 by a call from the CIA Operations Center. He recalled that "in the midst of one meeting" during the war Johnson asked how accurate his intelligence on the progress of the war was, and that he answered: "It's accurate just as long as the Israelis are winning."[^24] ### NUMEC letter, April 1968 -On April 2, 1968, Helms wrote to Attorney General [[Ramsey Clark]] asking that the FBI "initiate a discreet intelligence investigation of an all source nature of Dr. Shapiro in order to establish the nature and extent of his relationship with the Government of Israel," and asked that the letter be returned to him once the Attorney General had acted, because the subject matter was "so sensitive for obvious reasons." A twelve-line passage before the request remains redacted.[^25] The subject was [[Zalman Mordecai Shapiro]] of the [[Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation]]. +On April 2, 1968, Helms wrote to Attorney General [[Ramsey Clark]] asking that the FBI "initiate a discreet intelligence investigation of an all source nature of Dr. Shapiro in order to establish the nature and extent of his relationship with the Government of Israel," and asked that the letter be returned to him once the Attorney General had acted, because the subject matter was "so sensitive for obvious reasons." A twelve-line passage before the request remains redacted.[^27] The subject was [[Zalman Mordecai Shapiro]] of the [[Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation]]. ### Israel: The "Open Pipeline" Assessment Helms developed a personal conviction, disclosed to his deputies, that Israel was providing American satellite intelligence to the [[Soviet Union]] as part of an undisclosed intelligence exchange - characterizing Israel as "an open pipeline for pumping intelligence to Moscow." He never officially reported this assessment or commissioned a formal investigation, and he took no documented action on it. His reluctance reflected both the sensitivity of accusing an ally and the particular weight of any assessment that ran against the interests managed by Angleton's [[KK MOUNTAIN]] Israeli liaison program. -When President Johnson sought an intelligence assessment of whether Israel had manufactured nuclear weapons, Helms provided the estimate (four warheads) and then obeyed Johnson's instruction that the finding be buried rather than formally reported. Johnson did not want intelligence conclusions that would require him to act on them politically. Helms's willingness to suppress an accurate intelligence product at presidential direction exemplified the institutional failure the Church Committee later documented.[^26] +When President Johnson sought an intelligence assessment of whether Israel had manufactured nuclear weapons, Helms provided the estimate (four warheads) and then obeyed Johnson's instruction that the finding be buried rather than formally reported. Johnson did not want intelligence conclusions that would require him to act on them politically. Helms's willingness to suppress an accurate intelligence product at presidential direction exemplified the institutional failure the Church Committee later documented.[^28] ### Iran, Retirement, and Memoirs @@ -98,40 +106,42 @@ He published his memoirs, *A Look Over My Shoulder: A Life in the Central Intell ### Irvani, Safeer and the 1978 Financial General Bid -Helms was dismissed as director of central intelligence by President Richard Nixon in February 1973 and was then appointed ambassador to Iran until 1977, where he met [[Mohammed Rahim Motaghi Irvani]], an Iranian industrialist who had founded the Melli Industrial Group in 1949.[^27] On October 31, 1977 Helms pleaded no contest to two charges, in return for a government recommendation that he not be sentenced to prison. In the fall of 1977 [[Clark Clifford]] visited a senior Justice Department official to argue against an indictment, saying that such charges could damage the U.S. intelligence community.[^27] +Helms was dismissed as director of central intelligence by President Richard Nixon in February 1973 and was then appointed ambassador to Iran until 1977, where he met [[Mohammed Rahim Motaghi Irvani]], an Iranian industrialist who had founded the Melli Industrial Group in 1949.[^29] On October 31, 1977 Helms pleaded no contest to two charges, in return for a government recommendation that he not be sentenced to prison. In the fall of 1977 [[Clark Clifford]] visited a senior Justice Department official to argue against an indictment, saying that such charges could damage the U.S. intelligence community.[^29] -Helms ran an international consulting firm, Safeer, which the Senate report says was named for the Iranian word for "Ambassador." Irvani financed the firm at the time the presiding federal judge described Helms as "in disgrace and shame." According to corporate records and documents filed in civil litigation in Gwinnett County, Georgia, Irvani capitalized and owned 80 percent of Safeer, and [[Roy P. M. Carlson]], a former Bank of America officer whom [[Agha Hasan Abedi]] had introduced to Irvani, became its vice president and handled much of its early business.[^28] +Helms ran an international consulting firm, Safeer, which the Senate report says was named for the Iranian word for "Ambassador." Irvani financed the firm at the time the presiding federal judge described Helms as "in disgrace and shame." According to corporate records and documents filed in civil litigation in Gwinnett County, Georgia, Irvani capitalized and owned 80 percent of Safeer, and [[Roy P. M. Carlson]], a former Bank of America officer whom [[Agha Hasan Abedi]] had introduced to Irvani, became its vice president and handled much of its early business.[^30] -The original 1978 filing with the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] listed Irvani as a 5 percent shareholder of [[Credit and Commerce American Holdings]] (CCAH), and the Senate report describes him as BCCI's lead front man in the early 1978 takeover attempt against [[Financial General Bankshares]]. The report says that Helms advised Irvani on how to be protected from any liability in that role, and that several documents introduced in litigation in Georgia describe Abedi recruiting Irvani in early 1978 to act as a front man.[^29] +The original 1978 filing with the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] listed Irvani as a 5 percent shareholder of [[Credit and Commerce American Holdings]] (CCAH), and the Senate report describes him as BCCI's lead front man in the early 1978 takeover attempt against [[Financial General Bankshares]]. The report says that Helms advised Irvani on how to be protected from any liability in that role, and that several documents introduced in litigation in Georgia describe Abedi recruiting Irvani in early 1978 to act as a front man.[^31] ### Footnotes [^1]: Powers, Thomas. *The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA.* Knopf, 1979 (the essential biography, based on extensive interviews). Church Committee (Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities). Final Report, S. Rept. 94-755, April 26, 1976. [^2]: Helms, Richard, with William Hood. *A Look Over My Shoulder: A Life in the Central Intelligence Agency*. New York: Random House, 2003, pp. 22-25. -[^3]: U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *The Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: Performance of the Intelligence Agencies*, Book V, Final Report, April 23, 1976, p. 5. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94755_V.pdf -[^4]: Book V, p. 73 (Belin memorandum to the Rockefeller Commission, May 20, 1975, p. 1). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94755_V.pdf -[^5]: U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders: An Interim Report*, Senate Report No. 94-465, 1975, p. 269 and note 1. https://archive.org/details/allegedassassina00unit -[^6]: Book V, pp. 70-72 (Helms testimony of July 17 and 18, 1975; testimony of 7/17/75, pp. 118-119, and 7/18/75, pp. 36-37). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94755_V.pdf -[^7]: Book V, p. 69. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94755_V.pdf -[^8]: Book V, p. 7. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94755_V.pdf -[^9]: U.S. House of Representatives, Select Committee on Assassinations, *Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations*, 1979, Part I-D, p. 253 and note 8. https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/part-1d.html -[^10]: Same report, Part I-C, p. 128. https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/part-1c.html -[^11]: Central Intelligence Agency, Inspector General (J. S. Earman), "Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro," May 23, 1967, covering memorandum and pp. 88-89 (JFK record 104-10213-10101). https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10213-10101.pdf -[^12]: Same report, p. 94. https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10213-10101.pdf -[^13]: Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Final Report*, Book I, S. Rept. 94-755, April 26, 1976, p. 389 (MKULTRA records destroyed January 1973 on Gottlieb's verbal orders; Gottlieb testifying that he carried out Helms's verbal order; Helms confirming). -[^14]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*. Times Books, 1979, Chapters 1, 4, 12. -[^15]: Church Committee. "Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders." Senate Report No. 94-465, 1975 (documents ZR/RIFLE). Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis.* Little, Brown, 2017. -[^16]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Covert Action in Chile, 1963-1973*, Staff Report, December 1975, PDF pages 29 and 37. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94chile.pdf -[^17]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976*, Volume XXI, Chile, 1969-1973, document 93, Editorial Note, with Helms's notes. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v21/d93 -[^18]: Kissinger testimony of August 12, 1975, as quoted in *FRUS 1969-1976*, Volume XXI, document 93, Editorial Note: "President Nixon did almost all of the talking." -[^19]: National Security Archive, "Kissinger and Chile: The Declassified Record on Regime Change," Electronic Briefing Book No. 437, document 1, Helms-Kissinger telephone conversation, September 12, 1970, 12:00 noon. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB437/ -[^20]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976*, Volume XXI, document 94, Memorandum for the Record, Washington, September 16, 1970. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v21/d94 -[^21]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 61, Memorandum from Rostow to President Johnson, May 25, 1967, with attached CIA appraisal. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d61 -[^22]: Robarge, David S. "Getting it Right: CIA Analysis of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War." *Studies in Intelligence* 49, no. 1 (March 2005). https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/CIA-Analysis-1967-War.pdf -[^23]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 124, Memorandum for the Record by Vice Admiral Rufus Taylor, June 1, 1967 (prepared June 2). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d124 -[^24]: Robarge, David S. "Getting it Right: CIA Analysis of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War." *Studies in Intelligence* 49, no. 1 (March 2005). https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/CIA-Analysis-1967-War.pdf For the June 1 to 2 meeting Robarge relies on published accounts, among them Michael B. Oren's, which rest on Amit's interviews and writings. -[^25]: National Security Archive, "The NUMEC Affair: Did Highly Enriched Uranium from the U.S. Aid Israel's Nuclear Weapons Program?" (November 2, 2016), Document 8, Letter from Richard Helms to Ramsey Clark, April 2, 1968 (ISCAP Appeal No. 2013-062). https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2016-11-02/numec-affair-did-highly-enriched-uranium-us-aid-israels-nuclear-weapons-program -[^26]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy.* Random House, 1991. Chapters 11, 14, 16. -[^27]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 11, "BCCI, the CIA and Foreign Intelligence" (the section on Richard Helms and Mohammed Irvani; text preceding notes 49 to 51). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/11intel.htm -[^28]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 11 (Safeer's name, its capitalization and the Carlson passages; text following note 51 through note 57; *G&H Montage GmbH v. Irvani*, Superior Court of Gwinnett County, Georgia, 88-A-03571-6). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/11intel.htm -[^29]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 6, "BCCI in the United States: Initial Entry" (Irvani listed in the original SEC filing as a 5 percent shareholder of CCAH; recruitment by Abedi in early 1978, note 49); ch. 11 (Helms's advice to Irvani on liability). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/06early.htm +[^3]: Georgetown University Library, Booth Family Center for Special Collections, "Richard M. Helms Papers," biographical note, https://findingaids.library.georgetown.edu/repositories/15/resources/10290 +[^4]: Carl Bernstein, "The CIA and the Media," *Rolling Stone*, October 20, 1977, text at https://archive.org/stream/nsia-BernsteinRollingStoneArticlesCIA/nsia-BernsteinRollingStoneArticlesCIA/Bernstein%20CIA%2001_djvu.txt +[^5]: U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *The Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: Performance of the Intelligence Agencies*, Book V, Final Report, April 23, 1976, p. 5. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94755_V.pdf +[^6]: Book V, p. 73 (Belin memorandum to the Rockefeller Commission, May 20, 1975, p. 1). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94755_V.pdf +[^7]: U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders: An Interim Report*, Senate Report No. 94-465, 1975, p. 269 and note 1. https://archive.org/details/allegedassassina00unit +[^8]: Book V, pp. 70-72 (Helms testimony of July 17 and 18, 1975; testimony of 7/17/75, pp. 118-119, and 7/18/75, pp. 36-37). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94755_V.pdf +[^9]: Book V, p. 69. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94755_V.pdf +[^10]: Book V, p. 7. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94755_V.pdf +[^11]: U.S. House of Representatives, Select Committee on Assassinations, *Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations*, 1979, Part I-D, p. 253 and note 8. https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/part-1d.html +[^12]: Same report, Part I-C, p. 128. https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/part-1c.html +[^13]: Central Intelligence Agency, Inspector General (J. S. Earman), "Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro," May 23, 1967, covering memorandum and pp. 88-89 (JFK record 104-10213-10101). https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10213-10101.pdf +[^14]: Same report, p. 94. https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10213-10101.pdf +[^15]: Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Final Report*, Book I, S. Rept. 94-755, April 26, 1976, p. 389 (MKULTRA records destroyed January 1973 on Gottlieb's verbal orders; Gottlieb testifying that he carried out Helms's verbal order; Helms confirming). +[^16]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*. Times Books, 1979, Chapters 1, 4, 12. +[^17]: Church Committee. "Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders." Senate Report No. 94-465, 1975 (documents ZR/RIFLE). Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis.* Little, Brown, 2017. +[^18]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Covert Action in Chile, 1963-1973*, Staff Report, December 1975, PDF pages 29 and 37. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94chile.pdf +[^19]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976*, Volume XXI, Chile, 1969-1973, document 93, Editorial Note, with Helms's notes. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v21/d93 +[^20]: Kissinger testimony of August 12, 1975, as quoted in *FRUS 1969-1976*, Volume XXI, document 93, Editorial Note: "President Nixon did almost all of the talking." +[^21]: National Security Archive, "Kissinger and Chile: The Declassified Record on Regime Change," Electronic Briefing Book No. 437, document 1, Helms-Kissinger telephone conversation, September 12, 1970, 12:00 noon. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB437/ +[^22]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976*, Volume XXI, document 94, Memorandum for the Record, Washington, September 16, 1970. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v21/d94 +[^23]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 61, Memorandum from Rostow to President Johnson, May 25, 1967, with attached CIA appraisal. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d61 +[^24]: Robarge, David S. "Getting it Right: CIA Analysis of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War." *Studies in Intelligence* 49, no. 1 (March 2005). https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/CIA-Analysis-1967-War.pdf +[^25]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 124, Memorandum for the Record by Vice Admiral Rufus Taylor, June 1, 1967 (prepared June 2). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d124 +[^26]: Robarge, David S. "Getting it Right: CIA Analysis of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War." *Studies in Intelligence* 49, no. 1 (March 2005). https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/CIA-Analysis-1967-War.pdf For the June 1 to 2 meeting Robarge relies on published accounts, among them Michael B. Oren's, which rest on Amit's interviews and writings. +[^27]: National Security Archive, "The NUMEC Affair: Did Highly Enriched Uranium from the U.S. Aid Israel's Nuclear Weapons Program?" (November 2, 2016), Document 8, Letter from Richard Helms to Ramsey Clark, April 2, 1968 (ISCAP Appeal No. 2013-062). https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2016-11-02/numec-affair-did-highly-enriched-uranium-us-aid-israels-nuclear-weapons-program +[^28]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy.* Random House, 1991. Chapters 11, 14, 16. +[^29]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 11, "BCCI, the CIA and Foreign Intelligence" (the section on Richard Helms and Mohammed Irvani; text preceding notes 49 to 51). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/11intel.htm +[^30]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 11 (Safeer's name, its capitalization and the Carlson passages; text following note 51 through note 57; *G&H Montage GmbH v. Irvani*, Superior Court of Gwinnett County, Georgia, 88-A-03571-6). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/11intel.htm +[^31]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 6, "BCCI in the United States: Initial Entry" (Irvani listed in the original SEC filing as a 5 percent shareholder of CCAH; recruitment by Abedi in early 1978, note 49); ch. 11 (Helms's advice to Irvani on liability). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/06early.htm diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Robert Jahn.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Robert Jahn.md index 684e27f5..9c8ac4ea 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Robert Jahn.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Robert Jahn.md @@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ born: 1930-04-01 died: 2017-11-15 location: "Princeton, New Jersey" created: 2026-09-22 -updated: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Robert George Jahn was born in Kearny, [[New Jersey]], on April 1, 1930, took his Princeton degree in mechanical engineering in 1951 and his physics doctorate there in 1955, taught at Lehigh and [[California Institute of Technology|Caltech]], returned to [[Princeton University|Princeton]] in 1962 and was appointed the fourth dean of its School of Engineering and Applied Science in 1971, serving until 1986. His research lay in "fluid mechanics, ionized gases, plasmadynamics, and most recently, electric propulsion"; "during the 1960s as student protests roiled campus, Jahn became active in guiding revisions to University governance, particularly in managing research sponsored by the U.S. military." He died on November 15, 2017.[^1][^2] @@ -25,14 +25,31 @@ In his own account, "late in the spring of 1977, [[Carol Kay Curry]] '79, an ele "By 1979, Jahn started the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab and hired [[Brenda Dunne]] to run it," under "an agreement with University administrators by which he could continue the work but only with private funding and without graduate students." "He relied not on university or government money but on private donations, more than $10 million over the years, he estimated. The first and most generous donor was his friend [[James S. McDonnell]], a founder of the [[McDonnell Douglas]] Corporation. For a time, the philanthropist [[Laurance Rockefeller]] visited regularly and donated money for research." PEAR "published more than 60 research reports, most appearing in the journal of the [[Society for Scientific Exploration]]," of which Jahn and Dunne were officers; "one editor famously told Dr. Jahn that he would consider a paper 'if you can telepathically communicate it to me.'" It closed in 2007: "If people don't believe us after all the results we've produced, then they never will."[^2][^4] +Jahn's 1982 invited paper in the *Proceedings of the IEEE*, written as dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, lists its supporting bodies in the acknowledgments: the McDonnell Foundation, Inc., the John E. Fetzer Foundation, Inc., [[Explorers Club|The Explorers Club]], the [[Institute of Noetic Science|Institute of Noetic Sciences]] and the Little River Foundation.[^5] The paper reproduces remote perception transcripts headed "Princeton, NJ," one dated September 5, 1978, and a figure captioned "Remote perception target: Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton."[^5] + +The [[National Research Council]] committee chaired by John A. Swets (*Enhancing Human Performance*, 1988) named Jahn's work first among the research it recommended the Army monitor, and its parapsychology subcommittee visited the Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory; the report's review states that the Schmidt and Jahn programs accounted for almost 60 percent of known random number generator experiments, and attributes to the reviewers Palmer and Alcock the points that one subject supplied about 23 percent of Jahn's formal series and that tampering precautions were inadequately documented.[^6] The [[Office of Technology Assessment]] workshop of September 30, 1988 (report February 22, 1989) heard Jahn describe criteria for strengthening PK experiments.[^7] A [[Defense Intelligence Agency|DIA]] psychoenergetics briefing of August 7, 1984 lists the "Engineering Anomalies Laboratory, Princeton University" among laboratories under consideration for FY 1985 contracts.[^8] + ### The Army and the Senator -The Army's [[Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee]] visited "Dean Jahn" at Princeton on September 8, 1979, and listed "the investigations by Dr. Hawke at Livermore Laboratories, Dr. Jahn at Princeton University, and Dr. Phillips at Washington University" among the psychokinesis work it had seen. Its coordinator, Major [[William Stoner]], recorded the chairman's claim that "Dean Jahn at Princeton has a two-year leash on his PK program and had to invoke freedom of inquiry, the academic Magna Carta, before the University President allowed him to go ahead," and answered: "In fact, Dean Jahn does not have a drop dead time two years out. He explained, and twice reconfirmed that the two year marker is when he expects to have some credible results to report." When [[Claiborne Pell]] was briefed on Grill Flame on September 29, 1982, the record noted that "he was also acquainted with the work of Dr. Robert Jahn, Dean, College of Engineering, Princeton University."[^5] +A memorandum recording the House Standing Intelligence Oversight Committee session of February 13, 1979 asked what other organizations besides SRI were working on the subject; the answer recorded was "Only maybe Dr. Jahn at Princeton."[^9] + +The Army's [[Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee]] visited "Dean Jahn" at Princeton on September 8, 1979, and listed "the investigations by Dr. Hawke at Livermore Laboratories, Dr. Jahn at Princeton University, and Dr. Phillips at Washington University" among the psychokinesis work it had seen. Its coordinator, Major [[William Stoner]], recorded the chairman's claim that "Dean Jahn at Princeton has a two-year leash on his PK program and had to invoke freedom of inquiry, the academic Magna Carta, before the University President allowed him to go ahead," and answered: "In fact, Dean Jahn does not have a drop dead time two years out. He explained, and twice reconfirmed that the two year marker is when he expects to have some credible results to report." When [[Claiborne Pell]] was briefed on Grill Flame on September 29, 1982, the record noted that "he was also acquainted with the work of Dr. Robert Jahn, Dean, College of Engineering, Princeton University."[^10] + +### The INSCOM Briefing, 1985 + +On February 6, 1985 Lieutenant General [[William Odom]], then the Army's assistant chief of staff for intelligence, attended an [[United States Army Intelligence and Security Command|INSCOM]] briefing for Under Secretary of the Army [[James Ambrose]] on the [[Center Lane]] project. The discussion opened with Jahn's work. Odom replied that INSCOM had not completed any work on the Jahn theories, but that Major General [[Garrison Rapmund|Rapmund]] was now an active participant in the field and planned to award an R&D contract to [[Stanford Research Institute|SRI International]], "which would include a subcontract to Dr. Jahn."[^11] The INSCOM record states that the Under Secretary's interest had been renewed by an inquiry from Secretary of the Army [[John Marsh]], who had been asked about Army involvement in psychoenergetics by Senator Claiborne Pell.[^11] SRI's final report for Project 1291 records a subcontract to the Princeton University Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory in fiscal 1987.[^12] ### Footnotes [^1]: Schultz, Steven. "Robert Jahn, pioneer of deep space propulsion and mind-machine interactions, dies at 87." Princeton University School of Engineering and Applied Science, November 30, 2017. https://engineering.princeton.edu/news/2017/11/30/robert-jahn-pioneer-deep-space-propulsion-and-mind-machine-interactions-dies-87 -[^2]: Carey, Benedict. "A Princeton Lab on ESP Plans to Close Its Doors." *New York Times,* February 10, 2007, read in a mirror copy at physics.smu.edu/pseudo/10princeton.html. -[^3]: Jahn, Robert G. "Psychic Process, Energy Transfer, and Things that Go Bump in the Night." *Princeton Alumni Weekly,* special report, December 4, 1978, CIA copy CIA-RDP96-00787R000500070001-1. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Jahn, Robert G. "Psychic Research: New Dimensions or Old Delusions?" Council for the Advancement of Science Writing, New Horizons in Science briefing, Palo Alto, November 8, 1979, CIA copy CIA-RDP96-00787R000500380001-7. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. +[^2]: Carey, Benedict. "A Princeton Lab on ESP Plans to Close Its Doors." *New York Times,* February 10, 2007, available at physics.smu.edu/pseudo/10princeton.html. +[^3]: Jahn, Robert G. "Psychic Process, Energy Transfer, and Things that Go Bump in the Night." *Princeton Alumni Weekly,* special report, December 4, 1978, CIA copy CIA-RDP96-00787R000500070001-1. Jahn, Robert G. "Psychic Research: New Dimensions or Old Delusions?" Council for the Advancement of Science Writing, New Horizons in Science briefing, Palo Alto, November 8, 1979, CIA copy CIA-RDP96-00787R000500380001-7. [^4]: Schultz, Steven. "Robert Jahn, pioneer of deep space propulsion and mind-machine interactions, dies at 87." Princeton University School of Engineering and Applied Science, November 30, 2017. https://engineering.princeton.edu/news/2017/11/30/robert-jahn-pioneer-deep-space-propulsion-and-mind-machine-interactions-dies-87 -[^5]: *Report by the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee,* December 1979, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5; Stoner, William L., memorandum of conversation, January 17, 1980, on the briefing of January 14, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230017-7; Jachim, Robert J., "Information Briefing for Senator Clairborne Pell," October 6, 1982, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100320001-5. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. +[^5]: Robert G. Jahn, "The Persistent Paradox of Psychic Phenomena: An Engineering Perspective," *Proceedings of the IEEE* 70, no. 2 (February 1982): 136ff, manuscript received July 15, 1981, acknowledgments and figure 20 (target Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton, August 28, 1980). CIA reading room, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100010004-6. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001100010004-6 +[^6]: National Research Council, *Enhancing Human Performance: Issues, Theories, and Techniques*, ed. Druckman and Swets (National Academy Press, 1988). CIA reading room copy CIA-RDP96-00791R000200320001-1. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00791r000200320001-1 +[^7]: Office of Technology Assessment, Report of a Workshop on Experimental Parapsychology, February 22, 1989, CIA-RDP96-00789R002200450001-8. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00789r002200450001-8 +[^8]: Defense Intelligence Agency, "Psychoenergetics Research (U)," August 7, 1984, CIA-RDP96-00788R001800210001-0. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001800210001-0 +[^9]: Memorandum, "Comments made at 13 February 1979 Session of House Standing Intelligence Oversight Committee," Defense Department, February 15, 1979. CIA reading room, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100060007-8. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001100060007-8 +[^10]: *Report by the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee,* December 1979, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5; Stoner, William L., memorandum of conversation, January 17, 1980, on the briefing of January 14, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230017-7; Jachim, Robert J., "Information Briefing for Senator Clairborne Pell," October 6, 1982, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100320001-5. +[^11]: INSCOM memorandum, TAGPA-F-SD, Fort George G. Meade, February 11, 1985, on the February 6, 1985 briefing of the Under Secretary of the Army. CIA reading room, CIA-RDP96-00788R001500020021-2. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001500020021-2 +[^12]: SRI International, *Enhanced Human Performance Investigation*, final technical report, SRI Project 1291, December 1987, Objective I Task 4. CIA reading room, CIA-RDP96-00787R000300100001-9. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000300100001-9 diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Robert Lashbrook.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Robert Lashbrook.md index 5ac64112..a8e45012 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Robert Lashbrook.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Robert Lashbrook.md @@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ Robert Lashbrook was [[Sidney Gottlieb]]'s deputy in the [[CIA]]'s [[TSS]] Chemi ### The Olson Case -After Olson's condition worsened, Lashbrook accompanied him and [[Vincent Ruwet]] to [[New York]] to see [[Harold Abramson]], the CIA-cleared allergist Gottlieb chose to treat Olson rather than following CIA regulations requiring notification of the [[CIA Office of Security|Office of Security]]. Lashbrook thought a visit to [[John Mulholland]], a magician under TSS contract to develop ways of slipping drugs into drinks, might amuse Olson, but Olson became "highly suspicious." That night, Olson became upset during a performance of *Me and Juliet* and told Ruwet people were waiting outside the theater to arrest him. After Olson wandered the streets tearing up his money, Lashbrook and Ruwet found him in the hotel lobby at 5:30 A.M.[^1] +After Olson's condition worsened, Lashbrook accompanied him and [[Vincent Ruwet]] to [[New York City|New York]] to see [[Harold Abramson]], the CIA-cleared allergist Gottlieb chose to treat Olson rather than following CIA regulations requiring notification of the [[CIA Office of Security|Office of Security]]. Lashbrook thought a visit to [[John Mulholland]], a magician under TSS contract to develop ways of slipping drugs into drinks, might amuse Olson, but Olson became "highly suspicious." That night, Olson became upset during a performance of *Me and Juliet* and told Ruwet people were waiting outside the theater to arrest him. After Olson wandered the streets tearing up his money, Lashbrook and Ruwet found him in the hotel lobby at 5:30 A.M.[^1] ### The Death diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ronald Lister.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ronald Lister.md index 51f333c7..131d8aea 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ronald Lister.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ronald Lister.md @@ -87,7 +87,7 @@ FBI agent Smith recalled that Lister was attempting to sell classified electroni ### Seized Documents and National Security Classification -When L.A. detectives tried to obtain FBI files on the Lister investigation in 1996, FBI Special Agent Tim Bezick stated that "the FBI reports and the transcripts of Lister's grand jury testimony were protected by the National Security Act." Joel Levin, chief of the Criminal Division of the San Francisco [[U.S. Attorney's office]], confirmed a court order would be required. The personnel files from Lister's old employers were also inaccessible: Maywood Police Department files were "sealed by the City of Maywood," and Laguna Beach Police Department files had been purged entirely.[^3] +When L.A. detectives tried to obtain FBI files on the Lister investigation in 1996, FBI Special Agent Tim Bezick stated that "the FBI reports and the transcripts of Lister's grand jury testimony were protected by the National Security Act." Joel Levin, chief of the Criminal Division of the San Francisco [[United States Attorney|U.S. Attorney's office]], confirmed a court order would be required. The personnel files from Lister's old employers were also inaccessible: Maywood Police Department files were "sealed by the City of Maywood," and Laguna Beach Police Department files had been purged entirely.[^3] Documents seized during a 1986 narcotics raid on Lister's house included a ten-page handwritten document chronicling weapons and equipment deals, including meetings with a customer named "Ivan" at the Fairmont Hotel in [[San Jose]] and a visit to the Russian embassy in [[Washington, D.C.]] Lister's monthly calendars for 1985 contained "frequent references to the Contras," including notations reading "SF Contras," "LA Contras," "D-Contra" and at least one reference to the DIA. Agents seized weapons code sheets and a handwritten note bearing the names of several CIA operatives working with [[Eden Pastora]]'s [[ARDE]] group.[^3] diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Zafar Iqbal.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Zafar Iqbal.md index 9ba28070..279eb4b8 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Zafar Iqbal.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Zafar Iqbal.md @@ -67,7 +67,7 @@ The Kerry-Brown report says that the Abu Dhabi interests took control of BCCI in Bingham records that Iqbal attended a Luxembourg board meeting on April 20, 1990, for the first time at that level, and that in the days that followed he "appeared to have superseded Naqvi in the day to day management of the group."[^11] -A memorandum by [[Robert Altman]] to the file, dated July 6, 1990, describes a meeting that day in [[London]] between Altman, Naqvi and a BCCI lawyer, [[Kim Gagne]]. It records that Altman had briefly seen Iqbal at the bank earlier that day, and that Iqbal said he did not know much about the First American issue in [[New York]] because his focus was solely on BCCI's operations. Iqbal also mentioned that BCCI had loans to some First American shareholders, and expressed confidence in [[Clark Clifford]] and Altman.[^12] Altman's memorandum describes the firm of [[Clifford & Warnke]] as general counsel to [[First American Bank]].[^12] +A memorandum by [[Robert Altman]] to the file, dated July 6, 1990, describes a meeting that day in [[London]] between Altman, Naqvi and a BCCI lawyer, [[Kim Gagne]]. It records that Altman had briefly seen Iqbal at the bank earlier that day, and that Iqbal said he did not know much about the First American issue in [[New York City|New York]] because his focus was solely on BCCI's operations. Iqbal also mentioned that BCCI had loans to some First American shareholders, and expressed confidence in [[Clark Clifford]] and Altman.[^12] Altman's memorandum describes the firm of [[Clifford & Warnke]] as general counsel to [[First American Bank]].[^12] A memorandum dated July 30, 1990, with the subject "CCAH," is addressed to Naqvi with a copy to Iqbal. It sets out alternative solutions to restrictions on interstate banking, limits on foreign ownership in Virginia and Florida, deposit limits, and the status of the New York operation.[^13] diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Barack Obama.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Barack Obama.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..05206d96 --- /dev/null +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Barack Obama.md @@ -0,0 +1,285 @@ +--- +title: Barack Obama +aliases: + - Barack Obama + - Barack Hussein Obama + - Barack H. Obama + - President Obama + - President Barack Obama +category: "Political Figure" +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +tags: + - KeyFigure + - Person + - Presidency + - JonathanPollard + - JeffreyEpstein + - ChelseaManning + - UAP + - NSASurveillance + - Clemency +summary: "44th U.S. president who commuted Chelsea Manning's sentence, declassified the 28 pages, and said in 2026 that aliens are real but that he had not seen them." +relations: + - type: head_of + with: "[[United States]]" + role: "44th President of the United States" + start: 2009-01-20 + end: 2017-01-20 + fn: 1 + - type: appointed + with: "[[Paul Engelmayer]]" + reverse: true + role: "U.S. District Judge, Southern District of New York" + start: 2011-07-27 + fn: 25 + - type: appointed + with: "[[Alison Nathan]]" + reverse: true + role: "U.S. District Judge, Southern District of New York" + start: 2011-10-17 + fn: 28 + - type: appointed + with: "[[Kathryn Ruemmler]]" + reverse: true + role: "White House Counsel" + start: 2011 + end: 2014 + fn: 15 + - type: appointed + with: "[[Larry Summers]]" + reverse: true + role: "Director of the National Economic Council" + end: 2010 + fn: 18 + - type: appointed + with: "[[Leon Panetta]]" + reverse: true + role: "Director of the Central Intelligence Agency" + start: 2009-02-13 + fn: 40 + - type: appointed + with: "[[James Clapper]]" + reverse: true + role: "Director of National Intelligence" + start: 2010-08-05 + fn: 41 + - type: appointed + with: "[[John Brennan]]" + reverse: true + role: "Director of the Central Intelligence Agency" + start: 2013-03-08 + fn: 42 + - type: relative_of + with: "[[Ann Dunham]]" + role: "son" + fn: 3 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Business International Corporation]]" + role: "researcher and writer" + start: 1983 + end: 1984 + fn: 10 +--- + +Barack Obama is an American politician who served as the 44th President of the United States from January 2009 to January 2017.[^1] He was awarded the 2009 [[Nobel Peace Prize]] by the [[Norwegian Nobel Committee]].[^2] + +### Ann Dunham, Lolo Soetoro and Indonesia + +[[Ann Dunham]], Obama's mother, was born in Wichita, Kansas on November 29, 1942 and earned her bachelor's degree in anthropology at the [[University of Hawaii]] in 1967. She held a grant from the Technology and Development Institute of the [[East-West Center]] from 1973 to 1978, received a master's degree in 1975 and a doctorate in 1992, both in anthropology, and died in Honolulu on November 7, 1995.[^3] The chronology in her papers at the [[National Anthropological Archives]] lists a consultancy on international development for the [[U.S. Agency for International Development]] in 1979 and 1980, service from 1981 to 1984 as Program Officer for Women and Employment at the [[Ford Foundation]]'s Regional Office for Southeast Asia in Jakarta, a rural development consultancy to the Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan in 1986 and 1987, and work from 1988 to 1992 as research coordinator and consultant to [[Bank Rakyat Indonesia]] under three contracts funded by the [[World Bank]] and USAID in microfinance.[^3] [[Duke University Press]] published her dissertation research on rural metalworkers in Java in December 2009 as Surviving against the Odds: Village Industry in Indonesia, edited by Alice G. Dewey and Nancy I. Cooper.[^4] + +Her second husband, [[Lolo Soetoro]], was an Indonesian student; [[Janny Scott]] reported in the New York Times in 2008 that he was summoned home in 1966 after the turmoil surrounding the rise of [[Suharto]], and that Dunham and her son followed him.[^5] [[Foreign Policy]] described Soetoro as a geologist for the Indonesian army who later became a consultant for a Western oil company.[^6] Scott's 2008 article states that Dunham became a consultant for USAID on setting up a village credit program, then a Ford Foundation program officer in Jakarta, and later joined Indonesia's oldest bank to work on a microfinance program.[^5] + +The journalist [[Wayne Madsen]], who has said he formerly worked for the [[National Security Agency]], stated in a 2010 interview with [[Press TV]], translated by the Indonesian outlet Rakyat Merdeka Online, that Obama's father, mother and Obama himself had deep connections to the [[Central Intelligence Agency]]. In the interview Madsen said that the Ford Foundation program in Indonesia during Dunham's years there was essentially the responsibility of Peter Geithner, father of Treasury Secretary [[Timothy Geithner]], and that in CIA files he had found that the official responsible for microcredit payments to Javanese farmers, at the place where Obama's mother worked, held a cover post as an economic officer at the US Embassy in Jakarta.[^7] The outlet noted errors elsewhere in the interview, among them Madsen's statements about the ethnicity of those killed in Indonesia in 1965 and 1966 and about where Obama's grandmother died.[^7] A critical essay published by Berghahn Books describes Madsen's later book as partly relying on Scott's 2011 biography of Dunham, A Singular Woman.[^8] + +### Business International, Occidental and Columbia + +Obama attended [[Occidental College]] for his first two years of college and then transferred to [[Columbia University]], where he took his degree in 1983.[^9][^10] In the Columbia magazine Sundial of March 10, 1983 he published an article on the campus groups Arms Race Alternatives and Students Against Militarism, writing that the "military-industrial interests" benefited from the narrow focus of the nuclear freeze movement and kept "adding to their billion dollar erector sets."[^11] + +In 1983 he took a job with [[Business International Corporation]] in New York. The New York Times, as quoted by FactCheck.org in 2008, described the company as "a small newsletter-publishing and research firm, with about 250 employees worldwide, that helped companies with foreign operations" and said Obama was a researcher and writer for the firm for about a year before he moved on to the New York Public Interest Research Group.[^10] On December 27, 1977 the New York Times, in an article by [[John M. Crewdson]] based on a three-month inquiry, reported that at least 22 American news organizations had employed American journalists who were also working for the CIA, and listed Business International among the lesser known organizations. The article quoted Elliott Haynes, whose father [[Eldridge Haynes]] had co-founded the company, as saying that his father had provided cover for four CIA employees in various countries between 1955 and 1960.[^12] + +Madsen stated in the same 2010 interview that Obama had worked after Columbia for Business International, a company that used journalists as cover, and that CIA documents he had examined showed an active CIA recruitment program at Occidental College while Obama studied there from 1979 to 1981, with a recruiter reporting about 70 students in attendance.[^7] + +### The Nobel Committee and the Epstein Calendar + +[[Thorbjørn Jagland]] chaired the Norwegian Nobel Committee from 2009 to 2015, the years in which it awarded the peace prize to Obama and, in 2012, to the [[European Union]].[^13][^2] In 2014 [[Jeffrey Epstein]] told [[Bill Gates]] that Jagland "had been reelected as head of the Council of Europe," and Gates answered "That is good" and asked whether "his peace prize committee job is also up in the air?"[^14] In February 2026 lawyers said that Jagland had been charged after a Norwegian probe into alleged Epstein ties.[^14] + +### Kathryn Ruemmler and the White House Counsel's Office + +[[Kathryn Ruemmler]] served as [[White House Counsel]] to Obama from 2011 to 2014, then joined [[Latham & Watkins]] as a partner and in 2020 became general counsel of [[Goldman Sachs]].[^15] Epstein telephoned her within weeks of her departure from the White House in 2014, and his calendars record more than three dozen appointments with her through 2019.[^15] Epstein's staff asked him twice whether young women should be kept out of the townhouse while she was there.[^15] On January 8, 2015 she wrote to Epstein: "John Brennan gave me the CIA Agency Medal (the CIA's highest award) this morning. How cool is that?"[^16] Telling the Journal, she said: "I regret ever knowing Jeffrey Epstein."[^15] She announced in February 2026 that she would resign from Goldman Sachs effective June 30, 2026, after her name recurred in the [[Department of Justice]]'s Epstein releases.[^17] + +### Larry Summers and the Economic Team + +[[Larry Summers]] directed the [[National Economic Council]] in Obama's first term. In September 2010 he announced that he would leave at the end of that year and return to his professorship at [[Harvard University]].[^18] Summers resigned from the board of [[OpenAI]] in November 2025 after backlash over Epstein emails, was banned for life by the [[American Economic Association]] in December 2025, and resigned from Harvard on February 25, 2026.[^19] On November 14, 2025, at the request of [[Donald Trump]], Attorney General [[Pam Bondi]] assigned [[Jay Clayton]] to investigate Epstein's dealings with [[Bill Clinton]], Summers, [[Reid Hoffman]] and [[JPMorgan Chase]].[^20] + +### William Burns + +[[William Burns]] served as deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration. The [[Wall Street Journal]]'s reporting on Epstein's recovered calendar recorded three meetings between Burns and Epstein in 2014, the year Burns was preparing to leave government.[^21] When the reporting appeared in May 2023, Burns was director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The agency's spokeswoman, [[Tammy Kupperman Thorp]], said that Burns remembered "meeting Epstein once briefly in New York." The calendar records three meetings and the agency's statement describes one. The mutual friend who made the introduction was not named.[^22] + +### The Epstein Files Transparency Act + +The [[Epstein Files Transparency Act]] (H.R. 4405, Public Law 119-38) passed the House 427 to 1 on November 18, 2025 after a discharge petition by [[Thomas Massie]] and [[Ro Khanna]], and Trump signed it on November 19.[^23] The Justice Department missed the act's December 19, 2025 deadline, reported on December 24 that it had found more than a million additional documents, and on January 30, 2026 published the bulk of the material.[^24] + +### Judges Appointed Under Obama + +Obama appointed [[Paul Engelmayer]] to the [[U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York]], and the commission is dated July 27, 2011.[^25] Engelmayer later took over the criminal case of [[Ghislaine Maxwell]], [[United States v. Maxwell]], after [[Alison Nathan]] was elevated to the [[Second Circuit]]. In 2025 he first refused and then granted a request by [[Todd Blanche]], then the Deputy Attorney General, to unseal the case's grand jury record, the latter under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.[^26] In February 2025, sitting in emergency Part I, he barred political appointees and special government employees from Treasury payment systems.[^27] + +Obama nominated Nathan on March 31, 2011, the Senate confirmed her on October 13, 2011, and her commission issued on October 17, 2011.[^28] She had been an associate White House counsel to Obama. She presided over the Maxwell prosecution from its unsealing in July 2020 through her sentencing of Maxwell to 20 years in prison on June 28, 2022.[^29] + +### The 2016 Intelligence Record + +The [[Durham report]] by special counsel [[John Durham]] devotes a section to intelligence received in late July 2016 about the purported "approval by Hillary Clinton on July 26, 2016 of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security services." The report calls it the Clinton Plan intelligence and reproduces the text that Director of National Intelligence [[John Ratcliffe]] declassified in September 2020: "The IC does not know the accuracy of this allegation or the extent to which the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration or fabrication."[^30] + +The report states that John Brennan, then director of the Central Intelligence Agency, met Obama and other White House personnel on July 28, 2016 to discuss the 2016 election and the creation of an interagency Fusion Cell on Russian influence, and that Brennan told the Office that the cell was put in motion after that meeting. Email traffic and witness interviews, the report says, reflect that at least some CIA personnel believed the Clinton Plan intelligence led to the decision to set up the cell.[^31] On August 3, 2016, according to the report, Brennan met the President, the Vice President and other senior officials, including the Attorney General (remotely) and the FBI Director, in the White House Situation Room, and Brennan's declassified handwritten notes reflect that he briefed the "alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on 26 July of a proposal from one of her [campaign] advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security services."[^32] On September 7, 2016, the report states, intelligence officials forwarded an investigative referral to FBI Director [[James Comey]] and Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence [[Peter Strzok]].[^33] + +In a closing discussion of compartmentation the report quotes Brennan as telling the Office that "[t]here was no effort at the CIA to restrict information because it was potentially embarrassing for Hillary Clinton .... Obama just wanted the right people involved."[^34] A footnote records notes taken by Deputy FBI Director [[Andrew McCabe]], who was not at the meeting, that "President Obama stated that the FBI should think about doing defensive briefs."[^35] + +The Durham report states that the [[Perkins Coie]] lawyer [[Michael Sussmann]] gave the FBI's general counsel, [[James Baker]], data purporting to show a covert communications channel between the [[Trump Organization]] and [[Alfa Bank]], representing that he was not acting for any client; the Office's investigation, the report says, showed those representations were false because Sussmann was representing the Clinton campaign, as evidenced by his law firm's billing records and internal communications.[^36] A jury acquitted Sussmann of the false statement charge after a two-week trial.[^37] The report records that at the trial the campaign manager [[Robby Mook]] and the lawyer [[Marc Elias]] said the campaign did not authorize Sussmann to take the Alfa Bank allegations to the FBI, and that Mook testified that top campaign officials were aware of the allegations and that Clinton approved their dissemination to the media before questions about their accuracy had been resolved.[^38] + +### Intelligence Appointees and the 2008 FISA Vote + +On July 9, 2008, as a senator from Illinois, Obama voted for H.R. 6304, the bill amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which passed the Senate 69 to 28.[^39] As president he named [[Leon Panetta]] Director of the CIA (sworn in February 13, 2009), [[James Clapper]] [[Director of National Intelligence]] (confirmed August 5, 2010) and Brennan Director of the CIA (sworn in March 8, 2013, the day after the Senate confirmed him following a nearly 13-hour filibuster by [[Rand Paul]]).[^40][^41][^42] + +### Surveillance, Section 215 and the Snowden Disclosures + +On August 9, 2013 Obama told a press conference that he would "work with Congress to pursue appropriate reforms to Section 215 of the Patriot Act," the program that collected telephone records. He also said the Justice Department would make public its legal rationale for collection under that section.[^1] + +The [[Guardian]] reported on June 27, 2013, publishing a top-secret draft report by the National Security Agency's inspector general, that the agency had collected US email records in bulk for more than two years under Obama.[^43] On March 12, 2013 [[Ron Wyden]] asked James Clapper, then Director of National Intelligence, at an open hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee whether the NSA collected "any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans." Clapper later apologized for testimony that [[NBC News]] and the [[Associated Press]] described as "clearly erroneous."[^44] + +On January 17, 2014 Obama issued [[Presidential Policy Directive 28]] on signals intelligence. The directive says that "all persons should be treated with dignity and respect, regardless of their nationality or wherever they might reside." It also says that the collection of signals intelligence in bulk "may consequently result in the collection of information about persons whose activities are not of foreign intelligence or counterintelligence value," and that "The United States will therefore impose new limits on its use of signals intelligence collected in bulk."[^45] The directive followed the disclosures of [[Edward Snowden]], which began in June 2013. + +### The bin Laden Raid and the Drone Program + +On May 2, 2011 Obama announced the operation against [[Osama bin Laden]]: "Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan." He said that bin Laden had "escaped across the Afghan border into Pakistan" and that "I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan."[^46] + +In a speech at the [[National Defense University]] on May 23, 2013, Obama said that "From our use of drones to the detention of terrorist suspects, the decisions that we are making now will define the type of nation" the country would leave to its children. He described "lethal, targeted action against al Qaeda and its associated forces, including with remotely piloted aircraft commonly referred to as drones," and said that "the use of drones is heavily constrained."[^47] + +### Stuxnet and the Olympic Games Program + +In June 2012 [[David Sanger]] reported in the [[New York Times]] that Obama had accelerated cyberattacks against the uranium enrichment program at [[Natanz]] in [[Iran]]. The program had begun under the Bush administration and was code-named Olympic Games. A worm had escaped the plant in 2010 and spread across the internet. The last attack in the later series, Sanger reported, "temporarily took out nearly 1,000 of the 5,000 centrifuges Iran had spinning at the time to purify uranium."[^48] The account drew on interviews with current and former American, European and Israeli officials, none of whom would allow their names to be used. Sanger's 2012 book Confront and Conceal covers the same program.[^49] The article states that in a meeting at the White House days before his inauguration, [[George W. Bush]] urged Obama to preserve two classified programs, Olympic Games and the drone program in Pakistan, and that Obama took the advice. It states that Panetta, General James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and [[Michael Morell]], deputy director of the CIA, told Obama in the summer of 2010 that the worm had escaped, and that the collaboration with [[Unit 8200]] of the Israeli military was driven in part by the American aim of dissuading Israel from a pre-emptive strike.[^48] + +Cartwright pleaded guilty in October 2016 to making false statements to federal investigators in the leak inquiry; prosecutors said he had falsely told them he had not provided information that appeared in a news article and a book by Sanger.[^50] + +### Executive Order 13581 and Transnational Criminal Organizations + +On July 24, 2011 Obama signed [[Executive Order 13581]], "Blocking Property of Transnational Criminal Organizations." The order took effect at 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on July 25, 2011, was published in the Federal Register on July 27, 2011 and blocks the property of the organizations listed in its Annex, which names four entities: the Brothers' Circle, the [[Camorra]], the [[Yakuza]] (also called Boryokudan or Gokudo) and [[Los Zetas]].[^51] + +### The 28 Pages + +The [[Joint Inquiry]] into the September 11 attacks ended with a section that was classified after its 2002 publication. On July 15, 2016 the [[House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence]], under Chairman [[Devin Nunes]] and Ranking Member [[Adam Schiff]], approved publication of the section. The committee's release states that after a declassification review "the Obama Administration decided to declassify" the section, which was sent to congressional leadership with redactions to protect sources and methods.[^52] The release also says that the section "does not put forward vetted conclusions, but rather unverified leads that were later fully investigated by the Intelligence Community."[^52] + +### Jonathan Pollard + +[[Jonathan Pollard]] applied for commutation of his sentence on October 15, 2010. A letter from the [[Office of the Pardon Attorney]] dated March 14, 2011 stated that the application remained pending.[^53] On December 21, 2010 former Attorney General [[Michael Mukasey]] wrote to Obama asking that he commute the sentence. Mukasey wrote that former CIA director [[James Woolsey]] and former Senate Intelligence Committee chairman [[Dennis DeConcini]] had expressed "firmly their belief that his sentence should be commuted." He called the submission to the sentencing court of affidavits from [[Caspar Weinberger]], seeking a heavier sentence than the prosecutors requested, "deeply disturbing," and wrote that "a life sentence can only be considered utterly disproportionate to the crime."[^54] Mukasey also cited a submission by former Assistant Secretary of Defense [[Lawrence Korb]] on the affidavits.[^54] Pollard was released from prison on November 20, 2015 and placed on parole. The conditions included a curfew, an electronic monitor, limits on the jobs he could take, and a prohibition on leaving the United States.[^55] Israel had granted him citizenship in 1995.[^55] + +### Chelsea Manning + +On January 17, 2017 Obama commuted the sentence of [[Chelsea Manning]], who had been serving a 35-year term for the [[WikiLeaks]] disclosures. Release was set for May 17, 2017.[^56] The commutation was part of a clemency action that the White House counted as 209 commutations and 64 pardons.[^57] Among those pardoned that day was the retired Marine general [[James Cartwright]], who had pleaded guilty in October 2016 to making false statements in the investigation of a leak about the cyberattack on Iran's nuclear facilities.[^50] + +### Unidentified Aerial Phenomena + +On May 17, 2021 Obama appeared on [[The Late Late Show with James Corden]]. When [[James Corden]] handed the interview to the bandleader [[Reggie Watts]], the conversation turned to extraterrestrial life. Obama asked, "Is there a lab somewhere where we're keeping the alien specimens and spaceships?" and said the answer was no. He then said: "But what is true is that there is footage and records of objects in the sky that we don't know exactly what they are."[^58] + +In an interview with the podcast host [[Brian Tyler Cohen]] published on February 14, 2026, Obama said of aliens, "They're real but I haven't seen them," and that they are not "being kept in... what is it? Area 51." On February 15 he posted a statement on Instagram: "I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!"[^59] On February 19, 2026 Trump posted on Truth Social that he would direct the [[Pentagon]] to begin releasing government files on UAP, and told a reporter that Obama had given classified information when he said aliens were "real."[^60] On May 8, 2026 the Department of Defense began posting files at war.gov/UFO, with more than 160 files covering more than 400 incidents.[^61] + +[[Leslie Kean]] wrote that in August 2014 she met [[John Podesta]], then an adviser to Obama, in the West Wing and proposed that one person in the [[Office of Science and Technology Policy]] be assigned to the subject of UFOs. In her account the proposal went nowhere.[^62] Podesta had written the foreword to her 2010 book, and in June 2011 he invited her to make a confidential presentation at the [[Center for American Progress]], which he had founded. Kean's public records effort began in 2002, when [[Larry Landsman]] of the [[Syfy]] channel invited her to lead it on the [[Kecksburg incident]] of December 9, 1965, and the drive was "bankrolled by" the Sci Fi Channel.[^63] + +[[Daniel Correa]], chief executive of the [[Federation of American Scientists]], was the Office of Science and Technology Policy's assistant director for innovation policy for four years under Obama.[^64] + +### Campaign Money and Donors + +Employees listing Goldman Sachs as their employer gave 553,638.39 dollars in 764 itemized contributions to [[Obama for America]] in the 2008 cycle. Employees listing [[Credit Suisse]] gave 256,403.03 dollars in 485 contributions, and employees listing [[UBS]] gave 267,344.97 dollars in 518.[^65] + +On October 2, 2008 the Judicial Confirmation Network, later known as the [[Judicial Crisis Network]], filed a 24-hour notice of electioneering communications with the [[Federal Election Commission]]. The disbursements, dated September 29, 2008, included a placement with the [[Pittsburgh]] firm [[BrabenderCox]] for an advertisement titled "Chose" that named Obama. The notice reported 548,063 dollars in total. The persons listed as sharing or exercising control of the filing were [[Neil Corkery]], [[Gary Marx]], whose employer was [[Century Strategies]], and [[Dan Casey]], whose employer was [[DC Strategies]]. Marx signed the form.[^66] + +The [[Horowitz Family Foundation]] gave 250,000 dollars to the [[Barack Obama Foundation]] in the year ended June 2019, according to its Form 990-PF filings.[^67] In April 2026 [[Kalshi]] announced [[Stephanie Cutter]], a former deputy campaign manager for Obama's 2012 campaign, as a policy adviser.[^68] + +### Advisers, Appointees and Nominees + +The 2014 board of the [[Counter Extremism Project]] included [[Dennis Ross]], whom the [[Jewish Telegraphic Agency]] described as an adviser on Middle East affairs to Presidents Clinton and Obama.[^69] The report states that the project declined to identify its sources of funding except for [[Thomas Kaplan]], a billionaire commodities investor, and that the project was "backed by a host of pro-Israel stalwarts."[^69] [[Brian Quintenz]] was nominated to the [[Commodity Futures Trading Commission]] by both Obama and Trump and served as a commissioner from August 15, 2017 to August 31, 2021.[^70] [[Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar]] led the [[Domestic Policy Council]]'s teams on civil and criminal justice, public health, immigration and regulatory reform in Obama's first term, and had co-chaired the Obama-Biden transition's immigration working group. He later served on the [[President's Intelligence Advisory Board]].[^71] Ro Khanna served as a deputy assistant secretary of commerce in the Obama administration.[^72] + +The papers of [[C.B. Scott Jones]] at the University of Colorado include drafts of letters to Presidents George W. Bush, Clinton and Obama.[^73] On May 25, 2016 in [[Ho Chi Minh City]], Obama thanked [[Bob Kerrey]], a former senator, for being "one of the key people to help lead this effort" on [[Fulbright University Vietnam]].[^74] Kerrey had been named chairman of the board of trustees of the university in May 2016. The [[Trust for University Innovation in Vietnam]], whose chairman [[Thomas J. Vallely]] called him "the ideal candidate for the job," promoted the project, and [[Asia Times]] reported that the appointment angered some people in Vietnam after the online outlet [[Zing]] published a story on Kerrey's role at Thanh Phong.[^75] + +[[Charles C. Johnson]] promoted the claim that [[Susan Rice]], then Obama's national security adviser, had directed surveillance of the Trump campaign.[^76] Rice denied using intelligence to spy on Trump advisers.[^77] The New York Times described Johnson as a "notorious conservative provocateur" who played a pivotal early role alongside [[Peter Thiel]] in the formation of [[Clearview AI]].[^78] A business partner later sued Johnson, as reported by [[Semafor]], for falsely presenting himself as an intelligence agent.[^79] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Barack Obama, "Remarks by the President in a Press Conference," The White House, August 9, 2013. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/08/09/remarks-president-press-conference +[^2]: "The Nobel Peace Prize 2009," NobelPrize.org, announcement of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to Barack H. Obama. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2009/summary/ +[^3]: S. Ann Dunham papers, NAA.2011-04, National Anthropological Archives, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, biographical note and chronology. https://sova.si.edu/record/naa.2011-04 +[^4]: S. Ann Dunham, *Surviving against the Odds: Village Industry in Indonesia,* edited by Alice G. Dewey and Nancy I. Cooper (Durham: Duke University Press, December 2009). https://www.dukeupress.edu/surviving-against-the-odds +[^5]: Janny Scott, "A Free-Spirited Wanderer Who Set Obama's Path," *The New York Times,* March 14, 2008. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/14/us/politics/14obama.html +[^6]: Blake Hounshell, "Dreams From His Stepfather," *Foreign Policy,* June 4, 2010. https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/06/04/dreams-from-his-stepfather/ +[^7]: Teguh Santosa, "Wayne Madens: Obama dan Keluarganya Dibesarkan CIA," *Rakyat Merdeka Online,* August 27, 2010, translating the Press TV interview with Wayne Madsen titled "White House happy with CIA-trained Obama." https://rmol.id/read/2010/08/27/2317/wayne-madens-obama-dan-keluarganya-dibesarkan-cia +[^8]: "Anthropological Issues and US President Obama," Berghahn Books blog. https://berghahnbooks.com/blog/the-presidents-mother-the-anthropologist-and-the-anthropologists-son +[^9]: "Obama earned his stripes during time as Tiger," *The Occidental,* January 1, 2016, quoting the Columbia alumni newsletter. https://theoccidentalnews.com/opinions/2016/01/01/obama-earned-his-stripes-during-time-as-tiger/2883082 +[^10]: FactCheck.org, "Obama Polishes His Resume," June 2008, quoting *The New York Times* and *The Washington Post.* https://www.factcheck.org/2008/06/obama-polishes-his-resume-2/ +[^11]: Barack Obama, "Breaking the War Mentality," *Sundial* (Columbia University), March 10, 1983, as reprinted by *Origins of Our Time,* May 1, 2024. https://ourtime.substack.com/p/breaking-the-war-mentality-guest +[^12]: John M. Crewdson, "C.I.A. Established Many Links to Journalists in U.S. and Abroad," *The New York Times,* December 27, 1977 (with reporting by Joseph B. Treaster). https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/27/archives/cia-established-many-links-to-journalists-in-us-and-abroad.html +[^13]: Lewis, Mark. "How Epstein leveraged the Nobel Peace Prize to connect with the world's most powerful," *Yahoo News,* February 14, 2026. https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/epstein-levaraged-nobel-peace-prize-230549753.html +[^14]: "Thorbjørn Jagland: Norwegian ex-prime minister charged after probe into alleged Epstein ties, lawyers say," *CNN,* February 13, 2026. http://web.archive.org/web/20260420203121/https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/13/europe/norway-pm-jagland-charged-epstein-ties-intl-hnk +[^15]: "The Former Biglaw Partner In Jeffrey Epstein's Private Calendar," *Above the Law,* May 2023, summarizing the *Wall Street Journal*'s "Jeffrey Epstein's Private Calendar" series. https://abovethelaw.com/2023/05/the-former-biglaw-partner-in-jeffrey-epsteins-private-calendar/ +[^16]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library: Kathy Ruemmler to Jeffrey Epstein, January 8, 2015, EFTA02386175 (DataSet 11). https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02386175.pdf +[^17]: CBS News, February 2026, on Ruemmler's resignation as Goldman Sachs general counsel. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kathryn-ruemmler-resigning-from-goldman-sachs-epstein-files/ +[^18]: PBS NewsHour, "Obama economic team turning over as Larry Summers departs," September 21, 2010. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/obama-economic-team-turning-over-as-larry-summers-departs +[^19]: "Summers Resigns From OpenAI Board Amid Backlash Over Epstein Emails." *The Harvard Crimson,* November 19, 2025. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/11/19/summers-resigns-open-ai/ ; "Larry Summers banned for life from American Economic Association." Associated Press via *Fortune,* December 3, 2025. https://fortune.com/2025/12/03/larry-summers-banned-for-life-from-american-economic-association +[^20]: "Bondi taps acting U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton to probe Democrats' ties to Epstein," *The Washington Times,* November 14, 2025. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/nov/14/bondi-taps-acting-us-attorney-jay-clayton-probe-democrats-ties/ +[^21]: Ponieman, Natan. *Benzinga,* May 2023, on Epstein's private calendar, summarizing the *Wall Street Journal.* https://www.benzinga.com/news/23/05/32134015/private-calendar-reveals-jeffrey-epsteins-meetings-with-cia-director-noamchomsky-and-goldman-sachs +[^22]: *The Daily Beast,* May 2023, on Epstein's calendar meetings with Noam Chomsky and William Burns. https://www.thedailybeast.com/epstein-calendar-reveals-meetings-with-noam-chomsky-and-former-cia-chief-william-burns/ +[^23]: Epstein Files Transparency Act, Pub. L. No. 119-38, § 2(c)(1)(C), 139 Stat. 656. https://www.congress.gov/119/plaws/publ38/PLAW-119publ38.pdf ; Office of the Clerk, Roll Call 289, November 18, 2025. https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2025289 +[^24]: U.S. Department of Justice, Press Release No. 26-84, January 30, 2026. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-publishes-35-million-responsive-pages-compliance-epstein-files +[^25]: Federal Judicial Center, "Engelmayer, Paul Adam," Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/engelmayer-paul-adam +[^26]: United States v. Maxwell, No. 1:20-cr-00330 (S.D.N.Y.), ECF Nos. 784, 785 (July 18, 2025); Opinion and Order, ECF No. 809 (Aug. 11, 2025), reported at 794 F. Supp. 3d 215, 225-29; Opinion and Order, ECF No. 820 (Dec. 9, 2025). https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17318376/united-states-v-maxwell/ +[^27]: Order, State of New York et al. v. Trump et al., No. 25 Civ. 1144 (JAV) (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 8, 2025), ECF No. 6 (Engelmayer, J., sitting in Part I). https://nysd.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/2025-02/25cv1144%20Order%20on%20TRO%202%208%2025_0.pdf +[^28]: Federal Judicial Center, "Nathan, Alison Julie," Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/nathan-alison-julie +[^29]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02842688, Court Records (United States v. Maxwell, No. 1:20-cr-00330 (S.D.N.Y. 2020)), opinion, United States v. Maxwell, No. 22-1426-cr (2d Cir. Sept. 17, 2024). https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/Court%20Records/United%20States%20v.%20Maxwell%2C%20No.%20120-cr-00330%20(S.D.N.Y.%202020)/EFTA02842688.pdf +[^30]: John H. Durham, Special Counsel, *Report on Matters Related to Intelligence Activities and Investigations Arising Out of the 2016 Presidential Campaigns*, U.S. Department of Justice, May 12, 2023, p. 81 (Clinton Plan intelligence; Ratcliffe letter of September 29, 2020 and Brennan Notes declassified October 6, 2020). https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf +[^31]: John H. Durham, Special Counsel, *Report on Matters Related to Intelligence Activities and Investigations Arising Out of the 2016 Presidential Campaigns*, U.S. Department of Justice, May 12, 2023, p. 84. https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf +[^32]: John H. Durham, Special Counsel, *Report on Matters Related to Intelligence Activities and Investigations Arising Out of the 2016 Presidential Campaigns*, U.S. Department of Justice, May 12, 2023, p. 85 (Brennan White House briefing). https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf +[^33]: John H. Durham, Special Counsel, *Report on Matters Related to Intelligence Activities and Investigations Arising Out of the 2016 Presidential Campaigns*, U.S. Department of Justice, May 12, 2023, p. 82. https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf +[^34]: John H. Durham, Special Counsel, *Report on Matters Related to Intelligence Activities and Investigations Arising Out of the 2016 Presidential Campaigns*, U.S. Department of Justice, May 12, 2023, p. 297. https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf +[^35]: John H. Durham, Special Counsel, *Report on Matters Related to Intelligence Activities and Investigations Arising Out of the 2016 Presidential Campaigns*, U.S. Department of Justice, May 12, 2023, p. 298, n. 1721. https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf +[^36]: John H. Durham, Special Counsel, *Report on Matters Related to Intelligence Activities and Investigations Arising Out of the 2016 Presidential Campaigns*, U.S. Department of Justice, May 12, 2023, p. 16. https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf +[^37]: John H. Durham, Special Counsel, *Report on Matters Related to Intelligence Activities and Investigations Arising Out of the 2016 Presidential Campaigns*, U.S. Department of Justice, May 12, 2023, p. 287. https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf +[^38]: John H. Durham, Special Counsel, *Report on Matters Related to Intelligence Activities and Investigations Arising Out of the 2016 Presidential Campaigns*, U.S. Department of Justice, May 12, 2023, pp. 265-266. https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf +[^39]: U.S. Senate, Roll Call Vote 168, 110th Congress, 2nd Session, H.R. 6304, July 9, 2008. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1102/vote_110_2_00168.xml +[^40]: "CIA Director Sworn In, Emphasizes Importance of 'Honesty'," *ABC News,* February 13, 2009. https://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/LawPolitics/story?id=6874727 +[^41]: "Senate confirms Clapper as intell chief," *Defense Systems,* August 6, 2010. https://www.defenseone.com/defense-systems/2010/08/senate-confirms-clapper-as-intell-chief/189665 +[^42]: Eyder Peralta, "John Brennan Is Sworn In As CIA Director," *NPR,* March 8, 2013. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/03/08/173826021/john-brennan-is-sworn-in-as-cia-director +[^43]: Glenn Greenwald and Spencer Ackerman, "NSA collected US email records in bulk for more than two years under Obama," *The Guardian,* June 27, 2013, publishing a top-secret draft report by the NSA inspector general. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/27/nsa-data-mining-authorised-obama +[^44]: NBC News / Associated Press, "Director of National Intelligence apologizes for his 'clearly erroneous' NSA testimony," July 2, 2013. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/wbna52381116 +[^45]: Presidential Policy Directive 28, "Signals Intelligence Activities," January 17, 2014, The White House. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/01/17/presidential-policy-directive-signals-intelligence-activities +[^46]: Barack Obama, "Remarks by the President on Osama Bin Laden," The White House, May 2, 2011. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2011/05/02/remarks-president-osama-bin-laden +[^47]: Barack Obama, "Remarks by the President at the National Defense University," The White House, May 23, 2013. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/23/remarks-president-national-defense-university +[^48]: David E. Sanger, "Obama Ordered Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran," *The New York Times,* June 1, 2012. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html +[^49]: David E. Sanger, *Confront and Conceal: Obama's Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power* (2012), excerpt as reported by *The Register,* June 1, 2012. https://www.theregister.com/2012/06/01/stuxnet_joint_us_israeli_op/ +[^50]: "Obama pardons retired Gen. James Cartwright for lying during leak probe," *CBS News* (AP), January 17, 2017. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/james-cartwright-president-obama-pardons-lying-leak-probe +[^51]: Executive Order 13581 of July 24, 2011, "Blocking Property of Transnational Criminal Organizations," 76 Fed. Reg. 44757 (July 27, 2011). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2011-07-27/pdf/2011-19156.pdf +[^52]: House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, "Intel Committee publishes declassified '28 pages,'" press release, July 15, 2016. https://intelligence.house.gov/2016/07/15/intel-committee-publishes-declassified-28-pages/ +[^53]: Office of the Pardon Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, letter to Grant F. Smith, FOIA Request No. 2011-036, March 14, 2011. https://www.israellobby.org/pollard/03142011Pollard_release.pdf +[^54]: Michael B. Mukasey to President Barack Obama, letter of December 21, 2010. https://www.israellobby.org/pollard/12212010Mukasey.pdf +[^55]: Matthew S. Schwartz, "Jonathan Pollard, Who Sold Cold War Secrets To Israel, Completes Parole," NPR, carried by *Georgia Public Broadcasting,* November 21, 2020. https://www.gpb.org/news/2020/11/21/jonathan-pollard-who-sold-cold-war-secrets-israel-completes-parole +[^56]: "Obama Commutes Chelsea Manning's Prison Sentence for Leak," *Bloomberg,* January 17, 2017. https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-01-17/obama-commutes-sentences-of-chelsea-manning-and-former-general +[^57]: "President Barack Obama commutes sentence of Chelsea Manning," ABC30, January 17, 2017. https://abc30.com/post/president-barack-obama-commutes-sentence-of-chelsea-manning/1706866/ +[^58]: "Obama says government doesn't have alien specimens but UFOs are real," *Vice,* May 18, 2021, on Obama's appearance on *The Late Late Show with James Corden,* May 17, 2021. https://vice.com/en/article/obama-says-government-doesnt-have-alien-specimens-but-ufos-are-real +[^59]: "Obama clarifies alien comments after telling podcast they're real," *KRDO,* February 16, 2026, on Obama's interview with Brian Tyler Cohen and his Instagram statement of February 15, 2026. https://krdo.com/news/2026/02/16/obama-clarifies-alien-comments-after-telling-podcast-theyre-real/ +[^60]: "Trump says he's directing the Pentagon to release files related to UFOs and aliens." *NBC News,* February 19, 2026 (quoting Trump's Truth Social post). https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/trump-says-directing-pentagon-release-files-related-ufos-aliens-rcna259833 +[^61]: "Pentagon releases declassified UFO files including videos and photos held by the government for decades." *NBC News,* May 8, 2026. https://www.nbcnews.com/science/ufos-and-anomalous-phenomena/ufo-uap-files-pentagon-release-trump-rcna344204 +[^62]: Lewis-Kraus, Gideon. "How the Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously." *The New Yorker,* May 10, 2021. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/how-the-pentagon-started-taking-ufos-seriously +[^63]: Gibb, Tom. "Reality 'X-file': People in Kecksburg want to resolve what fell from the sky in 1965." *Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,* March 9, 2003, p. 21. +[^64]: Federation of American Scientists, "Daniel Correa," biography. https://fas.org/expert/daniel-correa/ +[^65]: Federal Election Commission, OpenFEC API, schedule A contributions by employer, committee C00431445 (Obama for America), 2008 cycle, retrieved October 15, 2026. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/by_employer/?committee_id=C00431445&cycle=2008 +[^66]: Federal Election Commission, FEC Form 9, 24 Hour Notice of Disbursements/Obligations for Electioneering Communications, Judicial Confirmation Network, received October 2, 2008 (committee C30001242), Schedule 9-B, pages 2 to 4. https://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/424/28039843424/28039843424.pdf +[^67]: Horowitz Family Foundation (EIN 35-7050910), Form 990-PF for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2019 (IRS object 201903169349101270). +[^68]: PR News, "Kalshi Taps Precision's Cutter," *O'Dwyer's,* April 3, 2026. https://www.odwyerpr.com/story/public/24567/2026-04-03/kalshi-taps-precisions-cutter.html +[^69]: Uriel Heilman, "Backers of anti-Iran group create mirror group against violent Islamists," *Jewish Telegraphic Agency,* September 22, 2014, as published by the *AZ Jewish Post.* https://azjewishpost.com/2014/backers-of-anti-iran-group-create-mirror-group-against-violent-islamists/ +[^70]: Commodity Futures Trading Commission, "Former Commissioners." https://www.cftc.gov/About/Commissioners/FormerCommissioners/index.htm +[^71]: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar," former president (2021 to 2026), biography. https://carnegieendowment.org/people/mariano-florentino-tino-cuellar +[^72]: Office of Representative Ro Khanna, "About Rep. Khanna," official biography. https://khanna.house.gov/about/about-rep-khanna +[^73]: University of Colorado Boulder Libraries, Rare and Distinctive Collections, "C. B. 'Scott' Jones papers," COU:4004, biographical note and scope note. https://archives.colorado.edu/repositories/2/resources/346 +[^74]: Barack Obama, "Remarks by the President at YSEALI Town Hall," Ho Chi Minh City, May 25, 2016, The White House. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/05/25/remarks-president-obama-yseali-town-hall +[^75]: "Vietnam’s Kerrey dilemma: Fulbright U appointment is lightning rod for US ties," *Asia Times,* June 2016. https://asiatimes.com/2016/06/vietnams-kerrey-dilemma-fulbright-u-appointment-is-lightning-rod-for-us-ties/ +[^76]: ABC30, "Susan Rice denies using intel to spy on Trump advisers," April 2017. https://abc30.com/post/susan-rice-denies-using-intel-to-spy-on-trump-advisers/1839001/ +[^77]: MPR News, "Rice denies unmasking for political purposes," April 4, 2017. https://www.mprnews.org/story/2017/04/04/rice-denies-unmasking-for-political-purposes +[^78]: "What We Learned About Clearview AI's Hidden 'Co-Founder.'" *The New York Times,* March 18, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/technology/clearview-facial-recognition-ai.html +[^79]: "Business Partner Sues Chuck Johnson for Falsely Presenting as Intelligence Agent." *Semafor,* October 16, 2024. https://www.semafor.com/article/10/16/2024/business-partner-sues-chuck-johnson-for-falsely-presenting-as-intelligence-agent diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Claiborne Pell.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Claiborne Pell.md index 70c4f57a..f4ac688a 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Claiborne Pell.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Claiborne Pell.md @@ -16,16 +16,16 @@ relations: - type: director_of with: "[[Institute of Noetic Sciences]]" role: "board member as of August 1994, per Jones" - fn: 13 + fn: 14 - type: director_of with: "[[International Association for Near-Death Studies]]" role: "advisory board, 1988" - fn: 7 + fn: 8 - type: head_of with: "[[Senate Foreign Relations Committee]]" role: "chairman as of July 1988 per UPI; term dates not verified" - fn: 7 -updated: 2026-10-03 + fn: 8 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Claiborne Pell (1918-2009) was a powerful [[Democratic Party|Democratic]] Senator from [[Rhode Island]] and a ranking member of the [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee]]. A former [[Foreign Service]] officer who had worked behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied [[Hungary]], Pell was a firm supporter and proponent of [[Extrasensory Perception|extrasensory perception]] and the [[Remote Viewing]] program[^1]. @@ -38,45 +38,46 @@ Pell also played a role in the 1987 [[Geneva]] disarmament talks. He was present ### Education and Public Service -Pell was born in [[New York City]] on November 22, 1918, graduated from [[Princeton University]] in 1940 and took a master's degree at [[Columbia University]] in 1946. He served in the [[United States Coast Guard|Coast Guard]] from 1941, spent seven years as a Foreign Service officer, was elected to the Senate from Rhode Island in 1960, served from 1961 to 1996, and died on January 1, 2009.[^2] +Pell was born in [[New York City]] on November 22, 1918, graduated from [[Princeton University]] in 1940 and took a master's degree at [[Columbia University]] in 1946. He served in the [[United States Coast Guard|Coast Guard]] from 1941, spent seven years as a Foreign Service officer, was elected to the Senate from Rhode Island in 1960, served from January 3, 1961, to January 3, 1997,[^2] and died on January 1, 2009.[^3] ### The Briefing of September 29, 1982 -From five to six that afternoon, in his office at the Capitol, Pell received "a GRILL FLAME information briefing" arranged by [[Jack Vorona]] of the [[Defense Intelligence Agency|DIA]] and given with Major [[Gerald Fox]] of the Army staff and representatives of [[United States Army Intelligence and Security Command|INSCOM]], whose project manager, Lieutenant Colonel [[Robert Jachim]], wrote the record, with two of his aides present; "although Senator Pell had invited 8 members of the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] to attend the briefing none were present." The Army's part covered the history of its involvement, "how remote viewing is used for intelligence collection," and four projects whose names are redacted. "The briefing was well received. Senator Pell had had previous briefings concerning parapsychology from Dr. Vorona. He was also acquainted with the work of Dr. [[Robert Jahn]], Dean, College of Engineering, Princeton University. Senator Pell stated that while he could not assist in FY83, he offered to try to help in the future." Two days later the Army's operations lost their funding in the [[National Foreign Intelligence Program]]. In November 1983 INSCOM's chief of staff "asked for a status report on the Senator Pell project," and the [[Center Lane]] manager answered "that we were developing an operational plan to support the project, but as yet we had not collected any information."[^3] +From five to six that afternoon, in his office at the Capitol, Pell received "a GRILL FLAME information briefing" arranged by [[Jack Vorona]] of the [[Defense Intelligence Agency|DIA]] and given with Major [[Gerald Fox]] of the Army staff and representatives of [[United States Army Intelligence and Security Command|INSCOM]], whose project manager, Lieutenant Colonel [[Robert Jachim]], wrote the record, with two of his aides present; "although Senator Pell had invited 8 members of the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] to attend the briefing none were present." The Army's part covered the history of its involvement, "how remote viewing is used for intelligence collection," and four projects whose names are redacted. "The briefing was well received. Senator Pell had had previous briefings concerning parapsychology from Dr. Vorona. He was also acquainted with the work of Dr. [[Robert Jahn]], Dean, College of Engineering, Princeton University. Senator Pell stated that while he could not assist in FY83, he offered to try to help in the future." Two days later the Army's operations lost their funding in the [[National Foreign Intelligence Program]]. In November 1983 INSCOM's chief of staff "asked for a status report on the Senator Pell project," and the [[Center Lane]] manager answered "that we were developing an operational plan to support the project, but as yet we had not collected any information."[^4] -The chief of staff who asked Buzby for the status report on November 30, 1983, was Colonel Partridge; no later record in Buzby's memoranda names the project again. An undated DIA letter to Pell, S-22,600/DTI-S, refers to "your recent visit to DIA," at which "you raised the issue of the accuracy and reliability of certain journalistic claims regarding the possible existence of Russian psychoenergetic devices," and encloses "Psychoenergetics Devices: A Review and Assessment," with "a list of possible options and recommendations for your consideration" should "the journalist decide to go public with his allegations."[^4] +The chief of staff who asked Buzby for the status report on November 30, 1983, was Colonel Partridge; no later record in Buzby's memoranda names the project again. An undated DIA letter to Pell, S-22,600/DTI-S, refers to "your recent visit to DIA," at which "you raised the issue of the accuracy and reliability of certain journalistic claims regarding the possible existence of Russian psychoenergetic devices," and encloses "Psychoenergetics Devices: A Review and Assessment," with "a list of possible options and recommendations for your consideration" should "the journalist decide to go public with his allegations."[^5] ### Scott Jones and the Human Potential Foundation -From January 1985 to March 1991 Pell employed [[C. B. Scott Jones]], a retired [[United States Navy|Navy]] intelligence officer, as special assistant, "with the purpose of investigating consciousness research being conducted in other countries, primarily the USSR," according to the finding aid to Jones's papers.[^5] The [[Washington Times]] reported in 1989 that Pell, "perhaps Capitol Hill's most unabashed believer, has urged the [[National Science Foundation]], the [[Department of Defense|Defense Department]] and other government agencies to increase psychic research funding" and had a full-time staff member whose exclusive job was monitoring reports of psychic activities.[^6] [[United Press International]], summarizing the [[Providence Journal|Providence Sunday Journal]] of July 17, 1988, reported that Pell attended a national symposium on abduction in 1987, that Jones kept a top secret clearance and earned nearly 50,000 dollars a year, that Pell sat on the advisory board of the [[International Association for Near-Death Studies]] and had helped organize a Washington symposium on near-death experiences two years earlier, and that the psychologist [[Ray Hyman]] of the [[University of Oregon]], who had evaluated military applications of psychic research for the Army, said Pell had "been arguing very forcefully" for a "Manhattan Project-style effort" to catch up with the Russians, which Pell called "vastly exaggerated," saying he favored "a modest increase in financial support" for "intelligent, skeptical" research; the report adds that in 1987 Pell invited Geller to Washington for a demonstration before about 30 congressional and [[Pentagon]] aides.[^7] The version of Emery's Providence Journal story printed in *The [[San Francisco Examiner]]* of August 13, 1988 called Pell "Capitol Hill's best-known student of psychic phenomena, near-death experiences and other areas on the fringes of science," stated that he had had a full-time assistant for three years who promotes "developing human potential," and gave Jones's pay as $48,853 a year with a top-secret clearance (the UPI summary above says "nearly 50,000 dollars" and "top secret"). In that article Pell is reported to have invited Geller in April 1987 with at least one other member of Congress in the audience, and Pell described Hyman's account as "correct but vastly exaggerated."[^8] The *[[Winston-Salem Journal]]* of July 18, 1988, summarizing the same story, reported that Pell, then 69, told the Providence Journal he would "probably spend more time with this" if he were not in the Senate.[^9] The Pell papers at the [[University of Rhode Island]] list three files, "Human Potential Foundation: [[C.B. Scott Jones|Scott Jones]] File" (1987; 1987 to 1994; 1988 to 1991), in the subject file series, box 42, folders 464 to 466.[^10] +From January 1985 to March 1991 Pell employed [[C. B. Scott Jones]], a retired [[United States Navy|Navy]] intelligence officer, as special assistant, "with the purpose of investigating consciousness research being conducted in other countries, primarily the USSR," according to the finding aid to Jones's papers.[^6] The [[Washington Times]] reported in 1989 that Pell, "perhaps Capitol Hill's most unabashed believer, has urged the [[National Science Foundation]], the [[Department of Defense|Defense Department]] and other government agencies to increase psychic research funding" and had a full-time staff member whose exclusive job was monitoring reports of psychic activities.[^7] [[United Press International]], summarizing the [[Providence Journal|Providence Sunday Journal]] of July 17, 1988, reported that Pell attended a national symposium on abduction in 1987, that Jones kept a top secret clearance and earned nearly 50,000 dollars a year, that Pell sat on the advisory board of the [[International Association for Near-Death Studies]] and had helped organize a Washington symposium on near-death experiences two years earlier, and that the psychologist [[Ray Hyman]] of the [[University of Oregon]], who had evaluated military applications of psychic research for the Army, said Pell had "been arguing very forcefully" for a "Manhattan Project-style effort" to catch up with the Russians, which Pell called "vastly exaggerated," saying he favored "a modest increase in financial support" for "intelligent, skeptical" research; the report adds that in 1987 Pell invited Geller to Washington for a demonstration before about 30 congressional and [[Pentagon]] aides.[^8] The version of Emery's Providence Journal story printed in *The [[San Francisco Examiner]]* of August 13, 1988 called Pell "Capitol Hill's best-known student of psychic phenomena, near-death experiences and other areas on the fringes of science," stated that he had had a full-time assistant for three years who promotes "developing human potential," and gave Jones's pay as $48,853 a year with a top-secret clearance (the UPI summary above says "nearly 50,000 dollars" and "top secret"). In that article Pell is reported to have invited Geller in April 1987 with at least one other member of Congress in the audience, and Pell described Hyman's account as "correct but vastly exaggerated."[^9] The *[[Winston-Salem Journal]]* of July 18, 1988, summarizing the same story, reported that Pell, then 69, told the Providence Journal he would "probably spend more time with this" if he were not in the Senate.[^10] The Pell papers at the [[University of Rhode Island]] list three files, "Human Potential Foundation: [[C.B. Scott Jones|Scott Jones]] File" (1987; 1987 to 1994; 1988 to 1991), in the subject file series, box 42, folders 464 to 466.[^11] -Pell created the [[Human Potential Foundation]] in 1989, according to the Jones papers finding aid, and a white paper of February 20, 1992 by [[Robert J. Durant]] states that Pell and the lawyer [[Mark Sandground]] sat on its board and that it was "reportedly funded by [[Laurance Rockefeller]]."[^5][^11] The same paper states that Pell's office was visited by Major General [[Michael Kerby]] of the [[United States Air Force|Air Force]] legislative liaison office, who told Jones of a 1987 visit to [[Lee Graham]]; Jones is quoted as saying "Kerby knew of my interest in these matters."[^11] (The paper is hostile to Jones.) +Pell created the [[Human Potential Foundation]] in 1989, according to the Jones papers finding aid, and a white paper of February 20, 1992 by [[Robert J. Durant]] states that Pell and the lawyer [[Mark Sandground]] sat on its board and that it was "reportedly funded by [[Laurance Rockefeller]]."[^6][^12] The same paper states that Pell's office was visited by Major General [[Michael Kerby]] of the [[United States Air Force|Air Force]] legislative liaison office, who told Jones of a 1987 visit to [[Lee Graham]]; Jones is quoted as saying "Kerby knew of my interest in these matters."[^12] (The paper is hostile to Jones.) ### Rockefeller, Gibbons and the Clinton White House -Rockefeller's letter of May 7, 1993 to [[Billy Graham]] listed [[Maurice Strong]], possibly [[Javier Perez de Cuellar]], former President [[Jimmy Carter]] and several senators, among them Pell and [[Ted Stevens]], as possible co-signers of a letter to President [[Bill Clinton]] on UFO information; Graham declined on May 20, 1993.[^12] Jones's letter to [[John Gibbons|John H. Gibbons]] of August 11, 1994 notes that Pell sat on the board of the [[Institute of Noetic Sciences]], whose founder [[Edgar Mitchell]] would meet Gibbons.[^13] Gibbons wrote in a handwritten note to Rockefeller in August 1994, "Incidentally, I told C. Pell about this situation yesterday," referring to the Air Force Roswell report; a second note, to "Clay," indexed September 19, 1994 and dated 8/19/94, thanks him for lunch and encloses the report's summary text and Gibbons's Zuckerman lecture.[^14] In the memorandum for the President of August 4, 1995 Gibbons wrote that Rockefeller's interests "are related to those of Senator Pell" and that "Senator Pell and others have supported the funding of research in social science to focus more on these phenomena."[^15] +Rockefeller's letter of May 7, 1993 to [[Billy Graham]] listed [[Maurice Strong]], possibly [[Javier Perez de Cuellar]], former President [[Jimmy Carter]] and several senators, among them Pell and [[Ted Stevens]], as possible co-signers of a letter to President [[Bill Clinton]] on UFO information; Graham declined on May 20, 1993.[^13] Jones's letter to [[John Gibbons|John H. Gibbons]] of August 11, 1994 notes that Pell sat on the board of the [[Institute of Noetic Sciences]], whose founder [[Edgar Mitchell]] would meet Gibbons.[^14] Gibbons wrote in a handwritten note to Rockefeller in August 1994, "Incidentally, I told C. Pell about this situation yesterday," referring to the Air Force Roswell report; a second note, to "Clay," indexed September 19, 1994 and dated 8/19/94, thanks him for lunch and encloses the report's summary text and Gibbons's Zuckerman lecture.[^15] In the memorandum for the President of August 4, 1995 Gibbons wrote that Rockefeller's interests "are related to those of Senator Pell" and that "Senator Pell and others have supported the funding of research in social science to focus more on these phenomena."[^16] ### Series 6 container titles in the Scott Jones papers -Series 6 of the [[C. B. Scott Jones]] papers at the University of Colorado Boulder is titled "Special Assistant to Senator Claiborne Pell." Its Legislation subseries lists drafts and correspondence for Senate Joint Resolutions 135 and 368 and House Joint Resolution 646, a Fetzer Foundation conference of June 23 to 25, 1988, International Forgiveness Day, Peace Contingency Planning, the Sadat Peace Foundation, "National Applications Office drafts" and a "Commission or Task Force on Maximizing Individual Potential draft." The Symposium on Consciousness and Survival of October 26 and 27, 1985 has files for the proceedings edited by John Shelby Spong, invitations, fundraising and event planning. The Soviet-American Relations subseries has files titled "[[Esalen Institute]]," "Russia Trip 1990," "Soviet Psychotronics correspondence and memos," "Intelligence," "Pell Trip to Soviet Union 1985" and "Russia Trip 1989."[^16] +Series 6 of the [[C. B. Scott Jones]] papers at the University of Colorado Boulder is titled "Special Assistant to Senator Claiborne Pell." Its Legislation subseries lists drafts and correspondence for Senate Joint Resolutions 135 and 368 and House Joint Resolution 646, a Fetzer Foundation conference of June 23 to 25, 1988, International Forgiveness Day, Peace Contingency Planning, the Sadat Peace Foundation, "National Applications Office drafts" and a "Commission or Task Force on Maximizing Individual Potential draft." The Symposium on Consciousness and Survival of October 26 and 27, 1985 has files for the proceedings edited by John Shelby Spong, invitations, fundraising and event planning. The Soviet-American Relations subseries has files titled "[[Esalen Institute]]," "Russia Trip 1990," "Soviet Psychotronics correspondence and memos," "Intelligence," "Pell Trip to Soviet Union 1985" and "Russia Trip 1989."[^17] -The Paranormal Aide subseries lists "Reverse Speech Scandal" files, "Challenger Incident," "Vorona Project," four "Uri Geller Scandal" files, "Uri Geller Associates" and "1990 [[United States]] Senate Election in Rhode Island." The Reports and organizations subseries has files on the [[Office of Science and Technology Policy]], the National Research Council report (five files), the Office of Technology Assessment (including "Workshop on Experimental Parapsychology" and "Maintaining the Defense Technology Base"), National Institute of Mental Health workshops at Airlie in 1987 and 1988, and the National Science Foundation, including "[[Andrija Puharich]] reports and correspondence." The Unidentified Flying Objects subseries lists files on the Fund for UFO Research, Richard F. Haines, Ed Komarek Jr., "Air Force Document of Mid-Air Collision 1953," "Howard J. Hoffman Government Liaison Project" and Donald R. Todd, and "A Model of Government Preparation for ET Contact and Cooperation" by Jones. The Speeches subseries includes an *OMNI* "First Word" column by Pell of February 1988 and speeches drafted by Jones and Pell. The tree gives titles only, without dates or box numbers.[^16] +The Paranormal Aide subseries lists "Reverse Speech Scandal" files, "Challenger Incident," "Vorona Project," four "Uri Geller Scandal" files, "Uri Geller Associates" and "1990 [[United States]] Senate Election in Rhode Island." The Reports and organizations subseries has files on the [[Office of Science and Technology Policy]], the National Research Council report (five files), the Office of Technology Assessment (including "Workshop on Experimental Parapsychology" and "Maintaining the Defense Technology Base"), National Institute of Mental Health workshops at Airlie in 1987 and 1988, and the National Science Foundation, including "[[Andrija Puharich]] reports and correspondence." The Unidentified Flying Objects subseries lists files on the Fund for UFO Research, Richard F. Haines, Ed Komarek Jr., "Air Force Document of Mid-Air Collision 1953," "Howard J. Hoffman Government Liaison Project" and Donald R. Todd, and "A Model of Government Preparation for ET Contact and Cooperation" by Jones. The Speeches subseries includes an *OMNI* "First Word" column by Pell of February 1988 and speeches drafted by Jones and Pell. The tree gives titles only, without dates or box numbers.[^17] ### Footnotes [^1]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis*. Little, Brown and Company, 2017. -[^2]: University of Rhode Island Library, "Register to the Senatorial Papers of Claiborne Pell: Subject File," Mss. Gr. 71.4, biographical note, https://webarchives.apps.uri.edu/Pell%20XML%20Files/pell/Mss.%20Gr.%2071.4b.html. -[^3]: Jachim, Robert J., memorandum "Information Briefing for Senator Clairborne Pell," October 6, 1982, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100320001-5; Buzby, Brian, information paper "GRILL FLAME Briefing Presented to Senator Pell," February 6, 1985, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100320004-2. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Jachim, Robert J., memorandum "Briefing for MG A.N. Stubblebine III," October 8, 1982, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220022-7; Buzby, Brian, memoranda "CENTER LANE Briefing for CG, USAINSCOM," August 29, 1983 (CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220011-9), "Meeting With MG Stubblebine on 30 November 1983," December 6, 1983 (CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220010-0), and "Meeting with MG Stubblebine on 6 January 1984," January 17, 1984 (CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220009-2); letter of the ACSI to Stubblebine, "CENTER LANE," April 1983 (CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220002-9). Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. -[^4]: Buzby, Brian, "Meeting With MG Stubblebine on 30 November 1983," memorandum for record, December 6, 1983, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220010-0; Defense Intelligence Agency, S-22,600/DTI-S, letter to Senator Claiborne Pell, undated, with enclosure "Psychoenergetics Devices: A Review and Assessment," CIA-RDP96-00789R002600010004-9. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. -[^5]: University of Colorado Boulder Libraries, "C. B. 'Scott' Jones papers," COU:4004, https://archives.colorado.edu/repositories/2/resources/346. -[^6]: Tom Kelly, "In search of modern Merlins: Psychics gain wider credibility," Washington Times, June 26, 1989 (date per archive metadata), CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080027-5, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00787r000200080027-5. -[^7]: United Press International, "Pell keen on psychic research," July 17, 1988, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/07/17/Pell-keen-on-psychic-research/3613585115200/. -[^8]: C. Eugene Emery Jr., "Sen. Pell flirts with phenomena on the fringe, UFOs, psychics," *The San Francisco Examiner* (from the Providence Journal), August 13, 1988, p. B-12 (newspapers.com p. 22), https://www.newspapers.com/image/461248717/. -[^9]: "Pell Probing Psychic Phenomena," *Winston-Salem Journal*, July 18, 1988, p. 2, https://www.newspapers.com/image/939997164/. -[^10]: University of Rhode Island Library, "Register to the Senatorial Papers of Claiborne Pell: Subject File," Mss. Gr. 71.4, box 42, folders 464 to 466, https://webarchives.apps.uri.edu/Pell%20XML%20Files/pell/Mss.%20Gr.%2071.4b.html. -[^11]: Robert J. Durant, "Will the Real Scott Jones Please Stand Up?" (February 20, 1992), CIA-RDP96-00792R000400300004-7, https://cia.gov/readingroom/node/1697635. -[^12]: Rockefeller to Billy Graham, May 7, 1993, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-23-95.htm. -[^13]: C. B. Scott Jones to John H. Gibbons, August 11, 1994, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-11-94.htm. -[^14]: Gibbons, handwritten notes, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-17-94.htm and RID-9-19-94.htm. -[^15]: Gibbons, memorandum for the President, August 4, 1995, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-4-95.htm. -[^16]: University of Colorado Boulder Libraries, Rare and Distinctive Collections, collection COU:4004 (the C. B. 'Scott' Jones papers), ArchivesSpace resource 346, https://archives.colorado.edu/repositories/2/resources/346, container tree for Series 6, fetched October 3, 2026 from the vault owner's browser (titles only; no dates or box numbers in the saved tree). +[^2]: "PELL, Claiborne de Borda," Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. https://web.archive.org/web/2012/http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=P000193 +[^3]: University of Rhode Island Library, "Register to the Senatorial Papers of Claiborne Pell: Subject File," Mss. Gr. 71.4, biographical note, https://webarchives.apps.uri.edu/Pell%20XML%20Files/pell/Mss.%20Gr.%2071.4b.html. +[^4]: Jachim, Robert J., memorandum "Information Briefing for Senator Clairborne Pell," October 6, 1982, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100320001-5; Buzby, Brian, information paper "GRILL FLAME Briefing Presented to Senator Pell," February 6, 1985, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100320004-2. Jachim, Robert J., memorandum "Briefing for MG A.N. Stubblebine III," October 8, 1982, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220022-7; Buzby, Brian, memoranda "CENTER LANE Briefing for CG, USAINSCOM," August 29, 1983 (CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220011-9), "Meeting With MG Stubblebine on 30 November 1983," December 6, 1983 (CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220010-0), and "Meeting with MG Stubblebine on 6 January 1984," January 17, 1984 (CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220009-2); letter of the ACSI to Stubblebine, "CENTER LANE," April 1983 (CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220002-9). +[^5]: Buzby, Brian, "Meeting With MG Stubblebine on 30 November 1983," memorandum for record, December 6, 1983, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220010-0; Defense Intelligence Agency, S-22,600/DTI-S, letter to Senator Claiborne Pell, undated, with enclosure "Psychoenergetics Devices: A Review and Assessment," CIA-RDP96-00789R002600010004-9. +[^6]: University of Colorado Boulder Libraries, "C. B. 'Scott' Jones papers," COU:4004, https://archives.colorado.edu/repositories/2/resources/346. +[^7]: Tom Kelly, "In search of modern Merlins: Psychics gain wider credibility," Washington Times, June 26, 1989, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080027-5, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00787r000200080027-5. +[^8]: United Press International, "Pell keen on psychic research," July 17, 1988, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/07/17/Pell-keen-on-psychic-research/3613585115200/. +[^9]: C. Eugene Emery Jr., "Sen. Pell flirts with phenomena on the fringe, UFOs, psychics," *The San Francisco Examiner* (from the Providence Journal), August 13, 1988, p. B-12 (newspapers.com p. 22), https://www.newspapers.com/image/461248717/. +[^10]: "Pell Probing Psychic Phenomena," *Winston-Salem Journal*, July 18, 1988, p. 2, https://www.newspapers.com/image/939997164/. +[^11]: University of Rhode Island Library, "Register to the Senatorial Papers of Claiborne Pell: Subject File," Mss. Gr. 71.4, box 42, folders 464 to 466, https://webarchives.apps.uri.edu/Pell%20XML%20Files/pell/Mss.%20Gr.%2071.4b.html. +[^12]: Robert J. Durant, "Will the Real Scott Jones Please Stand Up?" (February 20, 1992), CIA-RDP96-00792R000400300004-7, https://cia.gov/readingroom/node/1697635. +[^13]: Rockefeller to Billy Graham, May 7, 1993, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-23-95.htm. +[^14]: C. B. Scott Jones to John H. Gibbons, August 11, 1994, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-11-94.htm. +[^15]: Gibbons, handwritten notes, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-17-94.htm and RID-9-19-94.htm. +[^16]: Gibbons, memorandum for the President, August 4, 1995, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-4-95.htm. +[^17]: University of Colorado Boulder Libraries, Rare and Distinctive Collections, collection COU:4004 (the C. B. 'Scott' Jones papers), ArchivesSpace resource 346, https://archives.colorado.edu/repositories/2/resources/346, container tree for Series 6, fetched October 3, 2026 from the vault owner's browser (titles only; no dates or box numbers in the saved tree). diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/David Sacks.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/David Sacks.md index 9ed9e178..ceaa127f 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/David Sacks.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/David Sacks.md @@ -14,26 +14,27 @@ summary: "David Sacks is a South African-born entrepreneur who was chief operati born: 1972-05-25 location: "Cape Town, South Africa (born)" created: 2026-06-18 -updated: 2026-10-14 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- -[[David Sacks|David Sacks]] (born May 25, 1972, in [[Cape Town|Cape Town]], [[South Africa|South Africa]]) is a [[PayPal Mafia|PayPal Mafia]] principal who served as chief operating officer of [[PayPal]], founded [[Yammer|Yammer]] (the enterprise social network, acquired by [[Microsoft|Microsoft]] in 2012 for 1.2 billion dollars), produced the film *[[Thank You for Smoking|Thank You for Smoking]]* (2005), and was appointed Special Advisor on Artificial Intelligence and Cryptocurrency (the "AI and crypto czar") under the second [[Donald Trump|Trump]] administration. Sacks cohosted the [[All-In Podcast|All-In Podcast]], which became a media channel for the PayPal Mafia cohort's political positions during the 2022-2025 period.[^1][^2] +[[David Sacks|David Sacks]] (born May 25, 1972, in [[Cape Town|Cape Town]], [[South Africa|South Africa]]) is a [[PayPal Mafia|PayPal Mafia]] principal who served as chief operating officer of [[PayPal]], founded [[Yammer|Yammer]] (the enterprise social network, acquired by [[Microsoft|Microsoft]] in 2012 for 1.1 billion dollars in cash)[^1], produced the film *[[Thank You for Smoking|Thank You for Smoking]]* (2005), and was appointed Special Advisor on Artificial Intelligence and Cryptocurrency (the "AI and crypto czar") under the second [[Donald Trump|Trump]] administration. Sacks cohosted the [[All-In Podcast|All-In Podcast]], which became a media channel for the PayPal Mafia cohort's political positions during the 2022-2025 period.[^2][^3] ### The PayPal COO Role and the Post-PayPal Ventures -Sacks joined PayPal in November 1999. The company's registration statement of September 2001 describes him as executive vice president of product since May 2000.[^3] Sacks became chief operating officer of PayPal in February 2002.[^4] He served in that role through the 2002 eBay acquisition, managing the company's operations alongside [[Peter Thiel|Thiel]] (chief executive) and [[Max Levchin|Levchin]] (chief technology officer). The COO role placed Sacks in operational control of the company's day-to-day execution during the period when the anti-fraud architecture was built and the PayPal Mafia cohort was formed. After the eBay sale, Sacks founded Yammer, the enterprise social network that applied consumer-social-networking patterns to corporate communications. Microsoft acquired Yammer in 2012.[^1] +Sacks joined PayPal in November 1999. The company's registration statement of September 2001 describes him as executive vice president of product since May 2000.[^4] Sacks became chief operating officer of PayPal in February 2002.[^5] He served in that role through the 2002 eBay acquisition, managing the company's operations alongside [[Peter Thiel|Thiel]] (chief executive) and [[Max Levchin|Levchin]] (chief technology officer). The COO role placed Sacks in operational control of the company's day-to-day execution during the period when the anti-fraud architecture was built and the PayPal Mafia cohort was formed. After the eBay sale, Sacks founded Yammer, the enterprise social network that applied consumer-social-networking patterns to corporate communications. Microsoft acquired Yammer in 2012.[^2] -Sacks subsequently founded [[Craft Ventures|Craft Ventures]], a venture capital firm whose portfolio overlaps with the PayPal Mafia and Thiel-network commercial ecosystem. Sacks also produced the film *Thank You for Smoking* (2005), an adaptation of the [[Christopher Buckley|Christopher Buckley]] satirical novel about tobacco-industry lobbying.[^1] +Sacks subsequently founded [[Craft Ventures|Craft Ventures]], a venture capital firm whose portfolio overlaps with the PayPal Mafia and Thiel-network commercial ecosystem. Sacks also produced the film *Thank You for Smoking* (2005), an adaptation of the [[Christopher Buckley|Christopher Buckley]] satirical novel about tobacco-industry lobbying.[^2] ### The All-In Podcast and the Trump AI/Crypto Role -The All-In Podcast, cohosted by Sacks with [[Chamath Palihapitiya|Chamath Palihapitiya]], [[Jason Calacanis|Jason Calacanis]], and [[David Friedberg|David Friedberg]], became a media channel for the PayPal Mafia cohort's political positions during the 2022-2025 period. The podcast's audience overlaps with the [[Dialog]] invitation list and the [[Founders Fund|Founders Fund]] portfolio community. Sacks used the platform to advance the positions on AI regulation, cryptocurrency policy, and defense procurement that he subsequently entered the government to implement.[^2] +The All-In Podcast, cohosted by Sacks with [[Chamath Palihapitiya|Chamath Palihapitiya]], [[Jason Calacanis|Jason Calacanis]], and [[David Friedberg|David Friedberg]], became a media channel for the PayPal Mafia cohort's political positions during the 2022-2025 period. The podcast's audience overlaps with the [[Dialog]] invitation list and the [[Founders Fund|Founders Fund]] portfolio community. Sacks used the platform to advance the positions on AI regulation, cryptocurrency policy, and defense procurement that he subsequently entered the government to implement.[^3] -In the second Trump administration, Sacks received the Special Advisor on Artificial Intelligence and Cryptocurrency appointment. The role covers federal AI policy, cryptocurrency regulation, and the broader technology-policy agenda. Sacks's appointment placed a PayPal Mafia principal in the executive branch with authority over the technology sectors that the Thiel-network commercial infrastructure operates in.[^2] +In the second Trump administration, Sacks received the Special Advisor on Artificial Intelligence and Cryptocurrency appointment. The role covers federal AI policy, cryptocurrency regulation, and the broader technology-policy agenda. Sacks's appointment placed a PayPal Mafia principal in the executive branch with authority over the technology sectors that the Thiel-network commercial infrastructure operates in.[^3] ### Footnotes -[^1]: For Sacks's PayPal COO role and the post-PayPal ventures, see the PayPal Mafia page and the contemporaneous Silicon Valley press. -[^2]: For the All-In Podcast and the Trump AI/crypto czar role, see the contemporaneous press coverage of the second Trump administration appointments. -[^3]: PayPal, Inc. Form S-1 registration statement, filed September 28, 2001, "Management," biography of David O. Sacks. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1103415/000091205701533855/a2059025zs-1.htm -[^4]: PayPal, Inc. Form 10-K405 for fiscal 2001, filed March 13, 2002, "Management": "David O. Sacks has served as our Chief Operating Officer since February 2002." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1103415/000091205702009834/a2073071z10-k405.htm +[^1]: Microsoft Corporation, Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2013, Item 1 (acquisition of Yammer, Inc. "for $1.1 billion in cash"). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/789019/000119312513310206/d527745d10k.htm +[^2]: For Sacks's PayPal COO role and the post-PayPal ventures, see the PayPal Mafia page and the contemporaneous Silicon Valley press. +[^3]: For the All-In Podcast and the Trump AI/crypto czar role, see the contemporaneous press coverage of the second Trump administration appointments. +[^4]: PayPal, Inc. Form S-1 registration statement, filed September 28, 2001, "Management," biography of David O. Sacks. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1103415/000091205701533855/a2059025zs-1.htm +[^5]: PayPal, Inc. Form 10-K405 for fiscal 2001, filed March 13, 2002, "Management": "David O. Sacks has served as our Chief Operating Officer since February 2002." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1103415/000091205702009834/a2073071z10-k405.htm diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Donald Rumsfeld.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Donald Rumsfeld.md index 016b379a..11ce39dd 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Donald Rumsfeld.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Donald Rumsfeld.md @@ -185,7 +185,7 @@ relations: role: "inquiry into the treatment of detainees in u.s. custody; conclusions 13 and 19" fn: 36 created: 2026-10-01 -updated: 2026-10-14 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Donald Henry Rumsfeld was born on July 9, 1932, in [[Chicago]], [[Illinois]].[^1] He was a member of the [[United States House of Representatives]] from 1963 to 1969, an assistant to [[Richard Nixon]], ambassador to [[NATO]], [[White House]] chief of staff and Secretary of Defense under [[Gerald R. Ford]], chief executive of [[G.D. Searle & Co.]] from 1977 to 1985 and of [[General Instrument Corporation]] from 1990 to 1993, and chairman of [[Gilead Sciences]] until January 2001.[^1] He served a second time as Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under [[George W. Bush]], and died on June 29, 2021, at 88; his family's statement said he "was surrounded by family in his beloved Taos, [[New Mexico]]."[^2] @@ -278,11 +278,11 @@ On September 10, 2001, at the Pentagon, Rumsfeld said: "According to some estima On December 2, 2002, Rumsfeld signed a one-page recommendation from the Defense Department general counsel, [[William J. Haynes II]], to approve all but three of 18 interrogation techniques requested by [[Guantanamo Bay detention camp|Guantanamo]], adding by hand: "I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?" Haynes's memorandum said he had discussed the matter with Wolfowitz, Under Secretary [[Douglas Feith]] and General [[Richard Myers]]. After Navy General Counsel [[Alberto Mora]] told Haynes he would sign a memorandum of legal concerns, Rumsfeld rescinded the authority on January 15, 2003; on August 13, 2003, he approved an interrogation plan for the detainee [[Mohamedou Ould Slahi]].[^36] The Senate Armed Services Committee concluded that Haynes's review "was grossly deficient" (conclusion 12), that Rumsfeld's authorization "was a direct cause of detainee abuse" at Guantanamo and "influenced and contributed to the use of abusive techniques" in [[Afghanistan]] and Iraq (conclusion 13), and that the techniques used at [[Abu Ghraib]] "appeared in Iraq only after they had been approved for use in Afghanistan and at GTMO" (conclusion 19).[^36] The Associated Press reported that Rumsfeld twice offered his resignation to Bush in 2004 after the Abu Ghraib disclosures; he left office in December 2006 and was replaced by [[Robert Gates]].[^2] -On June 29, 2006, in [[Hamdan v. Rumsfeld]], the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] held that the military commission convened to try the Guantanamo detainee Hamdan, a Yemeni national, "lacks the power to proceed because its structure and procedures violate both the UCMJ and the four Geneva Conventions signed in 1949."[^37] +On June 29, 2006, in [[Hamdan v. Rumsfeld]], the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] held that the military commission convened to try the Guantanamo detainee Hamdan, a Yemeni national, "lacks power to proceed because its structure and procedures violate both the UCMJ and the Geneva Conventions."[^37][^38] ### Rumsfeld Foundation -After 2008 Rumsfeld headed the Rumsfeld Foundation.[^2] The foundation, a Washington private foundation (EIN 26-0580915) with an [[Internal Revenue Service|IRS]] ruling date of August 2007, reported assets of $9,727,763 at the end of 2011, $11,418,376 at the end of 2012 and $1,515,771 at the end of 2023.[^38] His 2001 Senate form lists him as president of a DHR Foundation of Chicago from December 1985, annotated "Possibly without investment control."[^4] +After 2008 Rumsfeld headed the Rumsfeld Foundation.[^2] The foundation, a Washington private foundation (EIN 26-0580915) with an [[Internal Revenue Service|IRS]] ruling date of August 2007, reported assets of $9,727,763 at the end of 2011, $11,418,376 at the end of 2012 and $1,515,771 at the end of 2023.[^39] His 2001 Senate form lists him as president of a DHR Foundation of Chicago from December 1985, annotated "Possibly without investment control."[^4] ### Footnotes @@ -323,4 +323,5 @@ After 2008 Rumsfeld headed the Rumsfeld Foundation.[^2] The foundation, a Washin [^35]: Department of Defense, notes from Donald Rumsfeld, [Iraq war planning], November 27, 2001, annotated, pp. 1-3, National Security Archive EBB No. 326, Document 8, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB326/doc08.pdf [^36]: U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, "Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody," Executive Summary and Conclusions, released December 11, 2008, pp. xix-xxi (Haynes memorandum, December 2, 2002 note, Mora, January 15, 2003 rescission, Slahi plan) and pp. xxviii-xxix (conclusions 12, 13 and 19), https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/torturingdemocracy/documents/20081211.pdf [^37]: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 (2006), No. 05-184, decided June 29, 2006, syllabus, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/05-184.ZS.html -[^38]: ProPublica, Nonprofit Explorer, Rumsfeld Foundation, EIN 26-0580915, organization API record and Form 990-PF data for tax years 2011, 2012 and 2023, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/260580915.json +[^38]: *Hamdan v. Rumsfeld*, 548 U.S. 557 (2006), decided June 29, 2006, text as published (static.case.law copy). https://static.case.law/us/548/cases/0557-01.json +[^39]: ProPublica, Nonprofit Explorer, Rumsfeld Foundation, EIN 26-0580915, organization API record and Form 990-PF data for tax years 2011, 2012 and 2023, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/260580915.json diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Edward Snowden.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Edward Snowden.md index dac1aaa2..9fa350ff 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Edward Snowden.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Edward Snowden.md @@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ tags: summary: "Edward Snowden (born 1983) was an NSA contractor who disclosed classified mass surveillance programs including PRISM, XKeyscore, and bulk telephone metadata collection to journalists in June 2013, fled to Russia where he received asylum, and was charged under the Espionage Act." born: 1983-06-21 location: "Elizabeth City, North Carolina" +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Edward Joseph Snowden was born June 21, 1983, in Elizabeth City, [[North Carolina]], and grew up in the Washington D.C. area. He joined the CIA in 2006 and later worked as a contractor for the National Security Agency through Dell Inc. and then Booz Allen Hamilton. In May 2013 he traveled to [[Hong Kong]] with a cache of classified NSA documents. Beginning June 5, 2013, he authorized the publication of a series of disclosures through journalists Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Barton Gellman of the Washington Post that revealed the existence and scope of NSA's mass surveillance programs operating under the authority of the USA PATRIOT Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.[^1] @@ -21,7 +22,7 @@ Edward Joseph Snowden was born June 21, 1983, in Elizabeth City, [[North Carolin The Snowden disclosures revealed several major NSA programs: -PRISM was a program under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act through which NSA directly accessed servers of major American internet companies - including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, YouTube, Skype, AOL, and Apple - to collect communications content. The companies were compelled to provide access under court orders from the [[Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court]] (FISC). The disclosures triggered significant legal challenges and the companies' denials or minimizations of their participation, along with subsequent government clarifications about the court-compelled nature of the program.[^1] +PRISM was a program under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act through which NSA directly accessed servers of major American internet companies - including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, YouTube, Skype, AOL, and Apple - to collect communications content. The companies were compelled to provide access under court orders from the [[Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court]] (FISC). The disclosures triggered significant legal challenges and the companies' denials or minimizations of their participation, along with subsequent government clarifications about the court-compelled nature of the program.[^1] The Guardian's July 11, 2013 reporting on documents supplied by Snowden described NSA access to Outlook.com and SkyDrive data through cooperation with the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]], and quoted the company's statement that it provides customer data "only in response to government demands."[^2] XKeyscore was a global internet traffic analysis system that allowed NSA analysts to search communications content and metadata collected from surveillance equipment positioned at internet exchange points, ISPs, and foreign partner collection facilities. Internal NSA documents described it as the agency's widest-reaching collection system.[^1] @@ -41,11 +42,12 @@ After meeting with journalists in Hong Kong in June 2013, Snowden attempted to t ### Policy Consequences -The Snowden disclosures triggered significant legislative and judicial responses. The USA FREEDOM Act (2015) modified Section 215 to prohibit bulk telephone metadata collection and required the government to seek specific court orders for targeted collection from telecommunications companies. Federal courts found aspects of NSA's bulk metadata collection program unlawful. The NSA's programs were subjected to review by a presidential review group and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, both of which recommended reforms.[^2] +The Snowden disclosures triggered significant legislative and judicial responses. The USA FREEDOM Act (2015) modified Section 215 to prohibit bulk telephone metadata collection and required the government to seek specific court orders for targeted collection from telecommunications companies. Federal courts found aspects of NSA's bulk metadata collection program unlawful. The NSA's programs were subjected to review by a presidential review group and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, both of which recommended reforms.[^3] Internationally, the disclosures damaged U.S. relationships with allied governments and populations who learned that NSA had collected communications of their leaders. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's personal mobile phone was disclosed to have been a monitored NSA target, producing a significant bilateral diplomatic crisis. Several countries began routing internet traffic away from U.S.-based infrastructure in response.[^1] ### Footnotes [^1]: Greenwald, Glenn. *No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State*. Metropolitan Books, 2014. Snowden, Edward. *Permanent Record*. Metropolitan Books, 2019. -[^2]: Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. *Report on the Telephone Records Program Conducted under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act and on the Operations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court*. January 23, 2014. Presidential Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies. *Liberty and Security in a Changing World*. December 12, 2013. +[^2]: Greenwald, Glenn, Ewen MacAskill, Laura Poitras, Spencer Ackerman and Dominic Rushe, "Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages," *The Guardian,* July 11, 2013. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data +[^3]: Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. *Report on the Telephone Records Program Conducted under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act and on the Operations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court*. January 23, 2014. Presidential Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies. *Liberty and Security in a Changing World*. December 12, 2013. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Eugene Propper.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Eugene Propper.md index da88e32c..578064cd 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Eugene Propper.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Eugene Propper.md @@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ relations: fn: 12 --- -Eugene M. Propper was the assistant [[United States Attorney]] in Washington assigned in September 1976 to the murder of [[Orlando Letelier]] and [[Ronni Moffitt]]. His deputy was [[E. Lawrence Barcella]], and the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] agents were [[Carter Cornick|C. Carter Cornick]] in Washington and [[Robert Scherrer]], the bureau's representative in [[Buenos Aires]].[^1] +Eugene M. Propper was the assistant [[U.S. Attorney's office|United States Attorney]] in Washington assigned in September 1976 to the murder of [[Orlando Letelier]] and [[Ronni Moffitt]]. His deputy was [[E. Lawrence Barcella]], and the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] agents were [[Carter Cornick|C. Carter Cornick]] in Washington and [[Robert Scherrer]], the bureau's representative in [[Buenos Aires]].[^1] ### The Investigation diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Francis Gary Powers.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Francis Gary Powers.md index 62a4fa7b..aba32883 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Francis Gary Powers.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Francis Gary Powers.md @@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ relations: start: 1956-05 fn: 3 - type: employed_by - with: "[[Lockheed]]" + with: "[[Lockheed Aircraft Company]]" role: "U-2 test pilot" end: 1969-09 fn: 20 @@ -67,7 +67,7 @@ relations: role: "father" fn: 17 created: 2026-10-01 -updated: 2026-10-01 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Francis Gary Powers was an American pilot whose [[U-2 Spy Plane]] was shot down over the [[Soviet Union]] on May 1, 1960, leading to a major international incident. [[Seymour Hersh]] wrote that Powers and his colleagues continued intermittently to overfly the [[Middle East]], and were steadily back at work in the area in 1958, when the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]'s photo interpreters began seeing significant activity at an Israeli Air Force practice bombing range south of [[Beersheba]], which turned out to be the early signs of the [[Dimona]] nuclear reactor.[^1] @@ -102,7 +102,7 @@ A memorandum for the record by the CIA's Legislative Counsel [[John S. Warner]] After the return the CIA reconvened the Damage Assessment Team that had met for two months in the summer of 1960. In 1960 the team had concluded that Powers' knowledge was extensive and that he had probably revealed most of it. After two weeks of debriefing in February 1962 it found the damage much less than estimated.[^11] Dulles, who had left the directorship in November 1961, told Powers "We are proud of what you have done." The new Director, [[John McCone]], appointed a Board of Inquiry.[^11] -The General Counsel, [[Lawrence Houston]], proposed the terms in a February 1962 memorandum to the Director. He wrote that the [[Department of Justice]] favored a retired federal judge as chairman, that the first choice was [[E. Barrett Prettyman]] and the second [[Harold R. Medina]], that he recommended Lieutenant General [[Harold R. Bull]] (retired) and [[John A. Bross]] as members, that no Air Force officer should sit in view of the efforts to disassociate the Air Force from the U-2 project, and that he himself would be counsel to the Board. The question put to the Board was whether Powers acted in accordance with the terms of his employment, his instructions and briefings, and his obligations as an American citizen from the start of the mission until his release.[^14] In the Board's hearing of February 22, Houston examined witnesses and entered as Exhibit 17 a cable of February 21 from [[Kelly Johnson]] of [[Lockheed]], who had spoken with Powers about the flight.[^15] +The General Counsel, [[Lawrence Houston]], proposed the terms in a February 1962 memorandum to the Director. He wrote that the [[Department of Justice]] favored a retired federal judge as chairman, that the first choice was [[E. Barrett Prettyman]] and the second [[Harold R. Medina]], that he recommended Lieutenant General [[Harold R. Bull]] (retired) and [[John A. Bross]] as members, that no Air Force officer should sit in view of the efforts to disassociate the Air Force from the U-2 project, and that he himself would be counsel to the Board. The question put to the Board was whether Powers acted in accordance with the terms of his employment, his instructions and briefings, and his obligations as an American citizen from the start of the mission until his release.[^14] In the Board's hearing of February 22, Houston examined witnesses and entered as Exhibit 17 a cable of February 21 from [[Kelly Johnson]] of [[Lockheed Aircraft Company|Lockheed]], who had spoken with Powers about the flight.[^15] The Board reported on February 27, 1962, that Powers had acted in accordance with his instructions and obligations and recommended that he receive his back pay. The findings rested on the testimony of debriefing experts, a review of his background by doctors, psychiatrists, former Air Force colleagues and his commander at Adana, his own testimony, a polygraph examination he had volunteered to undergo, and analysis by Kelly Johnson of photographs of the wreckage. McCone remained skeptical and had the Air Force convene its own panel, which supported Johnson. He then relied on a report of the [[National Security Agency]] suggesting that Powers had descended to a lower altitude and turned back toward Sverdlovsk before being hit, and ordered the Board to reconvene on March 1. It adhered to its findings.[^11] On March 7, 1962, the [[NSA]] Deputy Director, [[Louis W. Tordella]], told Houston that he wished to place on the record that, contrary to Bross's statement in the transcript, it had not taken questioning and cross-examination to bring out the evidence contradicting the account, and that Bross's description of the NSA briefing as "very vehemently and very positively" presented was not accepted; Houston recorded the points to be filed with the transcript.[^16] [[David A. Foy]], reviewing a 2019 book by Powers' son in Studies in Intelligence, wrote that the Board authorized $52,500 in back pay.[^17] diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Galo Plaza.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Galo Plaza.md index 8ac4ded5..c8a144f5 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Galo Plaza.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Galo Plaza.md @@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ born: 1906-02-17 died: 1987-01-28 location: "Quito, Ecuador" created: 2026-06-05 -updated: 2026-06-05 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Galo Lincoln Plaza Lasso de la Vega (February 17, 1906 - January 28, 1987) served as president of [[Ecuador]] from 1948 to 1952 and as secretary-general of the [[Organization of American States]] from 1968 to 1975, and was one of [[Nelson Rockefeller]]'s most consistent Latin American allies from the [[Act of Chapultepec|Chapultepec conference]] of 1945 onward. At Chapultepec and at the San Francisco founding conference of the [[United Nations]], Plaza served as Rockefeller's parliamentary agent among the Latin American delegations, shuttling instructions and delivering votes. As Ecuador's president he accepted [[Summer Institute of Linguistics]] operations in his country, co-authored a study of [[United Fruit Company]] operations with a Rockefeller-linked analyst, and promoted a banana export strategy shaped by U.S. developmental priorities; as OAS secretary-general he provided institutional continuity for the regional architecture Rockefeller had built. He was the son of [[Leónidas Plaza Gutiérrez]], who had served as Ecuador's president in 1901-1905 and again in 1912-1916, making them one of few father-son pairs to lead the country. @@ -25,73 +25,76 @@ Plaza was born on February 17, 1906, in New York City, at the Marlton House, dur ### Education and Early Career -Plaza studied agriculture at the [[University of Maryland]], economics at the [[University of California, Berkeley]], and diplomacy at the [[Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service]] at [[Georgetown University]]. He returned to Ecuador and managed the family property, [[Hacienda Zuleta]] in [[Imbabura Province]], importing Holstein cattle and introducing systematic seed selection and mechanized tractors to Ecuadorian highland agriculture. +Plaza studied agriculture at the [[University of Maryland]], economics at the [[University of California, Berkeley]], and diplomacy at the [[Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service]] at [[Georgetown University]].[^1] He returned to Ecuador and managed the family property, [[Hacienda Zuleta]] in [[Imbabura Province]], importing Holstein cattle and introducing systematic seed selection and mechanized tractors to Ecuadorian highland agriculture. -He entered politics in 1937, elected as a councilman of [[Quito]], then as mayor in 1938. In December 1938 he was appointed Minister of National Defense, a post he held through 1939. In 1929 he had served as attaché at the Ecuadorian legation in Washington. In July 1944, President [[José María Velasco Ibarra]] appointed him ambassador to the United States, a posting that placed him in Washington precisely as the major inter-American and international conferences of 1945 were being organized.[^1] +He entered politics in 1937, elected as a councilman of [[Quito]], then as mayor in 1938. In December 1938 he was appointed Minister of National Defense, a post he held through 1939. In 1929 he had served as attaché at the Ecuadorian legation in Washington. In July 1944, President [[José María Velasco Ibarra]] appointed him ambassador to the United States, a posting that placed him in Washington precisely as the major inter-American and international conferences of 1945 were being organized.[^2] ### Chapultepec and Early Rockefeller Alliance -Plaza first emerged as a key actor in Rockefeller's inter-American network at the Inter-American Conference on Problems of War and Peace, held at Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City from February 21 to March 8, 1945. Rockefeller, then serving as FDR's [[Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs]], assembled a small group of Latin American leaders who acted in concert with the U.S. delegation. Plaza, representing Ecuador as ambassador, was among the most cooperative, shuttling back and forth to Rockefeller for instructions to pass on to other Latin American delegations. Rockefeller's management of the conference through these allies was, in the formulation of researchers Colby and Dennett, "shamelessly blatant, but it got results."[^2] +Plaza first emerged as a key actor in Rockefeller's inter-American network at the Inter-American Conference on Problems of War and Peace, held at Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City from February 21 to March 8, 1945. Rockefeller, then serving as FDR's [[Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs]], assembled a small group of Latin American leaders who acted in concert with the U.S. delegation. Plaza, representing Ecuador as ambassador, was among the most cooperative, shuttling back and forth to Rockefeller for instructions to pass on to other Latin American delegations. Rockefeller's management of the conference through these allies was, in the formulation of researchers Colby and Dennett, "shamelessly blatant, but it got results."[^3] -Plaza's connection to Rockefeller deepened through the [[United Nations Conference on International Organization]] in San Francisco later that year, where he again served as part of Rockefeller's parliamentary apparatus for managing the Latin American bloc's votes. Both postings were made while Plaza served as Ecuador's ambassador to Washington (1944-1946).[^1] +Plaza's connection to Rockefeller deepened through the [[United Nations Conference on International Organization]] in San Francisco later that year, where he again served as part of Rockefeller's parliamentary apparatus for managing the Latin American bloc's votes. Both postings were made while Plaza served as Ecuador's ambassador to Washington (1944-1946).[^2] -Later, Plaza himself suggested that Rockefeller be asked to lead a Latin American mission, reflecting the mutual confidence the two men had built during these formative conferences. A photograph documenting a subsequent Pan American Society dinner showing Plaza alongside Rockefeller during the Truman years is preserved in the Harry S. Truman Library.[^3] +Later, Plaza himself suggested that Rockefeller be asked to lead a Latin American mission, reflecting the mutual confidence the two men had built during these formative conferences. A photograph documenting a subsequent Pan American Society dinner showing Plaza alongside Rockefeller during the Truman years is preserved in the Harry S. Truman Library.[^4] ### Presidency of Ecuador (1948-1952) -Plaza was elected president and inaugurated on August 31, 1948. U.S. Ambassador John F. Simmons, reporting to the State Department in Despatch No. 710 of September 3, 1948, analyzed Plaza's inaugural address as signaling a meaningful reorientation of Ecuadorian foreign policy toward closer alignment with the United States, noting that the United States was "the only foreign country mentioned expressly by name" in Plaza's speech.[^4] +Plaza was elected president and inaugurated on August 31, 1948. U.S. Ambassador John F. Simmons, reporting to the State Department in Despatch No. 710 of September 3, 1948, analyzed Plaza's inaugural address as signaling a meaningful reorientation of Ecuadorian foreign policy toward closer alignment with the United States, noting that the United States was "the only foreign country mentioned expressly by name" in Plaza's speech.[^5] -Plaza served his full four-year term, completing it in 1952, the first Ecuadorian president in twenty-eight years to do so. Velasco Ibarra's subsequent administration, Simmons's successor noted, "turned viciously on President Galo Plaza, completely disregarding that the latter had guaranteed free elections and pacifically turned over the power."[^5] +Plaza served his full four-year term, completing it in 1952, the first Ecuadorian president in twenty-eight years to do so. Velasco Ibarra's subsequent administration, Simmons's successor noted, "turned viciously on President Galo Plaza, completely disregarding that the latter had guaranteed free elections and pacifically turned over the power."[^6] On the [[Rio Protocol of 1942]], Plaza's record was more complicated than a simple acceptance. His predecessor had formally ratified the protocol in February 1942, ceding approximately 200,000 square kilometers of disputed [[Amazonian]] territory to [[Peru]]. As president, Plaza initially proceeded with demarcation but in 1949 halted Ecuadorian participation in the boundary work. In 1951 he publicly announced that Ecuador would not accept any border that did not guarantee the country an outlet to the [[Marañón River]], effectively staking out a revisionist position on the protocol while stopping short of formal repudiation. The ceded territories were believed to contain oil reserves. -The banana boom dominated Plaza's economic legacy. When he took office in 1948, Ecuador was exporting approximately 3.8 million banana clusters annually; by 1952, exports had reached 16.7 million clusters, a 421 percent increase, driven in part by diseases devastating Central American plantations and redirecting United States market demand to Ecuador. Plaza promoted this expansion actively, with [[IBEC]] (International Basic Economy Corporation), a [[Rockefeller Brothers]] venture, advising on development programs. The [[Standard Fruit and Steamship Company]], whose stock [[Chase Manhattan Bank]] transferred, expanded its Ecuadorian operations as a result.[^2] +The banana boom dominated Plaza's economic legacy. When he took office in 1948, Ecuador was exporting approximately 3.8 million banana clusters annually; by 1952, exports had reached 16.7 million clusters, a 421 percent increase, driven in part by diseases devastating Central American plantations and redirecting United States market demand to Ecuador. Plaza promoted this expansion actively, with [[IBEC]] (International Basic Economy Corporation), a [[Rockefeller Brothers]] venture, advising on development programs. The [[Standard Fruit and Steamship Company]], whose stock [[Chase Manhattan Bank]] transferred, expanded its Ecuadorian operations as a result.[^3] -Plaza's connection to the banana industry extended beyond his presidency. In 1958, alongside [[National Planning Association]] researcher [[Stacy May]], he co-authored "The United Fruit Company in [[Latin America]]," a study published by the National Planning Association that drew on access to United Fruit's internal records. May had run the Statistics Division of the U.S. War Production Board during World War II. The book covered United Fruit's operations in Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, and Colombia, and was regarded as relatively factual rather than promotional in character.[^6] +Plaza's connection to the banana industry extended beyond his presidency. In 1958, alongside [[National Planning Association]] researcher [[Stacy May]], he co-authored "The United Fruit Company in [[Latin America]]," a study published by the National Planning Association that drew on access to United Fruit's internal records. May had run the Statistics Division of the U.S. War Production Board during World War II. The book covered United Fruit's operations in Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, and Colombia, and was regarded as relatively factual rather than promotional in character.[^7] ### Summer Institute of Linguistics -SIL missionaries first arrived in Ecuador in 1952, with the formal invitation of the Ecuadorian government attributed to Plaza. One SIL account states that SIL entered Ecuador "in response to the expressed invitation of then President Galo Plaza to study, record and work on translation of materials into indigenous languages." SIL maintained a formal reporting relationship with Ecuador's Ministry of Education through 1982, when its agreement was terminated. The Summer Institute of Linguistics had been actively promoted in Latin America by [[William Cameron Townsend]], and both Plaza and the Colombian leader [[Alberto Lleras Camargo]] (who became the OAS's first secretary-general) helped Townsend establish SIL's South American operations.[^7] +SIL missionaries first arrived in Ecuador in 1952, with the formal invitation of the Ecuadorian government attributed to Plaza. One SIL account states that SIL entered Ecuador "in response to the expressed invitation of then President Galo Plaza to study, record and work on translation of materials into indigenous languages." SIL maintained a formal reporting relationship with Ecuador's Ministry of Education through 1982, when its agreement was terminated. The Summer Institute of Linguistics had been actively promoted in Latin America by [[William Cameron Townsend]], and both Plaza and the Colombian leader [[Alberto Lleras Camargo]] (who became the OAS's first secretary-general) helped Townsend establish SIL's South American operations.[^8] ### Interlude: International Mediation (1958-1966) Between his presidency and his OAS tenure, Plaza built a substantial record as a multilateral mediator. In 1958 he presided over meetings of the Special Committee of the [[Economic Commission for Latin America]] (CEPAL) that laid the foundations for the Latin American common market. In the same year, he headed a United Nations observer mission sent to Lebanon. -In late 1958, as the [[Batista]] regime in Cuba was collapsing, Plaza was approached through ex-President [[Roberto Arias]] of Panama to participate in an offer of good offices to the Cuban people, potentially joining a panel of two or three Latin American ex-presidents to seek a peaceful transition. The State Department had prompted this initiative; a December 23, 1958 State Department communication records that the United States was "in touch with ex-President Galo Plaza of Ecuador to see whether the latter would be interested in joining" the mediation panel.[^8] +In late 1958, as the [[Batista]] regime in Cuba was collapsing, Plaza was approached through ex-President [[Roberto Arias]] of Panama to participate in an offer of good offices to the Cuban people, potentially joining a panel of two or three Latin American ex-presidents to seek a peaceful transition. The State Department had prompted this initiative; a December 23, 1958 State Department communication records that the United States was "in touch with ex-President Galo Plaza of Ecuador to see whether the latter would be interested in joining" the mediation panel.[^9] In 1960 Plaza presided over the United Nations committee charged with managing the evacuation of Belgian military forces from the Congo during the independence crisis. -From September 16, 1964 through the end of 1965, Plaza served as the personal representative of the UN Secretary-General and as mediator in Cyprus under [[UNFICYP]]. He submitted a formal mediation report on March 26, 1965, which proposed resolving the Cyprus dispute primarily as a Cypriot internal matter rather than a Greco-Turkish bilateral affair. Greek Cypriot representative [[Glafcos Clerides]] described the report as "bold and welcome"; the Turkish side rejected it. The episode became known in UN peacekeeping literature as the "Plaza moment."[^9] +From September 16, 1964 through the end of 1965, Plaza served as the personal representative of the UN Secretary-General and as mediator in Cyprus under [[UNFICYP]]. He submitted a formal mediation report on March 26, 1965, which proposed resolving the Cyprus dispute primarily as a Cypriot internal matter rather than a Greco-Turkish bilateral affair. Greek Cypriot representative [[Glafcos Clerides]] described the report as "bold and welcome"; the Turkish side rejected it. The episode became known in UN peacekeeping literature as the "Plaza moment."[^10] ### At the OAS (1968-1975) Plaza was elected secretary-general of the OAS on February 13, 1968, and took office on May 18, 1968. He served two terms before stepping down in 1975. His tenure at the OAS coincided with accelerating fragmentation of Cold War-era inter-American consensus, including growing pressure from member states to lift collective sanctions against Cuba that had been imposed in 1964. The OAS ultimately passed a "Freedom of Action Resolution" in July 1975, allowing member states to resume relations with Havana, effectively nullifying earlier OAS resolutions on Cuba. Plaza presided over the organization during the period when this change was being debated and ultimately enacted. -Alberto Lleras Camargo had served as the OAS's first secretary-general; Plaza succeeded [[José A. Mora]] of Uruguay as the third person to hold the position. Both Plaza and Lleras Camargo had helped William Cameron Townsend establish SIL operations in South America.[^7] +Alberto Lleras Camargo had served as the OAS's first secretary-general; Plaza succeeded [[José A. Mora]] of Uruguay as the third person to hold the position. Both Plaza and Lleras Camargo had helped William Cameron Townsend establish SIL operations in South America.[^8] -The State Department's Foreign Relations volumes for 1969-1976 (FRUS 1969-76) and the persons index for FRUS 1977-80, Vol. XV document Plaza's continued engagement with U.S. officials during and after his OAS tenure, identifying him in the index as having also served as President of Ecuador's Supreme Electoral Tribunal.[^10] +The State Department's Foreign Relations volumes for 1969-1976 (FRUS 1969-76) and the persons index for FRUS 1977-80, Vol. XV document Plaza's continued engagement with U.S. officials during and after his OAS tenure, identifying him in the index as having also served as President of Ecuador's Supreme Electoral Tribunal.[^11] ### Rockefeller Foundation Trusteeship -Plaza served as a trustee of the [[Rockefeller Foundation]] and remained in Rockefeller's personal diplomatic orbit through the 1960s. His willingness to act as Washington's parliamentary agent in Latin American venues, first at Chapultepec, then through his OAS tenure, placed him at the operational center of the inter-American system Rockefeller had designed.[^11] +Plaza served as a trustee of the [[Rockefeller Foundation]] and remained in Rockefeller's personal diplomatic orbit through the 1960s. His willingness to act as Washington's parliamentary agent in Latin American venues, first at Chapultepec, then through his OAS tenure, placed him at the operational center of the inter-American system Rockefeller had designed.[^12] ### Inter-American Dialogue -In 1982, Plaza co-founded the [[Inter-American Dialogue]] think tank with U.S. diplomat [[Sol M. Linowitz]], former U.S. ambassador to the OAS. Linowitz had conceived the idea of assembling citizens from across the hemisphere to set a new regional agenda and proposed it to Plaza as a natural co-chair given his history at the OAS. The Dialogue held its first meeting in 1982 under the auspices of the [[Aspen Institute]], with Plaza serving as the organization's first Latin American co-chair. The Dialogue positioned itself as an independent hemispheric policy forum distinct from official OAS channels.[^12] +In 1982, Plaza co-founded the [[Inter-American Dialogue]] think tank with U.S. diplomat [[Sol M. Linowitz]], former U.S. ambassador to the OAS. Linowitz had conceived the idea of assembling citizens from across the hemisphere to set a new regional agenda and proposed it to Plaza as a natural co-chair given his history at the OAS. The Dialogue held its first meeting in 1982 under the auspices of the [[Aspen Institute]], with Plaza serving as the organization's first Latin American co-chair. The Dialogue positioned itself as an independent hemispheric policy forum distinct from official OAS channels.[^13] ### Death Galo Plaza died of a heart attack on January 28, 1987, at a hospital in Quito. He was 80 years old. He was survived by his wife Rosario Pallares, whom he had married in 1933, and six children. The family's Hacienda Zuleta in Imbabura Province continued as a working agricultural estate; in 1995 the family established the Galo Plaza Lasso Foundation, a non-governmental organization focused on cultural preservation and community development in the Angochagua region. -[^1]: Encyclopedia.com, "Galo Plaza Lasso," citing George I. Blanksten, *Ecuador: Constitutions and Caudillos* (1951). Plaza's role at Chapultepec and San Francisco is confirmed in multiple biographical sources: he attended both as Ecuador's ambassador to Washington (1944-1946). -[^2]: Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett, *Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon*. HarperCollins, 1995. Ch. 12, 27. -[^3]: Harry S. Truman Library, Photograph Record 66-8157: "The President of Ecuador, Galo Plaza and Nelson Rockefeller at a Pan American Society Dinner." -[^4]: FRUS 1948, Vol. IX (The Western Hemisphere), Document 433: Despatch No. 710 from Ambassador John F. Simmons to the Department of State, September 3, 1948. Available at history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1948v09/d433. -[^5]: FRUS 1952-54, Vol. IV, Document 231: Miller memorandum comparing political transitions in Ecuador, Chile, and Brazil, 1952-1953. -[^6]: Stacy May and Galo Plaza, *The United Fruit Company in Latin America*. Washington: National Planning Association, 1958. -[^7]: Colby and Dennett, Ch. 12. SIL's own account of its Ecuador entry appears in SIL activity reports; the Middlebury College summary of "The Summer Institute of Linguistics and Indigenous Movements" (2018) confirms the 1952-1953 entry under Plaza's invitation. -[^8]: FRUS 1958-60, Vol. VI (Cuba), Document 189: State Department communication, approximately December 23, 1958, regarding ex-President Arias of Panama and ex-President Plaza of Ecuador in contact about good offices for Cuba. Available at history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v06/d189. -[^9]: Cambridge University Journal of Global History article: "Reputation on the (green) line: revisiting the 'Plaza moment' in United Nations peacekeeping practice, 1964-1966." Plaza's appointment as UN mediator for Cyprus dated to September 16, 1964; his report submitted March 26, 1965. -[^10]: FRUS 1977-80, Vol. XV (Central America), persons index entry for Plaza Lasso, Galo. -[^11]: Colby and Dennett, Ch. 12, 19. -[^12]: Inter-American Dialogue, founding history. Sol M. Linowitz, former U.S. ambassador to the OAS, co-chaired with Plaza. First meeting held 1982 under Aspen Institute auspices. +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Obituary of Galo Plaza Lasso, *The New York Times*, January 29, 1987 (accessed at findagrave.com/memorial/199014200). The obituary states that he was sent to the University of California, "then to the University of Maryland, where he received a degree in agronomy, and to the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Washington, where he got a degree in Diplomacy." +[^2]: Encyclopedia.com, "Galo Plaza Lasso," citing George I. Blanksten, *Ecuador: Constitutions and Caudillos* (1951). Plaza's role at Chapultepec and San Francisco is confirmed in multiple biographical sources: he attended both as Ecuador's ambassador to Washington (1944-1946). +[^3]: Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett, *Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon*. HarperCollins, 1995. Ch. 12, 27. +[^4]: Harry S. Truman Library, Photograph Record 66-8157: "The President of Ecuador, Galo Plaza and Nelson Rockefeller at a Pan American Society Dinner." +[^5]: FRUS 1948, Vol. IX (The Western Hemisphere), Document 433: Despatch No. 710 from Ambassador John F. Simmons to the Department of State, September 3, 1948. Available at history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1948v09/d433. +[^6]: FRUS 1952-54, Vol. IV, Document 231: Miller memorandum comparing political transitions in Ecuador, Chile, and Brazil, 1952-1953. +[^7]: Stacy May and Galo Plaza, *The United Fruit Company in Latin America*. Washington: National Planning Association, 1958. +[^8]: Colby and Dennett, Ch. 12. SIL's own account of its Ecuador entry appears in SIL activity reports; the Middlebury College summary of "The Summer Institute of Linguistics and Indigenous Movements" (2018) confirms the 1952-1953 entry under Plaza's invitation. +[^9]: FRUS 1958-60, Vol. VI (Cuba), Document 189: State Department communication, approximately December 23, 1958, regarding ex-President Arias of Panama and ex-President Plaza of Ecuador in contact about good offices for Cuba. Available at history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v06/d189. +[^10]: Cambridge University Journal of Global History article: "Reputation on the (green) line: revisiting the 'Plaza moment' in United Nations peacekeeping practice, 1964-1966." Plaza's appointment as UN mediator for Cyprus dated to September 16, 1964; his report submitted March 26, 1965. +[^11]: FRUS 1977-80, Vol. XV (Central America), persons index entry for Plaza Lasso, Galo. +[^12]: Colby and Dennett, Ch. 12, 19. +[^13]: Inter-American Dialogue, founding history. Sol M. Linowitz, former U.S. ambassador to the OAS, co-chaired with Plaza. First meeting held 1982 under Aspen Institute auspices. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Gerald G. Oplinger.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Gerald G. Oplinger.md index bb6ee7f1..9b1c8a2c 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Gerald G. Oplinger.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Gerald G. Oplinger.md @@ -18,9 +18,12 @@ Gerald G. Oplinger was an aide to [[Zbigniew Brzezinski]] for global issues. He In a memorandum of January 23, 1980 to Owen, Oplinger wrote that he had told the State Department to put the press release and congressional consultations on hold, and that the [[Department of Energy]], the [[Department of Defense]] and technical people within the intelligence community had "sufficient doubts about the Press panel report to make it very dangerous to proceed without another look." He wrote that [[John Deutch]] and Dan Murphy felt strongly that unless the questions were given "a further airing, there will be continued internal dissent and an appearance that policy people (including the White House) did a whitewash for political reasons."[^4] +The "Press panel" that the memorandum criticizes was the review that the presidential science adviser, [[Frank Press]], had convened under [[Jack P. Ruina|Jack Ruina]]. The National Security Archive's briefing book on the Vela incident identifies it in those terms and describes the memorandum as Oplinger's report that the intelligence community was dissatisfied with the review's treatment of the Vela signals and of an ionospheric disturbance.[^5] The memorandum records the intelligence community's view on the Arecibo ionospheric signals in the words "DoE and DoD say no."[^5] The Press panel is the Vela review and is not the psychic research panel. + ### Footnotes [^1]: Richelson, Jeffrey T., ed., "The Vela Incident: Nuclear Test or Meteoroid?" National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 190, May 5, 2006, narrative. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB190/index.htm [^2]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 20. [^3]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980, vol. XVI, Southern Africa, Document 361. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v16/d361 [^4]: Oplinger, Jerry, memorandum to Henry Owen, "South Atlantic Event," January 23, 1980, Secret. Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, NLC-28-32-4-16-5; Document 33 in Burr, William, and Avner Cohen, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 570, December 6, 2016. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2016-12-06/vela-incident-south-atlantic-mystery-flash-september-1979-raised-questions-about-nuclear-test +[^5]: William Burr and Avner Cohen, "The Vela Incident," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 570, narrative and document 33 (Jerry Oplinger to Henry Owen, "South Atlantic Event," January 23, 1980, Secret, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, NLC-28-32-4-16-5). diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Jonathan Pollard.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Jonathan Pollard.md index 80fbd328..bf68ffac 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Jonathan Pollard.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Jonathan Pollard.md @@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ aliases: - Jonathan J. Pollard - Pollard created: 2026-10-12 -updated: 2026-10-12 +updated: 2026-10-15 born: 1954-08-07 location: "Galveston, Texas" summary: "Jonathan Jay Pollard was a Navy civilian intelligence analyst who spied for Israel from 1984 to 1985, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987, and was paroled in 2015." @@ -164,33 +164,35 @@ Ben-Menashe's claim that Robert McFarlane had been recruited by Rafael Eitan and The opinion describes Ben-Menashe as "a self-professed former Israeli spy and a major source for conspiracy theorists," and records that the Esquire article quoted intelligence officials and journalists calling him a "fake" and a "con man."[^62] The same opinion notes that "[i]n Pollard's case there were persistent allegations about another, unnamed American who secretly worked for the Israelis."[^63] +In *McFarlane v. Sheridan Square Press*, decided August 16, 1996, the same court affirmed summary judgment for the publisher of Ben-Menashe's 1992 book *Profits of War* on the ground that McFarlane could not show actual malice. The opinion summarizes the book's allegation that McFarlane played an important role in the October Surprise negotiations and was an Israeli spy, and states that "the entire October Surprise story was thoroughly discredited" in the joint report of the House task force that investigated the allegations, H.R. Rep. No. 102-1102 (1993).[^64] + ### Israeli Inquiries -After Pollard's arrest, the top Israeli leadership denied having any knowledge of his activities. Pollard himself argued that his Israeli handlers told him that "Israel's dependence upon a 'special source'" had been mentioned at Israeli cabinet meetings. He also stated that he was routinely provided with lists of intelligence items wanted, coordinated and prioritized by the heads of all the various military intelligence services. Much of the material he supplied, such as satellite photographs and communication intercepts, was clearly not being transferred through official channels.[^64] +After Pollard's arrest, the top Israeli leadership denied having any knowledge of his activities. Pollard himself argued that his Israeli handlers told him that "Israel's dependence upon a 'special source'" had been mentioned at Israeli cabinet meetings. He also stated that he was routinely provided with lists of intelligence items wanted, coordinated and prioritized by the heads of all the various military intelligence services. Much of the material he supplied, such as satellite photographs and communication intercepts, was clearly not being transferred through official channels.[^65] -The [[Los Angeles Times]] reported on November 29, 1985 that Prime Minister [[Shimon Peres]], Defense Minister [[Yitzhak Rabin]] and Foreign Minister Shamir had been meeting daily to review the internal investigation, and that the essential elements of the case were believed to be clear to the three.[^65] In late February 1987 the Israeli embassy spokesman [[Yossi Gal]] said that Shamir had reiterated on a recent visit to Washington "that this was a rogue operation that was not authorized and against the will of the government."[^66] In a report from Jerusalem published March 11, 1987, [[Thomas L. Friedman]] quoted Shamir: "The State of Israel has no connection with Pollard or his family."[^67] +The [[Los Angeles Times]] reported on November 29, 1985 that Prime Minister [[Shimon Peres]], Defense Minister [[Yitzhak Rabin]] and Foreign Minister Shamir had been meeting daily to review the internal investigation, and that the essential elements of the case were believed to be clear to the three.[^66] In late February 1987 the Israeli embassy spokesman [[Yossi Gal]] said that Shamir had reiterated on a recent visit to Washington "that this was a rogue operation that was not authorized and against the will of the government."[^67] In a report from Jerusalem published March 11, 1987, [[Thomas L. Friedman]] quoted Shamir: "The State of Israel has no connection with Pollard or his family."[^68] -The Knesset's intelligence subcommittee, chaired by [[Abba Eban]], and a two-member cabinet panel chaired by Tel Aviv lawyer [[Yehoshua Rotenstreich]] reported on May 26, 1987. The Post reported that neither panel found evidence that the leadership knew of the operation, but that both found the senior political leadership responsible for failing to uncover and end it. The seven-member subcommittee singled out Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin and his predecessor [[Moshe Arens]], and said that Shimon Peres, Shamir and Rabin shared responsibility for the government's failure to live up to commitments made to the United States after Pollard's arrest. The Post reported that, contrary to government statements at the time, the subcommittee's report said the affair was "not a rogue operation" but one conducted by Israeli officials using official resources.[^68] The subcommittee accused Eitan of "a gross excess of authority" and said Sella "excessively involved himself on his own initiative." It indicated that Sella may have lied in his testimony about the extent of his role, and it criticized the Army Chief of Staff, [[Moshe Levy]], and [[Amos Lapidot]] for allowing Sella leave to take part in what they surmised was a sensitive espionage mission.[^69] The Rotenstreich panel contended that the "ruling troika" of Peres, Shamir and Rabin "did not take care to clarify facts sufficiently before transferring them to the U.S. authorities." The Post reported that the troika had reportedly pressed Rotenstreich to hand in his report after learning that Eban's was to be released, in the hope that his findings would be milder.[^70] Shamir told reporters that the government had no intention of resigning and that "the mountain was really a molehill and the earth did not move."[^71] +The Knesset's intelligence subcommittee, chaired by [[Abba Eban]], and a two-member cabinet panel chaired by Tel Aviv lawyer [[Yehoshua Rotenstreich]] reported on May 26, 1987. The Post reported that neither panel found evidence that the leadership knew of the operation, but that both found the senior political leadership responsible for failing to uncover and end it. The seven-member subcommittee singled out Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin and his predecessor [[Moshe Arens]], and said that Shimon Peres, Shamir and Rabin shared responsibility for the government's failure to live up to commitments made to the United States after Pollard's arrest. The Post reported that, contrary to government statements at the time, the subcommittee's report said the affair was "not a rogue operation" but one conducted by Israeli officials using official resources.[^69] The subcommittee accused Eitan of "a gross excess of authority" and said Sella "excessively involved himself on his own initiative." It indicated that Sella may have lied in his testimony about the extent of his role, and it criticized the Army Chief of Staff, [[Moshe Levy]], and [[Amos Lapidot]] for allowing Sella leave to take part in what they surmised was a sensitive espionage mission.[^70] The Rotenstreich panel contended that the "ruling troika" of Peres, Shamir and Rabin "did not take care to clarify facts sufficiently before transferring them to the U.S. authorities." The Post reported that the troika had reportedly pressed Rotenstreich to hand in his report after learning that Eban's was to be released, in the hope that his findings would be milder.[^71] Shamir told reporters that the government had no intention of resigning and that "the mountain was really a molehill and the earth did not move."[^72] -The Israeli Cabinet adopted the Rotenstreich findings, which held the entire government collectively responsible for failure to know that a secret spy unit in the Defense Ministry had hired Pollard.[^72] Rabin and Peres attacked the subcommittee as politically tainted. The subcommittee's report accused Rabin of failing "to follow up or increase supervision as he should have done" during the fourteen months when Pollard was active, and the Post reported that it criticized the promotions of Sella and Eitan, who became chairman of the country's largest state-owned company.[^70] +The Israeli Cabinet adopted the Rotenstreich findings, which held the entire government collectively responsible for failure to know that a secret spy unit in the Defense Ministry had hired Pollard.[^73] Rabin and Peres attacked the subcommittee as politically tainted. The subcommittee's report accused Rabin of failing "to follow up or increase supervision as he should have done" during the fourteen months when Pollard was active, and the Post reported that it criticized the promotions of Sella and Eitan, who became chairman of the country's largest state-owned company.[^71] -The Post reported that Sella had been indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington in March 1987 for his role in the affair.[^73] Hersh wrote that after American protests Sella was instead named head of the Israel Defense Forces staff college, and that he later retired from the air force.[^74] The Post reported that Sella's promotion to command one of Israel's largest air bases had set off a storm of controversy in the United States, and that he eventually resigned from the new post, citing his concern for U.S.-Israeli relations.[^75] +The Post reported that Sella had been indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington in March 1987 for his role in the affair.[^74] Hersh wrote that after American protests Sella was instead named head of the Israel Defense Forces staff college, and that he later retired from the air force.[^75] The Post reported that Sella's promotion to command one of Israel's largest air bases had set off a storm of controversy in the United States, and that he eventually resigned from the new post, citing his concern for U.S.-Israeli relations.[^76] -The Israeli officials most tarnished by the affair were Eitan and Sella. Eitan did not suffer financially. He was subsequently named to a high administrative position with the Israel Chemicals Company, an appointment authorized by Ariel Sharon.[^76] Hersh wrote that Sella was promoted to brigadier general after his return from the United States and assigned as commander of [[Tel Nof]], the site of Israel's nuclear-ready air force squadron.[^77] The Christian Science Monitor reported that the committees criticized the government for appointing Sella commander of Tel Nof Air Force Base after his involvement in the affair became known.[^78] +The Israeli officials most tarnished by the affair were Eitan and Sella. Eitan did not suffer financially. He was subsequently named to a high administrative position with the Israel Chemicals Company, an appointment authorized by Ariel Sharon.[^77] Hersh wrote that Sella was promoted to brigadier general after his return from the United States and assigned as commander of [[Tel Nof]], the site of Israel's nuclear-ready air force squadron.[^78] The Christian Science Monitor reported that the committees criticized the government for appointing Sella commander of Tel Nof Air Force Base after his involvement in the affair became known.[^79] ### Aftermath and Sella's Account -Pollard refused to cooperate with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington for six months before finally giving up Sella's name as part of a plea bargain. It is not known whether prosecutors realized at the time that Sella's mission was linked to nuclear intelligence. Hersh wrote that Sella was indicted in absentia in March 1987 and declared a fugitive from justice in June 1990, and that the Israeli government refused U.S. demands for his extradition.[^79] +Pollard refused to cooperate with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington for six months before finally giving up Sella's name as part of a plea bargain. It is not known whether prosecutors realized at the time that Sella's mission was linked to nuclear intelligence. Hersh wrote that Sella was indicted in absentia in March 1987 and declared a fugitive from justice in June 1990, and that the Israeli government refused U.S. demands for his extradition.[^80] -Sella has given friends and colleagues an account of his involvement that is more credible, but still far short of the whole story. He claimed he was recruited to try to control Pollard, who was drowning the Israeli intelligence bureaucracy in documents. Sella, who had almost completed his Ph.D. in computer science at [[New York University]], believed his technical training would be an asset in evaluating and perhaps winnowing down Pollard's materials. He knew that Pollard had been recruited long before 1984, but was eager for the assignment, believing it would advance his career. He checked with his superior, Major General Lapidot, who assured him that Pollard was not a rogue and that clearance for his new assignment had been obtained from the defense minister, Yitzhak Rabin. Once involved, Sella complained that Pollard "was running crazy" and "was giving him things he didn't want and didn't need."[^80] +Sella has given friends and colleagues an account of his involvement that is more credible, but still far short of the whole story. He claimed he was recruited to try to control Pollard, who was drowning the Israeli intelligence bureaucracy in documents. Sella, who had almost completed his Ph.D. in computer science at [[New York University]], believed his technical training would be an asset in evaluating and perhaps winnowing down Pollard's materials. He knew that Pollard had been recruited long before 1984, but was eager for the assignment, believing it would advance his career. He checked with his superior, Major General Lapidot, who assured him that Pollard was not a rogue and that clearance for his new assignment had been obtained from the defense minister, Yitzhak Rabin. Once involved, Sella complained that Pollard "was running crazy" and "was giving him things he didn't want and didn't need."[^81] -[[Leonard Garment]], hired by Israel to represent Sella, attempted to resolve the affair. He was pressured by a six-man Israeli delegation, including [[Chaim Joseph Zadok]], [[Meir Rosenne]], [[Elyakim Rubinstein]], [[Ram Caspi]], [[Avraham Shalom]], and [[Hanan Bar-on]], to file a factual proffer that downplayed Sella's involvement. Garment eventually withdrew from the case, stating he was unsure whether his client was Sella or the Israeli government. With his withdrawal, the Israeli government ended its attempt to protect Sella, effectively ending Sella's career.[^81] +[[Leonard Garment]], hired by Israel to represent Sella, attempted to resolve the affair. He was pressured by a six-man Israeli delegation, including [[Chaim Joseph Zadok]], [[Meir Rosenne]], [[Elyakim Rubinstein]], [[Ram Caspi]], [[Avraham Shalom]], and [[Hanan Bar-on]], to file a factual proffer that downplayed Sella's involvement. Garment eventually withdrew from the case, stating he was unsure whether his client was Sella or the Israeli government. With his withdrawal, the Israeli government ended its attempt to protect Sella, effectively ending Sella's career.[^82] ### Parole and Departure -Pollard was released from prison on November 20, 2015 and placed on parole. His conditions included a curfew, an electronic monitor that tracked his location, limits on the jobs he could take, and a prohibition on leaving the United States.[^56][^82] On November 20, 2020 the Justice Department announced that he had completed his parole. The Parole Commission said there was "no evidence to conclude that he is likely to violate the law." His lawyers, Eliot Lauer and Jacques Semmelman, said that he was "now a free man in all respects."[^83] +Pollard was released from prison on November 20, 2015 and placed on parole. His conditions included a curfew, an electronic monitor that tracked his location, limits on the jobs he could take, and a prohibition on leaving the United States.[^56][^83] On November 20, 2020 the Justice Department announced that he had completed his parole. The Parole Commission said there was "no evidence to conclude that he is likely to violate the law." His lawyers, Eliot Lauer and Jacques Semmelman, said that he was "now a free man in all respects."[^84] -On December 30, 2020 Pollard and his wife Esther arrived at Ben Gurion International Airport on a private plane provided by the casino owner [[Sheldon Adelson]]. Prime Minister [[Benjamin Netanyahu]] greeted them and presented them with Israeli identity cards. Pollard said, "We are ecstatic to be home at last after 35 years."[^84] +On December 30, 2020 Pollard and his wife Esther arrived at Ben Gurion International Airport on a private plane provided by the casino owner [[Sheldon Adelson]]. Prime Minister [[Benjamin Netanyahu]] greeted them and presented them with Israeli identity cards. Pollard said, "We are ecstatic to be home at last after 35 years."[^85] ### Footnotes @@ -257,24 +259,25 @@ On December 30, 2020 Pollard and his wife Esther arrived at Ben Gurion Internati [^61]: *McFarlane v. Esquire Magazine*, 74 F.3d 1296 (D.C. Cir. 1996), No. 94-7137, decided January 30, 1996. https://static.case.law/f3d/74/cases/1296-01.json Affirmance of the judgment for Esquire and the dismissal of the claim against Unger. [^62]: *McFarlane v. Esquire Magazine*, 74 F.3d 1296 (D.C. Cir. 1996), No. 94-7137, decided January 30, 1996. https://static.case.law/f3d/74/cases/1296-01.json Description of Ben-Menashe and of the Esquire article's treatment of his credibility. [^63]: *McFarlane v. Esquire Magazine*, 74 F.3d 1296 (D.C. Cir. 1996), No. 94-7137, decided January 30, 1996. https://static.case.law/f3d/74/cases/1296-01.json The opinion's note on persistent allegations about an unnamed second American. -[^64]: Seymour M. Hersh, *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy* (Random House, 1991), chapters 21 and 22. Pollard's account of what his handlers told him about cabinet discussion and intelligence priorities. -[^65]: "Pollard" report, *Los Angeles Times*, November 29, 1985. CIA CREST copy: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp90-00965r000504890020-7 -[^66]: *The Washington Post*, February 28, 1987. CIA CREST copy: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp90-00965r000403620005-5 -[^67]: Thomas L. Friedman, "Shamir Says Pollard's Fate Is No Concern of Israel," *The New York Times*, March 11, 1987. CIA CREST copy: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp90-00965r000302120009-8 -[^68]: Glenn Frankel, "Israeli Spy Probes Fault Leadership," *Washington Post*, May 27, 1987 (Jerusalem dateline May 26). CIA CREST copy: https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000302080002-0 The two reports of May 26, 1987; the subcommittee's statement that the affair was not a rogue operation. -[^69]: Glenn Frankel, "Israeli Spy Probes Fault Leadership," *Washington Post*, May 27, 1987 (Jerusalem dateline May 26). CIA CREST copy: https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000302080002-0 The subcommittee's findings on Eitan and Sella, and its criticism of Levy and Lapidot. -[^70]: Glenn Frankel, "Israeli Spy Probes Fault Leadership," *Washington Post*, May 27, 1987 (Jerusalem dateline May 26). CIA CREST copy: https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000302080002-0 The Rotenstreich report's statement on the troika; the pressure to file it; Rabin and Peres's response to the subcommittee; criticism of Rabin's supervision and of the Sella and Eitan promotions. -[^71]: Glenn Frankel, "Israeli Spy Probes Fault Leadership," *Washington Post*, May 27, 1987 (Jerusalem dateline May 26). CIA CREST copy: https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000302080002-0 Shamir's remark to reporters. -[^72]: "Israel hopes that book is now closed on Pollard spy case," *Christian Science Monitor*, May 28, 1987. https://www.csmonitor.com/1987/0528/omary.html Cabinet adoption of the Rotenstreich findings and the collective-responsibility finding. -[^73]: Glenn Frankel, "Israeli Spy Probes Fault Leadership," *Washington Post*, May 27, 1987 (Jerusalem dateline May 26). CIA CREST copy: https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000302080002-0 Indictment of Sella by a federal grand jury in Washington in March 1987. -[^74]: Seymour M. Hersh, *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy* (Random House, 1991), chapters 21 and 22. Sella's assignment to the staff college after American protests, and his later retirement. -[^75]: Glenn Frankel, "Israeli Spy Probes Fault Leadership," *Washington Post*, May 27, 1987 (Jerusalem dateline May 26). CIA CREST copy: https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000302080002-0 Sella's promotion and his resignation from the Tel Nof post. -[^76]: Seymour M. Hersh, *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy* (Random House, 1991), chapters 21 and 22. Eitan's post at the Israel Chemicals Company and the Sharon authorization. -[^77]: Seymour M. Hersh, *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy* (Random House, 1991), chapters 21 and 22. Sella's promotion to brigadier general and his assignment to Tel Nof. -[^78]: "Israel hopes that book is now closed on Pollard spy case," *Christian Science Monitor*, May 28, 1987. https://www.csmonitor.com/1987/0528/omary.html Committees' criticism of Sella's appointment to command Tel Nof Air Force Base. -[^79]: Seymour M. Hersh, *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy* (Random House, 1991), chapters 21 and 22. Sella's fugitive status in June 1990 and the Israeli refusal of extradition. -[^80]: Seymour M. Hersh, *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy* (Random House, 1991), chapters 21 and 22. Sella's account of his role as Hersh relates it, and Pollard's conduct once Sella was involved. -[^81]: Seymour M. Hersh, *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy* (Random House, 1991), chapters 21 and 22. Garment's engagement, the Israeli delegation, and his withdrawal. -[^82]: National Security Archive, "Jonathan Pollard: Revisiting a Still Sensitive Case," Electronic Briefing Book (Richelson, December 14, 2012; reposted November 24, 2020). https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/intelligence/2012-12-14/jonathan-pollard-spy-case-cias-1987-damage-assessment-declassified Parole conditions, including the travel restriction, as stated in the November 24, 2020 posting. -[^83]: Matthew S. Schwartz, "Jonathan Pollard, Who Sold Cold War Secrets To Israel, Completes Parole," NPR, carried by *Georgia Public Broadcasting*, November 21, 2020. https://www.gpb.org/news/2020/11/21/jonathan-pollard-who-sold-cold-war-secrets-israel-completes-parole Parole Commission statement and the lawyers' statement. -[^84]: Associated Press, "Reports convicted US spy Pollard arrives in Israel," December 30, 2020. https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/world/2020/12/30/reports-convicted-us-spy-pollard-arrives-in-israel/ Arrival on December 30, 2020, the reception and Israeli identity cards. +[^64]: *McFarlane v. Sheridan Square Press, Inc.*, 91 F.3d 1501 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 16, 1996), Williams, Ginsburg and Rogers, JJ. https://static.case.law/f3d/91/cases/1501-01.json +[^65]: Seymour M. Hersh, *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy* (Random House, 1991), chapters 21 and 22. Pollard's account of what his handlers told him about cabinet discussion and intelligence priorities. +[^66]: "Pollard" report, *Los Angeles Times*, November 29, 1985. CIA CREST copy: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp90-00965r000504890020-7 +[^67]: *The Washington Post*, February 28, 1987. CIA CREST copy: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp90-00965r000403620005-5 +[^68]: Thomas L. Friedman, "Shamir Says Pollard's Fate Is No Concern of Israel," *The New York Times*, March 11, 1987. CIA CREST copy: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp90-00965r000302120009-8 +[^69]: Glenn Frankel, "Israeli Spy Probes Fault Leadership," *Washington Post*, May 27, 1987 (Jerusalem dateline May 26). CIA CREST copy: https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000302080002-0 The two reports of May 26, 1987; the subcommittee's statement that the affair was not a rogue operation. +[^70]: Glenn Frankel, "Israeli Spy Probes Fault Leadership," *Washington Post*, May 27, 1987 (Jerusalem dateline May 26). CIA CREST copy: https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000302080002-0 The subcommittee's findings on Eitan and Sella, and its criticism of Levy and Lapidot. +[^71]: Glenn Frankel, "Israeli Spy Probes Fault Leadership," *Washington Post*, May 27, 1987 (Jerusalem dateline May 26). CIA CREST copy: https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000302080002-0 The Rotenstreich report's statement on the troika; the pressure to file it; Rabin and Peres's response to the subcommittee; criticism of Rabin's supervision and of the Sella and Eitan promotions. +[^72]: Glenn Frankel, "Israeli Spy Probes Fault Leadership," *Washington Post*, May 27, 1987 (Jerusalem dateline May 26). CIA CREST copy: https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000302080002-0 Shamir's remark to reporters. +[^73]: "Israel hopes that book is now closed on Pollard spy case," *Christian Science Monitor*, May 28, 1987. https://www.csmonitor.com/1987/0528/omary.html Cabinet adoption of the Rotenstreich findings and the collective-responsibility finding. +[^74]: Glenn Frankel, "Israeli Spy Probes Fault Leadership," *Washington Post*, May 27, 1987 (Jerusalem dateline May 26). CIA CREST copy: https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000302080002-0 Indictment of Sella by a federal grand jury in Washington in March 1987. +[^75]: Seymour M. Hersh, *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy* (Random House, 1991), chapters 21 and 22. Sella's assignment to the staff college after American protests, and his later retirement. +[^76]: Glenn Frankel, "Israeli Spy Probes Fault Leadership," *Washington Post*, May 27, 1987 (Jerusalem dateline May 26). CIA CREST copy: https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000302080002-0 Sella's promotion and his resignation from the Tel Nof post. +[^77]: Seymour M. Hersh, *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy* (Random House, 1991), chapters 21 and 22. Eitan's post at the Israel Chemicals Company and the Sharon authorization. +[^78]: Seymour M. Hersh, *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy* (Random House, 1991), chapters 21 and 22. Sella's promotion to brigadier general and his assignment to Tel Nof. +[^79]: "Israel hopes that book is now closed on Pollard spy case," *Christian Science Monitor*, May 28, 1987. https://www.csmonitor.com/1987/0528/omary.html Committees' criticism of Sella's appointment to command Tel Nof Air Force Base. +[^80]: Seymour M. Hersh, *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy* (Random House, 1991), chapters 21 and 22. Sella's fugitive status in June 1990 and the Israeli refusal of extradition. +[^81]: Seymour M. Hersh, *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy* (Random House, 1991), chapters 21 and 22. Sella's account of his role as Hersh relates it, and Pollard's conduct once Sella was involved. +[^82]: Seymour M. Hersh, *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy* (Random House, 1991), chapters 21 and 22. Garment's engagement, the Israeli delegation, and his withdrawal. +[^83]: National Security Archive, "Jonathan Pollard: Revisiting a Still Sensitive Case," Electronic Briefing Book (Richelson, December 14, 2012; reposted November 24, 2020). https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/intelligence/2012-12-14/jonathan-pollard-spy-case-cias-1987-damage-assessment-declassified Parole conditions, including the travel restriction, as stated in the November 24, 2020 posting. +[^84]: Matthew S. Schwartz, "Jonathan Pollard, Who Sold Cold War Secrets To Israel, Completes Parole," NPR, carried by *Georgia Public Broadcasting*, November 21, 2020. https://www.gpb.org/news/2020/11/21/jonathan-pollard-who-sold-cold-war-secrets-israel-completes-parole Parole Commission statement and the lawyers' statement. +[^85]: Associated Press, "Reports convicted US spy Pollard arrives in Israel," December 30, 2020. https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/world/2020/12/30/reports-convicted-us-spy-pollard-arrives-in-israel/ Arrival on December 30, 2020, the reception and Israeli identity cards. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Karl Nell.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Karl Nell.md index 4f627f1e..06abb72a 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Karl Nell.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Karl Nell.md @@ -58,7 +58,7 @@ Nell was a keynote speaker at the first [[Sol Foundation]] symposium, held Novem ### Statements and later appearances -At a May 21, 2024 SALT iConnections session in [[New York]], Nell and [[Alex Klokus]] appeared under the title "'Zero Doubt' Non-Human Intelligence on Earth."[^3] The same catalogue lists a March 9, 2025 question-and-answer session after the [[South by Southwest]] premiere of the film "The Age of Disclosure," with the producer [[Dan Farah]], [[Jim Semivan]], [[Tim Gallaudet]], [[Hal Puthoff]] and Nolan, and a 2025 appearance at the [[Archives of the Impossible]] conference.[^3] +At a May 21, 2024 SALT iConnections session in [[New York City|New York]], Nell and [[Alex Klokus]] appeared under the title "'Zero Doubt' Non-Human Intelligence on Earth."[^3] The same catalogue lists a March 9, 2025 question-and-answer session after the [[South by Southwest]] premiere of the film "The Age of Disclosure," with the producer [[Dan Farah]], [[Jim Semivan]], [[Tim Gallaudet]], [[Hal Puthoff]] and Nolan, and a 2025 appearance at the [[Archives of the Impossible]] conference.[^3] Nell does not appear among the signatories of the November 12, 2024 letter urging the review-board provisions of the [[Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act]].[^8] His Sol paper of May 2025 argues for enactment of the Act's review-board and eminent-domain provisions "or by executive order."[^2] diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Kurt Riezler.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Kurt Riezler.md index f41a36fd..0dc70492 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Kurt Riezler.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Kurt Riezler.md @@ -93,7 +93,7 @@ created: 2026-10-09 updated: 2026-10-09 --- -Kurt Riezler (February 11, 1882 to September 5, 1955) was a German diplomat, political adviser and philosopher of history. He served as secretary and adviser to Chancellor [[Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg]] during the First World War, headed the Russian section of the German legation in [[Stockholm]] in 1917, acted as head of the German mission in [[Moscow]] after the murder of Count [[Wilhelm von Mirbach-Harff]] in 1918, and after emigrating in 1938 taught at the [[New School for Social Research]] in [[New York]].[^1][^2] +Kurt Riezler (February 11, 1882 to September 5, 1955) was a German diplomat, political adviser and philosopher of history. He served as secretary and adviser to Chancellor [[Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg]] during the First World War, headed the Russian section of the German legation in [[Stockholm]] in 1917, acted as head of the German mission in [[Moscow]] after the murder of Count [[Wilhelm von Mirbach-Harff]] in 1918, and after emigrating in 1938 taught at the [[New School for Social Research]] in [[New York City|New York]].[^1][^2] ### Adviser to the Chancellor diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Larry Summers.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Larry Summers.md index 196ed1e1..b1ae57f7 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Larry Summers.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Larry Summers.md @@ -53,38 +53,44 @@ relations: with: "[[Elisa New]]" role: "husband" fn: 1 + - type: appointed + with: "[[Barack Obama]]" + reverse: true + role: "Director of the National Economic Council" + end: 2010 + fn: 4 - type: member_of with: "[[Minerva Project]]" role: "chairman, advisory board" start: 2012-04-04 - fn: 5 + fn: 6 created: 2026-09-25 -updated: 2026-10-09 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Lawrence H. Summers (born November 30, 1954, in [[New Haven]], [[Connecticut]]) is an American economist who served as [[United States Department of the Treasury|Secretary of the Treasury]] under [[Bill Clinton]] from 1999 to 2001 and as president of [[Harvard University]] from 2001 to 2006.[^1] In 2003, during his presidency, Harvard established the [[Program for Evolutionary Dynamics]] with a 6.5 million dollar gift from [[Jeffrey Epstein]], the largest Epstein gift Harvard received.[^2] Emails released by the [[House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform|House Oversight Committee]] in November 2025 showed Summers seeking Epstein's advice on his pursuit of a woman who regarded him as a mentor, in messages running until the day before Epstein's July 2019 arrest. Within three weeks Summers had resigned from the board of [[OpenAI]], taken leave from his Harvard center, and been banned for life by the [[American Economic Association]].[^1][^3] ### Treasury and Harvard -Summers was Treasury secretary for the last two years of the Clinton administration and became Harvard's president in 2001, serving five years.[^1] He remained on the faculty afterward with the rank of University Professor, Harvard's highest, and directed the [[Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government]] at the [[Harvard Kennedy School]].[^3] +Summers was Treasury secretary for the last two years of the Clinton administration and became Harvard's president in 2001, serving five years.[^1] He remained on the faculty afterward with the rank of University Professor, Harvard's highest, and directed the [[Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government]] at the [[Harvard Kennedy School]].[^3] Summers directed the [[National Economic Council]] in the first [[Barack Obama]] administration and announced in September 2010 that he would leave at the end of that year and return to his professorship at Harvard.[^4] ### The Program for Evolutionary Dynamics Harvard had courted Epstein as a donor from 1992 and received his first gift in 1998. Between 1998 and 2006 he made 22 gifts totaling 8,443,000 dollars, most between 10,000 and 200,000 dollars, with one exception: 6.5 million dollars in 2003 for the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, led by the mathematical biologist [[Martin Nowak]], whom Harvard recruited from the [[Institute for Advanced Study]] in Princeton, where Epstein had already funded his work.[^2] The program's original website stated: "The Program for Evolutionary Dynamics was established in 2003 by Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers following an imaginative proposal by Jeffrey Epstein and [[Benedict Gross]]."[^2] The gift paid for a separate research facility in a leased building in [[Harvard Square]].[^2] -Press reports at the time described the gift as part of a 30 million dollar pledge; Harvard's 2020 review "found no Harvard record of such a pledge."[^2] Epstein's own foundation website was still claiming in 2020 that he had established the program "with a $35 million gift."[^2] Harvard stopped accepting Epstein's gifts under Summers's successor, [[Drew Faust]], no later than November 2008.[^2] The review found that Epstein kept a keycard, a passcode, and an office at the program's building into 2018, visiting more than forty times after his 2008 conviction.[^2] Epstein used the suite for dinner parties organized by Nowak's assistants, among them the celebration of Summers's sixtieth birthday.[^4] +Press reports at the time described the gift as part of a 30 million dollar pledge; Harvard's 2020 review "found no Harvard record of such a pledge."[^2] Epstein's own foundation website was still claiming in 2020 that he had established the program "with a $35 million gift."[^2] Harvard stopped accepting Epstein's gifts under Summers's successor, [[Drew Faust]], no later than November 2008.[^2] The review found that Epstein kept a keycard, a passcode, and an office at the program's building into 2018, visiting more than forty times after his 2008 conviction.[^2] Epstein used the suite for dinner parties organized by Nowak's assistants, among them the celebration of Summers's sixtieth birthday.[^5] ### Minerva advisory board -On April 4, 2012 the [[Minerva Project]], a for-profit education company founded by [[Ben Nelson]], announced that Summers had joined as "Chairman of Advisory Board" in the same release that announced a $25 million seed investment from [[Benchmark Capital]]. Summers is quoted: "I was excited by Ben Nelson's bold vision for Minerva" and "am proud to be a part of it."[^5] The company's release of January 14, 2013, which announced [[Bob Kerrey]] as executive chairman of The Minerva Institute for Research and Scholarship, describes Summers as "Former Harvard University President" who "serves as chairman of Minerva's Advisory Board," and its release of March 12, 2013 naming [[Stephen Kosslyn|Stephen M. Kosslyn]] Founding Dean quotes Summers as "chairman of the Minerva Project Advisory Board."[^6][^7] An undated company overview in the Epstein files gives the same description and lists the other members as [[Patrick Harker]], Bob Kerrey and [[Lee Shulman]].[^8] On July 26, 2013 the educator [[Roger Schank]] wrote to Epstein under the subject "minerva project" that "now I see your buddy summers on it."[^9] +On April 4, 2012 the [[Minerva Project]], a for-profit education company founded by [[Ben Nelson]], announced that Summers had joined as "Chairman of Advisory Board" in the same release that announced a $25 million seed investment from [[Benchmark Capital]]. Summers is quoted: "I was excited by Ben Nelson's bold vision for Minerva" and "am proud to be a part of it."[^6] The company's release of January 14, 2013, which announced [[Bob Kerrey]] as executive chairman of The Minerva Institute for Research and Scholarship, describes Summers as "Former Harvard University President" who "serves as chairman of Minerva's Advisory Board," and its release of March 12, 2013 naming [[Stephen Kosslyn|Stephen M. Kosslyn]] Founding Dean quotes Summers as "chairman of the Minerva Project Advisory Board."[^7][^8] An undated company overview in the Epstein files gives the same description and lists the other members as [[Patrick Harker]], Bob Kerrey and [[Lee Shulman]].[^9] On July 26, 2013 the educator [[Roger Schank]] wrote to Epstein under the subject "minerva project" that "now I see your buddy summers on it."[^10] ### The 2014 Philanthropy Contact -Epstein's calendars show Summers meeting him more than a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, in the years after Harvard had stopped accepting Epstein's money; a Summers spokesperson said in 2023 that he "deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein."[^10] The *[[The Wall Street Journal|Wall Street Journal]]*'s 2023 reporting on Epstein's calendars recorded that in April 2014 Summers sought Epstein's advice on small-scale philanthropy, to help raise one million dollars for an online poetry project developed by his wife, the Harvard literature professor [[Elisa New]].[^10] New later emailed Epstein herself, including a 2015 message thanking him for arranging financial support for the poetry project she directs.[^1] On November 17, 2014, six years after Harvard stopped taking his gifts, Epstein wrote to Summers: "harvard ok with donation?"[^11] +Epstein's calendars show Summers meeting him more than a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, in the years after Harvard had stopped accepting Epstein's money; a Summers spokesperson said in 2023 that he "deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein."[^11] The *[[The Wall Street Journal|Wall Street Journal]]*'s 2023 reporting on Epstein's calendars recorded that in April 2014 Summers sought Epstein's advice on small-scale philanthropy, to help raise one million dollars for an online poetry project developed by his wife, the Harvard literature professor [[Elisa New]].[^11] New later emailed Epstein herself, including a 2015 message thanking him for arranging financial support for the poetry project she directs.[^1] On November 17, 2014, six years after Harvard stopped taking his gifts, Epstein wrote to Summers: "harvard ok with donation?"[^12] ### The Churkin Meeting -On January 13, 2016, Epstein arranged by iMessage a meeting for the next day with [[Vitaly Churkin]], Russia's ambassador to the [[United Nations]]. After Churkin proposed Thursday, Epstein wrote "2?", then "Larry summers will be here as well," and then "Or 12 if you prefer privacy." Churkin replied, "2OK." On January 14 Epstein wrote to Churkin, "Running 15 minutes late."[^12] Eleven days earlier Epstein had offered Churkin a meal with [[Ehud Barak]], who was "in town this week."[^12] +On January 13, 2016, Epstein arranged by iMessage a meeting for the next day with [[Vitaly Churkin]], Russia's ambassador to the [[United Nations]]. After Churkin proposed Thursday, Epstein wrote "2?", then "Larry summers will be here as well," and then "Or 12 if you prefer privacy." Churkin replied, "2OK." On January 14 Epstein wrote to Churkin, "Running 15 minutes late."[^13] Eleven days earlier Epstein had offered Churkin a meal with [[Ehud Barak]], who was "in town this week."[^13] ### The 2018 and 2019 Emails @@ -92,22 +98,23 @@ The House Oversight Committee released more than 20,000 documents from Epstein's ### Resignations and the Lifetime Ban -On November 17, 2025, Summers announced that he would step back from public commitments: "I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused. I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein."[^13] He then left his advisory role at the Yale Budget Lab and his fellowship at the [[Center for American Progress]], and the [[New York Times]] declined to renew his contributor contract.[^1][^13] On November 19 he resigned from the OpenAI board, where he had sat since November 2023, when he was added after the brief ouster of [[Sam Altman]]. The board said it respected his decision and appreciated "the perspective he brought to the Board."[^3][^13] The same day he took leave from the Mossavar-Rahmani Center; a Harvard Kennedy School spokesman, Steven Goldberg, said co-teachers would finish his courses and that "he is not scheduled to teach next semester." Harvard said it was "conducting a review of information concerning individuals at Harvard included in the newly released Jeffrey Epstein documents to evaluate what actions may be warranted."[^3] +On November 17, 2025, Summers announced that he would step back from public commitments: "I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused. I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein."[^14] He then left his advisory role at the Yale Budget Lab and his fellowship at the [[Center for American Progress]], and the [[New York Times]] declined to renew his contributor contract.[^1][^14] On November 19 he resigned from the OpenAI board, where he had sat since November 2023, when he was added after the brief ouster of [[Sam Altman]]. The board said it respected his decision and appreciated "the perspective he brought to the Board."[^3][^14] The same day he took leave from the Mossavar-Rahmani Center; a Harvard Kennedy School spokesman, Steven Goldberg, said co-teachers would finish his courses and that "he is not scheduled to teach next semester." Harvard said it was "conducting a review of information concerning individuals at Harvard included in the newly released Jeffrey Epstein documents to evaluate what actions may be warranted."[^3] -On December 2, 2025, the American Economic Association accepted Summers's resignation and barred him for life from "attending, speaking at, or otherwise participating" in its events, calling his conduct "fundamentally inconsistent with its standards of professional integrity and with the trust placed in mentors within the economics profession." Summers declined to comment on the ban; the previous week he had called his association with Epstein a "major error in judgement."[^1] In February 2026, after further [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]] releases, Summers resigned from Harvard.[^4] No legal proceeding has named him. +On December 2, 2025, the American Economic Association accepted Summers's resignation and barred him for life from "attending, speaking at, or otherwise participating" in its events, calling his conduct "fundamentally inconsistent with its standards of professional integrity and with the trust placed in mentors within the economics profession." Summers declined to comment on the ban; the previous week he had called his association with Epstein a "major error in judgement."[^1] In February 2026, after further [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]] releases, Summers resigned from Harvard.[^5] No legal proceeding has named him. ### Footnotes [^1]: "Larry Summers banned for life from American Economic Association." Associated Press via *Fortune,* December 3, 2025. https://fortune.com/2025/12/03/larry-summers-banned-for-life-from-american-economic-association [^2]: Lopez, Diane E., Ara B. Gershengorn, and Martin F. Murphy. *Report Concerning Jeffrey E. Epstein's Connections to Harvard University.* Harvard University Office of the General Counsel, May 2020, pp. 3-5, 13, 20-22. https://ogc.harvard.edu/report-concerning-Epstein [^3]: "Summers Resigns From OpenAI Board Amid Backlash Over Epstein Emails." *The Harvard Crimson,* November 19, 2025. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/11/19/summers-resigns-open-ai/ -[^4]: Fernandes, Deirdre, and Tricia L. Nadolny. "Introductions to women. Free flights. Business deals. Jeffrey Epstein's ties to Harvard run deeper than previously known." *The Boston Globe,* February 25, 2026. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/02/25/metro/jeffrey-epstein-harvard-spotlight-report/ -[^5]: Minerva Project, "The Minerva Project Redefines Elite Higher Education for Students Worldwide; Secures $25 Million from Benchmark Capital," April 4, 2012. https://s3.minervaproject.com/press-releases/Minerva-Project-Redefines-Higher-Education-Secures-25-Million.pdf -[^6]: PR Newswire, "Minerva Project Launches The Minerva Institute for Research and Scholarship; Appoints Former Senator of Nebraska Bob Kerrey as Executive Chairman of the Institute," January 14, 2013. https://prnewswire.com/news-releases/minerva-project-launches-the-minerva-institute-for-research-and-scholarship-appoints-former-senator-of-nebraska-bob-kerrey-as-executive-chairman-of-the-institute-186768111.html -[^7]: Minerva Project, "Minerva Project Names Dr. Stephen M. Kosslyn as Founding Dean," March 12, 2013. https://s3.minervaproject.com/press-releases/Minerva_Project_Annouces_Stephen_M._Kosslyn.pdf -[^8]: The Minerva Project, "An Overview," undated, EFTA01144731, U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, Data Set 9. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01144731.pdf -[^9]: Jeffrey Epstein and Roger Schank, "Re: minerva project," July 26, 2013, EFTA00966277, U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, Data Set 9. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00966277.pdf -[^10]: Bohannon, Molly. "New Documents Reveal How Frequently Larry Summers, Woody Allen And More Met With Jeffrey Epstein." *Forbes,* May 3, 2023, summarizing the *Wall Street Journal*'s "Jeffrey Epstein's Private Calendar" series. https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2023/05/03/new-documents-reveal-how-frequently-larry-summers-woody-allen-and-more-met-with-jeffrey-epstein/ -[^11]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02594668, DataSet 11, email from Jeffrey Epstein to Larry Summers, November 17, 2014. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02594668.pdf -[^12]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01619434, DataSet 10, iMessage log between Jeffrey Epstein and Vitaly Churkin, November 16, 2015 to February 23, 2016 (entries of January 2, 13 and 14, 2016). https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01619434.pdf -[^13]: *CBS News,* November 2025, on Summers's resignation from the OpenAI board. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/larry-summers-resigns-openai-board-jeffrey-epstein-emails/ +[^4]: PBS NewsHour, "Obama economic team turning over as Larry Summers departs," September 21, 2010. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/obama-economic-team-turning-over-as-larry-summers-departs +[^5]: Fernandes, Deirdre, and Tricia L. Nadolny. "Introductions to women. Free flights. Business deals. Jeffrey Epstein's ties to Harvard run deeper than previously known." *The Boston Globe,* February 25, 2026. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/02/25/metro/jeffrey-epstein-harvard-spotlight-report/ +[^6]: Minerva Project, "The Minerva Project Redefines Elite Higher Education for Students Worldwide; Secures $25 Million from Benchmark Capital," April 4, 2012. https://s3.minervaproject.com/press-releases/Minerva-Project-Redefines-Higher-Education-Secures-25-Million.pdf +[^7]: PR Newswire, "Minerva Project Launches The Minerva Institute for Research and Scholarship; Appoints Former Senator of Nebraska Bob Kerrey as Executive Chairman of the Institute," January 14, 2013. https://prnewswire.com/news-releases/minerva-project-launches-the-minerva-institute-for-research-and-scholarship-appoints-former-senator-of-nebraska-bob-kerrey-as-executive-chairman-of-the-institute-186768111.html +[^8]: Minerva Project, "Minerva Project Names Dr. Stephen M. Kosslyn as Founding Dean," March 12, 2013. https://s3.minervaproject.com/press-releases/Minerva_Project_Annouces_Stephen_M._Kosslyn.pdf +[^9]: The Minerva Project, "An Overview," undated, EFTA01144731, U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, Data Set 9. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01144731.pdf +[^10]: Jeffrey Epstein and Roger Schank, "Re: minerva project," July 26, 2013, EFTA00966277, U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, Data Set 9. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00966277.pdf +[^11]: Bohannon, Molly. "New Documents Reveal How Frequently Larry Summers, Woody Allen And More Met With Jeffrey Epstein." *Forbes,* May 3, 2023, summarizing the *Wall Street Journal*'s "Jeffrey Epstein's Private Calendar" series. https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2023/05/03/new-documents-reveal-how-frequently-larry-summers-woody-allen-and-more-met-with-jeffrey-epstein/ +[^12]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02594668, DataSet 11, email from Jeffrey Epstein to Larry Summers, November 17, 2014. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02594668.pdf +[^13]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01619434, DataSet 10, iMessage log between Jeffrey Epstein and Vitaly Churkin, November 16, 2015 to February 23, 2016 (entries of January 2, 13 and 14, 2016). https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01619434.pdf +[^14]: *CBS News,* November 2025, on Summers's resignation from the OpenAI board. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/larry-summers-resigns-openai-board-jeffrey-epstein-emails/ diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Laurance Rockefeller.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Laurance Rockefeller.md index 49d3cd6e..9b20c503 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Laurance Rockefeller.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Laurance Rockefeller.md @@ -28,276 +28,284 @@ relations: - type: relative_of with: "[[John D. Rockefeller Jr.]]" role: "son" - fn: 1 + fn: 3 - type: relative_of with: "[[Nelson Rockefeller]]" role: "brother" - fn: 2 + fn: 4 - type: relative_of with: "[[David Rockefeller]]" role: "brother" - fn: 2 + fn: 4 - type: spouse_of with: "[[Mary French Rockefeller]]" start: 1934-08-15 role: "husband" - fn: 1 + fn: 3 - type: member_of with: "[[United States Navy]]" start: 1942 end: 1945 role: "lieutenant commander, Bureau of Aeronautics" - fn: 1 + fn: 3 - type: owned with: "[[Eastern Air Lines]]" start: 1938 role: "chief stockholder, according to W. David Lewis" - fn: 3 + fn: 5 - type: funded with: "[[Itek]]" role: "60,000 dollars according to Peter O. Crisp" - fn: 4 + fn: 6 - type: funded with: "[[Venrock]]" start: 1969 role: "family venture capital group through which his investments were made from August 1969" - fn: 1 + fn: 3 - type: head_of with: "[[Rockefeller Brothers Fund]]" start: 1958 end: 1980 role: "president, then chairman" - fn: 1 + fn: 3 - type: head_of with: "[[Special Studies Project]]" start: 1958-05-26 role: "chairman of the planning committee" - fn: 8 + fn: 10 - type: participant_in with: "[[Special Studies Project]]" role: "member of Panel II, International Security: The Military Aspect" - fn: 8 + fn: 10 - type: appointed with: "[[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]" reverse: true start: 1958 role: "chairman of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission" - fn: 1 + fn: 3 - type: represented with: "[[Henry L. Diamond]]" reverse: true start: 1993-03-29 role: "Washington attorney and long-time associate" - fn: 23 + fn: 25 - type: head_of with: "[[Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission]]" start: 1958 role: "chairman" - fn: 11 + fn: 13 - type: head_of with: "[[Jackson Hole Preserve]]" role: "president" - fn: 1 + fn: 3 - type: founded with: "[[American Conservation Association]]" start: 1958 - fn: 1 + fn: 3 - type: head_of with: "[[Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center]]" start: 1960 end: 1982 role: "chairman" - fn: 1 + fn: 3 - type: director_of with: "[[Alfred P. Sloan Foundation]]" start: 1960 end: 1982 role: "trustee" - fn: 1 + fn: 3 - type: director_of with: "[[New York Zoological Society]]" start: 1935 end: 1986 role: "trustee" - fn: 1 + fn: 3 - type: funded with: "[[Virgin Islands National Park]]" start: 1956 role: "donated more than 5,000 acres" - fn: 12 + fn: 14 - type: funded with: "[[Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab]]" role: "donor" - fn: 14 + fn: 16 - type: funded with: "[[Program for Extraordinary Experience Research]]" start: 1993 role: "funder, according to the John E. Mack Institute" - fn: 15 + fn: 17 - type: funded with: "[[Center for Psychology and Social Change]]" start: 1995-05 role: "reported annual grant of $250,000, per the London Times and the Valley News (May 1995); no source named" - fn: 16 + fn: 18 + - type: director_of + with: "[[Princeton University]]" + start: 1967 + end: 1980 + role: "charter trustee" + fn: 1 - type: funded with: "[[Human Potential Foundation]]" role: "partial funder, in the belief of John H. Gibbons" - fn: 18 + fn: 20 - type: funded with: "[[Society for Scientific Exploration]]" start: 1997 role: "funds for the Pocantico UFO workshop, through the LSR Fund" - fn: 55 + fn: 57 - type: funded with: "[[UFO Research Coalition]]" start: 1995 role: "financed the December 1995 Briefing Document" - fn: 48 + fn: 50 created: 2026-10-01 -updated: 2026-10-02 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- -Laurance S. Rockefeller (May 26, 1910, in [[New York City]], to July 11, 2004, at his home on [[Fifth Avenue]]) was the fourth of the six children of [[John D. Rockefeller Jr.]] and [[Abby Aldrich Rockefeller]]. He attended the [[Lincoln School]] of [[Teachers College, Columbia University|Teachers College]], [[Columbia University]], entered [[Princeton University]] in 1928, took a degree in philosophy in 1932 and studied for two years at [[Harvard Law School]]. He married [[Mary French Rockefeller|Mary French]] on August 15, 1934, at [[Woodstock, Vermont]], began work in the family office at [[Rockefeller Center]] in 1935, and served from 1942 to 1945 in the [[United States Navy]]'s [[Bureau of Aeronautics]], rising to lieutenant commander.[^1] His brothers were [[John D. Rockefeller III]], [[Nelson Rockefeller]], [[Winthrop Rockefeller]] and [[David Rockefeller]].[^2] +Laurance S. Rockefeller (May 26, 1910, in [[New York City]], to July 11, 2004, at his home on [[Fifth Avenue]]) was the fourth of the six children of [[John D. Rockefeller Jr.]] and [[Abby Aldrich Rockefeller]]. He attended the [[Lincoln School]] of [[Teachers College, Columbia University|Teachers College]], [[Columbia University]], entered [[Princeton University]] in 1928, took a degree in philosophy in 1932 and studied for two years at [[Harvard Law School]]. He was chairman of the pictorial board of the *Princetonian* and a charter trustee of Princeton from 1967 to 1980; his gifts included the University Center for Human Values and the Department of Molecular Biology, and he invested in McDonnell Aircraft Corporation.[^1] In December 1952 [[Clarence Dillon]] and Rockefeller purchased the diaries of [[James Forrestal]] from the *New York Herald Tribune* and donated them to Princeton.[^2] He married [[Mary French Rockefeller|Mary French]] on August 15, 1934, at [[Woodstock, Vermont]], began work in the family office at [[Rockefeller Center]] in 1935, and served from 1942 to 1945 in the [[United States Navy]]'s [[Bureau of Aeronautics]], rising to lieutenant commander.[^3] His brothers were [[John D. Rockefeller III]], [[Nelson Rockefeller]], [[Winthrop Rockefeller]] and [[David Rockefeller]].[^4] ### Eastern Air Lines -The historian [[W. David Lewis]] wrote that in 1938 [[Eddie Rickenbacker]], seeking financing to take over [[Eastern Air Lines]], "secured enough backing ... from a syndicate including Laurance S. Rockefeller, who became the chief stockholder in a new corporate entity known as Eastern Air Lines," and that Rickenbacker became chief executive in April 1938.[^3] In Lewis's account Eastern's directors moved Rickenbacker up to chairman in 1953 and named [[Malcolm A. MacIntyre]] president and chief executive, and Rickenbacker interfered with MacIntyre's management. Lewis wrote that Rockefeller "decided that the only way out of its problems was a merger with one of the country's two largest carriers, [[American Airlines]]." The industry, led by [[Delta Air Lines]], opposed the merger, and it became clear that [[Robert F. Kennedy]], as attorney general, would veto it on antitrust grounds even if the [[Civil Aeronautics Board]] did not; the plan was scuttled.[^3] Rockefeller had hoped the merger would let him replace Rickenbacker and MacIntyre with the chief executive of American, [[C. R. Smith]]. When it failed he appointed a search committee, which chose [[Floyd D. Hall]] of [[Trans World Airlines]]; MacIntyre was fired, and Rickenbacker was summoned to a meeting and asked to retire. Rickenbacker took the news badly and agreed only after a second meeting, which Rockefeller attended, and he left his office at Rockefeller Center and did not return.[^3] +The historian [[W. David Lewis]] wrote that in 1938 [[Eddie Rickenbacker]], seeking financing to take over [[Eastern Air Lines]], "secured enough backing ... from a syndicate including Laurance S. Rockefeller, who became the chief stockholder in a new corporate entity known as Eastern Air Lines," and that Rickenbacker became chief executive in April 1938.[^5] In Lewis's account Eastern's directors moved Rickenbacker up to chairman in 1953 and named [[Malcolm A. MacIntyre]] president and chief executive, and Rickenbacker interfered with MacIntyre's management. Lewis wrote that Rockefeller "decided that the only way out of its problems was a merger with one of the country's two largest carriers, [[American Airlines]]." The industry, led by [[Delta Air Lines]], opposed the merger, and it became clear that [[Robert F. Kennedy]], as attorney general, would veto it on antitrust grounds even if the [[Civil Aeronautics Board]] did not; the plan was scuttled.[^5] Rockefeller had hoped the merger would let him replace Rickenbacker and MacIntyre with the chief executive of American, [[C. R. Smith]]. When it failed he appointed a search committee, which chose [[Floyd D. Hall]] of [[Trans World Airlines]]; MacIntyre was fired, and Rickenbacker was summoned to a meeting and asked to retire. Rickenbacker took the news badly and agreed only after a second meeting, which Rockefeller attended, and he left his office at Rockefeller Center and did not return.[^5] -The Civil Aeronautics Board regulated routes and mail pay throughout this period. In a transcontinental route case decided in 1961 the Board gave Delta and [[National Airlines]] access to [[San Diego]], [[Los Angeles]] and [[San Francisco]] and denied Eastern's application; Rickenbacker had attacked President [[John F. Kennedy]] in a speech while the case was pending.[^3] +The Civil Aeronautics Board regulated routes and mail pay throughout this period. In a transcontinental route case decided in 1961 the Board gave Delta and [[National Airlines]] access to [[San Diego]], [[Los Angeles]] and [[San Francisco]] and denied Eastern's application; Rickenbacker had attacked President [[John F. Kennedy]] in a speech while the case was pending.[^5] ### Venture Investments -[[Peter O. Crisp]] joined Rockefeller's staff in 1960 and sat on the board of [[Apple Computer]] for sixteen years; in an oral history recorded on October 21, 2008 he described the origin of the family's venture investing. After the war, Crisp said, Rockefeller hired "these three guys" to look for small technology companies: [[Randy Marston]], "who had worked for the [[Chase Manhattan Bank|Chase Bank]] for many years"; [[Harper Woodward]], "General Arnold's assistant in [[World War II]] in the [[Pentagon]] for procurement matters"; and [[Teddy Walkowicz]], "a lieutenant colonel in the [[United States Air Force|Air Force]]" and "an [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]] guy"; he named a fourth man, [[Jay Richardson Dilworth]], as "kind of the senior advisor to the [[Rockefeller family]]." Crisp said he screened proposals "for Marston, Woodward and Walkowicz," the "big shots" who then joined the boards.[^4] Among the investments Crisp listed since 1946 were [[New York Airways]], Eastern Air Lines, the [[Glenn L. Martin Company]], [[Reaction Motors]] (later bought by [[Thiokol]]), the [[Marquardt Aircraft Company]] (ramjet engines for missiles), [[Island Packers]] ("a tuna factory in the Pacific"), [[Flight Refueling]], the [[Piasecki Helicopter Company]] (merged with [[Vertol]] and later acquired by [[Boeing]]) and [[Aircraft Radio Corporation|Aircraft Radio]] (bought by [[Cessna]]); he also named [[Itek]] and [[Scantlin Electronics]], maker of the Quotron.[^4] Crisp said the staff passed on [[Haloid Company|Haloid]], which became [[Xerox]], after a former staff member's memorandum found no future in its copier technology, on which Marston wrote "I concur."[^4] From August 1969 Rockefeller's investments were channeled through [[Venrock]], which Crisp said was formed in 1969 and given its name because "we didn't want to be confused with philanthropy."[^1][^4] +[[Peter O. Crisp]] joined Rockefeller's staff in 1960 and sat on the board of [[Apple Computer]] for sixteen years; in an oral history recorded on October 21, 2008 he described the origin of the family's venture investing. After the war, Crisp said, Rockefeller hired "these three guys" to look for small technology companies: [[Randy Marston]], "who had worked for the [[Chase Manhattan Bank|Chase Bank]] for many years"; [[Harper Woodward]], "General Arnold's assistant in [[World War II]] in the [[Pentagon]] for procurement matters"; and [[Teddy Walkowicz]], "a lieutenant colonel in the [[United States Air Force|Air Force]]" and "an [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]] guy"; he named a fourth man, [[Jay Richardson Dilworth]], as "kind of the senior advisor to the [[Rockefeller family]]." Crisp said he screened proposals "for Marston, Woodward and Walkowicz," the "big shots" who then joined the boards.[^6] Among the investments Crisp listed since 1946 were [[New York Airways]], Eastern Air Lines, the [[Glenn L. Martin Company]], [[Reaction Motors]] (later bought by [[Thiokol]]), the [[Marquardt Aircraft Company]] (ramjet engines for missiles), [[Island Packers]] ("a tuna factory in the Pacific"), [[Flight Refueling]], the [[Piasecki Helicopter Company]] (merged with [[Vertol]] and later acquired by [[Boeing]]) and [[Aircraft Radio Corporation|Aircraft Radio]] (bought by [[Cessna]]); he also named [[Itek]] and [[Scantlin Electronics]], maker of the Quotron.[^6] Crisp said the staff passed on [[Haloid Company|Haloid]], which became [[Xerox]], after a former staff member's memorandum found no future in its copier technology, on which Marston wrote "I concur."[^6] From August 1969 Rockefeller's investments were channeled through [[Venrock]], which Crisp said was formed in 1969 and given its name because "we didn't want to be confused with philanthropy."[^3][^6] -The record on Itek carries three dates. The [[Boston Globe]] obituary of [[Richard Leghorn|Dick Leghorn]] states that he cofounded Itek in 1957, and quotes him that the company was known as "the mystery company. It was very hush-hush."[^5] The [[Central Intelligence Agency]]'s history of the [[CORONA]] satellite program, by [[Kenneth E. Greer]], published in a classified supplement to [[Studies in Intelligence]] in spring 1973, states that in late March and April 1958 "interest shifted to a competitive design submitted by Itek Corporation, a spin-off of Boston University," that the project proposal completed on April 9, 1958 was rewritten twice, "retaining the Itek configuration," and that the final proposal was forwarded on April 16, 1958 to the President's staff secretary and approved, "although not in writing"; Itek "was made responsible for the design and development of the camera subsystem, Fairchild producing the camera under subcontract to Itek."[^6] Crisp, who joined the staff in 1960, dated Leghorn's approach to Rockefeller to "around 1960": Leghorn said Eastman Kodak's cameras were heavy and inefficient, and Rockefeller told him to show he could leave [[Eastman Kodak]] without being sued, and put up 60,000 dollars in 1960 together with [[William A. Burden and Company]] and "the [[Walker Brothers]], Elisha and Bayard Walker, who had an investment company called the [[Long Island Company]]." Crisp said Itek was later bought by [[Litton Industries]] and that the product "which made them famous" was "the camera which was in the U-2 plane that was flown by [[Francis Gary Powers]]."[^4] +The record on Itek carries three dates. The [[Boston Globe]] obituary of [[Richard Leghorn|Dick Leghorn]] states that he cofounded Itek in 1957, and quotes him that the company was known as "the mystery company. It was very hush-hush."[^7] The [[Central Intelligence Agency]]'s history of the [[CORONA]] satellite program, by [[Kenneth E. Greer]], published in a classified supplement to [[Studies in Intelligence]] in spring 1973, states that in late March and April 1958 "interest shifted to a competitive design submitted by Itek Corporation, a spin-off of Boston University," that the project proposal completed on April 9, 1958 was rewritten twice, "retaining the Itek configuration," and that the final proposal was forwarded on April 16, 1958 to the President's staff secretary and approved, "although not in writing"; Itek "was made responsible for the design and development of the camera subsystem, Fairchild producing the camera under subcontract to Itek."[^8] Crisp, who joined the staff in 1960, dated Leghorn's approach to Rockefeller to "around 1960": Leghorn said Eastman Kodak's cameras were heavy and inefficient, and Rockefeller told him to show he could leave [[Eastman Kodak]] without being sued, and put up 60,000 dollars in 1960 together with [[William A. Burden and Company]] and "the [[Walker Brothers]], Elisha and Bayard Walker, who had an investment company called the [[Long Island Company]]." Crisp said Itek was later bought by [[Litton Industries]] and that the product "which made them famous" was "the camera which was in the U-2 plane that was flown by [[Francis Gary Powers]]."[^6] -On Apple, Crisp said that [[Mike Markkula]], who had advised the founders, called Venrock when Markkula's 110,000-dollar loan guarantee ran out, and [[Steve Jobs]] and [[Steve Wozniak]] came to New York. Venrock bought 10 percent of the company for 300,000 dollars, valuing it at 3 million dollars, and put in 200,000 dollars more about eight months later; at the initial public offering the 500,000 dollars was worth 110 million dollars. When Apple prepared to go public the company wanted the managing partner on the board, and Crisp took the seat of his partner [[Hank Smith]], who "made a lot of money in [[Intel]] and in Apple."[^4] +On Apple, Crisp said that [[Mike Markkula]], who had advised the founders, called Venrock when Markkula's 110,000-dollar loan guarantee ran out, and [[Steve Jobs]] and [[Steve Wozniak]] came to New York. Venrock bought 10 percent of the company for 300,000 dollars, valuing it at 3 million dollars, and put in 200,000 dollars more about eight months later; at the initial public offering the 500,000 dollars was worth 110 million dollars. When Apple prepared to go public the company wanted the managing partner on the board, and Crisp took the seat of his partner [[Hank Smith]], who "made a lot of money in [[Intel]] and in Apple."[^6] ### Special Studies Project -The [[Rockefeller Brothers Fund]]'s [[Special Studies Project]] began in 1956 under its president, Nelson Rockefeller, who chaired it for two years; when Nelson became governor of New York in 1958 Laurance became chairman.[^7] The published planning committee lists "Laurance S. Rockefeller, (Chairman since May 26, 1958)" and "Nelson A. Rockefeller, (Chairman, resigned May 26, 1958)," with [[Dana S. Creel]], [[Nancy Hanks]], [[Emmet John Hughes]], [[Francis A. Jamieson]], [[Henry A. Kissinger]], [[John E. Lockwood]] and [[Oscar M. Ruebhausen]].[^8] +The [[Rockefeller Brothers Fund]]'s [[Special Studies Project]] began in 1956 under its president, Nelson Rockefeller, who chaired it for two years; when Nelson became governor of New York in 1958 Laurance became chairman.[^9] The published planning committee lists "Laurance S. Rockefeller, (Chairman since May 26, 1958)" and "Nelson A. Rockefeller, (Chairman, resigned May 26, 1958)," with [[Dana S. Creel]], [[Nancy Hanks]], [[Emmet John Hughes]], [[Francis A. Jamieson]], [[Henry A. Kissinger]], [[John E. Lockwood]] and [[Oscar M. Ruebhausen]].[^10] -Panel II, "International Security: The Military Aspect," first published on January 6, 1958, had been meeting since November 1956 and was the first panel to report.[^8] Its members, as listed in the 1961 volume, were [[Frank Altschul]], General [[Frederick L. Anderson]], [[Karl R. Bendetsen]], [[Detlev W. Bronk]], [[Gordon E. Dean]], [[James B. Fisk]], [[Bradley Gaylord]], [[Roswell L. Gilpatric]], [[Townsend W. Hoopes]] of [[J. H. Whitney and Company]], [[Ellis A. Johnson]] of the [[Operations Research Office]], Colonel [[George A. Lincoln]], [[Henry R. Luce]], General [[James McCormack Jr.]] (chairman until October 1957), [[Frank C. Nash]], "Laurance S. Rockefeller, president, [[Rockefeller Brothers, Inc.]]," [[Arthur Smithies]], [[Edward Teller]], "T. F. Walkowicz, aeronautical engineer," [[Carroll L. Wilson]], and [[John F. Floberg]] until his appointment to the [[Atomic Energy Commission]] in June 1957.[^8] The panel reports were published as *[[Prospect for America]]* by [[Doubleday]] in 1961 and sold over 400,000 copies, and participants later served in the Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford administrations.[^7] +Panel II, "International Security: The Military Aspect," first published on January 6, 1958, had been meeting since November 1956 and was the first panel to report.[^10] Its members, as listed in the 1961 volume, were [[Frank Altschul]], General [[Frederick L. Anderson]], [[Karl R. Bendetsen]], [[Detlev W. Bronk]], [[Gordon E. Dean]], [[James B. Fisk]], [[Bradley Gaylord]], [[Roswell L. Gilpatric]], [[Townsend W. Hoopes]] of [[J. H. Whitney and Company]], [[Ellis A. Johnson]] of the [[Operations Research Office]], Colonel [[George A. Lincoln]], [[Henry R. Luce]], General [[James McCormack Jr.]] (chairman until October 1957), [[Frank C. Nash]], "Laurance S. Rockefeller, president, [[Rockefeller Brothers, Inc.]]," [[Arthur Smithies]], [[Edward Teller]], "T. F. Walkowicz, aeronautical engineer," [[Carroll L. Wilson]], and [[John F. Floberg]] until his appointment to the [[Atomic Energy Commission]] in June 1957.[^10] The panel reports were published as *[[Prospect for America]]* by [[Doubleday]] in 1961 and sold over 400,000 copies, and participants later served in the Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford administrations.[^9] -The Central Intelligence Agency's files hold correspondence on two of the releases. [[Allen Dulles]], [[Director of Central Intelligence]], wrote to Rockefeller on September 16, 1960: "I have found this study, like the other reports in your special studies project, most interesting." The study was *[[The Power of the Democratic Idea]]*, and a copy of it in the agency's files carries a notice that it was sent "in advance of the RELEASE DATE, Wednesday, September 7, 1960" and was to be treated as confidential until then.[^9] On February 20, 1961 Rockefeller wrote to Dulles on Rockefeller Brothers Fund stationery that lists him as president, enclosing an advance copy of *Prospect for America*, which was to be published on March 17; his letter states that the Trustees of the Fund organized the project "in the belief that there was real merit in a group of citizens making an effort to look at America as it is." Dulles replied on March 1, 1961 that the book would be "a welcome and valuable addition to my private library."[^10] +The Central Intelligence Agency's files hold correspondence on two of the releases. [[Allen Dulles]], [[Director of Central Intelligence]], wrote to Rockefeller on September 16, 1960: "I have found this study, like the other reports in your special studies project, most interesting." The study was *[[The Power of the Democratic Idea]]*, and a copy of it in the agency's files carries a notice that it was sent "in advance of the RELEASE DATE, Wednesday, September 7, 1960" and was to be treated as confidential until then.[^11] On February 20, 1961 Rockefeller wrote to Dulles on Rockefeller Brothers Fund stationery that lists him as president, enclosing an advance copy of *Prospect for America*, which was to be published on March 17; his letter states that the Trustees of the Fund organized the project "in the belief that there was real merit in a group of citizens making an effort to look at America as it is." Dulles replied on March 1, 1961 that the book would be "a welcome and valuable addition to my private library."[^12] ### Conservation Commissions, Jackson Hole and the Virgin Islands -In 1958 President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] appointed Rockefeller chairman of the [[Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission]].[^1] He later served as a special emissary for President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] on the creation of [[Redwood National Park]] and chaired President [[Richard Nixon]]'s Citizens' Advisory Committee on Environmental Quality. He was president, then chairman, of the Fund from 1958 to 1980, chairman of [[Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center|Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center]] from 1960 to 1982, a trustee of the [[Alfred P. Sloan Foundation]] from 1960 to 1982, and a trustee of the [[New York Zoological Society]] from 1935 to 1986. In 1958 he established the [[American Conservation Association]], Inc., a philanthropy to function as a conservation service agency, assisting other agencies and initiating projects of its own.[^1] The commission's members were Senators [[Clinton P. Anderson]], [[Henry C. Dworshak]], [[Henry M. Jackson]] and [[Jack Miller]]; Representatives [[John P. Saylor]], [[Gracie Pfost]], [[Ralph J. Rivers]] and [[John H. Kyl]]; and presidential commissioners [[Samuel T. Dana]], [[Marian S. Dryfoos]], [[Bernard L. Orell]], [[Joseph W. Penfold]], [[M. Frederick Smith]] and [[Chester S. Wilson]]. The report was presented to President Kennedy and Congress on the Wednesday before the [[United States Department of the Interior|Interior Department]]'s release of February 1, 1962, and Secretary of the Interior [[Stewart Udall]] gave priority to the creation of a [[Bureau of Outdoor Recreation]].[^11] +In 1958 President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] appointed Rockefeller chairman of the [[Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission]].[^3] He later served as a special emissary for President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] on the creation of [[Redwood National Park]] and chaired President [[Richard Nixon]]'s Citizens' Advisory Committee on Environmental Quality. He was president, then chairman, of the Fund from 1958 to 1980, chairman of [[Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center|Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center]] from 1960 to 1982, a trustee of the [[Alfred P. Sloan Foundation]] from 1960 to 1982, and a trustee of the [[New York Zoological Society]] from 1935 to 1986. In 1958 he established the [[American Conservation Association]], Inc., a philanthropy to function as a conservation service agency, assisting other agencies and initiating projects of its own.[^3] The commission's members were Senators [[Clinton P. Anderson]], [[Henry C. Dworshak]], [[Henry M. Jackson]] and [[Jack Miller]]; Representatives [[John P. Saylor]], [[Gracie Pfost]], [[Ralph J. Rivers]] and [[John H. Kyl]]; and presidential commissioners [[Samuel T. Dana]], [[Marian S. Dryfoos]], [[Bernard L. Orell]], [[Joseph W. Penfold]], [[M. Frederick Smith]] and [[Chester S. Wilson]]. The report was presented to President Kennedy and Congress on the Wednesday before the [[United States Department of the Interior|Interior Department]]'s release of February 1, 1962, and Secretary of the Interior [[Stewart Udall]] gave priority to the creation of a [[Bureau of Outdoor Recreation]].[^13] -As president of [[Jackson Hole Preserve]], Inc., Rockefeller made the 1949 gift of [[Jackson Hole]] land to the federal government on his father's behalf.[^1] [[Virgin Islands National Park]] "was created through a donation of more than 5,000 acres of land in 1956 ... from Laurance Rockefeller"; in the mid-1950s he established the [[Caneel Bay]] Resort on [[Saint John, U.S. Virgin Islands|St. John]], which operated until [[Hurricane Irma]] and [[Hurricane Maria]] closed it in 2017; and in 1983 Jackson Hole Preserve, Inc., "an organization established by Laurance Rockefeller," donated the roughly 150 acres of the resort to the Park Service, subject to a retained use estate allowing its operator to use the property as a resort until September 30, 2023.[^12] The corporation, with an [[Internal Revenue Service]] ruling date of 1942, still files returns from Woodstock, Vermont, and reported assets of 5,327,031 dollars for 2023.[^13] +As president of [[Jackson Hole Preserve]], Inc., Rockefeller made the 1949 gift of [[Jackson Hole]] land to the federal government on his father's behalf.[^3] [[Virgin Islands National Park]] "was created through a donation of more than 5,000 acres of land in 1956 ... from Laurance Rockefeller"; in the mid-1950s he established the [[Caneel Bay]] Resort on [[Saint John, U.S. Virgin Islands|St. John]], which operated until [[Hurricane Irma]] and [[Hurricane Maria]] closed it in 2017; and in 1983 Jackson Hole Preserve, Inc., "an organization established by Laurance Rockefeller," donated the roughly 150 acres of the resort to the Park Service, subject to a retained use estate allowing its operator to use the property as a resort until September 30, 2023.[^14] The corporation, with an [[Internal Revenue Service]] ruling date of 1942, still files returns from Woodstock, Vermont, and reported assets of 5,327,031 dollars for 2023.[^15] ### Consciousness Research -The [[Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab|Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research]] laboratory, established in 1979 by [[Robert Jahn]], announced its closure on February 10, 2007, stating that its research "was funded by gifts from Princeton alumni [[James S. McDonnell]], patriarch of the [[McDonnell Douglas]] Aerospace empire, Laurance Rockefeller, [[Donald C. Webster]], and by numerous other philanthropic benefactors."[^14] According to the [[John E. Mack Institute]], in 1993 the [[Center for Psychology and Social Change]] formed the [[Program for Extraordinary Experience Research]] "with funding from Laurence Rockefeller" to study reported "alien encounters"; the program's own page states that as of 2002 it was no longer an active research project.[^15] Two newspaper reports of May 1995 state a figure for his support of Mack's Center itself. [[Ben MacIntyre]] of the London *[[The Times|Times]]* wrote, in a story on [[Harvard University|Harvard]]'s review of Mack, that the Center "is supported by an annual grant of $250,000 from Laurance S. Rockefeller." The [[Valley News]] of May 20, 1995 wrote that Mack's work had "received generous subsidies" from Rockefeller, "patriarch of Woodstock, who reportedly donates a quarter million dollars a year" to the Center, and that a spokesman for Rockefeller said his policy was not to comment publicly on Mack's projects. Neither article names a source for the figure.[^16][^17] +The [[Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab|Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research]] laboratory, established in 1979 by [[Robert Jahn]], announced its closure on February 10, 2007, stating that its research "was funded by gifts from Princeton alumni [[James S. McDonnell]], patriarch of the [[McDonnell Douglas]] Aerospace empire, Laurance Rockefeller, [[Donald C. Webster]], and by numerous other philanthropic benefactors."[^16] According to the [[John E. Mack Institute]], in 1993 the [[Center for Psychology and Social Change]] formed the [[Program for Extraordinary Experience Research]] "with funding from Laurence Rockefeller" to study reported "alien encounters"; the program's own page states that as of 2002 it was no longer an active research project.[^17] Two newspaper reports of May 1995 state a figure for his support of Mack's Center itself. [[Ben MacIntyre]] of the London *[[The Times|Times]]* wrote, in a story on [[Harvard University|Harvard]]'s review of Mack, that the Center "is supported by an annual grant of $250,000 from Laurance S. Rockefeller." The [[Valley News]] of May 20, 1995 wrote that Mack's work had "received generous subsidies" from Rockefeller, "patriarch of Woodstock, who reportedly donates a quarter million dollars a year" to the Center, and that a spokesman for Rockefeller said his policy was not to comment publicly on Mack's projects. Neither article names a source for the figure.[^18][^19] -[[C. B. Scott Jones]] wrote to the presidential science adviser, [[John H. Gibbons]], on the letterhead of the [[Human Potential Foundation]] of [[Falls Church, Virginia]].[^18] A handwritten note of February 24, 1994 on one of those letters, initialed by Gibbons, concerns Jones's association with Senator [[Claiborne Pell]] and reads: "Scott Jones used to be associated with Senator Pell. He was formerly a Navy pilot. The Human Potential Foundation is funded in part, I believe, by L.R."[^18] In the same office's memorandum for the President of August 4, 1995, Gibbons wrote that Rockefeller's interests "are related to those of Senator Pell."[^19] The writer [[Grant Cameron]], in a paper on the documents below, wrote that Pell founded the foundation and Jones was its president, that [[Common Cause Magazine]] had reported Rockefeller put more than 700,000 dollars through it from 1991 to 1994, and that [[Richard Farley]], who worked for the foundation for about three years, gave the same figure and "claimed" that Rockefeller's interest was in "alternative religious and psychiatric/psychological paradigms, including so-called 'UFOs' and 'abductions,' having 'Global Mind Change' potentials."[^20] +[[C. B. Scott Jones]] wrote to the presidential science adviser, [[John H. Gibbons]], on the letterhead of the [[Human Potential Foundation]] of [[Falls Church, Virginia]].[^20] A handwritten note of February 24, 1994 on one of those letters, initialed by Gibbons, concerns Jones's association with Senator [[Claiborne Pell]] and reads: "Scott Jones used to be associated with Senator Pell. He was formerly a Navy pilot. The Human Potential Foundation is funded in part, I believe, by L.R."[^20] In the same office's memorandum for the President of August 4, 1995, Gibbons wrote that Rockefeller's interests "are related to those of Senator Pell."[^21] The writer [[Grant Cameron]], in a paper on the documents below, wrote that Pell founded the foundation and Jones was its president, that [[Common Cause Magazine]] had reported Rockefeller put more than 700,000 dollars through it from 1991 to 1994, and that [[Richard Farley]], who worked for the foundation for about three years, gave the same figure and "claimed" that Rockefeller's interest was in "alternative religious and psychiatric/psychological paradigms, including so-called 'UFOs' and 'abductions,' having 'Global Mind Change' potentials."[^22] -The finding aid to the C. B. Scott Jones papers at the [[University of Colorado Boulder]] states that the Human Potential Foundation's primary donor in its first two and a half years was Laurance Rockefeller, "whose support was conditional with a program designed to get the [[United States]] government to acknowledge the existence of alien life," and lists correspondence between Jones and Rockefeller in the collection.[^21] The Center's newsletter *CenterPiece* of September 1993 announced the PEER research on UFO abductions as "Funded by a grant from the Human Potential Foundation."[^22] +The finding aid to the C. B. Scott Jones papers at the [[University of Colorado Boulder]] states that the Human Potential Foundation's primary donor in its first two and a half years was Laurance Rockefeller, "whose support was conditional with a program designed to get the [[United States]] government to acknowledge the existence of alien life," and lists correspondence between Jones and Rockefeller in the collection.[^23] The Center's newsletter *CenterPiece* of September 1993 announced the PEER research on UFO abductions as "Funded by a grant from the Human Potential Foundation."[^24] ### Approach to the Science Adviser, 1993 -The [[Office of Science and Technology Policy]], where Gibbons was Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, released 991 pages of correspondence on UFOs and extraterrestrial intelligence to Cameron in January 2001, according to Cameron.[^20] The earliest is a memorandum of March 29, 1993 from [[Henry L. Diamond]] to Gibbons (attention [[Mike Kowalok]]), concerning an approach by Rockefeller to President [[Bill Clinton]] and asking for a meeting with Rockefeller on April 12 or 13. It describes Rockefeller as "a leading U.S. conservationist, businessman, and philanthropist" who, "with other leading citizens, is planning to make an approach to President Clinton" on "the potential availability of government information about unidentified flying objects and extraterrestrial life," and gives the basic message as "a belief in many quarters that the government has long held classified information regarding UFOs which has not been released and that the failure to do so has brought about unnecessary suspicion and distrust." It states that Rockefeller would be accompanied by Jones, "President of the Human Potential Foundation," and by Diamond, "a [[Washington, D.C.|Washington]] attorney and long-time associate of Mr. Rockefeller, known to Dr. Gibbons." A handwritten note adds "+ Scott Jones."[^23] +The [[Office of Science and Technology Policy]], where Gibbons was Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, released 991 pages of correspondence on UFOs and extraterrestrial intelligence to Cameron in January 2001, according to Cameron.[^22] The earliest is a memorandum of March 29, 1993 from [[Henry L. Diamond]] to Gibbons (attention [[Mike Kowalok]]), concerning an approach by Rockefeller to President [[Bill Clinton]] and asking for a meeting with Rockefeller on April 12 or 13. It describes Rockefeller as "a leading U.S. conservationist, businessman, and philanthropist" who, "with other leading citizens, is planning to make an approach to President Clinton" on "the potential availability of government information about unidentified flying objects and extraterrestrial life," and gives the basic message as "a belief in many quarters that the government has long held classified information regarding UFOs which has not been released and that the failure to do so has brought about unnecessary suspicion and distrust." It states that Rockefeller would be accompanied by Jones, "President of the Human Potential Foundation," and by Diamond, "a [[Washington, D.C.|Washington]] attorney and long-time associate of Mr. Rockefeller, known to Dr. Gibbons." A handwritten note adds "+ Scott Jones."[^25] -On April 21, 1993, on stationery of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, Room 5600, Rockefeller thanked Gibbons for seeing him "so early Wednesday morning." He wrote that Gibbons had said that in three months as science adviser he had "not learned that the United States Government has a body of knowledge on UFOs or ETI that is being withheld from the public," and had made it clear that "initially our most fruitful avenue of approach, most likely, will be within the [[Department of Defense]]." Rockefeller would report on the meeting to [[Melvin Laird]] and hoped to follow up with Secretary of Defense [[Les Aspin]]; he planned a letter to President Clinton urging "a reassessment of government policy regarding UFO and ETI information" and a small group, convened with Jones's help, to discuss UFOs "in an informal, non-public way."[^24] On May 26, 1993 Gibbons, signing as Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, thanked Jones for "the materials," noted that the books "came from the Foundation's library," and sent "best wishes and regards to Lawrence."[^25] +On April 21, 1993, on stationery of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, Room 5600, Rockefeller thanked Gibbons for seeing him "so early Wednesday morning." He wrote that Gibbons had said that in three months as science adviser he had "not learned that the United States Government has a body of knowledge on UFOs or ETI that is being withheld from the public," and had made it clear that "initially our most fruitful avenue of approach, most likely, will be within the [[Department of Defense]]." Rockefeller would report on the meeting to [[Melvin Laird]] and hoped to follow up with Secretary of Defense [[Les Aspin]]; he planned a letter to President Clinton urging "a reassessment of government policy regarding UFO and ETI information" and a small group, convened with Jones's help, to discuss UFOs "in an informal, non-public way."[^26] On May 26, 1993 Gibbons, signing as Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, thanked Jones for "the materials," noted that the books "came from the Foundation's library," and sent "best wishes and regards to Lawrence."[^27] -On May 7, 1993 he wrote to the evangelist [[Billy Graham]], proposing that Graham co-sign a letter to Clinton asking for a review of the classification of UFO information, and stated that "we are working closely with Mel Laird, former Secretary of Defense, and a great good friend of the present Secretary, Les Aspin," and had met Gibbons. The other co-signers under consideration were [[Maurice Strong]], the former [[United Nations]] secretary general [[Javier Pérez de Cuéllar]], possibly former President [[Jimmy Carter]], and Senators Pell and [[Ted Stevens]]. Graham replied on May 20, 1993 that he thought Rockefeller was "exactly right, that since they are reviewing the whole classification process, many documents will probably become available that have not previously," and declined, writing that he had "made it a policy not to co-sign such letters" and kept his contacts with presidents "on a purely personal, one-on-one, private basis."[^26] +On May 7, 1993 he wrote to the evangelist [[Billy Graham]], proposing that Graham co-sign a letter to Clinton asking for a review of the classification of UFO information, and stated that "we are working closely with Mel Laird, former Secretary of Defense, and a great good friend of the present Secretary, Les Aspin," and had met Gibbons. The other co-signers under consideration were [[Maurice Strong]], the former [[United Nations]] secretary general [[Javier Pérez de Cuéllar]], possibly former President [[Jimmy Carter]], and Senators Pell and [[Ted Stevens]]. Graham replied on May 20, 1993 that he thought Rockefeller was "exactly right, that since they are reviewing the whole classification process, many documents will probably become available that have not previously," and declined, writing that he had "made it a policy not to co-sign such letters" and kept his contacts with presidents "on a purely personal, one-on-one, private basis."[^28] -On August 4, 1993 Rockefeller invited Gibbons or a representative to an informal roundtable he was hosting from September 13 to 15 at the [[JY Ranch]], in the [[Grand Teton National Park]] near [[Jackson, Wyoming]]. The letter gives the purpose as assessing "the extent of information which may or may not be in the hands of the federal government" and developing "productive ways to encourage the Administration to include information of UFO and ETI phenomena in its current review of previously classified information." The six presenters were [[Steven Greer]], [[Linda Moulton Howe]], [[Bruce Maccabee]], [[R. Leo Sprinkle]], [[Jill Tarter]] of the [[NASA]] Ames Research Center and [[Keith Thompson]]; [[John Mack]], [[Peter Sturrock]], "a representative of the Science Advisor to the President" and "several of my associates" were also invited. The four themes included "strategies for influencing government policy in the direction of openness," "assessment of alleged psychological, economic and other barriers to a government policy of openness on the subject," and "spiritual and other dimensional aspects of UFO and ETI phenomena." The roundtable "will not be publicized but, of course will not be secret" and would be off the record.[^27] The [[Paradigm Research Group]] reproduces a photograph that it captions as the September 14 to 15, 1993 meeting at the JY Ranch and labels, left to right, Diamond, Greer, Maccabee, [[George Lamb]], [[Robert Bigelow]], Howe, Sprinkle, Thompson, Mack, Rockefeller, Jones, [[Johnie Jones]] and [[Robert Teets]], with [[Marie Galbraith|Marie "Bootsie" Galbraith]] and Farley behind the camera.[^28] On November 12, 1993 Diamond, on the letterhead of [[Beveridge and Diamond]], wrote to a Gibbons staff member that he had seen Gibbons at the [[Environmental Law Institute]] dinner on October 20 and that Rockefeller wished to see him again between December 10 and 23.[^29] +On August 4, 1993 Rockefeller invited Gibbons or a representative to an informal roundtable he was hosting from September 13 to 15 at the [[JY Ranch]], in the [[Grand Teton National Park]] near [[Jackson, Wyoming]]. The letter gives the purpose as assessing "the extent of information which may or may not be in the hands of the federal government" and developing "productive ways to encourage the Administration to include information of UFO and ETI phenomena in its current review of previously classified information." The six presenters were [[Steven Greer]], [[Linda Moulton Howe]], [[Bruce Maccabee]], [[R. Leo Sprinkle]], [[Jill Tarter]] of the [[NASA]] Ames Research Center and [[Keith Thompson]]; [[John Mack]], [[Peter Sturrock]], "a representative of the Science Advisor to the President" and "several of my associates" were also invited. The four themes included "strategies for influencing government policy in the direction of openness," "assessment of alleged psychological, economic and other barriers to a government policy of openness on the subject," and "spiritual and other dimensional aspects of UFO and ETI phenomena." The roundtable "will not be publicized but, of course will not be secret" and would be off the record.[^29] The [[Paradigm Research Group]] reproduces a photograph that it captions as the September 14 to 15, 1993 meeting at the JY Ranch and labels, left to right, Diamond, Greer, Maccabee, [[George Lamb]], [[Robert Bigelow]], Howe, Sprinkle, Thompson, Mack, Rockefeller, Jones, [[Johnie Jones]] and [[Robert Teets]], with [[Marie Galbraith|Marie "Bootsie" Galbraith]] and Farley behind the camera.[^30] On November 12, 1993 Diamond, on the letterhead of [[Beveridge and Diamond]], wrote to a Gibbons staff member that he had seen Gibbons at the [[Environmental Law Institute]] dinner on October 20 and that Rockefeller wished to see him again between December 10 and 23.[^31] ### Roswell, 1994 -After a meeting on February 4, 1994, Rockefeller wrote to Gibbons on February 14 that "your approach of starting by addressing a specific incident is an important and reasonable way to begin the process of declassification," that the July 1947 [[Roswell Incident]] "would be a logical and challenging place to start," and that if the effort succeeded it "will become an important prototype for the release of all UFO related information." He proposed amnesty "on an individual basis" for those with knowledge, and, "in the light of your proposed initiative," said "we shall defer writing to the President."[^30] In a letter of the same date to [[Anne Bartley]], who had arranged his Washington meetings, he wrote that Gibbons's suggestion to treat the 1947 event as a test case "was a very good one."[^31] On May 24, 1994 Secretary of the Air Force [[Sheila Widnall]] sent Gibbons a cover memorandum, "As you and I discussed earlier, we are researching Air Force material on UFOs in general, and Roswell in particular," with an interim report to her of May 20 from the office designated SAF/AAZ. The report stated that "in early Feb 94, upon learning of the projected GAO audit," the Air Force had stood up elements of its Declassification Review Team to begin preliminary research, and that the offices tasked had "reported no records were located to indicate anything unusual happened at Roswell in July 1947." Widnall wrote: "My policy is that we are declassifying everything even remotely related, and anything our people think still needs to be classified will have to be justified to me." A handwritten note on the cover, initialed "JG," reads: "Skip - for your scanning. After you and I have a chance to discuss, I'll be ready to communicate w/ L.R. + his niece."[^32] +After a meeting on February 4, 1994, Rockefeller wrote to Gibbons on February 14 that "your approach of starting by addressing a specific incident is an important and reasonable way to begin the process of declassification," that the July 1947 [[Roswell Incident]] "would be a logical and challenging place to start," and that if the effort succeeded it "will become an important prototype for the release of all UFO related information." He proposed amnesty "on an individual basis" for those with knowledge, and, "in the light of your proposed initiative," said "we shall defer writing to the President."[^32] In a letter of the same date to [[Anne Bartley]], who had arranged his Washington meetings, he wrote that Gibbons's suggestion to treat the 1947 event as a test case "was a very good one."[^33] On May 24, 1994 Secretary of the Air Force [[Sheila Widnall]] sent Gibbons a cover memorandum, "As you and I discussed earlier, we are researching Air Force material on UFOs in general, and Roswell in particular," with an interim report to her of May 20 from the office designated SAF/AAZ. The report stated that "in early Feb 94, upon learning of the projected GAO audit," the Air Force had stood up elements of its Declassification Review Team to begin preliminary research, and that the offices tasked had "reported no records were located to indicate anything unusual happened at Roswell in July 1947." Widnall wrote: "My policy is that we are declassifying everything even remotely related, and anything our people think still needs to be classified will have to be justified to me." A handwritten note on the cover, initialed "JG," reads: "Skip - for your scanning. After you and I have a chance to discuss, I'll be ready to communicate w/ L.R. + his niece."[^34] -Jones wrote to Gibbons on February 17 enclosing a chronology compiled by the [[Fund for UFO Research]] and press clippings on the inquiry by Representative [[Steven Schiff]], and reporting that a Pentagon spokesman had told a [[Government Accountability Office|General Accounting Office]] investigator "Go shit in your hat." He had spent time after the February 4 meeting with [[Edward J. Reese]] of the Modern Military Branch of the [[National Archives and Records Administration]] on where Roswell documentation might be located. The letter's second page reads: "Whatever Roswell turns out to be, it is only the opening round. ... My mention of mind-control technology at the February 4 meeting was quite deliberate. Please be careful about this. There are reasons to believe that some government group has interwoven research about this technology with alleged UFO phenomena. If that [is] correct, you can expect to run into early resistance when inquiring about UFOs, not because of the UFO subject, but because that has been used to cloak research and applications of mind-control activity."[^18] +Jones wrote to Gibbons on February 17 enclosing a chronology compiled by the [[Fund for UFO Research]] and press clippings on the inquiry by Representative [[Steven Schiff]], and reporting that a Pentagon spokesman had told a [[Government Accountability Office|General Accounting Office]] investigator "Go shit in your hat." He had spent time after the February 4 meeting with [[Edward J. Reese]] of the Modern Military Branch of the [[National Archives and Records Administration]] on where Roswell documentation might be located. The letter's second page reads: "Whatever Roswell turns out to be, it is only the opening round. ... My mention of mind-control technology at the February 4 meeting was quite deliberate. Please be careful about this. There are reasons to believe that some government group has interwoven research about this technology with alleged UFO phenomena. If that [is] correct, you can expect to run into early resistance when inquiring about UFOs, not because of the UFO subject, but because that has been used to cloak research and applications of mind-control activity."[^20] -Rockefeller's letter of April 26, 1994 reports that his group had gone to [[Cornell University]] earlier that month to meet [[Carl Sagan]], who "expressed considerable skepticism" but strongly supported release of government information, and that Representative Schiff had asked for a General Accounting Office inquiry and "the publication of John Mack's book has brought renewed attention to the abduction phenomenon."[^33] +Rockefeller's letter of April 26, 1994 reports that his group had gone to [[Cornell University]] earlier that month to meet [[Carl Sagan]], who "expressed considerable skepticism" but strongly supported release of government information, and that Representative Schiff had asked for a General Accounting Office inquiry and "the publication of John Mack's book has brought renewed attention to the abduction phenomenon."[^35] -On June 1, 1994 Rockefeller wrote that "it was Mel Laird who suggested that you should be the logical point of contact and coordination with the federal government," asked whether there were developments in the survey of information among federal agencies on Roswell that Gibbons had suggested, attached a letter from Laird, and mentioned "preliminary talks with those who might be interested in bringing about a United Nations Conference on extraterrestrial intelligence."[^34] Laird's letter, dated May 9, 1994 and replying to one from Rockefeller of April 25, stated that "you are proceeding properly by going through the President's Science Advisor," and that "any review will certainly disappoint some individuals who have built up some rather extreme antidotal and uncollaborated accounts."[^34] On July 27, 1994 Anne Bartley wrote to Gibbons about "follow-up on our meeting with Laurance S. Rockefeller and his associates," recalling that Gibbons had suggested "an informal inquiry into the availability of information within federal agencies about the 1947 Roswell, [[New Mexico]], event," asking about "prospects for a relaxation of the classification system," and stating that Rockefeller "has begun to wonder whether a U.N. Conference would be useful."[^35] +On June 1, 1994 Rockefeller wrote that "it was Mel Laird who suggested that you should be the logical point of contact and coordination with the federal government," asked whether there were developments in the survey of information among federal agencies on Roswell that Gibbons had suggested, attached a letter from Laird, and mentioned "preliminary talks with those who might be interested in bringing about a United Nations Conference on extraterrestrial intelligence."[^36] Laird's letter, dated May 9, 1994 and replying to one from Rockefeller of April 25, stated that "you are proceeding properly by going through the President's Science Advisor," and that "any review will certainly disappoint some individuals who have built up some rather extreme antidotal and uncollaborated accounts."[^36] On July 27, 1994 Anne Bartley wrote to Gibbons about "follow-up on our meeting with Laurance S. Rockefeller and his associates," recalling that Gibbons had suggested "an informal inquiry into the availability of information within federal agencies about the 1947 Roswell, [[New Mexico]], event," asking about "prospects for a relaxation of the classification system," and stating that Rockefeller "has begun to wonder whether a U.N. Conference would be useful."[^37] -On August 11, 1994 Jones wrote to Gibbons that [[Edgar Mitchell]], founder of the [[Institute of Noetic Sciences]], on whose board Pell sat, would be glad to meet Gibbons "in the area that Laurance, you and I have been discussing," and that Gibbons "may want to talk to [[R. James Woolsey|James Woolsey]] about what you are doing." The next lines say that Woolsey "has a document search project under way" and "has not discovered anything of significance," and Jones adds: "If I had the responsibility to run a super safe black program on this subject, I would take it completely out of the government's" bureaucracy "and run it from the private sector, probably somewhere within" the aerospace community "or perhaps [[General Motors]]."[^36] On September 5, 1994 Rockefeller thanked Gibbons for a note that he had received a report from the Air Force; after the Air Force released the results of its Roswell investigation (in July 1994 in the General Accounting Office's account, and publicly available in September in Gibbons's)[^19][^37] he wrote on December 9 thanking Gibbons for "your initiative in stimulating the recent Air Force Review of the Roswell incident," adding that "we are continuing our citizens' reconnaissance of the extraterrestrial intelligence phenomenon."[^38] On February 9, 1995 Jones wrote that "there is some shadowy evidence that the administration is in the process of modifying the government's policy concerning secrecy and denial about UFO phenomena," that "Laurance mentioned that he was also considering a public relations approach" and that "he can afford a rather aggressive and expensive effort implementing that strategy, e.g., full page ads in major newspapers," and that after Rockefeller's last meeting with Gibbons "we are not going to get feedback from our attempts to get the [[White House]] to open the books on this subject."[^39] On April 11, 1995 Rockefeller wrote that he had reviewed the draft executive order revising national classification policy and that "my concern with government information involving extraterrestrial intelligence was stimulated by the widespread public belief that the government was withholding information about UFO incidents."[^40] +On August 11, 1994 Jones wrote to Gibbons that [[Edgar Mitchell]], founder of the [[Institute of Noetic Sciences]], on whose board Pell sat, would be glad to meet Gibbons "in the area that Laurance, you and I have been discussing," and that Gibbons "may want to talk to [[R. James Woolsey|James Woolsey]] about what you are doing." The next lines say that Woolsey "has a document search project under way" and "has not discovered anything of significance," and Jones adds: "If I had the responsibility to run a super safe black program on this subject, I would take it completely out of the government's" bureaucracy "and run it from the private sector, probably somewhere within" the aerospace community "or perhaps [[General Motors]]."[^38] On September 5, 1994 Rockefeller thanked Gibbons for a note that he had received a report from the Air Force; after the Air Force released the results of its Roswell investigation (in July 1994 in the General Accounting Office's account, and publicly available in September in Gibbons's)[^21][^39] he wrote on December 9 thanking Gibbons for "your initiative in stimulating the recent Air Force Review of the Roswell incident," adding that "we are continuing our citizens' reconnaissance of the extraterrestrial intelligence phenomenon."[^40] On February 9, 1995 Jones wrote that "there is some shadowy evidence that the administration is in the process of modifying the government's policy concerning secrecy and denial about UFO phenomena," that "Laurance mentioned that he was also considering a public relations approach" and that "he can afford a rather aggressive and expensive effort implementing that strategy, e.g., full page ads in major newspapers," and that after Rockefeller's last meeting with Gibbons "we are not going to get feedback from our attempts to get the [[White House]] to open the books on this subject."[^41] On April 11, 1995 Rockefeller wrote that he had reviewed the draft executive order revising national classification policy and that "my concern with government information involving extraterrestrial intelligence was stimulated by the widespread public belief that the government was withholding information about UFO incidents."[^42] -On December 2, 1994 Jones sent Gibbons critiques of the Air Force Roswell report and told him that the Foundation's conference would invite President and Mrs. Clinton; on December 13, 1994 he sent Gibbons the manuscript of [[Whitley Strieber]]'s *Breakthrough* with a copy to Rockefeller. The White House declined for Mrs. Clinton on December 15, 1994 ([[Patti Solis]], scheduling director for the First Lady) and for the President on December 21, 1994 ([[William M. Webster IV]], director of scheduling and advance).[^41] The Clinton Library's collection 2008-1575-F holds the invitations and brochures; none are scanned.[^42] +On December 2, 1994 Jones sent Gibbons critiques of the Air Force Roswell report and told him that the Foundation's conference would invite President and Mrs. Clinton; on December 13, 1994 he sent Gibbons the manuscript of [[Whitley Strieber]]'s *Breakthrough* with a copy to Rockefeller. The White House declined for Mrs. Clinton on December 15, 1994 ([[Patti Solis]], scheduling director for the First Lady) and for the President on December 21, 1994 ([[William M. Webster IV]], director of scheduling and advance).[^43] The Clinton Library's collection 2008-1575-F holds the invitations and brochures; none are scanned.[^44] -The General Accounting Office wrote to Gibbons on April 12, 1995, at Schiff's request, that it was determining what records existed on Roswell. Gibbons replied on April 26 to the GAO's director of federal management issues that the Office of Science and Technology Policy had "no direct knowledge of what occurred at Roswell and no records, except for the information I received from the Air Force."[^37] An internal OSTP message of June 9, 1995 reports a call from the GAO about its eight-page report, which would state that the agency had asked OSTP and other agencies whether they held records and that "DOE and OSTP had no records"; a handwritten reply of June 12, signed "Sue B.," reads "Tanya, OK w/ JHG."[^43] +The General Accounting Office wrote to Gibbons on April 12, 1995, at Schiff's request, that it was determining what records existed on Roswell. Gibbons replied on April 26 to the GAO's director of federal management issues that the Office of Science and Technology Policy had "no direct knowledge of what occurred at Roswell and no records, except for the information I received from the Air Force."[^39] An internal OSTP message of June 9, 1995 reports a call from the GAO about its eight-page report, which would state that the agency had asked OSTP and other agencies whether they held records and that "DOE and OSTP had no records"; a handwritten reply of June 12, signed "Sue B.," reads "Tanya, OK w/ JHG."[^45] ### The Draft Letter to the President, 1995 and 1996 -On August 4, 1995 Gibbons sent President Clinton a memorandum headed "Inquiry from Laurance Rockefeller." It begins: "You will probably see Mr. Rockefeller on your vacation in the Tetons. He will want to talk with you about his interest in extrasensory perception, paranormal phenomena, and UFO's. His interests are related to those of Senator Pell." Gibbons wrote that "Les Aspin and Mel Laird referred Laurance to me," that Rockefeller had sought "the Administration's help in 'declassifying the information'," that "I persuaded Rockefeller to not bother you with this issue but instead to let me talk with defense officials," that Secretary of the Air Force Widnall had "arranged for a full revisiting by the Air Force of pertinent records, guaranteed 'amnesty' to anyone who felt constrained to talk," and that "the bottom line is that all evidence points to a failed U.S. Air Force balloon experiment, and no evidence of a 'flying saucer' or cover-up conspiracy. (However, the UFO 'community' persists in believing that the Air Force report is flawed.)" A "second rubric" was "human potential" research: "Senator Pell and others have supported the funding of research in social science to focus more on these phenomena." Gibbons closed: "I've made no secret about my conviction that we must not be too diverted from more earthly imperatives."[^19] +On August 4, 1995 Gibbons sent President Clinton a memorandum headed "Inquiry from Laurance Rockefeller." It begins: "You will probably see Mr. Rockefeller on your vacation in the Tetons. He will want to talk with you about his interest in extrasensory perception, paranormal phenomena, and UFO's. His interests are related to those of Senator Pell." Gibbons wrote that "Les Aspin and Mel Laird referred Laurance to me," that Rockefeller had sought "the Administration's help in 'declassifying the information'," that "I persuaded Rockefeller to not bother you with this issue but instead to let me talk with defense officials," that Secretary of the Air Force Widnall had "arranged for a full revisiting by the Air Force of pertinent records, guaranteed 'amnesty' to anyone who felt constrained to talk," and that "the bottom line is that all evidence points to a failed U.S. Air Force balloon experiment, and no evidence of a 'flying saucer' or cover-up conspiracy. (However, the UFO 'community' persists in believing that the Air Force report is flawed.)" A "second rubric" was "human potential" research: "Senator Pell and others have supported the funding of research in social science to focus more on these phenomena." Gibbons closed: "I've made no secret about my conviction that we must not be too diverted from more earthly imperatives."[^21] -The Clintons began a vacation in Jackson Hole on August 15, 1995, with Senator [[Jay Rockefeller]] and his wife, Sharon, as hosts at a Rockefeller family estate.[^44] The [[William J. Clinton Presidential Library]] holds photographs, in a set processed for a [[Freedom of Information Act]] request, of a visit by President Clinton and [[Hillary Clinton|Hillary Rodham Clinton]] to Laurance Rockefeller's JY Ranch on August 21, 1995.[^44] On August 17 Jones, writing on Human Potential Foundation letterhead to Representative Schiff, described a conference, "When Cosmic Cultures Meet," held in Washington over the Memorial Day weekend: "The conference was part of a process to make it politically safe for Congress to get involved in a subject that from all available evidence has been the secret purview of the executive department for nearly fifty years."[^45] +The Clintons began a vacation in Jackson Hole on August 15, 1995, with Senator [[Jay Rockefeller]] and his wife, Sharon, as hosts at a Rockefeller family estate.[^46] The [[William J. Clinton Presidential Library]] holds photographs, in a set processed for a [[Freedom of Information Act]] request, of a visit by President Clinton and [[Hillary Clinton|Hillary Rodham Clinton]] to Laurance Rockefeller's JY Ranch on August 21, 1995.[^46] On August 17 Jones, writing on Human Potential Foundation letterhead to Representative Schiff, described a conference, "When Cosmic Cultures Meet," held in Washington over the Memorial Day weekend: "The conference was part of a process to make it politically safe for Congress to get involved in a subject that from all available evidence has been the secret purview of the executive department for nearly fifty years."[^47] -On August 17, 1995 the Human Potential Foundation mailed every member of Congress a packet; letters to the House and Senate leadership stated that "the Human Potential Foundation has been supported by Mr. Laurance S. Rockefeller and others." Jones's letter to Gibbons of August 23, 1995 stated that Rockefeller "was a guest at the President's birthday party a few days ago in Jackson Hole" and enclosed a draft full-page newspaper advertisement.[^46] +On August 17, 1995 the Human Potential Foundation mailed every member of Congress a packet; letters to the House and Senate leadership stated that "the Human Potential Foundation has been supported by Mr. Laurance S. Rockefeller and others." Jones's letter to Gibbons of August 23, 1995 stated that Rockefeller "was a guest at the President's birthday party a few days ago in Jackson Hole" and enclosed a draft full-page newspaper advertisement.[^48] -On August 23, 1995 Rockefeller's office faxed Gibbons five pages plus a cover sheet: a draft letter to President Clinton, headed "Lifting Secrecy on Information About Extraterrestrial Intelligence as Part of the Current Classification Review," and the 1993 exchange with Graham. The draft states that Rockefeller has "been interested in the enhancement of spirituality and holistic healing as well as the development of a new paradigm of consciousness," and asks the President to direct that information on extraterrestrial intelligence and UFOs "be given priority in the current classification review," to appoint a coordinator for government information about those subjects, to bring together information "from all federal agencies involved, such as the Department of Defense, the Air Force, NASA and the CIA" ("Your Science Advisor, Jack Gibbons, might be the right person for this role"), and to make known that anyone with information "will be granted amnesty from relevant oaths or other government constraints."[^26] On November 1, 1995 Diamond, writing from 30 Rockefeller Plaza, Room 5600, sent Gibbons "a draft letter to the President which Laurance has been discussing with Mrs. Clinton and her staff" and a draft report on the "best evidence" about UFOs; a letter of November 8 identified [[Don Berliner]] as its principal author.[^47] +On August 23, 1995 Rockefeller's office faxed Gibbons five pages plus a cover sheet: a draft letter to President Clinton, headed "Lifting Secrecy on Information About Extraterrestrial Intelligence as Part of the Current Classification Review," and the 1993 exchange with Graham. The draft states that Rockefeller has "been interested in the enhancement of spirituality and holistic healing as well as the development of a new paradigm of consciousness," and asks the President to direct that information on extraterrestrial intelligence and UFOs "be given priority in the current classification review," to appoint a coordinator for government information about those subjects, to bring together information "from all federal agencies involved, such as the Department of Defense, the Air Force, NASA and the CIA" ("Your Science Advisor, Jack Gibbons, might be the right person for this role"), and to make known that anyone with information "will be granted amnesty from relevant oaths or other government constraints."[^28] On November 1, 1995 Diamond, writing from 30 Rockefeller Plaza, Room 5600, sent Gibbons "a draft letter to the President which Laurance has been discussing with Mrs. Clinton and her staff" and a draft report on the "best evidence" about UFOs; a letter of November 8 identified [[Don Berliner]] as its principal author.[^49] -The *Unidentified Flying Objects Briefing Document: The Best Available Evidence* (December 1995), by Don Berliner with Marie Galbraith and [[Antonio Huneeus]], presented by the [[Center for UFO Studies]], the Fund for UFO Research and the [[Mutual UFO Network]] with copyright held by the [[UFO Research Coalition]], thanks "Laurance S. Rockefeller, for his vision and support, financial and otherwise," and George Lamb "for serving so effectively as liaison for Mr. Rockefeller," and thanks [[Sandra Wright]] for making her [[BSW Foundation]] "available as the umbrella under which all the work could be done."[^48] +The *Unidentified Flying Objects Briefing Document: The Best Available Evidence* (December 1995), by Don Berliner with Marie Galbraith and [[Antonio Huneeus]], presented by the [[Center for UFO Studies]], the Fund for UFO Research and the [[Mutual UFO Network]] with copyright held by the [[UFO Research Coalition]], thanks "Laurance S. Rockefeller, for his vision and support, financial and otherwise," and George Lamb "for serving so effectively as liaison for Mr. Rockefeller," and thanks [[Sandra Wright]] for making her [[BSW Foundation]] "available as the umbrella under which all the work could be done."[^50] -On February 5, 1996 Rockefeller told Gibbons that the "Best Evidence Report (the report written by Don Berliner and coordinated by Marie Galbraith which we have referred to as the 'Bootsie report')" was an "unusual combined effort of the three major UFO organizations." He wrote that Gibbons's "willingness to approach the Air Force, the Central Intelligence Agency and NASA on this project is extremely important," and that the group would put forward names for a pilot project on an expanded amnesty program. The draft letter to the President, he wrote, "might receive attention in a second term. You indicated that you will keep the First Lady's Office informed, and we shall as well."[^49] On February 27, 1996 Widnall wrote to Gibbons, after "our recent dinner conversation," enclosing "the full Roswell Report to pass on to Lawrence Rockefeller" and noting that a second volume was in preparation; on February 29 Rockefeller sent Gibbons the "Best Available Evidence" report, writing "I sponsored this report" and, "while I do not necessarily agree with every finding and conclusion," that "the evidence presented indicates that this subject merits serious scientific study," with a new draft of the letter to the President.[^50] In a letter of August 8, 1996 to [[Julia Marton-Lefevre]] of the [[International Council of Scientific Unions]], written on the suggestion of Maurice Strong, he wrote of his interest in "expanding man's spiritual and intellectual potential" and proposed a small international group on extraterrestrial intelligence and UFOs.[^31] On October 17, 1996 he proposed an international conference. "At the suggestion of Maurice Strong," he had contacted Julia Marton Lefevre, executive director of what the letter calls the International Scientific Union, and he forwarded a letter from Carl Sagan, writing that he was "puzzled by Carl's enthusiastic support of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence by radio telescope while he maintains a high degree of skepticism about other means of inquiry."[^51] Sagan replied on November 6, 1996 that "no amount of anecdotal evidence, unsubstantiated by physical evidence, is worth a single substantive bit of physical evidence"; the letters are in the Sagan papers at the [[Library of Congress]] and were reported by [[Robert Sheaffer]].[^52] In a letter of January 2, 1997 to Gibbons, Maccabee wrote that in April 1993, "at the request of Dr. [[Ronald Pandolfi]] of the CIA," he had faxed Gibbons an information paper on UFOs.[^53] On June 20, 1997 the Secretary of the Air Force sent Gibbons the second volume of *The Roswell Report: Case Closed*, to be released on the following Tuesday.[^54] +On February 5, 1996 Rockefeller told Gibbons that the "Best Evidence Report (the report written by Don Berliner and coordinated by Marie Galbraith which we have referred to as the 'Bootsie report')" was an "unusual combined effort of the three major UFO organizations." He wrote that Gibbons's "willingness to approach the Air Force, the Central Intelligence Agency and NASA on this project is extremely important," and that the group would put forward names for a pilot project on an expanded amnesty program. The draft letter to the President, he wrote, "might receive attention in a second term. You indicated that you will keep the First Lady's Office informed, and we shall as well."[^51] On February 27, 1996 Widnall wrote to Gibbons, after "our recent dinner conversation," enclosing "the full Roswell Report to pass on to Lawrence Rockefeller" and noting that a second volume was in preparation; on February 29 Rockefeller sent Gibbons the "Best Available Evidence" report, writing "I sponsored this report" and, "while I do not necessarily agree with every finding and conclusion," that "the evidence presented indicates that this subject merits serious scientific study," with a new draft of the letter to the President.[^52] In a letter of August 8, 1996 to [[Julia Marton-Lefevre]] of the [[International Council of Scientific Unions]], written on the suggestion of Maurice Strong, he wrote of his interest in "expanding man's spiritual and intellectual potential" and proposed a small international group on extraterrestrial intelligence and UFOs.[^33] On October 17, 1996 he proposed an international conference. "At the suggestion of Maurice Strong," he had contacted Julia Marton Lefevre, executive director of what the letter calls the International Scientific Union, and he forwarded a letter from Carl Sagan, writing that he was "puzzled by Carl's enthusiastic support of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence by radio telescope while he maintains a high degree of skepticism about other means of inquiry."[^53] Sagan replied on November 6, 1996 that "no amount of anecdotal evidence, unsubstantiated by physical evidence, is worth a single substantive bit of physical evidence"; the letters are in the Sagan papers at the [[Library of Congress]] and were reported by [[Robert Sheaffer]].[^54] In a letter of January 2, 1997 to Gibbons, Maccabee wrote that in April 1993, "at the request of Dr. [[Ronald Pandolfi]] of the CIA," he had faxed Gibbons an information paper on UFOs.[^55] On June 20, 1997 the Secretary of the Air Force sent Gibbons the second volume of *The Roswell Report: Case Closed*, to be released on the following Tuesday.[^56] ### Pocantico Workshop, 1997 -In December 1996, in Sturrock's words in the introduction to the published proceedings, "Mr. Laurance S. Rockefeller, Chairman of the [[LSR Fund]], invited me to review with him the status of our understanding of the problem posed by UFO reports." Rockefeller, Diamond and Sturrock conceived a workshop; Sturrock submitted a proposal to the LSR Fund in February 1997 with administrative support from the [[Society for Scientific Exploration]], and "the necessary funds were transferred from the Fund to the Society." The workshop met at the [[Pocantico Conference Center]] at [[Tarrytown, New York]], from September 29 to October 4, 1997, and Sturrock thanked Rockefeller "for his interest in and support of this project" and Diamond and [[Charles Tolbert]] for administrative support.[^55] A report of June 1998 by the panel was, in *PEER Perspectives* of Winter 1998/99, described as "funded by the Laurance S. Rockefeller Fund."[^56] +In December 1996, in Sturrock's words in the introduction to the published proceedings, "Mr. Laurance S. Rockefeller, Chairman of the [[LSR Fund]], invited me to review with him the status of our understanding of the problem posed by UFO reports." Rockefeller, Diamond and Sturrock conceived a workshop; Sturrock submitted a proposal to the LSR Fund in February 1997 with administrative support from the [[Society for Scientific Exploration]], and "the necessary funds were transferred from the Fund to the Society." The workshop met at the [[Pocantico Conference Center]] at [[Tarrytown, New York]], from September 29 to October 4, 1997, and Sturrock thanked Rockefeller "for his interest in and support of this project" and Diamond and [[Charles Tolbert]] for administrative support.[^57] A report of June 1998 by the panel was, in *PEER Perspectives* of Winter 1998/99, described as "funded by the Laurance S. Rockefeller Fund."[^58] ### Rockefeller Funds -The Laurance S. Rockefeller Fund of New York, which received its Internal Revenue Service ruling in June 2006, reported assets of 35,533,812 dollars for 2023. The Fund for UFO Research of [[Fairfax County, Virginia|Fairfax, Virginia]], to which the letters of 1994 and 1996 refer, has been tax-exempt since April 1982.[^13] +The Laurance S. Rockefeller Fund of New York, which received its Internal Revenue Service ruling in June 2006, reported assets of 35,533,812 dollars for 2023. The Fund for UFO Research of [[Fairfax County, Virginia|Fairfax, Virginia]], to which the letters of 1994 and 1996 refer, has been tax-exempt since April 1982.[^15] ### Footnotes -[^1]: Rockefeller Archive Center, "Laurance S. Rockefeller," biography, https://rockarch.org/resources/about-the-rockefellers/laurance-s-rockefeller/ (birth, death, education, marriage, Navy service, family office, Venrock from August 1969, Jackson Hole Preserve, American Conservation Association, Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, Fund presidency and chairmanship 1958 to 1980, Sloan-Kettering, Sloan Foundation, Zoological Society). -[^2]: Rockefeller Archive Center, "John D. Rockefeller, Jr., 1874-1960," biography (children of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller), https://rockarch.org/resources/about-the-rockefellers/john-d-rockefeller-jr/. -[^3]: W. David Lewis, "A Man Born Out of Season: Eddie Rickenbacker, Eastern Airlines, and the Civil Aeronautics Board," *Business and Economic History* 25, no. 1 (Fall 1996), pp. 157-163, https://thebhc.org/sites/default/files/beh/BEHprint/v025n1/p0154-p0164.pdf. -[^4]: Peter O. Crisp, "Venture Capital Greats: A Conversation with Peter O. Crisp," interviewed by Carole Kolker, October 21, 2008, National Venture Capital Association Venture Capital Oral History Project, pp. 8, 24-28, 38 and 45-47, https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/roho/ucb/text/vcg-crisp.pdf. -[^5]: "Richard Leghorn, 98, pioneer of Cold War aerial espionage photography," *Boston Globe*, February 5, 2018, https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/obituaries/2018/02/05/richard-leghorn-pioneer-cold-war-aerial-espionage-photography/C6PlYAATiFZNKx2P1La8JJ/story.html. -[^6]: Kenneth E. Greer, "Corona," *Studies in Intelligence*, Supplement, 17 (Spring 1973), pp. 1-37, reproduced in Kevin C. Ruffner, ed., *CORONA: America's First Satellite Program* (Washington: Central Intelligence Agency, Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1995), https://www.cia.gov/static/Corona-Between-the-Sun-and-the-Earth.pdf. -[^7]: Rockefeller Brothers Fund, "In Depth: The Special Studies Project," Wayback Machine capture of October 5, 2021, https://web.archive.org/web/20211005203914/https://www.rbf.org/about/our-history/timeline/special-studies-project/in-depth. -[^8]: Rockefeller Brothers Fund, *Prospect for America: The Rockefeller Panel Reports* (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961), list of the Special Studies Project planning committee and introduction by Panel II, https://archive.org/details/prospect-for-america-the-rockefeller-panel-reports-rockefeller-brothers-fund-1961. -[^9]: Allen W. Dulles to Laurance S. Rockefeller, September 16, 1960, CIA-RDP80B01676R003700050029-8, and the advance copy of Special Studies Project report VI, *The Power of the Democratic Idea*, with release notice, CIA-RDP80B01676R003700050028-9, CIA Reading Room, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01676r003700050029-8 and https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01676r003700050028-9. -[^10]: Laurance S. Rockefeller to Allen W. Dulles, February 20, 1961, and Dulles to Rockefeller, March 1, 1961, CIA-RDP80B01676R003500230010-0, CIA Reading Room, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01676r003500230010-0. -[^11]: U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of the Secretary, news release, "Secretary Udall Pledges Support of ORRRC Proposals," February 1, 1962, https://www.fws.gov/sites/default/files/documents/historic-news-releases/1962/19620201B.PDF. -[^12]: National Park Service, *Caneel Bay Area Redevelopment and Management Environmental Assessment*, Virgin Islands National Park (January 2023), chapter 1, https://npshistory.com/publications/viis/caneel-bay-redev-mgt-ea-2023.pdf. -[^13]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer API, organization records for Jackson Hole Preserve Inc (EIN 13-1813818), Laurance S Rockefeller Fund (EIN 20-4192256) and Fund For UFO Research (EIN 52-1164176), https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/131813818.json, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/204192256.json and https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/521164176.json. -[^14]: Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research, press release, "Princeton's PEAR Laboratory to Close," February 10, 2007, http://pearlab.icrl.org/press-statement.html. -[^15]: John E. Mack Institute, "History," https://johnemackinstitute.org/history/, and "Program for Extraordinary Experience Research (PEER)," http://johnemackinstitute.org/2003/01/program-for-extraordinary-experience-research-peer/. -[^16]: Ben MacIntyre, "Harvard professor's stories of close encounters, other-world sex, embarrass university," *The San Francisco Examiner* (London *Times* credit), May 5, 1995, p. 16, https://www.newspapers.com/image/461595501/. -[^17]: "Harvard's Mack: The Subject Is Aliens," *Valley News* (West Lebanon, N.H.), May 20, 1995, p. 23, https://www.newspapers.com/image/833962083/. -[^18]: C. B. Scott Jones, Human Potential Foundation, to John H. Gibbons, February 17, 1994, with Gibbons's handwritten note dated 2/24/94, Office of Science and Technology Policy file, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-2-17-94.htm. -[^19]: John H. Gibbons, memorandum for the President, "Inquiry from Laurance Rockefeller," August 4, 1995, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-4-95.htm. -[^20]: Grant Cameron, "Extraterrestrial Politics in the Clinton White House (1993-2001) and the Laurance Rockefeller Initiative," introduction and notes iii and xiii, http://www.x-ppac.org/OSTP.html. The index of the scanned documents is at http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller_Initiative_Documents.htm. -[^21]: University of Colorado Boulder Libraries, "C. B. 'Scott' Jones papers," COU:4004, https://archives.colorado.edu/repositories/2/resources/346. -[^22]: Center for Psychology and Social Change, *CenterPiece*, September 1993, p. 2, "Center Welcomes PEER Research on UFO Abductions," https://johnemackinstitute.org/CenterPiece_1993_0900.pdf. -[^23]: Henry L. Diamond, memorandum to John H. Gibbons, attention Mike Kowalok, "Request for Meeting with Dr. Gibbons for Laurance S. Rockefeller, April 12 or 13, 1993," March 29, 1993, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-3-29-93.htm. -[^24]: Laurance S. Rockefeller to John H. Gibbons, April 21, 1993, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-4-21-93.htm. -[^25]: John H. Gibbons, Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy, to C. B. Scott Jones, May 26, 1993, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-5-26-93.htm. -[^26]: Laurance S. Rockefeller to Billy Graham, May 7, 1993, and Graham to Rockefeller, May 20, 1993, attached to Rockefeller's fax to Gibbons of August 23, 1995, with the undated draft letter to President Clinton, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-23-95.htm. -[^27]: Laurance S. Rockefeller to John H. Gibbons, August 4, 1993, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-4-93.htm. -[^28]: Paradigm Research Group, "September 14-15, 1993 Meeting at Rockefeller's JY Ranch in Wyoming," photograph and caption, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/9-14-93_Meeting.htm. -[^29]: Henry L. Diamond, Beveridge and Diamond, P.C., memorandum to Sue Bachtel, November 12, 1993, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-11-12-93.htm. -[^30]: Laurance S. Rockefeller to John H. Gibbons, February 14, 1994, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-2-14-94.htm. -[^31]: Rockefeller to Julia Marton-Lefevre, August 8, 1996, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-10-17-96.htm; Rockefeller to Anne Bartley, February 14, 1994, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-2-14-94-2.htm. -[^32]: Sheila E. Widnall, Secretary of the Air Force, memorandum for John H. Gibbons, "UFO Research," May 24, 1994, with Gibbons's handwritten note, and the enclosed memorandum for the Secretary of the Air Force from SAF/AAZ, "Status Report on Search Efforts Regarding 'the Roswell Incident,'" May 20, 1994, p. 1, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-5-24-94.htm (the memorandum of May 24 is listed among the enclosures to Gibbons's letter to the General Accounting Office of April 26, 1995). -[^33]: Rockefeller to John H. Gibbons, April 26, 1994, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/2-26-94%20LR%20Letter%20to%20JG/Letter.jpg (indexed as RID-2-26-94.htm). -[^34]: Laurance S. Rockefeller to John H. Gibbons, June 1, 1994, with the attached letter from Melvin R. Laird to Rockefeller, May 9, 1994, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-6-1-94.htm. -[^35]: Anne Bartley, memorandum for Jack Gibbons, "Laurance S. Rockefeller Interest in Extraterrestrial Intelligence," July 27, 1994, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-7-27-94.htm. -[^36]: C. B. Scott Jones, Human Potential Foundation, to John H. Gibbons, August 11, 1994, pp. 1-2, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-11-94.htm. -[^37]: U.S. General Accounting Office, General Government Division, to John H. Gibbons, April 12, 1995, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-4-12-95.htm; John H. Gibbons to William Hunt, Director, Federal Management Issues, U.S. General Accounting Office, April 26, 1995, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-4-26-95.htm. -[^38]: Laurance S. Rockefeller to John H. Gibbons, September 5, 1994, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-9-5-94.htm, and December 9, 1994, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-12-9-94.htm. -[^39]: C. B. Scott Jones to John H. Gibbons, February 9, 1995, pp. 1-2, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-2-9-95.htm. -[^40]: Laurance S. Rockefeller to John H. Gibbons, April 11, 1995 (the scan is filed under 4-11-94 and the letter is dated April 11, 1995), http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-4-11-94.htm. -[^41]: C. B. Scott Jones to Gibbons, December 2 and 13, 1994; Patti Solis to Jones, December 15, 1994; William M. Webster IV to Jones, December 21, 1994, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-12-2-94.htm, RID-12-13-94.htm, RID-12-15-94.htm, RID-12-21-94.htm. -[^42]: William J. Clinton Presidential Library, "When Cosmic Cultures Meet - Collection Finding Aid," FOIA 2008-1575-F, https://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/36409. -[^43]: Tanya M. Felder, OSTP electronic message to Susanne Bachtel, Barbara A. Ferguson and Holly L. Gwin, "GAO Report on UFOs," June 9, 1995, with handwritten reply of June 12, 1995, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-6-9-95.htm. -[^44]: "Clintons to Vacation in Wyoming Mountains," *Spokesman-Review*, August 15, 1995, https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1995/aug/15/clintons-to-vacation-in-wyoming-mountains/; William J. Clinton Presidential Library, "White House Photos - Laurance Rockefeller - Philanthropist," finding aid 2006-0546-F (contact sheet book 312, frame P31195, August 21, 1995), https://www.clintonlibrary.gov/research/archives/finding-aids/white-house-photos-laurance-rockefeller-philanthropist. -[^45]: C. B. Scott Jones, Human Potential Foundation, to Representative Steven Schiff, August 17, 1995, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-17-95.htm. -[^46]: Jones to Gibbons, August 23, 1995, with attached Jones letters to Newt Gingrich (August 17, 1995) and to members of the House (May 16, 1995), http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-23-95-2.htm. -[^47]: Henry L. Diamond to John H. Gibbons, November 1, 1995, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-11-1-95.htm, and November 8, 1995, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-11-8-95.htm. -[^48]: Don Berliner et al., *Unidentified Flying Objects Briefing Document: The Best Available Evidence* (UFO Research Coalition, December 1995), acknowledgments, https://archive.org/details/rockefeller-briefing-document. -[^49]: Laurance S. Rockefeller to John H. Gibbons, February 5, 1996, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-2-5-96.htm. -[^50]: Sheila E. Widnall, Secretary of the Air Force, to John H. Gibbons, February 27, 1996, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-2-27-96.htm; Laurance S. Rockefeller to John H. Gibbons, February 29, 1996, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-2-29-96.htm. -[^51]: Laurance S. Rockefeller to John H. Gibbons, October 17, 1996, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-10-17-96.htm. -[^52]: Robert Sheaffer, "Carl Sagan, Laurance Rockefeller, and UFOs," *Skeptical Inquirer* 38, no. 5 (September/October 2014), pp. 19-20, https://skepticalinquirer.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2014/09/p19.pdf. -[^53]: Bruce Maccabee to John H. Gibbons, January 2, 1997, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-1-2-97.htm. -[^54]: Secretary of the Air Force to John H. Gibbons, June 20, 1997, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-6-20-97.htm. -[^55]: Peter A. Sturrock et al., "Physical Evidence Related to UFO Reports: The Proceedings of a Workshop Held at the Pocantico Conference Center, Tarrytown, New York, September 29 - October 4, 1997," *Journal of Scientific Exploration* 12, no. 2 (1998), pp. 179-229, introduction as reproduced at http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc535.htm. -[^56]: *PEER Perspectives* no. 2 (Winter 1998/99), p. 1, https://johnemackinstitute.org/PEER_Perspectives_2.pdf. +[^1]: "Laurance S. Rockefeller '32," memorial, *Princeton Alumni Weekly*. https://paw.princeton.edu/memorial/laurance-s-rockefeller-32 +[^2]: Princeton University Library, Mudd Manuscript Library, finding aid for the James V. Forrestal Papers (MC051): the diaries "were purchased from the New York Herald Tribune and donated to Princeton University by Clarence Dillon and Laurance S. Rockefeller in December 1952." https://findingaids.library.upenn.edu/records/PRIN_MUDD_MC051 +[^3]: Rockefeller Archive Center, "Laurance S. Rockefeller," biography, https://rockarch.org/resources/about-the-rockefellers/laurance-s-rockefeller/ (birth, death, education, marriage, Navy service, family office, Venrock from August 1969, Jackson Hole Preserve, American Conservation Association, Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, Fund presidency and chairmanship 1958 to 1980, Sloan-Kettering, Sloan Foundation, Zoological Society). +[^4]: Rockefeller Archive Center, "John D. Rockefeller, Jr., 1874-1960," biography (children of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller), https://rockarch.org/resources/about-the-rockefellers/john-d-rockefeller-jr/. +[^5]: W. David Lewis, "A Man Born Out of Season: Eddie Rickenbacker, Eastern Airlines, and the Civil Aeronautics Board," *Business and Economic History* 25, no. 1 (Fall 1996), pp. 157-163, https://thebhc.org/sites/default/files/beh/BEHprint/v025n1/p0154-p0164.pdf. +[^6]: Peter O. Crisp, "Venture Capital Greats: A Conversation with Peter O. Crisp," interviewed by Carole Kolker, October 21, 2008, National Venture Capital Association Venture Capital Oral History Project, pp. 8, 24-28, 38 and 45-47, https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/roho/ucb/text/vcg-crisp.pdf. +[^7]: "Richard Leghorn, 98, pioneer of Cold War aerial espionage photography," *Boston Globe*, February 5, 2018, https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/obituaries/2018/02/05/richard-leghorn-pioneer-cold-war-aerial-espionage-photography/C6PlYAATiFZNKx2P1La8JJ/story.html. +[^8]: Kenneth E. Greer, "Corona," *Studies in Intelligence*, Supplement, 17 (Spring 1973), pp. 1-37, reproduced in Kevin C. Ruffner, ed., *CORONA: America's First Satellite Program* (Washington: Central Intelligence Agency, Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1995), https://www.cia.gov/static/Corona-Between-the-Sun-and-the-Earth.pdf. +[^9]: Rockefeller Brothers Fund, "In Depth: The Special Studies Project," Wayback Machine capture of October 5, 2021, https://web.archive.org/web/20211005203914/https://www.rbf.org/about/our-history/timeline/special-studies-project/in-depth. +[^10]: Rockefeller Brothers Fund, *Prospect for America: The Rockefeller Panel Reports* (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961), list of the Special Studies Project planning committee and introduction by Panel II, https://archive.org/details/prospect-for-america-the-rockefeller-panel-reports-rockefeller-brothers-fund-1961. +[^11]: Allen W. Dulles to Laurance S. Rockefeller, September 16, 1960, CIA-RDP80B01676R003700050029-8, and the advance copy of Special Studies Project report VI, *The Power of the Democratic Idea*, with release notice, CIA-RDP80B01676R003700050028-9, CIA Reading Room, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01676r003700050029-8 and https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01676r003700050028-9. +[^12]: Laurance S. Rockefeller to Allen W. Dulles, February 20, 1961, and Dulles to Rockefeller, March 1, 1961, CIA-RDP80B01676R003500230010-0, CIA Reading Room, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01676r003500230010-0. +[^13]: U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of the Secretary, news release, "Secretary Udall Pledges Support of ORRRC Proposals," February 1, 1962, https://www.fws.gov/sites/default/files/documents/historic-news-releases/1962/19620201B.PDF. +[^14]: National Park Service, *Caneel Bay Area Redevelopment and Management Environmental Assessment*, Virgin Islands National Park (January 2023), chapter 1, https://npshistory.com/publications/viis/caneel-bay-redev-mgt-ea-2023.pdf. +[^15]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer API, organization records for Jackson Hole Preserve Inc (EIN 13-1813818), Laurance S Rockefeller Fund (EIN 20-4192256) and Fund For UFO Research (EIN 52-1164176), https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/131813818.json, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/204192256.json and https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/521164176.json. +[^16]: Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research, press release, "Princeton's PEAR Laboratory to Close," February 10, 2007, http://pearlab.icrl.org/press-statement.html (archived copy: https://web.archive.org/web/2007/http://pearlab.icrl.org/press-statement.html). +[^17]: John E. Mack Institute, "History," https://johnemackinstitute.org/history/, and "Program for Extraordinary Experience Research (PEER)," http://johnemackinstitute.org/2003/01/program-for-extraordinary-experience-research-peer/. +[^18]: Ben MacIntyre, "Harvard professor's stories of close encounters, other-world sex, embarrass university," *The San Francisco Examiner* (London *Times* credit), May 5, 1995, p. 16, https://www.newspapers.com/image/461595501/. +[^19]: "Harvard's Mack: The Subject Is Aliens," *Valley News* (West Lebanon, N.H.), May 20, 1995, p. 23, https://www.newspapers.com/image/833962083/. +[^20]: C. B. Scott Jones, Human Potential Foundation, to John H. Gibbons, February 17, 1994, with Gibbons's handwritten note dated 2/24/94, Office of Science and Technology Policy file, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-2-17-94.htm. +[^21]: John H. Gibbons, memorandum for the President, "Inquiry from Laurance Rockefeller," August 4, 1995, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-4-95.htm. +[^22]: Grant Cameron, "Extraterrestrial Politics in the Clinton White House (1993-2001) and the Laurance Rockefeller Initiative," introduction and notes iii and xiii, http://www.x-ppac.org/OSTP.html. The index of the scanned documents is at http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller_Initiative_Documents.htm. +[^23]: University of Colorado Boulder Libraries, "C. B. 'Scott' Jones papers," COU:4004, https://archives.colorado.edu/repositories/2/resources/346. +[^24]: Center for Psychology and Social Change, *CenterPiece*, September 1993, p. 2, "Center Welcomes PEER Research on UFO Abductions," https://johnemackinstitute.org/CenterPiece_1993_0900.pdf. +[^25]: Henry L. Diamond, memorandum to John H. Gibbons, attention Mike Kowalok, "Request for Meeting with Dr. Gibbons for Laurance S. Rockefeller, April 12 or 13, 1993," March 29, 1993, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-3-29-93.htm. +[^26]: Laurance S. Rockefeller to John H. Gibbons, April 21, 1993, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-4-21-93.htm. +[^27]: John H. Gibbons, Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy, to C. B. Scott Jones, May 26, 1993, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-5-26-93.htm. +[^28]: Laurance S. Rockefeller to Billy Graham, May 7, 1993, and Graham to Rockefeller, May 20, 1993, attached to Rockefeller's fax to Gibbons of August 23, 1995, with the undated draft letter to President Clinton, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-23-95.htm. +[^29]: Laurance S. Rockefeller to John H. Gibbons, August 4, 1993, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-4-93.htm. +[^30]: Paradigm Research Group, "September 14-15, 1993 Meeting at Rockefeller's JY Ranch in Wyoming," photograph and caption, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/9-14-93_Meeting.htm. +[^31]: Henry L. Diamond, Beveridge and Diamond, P.C., memorandum to Sue Bachtel, November 12, 1993, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-11-12-93.htm. +[^32]: Laurance S. Rockefeller to John H. Gibbons, February 14, 1994, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-2-14-94.htm. +[^33]: Rockefeller to Julia Marton-Lefevre, August 8, 1996, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-10-17-96.htm; Rockefeller to Anne Bartley, February 14, 1994, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-2-14-94-2.htm. +[^34]: Sheila E. Widnall, Secretary of the Air Force, memorandum for John H. Gibbons, "UFO Research," May 24, 1994, with Gibbons's handwritten note, and the enclosed memorandum for the Secretary of the Air Force from SAF/AAZ, "Status Report on Search Efforts Regarding 'the Roswell Incident,'" May 20, 1994, p. 1, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-5-24-94.htm (the memorandum of May 24 is listed among the enclosures to Gibbons's letter to the General Accounting Office of April 26, 1995). +[^35]: Rockefeller to John H. Gibbons, April 26, 1994, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/2-26-94%20LR%20Letter%20to%20JG/Letter.jpg (indexed as RID-2-26-94.htm). +[^36]: Laurance S. Rockefeller to John H. Gibbons, June 1, 1994, with the attached letter from Melvin R. Laird to Rockefeller, May 9, 1994, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-6-1-94.htm. +[^37]: Anne Bartley, memorandum for Jack Gibbons, "Laurance S. Rockefeller Interest in Extraterrestrial Intelligence," July 27, 1994, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-7-27-94.htm. +[^38]: C. B. Scott Jones, Human Potential Foundation, to John H. Gibbons, August 11, 1994, pp. 1-2, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-11-94.htm. +[^39]: U.S. General Accounting Office, General Government Division, to John H. Gibbons, April 12, 1995, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-4-12-95.htm; John H. Gibbons to William Hunt, Director, Federal Management Issues, U.S. General Accounting Office, April 26, 1995, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-4-26-95.htm. +[^40]: Laurance S. Rockefeller to John H. Gibbons, September 5, 1994, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-9-5-94.htm, and December 9, 1994, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-12-9-94.htm. +[^41]: C. B. Scott Jones to John H. Gibbons, February 9, 1995, pp. 1-2, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-2-9-95.htm. +[^42]: Laurance S. Rockefeller to John H. Gibbons, April 11, 1995 (the scan is filed under 4-11-94 and the letter is dated April 11, 1995), http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-4-11-94.htm. +[^43]: C. B. Scott Jones to Gibbons, December 2 and 13, 1994; Patti Solis to Jones, December 15, 1994; William M. Webster IV to Jones, December 21, 1994, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-12-2-94.htm, RID-12-13-94.htm, RID-12-15-94.htm, RID-12-21-94.htm. +[^44]: William J. Clinton Presidential Library, "When Cosmic Cultures Meet - Collection Finding Aid," FOIA 2008-1575-F, https://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/36409. +[^45]: Tanya M. Felder, OSTP electronic message to Susanne Bachtel, Barbara A. Ferguson and Holly L. Gwin, "GAO Report on UFOs," June 9, 1995, with handwritten reply of June 12, 1995, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-6-9-95.htm. +[^46]: "Clintons to Vacation in Wyoming Mountains," *Spokesman-Review*, August 15, 1995, https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1995/aug/15/clintons-to-vacation-in-wyoming-mountains/; William J. Clinton Presidential Library, "White House Photos - Laurance Rockefeller - Philanthropist," finding aid 2006-0546-F (contact sheet book 312, frame P31195, August 21, 1995), https://www.clintonlibrary.gov/research/archives/finding-aids/white-house-photos-laurance-rockefeller-philanthropist. +[^47]: C. B. Scott Jones, Human Potential Foundation, to Representative Steven Schiff, August 17, 1995, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-17-95.htm. +[^48]: Jones to Gibbons, August 23, 1995, with attached Jones letters to Newt Gingrich (August 17, 1995) and to members of the House (May 16, 1995), http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-23-95-2.htm. +[^49]: Henry L. Diamond to John H. Gibbons, November 1, 1995, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-11-1-95.htm, and November 8, 1995, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-11-8-95.htm. +[^50]: Don Berliner et al., *Unidentified Flying Objects Briefing Document: The Best Available Evidence* (UFO Research Coalition, December 1995), acknowledgments, https://archive.org/details/rockefeller-briefing-document. +[^51]: Laurance S. Rockefeller to John H. Gibbons, February 5, 1996, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-2-5-96.htm. +[^52]: Sheila E. Widnall, Secretary of the Air Force, to John H. Gibbons, February 27, 1996, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-2-27-96.htm; Laurance S. Rockefeller to John H. Gibbons, February 29, 1996, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-2-29-96.htm. +[^53]: Laurance S. Rockefeller to John H. Gibbons, October 17, 1996, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-10-17-96.htm. +[^54]: Robert Sheaffer, "Carl Sagan, Laurance Rockefeller, and UFOs," *Skeptical Inquirer* 38, no. 5 (September/October 2014), pp. 19-20, https://skepticalinquirer.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2014/09/p19.pdf. +[^55]: Bruce Maccabee to John H. Gibbons, January 2, 1997, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-1-2-97.htm. +[^56]: Secretary of the Air Force to John H. Gibbons, June 20, 1997, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-6-20-97.htm. +[^57]: Peter A. Sturrock et al., "Physical Evidence Related to UFO Reports: The Proceedings of a Workshop Held at the Pocantico Conference Center, Tarrytown, New York, September 29 - October 4, 1997," *Journal of Scientific Exploration* 12, no. 2 (1998), pp. 179-229, introduction as reproduced at http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc535.htm. +[^58]: *PEER Perspectives* no. 2 (Winter 1998/99), p. 1, https://johnemackinstitute.org/PEER_Perspectives_2.pdf. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Lee Harvey Oswald.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Lee Harvey Oswald.md index 294c6e1c..07a3857e 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Lee Harvey Oswald.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Lee Harvey Oswald.md @@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ Lee Harvey Oswald (October 18, 1939 - November 24, 1963) was the man arrested fo ### Background and Soviet Defection -Oswald was born in [[New Orleans, Louisiana|New Orleans]] and raised in Texas and [[New York]]. He enlisted in the [[United States Marine Corps|Marine Corps]] in 1956 and was assigned to Marine Air Control Squadron 1 (MACS-1) at Atsugi Air Base in [[Japan]] - a facility of particular intelligence significance. Atsugi's MACS-1 unit included height-finding radars (the MPS-16 radar among them), and Atsugi simultaneously hosted CIA Detachment C of the [[U-2]] reconnaissance program, which conducted overflights of the [[Soviet Union]] whose existence was concealed from Soviet authorities until Gary Powers was shot down in May 1960. A Japanese-American technical intelligence unit, JTAG, was also co-located at the base. As a radar operator, Oswald had access to data from high-altitude U-2 operations - information CIA counterintelligence chief [[James Angleton]] later assessed as potentially significant given Oswald's subsequent defection. +Oswald was born in [[New Orleans, Louisiana|New Orleans]] and raised in Texas and [[New York City|New York]]. He enlisted in the [[United States Marine Corps|Marine Corps]] in 1956 and was assigned to Marine Air Control Squadron 1 (MACS-1) at Atsugi Air Base in [[Japan]] - a facility of particular intelligence significance. Atsugi's MACS-1 unit included height-finding radars (the MPS-16 radar among them), and Atsugi simultaneously hosted CIA Detachment C of the [[U-2]] reconnaissance program, which conducted overflights of the [[Soviet Union]] whose existence was concealed from Soviet authorities until Gary Powers was shot down in May 1960. A Japanese-American technical intelligence unit, JTAG, was also co-located at the base. As a radar operator, Oswald had access to data from high-altitude U-2 operations - information CIA counterintelligence chief [[James Angleton]] later assessed as potentially significant given Oswald's subsequent defection. Oswald received a hardship discharge in September 1959. Within two weeks, he traveled to the Soviet Union and, in October 1959, walked into the U.S. Embassy in Moscow to renounce his American citizenship. Soviet authorities initially denied him permanent residency but eventually allowed him to remain, settling him in [[Minsk]], where he worked in a factory under [[KGB]] surveillance. He married Marina Prusakova, a Soviet citizen, in April 1961. Soviet defectors were routinely debriefed by the KGB; given Oswald's Atsugi assignment, the extent of any debriefing and what he disclosed has never been established. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Michael Whitney Straight.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Michael Whitney Straight.md index ce2960c1..5ccb58d3 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Michael Whitney Straight.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Michael Whitney Straight.md @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ --- created: 2026-10-09 -updated: 2026-10-09 +updated: 2026-10-15 title: Michael Whitney Straight aliases: - Michael Whitney Straight @@ -107,7 +107,7 @@ Straight told the FBI that he entered Cambridge in the fall of 1934 and was domi Straight told the FBI that after Cornford's death became known, Blunt invited him to his rooms and suggested that Straight make a comparable sacrifice. Blunt asked him to give up Communist work in England and turn to the international field, and said the [[Communist International]] wanted a man at Morgan and Company to supply economic reports. Straight protested that he was not cut out to be a banker; about three weeks later Blunt told him that his protests had been rejected, and he sailed for the United States, where he wrote a further letter of protest to Blunt from the ship. Before he left, Blunt tore a small ink drawing of Straight's sweetheart in half and kept one piece. Straight could not recall whether an oral parole was also arranged. He told the FBI that he believed Burgess was the person directing Blunt, although Blunt declined to say so.[^6] -In a 1981 telephone interview with [[United Press International]], Straight placed Blunt's approach in February 1937 and said: "Blunt tried to recruit me as a Soviet agent and have me return to United States and join the J.P. Morgan company." He added: "I flatly refused. I said I didn't want any part."[^7] [[The [[Washington, D.C.|Washington]] Post]] reported the same month that Blunt had tried to recruit him at Cambridge in 1937, and quoted him that "they" had decided to accelerate their timetable "because of the death of my closest friend."[^8] [[The Washington Star]] reported on March 28, 1981 that the approach came less than two weeks after Cornford's death and that Blunt wanted him to "infiltrate" Wall Street.[^9] In a January 1983 radio interview he described the instruction in nearly the same terms: "What they wanted me to do was not to go into government, but to go to Wall Street, go back to my father's old firm, J.P. Morgan & Company."[^10] +In a 1981 telephone interview with [[United Press International]], Straight placed Blunt's approach in February 1937 and said: "Blunt tried to recruit me as a Soviet agent and have me return to United States and join the J.P. Morgan company." He added: "I flatly refused. I said I didn't want any part."[^7] [[Washington Post|The Washington Post]] reported the same month that Blunt had tried to recruit him at Cambridge in 1937, and quoted him that "they" had decided to accelerate their timetable "because of the death of my closest friend."[^8] [[The Washington Star]] reported on March 28, 1981 that the approach came less than two weeks after Cornford's death and that Blunt wanted him to "infiltrate" Wall Street.[^9] In a January 1983 radio interview he described the instruction in nearly the same terms: "What they wanted me to do was not to go into government, but to go to Wall Street, go back to my father's old firm, J.P. Morgan & Company."[^10] ### Contact with Michael Green diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Rene Schneider.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Rene Schneider.md index ebd08cac..40df908f 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Rene Schneider.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Rene Schneider.md @@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ summary: "Commander of the Chilean army who held that the military must respect died: 1970-10-25 location: "Santiago, Chile" created: 2026-09-21 -updated: 2026-10-14 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- General René Schneider was commander in chief of the Chilean army from 1969. In an interview with [[El Mercurio]] on May 8, 1970, he stated that the army would respect the constitutional process and the outcome of that year's presidential election, a position that became known as the [[Schneider Doctrine]]. He was shot in [[Santiago]] on the morning of October 22, 1970, two days before the [[National Congress of Chile|Chilean Congress]] was to confirm [[Salvador Allende]], and died on October 25.[^1] @@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ Congress ratified Allende on October 24 by 153 votes to 37.[^5] ### Schneider v. Kissinger -René and Raúl Schneider and other members of the family sued Kissinger and the [[United States]] in the federal court in Washington on November 12, 2002. The complaint alleged that on September 15, 1970, Nixon ordered that the CIA "play a direct role in organizing a military coup d'etat in [[Chile]]," said he was "not concerned" about the risks, authorized ten million dollars, and required a plan within 48 hours. The district court dismissed the case in 2004, and the [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit|court of appeals]] affirmed in 2005, holding that the decision to support a coup in a foreign country was a political question that courts could not review.[^6] +René and Raúl Schneider and other members of the family sued [[Henry Kissinger|Kissinger]], the [[United States]] and [[Richard Helms]] in the federal court in Washington on September 10, 2001, and filed an amended complaint against Kissinger and the United States on November 11, 2002, according to the opinion of the court of appeals; the National Security Archive catalogues the complaint under November 12, 2002. The complaint alleged that on September 15, 1970, Nixon ordered that the CIA "play a direct role in organizing a military coup d'etat in [[Chile]]," said he was "not concerned" about the risks, authorized ten million dollars, and required a plan within 48 hours. The district court dismissed the case on March 30, 2004, and the [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit|court of appeals]] affirmed on June 28, 2005, holding that the decision to support a coup in a foreign country was a political question that courts could not review.[^6] ### Footnotes @@ -54,6 +54,6 @@ René and Raúl Schneider and other members of the family sued Kissinger and the [^3]: Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Covert Action in Chile 1963-1973,* staff report, 1975. [^4]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House*. Summit Books, 1983, pp. 275, 289-290. [^5]: Kornbluh, Peter. *The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability*. New Press, 2003, p. 29. -[^6]: Schneider v. Kissinger, 310 F. Supp. 2d 251 (D.D.C. 2004), affirmed, 412 F.3d 190 (D.C. Cir. 2005); complaint, November 12, 2002, National Security Archive document 23606. +[^6]: Schneider v. Kissinger, 310 F. Supp. 2d 251 (D.D.C. 2004), affirmed, 412 F.3d 190 (D.C. Cir. June 28, 2005), https://cite.case.law/f3d/412/190/ ; complaint, November 12, 2002, National Security Archive document 23606. [^7]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976*, Volume XXI, Chile, 1969-1973, document 162, Briefing Notes Prepared in the Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, October 23, 1970, "Track II." https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v21/d162 [^8]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976*, Volume XXI, document 168, Briefing Notes Prepared in the Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, October 28, 1970, "Recent Developments: Track II." https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v21/d168 diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Richard Secord.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Richard Secord.md index de5b7afa..c8f660e1 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Richard Secord.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Richard Secord.md @@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ aliases: - Dick Secord - General Secord created: 2026-05-17 -updated: 2026-10-14 +updated: 2026-10-15 category: "Military" tags: - Person @@ -114,7 +114,7 @@ In his 1987 testimony he said he served in [[Vietnam War|Vietnam]] and in Laos o ### Naval War College and the Pentagon -From 1971 to 1972 Secord attended a one-year George Washington University graduate program at the [[Naval War College]] in Newport, Rhode Island, one of 16 Air Force officers in a class of 203.[^1] His 1972 master's thesis, "Unconventional warfare/covert operations as an instrument of U.S. foreign policy," was directed by the CIA adviser to the head of the college. In the first pages of its 55 pages he wrote that the CIA should be given "the authority" to run such operations and that the Pentagon should be "removed from the chain of command."[^1] +From 1971 to 1972 Secord attended a one-year [[George Washington University]] graduate program at the [[Naval War College]] in Newport, Rhode Island, one of 16 Air Force officers in a class of 203.[^1] His 1972 master's thesis, "Unconventional warfare/covert operations as an instrument of U.S. foreign policy," was directed by the CIA adviser to the head of the college. In the first pages of its 55 pages he wrote that the CIA should be given "the authority" to run such operations and that the Pentagon should be "removed from the chain of command."[^1] Promoted to colonel in 1972, he became the Pentagon desk officer for Southeast Asia, and in 1973 he became aide to the director of the Defense Security Assistance Agency, which manages foreign military sales and assistance.[^1] The joint congressional report states that when Secord returned from Laos and was stationed at the Pentagon, Clines introduced him to a number of Clines's CIA associates, including [[Rafael Quintero]], and to [[Edwin Wilson]].[^9] [[Newsweek]] reported that Secord received his first general's star at the age of 43.[^6] diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Robert Booth Nichols.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Robert Booth Nichols.md index 82c5f319..934a391f 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Robert Booth Nichols.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Robert Booth Nichols.md @@ -70,7 +70,7 @@ In a telephone interview with the FBI on January 11, 1994, Nichols said that whe ### The Bayou Fee -In the spring of 2004 Nichols offered [[Samuel Israel III]], manager of the Bayou hedge funds, access to what British investigators later described as programs with "all of the hallmarks of fraudulent prime bank note programs." After more than 150 million dollars of Bayou money passed through a London account of the "Humanitarian Coalition Aid Foundation" and back in April 2004, Nichols and Israel signed a "Financial and Security Consultancy Agreement" on July 11, 2004, and on July 19 Israel wired ten million dollars to accounts in Germany, Liechtenstein, Singapore and the [[United Kingdom]] in the name of or controlled by Nichols, about eight million of which ended in a London account in the names of Nichols and his wife, Ellen. The Bayou funds' liquidating entity sued the couple in 2008 to recover the fee as a fraudulent transfer; they answered that he had received it "for value, in good faith and without knowledge of the alleged voidability of the transfer." Nichols was deposed on video at the [[U.S. Attorney's office]] in Manhattan on December 16, 2008, and the case was closed on April 28, 2010.[^1][^13] At the time his address was in Honolulu.[^1] +In the spring of 2004 Nichols offered [[Samuel Israel III]], manager of the Bayou hedge funds, access to what British investigators later described as programs with "all of the hallmarks of fraudulent prime bank note programs." After more than 150 million dollars of Bayou money passed through a London account of the "Humanitarian Coalition Aid Foundation" and back in April 2004, Nichols and Israel signed a "Financial and Security Consultancy Agreement" on July 11, 2004, and on July 19 Israel wired ten million dollars to accounts in Germany, Liechtenstein, Singapore and the [[United Kingdom]] in the name of or controlled by Nichols, about eight million of which ended in a London account in the names of Nichols and his wife, Ellen. The Bayou funds' liquidating entity sued the couple in 2008 to recover the fee as a fraudulent transfer; they answered that he had received it "for value, in good faith and without knowledge of the alleged voidability of the transfer." Nichols was deposed on video at the [[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York|U.S. Attorney's office]] in Manhattan on December 16, 2008, and the case was closed on April 28, 2010.[^1][^13] At the time his address was in Honolulu.[^1] ### Footnotes diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Spencer Oliver.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Spencer Oliver.md index 5f471235..c2cc9103 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Spencer Oliver.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Spencer Oliver.md @@ -5,16 +5,41 @@ tags: - IranContra - Israel summary: "Chief counsel of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who in 1992 sought leniency for the arms dealer Dirk Stoffberg, and whom Ari Ben-Menashe described as calling the Iran-Contra hearings a cover-up." +relations: + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Democratic National Committee]]" + start: 1966 + end: 1976 + role: "senior positions; Executive Director of the State Chairmens Association in 1972" + fn: 4 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[United States House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs]]" + end: 1993 + role: "chief counsel" + fn: 4 + - type: head_of + with: "[[OSCE Parliamentary Assembly]]" + start: 1992 + end: 2015 + role: "Secretary General" + fn: 4 --- [[Spencer Oliver]] was the chief counsel for the [[United States House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs|House Foreign Affairs Committee]]. He was involved in the [[Iran-Contra Affair]] hearings. In 1991, he discussed the events of 1987 with [[Ari Ben-Menashe]], admitting that the Democrats knew the witnesses were lying and that the hearings were a cover-up to avoid impeaching the president.[^1] +### The 1972 telephone tap + +The Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities names R. Spencer Oliver Jr. as the Democratic National Committee official, the son of Robert Oliver, the Mullen and Company lobbyist for Hughes Tool, whose telephone [[James McCord]] bugged in the first Watergate entry of May 27, 1972.[^2] A 1976 memorandum by [[Bruce Solie]], chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's Security Analysis Group, identifies the "Spencer Oliver" named in a Freedom of Information request from McCord as, according to a 1972 newspaper article, the Executive Director of the State Chairmens Association of the Democratic National Committee, in whose office telephone "an alleged listening device was found."[^3] The Wilson Center's biography of Oliver lists senior positions at the Democratic National Committee from 1966 to 1976, followed by service as Chief of Staff of the Helsinki Commission (1976 to 1985) and as chief counsel of the House Foreign Affairs Committee until 1993; the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly's biography lists him as its Secretary General from 1992 to 2015.[^4] + ### Stoffberg letter (1992) -On January 10, 1992, Oliver, chief counsel of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York requesting leniency for [[Dirk Stoffberg]], a convicted arms dealer, on the ground that Stoffberg had provided the committee with information about the 1980 hostage events. Judge [[Jack Weinstein]] cited the request in an amended sentencing memorandum and reduced the sentence.[^2] On February 4, 1992, Representative McEwen of Ohio announced that he would offer a privileged resolution on the letter before the House debated House Resolution 258, which created the October Surprise task force.[^2] A reprinted newspaper account quotes Representative Henry Hyde: "By what authority did Spencer Oliver intervene in this case, and why wasn't the minority notified?"[^3] +On January 10, 1992, Oliver, chief counsel of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York requesting leniency for [[Dirk Stoffberg]], a convicted arms dealer, on the ground that Stoffberg had provided the committee with information about the 1980 hostage events. Judge [[Jack Weinstein]] cited the request in an amended sentencing memorandum and reduced the sentence.[^5] On February 4, 1992, Representative McEwen of Ohio announced that he would offer a privileged resolution on the letter before the House debated House Resolution 258, which created the October Surprise task force.[^5] A reprinted newspaper account quotes Representative Henry Hyde: "By what authority did Spencer Oliver intervene in this case, and why wasn't the minority notified?"[^6] ### Footnotes [^1]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network*. Sheridan Square Press, 1992 (TrineDay reprint, 2015). -[^2]: U.S. House of Representatives, *Congressional Record*, February 4, 1992, pp. H253 and following (announcement by Representative McEwen; reprinted letter of January 10, 1992; amended memorandum and order of the Eastern District of New York). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_cr/h920204-october.htm -[^3]: Reprinted article quoted in the same Congressional Record volume (Stoffberg defense account), above. +[^2]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), section "Robert Bennett and the Mullen and Company", pp. 1122-1123 (Robert Oliver and R. Spencer Oliver Jr.); the first entry of May 27, 1972 and the placement of the telephone devices, Part I. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^3]: Solie, Bruce L., Chief, Security Analysis Group, memorandum for the file, "McCord, James Walter, Jr.," June 23, 1976, JFK record 104-10123-10362. +[^4]: Wilson Center, "Spencer Oliver," expert biography. https://wilsoncenter.org/person/spencer-oliver ; OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, "R. Spencer Oliver," former Secretary General. https://www.oscepa.org/en/about-osce-pa/international-secretariat/former-secretary-general/former-secretary-general +[^5]: U.S. House of Representatives, *Congressional Record*, February 4, 1992, pp. H253 and following (announcement by Representative McEwen; reprinted letter of January 10, 1992; amended memorandum and order of the Eastern District of New York). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_cr/h920204-october.htm +[^6]: Reprinted article quoted in the same Congressional Record volume (Stoffberg defense account), above. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Toby Ord.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Toby Ord.md index 75d5b025..791ba7fc 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Toby Ord.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Toby Ord.md @@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ summary: "Toby Ord is an Australian moral philosopher at Oxford who cofounded Gi born: 1979 location: "Oxford, England" created: 2026-06-19 -updated: 2026-06-19 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Toby Ord (born July 1979) is an Australian moral philosopher at the [[University of Oxford]] who cofounded the [[Effective Altruism]] movement and became one of the leading academic theorists of existential risk. He founded [[Giving What We Can]], the pledge society that anchored the movement's early growth, was a senior research fellow at the [[Future of Humanity Institute]], and wrote *The Precipice*, a 2020 book arguing that humanity faces a roughly one-in-six chance of an existential catastrophe within the next hundred years.[^1][^2] @@ -23,17 +23,17 @@ Toby Ord (born July 1979) is an Australian moral philosopher at the [[University Ord was born in [[Melbourne]] and studied computer science before switching to philosophy at the [[University of Melbourne]], then moved to Oxford for graduate work. There he calculated that he could earn roughly 1.5 million pounds over his career and give away about a million of it while keeping a graduate student's standard of living, and he pledged to donate everything above a fixed personal income. In 2009 he and the philosopher [[William MacAskill]] founded Giving What We Can, an international society whose members pledge at least ten percent of their income to the most cost-effective charities; its members have collectively pledged well over a billion dollars. The pledge model, paired with the charity-evaluation work of [[GiveWell]] and [[Holden Karnofsky]], formed the practical core of effective altruism.[^3][^4] -Ord launched Giving What We Can in November 2009 alongside his wife, the physician Bernadette Young, with whom he committed to capping his own annual spending and donating the rest. He set his personal living allowance at about 18,000 pounds a year, giving away everything earned above it toward a lifetime target of one million pounds, with the bulk going to the SCI Foundation and Deworm the World (both deworming programs), the [[Against Malaria Foundation]], and the poverty-research lab J-PAL. The society grew from a handful of Oxford members to more than 9,000, and by March 2022 the pledges of its members totaled more than 2.5 billion dollars in expected lifetime giving.[^3][^7] +Ord launched Giving What We Can in November 2009 alongside his wife, the physician Bernadette Young, with whom he committed to capping his own annual spending and donating the rest. He set his personal living allowance at about 18,000 pounds a year, giving away everything earned above it toward a lifetime target of one million pounds, with the bulk going to the SCI Foundation and Deworm the World (both deworming programs), the [[Against Malaria Foundation]], and the poverty-research lab J-PAL. The society grew from a handful of Oxford members to more than 9,000, and by March 2022 the pledges of its members totaled more than 2.5 billion dollars in expected lifetime giving.[^3][^5] ### Future of Humanity Institute and Existential Risk Ord was a senior research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute, the Oxford center founded by [[Nick Bostrom]] in 2005 that became the academic headquarters of [[Longtermism|longtermism]]. His research moved from the ethics of global poverty toward existential risk, the danger of events that would permanently destroy humanity's long-term potential, the same focus that animated Bostrom's work and the AI-safety concerns of the [[Rationalist Community]]. Ord has advised the [[World Health Organization]], the [[World Bank]], the [[World Economic Forum]], the U.S. National Intelligence Council, and the UK Prime Minister's Office.[^1][^2] -The Future of Humanity Institute closed on April 16, 2024 after nineteen years, with Oxford's Faculty of Philosophy declining to renew the remaining staff contracts following a 2020 freeze on its hiring and fundraising; Bostrom called it "death by bureaucracy." The shutdown followed a period of reputational damage, including the 2023 resurfacing of a 1996 email in which Bostrom had used a racial slur, for which he apologized and which prompted an Oxford inquiry. Ord had by then moved to the Oxford Martin School's AI Governance Initiative, continuing the existential-risk work the institute had housed.[^8][^9] +The Future of Humanity Institute closed on April 16, 2024 after nineteen years, with Oxford's Faculty of Philosophy declining to renew the remaining staff contracts following a 2020 freeze on its hiring and fundraising; Bostrom called it "death by bureaucracy." The shutdown followed a period of reputational damage, including the 2023 resurfacing of a 1996 email in which Bostrom had used a racial slur, for which he apologized and which prompted an Oxford inquiry. Ord had by then moved to the Oxford Martin School's AI Governance Initiative, continuing the existential-risk work the institute had housed.[^6][^7] ### The Precipice -*The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity*, published in 2020, surveyed the catastrophes that could end the human story, natural and anthropogenic, and assigned probabilities to each. Ord judged engineered pandemics and unaligned artificial intelligence the gravest near-term threats and estimated the combined chance of an existential catastrophe this century at about one in six. The book argued that reducing such risks should rank among the highest global priorities, the central claim of the longtermist program that MacAskill later developed in *What We Owe the Future* and that the [[FTX Future Fund]] of [[Sam Bankman-Fried]] funded before its 2022 collapse.[^5][^6] +*The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity*, published in 2020, surveyed the catastrophes that could end the human story, natural and anthropogenic, and assigned probabilities to each. Ord judged engineered pandemics and unaligned artificial intelligence the gravest near-term threats and estimated the combined chance of an existential catastrophe this century at about one in six. The book argued that reducing such risks should rank among the highest global priorities, the central claim of the longtermist program that MacAskill later developed in *What We Owe the Future* and that the [[FTX Future Fund]] of [[Sam Bankman-Fried]] funded before its 2022 collapse.[^8][^9] Ord's Table 6.1 gave per-century estimates that placed unaligned artificial intelligence at roughly one in ten, engineered pandemics at one in thirty, nuclear war and climate change at one in a thousand each, and all natural risks combined (asteroids, supervolcanoes, naturally arising pandemics) at only about one in ten thousand. He stressed that the anthropogenic figures were order-of-magnitude judgments that could "easily be a factor of 3 higher or lower," and that the era of human-made existential risk had begun only with the atomic bomb in 1945, which he called the start of the "Precipice." His framing of AI as the single largest source of extinction risk became a load-bearing premise for the AI-safety funding that flowed from [[Open Philanthropy]] and the FTX Future Fund into the labs and research centers.[^2][^10] @@ -43,9 +43,9 @@ Ord's Table 6.1 gave per-century estimates that placed unaligned artificial inte [^2]: Ord, Toby. *The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity.* Bloomsbury, 2020. [^3]: "Toby Ord: Why I'm giving £1m to charity," *BBC News,* 2010, on the career-earnings calculation and the pledge. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-11950843 [^4]: "Our history," Giving What We Can, on the 2009 founding with William MacAskill and the cumulative pledge total. https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/about-us/history -[^5]: "The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity," Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, on the one-in-six estimate and the book's argument. https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/the-precipice-existential-risk-and-the-future-of-humanity/ -[^6]: "Existential risk and the future of humanity (Toby Ord)," EA Forum, on the book's risk taxonomy and probability estimates. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/BAfEgTaK5BsperQEc/existential-risk-and-the-future-of-humanity-toby-ord -[^7]: "Toby Ord: Why I'm giving £1m to charity," *BBC News,* 2010, on the 18,000-pound living allowance and the named charities; "Oxford-based charity receives more than $2.5 billion in pledges," University of Oxford, March 1, 2022. https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2022-03-01-oxford-based-charity-receives-more-25-billion-pledges-community-effective-givers -[^8]: "Oxford shuts down institute run by Elon Musk-backed philosopher," *The Guardian,* April 20, 2024, on the April 16, 2024 closure and "death by bureaucracy." https://www.oxfordstudent.com/2024/04/20/oxford-shuts-down-elon-musk-funded-future-of-humanity-institute/ -[^9]: "Looking Back at the Future of Humanity Institute," *Asterisk,* on the 2020 hiring freeze, the contract non-renewals, and the institute's nineteen-year run. https://asteriskmag.com/issues/08/looking-back-at-the-future-of-humanity-institute +[^5]: "Toby Ord: Why I'm giving £1m to charity," *BBC News,* 2010, on the 18,000-pound living allowance and the named charities; "Oxford-based charity receives more than $2.5 billion in pledges," University of Oxford, March 1, 2022. https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2022-03-01-oxford-based-charity-receives-more-25-billion-pledges-community-effective-givers +[^6]: "Oxford shuts down Elon Musk-funded Future of Humanity Institute," *The Oxford Student,* April 20, 2024, Internet Archive capture dated April 28, 2024, on the April 16, 2024 closure; Bostrom's "death by bureaucracy" statement appears there as an emailed statement to *The Guardian.* https://web.archive.org/web/20240428172104/https://www.oxfordstudent.com/2024/04/20/oxford-shuts-down-elon-musk-funded-future-of-humanity-institute/ +[^7]: "Looking Back at the Future of Humanity Institute," *Asterisk,* on the 2020 hiring freeze, the contract non-renewals, and the institute's nineteen-year run. https://asteriskmag.com/issues/08/looking-back-at-the-future-of-humanity-institute +[^8]: "The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity," Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, on the one-in-six estimate and the book's argument. https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/the-precipice-existential-risk-and-the-future-of-humanity/ +[^9]: "Existential risk and the future of humanity (Toby Ord)," EA Forum, on the book's risk taxonomy and probability estimates. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/BAfEgTaK5BsperQEc/existential-risk-and-the-future-of-humanity-toby-ord [^10]: "Some thoughts on Toby Ord's existential risk estimates," EA Forum, reproducing Table 6.1 with the one-in-ten AI figure and the order-of-magnitude caveat. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Z5KZ2cui8WDjyF6gJ/some-thoughts-on-toby-ord-s-existential-risk-estimates diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Yitzhak Shamir.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Yitzhak Shamir.md index 9321329c..cff9f914 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Yitzhak Shamir.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Yitzhak Shamir.md @@ -110,7 +110,7 @@ Shamir became prime minister on October 10, 1983.[^2] A December 1983 Central In ### Foreign minister, 1980 to 1983 -Shamir was foreign minister from March 10, 1980.[^2] On October 4, 1982 [[George P. Shultz]], then secretary of state, told the Soviet foreign minister [[Andrei Gromyko]] in [[New York]] that he had put the question of Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon to Shamir. Shamir had said that once the Syrians were out, Israel would leave all of Lebanon and "not occupy any part of it."[^20] +Shamir was foreign minister from March 10, 1980.[^2] On October 4, 1982 [[George P. Shultz]], then secretary of state, told the Soviet foreign minister [[Andrei Gromyko]] in [[New York City|New York]] that he had put the question of Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon to Shamir. Shamir had said that once the Syrians were out, Israel would leave all of Lebanon and "not occupy any part of it."[^20] In February 1981 Prime Minister Menachem Begin sent Shamir to Washington to see [[Alexander Haig]], the secretary of state, because Begin was unhappy with the American position set out in a February 4 cable. According to Haig, Shamir was told that the [[United States]] could not prohibit Israeli sales of non-American items to Iran but opposed any arms deal with Iran and prohibited sales of American-origin arms. The [[Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force]] (1993) records that "Foreign Minister Shamir apparently heard Haig's message differently," and that he told Begin the United States objected to the sale of American-origin equipment.[^21] An affidavit by [[William Northrop]] asserted that Haig had authorized Israel to ship American weapons to Iran. The Task Force's review of the cable traffic and the participants' notes found that "no green light was ever given for the shipment of American-made weapons between Israel and Iran."[^21] diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Hassan Yassin.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Hassan Yassin.md index 2e1a4ca3..aa6cda4f 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Hassan Yassin.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Hassan Yassin.md @@ -12,12 +12,12 @@ summary: "Son of King Abdulaziz's adviser Youssef Yassin, cousin of Adnan Khasho died: 2026-05-17 location: "Mecca, Saudi Arabia" created: 2026-09-22 -updated: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Hassan Yassin (Mecca, to May 17, 2026) was the son of Sheikh Youssef Yassin, political adviser to King Abdulaziz, the founder of [[Saudi Arabia]], and grew up, in the words of his obituary, "immersed in the details and inner workings of Saudi politics from an early age." Educated in Mecca and Taif and at Victoria College in Alexandria, he studied in the United States in the 1950s and worked under the oil ministers Abdullah Tariki and [[Ahmed Zaki Yamani]] from 1959 to 1967. From 1972 to 1981 he headed the Saudi Information Office in [[Washington, D.C.]], the kingdom's public diplomacy post in the capital during the oil embargo, the Yamani years and the first arms sales fights in Congress; he then served with the Arab League's observer delegation at the United Nations from 1981 to 1983, later advised a Saudi ambassador in Washington, and wrote a column for Arab News. Saudi officials mourning him called him "a national memory and a cultural treasure trove that accompanied our kings."[^1] -He was a cousin of the arms dealer [[Adnan Khashoggi]] and was described, in the account of the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International|BCCI]] affair by Beaty and Gwynne, as a close business associate of [[Kamal Adham]], the head of Saudi intelligence and the bank's front man. No documented transaction connects him to [[Earl Brian]]'s [[Hadron]] or [[United Press International]] ventures; he does not appear in the [[House Committee on the Judiciary|House Judiciary Committee]]'s report, the Bua report or [[Ari Ben-Menashe]]'s book.[^2] +He was a cousin of the arms dealer [[Adnan Khashoggi]] and was described, in the account of the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International|BCCI]] affair by Beaty and Gwynne, as a close business associate of [[Kamal Adham]], the head of Saudi intelligence and the bank's front man.[^2] ### Footnotes diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Jacques Vallee.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Jacques Vallee.md index 73761657..ca0bd70a 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Jacques Vallee.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Jacques Vallee.md @@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ summary: "Jacques Vallée is a French-born computer scientist and ufologist whos born: 1939-09-24 location: "Pontoise, France" created: 2025-08-05 -updated: 2026-10-12 +updated: 2026-10-15 relations: - type: employed_by with: "[[Paris Observatory]]" @@ -144,7 +144,7 @@ The report tested DACOS on 30 transcripts from a single 1987 experiment. "Overal ### The Secret Onion and the Wilson interview -Vallée's journal entry of October 2, 2003, written in Austin, Texas, records that Puthoff met him at the airport and told him the thread began in the late 1980s with "a supposedly top-secret UFO study group for Army Intelligence started by John Alexander," which Vallée had heard of through Col. [[Ron Blackburn]] of [[Lockheed Corporation]] and which was nicknamed "the Secret Onion." Vallée places its advanced-physics meetings between May and August 1985 at the offices of the [[BDM Corporation]].[^23] The same entries describe a transcript of an April 1997 interview of Admiral [[Thomas R. Wilson]], then of the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]], by [[Eric Davis]] at EG&G in Las Vegas, in which, as Vallée summarizes it, Wilson searched the records of special access programs, found three programs related to UFOs and was referred to a fourth group. Vallée quotes the answer as "We're a reverse engineering program."[^23] +Vallée's journal entry of October 2, 2003, written in Austin, Texas, records that Puthoff met him at the airport and told him the thread began in the late 1980s with "a supposedly top-secret UFO study group for Army Intelligence started by John Alexander," which Vallée had heard of through Col. [[Ron Blackburn]] of [[Lockheed Aircraft Company|Lockheed Corporation]] and which was nicknamed "the Secret Onion." Vallée places its advanced-physics meetings between May and August 1985 at the offices of the [[BDM Corporation]].[^23] The same entries describe a transcript of an April 1997 interview of Admiral [[Thomas R. Wilson]], then of the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]], by [[Eric Davis]] at EG&G in Las Vegas, in which, as Vallée summarizes it, Wilson searched the records of special access programs, found three programs related to UFOs and was referred to a fourth group. Vallée quotes the answer as "We're a reverse engineering program."[^23] ### The 1978 United Nations initiative diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Mark Zuckerberg.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Mark Zuckerberg.md index 291da486..9a32d430 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Mark Zuckerberg.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Mark Zuckerberg.md @@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ summary: "Mark Zuckerberg is the cofounder and chief executive of Facebook, now born: 1984-05-14 location: "Palo Alto, California" created: 2026-06-19 -updated: 2026-06-19 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Mark Zuckerberg (born May 14, 1984) is the cofounder and chief executive of [[Facebook]], renamed [[Meta Platforms|Meta]] in 2021, the social-media company he started at [[Harvard University]] in 2004 with [[Dustin Moskovitz]], [[Eduardo Saverin]], [[Chris Hughes]], and [[Andrew McCollum]]. [[Peter Thiel]] was the company's first outside investor and a member of its board for seventeen years, and Zuckerberg's network and trajectory intersect the [[Thiel Influence Network]] at several points, from the founding investment to the Trump-era political realignment.[^1][^2] @@ -20,17 +20,17 @@ Mark Zuckerberg (born May 14, 1984) is the cofounder and chief executive of [[Fa Thiel made the first outside investment in Facebook in 2004, five hundred thousand dollars structured as a convertible note for about 10.2 percent of the company, valuing it near 4.9 million dollars, and joined its board in 2005. He sold large blocks at and after the May 2012 initial public offering, taking roughly 640 million dollars at the IPO and several hundred million more after the lockup expired in August 2012, and remained a director until February 2022, when he declined reelection to focus on funding pro-[[Donald Trump|Trump]] political candidates ahead of the midterms.[^1][^3] -Thiel acted as an intermediary between Zuckerberg and the political right. He attended a previously undisclosed dinner with Zuckerberg and Trump in the Blue Room of the [[White House]] on October 22, 2019, organized on short notice and reported by NBC News a month later, during the week Zuckerberg testified to Congress on Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency project. Senator Elizabeth Warren called the meeting "corruption, plain and simple."[^6] +Thiel acted as an intermediary between Zuckerberg and the political right. He attended a previously undisclosed dinner with Zuckerberg and Trump in the Blue Room of the [[White House]] on October 22, 2019, organized on short notice and reported by NBC News a month later, during the week Zuckerberg testified to Congress on Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency project. Senator Elizabeth Warren called the meeting "corruption, plain and simple."[^4] ### The Epstein Dinner -An August 2015 dinner in Palo Alto, hosted by [[Reid Hoffman]] and reported by Vanity Fair in 2019, placed Zuckerberg at the same table as Thiel, [[Elon Musk]], and [[Joi Ito]] of the [[MIT Media Lab]], who brokered access to [[Jeffrey Epstein]]'s money and circle. Epstein emailed the financier Thomas Pritzker on August 20, 2015, "i had dinner with zuckerburg, mu=k, thiel hoffman, wild," and emailed himself a photograph from the gathering, both of which surfaced in the document releases under the [[Epstein Files Transparency Act]] in late 2025 and early 2026. Releasers stressed that being named in the files is not evidence of wrongdoing.[^4][^7] +A dinner at the restaurant Baume in Palo Alto on Sunday, August 2, 2015, hosted by [[Reid Hoffman]] and reported by Vanity Fair in 2019, placed Zuckerberg at the same table as Thiel, [[Elon Musk]], and [[Joi Ito]] of the [[MIT Media Lab]], who brokered access to [[Jeffrey Epstein]]'s money and circle. Epstein emailed the financier Thomas Pritzker on August 20, 2015, "i had dinner with zuckerburg, mu=k, thiel hoffman, wild," and emailed himself a photograph from the gathering, both of which surfaced in the document releases under the [[Epstein Files Transparency Act]] in late 2025 and early 2026. Releasers stressed that being named in the files is not evidence of wrongdoing.[^5][^6] -Meta has disputed any closer connection, with a spokesman stating in 2019 that Zuckerberg "met Epstein in passing one time at a dinner" and "did not communicate with Epstein again." Hoffman apologized in September 2019 for participating in fundraising where Epstein was present, saying he had helped "repair his reputation and perpetuate injustice," while Musk has said he refused invitations to Epstein's island, a claim that reporters noted sits awkwardly against released 2012 to 2013 emails between Musk and Epstein. Ito resigned from the MIT Media Lab, the MIT Corporation, and other boards in September 2019 after Ronan Farrow reported in The New Yorker that the lab had concealed millions of dollars in Epstein-linked donations, referring to him internally as "Voldemort."[^8][^9] +Meta has disputed any closer connection, with a spokesman stating in 2019 that Zuckerberg "met Epstein in passing one time at a dinner" and "did not communicate with Epstein again." Hoffman apologized in September 2019 for participating in fundraising where Epstein was present, saying he had helped "repair his reputation and perpetuate injustice," while Musk has said he refused invitations to Epstein's island, a claim that reporters noted sits awkwardly against released 2012 to 2013 emails between Musk and Epstein. Ito resigned from the MIT Media Lab, the MIT Corporation, and other boards in September 2019 after Ronan Farrow reported in The New Yorker that the lab had concealed millions of dollars in Epstein-linked donations, referring to him internally as "Voldemort."[^7][^8] ### The 2025 Realignment -After Trump's 2024 election, Zuckerberg moved Meta toward the tech-right. The company donated one million dollars to Trump's inauguration fund, having given nothing to the 2017 or 2021 inaugurations. On January 2, 2025 Meta replaced its policy chief Nick Clegg with Joel Kaplan, a former deputy chief of staff to George W. Bush, and on January 6 it added the Ultimate Fighting Championship head Dana White to its board. On January 7 it announced it was ending its third-party fact-checking program in the United States for a "community notes" model and moving its content-moderation operations from California to Texas, and on January 10 it ended its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.[^5][^10] +After Trump's 2024 election, Zuckerberg moved Meta toward the tech-right. The company donated one million dollars to Trump's inauguration fund, having given nothing to the 2017 or 2021 inaugurations. On January 2, 2025 Meta replaced its policy chief Nick Clegg with Joel Kaplan, a former deputy chief of staff to George W. Bush, and on January 6 it added the Ultimate Fighting Championship head Dana White to its board. On January 7 it announced it was ending its third-party fact-checking program in the United States for a "community notes" model and moving its content-moderation operations from California to Texas, and on January 10 it ended its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.[^9][^10] In a January 2025 appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast Zuckerberg said corporate culture had tried to "get away from" "masculine energy," which he called "good," and that companies should "celebrate the aggression a bit more," signaling an alignment with the cultural politics promoted by the Thiel network and figures such as [[Mike Solana]] and [[Marc Andreessen]].[^11] @@ -39,11 +39,11 @@ In a January 2025 appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast Zuckerberg said corporate cu [^1]: "Peter Thiel to step down from board of Facebook parent Meta," *CNBC,* February 7, 2022, on the first investment, the 2005-2022 board tenure, and the Trump focus. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/07/peter-thiel-to-step-down-from-facebook-board.html [^2]: "Tech billionaire Peter Thiel resigns from board of Facebook parent," *UPI,* February 7, 2022. https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2022/02/07/billionaire-Peter-Thiel-resigns-board-Facebook/5311644280042/ [^3]: "Peter Thiel to step down from Facebook's board," CNN Business, February 7, 2022, on Thiel as intermediary and the 2019 Trump-Zuckerberg dinner. https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/07/tech/peter-thiel-facebook-board -[^4]: Tommy Carstensen Epstein Files index, cross-referencing the EFTA releases (EFTA00344556, EFTA00344564) for the 2015 dinner guest list. https://tommycarstensen.com/epstein/people/peter-thiel.html -[^5]: "Meta ends fact-checking program," contemporaneous press coverage of the January 2025 content-moderation and policy changes and the Trump inauguration donation. -[^6]: "Trump had a previously undisclosed dinner with Zuckerberg and Thiel," *NBC News,* November 20, 2019, on the October 22, 2019 White House dinner and Warren's response. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/trump-zuckerberg-had-previously-undisclosed-dinner-white-house-n1087986 -[^7]: "Epstein emailed about a 2015 dinner with Zuckerberg, Musk and Thiel," *Fortune,* 2026, on the "wild" email to Thomas Pritzker, the self-addressed photo, and the EFTA releases; the dinner first reported by *Vanity Fair,* 2019. https://fortune.com/2026/epstein-email-zuckerberg-musk-thiel-dinner/ -[^8]: "Meta says Zuckerberg met Epstein once," statements by spokesman Ben LaBolt, 2019; and Hoffman's September 12, 2019 apology, *Axios.* https://www.axios.com/2019/09/12/reid-hoffman-jeffrey-epstein-apology -[^9]: Farrow, Ronan. "How an Elite University Research Center Concealed Its Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein," *The New Yorker,* September 6, 2019, on the MIT Media Lab donations and Ito's resignation. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-an-elite-university-research-center-concealed-its-relationship-with-jeffrey-epstein -[^10]: "Meta names Joel Kaplan as policy chief," *CNBC,* January 2, 2025; "Dana White joins Meta board," Meta Newsroom, January 6, 2025; "Meta ends fact-checking and moves moderation to Texas," *The Texas Tribune,* January 7, 2025; "Meta ends DEI programs," *CNBC,* January 10, 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/02/meta-names-joel-kaplan-to-succeed-nick-clegg-as-policy-chief.html +[^4]: "Trump had a previously undisclosed dinner with Zuckerberg and Thiel," *NBC News,* November 20, 2019, on the October 22, 2019 White House dinner and Warren's response. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/trump-zuckerberg-had-previously-undisclosed-dinner-white-house-n1087986 +[^5]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00344556 and EFTA00344564, email thread "CONFIRMED: DINNER: Sunday, 8/2," July 31, 2015, listing the dinner at 6 pm on Sunday, August 2, 2015 at Baume, Palo Alto, with Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan, Thiel, Hoffman, Boyden, Epstein and Musk among the attendees. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00344556.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00344564.pdf +[^6]: "Epstein emailed about a 2015 dinner with Zuckerberg, Musk and Thiel," *Fortune,* 2026, on the "wild" email to Thomas Pritzker, the self-addressed photo, and the EFTA releases; the dinner first reported by *Vanity Fair,* 2019. https://fortune.com/2026/epstein-email-zuckerberg-musk-thiel-dinner/ +[^7]: "Meta says Zuckerberg met Epstein once," statements by spokesman Ben LaBolt, 2019; and Hoffman's September 12, 2019 apology, *Axios.* https://www.axios.com/2019/09/12/reid-hoffman-jeffrey-epstein-apology +[^8]: Farrow, Ronan. "How an Elite University Research Center Concealed Its Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein," *The New Yorker,* September 6, 2019, on the MIT Media Lab donations and Ito's resignation. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-an-elite-university-research-center-concealed-its-relationship-with-jeffrey-epstein +[^9]: "Meta ends fact-checking program," contemporaneous press coverage of the January 2025 content-moderation and policy changes and the Trump inauguration donation. +[^10]: "Meta names Joel Kaplan as policy chief," *CNBC,* January 2, 2025; "Dana White joins Meta board," Meta Newsroom, January 6, 2025; "Meta ends fact-checking and moves moderation to Texas," *The Texas Tribune,* January 7, 2025; "Meta ends DEI programs," *CNBC,* January 10, 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/02/meta-names-joel-kaplan-to-succeed-nick-clegg-as-policy-chief.html ; Meta Platforms, Inc., Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1, January 6, 2025, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000132680125000005/jan62025exhibit991.htm ; Joel Kaplan, "More Speech and Fewer Mistakes," Meta newsroom, January 7, 2025, https://about.fb.com/news/2025/01/meta-more-speech-fewer-mistakes/ ; Pavan Acharya, The Texas Tribune, January 7, 2025, https://www.texastribune.org/2025/01/07/texas-meta-content-moderators-fact-checking/ [^11]: "Mark Zuckerberg says companies need more 'masculine energy,'" *Fortune,* January 13, 2025, on the Joe Rogan podcast remarks. https://fortune.com/2025/01/13/mark-zuckerberg-joe-rogan-masculine-energy-meta/ diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Nicholas Tartaglione.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Nicholas Tartaglione.md index 1a256fa4..790d4211 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Nicholas Tartaglione.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Nicholas Tartaglione.md @@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ Nicholas Tartaglione is a former police officer of the [[Briarcliff Manor Police ### Police Career and the 2016 Murders -Tartaglione served as a police officer in Briarcliff Manor, a Westchester village about 20 miles north of [[New York City]]. On April 11, 2016 he and accomplices kidnapped Martin Luna, whom he suspected of stealing 250,000 dollars from him; Luna was strangled with a zip tie, and three men who were with him, Urbano Santiago, Miguel Luna and Hector Gutierrez, were forced to kneel in the woods and shot in the back of the head. The four bodies were buried on Tartaglione's property in [[Otisville, New York|Otisville]], [[Orange County, New York|Orange County]]. He was indicted in the [[Southern District of New York]] in December 2016 on a charge of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and four counts of murder in furtherance of a drug crime, and a second superseding indictment added firearm murder, kidnapping conspiracy, kidnapping resulting in death and Travel Act murder counts.[^1][^4][^5] He was held in federal custody from December 2016.[^6] The Bureau of Prisons described him as "a certified death penalty eligible inmate."[^2] +Tartaglione served as a police officer in Briarcliff Manor, a Westchester village about 20 miles north of [[New York City]]. On April 11, 2016 he and accomplices kidnapped Martin Luna, whom he suspected of stealing 250,000 dollars from him; Luna was strangled with a zip tie, and three men who were with him, Urbano Santiago, Miguel Luna and Hector Gutierrez, were forced to kneel in the woods and shot in the back of the head. The four bodies were buried on Tartaglione's property in [[Otisville, New York|Otisville]], [[Orange County, New York|Orange County]]. He was indicted in the [[U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York|Southern District of New York]] in December 2016 on a charge of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and four counts of murder in furtherance of a drug crime, and a second superseding indictment added firearm murder, kidnapping conspiracy, kidnapping resulting in death and Travel Act murder counts.[^1][^4][^5] He was held in federal custody from December 2016.[^6] The Bureau of Prisons described him as "a certified death penalty eligible inmate."[^2] During the pretrial proceedings Judge [[Kenneth M. Karas]] appointed separate counsel under Curcio to advise him on a conflict among his lawyers, held a multi-day sealed hearing with the participation of the government's "firewall" counsel, and on May 25, 2021 disqualified one of his retained attorneys, John Weider, for "an actual, unwaivable conflict of interest," while finding that any conflicts of the attorney [[Bruce Barket]] and his firm were waivable. Trial ran from March 13 to April 6, 2023, and the jury convicted him on every count. On June 10, 2024 Karas sentenced him to four consecutive life terms followed by five years of supervised release; U.S. Attorney [[Damian Williams]] said he had "brutally and senselessly murdered Martin Luna over money." His appeal to the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit|Second Circuit]] (No. 24-1852) was pending in May 2026.[^1][^5] diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Peter Videnieks.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Peter Videnieks.md index 1ebec585..28509b6d 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Peter Videnieks.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Peter Videnieks.md @@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ Bason's conclusions on the conduct of the department included the finding that t Bason also found that in February 1985, after Brewer had talked to [[Thomas Stanton]], Rugh telephoned Videnieks and said there was "no way" the INSLAW bankruptcy would continue as a Chapter 11 case.[^16] Videnieks' handwritten note of the call, dated 2/20/85, is quoted in the Bua report, which also recorded that Rugh and Videnieks each said the note reflected Rugh's belief that INSLAW would end in chapter 7 liquidation, and that the report found their reading of the note reasonable and consistent with the other evidence.[^17] -On March 14, 1986, shortly after INSLAW declared bankruptcy, INSLAW's counsel [[Leigh Ratiner]] wrote to Videnieks as the contracting officer that any continued use of the enhanced PROMIS software without INSLAW's consent contravened its property rights as a debtor and violated the automatic stay.[^18] The [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit|D.C. Circuit]] reversed the stay-violation judgment on May 7, 1991, writing that the automatic stay "does not reach the Department's use of property in its possession under a claim of right at the time of the bankruptcy filing, even if that use may ultimately prove to violate the bankrupt's rights," and that the bankruptcy court had no jurisdiction to hear the claims asserted under section 362(a). Rehearing was denied on July 12, 1991.[^19] +On March 14, 1986, shortly after INSLAW declared bankruptcy, INSLAW's counsel [[Leigh Ratiner]] wrote to Videnieks as the contracting officer that any continued use of the enhanced PROMIS software without INSLAW's consent contravened its property rights as a debtor and violated the automatic stay.[^18] The [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit|D.C. Circuit]] reversed the stay-violation judgment on May 7, 1991, writing that the automatic stay "does not reach the Department's use of property in its possession under a claim of right at the time of the bankruptcy filing, even if that use may ultimately prove to violate the bankrupt's rights," and that the bankruptcy court had no jurisdiction to hear the claims asserted under section 362(a). Rehearing was denied on July 12, 1991.[^19] The opinion records that INSLAW filed a claim with "the contracting officer" on October 17, 1985 and that the contracting officer ruled against INSLAW on February 21, 1986; it does not give his name.[^19] ### Customs and the Hadron allegation diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/INTERNATIONAL/GRU.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/INTERNATIONAL/GRU.md index 45526984..20ad1a34 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/INTERNATIONAL/GRU.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/INTERNATIONAL/GRU.md @@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ tags: summary: "The military intelligence directorate of the Soviet and Russian General Staff, whose officers the United States indicted for the 2016 election hacks and the WhisperGate attack and Britain charged over the Salisbury poisoning." location: "Moscow, Russia" created: 2026-09-24 -updated: 2026-09-24 +updated: 2026-10-15 relations: - type: informant_for with: "[[Robert Hanssen]]" @@ -51,15 +51,15 @@ In 1979 [[Robert Hanssen]], a special agent of the [[Federal Bureau of Investiga On July 13, 2018, a grand jury in the District of Columbia returned an indictment presented by the [[Special Counsel]]'s Office charging twelve GRU officers, [[Viktor Netyksho]], [[Boris Antonov]], [[Dmitriy Badin]], [[Ivan Yermakov]], [[Aleksey Lukashev]], [[Sergey Morgachev]], [[Nikolay Kozachek]], [[Pavel Yershov]], [[Artem Malyshev]], [[Aleksandr Osadchuk]], [[Aleksey Potemkin]] and [[Anatoliy Kovalev]], "officials in [[Unit 26165]] and [[Unit 74455]] of the Russian government's Main Intelligence Directorate." Deputy Attorney General [[Rod Rosenstein]] announced the charges.[^1] -According to the indictment, officers of Unit 26165 began in 2016 to spearphish volunteers and employees of the presidential campaign of [[Hillary Clinton]], including its chairman, and through stolen credentials entered the networks of the [[Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee]] and the [[Democratic National Committee]], where they monitored the computers of dozens of employees and implanted hundreds of files of malicious code. Unit 26165 coordinated with Unit 74455 on releasing the stolen material. The officers registered [[DCLeaks|DCLeaks.com]], presented themselves as "American hacktivists," and promoted the site through fictitious [[Facebook]] and [[Twitter]] accounts. After public accusations that the Russian government was behind the intrusions they created the persona [[Guccifer 2.0]]; on the evening of June 15, 2016, between 4:19 and 4:56 PM, they used a Moscow-based server to search for English words and phrases that later appeared in Guccifer 2.0's first blog post, "falsely claiming to be a lone Romanian hacker." Unit 74455 also conspired to hack the computers of state boards of elections, secretaries of state, and companies that supplied election software. The operation was paid for with cryptocurrency, including bitcoin mining, and the same mining operation that paid for the DCLeaks.com registration funded the servers and domains of the spearphishing campaign.[^1] +According to the indictment, officers of Unit 26165 began in 2016 to spearphish volunteers and employees of the presidential campaign of [[Hillary Clinton]], including its chairman, and through stolen credentials entered the networks of the [[Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee]] and the [[Democratic National Committee]], where they monitored the computers of dozens of employees and implanted hundreds of files of malicious code. Unit 26165 coordinated with Unit 74455 on releasing the stolen material. The officers registered [[DCLeaks|DCLeaks.com]], presented themselves as "American hacktivists," and promoted the site through fictitious [[Facebook]] and [[Twitter]] accounts. On June 8, 2016 they created a DCLeaks Facebook page using a preexisting social media account under the fictitious name "Alice Donovan," used accounts in the names of fictitious U.S. persons such as "Jason Scott" and "Richard Gingrey" to promote the site, and created the Twitter account @dcleaks_ the same day.[^4] After public accusations that the Russian government was behind the intrusions they created the persona [[Guccifer 2.0]]; on the evening of June 15, 2016, between 4:19 and 4:56 PM, they used a Moscow-based server to search for English words and phrases that later appeared in Guccifer 2.0's first blog post, "falsely claiming to be a lone Romanian hacker." Unit 74455 also conspired to hack the computers of state boards of elections, secretaries of state, and companies that supplied election software. The operation was paid for with cryptocurrency, including bitcoin mining, and the same mining operation that paid for the DCLeaks.com registration funded the servers and domains of the spearphishing campaign.[^1] The indictment contained eleven counts, including conspiracy against the [[United States]], aggravated identity theft, and a conspiracy to launder the equivalent of more than $95,000. The [[Department of Justice]] stated that there was no allegation that any American was a knowing participant or that the conduct altered the vote count.[^1] ### Salisbury -In March 2018 [[Sergei Skripal]] and his daughter [[Yulia Skripal|Yulia]] were poisoned in [[Salisbury]] with a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia, known as [[Novichok]]. Two [[Wiltshire Police]] officers who searched their home were also poisoned. In July 2018 two members of the public in [[Amesbury]] were exposed to the same agent, and one of them, [[Dawn Sturgess]], died. On September 5, 2018, the [[Director of Public Prosecutions]] announced charges against two Russian nationals traveling as [[Alexander Petrov]] and [[Ruslan Boshirov]], and the Prime Minister, [[Theresa May]], announced that the government had concluded that the two men "were members of the Russian Military Intelligence Service, the GRU," and that the operation "was almost certainly approved outside the GRU at a senior level of the Russian state." Britain expelled 23 undeclared Russian intelligence officers, and 28 other countries and [[NATO]] joined in an expulsion of more than 150.[^4] +In March 2018 [[Sergei Skripal]] and his daughter [[Yulia Skripal|Yulia]] were poisoned in [[Salisbury]] with a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia, known as [[Novichok]]. Two [[Wiltshire Police]] officers who searched their home were also poisoned. In July 2018 two members of the public in [[Amesbury]] were exposed to the same agent, and one of them, [[Dawn Sturgess]], died. On September 5, 2018, the [[Director of Public Prosecutions]] announced charges against two Russian nationals traveling as [[Alexander Petrov]] and [[Ruslan Boshirov]], and the Prime Minister, [[Theresa May]], announced that the government had concluded that the two men "were members of the Russian Military Intelligence Service, the GRU," and that the operation "was almost certainly approved outside the GRU at a senior level of the Russian state." Britain expelled 23 undeclared Russian intelligence officers, and 28 other countries and [[NATO]] joined in an expulsion of more than 150.[^5] -On September 21, 2021, the Home Secretary, [[Priti Patel]], told Parliament that the police could now evidence that Petrov and Boshirov were aliases for [[Alexander Mishkin]] and [[Anatoliy Chepiga]], "both members of the GRU," and that the [[Crown Prosecution Service]] had authorized charges against a third man, known as Sergey Fedotov, who had flown from Moscow to [[Heathrow Airport|Heathrow]], stayed at a central London hotel from March 2 to 4, 2018, and met the other two more than once. Fedotov was [[Denis Sergeev]], "also a member of the GRU," and "all 3 individuals previously worked together for the GRU as part of additional operations outside Russia." On the same day the [[European Court of Human Rights]] ruled that Russia was responsible for the assassination of [[Alexander Litvinenko]].[^4] +On September 21, 2021, the Home Secretary, [[Priti Patel]], told Parliament that the police could now evidence that Petrov and Boshirov were aliases for [[Alexander Mishkin]] and [[Anatoliy Chepiga]], "both members of the GRU," and that the [[Crown Prosecution Service]] had authorized charges against a third man, known as Sergey Fedotov, who had flown from Moscow to [[Heathrow Airport|Heathrow]], stayed at a central London hotel from March 2 to 4, 2018, and met the other two more than once. Fedotov was [[Denis Sergeev]], "also a member of the GRU," and "all 3 individuals previously worked together for the GRU as part of additional operations outside Russia." On the same day the [[European Court of Human Rights]] ruled that Russia was responsible for the assassination of [[Alexander Litvinenko]].[^5] ### Unit 29155 and WhisperGate @@ -69,12 +69,13 @@ The same officers were charged with probing systems in 26 NATO countries from Au ### The Buma Allegation -In May 2025 [[Jonathan Buma]], a former FBI counterintelligence special agent of sixteen years, alleged in a documentary broadcast by the German broadcaster [[ZDF]] that the GRU had targeted [[Elon Musk]] for exploitation and offered him direct contact with [[Vladimir Putin]], and that Russian intelligence ran special operations to influence [[Silicon Valley]] executives such as Musk and [[Peter Thiel]], including gathering damaging information that could later be used as blackmail. "Musk's susceptibility to promiscuous women and drug use, particularly ketamine," Buma said, was "seen by Russian intelligence as an opportunity for an agent to exploit." Buma had been arrested in March 2025 and charged with one count of disclosure of confidential information for sharing material with a publishing company, and was free on $100,000 bail.[^5] +In May 2025 [[Jonathan Buma]], a former FBI counterintelligence special agent of sixteen years, alleged in a documentary broadcast by the German broadcaster [[ZDF]] that the GRU had targeted [[Elon Musk]] for exploitation and offered him direct contact with [[Vladimir Putin]], and that Russian intelligence ran special operations to influence [[Silicon Valley]] executives such as Musk and [[Peter Thiel]], including gathering damaging information that could later be used as blackmail. "Musk's susceptibility to promiscuous women and drug use, particularly ketamine," Buma said, was "seen by Russian intelligence as an opportunity for an agent to exploit." Buma had been arrested in March 2025 and charged with one count of disclosure of confidential information for sharing material with a publishing company, and was free on $100,000 bail.[^6] ### Footnotes [^1]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs. "Grand Jury Indicts 12 Russian Intelligence Officers for Hacking Offenses Related to the 2016 Election." Press release 18-923, July 13, 2018. Archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20200104195032/https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/grand-jury-indicts-12-russian-intelligence-officers-hacking-offenses-related-2016-election [^2]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs. "Five Russian GRU Officers and One Civilian Charged for Conspiring to Hack Ukrainian Government." Press release, September 5, 2024. Archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20250207071434/https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/five-russian-gru-officers-and-one-civilian-charged-conspiring-hack-ukrainian-government [^3]: U.S. Department of Justice. *United States v. Robert Philip Hanssen: Affidavit in Support of Criminal Complaint.* United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, February 2001. -[^4]: Patel, Priti, Home Secretary. "The new Salisbury charging decision." Oral statement to Parliament, Home Office, September 21, 2021. https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-new-salisbury-charging-decision -[^5]: Pehlman, Nick. "Russian Intelligence Used Sex, Drugs to Target Elon Musk: Former FBI Agent." *Kyiv Post,* May 15, 2025. https://www.kyivpost.com/post/52742 +[^4]: Indictment, *United States v. Netyksho et al.,* No. 1:18-cr-215-ABJ (D.D.C. July 13, 2018), paragraphs 38 and 39. https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download +[^5]: Patel, Priti, Home Secretary. "The new Salisbury charging decision." Oral statement to Parliament, Home Office, September 21, 2021. https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-new-salisbury-charging-decision +[^6]: Pehlman, Nick. "Russian Intelligence Used Sex, Drugs to Target Elon Musk: Former FBI Agent." *Kyiv Post,* May 15, 2025. https://www.kyivpost.com/post/52742 diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Army Chemical Corps.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Army Chemical Corps.md index 28e9d4e5..27dc3973 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Army Chemical Corps.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Army Chemical Corps.md @@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ relations: with: "[[New York State Psychiatric Institute]]" reverse: true role: "testing of mescaline derivatives for chemical warfare" - fn: 11 + fn: 12 - type: funded with: "[[Central Intelligence Agency]]" reverse: true @@ -40,15 +40,15 @@ relations: reverse: true role: "CIA retention of Fort Detrick shellfish toxin" start: 1975 - fn: 13 + fn: 14 - type: participant_in with: "[[MKSEARCH]]" start: 1967 end: 1973 role: "through Edgewood Arsenal Research Laboratories, three Army programs under the MKCHICKWIT and MKOFTEN labels, including the testing of EA 3167" - fn: 15 + fn: 16 created: 2026-09-24 -updated: 2026-10-03 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- The Army Chemical Corps is the branch of the [[U.S. Army]] responsible for chemical, biological and radiological warfare and defense. During [[World War I]] the German use of chemical weapons led General [[John J. Pershing]] to press for a specialized gas unit for the [[American Expeditionary Forces|American Expeditionary Force]]; the War Department created a Gas Service and, according to the Corps' regimental association, renamed it the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) on June 2, 1918. The [[First Gas Regiment]] fought in the Meuse-Argonne and St. Mihiel campaigns.[^1] The [[National Defense Act of 1920]] made the CWS a permanent branch of the Army.[^1][^2] The regimental association dates its redesignation as the Chemical Corps to 1946.[^1] @@ -67,19 +67,19 @@ The allergist [[Harold Abramson]], one of the CIA's principal LSD researchers un ### Harold Blauer -The Chemical Corps held a contract with the [[New York State Psychiatric Institute]] (NYSPI) to test mescaline derivatives on humans for their suitability as chemical warfare agents. On January 8, 1953, [[Harold Blauer]], a tennis professional admitted for depression, died after an intravenous injection of about 450 milligrams of EA-1298, a derivative the Corps had designated as a candidate agent, administered under [[Paul Hoch]] without his knowledge or consent. The death certificate read "coronary arteriosclerosis; sudden death after intravenous injection of a mescaline derivative." Within 48 hours the Chemical Corps contract officer [[Amedeo Marrazzi]] directed efforts to conceal the Army's involvement, and at a meeting in July 1954 federal counsel, Hoch and Marrazzi discussed anticipated malpractice claims. The Second Circuit found that Hoch "was well aware that the mescaline derivative was a new compound not being administered for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes but as an experiment to study its effect for chemical warfare purposes." [[James Cattell]], who gave the injection, told Army investigators: "We didn't know whether it was dog piss or what it was we were giving him."[^11] +The Chemical Corps held a contract with the [[New York State Psychiatric Institute]] (NYSPI) to test mescaline derivatives on humans for their suitability as chemical warfare agents. On January 8, 1953, [[Harold Blauer]], a tennis professional admitted for depression, died after an intravenous injection of about 450 milligrams of EA-1298, a derivative the Corps had designated as a candidate agent, administered under [[Paul Hoch]] without his knowledge or consent. The death certificate read "coronary arteriosclerosis; sudden death after intravenous injection of a mescaline derivative." Within 48 hours the Chemical Corps contract officer [[Amedeo Marrazzi]] directed efforts to conceal the Army's involvement, and at a meeting in July 1954 federal counsel, Hoch and Marrazzi discussed anticipated malpractice claims. The Second Circuit's opinion in *Barrett v. United States* recites the estate's allegation that Hoch "was well aware that the mescaline derivative was a new compound not being administered for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes but as an experiment to study its effect for chemical warfare purposes."[^11] The same opinion places a conference of federal counsel and medical personnel in early July 1954, at which, according to records relied on by the estate, Dr. Amedeo Marazzi of the Chemical Corps and Hoch expressed apprehension about anticipated malpractice claims, and a meeting in Washington on July 12, 1954 at which Hoch stated that he would not have used the new compound for experimental purposes but for the institute's contract with the Army.[^11] [[James Cattell]], who gave the injection, told Army investigators: "We didn't know whether it was dog piss or what it was we were giving him."[^12] -An initial settlement of 18,000 dollars was paid to Blauer's family, half of it covertly by the federal government. The Army disclosed the circumstances to his daughter, [[Elizabeth Barrett]], in August 1975, and in 1987 a federal judge awarded more than 700,000 dollars to his estate.[^11][^12] Hoch became New York State Commissioner of Mental Hygiene in 1955.[^8] +An initial settlement of 18,000 dollars was paid to Blauer's family, half of it covertly by the federal government. The Army disclosed the circumstances to his daughter, [[Elizabeth Barrett]], in August 1975, and in 1987 a federal judge awarded more than 700,000 dollars to his estate.[^12][^13] Hoch became New York State Commissioner of Mental Hygiene in 1955.[^8] ### 1969 and after -On November 25, 1969, President [[Richard Nixon]] renounced the offensive biological weapons program, and in February 1970 extended the order to toxins. In 1975 the [[Church Committee]] disclosed that the CIA had kept a cache of [[shellfish toxin]] from Fort Detrick in defiance of the destruction order.[^13] In testimony of September 28, 1994, the [[General Accounting Office]] reported that the Defense Department and other national security agencies had conducted "hundreds of experiments in which hundreds of thousands of people were used as test subjects," involving "radiation, blister and nerve agents, biological agents, and LSD," some "done in secret" and others "without their knowledge or consent or their full knowledge of the risks involved."[^14] +On November 25, 1969, President [[Richard Nixon]] renounced the offensive biological weapons program, and in February 1970 extended the order to toxins. In 1975 the [[Church Committee]] disclosed that the CIA had kept a cache of [[shellfish toxin]] from Fort Detrick in defiance of the destruction order.[^14] In testimony of September 28, 1994, the [[General Accounting Office]] reported that the Defense Department and other national security agencies had conducted "hundreds of experiments in which hundreds of thousands of people were used as test subjects," involving "radiation, blister and nerve agents, biological agents, and LSD," some "done in secret" and others "without their knowledge or consent or their full knowledge of the risks involved."[^15] After the [[Vietnam War]] the Corps was partially demobilized and much of its function moved from [[Fort McClellan]], [[Alabama]], to Aberdeen. When Fort McClellan closed under base realignment, the Corps moved to [[Fort Leonard Wood]], [[Missouri]], where it forms part of the Maneuver Support Center with the Engineer and Military Police corps.[^1] ### Edgewood programs in the 1977 Defense Department search -The [[Department of Defense]] General Counsel's memorandum of September 20, 1977 on CIA-sponsored drug experiments lists three Army programs from 1969 to 1973, all through the Edgewood Arsenal Research Laboratories: a drug-identification project of 1967 to 1973 (CIA payments of 12,084 dollars in 1967 and 5,000 dollars in 1969, passed to a California contractor), computer data bases on pharmacological products (about 1968 to 1971) and, from 1971 to 1973, clinical tests of a glycolate-class compound, EA 3167, which Edgewood had already tested on animals and on human volunteers at Holmesburg State Prison in Philadelphia and among military personnel at Edgewood. The CIA transferred 37,000 dollars to Edgewood in 1971 for further work, and two military volunteers were "apparently tested" in June 1973. The search covered the files of Edgewood, [[Dugway Proving Ground]], the Defense Investigative Service as to the Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick, the Army Inspector General and the [[Army Intelligence Agency]]; the memorandum describes the Army and Navy programs under [[MKSEARCH]].[^15] +The [[Department of Defense]] General Counsel's memorandum of September 20, 1977 on CIA-sponsored drug experiments lists three Army programs from 1969 to 1973, all through the Edgewood Arsenal Research Laboratories: a drug-identification project of 1967 to 1973 (CIA payments of 12,084 dollars in 1967 and 5,000 dollars in 1969, passed to a California contractor), computer data bases on pharmacological products (about 1968 to 1971) and, from 1971 to 1973, clinical tests of a glycolate-class compound, EA 3167, which Edgewood had already tested on animals and on human volunteers at Holmesburg State Prison in Philadelphia and among military personnel at Edgewood. The CIA transferred 37,000 dollars to Edgewood in 1971 for further work, and two military volunteers were "apparently tested" in June 1973. The search covered the files of Edgewood, [[Dugway Proving Ground]], the Defense Investigative Service as to the Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick, the Army Inspector General and the [[Army Intelligence Agency]]; the memorandum describes the Army and Navy programs under [[MKSEARCH]].[^16] ### Footnotes @@ -93,8 +93,9 @@ The [[Department of Defense]] General Counsel's memorandum of September 20, 1977 [^8]: Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain, *Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond*. Grove Press, 1985. Chapters 1 and 2. [^9]: U.S. Army Aberdeen Proving Ground, "History," home.army.mil. https://home.army.mil/apg/about/history [^10]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*. Times Books, 1979. Chapters 4 and 5. -[^11]: *Barrett v. United States*, 798 F.2d 565 (2d Cir. 1986); *Barrett v. United States*, 646 F. Supp. 1345 (S.D.N.Y. 1986); John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*. Times Books, 1979. Chapter 4. -[^12]: *Los Angeles Times*, May 5, 1987; UPI Archives, May 5, 1987. -[^13]: Horrock, Nicholas M. "Colby Describes C.I.A. Poison Work," *New York Times,* Sept. 17, 1975. https://merylnass.substack.com/p/colby-describes-cia-poison-work-by -[^14]: U.S. General Accounting Office, *Human Experimentation: An Overview on Cold War Era Programs,* testimony, GAO/T-NSIAD-94-266, September 28, 1994, abstract. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-T-NSIAD-94-266/html/GAOREPORTS-T-NSIAD-94-266.htm -[^15]: General Counsel of the Department of Defense, memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, September 20, 1977, pp. 3 to 5 and Appendix A, release file 02-A-0846, as described on the MKSEARCH page. +[^11]: *Barrett v. United States,* 798 F.2d 565 (2d Cir. July 31, 1986). https://static.case.law/f2d/798/cases/0565-01.json +[^12]: *Barrett v. United States*, 798 F.2d 565 (2d Cir. 1986); *Barrett v. United States*, 646 F. Supp. 1345 (S.D.N.Y. 1986); John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*. Times Books, 1979. Chapter 4. +[^13]: *Los Angeles Times*, May 5, 1987; UPI Archives, May 5, 1987. +[^14]: Horrock, Nicholas M. "Colby Describes C.I.A. Poison Work," *New York Times,* Sept. 17, 1975. https://merylnass.substack.com/p/colby-describes-cia-poison-work-by +[^15]: U.S. General Accounting Office, *Human Experimentation: An Overview on Cold War Era Programs,* testimony, GAO/T-NSIAD-94-266, September 28, 1994, abstract. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-T-NSIAD-94-266/html/GAOREPORTS-T-NSIAD-94-266.htm +[^16]: General Counsel of the Department of Defense, memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, September 20, 1977, pp. 3 to 5 and Appendix A, release file 02-A-0846, as described on the MKSEARCH page. diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Atomic Energy Commission.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Atomic Energy Commission.md index 1c0081bc..dd9e53e6 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Atomic Energy Commission.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Atomic Energy Commission.md @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ --- created: 2025-03-05 -updated: 2026-10-09 +updated: 2026-10-15 title: Atomic Energy Commission aliases: - Atomic Energy Commission @@ -78,7 +78,7 @@ The same file of CIA press clippings contains the Washington Star and Washington ### Groom Lake -In April 1955 [[Richard Bissell]] and Colonel [[Osmund Ritland]] of the [[Air Force]], with [[Lockheed]]'s [[Kelly Johnson]] and test pilot [[Tony LeVier]], spotted an airstrip at Groom Lake "near the northeast corner of the Atomic Energy Commission's Nevada Proving Ground." The CIA's official history of the U-2 program records that Bissell discovered the strip lay outside the proving ground and that the Agency asked the commission to add the Groom Lake area to its holdings; the partly legible passage refers to "AEC Chairman Adm.," and Lewis Strauss was McCone's predecessor as chairman.[^12] The strip became the site later known as [[Area 51]]. +In April 1955 [[Richard Bissell]] and Colonel [[Osmund Ritland]] of the [[Air Force]], with [[Lockheed Aircraft Company|Lockheed]]'s [[Kelly Johnson]] and test pilot [[Tony LeVier]], spotted an airstrip at Groom Lake "near the northeast corner of the Atomic Energy Commission's Nevada Proving Ground." The CIA's official history of the U-2 program records that Bissell discovered the strip lay outside the proving ground and that the Agency asked the commission to add the Groom Lake area to its holdings; the partly legible passage refers to "AEC Chairman Adm.," and Lewis Strauss was McCone's predecessor as chairman.[^12] The strip became the site later known as [[Area 51]]. ### The Los Alamos conference on green fireballs diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Democratic National Committee.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Democratic National Committee.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..b9b0775a --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Democratic National Committee.md @@ -0,0 +1,253 @@ +--- +aliases: + - DNC + - DNC Services Corp. + - DNC Services Corporation + - Democratic National Committee +category: "U.S. Government" +tags: + - Organization + - PoliticalParty + - Watergate + - CampaignFinance + - LippoGroup + - EmailHack2016 + - SethRich +summary: "The Democratic National Committee is the governing body of the Democratic Party, whose Watergate headquarters was burgled in 1972 and whose finances and email systems later drew federal investigations." +location: "Washington, D.C." +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +relations: + - type: investigated + with: "[[Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs]]" + start: 1998 + role: "final report on illegal or improper activities in connection with 1996 federal election campaigns, S. Rept. 105-167" + fn: 43 + reverse: true + - type: funded + with: "[[Lippo Group]]" + start: 1992 + end: 1993 + role: "contributions through Hip Hing Holdings, San Jose Holdings and Toy Center Holdings" + fn: 45 + reverse: true + - type: funded + with: "[[Bernard L. Schwartz]]" + start: 1995 + end: 1998 + role: "itemized contributions to non-federal accounts, several with Loral Corporation as employer" + fn: 59 + reverse: true + - type: funded + with: "[[Shayne Coplan]]" + start: 2024 + end: 2024 + role: "allocation of a Harris Victory Fund receipt, 41,300 dollars" + fn: 74 + reverse: true + - type: funded + with: "[[Christopher Mellon]]" + start: 2020 + end: 2020 + role: "Biden Victory Fund memo entries, 32,200 dollars, employer A&E Networks" + fn: 61 + reverse: true + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Watergate]]" + start: 1972 + end: 1974 + role: "entries into the headquarters on May 27 and June 17, 1972, and the Senate Select Committee report S. Rept. 93-981" + fn: 3 + - type: represented + with: "[[Perkins Coie]]" + start: 2016 + end: 2016 + role: "counsel to the DNC and Hillary for America; DNC payments of 849,407.97 dollars, July 15 to August 26, 2016" + fn: 69 + reverse: true + - type: investigated + with: "[[Federal Election Commission]]" + start: 2019 + end: 2022 + role: "MURs 7291 and 7449, reason to believe vote of July 23, 2019, and conciliation agreement" + fn: 70 + reverse: true +--- +The Democratic National Committee is the national committee of the [[Democratic Party]]. Its Federal Election Commission record is filed under the name "DNC Services Corp / Democratic National Committee," committee number C00010603, with a first filing date of March 10, 1975.[^1] The committee's origin is set out in the call for the party's 1852 national convention, issued over the signature of its chairman, B. F. Hallett, which describes the body as "consisting of one from each State, appointed by the Democratic National Convention of 1848."[^2] Its headquarters in the [[Watergate]] office complex in [[Washington, D.C.]] was entered on June 17, 1972, by five men. + +### The headquarters and the 1972 break-in + +The committee's headquarters occupied the sixth floor of the Watergate Office Building. In the early morning hours of June 17, 1972, [[James McCord]], [[Bernard L. Barker]], [[Frank Sturgis]], [[Eugenio Martinez]] and [[Virgilio Gonzalez]] illegally entered the headquarters, according to the final report of the [[Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities]]. [[Howard Hunt]] and [[G. Gordon Liddy]] supervised the operation from a room in the [[Watergate Hotel]], and [[Alfred Baldwin]] served as lookout from the [[Howard Johnson Motor Lodge]] across the street.[^3] + +The headquarters was entered twice. The Senate report states that the team's first entry was made late on May 27, 1972, when Gonzalez picked the lock of a ground floor door of the Watergate Office Building. The team went to the sixth floor, where McCord placed electronic bugging devices in the telephones of DNC chairman O'Brien and of another official, [[Spencer Oliver]], and where Barker and his team photographed papers from DNC files.[^4] After the telephones were tapped, Alfred Baldwin, a former FBI agent recruited by McCord, monitored the intercepted conversations from a room in the Howard Johnson Motor Lodge, typed them almost verbatim and gave the logs to McCord, who gave them to Liddy. Liddy had several retyped on stationery with the word "Gemstone" printed at the top by his secretary, [[Sally Harmony]], who testified that she also saw a stack of 8 by 10 photographs of documents from the DNC headquarters held by fingers in rubber gloves.[^5] On the night of June 17 the Watergate guard [[Frank Wills]], who had earlier removed a piece of tape from a door, found it retaped and telephoned the police. Sergeant Beeper's plainclothes squad entered the sixth floor and apprehended the team while it was setting up photographic equipment. Police found 4,200 dollars in $100 bills, all in sequence, in the rooms the burglars had occupied.[^6] + +The break-in was the last stage of a plan that had been reduced in cost. The Senate committee recorded that the budget for the plan had been "stripped down" to 500,000 dollars, and that [[Jeb Stuart Magruder]] testified that [[John N. Mitchell]] discussed targets beyond the headquarters, including the headquarters at the convention and the headquarters of the Democratic nominee. Magruder testified that Mitchell also suggested as additional targets the committee's chairman, [[Larry O'Brien]], and the Las Vegas publisher [[Hank Greenspun]], who allegedly held explosive material damaging to [[Edmund Muskie]] in his office safe.[^7] The committee's treasurer, [[Hugh Sloan]], testified to the payments that reached Liddy, who had received 199,000 dollars, and the Senate report calls the plan Gemstone.[^8] + +Magruder testified that before his meeting with Mitchell at [[Key Biscayne, Florida]] on March 30, 1972, he received a call from [[Charles Colson]], then special counsel to the President, who told him to "get on the stick and get the Liddy project approved so we can get the information from O'Brien."[^9] The committee wrote that Magruder's account "provides some evidence that Colson was doing more than simply being helpful to Liddy and Hunt."[^10] + +The Senate committee stated that it had received no evidence suggesting complicity in wrongdoing on the part of the Republican National Committee or the Democratic National Committee, or their principal officers, during the 1972 campaign. The report identifies O'Brien as the Democratic chairman at the time.[^11] + +After the arrests, Hunt's wife, [[Dorothy Hunt]], died in an airplane crash in Chicago on December 8, 1972. On December 31 Hunt wrote to Colson that "There is a limit to the endurance of any man trapped in a hostile situation and mine was reached on December 8," and Colson sent a copy to Dean with a note asking, "Now what the hell do I do?"[^12] + +The report's conclusion on the intelligence material before it is that the material did not answer "what the President or other individuals knew or when they knew it," and did not explain "why the Democratic National Committee headquarters twice was the target of an illegal entry."[^13] Senator [[Lowell Weicker]], in his individual views printed with the report, wrote that the break-in itself, according to Magruder, was an attempt to find embarrassing information about O'Brien, because "Mr. O'Brien had been a very effective spokesman against our position on the ITT case," and that "we had hope that information (from the illegal break-in and wiretap) might discredit him."[^14] + +### The DNC's civil suits and the counteroffensive + +The DNC also litigated. The Senate report cites the civil case *Democratic National Committee, et al. v. James McCord, et al.* (D.D.C. Civ. No. 1233-72), in which McCord's deposition was taken on April 30, 1973.[^15] The report describes the civil suits brought by the DNC against the Committee for the Re-election of the President. It records that around September 9 or 10, 1972, Haldeman and Colson relayed to Dean a request from the President that a counteraction be filed against the Democrats "as quickly as humanly possible." On September 13 the committee filed a 2,500,000 dollar countersuit against the DNC for abuse of process, and on September 14 a 5 million dollar libel suit was brought against O'Brien. Dean testified that the various civil cases were discussed with the President on September 15, and that the committee's lawyers were handling both the DNC suit and another. Dean told the President that Judge Ritchie, to whom the Stans libel action was assigned, had been helpful in slowing down the civil cases.[^16] A memorandum entitled "Counter Actions," dated September 11, 1972, noted that depositions could be taken in a civil suit against O'Brien, covering "everything from Larry O'Brien's sources of income while Chairman of the DNC to certain sexual activities of employees of the DNC."[^17] + +The Senate report prints excerpts of a purported transcript of the President's September 15, 1972, meeting with Haldeman and Dean, prepared by the House Judiciary Committee and published in the Washington Post on May 17, 1974. In the excerpts Haldeman says that Dean is working the matter through the IRS, and the President says he would not want to be in the position of the DNC's counsel, [[Edward Bennett Williams]], after the election. Haldeman is recorded as saying, "That is a guy we've got to ruin."[^18] According to information provided to the Senate minority counsel by Special Counsel Fred Buzhardt, Dean reported at that meeting on the IRS investigation of O'Brien.[^18] + +### The CIA's links to the burglars + +The Senate report describes Hunt as "a former CIA agent" when it explains how he came to the White House staff.[^19] It records that [[Robert R. Mullen Company|Mullen and Company]] had maintained a relationship with the agency since its incorporation in 1959 and provided cover for an agent in Europe and an agent in the Far East at the time of the break-in. Hunt left the agency in 1970 and joined the firm with what its founder, [[Robert Mullen]], understood to be the blessing of Director [[Richard Helms]]; Hunt's covert security clearance was extended by the agency, and he remained witting of the Mullen cover and negotiated with the agency about it even after he joined the White House, according to agency records.[^20] + +[[Robert F. Bennett]], the son of Senator [[Wallace F. Bennett]], became president of the firm in 1971 and was introduced to the Mullen case officer in April of that year. He brought the [[Howard Hughes|Hughes]] Tool Company account with him. The committee wrote that agency records indicated consideration was given to using Mullen's Hughes relationship for a cover arrangement in South America and to garner information on [[Robert Maheu]].[^21] Its staff listed Bennett's activities in relation to Hunt and Liddy: he suggested and coordinated the DeMott interview regarding Chappaquiddick, coordinated the release of [[Dita Beard]]'s statement from Denver, suggested that Greenspun's safe contained information of interest to both Hughes and the Committee for the Re-election of the President, asked for and received from Hunt a price estimate for bugging [[Clifford Irving]] for Hughes, coordinated Hunt's employment of the political spy [[Thomas Gregory]], received a scrambler from Hughes personnel for use on Mullen telephones, set up dummy committees with Liddy as a conduit for Hughes campaign contributions, and served as the point of contact between Hunt and Liddy in the two weeks after the break-in.[^22] The same passage states that Robert Oliver, Mullen's Washington lobbyist for Hughes Tool, is the father of R. Spencer Oliver Jr., "whose telephone was tapped at the Democratic National Committee," and that Bennett met with the Olivers after the break-in to discuss the bugging.[^22] + +According to a CIA case officer's memorandum of July 10, 1972, forwarded to Helms on or before July 14, Bennett had established a "back door entry" to E. B. Williams, the DNC's attorney, in order to "kill off" revelations of the agency's relationship with Mullen and Company in the course of the DNC lawsuit, and agreed to check with the CIA before contacting Williams. The committee staff confirmed that Bennett funneled information to Williams through the attorney [[Hobart Taylor]], and that it was more extensive than what Bennett had given the grand jury. The CIA acknowledged paying one-half of Bennett's attorney fee for his grand jury appearance.[^23] The same memorandum contains a reference to a "WH flap" which the committee called mysterious, and a July 24, 1972, contact report shows that the agency persuaded Mullen to withdraw its Far East cover through an "agreed upon scenario" that included a falsified Watergate publicity crisis. The agency told the committee that the "WH flap" referred to a matter, deleted at its request, that threatened Western Hemisphere operations; the committee wrote that the agency had not explained why the information was withheld from Mullen nor its significance to Watergate.[^24] A CIA memorandum of March 1, 1973, notes that Bennett felt he could handle the Ervin Committee if the agency could handle Hunt, and that he was feeding stories to [[Bob Woodward]], who was "suitably grateful," without attribution to Bennett.[^25] + +The report also describes the case of [[Lee Pennington]], a paid CIA operative retained at 250 dollars a month until December 1973. The committee wrote that the agency had information as early as June 1972 that Pennington entered the McCord residence shortly after the break-in and destroyed documents which might show a link between McCord and the agency, that the agency answered an FBI inquiry about a "Pennington" in August 1972 with information about a former employee with a similar name, and that in January 1974 the Pennington materials were ordered removed from the agency's Watergate files before review by its Inspector General. The report adds that the CIA's Director of Security retired early in 1974.[^26] + +On Martinez, the report states that Helms had testified to little more than the fact that Martinez was on a 100 dollar monthly retainer with the agency as an informant on Cubans of interest to it. The committee wrote that its own investigation had revealed information about the Martinez relationship "not previously brought forward in testimony by CIA officials," and it asked whether the agency was aware of Hunt's activities in early 1972, when Hunt was recruiting Cubans for the break-in.[^27] The report also notes that newspaper articles since June 1972 had pointed out that many of those involved were former CIA employees, that CIA equipment was used by Hunt, and that other possible CIA links to Watergate had been reported.[^28] + +The House Armed Services Committee's Special Subcommittee on Intelligence, whose report is known as the [[Lucien Nedzi|Nedzi]] report, issued its findings on October 23, 1973.[^29] It found that alias identification gear, disguises and other technical materials had been provided improperly by the CIA to Hunt, then on the White House staff, for use by non-CIA personnel. The material included wigs, speech-altering devices, alias materials, a tape recorder, a clandestine camera, one-way tinted spectacles and film developing facilities. The subcommittee listed the abortive break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate complex among the improper purposes for which the material was used. It also found continued CIA dealings with Hunt after General Cushman first questioned Hunt's judgment in requesting additional agency assistance. The subcommittee further found that Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Dean made efforts to deflect the FBI investigation of the break-in by invoking nonexistent conflicts with CIA operations, and that Dean made substantial efforts to involve the agency in the break-in without foundation in fact.[^30] + +The Senate report names R. Spencer Oliver Jr. as one of the DNC officials whose telephone McCord bugged. A 1976 memorandum by [[Bruce Solie]], chief of the agency's Security Analysis Group, identified for the agency's privacy staff the "Spencer Oliver" named in a Freedom of Information request from McCord, "who according to a newspaper article in 1972 was the Executive Director of the State Chairmens Association of the Democratic National Committee," and in whose office telephone "an alleged listening device was found."[^31] The DNC official is the Spencer Oliver who afterward served as Chief of Staff of the Helsinki Commission (1976 to 1985), as chief counsel of the House Foreign Affairs Committee until 1993 and as Secretary General of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (1992 to 2015); the Wilson Center's biography of him lists senior positions at the Democratic National Committee from 1966 to 1976.[^32] + +### Larry O'Brien and the Hughes retainer + +O'Brien was the committee's chairman during the 1972 campaign, and the record ties him to Howard Hughes through a contract with the Hughes organization. The Senate report states that a sensitive case report of the IRS, brought to the attention of the Treasury Secretary, stated that the Hughes Tool Company had made substantial payments to Lawrence F. O'Brien and Associates during 1970. [[Roger Barth]], an assistant to the IRS commissioner, testified that he received that report in May 1972. The report also says that IRS policy did not prohibit continued investigation of O'Brien after communications from [[John Ehrlichman]] were received.[^33] The sensitive case reports reflected on a continuing basis the amounts paid to O'Brien by the Hughes Tool Company "pursuant to a contract."[^34] Barth testified that Ehrlichman asked how the payments would be treated for tax purposes, and that he obtained O'Brien's returns, which showed enough gross income to cover the amounts Hughes reported having paid. Ehrlichman testified that there were good political reasons to go after O'Brien, that Nixon was especially interested in the fact that O'Brien was on retainer to the Hughes organization, and that Haldeman told him the retainer was quite significant. The IRS interviewed O'Brien on August 17, 1972. Ehrlichman testified: "I wanted them to turn up something and send [O'Brien] to jail before the election and unfortunately it didn't materialize."[^35] The Senate report states that Dean and Haldeman discussed the IRS investigation of O'Brien with Nixon on September 15, 1972, and that this conversation was deleted from the tapes provided to the Special Prosecutor and the House Judiciary Committee.[^36] + +The Senate report further states that an audit of O'Brien was encouraged by White House officials in the summer of 1972, and that O'Brien's tax returns were specially inspected by IRS personnel at Ehrlichman's direction.[^37] The White House record of the Hughes matter includes a January 15, 1971, memorandum by Colson which states that Robert Bennett had taken over the Robert R. Mullen Company and that one of its new clients was Hughes, and which describes O'Brien as "the principal Hughes man in Washington."[^38] In a series of memoranda to [[John Dean]] beginning January 22, 1971, [[Jack Caulfield]] wrote that negotiations had taken place in 1969 for O'Brien's firm to represent Hughes's interests in Washington, with "knowledgeable sources" putting the fee at 100,000 dollars. Caulfield wrote that the retainer could be documented only indirectly, and Dean reported that Bennett told him there was "no doubt" that O'Brien had been retained by Hughes and that the contract was still in existence.[^39] Caulfield also wrote that Maheu's "tentacles touch many extremely sensitive areas of government."[^39] + +[[Richard Danner]], who joined the Hughes organization in February 1969, testified that in the spring of 1969 [[Bebe Rebozo]] was "needling" him about Hughes's favoritism toward the Democrats, citing a large contribution made available to then Vice President [[Hubert Humphrey]] in 1968, "Larry O'Brien on retainer," and the employment of Humphrey's son.[^40] The report also records Robert Bennett's suggestion that Greenspun's safe contained information of interest to both Hughes and the Committee for the Re-election of the President.[^41] An FCC application for approval of the sale of [[KLAS-TV]] by Greenspun to Hughes, reported by [[Broadcasting]] on October 23, 1967, gave the price as about 4.5 million dollars.[^42] + +### The 1992 to 1996 fundraising inquiries + +The Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, in its final report on illegal or improper activities in connection with the 1996 federal election campaigns, stated that "the Committee has established that Huang funneled foreign-source monies through three different Riady-controlled entities to the DNC during 1992 and 1993."[^43] The report describes [[John Huang]] as a former [[Lippo Group]] executive who later worked at the [[United States Department of Commerce|Commerce Department]]. [[Juliana Utomo]], who worked for the companies from 1988 through late 1996, testified that the holding companies [[Hip Hing Holdings]] and [[San Jose Holdings]] were owned or controlled by [[James Riady]] and managed by Huang, and that Huang made all decisions about political contributions and approved requests to the Lippo Group in Jakarta for operating funds.[^44] + +The first contribution was a 50,000 dollar check from Hip Hing dated August 12, 1992, payable to the "DNC Victory Fund." Huang requested reimbursement from Jakarta in an August 17, 1992, memorandum, and a wire from LippoBank Jakarta arrived several weeks later. In 1992 Hip Hing lost 482,395.33 dollars, and Utomo testified that the shortfall was made up with funds transferred from Jakarta. In September 1993 Huang wrote three checks of 15,000 dollars each to the DNC, drawn on Hip Hing, San Jose Holdings and [[Toy Center Holdings]], and the report describes the checks as paid with foreign money.[^45] + +The report states that in 1996 Huang solicited some 3.4 million dollars in contributions to the DNC, and that nearly half of that amount was returned after the DNC determined that the contributions had been made with actual or suspected foreign funds.[^46] The minority views of Senators [[John Glenn]], [[Carl Levin]], [[Joseph Lieberman]] and others state that the DNC returned over 1.6 million dollars in contributions attributable to Huang, that there was no evidence that DNC officials knowingly took part in his misdeeds, that the DNC "did not adequately supervise Huang's fundraising," and that the evidence did not establish that Huang served as a spy or a conduit for any foreign government.[^47] + +The minority views record how Huang came to the DNC. In the summer of 1995 the Arkansas lawyer [[C. Joseph Giroir]] arranged a meeting with DNC chairman [[Donald Fowler]] to suggest that Fowler hire Huang, with finance director [[Richard Sullivan]] attending. On September 13, 1995, Huang, James Riady and Giroir met Sullivan and Fowler at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, and the same day went to the White House. Huang was interviewed at DNC headquarters in November 1995 and hired under the title Vice Chair of Finance, a title normally reserved for volunteer fundraisers.[^48] The same chapter records a DNC coffee at the White House on June 18, 1996, attended by the Thai businesswoman [[Pauline Kanchanalak]], whose account Huang handled and who had been giving to the DNC since at least 1991, together with several business associates who were foreign nationals.[^49] A Senate chapter on the PRC's efforts to influence elections records that Huang escorted [[Shen Jueren]], chairman of [[China Resources]], to the White House in 1993, where Shen met [[Jack Quinn]] and may have met [[Al Gore]]. The same chapter places a September 27, 1993, check from Huang to the DNC alongside a Santa Monica event at which Shen may have met Gore again.[^50] The report's Lippo chapter quotes a White House audio tape of a DNC function in Los Angeles and finds that Gore "may have met with Shen Jueren in the White House and also exchanged words with him at a subsequent DNC event."[^50] The same chapter states that Huang's 45,000 dollars in DNC contributions were made in close proximity to occasions when he may have arranged for Gore to meet Shen, who was the head of a commercial enterprise wholly owned and operated by the People's Republic of China's Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation.[^50] + +The same chapter describes [[Charlie Trie]] as a business partner of [[Ng Lap Seng]], a Macao businessman with alleged ties to the People's Republic of China. Trie had brought nearly half a million dollars in small-denomination checks and money orders to the Presidential Legal Expense Trust in March 1994. The checks were written by followers of the [[Suma Ching Hai]] Buddhist sect, and the reimbursement money came from accounts in Taiwan and Cambodia.[^51] Trie was indicted on January 28, 1998, on fifteen counts, including conspiracy to defraud the DNC and the United States. The indictment charged that he purchased access to high-level government officials through contributions made to the committee.[^51] The report states that Trie initially left the country, then returned and was arrested.[^51] + +On August 12, 1999, Huang pleaded guilty in federal court in Los Angeles to charges that he conspired to defraud the Federal Election Commission by causing fellow employees to make campaign contributions and reimbursing them with corporate funds or with funds from Jakarta. The Justice Department stated that the conspiracy lasted from approximately 1992 through June 1994, that Huang was responsible for arranging approximately 156,000 dollars in illegal contributions from the Lippo Group overseas to Democratic and Republican committees, and that he was sentenced to one year of probation, 500 hours of community service and a 10,000 dollar fine. The same release lists Huang as one of 19 persons prosecuted by the Campaign Financing Task Force, including [[Robert Lee]], who pleaded guilty on April 26, 1999, to making an illegal foreign contribution to the DNC, and Kanchanalak and her associate [[Georgie Kronenberg]], charged on July 13, 1998.[^52] A Justice Department press release dated January 11, 2001, carries the headline "James Riady Pleads Guilty, Will Pay Largest Fine in Campaign Finance History for Violating Federal Election Law."[^53] The Senate report identifies 465,000 dollars in contributions from James and Aileen Riady to the DNC and to Democratic state party organizations in the 1992 cycle.[^54] + +C. Joseph Giroir, a lawyer and Lippo joint venturer, testified that in 1996 he contributed close to 200,000 dollars to the DNC in connection with fundraisers that Huang organized.[^55] [[Mochtar Riady]] wrote to [[Bill Clinton]] shortly after Clinton took office, advocating most-favored-nation trade status for China, and thanked him for the personal time he spent with the Riady family on Inauguration Day 1993. The Riadys gave more than 450,000 dollars to the DNC and state Democratic parties in the 1992 cycle.[^56] James Riady hired the former associate attorney general [[Webster Hubbell]] in June 1994, after Hubbell's resignation from the Justice Department; the House report states that Hubbell was paid a lump sum of 100,000 dollars for unknown services between June 27 and December 6, 1994, that the Lippo Group also paid for a trip to Jakarta and Bali for Hubbell and his wife, and that both Riady and Hubbell refused to describe what services Hubbell performed.[^57] In the Independent Counsel's account, [[Hong Kong China Limited]], a Lippo company, engaged Hubbell as a consultant, and in September 1994 he traveled to Jakarta, where he met Mochtar Riady.[^58] + +### Donors in the 1990s and after + +Itemized FEC receipts under the name [[Bernard L. Schwartz]] list contributions to the DNC's non-federal accounts from 1995 through 1998. They include 25,000 dollars on April 24, 1995, 250,000 dollars on August 11, 1998, and 50,000 dollars on October 26, 1998, with Loral Corporation given as employer on several entries.[^59] The House Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China, the [[Cox Report]], attributes to the New York Times the description of Schwartz as "the largest individual donor to the Democratic Party in 1997."[^60] Later FEC records under the name Bernard Schwartz, employer BLS Investments, list the DNC committee as recipient of entries including 41,300 dollars on June 22, 2023, and 25,000 dollars on February 6, 2024, each marked with the Biden Victory Fund memo.[^59] + +FEC entries under the name [[Christopher Mellon]], with A&E Networks as employer, list 25,000 dollars on August 27, 2020, and 7,200 dollars on August 25, 2020, each with the memo "Biden Victory Fund," for the DNC committee's record.[^61] The FEC entries do not state whether this contributor is the former Pentagon official of that name. + +Individual contribution records under the name [[Philip Scaturro]] total 41 entries from June 1983 to December 2012, and include a 1992 contribution to the DNC among contributions to presidential and Senate committees.[^62] The FBI applicant file of Robert Maheu for 1940 records endorsements from [[Richard C. Durham]], identified there as assistant secretary of the Democratic National Committee.[^63] + +### The 2016 email compromise + +The indictment of [[GRU]] officers, filed July 13, 2018, charges officers of the Russian military intelligence directorate with intrusions into the computer networks of the DNC and the [[Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee]]. It states that officers of GRU Unit 26165 spearphished volunteers and employees of the presidential campaign of [[Hillary Clinton]], and that through stolen credentials they entered the DCCC and DNC networks.[^64] + +The indictment states that the conspirators covertly monitored the computers of dozens of DCCC and DNC employees, implanted hundreds of files containing malicious computer code, and stole emails and other documents from both committees.[^65] + +The indictment states that on or about April 18, 2016, the conspirators hacked into the DNC's computers through their access to the DCCC network, and that by June 2016 they had gained access to approximately thirty-three DNC computers. Between May 25 and June 1, 2016, the conspirators hacked the DNC Microsoft Exchange Server and stole thousands of emails from the work accounts of DNC employees. The indictment says the conspirators cleared event logs from a DNC computer on May 13, 2016, and deleted logs and files to cover their tracks.[^64] + +The indictment also describes the release of stolen material. It states that Unit 74455 assisted in releasing the stolen documents through the [[DCLeaks]] and [[Guccifer 2.0]] personas and in promoting those releases.[^66] It states that on June 14, 2016, the DNC, through a cybersecurity company it designates Company 1, publicly announced that it had been hacked by Russian government actors; that in response the conspirators created the Guccifer 2.0 persona and falsely claimed to be a lone Romanian hacker; and that the conspirators transferred stolen documents to an entity it designates Organization 1, discussing the timing of the releases with it. According to the indictment, Organization 1 wrote to Guccifer 2.0 on July 6, 2016, that "if you have anything hillary related we want it in the next tweo [sic] days prefable [sic] because the DNC [Democratic National Convention] is approaching," and on July 22, 2016, about three days before the start of the Democratic National Convention, released over 20,000 emails and other documents stolen from the DNC network.[^67] The indictment further states that in September 2016 the conspirators gained access to DNC computers hosted on a third-party cloud service and copied snapshots of the DNC's analytics test applications.[^68] + +### Counsel, Fusion GPS and the FEC + +The Durham report states that in the spring of 2016 the law firm [[Perkins Coie]], counsel to [[Hillary for America]] and the Democratic National Committee, retained [[Fusion GPS]], whose co-founder [[Glenn Simpson]] in mid-May 2016 retained the former British intelligence officer [[Christopher Steele]] and his firm [[Orbis Business Intelligence]]. The same report states that Steele was then also a confidential human source for the FBI.[^69] + +The DNC paid Perkins Coie 849,407.97 dollars between July 15 and August 26, 2016, of which it reported 782,907.97 dollars as "legal and compliance consulting." On a complaint by the [[Coolidge Reagan Foundation]], the [[Federal Election Commission]] voted 4 to 0 on July 23, 2019, to find reason to believe that both committees had misreported the purpose of the payments. The Commission later reached conciliation agreements with DNC Services Corporation/Democratic National Committee and with Hillary for America, following votes in December 2021 and in February and March 2022.[^70] + +### The Seth Rich claims + +In May 2017 [[Fox News]] published a story by the reporter [[Malia Zimmerman]] claiming that [[Seth Rich]], a DNC staffer who had been slain, was killed for leaking emails to [[WikiLeaks]]. Fox News later retracted the article.[^71] + +In March 2018 Rich's parents, [[Joel Rich]] and [[Mary Rich]], sued Fox News, Zimmerman and [[Ed Butowsky]], a Texas businessman, alleging that the reporter worked with the businessman to develop a "sham" story about their son's death.[^72] On August 2, 2018, Judge [[George B. Daniels]] of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed the suit. He found that the parents had failed to prove intentional infliction of emotional distress, and wrote that defamatory statements to news outlets "fall well short of meeting the high standards for extreme and outrageous conduct."[^71] On September 13, 2019, the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the dismissal and remanded the case, holding that the allegations, taken together, plausibly rose to the level of extreme and outrageous conduct.[^73] + +Both sides confirmed a settlement on Tuesday, November 24, 2020. The Riches said they were "pleased with the settlement of this matter and sincerely hope that the media will take genuine caution in the future." Fox said it was pleased with the resolution of the claims and hoped it would enable the Riches "to find a small degree of peace and solace moving forward." Neither side disclosed the financial terms. The Associated Press added that theories that Rich had been assassinated for leaking emails were contradicted by U.S. intelligence reports.[^72] + +### Donors in 2020 and 2024 + +FEC Schedule A records for [[Shayne Coplan]] list a 50,000 dollar contribution to the [[Harris Victory Fund]] on October 21, 2024. The joint fundraising committee's allocations of that money include 41,300 dollars to the Democratic National Committee under the entry name DNC Services Corp.[^74] [[Matthew Modabber]], the chief marketing officer of [[Polymarket]], gave 50,000 dollars to the Harris Victory Fund on September 19, 2024, with the same allocations.[^75] [[Garry Tan]], with [[Y Combinator]] as employer, gave 25,000 dollars on September 25, 2024, and 100,000 dollars on October 3, 2024, to the Harris Victory Fund, with attributed amounts of 21,700 and 19,600 dollars to the DNC.[^76] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Federal Election Commission, committee record for C00010603, "DNC Services Corp / Democratic National Committee," first file date March 10, 1975, OpenFEC API. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/committee/C00010603/ +[^2]: Democratic National Committee, call for the Democratic National Convention to be held at Baltimore on June 1, 1852, signed by B. F. Hallett, Chairman, with W. F. Ritchie and R. H. Stanton, Secretaries, printed in *Proceedings of the Democratic National Convention, held at Baltimore, June 1-5, 1852* (1852). https://archive.org/details/proceedingsofde00demo +[^3]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), Part I, "The Watergate Break-In and Its Prelude." https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^4]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), Part I, section on the first entry of May 27, 1972, and the placement of the telephone devices. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^5]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), Part I, "The Watergate Break-In and Its Prelude," pp. 29-30, citing 1 Hearings and the testimony of Sally Harmony. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^6]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), Part I, section on the June 17, 1972 arrests and the search of the rooms occupied by the burglars. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^7]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), testimony of Jeb Stuart Magruder on the Liddy intelligence plan, text at notes 61 to 63. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^8]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), Part I, discussion of the funding of the Liddy plan and of the Sloan testimony, and the report's use of the codename Gemstone. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^9]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), section on the approval of the Liddy plan, text at notes 80 and 90, testimony of Jeb Stuart Magruder. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^10]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), section on the approval of the Liddy plan, text at note 90. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^11]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), preliminary statement of findings and footnote 10, identifying Lawrence F. O'Brien as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^12]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), Part I, section "Representations to Howard Hunt," p. 66, quoting Hunt's letter to Charles Colson of December 31, 1972, and Colson's note to John Dean. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^13]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), section on the intelligence-related material and the committee's conclusions. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^14]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), Individual Views of Senator Lowell P. Weicker Jr., "Constitutional Democracy in the Era of Watergate," p. 1190, quoting the testimony of Jeb Stuart Magruder, 2 Hearings 790. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^15]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), section "The civil suits," note 68, citing *Democratic National Committee, et al. v. James McCord, et al.* (D.D.C. Civ. No. 1233-72), deposition of James McCord, pp. 70-71, April 30, 1973. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^16]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), section "The civil suits," text at notes 94 and following, testimony of John Dean. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^17]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), Individual Views of Senator Lowell P. Weicker Jr., section III, "The Political System," p. 1219, memorandum "Counter Actions" of September 11, 1972. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^18]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), Part I, pp. 9-11, excerpts of the purported transcript of the September 15, 1972, meeting prepared by the House Judiciary Committee and published in the *Washington Post*, May 17, 1974, pp. A26-28, and information furnished by Fred Buzhardt to minority counsel (note 59). https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^19]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), Part I, discussion of the recruitment of Hunt and Liddy to the White House, footnote 65. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^20]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), section "Robert Bennett and the Mullen and Company," p. 1121, citing the executive session testimony of Robert R. Mullen (February 5, 1974), pp. 3, 8-9, and the CIA memorandum "Wrap-Up of Agency's Association with Robert R. Mullen and Company." https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^21]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), section "Robert Bennett and the Mullen and Company," pp. 1121-1122, citing the executive session testimony of Robert R. Mullen (February 5, 1974) and Robert F. Bennett (February 1, 1974), the CIA memorandum "Wrap-Up of Agency's Association with Robert R. Mullen and Company," and the Mullen case officer's memorandum of April 30, 1971. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^22]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), section "Robert Bennett and the Mullen and Company," pp. 1122-1123, citing executive session testimony of Bennett and E. Howard Hunt (December 18, 1973) and staff interviews of Thomas J. Gregory and Linda Jones. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^23]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), section "Robert Bennett and the Mullen and Company," p. 1124, citing the Mullen case officer's memorandum for record of July 10, 1972 (CIA Supplemental Material, Volume IV) and the Hobart Taylor interview report of February 11, 1974. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^24]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), section "Robert Bennett and the Mullen and Company," pp. 1125-1126, citing the case officer's memoranda of July 10 and July 24, 1972 (CIA Supplemental Material, Volumes IV and V). https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^25]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), section "Robert Bennett and the Mullen and Company," p. 1126, citing the Memorandum for Deputy Director for Plans of March 1, 1973 (CIA Supplemental Material, Volume IV). https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^26]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), section "Pennington Matter," pp. 1127-1128, citing the CIA Director of Security's memorandum of February 22, 1974, and the executive session testimony of Lee R. Pennington Jr. (February 23, 1974). https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^27]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), section "Hunt - Martinez - CIA." https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^28]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), section on the CIA's involvement in the Watergate affair, paragraph on newspaper articles and possible CIA links. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^29]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Armed Services, Special Subcommittee on Intelligence, *Inquiry into the Alleged Involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Watergate and Ellsberg Matters*, H.A.S.C. No. 93-25 (Washington, October 23, 1973). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01495r000500030007-0 +[^30]: U.S. House of Representatives, Special Subcommittee on Intelligence, *Inquiry into the Alleged Involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Watergate and Ellsberg Matters* (October 23, 1973), "Basic Observations," items (1), (2)(d), (3) and (4). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01495r000500030007-0 +[^31]: Solie, Bruce L., Chief, Security Analysis Group, memorandum for the file, "McCord, James Walter, Jr.," June 23, 1976, JFK record 104-10123-10362. +[^32]: Wilson Center, "Spencer Oliver," expert biography (senior positions at the Democratic National Committee, 1966 to 1976; Chief of Staff, Helsinki Commission, 1976 to 1985; Chief Counsel, House Foreign Affairs Committee; Secretary General, OSCE Parliamentary Assembly). https://wilsoncenter.org/person/spencer-oliver ; OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, "R. Spencer Oliver," former Secretary General. https://www.oscepa.org/en/about-osce-pa/international-secretariat/former-secretary-general/former-secretary-general +[^33]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), chapter 8, "The Hughes-Rebozo Investigation and Related Matters," section "IRS Audit of Larry O'Brien," p. 1025. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^34]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), chapter 8, "The Hughes-Rebozo Investigation and Related Matters," p. 1018. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^35]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), chapter 8, "The Hughes-Rebozo Investigation and Related Matters," section "IRS Audit of Larry O'Brien," pp. 1025-1030, citing 23 Hearings 11224-11231, 24 Hearings 11638-11645, 21 Hearings 9683-9684, and the Ehrlichman interview of January 10, 1974. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^36]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), chapter 8, "The Hughes-Rebozo Investigation and Related Matters," p. 1030. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^37]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), section on the Internal Revenue Service and the White House requests, p. 137. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^38]: Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Book 23: The Hughes-Rebozo Investigation and Related Matters* (GPO, 1974), Higby Exhibits 5-A to 5-I, pp. 11123-11135: Colson memorandum of January 15, 1971. +[^39]: Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Book 23: The Hughes-Rebozo Investigation and Related Matters* (GPO, 1974), Higby Exhibits 5-A to 5-I, pp. 11123-11135: Caulfield to Dean, January 22, January 25, February 1 and February 3, 1971, and Dean's report of Bennett's statement. +[^40]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), chapter 8, "The Hughes-Rebozo Investigation and Related Matters," pp. 948-949, testimony of Richard Danner. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^41]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), testimony of Jeb Stuart Magruder with footnotes 61 to 63, and the section on Robert Bennett's suggestion regarding Greenspun's safe. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^42]: "Application for FCC approval of the sale of KLAS-TV Las Vegas by H. M. Greenspun to industrialist Howard R. Hughes ... for about $4.5 million," *Broadcasting*, October 23, 1967. https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-BC/BC-1967/1967-10-23-BC.pdf +[^43]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Governmental Affairs, *Investigation of Illegal or Improper Activities in Connection with 1996 Federal Election Campaigns*, S. Rept. 105-167 (1998), chapter 13, "John Huang's Years at Lippo." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1998_rpt/sgo-sir/1-13.htm +[^44]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Governmental Affairs, S. Rept. 105-167 (1998), chapter 13, "John Huang's Years at Lippo," testimony of Juliana Utomo (July 15, 1997), pp. 14-15. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1998_rpt/sgo-sir/1-13.htm +[^45]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Governmental Affairs, S. Rept. 105-167 (1998), chapter 13, "John Huang's Years at Lippo," checks of August 12, 1992 (Ex. 4), the August 17, 1992 memorandum (Ex. 5), the 1992 earnings statement (Ex. 6), and the composite of 1993 checks (Ex. 7); chapter "The China Connection," section on the 1993 checks. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1998_rpt/sgo-sir/1-13.htm ; https://irp.fas.org/congress/1998_rpt/sgo-sir/2-18.htm +[^46]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Governmental Affairs, S. Rept. 105-167 (1998), chapter "The China Connection: Summary of the Committee's Findings Relating to Efforts of the People's Republic of China to Influence U.S. Policies and Elections." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1998_rpt/sgo-sir/2-18.htm +[^47]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Governmental Affairs, S. Rept. 105-167 (1998), Minority Views of Senators Glenn, Levin, Lieberman, Akaka, Durbin, Torricelli and Cleland, chapter 4, "John Huang," introduction and findings, p. 4788. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1998_rpt/sgo-sir/4-4.htm +[^48]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Governmental Affairs, S. Rept. 105-167 (1998), Minority Views, chapter 4, "John Huang," section "Hiring Huang to Work at the DNC," p. 4811, citing the depositions of C. Joseph Giroir, Richard Sullivan and Donald Fowler. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1998_rpt/sgo-sir/4-4.htm +[^49]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Governmental Affairs, S. Rept. 105-167 (1998), Minority Views, chapter 4, "John Huang," section "June 18, 1996, DNC Coffee at the White House," p. 4836. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1998_rpt/sgo-sir/4-4.htm +[^50]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Governmental Affairs, S. Rept. 105-167 (1998), chapter 13, "John Huang's Years at Lippo," section on the Lippo contributions and the Shen Jueren meetings, footnote 15 (White House audio tape of the Los Angeles function); chapter "The China Connection," account of September 1993 meetings. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1998_rpt/sgo-sir/1-13.htm ; https://irp.fas.org/congress/1998_rpt/sgo-sir/2-18.htm +[^51]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Governmental Affairs, S. Rept. 105-167 (1998), chapter "The China Connection," sections on Ng Lap Seng, the Presidential Legal Expense Trust, and the indictment of Trie on January 28, 1998. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1998_rpt/sgo-sir/2-18.htm +[^52]: U.S. Department of Justice, "John Huang Pleads Guilty to Violating Federal Campaign Finance Laws," press release, August 12, 1999. https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/1999/August/357crm.htm +[^53]: U.S. Department of Justice, "James Riady Pleads Guilty, Will Pay Largest Fine in Campaign Finance History for Violating Federal Election Law," press release 01-17, January 11, 2001. +[^54]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Governmental Affairs, S. Rept. 105-167 (1998), chapter "John Huang's Years at Lippo," sections "Lippo Group," "LippoBank California," and "Lippo and Riady Political Contributions," footnote 37. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1998_rpt/sgo-sir/1-13.htm +[^55]: House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, *Investigation of Political Fundraising Improprieties and Possible Violations of Law*, H. Rept. 105-829, vol. 2, 1998, Part A, section III, "Arkansas International Development Corporation," footnotes 55 through 60, citing the deposition of C. Joseph Giroir (April 30, 1997). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CRPT-105hrpt829/html/CRPT-105hrpt829-vol2.htm +[^56]: House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, *Investigation of Political Fundraising Improprieties and Possible Violations of Law*, H. Rept. 105-829, vol. 2, 1998, footnotes 14 and 115-119, and the Mochtar Riady letter to Clinton. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CRPT-105hrpt829/html/CRPT-105hrpt829-vol2.htm +[^57]: House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, *Investigation of Political Fundraising Improprieties and Possible Violations of Law*, H. Rept. 105-829, vol. 2 (1998), section on Webster Hubbell, footnotes 91 to 93, citing the deposition of Webster L. Hubbell, June 4, 1996, and NationsBank account records. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CRPT-105hrpt829/html/CRPT-105hrpt829-vol2.htm +[^58]: Independent Counsel, *Final Report of the Independent Counsel In Re: Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan Association*, vol. 3, part C, "Webster L. Hubbell's Billing Practices and Tax Filings," pp. 28 to 29, footnotes 153 through 156, and pp. 33 to 35, footnotes 177 through 192. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-ICREPORT-MADISON/pdf/GPO-ICREPORT-MADISON-3-2.pdf +[^59]: Federal Election Commission, itemized receipts (Schedule A, OpenFEC) for contributor names "SCHWARTZ, BERNARD L" and "SCHWARTZ, BERNARD" with New York addresses, two-year periods 1996 and 1998 (January 1995 through December 1998), and for contributor name "SCHWARTZ, BERNARD" with employer BLS Investments, recipient committee C00010603, 2020 to 2024. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/?committee_id=C00010603&contributor_name=SCHWARTZ%2C+BERNARD +[^60]: House Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China (the Cox Committee), *Report*, H. Rept. 105-851, vol. III, ch. 9, p. 51, citing the New York Times report of April 13, 1998. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRPT-105hrpt851/pdf/GPO-CRPT-105hrpt851.pdf +[^61]: Federal Election Commission, itemized receipts (Schedule A, OpenFEC) for contributor "MELLON, CHRISTOPHER," employer A&E Networks, recipient committee C00010603, August 25 and 27, 2020, memo "Biden Victory Fund." https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/?committee_id=C00010603&contributor_name=MELLON%2C+CHRISTOPHER +[^62]: Federal Election Commission, Schedule A individual contributions, contributor name "SCATURRO, PHILIP" (41 results, June 28, 1983 to December 31, 2012). https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/?contributor_name=SCATURRO%2C%20PHILIP +[^63]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, file on Robert A. Maheu, FOI/PA no. 1342370-0, applicant investigation, 1940, endorsements by Richard C. Durham, assistant secretary of the Democratic National Committee. +[^64]: *United States v. Netyksho et al.*, No. 1:18-cr-00215 (D.D.C.), indictment filed July 13, 2018, ¶¶ 26, 29 and 31, pp. 10-12. https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download +[^65]: *United States v. Netyksho et al.*, No. 1:18-cr-00215 (D.D.C.), indictment filed July 13, 2018, introductory paragraph 4. https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download +[^66]: *United States v. Netyksho et al.*, No. 1:18-cr-00215 (D.D.C.), indictment filed July 13, 2018, paragraphs on the DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 personas and on the role of Unit 74455 in releasing and promoting stolen documents. https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download +[^67]: *United States v. Netyksho et al.*, No. 1:18-cr-00215 (D.D.C.), indictment filed July 13, 2018, ¶¶ 40, 47 and 48. https://archive.org/details/netyksho-et-al-indictment-1 +[^68]: *United States v. Netyksho et al.*, No. 1:18-cr-00215 (D.D.C.), indictment filed July 13, 2018, ¶ 34. https://archive.org/details/netyksho-et-al-indictment-1 +[^69]: Durham, John H., Special Counsel. *Report on Matters Related to Intelligence Activities and Investigations Arising Out of the 2016 Presidential Campaigns*, U.S. Department of Justice, May 12, 2023, pp. 11-12, 16-17, 81-85, 266 and 287. https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf +[^70]: Federal Election Commission, MURs 7291 and 7449: certification of the July 23, 2019 vote, conciliation agreements with DNC Services Corporation/Democratic National Committee and with Hillary for America, and the letter of Richard L. Weiss to Graham Wilson, February 22, 2022; Commission votes of December 16, 2021, February 17, 2022, and March 25, 2022. https://www.fec.gov/files/legal/murs/7449/7449_64.pdf ; https://www.fec.gov/files/legal/murs/7449/7449_20.pdf ; https://www.fec.gov/data/legal/matter-under-review/7449/ +[^71]: CBS News, "Seth Rich case against Fox News dismissed by federal judge," August 2, 2018, reporting the ruling of Judge George B. Daniels, the May 2017 article by Malia Zimmerman, and the article's retraction. https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/seth-rich-case-dismissed-by-federal-judge +[^72]: Associated Press, "Fox News, family of slain DNC staffer Seth Rich settle suit," November 25, 2020, reporting the March 2018 filing against Fox News, Zimmerman and Butowsky, the reinstatement of the suit by the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the settlement confirmed on Tuesday, and the statements of the Riches and Fox News. https://www.ky3.com/2020/11/25/fox-news-family-of-slain-dnc-staffer-seth-rich-settle-suit/ +[^73]: *Rich v. Fox News Network, LLC*, No. 18-2321-cv (2d Cir. decided Sept. 13, 2019), vacating the judgment of August 2, 2018, and remanding. https://www.steptoe.com/a/web/pcMf4NwhvnkzdJNxEs5dmm/3ZFvRt/no-18-2321-91319-opinion.pdf +[^74]: Federal Election Commission, Schedule A itemized receipts, contributor-name search "COPLAN, SHAYNE," October 21, 2024 entries, and Harris Victory Fund allocations to the Democratic National Committee (DNC Services Corp.). https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/?contributor_name=COPLAN%2C%20SHAYNE +[^75]: Federal Election Commission, Schedule A receipts for contributor Matthew Modabber, employer Polymarket, September 19, 2024, Harris Victory Fund filing. https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/fecimg/?202505089760714379 +[^76]: Federal Election Commission, Schedule A itemized receipts, contributor "Tan, Garry," employer Y Combinator, 2024 entries to the Harris Victory Fund and allocations to the Democratic National Committee; committee record for Abundant Future (C00922229). https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/ ; https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/committee/C00922229/ diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Department of Energy.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Department of Energy.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..7251e333 --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Department of Energy.md @@ -0,0 +1,372 @@ +--- +aliases: + - "United States Department of Energy" + - "U.S. Department of Energy" + - "Energy Department" +category: "U.S. Government" +tags: + - Department + - NuclearWeapons + - Energy + - UAP + - GreenFireballs + - Stargate + - RemoteViewing + - Intelligence + - Counterintelligence + - NuclearIntelligence + - Wackenhut + - EGG +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +location: "Washington, D.C." +summary: "Cabinet department created in 1977 that administers the nuclear weapons laboratories, the Nevada Test Site and the contractors that figure in psi, UAP and nuclear-intelligence records." +relations: + - type: head_of + with: "[[James R. Schlesinger]]" + reverse: true + start: 1977-08-06 + end: 1979-08-23 + role: "first Secretary of Energy" + fn: 4 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Ralph E. Caudle]]" + reverse: true + start: 1975 + end: 1984 + role: "Director, Division of Operations, Office of Military Application (1975); head of the Office of Safeguards and Security (1981 to 1984)" + fn: 23 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Donald M. Kerr]]" + reverse: true + start: 1979 + end: 1980 + role: "acting director of defense programs, according to the National Security Archive's account" + fn: 70 + - type: contractor_to + with: "[[Wackenhut Corporation]]" + reverse: true + role: "the department accounted for about 20 percent of the company's revenue in its fiscal year ended January 1, 1995" + fn: 27 + - type: contractor_to + with: "[[Wackenhut Services]]" + reverse: true + role: "held department contracts including DE-AC08-87NV10559 (Nevada Operations Office) and DE-AC09-99SR18950 (Savannah River)" + fn: 28 + - type: contractor_to + with: "[[Wackenhut Advanced Technologies Corporation]]" + reverse: true + start: 1980 + role: "department listed among the clients of the Security Programs and Computer Security Divisions of its predecessor NUSAC in spring 1980" + fn: 26 + - type: contractor_to + with: "[[EG&G]]" + reverse: true + role: "held five Department of Energy contracts in the fiscal year ended January 2, 1994" + fn: 11 + - type: contractor_to + with: "[[Science Applications International Corporation]]" + reverse: true + role: "department accounted for 11 percent of revenue in the fiscal year ended January 31, 1995" + fn: 13 + - type: contractor_to + with: "[[Lockheed Martin]]" + reverse: true + start: 1993 + end: 2017 + role: "operated Sandia National Laboratories through Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin company" + fn: 14 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Ruth Davis]]" + reverse: true + start: 1979-09 + role: "nominated September 12, 1979 as Assistant Secretary of Energy for Resource Applications" + fn: 84 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Gregory H. Woods]]" + reverse: true + start: 2012 + end: 2013 + role: "general counsel" + fn: 120 +--- + +The United States Department of Energy is the cabinet department that administers the nuclear weapons program, the national laboratories and test sites, and much of federal energy research. Its predecessors include the [[Atomic Energy Commission]], which ran the weapons complex from January 1, 1947, and the Energy Research and Development Administration. The department's laboratories, contractors and officials recur in records of green fireballs and other aerial phenomena over atomic installations, psychic research, nuclear intelligence and counterintelligence, and the sections below follow those appearances. + +### Establishment and predecessor agencies + +The Manhattan Project's postwar successor, the Atomic Energy Commission, was established by Public Law 79-585 of 1946 and set up an Office of Security and Intelligence to liaise with the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy and with agencies of the intelligence community.[^1] The Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, approved October 11, 1974, provides in section 101(a): "The Atomic Energy Commission is hereby abolished." It created the Energy Research and Development Administration, which inherited the commission's weapons and research functions and, according to the Congressional Research Service, its foreign intelligence and counterintelligence responsibilities under an assistant administrator for national security.[^1][^2] + +Congress created the department by Public Law 95-91, approved August 4, 1977. Section 201 establishes it "at the seat of government" as "an executive department to be known as the Department of Energy."[^3] Section 102(18) transfers to it "the functions of the Energy Research and Development Administration related to nuclear weapons and national security," and section 203 lists "management and implementation of the nuclear weapons program" among the duties of its assistant secretaries. Section 208 provides for an Office of Inspector General.[^3] The Congressional Research Service describes the act as bringing together 40 existing government organizations.[^1] + +[[James R. Schlesinger]], who had chaired the Atomic Energy Commission from 1971 to 1973, was confirmed as the first Secretary of Energy on August 4, 1977 and served from August 6, 1977 to August 23, 1979.[^4][^5] The department's Office of Legacy Management lists the secretaries who followed. [[Charles Duncan]] was confirmed on July 31, 1979 and served from August 24, 1979 to January 20, 1981. [[James B. Edwards]] served from January 23, 1981 to November 5, 1982, [[Donald P. Hodel]] from November 5, 1982 to February 7, 1985, and [[John S. Herrington]] from February 7, 1985 to January 20, 1989. [[James Watkins]] served from March 1, 1989 to January 20, 1993, and [[Hazel R. O'Leary]] from January 22, 1993 to January 20, 1997.[^6] [[Federico Peña]] served from March 12, 1997 to June 30, 1998, and [[Bill Richardson]] from August 18, 1998 to January 20, 2001.[^6] [[Spencer Abraham]] served from January 20, 2001 to January 31, 2005, [[Samuel W. Bodman]] from February 2005 to January 2009, [[Steven Chu]] from January 21, 2009 to April 22, 2013, and [[Ernest Moniz]] from May 21, 2013 to January 20, 2017.[^6] [[Rick Perry]] served from March 2, 2017 to December 1, 2019, and [[Dan Brouillette]] from December 11, 2019 to January 20, 2021.[^6] [[Jennifer M. Granholm]] was sworn in as the sixteenth secretary on February 25, 2021.[^7] [[Chris Wright]] was confirmed on February 3, 2025 by a Senate vote of 59 to 38.[^8] + +### Weapons laboratories and the contractor network + +The nuclear weapons laboratories that the department runs include [[Los Alamos]], [[Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory]] and [[Sandia National Laboratories]]. In January 2025 the Los Alamos laboratory published a release on a partnership with OpenAI.[^9] In August 2025 it announced that frontier AI models had been launched on its Venado supercomputer.[^10] + +Most of the work at the laboratories and test sites is done under contract. [[EG&G]] reported in its annual report for the fiscal year ended January 2, 1994 that it held five Department of Energy contracts. Two related to the [[Nevada Test Site]]: Energy Measurements, under which the company "provides scientific and engineering services for the DOE's underground nuclear weapons test program" in cooperation with the Sandia, Los Alamos and Livermore laboratories, and the [[Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Company]] contract for support and maintenance, construction at the [[Tonopah Test Range]] and work at the [[Yucca Mountain Project]]. The other three were at [[Rocky Flats]], the [[Idaho National Engineering Laboratory]] and the [[Mound Laboratory]].[^11] The company decided in 1994 not to seek renewal of four of the contracts; the Rocky Flats contract ended in June 1995 and the Reynolds and Energy Measurements contracts expired on December 31, 1995.[^12] In its report for the fiscal year ended January 31, 1995, [[Science Applications International Corporation]] (SAIC) reported that the department accounted for 11 percent of its revenue, and listed [[Donald M. Kerr]], formerly president of EG&G, as its corporate executive vice president.[^13] + +[[Lockheed Martin]] operated Sandia through Sandia Corporation from 1993 to 2017, after which management passed to a subsidiary of [[Honeywell]].[^14] Its 1995 filing places Sandia, the Oak Ridge facilities (under a contract extended through March 31, 1998 at an estimated Department of Energy budget of $3.5 billion) and Nevada Test Site support services (as subcontractor to Bechtel National) in the company's Energy and Environment sector.[^15] [[Battelle Memorial Institute]] managed the Hanford laboratories for the Atomic Energy Commission. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's history gives January 4, 1965 as the date on which the "key" to the [[Hanford Laboratories]] was transferred to Battelle, and dates the laboratory's renaming to 1995.[^16] A company history records that the department selected Battelle in 1978 to manage a program on commercial nuclear waste isolation.[^17] + +A patent application publication, US 2020/0407525 A1, records a confirmatory license to the department from [[Lawrence Livermore National Security]] dated July 27, 2020, and names [[Chasm Technologies]] in the same record.[^18] The White House fact sheet of February 22, 2006 on the [[DP World]] port transaction noted that Dubai was "the first Middle Eastern entity" to join the [[Container Security Initiative]] and the department's Megaports Initiative.[^19] A lobbying registrant of [[Scale AI]], Ariel Marshall, lists service as chief of staff to the Under Secretary for Science and Innovation at the department from 2023 to 2025.[^20] The department also appears among the agencies with which the [[U.S. AI Safety Institute]] coordinates under the Commerce Department's description of the center's tasks.[^21] [[Garrison Rapmund]], a retired Army major general who served on the Star Gate Scientific Oversight Committee, was described in a 2018 alumni memorial as a scientific adviser to the [[National Institutes of Health]], the [[Federal Aviation Administration]] and the department.[^22] + +### Safeguards, security and the Nevada Test Site + +[[Ralph E. Caudle]], a retired Air Force colonel, joined the department in 1975 as Director, Division of Operations, in the Office of Military Application, and in 1981 was promoted to head the Office of Safeguards and Security, with responsibility for protection of nuclear weapons materials and facilities and all department classified information. The Journal of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management reported in its spring 1984 issue that he had been named president of [[Wackenhut Advanced Technologies Corporation]], a subsidiary formed from the Systems Division, the Advanced Technologies Division, the Security Programs Division and NUSAC, Incorporated.[^23] His obituary states that from 1975 to 1981 he was program director and director of operations for development and production of nuclear weapons, that he was Director of Safeguards and Securities of Nuclear Weapons at the department from 1981 to 1984, and that earlier, as an Atomic Energy Commission employee, he had been Director of Safeguard and Security of Nuclear Weapons at Germantown, Maryland.[^24] The Wackenhut annual reports for 1985 and 1986 state that the company's Security Programs Division was selected to design the security system of the nuclear device assembly facility at the Nevada Test Site, and the report covering 1984 states that the department chose [[Wackenhut Services]] in 1984 to establish and operate a Safeguards and Security Central Training Academy at Albuquerque.[^25] + +The predecessor firm NUSAC listed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the department and the Navy among the clients of its security divisions by spring 1980, and [[David G. Schofield]] was senior vice president over those divisions.[^26] The Wackenhut Corporation's annual report for the fiscal year ended January 1, 1995 states that the department accounted for about 20 percent of its revenue, with the Savannah River Site contract at 9 percent and the Rocky Flats Plant contract at 5 percent, and that Wackenhut Services' revenues were $8.1 million lower in 1994 because the department reduced manpower requirements.[^27] Wackenhut Services appears in the federal procurement records under department contracts including DE-AC08-87NV10559 for the Nevada Operations Office and DE-AC09-99SR18950 for Savannah River, the latter with obligations of about $901.6 million.[^28] Senator [[Edward J. Markey]] wrote to Secretary Bodman on February 17, 2005 that a force-on-force exercise at the Test Site in August 2004 had ended in failure for the guard force, and cited a department Office of Inspector General report of February 11, 2005 that a Wackenhut employee had taken government and personal handguns to a training exercise at the site in 2003.[^29] + +The department's history of the Nevada Test Site, DOE/MA-0518, describes about 1,375 square miles of terrain "owned and controlled by the Department of Energy."[^30] The site was carved from the Nellis Air Force Gunnery and Bombing Range. President Truman authorized a 680-square-mile section of the range as the Nevada Proving Grounds on December 18, 1950, and the name became Nevada Test Site in 1955.[^31] The same history records the early use of the range: "The Army set up four emergency landing strips on the range. One was on Groom Lake east of the site."[^30] The Groom Lake airfield is the location of [[Area 51]]. EG&G's radar test facility moved to the former U-2 testing site at Area 51 of the Atomic Energy Commission's Nevada Proving Grounds on September 10, 1959, according to the CIA's history of the U-2 program.[^32] + +The department also administers the [[Strategic Petroleum Reserve]], which its page on the reserve calls "the world's largest supply of emergency crude oil."[^33] The Energy Policy and Conservation Act of December 22, 1975 provides: "A Strategic Petroleum Reserve for the storage of up to 1 billion barrels of petroleum products shall be created pursuant to this part."[^34] + +### Green fireballs over Los Alamos and Sandia, 1948 to 1951 + +From December 1948 reports of green fireballs came from the vicinity of Los Alamos and [[Sandia Base]], installations of the Atomic Energy Commission and the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project. The 17th District of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations at [[Kirtland Air Force Base]] collected the reports. In a summary of May 25, 1950 to Brigadier General [[Joseph F. Carroll]], the director of special investigations, the district wrote that its observers included "scientists, Special Agents of the Office of Special Investigations, airline pilots, military pilots, Los Alamos Security Inspectors, military personnel, and many other persons of various occupations whose reliability is not questioned." The summary was distributed to the Director, Security Division, Atomic Energy Commission, at Los Alamos, to the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project at Sandia Base and to the FBI offices at El Paso and Albuquerque.[^35] + +A conference on aerial phenomena met at 1300 on February 16, 1949 in room P-162 of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. The attendance list records Major Winn, Major Godsoe and Captain Neef of the Fourth Army, Commander Mandelkorn of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project, [[Lincoln LaPaz]] of the [[University of New Mexico]], Mr. Maxwell of the FBI, Mr. Morgan and Mr. Newburger of the Atomic Energy Commission's Santa Fe Operations Office, and, from the University of California, which ran the laboratory, [[Norris Bradbury]], Holloway, Hoyt, Manley, [[Frederick Reines]] and [[Edward Teller]].[^36] Newburger opened by stating that the subject was classified Secret. Neef said the matter began in December 1948 with reports from airline pilots and that LaPaz had assisted without charge since then.[^36] + +LaPaz described the fireball he had observed near Starvation Peak at about 9:02 p.m. on December 12, 1948: it appeared at full intensity instantly, was yellow-green at about 5200 angstroms, followed an almost horizontal path at constant angular velocity for almost exactly two seconds, and broke into fragments that were still bright green. He told the conference that he regarded it as "not a conventional meteorite fall," that the objects made no sound although a fall of January 30, 1949 over Texas had been followed for 1,600 miles by interviewing hundreds of people, and that he counted ten instances that "definitely merit the most serious consideration" and about twenty more.[^36] He added that earlier green fireballs had been reported to him near the Hanford area, and daylight white objects near Memphis in May 1948, "not too far from Oak Ridge."[^36] Asked for an explanation, LaPaz said the only one he had was the one he had given at the start, that the objects were defensive maneuvers of a higher United States command practising in the regions to be defended, and that he had been scolded for saying so, including by Joseph Kaplan.[^36] + +Teller worked at the blackboard for about twenty minutes on light output, speed, kinetic energy and shock wave. He then said that putting together what he had heard with what he theoretically believed, "it ought to be a material body" and "might be an electron phenomenon," and estimated that an object producing the observed light without audible sound would be very small. LaPaz replied: "Nothing like this, to my knowledge, has ever been observed in the case of meteorite drops." Teller had earlier remarked that the account "sounds like everything else but meteors" and that the evidence of horizontal flight impressed him. Bradbury closed the discussion: "Still don't feel that the meteor stuff is out. The puzzling thing is the long horizontal path; also, absence of noise is puzzling."[^36] Godsoe said that "most of the military authorities think we are crackpots" except the Army Air Force, which was the gathering and reporting agency. Newburger said the Air Force had classed the flying discs and the fireballs into one category, and Neef read a letter from the Air Materiel Command that the old Project Sign was now Project Grudge, which included the New Mexico phenomena.[^36] + +The Atomic Energy Commission's Santa Fe office transmitted a transcript of the minutes on March 22, 1949 under a Secret cover letter signed by Sidney Newburger, Jr., chief of its Security Operations Branch, to Lieutenant Commander Richard Mandelkorn of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project at Sandia Base. The copy is marked as 24 pages, copy 18 of 25, and carries a Department of Energy declassification review stamp. The department's release program published it on July 10, 2026 as DOE-UAP-D004, in the fourth release of the Department of War's UAP records.[^36][^37] The FBI's San Antonio office reported to the Director on the same date, March 22, 1949, on what Fourth Army intelligence had told it of the conference: that the question was classified Secret, that more than ten incidents analogous to the green fireball and some twenty others had occurred since December 5, 1948, and that the sightings were confined to a triangle of Los Alamos, Las Vegas and west Texas. The memorandum then states: "There appears to be reason to believe that the above-mentioned phenomena may be connected with secret experiments being conducted by some U.S. Government Agency as it is believed that the United States is farther advanced in guided missile development than any foreign power."[^38] + +The 17th OSI District's summary of May 1950 gives the dates of the Los Alamos conferences as February 17 and October 14, 1949 and lists as present representatives of the Fourth Army, the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project, the University of New Mexico, the FBI, the Atomic Energy Commission, the University of California, the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, the Air Materiel Command's Geophysical Research Division and the Office of Special Investigations. It states that no logical explanation was offered but that it was "generally concluded that the phenomena existed and that they should be studied scientifically," and that "the continued occurrence of unexplained phenomena of this nature in the vicinity of sensitive installations is cause for concern."[^35] + +The Air Force's Cambridge Research Laboratories then ran Project Twinkle. Its project scientist, Louis Elterman, forwarded the final report on December 11, 1951. The report states that "there is considerable doubt in the minds of some of the project personnel that this is a natural phenomenon," records that on August 28, 1951 LaPaz "expressed disbelief in all aerial phenomena except for the green fire-balls," lists reports from Los Alamos employees on January 12, April 1, June 7 and June 8, 1951 (the June 7 item a pointed cylinder in a vertical position that fell into a canyon, where a search party found nothing), and concludes that the year of vigilance "does not permit a conclusive opinion." Its recommendation was that "no further fiscal expenditure be made in pursuing the problem." The transmittal states that "nothing of a security nature has been discovered."[^39] + +[[Edward J. Ruppelt]], who directed [[Project Blue Book]], wrote that the February 1949 conference decided the fireballs were a natural phenomenon of some kind and recommended that the Air Force's Cambridge laboratory photograph them; that Twinkle "was a bust" because one of three planned cameras was available; and that it "silently died" when the Korean War began. He also wrote that at an unofficial lunch discussion at the Los Alamos laboratory scientists and technicians, all of whom had seen a green fireball, theorized that the objects could be test vehicles projected from a "spaceship" hovering several hundred miles above the earth. Ruppelt recorded La Paz's view that the genuine fireballs were not meteors, and wrote that at Los Alamos and again at Sandia Base his briefings on unidentified flying objects to the technical staff drew audiences too large for the theater, so that the briefing was recorded and replayed.[^40] + +A page from the Los Alamos Protective Force files released as DOE-UAP-D002 is a handwritten reply of November 23, 1970 to James L. Tuck, the Los Alamos physicist, that recalls sightings of green lights at Los Alamos between 1948 and 1951. DOE-UAP-D003 is a newsletter of the Pajarito Astronomers of Los Alamos dated May 20, 1986 announcing a talk by John Warren titled "Why Should a Scientist be Concerned about UFO's?"[^41] + +### Aerial reports over Oak Ridge, Hanford and other atomic sites, 1947 to 1952 + +The FBI's headquarters file on flying discs, 62-HQ-83894, released in the Department of War's first release of May 8, 2026, contains reports from the Oak Ridge office. In a letter to the Director, the Knoxville special agent in charge wrote that his information came from G. J. Rathman, chief investigator of the Atomic Energy Commission's Security Division at Oak Ridge, and Colonel C. D. Gasser, resident engineer of the Air Materiel Command at the Nuclear Energy for the Propulsion of Aircraft research center at Oak Ridge. Two photographs taken by a resident in July 1947 showed a vapor trail and a ball of fire. Gasser asked Rathman to recover the copies and to tell holders to say nothing about them; Rathman recovered twenty-four copies, and the letter records that Gasser "appeared extremely concerned" and "emphatic that the matter should be given no more publicity than was absolutely necessary."[^42] + +Gasser told the FBI that flying discs were believed by the Air Force to be man-made missiles, that it had been learned as much as four years earlier that discs were being experimented on by the Russians, that most approached the United States from the north and returned in the same direction, and that he saw no connection between the objects and Oak Ridge, since they were seen in forty-six of the forty-eight states in July 1947.[^42][^43] On February 10, 1949 Gasser wrote to Rathman that the Air Materiel Command's technical intelligence division had examined the negatives and found that a drop of warm water or developer had rolled across two frames. The Knoxville office's memorandum of February 18, 1949 reports that the photographs "are the result of accident or purposeful hoax and are not actually photographs of a flying saucer," and that Gasser personally advised that his statements on the existence of flying saucers stood as previously made.[^44] + +The same file records radar reports over Oak Ridge. A Knoxville radio station operator reported a radar return directly over Oak Ridge on March 1 and 2, 1950, at altitudes he gave as 40,000 and 100,000 feet; Air Force personnel from the propulsion research center examined his equipment and discounted the report.[^45] The Knoxville office forwarded to the Director Air Force reports on radar detection of unidentified objects over Oak Ridge on October 12, 15 and 16, 1950, with the comment that the reports concerned unidentified objects "which to date have not been explained," and reports of October 20, 23, 24 and 26, 1950. A teletype from Director Hoover of December 5, 1950 instructed the office to obtain all facts on "possible radar jamming by ionization of particles in atmosphere" and to determine whether an incident northeast of Oliver Springs, Tennessee, could have been connected with the alleged jamming. In February 1951 the office forwarded Counter Intelligence Corps reports of January 2 and January 20, 1951 on objects sighted over Oak Ridge.[^46] + +The file also holds press clippings of July 1947. An Associated Press dispatch quoted Colonel F. J. Clarke, commanding the Hanford Engineering Works, that the saucers were not coming from the atomic plant and that he had been waiting for someone to tie them to Hanford, and reported that David Lilienthal, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, told the Denver Post that the saucers were in no way connected with experiments in atomic energy, the transmutation of metals or similar research. The clippings include a statement attributed to an unnamed person described by a Los Angeles newspaper as a California Institute of Technology staff member that disc experiments were under way at Muroc, White Sands and Portland, and the replies of Harold Urey, who said "transmutation of atomic energy sounds like gibberish," and of the Caltech physicist C. C. Lauritsen, who said the discs had nothing to do with nuclear physics.[^47] + +Ruppelt wrote that a Ground Observer Corps spotter reported a slow-moving light nearing the Oak Ridge laboratory on the night of June 21, 1952, that an F-47 on combat air patrol was vectored to it and that the light made what seemed to be ramming attacks; and that on December 10, 1952, near Hanford, the pilot and radar observer of an F-94 saw a large round white object with a dim reddish light from two "windows," lost visual contact, obtained a radar lock-on, and found that the object reversed direction and dived away when they tried to close. He wrote that Savannah River reports were not accompanied by publicity, that a report of August 25, 1951 to the 34th Air Defense at Kirtland came from an employee of the Atomic Energy Commission's Sandia Corporation and his wife, who saw a flying-wing shape one and a half times the size of a B-36, and that Blue Book's summary found reports more frequent around areas vital to defense, with the Los Alamos-Albuquerque area, Oak Ridge and White Sands rating high.[^40] + +Ruppelt also described a conversation in Los Angeles with two physicists working for the Atomic Energy Commission, who asked for no publicity. They told him of a laboratory, which he did not name, where instruments registered radiation about 100 times background in December 1950 at the time that a group of colleagues, who had told others they were a mineral club, were told of a silvery circular object sighted near their instrument shack, and of earlier incidents there in which an object crossed the sky while Geiger counters registered increases. A report on the earlier incidents concluded that the readings were an equipment malfunction and the objects birds or airplanes, and, Ruppelt wrote, "Project Blue Book never got it."[^40] + +The Robertson Panel, convened by the Office of Scientific Intelligence of the CIA, met from January 14 to 18, 1953 and received an Air Technical Intelligence Center map on which, according to the panel's record, sightings "showed clusters in certain strategic areas such as Los Alamos." The record's contents list includes Los Alamos Bird Watchers Association observation series from August 1950 to January 1951, and a Kirtland Air Force Base outline of a UFO investigation, and states that case histories "involving radar or radar and visual sightings were selected for Dr. Alvarez."[^48] A Fourth Army intelligence summary of a sighting from Sandia Base in February 1949 is held by the Internet Archive.[^49] + +### Kirtland, Manzano and Sandia, 1980 + +At Kirtland Air Force Base, which adjoins Sandia's Albuquerque site, an Air Force Office of Special Investigations form of October 28, 1980 (file 8017D93-0/29), titled "Alleged Sightings of Unidentified Aerial Lights in Restricted Test Range" and covering August 8 to September 3, 1980, refers to an earlier AFOSI Form 1 of September 8, 1980 of the same title. It records that on October 24, 1980 Dr. [[Paul Bennewitz]] contacted Special Agent [[Richard Doty]] through Major Ernest E. Edwards, commander of the 1608th Security Police Squadron, and "related he had knowledge and evidence of threats against Manzano Weapons Storage area. The threat was from Aerial phenomena over Manzano." On October 26 Doty, with the assistance of Jerry Miller, GS-15, scientific advisor for the Air Force Test and Evaluation Center, interviewed Bennewitz at his home, "adjacent to the northern boundary of Manzano Base." The form describes Miller as "a former Project Blue Book USAF Investigator who was assigned to Wright-Patterson AFB, OH, with FTD" and as "one of the most knowledgeable and impartial investigators of Aerial Objects in the southwest." Bennewitz produced photographs and over 2,600 feet of 8mm motion picture film "depicting unidentified aerial objects flying over and around Manzano Weapons Storage Area and Coyote Canyon Test area," several electronic recording tapes, and equipment "pointed at Manzano" to record "high frequency electrical beam pulses." Miller related that "the evidence clearly shows that some type of unidentified aerial objects were caught on film; however, no conclusions could be made whether these objects pose a threat to Manzano/Coyote Canyon areas," and that the tapes were inconclusive and could have been gathered from conventional sources. The form states that personnel of the Foreign Technology Division at Wright-Patterson had expressed interest, asks for a DCII check on Bennewitz, states that it is responsive to HQ CR 44, and adds: "Command was briefed but did not request an investigation at this time." It is signed by Major Thomas A. Cseh, commander of the Base Investigative Detachment.[^50] + +A second form of November 26, 1980 records a meeting of November 10 in the 1606th Air Base Wing conference room attended by Brigadier General [[William Brooksher]], Colonels Sheppard, Simmons, Baca and Huey (AFOSI District 17), Lieutenant Colonel Lamport, Major Cseh, Dr. Lehman, director of the Air Force Weapons Laboratory, and Ed Breen, instrumentation specialist of that laboratory. Bennewitz presented film and photographs "of alleged unidentified Aerial Objects photographed over KAFB, NM during the last 15 months" and "related he had documented proof that he was in contact with the aliens flying the objects." Lehman advised him to request a USAF grant and said he would help with the documents. On November 17 Doty advised that AFOSI would not become involved; on November 26 a caller who identified himself as Senator Harrison Schmidt of New Mexico asked about AFOSI's role and said he would request that the Secretary of the Air Force determine what agency should investigate. The form notes that Bennewitz had had "a number of conversations" with the senator during the preceding months and that the senator had telephoned Brigadier General Brooksher "since Security Police are responsible for the security of Manzano Storage Area."[^51] A third AFOSI communication of July 30, 1981, signed by Colonel Frank M. Huey, records that Senator [[Pete Domenici]] was at the 1606th Air Base Wing inspector general's office asking to speak with Doty, left immediately to meet Bennewitz, and that his aide was told AFOSI had conducted no formal investigation of him.[^52] + +A letter reproduced in the same report was sent to the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization in July 1980 by a writer who described himself as an airman of the 1550th Aircrew Training and Testing Wing at Kirtland. It describes a sighting near Pecos, New Mexico, on July 16, 1980 by a Civil Air Patrol cadet; a visit the next night to the cadet's billets by a man who gave his name as Mr. Huck "from Sandia Laboratories, a secret Depart of Energy Contractor on Kirtland AFB," who said that the craft was "a secret craft from Los Alamos, NM," demanded photographs and warned the cadet not to mention the sighting; and the cadet's report to Kirtland security police, who referred it to AFOSI, where "a Mr. Dody, a special agent with OSI" took the photographs. The writer added that two Sandia Laboratories employees who "also store classified objects in Manzano" had told him that Sandia had examined several UFOs in the previous twenty years and that one that crashed near Roswell in the late 1950s "was examined by Sandia scientists" and "is still being stored in Manzano," and that Colonel Bruce Purvine had told him that AFOSI District 17 had "a special secret detachment" investigating sightings and cattle mutilations.[^53] [[William L. Moore]] said in 1989 that the letter was written by Doty as "bait."[^54] + +Doty said in 2005 that the Manzano area "housed nuclear weapons, probably the largest nuclear storage area in the southwest" and that as base counterintelligence officer he had to know the classified projects at Kirtland, the [[Air Force Weapons Laboratory]], Sandia and Los Alamos in order to safeguard them. He said that AFOSI had convinced Bennewitz that signals he intercepted were alien in order to protect what was happening at Kirtland.[^55] The writer Robert Hastings wrote in 1989 that a production team member identified Doty as the source "Falcon" and a recently retired Air Force captain assigned to a plasma physics group at Sandia, [[Robert Collins]], as the source "Condor"; Hastings wrote that both denied involvement.[^56] The Aquarius teletype dated November 17, 1980, reproduced in the MJ-12 material that Moore circulated, is described by Moore as "a retyped version of a real AFOSI message with a few spurious additions."[^54][^57] The [[Black Vault]]'s post of May 20, 2021 on Doty's service record says that Doty "previously worked with" the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, and a National Personnel Records Center release of April 26, 2013 supplied his records; Doty appeared on Coast to Coast AM on February 27, 2005.[^58] A Freedom of Information Act request to the department of June 17, 1985 by [[Lee Graham]], according to the skeptic Philip J. Klass, listed the twelve names of the [[Majestic-12]] papers that Moore had shown him in May 1985.[^59] + +### The UAP Disclosure Act, the 2023 hearing and the 2026 releases + +At the hearing of July 26, 2023 before the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Representative Ogles asked: "Is there any indication the Department of Energy is involved in UAP data collection and housing?" Mr. Graves answered "I do not have an answer." [[David Grusch]] answered: "I cannot confirm or deny that in a public setting." Asked whether he could answer in a secure setting, Grusch said "Yes."[^60] + +The Senate-passed text of the defense authorization bill, S. 2226, carried as Division G the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act, offered by Senators [[Chuck Schumer]] and [[Mike Rounds]]. Section 9003(23) defines an "unidentified anomalous phenomena record" as a record related to unidentified anomalous phenomena, technologies of unknown origin or non-human intelligence "that was created or made available for use by, obtained by, or otherwise came into the possession of" a list of bodies, among them "(F) the Department of Energy and its progenitors, the Manhattan Project, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the Energy Research and Development Administration," and also "(B) the Department of Defense and its progenitors, the Department of War and the Department of the Navy," "(H) the Central Intelligence Agency and its progenitor, the Office of Strategic Services" and "(X) any private sector person or entity formerly or currently under contract or some other agreement with the Federal Government." Section 9003(22) includes among the phenomena what were "previously described as" flying discs, flying saucers and unidentified flying objects.[^61] The enacted National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, Public Law 118-31, carries a subtitle on the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Records Collection at the National Archives in sections 1841 to 1843. It directs the Archivist to collect "all Government, Government-provided, or Government-funded records" relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena, technologies of unknown origin and non-human intelligence, and places the duty to review and transmit on the head of each "Government office"; it does not list the department or its predecessors.[^62] + +The department's own releases followed. In the Department of War's second release of May 22, 2026 the department's records include DOE-UAP-D001, the final pages of a Pantex report with a redacted ground surveillance radar image and two enhanced images of an unidentified object processed by Sandia National Laboratories, and D002 and D003 described above.[^63] In the fourth release of July 10, 2026 the department's records include the minutes of the February 1949 Los Alamos conference (D004) and DOE-UAP-D005, the Pantex Unidentified Object Incident Report of September 1 to 2, 2015, transmitted under cover of a memorandum dated September 9, 2015 that bears the heading of Consolidated Nuclear Security, LLC, which operates the [[Pantex Plant]] near Amarillo, Texas, and the address line Deputy Assistant Manager for Safeguards and Security, NNSA Production Office.[^64] The report states that on September 1, 2015 at approximately 0710 hours the plant's Ground Surveillance Radar detection system identified an unknown object; security officers described it as a "diamond" type shape, more round at the top; two officers followed it in a vehicle, and, in the report's words, "although they were unable to catch up to the object, they stopped their vehicle and got out" and "after viewing it for 1-2 minutes, the object then continued north offsite."[^37][^64] The report lists among those notified the Central Alarm Station, the Secondary Alarm Station, the Carson County Sheriff's office, Sandia National Laboratories and the FBI.[^64] + +### The Wilson-Davis notes and the EG&G building + +The [[Wilson-Davis Memo]], a fifteen-page document headed "EWD NOTES 10/16/02" and "Eric Davis Meeting with Adm. Wilson," records a meeting between [[Eric Davis]] and [[Thomas R. Wilson]].[^65] The notes quote an instruction on the meeting place: "Rich says to go to EG&G Special Projects building at Grice and Paradise." They also record "Meet at 10 A.M.," and the entry "We sit in his car in back of EG&G building." The conversation ran until 11:20 a.m., according to the notes.[^65] The notes also record: "Came to test site special area to wrap up projects (he began in '98)." They state that the trip was "set up by NNSA (National Nuclear Security Agency)."[^65] + +The Black Vault's analysis by [[John Greenewald]] records that the document has no provenance and that the images were uploaded to [[Imgur]] on April 19, 2019.[^66] The company's annual report for fiscal 1995 lists [[EG&G Special Projects]] among its subsidiaries.[^12] A [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] information memorandum of October 30, 2009 on the review of contract deliverables lists Sandia staff among the outside reviewers and states that the program "apparently will fund the contract's option year one at $12 million."[^67] A one-page enclosure titled "BAASS Goals 2011/2012," released by the [[Department of Homeland Security]] in a response to case 2022-HQFO-00386 dated June 20, 2023, was posted online by [[Marc Cecotti]] the same day.[^68] + +### Nuclear intelligence and the Vela flash + +On September 22, 1979 a Vela satellite recorded a flash over the South Atlantic. The National Security Archive's briefing book of 2016 calls it the Vela incident.[^69] The Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory's Guy Barasch concluded in November 1979 that natural signals would not be confused with those of a nuclear detonation, whose light signature is "unmistakable," and dismissed a lightning superbolt.[^70] A memorandum of the Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Committee to the director of central intelligence, dated February 14, 1980, forwards the judgments of the Nuclear Intelligence Panel, which met February 11 to 13. It states that the attached summary "was prepared by the Panel Chairman, Mr. Louis H. Roddis, Jr."[^71] The National Security Archive's earlier briefing book describes the panel as chaired by Donald Kerr, who had served in the Carter administration as acting director of defense programs at the Energy Department, and quotes [[Seymour Hersh]]'s account that Kerr stated "We had no doubt it was a bomb."[^70] Kerr is the same Donald M. Kerr who in February 1984 is listed as director of Los Alamos National Laboratory.[^72] + +Two laboratory reports of May 1980 reached the opposite conclusion from the White House science adviser's panel. Henry G. Horak of Los Alamos concluded there was "strong evidence that a nuclear explosion actually produced Vela Alert 747," and G. H. Mauth of Sandia found the signal "fully consistent with those expected from a low-yield atmospheric [nuclear detonation]."[^70] The Office of Science and Technology Policy's Ad Hoc Panel, chaired by [[Jack P. Ruina|Jack Ruina]] and including [[Richard Garwin]], [[Luis Alvarez]] and Wolfgang Panofsky, reported on May 23, 1980 that the signal was probably not the result of a nuclear detonation.[^70] + +Earlier, on October 10, 1979, Ross E. Cowey, director of strategic affairs in the State Department's Office of Intelligence and Research, wrote a memorandum for the files summarizing the conclusions of three scientists who had reviewed the data under the auspices of the CIA. They were [[Harold M. Agnew]], former director of Los Alamos, Garwin and [[Stephen Lukasik]]. Cowey describes the memorandum as a synopsis of their conclusions, not the full report.[^73] + +On January 23, 1980 [[Gerald G. Oplinger]], a nonproliferation specialist on the national security adviser's staff, wrote to [[Henry Owen]], ambassador-at-large, under the subject line "South Atlantic Event." He wrote: "I have talked to John Deutch and Dan Murphy about this matter, and told State to put the press release and Congressional consultations on hold." He added: "Between them, DoE, DoD and technical people within the intelligence community have sufficient doubts about the Press panel report to make it very dangerous to proceed without another look." The memorandum lists four questions: the reliability of the Vela signal, on which "the technical people apparently disagree" with the panel; ionospheric signals picked up at Arecibo, on which the panel found mathematical errors and "DoE and DoD say no"; "new hydro data the panel didn't have," as reported by Deutch; and the lack of fallout. Oplinger continued: "Deutch and Murphy still feel that we should come out with a bottom line that there is no conclusive case for a nuclear source. But they feel strongly that unless these questions are given a further airing, there will be continued internal dissent and an appearance that policy people (including the White House) did a whitewash for political reasons," and added that for Deutch, Murphy and Marcum "it is a c.y.a. operation."[^74] The National Security Archive identifies the "Press panel" as the review that the presidential science adviser, [[Frank Press]], had convened under Ruina, and describes [[John Deutch]] as under secretary of energy at the time.[^69] + +### Psychic research and the national laboratories + +The most detailed record of the department's laboratories in the psychic research files is the work of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientist [[R. S. Hawke]]. His outline of acoustic emission experiments with "a Person Reputed to Have Paranormal Metal Bending Abilities," dated January 11, 1979, reports: "At least 4 clear instances of A.E. events occurred with one subject during one session."[^75] A routing note in the same file, undated, says: "There is absolutely no reason to believe that the scientist, Hawke, might have manipulated the data/experiment."[^76] + +An Army memorandum of October 22, 1979 set a visit to Hawke's laboratory in California for November 6, 1979.[^77] The December 1979 report of the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee, chaired by [[Manfred Gale]], states in an annex on Hawke's work: "Hawke's experiments are the most objective and scientific of the investigations we have reviewed."[^78] On November 28, 1979, Hawke met Dr. [[Ruth Davis|Ruth M. Davis]], Assistant for Research Applications at the Department of Energy, and Dr. W. LaBerge of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.[^79] On December 26, 1979 Hawke wrote to Davis, whom he identified as "Assistant for Research Applications, Department of Energy." His letter (EMS79-0117) reports that "Dr. Roger Batzel, has been informed that such a project might be suggested by DOE and/or DOD," that "the equivalent of 5-7 full employees would be the optimum," with tasks distributed "among 10-15 researchers, technicians and other consultants and advisors," and that such discrete research was, in the words of the associate directors he had consulted, "within the capability of LLL." Batzel was named as the person to contact, and copies went to Batzel, Henry McDonald, Dale Nielsen and LaBerge.[^79] + +Ruth M. Davis, signing as deputy under secretary of defense for research and engineering (research and advanced technology), sent a memorandum to [[Jack Vorona]] on November 20, 1978 concerning a remote-viewing project.[^80] A memorandum of July 9, 1979 over the same signature proposes inviting Frank Press and advising him of the Grill Flame work.[^81] Minutes of a steering committee meeting of October 30, 1979 list "Dr. Ruth Davis (DOE)" among those present and record that "Dr. Perry wants little to do with the subject."[^82] A note in the same file, undated, records that Davis could not attend a meeting because she had to meet Mr Duncan in DOE.[^83] The White House announced on September 12, 1979 the President's intention to nominate Ruth M. Davis, then Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Advanced Technology, as Assistant Secretary of Energy for Resource Applications.[^84] The signature block thus changes from the Department of Defense in 1978 and July 1979 to the Department of Energy in the October minutes and the December letter. + +The Electro/77 conference held a session on the state of the art in psychic research in New York from April 19 to 21, 1977. The session was chaired by "Dr. George Pezdirtz, Director of Energy Storage Div., ERDA," and its papers included two by [[Hal Puthoff]] and [[Russell Targ]] of the [[Stanford Research Institute]].[^85] The Energy Research and Development Administration was the predecessor of the department. + +A February 1984 SRI document describes a Psychoenergetics Science Advisory Panel that included "Dr. Donald Kerr, Director, Los Alamos National Laboratory," together with Fred Zachariasen and [[W. Ross Adey|Ross Adey]].[^72] A program review dated March 1, 1984, signed by Adey and Zachariasen, concludes that the work "warrants cautious continued fiscal support, and that the research should be conducted as much as possible in an open unclassified mode."[^86] A letter from the Defense Intelligence Agency to Senator [[William Proxmire]] of May 16, 1984 states that "the Department of Defense has spent $2,515,000 on Psychic research over the past ten years under project GRILL FLAME."[^87] Annie Jacobsen's account of the program places Donald M. Kerr on a panel that reviewed the Sun Streak effort on January 31, 1986.[^88] An undated DIA summary of American psychoenergetics research facilities lists "Lawrence Livermore Laboratories (L3), Livermore, CA (Lab of R. Hawke)," with the note "Not willing to do classified work."[^89] A DIA document of August 1984 lists Livermore among laboratories "under consideration for contracts in FY 1985," together with [[McDonnell Douglas]] and the [[Mind Science Foundation]].[^90] + +The Los Alamos laboratory is the most consistent laboratory link in the later program. On August 5, 1987 Edward R. Flynn of Los Alamos wrote to Peter J. McNelis of SRI International's cognitive sciences program that the laboratory's magnetically shielded room could be used to measure the influence of very low frequency magnetic fields on subjects, including by repeating SRI's remote viewing experiments inside the room, and that experiments with evoked responses "would best be done at Los Alamos because we have all of the equipment and paradigms basically available now," with magnetoencephalography to localize sources.[^91] A 1988 SRI report states: "A contract was let to Los Alamos National Laboratory in order to determine whether there are neurophysiological indicators of remote viewing."[^92] It records a classified physiology conference at SRI on July 28, 1987 with two Los Alamos attendees.[^92] The December 1988 report on the neurophysiological correlates of remote viewing states that viewers from SRI and two from Los Alamos took part, and records visits by SRI viewers to the Los Alamos laboratory on June 20 to 24, August 22 to 26 and October 18 to 21, 1988; the protocol followed that of the laboratory's Neuromagnetism Laboratory in its Life Sciences and Physics Divisions.[^93] A 1992 proposal by the Science Applications International Corporation states that "SRI International and the Biophysics Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory conducted an experiment using the magnetoencephalograph (MEG) technique," and that SAIC replicated the study in Los Alamos during 1992.[^94] + +A DIA purchase request for fiscal 1991 lists the action office as "HQ DOE/LANL" and describes its purpose as "biophysical research and analysis" at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), a noncompetitive contract of $250,000 funded as line item 1.004 of the fiscal 1991 DIA budget for Congressional Directed Programs.[^95] The statement of work states that "the FY 1991 Defense Authorization Act identified DIA as executive agent of a new program for examining anomalous phenomena," that the earlier brain neuromagnetic pilot work was "performed by the Biophysical Group at the Los Alamos National Laboratory" as part of an Army research effort under the Surgeon General's research and development office, and that "direct MIPR action from DIA to LANL would be more appropriate." The interagency transfer was addressed to the department's headquarters, attention IN-40.[^95][^96] A Sandia white paper in the same files, "Brain Disorder Phenomenology Using Noninvasive Brain Analysis," from Sandia's Low Observable Projects Department, proposes a New Mexico center for brain imaging with a 1,000-sensor biomagnetometer, with Sandia, a Veterans Administration laboratory and Los Alamos for sensor research ($500,000) among the participants in a first phase of $16.6 million.[^97] + +A DIA monthly activity report records a meeting on September 23, 1994 with representatives of the department and a laboratory. The report says: "Funding would come from them."[^98] A June 1994 research and peer review plan for the program says that contacts with "such national laboratories as Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, Oak Ridge, and [redacted] have indicated an interest."[^99] Minutes of the program's oversight panel for April 9, 1991 record that the panel was chaired by [[Michael A. Wartell]] of Sandia National Laboratories, and the Scientific Oversight Committee roster lists Melvin Schwartz as associate director for high energy and nuclear physics at [[Brookhaven National Laboratory]].[^100][^101] + +An SRI report on an application-oriented remote viewing experiment, dated April 1988, describes an experiment of May 1987 on the advanced test accelerator at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and states: "The primary target was the ATA facility."[^102] The Princeton engineer [[Robert Jahn]], in an undated Princeton Alumni Weekly article, refers to "a well-placed officer of the Department of Energy" who had written to him.[^103] + +The Advanced Theoretical Physics Working Group that [[John B. Alexander]] organized in 1984 met in the secure facility of [[BDM Corporation]], whose vice president for intelligence was [[Albert Stubblebine]]. A department "Request for Visit or Access Approval" (form DOE F 5631.20) dated May 8, 1985, from a Los Alamos National Laboratory requester and signed by the laboratory's special security officer, asks that three laboratory employees be admitted to the BDM McLean secure facility on May 20 to 25, 1985 for an "Advance Theoretical Physics Conference," at the access level "TOP SECRET/RESTRICTED DATA SIGMAS AS REQUIRED."[^104] + +### Human radiation experiments and openness + +The Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, in its final report of October 1995, documents eighteen patients injected with plutonium between 1945 and 1947 to determine how excreta could be used to estimate the plutonium remaining in an exposed worker's body. One patient was injected at Oak Ridge Hospital, eleven at the University of Rochester, three at the University of Chicago and three at the University of California.[^105] The committee found that the patient-subjects at Rochester and California "were never told that the injections were part of a medical experiment for which there was no expectation that they would benefit, and they never consented to this use of their bodies." It also found "no documents that bear directly on what, if anything, the subjects were told about the injections and whether they consented."[^105] + +On December 24, 1946 Colonel K. D. Nichols ordered a halt to injections of "certain radioactive substances" into human subjects at the University of California.[^105] The committee wrote that the Atomic Energy Commission, which succeeded the Manhattan Project on January 1, 1947, decided to keep the plutonium injections secret: "It appears that this decision was based on concerns about legal liability and adverse public reaction, not national security."[^105] The committee also records that the department told it that the records of its predecessor's Intelligence Division "had been destroyed mainly during the 1970s, but in some cases as late as 1989."[^105] + +The department's own account dates its openness policy to December 7, 1993, when Hazel R. O'Leary announced her Openness Initiative, and describes "an agency whose institutional birth was in the most secret of wartime programs, the Manhattan Project." The 1995 Roadmap states that the records of the department and its predecessors fill 3.2 million cubic feet and calls the project "a prototype for the larger job of identifying, preserving, and making available the historical record of the American nuclear age."[^106] The committee's report says that on reading articles in the [[Albuquerque Tribune]], the secretary "expressed shock," and that she "was particularly concerned because the Department of Energy had its earliest origins in the agencies responsible for building the atomic bomb and sponsoring the plutonium experiments."[^105] The department's list of experiments was released at the secretary's June 1994 press conference.[^106] + +### Intelligence, counterintelligence and the Wen Ho Lee case + +The intelligence elements of the department are listed in the statutory definition of the intelligence community, 50 U.S.C. 3003(4)(H), added by the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1993 (Public Law 102-496). In February 1998, after reports that China had penetrated the weapons laboratories, President Clinton issued Presidential Decision Directive 61, which split the department's foreign intelligence and counterintelligence functions into two offices reporting to the Secretary and required the counterintelligence office to be headed by a senior FBI official. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000 (Public Law 106-65) codified the directive and created the semi-autonomous [[National Nuclear Security Administration]] with its own Office of Defense Nuclear Counterintelligence; the act for fiscal 2007 (Public Law 109-364) abolished that office, and the department's Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence resulted.[^1][^107] + +In 1999 the government indicted [[Wen Ho Lee]], a physicist at Los Alamos. A joint statement of Attorney General [[Janet Reno]] and FBI Director [[Louis Freeh]] said that "the Department of Justice and the FBI stand by each and every one of the 59 counts."[^108] The statement also says that "The Department of Justice, the Department of Energy, and the FBI also believed strongly that Dr. Lee had to be restricted" from communicating with outsiders during his detention.[^108] + +On September 13, 2000 Lee pleaded guilty. The Justice Department's release that day reads: "Today, after denying any wrongdoing for months, Dr. Lee pleaded guilty to the indictment's charge of unlawfully collecting and keeping classified information related to the national defense."[^109] The same release recalls the earlier charge: "Last year, we charged Dr. Wen Ho Lee with downloading classified information about our nuclear arsenal from a secured computer onto 10 unsecured computer tapes," and states that "the fate of 7 of those tapes has never been determined."[^109] Judge James Parker approved a plea to one of the fifty-nine counts with a sentence of time served after 278 days. According to the Senate Judiciary Committee's report he told Lee: "I believe you were terribly wronged by being held in custody pretrial . . . under demeaning, unnecessarily punitive conditions. I am truly sorry that I was led by our Executive Branch of government to order your detention last December," and that "it is only the top decision makers in the Executive Branch, especially the Department of Justice and the Department of Energy and locally, during December, who have caused embarrassment by the way this case began and was handled. They did not embarrass me alone. They have embarrassed our entire nation and each of us who is a citizen of it."[^110] + +The House select committee chaired by Representative [[Christopher Cox]] reported in January 1999 that "Counterintelligence programs at the national weapons laboratories today fail to meet even minimal standards," and that "Security at the national weapons laboratories will not be satisfactory until at least sometime in the year 2000."[^111] The report describes a bureaucracy that "buried" counterintelligence staff and left them "without access to senior management or the Secretary of Energy."[^111] The Senate Judiciary report states that "The Department of Energy was wrong to allow Wackenhut contract polygraph examiners to administer a polygraph to Dr. Lee on December 23, 1998."[^110] [[Arlen Specter]]'s interim report on the investigation states that "The investigation of Dr. Lee since 1982 has been characterized by a series of errors and omissions by the Department of Energy and the Department of Justice, including the FBI."[^112] + +### NUMEC and the Israel question + +The [[Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation]] (NUMEC) was a privately owned nuclear plant at Apollo, Pennsylvania, whose owner was [[Zalman Mordecai Shapiro|Zalman Shapiro]]. The National Security Archive posted 42 documents from the NUMEC file in a briefing book of November 2, 2016.[^113] + +In a February 1966 letter to [[Chet Holifield]], chairman of the [[Joint Committee on Atomic Energy]], [[Glenn Seaborg]], then chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, wrote: "In the absence of evidence or suspicion of violation of law, we have determined that an inquiry by the FBI is not now warranted." The same letter states that "it cannot be said unequivocally that theft or diversion has not taken place."[^114] The file refers to 61 kilograms of material for which the government agreed to pay.[^114] [[R. L. Hollingsworth]], the commission's general manager, wrote in a separate letter: "That survey revealed no evidence which would lead us to believe or suspect that the material had been diverted."[^114] A General Accounting Office letter of June 20, 1967 states: "We found no evidence of diversion."[^115] + +[[Richard Helms]], then director of central intelligence, asked the attorney general for a discreet FBI investigation of the company.[^114] The file includes a 1976 FBI memorandum concerning the possible diversion (document 20) and an FBI interview report on Shapiro from 1977 that records Shapiro's denials (document 24).[^116][^117] A 1972 CIA memorandum on possible diversion of weapons-grade material from NUMEC to Israel is also in the file.[^118] + +### Export controls and Iraq + +[[Alan Friedman]] wrote that [[Bryan Siebert]] of the Energy Department "had been waging a lonely and unsuccessful battle to get James Baker and National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft to do something about the steady flow of U.S. exports that were materially assisting Iraq's nuclear weapons program." Friedman wrote that on May 18, 1990 [[Brent Scowcroft]] telephoned the Secretary of Agriculture and asked him "not to put out any press release today saying we are terminating the program" of credit guarantees, and that Scowcroft's aides "objected to any measures 'that singled out Iraq.'"[^119] + +### Officials + +James R. Schlesinger is the first Secretary of Energy. Donald M. Kerr appears in the record as acting director of defense programs in the Carter administration according to the National Security Archive, as director of Los Alamos National Laboratory in February 1984 when he sat on the SRI advisory panel, as formerly president of EG&G, and as corporate executive vice president of SAIC in 1995.[^13][^70][^72] [[Gregory H. Woods]], later a judge in the Southern District of New York, was general counsel of the department from 2012 to 2013; he was confirmed by the Senate in April 2012 and nominated to the court on May 9, 2013.[^120][^121] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Congressional Research Service, "Department of Energy's Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (OICI)," IF12684, June 7, 2024. https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/IF12684.html +[^2]: Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, Public Law 93-438, 88 Stat. 1233 (October 11, 1974), sec. 101(a). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-88/pdf/STATUTE-88-Pg1233.pdf +[^3]: Department of Energy Organization Act, Public Law 95-91, 91 Stat. 565 (August 4, 1977), secs. 102(18), 201, 203 and 208. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-91/pdf/STATUTE-91-Pg565.pdf +[^4]: U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Legacy Management, "Secretaries of Energy," entry for James R. Schlesinger (confirmed August 4, 1977; term of office August 6, 1977 to August 23, 1979). https://www.energy.gov/lm/secretaries-energy +[^5]: Central Intelligence Agency, "Biography, James R. Schlesinger," reading room document CIA-RDP75B00380R000400150017-8. +[^6]: U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Legacy Management, "Secretaries of Energy," entries as listed on the page. https://www.energy.gov/lm/secretaries-energy +[^7]: U.S. Department of Energy, "Jennifer M. Granholm sworn in as 16th Secretary of Energy," February 25, 2021. https://www.energy.gov/articles/jennifer-m-granholm-sworn-16th-secretary-energy +[^8]: U.S. Senate, roll call vote no. 30, 119th Congress, 1st session, confirmation of Christopher Wright as Secretary of Energy, February 3, 2025 (yeas 59, nays 38). https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1191/vote_119_1_00030.htm +[^9]: Los Alamos National Laboratory, news release, January 30, 2025. https://www.lanl.gov/media/news/0130-open-ai +[^10]: Los Alamos National Laboratory, news release, August 28, 2025. https://www.lanl.gov/media/news/0828-venado-ai-models +[^11]: EG&G, Inc., Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 2, 1994, filed April 1, 1994, business description, contract descriptions and list of subsidiaries. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/31791/0000031791-94-000004.txt +[^12]: EG&G, Inc., Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1995, filed March 22, 1996, discontinued operations and list of subsidiaries. +[^13]: Science Applications International Corporation, Form 10-K, fiscal year ended January 31, 1995, including the executive officer listing and the department's share of revenue. +[^14]: Sandia National Laboratories, "Sandia's Government Owned/Contractor Operated heritage." https://www.sandia.gov/about/history/goco.html +[^15]: Lockheed Martin Corporation, Form 10-K405 for fiscal 1995, filed March 13, 1996, Item 1 (Energy and Environment Sector) and Exhibit 13. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/936468/0000950109-96-001535.txt +[^16]: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, "Moments in Time," entries for January 4, 1965 and for the 1995 renaming. https://www.pnnl.gov/our-history/moments-in-time +[^17]: "Battelle Memorial Institute, Inc.," company history entry, International Directory of Company Histories. +[^18]: U.S. Patent Application Publication US 2020/0407525 A1, including its legal events listing for the confirmatory license dated July 27, 2020. +[^19]: White House, fact sheet on the DP World transaction, February 22, 2006. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/02/20060222-11.html +[^20]: Scale AI, Inc., Lobbying Disclosure Act filings for client Scale AI, 2021 to 2026. https://lda.gov/ +[^21]: National Institute of Standards and Technology, "Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI)." https://www.nist.gov/caisi +[^22]: Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia Medicine, Fall/Winter 2018, "In Memoriam," Class of 1953; Star Gate Scientific Oversight Committee roster, CIA-RDP96-00789R003000330001-2. +[^23]: Nuclear Materials Management (Journal of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management), vol. 13, no. 1 (Spring 1984), "Ralph E. Caudle Heads Wackenhut Advanced Technologies Corporation." https://resources.inmm.org/system/files/jnmm/vol_13/V-13_1.pdf +[^24]: Obituary of Ralph E. Caudle, Sr., Colonel, USAF (Ret.), Pumphrey Funeral Homes, Rockville, Maryland. +[^25]: The Wackenhut Corporation, annual reports for 1984, 1985 and 1986, Danny Casolaro papers, folder "Wackenhut-CompanyReportsannualQuarterly," Internet Archive item casolaro-notebooks. +[^26]: Nuclear Materials Management, vol. 9, no. 1 (Spring 1980), announcement of appointments at NUSAC, Incorporated. https://resources.inmm.org/system/files/jnmm/vol_09/V-9_1.pdf +[^27]: The Wackenhut Corporation, Form 10-K, fiscal year ended January 1, 1995. +[^28]: Federal Procurement Data System, contract records for DE-AC08-87NV10559 (Nevada Operations Office) and DE-AC09-99SR18950 (Savannah River), including the $901.6 million obligation. +[^29]: Edward J. Markey, press release and letter to Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman, February 17, 2005, citing a March 2004 Inspector General report, a January 2004 finding and a February 11, 2005 Inspector General report; Markey's characterizations are his. https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/february-17-2005-markey-questions-doe-on-security-failures-at-nuclear-facilities +[^30]: U.S. Department of Energy, DOE/MA-0518, "Origins of the Nevada Test Site," description of the site (p. 1) and the Groom Lake reference (p. 20). +[^31]: Nevada National Security Site, history of the Nevada Test Site, including the December 18, 1950 authorization and the 1955 renaming. https://www.nnss.gov/ +[^32]: Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach, The CIA and the U-2 Program, 1954-1974, chapter 6, pp. 274 to 275, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 434. +[^33]: U.S. Department of Energy, "Strategic Petroleum Reserve." https://www.energy.gov/ceser/strategic-petroleum-reserve +[^34]: Energy Policy and Conservation Act, Public Law 94-163, 89 Stat. 871 (December 22, 1975), sec. 154(a). +[^35]: Headquarters, 17th District, Office of Special Investigations, Kirtland Air Force Base, "Summary of Observations of Aerial Phenomena in the New Mexico Area, December 1948 to May 1950," May 25, 1950, to the Director of Special Investigations, Headquarters USAF, in FBI file 62-HQ-83894, section 6, Internet Archive item 65-hs-1-834228961-62-hq-83894-section-6; released by the Department of War, May 8, 2026. +[^36]: Atomic Energy Commission, Santa Fe Directed Operations, transcript of "Conference on Aerial Phenomena," held at 1300, February 16, 1949, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, with cover letter of March 22, 1949 from Sidney Newburger, Jr. to Lt. Cmdr. Richard Mandelkorn, Armed Forces Special Weapons Project, Sandia Base, Secret, declassified under NND 58378, released as DOE-UAP-D004, July 10, 2026. https://www.war.gov/medialink/ufo/071026/release_04/documents/DOE-UAP-D004_Los-Alamos-Conference-on-Aerial-Phenomena_1949.pdf (archived copy: http://web.archive.org/web/20260916001405/https://www.war.gov/medialink/ufo/071026/release_04/documents/DOE-UAP-D004_Los-Alamos-Conference-on-Aerial-Phenomena_1949.pdf). +[^37]: CBS News, "Pentagon releases new batch of UFO files," July 10, 2026, on the fourth release. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ufo-files-4th-release-pentagon/ +[^38]: Special agent in charge, San Antonio, to the Director, FBI, "Protection of Vital Installations," March 22, 1949, FBI file 62-HQ-83894, section 4, Internet Archive item 65-hs-1-834228961-62-hq-83894-section-6. +[^39]: Louis Elterman, Geophysics Research Division, Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories, Project Twinkle final report, with transmittal of December 11, 1951, Internet Archive item project-twinkle-november-1951. +[^40]: Edward J. Ruppelt, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (Doubleday, 1956), chapters 1, 4, 9, 12 and 14 and the text on the Atomic Energy Commission physicists, Project Gutenberg edition 17346. +[^41]: DOE-UAP-D002 (Los Alamos Protective Force correspondence, November 23, 1970) and DOE-UAP-D003 (Pajarito Astronomers newsletter, May 20, 1986), Department of War UAP release 02, May 22, 2026 (release listing: https://www.war.gov/medialink/ufo/052226/release_02/documents/DOE-UAP-D002_JamesTuck_Correspondence.pdf); the release is reported in Stefan Becket, "Pentagon releases more UFO files," CBS News, May 22, 2026, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ufo-files-pentagon-videos-documents/. Document text: UAP Archives, https://uap-files.org/documento/324a9795356cc793 (D002) and https://uap-files.org/documento/89ecb1163e42d3e8 (D003). +[^42]: Special agent in charge, Knoxville, to the Director, FBI, "'Flying Saucers' Observed Over Oak Ridge Area," FBI file 62-HQ-83894, section 4, released by the Department of War, May 8, 2026. +[^43]: FBI memorandum on the Air Force's flying disc inquiry and Colonel Gasser's confidential advice, FBI file 62-HQ-83894, section 4. +[^44]: Colonel C. D. Gasser to G. J. Rathman, February 10, 1949; Special agent in charge, Knoxville, to the Director, FBI, February 18, 1949, FBI file 62-HQ-83894, section 4. +[^45]: Special agent in charge, Knoxville, "Unknown Object Over Oak Ridge, Tennessee, March 1, 1950," FBI file 62-HQ-83894, section 5. +[^46]: FBI file 62-HQ-83894, section 6: Knoxville letters on radar detection of unidentified objects over Oak Ridge, October 1950; teletype from Hoover, December 5, 1950; Knoxville memorandum of February 10, 1951. +[^47]: Associated Press dispatch, July 1947, and related press clippings, FBI file 62-HQ-83894, sub-file A. +[^48]: Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Scientific Intelligence, Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects, meetings of January 14 to 18, 1953, CIA-RDP79B00752A000300100010-4. +[^49]: Headquarters Fourth Army, Fort Sam Houston, Assistant Chief of Staff G-2, summary on an "Unconventional Aircraft" sighting at Sandia Base, February 1949, Internet Archive item 1949-02-6792613-SandiaBase-N-M. +[^50]: AFOSI Form 96, Multipurpose Internal OSI Form, file 8017D93-0/29, "Kirtland AFB, NM, 8 Aug - 3 Sep 80, Alleged Sightings of Unidentified Aerial Lights in Restricted Test Range," transmittal date October 28, 1980, signed Thomas A. Cseh, Appendix E, p. 93 to 94, of William L. Moore and Jaime H. Shandera, The MJ-12 Documents: An Analytical Report (Fund for UFO Research, 1990). http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/S1-Bennewitz-AFOSI-Visit-Oct-80.pdf +[^51]: AFOSI Form 96, file 8017D93-0/29, transmittal date November 26, 1980, Appendix E, pp. 95 to 96, Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Documents. http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/S3-Bennewitz-Kirtland-Bennewitz-Meeting-Nov-80.pdf +[^52]: AFOSI Form 158, AFOSI Communication, "Dr. Paul Fredrick Bennewitz, Congressional Inquiry," July 30, 1981, AFOSI District 17/CC, signed Frank M. Huey, Appendix E, p. 97, Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Documents. http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/S4-Bennewitz-AFOSI-Domenici-July-81.pdf +[^53]: Anonymous letter to the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, July 1980, Appendix B, pp. 81 to 82, Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Documents. http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/S17-Weitzel-Letter.pdf +[^54]: William L. Moore, "UFOs and the U.S. Government, Part I," address to the MUFON International UFO Symposium, Las Vegas, July 1, 1989, quoted in Moore and Shandera, The MJ-12 Documents: An Analytical Report (Fund for UFO Research, 1990), "The Weitzel Letter (July, 1980)," p. 6. http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/The-MJ-12-Documents-An-Analytical-Report-Excerpts.pdf +[^55]: "Greg Bishop and Richard Doty, Coast to Coast AM with host Art Bell," transcript of the broadcast of February 27, 2005. http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/S5-Greg-Bishop-and-Richard-Doty-Coast-to-Coast-AM-with-host-Art-Bell-Interview-Transcript.pdf +[^56]: Robert Hastings, "The MJ-12 Affair: Facts, Questions, Comments," March 1, 1989. +[^57]: William L. Moore, account of the Aquarius teletype as reproduced in the UFO BBS file on the MJ-12 documents, textfiles.com UFO collection. +[^58]: The Black Vault, post on the personnel records of Richard C. Doty, May 20, 2021; National Personnel Records Center release to Alejandro Rojas, April 26, 2013, request no. 2-11444310069; Coast to Coast AM, broadcast of February 27, 2005. +[^59]: Philip J. Klass, Skeptics UFO Newsletter no. 44, March 1997, pp. 1 to 5. https://cdn.centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/docs/SUN/SUN44.pdf +[^60]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, hearing of July 26, 2023, Serial No. 118-53, transcript pp. 43 to 44. +[^61]: S. 2226, 118th Congress, as passed by the Senate, Division G, secs. 9003(22) and 9003(23)(B), (F), (H) and (X). +[^62]: Public Law 118-31, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, div. A, title XVIII, subtitle C, secs. 1841 to 1843, 137 Stat. 699 and following. +[^63]: DOE-UAP-D001, Pantex image pages 5 and 6 of 6, Department of War UAP release 02, May 22, 2026 (release listing: https://www.war.gov/medialink/ufo/052226/release_02/documents/DOE-UAP-D001_PANTEX_Image.pdf); the Department of Energy files in the release, including one from Pantex, are reported in Stefan Becket, "Pentagon releases more UFO files," CBS News, May 22, 2026, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ufo-files-pentagon-videos-documents/. Document text: UAP Archives, https://uap-files.org/documento/4c007724fa7325d2. +[^64]: DOE-UAP-D005, PANTEX Unidentified Object Incident Report, September 2, 2015, 7 pp., Consolidated Nuclear Security, LLC, Pantex Plant, Department of War UAP release 04, July 10, 2026 (release listing: https://www.war.gov/medialink/ufo/071026/release_04/documents/DOE-UAP-D005_Pantex-Unidentified-Object-Incident-Report_2015.pdf); the quoted passages are those printed in CBS News, "Pentagon releases new batch of UFO files," July 10, 2026, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ufo-files-4th-release-pentagon/. Document text: UAP Archives, https://uap-files.org/documento/249cd9f5b85c4a92. +[^65]: "EWD NOTES 10/16/02, Eric Davis Meeting with Adm. Wilson," 15 pp., wilsonleak.pdf, The Black Vault. +[^66]: John Greenewald, The Black Vault analysis of the Wilson-Davis notes, including the April 19, 2019 Imgur upload of the images and the statement that the document has no provenance. +[^67]: Defense Intelligence Agency information memorandum U-429-09, October 30, 2009, on the review of advanced aerospace contract deliverables. +[^68]: Department of Homeland Security response of June 20, 2023, case 2022-HQFO-00386, with the enclosure "BAASS Goals 2011/2012," as posted by Marc Cecotti on X. +[^69]: William Burr and Avner Cohen, "The Vela Incident: South Atlantic Mystery Flash in September 1979 Raised Questions about Nuclear Test," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 570, December 6, 2016. +[^70]: Jeffrey T. Richelson, ed., "The Vela Incident: Nuclear Test or Meteoroid?" National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 190, May 5, 2006, documents 2 (Barasch), 6, 7 (Horak), 8 (Mauth) and 9 (Ad Hoc Panel report, May 23, 1980) and the document descriptions. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB190/index.htm +[^71]: Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Committee, memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence, February 14, 1980, "Judgments of the DCI's Nuclear Intelligence Panel on the 22 September 1979 Event," Secret, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 190, doc. 6. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB190/06.pdf +[^72]: SRI document on the Psychoenergetics Science Advisory Panel, February 1984, CIA-RDP96-00792R000600310001-7. +[^73]: Ross E. Cowey, director of Strategic Affairs, Office of Intelligence and Research, memorandum for the files, October 10, 1979, Secret, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 570, doc. 10. +[^74]: Jerry Oplinger to Henry Owen, "South Atlantic Event," January 23, 1980, Secret, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, NLC-28-32-4-16-5, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 570, doc. 33. +[^75]: R. S. Hawke, outline of acoustic emission experiments with a person reputed to have paranormal metal bending abilities, January 11, 1979, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100100001-9. +[^76]: Routing note, undated, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100100002-8. +[^77]: Army memorandum, October 22, 1979, setting a visit to Hawke at Lawrence Livermore for November 6, 1979, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230014-0. +[^78]: Report of the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee, December 1979, chairman Manfred Gale, annex 7 (Hawke's investigations) and annex 2 (visits), CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5. +[^79]: R. S. Hawke to Ruth M. Davis, letter EMS79-0117, December 26, 1979, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100100003-7. +[^80]: Ruth M. Davis, deputy under secretary of defense for research and engineering (research and advanced technology), memorandum to Jack Vorona, November 20, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00787R000500240017-5. +[^81]: Ruth M. Davis, memorandum, July 9, 1979, signed as deputy under secretary of defense for research and engineering (research and advanced technology), CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230005-0. +[^82]: Minutes of steering committee meeting, October 30, 1979, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000100007-3 and CIA-RDP96-00788R002000250021-1. +[^83]: Stoner note, undated, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000250019-4. +[^84]: Jimmy Carter, "Department of Energy: Nomination of Ruth M. Davis To Be an Assistant Secretary," announcement of September 12, 1979, The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/department-energy-nomination-ruth-m-davis-be-assistant-secretary +[^85]: Electro/77 session on the state of the art in psychic research, New York, April 19 to 21, 1977, CIA-RDP96-00787R000500060001-2. +[^86]: SRI program review, March 1, 1984, signed by W. Ross Adey and F. Zachariasen, CIA-RDP96-00789R003300170001-7. +[^87]: Defense Intelligence Agency letter to Senator William Proxmire, May 16, 1984, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100370004-7. +[^88]: Annie Jacobsen, Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis (Little, Brown, 2017), account of the Sun Streak panel of January 31, 1986. +[^89]: Undated Defense Intelligence Agency summary of American psychoenergetics research facilities, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100260003-0. +[^90]: Defense Intelligence Agency document, August 7, 1984, CIA-RDP96-00788R001800210001-0. +[^91]: Edward R. Flynn, Los Alamos National Laboratory, to Peter J. McNelis, SRI International, August 5, 1987, appended to SRI Final Technical Report, "Enhanced Human Performance Investigation," December 1987, CIA-RDP96-00789R002200150001-1 and CIA-RDP96-00787R000300100001-9. +[^92]: SRI report, fiscal 1988, CIA-RDP96-00789R002200670001-4; SRI Final Technical Report, "Enhanced Human Performance Investigation," December 1988, CIA-RDP96-00789R002200380001-6. +[^93]: SRI Final Report, Objective D, Task 1, "Neurophysiological Correlates to Remote Viewing," December 1988, CIA-RDP96-00789R002200320001-2. +[^94]: Science Applications International Corporation proposal, August 27, 1992, CIA-RDP96-00789R003100200001-5. +[^95]: Defense Intelligence Agency purchase request, fiscal 1991, for a contract with Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) for biophysical research and analysis, CIA-RDP96-00789R003000420013-9. +[^96]: Defense Intelligence Agency, "Statement of Work for Biophysical Research and Analysis," fiscal 1991, CIA-RDP96-00789R003000420015-7. +[^97]: Sandia National Laboratories, Low Observable Projects Department, "White Paper on Brain Disorder Phenomenology Using Noninvasive Brain Analysis," CIA-RDP96-00789R003300190001-5. +[^98]: Defense Intelligence Agency monthly activity report covering September 1994, CIA-RDP96-00789R002500230016-3 and CIA-RDP96-00789R002500230017-2. +[^99]: STAR GATE research and peer review plan, June 1994, CIA-RDP96-00789R002700010001-1. +[^100]: Minutes of the Project Oversight Panel, April 9, 1991, CIA-RDP96-00789R002900550001-0. +[^101]: Star Gate Scientific Oversight Committee roster, CIA-RDP96-00789R003000330001-2. +[^102]: SRI report on an application-oriented remote viewing experiment, April 1988, CIA-RDP96-00789R003200160001-9. +[^103]: Robert G. Jahn, undated Princeton Alumni Weekly article, CIA-RDP96-00787R000500070001-1. +[^104]: Reproductions of James "Oke" Shannon's handwritten notes and Jack Houck's notes and handouts, including form DOE F 5631.20 dated May 8, 1985, in the appendices of the Loose Threads Report, pp. 15, 166 and 187 to 188. https://anomalyarchives.org/wp-content/uploads/PDF-Loose-Threads.pdf +[^105]: Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, Final Report (October 1995), pp. 238 to 239, 245, 249, 252, 266 to 267, and preface pp. 2 to 3 and 8. OSTI biblio 123541. +[^106]: U.S. Department of Energy, Human Radiation Experiments: The Department of Energy Roadmap to the Story and the Records, DOE/EH-0445 (February 1995), foreword and chapter 1. https://ehss.energy.gov/ohre/roadmap/ +[^107]: 50 U.S.C. 3003(4)(H), definition of "intelligence community." https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3003 +[^108]: Statement by Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI Director Louis Freeh on the Wen Ho Lee case, September 2000. https://sgp.fas.org/congress/2000/freeh.html +[^109]: U.S. Department of Justice, statement of Attorney General Janet Reno on the guilty plea of Wen Ho Lee, release 537, September 13, 2000. https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2000/September/537ag.htm +[^110]: Senate Judiciary Committee, 2001 report on the Wen Ho Lee investigation, including the transcript passages of Judge Parker's statements of September 13, 2000 and the passage on the polygraph of December 23, 1998. https://irp.fas.org/congress/2001_rpt/whl.html +[^111]: House Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China, H. Rept. 105-851, overview p. xi and pp. 92 to 93. +[^112]: Senator Arlen Specter, interim report on the investigation of Dr. Wen Ho Lee. https://irp.fas.org/congress/2000_rpt/specter.html +[^113]: National Security Archive, "The NUMEC Affair," Briefing Book No. 565, November 2, 2016, documents 1 to 42. +[^114]: National Security Archive, NUMEC Briefing Book No. 565, document 3 (Seaborg to Holifield, February 1966), document 4 (Hollingsworth letter, AEC general manager) and document 21 (Shapiro file, 61 kilograms). +[^115]: General Accounting Office, letter B-157767 to the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, June 20, 1967, National Security Archive Briefing Book No. 565, document 7. +[^116]: FBI memorandum, 1976, National Security Archive Briefing Book No. 565, document 20. +[^117]: FBI Washington Field Office report on Zalman Shapiro, 1977, National Security Archive Briefing Book No. 565, document 24. +[^118]: Central Intelligence Agency memorandum, 1972, on possible diversion of weapons-grade material to Israel from NUMEC, National Security Archive Briefing Book No. 565, document 18. +[^119]: Alan Friedman, Spider's Web: The Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq (Bantam, 1993), pp. 153 to 156, 162, 192, 216 and 221. +[^120]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, entry for Gregory Howard Woods III (general counsel, U.S. Department of Energy, 2012 to 2013). https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/woods-gregory-howard-iii +[^121]: White House, "President Obama Nominates Two to Serve on the United States District Court," May 9, 2013. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/09/president-obama-nominates-two-serve-united-states-district-court diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Department of Justice.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Department of Justice.md index 7d933d76..387ec9ff 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Department of Justice.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Department of Justice.md @@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ start: 1870-07-01 location: "Washington, D.C." --- -The Department of Justice, established in 1870 under the Attorney General, contains the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]], the [[DEA]], the [[Executive Office for United States Attorneys]] and the ninety-odd [[U.S. Attorney's office|United States Attorneys]], the Criminal, Civil and Civil Rights Divisions, the [[Office of Special Investigations]], the Office of Legal Counsel, the [[Office of Professional Responsibility]] and, until the Justice Assistance Act of 1984 replaced its statutory authority, the [[LEAA|Law Enforcement Assistance Administration]], whose grants funded the case-tracking software that became [[PROMIS]]. Its grant programs had ended in practice after fiscal 1980.[^1][^2][^3] +The Department of Justice, established in 1870 under the Attorney General, contains the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]], the [[DEA]], the [[Executive Office for United States Attorneys]] and the ninety-odd [[United States Attorney|United States Attorneys]], the Criminal, Civil and Civil Rights Divisions, the [[Office of Special Investigations]], the Office of Legal Counsel, the [[Office of Professional Responsibility]] and, until the Justice Assistance Act of 1984 replaced its statutory authority, the [[LEAA|Law Enforcement Assistance Administration]], whose grants funded the case-tracking software that became [[PROMIS]]. Its grant programs had ended in practice after fiscal 1980.[^1][^2][^3] ### INSLAW and PROMIS diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Executive Office for United States Attorneys.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Executive Office for United States Attorneys.md index bfc5d5c8..e920dcd6 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Executive Office for United States Attorneys.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Executive Office for United States Attorneys.md @@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ created: 2026-09-22 updated: 2026-09-22 --- -The Executive Office for United States Attorneys is the [[Department of Justice]] office, established by Attorney General Order No. 8-53 of April 6, 1953, under Herbert Brownell, that provides executive assistance and supervision to the [[U.S. Attorney's office|United States Attorneys]] in the federal districts. It evaluates their performance, coordinates them with other agencies, maintains the United States Attorneys' Manual, runs their legal training, supports the Attorney General's Advisory Committee, sets policy for collecting criminal fines, handles their budgets, Freedom of Information Act responses, congressional liaison, facilities and security. James R. Browning organized the office as its first chief in 1953. Its directors in the years of the INSLAW dispute were William P. Tyson, from 1977 to 1987, Laurence S. McWhorter, from 1987 to 1992, and [[Anthony Moscato]], acting director and then director from 1992 to 1994, followed by Carol DiBattiste.[^1] +The Executive Office for United States Attorneys is the [[Department of Justice]] office, established by Attorney General Order No. 8-53 of April 6, 1953, under Herbert Brownell, that provides executive assistance and supervision to the [[United States Attorney|United States Attorneys]] in the federal districts. It evaluates their performance, coordinates them with other agencies, maintains the United States Attorneys' Manual, runs their legal training, supports the Attorney General's Advisory Committee, sets policy for collecting criminal fines, handles their budgets, Freedom of Information Act responses, congressional liaison, facilities and security. James R. Browning organized the office as its first chief in 1953. Its directors in the years of the INSLAW dispute were William P. Tyson, from 1977 to 1987, Laurence S. McWhorter, from 1987 to 1992, and [[Anthony Moscato]], acting director and then director from 1992 to 1994, followed by Carol DiBattiste.[^1] ### The PROMIS Contract diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Federal Bureau of Narcotics.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Federal Bureau of Narcotics.md index 9b570271..609b85fb 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Federal Bureau of Narcotics.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Federal Bureau of Narcotics.md @@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ location: Washington, D.C. created: 2026-06-03 updated: 2026-06-12 --- -The Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) was a U.S. government agency whose agents collaborated closely with the [[CIA]] on behavioral control operations. [[George White]], a [[Office of Strategic Services|OSS]] veteran who worked as a narcotics agent, used his Bureau position as cover to operate [[Safehouses|safehouses]] in [[New York]] and [[San Francisco]] where the CIA conducted unwitting drug experiments. The Bureau provided access to drug offenders and prostitutes who became unwitting experimental subjects. Narcotics agent [[Charles Siragusa]] ran a New York safehouse, opened in 1961, while White operated in San Francisco.[^1] +The Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) was a U.S. government agency whose agents collaborated closely with the [[CIA]] on behavioral control operations. [[George White]], a [[Office of Strategic Services|OSS]] veteran who worked as a narcotics agent, used his Bureau position as cover to operate [[Safehouses|safehouses]] in [[New York City|New York]] and [[San Francisco]] where the CIA conducted unwitting drug experiments. The Bureau provided access to drug offenders and prostitutes who became unwitting experimental subjects. Narcotics agent [[Charles Siragusa]] ran a New York safehouse, opened in 1961, while White operated in San Francisco.[^1] ### Founding and succession diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/NSA.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/NSA.md index f7033d9c..2fc87071 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/NSA.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/NSA.md @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ --- created: 2025-03-05 -updated: 2026-10-12 +updated: 2026-10-15 title: NSA aliases: - NSA @@ -118,7 +118,7 @@ The 2022 and 2024 reports described Southall and Paul Abram as two United States The Panel recorded that Abram, a former United States Air Force security services officer, had said he was attached to an NSA listening post at Iraklion, Greece. It assessed that his claim to have performed special duties at the time appeared to be valid, on the basis of a discharge record describing him as a "voice intercept procedure specialist," but could not confirm that he was posted to Iraklion at the time.[^32] The 2017 report recorded that the United States confirmed his service record only in July 2017, with information that disputed his location at the time he reported hearing the intercept.[^33] -The National Security Archive at George Washington University filed Freedom of Information Act requests on behalf of the 2013 Commission of Jurists for any NSA recording or transcript of radio traffic on the night of September 17 and 18, 1961 appearing to relate to one aircraft firing upon another, and for any message intercepted concerning the approach of an aircraft to Ndola.[^34] The NSA's initial response indicated that two of three responsive documents appeared exempt by reason of "top secret" classification, and that the third was not held by the NSA; an appeal was lodged.[^34] The agency told the commission that releasing the two files "could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security."[^35] The Swedish newspaper SvD Nyheter reported on November 21, 2014 that the United States had given the Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, access to the two files, quoting him as saying that the information was "trivial and unimportant." In 2015 one member of the Independent Panel, of Australian nationality, was given full access to the two files and assessed that they contained no information on the interception of communications about an attack on SE-BDY.[^35] On June 9, 2015 the United States told the Panel that its search of NSA and CIA records had not found documents matching the materials requested.[^35] +The [[National Security Archive]] at [[George Washington University]] filed Freedom of Information Act requests on behalf of the 2013 Commission of Jurists for any NSA recording or transcript of radio traffic on the night of September 17 and 18, 1961 appearing to relate to one aircraft firing upon another, and for any message intercepted concerning the approach of an aircraft to Ndola.[^34] The NSA's initial response indicated that two of three responsive documents appeared exempt by reason of "top secret" classification, and that the third was not held by the NSA; an appeal was lodged.[^34] The agency told the commission that releasing the two files "could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security."[^35] The Swedish newspaper SvD Nyheter reported on November 21, 2014 that the United States had given the Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, access to the two files, quoting him as saying that the information was "trivial and unimportant." In 2015 one member of the Independent Panel, of Australian nationality, was given full access to the two files and assessed that they contained no information on the interception of communications about an attack on SE-BDY.[^35] On June 9, 2015 the United States told the Panel that its search of NSA and CIA records had not found documents matching the materials requested.[^35] The 2024 report described Dakota aircraft at Ndola equipped to intercept, transmit and receive communications over long distances, and wrote that there was "a reasonable evidentiary basis" to consider that these aircraft "may have overheard or relayed communications from or about flight SE-BDY."[^31] diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Office of Technical Service.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Office of Technical Service.md index 45d8e6fd..f2c5ff47 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Office of Technical Service.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Office of Technical Service.md @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ --- created: 2025-07-22 -updated: 2026-10-09 +updated: 2026-10-15 title: Office of Technical Service aliases: - OTS @@ -75,7 +75,7 @@ relations: start: 1974-07 end: 1980-06 role: "Director of the Office of Technical Service; wrote on February 20, 1976 that he had directed termination of OTS support to the SRI parapsychology work" - fn: 28 + fn: 30 - type: head_of with: "[[Milton C. Wonus]]" reverse: true @@ -128,7 +128,7 @@ relations: start: 1971-07 end: 1971-08 role: "technical officers supplied alias documents, disguise materials, a tape recorder and a Tessina camera to E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy; the assistance was stopped on August 27, 1971" - fn: 38 + fn: 40 --- The Office of Technical Service (OTS) is the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]'s technical component, the unit that supplied covert operations with disguises, alias documents, bugs, taps, concealment devices and, in its early years, chemical and biological materials.[^1] It was the [[Technical Services Staff]] (TSS) from 1951 to 1960, the [[Technical Services Division]] (TSD) from 1960 to 1973, and the Office of Technical Service from 1973, when it was moved from the Directorate of Plans to the [[Directorate of Science and Technology]]. The agency's official history dates the TSS's creation to September 7, 1951.[^1] [[Jim Schnabel]] calls the office the "Q Branch" of the CIA, after the gadget-supplying division of the James Bond films.[^2] @@ -177,13 +177,13 @@ A July 1986 memorandum from the Assistant for Coordination and Strategy of the O ### Remote viewing at SRI, 1961 to 1976 -[[Kenneth A. Kress]] wrote that one of the earliest US Government parapsychology investigations was prompted when the chief of the OTS, then the TSD, became interested in claims of ESP. Technical project officers contacted [[Stephen I. Abrams]], Director of the Parapsychological Laboratory at [[University of Oxford|Oxford University]], who "under the auspices of Project ULTRA" prepared a review article, dated December 14, 1965, claiming that ESP was demonstrated but not understood or controllable; the report "produced no further action for another decade."[^24] An OTS chronology prepared in 1977 gives OTS involvement up to 1961 as "Monitoring only."[^25] +[[Kenneth A. Kress]] wrote that one of the earliest US Government parapsychology investigations was prompted when the chief of the OTS, then the TSD, became interested in claims of ESP. Technical project officers contacted [[Stephen I. Abrams]], Director of the Parapsychological Laboratory at [[University of Oxford|Oxford University]], who "under the auspices of Project ULTRA" prepared a review article, dated December 14, 1965, claiming that ESP was demonstrated but not understood or controllable; the report "produced no further action for another decade."[^24] An OTS chronology prepared in 1977 gives OTS involvement up to 1961 as "Monitoring only."[^25] A CIA report dated February 1989 dates the start of the agency's work on ESP claims to 1961, and a 1992 Defense Intelligence College thesis by Captain [[Michael E. Zarbo]], US Army, states that the Office of Technical Service commissioned the Oxford review.[^26][^27] The OTS and ORD sponsorship at SRI was the early funding of the [[Stargate Project]]. In April 1972 [[Russell Targ]] met CIA personnel from the [[Office of Scientific Intelligence]] and described Soviet psychokinesis films and people who had documented Soviet investigations. The Office of Scientific Intelligence then contacted ORD and OTS.[^24] Kress, a physicist then working as a covert employee, wrote in 1977 that in August 1972 an OTS project officer contracted for a demonstration at [[Stanford Research Institute]] (SRI) for $874, with one OTS and one ORD representative present, and that the subject described objects hidden from him by CIA personnel. The Director of OTS reviewed the data and approved another $2,500 work order. Kress wrote: "By October, 1972, I was the Project Officer," for an OTS-funded expanded effort of $50,000 in parapsychology under OTS Contract 8473 of October 1, 1972.[^24] The OTS chronology records that under the October 1972 contract the two subjects produced inconsistent results, one able to change a temperature and the other to reproduce information in a sealed envelope.[^25] Kress wrote that he "began to have serious feelings of being involved with a fraud."[^24] In February 1973 ORD sent new project officers to SRI, and ORD then asked for an increase in the scope of the effort and transferred funds to OTS, which the chronology records as the point at which the project became a joint OTS and ORD effort. The chronology dates the discovery of a third subject, Pat Price, to March 1973.[^24][^25] -A 1973 memorandum, DD/S&T 3697-73, from [[Carl Duckett]], the Deputy Director for Science and Technology, to the Director of Central Intelligence recommended that the investigation of paranormal perception be carried out at SRI as a jointly funded ORD and OTS project at a cost of $149,555. It proposed that about 50 percent of the effort go to the operational use of "gifted" individuals, 20 percent to characteristics identifying such subjects, 20 percent to neurophysiological correlates and 10 percent to validation. Its first page is stamped December 5, 1973, and its approval block is for [[William Colby]] as Director.[^26] A companion version over the signatures of John N. McMahon, Director of the Office of Technical Service, and [[Sayre Stevens]], Director of the Office of Research and Development, was addressed to the Deputy Director for Science and Technology and describes the objectives as twofold.[^27] Both versions called the work a tightly directed advanced research project, recommended a secret-level contract, and listed the risks as embarrassment at being involved in an assumed fraud, adverse propaganda over psychic mind-altering or control techniques, and the questionable stability of some subjects. They said open association with the CIA would be deleterious to the careers of the investigators and the credibility of the institute.[^26][^27] +A 1973 memorandum, DD/S&T 3697-73, from [[Carl Duckett]], the Deputy Director for Science and Technology, to the Director of Central Intelligence recommended that the investigation of paranormal perception be carried out at SRI as a jointly funded ORD and OTS project at a cost of $149,555. It proposed that about 50 percent of the effort go to the operational use of "gifted" individuals, 20 percent to characteristics identifying such subjects, 20 percent to neurophysiological correlates and 10 percent to validation. Its first page is stamped December 5, 1973, and its approval block is for [[William Colby]] as Director.[^28] A companion version over the signatures of John N. McMahon, Director of the Office of Technical Service, and [[Sayre Stevens]], Director of the Office of Research and Development, was addressed to the Deputy Director for Science and Technology and describes the objectives as twofold.[^29] Both versions called the work a tightly directed advanced research project, recommended a secret-level contract, and listed the risks as embarrassment at being involved in an assumed fraud, adverse propaganda over psychic mind-altering or control techniques, and the questionable stability of some subjects. They said open association with the CIA would be deleterious to the careers of the investigators and the credibility of the institute.[^28][^29] Kress wrote that OTS "was then being investigated for involvement in the Watergate affair" when he was told in 1973 to stop expanding the work. Colby, then Deputy Director for Operations, decided on April 24 that the Executive Management Committee should review the project, and the approval memorandum went to Director [[James R. Schlesinger]] in May 1973; the OTS chronology records that the contract was sent to Schlesinger in May, who allowed the existing contract to be completed without a follow-on, and that OTS was told the work was too sensitive and potentially embarrassing.[^24][^25] During the summer of 1973 SRI continued working informally with an Office of Scientific Intelligence officer on a remote viewing experiment, and the chronology states that its results persuaded the new Director of Central Intelligence, Colby, to renew work on ESP.[^25] A jointly funded ORD and OTS program was begun in February 1974. Kress wrote that the OTS funds were to evaluate the operational utility of psychic subjects "without regard to the detailed understanding of paranormal functioning."[^24] The chronology adds that disagreements developed among ORD, OTS and the contractor: ORD wanted strict experimental procedures, OTS wanted practical applications, the contractor wanted fewer security constraints, and ORD and OTS reached different interpretations of the same data. New directors were named to both offices, and neither director felt comfortable with the project.[^25] @@ -193,31 +193,31 @@ Kress also records an OTS challenge to "do something of genuine operational sign Kress wrote that ORD project officers judged the research "not productive or even competent" and dropped research support to SRI, that the Director of OTS felt the OTS charter would not support research so that all Agency funding in paranormal research stopped, and that a personal services contract with Price was started, with testing and evaluation of Price transferred to an OTS operations psychologist.[^24] The OTS chronology records that responsibility passed to an OTS psychologist who was told to devote no more than two percent of his time to the work, and that two OTS staff officers who had also demonstrated "remote viewing" ability worked with him.[^25] -In the fall of 1974 several OTS engineers who had become aware of the project volunteered to attempt remote viewing, and passed initial tests at SRI with some apparent successes. Kress chose a Libyan Desk requirement to test them further; the Libyan Desk officer was immediately impressed and told Kress that an agent had reported essentially the same story. The OTS psychologist passed a second set of Libyan coordinates to Price, who returned a description of a guerrilla training site and an underwater sabotage training facility several hundred kilometers away on the coast. Kress wrote that Price "died of a heart attack a few days later," and that the program stopped.[^24] On February 20, 1976 Brandwein, as Director of OTS, wrote to the Director of Research and Development: "I directed that OTS support of this effort be terminated. I continue to believe that it would be inappropriate for us to continue it; however, if ORD desires to pick it up, be my guest."[^28] On October 7, 1976 he wrote, after seeing the minutes of the September 20, 1976 meeting of the Research and Development Subcommittee of the Human Resources Committee at which OTS personnel had briefed on past support, that "OTS will not support any further research in parapsychology."[^29] Kress closed his article: "This is not to say that parapsychology is a proven intelligence tool; it is to say that the evaluation is not yet complete and more research is needed."[^24] +In the fall of 1974 several OTS engineers who had become aware of the project volunteered to attempt remote viewing, and passed initial tests at SRI with some apparent successes. Kress chose a Libyan Desk requirement to test them further; the Libyan Desk officer was immediately impressed and told Kress that an agent had reported essentially the same story. The OTS psychologist passed a second set of Libyan coordinates to Price, who returned a description of a guerrilla training site and an underwater sabotage training facility several hundred kilometers away on the coast. Kress wrote that Price "died of a heart attack a few days later," and that the program stopped.[^24] On February 20, 1976 Brandwein, as Director of OTS, wrote to the Director of Research and Development: "I directed that OTS support of this effort be terminated. I continue to believe that it would be inappropriate for us to continue it; however, if ORD desires to pick it up, be my guest."[^30] On October 7, 1976 he wrote, after seeing the minutes of the September 20, 1976 meeting of the Research and Development Subcommittee of the Human Resources Committee at which OTS personnel had briefed on past support, that "OTS will not support any further research in parapsychology."[^31] Kress closed his article: "This is not to say that parapsychology is a proven intelligence tool; it is to say that the evaluation is not yet complete and more research is needed."[^24] -Price's death is recorded in the CIA's files as follows. The OTS chronology of 1977 has an undated entry, "Before a meeting can be set up, however, Mr. Price dies of a heart attack," followed by entries for September and October 1975, the latter reading "Mr. Price's death effectively ends all official OTS involvement in ESP research."[^25] [[John L. Wilhelm]]'s article of August 7, 1977 refers to "Pat Price, who died two years ago."[^30] An information paper of April 13, 1979 (DAMI-ISH) states: "In July 1975, Libyan coordinates were provided to Price, who came back with a description of a guerrilla training site," and that "the same month Price tragically died of a heart attack."[^31] Admiral Turner is quoted as saying at a breakfast for journalists in 1977 that "this subject died in 1975."[^32] The July 16, 1986 memorandum of the Office of Research and Development states: "Since Pat died in 1977."[^23] +Price's death is recorded in the CIA's files as follows. The OTS chronology of 1977 has an undated entry, "Before a meeting can be set up, however, Mr. Price dies of a heart attack," followed by entries for September and October 1975, the latter reading "Mr. Price's death effectively ends all official OTS involvement in ESP research."[^25] [[John L. Wilhelm]]'s article of August 7, 1977 refers to "Pat Price, who died two years ago."[^32] An information paper of April 13, 1979 (DAMI-ISH) states: "In July 1975, Libyan coordinates were provided to Price, who came back with a description of a guerrilla training site," and that "the same month Price tragically died of a heart attack."[^33] Admiral Turner is quoted as saying at a breakfast for journalists in 1977 that "this subject died in 1975."[^34] The July 16, 1986 memorandum of the Office of Research and Development states: "Since Pat died in 1977."[^23] ### The police memorandum -An undated memorandum for the record headed "Operational Use of Paranormals in Police Activities," written by an OTS officer whose name is redacted, reports that two paranormal subjects tested at SRI had produced impressive data on two police cases, the [[Patricia Hearst]] kidnapping and a [[Stanford University]] student homicide. The memorandum says the homicide data was generated spontaneously in an uncontrolled field environment and was witnessed by an OTS officer, and that an evaluation was attached in the form of interviews with the district attorney's office and the police officer in charge of the homicide case. It states that "even the appearance of CIA involvement with domestic police operations is a political explosive association," which had kept the writer from verifying the SRI claims directly.[^33] +An undated memorandum for the record headed "Operational Use of Paranormals in Police Activities," written by an OTS officer whose name is redacted, reports that two paranormal subjects tested at SRI had produced impressive data on two police cases, the [[Patricia Hearst]] kidnapping and a [[Stanford University]] student homicide. The memorandum says the homicide data was generated spontaneously in an uncontrolled field environment and was witnessed by an OTS officer, and that an evaluation was attached in the form of interviews with the district attorney's office and the police officer in charge of the homicide case. It states that "even the appearance of CIA involvement with domestic police operations is a political explosive association," which had kept the writer from verifying the SRI claims directly.[^35] ### Wilhelm, the 1977 publicity and the House Intelligence Committee -Wilhelm, a former [[Time (magazine)|Time]] reporter, wrote to the president of SRI in 1974 asking to interview [[Hal Puthoff]] and Targ. A CIA memorandum for the record of April 16, 1974 describes him as a former Time reporter, records that Puthoff telephoned the CIA about the request, and that the SRI investigators would grant the interview and confine the discussions to "the innocuous portions of their studies."[^34] On August 7, 1977 the [[Washington Post]] published "[[Psychic Spying]]?" by Wilhelm, identified in the article as a former national science correspondent for Time magazine and the author of "The Search for Superman," on the military potential of parapsychology.[^30] The [[House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence]] asked the CIA for a briefing. On November 16, 1977 OTS briefed the committee's staff, with Brandwein attending, giving a short oral history of OTS efforts in the field, "dating back to 1961," and left a written outline of the work, an unclassified article on the research at SRI, and "a brief article on Mr. Pat Price."[^35] Turner, the Director of Central Intelligence, had earlier referred to Price in remarks to reporters.[^2] +Wilhelm, a former [[Time (magazine)|Time]] reporter, wrote to the president of SRI in 1974 asking to interview [[Hal Puthoff]] and Targ. A CIA memorandum for the record of April 16, 1974 describes him as a former Time reporter, records that Puthoff telephoned the CIA about the request, and that the SRI investigators would grant the interview and confine the discussions to "the innocuous portions of their studies."[^36] On August 7, 1977 the [[Washington Post]] published "[[Psychic Spying]]?" by Wilhelm, identified in the article as a former national science correspondent for Time magazine and the author of "The Search for Superman," on the military potential of parapsychology.[^32] The [[House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence]] asked the CIA for a briefing. On November 16, 1977 OTS briefed the committee's staff, with Brandwein attending, giving a short oral history of OTS efforts in the field, "dating back to 1961," and left a written outline of the work, an unclassified article on the research at SRI, and "a brief article on Mr. Pat Price."[^37] Turner, the Director of Central Intelligence, had earlier referred to Price in remarks to reporters.[^2] ### Scientology -The article on Price left with the committee, described by OTS in its memorandum of November 17, 1977, gives Price as the newly appointed president of the [[Princess Coal Company]] in Huntington, [[West Virginia]]. It states that he credits [[Scientology]] for "opening new vistas and abilities of self to me and which I now use as a matter of fact."[^35] Wilhelm wrote in the Washington Post that Puthoff "is a high-ranking Scientologist," that Price "also was a high-level 'Operating Thetan,'" and that the involvement of Scientologists in the tests at SRI "partially accounts for at least two government agencies pulling back from funding further work there."[^30] Time on March 4, 1974 described Puthoff as "also a promoter of the bizarre and controversial cult of Scientology," and the [[New Scientist]] of October 17, 1974 wrote that Puthoff "is now a Scientologist (as is Ingo Swann)."[^36][^37] +The article on Price left with the committee, described by OTS in its memorandum of November 17, 1977, gives Price as the newly appointed president of the [[Princess Coal Company]] in Huntington, [[West Virginia]]. It states that he credits [[Scientology]] for "opening new vistas and abilities of self to me and which I now use as a matter of fact."[^37] Wilhelm wrote in the Washington Post that Puthoff "is a high-ranking Scientologist," that Price "also was a high-level 'Operating Thetan,'" and that the involvement of Scientologists in the tests at SRI "partially accounts for at least two government agencies pulling back from funding further work there."[^32] Time on March 4, 1974 described Puthoff as "also a promoter of the bizarre and controversial cult of Scientology," and the [[New Scientist]] of October 17, 1974 wrote that Puthoff "is now a Scientologist (as is Ingo Swann)."[^38][^39] ### Watergate -In July 1971 [[E. Howard Hunt]], then a White House security consultant, went to the CIA to ask for alias identification and some degree of physical disguise for a one-time operation. On July 22, 1971 he visited [[Robert E. Cushman Jr.|General Robert E. Cushman]], the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, who had earlier received a call from [[John Ehrlichman]] about Hunt. Cushman directed the appropriate technical service to help. On July 23 Hunt received alias documents in the name "Edward Joseph Warren," a wig, glasses and a speech alteration device. He then arranged several meetings with technical officers through an unlisted telephone number, and received a commercial tape recorder in a typewriter case and a commercial Tessina camera disguised in a tobacco pouch. Hunt also brought in an associate, later identified from press photographs as [[G. Gordon Liddy]], and secured for him a disguise (a wig and glasses) and alias documents in the name "George F. Leonard."[^38] +In July 1971 [[E. Howard Hunt]], then a White House security consultant, went to the CIA to ask for alias identification and some degree of physical disguise for a one-time operation. On July 22, 1971 he visited [[Robert E. Cushman Jr.|General Robert E. Cushman]], the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, who had earlier received a call from [[John Ehrlichman]] about Hunt. Cushman directed the appropriate technical service to help. On July 23 Hunt received alias documents in the name "Edward Joseph Warren," a wig, glasses and a speech alteration device. He then arranged several meetings with technical officers through an unlisted telephone number, and received a commercial tape recorder in a typewriter case and a commercial Tessina camera disguised in a tobacco pouch. Hunt also brought in an associate, later identified from press photographs as [[G. Gordon Liddy]], and secured for him a disguise (a wig and glasses) and alias documents in the name "George F. Leonard."[^40] -The technical officers raised their concern with senior officers. On August 27, 1971 Cushman telephoned Ehrlichman to say that further assistance could not be given, and the request for a New York mail address and telephone answering service was not honored. The Tessina camera was returned on August 27 as unsuitable. The Technical Services Division had no further association with Hunt after the end of August 1971. The break-in of the office of [[Lewis Fielding]], the psychiatrist of [[Daniel Ellsberg]], took place on or about September 3, 1971.[^38] +The technical officers raised their concern with senior officers. On August 27, 1971 Cushman telephoned Ehrlichman to say that further assistance could not be given, and the request for a New York mail address and telephone answering service was not honored. The Tessina camera was returned on August 27 as unsuitable. The Technical Services Division had no further association with Hunt after the end of August 1971. The break-in of the office of [[Lewis Fielding]], the psychiatrist of [[Daniel Ellsberg]], took place on or about September 3, 1971.[^40] -On May 11, 1973 James R. Schlesinger told the [[House Armed Services Committee]]'s Special Subcommittee on Intelligence that the CIA had outlined these events to the acting director of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] in letters of July 5 and 7, 1972, and he offered the part of Hunt's testimony that bore on his CIA involvement for the record.[^38] +On May 11, 1973 James R. Schlesinger told the [[House Armed Services Committee]]'s Special Subcommittee on Intelligence that the CIA had outlined these events to the acting director of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] in letters of July 5 and 7, 1972, and he offered the part of Hunt's testimony that bore on his CIA involvement for the record.[^40] -The [[Senate Watergate Committee]] took executive session testimony in February 1974 from a TSD technician, the Deputy Chief of the TSD and the Chief of the TSD.[^39] The staff report appended to Senator [[Howard Baker]]'s views states that the CIA's assistance to Hunt began on July 22, 1971, that the sequence of events produced "a wealth of conflicting testimony among CIA officials," and that a TSD technician testified that Hunt told him early in August that he would be introducing a second man, whereas CIA officials had said Hunt introduced Liddy unannounced late in August.[^39] It states that a memorandum of the TSD technician dated August 27, 1971 showed that Hunt's request for a New York telephone answering service was about to be implemented, and that the CIA kept a file on Hunt's activities entitled "Mr. Edward" outside the normal filing system, with a restricted-access "bigot list" for his activities.[^40] It states that testimony indicated that film developed for Hunt and Liddy was of Fielding's office, that a CIA supervisory official who reviewed it ordered one photograph blown up, and that the enlargement showed Fielding's name in the parking lot; the same report records that the official denied telling his superiors that he blew up a photograph or that it showed Fielding's name, and that Cushman and his assistant denied ever having been told about the content of the photographs.[^41] It states that testimony showed the technician dealing with Hunt was ordered to cut off all support only after the photographs were developed and examined, and that public CIA testimony claiming "no contact whatsoever with Mr. Hunt subsequent to 31 August, 1971" was contradicted by recent testimony and documents indicating extensive contact after that date.[^41] The Senate committee's final report states that Hunt obtained a driver's license, a wig and a speech-altering device after a meeting with Cushman on July 22, 1971.[^42] +The [[Senate Watergate Committee]] took executive session testimony in February 1974 from a TSD technician, the Deputy Chief of the TSD and the Chief of the TSD.[^41] The staff report appended to Senator [[Howard Baker]]'s views states that the CIA's assistance to Hunt began on July 22, 1971, that the sequence of events produced "a wealth of conflicting testimony among CIA officials," and that a TSD technician testified that Hunt told him early in August that he would be introducing a second man, whereas CIA officials had said Hunt introduced Liddy unannounced late in August.[^41] It states that a memorandum of the TSD technician dated August 27, 1971 showed that Hunt's request for a New York telephone answering service was about to be implemented, and that the CIA kept a file on Hunt's activities entitled "Mr. Edward" outside the normal filing system, with a restricted-access "bigot list" for his activities.[^42] It states that testimony indicated that film developed for Hunt and Liddy was of Fielding's office, that a CIA supervisory official who reviewed it ordered one photograph blown up, and that the enlargement showed Fielding's name in the parking lot; the same report records that the official denied telling his superiors that he blew up a photograph or that it showed Fielding's name, and that Cushman and his assistant denied ever having been told about the content of the photographs.[^43] It states that testimony showed the technician dealing with Hunt was ordered to cut off all support only after the photographs were developed and examined, and that public CIA testimony claiming "no contact whatsoever with Mr. Hunt subsequent to 31 August, 1971" was contradicted by recent testimony and documents indicating extensive contact after that date.[^43] The Senate committee's final report states that Hunt obtained a driver's license, a wig and a speech-altering device after a meeting with Cushman on July 22, 1971.[^44] --- @@ -246,20 +246,22 @@ The [[Senate Watergate Committee]] took executive session testimony in February [^23]: Memorandum ORD-0733-86, from ACS/ORD to the Director of Research and Development, "SRI/DIA Request for Parapsychological Data," July 16, 1986, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200020040-6. Read in the page image: "The other requested data has been destroyed or has receeded into the mists of OTS archives" and, on page 1, "Since Pat died in 1977." [^24]: Kress, Kenneth A., "Parapsychology in Intelligence: A Personal Review and Conclusions," *Studies in Intelligence*, vol. 21, no. 4, Winter 1977, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200030040-0 (declassified 1996), with its notes (S. I. Abrams, "Extrasensory Perception," draft report, December 14, 1965; Office of Technical Service Contract 8473, October 1, 1972). [^25]: Memorandum for the record, OTS/BAB Memo #287-77, "Briefing for House Permanent Select Committee re OTS Involvement in ESP Research," November 17, 1977, with its attached chronology "OTS Involvement in ESP Research," CIA-RDP96-00787R000500170001-0, pp. 3-4 of the chronology. -[^26]: Memorandum, DD/S&T 3697-73, from Carl E. Duckett, Deputy Director for Science and Technology, to the Director of Central Intelligence, "Office of Research and Development and Office of Technical Service Paranormal Perception Research Project," 1973, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200210003-6. The approval block reads "W.E. Colby, Director." -[^27]: Memorandum, McMahon and Stevens to the Deputy Director for Science and Technology, same subject, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200200031-6 (also CIA-RDP96-00787R000700110005-0). -[^28]: Memorandum, David S. Brandwein, Director, Office of Technical Service, to the Director of Research and Development, "Stanford Research Institute Parapsychology Research," February 20, 1976, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200090005-8 (also CIA-RDP96-00787R000700090012-5). -[^29]: Memorandum, David S. Brandwein, "OTS Support to Research in Parapsychology," October 7, 1976, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200020016-3. -[^30]: Wilhelm, John L., "Psychic Spying? The CIA, the Pentagon and the Russians Probe the Military Potential of Parapsychology," *Washington Post*, August 7, 1977, Outlook section, pp. 1-5 (CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3, enclosure; the section is given as Outlook in the bibliographies of Kress, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200030040-0, and of May, CIA-RDP96-00787R000100250012-3, while OTS/BAB Memo #287-77 calls it the Parade Section). Quotations are Wilhelm's. -[^31]: Information paper, DAMI-ISH, "GRILL FLAME (U)," April 13, 1979, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200210002-5, para. 1(7)-(8). -[^32]: Zarbo, Michael E. (Captain, U.S. Army), *Remote Viewing: Parapsychological Potential for Intelligence Collection?*, master's thesis, Defense Intelligence College, November 1992, CIA-RDP96-00789R002600250001-6, quoting Turner. -[^33]: Memorandum for the record, "Operational Use of Paranormals in Police Activities," undated, author redacted, Office of Technical Service, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200130013-4. -[^34]: Memorandum for the record, "Request for Information about Stanford Research Institute (SRI) Paranormal Research Project by Mr. Wilhelm former Time Reporter," April 16, 1974, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200200023-5. -[^35]: Memorandum for the record, OTS/BAB Memo #287-77, "Briefing for House Permanent Select Committee re OTS Involvement in ESP Research," November 17, 1977, CIA-RDP96-00787R000500170001-0 and CIA-RDP96-00787R000200020020-8, para. 2-5, with its attached article on Patrick Price. -[^36]: "Boom Times on the Psychic Frontier," *Time*, vol. 103, no. 9, March 4, 1974, cover story, CIA-RDP96-00787R000700030001-3. -[^37]: Joseph Hanlon, "Uri Geller and Science," *New Scientist*, October 17, 1974, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200090024-7. -[^38]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Armed Services, Special Subcommittee on Intelligence, *Inquiry into the Alleged Involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Watergate and Ellsberg Matters*, 93rd Cong., hearings of May 11, 1973 and after (published 1976), statement of Dr. James R. Schlesinger, May 11, 1973, pp. 1-3, and testimony of General Robert E. Cushman, Jr. Copy at archive.org/details/InquiryIntoTheAllegedInvolvementOfCIAInTheWatergateAndEllsbergMatters. The hearing index lists a statement by James McCord, a former CIA employee, at p. 411 and Hunt's testimony at p. 471. -[^39]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), "Appendix to Views of Senator Baker: Summary of Highlights of Investigation of CIA Activity in Watergate Incident," pp. 1135-1138, citing the executive session testimony of TSD Technician #1 (February 5 and 6, 1974), the Deputy Chief, TSD (February 5, 1974) and the Chief, TSD (February 5, 1974). https://archive.org/details/WatergateErvinCommitteeReport -[^40]: S. Rept. 93-981, Baker appendix, pp. 1138-1139. -[^41]: S. Rept. 93-981, Baker appendix, pp. 1139-1141. -[^42]: S. Rept. 93-981, p. 119 (Hunt's request for an alias, false documents or disguise; Cushman's testimony of the July 7, 1971 call from Ehrlichman; the disguise materials after the July 22, 1971 meeting). +[^26]: "Government Sponsored Research in Psychoenergetics," CIA report, dated February 1989, CIA-RDP96-00789R002200440001-9, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00789r002200440001-9. +[^27]: Michael E. Zarbo, Captain, US Army, "Remote Viewing: Parapsychological Potential for Intelligence Collection?" thesis, Defense Intelligence College, November 1992, CIA-RDP96-00789R002600250001-6, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00789r002600250001-6. +[^28]: Memorandum, DD/S&T 3697-73, from Carl E. Duckett, Deputy Director for Science and Technology, to the Director of Central Intelligence, "Office of Research and Development and Office of Technical Service Paranormal Perception Research Project," 1973, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200210003-6. The approval block reads "W.E. Colby, Director." +[^29]: Memorandum, McMahon and Stevens to the Deputy Director for Science and Technology, same subject, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200200031-6 (also CIA-RDP96-00787R000700110005-0). +[^30]: Memorandum, David S. Brandwein, Director, Office of Technical Service, to the Director of Research and Development, "Stanford Research Institute Parapsychology Research," February 20, 1976, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200090005-8 (also CIA-RDP96-00787R000700090012-5). +[^31]: Memorandum, David S. Brandwein, "OTS Support to Research in Parapsychology," October 7, 1976, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200020016-3. +[^32]: Wilhelm, John L., "Psychic Spying? The CIA, the Pentagon and the Russians Probe the Military Potential of Parapsychology," *Washington Post*, August 7, 1977, Outlook section, pp. 1-5 (CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3, enclosure; the section is given as Outlook in the bibliographies of Kress, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200030040-0, and of May, CIA-RDP96-00787R000100250012-3, while OTS/BAB Memo #287-77 calls it the Parade Section). Quotations are Wilhelm's. +[^33]: Information paper, DAMI-ISH, "GRILL FLAME (U)," April 13, 1979, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200210002-5, para. 1(7)-(8). +[^34]: Zarbo, Michael E. (Captain, U.S. Army), *Remote Viewing: Parapsychological Potential for Intelligence Collection?*, master's thesis, Defense Intelligence College, November 1992, CIA-RDP96-00789R002600250001-6, quoting Turner. +[^35]: Memorandum for the record, "Operational Use of Paranormals in Police Activities," undated, author redacted, Office of Technical Service, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200130013-4. +[^36]: Memorandum for the record, "Request for Information about Stanford Research Institute (SRI) Paranormal Research Project by Mr. Wilhelm former Time Reporter," April 16, 1974, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200200023-5. +[^37]: Memorandum for the record, OTS/BAB Memo #287-77, "Briefing for House Permanent Select Committee re OTS Involvement in ESP Research," November 17, 1977, CIA-RDP96-00787R000500170001-0 and CIA-RDP96-00787R000200020020-8, para. 2-5, with its attached article on Patrick Price. +[^38]: "Boom Times on the Psychic Frontier," *Time*, vol. 103, no. 9, March 4, 1974, cover story, CIA-RDP96-00787R000700030001-3. +[^39]: Joseph Hanlon, "Uri Geller and Science," *New Scientist*, October 17, 1974, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200090024-7. +[^40]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Armed Services, Special Subcommittee on Intelligence, *Inquiry into the Alleged Involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Watergate and Ellsberg Matters*, 93rd Cong., hearings of May 11, 1973 and after (published 1976), statement of Dr. James R. Schlesinger, May 11, 1973, pp. 1-3, and testimony of General Robert E. Cushman, Jr. Copy at archive.org/details/InquiryIntoTheAllegedInvolvementOfCIAInTheWatergateAndEllsbergMatters. The hearing index lists a statement by James McCord, a former CIA employee, at p. 411 and Hunt's testimony at p. 471. +[^41]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), "Appendix to Views of Senator Baker: Summary of Highlights of Investigation of CIA Activity in Watergate Incident," pp. 1135-1138, citing the executive session testimony of TSD Technician #1 (February 5 and 6, 1974), the Deputy Chief, TSD (February 5, 1974) and the Chief, TSD (February 5, 1974). https://archive.org/details/WatergateErvinCommitteeReport +[^42]: S. Rept. 93-981, Baker appendix, pp. 1138-1139. +[^43]: S. Rept. 93-981, Baker appendix, pp. 1139-1141. +[^44]: S. Rept. 93-981, p. 119 (Hunt's request for an alias, false documents or disguise; Cushman's testimony of the July 7, 1971 call from Ehrlichman; the disguise materials after the July 22, 1971 meeting). diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Philadelphia Police Department.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Philadelphia Police Department.md index ce037124..3a2839cb 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Philadelphia Police Department.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Philadelphia Police Department.md @@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ summary: "Municipal police force of Philadelphia, created by the Act of Consolid start: 1854 location: "Philadelphia, Pennsylvania" created: 2026-09-23 -updated: 2026-09-23 +updated: 2026-10-15 relations: - type: head_of with: "[[Frank Rizzo]]" @@ -36,14 +36,14 @@ relations: role: "police commissioner" start: 2020-02 end: 2023-09-22 - fn: 8 + fn: 9 - type: head_of with: "[[John M. Stanford Jr.]]" reverse: true role: "interim police commissioner" start: 2023-09-22 end: 2024-01-02 - fn: 9 + fn: 10 - type: investigated with: "[[Olney House Investigation]]" start: 2026-06-19 @@ -51,7 +51,7 @@ relations: - type: investigated with: "[[Eugene Horsch]]" start: 2013 - fn: 12 + fn: 13 --- The Philadelphia Police Department is the municipal police force of [[Philadelphia]]. It was created by the Act of Consolidation of 1854, which united the city and county under a single government. Since June 2026 it has conducted, with the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]], the [[Olney House Investigation]] into women connected to the house of the pornographer [[R.C. Horsch]] and his son [[Eugene Horsch]] on West Chew Avenue.[^1][^2] @@ -74,21 +74,23 @@ In 1978 police surrounded the [[Powelton Village]] base of the group [[MOVE]] to Commissioner [[Gregore J. Sambor]], a military veteran, had been ordered by Goode to prepare the tactical plan and delegated it to three officers. The plan called for tear gas to be fired into the house and for "a satchel of explosives" to be dropped on a rooftop bunker; Sambor admitted that he "had no backup plan if the tear gas didn't work." When the fire started he allowed it to burn. The MOVE Commission found that the three officers had prepared the plan "hastily and without sufficient information or adequate intelligence." Sambor retired six months later, and gave no interviews afterward except when compelled to testify in a federal case in 1996. "I was told any possibility for injury or death inside the bunker was minimal," he said.[^5] +The Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission found that Sambor chose as planners the head of the Bomb Disposal Unit, a sergeant from the pistol range and a uniformed patrolman, excluding the command structure of the department, and that no written plan was sought or received. The commission found that police fired more than 10,000 rounds in under 90 minutes, that the Police Commissioner and the Fire Commissioner decided between 6:08 and 6:12 P.M. to let the bunker burn, and that the deaths of the five children "appear to be unjustified homicides which should be investigated by a grand jury." Its Finding 21 records that in January 1985 an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Philadelphia office delivered nearly 38 pounds of C-4 to the police bomb squad, that neither agency kept a record of the transaction, and that FBI officials "unwittingly furnished the Commission with inaccurate and untruthful accounts" of the bureau's involvement.[^6] + In the [[39th District]] scandal, officers were accused of "systematically robbing, beating, and framing suspects in drug cases"; ten were imprisoned and about four million dollars was paid in settlements. In March 2015 the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]] criticized the department for a "lack of transparency" in use-of-force cases.[^1] ### Commissioners Since 2008 -[[Charles H. Ramsey]], a former chief of police of [[Washington, D.C.]], was appointed by Mayor [[Michael Nutter]] and was commissioner from January 2008 to January 2016; he promoted [[Kevin Bethel]] to deputy commissioner for patrol operations in 2009.[^6][^7] [[Danielle Outlaw]], who had become chief of police in [[Portland, Oregon]], in 2017, was sworn in in February 2020 as the first Black woman to lead the department. She left on September 22, 2023, to become a deputy security chief at the [[Port Authority of New York and New Jersey]], and her top deputy, [[John M. Stanford Jr.]], was named interim commissioner.[^8] Mayor [[Jim Kenney]] appointed Stanford on September 22, 2023, and named [[Frank Vanore]], who had joined the department in 1990, interim first deputy commissioner.[^9] Bethel, who had joined the force in 1986 and retired in 2016, was sworn in as commissioner on January 2, 2024.[^7] +[[Charles H. Ramsey]], a former chief of police of [[Washington, D.C.]], was appointed by Mayor [[Michael Nutter]] and was commissioner from January 2008 to January 2016; he promoted [[Kevin Bethel]] to deputy commissioner for patrol operations in 2009.[^7][^8] [[Danielle Outlaw]], who had become chief of police in [[Portland, Oregon]], in 2017, was sworn in in February 2020 as the first Black woman to lead the department. She left on September 22, 2023, to become a deputy security chief at the [[Port Authority of New York and New Jersey]], and her top deputy, [[John M. Stanford Jr.]], was named interim commissioner.[^9] Mayor [[Jim Kenney]] appointed Stanford on September 22, 2023, and named [[Frank Vanore]], who had joined the department in 1990, interim first deputy commissioner.[^10] Bethel, who had joined the force in 1986 and retired in 2016, was sworn in as commissioner on January 2, 2024.[^8] ### Narcotics Bureau and the Nordo Cases -An Internal Affairs report of August 2018 found that, from a meeting in May 2017 called by Inspector [[Raymond Evers]] and Chief Inspector Anthony Boyle, the Narcotics Bureau had developed a practice of running low-level arrestees as informants off the books, falsifying paperwork and withholding information from the [[Philadelphia District Attorney's Office]].[^10] The former homicide detective [[Philip Nordo]], dismissed in 2017, was convicted on June 1, 2022, of rape, sexual assault, stalking, and other offenses, and the district attorney's Conviction Integrity Unit reviewed about 62 homicide convictions in which he had been involved.[^11] +An Internal Affairs report of August 2018 found that, from a meeting in May 2017 called by Inspector [[Raymond Evers]] and Chief Inspector Anthony Boyle, the Narcotics Bureau had developed a practice of running low-level arrestees as informants off the books, falsifying paperwork and withholding information from the [[Philadelphia District Attorney's Office]].[^11] The former homicide detective [[Philip Nordo]], dismissed in 2017, was convicted on June 1, 2022, of rape, sexual assault, stalking, and other offenses, and the district attorney's Conviction Integrity Unit reviewed about 62 homicide convictions in which he had been involved.[^12] ### The Horsch Cases -In 2013 the department found about 1.9 million dollars' worth of marijuana in the house on West Chew Avenue in [[Olney, Philadelphia|Olney]], and Eugene Horsch was sentenced to four to eight years. After a fire at the house on May 18, 2025, a fire marshal and a patrolman discovered a marijuana grow and three firearms with destroyed serial numbers.[^12][^13] In December 2014 an assistant United States attorney, [[Elizabeth F. Abrams]], prosecuted a felon-in-possession case investigated by the FBI and the department.[^14] +In 2013 the department found about 1.9 million dollars' worth of marijuana in the house on West Chew Avenue in [[Olney, Philadelphia|Olney]], and Eugene Horsch was sentenced to four to eight years. After a fire at the house on May 18, 2025, a fire marshal and a patrolman discovered a marijuana grow and three firearms with destroyed serial numbers.[^13][^14] In December 2014 an assistant United States attorney, [[Elizabeth F. Abrams]], prosecuted a felon-in-possession case investigated by the FBI and the department.[^15] -Commissioner Bethel, Deputy Commissioner Vanore, and Special Agent in Charge [[Wayne Jacobs]] of the FBI's Philadelphia Field Office said at a briefing on September 16, 2026, that five women shown in material recovered from the house appeared to be dead; on August 12 Inspector Evers had identified [[Gabrielle Amarando]] and [[Maribel Fresses]] as two of them.[^2][^10] +Commissioner Bethel, Deputy Commissioner Vanore, and Special Agent in Charge [[Wayne Jacobs]] of the FBI's Philadelphia Field Office said at a briefing on September 16, 2026, that five women shown in material recovered from the house appeared to be dead; on August 12 Inspector Evers had identified [[Gabrielle Amarando]] and [[Maribel Fresses]] as two of them.[^2][^11] ### Footnotes @@ -97,12 +99,13 @@ Commissioner Bethel, Deputy Commissioner Vanore, and Special Agent in Charge [[W [^3]: Finkel, Ken. "The Rise of Rizzo," PhillyHistory Blog, City of Philadelphia Department of Records, September 10, 2018. https://blog.phillyhistory.org/index.php/2018/09/the-rise-of-rizzo/ [^4]: "Police to Inspect Building: Cinema 16 Shut Down In License Dispute; Owner Is 'Confused'," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* October 30, 1969, p. 19. https://www.newspapers.com/image/169186622/ [^5]: Gambacorta, David. "Gregore J. Sambor, police commissioner," *Philadelphia Daily News,* May 6, 2010. https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/special_packages/dailynews/20100506_Gregore_J__Sambor__police_commissioner.html -[^6]: "Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, Former D.C. Police Chief, Announces Retirement," *NBC4 Washington,* October 2015; Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy, George Mason University, "Charles H. Ramsey." https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/philadelphia-police-commissioner-charles-ramsey-announces-retirement/69043/ ; https://cebcp.org/hall-of-fame/charles-ramsey/ -[^7]: "Kevin J. Bethel sworn in as Philadelphia's newest police commissioner," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* January 2, 2024, and "Kevin Bethel, Philly's new police commissioner, has a 'strong and direct' style," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* November 22, 2023. https://www.inquirer.com/crime/kevin-bethel-philadelphia-police-commissioner-sworn-in-20240102.html -[^8]: Palmer, Chris, Anna Orso, and Oona Goodin-Smith. "Danielle Outlaw, Philadelphia Police Commissioner, resigns for a job at Port Authority of New York and New Jersey," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* September 5, 2023. https://www.inquirer.com/crime/danielle-outlaw-philadephia-police-commissioner-resigns-replacement-20230905.html -[^9]: Office of the Mayor, City of Philadelphia, "Mayor Jim Kenney Appoints John M. Stanford, Jr. as Interim Police Commissioner for the Philadelphia Police Department, Frank Vanore as Interim 1st Deputy Commissioner," September 22, 2023. https://www.phila.gov/2023-09-22-mayor-jim-kenney-appoints-john-m-stanford-jr-as-interim-police-commissioner-for-the-philadelphia-police-department-frank-vanore-as-interim-1st-deputy-commissioner/ -[^10]: "Report: Philly narcotics cops faked paperwork to hide informants. Hundreds of cases may be challenged," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* January 13, 2019; Rushing, Ellie, Barbara Laker, Max Marin, and Ryan W. Briggs. "'I knew she was gone': Police say at least two missing women likely killed inside Olney home linked to violent pornography," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* August 12, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia-police-narcotics-drugs-informants-practices-raymond-evers-anthony-boyle-20190113.html ; https://www.inquirer.com/news/eugene-horsch-murder-missing-women-20260812.html -[^11]: Office of the Philadelphia District Attorney, "Former Homicide Detective Philip Nordo Accused of Sexual Assault, Theft Found Guilty on All Counts," press release, June 1, 2022. https://phillyda.org/news/former-homicide-detective-philip-nordo-accused-of-sexual-assault-theft-found-guilty-on-all-counts/ -[^12]: "Five takeaways from Philly missing women mystery connected to Raymond and Eugene Horsch," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* August 4, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/news/raymond-eugene-horsch-olney-missing-women-20260804.html -[^13]: Marin, Max, Ryan W. Briggs, Ellie Rushing, and Barbara Laker. "Police searched Olney home last summer, but drugs, not missing women, were the focus," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* July 1, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/news/eugene-raymond-horsch-olney-home-search-guns-drugs-20260701.html -[^14]: United States Attorney's Office, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, "Man Charged With Possession Of A Firearm By A Convicted Felon," press release, December 16, 2014, archived. https://web.archive.org/web/20260524074237/https://www.justice.gov/usao-edpa/pr/man-charged-possession-firearm-convicted-felon +[^6]: Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission, *The Findings, Conclusions and Recommendations of the Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission* (Philadelphia, March 6, 1986), Findings 11, 12, 18, 21, 27 and 29, Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries (published online by *The Philly Declaration*, May 13, 2015), https://phillydeclaration.org/2015/05/13/30-years-later-primary-sources-on-the-move-conflagration/. +[^7]: "Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, Former D.C. Police Chief, Announces Retirement," *NBC4 Washington,* October 2015; Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy, George Mason University, "Charles H. Ramsey." https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/philadelphia-police-commissioner-charles-ramsey-announces-retirement/69043/ ; https://cebcp.org/hall-of-fame/charles-ramsey/ +[^8]: "Kevin J. Bethel sworn in as Philadelphia's newest police commissioner," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* January 2, 2024, and "Kevin Bethel, Philly's new police commissioner, has a 'strong and direct' style," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* November 22, 2023. https://www.inquirer.com/crime/kevin-bethel-philadelphia-police-commissioner-sworn-in-20240102.html +[^9]: Palmer, Chris, Anna Orso, and Oona Goodin-Smith. "Danielle Outlaw, Philadelphia Police Commissioner, resigns for a job at Port Authority of New York and New Jersey," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* September 5, 2023. https://www.inquirer.com/crime/danielle-outlaw-philadephia-police-commissioner-resigns-replacement-20230905.html +[^10]: Office of the Mayor, City of Philadelphia, "Mayor Jim Kenney Appoints John M. Stanford, Jr. as Interim Police Commissioner for the Philadelphia Police Department, Frank Vanore as Interim 1st Deputy Commissioner," September 22, 2023. https://www.phila.gov/2023-09-22-mayor-jim-kenney-appoints-john-m-stanford-jr-as-interim-police-commissioner-for-the-philadelphia-police-department-frank-vanore-as-interim-1st-deputy-commissioner/ +[^11]: "Report: Philly narcotics cops faked paperwork to hide informants. Hundreds of cases may be challenged," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* January 13, 2019; Rushing, Ellie, Barbara Laker, Max Marin, and Ryan W. Briggs. "'I knew she was gone': Police say at least two missing women likely killed inside Olney home linked to violent pornography," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* August 12, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia-police-narcotics-drugs-informants-practices-raymond-evers-anthony-boyle-20190113.html ; https://www.inquirer.com/news/eugene-horsch-murder-missing-women-20260812.html +[^12]: Office of the Philadelphia District Attorney, "Former Homicide Detective Philip Nordo Accused of Sexual Assault, Theft Found Guilty on All Counts," press release, June 1, 2022. https://phillyda.org/news/former-homicide-detective-philip-nordo-accused-of-sexual-assault-theft-found-guilty-on-all-counts/ +[^13]: "Five takeaways from Philly missing women mystery connected to Raymond and Eugene Horsch," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* August 4, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/news/raymond-eugene-horsch-olney-missing-women-20260804.html +[^14]: Marin, Max, Ryan W. Briggs, Ellie Rushing, and Barbara Laker. "Police searched Olney home last summer, but drugs, not missing women, were the focus," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* July 1, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/news/eugene-raymond-horsch-olney-home-search-guns-drugs-20260701.html +[^15]: United States Attorney's Office, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, "Man Charged With Possession Of A Firearm By A Convicted Felon," press release, December 16, 2014, archived. https://web.archive.org/web/20260524074237/https://www.justice.gov/usao-edpa/pr/man-charged-possession-firearm-convicted-felon diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Sandia National Laboratories.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Sandia National Laboratories.md index fd1f5b6c..fa3667b9 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Sandia National Laboratories.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Sandia National Laboratories.md @@ -6,11 +6,26 @@ tags: - USA category: "U.S. Government" summary: "Sandia National Laboratories is a U.S. national laboratory that conducts research and development in nuclear weapons and other areas." +relations: + - type: contractor_to + with: "[[Lockheed Martin]]" + reverse: true + start: 1993 + end: 2017 + role: "management of the laboratory through Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin company" + fn: 2 +updated: 2026-10-15 start: 1945 location: "Albuquerque, New Mexico" --- Sandia National Laboratories is a U.S. national laboratory that conducts research and development in nuclear weapons and other areas. By the late 1960s, much of the [[United States]]' primary analysis of nuclear intelligence had shifted to laboratories like Sandia and [[Los Alamos]], where intelligence units dealing with the [[Soviet Union]] and [[China]] had been set up after World War II. These units began monitoring the transfer of nuclear technology and countries viewed as "nth" nations, or near-nuclear countries.[^1] +### Management + +From 1993 to 2017 the laboratory was run through Sandia Corporation, which the laboratory's own history describes as "a Lockheed Martin company from 1993-2017." Before that the corporation was a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Electric.[^2] The company's Energy and Environment sector managed the laboratory as part of its [[Department of Energy]] portfolio, and in its 1996 filing the company described the laboratory as a federally funded research and development center with responsibilities for national security programs in defense, energy and the environment.[^3] [[Albert Narath]] was president of Sandia Corporation from April 1989 to August 14, 1995, and then became president and chief operating officer of the company's Energy and Environment sector.[^3] In 2017 management passed to National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of [[Honeywell]] International.[^2] + ### Footnotes -[^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 11. \ No newline at end of file +[^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 11. +[^2]: Sandia National Laboratories, "Sandia's Government Owned/Contractor Operated heritage," https://www.sandia.gov/about/history/goco.html +[^3]: Lockheed Martin Corporation, Form 10-K405 for the fiscal year 1995, filed March 13, 1996, Item 1, Energy and Environment Sector, and Part I, Item 4A, Executive Officers of the Registrant, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/936468/0000950109-96-001535.txt diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Supreme Court of the United States.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Supreme Court of the United States.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..5622470d --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Supreme Court of the United States.md @@ -0,0 +1,256 @@ +--- +title: Supreme Court of the United States +aliases: + - Supreme Court of the United States + - Supreme Court + - U.S. Supreme Court + - United States Supreme Court + - SCOTUS +category: "U.S. Government" +tags: + - Organization + - USGovernment + - SupremeCourt + - Judiciary + - Secrecy + - StateSecrets + - Wiretaps + - MKUltra + - BankingLaw + - Antitrust + - ObscenityLaw + - TribalGaming + - JudicialNominations + - LeonardLeo + - ClarenceThomas + - AbeFortas + - DOGE + - Epstein +summary: "The highest federal court, whose rulings on state secrets, CIA secrecy agreements, LSD tests on soldiers, wiretaps and the Epstein litigation recur across the vault." +location: "Washington, D.C." +start: 1790-02-01 +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +relations: + - type: member_of + with: "[[Abe Fortas]]" + reverse: true + start: 1965-10-04 + end: 1969-05-14 + role: "Associate Justice" + fn: 52 + - type: member_of + with: "[[William Rehnquist]]" + reverse: true + start: 1971-12-15 + role: "Associate Justice, later Chief Justice" + fn: 55 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Brett Kavanaugh]]" + reverse: true + start: 2018-10-06 + role: "Associate Justice" + fn: 49 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Philip Agee]]" + reverse: true + start: 1981-06-29 + fn: 10 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Ghislaine Maxwell]]" + reverse: true + start: 2025-10-06 + fn: 45 + - type: represented + with: "[[James B. Donovan]]" + reverse: true + start: 1960-03-28 + role: "counsel for the petitioner Rudolf Abel" + fn: 8 +--- + +The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court of the federal judiciary, established by Article III of the Constitution and sitting in Washington, D.C.[^1] + +### State secrets and secret agents + +The Court's first state secrets decision came out of the Civil War. In [[Totten v. United States]] (1876), Justice [[Stephen Johnson Field]] wrote for the Court that a man hired by President [[Abraham Lincoln]] in July 1861 to enter the Confederate lines, report troop positions and obtain plans of fortifications could not sue for his pay, because "public policy forbids the maintenance of any suit in a court of justice, the trial of which would inevitably lead to the disclosure of matters which the law itself regards as confidential." The opinion treated the existence of a secret-service contract as "itself a fact not to be disclosed."[^2] + +On March 9, 1953 the Court decided [[United States v. Reynolds]], an action under the [[Federal Tort Claims Act]] arising from the crash of a B-29 at Waycross, Georgia on October 6, 1948. The aircraft "had taken flight for the purpose of testing secret electronic equipment" with four civilian observers aboard; three of the four and six of the nine crew members died. Plaintiffs sought the Air Force's accident report and the crew statements. The Secretary of the Air Force filed a formal claim of privilege, and Chief Justice [[Fred M. Vinson]] held for the Court that the privilege against revealing military secrets was well established and that the claim could prevail without the judge examining the report.[^3] In 2000 a daughter of one of the dead observers learned that the Air Force had declassified documents on aircraft accidents, ordered the report on the Waycross crash, and brought a claim of fraud on the court. The [[United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit|Third Circuit]] rejected the claim on September 22, 2005, noting that the declassified accident report disclosed that the mission was run by the 3150th Electronics Squadron and required an aircraft capable of operating at altitudes of 20,000 feet and above.[^4] + +On March 2, 2005 Chief Justice [[William Rehnquist]] wrote for the Court in [[Tenet v. Doe]] that the rule of Totten barred a suit by two alleged former Cold War spies, a husband and wife who used fictitious names. The husband was described as a high-ranking diplomat of a country then considered an enemy; according to the complaint, [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] agents persuaded the couple to remain at their posts and conduct espionage in return for a promise to "arrange for travel to the United States and ensure financial and personal security for life." The Court reversed the Ninth Circuit.[^5] + +On March 3, 2022 the Court reversed the Ninth Circuit in [[United States v. Zubaydah]], the case brought by [[Abu Zubaydah]] (docketed as United States v. Husayn). Justice [[Stephen Breyer]] delivered the opinion; Justice [[Neil Gorsuch]], joined by Justice [[Sonia Sotomayor]], dissented, and Justice [[Elena Kagan]] concurred in part and dissented in part.[^6] The next day, in [[FBI v. Fazaga]], Justice [[Samuel Alito]] wrote for a unanimous Court that section 1806(f) of the [[Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act]] does not displace the state secrets privilege. The respondents were three members of Southern California Muslim communities who alleged that the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] directed a confidential informant to gather information on Muslims indiscriminately, including "hundreds of hours of video recordings" made inside mosques, homes and other private locations.[^7] + +### Intelligence officers and the Court + +On March 28, 1960 the Court affirmed, five to four, the espionage conviction of [[Rudolf Abel]] in [[Abel v. United States]].[^8] Justice [[Felix Frankfurter]] wrote for the majority. [[James B. Donovan]] argued for the petitioner. Justice [[William J. Brennan Jr.|William J. Brennan]] dissented, joined by Chief Justice [[Earl Warren]], [[Hugo Black]] and [[William O. Douglas]]. Abel was exchanged for the U-2 pilot [[Francis Gary Powers]] at the Glienicke Bridge in Berlin on February 10, 1962, after Powers's aircraft was shot down over the Soviet Union in May 1960; the CIA's account states that Donovan, who had fought the death sentence in the hope of such an exchange, negotiated the trade with the CIA lawyer [[Milan Miskovsky]].[^9] + +On June 29, 1981 the Court upheld the State Department's revocation of the passport of former CIA officer [[Philip Agee]] in [[Haig v. Agee]].[^10] Chief Justice [[Warren Burger]] wrote the opinion and Justice [[Harry Blackmun]] concurred. The opinion recorded the Secretary's finding that Agee's activities "were causing or were likely to cause serious damage to the national security or foreign policy of the United States." Two incidents were described in the opinion. In July 1980, two days after a press conference in [[Jamaica]] at which Agee's principal collaborator identified [[Richard Kinsman]] as CIA chief of station there, Kinsman's house "was strafed with automatic gunfire." Four days after the same press conference, three men approached the home of another man identified as an agency officer, and gunfire was exchanged. The opinion also recited Government affidavits showing that during the 1979 seizure of the American Embassy in [[Iran]], Agee "made contact with the captors, urged them to demand certain CIA documents, and offered to travel to Iran to analyze the documents."[^10] + +On June 22, 1981 the Court issued a per curiam order in [[Kissinger v. Halperin]], a damages action arising from wiretaps. The judgment as to [[Henry A. Kissinger]], [[Richard Nixon]] and [[John N. Mitchell]] was affirmed by an equally divided Court, and the writ of certiorari as to [[H. R. Haldeman]] was dismissed as improvidently granted.[^11] + +### Secrecy agreements and the press + +In 1972 the Fourth Circuit decided [[United States v. Marchetti]], the case of former CIA officer [[Victor Marchetti]], whose secrecy agreement had been enforced by a district court order requiring him to submit writings about the agency for review thirty days before release. Chief Judge [[Clement Haynsworth]] wrote that the court would "affirm the substance of the decision below, limiting the order, however to the language of the secrecy agreement Marchetti signed when he joined the Agency," and found the contract "constitutional and otherwise reasonable."[^12] On December 11, 1972 the Supreme Court denied certiorari; Justices Douglas, Brennan and Stewart would have granted it.[^13] + +Marchetti and [[John Marks]], a former State Department employee, then wrote a book manuscript that [[Alfred A. Knopf]], Inc. intended to publish. After CIA review, the agency specified 339 deletions, released 114, then 29, then 57 more, and stood on 168. The Fourth Circuit, in [[Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. v. Colby]], decided February 7, 1975, vacated the district court judgment in part and remanded, holding that the burden of proving classification had been set "far too stringent" and adding the element of classifiability.[^14] On May 27, 1975 the Supreme Court denied certiorari in Knopf v. Colby, Justice Douglas dissenting from the denial.[^15] The same day [[William Colby]] told a White House meeting attended by [[Gerald R. Ford]], two days after [[Seymour Hersh]]'s story in the [[New York Times]] about American submarine intercept missions in Soviet waters, that "The Supreme Court refusal to review the Marchetti case is good news." Colby added that in the Marchetti case "we had to prove the material was classified."[^16] + +On February 19, 1980 the Court decided [[Snepp v. United States]] per curiam. The former CIA officer [[Frank Snepp]] had published a book about the agency in South Vietnam without submitting it for prepublication review, as his 1968 employment agreement required; the Government conceded the book contained no classified, nonpublic material. The Court imposed a constructive trust on his profits, holding that he had breached a fiduciary obligation. Justice [[John Paul Stevens]], joined by Justices Brennan and [[Thurgood Marshall]], dissented.[^17] + +On April 16, 1985 Chief Justice Burger wrote for the Court in [[Central Intelligence Agency v. Sims]], which concerned a [[Freedom of Information Act]] request filed on August 22, 1977 by an attorney, John C. Sims, and Dr. [[Sidney Wolfe|Sidney M. Wolfe]] of the Public Citizen Health Research Group for the grant proposals, contracts and researcher names of [[Project MKUltra|MKULTRA]]. The opinion describes MKULTRA as a project financed between 1953 and 1966 for "the research and development of chemical, biological, and radiological materials capable of employment in clandestine operations to control human behavior," made up of 149 subprojects contracted out to universities, research foundations and similar institutions, with at least 80 institutions and 185 private researchers participating. The agency released the proposals and contracts but withheld the names of all individual researchers and 21 institutions under its duty to protect intelligence sources. The Court held that the Director was authorized to withhold the identities of the individual researchers and need not disclose their institutional affiliations. The opinion also records that during the congressional inquiries Director [[Stansfield Turner]] notified the 80 institutions at which MKULTRA research had been conducted, many of which had not previously been advised of their involvement. Justices Marshall and Brennan concurred in the result.[^18] + +On June 30, 1971 the Court decided [[New York Times Co. v. United States]], the [[Pentagon Papers]] case, per curiam, refusing to enjoin the New York Times and the [[Washington Post]] from publishing a classified study titled "History of U. S. Decision-Making Process on Viet Nam Policy." The Court stated that any system of prior restraints "comes to this Court bearing a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity" and that the Government had not carried its burden. Justices Black, Douglas, Brennan, [[Potter Stewart]], [[Byron White]] and Marshall wrote separately in concurrence; Chief Justice Burger, Justice Blackmun and Justice [[John Marshall Harlan II|Harlan]] dissented.[^19] + +### Human experimentation + +On June 25, 1987 the Court decided [[United States v. Stanley]], in an opinion by Justice [[Antonin Scalia]]. In February 1958 an Army master sergeant at Fort Knox volunteered for what was described as a program to test protective clothing against chemical warfare, was sent to the Army's Chemical Warfare Laboratories at [[Aberdeen Proving Ground]], and there was "secretly administered doses of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD)" four times in one month. On December 10, 1975 the Army wrote to him soliciting cooperation in a study of the long-term effects of LSD on "volunteers who participated" in the 1958 tests, the Government's first notification that he had been given the drug. The Court held that no [[Bivens]] damages remedy was available for injuries arising out of activity incident to military service, relying on [[Feres v. United States]] (1950), in which Justice [[Robert H. Jackson]] had held that the Government is not liable under the Federal Tort Claims Act for injuries to servicemen arising out of activity incident to service. Justice Brennan, joined by Justice Marshall, wrote that "the Government of the United States treated thousands of its citizens as though they were laboratory animals, dosing them with this dangerous drug without their consent," and placed the case beside the Nuremberg medical trials. Justice [[Sandra Day O'Connor]], dissenting separately, wrote that "Soldiers ought not be asked to defend a Constitution indifferent to their essential human dignity."[^20][^21] + +### Wiretaps and executive immunity + +On June 19, 1972 the Court decided [[United States v. United States District Court]] (the Keith case) in an opinion by Justice [[Lewis F. Powell Jr.]], holding that "prior judicial approval is required for the type of domestic security surveillance involved in this case." The opinion recorded that Presidents had for more than a quarter-century authorized such surveillance without guidance from Congress or a decision of the Court, and that the surveillance there was authorized by the Attorney General.[^22] + +On June 19, 1985 the Court decided [[Mitchell v. Forsyth]], which arose from a warrantless wiretap on the telephone of [[William Davidon]], a [[Haverford College]] physics professor, authorized by Attorney General John Mitchell on November 6, 1970. Justice Byron White wrote for the Court that the Attorney General was not absolutely immune from damages for his national security functions, and that he was entitled to qualified immunity because the law on warrantless domestic security wiretaps was not clearly established in 1970. The opinion records that during the installation of the tap the Government intercepted three conversations between Davidon and [[Keith Forsyth]], the respondent.[^23] + +The [[Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court]] has a route to the Court built into its statute. If the court of review upholds the denial of a government application, "on petition of the United States for a writ of certiorari, the record shall be transmitted under seal to the Supreme Court, which shall have jurisdiction to review such decision." The same section directs the Chief Justice to set security measures for the court's records "in consultation with the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence."[^24] + +On February 26, 2013 the Court decided, five to four, [[Clapper v. Amnesty International USA]]. Justice Alito held that attorneys and organizations whose work required international communications could not challenge section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (50 U.S.C. 1881a) because their fear of surveillance was too speculative to meet the requirement that threatened injury be "certainly impending." Justice Breyer dissented.[^25] + +### Detention and military commissions + +On June 28, 2004 the Court decided two cases on the detention of people held after September 11, 2001. In [[Hamdi v. Rumsfeld]] Justice O'Connor announced the judgment, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices [[Anthony Kennedy]] and Breyer, holding that "due process demands that a citizen held in the United States as an enemy combatant be given a meaningful opportunity to contest the factual basis for that detention before a neutral decisionmaker." In [[Rasul v. Bush]] Justice Stevens held that United States courts have jurisdiction to consider challenges to the detention of foreign nationals held at the [[Guantanamo Bay Naval Base]].[^26][^27] On June 12, 2008, in [[Boumediene v. Bush]], Justice Kennedy wrote for a five-justice majority that the detainees at Guantanamo have the constitutional privilege of habeas corpus and that section 7 of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 "operates as an unconstitutional suspension of the writ."[^28] + +On June 29, 2006 the Court decided [[Hamdan v. Rumsfeld]], a challenge by the Guantanamo detainee [[Salim Ahmed Hamdan]] to the military commission convened to try him. Justice Stevens wrote that "the military commission convened to try Hamdan lacks power to proceed because its structure and procedures violate both the UCMJ and the Geneva Conventions."[^29] The named respondent was Secretary of Defense [[Donald Rumsfeld]]. + +### Antitrust and the press + +In 1911 the Court, in an opinion by Chief Justice [[Edward Douglass White]], ordered the dissolution of [[Standard Oil]], the petroleum combination founded by [[John D. Rockefeller]], under the [[Sherman Antitrust Act]].[^30] + +On June 18, 1945 the Court decided [[Associated Press v. United States]]. Justice Hugo Black wrote that "[t]he publishers of more than 1200 newspapers are members of the Associated Press (AP)." The by-laws, which let members block non-member competitors from membership, had been charged as a violation of the Sherman Act, and the Court affirmed the judgment in the case.[^31] + +### Banking claims and antitrust immunity + +On April 25, 1938 the Court decided [[Guaranty Trust Co. of New York v. United States]], a suit by the United States as assignee of Russian Soviet claims against [[Morgan Guaranty Trust|Guaranty Trust Company of New York]]. The assignment, made on November 16, 1933 by the Russian Soviet Government to the United States, was the basis of the government's claim. Justice [[Harlan Fiske Stone]] held that the six-year New York statute of limitations applied, and the Court reversed the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit|Second Circuit]]. [[John W. Davis]] argued for the bank.[^32] + +On January 10, 1973 the Court, in an opinion by Justice William O. Douglas, reversed the Court of Appeals in [[Hughes Tool Co. v. Trans World Airlines]]. The Court held that the transactions TWA challenged as antitrust violations were "under the control and surveillance" of the [[Civil Aeronautics Board]] and had immunity from the antitrust laws under sections 408 and 414 of the Federal Aviation Act. The complaint alleged damages suffered by [[Trans World Airlines]], and the defendants included [[Hughes Tool Company]], which [[Howard Hughes]] controlled.[^33] + +### Searches of sealed luggage + +On June 21, 1977 the Court decided [[United States v. Chadwick]], in an opinion by Chief Justice Burger, holding that respondents were entitled to the protection of the Warrant Clause "before their privacy interests in the contents of the footlocker were invaded." The respondents had been arrested in Boston by federal narcotics agents after a train trip from San Diego, and the double-locked footlocker had been loaded in the trunk of their car. [[Martin Weinberg]], of Boston, argued for the respondents.[^34] + +### Searches of Bahamian bank records + +On June 23, 1980 the Court decided [[United States v. Payner]], in an opinion by Justice Powell, which framed the question as "whether the District Court properly suppressed the fruits of an unlawful search that did not invade the respondent's Fourth Amendment rights." The respondent, [[Jack Payner]], had been indicted for falsely denying that he maintained a foreign bank account, and the account was at the [[Castle Bank and Trust]] Company of Nassau, Bahama Islands. The opinion recited the background of the investigation: "In 1965, the [[Internal Revenue Service]] launched an investigation into the financial activities of American citizens in the Bahamas. The project, known as '[[Operation Tradewinds|Operation Trade Winds]],' was headquartered in [[Jacksonville, Florida|Jacksonville]]."[^35] The Court reversed. Chief Justice Burger concurred, writing that the decision "should not be read as condoning the conduct of the IRS 'private investigators' as disclosed by this record." Justice Marshall, joined by Justices Brennan and Blackmun, dissented, writing that the government "made a conscious decision to forgo any opportunity to prosecute Wolstencroft in order to obtain illegally the evidence against Payner and others."[^35] + +### Loyalty riders and bills of attainder + +On June 3, 1946 the Court decided [[United States v. Lovett]], in an opinion by Justice Black. The case concerned Section 304 of an appropriations act, which, according to counsel for Congress, "merely cut off respondents' pay." The respondents included [[Goodwin Watson]], whom a congressional subcommittee had found guilty of "subversive activity." Justice Black held that "Section 304 is a bill of attainder against these respondents involving a use of power which the Constitution unequivocally declares Congress can never exercise."[^36] + +### Obscenity and child sexual abuse material + +On June 21, 1973 Chief Justice Burger wrote the Court's opinion in [[Miller v. California]], the decision that set the modern test for obscenity.[^37] On July 2, 1982 the Court decided [[New York v. Ferber]], upholding a New York statute against a First Amendment challenge as applied to distributors of films of children. Justice Byron White wrote that the Miller standard "for determining what is legally obscene is not a satisfactory solution to the child pornography problem," and treated child pornography as a category to be judged on its own terms.[^38] + +On April 16, 2002 the Court decided [[Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition]], in an opinion by Justice Kennedy. It affirmed the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit|Ninth Circuit]]'s ruling that the provisions of the [[Child Pornography Prevention Act]] reaching sexually explicit images that "appear to be" of minors, although produced without minors, were overbroad.[^39] The subject is treated in more detail at [[Child sexual abuse material]]. + +### Tribal gaming + +On February 25, 1987 the Court decided [[California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians]], in an opinion by Justice Byron White. The Cabazon and Morongo Bands operated bingo and a card club on their reservations in Riverside County, California. The opinion recorded that the card club offered "draw poker and other card games," and that "[t]he gambling games are open to the public and are played predominantly by non-Indians coming onto the reservations."[^40] The card room at the [[Cabazon Indian Casino]] was managed by [[Rocco Zangari]] from September 1980 until November 1981. + +### Executive records and the Vice President + +On June 24, 2004 the Court decided [[Cheney v. United States District Court for the District of Columbia]], in an opinion by Justice Kennedy that vacated and remanded the Court of Appeals' ruling on discovery directed to the Vice President and other senior officials. The discovery concerned the [[National Energy Policy Development Group]], which [[Dick Cheney]] led.[^41] + +On June 6, 2025 the Court granted a stay of a preliminary injunction against the [[Social Security Administration]] pending appeal and any certiorari petition. Justice Kagan would have denied the application. Justice [[Ketanji Brown Jackson]], joined by Justice Sotomayor, dissented. The injunction had concerned access to agency records by members of the [[Department of Government Efficiency]] team.[^42] + +### Epstein and the victims' litigation + +On February 22, 2022 the Court denied a petition for certiorari, No. 21-351, brought by a victim of [[Jeffrey Epstein]], who challenged the en banc ruling in [[In re Wild]].[^43] The en banc [[United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit|Eleventh Circuit]] ruled seven to four on April 15, 2021 that the [[Crime Victims' Rights Act]] gave the petitioner no freestanding civil action before charges were filed. The majority said it "needn't decide" whether the victims' rights to confer and to fair treatment attached before charges, and the dissenting judges faulted it for that omission.[^44] The dispute arose from the [[Epstein non-prosecution agreement]], negotiated by the [[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida|Southern District of Florida]] office. + +On April 10, 2025 [[Ghislaine Maxwell]] filed a petition for certiorari in [[United States v. Maxwell]], after Justice Sotomayor granted an extension of the filing deadline on January 21, 2025 under Application No. 24A709.[^45] The Court denied the petition on October 6, 2025.[^45] + +### Recent decisions + +On December 5, 2025 the Court granted certiorari in the case of [[Ahmad Abouammo]], a former [[Twitter]] employee convicted in the [[Twitter Saudi espionage case]], limited to the first question presented. On June 11, 2026 the Court reversed and remanded in a unanimous opinion by Justice Kagan.[^46] + +On April 19, 2023 the Court decided [[Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S. v. United States]], the appeal arising from the prosecution of the state-owned [[Halkbank]] before [[Richard M. Berman]] in the Southern District of New York. Justice [[Brett Kavanaugh]] wrote for the Court, which held that the [[Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act]] does not cover criminal cases and affirmed in part, vacated in part and remanded. Justice Gorsuch, joined by Justice Alito, concurred in part and dissented in part, writing that "Today's decision overcomplicates the law for no good reason."[^47] + +### Justices and nominations + +[[Leonard Leo]], a figure in the [[Federalist Society]], drew up the lists of potential justices that [[Donald Trump]] released during the 2016 campaign, and advised Trump on the nominations of Justice Gorsuch, Justice Kavanaugh and [[Amy Coney Barrett]].[^48] ProPublica reported that the [[Judicial Confirmation Network]], since rebranded as the [[Judicial Crisis Network]], gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to a campaign against the Missouri Plan, the state's merit-selection system, that Leo's team had organized.[^48] Kavanaugh's service on the [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit|D.C. Circuit]] ended on October 5, 2018 on his appointment to the Court, and Barrett's service on the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit|Seventh Circuit]] ended on October 26, 2020 on her appointment to the Court.[^49][^50] + +On April 6, 2023 [[ProPublica]] reported that "For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them." The reporting described a nine-day trip to Indonesia in June 2019, in which [[Clarence Thomas]] and his wife flew on a private jet and then cruised on a superyacht owned by [[Harlan Crow]], and trips to the [[Bohemian Grove]] and to Crow's ranch in East Texas.[^51] + +On July 28, 1965 President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] nominated [[Abe Fortas]] to the seat vacated by Arthur Goldberg. The Senate confirmed him on August 11, 1965. On June 26, 1968 Johnson nominated Fortas as Chief Justice; the nomination was withdrawn on October 4, 1968. Fortas's service ended on May 14, 1969 by his resignation.[^52] On May 9, 1969 Life magazine, in an article by William Lambert, reported that on January 3, 1966, three months after Fortas was sworn in, "a check for $20,000 was drawn to him personally on a Jacksonville, Fla. bank account of the Wolfson Family Foundation," the foundation of the financier Louis Wolfson, and that the Securities and Exchange Commission had on March 14, 1966 forwarded to the Justice Department a report recommending criminal prosecution of Wolfson.[^53] + +John Marshall Harlan II, later an Associate Justice, sat as a director of the [[Pioneer Fund]] at a board meeting held at 522 Fifth Avenue, New York, at 4:15 p.m. on October 28, 1937, with [[Wickliffe Draper]], Malcolm Donald, [[Harry H. Laughlin]] and [[Frederick Osborn]] also present. The fund's certificate of incorporation had been signed in New York on February 27, 1937 by Draper, Laughlin, Donald, Osborn and Vincent K. Smalley, the first four being the named directors.[^54] + +[[Ted Cruz]], later a United States Senator, clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist.[^55] + +### Criticism of the Court and its docket + +Facts Forum, the organization of [[H.L. Hunt|H. L. Hunt]], circulated ballots that asked "Is the Supreme Court limiting its functions to its Constitutional powers?" and "Should the term of office for members of the U. S. Supreme Court be limited?"; an FBI memorandum in the Hunt file describes the later program "Life Line" as "formerly known as Facts Forum."[^56] In October 1957 Hunt's office asked [[J. Edgar Hoover]] for comments and suggestions on the content of the new program; Hoover replied on November 5 that he could offer none, and Hunt's office afterward sent the director tapes of commentary attacking the Supreme Court.[^56] + +A 1981 suit alleged that [[Jim Jones]], the leader of [[People's Temple]], had been an employee of the CIA from 1963 until his death.[^57] On October 11, 1983 the Supreme Court refused without comment to review the dismissal of the survivors' suit against the CIA, the State Department, the Justice Department and the House of Representatives. The district judge, Stanley Weigel, had dismissed the case after the survivors' attorney failed to inform all defendants that they had been sued, and the Ninth Circuit rejected the attorney's excuses.[^58] + +The [[Fairness in Media]] committee petitioned the [[Federal Communications Commission]] over [[Laurence Tisch]]'s purchases of [[CBS]] stock, and later petitioned the Court for certiorari in No. 88-388. The Court denied the petition on October 11, 1988.[^59] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: U.S. Const. art. III, § 1, "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court." +[^2]: *Totten v. United States*, 92 U.S. 105 (1876), opinion of Justice Field. https://static.case.law/us/92/cases/0105-01.json +[^3]: *United States v. Reynolds*, 345 U.S. 1 (1953), decided March 9, 1953; opinion of Chief Justice Vinson. https://static.case.law/us/345/cases/0001-01.json +[^4]: *Herring v. United States*, 424 F.3d 384 (3d Cir. 2005), decided September 22, 2005. https://static.case.law/f3d/424/cases/0384-01.json +[^5]: *Tenet v. Doe*, 544 U.S. 1 (2005), decided March 2, 2005; opinion of Chief Justice Rehnquist. https://static.case.law/us/544/cases/0001-01.json +[^6]: Supreme Court of the United States, docket No. 20-827, *United States v. Husayn (Abu Zubaydah)*, certiorari granted April 26, 2021; argued October 6, 2021; judgment reversed and remanded March 3, 2022 (Breyer, J.; Gorsuch, J., dissenting, joined by Sotomayor, J.); judgment issued April 4, 2022. https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/20-827.html +[^7]: *Federal Bureau of Investigation v. Fazaga*, No. 20-828, argued November 8, 2021, decided March 4, 2022; opinion of Justice Alito for a unanimous Court. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/20-828 +[^8]: *Abel v. United States*, 362 U.S. 217 (1960), decided March 28, 1960; opinion of Justice Frankfurter for the Court; Justice Brennan, with whom the Chief Justice, Justice Black and Justice Douglas join, dissenting. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/362/217 +[^9]: Central Intelligence Agency, "May Day Over Moscow: The Francis Gary Powers Story," April 29, 2020 (exchange of February 10, 1962 at the Glienicke Bridge; Donovan and Miskovsky). https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/may-day-over-moscow-the-francis-gary-powers-story/ +[^10]: *Haig v. Agee*, 453 U.S. 280 (1981), argued January 24, 1981, decided June 29, 1981; opinion of Chief Justice Burger for the Court; Justice Blackmun concurring. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/453/280 +[^11]: *Kissinger v. Halperin*, 452 U.S. 713 (1981), per curiam, decided June 22, 1981. https://static.case.law/us/452/cases/0713-01.json +[^12]: *United States v. Marchetti*, 466 F.2d 1309 (4th Cir. 1972), decided September 11, 1972; Haynsworth, C.J. https://static.case.law/f2d/466/cases/1309-01.json +[^13]: *Marchetti v. United States*, 409 U.S. 1063 (1972), certiorari denied December 11, 1972; Mr. Justice Douglas, Mr. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice Stewart would grant certiorari. https://static.case.law/us/409/cases/1063-04.json +[^14]: *Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. v. Colby*, 509 F.2d 1362 (4th Cir. 1975), Nos. 74-1478 and 74-1479, decided February 7, 1975; Haynsworth, C.J. https://static.case.law/f2d/509/cases/1362-01.json +[^15]: *Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. v. Colby*, 421 U.S. 992 (1975), certiorari denied May 27, 1975; Mr. Justice Douglas would grant certiorari. https://static.case.law/us/421/cases/0992-04.json +[^16]: Memorandum of conversation, May 27, 1975, Ford, Schlesinger, Colby, Rumsfeld, Ingersoll and Scowcroft, National Security Adviser, Memoranda of Conversations, Box 12, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library. https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0314/1553088.pdf +[^17]: *Snepp v. United States*, 444 U.S. 507 (1980), per curiam, decided February 19, 1980, No. 78-1871; Mr. Justice Stevens, with whom Mr. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice Marshall join, dissenting. https://static.case.law/us/444/cases/0507-01.json +[^18]: *Central Intelligence Agency v. Sims*, 471 U.S. 159 (1985), decided April 16, 1985; opinion of Chief Justice Burger; Justice Marshall, with whom Justice Brennan joins, concurring in the result. https://static.case.law/us/471/cases/0159-01.json +[^19]: *New York Times Co. v. United States*, 403 U.S. 713 (1971), per curiam, decided June 30, 1971. https://static.case.law/us/403/cases/0713-01.json +[^20]: *United States v. Stanley*, 483 U.S. 669 (1987), No. 86-393, decided June 25, 1987; opinion of Justice Scalia; Justice Brennan, with whom Justice Marshall joins, and with whom Justice Stevens joins as to Part III, and Justice O'Connor, each concurring in part and dissenting in part. https://static.case.law/us/483/cases/0669-01.json +[^21]: *Feres v. United States*, 340 U.S. 135 (1950), decided December 4, 1950; opinion of Justice Jackson. https://static.case.law/us/340/cases/0135-01.json +[^22]: *United States v. United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan*, 407 U.S. 297 (1972), No. 70-153, decided June 19, 1972; opinion of Justice Powell. https://static.case.law/us/407/cases/0297-01.json +[^23]: *Mitchell v. Forsyth*, 472 U.S. 511 (1985), argued February 27, 1985, decided June 19, 1985; opinion of Justice White for the Court, including note 3 on the wiretap's installation from late November 1970 to January 6, 1971. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/472/511 +[^24]: 50 U.S.C. § 1803(b). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1803 +[^25]: *Clapper v. Amnesty International USA*, 568 U.S. 398 (2013), No. 11-1025, decided February 26, 2013; opinion of Justice Alito; Justice Breyer dissenting. https://static.case.law/us/568/cases/0398-01.json +[^26]: *Hamdi v. Rumsfeld*, 542 U.S. 507 (2004), No. 03-6696, decided June 28, 2004; plurality opinion of Justice O'Connor. https://static.case.law/us/542/cases/0507-01.json +[^27]: *Rasul v. Bush*, 542 U.S. 466 (2004), No. 03-334, decided June 28, 2004; opinion of Justice Stevens. https://static.case.law/us/542/cases/0466-01.json +[^28]: *Boumediene v. Bush*, 553 U.S. 723 (2008), No. 06-1195, decided June 12, 2008; opinion of Justice Kennedy; Justice Scalia, with whom the Chief Justice, Justice Thomas and Justice Alito join, dissenting. https://static.case.law/us/553/cases/0723-01.json +[^29]: *Hamdan v. Rumsfeld*, 548 U.S. 557 (2006), decided June 29, 2006; Justice Stevens announcing the judgment and delivering the opinion of the Court in relevant part. https://static.case.law/us/548/cases/0557-01.json +[^30]: *Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States*, 221 U.S. 1 (1911); opinion of Chief Justice White. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/221/1 +[^31]: *Associated Press v. United States*, 326 U.S. 1 (1945), decided June 18, 1945; opinion of Justice Black for the Court; judgment affirmed. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/326/1 +[^32]: *Guaranty Trust Co. of New York v. United States*, 304 U.S. 126 (1938), argued March 28-29, 1938, decided April 25, 1938; opinion of Justice Stone; Mr. John W. Davis for the petitioner. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/304/126 +[^33]: *Hughes Tool Co. v. Trans World Airlines, Inc.*, 409 U.S. 363 (1973), decided January 10, 1973; opinion of Justice Douglas for the Court. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/409/363 +[^34]: *United States v. Chadwick*, 433 U.S. 1 (1977), argued April 26, 1977, decided June 21, 1977; opinion of Chief Justice Burger for the Court. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/433/1 +[^35]: *United States v. Payner*, 447 U.S. 727 (1980), argued February 20, 1980, decided June 23, 1980; opinion of Justice Powell for the Court; Chief Justice Burger concurring; Justice Marshall, with whom Justices Brennan and Blackmun join, dissenting. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/447/727 +[^36]: *United States v. Lovett*, 328 U.S. 303 (1946), argued May 3-6, 1946, decided June 3, 1946; opinion of Justice Black for the Court. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/328/303 +[^37]: *Miller v. California*, 413 U.S. 15 (1973), decided June 21, 1973; opinion of Chief Justice Burger. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/413/15 +[^38]: *New York v. Ferber*, 458 U.S. 747 (1982), decided July 2, 1982; opinion of Justice White for the Court. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/458/747 +[^39]: *Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition*, 535 U.S. 234 (2002), decided April 16, 2002; opinion of Justice Kennedy for the Court; judgment of the Ninth Circuit, 198 F.3d 1083, affirmed. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/535/234 +[^40]: *California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians*, 480 U.S. 202 (1987), argued December 9, 1986, decided February 25, 1987; opinion of Justice White for the Court. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/480/202 +[^41]: *Cheney v. United States District Court for the District of Columbia*, 542 U.S. 367 (2004), decided June 24, 2004; opinion of Justice Kennedy for the Court; judgment of the Court of Appeals, 334 F.3d 1096, vacated and remanded. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/542/367 +[^42]: Supreme Court of the United States, docket No. 24A1063, *Social Security Administration v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees*, application for stay granted June 6, 2025; Justice Kagan would deny; Justice Jackson, with whom Justice Sotomayor joins, dissenting. https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/24a1063.html +[^43]: Supreme Court of the United States, docket No. 21-351, petition for certiorari denied February 22, 2022 (docketed September 3, 2021; lower court No. 19-13843). https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/21-351.html +[^44]: *In re Wild*, No. 19-13843, 994 F.3d 1244 (11th Cir. 2021) (en banc), decided April 15, 2021; dissenting opinions by Judges Branch, Martin, Jill Pryor and Hull. https://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/201913843.enb.pdf +[^45]: Supreme Court of the United States, docket No. 24-1073, *Maxwell v. United States*, with Application No. 24A709 (extension granted January 21, 2025; petition filed April 10, 2025; petition denied October 6, 2025). https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/24-1073.html +[^46]: Supreme Court of the United States, docket No. 25-5146, *Abouammo v. United States*, certiorari granted December 5, 2025 limited to Question 1; argued; judgment reversed and case remanded June 11, 2026, Justice Kagan for a unanimous Court. https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/25-5146.html +[^47]: *Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S. v. United States*, 598 U.S. 264 (2023), No. 21-1450, argued January 17, 2023, decided April 19, 2023 (Kavanaugh, J., for the Court, in which Roberts, C.J., and Thomas, Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett and Jackson, JJ., joined; Gorsuch, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part, joined by Alito, J.). https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/598us1r13_3e04.pdf +[^48]: Andy Kroll, Andrea Bernstein and Ilya Marritz, "We Don't Talk About Leonard: The Man Behind the Right's Supreme Court Supermajority," *ProPublica*, October 11, 2023. https://www.propublica.org/article/we-dont-talk-about-leonard-leo-supreme-court-supermajority +[^49]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Kavanaugh, Brett M." https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/kavanaugh-brett-m +[^50]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Barrett, Amy Coney." https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/barrett-amy-coney +[^51]: Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski, "Clarence Thomas Secretly Accepted Luxury Trips From GOP Donor," *ProPublica*, April 6, 2023. https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-scotus-undisclosed-luxury-travel-gifts-crow +[^52]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Fortas, Abe." Nominated by Lyndon B. Johnson July 28, 1965; confirmed August 11, 1965; nomination as Chief Justice June 26, 1968, withdrawn October 4, 1968; service terminated May 14, 1969 by resignation. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/fortas-abe +[^53]: William Lambert, "The Justice and the Stock Manipulator," *Life*, May 9, 1969 (excerpts reproduced at https://muckrakerfarm.com/1969/05/justice-stock-manipulator/). +[^54]: The Pioneer Fund, Inc., Certificate of Incorporation, February 27, 1937, and Minutes of a meeting of the Board of Directors held October 28, 1937, as reproduced by the Institute for the Study of Academic Racism. https://web.archive.org/web/20001001235059/http://www.ferris.edu/isar/Institut/pioneer/pfund.htm and https://web.archive.org/web/2001/http://www.ferris.edu/ISAR/Institut/pioneer/minutes.htm +[^55]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Rehnquist, William H." Commission issued December 15, 1971. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/rehnquist-william-hubbs +[^56]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Headquarters file on H.L. Hunt, parts 1 and 2 (FOIA release): Facts Forum ballots and FBI memorandum on "Life Line." https://archive.org/details/H.L.Hunt and https://archive.org/details/foia_Hunt_H.L.-HQ-2 +[^57]: "Rev. Jones: Was CIA Agent, Suit Alleges," UPI, October 15, 1981, as filed in CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP99-00498R000200020030-8. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp99-00498r000200020030-8 +[^58]: Spencer Sherman, "Peoples Temple Survivors Lose Appeal," UPI, October 11, 1983. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1983/10/11/Peoples-temple-survivors-lose-appeal/1510434692800/ +[^59]: *Fairness in Media v. Federal Communications Commission*, 488 U.S. 893 (1988), certiorari denied October 11, 1988 (order list). https://static.case.law/us/488/cases/0893-01.json diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/U.S. Attorney's office.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/U.S. Attorney's office.md index e56a1005..ee324f1a 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/U.S. Attorney's office.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/U.S. Attorney's office.md @@ -1,7 +1,7 @@ --- category: "U.S. Government" created: 2024-04-26 -updated: 2026-10-14 +updated: 2026-10-15 tags: - Organization - PROMIS @@ -20,9 +20,10 @@ The DC office became the first PROMIS site and served as the demonstration platf ### EOUSA Implementation Contract -The [[Executive Office for United States Attorneys]] (EOUSA), which administers support for all 94 U.S. Attorneys' Offices, was the entity that signed the March 1982 implementation contract with INSLAW, Inc. for installation of PROMIS in 20 large U.S. Attorneys' offices and word-processor systems in 74 smaller ones. The execution of that contract, and EOUSA's subsequent conduct toward INSLAW, became the central dispute in the [[PROMIS Software Scandal|INSLAW affair]].[^1] +The [[Executive Office for United States Attorneys]] (EOUSA), which administers support for the 93 U.S. Attorneys serving 94 judicial districts (one U.S. Attorney serves both Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands),[^3] was the entity that signed the March 1982 implementation contract with INSLAW, Inc. for installation of PROMIS in 20 large U.S. Attorneys' offices and word-processor systems in 74 smaller ones. The execution of that contract, and EOUSA's subsequent conduct toward INSLAW, became the central dispute in the [[PROMIS Software Scandal|INSLAW affair]].[^1] ### Footnotes [^1]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary. *The INSLAW Affair: Investigative Report.* House Report 102-857, 102nd Congress, 2nd Session, September 10, 1992. [^2]: Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co., *System Overview and Report Formats for PROMIS* (May 1971), prepared for the District of Columbia Government Office of Crime Analysis under LEAA Grant No. 70-DF-047, note 1 to the passage on the design team, NCJ 32469. https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/32469NCJRS.pdf +[^3]: 28 U.S.C. 541, "United States attorneys" (one United States attorney for each judicial district, with a single attorney for Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/541 diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..7b351b33 --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.md @@ -0,0 +1,344 @@ +--- +aliases: + - United States District Court for the Southern District of New York + - S.D.N.Y. +category: "Law Enforcement & Legal" +tags: + - Organization + - FederalJudiciary + - Court + - Manhattan + - NewYork + - EpsteinCases + - PentagonPapers + - Halkbank + - BCCI + - IranArms + - Securities +summary: "Federal trial court for Manhattan and seven other counties, created in 1814, whose judges decided the Pentagon Papers injunction, the Epstein and Maxwell prosecutions and the September 11 litigation." +start: 1814-04-09 +location: "New York, New York" +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +relations: + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Lawrence Walsh]]" + reverse: true + role: "district judge, seat created under 68 Stat. 8 (1954)" + start: 1954-04-27 + end: 1957-12-29 + fn: 3 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Richard M. Berman]]" + reverse: true + role: "district judge, senior status from September 11, 2011" + start: 1998-10-22 + fn: 4 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Alison Nathan]]" + reverse: true + role: "district judge" + start: 2011-10-17 + end: 2022-03-31 + fn: 7 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Loretta Preska]]" + reverse: true + role: "district judge, chief judge 2009 to 2016" + start: 1992-08-12 + fn: 8 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Jed Rakoff]]" + reverse: true + role: "district judge, senior status from December 31, 2010" + start: 1996-01-04 + fn: 9 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Paul Engelmayer]]" + reverse: true + role: "district judge" + start: 2011-07-27 + fn: 10 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Robert W. Sweet]]" + reverse: true + role: "district judge, senior status from March 1, 1991 until death" + start: 1978-04-28 + end: 2019-03-24 + fn: 12 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Richard Casey]]" + reverse: true + role: "district judge" + start: 1997-10-24 + end: 2007-03-22 + fn: 18 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Jeffrey Epstein]]" + reverse: true + start: 2019-07-02 + end: 2019-08-29 + role: "United States v. Epstein, No. 1:19-cr-00490" + fn: 48 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Ghislaine Maxwell]]" + reverse: true + start: 2020-06-29 + end: 2024-09-17 + role: "United States v. Maxwell, No. 1:20-cr-00330, affirmed on appeal" + fn: 51 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Ari Ben-Menashe]]" + reverse: true + start: 1990-08-01 + end: 1990-08-01 + role: "United States v. Menashe, No. 90 Cr. 010 (LLS), ruling on motions" + fn: 44 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Ethan Phelan Melzer]]" + reverse: true + start: 2020-06-10 + end: 2024 + role: "United States v. Melzer, No. 1:20-cr-00314-GHW" + fn: 73 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Caroline Ellison]]" + reverse: true + start: 2022-12-21 + end: 2024-10-10 + role: "United States v. Ellison, No. 22 Cr. 673 (LAK)" + fn: 76 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[IBM]]" + reverse: true + start: 1969-01-17 + role: "United States v. International Business Machines Corp., No. 69 Civ. 200 (DNE), antitrust complaint" + fn: 29 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Goldman Sachs]]" + reverse: true + start: 2010-04-16 + end: 2014-03-27 + role: "SEC v. Goldman, Sachs & Co., No. 10 Civ. 3229 (KBF)" + fn: 34 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Financial Trust Company]]" + reverse: true + start: 2016-05-27 + end: 2016-07-05 + role: "Hoffenberg v. Epstein, No. 1:16-cv-03989 (RJS)" + fn: 17 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Fairness in Media]]" + reverse: true + start: 1985-02-14 + role: "CBS Inc. v. Fairness in Media, suit filed by CBS" + fn: 32 +--- + +The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York is the federal trial court for [[Manhattan]], the [[Bronx]], and the counties of [[Dutchess County, New York|Dutchess]], [[Orange County, New York|Orange]], [[Putnam County, New York|Putnam]], [[Rockland County, New York|Rockland]], [[Sullivan County, New York|Sullivan]] and [[Westchester County, New York|Westchester]].[^1] Congress divided the [[New York]] district into a northern and a southern district on April 9, 1814.[^2] Appeals go to the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit]]. Its judges have decided the [[Pentagon Papers]] application of 1971, the federal prosecutions of [[Jeffrey Epstein]] and [[Ghislaine Maxwell]], the civil suits that followed Epstein's trafficking, a series of securities and antitrust cases, and the [[Iran-Israel Joint Committee|Iran arms]] and [[Halkbank]] sanctions cases. + +### Creation and Districting + +The [[Judiciary Act of 1789]] organized New York as one judicial district with one judgeship.[^2] The act of April 9, 1814 divided the state into a northern and a southern district with one judgeship each.[^2] Congress established the [[Eastern District of New York]] in 1865 and the [[Western District of New York]] in 1900. It added judgeships to the Southern District in 1903, 1906, 1909, 1922, 1929, 1936, 1949, 1954, 1961, 1970 and 1990, among other years.[^2] + +On February 10, 1954 Congress authorized two additional judgeships for the Southern District.[^3] [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] nominated [[Lawrence Walsh]], who had been counsel to Governor [[Thomas E. Dewey]] of New York, to one of the new seats on April 6, 1954. The Senate confirmed him on April 27, and his commission issued on April 28. He resigned on December 29, 1957. From 1986 to 1993 he served as independent counsel in the [[Iran-Contra affair]] investigation.[^3] + +### Judges + +[[Richard M. Berman]] was born in New York City in 1943. He graduated from [[Cornell University]] in 1964 and from the [[New York University School of Law]] in 1967, and worked as executive assistant to Senator [[Jacob Javits]] from 1974 to 1977 and later served as a judge of the [[Queens County Family Court]] from 1995 to 1998. [[Bill Clinton]] nominated him on May 21, 1998 to a seat vacated by [[Kevin Thomas Duffy]]. The Senate confirmed him on October 21, 1998, and he assumed senior status on September 11, 2011.[^4] He presided over [[United States v. Epstein]] and the Halkbank prosecution.[^5][^6] + +[[Alison Nathan]] was born in Philadelphia in 1972. [[Barack Obama]] nominated her on March 31, 2011 to a seat vacated by [[Sidney H. Stein]], and she was confirmed on October 13, 2011. [[Joseph R. Biden]] nominated her to the [[Second Circuit]] on January 3, 2022, and her commission issued on March 30, 2022.[^7] She presided over the Maxwell prosecution from its unsealing through trial and sentenced Maxwell in June 2022. + +[[Loretta Preska]] was born in Albany, New York, in 1949. [[George H.W. Bush]] nominated her on March 31, 1992 to a seat vacated by [[Robert J. Ward]], and she was confirmed on August 11, 1992. She served as chief judge from 2009 to 2016 and assumed senior status on March 1, 2017.[^8] She presides over the [[Giuffre v. Maxwell]] docket, which passed to her after the death of [[Robert W. Sweet]] in 2019. + +[[Jed Rakoff]] was born in Philadelphia in 1943. Bill Clinton nominated him on October 11, 1995 to a seat vacated by [[David N. Edelstein]], and he was confirmed on December 29, 1995. He assumed senior status on December 31, 2010. Before the bench he was an assistant United States attorney in the district from 1973 to 1980 and chief of its business and securities fraud prosecutions from 1978 to 1980.[^9] + +[[Paul Engelmayer]] was born in New York City in 1961. He clerked for Justice [[Thurgood Marshall]] in 1988 and 1989 and led the Major Crimes Unit of the [[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York]] from 1996 to 1999. Barack Obama nominated him on February 2, 2011 to a seat vacated by [[Gerard E. Lynch]], and the Senate confirmed him on July 26, 2011.[^10] He took over the Maxwell criminal case after Nathan's elevation to the Second Circuit.[^11] + +Robert W. Sweet was born in Yonkers, New York, in 1922 and served as a lieutenant junior grade in the [[United States Navy]] from 1943 to 1946. [[Jimmy Carter]] nominated him on February 17, 1978 to a seat vacated by [[Inzer B. Wyatt]]. He took senior status on March 1, 1991 and died in Ketchum, Idaho, on March 24, 2019.[^12] Sweet sentenced [[Steven Hoffenberg]] in 1997.[^13] + +[[Jesse M. Furman]] was born in New York City in 1972. Barack Obama nominated him on June 7, 2011 to a seat vacated by [[Alvin K. Hellerstein]], and he was confirmed on February 17, 2012. Before the bench he was an assistant United States attorney in the district from 2004 to 2007 and from 2009 to 2012, and counselor to the [[U.S. Attorney General]].[^14] A writer named Jesse Furman co-wrote with [[Steven Emerson]] a November 1991 article in [[The New Republic]] reporting that the military personnel records of [[Ari Ben-Menashe]] showed he had served as a low-level translator.[^15] The byline gives no biographical description, and records found do not establish whether the writer is the judge, whose Federal Judicial Center entry gives a birth year of 1972 and a Harvard degree in 1994. + +[[Richard J. Sullivan]] was born in Manhasset, New York, in 1964. [[George W. Bush]] nominated him on February 15, 2007 to a seat vacated by [[Michael B. Mukasey]], and the Senate confirmed him on June 28, 2007. His service ended on October 25, 2018 on appointment to the Second Circuit.[^16] Sullivan presided over [[Hoffenberg v. Epstein]] in 2016.[^17] + +[[Richard Casey]] was born in Ithaca, New York, in 1933 and was an assistant United States attorney in the district from 1959 to 1963. Bill Clinton nominated him on July 16, 1997 to a seat vacated by [[Charles S. Haight Jr.]]. He was commissioned on October 24, 1997 and served until his death on March 22, 2007.[^18] Casey presided over the consolidated September 11 litigation discussed below. + +[[Murray Gurfein]] was born in New York City in 1907. He was an assistant United States attorney in the district from 1931 to 1933, an assistant district attorney of New York County from 1938 to 1942, a lieutenant colonel in the [[Office of Strategic Services]] from 1942 to 1946, and an assistant to [[Robert H. Jackson]], chief United States prosecutor at the [[Nuremberg Trials]], in 1945. [[Richard Nixon]] nominated him on April 14, 1971; the Senate confirmed him on May 20, 1971, and he left the district court on appointment to the Second Circuit in 1974.[^19] + +David N. Edelstein was born in New York City in 1910, was an assistant United States attorney in the district from 1945 to 1947 and assistant attorney general in charge of the Customs Division from 1948 to 1951. [[Harry S. Truman]] nominated him on January 30, 1952, and the Senate confirmed him on April 7, 1952. He was chief judge from 1971 to 1980, took senior status in 1994 and died on August 19, 2000.[^19] Kevin Thomas Duffy, appointed by Nixon in 1972, held the seat to which Berman was later nominated. In the Mickey Mouse March case of February 14, 1975 he granted [[The Walt Disney Company|Walt Disney Productions]] a preliminary injunction against Mature Pictures Corp. over the use of the music in the film The Life and Times of the Happy Hooker.[^20] + +[[Louis L. Stanton]] was born in New York City in 1927 and served in the Marine Corps Reserve from 1950 to 1952. [[Ronald Reagan]] nominated him on June 12, 1985 and the Senate confirmed him on July 16, 1985.[^19] [[William C. Conner]], appointed by Nixon in 1973, was the judge before whom the pretrial hearings in the CBS suit against Fairness in Media were argued in March 1985.[^19] + +[[Lewis A. Kaplan]] was born in 1944 and was a special master of the district court in 1982 and 1983. Bill Clinton nominated him on May 5, 1994 and the Senate confirmed him on August 9, 1994. He served on the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation from 2012 to 2019.[^21] He decided [[Giuffre v. Prince Andrew]] and the case of [[Caroline Ellison]] (LAK). [[John G. Koeltl]] was born in 1945, clerked for Justice [[Potter Stewart]] in 1972 and 1973 and was assistant special prosecutor of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force in 1973 and 1974. Clinton nominated him on April 26, 1994 and the Senate confirmed him on August 9, 1994.[^22] He decided [[Jane Doe 43 v. Epstein]] (JGK). + +[[Lewis J. Liman]] was born in 1960, clerked for Justice [[John Paul Stevens]] in 1989 and 1990, and was an assistant United States attorney in the district from 1994 to 1999. [[Donald Trump]] nominated him on May 21, 2019 and the Senate confirmed him on December 19, 2019.[^19] He decided [[Andriesz v. BGC Financial]] (LJL). [[Gregory H. Woods]] was born in 1969, was deputy general counsel of the [[Department of Transportation]] from 2009 to 2012 and general counsel of the [[Department of Energy]] from 2012 to 2013. Obama nominated him on May 9, 2013 and the Senate confirmed him on November 4, 2013.[^19] He presided over the case of [[Ethan Phelan Melzer]] (GHW). [[Arun Subramanian]] was born in 1979 in Pittsburgh, clerked for Justice [[Ruth Bader Ginsburg]] in 2006 and 2007, and was nominated by Biden on January 23, 2023; the Senate confirmed him on March 7, 2023.[^19] He decided the claims in [[Doe 1 v. Government of the United States Virgin Islands]] (AS). [[Jessica Clarke]] was nominated by Biden and confirmed on March 16, 2023; she presides over Doe v. Black.[^19] + +### Appointment of United States Attorneys + +Under 28 U.S.C. section 546(d), when an interim appointment by the Attorney General expires after 120 days, the district court may appoint a United States attorney to serve until the vacancy is filled.[^23] The judges of the district appointed [[Geoffrey Berman]] on April 25, 2018, after his interim appointment by Attorney General [[Jeff Sessions]]. On June 19, 2020 Berman stated that he had not resigned and had no intention of doing so, and that he had been appointed by the judges of the court.[^24] On August 18, 2025 the court issued an advisory stating that [[Jay Clayton]], appointed interim United States Attorney by the Attorney General, had a term expiring on or about August 19, 2025, and that the court had appointed him United States Attorney effective August 20, 2025, to serve until a Senate-confirmed successor took office.[^25] + +### The Pentagon Papers Application + +On June 15, 1971 Gurfein denied the government's application for a preliminary injunction against [[The New York Times]] in [[United States v. New York Times Co.]], No. 71 Civ. 2662.[^26] The government had asked for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to stop further publication of 47 volumes titled "History of United States Decision Making Process on Vietnam Policy," covering 1945 to 1967 and prepared in 1967 and 1968 at the direction of [[Robert S. McNamara]]. The request also covered a one-volume study of the [[Gulf of Tonkin Incident]] prepared for the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]] in 1965.[^26] Gurfein had restrained the newspaper pending the hearing. He declined to continue the restraint and wrote that "[t]here is no greater safety valve for discontent and cynicism about the affairs of Government than freedom of expression in any form."[^26] The case went to the [[Supreme Court of the United States]], which decided [[New York Times Co. v. United States]], 403 U.S. 713, on June 30, 1971. The Court wrote per curiam that the government "thus carries a heavy burden of showing justification for the imposition of such a restraint," and it reversed the order of the Second Circuit and remanded with directions to enter a judgment affirming the judgment of the district court.[^27] + +### Corporate and Antitrust Cases + +On June 30, 1961 [[Trans World Airlines]] filed a complaint in the district against [[Hughes Tool Company]], charging violations of the antitrust laws. On February 7, 1962 the court appointed a special master for discovery. On February 1, 1963 it ordered [[Howard Hughes]] to appear for a deposition and ordered the defendant to produce documents it had refused to produce, and on February 7, 1963 it denied a motion to dismiss. A default judgment for more than $145 million with interest was later entered. The Supreme Court reversed in [[Hughes Tool Co. v. Trans World Airlines]], 409 U.S. 363 (1973), holding that the Court of Appeals had erred in rejecting the defense that the transactions were immune from the antitrust laws under the [[Federal Aviation Act of 1958]], and it remanded with directions to dismiss the complaint. The district court's damages rulings are reported at 308 F. Supp. 679 and 312 F. Supp. 478, and the Court of Appeals had affirmed at 449 F.2d 51. Chief Justice Burger, joined by Justice Blackmun, dissented.[^28] + +On January 17, 1969 the [[Department of Justice]] filed an antitrust complaint against [[IBM]] in the district, alleging that IBM had monopolized the market for general-purpose electronic digital computer systems in violation of section 2 of the [[Sherman Antitrust Act]].[^29] In an order of April 16, 1973 Chief Judge Edelstein designated special masters to rule on privilege claims over documents IBM had withheld, among them documents generated by the so-called Cravath, Swaine & Moore Task Forces and the Office of Business Practices.[^30] His opinion of June 27, 1974 is reported as [[United States v. International Business Machines Corp.]], 66 F.R.D. 154.[^30] On January 8, 1982 a stipulation of dismissal signed by counsel for IBM and by Assistant Attorney General [[William F. Baxter]] dismissed the case without costs to either side.[^29] IBM then petitioned the Second Circuit for a writ of mandamus directing Edelstein to conduct no further proceedings in the case, and it raised questions under the Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act. On August 13, 1982 the court held that a writ of mandamus should issue. It did not reach IBM's alternative request that Edelstein recuse himself, a request the court had earlier considered in a mandamus petition reported at 618 F.2d 923 (2d Cir. 1980).[^29] The decision is reported as [[In re International Business Machines Corp.]], 687 F.2d 591 (2d Cir. 1982).[^29] + +In August 1999 [[Sumitomo Corporation]] sued [[J.P. Morgan & Co.]] and [[Morgan Guaranty Trust Company of New York]] in the district. Sumitomo alleged that from 1993 to 1996 Morgan had assisted a Sumitomo employee in copper trading.[^31] + +On February 14, 1985 [[CBS Inc.]] sued [[Fairness in Media]] in the district. CBS alleged that the group's SEC filings were false and misleading, and that they did not disclose lawsuits filed against [[James Palmer Cain]] by the [[Federal Election Commission]] and the Democratic Committee of [[North Carolina]]. CBS amended the complaint on February 27 and charged that the group was "attempting to manipulate the market in CBS stock."[^32][^33] + +### Securities and Ponzi Cases + +On April 16, 2010 the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] sued [[Goldman Sachs]] and the trader [[Fabrice Tourre]] in the district over the marketing of the ABACUS 2007-AC1 collateralized debt obligation.[^34] Goldman agreed to pay $550 million, announced on July 15, 2010.[^35] The final judgment against Tourre was filed on March 27, 2014 under the docket suffix KBF, for Judge [[Katherine Forrest]].[^36][^37][^38] + +On November 28, 2011 Rakoff declined to approve a consent judgment between the SEC and [[Citigroup Global Markets]]. In [[SEC v. Citigroup Global Markets]], No. 11 Civ. 7387 (JSR), 827 F. Supp. 2d 328, he wrote that a $95 million civil penalty was "pocket change to any entity as large as Citigroup."[^39] + +On May 27, 2016 Steven Hoffenberg sued Jeffrey Epstein and "The Financial Trust Company" in the district, individually and as constructive trustee of the noteholders of [[Towers Financial Corporation]]. Epstein and the company were represented by [[Bennet J. Moskowitz]] of [[Troutman Sanders]], who wrote to Sullivan on June 28, 2016 that Hoffenberg lacked standing and that his claims had expired.[^17][^40] The docket records dismissal on July 5, 2016.[^17] + +In August 2018 two plaintiffs sued [[Financial Trust Company]] and Epstein in [[Gerber v. The Financial Trust Company]], No. 1:18-cv-07580 (JPO), before Judge [[J. Paul Oetken]]. The docket records termination on October 5, 2018.[^41] + +On November 22, 2023 six women identified as Jane Does sued the [[Government of the United States Virgin Islands]], [[John de Jongh]], [[Cecile de Jongh]] and others in the district. The defendants included [[Kenneth Mapp]], [[Vincent Frazer]], [[Celestino White]], [[Carlton Dowe]] and [[Stacey Plaskett]]. On March 21, 2025 Subramanian dismissed the claims against Dowe and White for lack of personal jurisdiction.[^42] Judgment was entered on May 5, 2026.[^43] + +### Iran Arms and Halkbank + +On August 1, 1990 Judge Stanton ruled on motions in [[United States v. Menashe]], 741 F. Supp. 1135, No. 90 Cr. 010 (LLS). Count one charged the defendants with conspiring to sell American-made C-130 military cargo planes located in [[Israel]] to [[Iran]] in violation of the [[Arms Export Control Act]]. Count two charged [[Joseph O'Toole]] with conspiring with two unindicted co-conspirators to sell American-made anti-aircraft missiles located in Israel to an undisclosed country.[^44] Stanton denied the motion to dismiss the indictment, which [[Richard St. Francis]] had made on the ground that the government's conduct was so unfair as to violate due process and which Ari Ben-Menashe joined. He granted the motions to sever count two and to sever O'Toole.[^44] + +The district court also heard the Halkbank prosecution. The United States indicted [[Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S.]], a bank owned by the [[Turkey|Republic of Turkey]], for conspiring to evade United States sanctions against Iran in No. 15 Cr. 867. The district court denied Halkbank's motion to dismiss in a ruling dated October 1, 2020. Halkbank had argued that the [[Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act]] gave it immunity from criminal prosecution.[^5] The Second Circuit affirmed on October 22, 2021 in [[United States v. Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S.]], 16 F.4th 336.[^6] On April 19, 2023 the Supreme Court held that the district court had jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. section 3231 and that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act does not provide immunity from criminal prosecution.[^5] + +### The September 11 Litigation and BCCI + +On December 9, 2003 the [[Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation]] centralized six September 11 cases before the district. The consolidated action came to include more than three thousand survivors, family members, and insurance carriers, and the complaints named over two hundred defendants.[^45] Casey's opinion of January 18, 2005, reported as [[In re Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001]], 349 F. Supp. 2d 765, granted the motion of [[Abdulrahman bin Mahfouz]] to dismiss the Burnett complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction. It denied without prejudice the motion of the National Commercial Bank to dismiss.[^45] + +The opinion's summary of the Ashton and Burnett complaints states that [[Khalid bin Mahfouz]] became president and chief executive of the National Commercial Bank in 1986 and that in the same year he became chief operating officer and a major shareholder of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. The summary reads: "He was subsequently indicted in New York state in connection with his involvement in BCCI's fraudulent practices, which also implicated NCB."[^45] The statement is the plaintiffs' allegation as recited in the opinion. + +### Epstein Criminal Case + +A grand jury returned the indictment in United States v. Epstein, No. 1:19-cr-00490, under seal on July 2, 2019. Epstein was arrested on July 6, and Richard M. Berman ordered him detained on July 18.[^46] Epstein was found dead in the [[Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York]] on August 10, 2019. Berman held a hearing on August 27 at which accusers spoke.[^47] On August 29 the docket records termination of the case.[^48][^49] Berman's later decision and order of August 20, 2025 and his order of December 10, 2025 are at ECF Nos. 77 and 92.[^50] + +### Maxwell Criminal Case + +A grand jury indicted Ghislaine Maxwell under seal on June 29, 2020 in [[United States v. Maxwell]], No. 1:20-cr-00330.[^51] Judge Alison Nathan denied Maxwell's motion to dismiss the indictment for breach of the 2007 [[Epstein non-prosecution agreement]] on April 16, 2021.[^52] Trial began on November 29, 2021, and the former pilot [[Larry Visoski]] was the government's first witness.[^53] The jury convicted Maxwell on December 29, 2021 on five of six counts.[^54] + +Nathan denied Maxwell's motion for a new trial on April 1, 2022 and sentenced her on June 28, 2022 to 240 months on the sex trafficking count, with concurrent terms on the other counts.[^55] The judgment was entered on June 29, 2022. The Second Circuit affirmed on September 17, 2024 in *United States v. Maxwell*, 118 F.4th 256, No. 22-1426-cr.[^56] + +After Nathan's elevation Judge Engelmayer took over the case. On August 11, 2025 he denied a motion by Deputy Attorney General [[Todd Blanche]] to unseal grand jury transcripts, holding that Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e) barred disclosure. The opinion is reported at 794 F. Supp. 3d 215.[^57] On January 21, 2026 he ruled on a motion by Representatives [[Thomas Massie]] and [[Ro Khanna]], sponsors of the [[Epstein Files Transparency Act]], to participate as amici curiae. He denied it.[^11] + +### Giuffre v. Maxwell + +[[Virginia Giuffre]] sued Maxwell for defamation in Giuffre v. Maxwell, No. 1:15-cv-07433, on September 21, 2015.[^58] Sweet presided at first, and Preska took the case after his death. A protective order was entered on March 17, 2016, and the case settled in May 2017.[^58] Discovery from the case remained under seal, and Preska ruled on its release from 2019 onward, including the release of names from the record in January 2024.[^59] The Second Circuit decided the appeals in [[Brown v. Maxwell]]; [[Dershowitz v. Giuffre]], 929 F.3d 41 (2d Cir. 2019), on July 3, 2019, and issued a further decision in the case in July 2025, reported at 146 F.4th 165.[^60][^61] + +On August 11, 2026 the court modified the protective order in an order at ECF 1367. On September 3, 2026 it amended the caption to read Ian Torrington Blatchford, as interim administrator of Virginia Giuffre's estate, against Maxwell.[^62] + +### Giuffre v. Dershowitz and Giuffre v. Prince Andrew + +On April 16, 2019 Giuffre sued [[Alan Dershowitz]] in [[Giuffre v. Dershowitz]], No. 1:19-cv-03377, before Preska. The docket records termination on November 10, 2022.[^63] + +On August 9, 2021 Giuffre sued [[Prince Andrew]] in Giuffre v. Prince Andrew, No. 1:21-cv-06702 (LAK). Kaplan's opinion on the motion to dismiss was filed on January 12, 2022, and the parties stipulated to dismissal, so-ordered on March 8, 2022.[^64] + +### Epstein Bank and Territorial Litigation + +On December 27, 2022 the Government of the United States Virgin Islands sued [[JPMorgan Chase]] in [[Government of the United States Virgin Islands v. JPMorgan Chase Bank]], No. 1:22-cv-10904 (JSR). The territory alleged that the bank had kept Epstein as a private banking client from 1998 to 2013 while he trafficked minors. Rakoff presided.[^65] JPMorgan settled the territory's suit for $75 million in September 2023. It settled the consolidated class claims of Epstein's accusers for $290 million, which the court approved in November 2023.[^66] + +Jane Doe 43 sued in Jane Doe 43 v. Epstein, No. 1:17-cv-00616 (JGK), on January 26, 2017 under the federal trafficking statute. The case was assigned to Koeltl, with [[Sarah Netburn]] as magistrate judge, and the parties stipulated to dismissal with prejudice on December 20, 2018.[^67] The plaintiff later litigated under her own name as [[Sarah Ransome]].[^67] + +In July 2023 the law firm [[Wigdor LLP]] filed [[Doe v. Black]], No. 1:23-cv-06418, against [[Leon Black]] in the district, where it was assigned to Judge Clarke.[^68] + +On March 9, 2023 JPMorgan filed a third-party complaint against [[Jes Staley]] in the Virgin Islands action, asserting indemnification, contribution, breach of fiduciary duty and faithless servant claims and seeking recovery of compensation paid to him from 2006 through 2013.[^69] + +### Brokerage Cases + +On April 12, 2024 [[Jane Street Group]] sued [[Millennium Management]] and two former traders in the district under the [[Defend Trade Secrets Act]]. Judge Paul Engelmayer so-ordered a stipulation of dismissal with prejudice on December 6, 2024.[^70] + +On September 17, 2024 [[Simon Andriesz]] petitioned the district to vacate, modify or remand an arbitration award against [[BGC Financial]], No. 1:24-cv-07004. On April 23, 2025 Liman held the petition untimely, because Andriesz had not served BGC within three months of the filing of the award, and in the alternative held that it "would still fail on the merits."[^71] The Second Circuit issued an order in No. 25-1341 on June 16, 2025.[^72] + +### Extremist Prosecution + +The FBI arrested Ethan Phelan Melzer, a soldier, on June 10, 2020, before a planned deployment, after he had made contact with adherents in the [[RapeWaffen Division]] Telegram channel. A superseding indictment in [[United States v. Melzer]], No. 1:20-cr-00314-GHW, was returned on August 18, 2020.[^73] Melzer pleaded guilty on June 24, 2022 and was sentenced to 45 years. The Second Circuit affirmed in No. 23-6247-cr (2d Cir. 2024).[^74] + +### Cryptocurrency Fraud Cases + +On December 21, 2022 the Securities and Exchange Commission sued Caroline Ellison and [[Gary Wang]] in [[SEC v. Ellison]], No. 22-cv-10794. Consent judgments were entered as to each on December 23, 2022.[^75] Ellison was prosecuted in [[United States v. Ellison]], No. 22 Cr. 673 (LAK). Judge Kaplan imposed sentence on September 24, 2024, and an amended judgment was entered on October 10, 2024.[^76] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: 28 U.S.C. section 112(b), Cornell Legal Information Institute. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/112 +[^2]: Federal Judicial Center, "U.S. District Courts for the Districts of New York: Legislative History." https://www.fjc.gov/history/courts/us-district-courts-districts-new-york-legislative-history +[^3]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Walsh, Lawrence Edward." https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/walsh-lawrence-edward +[^4]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Berman, Richard M." https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/berman-richard-m +[^5]: *Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S. v. United States*, 598 U.S. 264 (Apr. 19, 2023), No. 21-1450, slip op. at 1-3, stating that the district court denied the motion to dismiss and holding that the district court had jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. section 3231 and that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act does not provide immunity from criminal prosecution. The district court ruling is cited there as No. 15 Cr. 867 (SDNY, Oct. 1, 2020). https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1450_5468.pdf +[^6]: *United States v. Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S.*, No. 20-3499, 16 F.4th 336 (2d Cir. Oct. 22, 2021). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/5291813/united-states-v-bankasi/ +[^7]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Nathan, Alison Julie." https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/nathan-alison-julie +[^8]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Preska, Loretta A." https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/preska-loretta +[^9]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Rakoff, Jed Saul." https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/rakoff-jed-saul +[^10]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Engelmayer, Paul Adam." https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/engelmayer-paul-adam +[^11]: *United States v. Maxwell*, No. 20 Cr. 330 (PAE) (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 21, 2026), Opinion and Order, ECF No. 844, "Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 844 Filed 01/21/26," resolving the motion of Reps. Massie and Khanna (ECF Nos. 837, 838). https://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/2026-01/Maxwell%2020cr330%20-%20Opinion%20%26%20Order%201.21.26.pdf +[^12]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Sweet, Robert Workman." https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/sweet-robert-workman +[^13]: *United States v. Hoffenberg*, 94 Cr. 213 (RWS), 95 Cr. 321 (RWS), 1997 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2394 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 4, 1997), as cited in the complaint in *Gerber v. The Financial Trust Company*, No. 1:18-cv-07580 (S.D.N.Y.). https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/7698990/gerber-v-the-financial-trust-company/ +[^14]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Furman, Jesse Matthew." https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/furman-jesse-matthew +[^15]: *Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force*, January 3, 1993, p. 68 (summarizing Steven Emerson and Jesse Furman, "The Conspiracy That Wasn't," *The New Republic,* November 3, 1991). +[^16]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Sullivan, Richard Joseph." https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/sullivan-richard-joseph +[^17]: Hoffenberg v. Epstein, No. 1:16-cv-03989 (RJS) (S.D.N.Y.), docket (complaint filed May 27, 2016; terminated July 5, 2016), and Order of Judge Richard J. Sullivan, July 5, 2016. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/13248845/hoffenberg-v-epstein/ +[^18]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Casey, Richard Conway." https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/casey-richard-conway +[^19]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, 1789-present, data file entries for Gurfein, Murray Irwin; Edelstein, David Norton; Stanton, Louis Lee; Conner, William Curtis; Liman, Lewis Jeffrey; Woods, Gregory Howard; Subramanian, Arun Srinivas; Clarke, Jessica Gloria Lynn. https://www.fjc.gov/sites/default/files/history/judges.csv +[^20]: *Walt Disney Productions v. Mature Pictures Corp.*, 389 F. Supp. 1397 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 14, 1975), No. 75 Civ. 394 (Duffy, J.), memorandum. https://static.case.law/f-supp/389/cases/1397-01.json +[^21]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Kaplan, Lewis A." https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/kaplan-lewis +[^22]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Koeltl, John George." https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/koeltl-john-george +[^23]: 28 U.S.C. section 546(d), Cornell Legal Information Institute. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/546 +[^24]: U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York, "Statement of U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman on Appointment by Chief Judge," April 25, 2018, https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/statement-us-attorney-geoffrey-s-berman-appointment-chief-judge ; Spencer Kimball, "Attorney General Barr tells top Manhattan prosecutor Berman he is fired amid power struggle," *CNBC,* June 20, 2020, https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/20/attorney-general-barr-tells-manhattan-us-attorney-berman-he-is-fired-amid-power-struggle.html +[^25]: United States District Court, Southern District of New York, Press Advisory, August 18, 2025. https://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/2025-08/Press%20Advisory.pdf +[^26]: *United States v. New York Times Co.*, 328 F. Supp. 324 (S.D.N.Y. June 15, 1971), No. 71 Civ. 2662 (Gurfein, J.), memorandum. https://static.case.law/f-supp/328/cases/0324-01.json +[^27]: *New York Times Co. v. United States*, 403 U.S. 713 (1971). https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/403/713 +[^28]: *Hughes Tool Co. v. Trans World Airlines, Inc.*, 409 U.S. 363 (1973), Nos. 71-827 and 71-830, procedural history of the litigation. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/409/363 +[^29]: *In re International Business Machines Corp.*, 687 F.2d 591 (2d Cir. Aug. 13, 1982), Background section (docket *United States v. International Business Machines Corp.*, 69 Civ. 200, S.D.N.Y., filed January 17, 1969). https://static.case.law/f2d/687/cases/0591-01.json +[^30]: *United States v. International Business Machines Corp.*, 66 F.R.D. 154 (S.D.N.Y. June 27, 1974), No. 69 Civ. 200 (DNE) (Edelstein, C.J.), opinion, including the account of the Special Master Order No. 1 of April 16, 1973. https://static.case.law/frd/66/cases/0154-01.json +[^31]: J.P. Morgan & Co. Incorporated, Form 10-K405 for 2001, Item 3, "Legal proceedings" (*Sumitomo Corporation v. J.P. Morgan & Co. Incorporated, Morgan Guaranty Trust Company of New York*, S.D.N.Y., filed August 1999). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/19617/000095012302002823/y57010e10-k405.htm +[^32]: "Targeting CBS" and "In Brief" (CBS suit), p. 104, and editorial "Southern discomfort," *Broadcasting,* February 18, 1985. https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-BC/Broadcasting-Magazine/BC-1985/BC-1985-02-18.pdf +[^33]: "CBS on offensive in takeover challenges," *Broadcasting,* March 11, 1985. https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-BC/Broadcasting-Magazine/BC-1985/BC-1985-03-11.pdf +[^34]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Litigation Release No. 21489, "Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Fabrice Tourre," April 16, 2010, *SEC v. Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Fabrice Tourre*, 10 Civ. 3229 (S.D.N.Y.). https://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2010/lr21489.htm +[^35]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, press release 2010-123, "Goldman Sachs to Pay Record $550 Million to Settle SEC Charges Related to Subprime Mortgage CDO," July 15, 2010. https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2010/2010-123.htm +[^36]: CourtListener docket 4347648, *SEC v. Goldman Sachs & Co.*, No. 1:10-cv-03229, filed April 16, 2010, terminated March 27, 2014. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4347648/ +[^37]: *SEC v. Fabrice Tourre*, 10 Civ. 3229 (KBF) (S.D.N.Y.), Document 5198, Final Judgment as to Defendant Fabrice Tourre, filed March 27, 2014. https://www.sec.gov/files/Judg10-cv-03229Tourre.pdf +[^38]: CourtListener docket 4347648, docket header listing the assigned judge as Katherine Bolan Forrest, matching the KBF docket suffix. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4347648/ +[^39]: Opinion and Order, *U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Citigroup Global Markets Inc.*, No. 11 Civ. 7387 (JSR), 827 F. Supp. 2d 328 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 28, 2011) (Rakoff, J.). https://static.case.law/f-supp-2d/827/cases/0328-01.json +[^40]: Letter of Bennet J. Moskowitz, Troutman Sanders LLP, to Hon. Richard J. Sullivan, June 28, 2016, *Hoffenberg v. Epstein*, No. 1:16-cv-03989 (RJS), filed as ECF No. 16-7 in No. 1:18-cv-07580-JPO (S.D.N.Y.). https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.499593/gov.uscourts.nysd.499593.16.7.pdf +[^41]: *Gerber v. The Financial Trust Company*, No. 1:18-cv-07580 (S.D.N.Y.), docket (filed August 20, 2018; terminated October 5, 2018; Judge J. Paul Oetken). https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/7698990/gerber-v-the-financial-trust-company/ +[^42]: *Doe 1 v. Government of the United States Virgin Islands*, No. 1:23-cv-10301-AS (S.D.N.Y.), Opinion and Order, ECF No. 202 (March 21, 2025), pp. 1 to 2, 10. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.610915/gov.uscourts.nysd.610915.202.0.pdf +[^43]: *Doe 1 v. Government of the United States Virgin Islands*, No. 1:23-cv-10301-AS (S.D.N.Y.), docket, including Judgment, ECF No. 229 (May 5, 2026). https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68031620/doe-1-v-government-of-the-united-states-virgin-islands/ +[^44]: *United States v. Menashe*, 741 F. Supp. 1135 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 1, 1990), No. 90 Cr. 010 (LLS) (Stanton, J.), memorandum and order. https://static.case.law/f-supp/741/cases/1135-01.json +[^45]: *In re Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001*, 349 F. Supp. 2d 765 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 18, 2005), Nos. 03 MDL 1570 (RCC) et al. (Casey, J.), Opinion and Order, including the parts on the Burnett complaint against Abdulrahman bin Mahfouz, the National Commercial Bank, and the Ashton and Burnett complaint allegations concerning Khalid bin Mahfouz. https://static.case.law/f-supp-2d/349/cases/0765-01.json +[^46]: *United States v. Epstein*, No. 1:19-cr-00490-RMB (S.D.N.Y.), ECF No. 23, Letter from AUSA Alison Moe to Judge Richard M. Berman (Supplement to Detention Memorandum), July 16, 2019, pp. 1 to 3. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.518649/gov.uscourts.nysd.518649.23.0_2.pdf +[^47]: *United States v. Epstein*, No. 1:19-cr-00490-RMB (S.D.N.Y.), transcript of hearing, August 27, 2019, produced in the Department of Justice Epstein Library as EFTA02733081. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/Court%20Records/CA%20Florida%20Holdings%2C%20LLC%2C%20Publisher%20of%20the%20Palm%20Beach%20Post%20v.%20Aronberg%2C%20No.%2050-2019-CA-014681-XXXX-MB%20(Fla.%2015th%20Cir.%20Ct.%202019)/EFTA02733081.pdf +[^48]: CourtListener docket 15887848, *United States v. Epstein*, No. 1:19-cr-00490, filed July 2, 2019, terminated August 29, 2019. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/15887848/united-states-v-epstein/ +[^49]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, "Investigation and Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons' Custody, Care, and Supervision of Jeffrey Epstein at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, New York," Report 23-085, June 2023, pp. 14 to 20. https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/23-085.pdf +[^50]: *United States v. Epstein*, No. 1:19-cr-00490-RMB (S.D.N.Y.), Decision and Order, ECF No. 77 (Aug. 20, 2025), quoting *United States v. Maxwell*, 2025 WL 2301281, at *9 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 11, 2025); Decision and Order, ECF No. 92 (Dec. 10, 2025). https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/15887848/united-states-v-epstein/ +[^51]: CourtListener docket 17318376, *United States v. Maxwell*, No. 1:20-cr-00330, filed June 29, 2020. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17318376/united-states-v-maxwell/ +[^52]: *United States v. Maxwell*, No. 20 Cr. 330 (AJN), Opinion and Order, ECF No. 207 (Apr. 16, 2021), CourtListener docket 17318376. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17318376/united-states-v-maxwell/ +[^53]: Tom Winter and Corky Siemaszko, "Jeffrey Epstein's longtime pilot testifies in trial of Ghislaine Maxwell," *NBC News,* November 30, 2021. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jeffrey-epsteins-longtime-pilot-testifies-trial-ghislaine-maxwell-rcna7078 +[^54]: "Ghislaine Maxwell trial: Jury finds she sex trafficked a minor for Jeffrey Epstein, guilty on five of six counts," *CNN,* December 29, 2021. https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/29/us/ghislaine-maxwell-trial-wednesday +[^55]: *United States v. Maxwell*, No. 20 Cr. 330 (AJN), Opinion and Order denying motion for new trial (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 1, 2022); U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York, "Ghislaine Maxwell Sentenced To 20 Years In Prison For Conspiring With Jeffrey Epstein To Sexually Abuse Minors," press release, June 28, 2022. https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/ghislaine-maxwell-sentenced-20-years-prison-conspiring-jeffrey-epstein-sexually-abuse +[^56]: *United States v. Maxwell*, No. 22-1426-cr, slip op. (2d Cir. Sept. 17, 2024), argued March 12, 2024, Cabranes, Wesley and Lohier, JJ., reported at 118 F.4th 256. The opinion states that Maxwell appealed "her June 29, 2022, judgment of conviction" from Judge Alison J. Nathan. https://storage.courtlistener.com/pdf/2024/09/17/united_states_v._maxwell.pdf +[^57]: *United States v. Maxwell*, No. 1:20-cr-00330 (S.D.N.Y.), Opinion and Order, ECF No. 809 (Aug. 11, 2025), reported at 794 F. Supp. 3d 215. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17318376/united-states-v-maxwell/ +[^58]: CourtListener docket 4355835, *Giuffre v. Maxwell*, No. 1:15-cv-07433 (filed September 21, 2015; assigned to Loretta A. Preska on the docket; terminated May 25, 2017), with Complaint, ECF No. 1; Opinion denying motion to dismiss, ECF No. 37 (Feb. 2016); Protective Order, ECF No. 62 (March 17, 2016). https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4355835/ian-torrington-blatchford-as-interim-administrator-of-virginia-giuffres/ +[^59]: *Giuffre v. Maxwell*, No. 1:15-cv-07433 (S.D.N.Y.), ECF Nos. 1220 (July 1, 2021), 1254 (April 19, 2022), 1285-1343 (Dec. 2022 to Jan. 2024), 1315 (Dec. 18, 2023), 1320-1342 (Jan. 3-17, 2024). https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4355835/ian-torrington-blatchford-as-interim-administrator-of-virginia-giuffres/ +[^60]: *Brown v. Maxwell*; *Dershowitz v. Giuffre*, 929 F.3d 41 (2d Cir. 2019), Nos. 18-2868, 16-3945-cv(L) (July 3, 2019). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4636340/brown-v-maxwell-dershowitz-v-giuffre/ +[^61]: *Giuffre v. Maxwell*, 146 F.4th 165 (2d Cir. 2025), Nos. 24-182-cv(L), 24-203-cv(con) (July 23, 2025). https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-2nd-circuit/117500106.html +[^62]: *Giuffre v. Maxwell*, No. 1:15-cv-07433 (S.D.N.Y.), Order, ECF No. 1367 (Aug. 11, 2026), modifying Protective Order, ECF No. 62; Order amending caption, ECF No. 1370 (Sept. 3, 2026). https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4355835/ian-torrington-blatchford-as-interim-administrator-of-virginia-giuffres/ +[^63]: CourtListener docket 14945220, *Giuffre v. Dershowitz*, No. 1:19-cv-03377 (filed April 16, 2019; assigned to Loretta A. Preska; terminated November 10, 2022). https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/14945220/giuffre-v-dershowitz/ +[^64]: *Giuffre v. Prince Andrew*, No. 1:21-cv-06702-LAK (S.D.N.Y.), Opinion re Motion to Dismiss, ECF No. 64 (signed Jan. 11, 2022, filed Jan. 12, 2022); Stipulation and Order of Dismissal, ECF No. 83 (March 8, 2022). CourtListener docket 60119368, filed August 9, 2021. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/60119368/giuffre-v-prince-andrew/ +[^65]: Docket, *Government of the United States Virgin Islands v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.*, No. 1:22-cv-10904-JSR (S.D.N.Y.), ECF Nos. 1, 5, 6, 7, 17, 70, 90, 117, 120, 130, 131, CourtListener docket 66683865. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66683865/government-of-the-united-states-virgin-islands-v-jpmorgan-chase-bank-na/ +[^66]: "JPMorgan Chase and Epstein survivor Jane Doe 1 reach $290 million settlement," *NPR,* June 12, 2023. https://www.npr.org/2023/06/12/1181675580/epstein-jane-doe-1-290-million-settlement-jpmorgan-chase ; "JPMorgan's $290 million settlement with Epstein accusers wins approval by U.S. judge," *CNBC,* November 9, 2023. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/09/jpmorgans-290-million-settlement-with-epstein-accusers-wins-approval-by-us-judge.html ; "JPMorgan to settle Jeffrey Epstein suit by U.S. Virgin Islands for $75 million," *CNBC,* September 26, 2023. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/26/jpmorgan-to-settle-jeffrey-epstein-suit-by-virgin-islands.html +[^67]: *Jane Doe 43 v. Epstein*, No. 1:17-cv-00616-JGK-SN (S.D.N.Y.), filed Jan. 26, 2017; Order, ECF No. 140 (Aug. 8, 2018); Agreed Final Order of Dismissal with Prejudice, ECF No. 189 (Dec. 20, 2018); Notice of Voluntary Dismissal, ECF No. 190 (Dec. 21, 2018); CourtListener docket 4581676. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4581676/jane-doe-43-v-epstein/ +[^68]: *Doe v. Black*, No. 1:23-cv-06418 (S.D.N.Y.), docket. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67633736/doe-v-black/ +[^69]: "JPMorgan Sues Ex-Executive Associated With Jeffrey Epstein," *Time,* 2023. https://time.com/6261243/jpmorgan-lawsuit-jes-staley-epstein-trafficking/ +[^70]: Docket, *Jane Street Group, LLC v. Millennium Management LLC*, No. 1:24-cv-02783-PAE (S.D.N.Y.), entry 1 (complaint, Apr. 12, 2024) and stipulation and order of dismissal with prejudice (so-ordered Dec. 6, 2024); CourtListener docket 68431468. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68431468/jane-street-group-llc-v-millennium-management-llc/ +[^71]: Opinion and Order, *Andriesz v. BGC Financial, L.P.*, No. 24-cv-7004 (LJL) (S.D.N.Y. April 23, 2025), docket 37, pp. 1-4, 7-12; Judgment, docket 38, April 24, 2025. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69166995/andriesz-v-bgc-financial-lp/ +[^72]: United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Order, *Andriesz v. BGC Financial, L.P.*, No. 25-1341, June 16, 2025, with mandate issued August 28, 2025. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69166995/andriesz-v-bgc-financial-lp/ +[^73]: *United States v. Melzer*, No. 1:20-cr-00314-GHW (S.D.N.Y.), superseding indictment S1 20 Cr. 314, returned August 18, 2020. CourtListener docket 17286246. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17286246/united-states-v-melzer/ +[^74]: *United States v. Melzer*, No. 23-6247-cr (2d Cir. 2024), affirming the 45-year sentence. Courthouse News: https://www.courthousenews.com/circuit-upholds-45-year-sentence-for-army-soldier-who-plotted-satanic-neo-nazi-ambush/ +[^75]: Complaint, *Securities and Exchange Commission v. Ellison*, No. 22-cv-10794 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 21, 2022), ECF No. 1, paras. 1-5, 13-17; consent judgments entered December 23, 2022. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.591453/gov.uscourts.nysd.591453.1.0.pdf +[^76]: Amended Judgment in a Criminal Case as to Caroline Ellison, *United States v. Ellison*, (S2) 22 Cr. 673-03 (LAK) (S.D.N.Y.; date of imposition Sept. 24, 2024; signed Oct. 9, 2024; filed Oct. 10, 2024), ECF No. 520, pp. 1-4. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.590939/gov.uscourts.nysd.590939.520.0.pdf diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/United States Attorney.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/United States Attorney.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..c610bb0c --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/United States Attorney.md @@ -0,0 +1,216 @@ +--- +title: United States Attorney +aliases: + - United States Attorney + - United States Attorneys + - U.S. Attorney + - U.S. Attorneys + - US Attorney + - US Attorneys +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +tags: + - Organization + - USGovernment + - DepartmentOfJustice + - Prosecutor + - PROMIS + - INSLAW + - BCCI + - BNL + - ContraWar + - DarkAllianceInvestigation + - JeffreyEpstein + - USAttorneyRemovals2006 +category: "U.S. Government" +summary: "The federal prosecutor appointed for each judicial district under 28 U.S.C. 541, whose 2006 removals, interim appointments and district cases run through PROMIS, BCCI, the Contra drug cases and the Epstein agreement." +location: "Washington, D.C." +relations: + - type: investigated + with: "[[Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General]]" + reverse: true + role: "joint review of the 2006 removal of nine U.S. Attorneys" + start: 2007-03 + end: 2008-09 + fn: 12 + - type: investigated + with: "[[Office of Professional Responsibility]]" + reverse: true + role: "joint review of the 2006 removal of nine U.S. Attorneys" + start: 2007-03 + end: 2008-09 + fn: 12 + - type: investigated + with: "[[Office of Professional Responsibility]]" + reverse: true + role: "review of the Southern District of Florida's federal Epstein investigation and the non-prosecution agreement" + start: 2019-02-06 + end: 2020-11 + fn: 40 +--- + +The United States Attorney is the federal prosecutor appointed for each judicial district to conduct the government's criminal prosecutions and civil litigation there. The statute provides for one U.S. Attorney in each judicial district, except that a single U.S. Attorney serves both Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, so that there are 93 U.S. Attorneys serving 94 judicial districts.[^1][^2] The office and the people who held it appear in the [[PROMIS]] software case, the [[Contras|Contra]] and [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] drug inquiries, the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International|BCCI]] and [[BNL Scandal|BNL]] bank cases, the [[Mariposa County]] cluster, the [[Jeffrey Epstein|Epstein]] prosecutions, the [[Mena, Arkansas|Mena]] money-laundering inquiry, the Letelier murder trial and the 2006 removals. + +### Statute and appointment + +The President appoints each United States attorney with the advice and consent of the Senate, for a four-year term. Each continues in office until a successor qualifies and is "subject to removal by the President."[^1] Assistant United States attorneys are appointed by the Attorney General and are subject to removal by him.[^3] Under 28 U.S.C. 547 each United States attorney, within his district, prosecutes offenses against the United States and handles the civil matters in which the government is a party.[^4] The [[Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General|Inspector General]] and the [[Office of Professional Responsibility]] describe U.S. attorneys as the government's chief law enforcement officers in their districts, under the [[U.S. Attorney General|Attorney General]], who has statutory authority over the litigation of every agency.[^2] The report describes presidential discretion to remove as "broad but not unlimited," citing *Parsons v. United States*, 167 U.S. 324, 343 (1897), and says that a removal for an illegal or improper purpose would be contrary to the "public good" and therefore impermissible.[^5] + +In the period of the 2006 removals, the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] background investigation of a candidate was forwarded through the [[Executive Office for United States Attorneys]] to the Department's White House liaison, and candidates were usually recommended by senators of the President's party. While a nomination was pending, the home-state senators approved or disapproved the nominee on a form printed on blue paper, and a disapproval or a missing approval affected how the [[Senate Judiciary Committee]] handled the nomination.[^6] + +### Interim appointments under 28 U.S.C. 546 + +Before 2006, a vacancy was filled by the first assistant as acting U.S. Attorney for up to 210 days, or by an interim appointee named by the Attorney General for up to 120 days. After the 120 days the district court could reappoint the interim or make its own appointment, until the Senate confirmed a presidential nominee.[^2] In March 2006 Congress amended the statute at the Department's request, in section 502 of Public Law 109-177, so that the district court dropped out of the process, the 120-day limit was removed, and an Attorney General appointee could serve until a confirmed successor took office.[^7] Public Law 110-34, section 3, enacted June 14, 2007, repealed that change and restored the 120-day limit and the district court's power of appointment.[^8] + +The current text of section 546 provides that the Attorney General may appoint a United States attorney for a district where the office is vacant, may not appoint a person whom the Senate refused to confirm, and that the appointee may serve until a presidentially appointed successor qualifies or 120 days pass. If the appointment expires, the district court may appoint a United States attorney to serve until the vacancy is filled.[^9] + +The Southern District of New York applied that second step in 2025. Its interim appointee, Walter J. Clayton III, known as [[Jay Clayton]], had been appointed by the Attorney General. The court announced that under section 546(d) it had appointed him United States Attorney effective August 20, 2025, after the interim term expired on or about August 19.[^10] On December 1, 2025 the Third Circuit upheld a district court ruling that [[Alina Habba]]'s service as acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey was unlawful. The court's reasoning, as reported, was that "the FVRA's nomination bar prevents her from assuming the role of Acting U.S. Attorney," and the statute the court relied on was the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.[^11] + +### The 2006 and 2007 removals + +Seven U.S. Attorneys were told to resign on December 7, 2006, at the direction of senior Department officials. Two others had been asked to resign earlier in the year: [[Todd Graves]] of the Western District of Missouri on January 24, and H.E. "Bud" Cummins of the Eastern District of Arkansas on June 14. The nine were Graves, Cummins, Daniel Bogden of the District of Nevada, Paul Charlton of the District of Arizona, Margaret Chiara of the Western District of Michigan, David Iglesias of the District of New Mexico, Carol Lam of the Southern District of California, John McKay of the Western District of Washington and Kevin Ryan of the Northern District of California.[^12] + +The Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility opened a joint investigation in March 2007 and conducted about ninety interviews. [[Monica Goodling]], the Department's former White House liaison, declined to be interviewed and testified before the House Judiciary Committee on May 23, 2007, under an immunity grant.[^12] The joint report, issued in September 2008 as *An Investigation into the Removal of Nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006*, concluded that the selection and removal process was "fundamentally flawed," and that [[Alberto Gonzales]] and [[Paul McNulty]] "failed to adequately supervise" it.[^13] + +The report concluded that complaints from New Mexico Republican politicians and party activists about Iglesias's handling of voter fraud and public corruption cases caused his removal, and that the other reasons offered after the removal were after-the-fact rationalizations. It found that [[Kyle Sampson]] placed Iglesias on the removal list based on those complaints and on Senator [[Pete Domenici]]'s "loss of confidence" in him, and that the Department removed Iglesias without any inquiry into his handling of the cases.[^13] For Graves, the report found that the primary reason was complaints from the staff of Senator [[Christopher S. Bond]] of Missouri. The director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, [[Michael Battle]], who placed the call telling Graves to resign, said he did so at Goodling's direction and that she did not provide him with the reasons.[^14] [[Karl Rove]], [[Harriet Miers]], Goodling and Domenici declined to be interviewed, and the White House declined to provide its internal e-mails and documents about the removals.[^15] Goodling was the only official who said she recommended Bogden's removal, and she denied that her recommendation was the cause of it.[^16] + +### District of Columbia + +The District of Columbia office ([[U.S. Attorney's office]]) also prosecutes local crime in the Superior Court, a function no other U.S. Attorney's office performs, and its history is the starting point of the PROMIS record. [[Thomas A. Flannery]] was United States Attorney for the District of Columbia from 1969 to 1971, nominated to the federal bench in November 1971 and confirmed on December 1, 1971, according to the Federal Judicial Center's directory.[^17] In 1969 his office commissioned the case-tracking system that became PROMIS. It was funded by a $60,000 grant from the [[LEAA]], administered through [[Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co]], and designed by a team that included [[Joan E. Jacoby]] of the [[Office of Crime Analysis of the District of Columbia]] and [[Charles R. Work]], then deputy chief of the office's Superior Court Division.[^18][^19] The system was deployed on January 1, 1971.[^18] + +[[Harold H. Titus Jr.]] succeeded Flannery as United States Attorney under President [[Richard Nixon]]. In February 1973, during his tenure, the decision was made to upgrade PROMIS to a real-time online system capable of tracking more than 160 variables per case.[^18] The office's civil chief was [[Royce Lamberth]]. In 1987, weeks before joining the federal bench, Lamberth delivered a transcript of [[George Francis Bason, Jr.|Judge Bason]]'s oral ruling in the INSLAW dispute to the judge chairing the panel that selected Bason's successor, according to the House Judiciary Committee's report on the affair.[^18] + +[[Earl Silbert]] held the office from 1974 to 1979, the period of the 1976 investigation of the murder of [[Orlando Letelier]] and [[Ronni Moffitt]]; the office assigned a prosecutor from its major crimes unit, [[Eugene Propper]], then an assistant United States attorney in Washington.[^20][^21][^22] During the Letelier trial the witness Townley was held in the offices of the Major Crimes Unit, with the knowledge of Propper and [[E. Lawrence Barcella, Jr.]][^23] [[Joseph E. diGenova]] was appointed by President [[Ronald Reagan]] and served as United States Attorney for the District of Columbia from 1983 to 1988.[^24] He held the office in December 1985, when a United States delegation went to Israel to pursue the investigation of [[Jonathan Pollard]]. [[Mark M. Richard]] recorded that in 1986 [[Leonard Garment]] informed diGenova and Richard that he was withdrawing from representing the Israeli officer [[Aviem Sella]] in the Pollard matter.[^25] In the summer of 1985 Barcella gave a legal opinion clearing a private shipment of Soviet-bloc rifles, machine guns and grenades, as the [[Hartford Courant]] reported in 1992.[^26] + +### Southern District of New York + +The district's office ([[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York]]) has had many holders. [[Robert Morgenthau]], later the Manhattan District Attorney, was United States attorney for the district after his appointment by President [[John F. Kennedy]].[^27] [[Rudolph Giuliani]] was nominated by President Reagan in 1983 as United States Attorney for the district, to the vacancy of John S. Martin Jr., and held the office through the 1980s.[^28] His office prosecuted the [[Hashemi Sting]], the Customs undercover operation against arms sales to Iran that used [[Cyrus Hashemi]] as its principal informant.[^29] In 1990 Assistant United States Attorney [[Baruch Weiss]] prosecuted [[Ari Ben-Menashe]] for conspiracy to sell C-130 aircraft to Iran. Weiss told the press that Ben-Menashe was merely a translator for Israeli military intelligence from 1977 to 1987, and two defendants were acquitted, according to the Washington Post report of the verdict.[^30] + +[[Geoffrey Berman]] was the United States Attorney for the district from January 2018 until June 20, 2020. His office indicted Epstein in July 2019 on sex trafficking charges, and the office later charged [[Ghislaine Maxwell]].[^31] On the night of June 19, 2020, Attorney General [[William Barr]] announced that Berman was stepping down and that the President would nominate Jay Clayton in his place, with [[Craig Carpenito]], the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, to serve in the interim, while the office was investigating Trump's lawyer Rudolph Giuliani. Berman answered that he had not resigned and would not quit; on June 20 Barr wrote that he had asked the President to remove him.[^32][^33] Clayton was sworn in as interim United States Attorney in April 2025 on appointment by the Attorney General.[^34] He was assigned, in November 2025, by Attorney General [[Pam Bondi]], to investigate Epstein's dealings with named individuals, including [[Bill Clinton]] and [[Larry Summers]].[^35] + +### Southern District of Florida + +The Southern District of Florida office ([[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida]]) was headed in 1988 by [[Dexter Lehtinen]]. The Department's bulletin for July 15, 1988 records that, effective June 17, 1988, he took the oath of office as Interim United States Attorney for the district.[^36] The Senate's 1992 report on BCCI calls him "the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Dexter Lehtinen," among the critics of the Justice Department's handling of the bank.[^37] In October 1988 the Miami office indicted members of a Jamaican posse, and Lehtinen was quoted on the first time a Jamaican drug gang had been indicted.[^38] [[Jonathan Beaty]] and [[S. C. Gwynne]] wrote in *The Outlaw Bank* that the former United States Attorney in Miami, Lehtinen, had a request to bring BCCI-related indictments in Miami that was held back.[^39] + +[[Alexander Acosta]] was the United States Attorney for the district when the office resolved the federal investigation of Epstein in 2007 and 2008. The Office of Professional Responsibility's report of November 2020 found that the office resolved the federal investigation through a state-based plea, and that Acosta "made the pivotal decision" to do so.[^40] The non-prosecution agreement was signed on September 24, 2007. Epstein pleaded guilty in state court on June 30, 2008.[^40] The report found that Acosta had "plenary authority" under federal law and Department policy to resolve the case as he deemed appropriate, and that the decision was not shown to have been motivated by improper factors. It found that Acosta did not engage in professional misconduct, while concluding that his decision to resolve the federal case through the [[Epstein non-prosecution agreement]] was "poor judgment." It also found that he elected to defer to the state on whether to notify victims of the state plea hearing.[^41] On July 10, 2019 Acosta told a press conference that the Palm Beach State Attorney's Office "was ready to allow Epstein to walk free with no jail time, nothing."[^42] Acosta submitted his resignation as Secretary of Labor on July 12, 2019.[^42] + +The report's five subjects were Acosta, [[Jeffrey Sloman]], [[Matthew Menchel]], [[Andrew Lourie]] and [[Ann Marie Villafana]], the last of whom was the line prosecutor on the federal file.[^42] In early November 2006 a former U.S. Attorney for the district, who then represented Epstein, made an overture to Villafana on his behalf, a telephone call that Sloman joined.[^42] In 2019 the court in [[Doe v. United States]] wrote that "[p]articularly problematic was the Government's decision to conceal the existence of the NPA and mislead the victims to believe that federal prosecution was still a possibility."[^43] When Acosta left in June 2009 Sloman became Acting U.S. Attorney, and in January 2010 the Attorney General appointed him Interim U.S. Attorney; he left in June 2010, and the whole district office was formally recused from the Epstein matter in July and August 2011.[^44] + +The office also appears in the Contra period. [[Howard Teicher]], a member of the [[National Security Council]] staff from 1982 to 1987, signed a declaration on January 31, 1995 in the Cardoen case in the Southern District of Florida, filed the next day with a defense motion. It stated: "Under CIA Director Casey and Deputy Director Gates, the CIA authorized, approved and assisted Cardoen in the manufacture and sale of cluster bombs and other munitions to Iraq."[^45] He had been retained in December 1994 by attorneys for Teledyne, a co-defendant, who prepared the declaration and faxed it to him.[^46] On November 8, 1996 the office, through United States Attorney [[William A. Keefer]] and Assistant United States Attorney [[Frank H. Tamen]], filed a notice of corrective declaration, with a declaration of Teicher dated October 31, 1996. In it Teicher stated that the references in paragraphs 15 through 18 to what his files "will contain" were beliefs and "my best memory and belief," that he had not reviewed or indexed his files on leaving the NSC staff and had not seen most of them since 1987, that he was "not aware of any specific evidence that the United States government or any government official or agency took steps to help Cardoen obtain any U.S.-origin components for use in cluster bombs," and that paragraph 17, on an arrest of [[Carlos Cardoen]], was otherwise incorrect.[^46] + +### Middle District of Florida + +The Tampa office, which sits in the Middle District of Florida, was headed from September 1988 to June 1993 by [[Robert Genzman]], who succeeded [[Robert Merkle]] after Merkle resigned to run for the Senate.[^47] His first assistant from February 1989 was [[Greg Kehoe]], previously an assistant United States attorney in the Southern District of Florida.[^48] The Senate's 1992 report on BCCI recorded that in the fall of 1988 the Justice Department did not approve a RICO prosecution of the bank, "for reasons that were never explained to the Customs agents." Genzman told the subcommittee that RICO charges "would have complicated an already complicated case."[^49] The report wrote that "[t]he January 1990 plea agreement between BCCI and the U.S. Attorney in Tampa kept BCCI alive," and wrote that the Justice Department "stopped investigating BCCI entirely" soon after it.[^50] The office also appears in the sentencing, in [[Tampa, Florida|Tampa]], of [[Brandon Russell]] on January 9, 2018, at which United States Attorney [[Maria Chapa Lopez]] appeared for the government.[^51] + +### Northern District of California + +The San Francisco office was headed in the 1980s by [[Joseph Russoniello]], United States Attorney for the district from 1982 to 1990 and again from 2008 to 2010.[^52] The Department's Inspector General recorded that in 1983 the office declined prosecution of [[Norwin Meneses]] in a tax case because of weak or insufficient evidence, and the [[Internal Revenue Service]] concurred.[^53] In February 1987 the United States Attorney's offices, along with the [[Drug Enforcement Administration|DEA]] and FBI, agreed that Meneses could serve as a source in the Los Angeles investigation of [[Danilo Blandon]], provided he pleaded guilty to a cocaine charge based on his trafficking in San Francisco. In July 1987 prosecution was declined in the Los Angeles investigation and that case was closed, partly because of Meneses's unwillingness to cooperate.[^54] [[Gary Webb]] wrote that Russoniello's office rejected the Meneses case in February 1987.[^55] + +A letter that [[Ben Kalka]] signed in April 2000, in connection with a sentence reduction, is described by [[Cheri Seymour]] as stating that he had not obtained his precursors from the government, and as written by [[William Shockley]], whom she describes as a United States Attorney in San Francisco.[^56] + +The Customs Service opened a criminal investigation in 1993 into whether [[Phil Zimmermann]] had violated export controls when [[Pretty Good Privacy]] traveled abroad, and the investigation was run out of the office of the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California. Zimmermann faced the prospect of indictment for three years.[^57] + +### Eastern District of California + +The Eastern District of California covers Fresno, Sacramento and Mariposa County, the setting of the "[[Queen's Accident]]." [[David F. Levi]] was United States Attorney for the district from 1986 to 1990, after serving as an assistant from 1983 to 1986, and became a judge of the district in 1990.[^58] [[Ben Wagner]] named Levi, as United States Attorney, in a writ of mandamus against him and others, including [[John Van de Kamp]] and [[George Deukemejian]], seeking an investigation of corruption in Mariposa County.[^59] + +The district's assistant United States attorneys in the same episode were [[James White]] in Fresno and [[Brian Leighton]], who prosecuted members of [[The Company]]. White ordered the files of [[Dr. Arthur Dahlem]] seized to prove the drug use of the sergeant [[Roderick Sinclair]]. [[Robert E. Coyle]] of the [[United States District Court]] then ordered White to drop the criminal investigation of Sinclair, and Coyle held that the drug records could not be used in court.[^60] Before he resigned, White filed the trial transcripts and an affidavit listing drugs Sinclair had used with [[Stephan LaPalm]], an employee of the Sacramento office.[^60] + +### Massachusetts and Western Pennsylvania + +[[Elliot Richardson]] was United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts from 1959 to 1961, before his service as Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General of Massachusetts and, under President Nixon, Attorney General of the United States; he later served as INSLAW's lead outside counsel.[^61] [[William F. Weld]] was the United States Attorney in Boston in 1985. A letter dated May 16, 1985, signed by [[William Bradford Reynolds]], the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, and addressed to Weld, named [[Manucher Ghorbanifar]], [[Adnan Khashoggi]] and [[Richard Armitage]] in connection with an arms transaction. [[Bill Hamilton]] of [[INSLAW]] obtained the letter in late 2004, and Reynolds authenticated it in 2005.[^62] + +[[Richard Thornburgh]] was the United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania from 1969 to 1975, appointed by President Nixon. He later served as Attorney General from 1988 to 1991, and the [[House Committee on the Judiciary|House Judiciary Committee]]'s 1992 report on the INSLAW affair said that Meese and Thornburgh "blocked or restricted congressional inquiries" and refused to seek an independent counsel.[^63][^64] + +### New Jersey and Northern Georgia + +[[Frederick Lacey]] was the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey from 1969 to 1971, according to the Federal Judicial Center's entry for him; he was nominated to the federal bench on October 7, 1970, confirmed six days later, and sat on the [[Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court]] from 1979 to 1985.[^65] In October 1992 Attorney General William Barr appointed Lacey special counsel for the BNL Scandal, concerning the Atlanta branch of the [[Banca Nazionale del Lavoro]]. Lacey reported on December 9, 1992 that there were no grounds for an independent counsel. He also wrote that he had "seen nothing" to suggest that [[Brent Scowcroft]] and [[Lawrence Eagleburger]] knew of the loans, and part of his report was classified.[^66] + +The Atlanta office's acting United States Attorney, [[Joseph D. Whitley]], took over on June 1, 1990 and recused himself from the bank case the same day, because his former firm had represented [[Matrix Churchill]]. Lacey wrote that the recusal was verbal on June 1 and confirmed in writing a week later.[^66] The [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] found in February 1993 that the CIA's grounds for withholding reports from prosecutors had "no legal support," and did not find deliberate concealment.[^67] + +### Other districts + +[[William Sessions]], later Director of the FBI from 1987 to 1993, was United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas from 1971 to 1974, after serving as chief of the Government Operations Section of the Criminal Division from 1969 to 1971, and was nominated to the district court by President [[Gerald Ford]] in December 1974.[^68] [[William J. Donovan]], the founder of the [[Office of Strategic Services|OSS]], served as United States Attorney for the Western District of New York before running for Governor of New York in 1932.[^69] [[Asa Hutchinson]] was appointed United States attorney for the Western District of Arkansas by President Reagan in 1982 and assigned the IRS criminal investigator [[William Duncan]] to watch for money laundering around the Mena airport, where the aircraft of [[Barry Seal]] were based; Duncan said he asked Hutchinson in mid-1985 for 20 subpoenas.[^70] On October 7, 1955 the United States Attorney for Maine, [[Peter Mills]], and the FDA General Counsel, [[Joseph Maguire]], described to the FBI's [[Louis B. Nichols]] a conversation with the former attorney of [[Wilhelm Reich]].[^71] + +In the Virgin Islands, [[David M. Nissman]], United States Attorney for the district, announced with Assistant Attorney General [[Christopher Wray]] the August 12, 2004 wire fraud indictment of the territorial senator [[Carlton Dowe]].[^72] In Arizona, [[Timothy Courchaine]], appointed United States Attorney by Attorney General Pamela Bondi on February 28, 2025, filed the 2025 indictment of [[Baron Cain Martin]] in the [[764]] network case.[^73] In the Eastern District of Pennsylvania the office told a city judge in August 2026 that it would handle the case of [[Eugene Horsch]], after the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office withdrew its state gun and drug counts.[^74] + +### Central District of California + +The [[LASD Major Violators]] documents, seized from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, were copied by federal agents in late 1986. The Inspector General concluded that no evidence was removed from Sheriff's custody, but could not locate the copies in FBI files, in the files of the Los Angeles United States Attorney, or at the DEA, which agents said had seen them in the U.S. Attorney's office in 1990.[^75] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: 28 U.S.C. 541, "United States attorneys," subsections (a) to (c). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/541 +[^2]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility, *An Investigation into the Removal of Nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006,* September 2008, ch. 2 (jurisdiction and duties, the count of 93 U.S. Attorneys, selection and the EOUSA role, interim appointments before 2006). https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/archive/special/s0809a/chapter2.htm +[^3]: 28 U.S.C. 542, "Assistant United States attorneys," subsection (b). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/542 +[^4]: 28 U.S.C. 547, "Duties." https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/547 +[^5]: OIG/OPR, *An Investigation into the Removal of Nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006,* ch. 2, citing *Parsons v. United States,* 167 U.S. 324, 343 (1897). https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/archive/special/s0809a/chapter2.htm +[^6]: Blue slip process as described in OIG/OPR, *An Investigation into the Removal of Nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006,* ch. 2, on the blue slip process. https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/archive/special/s0809a/chapter2.htm +[^7]: Public Law 109-177, title V, section 502 (March 2006), as described in OIG/OPR, *An Investigation into the Removal of Nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006,* ch. 2. https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/archive/special/s0809a/chapter2.htm +[^8]: Public Law 110-34, section 3, 121 Stat. 224 (June 14, 2007), as recorded in the amendments and statutory notes to 28 U.S.C. 546. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/546 +[^9]: 28 U.S.C. 546, "Vacancies," subsections (a) to (d) as currently in force. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/546 +[^10]: United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, press advisory, August 18, 2025 (appointment under 28 U.S.C. 546(d) effective August 20, 2025). https://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/2025-08/Press%20Advisory.pdf +[^11]: Notus report on the Third Circuit decision of December 1, 2025 on the disqualification of Alina Habba as acting United States Attorney for New Jersey, reprinted by the Washington Sun, December 1, 2025. The quoted sentence is as the report quotes the court. https://washingtonsun.com/courts/alina-habba-new-jersey-disqualified?redirected=notus_org +[^12]: U.S. Department of Justice, OIG/OPR, *An Investigation into the Removal of Nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006,* ch. 1 (the December 7, 2006 resignations, the Graves and Cummins removals, the joint investigation and approximately ninety interviews, Goodling's immunized testimony of May 23, 2007). https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/archive/special/s0809a/chapter1.htm +[^13]: OIG/OPR, *An Investigation into the Removal of Nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006,* ch. 13, "Conclusions" (the process "fundamentally flawed"; the supervision of Gonzales and McNulty; the Iglesias findings; the Sampson placement). https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/archive/special/s0809a/chapter13.htm +[^14]: OIG/OPR, *An Investigation into the Removal of Nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006,* ch. 13, on Battle's account of the Graves call. https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/archive/special/s0809a/chapter13.htm +[^15]: OIG/OPR, *An Investigation into the Removal of Nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006,* ch. 1 (witnesses who declined interviews, including Rove, Miers, Goodling and Domenici, and the White House documents withheld). https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/archive/special/s0809a/chapter1.htm +[^16]: OIG/OPR, *An Investigation into the Removal of Nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006,* ch. 13, on the Bogden removal and Goodling's denial. https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/archive/special/s0809a/chapter13.htm +[^17]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, entry for Flannery, Thomas Aquinas (U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, 1969 to 1971; assistant U.S. attorney, 1950 to 1962; nominated by Richard M. Nixon on November 18, 1971, confirmed December 1, 1971). https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/flannery-thomas-aquinas +[^18]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, *The INSLAW Affair: Investigative Report,* H. Rept. 102-857, 102nd Congress, 2nd Session, September 10, 1992, on the 1969 design team, the January 1, 1971 deployment, the February 1973 upgrade under Titus, the Lamberth transcript and the Thornburgh and Meese findings. https://archive.org/details/InslawAffairInvestigativeReport +[^19]: Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co., *System Overview and Report Formats for PROMIS* (May 1971), prepared for the District of Columbia Government Office of Crime Analysis under LEAA Grant No. 70-DF-047, NCJ 32469. https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/32469NCJRS.pdf +[^20]: Dinges, John, and Saul Landau, *Assassination on Embassy Row* (Pantheon, 1980; McGraw-Hill, 1981), pp. 211 and 229 to 236, on the Letelier investigation and the assignment of the case under United States Attorney Earl Silbert. https://archive.org/details/assassination-on-embassy-row +[^21]: Dinges and Landau, *Assassination on Embassy Row,* pp. 242 to 243, on Propper's assignment to the Letelier murder. https://archive.org/details/assassination-on-embassy-row +[^22]: Historical Society of the District of Columbia Circuit, "Biographical Sketch of Earl J. Silbert" (Department of Justice and U.S. Attorney's Office, D.C., 1960 to 1974; United States Attorney, D.C., 1974 to 1979). https://dcchs.org/sb_pdf/biographical-sketch-silbert/ +[^23]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington field office file WF 185-425 (Chilbom): FD-302 reports of interviews of Michael Vernon Townley by SAs Robert W. Scherrer and L. Carter Cornick Jr., February 6, 8 and 9, 1979, and a later undated interview; FBI translation of cassette Q188. https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Letelier-townley-phone.pdf +[^24]: U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of Florida, "Joseph E. diGenova Sworn in as Counselor to the Attorney General" (from 1983 to 1988 appointed by President Reagan as United States Attorney for the District of Columbia). https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdfl/pr/joseph-e-digenova-sworn-counselor-attorney-general +[^25]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 407, "Decade of the Spy," undated counterintelligence history extract, Doc. 14, on the December 1985 delegation and the 1986 withdrawal of Garment. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB407/docs/EBB-PollardDoc14.pdf +[^26]: *Hartford Courant,* May 29, 1992, quoting Barcella that "somebody in the government came to me." +[^27]: Beaty, Jonathan, and S. C. Gwynne, *The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI* (Random House, 1993), p. 49. +[^28]: *Public Papers of the Presidents: Ronald Reagan, 1983,* Appendix B, Nominations Submitted to the Senate (Rudolph W. Giuliani, of New York, to be United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York for the term of 4 years, vice John S. Martin, Jr.). https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/1983-public-papers-president-appendix-b +[^29]: Ben-Menashe, Ari, *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network* (Sheridan Square Press, 1992; TrineDay reprint, 2015), on the prosecution of the sting by the office. +[^30]: "2 Acquitted of Trying to Sell Military Cargo Planes to Iran," *The Washington Post,* November 29, 1990, dateline New York, November 28, with the statement of Assistant U.S. Attorney Baruch Weiss. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1990/11/29/2-acquitted-of-trying-to-sell-military-cargo-planes-to-iran/2918bfd6-89a7-441a-a124-3b1916e90321/ +[^31]: United States v. Epstein, No. 1:19-cr-00490-RMB (S.D.N.Y.), docket (indictment filed July 2, 2019; attorneys of record including Assistant U.S. Attorneys Maurene Comey, Alex Rossmiller and Alison Moe, under U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman). https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/15887848/united-states-v-epstein/ +[^32]: Kimball, Spencer, "Attorney General Barr tells top Manhattan prosecutor Berman he is fired amid power struggle," *CNBC,* June 20, 2020. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/20/attorney-general-barr-tells-manhattan-us-attorney-berman-he-is-fired-amid-power-struggle.html +[^33]: "Geoffrey Berman, U.S. Attorney Who Prosecuted Trump Allies, Says He Won't Quit," *NPR,* June 20, 2020. https://www.npr.org/2020/06/20/881148365/geoffrey-berman-u-s-attorney-who-prosecuted-trump-allies-says-he-wont-quit +[^34]: "Jay Clayton Appointed US Attorney for SDNY," *Yonkers Times,* April 28, 2025. https://yonkerstimes.com/jay-clayton-appointed-us-attorney-for-sdny/ +[^35]: "Bondi taps acting U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton to probe Democrats' ties to Epstein," *The Washington Times,* November 14, 2025. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/nov/14/bondi-taps-acting-us-attorney-jay-clayton-probe-democrats-ties/ +[^36]: *United States Attorneys' Bulletin,* vol. 36, July 15, 1988, p. 166, "Personnel": Dexter Lehtinen took the oath of office, effective June 17, 1988, as Interim United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/usao/legacy/2010/10/12/usab3607.pdf +[^37]: Kerry, John, and Hank Brown, *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate,* S. Prt. 102-140, December 1992, ch. 8, "BCCI and Law Enforcement: The Justice Department and the U.S. Customs Service." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/08just.htm +[^38]: "More than 200 roped in drug posse roundup," *Deseret News,* October 14, 1988. https://www.deseret.com/1988/10/14/18780521/more-than-200-roped-in-drug-posse-roundup/ +[^39]: Beaty, Jonathan, and S. C. Gwynne, *The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI* (Random House, 1993). Internet Archive copy, identifier outlawbank00jona. https://archive.org/details/outlawbank00jona +[^40]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility, Executive Summary, "Investigation into the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida's Resolution of Its 2006-2008 Federal Criminal Investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and Its Interactions with Victims during the Investigation," November 2020, pp. v to vii (the "pivotal decision," the NPA signed September 24, 2007, and the June 30, 2008 state plea). https://www.justice.gov/opr/page/file/1336471/dl +[^41]: OPR, Executive Summary, November 2020 (findings on professional misconduct, the "poor judgment" conclusion, and the decision to defer to the state on victim notification of the plea hearing). https://www.justice.gov/opr/page/file/1336471/dl +[^42]: OPR, Executive Summary, November 2020 (the five subjects of the review; Acosta's resignation of July 12, 2019; the November 2006 overture by a former U.S. Attorney). https://www.justice.gov/opr/page/file/1336471/dl +[^43]: Opinion and Order, *Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 v. United States,* No. 9:08-cv-80736-KAM (S.D. Fla. Feb. 21, 2019), ECF No. 435 (Marra, J.), p. 27. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.317867/gov.uscourts.flsd.317867.435.0.pdf +[^44]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00224943, DataSet 9, "Epstein Investigation Timeline," Exhibit A-1, May 2006 to August 2011. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00224943.pdf +[^45]: Declaration of Howard R. Teicher, executed January 31, 1995, *United States v. Carlos Cardoen et al.,* No. 93-241-CR-Highsmith (S.D. Fla.), paragraphs 1 to 18. National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 82, document 61. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/iraq61.pdf +[^46]: Notice of Filing Corrective Declaration (U.S. Attorney William A. Keefer, by AUSA Frank H. Tamen) with Declaration of Howard R. Teicher dated October 31, 1996, *United States v. Carlos Cardoen et al.,* No. 93-241-CR-Highsmith (S.D. Fla.), docket entry 679, certificate of service November 8, 1996, paragraphs 1 to 7. https://archive.org/details/utf-893cr-241-de-679 +[^47]: Leusner, Jim, "Robert Genzman" (obituary), *Orlando Sentinel,* May 13, 1998. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/138851192/robert-w_-genzman +[^48]: U.S. House of Representatives, October Surprise Task Force, *Joint Report of the Task Force to Investigate Certain Allegations Concerning the Holding of American Hostages by Iran in 1980,* H. Rept. 102-1102, January 3, 1993 (staff biographies, Minority Staff). https://archive.org/details/6199732-Joint-Report-of-the-October-Surprise-Task-Force +[^49]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 8, on the RICO decision and Genzman's testimony. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/08just.htm +[^50]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 8, on the January 1990 plea agreement and the Justice Department's conduct after it. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/08just.htm +[^51]: *United States v. Russell,* No. 8:17-cr-00283 (M.D. Fla. Jan. 9, 2018), CourtListener docket. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6072023/united-states-v-russell/ +[^52]: Former United States Attorneys Association, "Joe Russoniello Joins Browne George Ross," July 2013 ("Russoniello served as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California 1982-1990, and again in 2008-2010"). https://www.nafusa.org/2013/07/joe-russoniello-joins-browne-george-ross/ +[^53]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, *The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy* (December 1997), ch. III, part 1, on the 1983 tax case. https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/archive/special/9712/ch03p1.htm +[^54]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, *The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy* (December 1997), ch. III, part 2, on the February 1987 agreement among the United States Attorney's offices and the July 1987 declination. https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/archive/special/9712/ch03p2.htm +[^55]: Webb, Gary, *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion* (Seven Stories Press, 1998), ch. 15. Webb's account is attributed to Webb. +[^56]: Seymour, Cheri, *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal* (TrineDay, 2010), pp. 340 to 344 and 404 to 405, on the Kalka letter, the April 2000 release and the attribution of the letter to Shockley. +[^57]: Levy, Steven, *Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government, Saving Privacy in the Digital Age* (Viking, 2001), on the 1993 Customs investigation of Zimmermann run from the Northern District of California. +[^58]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, entry for Levi, David F. (assistant U.S. attorney, Eastern District of California, 1983 to 1986; U.S. attorney, 1986 to 1990; judge from October 1, 1990). https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/levi-david-f +[^59]: Writ of mandamus petition filed by Ben Wagner naming David F. Levi and others. +[^60]: *LaBarge v. County of Mariposa,* 798 F.2d 364 (9th Cir. 1986), on the Queen's Accident litigation; and Seymour, *The Last Circle,* on the Coyle and White passages. +[^61]: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress; Harvard Law School alumni records. +[^62]: Seymour, *The Last Circle,* pp. 363 to 364, on the May 16, 1985 letter, its provenance, and its signatories, and Reynolds's 2005 authentication of it. +[^63]: "Richard Lewis Thornburgh," Office of the Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, *Attorneys General of the United States;* "Richard Thornburgh," Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia. +[^64]: House Judiciary Committee, *The INSLAW Affair,* H. Rept. 102-857 (1992), as in note 18, on the blocked congressional inquiries and the independent counsel refusal. +[^65]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, entry for Lacey, Frederick Bernard (U.S. attorney, District of New Jersey, 1969 to 1971; nominated October 7, 1970; Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, 1979 to 1985). https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/lacey-frederick-bernard +[^66]: Lacey, Frederick B., "The Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Investigation: Report of the Independent Counsel," reproduced in House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, *Testimony of Former Employees of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro,* Serial No. 103-95 (1994), pp. 514 to 515. https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit +[^67]: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *The Intelligence Community's Involvement in the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) Affair,* Committee Print S. Prt. 103-12, February 1993, pp. 4 to 5. +[^68]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, entry for Sessions, William Steele (chief, Government Operations Section, Criminal Division, 1969 to 1971; U.S. attorney, Western District of Texas, 1971 to 1974; nominated by Gerald Ford December 11, 1974; Director of the FBI, 1987 to 1993). https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/sessions-william-steele +[^69]: Troy, Thomas F., *Donovan and the CIA: A History of the Establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency* (CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1981). +[^70]: Leveritt, Mara, "Who's afraid of Barry Seal?" *Arkansas Times,* September 28, 2017. https://arktimes.com/news/cover-stories/2017/09/28/whos-afraid-of-barry-seal +[^71]: L. B. Nichols to Mr. Tolson, office memorandum of October 7, 1955, "Wilhelm Reich," Wilhelm Reich FBI file, Part 2. https://archive.org/details/WilhelmReichFBI +[^72]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, "Virgin Islands Senator Indicted on Fraud and Theft Charges," press release 04-560, August 13, 2004. https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2004/August/04_crm_560.htm +[^73]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, "Arizona Leader of Violent Extremist Network '764' Charged with Running a Child Exploitation Enterprise, Supporting Terrorists, Producing and Distributing Child Pornography, and Other Crimes," press release, October 31, 2025. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/arizona-leader-violent-extremist-network-764-charged-running-child-exploitation-enterprise +[^74]: Rushing, Ellie. "Feds will take over gun case of Olney man at center of missing women investigation, as Philly DA withdraws charges," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* August 6, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/crime/eugene-horsch-federal-charges-olney-missing-women-20260806.html +[^75]: Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office, Inspector General account of the Major Violators documents. diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..8ab589ca --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.md @@ -0,0 +1,487 @@ +--- +aliases: + - D.C. Circuit + - D.C. Cir. + - U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit + - U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit + - Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit +category: "Law Enforcement & Legal" +tags: + - Organization + - FederalJudiciary + - AppellateCourt + - IndependentCounsel + - IranContra + - Inslaw + - LetelierMurder + - Glomar + - FOIA + - Scientology + - UriGeller + - DOGE + - AssociatedPress +summary: "The federal appellate court for the District of Columbia, whose rulings on independent counsels, Iran-Contra convictions, Glomar responses, INSLAW, the Letelier case and the 2025 Musk and press-access cases are documented here." +location: "Washington, D.C." +start: 1893-02-09 +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +relations: + - type: appointed + with: "[[Lawrence Walsh]]" + reverse: true + role: "independent counsel for Iran/contra matters, appointed by the Special Division of the court" + start: 1986-12-19 + fn: 24 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Patricia Wald]]" + reverse: true + role: "judge" + start: 1979-07-26 + end: 1999-11-16 + fn: 15 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Kenneth Starr]]" + reverse: true + role: "judge" + start: 1983-09-20 + end: 1989-05-26 + fn: 17 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Robert Bork]]" + reverse: true + role: "judge" + start: 1982-02-08 + end: 1988-02-05 + fn: 3 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Antonin Scalia]]" + reverse: true + role: "judge" + start: 1982-08-17 + end: 1986-09-26 + fn: 4 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Ruth Bader Ginsburg]]" + reverse: true + role: "judge" + start: 1980-06-18 + end: 1993-08-10 + fn: 5 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Clarence Thomas]]" + reverse: true + role: "judge" + start: 1990-03-06 + end: 1991-10-23 + fn: 6 + - type: member_of + with: "[[John Roberts]]" + reverse: true + role: "judge" + start: 2003-06-02 + end: 2005-09-29 + fn: 7 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Brett Kavanaugh]]" + reverse: true + role: "judge" + start: 2006-05-30 + end: 2018-10-05 + fn: 8 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Merrick Garland]]" + reverse: true + role: "judge" + start: 1997-03-20 + end: 2021-03-10 + fn: 9 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Laurence Silberman]]" + reverse: true + role: "judge, senior status from 2000" + start: 1985-10-28 + end: 2000-11-01 + fn: 10 + - type: member_of + with: "[[David Sentelle]]" + reverse: true + role: "judge, chief judge 2008 to 2013" + start: 1987-09-11 + end: 2013-02-12 + fn: 11 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Harry Edwards]]" + reverse: true + role: "judge" + start: 1980-02-20 + end: 2005-11-03 + fn: 12 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Malcolm Wilkey]]" + reverse: true + role: "judge" + start: 1970-02-25 + end: 1984-12-06 + fn: 13 + - type: member_of + with: "[[David Bazelon]]" + reverse: true + role: "judge" + start: 1949-10-21 + end: 1979-06-30 + fn: 14 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Abner Mikva]]" + reverse: true + role: "judge, chief judge 1991 to 1994" + start: 1979-09-26 + end: 1994-09-19 + fn: 18 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Douglas Ginsburg]]" + reverse: true + role: "judge, chief judge 2001 to 2008" + start: 1986-10-14 + fn: 19 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Oliver North]]" + reverse: true + role: "convictions vacated and remanded, count 9 reversed" + start: 1990-07-20 + fn: 27 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[John Poindexter]]" + reverse: true + role: "convictions reversed on all counts" + start: 1991-11-15 + fn: 29 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Ignacio Novo]]" + reverse: true + role: "conviction reversed for failure to sever" + start: 1980-09-15 + fn: 30 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Carter Cornick]]" + reverse: true + role: "FBI case agent in the Letelier and Moffitt investigation, the Chilbom case" + fn: 33 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[John N. Mitchell]]" + reverse: true + role: "defendant in Zweibon v. Mitchell, approvals of wiretaps on JDL headquarters" + start: 1975-06-23 + fn: 34 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Alexander M. Haig, Jr.]]" + reverse: true + role: "procedures for the Halperin surveillance, reviewed in Halperin v. Kissinger" + start: 1979-07-12 + fn: 35 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Mary Sue Hubbard]]" + reverse: true + role: "conviction affirmed" + start: 1981-10-02 + fn: 43 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Eugene Metzger]]" + reverse: true + role: "pendent jurisdiction ruling, judgment vacated" + start: 1982-05-18 + fn: 59 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Uri Geller]]" + reverse: true + role: "Rule 11 sanctions affirmed" + start: 1994-12-09 + fn: 64 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Hillary Clinton]]" + reverse: true + role: "health care task force held not subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act" + start: 1993-06-22 + fn: 65 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Dick Cheney]]" + reverse: true + role: "mandamus petition; judgment vacated by the Supreme Court in 2004" + start: 2003-07-08 + fn: 66 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Rene Schneider]]" + reverse: true + role: "suit against Kissinger dismissed as a political question" + start: 2005-06-28 + fn: 68 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Robert McFarlane]]" + reverse: true + role: "libel suit against Esquire and Craig Unger, judgment affirmed" + start: 1996-01-30 + fn: 71 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Department of Government Efficiency]]" + reverse: true + role: "In re Musk, No. 25-5072, mandamus petition over expedited discovery" + start: 2025-03-18 + fn: 74 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Associated Press]]" + reverse: true + role: "White House access, stay pending appeal" + start: 2025-06-06 + fn: 76 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[G. Gordon Liddy]]" + reverse: true + role: "convictions affirmed in the Watergate and Fielding break-in appeals" + start: 1974-11-08 + fn: 37 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Jonathan Pollard]]" + reverse: true + role: "denial of motion to withdraw guilty plea affirmed" + start: 1992-03-20 + fn: 69 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Andrija Puharich]]" + reverse: true + role: "patent appeal for an extrasensory perception device, judgment for the Commissioner affirmed" + start: 1969-06-25 + fn: 60 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[National Security Archive]]" + reverse: true + role: "party in the Armstrong, fee status and Pfeiffer history appeals" + start: 1989-07-28 + fn: 51 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Peter Videnieks]]" + reverse: true + role: "addressee of the March 14, 1986 stay letter in the INSLAW matter" + start: 1986-03-14 + fn: 46 +--- + +The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is the federal appellate court for the District of Columbia. It hears appeals from the [[United States District Court for the District of Columbia]] and reviews federal agency action, and Congress authorized eleven judgeships for it.[^1][^2] The court traces to a statute of February 9, 1893 that established a court of appeals for the District of Columbia.[^1] + +Its rulings include the appointment of independent counsels under the Ethics in Government Act, the Iran-Contra prosecutions of [[Oliver North]] and [[John Poindexter]], the 1976 car bombing that killed [[Orlando Letelier]] in Washington, the [[INSLAW]] dispute over the PROMIS software, the Scientology appeal of 1981, the Watergate and Room 16 appeals, the wiretaps of the Nixon years, the espionage case of [[Jonathan Pollard]], the Freedom of Information Act cases in which the CIA and the National Security Agency refused to confirm or deny that they held records, and the presidential records suits brought by the [[National Security Archive]]. The court also decided the [[Association of American Physicians and Surgeons]] suit over the 1993 health care task force, the Cheney energy group litigation, and several cases from 2025 and 2026 over White House access, the [[Department of Government Efficiency]], and a tax-data leak prosecution. + +### Judges in the record + +Several judges who sat on the court appear repeatedly in the cases above. [[Robert Bork]] was confirmed on February 8, 1982, and his service ended with his resignation on February 5, 1988.[^3] [[Antonin Scalia]] was commissioned in August 1982 and left on September 26, 1986, when he was appointed to the Supreme Court.[^4] [[Ruth Bader Ginsburg]] was commissioned on June 18, 1980 and left on August 10, 1993 for the Supreme Court.[^5] [[Clarence Thomas]] served from March 1990 until October 23, 1991, when he too left for the Supreme Court.[^6] [[John Roberts]] was commissioned on June 2, 2003 and left on September 29, 2005, when he was elevated to the Chief Justiceship.[^7] [[Brett Kavanaugh]] was commissioned on May 30, 2006 and left on October 5, 2018 for the Supreme Court.[^8] [[Merrick Garland]] was commissioned in March 1997 and retired on March 10, 2021.[^9] + +[[Laurence Silberman]] was commissioned on October 28, 1985, took senior status on November 1, 2000, and died on October 2, 2022.[^10] [[David Sentelle]] was commissioned on September 11, 1987, served as chief judge from 2008 to 2013, and took senior status on February 12, 2013.[^11] [[Harry Edwards]] was commissioned on February 20, 1980 and took senior status on November 3, 2005.[^12] [[Malcolm Wilkey]] was commissioned on February 25, 1970, took senior status on December 6, 1984, and retired on November 8, 1985.[^13] [[David Bazelon]] received a recess appointment from President [[Harry S. Truman]] on October 21, 1949, took senior status on June 30, 1979, and died on February 19, 1993.[^14] + +[[Patricia Wald]] was commissioned on July 26, 1979 and served as chief judge in 1988, when the district court's opinion in the INSLAW bankruptcy litigation records a letter addressed to her in that role.[^15][^16] She retired on November 16, 1999. [[Kenneth Starr]] was commissioned on September 20, 1983 and resigned on May 26, 1989.[^17] [[Abner Mikva]] was commissioned on September 26, 1979 and served as chief judge from 1991 to 1994.[^18] [[Douglas Ginsburg]] was commissioned on October 14, 1986, served as chief judge from 2001 to 2008, and took senior status in 2011.[^19] The panels that decided the 2025 and 2026 cases included [[Neomi Rao]] (commissioned March 18, 2019), [[Gregory Katsas]] (December 8, 2017), [[Cornelia Pillard]] (December 17, 2013), [[Justin Walker]] (September 2, 2020) and [[Judith Rogers]] (commissioned March 11, 1994, senior status September 1, 2022).[^20] + +[[J. Skelly Wright]] was commissioned on March 30, 1962, served as chief judge from 1978 to 1981 and took senior status on June 1, 1986.[^21] [[Harold Leventhal]] was commissioned on April 7, 1965, [[George MacKinnon]] and [[Roger Robb]] on May 6, 1969, and [[Spottswood Robinson]] on November 3, 1966; Robinson served as chief judge from 1981 to 1986. [[Carl McGowan]] was commissioned on March 27, 1963. [[Warren Burger]] was commissioned on March 29, 1956 and left on June 23, 1969 for the Supreme Court. [[James L. Buckley]] was commissioned on December 17, 1985, [[Stephen F. Williams]] on June 16, 1986, [[Karen Henderson]] on July 5, 1990, [[A. Raymond Randolph]] on July 16, 1990, and [[David Tatel]] on October 7, 1994.[^21] + +Former clerks include [[Paul Cassell]], who clerked for Scalia from 1984 to 1985, [[Paul Engelmayer]], who clerked for Wald from 1987 to 1988, and [[William Barr]], who clerked for Wilkey. Barr's account of the clerkship appears in a 2001 oral history recorded by the [[Miller Center]].[^22] + +### Independent counsel and the Special Division + +The Ethics in Government Act, codified in 28 U.S.C. chapter 40, provides for a division of the court of three judges, one of whom must be a judge of the District of Columbia Circuit, to appoint independent counsels. The Chief Justice designates the members, and the clerk of the circuit serves as the division's clerk. A judge who participated in a function of the division involving an independent counsel may not take part in a later judicial proceeding concerning a matter that involves that counsel.[^23] + +The first major use of the division concerns the Iran-Contra affair. On December 4, 1986, [[Edwin Meese III]] asked for an independent counsel, and on December 19, 1986 the division appointed [[Lawrence Walsh]].[^24] The final report that Walsh delivered carries the caption "Division No. 86-6." Volume I is dated August 4, 1993 and is addressed in a transmittal letter to the division's chief judge, David Sentelle.[^24] + +The division's power came under challenge in the same period. In re Sealed Case, decided January 22, 1988 by Judges Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Silberman and Stephen F. Williams, concerned three former Justice Department officials, [[Theodore B. Olson]], [[Carol E. Dinkins]] and [[Edward C. Schmults]], who refused to comply with subpoenas from an independent counsel. The inquiry grew out of a 1982 dispute between House subcommittees and the Justice Department over Environmental Protection Agency documents. The panel held the Act unconstitutional and reversed the district court's contempt orders against the three officials.[^25] Walsh's report describes the ruling as a January 1988 panel decision that struck down the law in a case brought against Independent Counsel [[Alexia Morrison]].[^24] The Supreme Court reversed on June 29, 1988 and upheld the independent counsel provisions.[^26] + +### Iran-Contra appeals + +Oliver North was tried before [[Gerhard Gesell]], who sentenced him on July 5, 1989 after a conviction on three counts. A panel of Chief Judge Patricia Wald, Judge Silberman and Judge Sentelle decided his appeal in United States v. North on July 20, 1990. The per curiam opinion vacated his convictions on counts 6, 9 and 10 and remanded them for a Kastigar hearing, at which the government would have to show that its evidence came from sources independent of his immunized congressional testimony. It reversed count 9 for want of a particularized unanimity instruction. Wald dissented from several holdings, and Silberman dissented from others and concurred in one.[^27][^28] + +John Poindexter was convicted on five felony counts. On November 15, 1991 the court reversed all counts in United States v. Poindexter, decided by a panel of Chief Judge Abner Mikva, Judge Douglas Ginsburg and Judge Sentelle. The opinion cites the North decision as modified, 920 F.2d 940.[^29] + +The Walsh report's prosecution summaries give the same dates for these rulings.[^28] + +### The Letelier murder appeals + +On September 21, 1976, Orlando Letelier, the former Chilean ambassador to the United States, and [[Ronni Moffitt]], an American associate, were killed in Washington by a car bomb. The court's per curiam opinion in United States v. Novo Sampol, decided September 15, 1980, recounts the case against the defendants. [[Michael Townley]], a United States citizen who had entered the employ of the Chilean intelligence service DINA, was the principal government witness, and he had struck a plea bargain with the government in return for his testimony.[^30] The reporter caption records the argument on June 10, 1980, the decision on September 15, 1980 and the denial of rehearing on December 9, 1980.[^31] + +[[Guillermo Novo]], [[Ignacio Novo]] and [[Alvin Ross]] were the defendants at the first trial.[^30] The court reversed the convictions of Guillermo Novo and Ross on the authority of [[United States v. Henry]], decided by the Supreme Court on June 16, 1980.[^32] The court reversed Ignacio Novo's conviction for failure to sever his trial from his co-defendants' trial.[^30] According to the FBI case agent's account, all three were active in the [[Cuban Nationalist Movement]], an anti-Castro organization, and Guillermo Novo and Ross had been sentenced to two consecutive life terms before the appeal. Dade County police arrested Guillermo Novo and Ross on weapons and drug charges during negotiations with Townley's lawyers, and the account says that the key to conviction lay in Townley's testimony. Ignacio Novo had been charged with one count of misprision of a felony.[^33] + +The FBI case agent on the investigation, [[Carter Cornick]], wrote that the reversal in September 1980 rested on Henry. On May 30, 1981 a federal jury acquitted Guillermo Novo and Ross of all murder charges and convicted Guillermo Novo of false declarations. The two Novo brothers had also been charged with two counts each of making false declarations to a grand jury. Five months later, Ignacio Novo pleaded guilty to a charge of false declarations.[^33] + +### Wiretaps and the Nixon-era national security surveillance + +The court's leading en banc decision on warrantless national security wiretaps is Zweibon v. Mitchell, decided June 23, 1975. Sixteen individuals who had been members of the [[Jewish Defense League]] sued Attorney General [[John N. Mitchell]] and FBI personnel over electronic surveillance of the organization's telephones. The opinion records that Attorney General Mitchell first approved an FBI request to install wiretaps on JDL headquarters in October 1970, during the twenty-fifth session of the United Nations General Assembly, fearing "international embarrassment or Soviet retaliation against American citizens living in Moscow." He approved a second request in early January 1971 for a wiretap authorized to last 90 days. An affidavit that Mitchell later submitted stated that the surveillance was authorized by the President of the United States, acting through the Attorney General. The opinion also records that neither Mitchell nor other officials in his office reviewed the information obtained from the taps or the necessity for them, and that Mitchell was unaware that the taps continued for more than a month after criminal indictments were handed down against several individuals. The plurality opinion of Judge J. Skelly Wright, announcing the judgment, held that "a warrant must be obtained before a wiretap is installed on a domestic organization that is neither the agent of nor acting in collaboration with a foreign power."[^34] + +The companion case of Halperin v. Kissinger was decided on July 12, 1979 by Chief Judge Wright, Judge Robinson and District Judge Gesell.[^35] The Halperins sued over the wiretap of the home telephone of [[Morton H. Halperin]], a National Security Council staff member. The opinion recounts that FBI officials and [[Alexander M. Haig, Jr.]], then an assistant to [[Henry Kissinger]], agreed on procedures for surveillance with "no record maintained" in the Bureau's normal files. The opinion records that [[J. Edgar Hoover]] and Kissinger conferred by telephone four times on the day the wiretap on the Halperin home telephone was in place by evening. The summaries of the logs went to Kissinger, to [[Richard Nixon]] through [[John Ehrlichman]], and to Mitchell. After May 1970 the court's account names only [[H. R. Haldeman]] as a recipient. On appeal the court affirmed on the defendants' immunity questions, reversed on the applicability of Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 and on the measure of damages, reversed the summary judgment for Kissinger, and remanded.[^35] The Supreme Court divided equally on the appeal and the case returned to the district court. On December 5, 1986, in Halperin v. Kissinger, 807 F.2d 180, the court addressed the twenty-one month wiretap again. The opinion, printed under the name of Scalia as circuit justice with a concurrence by Judge Mikva joined by Judge Robinson, recites that the proximate impetus for the wiretap was a New York Times article of May 9, 1969 on the bombing of Cambodia, that Kissinger dispatched the FBI to trace the source at Nixon's request, and that FBI Director Hoover named Halperin the prime suspect. It affirmed summary judgment for the defendants as to the initiation of the wiretap and remanded for the district court to fix the period, ending no later than May 1970, in which no reasonable jury could find the national security purpose pretextual.[^36] + +### The Watergate and Room 16 appeals + +United States v. Liddy, decided November 8, 1974 by Judge Leventhal, affirmed the conviction of [[G. Gordon Liddy]] on the six counts of the September 15, 1972 indictment arising from the burglary and wiretapping of the Democratic National Committee offices on June 17, 1972. The opinion records that five of the seven defendants pleaded guilty after the trial opened before Chief Judge [[John Sirica]] in January 1973, that Liddy and [[James McCord]] were found guilty on January 30, 1973, and that the government's evidence concerned the efforts of Liddy, [[Howard Hunt]] and McCord to obtain political intelligence from the headquarters of Democratic presidential candidates and from the committee.[^37] + +On October 12, 1976 the court sitting en banc decided United States v. Haldeman in a per curiam opinion, with Judge MacKinnon dissenting in part. The indictment of March 1, 1974 had named Mitchell, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, [[Charles Colson]], [[Robert Mardian]], [[Kenneth Parkinson]] and [[Gordon Strachan]]. The court described the charges as an unprecedented scandal at the highest levels of government. The jury returned its verdict on January 1, 1975, acquitting Parkinson, convicting Mardian of conspiracy, and convicting Mitchell, Haldeman and Ehrlichman of conspiracy and obstruction of justice and of the perjury counts submitted. The three were sentenced to concurrent terms of 20 months to five years on the conspiracy and obstruction counts. The opinion calls the intelligence plan code-named Gemstone the brainchild of Liddy, general counsel of the Committee to Re-elect the President, and affirmed the convictions of the three.[^38] + +Three appeals decided on May 17, 1976 by a panel of Judges Leventhal and Wilkey and District Judge Robert Merhige concerned the September 1971 entry into the Beverly Hills office of the psychiatrist of [[Daniel Ellsberg]]. The opinions describe a White House unit formed after the publication of the Pentagon Papers, called Room 16, under the general supervision of Ehrlichman and operated by [[Egil Krogh]] and [[David Young]], to which Liddy and Hunt were added. In United States v. Ehrlichman, Wilkey wrote for the court affirming the convictions of Ehrlichman for conspiracy and perjury.[^39] In United States v. Barker the court reversed the judgment against [[Bernard Barker]] and [[Eugenio Martinez]] and remanded for a new trial, with Wilkey and Merhige filing opinions and Leventhal dissenting. Wilkey's opinion records that Hunt had been Barker's immediate supervisor in the CIA's [[Bay of Pigs Invasion]] operation, and that in August 1971 Hunt asked Barker to help conduct an entry to obtain national security information on "a traitor to this country who was passing classified information to the Soviet Embassy."[^40] United States v. Liddy, decided the same day with Merhige writing, affirmed Liddy's conviction for conspiring to violate the Fourth Amendment rights of the psychiatrist; Gesell had sentenced him on July 31, 1974 to one to three years concurrent with his Watergate sentence.[^41] + +On June 21, 1983 Judges Mikva, Edwards and Scalia decided Gray v. Bell, with Edwards writing. After a two-year Justice Department investigation begun in the spring of 1976 into FBI break-ins against relatives and acquaintances of suspected members of the Weatherman Underground, a grand jury indicted L. Patrick Gray III, who had served as Acting Director of the FBI, with Mark Felt and Edward Miller on a charge of conspiring to injure and oppress citizens. Prosecutors later agreed to dismissal, and Gray sued [[Griffin Bell]] and other Justice Department officials for damages. The court affirmed the dismissal of his amended complaint on grounds of official immunity and the discretionary function exception.[^42] + +### The Scientology prosecutions + +United States v. Heldt, decided October 2, 1981 as a per curiam opinion with a separate opinion by Judge Wald, affirmed the judgments against members of the [[Church of Scientology]] who had been convicted of conspiracy and related offenses. The appellants included [[Mary Sue Hubbard]] and [[Henning Heldt]], whom the court identifies as ranking officers of the Guardians in the United States, with offices in Hollywood, California. The appellants challenged evidence seized in searches of Scientology offices in California. The district court denied the suppression motion after a hearing, and the court of appeals affirmed the judgment.[^43] The organization was founded by [[L. Ron Hubbard]]. + +### INSLAW and the PROMIS appeals + +INSLAW, Inc., the developer of the PROMIS case-tracking software, filed for reorganization and invoked the automatic stay of 11 U.S.C. 362(a) in its dispute with the Justice Department over the Department's continued use of the software. The bankruptcy court's ruling is reported at 83 B.R. 89 (Bankr. D.D.C. 1988). The district court's opinion of November 22, 1989, reported at 113 B.R. 802, recites that ruling and the Justice Department's argument that the bankruptcy judge should have recused himself. The opinion describes the circuit's January 11, 1988 decision not to reappoint [[George Francis Bason, Jr.]] as the factual setting for that argument.[^44] + +The circuit's opinion in United States v. INSLAW, Inc., decided May 7, 1991 by Judges Buckley, Stephen Williams and Randolph, with Williams writing for the court, held that the automatic stay did not reach the Department's use of property in its possession under a claim of right at the time of the bankruptcy filing. It held that the bankruptcy court therefore lacked jurisdiction over the claims asserted under section 362(a). The court reversed and remanded with directions to vacate the orders and dismiss INSLAW's complaint against the Department.[^45] Rehearing and rehearing en banc were denied in No. 90-5052 on July 12, 1991.[^45] The opinion records that INSLAW filed a claim with the contracting officer on October 17, 1985 under the Contract Disputes Act, that the contracting officer ruled against INSLAW on February 21, 1986, and that the Department's use of the enhanced software was the subject of the stay claim.[^45] According to the House Judiciary Committee's report of September 10, 1992, INSLAW's counsel [[Leigh Ratiner]] wrote on March 14, 1986 to [[Peter Videnieks]], whom the report treats as the contracting officer, that any continued use of the enhanced PROMIS software without INSLAW's consent contravened its property rights as a debtor and violated the automatic stay. The circuit's holding was that the stay "does not reach the Department's use of property in its possession under a claim of right at the time of the bankruptcy filing, even if that use may ultimately prove to violate the bankrupt's rights."[^46][^45] + +### FOIA and the Glomar responses + +The Glomar response dates to Phillippi v. Central Intelligence Agency, decided November 16, 1976 by Judge Wright, with a dissent by Judge MacKinnon. The request concerned the Hughes Glomar Explorer. The press stories that prompted it said that the ship's actual owner and operator was the United States Government. The CIA answered that "in the interest of national security, involvement by the U.S. Government in the activities which are the subject matter of your request can neither be confirmed nor denied."[^47] The court of appeals reversed and remanded for a public justification of the refusal to confirm or deny the existence of records.[^47] + +McGehee v. Central Intelligence Agency, decided January 4, 1983 by Judges Wright, Edwards and Bork, arose from a request by [[Fielding McGehee]] for CIA records on the [[People's Temple]]. The agency's search used a cut-off date of December 22, 1978 that it had not disclosed. The court wrote that "the cumulative weight of this evidence of bad faith is enough to vitiate the credit to which agency affidavits are ordinarily entitled." It reversed and remanded.[^48] + +Electronic Privacy Information Center v. National Security Agency, decided May 11, 2012 by Judges Brown and Kavanaugh and Senior Judge Ginsburg, affirmed the NSA's Glomar response under Exemption 3 and section 6 of the National Security Agency Act. The request followed a January 2010 cyberattack on Google that targeted Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. The agency answered on March 10, 2010 that it could neither confirm nor deny the existence of responsive records.[^49] + +National Security Archive v. Central Intelligence Agency, decided June 7, 2024 by Judge Childs for the court, with Judge Rao and Senior Judge Ginsburg, concerned a January 1989 end-of-tour report addendum by a senior Air Force intelligence officer on an elevated Soviet alert status in 1983. The CIA produced the memorandum's cover letter and withheld the rest under Exemptions 1 and 3. The Archive argued that the memorandum had been published in the State Department's Foreign Relations of the United States in February 2021, so that the agency had waived the exemptions under the official acknowledgment and public domain doctrines. The court disagreed. It noted that the volume cited a CIA source and thanked CIA staff for arranging access to agency records, and that publication in the series requires declassification review by the originating agency. It affirmed the judgment for the agency.[^50] + +### Presidential records and the National Security Archive + +National Security Archive v. Department of Defense, decided July 28, 1989 by Judges Robinson, Mikva and Douglas Ginsburg, held that the Archive, which described its work as collecting and disseminating comprehensive government documentation on foreign, defense, intelligence and international economic policy, was not an educational institution but was a representative of the news media entitled to reduced fees under the Freedom of Information Act.[^51] + +In Armstrong v. Bush, decided January 25, 1991 by Judges Wald, Douglas Ginsburg and Randolph, with Wald writing, [[Scott Armstrong]], the Archive and other plaintiffs sued President George H. W. Bush, the Archivist and the National Security Council to prevent the erasure of material on the NSC computer system from the last two weeks of the Reagan administration. The court reversed in part, affirmed in part and remanded.[^52] On August 13, 1993 a panel of Chief Judge Mikva and Judges Wald and Henderson decided Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President, 1 F.3d 1274, in a per curiam opinion rejecting the government's position that paper printouts satisfied the Federal Records Act, because the printouts could omit the identity of the sender or recipient and the time of receipt of the electronic record.[^53] On August 2, 1996 Judges Edwards, Ginsburg and Tatel decided the next round: Ginsburg, for the court, held that the National Security Council is not an agency subject to the Freedom of Information Act, because it does not exercise substantial independent authority, and reversed the district court; Tatel dissented.[^54] + +National Security Archive v. Central Intelligence Agency, 752 F.3d 460, decided May 20, 2014 by Judges Rogers, Kavanaugh and Williams, concerned the fifth volume of the CIA staff historian Jack Pfeiffer's five-volume history of the Bay of Pigs operation, begun in 1973. The CIA had released revised drafts of the first three volumes and the draft of the fourth, and withheld the fifth under Exemption 5. Kavanaugh wrote for the court affirming on the deliberative process privilege; Rogers dissented.[^55] On May 28, 2019 Judges Tatel, Pillard and Edwards decided Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. Trump, in which the organization and the Archive sought mandamus against the use of White House messaging applications that delete messages once read. The court affirmed the denial of the writ because the plaintiffs had not shown a clear and indisputable right to relief.[^56] + +Morley v. Central Intelligence Agency, decided December 7, 2007 by Judges Henderson, Rogers and Tatel, with Rogers writing, concerned the request of the journalist [[Jefferson Morley]] of July 4, 2003 for all records pertaining to the CIA operations officer George Efythron Joannides, also known as Howard, Mr. Howard or Walter Newby. The court reversed the grant of summary judgment to the agency and remanded so that the CIA could search its operational files, holding that its release of records under the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act did not relieve it of its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act.[^57] On June 18, 2013 a per curiam opinion with a concurrence by Kavanaugh vacated the denial of attorney's fees and remanded; the court described Joannides as the CIA case officer in charge of a Cuban group whose officers had contact with Lee Harvey Oswald in the months before the assassination.[^58] + +### Financial General and the pendent jurisdiction ruling + +Financial General Bankshares, Inc. v. Metzger, decided May 18, 1982 by Chief Judge Wright, Judge MacKinnon and Judge Ginsburg, arose from a suit that [[Financial General Bankshares]] filed on February 17, 1978 against persons buying its shares after it learned that a group of Middle Eastern investors held twenty percent of its common stock. [[Eugene Metzger]], an attorney who had served as its counsel, was one of the defendants. The opinion records that the Securities and Exchange Commission filed and settled its own action on March 18, 1978 and that on April 27, 1978 the district court entered a preliminary injunction. The court of appeals held that the district court abused its discretion in exercising pendent jurisdiction. It vacated the judgment and remanded with instructions to dismiss, without reaching the merits.[^59] + +### The Fairness Doctrine, Puharich and psychic claims + +In Puharich v. Brenner, decided June 25, 1969 with Leventhal writing, [[Andrija Puharich]] appealed a judgment for the Commissioner of Patents in an action under 35 U.S.C. 145 for a patent on a device the opinion describes as a cage with electrical installations in the screen casing for generating currents and impulses, claimed to expand extrasensory perception. The court wrote that the trial judge had assumed for the purposes of the case that an ESP phenomenon existed and had asked whether the invention was operable, and affirmed.[^60] + +The [[Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal]] filed a complaint with the [[Federal Communications Commission]] under the Fairness Doctrine against the NBC program "Exploring the Unknown." After the commission rejected the complaint, CSICOP petitioned the court on April 27, 1979. The committee's periodical reported the appeal in its Fall 1979 issue.[^61] + +In a later fairness case, [[Fairness in Media]] petitioned the court on May 18, 1987 (No. 87-1217) to review a commission ruling on [[CBS]], and the court affirmed the commission in an unpublished per curiam opinion on June 8, 1988, assuming without deciding that the group was positioned to seek review. The Supreme Court denied certiorari on October 11, 1988.[^62] + +The same court had heard a broadcast dispute fifteen years earlier, in No. 18,738, in which the Citizens TV Protest Committee and [[Clarksburg Publishing Company]] appealed a March 13, 1964 FCC order. That order assigned the license of WBOY-TV in Clarksburg, West Virginia, from [[Rust Craft Broadcasting Company]] to Northern West Virginia Television Broadcasting Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of the [[Fortnightly Corporation]]. The appellants' brief states that the commission granted the assignment without an evidentiary hearing, that Fortnightly owned and operated a community antenna system in Clarksburg, and that the acquisition "would give Fortnightly, owner and publisher of the Reporter Magazine, an additional medium for public discussion of national affairs." The brief also questioned whether a hearing should have been held on a Fortnightly statement about the involvement of its organization in recent antitrust violations. The brief lists [[Max Ascoli]] as a vice president and director of Northern West Virginia Television Broadcasting Company.[^63] + +The court's clearest psi ruling is Geller v. Randi, decided December 9, 1994 by Judges Wald, Sentelle and Rogers, with Sentelle writing for the court. The suit was brought by [[Uri Geller]]. CSICOP moved on January 15, 1992 for summary judgment and for Rule 11 sanctions. Geller did not respond to the motions, and the district court imposed sanctions. The court of appeals affirmed the Rule 11 sanctions.[^64] + +### The 1993 health care task force + +Association of American Physicians & Surgeons, Inc. v. Clinton, decided June 22, 1993 by Judges Silberman, Buckley and Williams, concerned the President's Task Force on National Health Care Reform, which [[Hillary Clinton]] chaired. The plaintiffs argued that the task force was subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The task force comprised about 300 permanent federal employees and about 40 special government employees. The majority held that the task force was not an advisory group subject to the act, and it remanded for further proceedings on the working group. Its reasoning relied in part on 3 U.S.C. 105(e), which allows the President to designate a member of his family to assist him, and on whether the First Lady could be treated as a de facto officer or employee. Judge Buckley, concurring in the judgment, wrote that he did not think section 105(e) could reasonably be read to create an officer or employee, de facto or otherwise.[^65] + +### Cheney and the energy group + +The National Energy Policy Development Group, which [[Dick Cheney]] chaired, was sued by [[Judicial Watch]] under the Federal Advisory Committee Act. On July 8, 2003 Judges Edwards, Randolph and Tatel considered the government's petition for a writ of mandamus against a discovery order of the district court.[^66] On June 24, 2004 the Supreme Court vacated the court of appeals' judgment and remanded the case.[^67] + +### Schneider and the Chile suits + +The Schneider family's original complaint, filed in the district court on September 10, 2001, named Henry Kissinger, the [[United States]] and [[Richard Helms]]. The amended complaint of November 11, 2002 named Kissinger and the United States, and the district court dismissed the case on March 30, 2004. In Schneider v. Kissinger, decided June 28, 2005 by Judges Sentelle, Henderson and Rogers, the court affirmed the dismissal on political question grounds.[^68] + +### The Pollard appeals + +In United States v. Pollard, decided March 20, 1992 by Judges Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Silberman and Williams, with Silberman writing, the court affirmed the denial of the motion of Pollard under 28 U.S.C. 2255 to withdraw his guilty plea of June 4, 1986 to one count of conspiracy to deliver national defense information to a foreign government. The opinion describes Pollard as a Navy intelligence research specialist who removed large amounts of classified material over about eighteen months from June 1984 through November 1985. Theodore Olson argued for Pollard. His motion claimed that the government had linked the plea of [[Anne Henderson-Pollard]] to his own, had breached the plea agreement in its sentencing allocution, and had given Chief Judge Aubrey Robinson ex parte communications; the district court declined to recuse and denied access to the classified sentencing submission of [[Caspar Weinberger]]. The panel held that any error in refusing new counsel access to the Weinberger submission was harmless. Williams concurred in part and dissented in part.[^69] + +On July 22, 2005 Judges Sentelle, Henderson and Rogers decided United States v. Pollard, 416 F.3d 48. Sentelle, for the court, held that Pollard's second section 2255 motion, filed September 20, 2000, was untimely and declined a certificate of appealability, and held that the federal courts lack jurisdiction to review claims for access to documents needed for a clemency petition under Article II, vacating the order on the request of his counsel for access to the classified sentencing file. Rogers concurred in part and dissented in part.[^70] + +### The Esquire article and McFarlane + +McFarlane v. Esquire Magazine, decided January 30, 1996 by Judges Stephen Williams, Ginsburg and Randolph, arose from the libel suit that [[Robert McFarlane]] brought against [[Esquire Magazine]] and the writer [[Craig Unger]]. The court affirmed the dismissal of the claims against Unger for lack of personal jurisdiction, and it affirmed the decision to dismiss rather than transfer the case.[^71] The opinion by Judge Williams records that the district court held that no reasonable jury could find actual malice by clear and convincing evidence, and it reproduces the disputed passage of the October 1991 article, which attributed to a sworn affidavit that [[Elliot Richardson]] submitted for INSLAW the statement of [[Ari Ben-Menashe]] that McFarlane and [[Earl Brian]] had a "special relationship" with Israeli intelligence, McFarlane having been recruited by [[Rafael Eitan]], and that "McFarlane was the famous Mr. X in the Pollard case." The court wrote that the recruitment clause "is not in the affidavit," that nothing in the affidavit supported the article's following sentences making McFarlane out to be an equivalent of Pollard, and that McFarlane did not dispute that Ben-Menashe made these assertions to Unger.[^71] The opinion also states that a bipartisan task force of the House of Representatives rejected the October Surprise claims in January 1993.[^71] + +In McFarlane v. Sheridan Square Press, decided August 16, 1996 by Judges Williams, Ginsburg and Rogers, with Ginsburg writing, the court affirmed summary judgment for the publisher of Ben-Menashe's 1992 book Profits of War, on the ground that McFarlane could not show actual malice. The opinion summarizes the book's allegation of an October Surprise conspiracy involving candidate George Bush, Republicans in the 1980 campaign and Iranian officials, and Ben-Menashe's allegation that McFarlane played an important role and was an Israeli spy. The court wrote that the House task force's joint report had thoroughly discredited the October Surprise story.[^72] + +### Microsoft + +The court's most consequential antitrust decision in the record is United States v. Microsoft Corp., decided June 28, 2001 by the court sitting en banc in a per curiam opinion. The court affirmed in part and reversed in part the findings that Microsoft had violated sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, and it addressed Microsoft's claims of judicial misconduct and appearance of partiality against the trial judge.[^73] + +### Recent cases + +The 2025 cases on the court's docket include In re Musk, No. 25-5072. The defendants in New Mexico v. Musk petitioned for a writ of mandamus on March 18, 2025 against an expedited discovery order that the district court had entered on March 12 in the states' suit. The circuit granted an emergency stay, ordering on March 26, 2025 that the March 12 order be stayed pending further order, and the district court stayed its own order the same day; the district court's opinion of June 10, 2025 recites both.[^74] In a separate matter, the court decided No. 25-5130 on July 14, 2025 and denied rehearing on December 18, 2025, and the government's petition for certiorari in that case, No. 25-1103, was filed on March 18, 2026.[^75] + +In Associated Press v. Budowich, No. 25-5109, a panel of Judges Pillard, Katsas and Rao on June 6, 2025 granted a stay pending appeal in part, staying the district court's injunction except as applied to the East Room. Judge Rao, joined by Judge Katsas, wrote that "these restricted presidential spaces are not First Amendment fora opened for private speech and discussion" and that "[t]he White House therefore retains discretion to determine, including on the basis of viewpoint, which journalists will be admitted." Judge Pillard would have denied the stay.[^76] On July 22, 2025 the court denied the Associated Press's motion for en banc reconsideration and vacatur of the stay order.[^77] + +The Commodity Futures Trading Commission appealed as No. 24-5205 after [[Jia M. Cobb]] granted summary judgment on September 12, 2024 to [[Kalshi]] on the legality of its event contracts. On May 5, 2025, after a 3 to 0 commission vote, the agency moved to dismiss its appeal voluntarily, each side bearing its own costs. [[Yaakov Roth]] argued the appeal for Kalshi in January 2025 and joined the Justice Department the following month, according to Protos.[^78] + +In United States v. Littlejohn, No. 24-3019, decided July 17, 2026, a panel of Judges Rao and Walker, with Senior Judge Rogers, affirmed a five-year sentence for a former IRS consultant who leaked taxpayer data. Judge Walker wrote the opinion. The court wrote that Littlejohn "leaked what he stole to [[ProPublica]], which used data regarding at least 152 of his victims in about 50 articles," and it added that "ProPublica is sitting on the private, as-yet-unpublished data of other taxpayers stolen by Littlejohn."[^79] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Act of February 9, 1893, 27 Stat. 434, establishing a court of appeals for the District of Columbia. Government Publishing Office, Statutes at Large, volume 27, page 434. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-27/pdf/STATUTE-27-Pg434.pdf +[^2]: 28 U.S.C. 44(a), circuit judges by circuit, listing eleven judges for the District of Columbia Circuit. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/44 +[^3]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Bork, Robert Heron," confirmed February 8, 1982, service terminated February 5, 1988 by resignation. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/bork-robert-heron +[^4]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Scalia, Antonin," commissioned August 17, 1982, service terminated September 26, 1986 on appointment to the Supreme Court. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/scalia-antonin +[^5]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Ginsburg, Ruth Bader," commissioned June 18, 1980, service terminated August 10, 1993. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/ginsburg-ruth-bader +[^6]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Thomas, Clarence," commissioned March 6, 1990, service terminated October 23, 1991 on appointment to the Supreme Court. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/thomas-clarence +[^7]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Roberts, John Glover, Jr.," commissioned June 2, 2003, service terminated September 29, 2005. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/roberts-john-glover-jr +[^8]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Kavanaugh, Brett Michael," commissioned May 30, 2006, service terminated October 5, 2018. Federal Judicial Center judges dataset, https://www.fjc.gov/sites/default/files/history/judges.csv +[^9]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Garland, Merrick Brian," commissioned March 20, 1997, retirement March 10, 2021. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/garland-merrick-b +[^10]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Silberman, Laurence Henry," commissioned October 28, 1985, senior status November 1, 2000, died October 2, 2022. Federal Judicial Center judges dataset, https://www.fjc.gov/sites/default/files/history/judges.csv +[^11]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Sentelle, David Bryan," commissioned September 11, 1987, chief judge 2008 to 2013, senior status February 12, 2013. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/sentelle-david-bryan +[^12]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Edwards, Harry Theodore," commissioned February 20, 1980, senior status November 3, 2005. Federal Judicial Center judges dataset, https://www.fjc.gov/sites/default/files/history/judges.csv +[^13]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Wilkey, Malcolm Richard," commissioned February 25, 1970, senior status December 6, 1984, retired November 8, 1985. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/wilkey-malcolm-richard +[^14]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Bazelon, David Lionel," recess appointment October 21, 1949, senior status June 30, 1979, died February 19, 1993. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/bazelon-david-l +[^15]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Wald, Patricia McGowan," commissioned July 26, 1979, retired November 16, 1999. Federal Judicial Center judges dataset, https://www.fjc.gov/sites/default/files/history/judges.csv +[^16]: United States v. Inslaw, Inc., 113 B.R. 802 (D.D.C. Nov. 22, 1989), recording a letter addressed to "Chief Judge Wald of the D.C. Circuit." https://cite.case.law/br/113/802/ +[^17]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Starr, Kenneth Winston," commissioned September 20, 1983, resignation May 26, 1989. Federal Judicial Center judges dataset, https://www.fjc.gov/sites/default/files/history/judges.csv +[^18]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Mikva, Abner Joseph," commissioned September 26, 1979, chief judge 1991 to 1994, retired September 19, 1994. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/mikva-abner-joseph +[^19]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Ginsburg, Douglas Howard," commissioned October 14, 1986, chief judge 2001 to 2008, senior status October 14, 2011. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/ginsburg-douglas-howard +[^20]: Federal Judicial Center judges dataset for Rao, Neomi Jehangir (commissioned March 18, 2019), Katsas, Gregory George (December 8, 2017), Pillard, Cornelia Thomas Livingston (December 17, 2013), Walker, Justin Reed (September 2, 2020) and Rogers, Judith Ann Wilson (commissioned March 11, 1994, senior status September 1, 2022). https://www.fjc.gov/sites/default/files/history/judges.csv +[^21]: Federal Judicial Center judges dataset (commission, chief judge and senior status dates for Wright, Leventhal, MacKinnon, Robb, Robinson, McGowan, Burger, Buckley, Williams, Henderson, Randolph and Tatel). https://www.fjc.gov/sites/default/files/history/judges.csv +[^22]: Miller Center, University of Virginia, "William P. Barr Oral History," interview of April 5, 2001, George H.W. Bush Oral History Project. https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-oral-histories/william-p-barr-oral-history; Federal Judicial Center biographical entries for Paul G. Cassell (https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/cassell-paul-g) and Paul Adam Engelmayer (https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/engelmayer-paul-adam). +[^23]: 28 U.S.C. 49, assignment of judges to a division of the court for the appointment of independent counsels, subsection (f). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/49 +[^24]: Office of Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters (Lawrence E. Walsh), Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters, Volume I, Investigations and Prosecutions (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993), caption "Division No. 86-6"; transmittal letter of August 4, 1993 to Chief Judge David B. Sentelle; chronology entries for December 4 and December 19, 1986; summary of the January 1988 panel decision. https://archive.org/details/WalshReport +[^25]: In re Sealed Case, 838 F.2d 476 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 22, 1988) (Ginsburg, Silberman and Williams, JJ.), reversing the contempt orders against Olson, Dinkins and Schmults. https://cite.case.law/f2d/838/476/ +[^26]: Morrison v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654 (1988), decided June 29, 1988. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/487/654 +[^27]: United States v. North, 910 F.2d 843 (D.C. Cir. July 20, 1990) (per curiam; Wald, C.J., Silberman and Sentelle, JJ.), disposition paragraph and separate statements of Wald, C.J., and Silberman, J. https://cite.case.law/f2d/910/843/ +[^28]: Walsh, Final Report, Volume I, prosecution summaries for Oliver L. North (conviction and the July 20, 1990 appellate ruling) and John M. Poindexter (the November 15, 1991 reversal), and the discussion of the Kastigar and evidentiary-use rulings. https://archive.org/details/WalshReport +[^29]: United States v. Poindexter, 951 F.2d 369 (D.C. Cir. Nov. 15, 1991) (Mikva, C.J., D.H. Ginsburg and Sentelle, JJ.), reversing all counts and citing the North decision as modified, 920 F.2d 940 (D.C. Cir. 1990). https://cite.case.law/f2d/951/369/ +[^30]: United States v. Novo Sampol, 636 F.2d 621 (D.C. Cir. Sept. 15, 1980) (per curiam; MacKinnon and Robb, JJ., and Corcoran, D.J.), recounting the bombing of September 21, 1976, Townley's plea bargain, the reversal of the convictions of Guillermo Novo and Ross, and the severance ruling as to Ignacio Novo. https://cite.case.law/f2d/636/621/ +[^31]: United States v. Novo Sampol, 636 F.2d 621 (D.C. Cir. 1980), caption: argued June 10, 1980, decided September 15, 1980, rehearing denied December 9, 1980 (Nos. 79-1541, 79-1542 and 79-1808). https://cite.case.law/f2d/636/621/ +[^32]: United States v. Henry, 447 U.S. 264 (1980), decided June 16, 1980. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/447/264 +[^33]: L. Carter Cornick Jr., "Chilbom," The Grapevine (Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI), August 2016, pp. 11 to 16, describing the Cuban Nationalist Movement suspects, the arrests during plea negotiations, the misprision charge, the September 1980 reversal on the basis of Henry, the May 30, 1981 verdicts and the later guilty plea of Ignacio Novo. https://fbistudies.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/FBI-Grapevine-Chilbom.pdf +[^34]: Zweibon v. Mitchell, 516 F.2d 594 (D.C. Cir. June 23, 1975) (en banc) (opinion of Wright, J., announcing the judgment), describing the Attorney General's approvals of the October 1970 and January 1971 requests, the affidavit of Mitchell, and the review of the taps by his office. https://cite.case.law/f2d/516/594/ +[^35]: Halperin v. Kissinger, 606 F.2d 1192 (D.C. Cir. July 12, 1979) (Wright, C.J., Robinson, J., and Gesell, D.J.), reciting the surveillance procedures, the telephone conference between Hoover and Kissinger, the distribution of the logs, and the disposition of the appeal. https://cite.case.law/f2d/606/1192/ +[^36]: Halperin v. Kissinger, 807 F.2d 180 (D.C. Cir. Dec. 5, 1986) (No. 84-5095, argued May 1, 1985; Mikva, J., concurring, joined by Robinson, J.), on the May 9, 1969 New York Times article, the dispatch of the FBI, the identification of Halperin and the remand. https://cite.case.law/f2d/807/180/ +[^37]: United States v. Liddy, 509 F.2d 428 (D.C. Cir. Nov. 8, 1974) (en banc) (No. 73-1565; Leventhal, J.), Parts I and II. https://cite.case.law/f2d/509/428/ +[^38]: United States v. Haldeman, 559 F.2d 31 (D.C. Cir. Oct. 12, 1976) (en banc) (per curiam; MacKinnon, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part), Parts I.A and I.B, indictment of March 1, 1974, verdict of January 1, 1975, and the sentences. https://cite.case.law/f2d/559/31/ +[^39]: United States v. Ehrlichman, 546 F.2d 910 (D.C. Cir. May 17, 1976) (No. 74-1882; Wilkey, J., for the court; Leventhal, J., concurring), Part I. https://cite.case.law/f2d/546/910/ +[^40]: United States v. Barker, 546 F.2d 940 (D.C. Cir. May 17, 1976) (Nos. 74-1883, 74-1884; per curiam; opinions of Wilkey, J., and Merhige, D.J.; Leventhal, J., dissenting), Part I (Facts). https://cite.case.law/f2d/546/940/ +[^41]: United States v. Liddy, 542 F.2d 76 (D.C. Cir. May 17, 1976) (No. 74-1885; Merhige, D.J., for the court), affirming the conviction and reciting the sentence of July 31, 1974. https://cite.case.law/f2d/542/76/ +[^42]: Gray v. Bell, 712 F.2d 490 (D.C. Cir. June 21, 1983) (No. 82-1838; Mikva, Edwards and Scalia, JJ.; Edwards, J., for the court), Parts I through IV. https://cite.case.law/f2d/712/490/ +[^43]: United States v. Heldt, 668 F.2d 1238 (D.C. Cir. Oct. 2, 1981) (per curiam; MacKinnon, Robb and Wald, JJ.), identifying Mary Sue Hubbard and Henning Heldt as ranking officers of the Guardians in the United States and affirming the judgment. https://cite.case.law/f2d/668/1238/ +[^44]: United States v. Inslaw, Inc., 113 B.R. 802 (D.D.C. Nov. 22, 1989), reciting In re Inslaw, Inc., 83 B.R. 89 (Bankr. D.D.C. 1988), the Justice Department's recusal argument and the January 11, 1988 decision not to reappoint the bankruptcy judge. https://cite.case.law/br/113/802/ +[^45]: United States v. Inslaw, Inc., 932 F.2d 1467 (D.C. Cir. May 7, 1991) (Buckley, Williams and Randolph, JJ.; Williams, J., for the court), holding the automatic stay inapplicable and remanding with directions; the caption records rehearing and rehearing en banc denied in No. 90-5052 on July 12, 1991, and the opinion recites the claim to the contracting officer of October 17, 1985 and the contracting officer's ruling of February 21, 1986. https://cite.case.law/f2d/932/1467/ +[^46]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, The INSLAW Affair: Investigative Report, H. Rept. 102-857, 102d Cong., 2d sess., September 10, 1992, p. 35 n. 85, quoting the letter of Leigh S. Ratiner to Peter Videnieks, March 14, 1986. https://archive.org/details/InslawAffairInvestigativeReport +[^47]: Phillippi v. Central Intelligence Agency, 546 F.2d 1009 (D.C. Cir. Nov. 16, 1976) (Wright, J., for the court; MacKinnon, J., dissenting), quoting the CIA's response and the press accounts of the vessel's ownership, and remanding for a public justification. https://cite.case.law/f2d/546/1009/ +[^48]: McGehee v. Central Intelligence Agency, 697 F.2d 1095 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 4, 1983) (Wright, Edwards and Bork, JJ.), on the undisclosed cut-off date, the bad faith finding and the reversal. https://cite.case.law/f2d/697/1095/ +[^49]: Electronic Privacy Information Center v. National Security Agency, 678 F.3d 926 (D.C. Cir. May 11, 2012) (Brown and Kavanaugh, JJ., and Ginsburg, S.J.), affirming the Glomar response under Exemption 3 and the National Security Agency Act. https://cite.case.law/f3d/678/926/ +[^50]: National Security Archive v. Central Intelligence Agency, No. 23-5017 (D.C. Cir. June 7, 2024) (Childs, J., for the court; Rao and Ginsburg, S.J.), affirming summary judgment for the agency under FOIA Exemptions 1 and 3, on the official acknowledgment and public domain arguments. https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/docs/2024/06/23-5017-2058350.pdf +[^51]: National Security Archive v. U.S. Department of Defense, 880 F.2d 1381 (D.C. Cir. July 28, 1989) (No. 88-5217; Robinson, Mikva and D.H. Ginsburg, JJ.; D.H. Ginsburg, J., for the court). https://cite.case.law/f2d/880/1381/ +[^52]: Armstrong v. Bush, 924 F.2d 282 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 25, 1991) (No. 90-5173; Wald, D.H. Ginsburg and Randolph, JJ.; Wald, J., for the court). https://cite.case.law/f2d/924/282/ +[^53]: Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President, 1 F.3d 1274 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 13, 1993) (Nos. 93-5002 et al.; Mikva, C.J., Wald and Henderson, JJ.; per curiam). https://cite.case.law/f3d/1/1274/ +[^54]: Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President, 90 F.3d 553 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 2, 1996) (Nos. 95-5057, 95-5061; Edwards, C.J., Ginsburg and Tatel, JJ.; Ginsburg, J., for the court; Tatel, J., dissenting). https://cite.case.law/f3d/90/553/ +[^55]: National Security Archive v. Central Intelligence Agency, 752 F.3d 460 (D.C. Cir. May 20, 2014) (No. 12-5201; Rogers, Kavanaugh and Williams, JJ.; Kavanaugh, J., for the court; Rogers, J., dissenting). https://cite.case.law/f3d/752/460/ +[^56]: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. Trump, 924 F.3d 602 (D.C. Cir. May 28, 2019) (No. 18-5150; Tatel and Pillard, JJ., and Edwards, S.J.; Tatel, J., for the court). https://cite.case.law/f3d/924/602/ +[^57]: Morley v. Central Intelligence Agency, 508 F.3d 1108 (D.C. Cir. Dec. 7, 2007) (No. 06-5382; Henderson, Rogers and Tatel, JJ.; Rogers, J., for the court). https://cite.case.law/f3d/508/1108/ +[^58]: Morley v. Central Intelligence Agency, 719 F.3d 689 (D.C. Cir. June 18, 2013) (No. 12-5032; Kavanaugh, J., and Edwards and Williams, S.JJ.; per curiam; Kavanaugh, J., concurring). https://cite.case.law/f3d/719/689/ +[^59]: Financial General Bankshares, Inc. v. Metzger, 680 F.2d 768 (D.C. Cir. May 18, 1982) (Wright, C.J., MacKinnon and Ginsburg, JJ.), reciting the complaint of February 17, 1978, the SEC action of March 18, 1978 and the preliminary injunction of April 27, 1978, and vacating the judgment with instructions to dismiss. https://cite.case.law/f2d/680/768/ +[^60]: Puharich v. Brenner, 415 F.2d 979 (D.C. Cir. June 25, 1969) (No. 22286; Leventhal, J.). https://cite.case.law/f2d/415/979/ +[^61]: "CSICP appeals ruling of FCC," News and Comment, The Skeptical Inquirer, vol. 4, no. 1, Fall 1979, p. 2. https://skepticalinquirer.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2019/03/Issue-01-1.pdf +[^62]: Brief of Respondent CBS Inc. in Opposition, Fairness in Media v. Federal Communications Commission, No. 88-388 (October 3, 1988), pp. 1-3, 7-8 (No. 87-1217 in the D.C. Circuit; per curiam affirmance of June 8, 1988; certiorari denied October 11, 1988). https://archive.org/details/micro_IA40385002_0072 +[^63]: Brief for appellants, Citizens TV Protest Committee and Clarksburg Publishing Company v. Federal Communications Commission, No. 18,738 (D.C. Cir. 1964), statement of questions presented and statement of facts. https://archive.org/details/dc_circ_1964_18738_citizens_tv_protest_comm_et_al_v_fed_comm_commn +[^64]: Geller v. Randi, 40 F.3d 1300 (D.C. Cir. Dec. 9, 1994) (Wald, Sentelle and Rogers, JJ.; Sentelle, J., for the court), reciting the January 15, 1992 motions, Geller's failure to respond, and the affirmance of the Rule 11 sanction. https://cite.case.law/f3d/40/1300/ +[^65]: Association of American Physicians & Surgeons, Inc. v. Clinton, 997 F.2d 898 (D.C. Cir. June 22, 1993) (Silberman, Buckley and Williams, JJ.; Silberman, J., for the court; Buckley, J., concurring in the judgment), on the task force composition, 3 U.S.C. 105(e), and the remand as to the working group. https://cite.case.law/f2d/997/898/ +[^66]: In re Cheney, 334 F.3d 1096 (D.C. Cir. July 8, 2003) (Edwards, Randolph and Tatel, JJ.), on the mandamus petition against the discovery order and the Judicial Watch complaint against the National Energy Policy Development Group. https://cite.case.law/f3d/334/1096/ +[^67]: Cheney v. United States District Court for the District of Columbia, 542 U.S. 367 (2004), decided June 24, 2004, vacating the judgment of the court of appeals and remanding. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/542/367 +[^68]: Schneider v. Kissinger, 412 F.3d 190 (D.C. Cir. June 28, 2005) (Sentelle, Henderson and Rogers, JJ.), reciting the original complaint of September 10, 2001, the amended complaint of November 11, 2002, the renewed motion to dismiss of December 12, 2002 and the March 30, 2004 dismissal, and affirming on political question grounds. https://cite.case.law/f3d/412/190/ +[^69]: United States v. Pollard, 959 F.2d 1011 (D.C. Cir. Mar. 20, 1992) (No. 90-3276, argued Sept. 10, 1991; R.B. Ginsburg, Silberman and Williams, JJ.; Silberman, J., for the court; Williams, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). https://cite.case.law/f2d/959/1011/ +[^70]: United States v. Pollard, 416 F.3d 48 (D.C. Cir. July 22, 2005) (No. 01-3103; Sentelle, Henderson and Rogers, JJ.; Sentelle, J., for the court; Rogers, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). https://cite.case.law/f3d/416/48/ +[^71]: McFarlane v. Esquire Magazine, 74 F.3d 1296 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 30, 1996) (Williams, Ginsburg and Randolph, JJ.), affirming the rulings on personal jurisdiction over Craig Unger, on dismissal rather than transfer and on actual malice, and quoting the article's passage on the INSLAW affidavit and the court's findings on it. https://cite.case.law/f3d/74/1296/ +[^72]: McFarlane v. Sheridan Square Press, Inc., 91 F.3d 1501 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 16, 1996) (No. 95-7201; Williams, Ginsburg and Rogers, JJ.; Ginsburg, J., for the court). https://cite.case.law/f3d/91/1501/ +[^73]: United States v. Microsoft Corp., 253 F.3d 34 (D.C. Cir. June 28, 2001) (en banc) (per curiam), affirming in part and reversing in part. https://cite.case.law/f3d/253/34/ +[^74]: New Mexico v. Musk, No. 25-cv-429 (D.D.C.), opinion of June 10, 2025, ECF 103, reciting the March 12, 2025 discovery order (ECF 61), the petition in In re Musk, No. 25-5072 (D.C. Cir. filed March 18, 2025), the circuit's order of March 26, 2025 staying that order pending further order, and the district court's minute order of the same date. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-dcd-1_25-cv-00429/pdf/USCOURTS-dcd-1_25-cv-00429-1.pdf +[^75]: U.S. DOGE Service v. United States District Court for the District of Columbia, No. 25-1103, Supreme Court of the United States, docket (petition filed March 18, 2026; lower court No. 25-5130, decision July 14, 2025, rehearing denied December 18, 2025). https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/25-1103.html +[^76]: Associated Press v. Budowich, No. 25-5109 (D.C. Cir. June 6, 2025) (order granting in part the motion for stay pending appeal, with the statement of Rao, J., joined by Katsas, J., and the statement of Pillard, J., who would deny the motion). https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/orders/docs/2025/06/25-5109LDSN3.pdf +[^77]: Associated Press v. Budowich, No. 25-5109 (D.C. Cir. July 22, 2025) (order denying the motion for en banc reconsideration and vacatur). https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/orders/docs/2025/07/25-5109LDEN.pdf +[^78]: Finance Magnates, "CFTC Folds Its Hand in Election Betting Showdown with Kalshi," May 5, 2025 (voluntary dismissal of No. 24-5205 after a 3 to 0 commission vote, each party bearing its own costs). https://www.financemagnates.com/forex/cftc-folds-its-hand-in-election-betting-showdown-with-kalshi ; Protos, "The revolving door for lawyers between Kalshi and DOJ" (Yaakov Roth argued the appeal for Kalshi in January 2025). https://protos.com/the-revolving-door-for-lawyers-between-kalshi-and-doj/ +[^79]: United States v. Littlejohn, No. 24-3019 (D.C. Cir. July 17, 2026) (argued November 4, 2025; opinion of Walker, J., joined by Rao, J., and Rogers, S.J.). https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/docs/2026/07/24-3019-2183720.pdf diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..777860a2 --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.md @@ -0,0 +1,449 @@ +--- +title: United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit +aliases: + - United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit + - U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit + - Second Circuit + - 2d Cir. +category: "Law Enforcement & Legal" +tags: + - Organization + - FederalJudiciary + - Court + - Appeals + - NewYork + - EpsteinCases + - Maxwell + - PentagonPapers + - IranArms + - MobWars + - IBM + - Halkbank + - FISA702 + - MKUltra + - Letelier +summary: "Federal appeals court for Connecticut, New York and Vermont whose Maxwell and Epstein, Iran arms, Letelier, Blauer, IBM and Halkbank rulings include the record on this site." +location: "New York, New York" +start: 1891-03-03 +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +relations: + - type: member_of + with: "[[José A. Cabranes]]" + reverse: true + start: 1994-08-10 + role: "Circuit Judge; senior status March 9, 2023" + fn: 71 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Alison Nathan]]" + reverse: true + start: 2022-03-30 + role: "Circuit Judge" + fn: 71 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Richard C. Wesley]]" + reverse: true + start: 2003-06-12 + role: "Circuit Judge; senior status August 1, 2016" + fn: 71 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Raymond J. Lohier Jr.]]" + reverse: true + start: 2010-12-20 + role: "Circuit Judge" + fn: 71 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Learned Hand]]" + reverse: true + start: 1924-12-20 + end: 1961-08-18 + role: "Circuit Judge; chief judge 1948 to 1951" + fn: 71 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Wilfred Feinberg]]" + reverse: true + start: 1966-03-07 + end: 2014-07-31 + role: "Circuit Judge; chief judge 1980 to 1988" + fn: 71 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Irving R. Kaufman]]" + reverse: true + start: 1961-09-22 + end: 1992-02-01 + role: "Circuit Judge; chief judge 1973 to 1980" + fn: 71 + - type: member_of + with: "[[James L. Oakes]]" + reverse: true + start: 1971-05-27 + end: 2007-10-13 + role: "Circuit Judge; chief judge 1989 to 1992" + fn: 71 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Gerard Lynch]]" + reverse: true + start: 2009-09-18 + role: "Circuit Judge" + fn: 71 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Reena Raggi]]" + reverse: true + start: 2002-10-04 + role: "Circuit Judge" + fn: 71 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Rosemary S. Pooler]]" + reverse: true + start: 1998-06-03 + end: 2023-08-10 + role: "Circuit Judge" + fn: 71 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Christopher F. Droney]]" + reverse: true + start: 2011-12-01 + role: "Circuit Judge" + fn: 71 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Myrna Pérez]]" + reverse: true + start: 2021-11-12 + role: "Circuit Judge" + fn: 71 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Susan L. Carney]]" + reverse: true + start: 2011-05-17 + role: "Circuit Judge; senior status September 27, 2022" + fn: 71 + - type: member_of + with: "[[Jerome Frank]]" + reverse: true + start: 1941-03-27 + end: 1957-01-13 + role: "Circuit Judge" + fn: 71 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Ghislaine Maxwell]]" + reverse: true + start: 2024-09-17 + end: 2025-10-06 + role: "United States v. Maxwell, No. 22-1426-cr, affirmed; certiorari denied in No. 24-1073" + fn: 56 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Jeffrey Epstein]]" + reverse: true + start: 2019-07-03 + role: "Brown v. Maxwell, 929 F.3d 41, unsealing of the summary judgment record" + fn: 41 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Virginia Giuffre]]" + reverse: true + start: 2025-07-23 + role: "Giuffre v. Maxwell, Nos. 24-182-cv and 24-203-cv" + fn: 65 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Roy Cohn]]" + reverse: true + start: 1969-09-17 + role: "petition for mandamus against Judge Inzer B. Wyatt, denied" + fn: 6 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Arif Durrani]]" + reverse: true + start: 1987-12-03 + role: "United States v. Durrani, 835 F.2d 410, conviction affirmed" + fn: 19 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Samuel Evans]]" + reverse: true + start: 1988-04-07 + role: "United States v. Evans, 844 F.2d 36, wire and mail fraud dismissal affirmed" + fn: 21 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Jose Santacruz Londono]]" + reverse: true + start: 1993 + role: "United States v. Daccarett, 6 F.3d 37, Cali cartel appeal" + fn: 31 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Harold Blauer]]" + reverse: true + start: 1986-07-31 + role: "Barrett v. United States, 798 F.2d 565, estate suit" + fn: 15 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Orlando Letelier]]" + reverse: true + start: 1984-11-20 + role: "Letelier v. Republic of Chile, 748 F.2d 790, execution against LAN Chile reversed" + fn: 13 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Robert Tappan Morris]]" + reverse: true + start: 1991-03-07 + role: "United States v. Morris, 928 F.2d 504, conviction affirmed" + fn: 29 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Khalid bin Mahfouz]]" + reverse: true + start: 2007-06-08 + end: 2013-04-16 + role: "Ehrenfeld v. Bin Mahfouz and In re Terrorist Attacks, personal jurisdiction" + fn: 32 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Rajat Gupta]]" + reverse: true + start: 2014-03-25 + role: "United States v. Gupta, 747 F.3d 111, conviction affirmed" + fn: 36 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[IBM]]" + reverse: true + start: 1982-08-13 + role: "In re International Business Machines Corp., 687 F.2d 591, writ of mandamus" + fn: 12 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Cornelius Blackshear]]" + reverse: true + start: 1991-01-02 + role: "Judicial Council complaint under 28 U.S.C. 372(c) filed by George Francis Bason, Jr." + fn: 27 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Agron Hasbajrami]]" + reverse: true + start: 2019-12-18 + role: "United States v. Hasbajrami, 945 F.3d 641" + fn: 46 + - type: subject_of + with: "[[Halkbank]]" + reverse: true + start: 2021-10-22 + role: "United States v. Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S., 16 F.4th 336, affirmed" + fn: 53 +--- + +The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit hears appeals from the federal district courts of [[Connecticut]], [[New York]] and [[Vermont]].[^1] Its judges sit in the [[Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse]] at 40 Foley Square in [[New York City]].[^2] + +### Guaranty Trust, 1938 + +On April 25, 1938 the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] decided [[Guaranty Trust Co. of New York v. United States]], 304 U.S. 126, a suit by the United States as assignee of Russian Soviet claims against [[Morgan Guaranty Trust|Guaranty Trust Company of New York]]. The Second Circuit had reversed the trial court's judgment, and the Supreme Court reversed the Second Circuit.[^3] + +### The Rosenberg appeal and Roy Cohn + +On February 25, 1952 the court decided [[United States v. Rosenberg]], the appeal from the convictions of [[Julius Rosenberg]] and [[Ethel Rosenberg]]. The opinion, written by Judge [[Jerome Frank]], states that because two of the defendants faced death if the judgments stood, the court had "scrutinized the record with extraordinary care."[^4] On the government's side [[Myles J. Lane]] appeared for the United States, with [[Roy Cohn]], [[James B. Kilsheimer]] and [[Stanley D. Robinson]] listed as "of counsel."[^5] + +Cohn returned to the court in 1969 as a petitioner. On September 17, 1969 a per curiam order denied his petition for a writ of mandamus directing [[Inzer B. Wyatt]], a judge of the [[U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York|Southern District of New York]], to adjourn Cohn's trial, then set for September 23, 1969, on charges of conspiracy, bribery and extortion. The petition argued that pretrial publicity, including a [[Life (magazine)|Life]] article published September 1 and 2, 1969, made an impartial jury impossible. The order reads: "We deny in open court the Petition of Roy M. Cohn against Judge Inzer B. Wyatt." Assistant United States Attorneys [[Paul L. Perito]] and [[Peter L. Truebner]] were listed on the government's brief.[^6][^7] + +### The Pentagon Papers injunction + +On June 23, 1971 the court, sitting en banc, remanded the government's suit against the [[New York Times Company]] to the district court "for further in camera proceedings" to determine, by July 3, 1971, whether specified items "pose such grave and immediate danger to the security of the United States as to warrant their publication being enjoined." The stay remained in effect for those items until disposition. The reporter prints a separate statement by Judges [[Irving R. Kaufman]], [[Wilfred Feinberg]] and [[James L. Oakes]] that they dissent and "would vacate the stay and affirm the judgment of the Court below."[^8] The suit concerned the classified study that became known as the [[Pentagon Papers]]. + +### The Hunt suit against Mobil + +In January 1977 the court decided [[Hunt v. Mobil Oil Corp.]], in which [[Nelson Bunker Hunt]] was among the plaintiff appellants suing [[Mobil Oil]] and other defendants.[^9] The complaint was filed in the Southern District of New York on March 3, 1975 and sought treble damages under the antitrust laws. The panel held that the motion to dismiss was correctly decided, and it affirmed the judgment of the district court, which had dismissed before trial, on the basis of the act of state doctrine, the third antitrust claim of the plaintiffs' complaint. + +### IBM and the Baxter conflict, 1982 + +The [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]] had sued [[IBM]] under section 2 of the [[Sherman Act]] on January 17, 1969.[^10] On January 8, 1982 the parties filed a stipulation of dismissal under Rule 41(a)(1)(ii), signed for the government by Assistant Attorney General [[William F. Baxter]]. The stipulation recites that the [[Antitrust Division]] had completed a review of the case and had concluded that the case "is without merit and should be dismissed."[^10] + +Judge [[David N. Edelstein]] of the Southern District of New York initially gave no indication that he questioned the effectiveness of the stipulation. On January 26, 1982 he published an article in the [[Wall Street Journal]] calling for the decision to "be scrutinized carefully," and on March 2 he placed in the record letters indicating that Baxter had served as a consultant to IBM during the early stages of a private antitrust suit brought by [[Memorex]].[^11] Edelstein then ruled that whether the [[Tunney Act]] applied to the stipulation was a jurisdictional question for the court to decide. + +On August 13, 1982 a panel of Judges [[Thomas J. Meskill]], [[Jon O. Newman]] and [[Amalya L. Kearse]] held that "a writ of mandamus shall issue directing Judge Edelstein to cease any further inquiry with respect to the conflict of interest claim." The panel said it expressed "no view as to the merits of that claim." It did not expedite its review of whether mandamus should also issue on the Tunney Act question, because no urgency attended that aspect of the petition.[^12] + +### Letelier v. Republic of Chile, 1984 + +The families of [[Orlando Letelier]] and Ronni Moffitt, who were killed by a car bomb in Washington in September 1976, obtained a default judgment of more than five million dollars against the Republic of [[Chile]] in the District of Columbia, and then sought to execute on the New York assets of the state airline, [[LAN Chile]]. Judge [[Morris Lasker]] of the Southern District of New York ordered execution. On November 20, 1984 the Second Circuit reversed in an opinion by Judge [[Richard J. Cardamone]], which opens: "How one wishes to decide a case comes lightly to mind, on a wing; but often how one must decide it comes arduously, weighed down by somber thought. To rule otherwise here would only illustrate once again that hard cases make bad law."[^13] + +The opinion recites the facts that the district court had found, in part through evidentiary sanctions for Chile's default: that from January 1975 through January 1979 LAN's assets and facilities were under the direct control of Chile, and that Chile used LAN's facilities and personnel to transport [[Michael Townley]] between Chile and the United States, to transport explosives on several occasions, to assist with currency transactions paying the co-conspirators, to provide a meeting place for them, and to arrange for Townley to leave the United States under an alias after the assassination. The panel held that these facts were not the abuse of the corporate form that would overcome the presumption of LAN's separate status under [[First National City Bank v. Banco Para El Comercio Exterior de Cuba]], and wrote that they "simply demonstrate that Michael Townley was able to enlist the cooperation of certain LAN pilots and officials with whom he had a pre-existing social relationship in pursuing his sinister goal." It also held that the property sought was not used for the commercial activity in which the claim arose, and it reversed the orders and dismissed the supplementary proceedings.[^14] + +### The Blauer estate and the Army mescaline tests + +On July 31, 1986 the court decided [[Barrett v. United States]], an appeal in the suit brought by the estate of [[Harold Blauer]] against the United States and individual defendants, among them the estate of [[Amedeo Marazzi]], whom the opinion describes as Dr. Marazzi "of the Chemical Corps." The opinion recites the estate's allegation that the drug was given "for diagnostic purposes to Mr. Blauer," and that, according to the estate, [[Paul Hoch]] was "well aware" that the compound was a new one "not being administered for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes."[^15] The opinion describes Hoch as the [[New York State Psychiatric Institute]] medical official in charge of administering the compound, and states that the mescaline derivative "had been supplied by the United States [[Army Chemical Corps]] pursuant to contracts between its procurement agency and NYSPI."[^15] + +According to records relied on by the estate, a conference of federal counsel and medical personnel met in early July 1954, at which Marazzi and Hoch expressed apprehension about anticipated malpractice claims.[^16] + +### Iran arms prosecutions, 1987 and 1988 + +On December 3, 1987 the court affirmed the convictions of [[Arif Durrani]] under the [[Arms Export Control Act]]. Judge Irving R. Kaufman wrote for a panel with Judges [[Lawrence W. Pierce]] and [[Roger J. Miner]]. The opinion opens by describing the "still simmering national scandal of high government officials engaged in the covert shipment of arms to Iran" and records that Durrani, accused of shipping [[Hawk missile]] parts to [[Iran]] without a license, "candidly admits that he sold arms to Iran, but claims to have been a cog in the wheel turned by Lt. Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter." [[Alan Dershowitz]] argued the appeal for Durrani, with [[Nathan Z. Dershowitz]] and Victoria B. Eiger on the brief. [[Holly B. Fitzsimmons]], an Assistant United States Attorney, appeared for the government.[^17] + +The opinion recites Durrani's trial account. He described a 1985 encounter with Rahim Malekzedeh, procurement chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, who told him that Iran was dealing with a number of Americans and Israelis including [[Oliver North]], the CIA officer [[George Cave]] and the Israeli official [[Amiram Nir]]. In April 1986 in Portugal a former Iranian intelligence official, George Hassan, told him that he was working with [[Richard Secord]] and [[Albert Hakim]] on the American shipment of parts to Iran. Durrani said that in September 1986 an unidentified staff member of the [[National Security Council]] in Lisbon related the parts to a deal to free American hostages in Lebanon, and that at a meeting in London on October 1, 1986 North assured him "not to worry about the paperwork," because President [[Ronald Reagan]] would shortly authorize arms shipments to Iran. The government presented evidence that his associate Pires paid Durrani more than 800,000 dollars between June and October 1986.[^18] The district court had quashed a broad subpoena for classified Iran-contra documents but gave Durrani a list of Hawk parts that the Iranians had handed to Cave in March 1986. It excluded as hearsay the [[Tower Commission]] report and two memoranda from North to [[John Poindexter]], one of April 16, 1986 and one of September 8, 1986 titled "Next Steps with Iran." The panel held the trial fair and affirmed the conviction "on all counts."[^19] + +On April 7, 1988 a panel of Chief Judge Wilfred Feinberg and Judges [[John D. Mahoney]] and Thomas J. Meskill affirmed the dismissal of the wire and mail fraud counts in [[United States v. Evans]]. The government alleged that [[Samuel Evans]], general counsel to [[Adnan Khashoggi]], and other defendants planned to sell arms made in or licensed from the United States to Iran by deceiving the government about the buyer. The court's narrative records that the arms "were destined for [[Cyrus Hashemi]], a government agent pretending to be an Iranian buyer."[^20] The court held that "the right to control future arms sales is not a property right for this purpose."[^21] + +### The Commission case, 1989 + +On January 31, 1989 the court decided [[United States v. Salerno]], the appeal of defendants prosecuted for the Commission of [[La Cosa Nostra]]. The opinion lists the New York City families as the [[Genovese crime family]], the [[Gambino Crime Family]], the [[Colombo crime family]], the [[Lucchese crime family]] and the [[Bonanno crime family]], and states that since the late 1970s the Commission had been controlled by the bosses of four of them.[^22] The opinion describes the Commission as "a nationwide criminal society which operates through local organizations known as 'families.'"[^23] + +### Ben-Menashe and the Southern District + +The federal case against [[Ari Ben-Menashe]], [[Richard St. Francis]] and [[Joseph O'Toole]] was tried in the Southern District. The district court's August 1, 1990 memorandum by Judge [[Louis L. Stanton]] describes the first count as a conspiracy to sell "American-made C-130 military cargo planes located in [[Israel]] to Iran, in violation of the Arms Export Control Act." Joseph O'Toole was also charged in count two with conspiring with two unindicted co-conspirators to sell American-made anti-aircraft missiles located in Israel to an undisclosed country. St. Francis moved to dismiss the indictment as a violation of due process, arguing that the government had targeted him without reason to believe he wanted to commit a crime and had not discouraged his belief that the transaction would be approved at the highest levels of the United States Government; Ben-Menashe joined the motion, and the memorandum cites the Second Circuit's Evans decision as authority that such claims succeed only in "exceedingly rare" instances. [[Baruch Weiss]], an Assistant United States Attorney, appeared for the government and [[Thomas F.X. Dunn]] for Ben-Menashe.[^24] + +A federal jury found Ben-Menashe and St. Francis not guilty on November 28, 1990. At the six-week trial Dunn contended that his client was a former intelligence operative who represented Israeli Prime Minister [[Yitzhak Shamir]] in an attempted arms-for-hostages deal in 1988, and Weiss said Ben-Menashe was merely a translator for Israeli military intelligence from 1977 to 1987.[^25] + +### The Judicial Council complaint against Blackshear, 1991 + +[[Cornelius Blackshear]], a bankruptcy judge in the Southern District of New York, gave testimony in the [[INSLAW]] litigation and later recanted part of it. The bankruptcy judge who heard the matter, [[George Francis Bason, Jr.]], accepted Blackshear's original testimony and found the recantation to be the result of an honest mistake. On January 2, 1991 Bason filed a complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 372(c) with the [[Judicial Council of the Second Circuit]], stating that he had "regretfully concluded that Judge Blackshear recanted not because of an honest mistake but because he made a conscious choice to testify falsely."[^26][^27] + +### Robert Tappan Morris, 1991 + +On March 7, 1991 the court affirmed the conviction of [[Robert Tappan Morris]]. In the fall of 1988 he was a first-year graduate student in the computer science Ph.D. program at [[Cornell University]], and the conviction under the computer fraud statute concerned the program he released onto the network.[^28] The panel found sufficient evidence for the jury to conclude that Morris acted "without authorization" and wrote, "We therefore affirm."[^29] The program became known as the [[Morris worm]]. Morris was one of the two men who, with [[Trevor Blackwell]], put in 50,000 dollars each beside [[Paul Graham]]'s 100,000 dollars to start [[Y Combinator]] in 2005.[^30] + +### The Cali cartel appeal, 1993 + +[[United States v. Daccarett]], decided in 1993 by a panel that included James L. Oakes, arose from a prosecution connected with the [[Cali Cartel]]. The opinion describes the cartel as a Colombian conglomerate, headed by [[Jose Santacruz Londono]], that allegedly imports "approximately 3000 kilograms of cocaine a month into the United States," using bank accounts in the United States, [[Europe]] and Central and [[South America]] to store and move its proceeds.[^31] + +### The bin Mahfouz suits, 2007 to 2013 + +[[Rachel Ehrenfeld]], the author of a 2003 book on terrorist financing published by [[Bonus Books]], brought suit in the Southern District of New York against [[Khalid bin Mahfouz]], a [[Saudi Arabia|Saudi Arabian]] citizen who had formerly headed the National Commercial Bank. The district court dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction. On June 8, 2007 a panel of Judges Wilfred Feinberg, [[Pierre N. Leval]] and [[José A. Cabranes]] affirmed on N.Y. C.P.L.R. 302(a)(3) and the denial of jurisdictional discovery, and certified to the [[New York Court of Appeals]] the question whether CPLR 302(a)(1) confers jurisdiction over a person who sued a New York resident in a non-United States court when the success of that suit required acts in New York.[^32] + +On March 3, 2008 the same panel affirmed the dismissal in [[Ehrenfeld v. Mahfouz]], relying on the New York Court of Appeals' decision.[^33] + +On April 16, 2013, in the consolidated [[September 11 attacks]] litigation captioned [[In re Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001]], a panel of Judges José A. Cabranes and [[Reena Raggi]], with [[Jed Rakoff]] of the Southern District of New York sitting by designation, affirmed the dismissal of claims against Khaled bin Mahfouz and his son [[Abdulrahman bin Mahfouz]] for lack of personal jurisdiction. The panel also held that [[National Commercial Bank]] lacked the contacts needed for general jurisdiction, and vacated and remanded as to other defendants.[^34] + +### Citigroup and Judge Rakoff, 2014 + +On June 4, 2014 a panel of Judges Rosemary S. Pooler, Raymond J. Lohier Jr. and [[Susan L. Carney]] decided the appeals of the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] and [[Citigroup]] from the November 28, 2011 order of Judge Jed Rakoff refusing to approve a consent decree and setting the case for trial. The SEC's complaint alleged that Citigroup negligently misrepresented its role in structuring and marketing a billion-dollar fund, Class V Funding III, and that it took a short position against assets it had selected, realizing about 160 million dollars. Judge Pooler wrote that the district court "abused its discretion by applying an incorrect legal standard in assessing the consent decree and setting a date for trial." Judge Lohier concurred. Rakoff had appointed pro bono counsel to argue the district court's side of the appeal.[^35] + +### Rajat Gupta, 2014 + +On March 25, 2014 a panel of Judges Jon O. Newman, Amalya L. Kearse and Rosemary S. Pooler affirmed the conviction of [[Rajat Gupta]], which arose from [[Galleon Group]] trades in [[Goldman Sachs]] stock. The opinion's account of the trial says that at 3:15 p.m. on September 23, 2008, "Goldman Sachs held a special meeting of its board of directors" to approve a $5 billion investment in Goldman by [[Warren Buffett]]. Gupta, a former managing director of [[McKinsey & Company]], took part by telephone from a conference room at the firm's New York office.[^36][^37] Judge Amalya L. Kearse wrote the opinion. [[Richard C. Tarlowe]], an Assistant United States Attorney, appeared for the government, and [[Seth P. Waxman]] of [[Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr]] appeared for Gupta.[^38] + +### Brown v. Maxwell and the unsealing of the Giuffre record, 2019 + +The defamation suit filed by [[Virginia Giuffre]] against [[Ghislaine Maxwell]] in 2015 was assigned to the Southern District of New York judge [[Robert W. Sweet]]. After Maxwell and Giuffre executed a settlement agreement on May 24, 2017, Alan Dershowitz, the writer [[Mike Cernovich|Michael Cernovich]] and the [[Miami Herald]], with its reporter [[Julie K. Brown]], sought the sealed record, and Sweet denied the requests. The Second Circuit heard the consolidated appeals, and a panel of Judges José A. Cabranes, Rosemary S. Pooler and [[Christopher F. Droney]] decided them on July 3, 2019 in [[Brown v. Maxwell]].[^39] [[Sanford L. Bohrer]] and [[Christine N. Walz]] of [[Holland & Knight]] argued for the Herald and Brown, [[Andrew G. Celli Jr.]] of [[Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady]] for Dershowitz, [[Marc Randazza]] for Cernovich, [[Paul G. Cassell]] and [[Sigrid S. McCawley]] of [[Boies Schiller Flexner]] for Giuffre, and Ty Gee and Adam Mueller of [[Haddon, Morgan and Foreman]] for Maxwell.[^40] + +The panel held that the district court "failed to conduct the requisite particularized review when ordering the sealing of the materials at issue." It vacated the orders of November 2, 2016, May 3, 2017 and August 27, 2018, ordered "the unsealing of the summary judgment record," and remanded for particularized review of the remaining sealed materials.[^41] The panel also wrote that common-law courts should "revitalize this crucial qualification to the litigation privilege," and it quoted the district court's finding that the sealed documents "were neither relied upon by [the District] Court in the rendering of an adjudication, nor necessary to or helpful in resolving a motion." + +The decision came three days before the arrest of [[Jeffrey Epstein]] in New York. On August 9, 2019, the day before Epstein was found dead in the [[Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York]], the Second Circuit unsealed about 2,000 pages of records from Giuffre v. Maxwell, according to the Inspector General's chronology of the jail.[^42] The Stanford Daily reported in 2026 that an unpublished manuscript made public in 2019, after the Second Circuit ordered related court documents unsealed, refers to the former Stanford psychology professor [[Stephen Kosslyn]].[^43] + +### FISA Section 702 and United States v. Hasbajrami + +On December 18, 2019 the court decided [[United States v. Hasbajrami]], reported at 945 F.3d 641. [[Agron Hasbajrami]] was arrested on September 6, 2011 at [[John F. Kennedy International Airport]] as he attempted to board a flight to Turkey, charged with attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization, and sentenced to 180 months after pleading guilty. The government disclosed after his sentencing that part of its evidence derived from warrantless surveillance under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008; Judge [[John Gleeson]] of the Eastern District of New York permitted him to withdraw his plea, denied his motion to suppress, and accepted a conditional plea.[^44] The case was argued on August 27, 2018 before Judges [[Gerard Lynch]], Susan L. Carney and Christopher F. Droney.[^45] + +Lynch wrote for the panel that the collection of communications of United States persons incidental to the lawful surveillance of non-United States persons located abroad does not violate the Fourth Amendment. The opinion states that "querying" of the stored data "does have important Fourth Amendment implications" and is a "separate Fourth Amendment event that, in itself, must be reasonable." Because the record, classified and public, did not show whether any querying had occurred or whether it was reasonable, the panel remanded for the district court to determine the facts and whether evidence should be suppressed.[^46] [[Michael K. Bachrach]], [[Joshua L. Dratel]] and Steve Zissou appeared for Hasbajrami and [[Seth D. DuCharme]] for the government. [[Patrick Toomey]] and [[Ashley Gorski]] of the [[American Civil Liberties Union]] and [[Mark Rumold]] and Andrew Crocker of the [[Electronic Frontier Foundation]] appeared as amici.[^47] The opinion's footnote records that it was reviewed by appropriate intelligence agencies for redaction, and that the panel met ex parte with representatives of those agencies about modified phrasing and possible declassification.[^48] + +### Giuffre v. Maxwell, the Preska orders and the 2020 summary order + +After the Brown remand the case went to Judge [[Loretta Preska]], whom President [[George W. Bush]] had nominated to the Second Circuit on September 9, 2008 without a Senate vote.[^49] On July 23, 2020 she ordered the unsealing of materials that included Maxwell's April 2016 deposition. On August 24, 2020 Maxwell's lawyer [[Jeffrey S. Pagliuca]] of Haddon, Morgan and Foreman wrote to Judge Alison Nathan in the criminal case that the government had obtained from Giuffre's lawyers, by grand jury subpoena, nearly 90,000 pages of civil discovery still under the protective order, while the Second Circuit and Judge Preska were deciding whether to unseal the same material, and that if the deposition were unsealed "without the benefit of this information," the "cat will be out of the bag."[^50] [[Laura Menninger]] of the firm was among the lawyers on Maxwell's lead pretrial motion in the criminal case, to dismiss for breach of the 2007 agreement, which Nathan denied on April 16, 2021.[^51] + +On October 19, 2020 a panel of Judges Cabranes, Pooler and Raggi affirmed Preska's July 23, 2020 order by summary order. Maxwell had argued that the presumption of access to deposition materials was lower than for the summary judgment materials unsealed in Brown. The panel held that the district court "correctly held that the deposition materials are judicial documents to which the presumption of public access attaches," found that it "did not abuse its discretion in rejecting Maxwell's meritless arguments," and denied her motion to consolidate the appeal with her pending criminal appeal, No. 20-3061-cr. [[David Boies]] argued for Giuffre and Adam Mueller for Maxwell.[^52] + +### Halkbank + +On October 22, 2021 a panel of Judges Amalya L. Kearse, José A. Cabranes and [[Joseph Bianco]] decided the appeal of [[Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S.]], known as [[Halkbank]], from the denial of its motion to dismiss the sanctions indictment. The district judge was [[Richard M. Berman]] of the Southern District of New York. The opinion frames its first question as whether a denial of a motion to dismiss a criminal indictment based on the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act is immediately appealable, and it describes the charged conduct as "a multi-year scheme to launder billions of dollars' worth of Iranian oil and natural gas proceeds in violation of U.S. sanctions against the Government of Iran and Iranian entities and persons."[^53] The panel held that the denial was immediately appealable under the collateral order doctrine, and that "even if we were to assume that FSIA confers immunity in the criminal context," the offense conduct charged would fall under the commercial activity exception to the [[Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act]]. It affirmed.[^53] + +On April 19, 2023 the Supreme Court decided the case on certiorari. The syllabus records that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act "does not provide immunity from criminal prosecution," and that on the separate common-law immunity argument the Court vacated the judgment of the court of appeals and remanded. The opinion was written by Justice [[Brett Kavanaugh]].[^54] + +### The Maxwell appeal and the non-prosecution agreement + +On September 17, 2024 the court affirmed the conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell in [[United States v. Maxwell]], No. 22-1426-cr. The panel of Judges José A. Cabranes, [[Richard C. Wesley]] and [[Raymond J. Lohier Jr.]] had heard argument on March 12, 2024. [[Andrew Rohrbach]] argued for the government, with [[Maurene Comey]], Alison Moe, Lara Pomerantz and Won S. Shin on the brief for U.S. Attorney [[Damian Williams]] of the [[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York]], and [[Diana Fabi Samson]] argued for Maxwell, with [[Arthur L. Aidala]] and John M. Leventhal of [[Aidala, Bertuna & Kamins]] on the brief. Judge Cabranes wrote the opinion. It identified five questions: whether the 2007 [[Epstein non-prosecution agreement]] with the [[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida]] barred the New York prosecution; whether the second superseding indictment complied with the statute of limitations; whether Maxwell was entitled to a new trial over a juror issue; whether a jury note constructively amended the indictment; and whether the sentence was reasonable. The court affirmed the judgment of conviction entered by Judge [[Alison Nathan]], who had sentenced her to concurrent terms of 60, 120 and 240 months and a fine of 250,000 dollars on each count.[^55] + +On the first question the court held that "[a] plea agreement binds only the office of the United States Attorney for the district in which the plea is entered unless it affirmatively appears that the agreement contemplates a broader restriction." It noted that the circuits "have been split on this issue for decades." The co-conspirator clause in the agreement covered potential co-conspirators of Epstein, and the clause quoted in the opinion names [[Sarah Kellen]], [[Adriana Ross]], [[Lesley Groff]] and [[Nadia Marcinkova]] among them. The court held that the agreement's scope was "expressly limited to the Southern District of Florida" where it was not silent, and that its terms deferred prosecution "in this District," signed under the authority of [[R. Alexander Acosta]], then U.S. Attorney there.[^56] The court observed that the operative [[United States Attorneys' Manual]] provision then barred any district from making an agreement "which purports to bind any other district(s) or division without the express written approval" of the United States Attorneys concerned or the Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division, that the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division had told the [[Office of Professional Responsibility]] that she "played no role" in the agreement, and that nothing before the court indicated the New York office had been notified of or approved it.[^57] Maxwell had moved to dismiss on the ground that the agreement immunized her from prosecution on all counts as a third-party beneficiary, and the district court denied the motion. The court held that the agreement did not bind the New York office.[^56] + +On the statute of limitations the court held that the district court "correctly denied Maxwell's motions to dismiss the charges as untimely," because 18 U.S.C. § 3283, as amended in 2003, extended the time to bring charges of sexual abuse of minors for offenses committed before its enactment, and it reviewed the denial of the motion to dismiss the indictment de novo. On the juror issue the court recorded that, after the December 29, 2021 verdict, one juror gave press interviews saying he was a survivor of child sexual abuse although he had answered "no" on three questionnaire questions on the subject, that he testified under a grant of immunity that the answers were an inadvertent mistake, and that the district court found him credible and denied a new trial. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion.[^58] + +On the sentence the court upheld a four-level leadership enhancement applied to Maxwell's supervision of Sarah Kellen. The district court had relied on testimony from two of Jeffrey Epstein's pilots that Kellen was Maxwell's assistant, corroborated by testimony that Maxwell was Epstein's "number two and the lady of the house" in [[Palm Beach, Florida|Palm Beach]], where much of the abuse occurred.[^59] Epstein's longtime pilot [[Larry Visoski]], who flew his aircraft from 1991 to 2019, was the government's first witness at the trial in November 2021.[^60] + +The Second Circuit denied rehearing on November 25, 2024. On October 6, 2025 the Supreme Court denied Maxwell's petition for certiorari in No. 24-1073, docketed on April 14, 2025 and linked to an application to extend the filing deadline.[^61] + +### The Melzer sentence appeal, 2024 + +In a ruling filed in November 2024 the court affirmed the 45-year sentence of [[Ethan Phelan Melzer]], an Army soldier, under docket 23-6247-cr.[^62] + +### Giuffre v. Maxwell, 2025 + +On July 23, 2025 a panel of Judges José A. Cabranes, Reena Raggi and [[Myrna Pérez]] decided the consolidated appeals in [[Giuffre v. Maxwell]] per curiam, after submission on April 14, 2025. Giuffre and the Herald appealed from district court orders declining to unseal certain documents, and Giuffre had died on April 25, 2025 in Australia. Maxwell argued that the court lacked jurisdiction over the challenges to the December 2019 and January 2020 orders for want of a timely notice of appeal; the court concluded that those orders were not final orders and that it had jurisdiction to review all the orders challenged.[^63] + +The court clarified that a judicial document's status is determined when it is filed, so that a motion to unseal does not lose that status when the case settles and the motion becomes moot. It also held that a court's failure to rely on a document does not by itself make the presumption of access "only barely cognizable," and that filings relevant to a motion to seal or unseal are themselves judicial documents. The opinion further found that, as to parts of Maxwell's own deposition concerning her sexual relationships with consenting adults, her privacy interests outweighed any presumption of public access.[^64] The court vacated the December 2019 and January 2020 orders in their entirety and the November 18, 2022 oral ruling in part, and remanded "for further individual review of sealed documents and unsealing as warranted."[^65] That ruling had declined to unseal parts of Giuffre's deposition testimony from a Florida action, which Alan Dershowitz had submitted in support of his motion to intervene.[^65] Sigrid S. McCawley appeared for Giuffre, Adam Mueller for Maxwell, and lawyers for two anonymous amici, John Doe 183 and John Doe 133, in support of Maxwell.[^66] + +### Appeals pending in the Epstein cases + +The six women who sued the [[Government of the United States Virgin Islands]], former Governor [[John de Jongh]], [[Cecile de Jongh]], Governor [[Kenneth Mapp]], Attorney General [[Vincent Frazer]], Senators [[Celestino White]] and [[Carlton Dowe]] and Delegate [[Stacey Plaskett]] in the Southern District of New York appealed to the Second Circuit under No. 26-1316 after final judgment was entered on May 5, 2026 by Judge [[Arun Subramanian]], who had dismissed the claims against Dowe and White on March 21, 2025 for lack of personal jurisdiction.[^67] + +[[Nicholas Tartaglione]], the former police officer who was Jeffrey Epstein's cellmate at the Metropolitan Correctional Center when Epstein was found with a cloth around his neck on July 23, 2019, was sentenced by Judge [[Kenneth M. Karas]] on June 10, 2024 to four consecutive life terms. His appeal, No. 24-1852, was pending in May 2026.[^68] + +A petition by the former [[BGC Group]] managing director Simon Andriesz to vacate an arbitration award, dismissed by Judge [[Lewis J. Liman]] on April 24, 2025, was appealed under No. 25-1341, which ended with the issue of the mandate on August 28, 2025.[^69] After Alison Nathan's elevation to the Second Circuit, Judge [[Paul Engelmayer]] took over the Maxwell criminal case in the Southern District.[^70] + +### The judges + +The judges named on this page have the following dates.[^71] Cabranes was commissioned to the [[District of Connecticut]] on December 10, 1979, served as its chief judge from 1992 to 1994, and was commissioned to the Second Circuit on August 10, 1994. He took senior status on March 9, 2023. Alison Nathan was commissioned to the Southern District of New York on October 17, 2011, and to the Second Circuit on March 30, 2022. Richard C. Wesley was commissioned on June 12, 2003 and took senior status on August 1, 2016. Raymond J. Lohier Jr. was commissioned on December 20, 2010. Susan L. Carney was commissioned on May 17, 2011 and took senior status on September 27, 2022. Joseph Bianco was commissioned on May 13, 2019. + +Rosemary S. Pooler was commissioned to the [[Northern District of New York]] on August 10, 1994 and to the Second Circuit on June 3, 1998, took senior status on March 23, 2022, and died on August 10, 2023. Reena Raggi was commissioned to the [[Eastern District of New York]] on May 7, 1987 and to the Second Circuit on October 4, 2002. Christopher F. Droney was commissioned to the District of Connecticut on September 18, 1997 and to the Second Circuit on December 1, 2011. Gerard Lynch was commissioned to the Southern District of New York on May 25, 2000 and to the Second Circuit on September 18, 2009. Myrna Pérez was commissioned to the Second Circuit on November 12, 2021. + +The earlier judges have the following dates. [[Learned Hand]] was commissioned to the Second Circuit on December 20, 1924, served as chief judge from 1948 to 1951, and died on August 18, 1961. Jerome Frank was commissioned on March 27, 1941 and died on January 13, 1957. Feinberg was commissioned to the Second Circuit on March 7, 1966, served as chief judge from 1980 to 1988, and died on July 31, 2014. Kaufman was commissioned to the Second Circuit on September 22, 1961, served as chief judge from 1973 to 1980, and took senior status on July 1, 1987. Oakes was commissioned to the Second Circuit on May 27, 1971, served as chief judge from 1989 to 1992, and died on October 13, 2007. Meskill was commissioned on April 23, 1975 and died on October 29, 2007. Lawrence W. Pierce was commissioned on November 18, 1981. John D. Mahoney was commissioned on April 7, 1986 and died on October 23, 1996. Kearse was commissioned on June 21, 1979 and took senior status on June 11, 2002. Newman was commissioned to the Second Circuit on June 21, 1979, served as chief judge from 1993 to 1997, and took senior status on July 1, 1997. Pierre N. Leval was commissioned on October 20, 1993 and took senior status on August 16, 2002. + +Edelstein, the district judge in the IBM matter, was commissioned to the Southern District of New York on April 8, 1952, served as its chief judge from 1971 to 1980, and died on August 19, 2000.[^71] + +[^1]: 28 U.S.C. § 41, circuit composition table, "Second: Connecticut, New York, Vermont." https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/41 +[^2]: Second Circuit Court of Appeals, address as printed in the court's website footer: Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, New York, NY 10007. https://www.ca2.uscourts.gov +[^3]: *Guaranty Trust Co. of New York v. United States*, 304 U.S. 126 (1938) (decided April 25, 1938; "Reversed."; the Second Circuit had reversed the trial court's judgment). https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/304/126 +[^4]: *United States v. Rosenberg*, 195 F.2d 583 (2d Cir. Feb. 25, 1952) (Frank, J.). https://static.case.law/f2d/195/cases/0583-01.json +[^5]: *United States v. Rosenberg*, 195 F.2d 583 (2d Cir. Feb. 25, 1952), counsel block: "Myles J. Lane, New York City (Roy M. Cohn, James B. Kilsheimer 3d and Stanley D. Robinson, all of New York City, of counsel), for United States of America." https://static.case.law/f2d/195/cases/0583-01.json +[^6]: *In re Cohn*, 416 F.2d 440 (2d Cir. Sept. 17, 1969) (per curiam). https://static.case.law/f2d/416/cases/0440-01.json +[^7]: *In re Cohn*, 416 F.2d 440 (2d Cir. Sept. 17, 1969), counsel block (Myron J. Greene for the petitioner; John S. Allee for the United States, with Paul L. Perito and Peter L. Truebner on the brief). https://static.case.law/f2d/416/cases/0440-01.json +[^8]: *United States v. New York Times Co.*, 444 F.2d 544 (2d Cir. June 23, 1971) (en banc) (per curiam, with dissent statement). https://static.case.law/f2d/444/cases/0544-01.json +[^9]: *Hunt v. Mobil Oil Corp.*, 550 F.2d 68 (2d Cir. Jan. 12, 1977). https://static.case.law/f2d/550/cases/0068-01.json +[^10]: *In re International Business Machines Corp.*, 687 F.2d 591 (2d Cir. Aug. 13, 1982), Background (complaint of January 17, 1969 under Sherman Act section 2; stipulation of January 8, 1982 under Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(ii), with the Baxter memorandum). https://static.case.law/f2d/687/cases/0591-01.json +[^11]: *In re International Business Machines Corp.*, 687 F.2d 591 (2d Cir. Aug. 13, 1982), Background (Edelstein article of January 26, 1982 in the Wall Street Journal; hearing of March 2, 1982 with letters on Baxter's consultancy to IBM during the Memorex suit). https://static.case.law/f2d/687/cases/0591-01.json +[^12]: *In re International Business Machines Corp.*, 687 F.2d 591 (2d Cir. Aug. 13, 1982) (Meskill, Newman, Kearse, JJ.), Discussion and conclusion ("a writ of mandamus shall issue directing Judge Edelstein to cease any further inquiry with respect to the conflict of interest claim"; "We express no view as to the merits of that claim"; Tunney Act question not expedited). https://static.case.law/f2d/687/cases/0591-01.json +[^13]: *Letelier v. Republic of Chile*, 748 F.2d 790 (2d Cir. Nov. 20, 1984) (Cardamone, J.), introduction and Facts (the 1976 assassination; default judgment of the District of Columbia court; Judge Lasker's opinion of July 28, 1983, 567 F. Supp. 1490). https://static.case.law/f2d/748/cases/0790-01.json +[^14]: *Letelier v. Republic of Chile*, 748 F.2d 790 (2d Cir. Nov. 20, 1984), Parts I and II and conclusion (the findings recited from the district court; "Accordingly, we reverse the orders appealed from and dismiss the supplementary proceedings."). Judgment of November 5, 1980: *Letelier v. Republic of Chile*, 502 F. Supp. 259 (D.D.C. 1980), as cited in the opinion. https://static.case.law/f2d/748/cases/0790-01.json +[^15]: *Barrett v. United States*, 798 F.2d 565 (2d Cir. July 31, 1986), statement of facts (the estate's allegations; Dr. Hoch "the NYSPI medical official in charge of administering the mescaline compound to Blauer"; Hoch's statement on the contract with the Army). https://static.case.law/f2d/798/cases/0565-01.json +[^16]: *Barrett v. United States*, 798 F.2d 565 (2d Cir. July 31, 1986), statement of facts (conference of early July 1954; "According to records relied on by the estate"). https://static.case.law/f2d/798/cases/0565-01.json +[^17]: *United States v. Durrani*, 835 F.2d 410 (2d Cir. Dec. 3, 1987) (Kaufman, J., for Kaufman, Pierce and Miner, JJ.), opening paragraphs and counsel block (Holly B. Fitzsimmons, Asst. U.S. Atty., for appellee; Alan M. Dershowitz, with Nathan Z. Dershowitz and Victoria B. Eiger on the brief, for appellant). https://static.case.law/f2d/835/cases/0410-01.json +[^18]: *United States v. Durrani*, 835 F.2d 410 (2d Cir. Dec. 3, 1987), Background and statement of Durrani's trial testimony (Malekzedeh; Hassan, Secord and Hakim; the Lisbon and London meetings; "not to worry about the paperwork"; payments by Pires in excess of $800,000 between June and October 1986). https://static.case.law/f2d/835/cases/0410-01.json +[^19]: *United States v. Durrani*, 835 F.2d 410 (2d Cir. Dec. 3, 1987), discussion of the subpoena quashed on March 11, 1987, the Hawk parts list given to George Cave on March 1986, the excluded Tower Commission report and North memoranda of April 16 and September 8, 1986, and the introduction ("thus affirm his conviction on all counts"). https://static.case.law/f2d/835/cases/0410-01.json +[^20]: *United States v. Evans*, 844 F.2d 36 (2d Cir. Apr. 7, 1988) (Feinberg, C.J., Meskill, Mahoney, JJ.), Background (the government's allegations; the arms "were destined for Cyrus Hashemi, a government agent pretending to be an Iranian buyer"). https://static.case.law/f2d/844/cases/0036-01.json +[^21]: *United States v. Evans*, 844 F.2d 36 (2d Cir. Apr. 7, 1988), disposition ("the right to control future arms sales is not a property right for this purpose"; "We therefore affirm the decision of the district court dismissing the wire and mail fraud counts of the indictment"). https://static.case.law/f2d/844/cases/0036-01.json +[^22]: *United States v. Salerno*, 868 F.2d 524 (2d Cir. Jan. 31, 1989) (Pratt, Mahoney, Bright, JJ.), statement of the case ("There are five New York City families (i.e., the Genovese, Gambino, Colombo, Lucchese and Bonanno families)."; "Since the late 1970s, the Commission was controlled by the bosses of four of those families"). https://static.case.law/f2d/868/cases/0524-01.json +[^23]: *United States v. Salerno*, 868 F.2d 524 (2d Cir. Jan. 31, 1989), background (RICO enterprise alleged as the "Commission" of La Cosa Nostra, "a nationwide criminal society which operates through local organizations known as 'families'"). https://static.case.law/f2d/868/cases/0524-01.json +[^24]: *United States v. Menashe*, 741 F. Supp. 1135 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 1, 1990) (Stanton, J.), memorandum and order (count one; count two against O'Toole; St. Francis's due process motion, joined by Ben Menashe; citation of *United States v. Evans*, 667 F. Supp. 974, 988 (S.D.N.Y. 1987), aff'd, 844 F.2d 36 (1988); counsel block: Baruch Weiss, Thomas F.X. Dunn, Lawrence Bader). https://static.case.law/f-supp/741/cases/1135-01.json +[^25]: "2 Acquitted of Trying to Sell Military Cargo Planes to Iran," *The Washington Post*, Nov. 29, 1990 (dateline New York, Nov. 28). https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1990/11/29/2-acquitted-of-trying-to-sell-military-cargo-planes-to-iran/2918bfd6-89a7-441a-a124-3b1916e90321/ +[^26]: 28 U.S.C. § 372(c) (complaints against judicial officers and the judicial council of the circuit). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/372 +[^27]: Complaint of George Francis Bason, Jr. to the Judicial Council of the Second Circuit, January 2, 1991, under 28 U.S.C. § 372(c). +[^28]: *United States v. Morris*, 928 F.2d 504 (2d Cir. Mar. 7, 1991), Facts ("In the fall of 1988, Morris was a first-year graduate student in Cornell University's computer science Ph.D. program."). https://static.case.law/f2d/928/cases/0504-01.json +[^29]: *United States v. Morris*, 928 F.2d 504 (2d Cir. Mar. 7, 1991), discussion of section 1030(a)(5)(A) ("without authorization") and conclusion ("We therefore affirm."). https://static.case.law/f2d/928/cases/0504-01.json +[^30]: Paul Graham, "How Y Combinator Started," March 2012 ("I agreed to put $100k into the new fund ... Over the next couple days I recruited Robert and Trevor, who put in another $50k each. So YC started with $200k."). https://paulgraham.com/ycstart.html +[^31]: *United States v. Daccarett*, 6 F.3d 37 (2d Cir. 1993), background (Cali cartel headed by Jose Santacruz-Londono; "approximately 3000 kilograms of cocaine a month"). https://static.case.law/f3d/6/cases/0037-01.json +[^32]: *Ehrenfeld v. Bin Mahfouz*, 489 F.3d 542 (2d Cir. June 8, 2007) (Feinberg, Leval, Cabranes, JJ.) (affirming on N.Y. C.P.L.R. 302(a)(3) and the denial of jurisdictional discovery; certifying the 302(a)(1) question to the New York Court of Appeals). https://static.case.law/f3d/489/cases/0542-01.json +[^33]: *Ehrenfeld v. Mahfouz*, 518 F.3d 102 (2d Cir. Mar. 3, 2008) (Feinberg, Leval, Cabranes, JJ.) (affirming in accordance with the New York Court of Appeals decision). https://static.case.law/f3d/518/cases/0102-01.json +[^34]: *In re Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001 (Asat Trust Reg.)*, 714 F.3d 659 (2d Cir. Apr. 16, 2013) (Cabranes, Raggi, JJ., and Rakoff, D.J.), summary of holdings ("we AFFIRM the District Court's July 14, 2011 judgment insofar as it dismissed plaintiffs' claims against" Khaled Bin Mahfouz and Abdulrahman Bin Mahfouz for lack of personal jurisdiction; National Commercial Bank lacking general jurisdiction). https://static.case.law/f3d/714/cases/0659-01.json +[^35]: *S.E.C. v. Citigroup Global Markets Inc.*, 752 F.3d 285 (2d Cir. June 4, 2014) (Pooler, J., for Pooler, Lohier and Carney, JJ.; Lohier, J., concurring), introduction, Background I (complaint of October 2011 on the Class V Funding III fund; proposed consent judgment) and counsel block (John R. Wing, appointed pro bono counsel for the district court, Jed S. Rakoff, J.). https://static.case.law/f3d/752/cases/0285-01.json +[^36]: *United States v. Gupta*, 747 F.3d 111 (2d Cir. Mar. 25, 2014) (Newman, Kearse, Pooler, JJ.), statement of the Galleon trades of Goldman Sachs stock on September 23, 2008 ("At 3:15 p.m. on September 23, 2008, Goldman Sachs held a special meeting of its board of directors"). https://static.case.law/f3d/747/cases/0111-01.json +[^37]: *United States v. Gupta*, 747 F.3d 111 (2d Cir. Mar. 25, 2014) (telephone participation from McKinsey's New York office; "The judgment of the district court is affirmed."). https://static.case.law/f3d/747/cases/0111-01.json +[^38]: *United States v. Gupta*, 747 F.3d 111 (2d Cir. Mar. 25, 2014), attorneys block (Richard C. Tarlowe, Assistant United States Attorney, for Appellee; Seth P. Waxman, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr, for Defendant-Appellant); opinion by Kearse, Circuit Judge. https://static.case.law/f3d/747/cases/0111-01.json +[^39]: *Brown v. Maxwell* (*Dershowitz v. Giuffre*), 929 F.3d 41 (2d Cir. July 3, 2019) (Cabranes, Pooler, Droney, JJ.), statement of the case (settlement agreement of May 24, 2017; intervenors Dershowitz, Cernovich and the Miami Herald with reporter Julie Brown; orders of Judge Robert W. Sweet). https://static.case.law/f3d/929/cases/0041-01.json +[^40]: *Brown v. Maxwell*, 929 F.3d 41 (2d Cir. July 3, 2019), counsel block (Sanford L. Bohrer, Christine N. Walz and Madelaine J. Harrington, Holland & Knight, for the Herald and Brown; Ty Gee and Adam Mueller, Haddon, Morgan and Foreman, for Maxwell; Paul G. Cassell and Sigrid S. McCawley for Giuffre; Andrew G. Celli Jr. and David A. Lebowitz for Dershowitz; Marc Randazza and Jay Marshall Wolman for Cernovich). https://static.case.law/f3d/929/cases/0041-01.json +[^41]: *Brown v. Maxwell*, 929 F.3d 41 (2d Cir. July 3, 2019), conclusion ("we VACATE the District Court's orders entered on November 2, 2016, May 3, 2017, and August 27, 2018, ORDER the unsealing of the summary judgment record as described further herein, and REMAND"). https://static.case.law/f3d/929/cases/0041-01.json +[^42]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, *Investigation and Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons' Custody, Care, and Supervision of Jeffrey Epstein at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, New York*, Report 23-085, June 2023, timeline of August 8 and 9, 2019. https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/23-085.pdf +[^43]: Kucheria and Dolce, "Details emerge in contested sexual assault claim by Epstein victim against former Stanford psychology professor," The Stanford Daily, February 11, 2026, reporting the unpublished manuscript and its release in 2019. https://stanforddaily.com/2026/02/11/details-sexual-assault-claim-kosslyn/ +[^44]: *United States v. Hasbajrami*, 945 F.3d 641 (2d Cir. Dec. 18, 2019), opinion of Lynch, J., at 3-5 (arrest of September 6, 2011 at John F. Kennedy International Airport; sentence of 180 months; supplemental disclosure of Section 702 evidence; Gleeson, J.). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-ca2-17-02669/pdf/USCOURTS-ca2-17-02669-0.pdf +[^45]: *United States v. Hasbajrami*, Nos. 15-2684(L) and 17-2669(CON) (2d Cir.), caption ("Argued; August 27, 2018. Decided: December 18, 2019"; "LYNCH, CARNEY, and DRONEY, Circuit Judges"); GovInfo package metadata, dateIssued 2019-12-18. https://www.govinfo.gov/metadata/pkg/USCOURTS-ca2-17-02669/mods.xml +[^46]: *United States v. Hasbajrami*, 945 F.3d 641 (2d Cir. Dec. 18, 2019), summary at 2, discussion of querying ("separate Fourth Amendment event that, in itself, must be reasonable") and conclusion ("we REMAND to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion"). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-ca2-17-02669/pdf/USCOURTS-ca2-17-02669-0.pdf +[^47]: *United States v. Hasbajrami*, 945 F.3d 641 (2d Cir. Dec. 18, 2019), counsel block (Michael K. Bachrach, Joshua L. Dratel and Steve Zissou for defendant-appellant; Seth D. DuCharme, David C. James, Saritha Komatireddy and Joseph F. Palmer for the United States; Patrick Toomey and Ashley Gorski, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, and Mark Rumold and Andrew Crocker, Electronic Frontier Foundation, amici curiae). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-ca2-17-02669/pdf/USCOURTS-ca2-17-02669-0.pdf +[^48]: *United States v. Hasbajrami*, 945 F.3d 641 (2d Cir. Dec. 18, 2019), footnote 1 (review by appropriate intelligence agencies for redaction; ex parte meeting of the panel with agency representatives). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-ca2-17-02669/pdf/USCOURTS-ca2-17-02669-0.pdf +[^49]: Federal Judicial Center, "Preska, Loretta A.," Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/preska-loretta +[^50]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00088205, DataSet 9, letter, Jeffrey S. Pagliuca, Haddon, Morgan and Foreman, P.C., to Hon. Alison J. Nathan, "Re: Reply in Support of Request to Modify Protective Order (Under Seal), United States v. Ghislaine Maxwell, 20 Cr. 330 (AJN)," August 24, 2020. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00088205.pdf +[^51]: *United States v. Maxwell*, No. 1:20-cr-00330 (S.D.N.Y.), Notice of Motion to Dismiss Superseding Indictment for Breach of Non-Prosecution Agreement, ECF No. 141 (filed Feb. 4, 2021), https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.539612/gov.uscourts.nysd.539612.141.0.pdf ; Opinion and Order, ECF No. 207 (April 16, 2021), https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17318376/united-states-v-maxwell/ +[^52]: *Giuffre v. Maxwell*, No. 20-2413-cv, Summary Order, Doc. 140-1 (2d Cir. Oct. 19, 2020) (Cabranes, Pooler, Raggi, JJ.). https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Maxwell-ca2.pdf +[^53]: *United States v. Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S.*, No. 20-3499-cr (2d Cir. Oct. 22, 2021) (Kearse, Cabranes, Bianco, JJ.), reported at 16 F.4th 336 (collateral order jurisdiction; "even if we were to assume that FSIA confers immunity in the criminal context, the offense conduct ... would fall under the commercial activity exception to FSIA"; "we AFFIRM the Decision and Order" of Judge Berman). https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca2/20-3499/20-3499-2021-10-22.pdf +[^54]: *Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S. v. United States*, No. 21-1450 (U.S. Apr. 19, 2023), syllabus (on certiorari to the Second Circuit, "16 F. 4th 336, affirmed in part, vacated and remanded in part"; "the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act does not provide immunity from criminal prosecution"). https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/21-1450 +[^55]: *United States v. Maxwell*, No. 22-1426-cr (2d Cir. Sept. 17, 2024) (Cabranes, Wesley, Lohier, JJ.), slip op. at 1-4 (argued March 12, 2024; counsel block; questions presented; sentence of concurrent terms of 60, 120 and 240 months and fine of $250,000 on each count; "AFFIRM the District Court's June 29, 2022, judgment of conviction"). https://storage.courtlistener.com/pdf/2024/09/17/united_states_v._maxwell.pdf +[^56]: *United States v. Maxwell*, No. 22-1426-cr (2d Cir. Sept. 17, 2024), slip op. at 5-6 (co-conspirator clause quoted at A-178, naming Sarah Kellen, Adriana Ross, Lesley Groff and Nadia Marcinkova), 9-11 (plea agreement quotation; scope "expressly limited"; the agreement language of "this District" and the authority of R. Alexander Acosta; "We hold that the NPA with USAO-SDFL does not bind USAO-SDNY"). https://storage.courtlistener.com/pdf/2024/09/17/united_states_v._maxwell.pdf +[^57]: *United States v. Maxwell*, No. 22-1426-cr (2d Cir. Sept. 17, 2024), slip op. at 10 n.11 (*United States v. Annabi*, 771 F.2d 670, 672 (2d Cir. 1985); "have been split on this issue for decades"), 11-12 (United States Attorney's Manual § 9-27.641 (2007); "played no role"; "Nothing before us indicates that USAO-SDNY had been notified or had approved"). https://storage.courtlistener.com/pdf/2024/09/17/united_states_v._maxwell.pdf +[^58]: *United States v. Maxwell*, No. 22-1426-cr (2d Cir. Sept. 17, 2024), slip op. at 7-8 (verdict of December 29, 2021; the juror's interviews, the questionnaire and the hearing of March 8, 2022), 14-19 (18 U.S.C. § 3283 and the PROTECT Act amendment of 2003; "correctly denied Maxwell's motions to dismiss the charges as untimely"; Rule 33 ruling). https://storage.courtlistener.com/pdf/2024/09/17/united_states_v._maxwell.pdf +[^59]: *United States v. Maxwell*, No. 22-1426-cr (2d Cir. Sept. 17, 2024), slip op. at 23-25 (four-level leadership enhancement; testimony of two of Epstein's pilots; "number two and the lady of the house"; "We therefore hold that the District Court did not err in applying the leadership enhancement"). https://storage.courtlistener.com/pdf/2024/09/17/united_states_v._maxwell.pdf +[^60]: Tom Winter and Corky Siemaszko, "Jeffrey Epstein's longtime pilot testifies in trial of Ghislaine Maxwell," NBC News, November 30, 2021. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jeffrey-epsteins-longtime-pilot-testifies-trial-ghislaine-maxwell-rcna7078 +[^61]: *Maxwell v. United States*, No. 24-1073 (U.S.), docket (docketed April 14, 2025; lower court decision September 17, 2024; "Rehearing Denied: November 25, 2024"; "Oct 06 2025 Petition DENIED"). https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/24-1073.html +[^62]: *United States v. Melzer*, No. 23-6247-cr (2d Cir. 2024). Courthouse News: https://www.courthousenews.com/circuit-upholds-45-year-sentence-for-army-soldier-who-plotted-satanic-neo-nazi-ambush/ +[^63]: *Giuffre v. Maxwell*, Nos. 24-182-cv(L), 24-203-cv(CON) (2d Cir. July 23, 2025) (Cabranes, Raggi, Pérez, JJ.) (per curiam), caption and opinion at 2-5 (submitted April 14, 2025; decided July 23, 2025; appeal by Giuffre and the Herald; Giuffre's death on April 25, 2025; jurisdiction over the orders of December 2019 and January 2020). https://storage.courtlistener.com/pdf/2025/07/23/giuffre_v._maxwell.pdf +[^64]: *Giuffre v. Maxwell*, Nos. 24-182-cv(L), 24-203-cv(CON) (2d Cir. July 23, 2025), opinion at 2-3 (three clarifications; "only barely cognizable"; Maxwell's deposition and the privacy interests in her relationships with consenting adults). https://storage.courtlistener.com/pdf/2025/07/23/giuffre_v._maxwell.pdf +[^65]: *Giuffre v. Maxwell*, Nos. 24-182-cv(L), 24-203-cv(CON) (2d Cir. July 23, 2025), Part B and disposition ("we remand for further individual review of sealed documents and unsealing as warranted consistent with this opinion"; the December 2019 and January 2020 orders vacated "in their entirety"; the transcript submitted by Alan Dershowitz in support of his motion to intervene). https://storage.courtlistener.com/pdf/2025/07/23/giuffre_v._maxwell.pdf +[^66]: *Giuffre v. Maxwell*, Nos. 24-182-cv(L), 24-203-cv(CON) (2d Cir. July 23, 2025), counsel block (Sigrid S. McCawley for plaintiff-appellant; Christine N. Walz, Scott D. Ponce and Cynthia A. Gierhart, Holland & Knight, for the intervenors-appellants; Adam Mueller, Haddon, Morgan & Foreman, for defendant-appellee; Marion H. Little, Jr. and Matthew S. Zeiger, and Michael G. McGovern, for amici John Doe 183 and John Doe 133). https://storage.courtlistener.com/pdf/2025/07/23/giuffre_v._maxwell.pdf +[^67]: *Doe 1 v. Government of the United States Virgin Islands*, No. 1:23-cv-10301-AS (S.D.N.Y.), Opinion and Order, ECF No. 202 (March 21, 2025), and docket including Judgment, ECF No. 229 (May 5, 2026); No. 26-1316 (2d Cir.), docket. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68031620/doe-1-v-government-of-the-united-states-virgin-islands/ ; https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73544397/doe-1-v-government-of-the-united-states-virgin-islands/ +[^68]: *United States v. Tartaglione*, No. 16-CR-832 (KMK) (S.D.N.Y.), Order of Judge Kenneth M. Karas, May 6, 2026, pp. 1 to 13 (appeal No. 24-1852 pending). https://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/2026-05/16cr832%20-%20Tartaglione%20Order%20-%2026.5.6.pdf ; U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, Report 23-085 (June 2023) (Tartaglione as Epstein's cellmate; July 23, 2019). https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/23-085.pdf +[^69]: Opinion and Order, *Andriesz v. BGC Financial, L.P.*, No. 24-cv-7004 (LJL) (S.D.N.Y. April 23, 2025), docket 37; Judgment, docket 38, April 24, 2025; Order, No. 25-1341 (2d Cir. June 16, 2025), with mandate issued August 28, 2025 (S.D.N.Y. docket 40). https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69166995/andriesz-v-bgc-financial-lp/ +[^70]: Federal Judicial Center, "Engelmayer, Paul Adam," Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/engelmayer-paul-adam +[^71]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, dataset judges.csv (commission, senior status, chief judge service, termination and death dates for each judge named on this page). https://www.fjc.gov/sites/default/files/history/judges.csv diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/United States Senate.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/United States Senate.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..f9b15b99 --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/United States Senate.md @@ -0,0 +1,227 @@ +--- +title: United States Senate +aliases: + - United States Senate + - U.S. Senate + - US Senate + - Senate +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +tags: + - Organization + - USGovernment + - Congress + - SenateCommittees + - ChurchCommittee + - SenateWatergateCommittee + - MKULTRA + - BCCI + - IranContra + - INSLAW + - CIAOversight + - UAP + - ConfirmationHearings + - SenateEthics +category: "U.S. Government" +summary: "The upper chamber of Congress, whose committees ran the Church, Watergate, Kerry BCCI, Iran-Contra and INSLAW inquiries, whose votes confirmed or rejected intelligence nominees, and whose UAP amendments reached the Congressional Record." +start: 1789-03-04 +location: "Washington, D.C." +relations: + - type: investigated + with: "[[Central Intelligence Agency]]" + start: 1975 + end: 1976 + fn: 2 + - type: investigated + with: "[[Project MKUltra]]" + start: 1977 + end: 1977 + fn: 11 + - type: investigated + with: "[[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]]" + start: 1988 + end: 1992 + fn: 26 + - type: investigated + with: "[[Iran-Contra Affair]]" + start: 1987 + end: 1987 + fn: 36 + - type: investigated + with: "[[INSLAW]]" + start: 1988 + end: 1989 + fn: 21 +--- + +The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the [[United States Congress|Congress]]. Its select committees conducted the principal congressional investigations of the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]], the Iran-Contra affair and the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]]; its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations ran the Army-McCarthy and prisoner-of-war inquiries of the 1950s and the INSLAW and Riggs Bank inquiries of the 1980s and 2000s; and its confirmation votes, ethics proceedings and amendments on unidentified anomalous phenomena are part of the public record. + +### Creation of the intelligence committee, 1975 to 1976 + +On January 27, 1975 the Senate approved S. Res. 21, which created the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, by a vote of 88 to 4.[^1] Its chairman was [[Frank Church]] of Idaho and its vice chairman [[John Tower]] of Texas; the members were [[Philip Hart]], [[Walter Mondale]], [[Walter Huddleston]], [[Robert Morgan]], [[Gary Hart]], [[Howard Baker]], [[Barry Goldwater]], [[Charles Mathias]] and [[Richard Schweiker]], with [[Frederick A. O. Schwarz Jr.]] as chief counsel.[^2] The [[Church Committee]] issued an interim report on November 20, 1975 covering alleged assassination plots in five countries: [[Fidel Castro]] in Cuba, [[Patrice Lumumba]] in the Congo, [[Rafael Trujillo]] in the Dominican Republic, General René Schneider in Chile and [[Ngo Dinh Diem]] in South Vietnam. Its summary states that United States Government personnel plotted to kill Castro from 1960 to 1965, that "American underworld figures and Cubans hostile to Castro" were used in the plots, and that in the Lumumba case "Poisons were sent to the Congo."[^2] The final report ran to six books, and the volume on the performance of the intelligence agencies in the investigation of the assassination of [[John F. Kennedy]] is dated April 23, 1976.[^3] + +The standing committee that followed was created by S. Res. 400. The Government Operations Committee voted unanimously on February 24, 1976 to approve a resolution establishing a permanent standing committee on intelligence activities, and the Rules and Administration Committee reported it on April 29, 1976 after a 5 to 4 vote for an amendment in the nature of a substitute offered by its chairman, [[Howard Cannon]].[^4] Cannon introduced a compromise version on May 12, 1976 with 27 cosponsors, and the Majority and Minority Leaders, [[Mike Mansfield]] and [[Hugh Scott]], endorsed it. The Senate agreed to the compromise substitute 87 to 7 and then, on May 19, 1976, agreed to S. Res. 400 by 72 to 22, with six senators not voting, after floor debate spanning ten days and thirteen proposed amendments.[^5] The resolution's stated purposes included "vigilant legislative oversight over the intelligence activities of the United States," and the committee received legislative and budget authorization jurisdiction as well as oversight.[^5] The Rules Committee report on the resolution is S. Rept. 94-770.[^6] On July 1, 1976 the chairman of the new [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]], [[Daniel Inouye]], and the Armed Services chairman, [[John Stennis]], signed a memorandum of understanding on shared jurisdiction while the nomination of E. Henry Knoche as Deputy Director of Central Intelligence was before the Senate.[^7] The committee's first annual report, dated May 18, 1977, was issued under Inouye.[^8] + +### MKULTRA in the record + +The Church Committee's Book I describes [[Project MKUltra|MKULTRA]] as a program concerned with the research and development of chemical, biological and radiological materials for use in clandestine operations to control human behavior. It states that in January 1973 MKULTRA records were destroyed by personnel of the Technical Services Division acting on the verbal orders of [[Sidney Gottlieb]], then chief of the division. Gottlieb testified that he was carrying out the verbal order of Director [[Richard Helms]], and the report records that Helms confirmed this.[^9] The MKULTRA material in Book I is on pages 390 and 391.[^10] + +On August 3, 1977 the Select Committee on Intelligence met jointly with the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, chaired by [[Edward M. Kennedy]]. Present with Inouye (presiding) and Kennedy were Senators Goldwater, [[Birch Bayh]], Hathaway, Huddleston, Hart, Schweiker, Case, Garn, [[John Chafee|Chafee]], [[Richard Lugar|Lugar]] and Wallop.[^11] Inouye stated that the hearing concerned new documents on CIA drug testing supplied to the committee in the previous week, and that one purpose was "to hear the reasons why these documents were not available to the Church and Kennedy committees."[^11] Director of Central Intelligence [[Stansfield Turner]] testified with other agency witnesses. His statement reported the discovery of seven boxes of MKULTRA documents, which were found to contain 149 subprojects, and stated that the CIA now held the names of 185 non-government researchers and assistants and of 80 institutions where work was done or with which they were affiliated: 44 colleges or universities, 15 research foundations or chemical or pharmaceutical companies, 12 hospitals or clinics in addition to university-associated ones, and 3 penal institutions. The statement noted that the cryptonym had become public in 1975 when details of the drug-related death of [[Frank Olson]] were publicized.[^12] Inouye told the hearing that "the programs that are of greatest concern have stopped," and that the committees were reviewing events that had occurred as long as 25 years earlier.[^13] + +### The Senate Watergate committee + +The Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities was established by S. Res. 60 of February 7, 1973, with [[Sam Ervin]] of North Carolina as chairman and Howard Baker as vice chairman; its members included [[Herman Talmadge]], Inouye, [[Edward Gurney]] and [[Lowell Weicker]]. Its final report is S. Rept. 93-981 of June 1974.[^14] The report states that its knowledge of the activities of [[G. Gordon Liddy]] in the "Gemstone" intelligence-gathering plan came from sources other than Liddy, who refused to testify after the committee, pursuant to a court order, conferred "use" immunity; Liddy's role was detailed through the testimony of [[James McCord]], [[Jeb Stuart Magruder]], [[John Dean]], [[John N. Mitchell]] and [[Howard Hunt]].[^15] Chapter 8 of the report is titled "The Hughes-Rebozo investigation and related matters" and is followed in its table of contents by interviews of [[Robert Maheu]] and [[Nadine Henley]] of the [[Howard Hughes]] organization and concerns the cash contribution delivered to [[Bebe Rebozo]] for [[Richard Nixon]].[^16] The Church Committee's interim report of the previous year had already described Maheu as an ex-FBI agent who became a private investigator in 1954 and whom the CIA used in sensitive covert operations because "he didn't want to have an Agency person or a government person get caught."[^17] + +### The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations + +In June 1956 the subcommittee, chaired by [[John L. McClellan]] of Arkansas, held hearings on Communist interrogation, indoctrination and exploitation of American military and civilian prisoners. Its chief counsel was [[Robert Kennedy|Robert F. Kennedy]]. The parent Committee on Government Operations included John F. Kennedy, [[Joseph McCarthy]], [[Henry M. Jackson]], [[Stuart Symington]], Sam Ervin and [[Hubert Humphrey]]. The witnesses included the physicians [[Harold Wolff|Harold G. Wolff]] and [[Lawrence E. Hinkle Jr.]] (the first witnesses, beginning at page 2 of the printed record), the journalist [[Edward Hunter]] (pages 66 and 77), the psychologist [[Albert Biderman|Albert D. Biderman]] and a series of returned prisoners and officers.[^18] The opening statement put the figures on the record: some 7,190 Americans were captured by the Communists during the three years of the Korean War, about one-third died in Communist hands, and of the 4,428 who survived and were repatriated, "over 95 percent were subjected to a well-planned and well-organized campaign to destroy their belief in God, their loyalty to the United States and their faith in the democratic way of life."[^19] + +In 1953 and 1954 the same subcommittee was chaired by McCarthy, with [[Roy Cohn]] as chief counsel from January 15, 1953 to August 13, 1954.[^20] + +The subcommittee's staff study of the Justice Department's handling of its contract with [[INSLAW]], printed as S. Prt. 101-58 in 1989 under the Governmental Affairs Committee, found no proof that Attorney General [[Edwin Meese]], Deputy Attorney General [[Lowell Jensen]] or other Justice Department officials were involved in a conspiracy to ruin INSLAW or to steal its product; no proof that officials of [[Hadron]] were involved in a conspiracy with Justice Department officials; no proof that INSLAW's problems were connected to the Department's Project EAGLE procurement; and no proof that [[AT&T]] Information Systems participated in an effort to undermine INSLAW's reorganization. It found that the Director of the Executive Office for U.S. Trustees improperly sought special handling for INSLAW's bankruptcy proceeding, and it found the recantation of Judge [[Cornelius Blackshear]], when considered in light of all the facts, to be implausible.[^21] The study also states that the staff's attempt to conduct a free, full and timely investigation was hampered by the Department's lack of cooperation.[^22] + +On July 15, 2004 the subcommittee, chaired by [[Norm Coleman]] with [[Carl Levin]] as ranking minority member, released a minority staff report on [[Riggs Bank]]. Its first finding states that Riggs "assisted Augusto Pinochet, former president of Chile, to evade legal proceedings related to his Riggs bank accounts and resisted OCC oversight of these accounts."[^23] On July 22, 2014, with Levin as chairman, it held a hearing on basket options, at which Levin stated that [[Renaissance Technologies]]' Medallion fund had used the structures to produce profits of more than $30 billion from 1999 to 2013, and that [[Deutsche Bank]] and [[Barclays]] had earned about $570 million and $655 million in revenue from them; the Renaissance witness was co-chief executive officer [[Peter Brown]], and the hearing record carries an examination of the structures' effect on taxes paid.[^24] On April 27, 2025 the subcommittee's minority staff, under [[Richard Blumenthal]], issued a memorandum stating that as of January 20, 2025 [[Elon Musk]] and his companies were subject to at least 65 actual or potential actions by 11 different federal agencies, with potential liabilities estimated for 40 of them at not less than $2.37 billion.[^25] + +### The BCCI report and the Kerry subcommittee + +In December 1992 Senators [[John Kerry]] and [[Hank Brown]] issued a report to the [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee]] titled *The BCCI Affair* (Senate Print 102-140). It covers the investigation conducted by the subcommittee on terrorism, narcotics and international operations, the [[Kerry Committee]], into the Bank of Credit and Commerce International.[^26] The archivist [[Steven Aftergood]] wrote in a note to the committee's electronic text that after the report's release "Sen. Hank Brown, reportedly acting at the behest of Henry Kissinger, pressed for the deletion of a few passages, particularly in Chapter 20 on 'BCCI and Kissinger Associates,'" with the result that the version printed by the Government Printing Office differs slightly from the committee's softcopy.[^27] + +The report places the February 9, 1988 hearing testimony of former Panamanian consul [[José Blandón]] on the same day as the heart attack of the bank's founder, [[Agha Hasan Abedi]]. Blandón told the subcommittee that BCCI was handling drug money for [[Manuel Noriega]]. A subpoena to BCCI for Noriega records followed in March.[^28] The Committee's own subpoena was issued on July 27, 1988 and served on August 1, 1988; Clifford wrote Kerry that BCCI would cooperate, asked the full committee's chairman, [[Claiborne Pell]], for a month's delay in producing documents, and met subcommittee staff members Jack Blum and Kathleen Smith. A memorandum to the file by Altman dated August 10, 1988 records Blum as saying that the subcommittee had been led to believe that BCCI, through its banking locations in Panama, Colombia and Miami, had a major involvement in the management of assets for Noriega and for "Michael Harari, reputed to be a close aide of Noriega's, an arms dealer, and formerly an Israeli secret service agent."[^29] The report also records that [[Clark Clifford]] and [[Robert Altman]] sold their shares in CCAH in March 1988, shares that had been pledged to BCCI. A letter from Clifford dated February 8, 1988, which asked the bank's [[Swaleh Naqvi]] to arrange the sale, was written "some time thereafter" according to the [[Federal Reserve Board|Federal Reserve]], and backdated to precede the Abedi heart attack and the Blandón testimony.[^30] + +The report describes BCCI's commodities affiliate Capcom as having majority shareholders [[Kamal Adham]] and A. R. Khalil, both former senior Saudi officials who acted successively as Saudi Arabia's principal liaisons to the CIA during the 1970s and 1980s. Its American front men included [[Robert Magness]], chief executive of [[Tele-Communications Inc.]], and TCI vice president [[Larry Romrell]].[^31] A former manager of BCCI's Sloan Street branch in London, [[Ghassan Qassem]], had been given the accounts of [[Abu Nidal]] and passed information on them to British and American intelligence, "apparently as a paid informant, according to press accounts based on interviews with Qassem."[^32] + +The report's list of unanswered questions includes "the alleged relationship between the late CIA director [[William J. Casey|William Casey]] and BCCI," "the use of BCCI by central figures in the alleged '[[October Surprise]]'," and "the financial dealings of BCCI directors with [[Charles Keating]] and several Keating affiliates and front-companies."[^33] The subcommittee also stated that payments BCCI made to [[Andrew Young]] while he was a public official "were at best unusual, and by all appearances, improper."[^34] + +At the start of the subcommittee's hearings "Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy," the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported, Blandón identified the [[Israel|Israeli]] agent as [[Mike Harari|Michael Harari]], who he said had business with Noriega in Panama in a series of companies for arms contraband to supply the [[Contras]]. The agency's report, which spells the name Harare, quotes Blandón as saying "The Harare network is a network that was established with Israeli citizens, Panamanians and U.S. citizens for arms supply purposes," and Yosef Gal, the Israeli embassy spokesman, as saying that Harari was "acting as a private citizen" in his dealings with Noriega and that the Israeli government had no knowledge of his activities.[^35] + +### Iran-Contra and the Contra drug allegations + +The Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition, chaired by Inouye with [[Warren Rudman]] as vice chairman, took part in the joint investigation with the House committee. The joint report of November 1987 appeared as S. Rept. 100-216 and H. Rept. 100-433.[^36] Among the joint files is a staff memorandum from Robert A. Bermingham to the House committee's chairman, [[Lee Hamilton]], and chief counsel [[John Nields]] on allegations of Contra involvement in drug smuggling. It states that "Our investigation has not developed any corroboration of media-exploited allegations" of U.S. government-condoned drug trafficking by Contra leaders or organizations. It records that Dave Faulkner, an investigator for the Senate select committee, advised that the Senate investigation was also "substantially negative" with regard to Contra drug smuggling; that on July 21, 1987 counsel Hayden Gregory of the Crime Subcommittee of the Judiciary said his investigation had been inconclusive and had developed no pertinent information "above the level of 'street talk'"; that several of those involved had also been questioned or deposed in Senator Kerry's ongoing investigation; and that "almost all of these allegations originate from persons indicted or convicted of drug smuggling."[^37] + +[[Donald Gregg]], Vice President [[George H.W. Bush|George H. W. Bush]]'s national security adviser, was nominated as ambassador to South Korea in 1989. The Christian Science Monitor wrote on June 20, 1989 that Gregg had in 1985 helped his CIA acquaintance [[Felix Rodriguez]] obtain a position with the Salvadoran Air Force that became a cover for assisting the Contras, that Gregg insisted he had been kept uninformed for a year and a half, and that senators had been "denied some important documents."[^38] The Senate confirmed him on September 12, 1989 by 66 votes to 33.[^39] + +### The Gates confirmation + +The Select Committee on Intelligence reported the nomination of [[Robert Gates]] as Director of Central Intelligence on October 24, 1991, after a committee vote of 11 to 4 on October 18.[^40] The report records that [[Richard Babayan]] alleged in news reporting and other forums that Gates had assisted an individual named M. K. Moss in a covert CIA operation to supply arms to [[Iraq]], had sought to transfer cluster bomb technology to [[Carlos Cardoen]], and was aware that a Lancaster, Pennsylvania company was supplying arms to Iraq through South Africa. Cardoen denied meeting Gates in a letter of July 16, 1991. The CIA Inspector General and the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] were asked to investigate, and the committee wrote that "no credible evidence has been presented to the Committee to support these allegations."[^41] In examining Gates's relationship with Cardoen, the committee obtained information about a relationship between Cardoen Industries and a former part-time senior CIA employee, and about a potential conflict of interest arising from [[James D. Theberge]]'s simultaneous relationship with the agency and a Cardoen subsidiary while he served on the Senior Review Panel.[^42] + +[[Ari Ben-Menashe]] alleged to the Select Committee on Intelligence during the hearings that Gates conspired with the Reagan-Bush campaign to delay the release of the American hostages and was present at various meetings, including those in Paris; Gates denied the allegations under oath, and the committee later reported that investigations by the FBI and the CIA Inspector General, including analyses of Gates's calendars and travel records, provided no credible evidence to confirm them.[^43] The additional views of Senators John Chafee and [[John Warner]], printed with the committee report, list the questions asked about Gates, among them "Did he illegally enter the United States with Ari Ben Menasche carrying a suitcase stuffed with $16 million in unmarked $100 bills?" They state that Gates's travel records demonstrate he could not have been in Miami when Ben-Menashe claimed he was.[^44] The Senate confirmed Gates on November 5, 1991 by 64 votes to 31.[^45] + +### Confirmation votes + +[[R. James Woolsey]]'s nomination as Director of Central Intelligence was heard on February 2 and 3, 1993 by the Select Committee on Intelligence under its chairman, [[Dennis DeConcini]].[^46] The Senate rejected the nomination of John Tower as Secretary of Defense on March 9, 1989 by 47 votes to 53.[^47] It confirmed [[Porter Goss]] as Director of Central Intelligence on September 22, 2004 by 77 to 17,[^48] [[John Ratcliffe]] as Director of the CIA on January 23, 2025 by 74 to 25,[^49] [[Tulsi Gabbard]] as Director of National Intelligence on February 12, 2025 by 52 to 48,[^50] [[Howard Lutnick]] as Secretary of Commerce on February 18, 2025 by 51 to 45,[^51] [[Kash Patel]] as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on February 20, 2025 by 51 to 49,[^52] and [[Todd Blanche]] as Attorney General on August 8, 2026 by 50 to 49.[^53] + +At the confirmation hearing of [[Hillary Clinton]] before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on January 13, 2009, ranking member Lugar stated that "the main issue related to Senator Clinton's nomination that has occupied the Committee has been a review of how her service as Secretary of State can be reconciled with the sweeping global activities of President Bill Clinton and the Clinton Foundation."[^54] + +In 1985 the Senate Judiciary Committee considered the nomination of [[William Bradford Reynolds]] as Associate Attorney General. The Christian Science Monitor reported on June 20, 1985 that the committee had ten Republicans and eight Democrats, that his confirmation was "said to be in serious trouble" over statements challenged with sworn affidavits and documents, and that DeConcini told Reynolds the issue was not busing and quotas; on June 26 it reported that the committee had postponed its vote on June 20 because there was no majority for recommending confirmation.[^55] The Washington Post of June 28, 1985 reported the committee's 10 to 8 vote of June 27 against the nomination.[^56] + +### The 2014 detention report + +The committee's study of the CIA's detention and interrogation program was approved by a 9 to 6 vote on December 13, 2012, and filed with the Senate on December 9, 2014 as S. Rept. 113-288, with a foreword by Chairman [[Dianne Feinstein]].[^57] Finding 1 states: "The CIA's use of its enhanced interrogation techniques was not an effective means of acquiring intelligence or gaining cooperation from detainees."[^58] The additional views of [[Susan Collins]] and the minority views of Vice Chairman [[Saxby Chambliss]] and Senators [[Richard Burr]], [[Jim Risch]], [[Dan Coats]], [[Marco Rubio]] and [[Tom Coburn]] are printed with the report.[^59] + +### Aerospace programs and the UAP provisions + +On June 24, 2009 [[Harry Reid]], then Senate Majority Leader, wrote to Deputy Secretary of Defense [[William J. Lynn III]]. The letter states: "Beginning this past September, the U.S. Senate has mandated that the Defense Intelligence Agency assess far-term foreign advanced aerospace threats to the United States." It asks that a restricted special access program be established for specific portions of the [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program]], whose studies the letter describes as covering advanced lift, propulsion, unconventional materials and signature reduction.[^60] A [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] talking paper of May 4, 2009, "Senator Reid Visit to Director, DIA," states that Senator Inouye and Senator Reid sponsored language in the July 2008 supplemental appropriation bill for the agency to initiate an investigation of foreign advanced aerospace weapon threats from the present out to 40 years in the future, and that Reid had a deep interest in the potential threat posed by unconventional aerospace technologies.[^61] A 2010 DIA information memorandum states that the program was first sponsored in the fiscal year 2008 Defense Supplemental Appropriation Act by Senators Reid and Inouye with a $10 million add.[^62] + +On July 13, 2023 Senator [[Chuck Schumer]], for himself and Senators [[Mike Rounds]], Marco Rubio, [[Kirsten Gillibrand]], [[Todd Young]] and [[Martin Heinrich]], submitted an amendment (S.Amdt. 797) to S. 2226, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, titled the "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act of 2023."[^63] The text defines "non-human intelligence" as "any sentient intelligent non-human lifeform regardless of nature or ultimate origin that may be presumed responsible for unidentified anomalous phenomena or of which the Federal Government has become aware," defines "technologies of unknown origin" to include crash debris, mechanisms and "damaged or intact aerospace vehicles, and damaged or intact ocean-surface and undersea craft" associated with such phenomena, creates an Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Records Review Board, and in section 1110 provides: "The Federal Government shall exercise eminent domain over any and all recovered technologies of unknown origin and biological evidence of non-human intelligence that may be controlled by private persons or entities in the interests of the public good."[^64] The senators' press release of July 14, 2023 described the amendment as modeled on the [[JFK Assassination Records Collection Act]], and Schumer said: "The American public has a right to learn about technologies of unknown origins, non-human intelligence, and unexplainable phenomena."[^65] + +The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, enacted December 22, 2023 as Public Law 118-31, contains Subtitle C on unidentified anomalous phenomena. Section 1841 directs the Archivist of the United States to establish an "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Records Collection" in the [[National Archives and Records Administration|National Archives]].[^66] Section 7343 provides that no funds authorized by the division may be obligated for UAP activity protected by a special or restricted access limitation unless the [[Director of National Intelligence]] has given the details to the appropriate committees and congressional leadership, including for activities described in a report released by the [[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]] in fiscal year 2024.[^67] On July 11, 2024 Rounds, for himself and Schumer, submitted S.Amdt. 2610 to S. 4638, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025, titled the "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act of 2024," which carries the same eminent domain provision.[^68] + +### The Keating Five and other ethics matters + +In early 1991 the Senate Ethics Committee reported on five senators who had met federal bank regulators on behalf of Charles Keating's [[Lincoln Savings and Loan]]. The panel found "substantial credible evidence" that [[Alan Cranston]] "may have engaged in improper conduct." Of DeConcini and [[Donald Riegle]], it found that their conduct "gave the appearance of being improper and was certainly attended with insensitivity and poor judgment," but that they did not violate law or Senate rules. [[John Glenn]] and [[John McCain]] each, on one occasion, exercised poor judgment.[^69] The committee's preliminary inquiry had begun on December 21, 1989, and it transmitted its report to the Senate on November 19, 1991, a sequence described in the Senate on January 4, 1995 by [[Jesse Helms]], who had been a member of the committee during the proceedings.[^70] On November 20, 1991 the committee reprimanded Cranston for "improper and repugnant" conduct; Cranston expressed "deep remorse" and told the Senate he accepted the reprimand, while denying the committee's assertion that he had violated "accepted norms" of Senate ethical behavior. The committee's chairman, [[Howell Heflin]], said the panel found convincing evidence of a pattern of conduct "in which fund-raising and official activities were substantially linked."[^71] + +The Justice Department moved on April 1, 2009 to drop the indictment of former Senator [[Ted Stevens]], whom a jury had convicted the previous fall on seven counts of lying on his Senate disclosure form, in order to conceal $250,000 in gifts from an oil industry executive and other friends.[^72] + +Robert Menendez resigned from the Senate effective August 20, 2024, after his federal conviction, while the committee had voted to proceed with an adjudicatory review. On August 21, 2024 the committee's chairman, [[Christopher Coons]], and vice chairman, [[James Lankford]], issued a statement that "The Committee only has jurisdiction over sitting members of the Senate. As such, the Committee has lost jurisdiction for its adjudicatory review and has closed this matter."[^73] + +### Senators and committee staff + +DeConcini was a Democratic senator from Arizona from January 4, 1977 to January 3, 1995.[^74] He chaired the Select Committee on Intelligence in the 103rd Congress, as the Woolsey hearing record shows.[^46] In 1989 he chaired the Special Committee on Investigations of the Select Committee on Indian Affairs, whose chairman was Inouye, in hearings that included testimony on the [[Cabazon Indian Casino]] in Riverside County, California; the printed record includes a report describing [[Rocco Zangari]], who had operated the casino's cardroom, as a Southern California organized crime figure who in 1988 pleaded guilty to extortion charges, and Anthony Daniels, Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI's Criminal Investigative Division, appears among the witnesses.[^75] Hank Brown served in the Senate from Colorado from January 3, 1991 to January 3, 1997. [[Bob Kerrey]] served from Nebraska from January 3, 1989 to January 3, 2001, and was vice chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence under Chairman [[Richard Shelby]] in the 105th Congress.[^74][^76] Helms served from North Carolina from January 3, 1973 to January 3, 2003.[^74] [[Paula Hawkins]] served from Florida from January 5, 1981 to January 3, 1987, and in 1981 she appointed [[Jay Howell]] chief counsel to the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, where he conducted investigations and drafted legislation on missing children, child kidnapping, child pornography and serial murder.[^74][^77] The Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson, a former governor, took his Senate seat on January 3, 2001 and served until January 3, 2013.[^74] [[Ben Sasse]] served from Nebraska from January 6, 2015 to January 8, 2023; as a member of the [[Senate Judiciary Committee|Judiciary Committee]] he wrote on December 3, 2018 to the Justice Department's [[Office of Professional Responsibility]] asking it to investigate the prosecutors who negotiated [[Jeffrey Epstein]]'s 2007 non-prosecution agreement, and his office announced on February 6, 2019 that the Department had responded that the office had opened an investigation.[^74][^78] [[JD Vance]] served from Ohio from January 3, 2023 to January 9, 2025.[^74] + +On February 12, 2003 Roll Call reported that Senator [[Jay Rockefeller]], the Intelligence Committee's new vice chairman, had hired [[Christopher Mellon]] as minority staff director, writing: "It's starting to look like the Rockefellers and Mellons are taking over the Senate Select Intelligence Committee."[^79] + +The Senate's treaty record includes territorial and law-enforcement conventions. The Foreign Relations Committee took no action on the 1867 convention for the cession of St. Thomas and St. John until March 24, 1870, when [[Charles Sumner]] reported it adversely and the Senate acquiesced; the 1916 convention for the cession of the Danish West Indies received the Senate's advice and consent by resolution of September 9, 1916, and ratifications were exchanged on January 17, 1917.[^80] The United States and [[Jamaica]] signed a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty at Kingston on July 7, 1989, which the President transmitted to the Senate on October 25, 1991 (Treaty Doc. 102-16), the Foreign Relations Committee reported favorably on May 7, 1992 (Senate Executive Report 102-32), and the Senate gave its advice and consent on July 2, 1992.[^81] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Kaiser, Frederick M., *Legislative History of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence*, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, August 16, 1978, n. 21 (S. Res. 21, introduced January 21, 1975, approved by the full Senate January 27, 1975 by a vote of 88-4; Congressional Record, vol. 121, January 27, 1975, pp. S967-S984). https://sgp.fas.org/crs/intel/leghist.pdf +[^2]: Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, United States Senate, *Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders: An Interim Report*, S. Rept. 94-465, November 20, 1975, committee roster and section I.D.2, "Summary of Findings and Conclusions on the Plots." https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94465.pdf +[^3]: Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 94-755, Books I-VI (1976). Book V, *The Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: Performance of the Intelligence Agencies*, is dated April 23, 1976. https://archive.org/details/finalreportofsel05unit +[^4]: Kaiser, *Legislative History of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence* (1978), part III (Government Operations Committee vote of February 24, 1976; Rules and Administration Committee report of April 29, 1976 after a 5-to-4 vote for the "Cannon Amendment"). https://sgp.fas.org/crs/intel/leghist.pdf +[^5]: Kaiser, *Legislative History of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence* (1978), introductory summary and part IV (introduction of the Cannon compromise on May 12, 1976 with 27 cosponsors and the endorsement of Senators Mansfield and Scott; Amendment No. 1643 agreed to 87 to 7; S. Res. 400 agreed to 72 to 22 with 6 senators not voting on May 19, 1976; text of the resolution's purpose clause; Congressional Record, vol. 122, May 19, 1976). https://sgp.fas.org/crs/intel/leghist.pdf +[^6]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Rules and Administration, report on S. Res. 400, "To establish a Standing Committee of the Senate on Intelligence Activities," 94th Congress, 2d session, S. Rept. 94-770 (1976), including the "Rules Committee amendment to S. Res. 400." https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94770.pdf +[^7]: Kaiser, *Legislative History of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence* (1978), part V (memorandum of understanding of July 1, 1976 signed by Chairman Stennis of Armed Services and Chairman Inouye of the Select Committee on Intelligence; nomination of E. Henry Knoche to be Deputy Director of Central Intelligence; Congressional Record, vol. 122, July 1, 1976, p. S11355). https://sgp.fas.org/crs/intel/leghist.pdf +[^8]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Intelligence, *Annual Report to the Senate*, 95th Congress, 1st session, S. Rept. 95-21 (May 18, 1977). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/publications/95217.pdf +[^9]: Church Committee, *Final Report*, Book I, S. Rept. 94-755, section on MKULTRA, citing the testimony of Sidney Gottlieb and the confirmation of Richard Helms. https://archive.org/details/finalreportofsel01unit +[^10]: Church Committee, *Final Report*, Book I, S. Rept. 94-755, pp. 390-391. https://archive.org/details/finalreportofsel01unit +[^11]: *Project MKULTRA, the CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification*, joint hearing before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, United States Senate, 95th Congress, 1st session, August 3, 1977, list of members present and opening statement of Senator Inouye. https://archive.org/details/jointhearing_project-mkultra_1977 +[^12]: *Project MKULTRA* joint hearing (August 3, 1977), prepared statement of Admiral Stansfield Turner, Director of Central Intelligence, including his letter to the chairman of July 15, 1977 on the discovery of seven boxes of MKULTRA documents. https://archive.org/details/jointhearing_project-mkultra_1977 +[^13]: *Project MKULTRA* joint hearing (August 3, 1977), statement of Senator Inouye. https://archive.org/details/jointhearing_project-mkultra_1977 +[^14]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *The Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981, 93d Congress, 2d session (June 1974), title page and committee roster. https://archive.org/details/WatergateErvinCommitteeReport +[^15]: Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *The Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981, discussion of Liddy and the "Gemstone" plan. https://archive.org/details/WatergateErvinCommitteeReport +[^16]: Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *The Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981, table of contents, chapter 8, "The Hughes-Rebozo investigation and related matters" (interviews of Robert A. Maheu and Nadine Henley). https://archive.org/details/WatergateErvinCommitteeReport +[^17]: Church Committee, *Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders*, S. Rept. 94-465 (1975), discussion of Robert A. Maheu (testimony of 5/30/75, p. 158). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94465.pdf +[^18]: U.S. Senate, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations, *Communist Interrogation, Indoctrination and Exploitation of American Military and Civilian Prisoners*, hearings, 84th Congress, 2d session, June 19, 20, 26 and 27, 1956 (Government Printing Office, 1956), committee and subcommittee rosters (Chairman McClellan; Robert F. Kennedy, chief counsel) and contents list of witnesses. https://archive.org/details/communist_interrogation_indoctrination_and_exploitation_of_the_american_military +[^19]: *Communist Interrogation, Indoctrination and Exploitation of American Military and Civilian Prisoners* (1956), opening statement. https://archive.org/details/communist_interrogation_indoctrination_and_exploitation_of_the_american_military +[^20]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Governmental Affairs, *Executive Sessions of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations*, vol. 1, S. Prt. 107-84 (made public January 2003), historical introduction and "Subcommittee Staff Appointed in 1953-1954" (Roy M. Cohn, chief counsel, January 15, 1953 to August 13, 1954). https://www.senate.gov/about/resources/pdf/mccarthy-hearings-volume1.pdf +[^21]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Governmental Affairs, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, *Staff Study of Allegations Pertaining to the Department of Justice's Handling of a Contract with INSLAW, Inc.*, S. Prt. 101-58, 101st Congress, 1st session (1989), table of contents, part II (findings a through h). https://archive.org/details/StaffStudyOfAllegationsPertainingToTheDepartmentOfJusticesHandlingOfAContractWithInslaw +[^22]: *Staff Study ... INSLAW, Inc.*, S. Prt. 101-58 (1989), part III, "The Subcommittee Experiences Problems With the Department of Justice." https://archive.org/details/StaffStudyOfAllegationsPertainingToTheDepartmentOfJusticesHandlingOfAContractWithInslaw +[^23]: U.S. Senate, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, minority staff, *Money Laundering and Foreign Corruption: Enforcement and Effectiveness of the Patriot Act, Case Study Involving Riggs Bank* (report released with the hearing of July 15, 2004), findings of fact (1). https://archive.org/details/SenateSubcommitteeReportOnMoneyLaunderingAndRiggsBank +[^24]: U.S. Senate, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, hearing "Abuse of Structured Financial Products: Misusing Basket Options to Avoid Taxes and Leverage Limits," July 22, 2014, S. Hrg. 113-422, opening statement of Chairman Levin; testimony of Peter Brown. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-113shrg89882/pdf/CHRG-113shrg89882.pdf +[^25]: U.S. Senate, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Minority Staff, memorandum "Calculating Risk: Estimating the Legal Liability Elon Musk May Avoid Through His Government Takeover," April 27, 2025, key findings (a partisan staff document prepared by the minority). https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025-04-27-Minority-Staff-Memorandum-Elon-Musk-Conflicts.pdf +[^26]: Kerry, John, and Hank Brown, *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate*, 102d Congress, 2d session, Senate Print 102-140 (December 1992), cover page. https://archive.org/details/TheBCCIAffair +[^27]: Aftergood, Steven, editorial note, "The BCCI Affair," Federation of American Scientists. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/ +[^28]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair*, S. Prt. 102-140, passage on the February 9, 1988 hearing, Blandon's testimony, and the March 1988 subpoena to BCCI for Noriega records. https://archive.org/details/TheBCCIAffair +[^29]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair*, S. Prt. 102-140, passage on the subpoena of July 27, 1988, service on August 1, 1988, Clifford's letter to Kerry, the request to Senator Pell, and the memorandum to the file from Altman dated August 10, 1988. https://archive.org/details/TheBCCIAffair +[^30]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair*, S. Prt. 102-140, passage on the March 1988 sale of CCAH shares, the Clifford letter, and the Federal Reserve finding on its dating. https://archive.org/details/TheBCCIAffair +[^31]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair*, S. Prt. 102-140, passage on Capcom's shareholders and U.S. front men. https://archive.org/details/TheBCCIAffair +[^32]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair*, S. Prt. 102-140, passage on Ghassan Qassem and Abu Nidal, citing press accounts based on interviews with Qassem. https://archive.org/details/TheBCCIAffair +[^33]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair*, S. Prt. 102-140, list of unanswered questions. https://archive.org/details/TheBCCIAffair +[^34]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair*, S. Prt. 102-140, passage on payments to Andrew Young. https://archive.org/details/TheBCCIAffair +[^35]: "Ex-agent of the Mossad Implicated in Drug Deals with Panamanian," Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 1988 (report on the testimony of Jose Blandon before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations in the hearings "Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy"). https://www.jta.org/archive/ex-agent-of-the-mossad-implicated-in-drug-deals-with-panamanian +[^36]: *Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair*, S. Rept. 100-216, H. Rept. 100-433, 100th Congress, 1st session (November 1987), title page and committee membership of the Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition. https://archive.org/details/reportofcongress87unit +[^37]: Robert A. Bermingham, staff memorandum to Chairman Hamilton and John Nields, "Allegations Re: Contra Involvement With Drug Smuggling," in *Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair*, pp. 630-631 (1987). https://archive.org/details/reportofcongress87unit +[^38]: "The Iran-Contra Ghost," *Christian Science Monitor*, June 20, 1989. https://www.csmonitor.com/1989/0620/egregg.html +[^39]: U.S. Senate, Roll Call Vote 174, 101st Congress, 1st session, September 12, 1989, on the nomination of Donald Phinney Gregg to be Ambassador to the Republic of Korea: Nomination Confirmed, 66 yeas, 33 nays. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1011/vote_101_1_00174.htm +[^40]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Intelligence, *Nomination of Robert M. Gates to be Director of Central Intelligence*, S. Exec. Rept. 102-19, 102d Congress, 1st session (October 24, 1991), committee action of October 18, 1991 (11 to 4). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/sites-default-filesations-10219.pdf +[^41]: S. Exec. Rept. 102-19, section 5, "Allegations Relating to CIA's Relationship with Carlos Cardoen." https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/sites-default-filesations-10219.pdf +[^42]: S. Exec. Rept. 102-19, section 5, on the relationship between Cardoen Industries and a former part-time CIA employee, and on the Senior Review Panel and James D. Theberge. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/sites-default-filesations-10219.pdf +[^43]: U.S. House of Representatives, *Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force*, January 3, 1993, p. 172 (section "The Whereabouts of Robert Gates"), citing the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on the Gates nomination. https://archive.org/details/JointReportOfTheOctoberSurpriseTaskForce +[^44]: S. Exec. Rept. 102-19, "Additional Views of Senators John H. Chafee and John W. Warner." https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/sites-default-filesations-10219.pdf +[^45]: U.S. Senate, Roll Call Vote 243, 102d Congress, 1st session, November 5, 1991, on the nomination of Robert M. Gates to be Director of Central Intelligence: Nomination Confirmed, 64 yeas, 31 nays. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1021/vote_102_1_00243.htm +[^46]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Intelligence, *Nomination of R. James Woolsey to be Director of Central Intelligence*, hearings of February 2 and 3, 1993, S. Hrg. 103-296 (Dennis DeConcini, Arizona, Chairman). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/sites-default-files-hearings-103296.pdf +[^47]: U.S. Senate, Roll Call Vote 20, 101st Congress, 1st session, March 9, 1989, on the nomination of John Goodwin Tower to be Secretary of Defense: Nomination Rejected, 47 yeas, 53 nays. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1011/vote_101_1_00020.htm +[^48]: U.S. Senate, Roll Call Vote 187, 108th Congress, 2d session, September 22, 2004, on the nomination of Porter J. Goss to be Director of Central Intelligence: Nomination Confirmed, 77 yeas, 17 nays. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1082/vote_108_2_00187.htm +[^49]: U.S. Senate, Roll Call Vote 13, 119th Congress, 1st session, January 23, 2025, on the nomination of John Ratcliffe to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency: Nomination Confirmed, 74 yeas, 25 nays. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1191/vote_119_1_00013.htm +[^50]: U.S. Senate, Roll Call Vote 50, 119th Congress, 1st session, February 12, 2025, on the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to be Director of National Intelligence: Nomination Confirmed, 52 yeas, 48 nays. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1191/vote_119_1_00050.htm +[^51]: U.S. Senate, Roll Call Vote 57, 119th Congress, 1st session, February 18, 2025, on the nomination of Howard Lutnick to be Secretary of Commerce: Nomination Confirmed, 51 yeas, 45 nays. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1191/vote_119_1_00057.htm +[^52]: U.S. Senate, Roll Call Vote 61, 119th Congress, 1st session, February 20, 2025, on the nomination of Kashyap Patel to be Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation: Nomination Confirmed, 51 yeas, 49 nays. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1191/vote_119_1_00061.htm +[^53]: U.S. Senate, Roll Call Vote 230, 119th Congress, 2d session, August 8, 2026, on the nomination of Todd Blanche to be Attorney General (PN1078): Nomination Confirmed, 50 yeas, 49 nays. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1192/vote_119_2_00230.htm +[^54]: Lugar, Richard G., opening statement at the confirmation hearing of Senator Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, January 13, 2009. https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/LugarStatement090113a.pdf +[^55]: Richey, Warren, "Senate confirmation for senior Justice Department official is in jeopardy," *Christian Science Monitor*, June 20, 1985, https://www.csmonitor.com/1985/0620/arey.html ; "Reynolds issues: integrity and civil rights," *Christian Science Monitor*, June 26, 1985, https://www.csmonitor.com/1985/0626/ebrad.html +[^56]: *The Washington Post*, June 28, 1985. +[^57]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Intelligence, *Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program*, S. Rept. 113-288, 113th Congress, 2d session (filed December 9, 2014), transmittal letter stating the 9-6 vote of December 13, 2012, and foreword by Chairman Feinstein. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/CRPT-113srpt288.pdf +[^58]: S. Rept. 113-288, findings and conclusions, Finding 1. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/CRPT-113srpt288.pdf +[^59]: S. Rept. 113-288, table of contents, "Additional Views of Senator Collins" and "Minority Views of Vice Chairman Chambliss, Senators Burr, Risch, Coats, Rubio, and Coburn." https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/CRPT-113srpt288.pdf +[^60]: Letter from Senator Harry Reid to Deputy Secretary of Defense William J. Lynn III, June 24, 2009, released by the Defense Intelligence Agency. https://documents2.theblackvault.com/documents/dia/AAWSAP/20090624_Reid_to_DEPSECDEF_ref_AAITP_in_SAP.pdf +[^61]: Defense Intelligence Agency, talking paper, "(U) Senator Reid Visit to Director, DIA," May 4, 2009, paragraph 2, "Background." https://documents2.theblackvault.com/documents/dia/AAWSAP/DR_Reid_Mtg_May09.pdf +[^62]: Defense Intelligence Agency, Information Memorandum U-10-2552, "Advanced Aerospace Threat and Identification Program," 2010. https://documents2.theblackvault.com/documents/dia/AAWSAP/U-10-2552CE-IM-ATL.pdf +[^63]: *Congressional Record*, Senate, July 13, 2023, p. S2953, S.Amdt. 797 to S. 2226, submitted by Mr. Schumer for himself, Mr. Rounds, Mr. Rubio, Mrs. Gillibrand, Mr. Young and Mr. Heinrich. https://www.congress.gov/118/crec/2023/07/13/169/120/CREC-2023-07-13-pt1-PgS2953.pdf +[^64]: *Congressional Record*, Senate, July 13, 2023, S.Amdt. 797, sec. 1103 (definitions of "non-human intelligence" and "technologies of unknown origin"), the Review Board provisions, and sec. 1110, "Disclosure of Recovered Technologies of Unknown Origin and Biological Evidence of Non-Human Intelligence." https://www.congress.gov/118/crec/2023/07/13/169/120/CREC-2023-07-13-pt1-PgS2953.pdf +[^65]: Senators Todd Young, Chuck Schumer and Mike Rounds, press release, "Young, Colleagues Introduce New Legislation to Declassify Government Records Related to UFOs and Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, Modeled After JFK Assassination Records Collection Act as an Amendment," July 14, 2023. https://www.young.senate.gov/news/press-releases/young-colleagues-introduce-new-legislation-to-declassify-government-records-related-to-ufos-and-unidentified-anomalous-phenomena_modeled-after-jfk-assassination-records-collection-act-as-an-amendment +[^66]: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, Public Law 118-31, enacted December 22, 2023 (H.R. 2670), Subtitle C, sec. 1841. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-118publ31/pdf/PLAW-118publ31.pdf +[^67]: Public Law 118-31, sec. 7343, "Funding limitations relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena," subsection (b). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-118publ31/pdf/PLAW-118publ31.pdf +[^68]: *Congressional Record*, Senate, July 11, 2024, p. S4943, S.Amdt. 2610 to S. 4638, submitted by Mr. Rounds for himself and Mr. Schumer, "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act of 2024," division sec. 1110 (eminent domain). https://www.congress.gov/118/crec/2024/07/11/170/115/CREC-2024-07-11-pt1-PgS4943.pdf +[^69]: "Panel Rules on 'Keating 5,'" *Christian Science Monitor*, March 1, 1991, reporting the Senate Ethics Committee findings on Cranston, DeConcini, Riegle, Glenn and McCain. https://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/amphtml/1991/0301/afil01.html +[^70]: *Congressional Record*, Senate, January 4, 1995, p. S420, remarks of Mr. Helms introducing S. Res. 21 on the membership of the Select Committee on Ethics. https://www.congress.gov/104/crec/1995/01/04/CREC-1995-01-04-pt3-PgS420-2.pdf +[^71]: "Cranston Reprimanded," Reuters, in *Christian Science Monitor*, November 22, 1991. https://www.csmonitor.com/1991/1122/22063.html +[^72]: "Justice Dept. Seeks To Void Stevens' Conviction," NPR, April 1, 2009, reporting the conviction of the previous fall on seven counts and the Justice Department motion to drop the charges. https://www.npr.org/2009/04/01/102589818/justice-dept-seeks-to-void-stevens-conviction +[^73]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Ethics, "Statement of the Select Committee on Ethics Regarding the Matter of Senator Robert Menendez," press release, August 21, 2024 (Chairman Christopher A. Coons, Vice Chairman James Lankford). https://www.ethics.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/ef493142-e561-49f2-8ac1-1630a512c7f0/select-committee-on-ethics---press-release-august-21-2024.pdf +[^74]: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, as compiled in the unitedstates/congress-legislators project (legislators-historical.json and legislators-current.json), Senate terms of Dennis DeConcini, Hank Brown, J. Robert Kerrey, Jesse Helms, Paula Hawkins, Ben Nelson, Benjamin Sasse and James David Vance. https://unitedstates.github.io/congress-legislators/legislators-historical.json +[^75]: *Federal Government's Relationship with American Indians*, hearings before the Special Committee on Investigations of the Select Committee on Indian Affairs, United States Senate, 101st Cong., 1st Sess., February 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1989, S. Hrg. 101-126, Part 2: committee roster (Daniel K. Inouye, Chairman), statement of Senator DeConcini, chairman of the Special Committee on Investigations, witness list, and Robert Morehouse, "High Stakes Bingo on Indian Reservations in California," Cabazon Band section. https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152832_0182 +[^76]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Intelligence, *Committee Activities, Special Report, January 7, 1997 to October 21, 1998*, S. Rept. 106-3 (February 3, 1999), committee roster (Richard C. Shelby, Chairman; J. Robert Kerrey, Vice Chairman). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/sites-default-filesations-crpt-106srpt3.pdf +[^77]: Jay Howell & Associates, "About Us," jayhowell.com. https://jayhowell.com/index.php/about/ +[^78]: Office of Senator Ben Sasse, "DOJ Responds to Sasse, Opens Epstein Investigation," press release, February 6, 2019 ("Beginning on December 3, 2018, Sasse has repeatedly pushed the DOJ to investigate"). https://web.archive.org/web/20221110180105/https://www.sasse.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2019/2/doj-responds-to-sasse-opens-epstein-investigation +[^79]: Henry, Ed, "Unholy Alliance?" *Roll Call*, February 12, 2003. https://rollcall.com/2003/02/12/unholy-alliance/ +[^80]: U.S. Department of State, *Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1917*, Supplement, File No. 711.5914/190a, the Secretary of State to the President (account of the 1867 convention, the Committee on Foreign Relations action of March 24, 1870, and the Senate Resolution of September 9, 1916 giving advice and consent to the 1916 convention; exchange of ratifications January 17, 1917). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1917/d880 +[^81]: U.S. Department of State, Treaties and Other International Acts Series 95-725, Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty between the United States of America and Jamaica, signed at Kingston July 7, 1989, front matter (Treaty Doc. 102-16; Senate Executive Report 102-32; advice and consent July 2, 1992). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-S-PURL-gpo234503/pdf/GOVPUB-S-PURL-gpo234503.pdf diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/AdFin Solutions.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/AdFin Solutions.md index cac73082..02933e18 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/AdFin Solutions.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/AdFin Solutions.md @@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ relations: reverse: true start: 2014 role: "chief executive officer" - fn: 16 + fn: 18 - type: director_of with: "[[David Mitchell]]" reverse: true @@ -65,9 +65,9 @@ relations: with: "[[Securities and Exchange Commission]]" start: 2013-12-31 role: 'Form D (accession 0001595302-13-000001, file number 021-208986) filed December 31, 2013 under item 06b; first sale 2012-12-28; total amount sold $4,149,157; signed by Jeanne Houweling, CEO, December 30, 2013' - fn: 15 + fn: 11 created: 2026-10-04 -updated: 2026-10-04 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- AdFin Solutions, Inc., styled AD/FIN, was a [[Delaware]] corporation incorporated on April 25, 2011 that ingested and harmonized log-file data on winning bid transactions in programmatic advertising and sold pricing and media-audit analytics built on it.[^1][^2] Its Series A preferred stock was bought in 2012 and 2013 by [[Jonathan Leitersdorf]], [[David Mitchell]], [[Tom Glocer]], [[Southern Trust Company]], Inc. (whose signature blocks name [[Jeffrey Epstein]] as president) and [[CVAFH I LLC]], a vehicle whose ultimate holding company, according to a July 2013 letter agreement, was [[Cantor Fitzgerald]], L.P. The company ceased operations in October 2019.[^3][^4][^5][^6] @@ -78,33 +78,35 @@ The Series A Preferred Stock Purchase Agreement is dated December 28, 2012 and p On March 21, 2013 Mitchell wrote to Epstein about the voting rights attached to the investment: "I was invited into this transaction by Jonathan as part of the negotiations I asked for and got the 90 percent majority voting on certain major decisions. I suggest going forward that you and I split this, meaning it would take both of us to agree on major changes, or you and Jonathan would have to agree, or in the last case Jonathan and I would have to agree." Epstein answered "Ok" on March 22, 2013.[^9] +An Epstein calendar page lists, for March 1, 2013, a 9:30 a.m. appointment with David Mitchell, whom the entry describes as "AdFin CEO," [[Eyal Manor]] ("guy from Google") and one other person.[^10] The Form D filed December 31, 2013 is signed by Jeanne Houweling as chief executive and lists Mitchell as a director.[^11] A June 2012 post on the Google Research blog describes "Eyal Manor, Google engineering director for the Ad Exchange," and an August 27, 2012 [[Google]] document introduced in the Justice Department's advertising technology case against the company (PTX0113, "Growing AdX") lists Eyal Manor on its team. The calendar gives no title for the Google attendee; the identification rests on the name, the Google description and the advertising subject of the meeting.[^12] + ### The 2013 closings and the counterpart signature pages The Schedule of Purchasers (Exhibit A) lists two later closings. For the subsequent closing of April 10, 2013 it lists Southern Trust Company, Inc. for 1,142,857 Series A shares at $499,999.94 and Tom Glocer for 228,571 shares at $99,999.81, alongside other individual purchasers. For the subsequent closing of July 23, 2013 it lists CVAFH I LLC for 800,000 shares at $350,000 and Southern Trust Company for a further 285,714 shares at $124,999.87, alongside Mitchell, Leitersdorf, Mandelzis and one other individual; the total line reads 7,940,935 shares and $3,474,158.50.[^4] -The same closing set contains counterpart signature pages to the purchase agreement, the Investors' Rights Agreement, the Right of Refusal and Co-Sale Agreement and the Voting Agreement. For Southern Trust Company, Inc. the signature block reads "Name: Jeffrey Epstein," "Title: President." For CVAFH I LLC each block reads "Name: [[Howard Lutnick|Howard W. Lutnick]]," "Title: President." The CVAFH page of the purchase agreement carries a handwritten line in the margin, "[Signature Page to $350,000 Series A Preferred Stock Investment in AdFin Solutions, Inc.]." The Voting Agreement's Exhibit A, the Schedule of Investors, lists "Southern Trust Company, Inc." with 1,428,571 shares and "CVAFH I LLC" with 800,000 shares.[^10] +The same closing set contains counterpart signature pages to the purchase agreement, the Investors' Rights Agreement, the Right of Refusal and Co-Sale Agreement and the Voting Agreement. For Southern Trust Company, Inc. the signature block reads "Name: Jeffrey Epstein," "Title: President." For CVAFH I LLC each block reads "Name: [[Howard Lutnick|Howard W. Lutnick]]," "Title: President." The CVAFH page of the purchase agreement carries a handwritten line in the margin, "[Signature Page to $350,000 Series A Preferred Stock Investment in AdFin Solutions, Inc.]." The Voting Agreement's Exhibit A, the Schedule of Investors, lists "Southern Trust Company, Inc." with 1,428,571 shares and "CVAFH I LLC" with 800,000 shares.[^13] A letter agreement dated July 2013 on the letterhead of "[[Cantor Ventures]], L.P.," 110 East 59th Street, refers to "the closing of the investment in the Company by CVAFH I LLC ('Cantor') on the date hereof" and states: "Cantor has been formed for the specific purpose of acquiring the Shares and the ultimate holding company of Cantor is Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P., a Delaware limited partnership." The signature block for CVAFH I LLC on that letter reads "Title: President." Stock certificate PA-7, dated July 23, 2013, certifies that "CVAFH I LLC is the record holder of Eight Hundred Thousand shares of Series A Preferred Stock of AdFin Solutions, Inc."[^5] ### The $2 million convertible note -A Note Purchase Agreement dated December 26, 2013 provided for the sale of "an unsecured convertible promissory note in the principal amount of $2,000,000" to a single investor, CVAFH I, LLC, whose Schedule I address is 499 Park Avenue. The signature page for CVAFH I, LLC bears the handwritten name "[[Douglas Barnard]]" and the title "Chief Financial Officer." A stockholder consent of the same date, required under the certificate of incorporation for debt above $250,000 and for the written consent of holders of at least 66 percent of the Series A, has signature pages for Leitersdorf, Mitchell, Southern Trust Company, Inc. and CVAFH I, LLC, the last two dated December 26, 2013.[^11] +A Note Purchase Agreement dated December 26, 2013 provided for the sale of "an unsecured convertible promissory note in the principal amount of $2,000,000" to a single investor, CVAFH I, LLC, whose Schedule I address is 499 Park Avenue. The signature page for CVAFH I, LLC bears the handwritten name "[[Douglas Barnard]]" and the title "Chief Financial Officer." A stockholder consent of the same date, required under the certificate of incorporation for debt above $250,000 and for the written consent of holders of at least 66 percent of the Series A, has signature pages for Leitersdorf, Mitchell, Southern Trust Company, Inc. and CVAFH I, LLC, the last two dated December 26, 2013.[^14] -On January 7, 2014 Mitchell wrote to Epstein: "We completed a $2 million convertible placement with Cantor Ventures at the end of the year." He listed the terms (conversion at the lower of 50 percent above the investors' price or the valuation of the next round, an 8 percent coupon, a one-year maturity, and "If and when they convert they get a board seat (we will have to increase board to 7 people as we have 5 now)") and added that "Cantor is doing another $4 million in April targeting a $16-18 million valuation," that Mitchell was separately trying to raise at a higher valuation ("Cantor can match this as they have ROFR"), and that under an existing arrangement "either two of the three of us (JEE, JL or DJM) could block certain actions of the Company."[^12] On January 13, 2014 Epstein's lawyer [[Darren Indyke]] sent [[Lesley Groff]] the executed bridge-loan consents and note purchase agreement with the instruction to file them "in AdFin redweld in a folder called $2MM Bridge Note Financing December 2013."[^13] +On January 7, 2014 Mitchell wrote to Epstein: "We completed a $2 million convertible placement with Cantor Ventures at the end of the year." He listed the terms (conversion at the lower of 50 percent above the investors' price or the valuation of the next round, an 8 percent coupon, a one-year maturity, and "If and when they convert they get a board seat (we will have to increase board to 7 people as we have 5 now)") and added that "Cantor is doing another $4 million in April targeting a $16-18 million valuation," that Mitchell was separately trying to raise at a higher valuation ("Cantor can match this as they have ROFR"), and that under an existing arrangement "either two of the three of us (JEE, JL or DJM) could block certain actions of the Company."[^15] On January 13, 2014 Epstein's lawyer [[Darren Indyke]] sent [[Lesley Groff]] the executed bridge-loan consents and note purchase agreement with the instruction to file them "in AdFin redweld in a folder called $2MM Bridge Note Financing December 2013."[^16] -An August 11, 2014 term sheet for a follow-on financing, which describes itself as "an expression of intent only" and "not meant to be binding," described the proposed notes as "on substantially the same terms" as "the existing $2,000,000 of unsecured convertible debt issued to Cantor Ventures in December 2013 (the 'Cantor Debt')," except that the lenders "will not be entitled to elect a member to the Board upon conversion of the Notes as Cantor Ventures is entitled to upon conversion of the Cantor Debt."[^14] +An August 11, 2014 term sheet for a follow-on financing, which describes itself as "an expression of intent only" and "not meant to be binding," described the proposed notes as "on substantially the same terms" as "the existing $2,000,000 of unsecured convertible debt issued to Cantor Ventures in December 2013 (the 'Cantor Debt')," except that the lenders "will not be entitled to elect a member to the Board upon conversion of the Notes as Cantor Ventures is entitled to upon conversion of the Cantor Debt."[^17] ### The Form D of December 31, 2013 -AdFin Solutions, Inc. filed a Form D (Notice of Exempt Offering of Securities) with the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] on December 31, 2013 under accession number 0001595302-13-000001 and SEC file number 021-208986. The submission header gives the filing date as December 31, 2013, the acceptance time as 17:49:05 on December 30, 2013, and the issuer's central index key as 0001595302. The filing records the issuer as "AdFin Solutions, Inc.," a corporation, jurisdiction of incorporation "DELAWARE," year of incorporation 2011, with a previous name "AdFin Services, Inc."[^15] +AdFin Solutions, Inc. filed a Form D (Notice of Exempt Offering of Securities) with the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] on December 31, 2013 under accession number 0001595302-13-000001 and SEC file number 021-208986. The submission header gives the filing date as December 31, 2013, the acceptance time as 17:49:05 on December 30, 2013, and the issuer's central index key as 0001595302. The filing records the issuer as "AdFin Solutions, Inc.," a corporation, jurisdiction of incorporation "DELAWARE," year of incorporation 2011, with a previous name "AdFin Services, Inc."[^11] -The offering fields read: federal exemption item "06b"; "isAmendment" false; "dateOfFirstSale" 2012-12-28; duration of offering "moreThanOneYear" false; type of securities "isEquityType" true; "isBusinessCombinationTransaction" false; revenue range "Decline to Disclose"; industry group "Other"; minimum investment accepted 0. The amounts read: "totalOfferingAmount" 4,484,375; "totalAmountSold" 4,149,157; "totalRemaining" 335,218; "totalNumberAlreadyInvested" 11; "hasNonAccreditedInvestors" false. Sales commissions, finders' fees and gross proceeds used are each recorded as 0.[^15] +The offering fields read: federal exemption item "06b"; "isAmendment" false; "dateOfFirstSale" 2012-12-28; duration of offering "moreThanOneYear" false; type of securities "isEquityType" true; "isBusinessCombinationTransaction" false; revenue range "Decline to Disclose"; industry group "Other"; minimum investment accepted 0. The amounts read: "totalOfferingAmount" 4,484,375; "totalAmountSold" 4,149,157; "totalRemaining" 335,218; "totalNumberAlreadyInvested" 11; "hasNonAccreditedInvestors" false. Sales commissions, finders' fees and gross proceeds used are each recorded as 0.[^11] -The related persons listed are Jeanne Houweling ("Executive Officer" and "Director"), Jonathan Leitersdorf ("Director"), Gil Mandelzis ("Director"), David J. Mitchell ("Director") and Tom Glocer ("Director"). The signature block reads "/s/ JEANNE HOUWELING," name of signer "Jeanne Houweling," title "CEO," date 2013-12-30.[^15] +The related persons listed are Jeanne Houweling ("Executive Officer" and "Director"), Jonathan Leitersdorf ("Director"), Gil Mandelzis ("Director"), David J. Mitchell ("Director") and Tom Glocer ("Director"). The signature block reads "/s/ JEANNE HOUWELING," name of signer "Jeanne Houweling," title "CEO," date 2013-12-30.[^11] ### Management changes, 2014 and 2015 -[[Andrew Altersohn]] was chief executive by September 2014. On September 12, 2014 Mitchell asked Groff to arrange time with Epstein for the new chief executive: "Andrew Jeffery is the principal behind AdFin's investor Southern Trust. Andrew is the new CEO of AdFin and I mentioned to JE this morning I would like him to meet."[^16] On December 15, 2014 Mitchell sent Epstein a presentation and wrote that the company was "6-9 months behind where it thought it would be," that it had received a buyout offer of "$12-15 milion" which "the board did not think much of," and that "the new CEO is much better than the old one."[^17] On March 16, 2015 Leitersdorf confirmed to Mitchell, in a message Mitchell forwarded to Epstein on March 23: "True up to 7% when cantor exercises their option to convert to equity and we all get diluted."[^18] +[[Andrew Altersohn]] was chief executive by September 2014. On September 12, 2014 Mitchell asked Groff to arrange time with Epstein for the new chief executive: "Andrew Jeffery is the principal behind AdFin's investor Southern Trust. Andrew is the new CEO of AdFin and I mentioned to JE this morning I would like him to meet."[^18] On December 15, 2014 Mitchell sent Epstein a presentation and wrote that the company was "6-9 months behind where it thought it would be," that it had received a buyout offer of "$12-15 milion" which "the board did not think much of," and that "the new CEO is much better than the old one."[^19] On March 16, 2015 Leitersdorf confirmed to Mitchell, in a message Mitchell forwarded to Epstein on March 23: "True up to 7% when cantor exercises their option to convert to equity and we all get diluted."[^20] ### The February 2016 proposed terms @@ -114,27 +116,27 @@ A company investor presentation in the same file, dated February 2016, carries a ### Southern Trust's 2018 request to sell -A cap table "as of 1.4.18" in a company presentation lists Cantor with 85,959,207 shares (60.32 percent) and $11,742,954 invested, Julserra with 26,234,837 shares (18.41 percent) and $3,655,758 invested, and Southern with 6,409,679 shares including 110,619 options (4.50 percent) and $889,000 invested, out of 142,495,899 shares.[^19] +A cap table "as of 1.4.18" in a company presentation lists Cantor with 85,959,207 shares (60.32 percent) and $11,742,954 invested, Julserra with 26,234,837 shares (18.41 percent) and $3,655,758 invested, and Southern with 6,409,679 shares including 110,619 options (4.50 percent) and $889,000 invested, out of 142,495,899 shares.[^21] -In an email thread of January 2018 with Mitchell and [[Richard Kahn]], Epstein's accountant, Altersohn wrote on January 26 that "we are trying to get a meeting with Howard next week." On February 13, 2018 he wrote to Kahn: "yes, finally met with Howard. All went well, but as always a few followup items I need to work on this week, most importantly finalizing the exact amount of the raise and per share valuation." On February 26 he sent details of an A-4 round ("Cantor and Julserra are taking their relative pro rata of $1.5M in a firm commitment over 3 tranches February to June 2018") and wrote that "Southern is already a party" to the shareholders agreement and that, to maintain its pro rata share, "Southern would have to invest in $85,695." Kahn forwarded this to Epstein, who answered: "you can tell them we are a seller at cost. 875 and we are out." Kahn then wrote to Altersohn that "we would be interested in selling for our cost of $875,000 which is approx 68% of FMV" and asked him to "communicate to existing investors and any other prospects you speak with during this Series A-4 round." On March 13 Altersohn answered a request for an update with "No, but let me check in and get back to you"; on March 14 Kahn forwarded this to Epstein with the note "still waiting on response to purchase our interest.." On April 13, 2018 Altersohn wrote: "We were trying to get a response from Howard and Jonathan on your ask, but there is apparently no interest at this time on the sale of your interest. We are however in discussions with other potential investors so if there is interest I will let you know." The emails give no surname for "Howard."[^20] +In an email thread of January 2018 with Mitchell and [[Richard Kahn]], Epstein's accountant, Altersohn wrote on January 26 that "we are trying to get a meeting with Howard next week." On February 13, 2018 he wrote to Kahn: "yes, finally met with Howard. All went well, but as always a few followup items I need to work on this week, most importantly finalizing the exact amount of the raise and per share valuation." On February 26 he sent details of an A-4 round ("Cantor and Julserra are taking their relative pro rata of $1.5M in a firm commitment over 3 tranches February to June 2018") and wrote that "Southern is already a party" to the shareholders agreement and that, to maintain its pro rata share, "Southern would have to invest in $85,695." Kahn forwarded this to Epstein, who answered: "you can tell them we are a seller at cost. 875 and we are out." Kahn then wrote to Altersohn that "we would be interested in selling for our cost of $875,000 which is approx 68% of FMV" and asked him to "communicate to existing investors and any other prospects you speak with during this Series A-4 round." On March 13 Altersohn answered a request for an update with "No, but let me check in and get back to you"; on March 14 Kahn forwarded this to Epstein with the note "still waiting on response to purchase our interest.." On April 13, 2018 Altersohn wrote: "We were trying to get a response from Howard and Jonathan on your ask, but there is apparently no interest at this time on the sale of your interest. We are however in discussions with other potential investors so if there is interest I will let you know." The emails give no surname for "Howard."[^22] -On April 3, 2018 Mitchell wrote to Kahn, copying Epstein, "meeting Jonathan next week on potential buy of AdFin Holdings." On September 18, 2018 he wrote to Epstein, "Jonathan seeing him this week and trying to get to buy Adfin position." On October 18, 2018 he sent slides with the note that the company needed "to get to a few million dollars until they are a real candidate to be sold" and that "in the fall next year, a capital event could happen which would return money."[^21] +On April 3, 2018 Mitchell wrote to Kahn, copying Epstein, "meeting Jonathan next week on potential buy of AdFin Holdings." On September 18, 2018 he wrote to Epstein, "Jonathan seeing him this week and trying to get to buy Adfin position." On October 18, 2018 he sent slides with the note that the company needed "to get to a few million dollars until they are a real candidate to be sold" and that "in the fall next year, a capital event could happen which would return money."[^23] ### The May 28, 2018 email -On May 28, 2018 at 1:12 p.m. Epstein wrote to an address labeled "HWL" with a Cantor Fitzgerald disclaimer footer: "on another note what do you think the prospects for adfin are?" The reply at 1:19 p.m. read: "Producing revenue finally. This is their year. Next 12 months they need to become economically self sufficient." Epstein wrote at 1:23 p.m., "thx. how long until sherry is ready , and i can buy my guest house?" and HWL answered at 6:07 p.m. UTC, "Probably 4 years (pierre). We'd need to actually do something for it to ever finish. Haven't even picked an architect/designer yet. Too much construction. Just finishing this house."[^22] +On May 28, 2018 at 1:12 p.m. Epstein wrote to an address labeled "HWL" with a Cantor Fitzgerald disclaimer footer: "on another note what do you think the prospects for adfin are?" The reply at 1:19 p.m. read: "Producing revenue finally. This is their year. Next 12 months they need to become economically self sufficient." Epstein wrote at 1:23 p.m., "thx. how long until sherry is ready , and i can buy my guest house?" and HWL answered at 6:07 p.m. UTC, "Probably 4 years (pierre). We'd need to actually do something for it to ever finish. Haven't even picked an architect/designer yet. Too much construction. Just finishing this house."[^24] ### Statements before the House Oversight Committee -In a transcribed interview with the [[House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform]] on May 6, 2026, Lutnick gave these answers. Asked "During your visit to the island, did you discuss the company AdFin Solutions with Mr. Epstein?" he answered "No." (p. 26). Asked what AdFin Solutions was: "It was a company that attempted to create an exchange for online ads. They went out of business." "Were you personally an investor in AdFin Solutions?" "No." "Was Cantor Fitzgerald an investor in AdFin Solutions?" "Yes." Asked which part of Cantor Fitzgerald: "It was called Cantor Ventures ... it was a venture capital arm of Cantor Fitzgerald, so sort of multiple layers down the subsidiary chain" (pp. 26 to 27). A questioner stated that a stock purchase agreement released under the [[Epstein Files Transparency Act]] was one "that you signed on behalf of CVAFH and Mr. Epstein signed" and asked "Did you know that Mr. Epstein was an investor in this company AdFin?" Lutnick answered "No," and that he learned it "when these documents were released" (p. 27). On the signature page appearing in Epstein's files: "I found it inexplicable and unsettling that he had ... that it was released, that my company's signature page would be in someone else's files" (p. 27). On the 2018 email: "This was ... this was me, because it says 'HWL'" (p. 29); asked whether he knew during that exchange that Epstein was an investor: "I do not remember that I knew that, no" (p. 88). On timing: "I don't think I heard about this investment till 2013, May. I think the pitch was made to me in May of 2013, from the document. So it wasn't in December" (p. 88). His counsel at the interview, Zachary Terwilliger of [[Vinson & Elkins]], stated that the documents show that "when Cantor Fitzgerald Venture Capital signed these documents, it was ... much later ... in 2013 in the spring" and that "I do not consider this a business dealing with Mr. Epstein" (pp. 87, 89).[^23] +In a transcribed interview with the [[House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform]] on May 6, 2026, Lutnick gave these answers. Asked "During your visit to the island, did you discuss the company AdFin Solutions with Mr. Epstein?" he answered "No." (p. 26). Asked what AdFin Solutions was: "It was a company that attempted to create an exchange for online ads. They went out of business." "Were you personally an investor in AdFin Solutions?" "No." "Was Cantor Fitzgerald an investor in AdFin Solutions?" "Yes." Asked which part of Cantor Fitzgerald: "It was called Cantor Ventures ... it was a venture capital arm of Cantor Fitzgerald, so sort of multiple layers down the subsidiary chain" (pp. 26 to 27). A questioner stated that a stock purchase agreement released under the [[Epstein Files Transparency Act]] was one "that you signed on behalf of CVAFH and Mr. Epstein signed" and asked "Did you know that Mr. Epstein was an investor in this company AdFin?" Lutnick answered "No," and that he learned it "when these documents were released" (p. 27). On the signature page appearing in Epstein's files: "I found it inexplicable and unsettling that he had ... that it was released, that my company's signature page would be in someone else's files" (p. 27). On the 2018 email: "This was ... this was me, because it says 'HWL'" (p. 29); asked whether he knew during that exchange that Epstein was an investor: "I do not remember that I knew that, no" (p. 88). On timing: "I don't think I heard about this investment till 2013, May. I think the pitch was made to me in May of 2013, from the document. So it wasn't in December" (p. 88). His counsel at the interview, Zachary Terwilliger of [[Vinson & Elkins]], stated that the documents show that "when Cantor Fitzgerald Venture Capital signed these documents, it was ... much later ... in 2013 in the spring" and that "I do not consider this a business dealing with Mr. Epstein" (pp. 87, 89).[^25] ### Reporting in 2026 -The [[BBC]] reported on July 14, 2026 that [[Simon Andriesz]], a former employee of Lutnick's firm, searched the released [[Epstein Files|Epstein files]] for "HWL" and found the May 28, 2018 exchange, which he gave to members of the House committee before Lutnick's interview. The BBC wrote that Epstein "had talked directly to Lutnick about a digital advertising company called Adfin, in which he and Lutnick's firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, had both invested," and that Lutnick "repeated his claim to the committee, that he did not know until this year that Epstein had been a co-investor in Adfin." The Commerce Department told the BBC there was "no evidence of wrongdoing or legitimate cause for concern."[^24] +The [[BBC]] reported on July 14, 2026 that [[Simon Andriesz]], a former employee of Lutnick's firm, searched the released [[Epstein Files|Epstein files]] for "HWL" and found the May 28, 2018 exchange, which he gave to members of the House committee before Lutnick's interview. The BBC wrote that Epstein "had talked directly to Lutnick about a digital advertising company called Adfin, in which he and Lutnick's firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, had both invested," and that Lutnick "repeated his claim to the committee, that he did not know until this year that Epstein had been a co-investor in Adfin." The Commerce Department told the BBC there was "no evidence of wrongdoing or legitimate cause for concern."[^26] ### Closure -An [[AdExchanger]] article of July 29, 2019 described a 2016 study the company undertook with the [[Association of National Advertisers]] and [[Ebiquity]] that strained its relations with agency holding companies, and reported that in January 2019, after Altersohn's departure, [[Ravi Patel]] and [[Matt DeLoca]] became co-chief executives, with the investors holding them "on a tighter leash."[^25] On October 17, 2019 AdExchanger reported that "Ad/Fin ceased business operations on Friday," that the company "let go of all 16 of its employees" and was "considering selling its technology," and that "its investors, who were extremely patient with the company during the ANA saga, eventually pulled out." Patel was quoted: "The burn rate caught up to us."[^6] +An [[AdExchanger]] article of July 29, 2019 described a 2016 study the company undertook with the [[Association of National Advertisers]] and [[Ebiquity]] that strained its relations with agency holding companies, and reported that in January 2019, after Altersohn's departure, [[Ravi Patel]] and [[Matt DeLoca]] became co-chief executives, with the investors holding them "on a tighter leash."[^27] On October 17, 2019 AdExchanger reported that "Ad/Fin ceased business operations on Friday," that the company "let go of all 16 of its employees" and was "considering selling its technology," and that "its investors, who were extremely patient with the company during the ANA saga, eventually pulled out." Patel was quoted: "The burn rate caught up to us."[^6] ### Footnotes @@ -147,19 +149,21 @@ An [[AdExchanger]] article of July 29, 2019 described a 2016 study the company u [^7]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00289560, DataSet 9, Schedule of Exceptions, Schedules 3.12 and 3.15 (pages EFTA00289676 and EFTA00289677). https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00289560.pdf [^8]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01084694, DataSet 9, letter from David J. Mitchell, "RE: ADFIN SOLUTIONS INC.," February 16, 2016, with Exhibit A (page EFTA01084696) and company investor presentation, "Backed By Leaders" slide (page EFTA01084707). https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01084694.pdf [^9]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00652698, DataSet 9, email from David Mitchell to Jeffrey Epstein, "Re: AdFin," March 21 and 22, 2013. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00652698.pdf -[^10]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00289560, DataSet 9, counterpart signature pages: purchase agreement (EFTA00289580 and EFTA00289581), Investors' Rights Agreement (EFTA00289633 and EFTA00289634), Right of Refusal and Co-Sale Agreement (EFTA00289651 and EFTA00289652), Voting Agreement (EFTA00289668 and EFTA00289669) and Voting Agreement Exhibit A (EFTA00289670). https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00289560.pdf -[^11]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00289541, DataSet 9, Note Purchase Agreement dated December 26, 2013, Schedule I and signature page (EFTA00289550); EFTA00289527, DataSet 9, Action by Written Consent of the Stockholders, signature pages EFTA00289531 and EFTA00289532. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00289541.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00289527.pdf -[^12]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01942504, DataSet 10, email from David Mitchell to Jeffrey Epstein, January 7, 2014. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01942504.pdf -[^13]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00376028, DataSet 9, email from Darren Indyke to Lesley Groff, "Fwd: AdFin - Bridge Loan Documents," January 13, 2014. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00376028.pdf -[^14]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01202791, DataSet 9, AdFin Solutions, Inc. Convertible Promissory Note Financing Term Sheet, August 11, 2014. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01202791.pdf -[^15]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR, AdFin Solutions, Inc. (CIK 0001595302), Form D, accession number 0001595302-13-000001, filed December 31, 2013 (primary document and submission header). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1595302/000159530213000001/primary_doc.xml ; https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1595302/000159530213000001/0001595302-13-000001.txt -[^16]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00362758, DataSet 9, email from Lesley Groff to David Mitchell, September 12, 2014 (Groff's reply quoting Mitchell's message, copied to Andrew Altersohn). https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00362758.pdf -[^17]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00868060, DataSet 9, email from David Mitchell to Jeffrey Epstein, December 15, 2014. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00868060.pdf -[^18]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01746876, DataSet 10, email from David Mitchell to Jeffrey Epstein forwarding message from Jonathan Leitersdorf, March 16 and 23, 2015. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01746876.pdf -[^19]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00796718, DataSet 9, AD/FIN company presentation, slide 21, "Cap Table as of 1.4.18" (page EFTA00796738). https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00796718.pdf -[^20]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00877345, DataSet 9, email chain "AD/FIN Update & Financing," January 26 to February 26, 2018, with Epstein's reply of February 26, 2018; EFTA00861028, DataSet 9, Richard Kahn to Epstein, March 14, 2018; EFTA00836715, DataSet 9, Richard Kahn to Epstein, April 13, 2018. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00877345.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00861028.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00836715.pdf -[^21]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00843811, DataSet 9, David Mitchell to Richard Kahn, April 3, 2018; EFTA01022753, DataSet 9, David Mitchell to Jeffrey Epstein, September 18, 2018; EFTA01019335, DataSet 9, David Mitchell to Jeffrey Epstein, "slides for David.pptx," October 18, 2018. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00843811.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01022753.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01019335.pdf -[^22]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01050772, DataSet 9, email chain "Re: thanks for letting me know," May 28, 2018. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01050772.pdf -[^23]: U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, transcribed interview of Howard Lutnick, May 6, 2026, pp. 26 to 29, 87 to 89. https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Lutnick-Transcript.pdf -[^24]: Andy Verity, Rob Byrne and Ben Milne, "How US commerce secretary's Epstein links were uncovered by British whistleblower," *BBC News,* July 14, 2026. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9q28dlyxrzo -[^25]: Weissbrot, "How Ad/Fin Got Caught In The Crossfire," *AdExchanger,* July 29, 2019. https://www.adexchanger.com/agencies/how-ad-fin-got-caught-in-the-crossfire-of-the-industrys-transparency-crusade/ +[^10]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00299816, DataSet 9, calendar entry for March 1, 2013. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00299816.pdf +[^11]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR, AdFin Solutions, Inc. (CIK 0001595302), Form D, accession number 0001595302-13-000001, filed December 31, 2013 (primary document and submission header). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1595302/000159530213000001/primary_doc.xml ; https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1595302/000159530213000001/0001595302-13-000001.txt +[^12]: Google Research blog, "Third Market Algorithms and Optimization Workshop at Google NYC," June 2012, https://blog.research.google/2012/06/third-market-algorithms-and.html ; "Growing AdX," Google document dated August 27, 2012, PTX0113, *United States v. Google LLC* (E.D. Va.), https://www.justice.gov/media/1370306/dl +[^13]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00289560, DataSet 9, counterpart signature pages: purchase agreement (EFTA00289580 and EFTA00289581), Investors' Rights Agreement (EFTA00289633 and EFTA00289634), Right of Refusal and Co-Sale Agreement (EFTA00289651 and EFTA00289652), Voting Agreement (EFTA00289668 and EFTA00289669) and Voting Agreement Exhibit A (EFTA00289670). https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00289560.pdf +[^14]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00289541, DataSet 9, Note Purchase Agreement dated December 26, 2013, Schedule I and signature page (EFTA00289550); EFTA00289527, DataSet 9, Action by Written Consent of the Stockholders, signature pages EFTA00289531 and EFTA00289532. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00289541.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00289527.pdf +[^15]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01942504, DataSet 10, email from David Mitchell to Jeffrey Epstein, January 7, 2014. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01942504.pdf +[^16]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00376028, DataSet 9, email from Darren Indyke to Lesley Groff, "Fwd: AdFin - Bridge Loan Documents," January 13, 2014. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00376028.pdf +[^17]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01202791, DataSet 9, AdFin Solutions, Inc. Convertible Promissory Note Financing Term Sheet, August 11, 2014. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01202791.pdf +[^18]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00362758, DataSet 9, email from Lesley Groff to David Mitchell, September 12, 2014 (Groff's reply quoting Mitchell's message, copied to Andrew Altersohn). https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00362758.pdf +[^19]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00868060, DataSet 9, email from David Mitchell to Jeffrey Epstein, December 15, 2014. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00868060.pdf +[^20]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01746876, DataSet 10, email from David Mitchell to Jeffrey Epstein forwarding message from Jonathan Leitersdorf, March 16 and 23, 2015. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01746876.pdf +[^21]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00796718, DataSet 9, AD/FIN company presentation, slide 21, "Cap Table as of 1.4.18" (page EFTA00796738). https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00796718.pdf +[^22]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00877345, DataSet 9, email chain "AD/FIN Update & Financing," January 26 to February 26, 2018, with Epstein's reply of February 26, 2018; EFTA00861028, DataSet 9, Richard Kahn to Epstein, March 14, 2018; EFTA00836715, DataSet 9, Richard Kahn to Epstein, April 13, 2018. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00877345.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00861028.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00836715.pdf +[^23]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00843811, DataSet 9, David Mitchell to Richard Kahn, April 3, 2018; EFTA01022753, DataSet 9, David Mitchell to Jeffrey Epstein, September 18, 2018; EFTA01019335, DataSet 9, David Mitchell to Jeffrey Epstein, "slides for David.pptx," October 18, 2018. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00843811.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01022753.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01019335.pdf +[^24]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01050772, DataSet 9, email chain "Re: thanks for letting me know," May 28, 2018. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01050772.pdf +[^25]: U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, transcribed interview of Howard Lutnick, May 6, 2026, pp. 26 to 29, 87 to 89. https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Lutnick-Transcript.pdf +[^26]: Andy Verity, Rob Byrne and Ben Milne, "How US commerce secretary's Epstein links were uncovered by British whistleblower," *BBC News,* July 14, 2026. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9q28dlyxrzo +[^27]: Weissbrot, "How Ad/Fin Got Caught In The Crossfire," *AdExchanger,* July 29, 2019. https://www.adexchanger.com/agencies/how-ad-fin-got-caught-in-the-crossfire-of-the-industrys-transparency-crusade/ diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Aerojet.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Aerojet.md index a0fd2cd2..271a0418 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Aerojet.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Aerojet.md @@ -93,7 +93,7 @@ relations: role: "acquired Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings by merger at 58 dollars a share in cash" fn: 17 - type: contractor_to - with: "[[Lockheed Martin]]" + with: "[[Lockheed Aircraft Company]]" start: 1993 role: "major subcontractor for the Advanced Solid Rocket Motor program (about 118 million dollars of 1993 sales)" fn: 13 @@ -104,7 +104,7 @@ relations: role: "Lockheed Martin merger agreement terminated on February 13, 2022 after the Commission filed suit on January 25, 2022" fn: 16 created: 2026-10-05 -updated: 2026-10-05 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Aerojet Engineering Corporation was incorporated in [[Delaware]] on March 19, 1942.[^1] The incorporators were the [[California Institute of Technology]] aerodynamicist [[Theodore von Kármán]], his former graduate student [[Frank Malina]], the Pasadena chemist [[Jack Parsons]], the machinist [[Edward Forman]], the Caltech researcher [[Martin Summerfield]], and the Washington attorney [[Andrew Haley]].[^1] The initial officers were von Kármán (president), Malina (treasurer), Haley (secretary), and Forman, Parsons and Summerfield (vice presidents); Malina described von Kármán, Haley and himself as the board of directors in a letter to his parents.[^1] In his autobiography von Kármán wrote that each founder agreed to contribute 200 dollars, that none of the Malina group had it, and that Haley agreed to advance 2,500 dollars to cover the cost of starting the company.[^1] @@ -133,7 +133,7 @@ Parsons worked from 1949 until September 26, 1950 for Hughes Aircraft in [[Culve ### Sacramento and environmental litigation -GenCorp's annual report for 1993 lists Aerojet-General Corporation as one of three business segments and gives the former name of the registrant as General Tire & Rubber Co. It reports Aerojet sales of 872 million dollars (1,019 million in 1992), a contract backlog of 1.4 billion dollars, a role as major subcontractor to [[Lockheed Martin|Lockheed]] on the Advanced Solid Rocket Motor program (118 million dollars of 1993 sales), exposure to budget cuts affecting the [[Minuteman]] missile, the [[Strategic Defense Initiative]] and the SADARM munition, and a consent decree with the [[Environmental Protection Agency]] over chemical releases at Aerojet's Sacramento facility and at its inactive subsidiary Cordova Chemical Company.[^13] The fiscal 2000 report lists a series of groundwater suits against Aerojet-General Corporation, including actions brought by American States Water Company and Kiefer-Sunrise Associates.[^7] +GenCorp's annual report for 1993 lists Aerojet-General Corporation as one of three business segments and gives the former name of the registrant as General Tire & Rubber Co. It reports Aerojet sales of 872 million dollars (1,019 million in 1992), a contract backlog of 1.4 billion dollars, a role as major subcontractor to [[Lockheed Aircraft Company|Lockheed]] on the Advanced Solid Rocket Motor program (118 million dollars of 1993 sales), exposure to budget cuts affecting the [[Minuteman]] missile, the [[Strategic Defense Initiative]] and the SADARM munition, and a consent decree with the [[Environmental Protection Agency]] over chemical releases at Aerojet's Sacramento facility and at its inactive subsidiary Cordova Chemical Company.[^13] The fiscal 2000 report lists a series of groundwater suits against Aerojet-General Corporation, including actions brought by American States Water Company and Kiefer-Sunrise Associates.[^7] ### Rocketdyne, Lockheed and L3Harris diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Agape Lodge.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Agape Lodge.md index 7a8b6ab0..f0923b88 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Agape Lodge.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Agape Lodge.md @@ -106,7 +106,7 @@ On June 1, 1942 Jack and Helen Parsons took a two-year lease on the house at 100 ### Federal and local scrutiny -An FBI name check requested by Brigadier General [[Sherman Miles]] of Army G-2 on October 10, 1940 for Parsons, then living at 168 Terrace Drive, Pasadena, returned "NO RECORD WAS LOCATED."[^16] In March 1942 FBI agents searched Germer's [[New York]] home for almost four hours and read his and his wife's letters.[^17] [[Tobias Churton]]'s biography of Crowley, as cited in the Crowley Timeline, records that on January 16, 1943 the lodge "is visited by the F.B.I. after they are told it is a house of subversive 'Sex Perversion'."[^18] On February 3, 1943 Smith wrote to Crowley: "I told two FBI men ten days ago after three hours questioning that they had my full permission to read all my letters" and "We have been harried by the FBI thrice lately."[^19] On March 27, 1943 Max Schneider wrote of "a lodge that has been so badly mismanaged and has acquired an undesirable reputation to the extent of inviting the repeated scrutinies of the local police as well as of the F.B.I.," and described the Winona Boulevard house as known as a "hangout" of homosexuals and lesbians.[^20] +An FBI name check requested by Brigadier General [[Sherman Miles]] of Army G-2 on October 10, 1940 for Parsons, then living at 168 Terrace Drive, Pasadena, returned "NO RECORD WAS LOCATED."[^16] In March 1942 FBI agents searched Germer's [[New York City|New York]] home for almost four hours and read his and his wife's letters.[^17] [[Tobias Churton]]'s biography of Crowley, as cited in the Crowley Timeline, records that on January 16, 1943 the lodge "is visited by the F.B.I. after they are told it is a house of subversive 'Sex Perversion'."[^18] On February 3, 1943 Smith wrote to Crowley: "I told two FBI men ten days ago after three hours questioning that they had my full permission to read all my letters" and "We have been harried by the FBI thrice lately."[^19] On March 27, 1943 Max Schneider wrote of "a lodge that has been so badly mismanaged and has acquired an undesirable reputation to the extent of inviting the repeated scrutinies of the local police as well as of the F.B.I.," and described the Winona Boulevard house as known as a "hangout" of homosexuals and lesbians.[^20] Crowley wrote to Smith on April 1, 1943 that Smith's "attitude to the F.B.I." showed his "complete unfitness for your position": he "should have welcomed the investigators in the warmest way" and told them that the world's only hope was to accept the Law of Thelema officially. Smith replied on June 10, 1943: "You judge my fitness for a position by the way I handled the two F.B.I. men. Really, that is not sound!"[^21] On November 3, 1943 Crowley wrote to Smith that Smith's conduct had made "the F.B.I. wonder what is going on."[^22] Smith, for his part, wrote to Crowley on September 14, 1943 that Crowley's letters were ones "the F.B.I. seem to take seriously."[^23] diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Anthropic.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Anthropic.md index 9dfdd941..7f1a4e25 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Anthropic.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Anthropic.md @@ -25,19 +25,19 @@ relations: reverse: true start: 2021-05 role: "led the 124-million-dollar Series A" - fn: 12 + fn: 13 - type: funded with: "[[Dustin Moskovitz]]" reverse: true start: 2021-05 role: "Series A" - fn: 12 + fn: 13 - type: funded with: "[[Amazon (company)|Amazon]]" reverse: true start: 2023-09 role: "up to 8 billion dollars" - fn: 15 + fn: 16 - type: partner_of with: "[[Palantir Technologies]]" start: 2024-11 @@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ relations: role: "CDAO prototype agreement up to 200 million dollars; designated a supply-chain risk" fn: 20 created: 2026-06-19 -updated: 2026-10-08 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Anthropic is an artificial-intelligence company founded in May 2021 by seven former [[OpenAI]] researchers, led by the siblings [[Dario Amodei]] (chief executive) and [[Daniela Amodei]] (president), who left OpenAI over disagreements about its direction and its balance between commercialization and safety. The founders came out of the [[Effective Altruism]] movement and built the company explicitly around the thesis that advanced AI should be developed with extreme caution, the same existential-risk concern that runs through the [[Rationalist Community]] and the institutions [[Peter Thiel]] funded through the [[Machine Intelligence Research Institute]]. Its 2022 funding round was led by a 500 million dollar investment from [[Sam Bankman-Fried]] months before his [[FTX]] exchange collapsed in fraud.[^1][^2] @@ -63,21 +63,21 @@ The Long-Term Benefit Trust was formally established in September 2023, holding ### FTX Funding and the Effective-Altruism Tie -In 2022 Sam Bankman-Fried invested approximately 500 million dollars in Anthropic's Series B through his trading firm [[Alameda Research]], taking about 86 percent of the round and roughly 8 percent of the company; the money came from FTX customer deposits. Dario Amodei has said he kept Bankman-Fried off the board and limited him to non-voting shares because of "red flags." After the FTX fraud was exposed and Bankman-Fried convicted, the FTX bankruptcy estate sold the stake, and Amodei moved to distance himself and the company from the effective-altruism label even as the founders remained products of that milieu. Later funding rounds drew on [[Google]] and [[Amazon (company)|Amazon]], carrying the company's valuation into the tens of billions of dollars.[^1][^8][^9] +In 2022 Sam Bankman-Fried invested approximately 500 million dollars in Anthropic's Series B through his trading firm [[Alameda Research]], taking about 86 percent of the round and roughly 8 percent of the company; the money came from FTX customer deposits. Dario Amodei has said he kept Bankman-Fried off the board and limited him to non-voting shares because of "red flags." After the FTX fraud was exposed and Bankman-Fried convicted, the FTX bankruptcy estate sold the stake, and Amodei moved to distance himself and the company from the effective-altruism label even as the founders remained products of that milieu. Later funding rounds drew on [[Google]] and [[Amazon (company)|Amazon]], carrying the company's valuation into the tens of billions of dollars.[^1][^8][^9][^10] -The April 2022 Series B that Bankman-Fried led raised 580 million dollars at a 4-billion-dollar valuation, with FTX cofounder [[Caroline Ellison]] also named in the round. The FTX estate disposed of the 8 percent stake in 2024 as Anthropic's value climbed: a March 2024 agreement sold about two-thirds of the shares (29.5 million shares to 24 buyers) for 884 million dollars, with ATIC Third International Investment Company, tied to the [[Abu Dhabi]] sovereign fund [[Mubadala]], buying roughly 500 million dollars of it and [[Jane Street Capital]], Fidelity-managed funds, and HOF Capital among the rest; a June 2024 sale of the remaining shares brought in over 450 million dollars. Anthropic's May 2023 Series C, led by [[Spark Capital]] with Google, Menlo Ventures, and Salesforce Ventures, had raised 450 million dollars, and the stake FTX paid 500 million dollars for would have been worth several billion at later valuations.[^10][^11] +The April 2022 Series B that Bankman-Fried led raised 580 million dollars at a 4-billion-dollar valuation, with FTX cofounder [[Caroline Ellison]] also named in the round. The FTX estate disposed of the 8 percent stake in 2024 as Anthropic's value climbed: a March 2024 agreement sold about two-thirds of the shares (29.5 million shares to 24 buyers) for 884 million dollars, with ATIC Third International Investment Company, tied to the [[Abu Dhabi]] sovereign fund [[Mubadala]], buying roughly 500 million dollars of it and [[Jane Street Capital]], Fidelity-managed funds, and HOF Capital among the rest; a June 2024 sale of the remaining shares brought in over 450 million dollars. Anthropic's May 2023 Series C, led by [[Spark Capital]] with Google, Menlo Ventures, and Salesforce Ventures, had raised 450 million dollars, and the stake FTX paid 500 million dollars for would have been worth several billion at later valuations.[^11][^12] ### The Funding Rounds -Anthropic's first outside capital was a 124-million-dollar Series A in May 2021 led by [[Jaan Tallinn]], the Estonian programmer who had made his fortune as a founding engineer of [[Skype]], with participation from the investor [[James McClave]], [[Dustin Moskovitz]], [[Eric Schmidt]], and the [[Center for Emerging Risk Research]]. The lead and several of the backers came from the same effective-altruism and existential-risk donor world as the founders. The 580-million-dollar Series B that Bankman-Fried led the following year was followed in May 2023 by a 450-million-dollar Series C led by Spark Capital.[^12] +Anthropic's first outside capital was a 124-million-dollar Series A in May 2021 led by [[Jaan Tallinn]], the Estonian programmer who had made his fortune as a founding engineer of [[Skype]], with participation from the investor [[James McClave]], [[Dustin Moskovitz]], [[Eric Schmidt]], and the [[Center for Emerging Risk Research]]. The lead and several of the backers came from the same effective-altruism and existential-risk donor world as the founders. The 580-million-dollar Series B that Bankman-Fried led the following year was followed in May 2023 by a 450-million-dollar Series C led by Spark Capital.[^13] -From 2023 the valuation climbed through a rapid sequence of rounds funded increasingly by the largest technology firms and the late-stage growth funds. A March 2025 round of 3.5 billion dollars, led by [[Lightspeed Venture Partners]], valued the company at 61.5 billion dollars. In May 2026 it closed a 65-billion-dollar round, the largest in its history, at a 965-billion-dollar post-money valuation, co-led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, [[Sequoia Capital]], Capital Group, Coatue, and D1 Capital, briefly making it the most valuable private company in the artificial-intelligence industry, ahead of OpenAI. Anthropic reported an annualized revenue run rate of about 47 billion dollars and confidentially filed for an initial public offering in mid-2026.[^13][^14] +From 2023 the valuation climbed through a rapid sequence of rounds funded increasingly by the largest technology firms and the late-stage growth funds. A March 2025 round of 3.5 billion dollars, led by [[Lightspeed Venture Partners]], valued the company at 61.5 billion dollars. In May 2026 it closed a 65-billion-dollar round, the largest in its history, at a 965-billion-dollar post-money valuation, co-led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, [[Sequoia Capital]], Capital Group, Coatue, and D1 Capital, briefly making it the most valuable private company in the artificial-intelligence industry, ahead of OpenAI. Anthropic reported an annualized revenue run rate of about 47 billion dollars and confidentially filed for an initial public offering in mid-2026.[^14][^15] ### The Amazon and Google Stakes -The two largest strategic investors are Amazon and Google, which are also Anthropic's principal cloud and chip suppliers. Amazon committed up to 4 billion dollars in September 2023, beginning with 1.25 billion, and added a further 4 billion in November 2024 to reach 8 billion dollars in total, becoming Anthropic's primary training partner through [[Amazon Web Services]] and its Trainium chips. Google, which had put roughly 300 million dollars into the company for about a 10 percent stake in early 2023, committed up to 2 billion dollars later that year and more than 1 billion again in January 2025, holding a stake reported at around 14 percent and contractually capped near 15 percent.[^15][^16] +The two largest strategic investors are Amazon and Google, which are also Anthropic's principal cloud and chip suppliers. Amazon committed up to 4 billion dollars in September 2023, beginning with 1.25 billion, and added a further 4 billion in November 2024 to reach 8 billion dollars in total, becoming Anthropic's primary training partner through [[Amazon Web Services]] and its Trainium chips. Google, which had put roughly 300 million dollars into the company for about a 10 percent stake in early 2023, committed up to 2 billion dollars later that year and more than 1 billion again in January 2025, holding a stake reported at around 14 percent and contractually capped near 15 percent.[^10][^16] -The arrangement is partly circular: much of the money the two companies invest returns to them as payment for the computing capacity Anthropic rents to train and run its models. By 2026 the appreciation of the two stakes was large enough that the financial press reported the Anthropic holdings accounted for roughly half of the AI-related investment gains Google and Amazon booked in some quarters, gains the companies had not realized because they had not sold the shares.[^16][^17] +The arrangement is partly circular: much of the money the two companies invest returns to them as payment for the computing capacity Anthropic rents to train and run its models. By 2026 the appreciation of the two stakes was large enough that the financial press reported the Anthropic holdings accounted for roughly half of the AI-related investment gains Google and Amazon booked in some quarters, gains the companies had not realized because they had not sold the shares.[^10][^17] ### National Security Work @@ -114,13 +114,13 @@ Pope Leo XIV's 40,000-word encyclical "Magnifica Humanitas" was published in May [^7]: Anthropic, "Chris Liddell appointed to Anthropic's board of directors," February 13, 2026, https://www.anthropic.com/news/chris-liddell-appointed-anthropic-board ; "Anthropic's Long-Term Benefit Trust appoints Vas Narasimhan to Board of Directors," April 14, 2026, https://www.anthropic.com/news/narasimhan-board [^8]: "Dario Amodei's Ideological Reckoning: How Anthropic's CEO Is Distancing Himself From the Movement That Made Him," *WebProNews,* on the post-FTX distancing from effective altruism. https://www.webpronews.com/dario-amodeis-ideological-reckoning-how-anthropics-ceo-is-distancing-himself-from-the-movement-that-made-him/ [^9]: *United States v. Samuel Bankman-Fried,* S.D.N.Y., conviction November 2, 2023; FTX estate disposition of the Anthropic stake reported in subsequent bankruptcy filings. -[^10]: "FTX estate selling majority stake in AI startup Anthropic for $884 million, with bulk going to UAE," *CNBC,* March 25, 2024, on the 29.5 million shares, 24 buyers, ATIC/Mubadala, Jane Street, Fidelity, and HOF Capital. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/25/ftx-estate-sells-majority-stake-in-startup-anthropic-for-884-million.html -[^11]: "Anthropic raises $3.5 billion with new funding round," Techzine, on the April 2022 Series B (580 million dollars, 4-billion valuation, Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison) and the May 2023 Spark Capital Series C. https://www.techzine.eu/news/applications/129278/anthropic-raises-3-5-billion-with-new-funding-round/ -[^12]: "Anthropic raises $124 million to build more reliable, general AI systems," Anthropic, May 2021, on the Series A led by Jaan Tallinn with James McClave, Dustin Moskovitz, Eric Schmidt, and the Center for Emerging Risk Research. https://www.anthropic.com/news/anthropic-raises-124-million-to-build-more-reliable-general-ai-systems -[^13]: "Anthropic reaches $61.5B valuation after latest funding round," Seeking Alpha, March 2025, on the 3.5-billion-dollar round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners at a 61.5-billion-dollar valuation. https://seekingalpha.com/news/4416449-anthropic-reaches-61_5b-valuation-after-latest-funding-round -[^14]: "Anthropic raises $65 billion, nears $1T valuation ahead of IPO," TechCrunch, May 28, 2026, on the 65-billion-dollar round at a 965-billion-dollar valuation co-led by Altimeter, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, Sequoia, Capital Group, Coatue, and D1, the 47-billion-dollar revenue run rate, and the value surpassing OpenAI; and "Anthropic confidentially files for IPO after raising $65 billion," Fortune, June 1, 2026. https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/28/anthropic-raises-65-billion-nears-1t-valuation-ahead-of-ipo/ -[^15]: "Amazon doubles down on Anthropic: $8B bet to power the future of AI," Tech Funding News, on Amazon's September 2023 commitment of up to 4 billion dollars and the additional 4 billion in November 2024 for 8 billion total through Amazon Web Services and Trainium. https://techfundingnews.com/amazon-anthropic-ai-investment-strategy/ -[^16]: "Google agrees to new $1 billion investment in Anthropic," CNBC, January 22, 2025, on Google's roughly 300 million dollars for about 10 percent in early 2023, the up-to-2-billion-dollar commitment, the further more-than-1-billion in January 2025, and the stake reported near 14 percent capped at 15 percent. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/22/google-agrees-to-new-1-billion-investment-in-anthropic.html +[^10]: "Google agrees to new $1 billion investment in Anthropic," CNBC, January 22, 2025, on Google's roughly 300 million dollars for about 10 percent in early 2023, the up-to-2-billion-dollar commitment, the further more-than-1-billion in January 2025, and the stake reported near 14 percent capped at 15 percent. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/22/google-agrees-to-new-1-billion-investment-in-anthropic.html +[^11]: "FTX estate selling majority stake in AI startup Anthropic for $884 million, with bulk going to UAE," *CNBC,* March 25, 2024, on the 29.5 million shares, 24 buyers, ATIC/Mubadala, Jane Street, Fidelity, and HOF Capital. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/25/ftx-estate-sells-majority-stake-in-startup-anthropic-for-884-million.html +[^12]: "Anthropic raises $3.5 billion with new funding round," Techzine, on the April 2022 Series B (580 million dollars, 4-billion valuation, Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison) and the May 2023 Spark Capital Series C. https://www.techzine.eu/news/applications/129278/anthropic-raises-3-5-billion-with-new-funding-round/ +[^13]: "Anthropic raises $124 million to build more reliable, general AI systems," Anthropic, May 2021, on the Series A led by Jaan Tallinn with James McClave, Dustin Moskovitz, Eric Schmidt, and the Center for Emerging Risk Research. https://www.anthropic.com/news/anthropic-raises-124-million-to-build-more-reliable-general-ai-systems +[^14]: "Anthropic reaches $61.5B valuation after latest funding round," Seeking Alpha, March 2025, on the 3.5-billion-dollar round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners at a 61.5-billion-dollar valuation. https://seekingalpha.com/news/4416449-anthropic-reaches-61_5b-valuation-after-latest-funding-round +[^15]: "Anthropic raises $65 billion, nears $1T valuation ahead of IPO," TechCrunch, May 28, 2026, on the 65-billion-dollar round at a 965-billion-dollar valuation co-led by Altimeter, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, Sequoia, Capital Group, Coatue, and D1, the 47-billion-dollar revenue run rate, and the value surpassing OpenAI; and "Anthropic confidentially files for IPO after raising $65 billion," Fortune, June 1, 2026. https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/28/anthropic-raises-65-billion-nears-1t-valuation-ahead-of-ipo/ +[^16]: "Amazon doubles down on Anthropic: $8B bet to power the future of AI," Tech Funding News, on Amazon's September 2023 commitment of up to 4 billion dollars and the additional 4 billion in November 2024 for 8 billion total through Amazon Web Services and Trainium. https://techfundingnews.com/amazon-anthropic-ai-investment-strategy/ [^17]: "Half of Google's and Amazon's 'blowout AI profits' came from a stake in Anthropic, not from their actual business," Fortune, April 30, 2026, on the unrealized gains from the Anthropic stakes and the cloud-payment arrangement. https://fortune.com/2026/04/30/google-amazon-ai-profits-anthropic-stake-bubble-earnings-2026/ [^18]: "Anthropic partners with AWS and Palantir to provide AI models to defense agencies." *SiliconANGLE,* November 7, 2024. https://siliconangle.com/2024/11/07/anthropic-partners-aws-palantir-provide-ai-models-defense-agencies/ [^19]: Anthropic, "Claude Gov models for U.S. national security customers," June 6, 2025. https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-gov-models-for-u-s-national-security-customers diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Apollo Global Management.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Apollo Global Management.md index 626a850a..0817cb0c 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Apollo Global Management.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Apollo Global Management.md @@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ relations: fn: 4 --- -Apollo Global Management is an American alternative-asset management firm founded in 1990 and headquartered in [[New York]]. It was built by [[Leon Black]] and other alumni of the collapsed investment bank [[Drexel Burnham|Drexel Burnham Lambert]] into one of the largest managers of private-equity, credit, and insurance assets in the world. The firm's co-founder and longtime leader, Black, resigned as chief executive and chairman in 2021 after the disclosure that he had paid [[Jeffrey Epstein]] about 158 million dollars for tax and estate advice, a relationship that prompted an independent board review, a U.S. Senate investigation, and, in 2026, shareholder suits alleging the firm concealed the extent of the ties.[^1][^2] +Apollo Global Management is an American alternative-asset management firm founded in 1990 and headquartered in [[New York City|New York]]. It was built by [[Leon Black]] and other alumni of the collapsed investment bank [[Drexel Burnham|Drexel Burnham Lambert]] into one of the largest managers of private-equity, credit, and insurance assets in the world. The firm's co-founder and longtime leader, Black, resigned as chief executive and chairman in 2021 after the disclosure that he had paid [[Jeffrey Epstein]] about 158 million dollars for tax and estate advice, a relationship that prompted an independent board review, a U.S. Senate investigation, and, in 2026, shareholder suits alleging the firm concealed the extent of the ties.[^1][^2] ### Founding From Drexel diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Associated Press.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Associated Press.md index bb5a20f9..b46a5f17 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Associated Press.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Associated Press.md @@ -51,12 +51,12 @@ relations: with: "[[Robert Berrellez]]" reverse: true role: "roving correspondent for Latin America" - fn: 19 + fn: 20 - type: head_of with: "[[Gary Pruitt]]" reverse: true role: "president and chief executive" - fn: 20 + fn: 21 - type: head_of with: "[[Daisy Veerasingham]]" reverse: true @@ -73,20 +73,20 @@ relations: start: 2012-04 end: 2012-05 role: "toll records for more than 20 lines subpoenaed for April and May 2012" - fn: 21 + fn: 22 - type: subject_of with: "[[Israel Defense Forces]]" start: 2021-05-15 end: 2021-05-15 role: "bureau building destroyed by airstrike" - fn: 25 + fn: 26 - type: participant_in with: "[[Associated Press v. Budowich]]" start: 2025-02 role: "plaintiff" - fn: 28 + fn: 29 created: 2026-10-01 -updated: 2026-10-01 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- The Associated Press (AP) is a news cooperative headquartered in [[New York City]], founded in 1846 and owned by [[United States]] newspapers and broadcasters as its members.[^1] In 1846 five New York City newspapers funded a pony express route through [[Alabama]] to bring news of the [[Mexican-American War|Mexican War]] north faster than the Post Office could carry it.[^2] The AP's history page carries a photograph of its president and chief executive, [[Daisy Veerasingham]], taken at the New York headquarters on January 11, 2022.[^2] @@ -131,35 +131,39 @@ The AP published its history, *Covering Tyranny: The AP and [[Nazi Germany]], 19 [[Gary Webb]] wrote in *[[Dark Alliance]]* that Parry's editors sat on the story for weeks, edited it heavily and spiked it at the last minute, that the suppression of the AP story foreshadowed the media establishment's treatment of Webb's own series a decade later, and that the AP's failure to publish its own reporters' findings allowed the government to maintain its denial of Contra-connected drug trafficking for years.[^18] +### Cover arrangements in the Bernstein record, 1977 + +In October 1977 [[Carl Bernstein]] reported in [[Rolling Stone]] that CIA files recorded "cover" arrangements with news-gathering organizations including the Associated Press and UPI. Agency officials said that cover had been arranged through an unnamed person in the upper management of the Associated Press.[^19] [[Wes Gallagher]], general manager of the Associated Press from 1962 to 1976, denied that the wire service had employed agency staff. Bernstein reported that Gallagher had gone to [[William Colby]] after the first disclosures, asking for names, and that Colby said only that no full-time staff member was employed by the agency.[^19] + ### Correspondents who moved to other posts -[[Robert Berrellez]] was born in [[Nogales, Arizona]], was educated in [[Arizona]] and worked for the AP in [[Phoenix, Arizona|Phoenix]] before becoming a roving correspondent with headquarters in [[Mexico City]]. A column in the *Phoenix Republic* of April 2, 1978 states that he was in [[Cuba]] when [[Fidel Castro]] came to power and spent six months in jail there, that he had gone to work for [[ITT Corporation|International Telephone and Telegraph]], that he was by then the company's public relations director in the Southwest, and that a court in Washington was to decide whether he had committed perjury and obstructed an investigation in testifying before a [[United States Senate|Senate]] subcommittee on the company's conduct in [[Chile]].[^19] +[[Robert Berrellez]] was born in [[Nogales, Arizona]], was educated in [[Arizona]] and worked for the AP in [[Phoenix, Arizona|Phoenix]] before becoming a roving correspondent with headquarters in [[Mexico City]]. A column in the *Phoenix Republic* of April 2, 1978 states that he was in [[Cuba]] when [[Fidel Castro]] came to power and spent six months in jail there, that he had gone to work for [[ITT Corporation|International Telephone and Telegraph]], that he was by then the company's public relations director in the Southwest, and that a court in Washington was to decide whether he had committed perjury and obstructed an investigation in testifying before a [[United States Senate|Senate]] subcommittee on the company's conduct in [[Chile]].[^20] ### Telephone records, 2012 and 2013 -On Friday, May 10, 2013 the AP's general counsel, [[Laura Malone]], received a letter from [[Ronald C. Machen Jr.]], United States attorney for the District of Columbia, who had been appointed by Attorney General [[Eric Holder]] to lead an inquiry into leaks. The letter stated that the Department of Justice had obtained telephone toll records for more than 20 separate lines assigned to the AP and its journalists for April and May 2012.[^20] On May 13 the AP's president and chief executive, [[Gary Pruitt]], wrote to Holder: "There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters."[^20] +On Friday, May 10, 2013 the AP's general counsel, [[Laura Malone]], received a letter from [[Ronald C. Machen Jr.]], United States attorney for the District of Columbia, who had been appointed by Attorney General [[Eric Holder]] to lead an inquiry into leaks. The letter stated that the Department of Justice had obtained telephone toll records for more than 20 separate lines assigned to the AP and its journalists for April and May 2012.[^21] On May 13 the AP's president and chief executive, [[Gary Pruitt]], wrote to Holder: "There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters."[^21] -Deputy Attorney General [[James M. Cole]] replied on May 14 that the Department had opened criminal investigations into unauthorized disclosures of classified information in May 2012, and had conducted "over 550 interviews" and reviewed "tens of thousands of documents" before seeking the toll records. He wrote that for each number in the May 10 letter "there was a basis to believe the numbers were associated with AP personnel involved in the reporting of classified information," that the subpoenas did not seek the content of calls, that the records covered "only a portion" of the two-month span, and that they had been "closely held and reviewed solely for the purposes of this ongoing criminal investigation."[^21] +Deputy Attorney General [[James M. Cole]] replied on May 14 that the Department had opened criminal investigations into unauthorized disclosures of classified information in May 2012, and had conducted "over 550 interviews" and reviewed "tens of thousands of documents" before seeking the toll records. He wrote that for each number in the May 10 letter "there was a basis to believe the numbers were associated with AP personnel involved in the reporting of classified information," that the subpoenas did not seek the content of calls, that the records covered "only a portion" of the two-month span, and that they had been "closely held and reviewed solely for the purposes of this ongoing criminal investigation."[^22] -In September 2013 [[Donald Sachtleben]], a former [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] bomb technician who had continued working for the bureau as a contractor, agreed to plead guilty to disclosing national defense information to a reporter in May 2012 about a thwarted Yemen-based plan to bomb a United States-bound airliner. The Department of Justice said he "was identified as a suspect in the case of this unauthorized disclosure only after toll records for phone numbers related to the reporter were obtained through a subpoena and compared to other evidence collected during the leak investigation," and that this allowed investigators to obtain a search warrant for his phone and computer. The plea agreements, filed in [[Indianapolis]], carried a 43-month term on the national security counts and a consecutive 97-month term on two [[Child sexual abuse material|child pornography]] counts.[^22][^23] +In September 2013 [[Donald Sachtleben]], a former [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] bomb technician who had continued working for the bureau as a contractor, agreed to plead guilty to disclosing national defense information to a reporter in May 2012 about a thwarted Yemen-based plan to bomb a United States-bound airliner. The Department of Justice said he "was identified as a suspect in the case of this unauthorized disclosure only after toll records for phone numbers related to the reporter were obtained through a subpoena and compared to other evidence collected during the leak investigation," and that this allowed investigators to obtain a search warrant for his phone and computer. The plea agreements, filed in [[Indianapolis]], carried a 43-month term on the national security counts and a consecutive 97-month term on two [[Child sexual abuse material|child pornography]] counts.[^23][^24] -On July 12, 2013 the Department of Justice published a report on its policies toward the news media that reversed the presumption concerning advance notice to affected media organizations. Notice and negotiation would be omitted only if the Attorney General, taking account of the recommendations of a newly established News Media Review Committee, determined for compelling reasons that they would pose a clear and substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation, risk grave harm to national security or present an imminent risk of death or serious bodily harm, and any delay would run for an initial 45 days with at most one further 45 days.[^24] +On July 12, 2013 the Department of Justice published a report on its policies toward the news media that reversed the presumption concerning advance notice to affected media organizations. Notice and negotiation would be omitted only if the Attorney General, taking account of the recommendations of a newly established News Media Review Committee, determined for compelling reasons that they would pose a clear and substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation, risk grave harm to national security or present an imminent risk of death or serious bodily harm, and any delay would run for an initial 45 days with at most one further 45 days.[^25] ### The Gaza bureau, 2021 and 2024 -On May 15, 2021 an Israeli airstrike destroyed a high-rise building in [[Gaza City]] that housed the AP's bureau and other media offices. The AP's account stated that the strike came roughly an hour after the Israeli military ordered people to evacuate the building and that all AP employees and freelancers left safely. Pruitt's statement said that the Israeli military had "long known the location of our bureau and knew journalists were there," that the AP had received a warning that the building would be hit, that it was seeking information from the Israeli government and was engaged with the [[State Department]], and that "the world will know less about what is happening in Gaza because of what happened today."[^25] +On May 15, 2021 an Israeli airstrike destroyed a high-rise building in [[Gaza City]] that housed the AP's bureau and other media offices. The AP's account stated that the strike came roughly an hour after the Israeli military ordered people to evacuate the building and that all AP employees and freelancers left safely. Pruitt's statement said that the Israeli military had "long known the location of our bureau and knew journalists were there," that the AP had received a warning that the building would be hit, that it was seeking information from the Israeli government and was engaged with the [[State Department]], and that "the world will know less about what is happening in Gaza because of what happened today."[^26] -Secretary of State [[Antony Blinken]] held a press availability in Copenhagen on May 17, 2021. A reporter's question recited that the prime minister of Israel and officials of the [[Israel Defense Forces]] had said over the weekend that they had transmitted intelligence to the United States showing that [[Hamas]] used the tower to house military assets. Blinken answered that he had spoken over the weekend with Pruitt, that "we did request additional details regarding the justification" for the strike, that he "wouldn't want to weigh in on intelligence matters," and that he would "leave it to others to characterize if any information has been shared and our assessment of that information."[^26] +Secretary of State [[Antony Blinken]] held a press availability in Copenhagen on May 17, 2021. A reporter's question recited that the prime minister of Israel and officials of the [[Israel Defense Forces]] had said over the weekend that they had transmitted intelligence to the United States showing that [[Hamas]] used the tower to house military assets. Blinken answered that he had spoken over the weekend with Pruitt, that "we did request additional details regarding the justification" for the strike, that he "wouldn't want to weigh in on intelligence matters," and that he would "leave it to others to characterize if any information has been shared and our assessment of that information."[^27] -On May 21, 2024 Israeli officials seized an AP camera and broadcasting equipment in [[Sderot]], accusing the AP of violating a media law enacted against Al Jazeera by supplying it with live images of northern Gaza. The communications minister, [[Shlomo Karhi]], ordered the equipment returned the same day.[^27] +On May 21, 2024 Israeli officials seized an AP camera and broadcasting equipment in [[Sderot]], accusing the AP of violating a media law enacted against Al Jazeera by supplying it with live images of northern Gaza. The communications minister, [[Shlomo Karhi]], ordered the equipment returned the same day.[^28] ### Exclusion from the White House press pool, 2025 -On February 11, 2025 White House press secretary [[Karoline Leavitt]] told the AP that it would not be permitted in the [[Oval Office]] or the press pool unless it revised its style guide to refer to the Gulf of America. The AP was also excluded from events in the [[East Room]]. Press pool membership had historically been set by the [[White House Correspondents' Association]], of which the AP is a founding member and which had offered the AP a standing invitation to send one reporter and one photographer. On February 25 the White House announced that it would select pool participants itself. The AP sued on [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution|First Amendment]] grounds in *[[Associated Press v. Budowich]]*, No. 1:25-cv-00532 (D.D.C.), naming [[Taylor Budowich]], the Deputy Chief of Staff, as defendant.[^28] +On February 11, 2025 White House press secretary [[Karoline Leavitt]] told the AP that it would not be permitted in the [[Oval Office]] or the press pool unless it revised its style guide to refer to the Gulf of America. The AP was also excluded from events in the [[East Room]]. Press pool membership had historically been set by the [[White House Correspondents' Association]], of which the AP is a founding member and which had offered the AP a standing invitation to send one reporter and one photographer. On February 25 the White House announced that it would select pool participants itself. The AP sued on [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution|First Amendment]] grounds in *[[Associated Press v. Budowich]]*, No. 1:25-cv-00532 (D.D.C.), naming [[Taylor Budowich]], the Deputy Chief of Staff, as defendant.[^29] -Judge [[Trevor N. McFadden]] entered a preliminary injunction on April 8, 2025. On April 14 the AP was denied access to the Oval Office while the injunction was in effect; on April 15 the White House issued a policy abolishing the wire services seat from the press pool, and the district court denied the AP's motion to enforce, finding the new policy facially neutral and crediting a White House declaration that it had not excluded the AP on the basis of viewpoint.[^28] +Judge [[Trevor N. McFadden]] entered a preliminary injunction on April 8, 2025. On April 14 the AP was denied access to the Oval Office while the injunction was in effect; on April 15 the White House issued a policy abolishing the wire services seat from the press pool, and the district court denied the AP's motion to enforce, finding the new policy facially neutral and crediting a White House declaration that it had not excluded the AP on the basis of viewpoint.[^29] -On June 6, 2025 a panel of the [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit]] granted the government's motion for a stay pending appeal in part, staying the injunction except as applied to the East Room. Judge [[Neomi Rao]], joined by Judge [[Gregory Katsas]], wrote that the White House was likely to succeed because "these restricted presidential spaces are not First Amendment fora opened for private speech and discussion" and that the White House "retains discretion to determine, including on the basis of viewpoint, which journalists will be admitted." Judge [[Cornelia Pillard]] dissented and would have denied the stay.[^28] On July 22, 2025 the full court denied the AP's motion for en banc reconsideration and vacatur of the stay order.[^29] The D.C. Circuit's posted opinion lists for January through September 2026 contain no opinion in No. 25-5109.[^30] +On June 6, 2025 a panel of the [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit]] granted the government's motion for a stay pending appeal in part, staying the injunction except as applied to the East Room. Judge [[Neomi Rao]], joined by Judge [[Gregory Katsas]], wrote that the White House was likely to succeed because "these restricted presidential spaces are not First Amendment fora opened for private speech and discussion" and that the White House "retains discretion to determine, including on the basis of viewpoint, which journalists will be admitted." Judge [[Cornelia Pillard]] dissented and would have denied the stay.[^29] On July 22, 2025 the full court denied the AP's motion for en banc reconsideration and vacatur of the stay order.[^30] The D.C. Circuit's posted opinion lists for January through September 2026 contain no opinion in No. 25-5109.[^31] ### Footnotes @@ -181,15 +185,16 @@ On June 6, 2025 a panel of the [[United States Court of Appeals for the District [^16]: Associated Press, *Covering Tyranny*, 2017, Introduction, pp. 1, 4. [^17]: Robert Parry, "The Lost Opportunity of Iran-Contra," *Consortium News*, December 1, 2011, https://consortiumnews.com/2011/12/01/the-lost-opportunity-of-iran-contra/ ; Parry, "Regret over Gary Webb's Demise," *Consortium News*, June 1, 2013, https://consortiumnews.com/2013/06/01/regret-over-gary-webbs-demise/ [^18]: Gary Webb, *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion* (Seven Stories Press, 1998), ch. 27. -[^19]: "Bad Deal For Berrellez," *Phoenix Republic*, April 2, 1978, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP09T00207R001000030015-6, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp09t00207r001000030015-6 -[^20]: Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, "Justice Department defends decisions in secret seizure of AP phone records as criticism mounts," May 14, 2013, https://www.rcfp.org/justice-department-defends-decisions-secret-seizure-ap-phone-records/ (describing the Machen letter of May 10, 2013 and quoting Pruitt's letter of May 13). -[^21]: James M. Cole, Deputy Attorney General, letter to Gary B. Pruitt, May 14, 2013, https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/oip/legacy/2014/07/23/dag-letter-to-ap-president-pruitt.pdf -[^22]: Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, "Filing in case over AP bomb-plot leaker details contacts between reporter and FBI source," September 2013, https://www.rcfp.org/filing-case-over-ap-bomb-plot-leaker-details-contacts-between-report/ (quoting the Department of Justice statement of September 23, 2013). -[^23]: "Ex-FBI Agent Cornered on Terror Plot Leaks," *Courthouse News Service*, September 25, 2013, https://www.courthousenews.com/ex-fbi-agent-cornered-on-terror-plot-leaks/ (the justice.gov press release returned a block on October 1, 2026). -[^24]: U.S. Department of Justice, *Report on Review of News Media Policies*, July 12, 2013, https://www.justice.gov/ag/news-media.pdf -[^25]: Associated Press, "AP statement on Israeli attack on building housing AP office," May 15, 2021, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20210515141355/https://apnews.com/article/israel-middle-east-business-israel-palestinian-conflict-f595d0ea0a7e21a4e4974ae55e00024d -[^26]: U.S. Department of State, "Secretary Antony J. Blinken and Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod at a Joint Press Availability," Copenhagen, May 17, 2021, https://2021-2025.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-and-danish-foreign-minister-jeppe-kofod-at-a-joint-press-availability/ -[^27]: "Israel says it will return video equipment seized from AP," Associated Press, May 21, 2024 (copy at https://www.wsls.com/news/world/2024/05/21/israeli-officials-seize-ap-equipment-and-take-down-live-shot-of-northern-gaza-citing-new-media-law/). -[^28]: *Associated Press v. Budowich*, No. 25-5109 (D.C. Cir.), order of June 6, 2025 granting stay pending appeal in part (Pillard, Katsas, Rao, Circuit Judges), with statement of Rao, J., joined by Katsas, J., and dissenting statement of Pillard, J., on appeal from No. 1:25-cv-00532-TNM (D.D.C.), https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/orders/docs/2025/06/25-5109LDSN3.pdf (reciting the district court's preliminary injunction of April 8, 2025, 2025 WL 1039572, and footnote 2 on events of April 14 and 15, 2025). -[^29]: *Associated Press v. Budowich*, No. 25-5109 (D.C. Cir. July 22, 2025) (per curiam order denying emergency petition for rehearing en banc, construed as a motion for en banc reconsideration and vacatur), https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/orders/docs/2025/07/25-5109LDEN.pdf -[^30]: U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, opinions by date for January through September 2026, https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/bydate/2026/1 through /9 (checked October 1, 2026 for "5109"; no matches). +[^19]: Carl Bernstein, "The CIA and the Media," *Rolling Stone*, October 20, 1977, text at https://archive.org/stream/nsia-BernsteinRollingStoneArticlesCIA/nsia-BernsteinRollingStoneArticlesCIA/Bernstein%20CIA%2001_djvu.txt (section on "Other 'major' news organizations" and the passage on the Associated Press and Gallagher). +[^20]: "Bad Deal For Berrellez," *Phoenix Republic*, April 2, 1978, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP09T00207R001000030015-6, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp09t00207r001000030015-6 +[^21]: Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, "Justice Department defends decisions in secret seizure of AP phone records as criticism mounts," May 14, 2013, https://www.rcfp.org/justice-department-defends-decisions-secret-seizure-ap-phone-records/ (describing the Machen letter of May 10, 2013 and quoting Pruitt's letter of May 13). +[^22]: James M. Cole, Deputy Attorney General, letter to Gary B. Pruitt, May 14, 2013, https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/oip/legacy/2014/07/23/dag-letter-to-ap-president-pruitt.pdf +[^23]: Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, "Filing in case over AP bomb-plot leaker details contacts between reporter and FBI source," September 2013, https://www.rcfp.org/filing-case-over-ap-bomb-plot-leaker-details-contacts-between-report/ (quoting the Department of Justice statement of September 23, 2013). +[^24]: "Ex-FBI Agent Cornered on Terror Plot Leaks," *Courthouse News Service*, September 25, 2013, https://www.courthousenews.com/ex-fbi-agent-cornered-on-terror-plot-leaks/ (the justice.gov press release returned a block on October 1, 2026). +[^25]: U.S. Department of Justice, *Report on Review of News Media Policies*, July 12, 2013, https://www.justice.gov/ag/news-media.pdf +[^26]: Associated Press, "AP statement on Israeli attack on building housing AP office," May 15, 2021, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20210515141355/https://apnews.com/article/israel-middle-east-business-israel-palestinian-conflict-f595d0ea0a7e21a4e4974ae55e00024d +[^27]: U.S. Department of State, "Secretary Antony J. Blinken and Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod at a Joint Press Availability," Copenhagen, May 17, 2021, https://2021-2025.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-and-danish-foreign-minister-jeppe-kofod-at-a-joint-press-availability/ +[^28]: "Israel says it will return video equipment seized from AP," Associated Press, May 21, 2024 (copy at https://www.wsls.com/news/world/2024/05/21/israeli-officials-seize-ap-equipment-and-take-down-live-shot-of-northern-gaza-citing-new-media-law/). +[^29]: *Associated Press v. Budowich*, No. 25-5109 (D.C. Cir.), order of June 6, 2025 granting stay pending appeal in part (Pillard, Katsas, Rao, Circuit Judges), with statement of Rao, J., joined by Katsas, J., and dissenting statement of Pillard, J., on appeal from No. 1:25-cv-00532-TNM (D.D.C.), https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/orders/docs/2025/06/25-5109LDSN3.pdf (reciting the district court's preliminary injunction of April 8, 2025, 2025 WL 1039572, and footnote 2 on events of April 14 and 15, 2025). +[^30]: *Associated Press v. Budowich*, No. 25-5109 (D.C. Cir. July 22, 2025) (per curiam order denying emergency petition for rehearing en banc, construed as a motion for en banc reconsideration and vacatur), https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/orders/docs/2025/07/25-5109LDEN.pdf +[^31]: U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, opinions by date for January through September 2026, https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/bydate/2026/1 through /9 (checked October 1, 2026 for "5109"; no matches). diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/BGC Group.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/BGC Group.md index 4b9a9ef8..af0c09c4 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/BGC Group.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/BGC Group.md @@ -86,7 +86,7 @@ relations: reverse: true role: "described by the BBC as a managing director; dismissed in 2017 according to the BBC, with BGC giving a different account of the termination" end: 2017 - fn: 12 + fn: 13 - type: subject_of with: "[[Federal Bureau of Investigation]]" role: "FD-71A Guardian complaint recorded October 14, 2020 (form dated April 23, 2021) alleging money laundering by Howard Lutnick via BGC Financial and Cantor Fitzgerald" @@ -96,14 +96,14 @@ relations: with: "[[Securities and Exchange Commission]]" role: "SEC settlement order of July 17, 2018 ($1.25 million, willful books and records violations), as recited in the CFTC order of November 22, 2019" start: 2018-07-17 - fn: 11 + fn: 12 - type: subject_of with: "[[Financial Industry Regulatory Authority]]" start: 2024-06-17 role: "award in arbitration 22-02539: BGC Financial, L.P. \"solely liable for and shall pay to Claimant the sum of $500,000.00 in compensatory damages\"; hearing session fees of $39,375 assessed to BGC Financial, L.P." - fn: 14 + fn: 15 created: 2026-10-04 -updated: 2026-10-04 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- BGC Group, Inc. is an interdealer and wholesale broker and financial-technology company, listed on [[Nasdaq]] under the symbol BGC, that became the public holding company for the former BGC Partners, Inc. on July 1, 2023. BGC Partners was itself the 2008 combination of eSpeed with the interdealer brokerage assets of [[Cantor Fitzgerald]], which has controlled the company throughout.[^1][^2] Its subsidiaries BGC Financial, L.P. and GFI Securities, LLC were the respondents in two sets of 2019 orders of the [[Commodity Futures Trading Commission]], and the company's former employee [[Simon Andriesz]] made a 2020 complaint to the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] concerning [[Howard Lutnick]], BGC and Cantor.[^3][^4][^5] @@ -118,9 +118,9 @@ In April 2008, BGC and certain other Cantor assets merged with and into eSpeed, [[GFI Group]] Inc. was acquired by a wholly owned subsidiary of BGC pursuant to a merger agreement completed on January 12, 2016, "after BGC's acquisition of Jersey Partners, Inc., GFI's largest shareholder."[^6] In November 2018 BGC acquired [[Poten & Partners]], a ship brokerage and consultancy specializing in liquefied natural gas, tanker and liquefied petroleum gas markets.[^6] -The company's real estate services business was transferred to [[Newmark Group]], Inc. on December 13, 2017, and Newmark completed an initial public offering of 23 million Class A shares in December 2017. On November 30, 2018 BGC distributed its Newmark shares to its stockholders in a spin-off, with Newmark Class A shares going to BGC Class A holders and Newmark Class B shares to the holders of BGC Class B stock, Cantor and another entity controlled by Lutnick.[^6] The transaction by which BGC bought [[Berkeley Point]] from [[Cantor Commercial Real Estate]] for $875 million and committed $100 million for a 27 percent interest in Real Estate, L.P. was challenged in a derivative complaint filed on October 5, 2018 by the [[Roofers Local 149 Pension Fund]] in the [[Delaware Court of Chancery]] against BGC's directors, Lutnick, [[CF Group Management|CFGM]] and Cantor; on September 30, 2019 the court denied the defendants' motions to dismiss on demand grounds without findings on the merits.[^6] +The company's real estate services business was transferred to [[Newmark Group]], Inc. on December 13, 2017, and Newmark completed an initial public offering of 23 million Class A shares in December 2017. On November 30, 2018 BGC distributed its Newmark shares to its stockholders in a spin-off, with Newmark Class A shares going to BGC Class A holders and Newmark Class B shares to the holders of BGC Class B stock, Cantor and another entity controlled by Lutnick.[^6] The transaction by which BGC bought [[Berkeley Point]] from [[Cantor Commercial Real Estate]] for $875 million and committed $100 million for a 27 percent interest in Real Estate, L.P. was challenged in a derivative complaint filed on October 5, 2018 by the [[Roofers Local 149 Pension Fund]] in the [[Delaware Court of Chancery]] against BGC's directors, Lutnick, [[CF Group Management|CFGM]] and Cantor; on September 30, 2019 the court denied the defendants' motions to dismiss on demand grounds without findings on the merits, in an opinion by Chancellor [[Andre G. Bouchard]] in an action brought by the Roofers fund and the Northern California Pipe Trades Trust Funds.[^6] The [[Delaware Supreme Court]] affirmed the Court of Chancery's final judgment of September 27, 2022 by order of August 10, 2023.[^8] -Each BGC Class B share carries ten votes. At December 31, 2019, Cantor and CFGM held all 45,884,380 outstanding shares of BGC Class B stock, approximately 59.8 percent of the total voting power.[^6] BGC's related-party dealings with Cantor are subject to the prior approval of its Audit Committee. They include a credit agreement of March 19, 2018 permitting each party to borrow up to $250.0 million, which BGC's 2019 report describes as amended on August 6, 2018 to increase the facility to $400.0 million and its 2025 report as further amended on March 8, 2024 to increase the facility to $400.0 million; a March 2018 sales agreement under which BGC pays Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. (CF&Co) 2 percent of the gross proceeds from sales of BGC Class A shares; and Cantor's unlimited right to use BGC market data internally without cost.[^6][^1] +Each BGC Class B share carries ten votes. At December 31, 2019, Cantor and CFGM held all 45,884,380 outstanding shares of BGC Class B stock, approximately 59.8 percent of the total voting power.[^6] BGC's related-party dealings with Cantor are subject to the prior approval of its Audit Committee. They include a credit agreement of March 19, 2018 permitting each party to borrow up to $250.0 million, which BGC's 2019 report describes as amended on August 6, 2018 to increase the facility to $400.0 million and its 2025 report as further amended on March 8, 2024 to increase the facility to $400.0 million; a March 2018 sales agreement under which BGC pays Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. (CF&Co) 2 percent of the gross proceeds from sales of BGC Class A shares; and Cantor's unlimited right to use BGC market data internally without cost.[^1][^6] ### Fenics and FMX @@ -132,41 +132,41 @@ Under a Corporate Conversion Agreement dated November 15, 2022, BGC Partners and ### Leadership Change and the Lutnick Divestiture -Howard Lutnick, BGC's chief executive officer and chairman since 1999, was confirmed by the [[United States Senate]] as [[United States Department of Commerce|Secretary of Commerce]] on February 18, 2025, and stepped down that day. The board appointed [[John Abularrage]], [[JP Aubin]] and [[Sean Windeatt]] co-chief executive officers, appointed [[Brandon Lutnick]] to the board, and named [[Stephen Merkel]], the company's chief legal officer, to the board and as chairman. On May 19, 2025 BGC announced the repurchase of 16,452,850 Class A shares from Lutnick at $9.2082 per share, an aggregate of $151,501,133, "in furtherance of Mr. Lutnick's [[United States|U.S. government]] ethics agreement." On October 6, 2025 Lutnick completed the divestiture of his holdings in BGC, Cantor and CFGM, selling the voting shares of CFGM to trusts controlled by Brandon Lutnick, who as of February 27, 2026 beneficially owned 2.0 million Class A and 109.4 million Class B shares, "collectively representing 75.1% of the total voting power."[^1][^8] +Howard Lutnick, BGC's chief executive officer and chairman since 1999, was confirmed by the [[United States Senate]] as [[United States Department of Commerce|Secretary of Commerce]] on February 18, 2025, and stepped down that day. The board appointed [[John Abularrage]], [[JP Aubin]] and [[Sean Windeatt]] co-chief executive officers, appointed [[Brandon Lutnick]] to the board, and named [[Stephen Merkel]], the company's chief legal officer, to the board and as chairman. On May 19, 2025 BGC announced the repurchase of 16,452,850 Class A shares from Lutnick at $9.2082 per share, an aggregate of $151,501,133, "in furtherance of Mr. Lutnick's [[United States|U.S. government]] ethics agreement." On October 6, 2025 Lutnick completed the divestiture of his holdings in BGC, Cantor and CFGM, selling the voting shares of CFGM to trusts controlled by Brandon Lutnick, who as of February 27, 2026 beneficially owned 2.0 million Class A and 109.4 million Class B shares, "collectively representing 75.1% of the total voting power."[^1][^9] ### The September 2019 CFTC Orders (Release 8035-19) On October 2, 2019 the Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced orders entered on September 30, 2019 against two interdealer brokers, BGC Financial, LP and GFI Securities, LLC, ordering BGC to pay a civil monetary penalty of $15 million and GFI $10 million, strengthen internal controls, appoint a monitor, and cease and desist. The orders found that brokers on their respective emerging markets foreign exchange options desks, "EFX options," made false representations that bids and offers were executable and that trades had occurred.[^3] -The BGC order describes the Respondent as "a Delaware limited partnership headquartered in [[New York City|New York, New York]], which provides voice and electronic brokerage services," registered as a futures commission merchant since 2009 and previously from 1994 to 2006. It states the relevant period as from at least January 2014 to at least December 2015, and finds that brokers on the desk posted bids and offers when "no trading institution had bid or offered the option at that level," a practice the brokers called "flying" prices, and "flew" hundreds of thousands of bids and offers; and that brokers communicated that trades had occurred when none had, called "printing." In a chat on or about January 27, 2014 a junior broker asked a colleague, "is this a printo?" and was told that it was. The order recites that when a flown bid or offer was hit or lifted the screen flashed, indicating to all users that a trade had occurred. The Commission found that the brokers intended "to create an illusion of greater liquidity and, at times, tighter spreads" and noted that BGC itself did not act as counterparty to the options transactions. It credited the Respondent's cooperation and remediation as reflected "in the form of a reduced civil monetary penalty."[^9] +The BGC order describes the Respondent as "a Delaware limited partnership headquartered in [[New York City|New York, New York]], which provides voice and electronic brokerage services," registered as a futures commission merchant since 2009 and previously from 1994 to 2006. It states the relevant period as from at least January 2014 to at least December 2015, and finds that brokers on the desk posted bids and offers when "no trading institution had bid or offered the option at that level," a practice the brokers called "flying" prices, and "flew" hundreds of thousands of bids and offers; and that brokers communicated that trades had occurred when none had, called "printing." In a chat on or about January 27, 2014 a junior broker asked a colleague, "is this a printo?" and was told that it was. The order recites that when a flown bid or offer was hit or lifted the screen flashed, indicating to all users that a trade had occurred. The Commission found that the brokers intended "to create an illusion of greater liquidity and, at times, tighter spreads" and noted that BGC itself did not act as counterparty to the options transactions. It credited the Respondent's cooperation and remediation as reflected "in the form of a reduced civil monetary penalty."[^10] -The GFI order, against GFI Securities LLC, a limited liability company headquartered in New York, New York, registered as an introducing broker since January 2014 (previously as an introducing broker from September 1998 to August 2013 and as a futures commission merchant from August 2013 to January 2014), states a relevant period of at least July 2013 to at least December 2015 and makes the same findings of "flying" and "printing" for its own EFX options desk, with a penalty of $10,000,000.[^10] The release states that the CFTC had the assistance of the [[New York Attorney General|Office of the Attorney General for the State of New York]], which announced criminal non-prosecution agreements with BGC and GFI assessing monetary penalties of $7.5 million and $5 million, with remediation and a monitor, and that the CFTC penalties "will be offset by monies paid pursuant to these agreements." BGC's annual report for 2019 states that the company paid an aggregate of $25.0 million on October 9, 2019 and agreed to a monitor for two years, and describes the settling subsidiaries as BGC Financial L.P. and GFI Group Inc.[^6][^3] +The GFI order, against GFI Securities LLC, a limited liability company headquartered in New York, New York, registered as an introducing broker since January 2014 (previously as an introducing broker from September 1998 to August 2013 and as a futures commission merchant from August 2013 to January 2014), states a relevant period of at least July 2013 to at least December 2015 and makes the same findings of "flying" and "printing" for its own EFX options desk, with a penalty of $10,000,000.[^11] The release states that the CFTC had the assistance of the [[New York Attorney General|Office of the Attorney General for the State of New York]], which announced criminal non-prosecution agreements with BGC and GFI assessing monetary penalties of $7.5 million and $5 million, with remediation and a monitor, and that the CFTC penalties "will be offset by monies paid pursuant to these agreements." BGC's annual report for 2019 states that the company paid an aggregate of $25.0 million on October 9, 2019 and agreed to a monitor for two years, and describes the settling subsidiaries as BGC Financial L.P. and GFI Group Inc.[^3][^6] ### The November 2019 CFTC Order (Release 8083-19) -On November 22, 2019 the CFTC announced an order against BGC Financial, L.P., "a futures industry voice broker and registered futures commission merchant (FCM)," imposing a $3 million civil monetary penalty and undertakings including remediation and an outside consultant. The order found that from at least 2014 to March 2019 BGC failed to establish an adequate supervisory system with respect to its traditional and block trading futures brokerage businesses, including "audit trail" procedures and the use of personal cell phones by brokers for firm business contrary to its FCM Manual. It found that BGC lost all voice recordings from February 5, 2016 through the end of May 2016 for thousands of block trades, and that on multiple occasions failed to capture verbal communications for periods of up to four months; that BGC took more than two months to produce audit trail data for 100 random block trades requested by the Division of Enforcement; that its 2015 and 2016 Chief Compliance Officer reports did not adequately disclose voice-capture noncompliance; and that it failed to notify the CFTC of numerous formal investigations. The order recites that BGC "entered into at least eight settlements with the [[Financial Industry Regulatory Authority]]" and settled matters with [[CME Group]], [[ICE Futures U.S.]] and [[Nodal Exchange]] without notice to the Commission, and that BGC did not notify the CFTC of an SEC investigation, formal since at least early 2014 and resolved by a $1.25 million settlement for willful books and records violations, until after the SEC order of July 17, 2018. It also found that BGC filed notice of its 2017 change in chief executive officer "over nine months late." The CFTC thanked the [[National Futures Association]] for its assistance.[^4][^11] +On November 22, 2019 the CFTC announced an order against BGC Financial, L.P., "a futures industry voice broker and registered futures commission merchant (FCM)," imposing a $3 million civil monetary penalty and undertakings including remediation and an outside consultant. The order found that from at least 2014 to March 2019 BGC failed to establish an adequate supervisory system with respect to its traditional and block trading futures brokerage businesses, including "audit trail" procedures and the use of personal cell phones by brokers for firm business contrary to its FCM Manual. It found that BGC lost all voice recordings from February 5, 2016 through the end of May 2016 for thousands of block trades, and that on multiple occasions failed to capture verbal communications for periods of up to four months; that BGC took more than two months to produce audit trail data for 100 random block trades requested by the Division of Enforcement; that its 2015 and 2016 Chief Compliance Officer reports did not adequately disclose voice-capture noncompliance; and that it failed to notify the CFTC of numerous formal investigations. The order recites that BGC "entered into at least eight settlements with the [[Financial Industry Regulatory Authority]]" and settled matters with [[CME Group]], [[ICE Futures U.S.]] and [[Nodal Exchange]] without notice to the Commission, and that BGC did not notify the CFTC of an SEC investigation, formal since at least early 2014 and resolved by a $1.25 million settlement for willful books and records violations, until after the SEC order of July 17, 2018. It also found that BGC filed notice of its 2017 change in chief executive officer "over nine months late." The CFTC thanked the [[National Futures Association]] for its assistance.[^4][^12] ### Simon Andriesz -The [[BBC]] reported on July 14, 2026 that Simon Andriesz, 57, "previously a managing director at a Wall Street firm," had been employed by BGC Partners, "part of Lutnick's Cantor Fitzgerald group." According to the BBC, Andriesz raised concerns internally in 2016 about accounting irregularities, was dismissed in 2017, and later spoke to the FBI. The BBC wrote that "some of his allegations later led to BGC being ordered to pay a $3m (£2.24m) penalty by the US derivatives regulator for 'numerous supervision, reporting, and record-keeping violations.'" The CFTC's release of November 22, 2019 (8083-19) uses that wording and names no individual who provided information. BGC told the BBC that Andriesz's allegations "lacked credibility" and were "categorically false," that the claims had been investigated by authorities in several jurisdictions which, in BGC's account, had not substantiated them, and that it denied retaliating against him. BGC said his employment ended "after he refused to follow medical advice, declined to perform essential job duties, rejected reasonable accommodation, and ultimately abandoned his role." The BBC added that Andriesz said he had won a financial award of $420,000 from the US regulator and that, in its words, "The FBI did not investigate these accusations."[^12] +The [[BBC]] reported on July 14, 2026 that Simon Andriesz, 57, "previously a managing director at a Wall Street firm," had been employed by BGC Partners, "part of Lutnick's Cantor Fitzgerald group." According to the BBC, Andriesz raised concerns internally in 2016 about accounting irregularities, was dismissed in 2017, and later spoke to the FBI. The BBC wrote that "some of his allegations later led to BGC being ordered to pay a $3m (£2.24m) penalty by the US derivatives regulator for 'numerous supervision, reporting, and record-keeping violations.'" The CFTC's release of November 22, 2019 (8083-19) uses that wording and names no individual who provided information. BGC told the BBC that Andriesz's allegations "lacked credibility" and were "categorically false," that the claims had been investigated by authorities in several jurisdictions which, in BGC's account, had not substantiated them, and that it denied retaliating against him. BGC said his employment ended "after he refused to follow medical advice, declined to perform essential job duties, rejected reasonable accommodation, and ultimately abandoned his role." The BBC added that Andriesz said he had won a financial award of $420,000 from the US regulator and that, in its words, "The FBI did not investigate these accusations."[^13] -The records of the proceedings brought by Andriesz are as follows. In FINRA arbitration 19-01751, filed on or about June 19, 2019, BGC Financial, L.P. was the first of fourteen respondents, which included Cantor Fitzgerald & Co., Howard Lutnick and Jean-Pierre Aubin; the panel dismissed the case without prejudice on August 8, 2022 on the ground that the parties had "jointly requested, or agreed to, more than two postponements." In the renewed arbitration, 22-02539, the panel's award of June 17, 2024 provided: "Respondent BGC Financial, L.P., is solely liable for and shall pay to Claimant the sum of $500,000.00 in compensatory damages," and "[a]ll other claims against remaining Respondents Cantor Fitzgerald & Co., Jean Pierre Aubin, Mark Webster, Paul Marc Pion, and William Michael Shields, are dismissed in their entirety." The award states no reasons.[^13][^14] +The records of the proceedings brought by Andriesz are as follows. In FINRA arbitration 19-01751, filed on or about June 19, 2019, BGC Financial, L.P. was the first of fourteen respondents, which included Cantor Fitzgerald & Co., Howard Lutnick and Jean-Pierre Aubin; the panel dismissed the case without prejudice on August 8, 2022 on the ground that the parties had "jointly requested, or agreed to, more than two postponements." In the renewed arbitration, 22-02539, the panel's award of June 17, 2024 provided: "Respondent BGC Financial, L.P., is solely liable for and shall pay to Claimant the sum of $500,000.00 in compensatory damages," and "[a]ll other claims against remaining Respondents Cantor Fitzgerald & Co., Jean Pierre Aubin, Mark Webster, Paul Marc Pion, and William Michael Shields, are dismissed in their entirety." The award states no reasons.[^14][^15] -Andriesz petitioned the [[United States District Court for the Southern District of New York]] to vacate, modify or remand the award. BGC's brief of December 6, 2024 argued that the petition was untimely and that the award should stand. In an opinion of April 23, 2025 [[Lewis J. Liman|Judge Lewis J. Liman]] held that the petition was untimely because Andriesz did not serve BGC within three months of the filing of the award, and, in the alternative, that it "would still fail on the merits"; the judgment of April 24, 2025 denied the motion and dismissed the petition. The opinion records that Andriesz was employed under a contract of January 21, 2015 "as Managing Director from February 1, 2015, through February 1, 2019," and that BGC says his employer was its United Kingdom affiliate, BGC Brokers, L.P. The appeal to the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit]] (25-1341) ended with the issue of the mandate on August 28, 2025.[^15][^16] +Andriesz petitioned the [[United States District Court for the Southern District of New York]] to vacate, modify or remand the award. BGC's brief of December 6, 2024 argued that the petition was untimely and that the award should stand. In an opinion of April 23, 2025 [[Lewis J. Liman|Judge Lewis J. Liman]] held that the petition was untimely because Andriesz did not serve BGC within three months of the filing of the award, and, in the alternative, that it "would still fail on the merits"; the judgment of April 24, 2025 denied the motion and dismissed the petition. The opinion records that Andriesz was employed under a contract of January 21, 2015 "as Managing Director from February 1, 2015, through February 1, 2019," and that BGC says his employer was its United Kingdom affiliate, BGC Brokers, L.P. The appeal to the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit]] (25-1341) ended with the issue of the mandate on August 28, 2025.[^16][^17] -In Employment Tribunal case 3200408/2025, in which BGC Partners LP, Lutnick and Aubin were the respondents, the judge struck out the whole claim as presented out of time, with an alternative holding that it would have been struck out as an abuse of process; the written reasons are dated August 11, 2026 and find that his employment terminated on January 31, 2017. The BBC wrote that BGC "says it has had no involvement with him since his departure other than responding to litigation he has initiated."[^12] The award of June 17, 2024 orders BGC Financial, L.P. to pay $500,000 in compensatory damages, and the tribunal's written reasons of August 11, 2026 strike out the claim before it in its entirety.[^14][^17] +In Employment Tribunal case 3200408/2025, in which BGC Partners LP, Lutnick and Aubin were the respondents, the judge struck out the whole claim as presented out of time, with an alternative holding that it would have been struck out as an abuse of process; the written reasons are dated August 11, 2026 and find that his employment terminated on January 31, 2017. The BBC wrote that BGC "says it has had no involvement with him since his departure other than responding to litigation he has initiated."[^13] The award of June 17, 2024 orders BGC Financial, L.P. to pay $500,000 in compensatory damages, and the tribunal's written reasons of August 11, 2026 strike out the claim before it in its entirety.[^15][^18] -The [[Transparency Task Force]], a [[United Kingdom]] campaign group, announced an event on July 21, 2026 at which Andriesz was to speak on the role of the [[Financial Conduct Authority]]. Its page states that he "spent 35 years in the securities industry," that his FBI file became public in the January 2026 release under the [[Epstein Files Transparency Act]], that the CFTC "made him a formal whistleblower award," and that the FCA's response was "a Supervision Order." Those statements are the Task Force's and Andriesz's own.[^18] +The [[Transparency Task Force]], a [[United Kingdom]] campaign group, announced an event on July 21, 2026 at which Andriesz was to speak on the role of the [[Financial Conduct Authority]]. Its page states that he "spent 35 years in the securities industry," that his FBI file became public in the January 2026 release under the [[Epstein Files Transparency Act]], that the CFTC "made him a formal whistleblower award," and that the FCA's response was "a Supervision Order." Those statements are the Task Force's and Andriesz's own.[^19] -[[The Banker]] reported on October 2, 2026, in an article by [[Chris Newlands]], that Andriesz, 57, "has died by suicide." The article attributes the news of his death to [[Andy Agathangelou]], founder of the Transparency Task Force: "It is with great sadness that we share the news that Simon Andriesz, a valued member of our community, passed away last week."[^19] +[[The Banker]] reported on October 2, 2026, in an article by [[Chris Newlands]], that Andriesz, 57, "has died by suicide." The article attributes the news of his death to [[Andy Agathangelou]], founder of the Transparency Task Force: "It is with great sadness that we share the news that Simon Andriesz, a valued member of our community, passed away last week."[^20] ### The 2020 FBI Complaint -The [[United States Department of Justice|Justice Department]]'s [[Jeffrey Epstein|Epstein]] library contains an FBI FD-71A Guardian complaint form dated April 23, 2021 (EFTA01249210, DataSet 9), titled "Alleged Money Laundering by Howard Lutnick via BGC Financial and Cantor Fitzgerald," filed under a money-laundering zero file and under case 50D-NY-3027571, "EPSTEIN, JEFFREY; CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING." The caller's name is redacted in that file. A second release, EFTA01684300 in DataSet 10, a spreadsheet printout of Guardian complaints, carries the text "24 AM Eastern Time, Simon Andriesz, date of birth" and, at EFTA01684391, "Andriesz, calling from the United Kingdom, previously worked for BGC Financial (BGC) and Can," the text of the entry being cut off at the cell edge. The call time in the form itself is "9:16:24 AM Eastern Time" on October 14, 2020.[^5][^20] +The [[United States Department of Justice|Justice Department]]'s [[Jeffrey Epstein|Epstein]] library contains an FBI FD-71A Guardian complaint form dated April 23, 2021 (EFTA01249210, DataSet 9), titled "Alleged Money Laundering by Howard Lutnick via BGC Financial and Cantor Fitzgerald," filed under a money-laundering zero file and under case 50D-NY-3027571, "EPSTEIN, JEFFREY; CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING." The caller's name is redacted in that file. A second release, EFTA01684300 in DataSet 10, a spreadsheet printout of Guardian complaints, carries the text "24 AM Eastern Time, Simon Andriesz, date of birth" and, at EFTA01684391, "Andriesz, calling from the United Kingdom, previously worked for BGC Financial (BGC) and Can," the text of the entry being cut off at the cell edge. The call time in the form itself is "9:16:24 AM Eastern Time" on October 14, 2020.[^5][^21] The form records that the caller "was responsible for reviewing, reporting, and compliance for all of North America," and "uncovered fraud, money laundering, Ponzi schemes, and regulatory breaches," so that "he became a whistleblower"; that the caller said BGC and Cantor "received large fines and there are 'live cases' still occurring in the United Kingdom"; and that the caller "believes he has supporting documents which could link Lutnick to Jeffrey Epstein and [[Ghislaine Maxwell]]." It records the allegation of "a 'global Ponzi share' scheme involving over 3,500 BGC employees who are forced to contribute 10% of their earnings into the scheme," and that "Epstein also sold Lutnick a house for $10 dollars through a trust fund, which was then sold for millions shortly after prior to the money going overseas," as well as a statement that the caller "believes its suspicious Lutnick's contributed over 65 million dollars to [[Haverford College]] in New York, although he cannot prove any illegal activity concerning this aspect." The form notes 26 results for Lutnick in Sentinel and Guardian queries in the New York division case files, including a restricted closed case "concerning money laundering" and a control file "concerning a RICO violations/real estate scheme," and 34 results in a DIVS query "including three SAR's," and states that "Queries were not conducted on Epstein and Maxwell due to the sensitive nature of the case."[^5] The allegations are those of the caller; the form records no verification. -An email dated July 24, 2025, in the same library, carries a digest of tips with an entry under the heading "Howard Lutnick": "Simon Andriesz reported that Lutnick made his money through Ponzi schemes and money laundering. Lutnick and Epstein were neighbors and Epstein sold Lutnick a home for $10 which was then sold for millions."[^21] The Commerce Department told the BBC the allegations were "a desperate partisan distraction from the historic work of this Administration" and that there was "no evidence of wrongdoing or legitimate cause for concern."[^12] The BBC reported that Andriesz searched the library for "HWL" and found 2018 emails between Epstein and that account, among them the May 28, 2018 exchange in which Epstein asked "what do you think the prospects for adfin are?"; the AdFin documents and Lutnick's May 6, 2026 testimony on them are set out at Cantor Fitzgerald.[^12] +An email dated July 24, 2025, in the same library, carries a digest of tips with an entry under the heading "Howard Lutnick": "Simon Andriesz reported that Lutnick made his money through Ponzi schemes and money laundering. Lutnick and Epstein were neighbors and Epstein sold Lutnick a home for $10 which was then sold for millions."[^22] The Commerce Department told the BBC the allegations were "a desperate partisan distraction from the historic work of this Administration" and that there was "no evidence of wrongdoing or legitimate cause for concern."[^13] The BBC reported that Andriesz searched the library for "HWL" and found 2018 emails between Epstein and that account, among them the May 28, 2018 exchange in which Epstein asked "what do you think the prospects for adfin are?"; the AdFin documents and Lutnick's May 6, 2026 testimony on them are set out at Cantor Fitzgerald.[^13] ### Footnotes @@ -177,17 +177,18 @@ An email dated July 24, 2025, in the same library, carries a digest of tips with [^5]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01249210, DataSet 9, FBI FD-71A Guardian Complaint Form, "Alleged Money Laundering by Howard Lutnick via BGC Financial and Cantor Fitzgerald," April 23, 2021. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01249210.pdf [^6]: BGC Partners, Inc., Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019, filed February 28, 2020, "Our History," "Newmark IPO, Separation Transaction and Spin-Off," "Our Organizational Structure," Legal Proceedings and Notes. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1094831/000156459020007843/bgcp-10k_20191231.htm [^7]: eSpeed, Inc., Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2001, filed April 1, 2002. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1094831/000095013602000955/file001.txt -[^8]: BGC Group, Inc., Form 8-K, exhibit 99.1, press release of May 19, 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1094831/000121390025045119/ea024268501ex99-1_bgc.htm -[^9]: U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Order Instituting Proceedings Pursuant to Section 6(c) and (d) of the Commodity Exchange Act, Making Findings, and Imposing Remedial Sanctions, in the matter of BGC Financial, LP, September 30, 2019. https://www.cftc.gov/media/2661/enfbgcfinancial093019/download -[^10]: U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Order Instituting Proceedings Pursuant to Section 6(c) and (d) of the Commodity Exchange Act, Making Findings, and Imposing Remedial Sanctions, in the matter of GFI Securities, LLC, September 30, 2019. https://www.cftc.gov/media/2666/%20enfgfisecuritiesorder093019/download -[^11]: U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Order Instituting Proceedings Pursuant to Section 6(c) and (d) of the Commodity Exchange Act, Making Findings, and Imposing Remedial Sanctions, in the matter of BGC Financial, L.P., November 22, 2019. https://www.cftc.gov/media/3071/enfbgcfinanciallporder112219/download -[^12]: Verity, Andy, Rob Byrne and Ben Milne. "How US commerce secretary's Epstein links were uncovered by British whistleblower." *BBC News,* July 14, 2026. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9q28dlyxrzo ; programme page, "Epstein Files: Lutnick, the Royals and the British Whistleblower," *File on 4 Investigates,* BBC Radio 4, July 14, 2026. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002yx47 -[^13]: FINRA Dispute Resolution Services, Award, Arbitration No. 19-01751, Simon D. Andriesz v. BGC Financial, L.P., et al., served September 12, 2022, filed as docket 27-1, Andriesz v. BGC Financial, L.P., No. 1:24-cv-07004 (S.D.N.Y.), December 6, 2024. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69166995/andriesz-v-bgc-financial-lp/ -[^14]: FINRA Dispute Resolution Services, Award, Arbitration No. 22-02539, June 17, 2024, filed as docket 36-2, Andriesz v. BGC Financial, L.P., No. 1:24-cv-07004 (S.D.N.Y.), January 2, 2025, pp. 8-12. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69166995/andriesz-v-bgc-financial-lp/ -[^15]: Opinion and Order, Andriesz v. BGC Financial, L.P., No. 24-cv-7004 (LJL) (S.D.N.Y. April 23, 2025), docket 37, pp. 1-4, 7-12; Judgment, docket 38, April 24, 2025; Respondent's Memorandum of Law in Opposition to the Petition, docket 26, December 6, 2024. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69166995/andriesz-v-bgc-financial-lp/ -[^16]: United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Order, Andriesz v. BGC Financial, L.P., No. 25-1341, June 16, 2025, with mandate issued August 28, 2025 (S.D.N.Y. docket 40). https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69166995/andriesz-v-bgc-financial-lp/ -[^17]: Employment Tribunals (England and Wales), Mr S Andriesz v BGC Partners LP and others, case 3200408/2025, Written Reasons of Employment Judge B Beyzade, dated August 11, 2026, paragraphs 44, 48, 70, 75 and 82. https://www.gov.uk/employment-tribunal-decisions/mr-s-andriesz-v-bgc-partners-lp-and-others-3200408-slash-2025 -[^18]: Transparency Task Force, "The Simon Andriesz Story; and the Role of the Financial Conduct Authority," event of July 21, 2026. https://transparencytaskforce.org/the-simon-andriesz-story-and-the-role-of-the-financial-conduct-authority/ -[^19]: Newlands, Chris. "Whistleblower who flagged Lutnick's links to Epstein dies." *The Banker,* October 2, 2026. https://www.thebanker.com/content/02286d53-0338-42ef-996d-5f7712b9f133 -[^20]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01684300, DataSet 10, compilation of FBI Guardian complaints, pages EFTA01684361 to EFTA01684437. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01684300.pdf -[^21]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01648946, DataSet 10, email of July 24, 2025. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01648946.pdf +[^8]: In re BGC Partners, Inc. Derivative Litigation, No. 359, 2022 (Del. Aug. 10, 2023) (order affirming the Court of Chancery's final judgment of September 27, 2022, entered on its memorandum opinion of August 19, 2022). https://courts.delaware.gov/Opinions/Download.aspx?id=351370 +[^9]: BGC Group, Inc., Form 8-K, exhibit 99.1, press release of May 19, 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1094831/000121390025045119/ea024268501ex99-1_bgc.htm +[^10]: U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Order Instituting Proceedings Pursuant to Section 6(c) and (d) of the Commodity Exchange Act, Making Findings, and Imposing Remedial Sanctions, in the matter of BGC Financial, LP, September 30, 2019. https://www.cftc.gov/media/2661/enfbgcfinancial093019/download +[^11]: U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Order Instituting Proceedings Pursuant to Section 6(c) and (d) of the Commodity Exchange Act, Making Findings, and Imposing Remedial Sanctions, in the matter of GFI Securities, LLC, September 30, 2019. https://www.cftc.gov/media/2666/%20enfgfisecuritiesorder093019/download +[^12]: U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Order Instituting Proceedings Pursuant to Section 6(c) and (d) of the Commodity Exchange Act, Making Findings, and Imposing Remedial Sanctions, in the matter of BGC Financial, L.P., November 22, 2019. https://www.cftc.gov/media/3071/enfbgcfinanciallporder112219/download +[^13]: Verity, Andy, Rob Byrne and Ben Milne. "How US commerce secretary's Epstein links were uncovered by British whistleblower." *BBC News,* July 14, 2026. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9q28dlyxrzo ; programme page, "Epstein Files: Lutnick, the Royals and the British Whistleblower," *File on 4 Investigates,* BBC Radio 4, July 14, 2026. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002yx47 +[^14]: FINRA Dispute Resolution Services, Award, Arbitration No. 19-01751, Simon D. Andriesz v. BGC Financial, L.P., et al., served September 12, 2022, filed as docket 27-1, Andriesz v. BGC Financial, L.P., No. 1:24-cv-07004 (S.D.N.Y.), December 6, 2024. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69166995/andriesz-v-bgc-financial-lp/ +[^15]: FINRA Dispute Resolution Services, Award, Arbitration No. 22-02539, June 17, 2024, filed as docket 36-2, Andriesz v. BGC Financial, L.P., No. 1:24-cv-07004 (S.D.N.Y.), January 2, 2025, pp. 8-12. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69166995/andriesz-v-bgc-financial-lp/ +[^16]: Opinion and Order, Andriesz v. BGC Financial, L.P., No. 24-cv-7004 (LJL) (S.D.N.Y. April 23, 2025), docket 37, pp. 1-4, 7-12; Judgment, docket 38, April 24, 2025; Respondent's Memorandum of Law in Opposition to the Petition, docket 26, December 6, 2024. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69166995/andriesz-v-bgc-financial-lp/ +[^17]: United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Order, Andriesz v. BGC Financial, L.P., No. 25-1341, June 16, 2025, with mandate issued August 28, 2025 (S.D.N.Y. docket 40). https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69166995/andriesz-v-bgc-financial-lp/ +[^18]: Employment Tribunals (England and Wales), Mr S Andriesz v BGC Partners LP and others, case 3200408/2025, Written Reasons of Employment Judge B Beyzade, dated August 11, 2026, paragraphs 44, 48, 70, 75 and 82. https://www.gov.uk/employment-tribunal-decisions/mr-s-andriesz-v-bgc-partners-lp-and-others-3200408-slash-2025 +[^19]: Transparency Task Force, "The Simon Andriesz Story; and the Role of the Financial Conduct Authority," event of July 21, 2026. https://transparencytaskforce.org/the-simon-andriesz-story-and-the-role-of-the-financial-conduct-authority/ +[^20]: Newlands, Chris. "Whistleblower who flagged Lutnick's links to Epstein dies." *The Banker,* October 2, 2026. https://www.thebanker.com/content/02286d53-0338-42ef-996d-5f7712b9f133 +[^21]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01684300, DataSet 10, compilation of FBI Guardian complaints, pages EFTA01684361 to EFTA01684437. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01684300.pdf +[^22]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01648946, DataSet 10, email of July 24, 2025. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01648946.pdf diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Battelle Memorial Institute.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Battelle Memorial Institute.md index c46c2d88..e4279f73 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Battelle Memorial Institute.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Battelle Memorial Institute.md @@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ relations: role: "institute created under the will of the Columbus industrialist Gordon Battelle" fn: 1 created: 2026-10-03 -updated: 2026-10-03 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- The Battelle Memorial Institute is a nonprofit contract research organization at 505 King Avenue, [[Columbus, Ohio]], next to [[Ohio State University]], created under the will of the Columbus steel heir [[Gordon Battelle]]. The will was drawn in 1920, Gordon Battelle died in 1923, and the institute was incorporated as a nonprofit in 1925; its first laboratory opened in October 1929 with a staff of about thirty and its first director was the metallurgist [[Horace W. Gillett]].[^1] [[Clyde E. Williams]] replaced Gillett in 1934 and resolved to make the institute's services more readily available to industry; in 1943 Battelle technologists began studying the fabrication of uranium for the [[Manhattan Project]].[^1] In the early 1950s the institute bought a large tract of land near Columbus and built the world's first privately owned nuclear research center, with a research reactor, a critical assembly facility and hot cells.[^1] The inventor [[Chester Carlson]] approached the institute in 1944, and through its subsidiary [[Battelle Development Corporation]] the institute agreed to help refine his dry copying process; a later relationship with the [[Haloid Company]] (afterward [[Xerox Corporation]]) ended in the early 1960s with an exchange of xerography patents for equity that by the early 1970s gave Battelle an investment portfolio valued above $225 million.[^1] @@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ The report is catalogued as Study No. 102-EL-55/2-79, Project No. 10073, dated M ### Project White Stork -The arrangement outlasted Blue Book's early years. A memorandum of October 11, 1960 from the Chief of the Intelligence Production Faculty of the CIA's [[CIA Intelligence School|Intelligence School]], in the Agency's [[CIA CREST Reading Room|CREST]] collection with the marking "USAF Declass/Release Instructions On File," reports a visit by a staff member (name withheld) to "the Air Force's Project White Stork (PWS) at Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, Ohio." It states that White Stork "has assumed increasing importance to OSI analysts because it is able to provide considerably more assistance for many scientific and technical intelligence research tasks than any other repository in the Intelligence Community"; that information specialists with science degrees mark documents, answer reference queries and maintain a card file keyed to underlined "clue terms" including "personalities, institutes, and place names"; that the Agency's [[Office of Scientific Intelligence]] was "considering providing funds to PWS"; and that at that time White Stork "concentrates on subjects of interest to the Air Force's Aerospace Technical Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Field, Dayton."[^7] A [[Department of State|State Department]] memorandum of November 10, 1964 to the [[Foreign Area Research Coordination Group]] lists a second Battelle unit, the [[Remote Areas Conflict Information Center]] in Columbus, among research and analysis centers serving the military.[^8] +The arrangement outlasted Blue Book's early years. A memorandum of October 11, 1960 from the Chief of the Intelligence Production Faculty of the CIA's [[CIA Intelligence School|Intelligence School]], in the Agency's [[CIA CREST Reading Room|CREST]] collection with the marking "USAF Declass/Release Instructions On File," reports a visit by a staff member (name withheld) to "the Air Force's Project White Stork (PWS) at Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, Ohio." It states that White Stork "has assumed increasing importance to OSI analysts because it is able to provide considerably more assistance for many scientific and technical Intelligence research projects than any other repository in the Intelligence Community"; that information specialists with science degrees mark documents, answer reference queries and maintain a card file keyed to underlined "clue terms" including "personalities, institutes, and place names"; that the Agency's [[Office of Scientific Intelligence]] was "considering providing funds to PWS"; and that at that time White Stork "concentrates on subjects of interest to the Air Force's Aerospace Technical Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Field, Dayton."[^7] A [[Department of State|State Department]] memorandum of November 10, 1964 to the [[Foreign Area Research Coordination Group]] lists a second Battelle unit, the [[Remote Areas Conflict Information Center]] in Columbus, among research and analysis centers serving the military.[^8] ### Atomic Energy Commission and national laboratory work diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Bear Stearns.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Bear Stearns.md index f1efafb0..938f1fa0 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Bear Stearns.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Bear Stearns.md @@ -51,7 +51,7 @@ created: 2026-09-25 updated: 2026-09-25 --- -The Bear Stearns Companies Inc. was a [[New York]] investment bank and brokerage that employed [[Jeffrey Epstein]] from 1976 until March 1981, carried his business through his own firms for the next quarter century, and collapsed in March 2008 in a rescue sale to [[JPMorgan Chase]] backed by the [[Federal Reserve Board|Federal Reserve]]. [[Alan Greenberg]], chief executive from 1978 to 1993 and chairman from 1985 to 2001, and [[James Cayne]], chief executive from 1993 to January 2008, were Epstein's mentors at the firm and his principal contacts there until its failure.[^1][^2] +The Bear Stearns Companies Inc. was a [[New York City|New York]] investment bank and brokerage that employed [[Jeffrey Epstein]] from 1976 until March 1981, carried his business through his own firms for the next quarter century, and collapsed in March 2008 in a rescue sale to [[JPMorgan Chase]] backed by the [[Federal Reserve Board|Federal Reserve]]. [[Alan Greenberg]], chief executive from 1978 to 1993 and chairman from 1985 to 2001, and [[James Cayne]], chief executive from 1993 to January 2008, were Epstein's mentors at the firm and his principal contacts there until its failure.[^1][^2] ### Epstein at the Firm, 1976 to 1981 diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Cambridge Analytica.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Cambridge Analytica.md index d97cc5fc..e98eb4cd 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Cambridge Analytica.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Cambridge Analytica.md @@ -70,25 +70,25 @@ relations: start: 2016-07-29 end: 2016-12-12 role: "data management vendor, 5,912,500 dollars" - fn: 21 + fn: 24 - type: contractor_to with: "[[Cruz for President]]" start: 2015-07-02 end: 2016-06-09 role: "vendor, 5,805,552.23 dollars in itemized disbursements" - fn: 19 + fn: 22 - type: contractor_to with: "[[John Bolton Super PAC]]" start: 2014-07-07 end: 2016-09-29 role: "research and survey research vendor, 1,152,300 dollars" - fn: 19 + fn: 22 - type: contractor_to with: "[[Make America Number 1]]" start: 2015-12-10 end: 2016-12-07 role: "media, survey research and consulting vendor, 1,476,484 dollars" - fn: 25 + fn: 28 - type: contractor_to with: "[[State Department]]" start: 2017-02-20 @@ -108,14 +108,14 @@ relations: start: 2017-05 end: 2020-10-02 role: "formal investigation into data analytics in political campaigns" - fn: 39 + fn: 42 - type: subject_of with: "[[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]]" end: 2020-08-18 role: "Volume 5 of the committee's Russia report examined the company" fn: 2 created: 2026-10-01 -updated: 2026-10-12 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Cambridge Analytica, formally Cambridge Analytica LLC, was a [[Delaware]] limited liability company formed in December 2013 with its principal office at 597 Fifth Avenue in [[New York City]], and part of the family of companies of the British firm [[SCL Group]].[^1] [[Robert Mercer]] capitalized the company, [[Steve Bannon]] served on its board, and its chief executive officer was [[Alexander Nix]].[^2] The company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in the [[United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York]] on May 17, 2018 ([[In re Cambridge Analytica LLC]], Case No. 18-11500-shl).[^3] @@ -146,47 +146,51 @@ The [[Federal Trade Commission]] found, on the allegations in its complaint to w The Senate committee wrote that, according to Kogan, the application ultimately collected approximately 30 million personality profiles "which were transferred to SCL Group," and noted in a footnote that his written testimony to a Senate subcommittee on June 19, 2018 states that the data was not transferred to SCL.[^17] The Information Commissioner's Office reported contrary evidence that Cambridge Analytica staff controlled "the manner and frequency" with which the data was harvested and that the harvested data was transferred to a "drop-zone" from which Cambridge Analytica extracted modeled data.[^18] Wylie told the committee that the Russian government sponsored some of Kogan's research and that Kogan traveled to Russia to present it; the committee quoted a March 15, 2014 email from an SCL employee to Nix, Wylie and a colleague referring to "the interesting work Alex Kogan has been doing for the Russians."[^17] Kogan denied awareness of any evidence the Trump campaign used the data.[^17] +The Information Commissioner's Office found that the application developed by Kogan and his company harvested data of up to 87 million people worldwide and that the personal information of at least one million UK users was among it.[^19] On July 24, 2019 the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] stated that Cambridge Analytica paid an academic researcher, through a company he controlled, to collect and transfer Facebook data to create personality scores for approximately 30 million Americans.[^20] + +[[Nicholas Confessore]] and [[Matthew Rosenberg]] reported in [[The New York Times]] on March 27, 2018 that in summer 2014 the company "received help from at least one employee at [[Palantir Technologies]]." According to documents the newspaper obtained, a Palantir employee in London, [[Alfredas Chmieliauskas]], whose LinkedIn page describes business development work, suggested that the company's data scientists create their own personality quiz to reach Facebook users' friend networks. The report states that beginning in 2013 Chmieliauskas corresponded with Wylie and a colleague and that they shared documents to brainstorm behavioral profiling, a product code-named "Big Daddy." A former SCL intern, [[Sophie Schmidt]], the daughter of [[Eric Schmidt]], urged the company in June 2013 to link up with Palantir, and emails indicated that Nix and Chmieliauskas sought to revive talks about election work through early 2014. Palantir first said it had "never had a relationship with Cambridge Analytica" and later the same day that "an employee, in 2013-2014, engaged in an entirely personal capacity with people associated with Cambridge Analytica." Wylie told British lawmakers: "There were senior Palantir employees that were also working on the Facebook data." He acknowledged that Palantir and Cambridge Analytica never signed a contract.[^21] + ### Clients and payments recorded by the Federal Election Commission -Itemized disbursements to Cambridge Analytica in [[Federal Election Commission]] Schedule B records total $16,111,196.81 across 19 committees between June 2014 and March 2018, a figure that includes one entry marked "VOIDED: TO BE REFUNDED" ($10,027) and one memo-coded entry ($20,000); without them the total is $16,081,169.81.[^19] The largest recipients of payment by committee were [[Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.]] ($5,912,500 in five payments between July 29 and December 12, 2016), [[Cruz for President]] ($5,805,552 in 19 payments from July 2015 to June 2016), [[Make America Number 1]] ($1,476,484 in 13 payments from December 2015 to December 2016), the [[John Bolton Super PAC]] ($1,152,300 in 13 payments from July 2014 to September 2016), [[Keep the Promise II]] ($570,000 in December 2015 and January 2016) and [[Carson America]] ($438,065 from May 2015 to January 2016).[^19] The [[North Carolina Republican Party]] paid $215,000 between July 2014 and June 2015, the [[Thom Tillis]] committee $130,000 between October 2014 and December 2015, and the [[Jobs Growth and Freedom Fund]] $133,333.33 in October 2014.[^19] Two committees named Restoring American Leadership PAC and Restore American Leadership are recorded at $117,100 and $38,625 between May and December 2016, and the committees of [[Tom Cotton]] ($20,000, October 2014), [[Monica Wehby]] ($20,000, August and October 2014) and [[Patrick McHenry]] ($15,000, October 2014) also appear.[^19] Art Robinson for Congress, a committee whose registered address is 2251 Dick George Road, Cave Junction, Oregon, paid $20,000 in three payments between June 10 and November 5, 2014, and the committee Bob Huff for Congress reported the voided $10,027 entry on March 9, 2018.[^19][^20] +Itemized disbursements to Cambridge Analytica in [[Federal Election Commission]] Schedule B records total $16,111,196.81 across 19 committees between June 2014 and March 2018, a figure that includes one entry marked "VOIDED: TO BE REFUNDED" ($10,027) and one memo-coded entry ($20,000); without them the total is $16,081,169.81.[^22] The largest recipients of payment by committee were [[Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.]] ($5,912,500 in five payments between July 29 and December 12, 2016), [[Cruz for President]] ($5,805,552 in 19 payments from July 2015 to June 2016), [[Make America Number 1]] ($1,476,484 in 13 payments from December 2015 to December 2016), the [[John Bolton Super PAC]] ($1,152,300 in 13 payments from July 2014 to September 2016), [[Keep the Promise II]] ($570,000 in December 2015 and January 2016) and [[Carson America]] ($438,065 from May 2015 to January 2016).[^22] The [[North Carolina Republican Party]] paid $215,000 between July 2014 and June 2015, the [[Thom Tillis]] committee $130,000 between October 2014 and December 2015, and the [[Jobs Growth and Freedom Fund]] $133,333.33 in October 2014.[^22] Two committees named Restoring American Leadership PAC and Restore American Leadership are recorded at $117,100 and $38,625 between May and December 2016, and the committees of [[Tom Cotton]] ($20,000, October 2014), [[Monica Wehby]] ($20,000, August and October 2014) and [[Patrick McHenry]] ($15,000, October 2014) also appear.[^22] Art Robinson for Congress, a committee whose registered address is 2251 Dick George Road, Cave Junction, Oregon, paid $20,000 in three payments between June 10 and November 5, 2014, and the committee Bob Huff for Congress reported the voided $10,027 entry on March 9, 2018.[^22][^23] -The Trump campaign payments were reported as "data management" and "data management services." The campaign's reports for July, August, September and October 1 to 19, 2016 and the year-end report that carry them are amendments filed on November 19, 2018, December 20, 2018, March 13, 2019, April 5, 2019 and June 28, 2019, each the last in a chain of four or five filings that began with an original report filed between August 2016 and January 2017.[^21] The single payment of $5,000,000 is dated September 1, 2016.[^21] The Senate committee recorded that the first disbursement was on July 29, 2016 and that the payments continued through December 12, 2016.[^22] +The Trump campaign payments were reported as "data management" and "data management services." The campaign's reports for July, August, September and October 1 to 19, 2016 and the year-end report that carry them are amendments filed on November 19, 2018, December 20, 2018, March 13, 2019, April 5, 2019 and June 28, 2019, each the last in a chain of four or five filings that began with an original report filed between August 2016 and January 2017.[^24] The single payment of $5,000,000 is dated September 1, 2016.[^24] The Senate committee recorded that the first disbursement was on July 29, 2016 and that the payments continued through December 12, 2016.[^25] -The Bolton PAC's payments to the company began on July 7, 2014 with $25,000 for "research" and continued as "survey research" through September 29, 2016; over the same period the committee's receipts include ten contributions of $500,000 each from Robert Mercer, dated between April 28, 2014 and December 28, 2017.[^23] Make America Number 1, whose statement of organization of April 6, 2015 was submitted under a cover letter headed "Keep The Promise I" and whose amended statement signed on June 22, 2016 gives the name Make America Number 1, received $11,000,000 from Mercer on April 10, 2015, and $4,500,000 more in 2016.[^24][^25] The committee's disbursements in the same period include payments to Cambridge Analytica, $109,341.25 to Breitbart News Network LLC on November 25, 2015 for "list purchase expense," and $280,641 to Glittering Steel LLC for video production.[^25] The [[Mercer Family Foundation]] return for 2021 lists the [[Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine]] at 2251 Dick George Road, Cave Junction, Oregon, and earlier returns list grants to an organization of that name at Cave Junction, including $965,000 in tax year 2011.[^26] The foundation and the family's other filings are described at [[Mercer family]]. +The Bolton PAC's payments to the company began on July 7, 2014 with $25,000 for "research" and continued as "survey research" through September 29, 2016; over the same period the committee's receipts include ten contributions of $500,000 each from Robert Mercer, dated between April 28, 2014 and December 28, 2017.[^26] Make America Number 1, whose statement of organization of April 6, 2015 was submitted under a cover letter headed "Keep The Promise I" and whose amended statement signed on June 22, 2016 gives the name Make America Number 1, received $11,000,000 from Mercer on April 10, 2015, and $4,500,000 more in 2016.[^27][^28] The committee's disbursements in the same period include payments to Cambridge Analytica, $109,341.25 to Breitbart News Network LLC on November 25, 2015 for "list purchase expense," and $280,641 to Glittering Steel LLC for video production.[^28] The [[Mercer Family Foundation]] return for 2021 lists the [[Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine]] at 2251 Dick George Road, Cave Junction, Oregon, and earlier returns list grants to an organization of that name at Cave Junction, including $965,000 in tax year 2011.[^29] The foundation and the family's other filings are described at [[Mercer family]]. ### Contacts with the Trump campaign -Kaiser told the Senate committee that discussion of a commercial offer to the Trump campaign began in May 2015, that she and Nix met Bannon in Washington in September 2015, that [[Donald Trump]] telephoned Bannon during the meeting and directed that Nix and Kaiser come to New York to meet [[Corey Lewandowski]], and that "eight or ten weeks" of contract negotiations followed without result.[^27] Bannon told the committee he had no recollection of the call.[^27] Kaiser also said that almost every client meeting she had with a political figure was preceded by an introduction from Bannon, Rebekah Mercer or [[Kellyanne Conway]], whom the committee described as an advisor to the Mercers at the time, and that Conway was closely involved in moving the company from the Cruz campaign to the Trump campaign.[^28] +Kaiser told the Senate committee that discussion of a commercial offer to the Trump campaign began in May 2015, that she and Nix met Bannon in Washington in September 2015, that [[Donald Trump]] telephoned Bannon during the meeting and directed that Nix and Kaiser come to New York to meet [[Corey Lewandowski]], and that "eight or ten weeks" of contract negotiations followed without result.[^30] Bannon told the committee he had no recollection of the call.[^30] Kaiser also said that almost every client meeting she had with a political figure was preceded by an introduction from Bannon, Rebekah Mercer or [[Kellyanne Conway]], whom the committee described as an advisor to the Mercers at the time, and that Conway was closely involved in moving the company from the Cruz campaign to the Trump campaign.[^31] -[[Brad Parscale]] told the committee that the campaign's polling data was ingested into a visualization tool with the help of Cambridge Analytica developers, and that the tool was available on an iPad that Parscale carried.[^29] +[[Brad Parscale]] told the committee that the campaign's polling data was ingested into a visualization tool with the help of Cambridge Analytica developers, and that the tool was available on an iPad that Parscale carried.[^32] -The committee recorded that the Cruz campaign spent about $5.8 million on the company and the campaign of [[Ben Carson]] more than $430,000, citing a [[CNN]] report, and that within a week of Cruz leaving the race the employees working on his campaign began moving to the Trump campaign.[^27] [[Rick Gates]] told the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] that the campaign decided shortly after the Republican National Convention to use the company, that the [[Republican National Committee]] did not want to use it, that Brad Parscale was reluctant, that [[Jared Kushner]] wanted to use it and negotiated a package with payment at the end of the campaign.[^22] Kushner told the committee that the Mercers aggressively advocated use of the company and that the campaign engaged it to secure the Mercers' support.[^22] Parscale said he decided to hire the company in June 2016 after approval from [[Paul Manafort]] and Kushner, that he declined its offer of "psychographic profiling" services, and that he used Republican National Committee data rather than the company's data.[^22][^30] +The committee recorded that the Cruz campaign spent about $5.8 million on the company and the campaign of [[Ben Carson]] more than $430,000, citing a [[CNN]] report, and that within a week of Cruz leaving the race the employees working on his campaign began moving to the Trump campaign.[^30] [[Rick Gates]] told the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] that the campaign decided shortly after the Republican National Convention to use the company, that the [[Republican National Committee]] did not want to use it, that Brad Parscale was reluctant, that [[Jared Kushner]] wanted to use it and negotiated a package with payment at the end of the campaign.[^25] Kushner told the committee that the Mercers aggressively advocated use of the company and that the campaign engaged it to secure the Mercers' support.[^25] Parscale said he decided to hire the company in June 2016 after approval from [[Paul Manafort]] and Kushner, that he declined its offer of "psychographic profiling" services, and that he used Republican National Committee data rather than the company's data.[^25][^33] -The committee obtained a campaign data team presentation of August 22, 2016 with a slide depicting data flowing in both directions between the campaign and Cambridge Analytica, with the company's node titled "Digital Media Psychographic Analysis," and another slide showing arrows between its "Psychographic Analysis" and both the Republican National Committee's "GOP Data Center" and the campaign's San Antonio operation, which it called "Project Alamo."[^30] The committee wrote that documents it obtained suggested that the company's data may have been used in support of the campaign and that the campaign may have leveraged its psychographic analysis capabilities.[^30] Gates told the FBI that he later learned campaign data was transmitted to and analyzed in the [[United Kingdom]], which concerned him.[^30] Kaiser said that Project Alamo was "built completely from scratch" from the Republican National Committee's Data Trust database and purchased data sets.[^30] +The committee obtained a campaign data team presentation of August 22, 2016 with a slide depicting data flowing in both directions between the campaign and Cambridge Analytica, with the company's node titled "Digital Media Psychographic Analysis," and another slide showing arrows between its "Psychographic Analysis" and both the Republican National Committee's "GOP Data Center" and the campaign's San Antonio operation, which it called "Project Alamo."[^33] The committee wrote that documents it obtained suggested that the company's data may have been used in support of the campaign and that the campaign may have leveraged its psychographic analysis capabilities.[^33] Gates told the FBI that he later learned campaign data was transmitted to and analyzed in the [[United Kingdom]], which concerned him.[^33] Kaiser said that Project Alamo was "built completely from scratch" from the Republican National Committee's Data Trust database and purchased data sets.[^33] ### Russian and WikiLeaks contacts -Wylie said that from spring 2014 through 2015 Cambridge Analytica representatives met representatives of Lukoil, that Nix's presentations included discussion of rumor and disinformation campaigns, and that in May 2018 he told the [[Senate Judiciary Committee]] that Lukoil "has formal information sharing agreements with the Russian Federal Security Service."[^31][^32] His written statement said that after a request for information from Lukoil executives in the spring of 2014, Cambridge Analytica discussed with Lukoil its experience with "foreign disinformation, rumour campaigns, microtargeting and its American data assets."[^32] Kaiser told the committee the discussions concerned a customer loyalty application for Lukoil's stations in Turkey, said she was told the data could also be useful for political activities there, and furnished a February 2015 presentation prepared by SCL Commercial; neither she nor Wylie believed that a contract resulted, and the committee stated that it did not independently corroborate the allegation that Lukoil intended to use the company to affect elections.[^31] The committee noted that the [[Office of Foreign Assets Control]] had added Lukoil to its Sectoral Sanctions Identifications List on September 12, 2014.[^31] +Wylie said that from spring 2014 through 2015 Cambridge Analytica representatives met representatives of Lukoil, that Nix's presentations included discussion of rumor and disinformation campaigns, and that in May 2018 he told the [[Senate Judiciary Committee]] that Lukoil "has formal information sharing agreements with the Russian Federal Security Service."[^34][^35] His written statement said that after a request for information from Lukoil executives in the spring of 2014, Cambridge Analytica discussed with Lukoil its experience with "foreign disinformation, rumour campaigns, microtargeting and its American data assets."[^35] Kaiser told the committee the discussions concerned a customer loyalty application for Lukoil's stations in Turkey, said she was told the data could also be useful for political activities there, and furnished a February 2015 presentation prepared by SCL Commercial; neither she nor Wylie believed that a contract resulted, and the committee stated that it did not independently corroborate the allegation that Lukoil intended to use the company to affect elections.[^34] The committee noted that the [[Office of Foreign Assets Control]] had added Lukoil to its Sectoral Sanctions Identifications List on September 12, 2014.[^34] -Wylie also told the committee that in spring 2014 Bannon approved focus groups about [[Vladimir Putin]] and Russian expansionism preparatory to a predictive model, and that Bannon and [[Konstantin Kilimnik]] were two of three people likely responsible for the idea.[^33] [[Sam Patten]], a consultant who worked for the company in Nigeria, Mexico, Kosovo and the Czech Republic, told the committee there was "no connection" between Kilimnik and Cambridge Analytica; Kaiser said that on the Nigerian project the company may have assisted its client in retaining former Israeli intelligence officers working privately to conduct opposition research.[^33] +Wylie also told the committee that in spring 2014 Bannon approved focus groups about [[Vladimir Putin]] and Russian expansionism preparatory to a predictive model, and that Bannon and [[Konstantin Kilimnik]] were two of three people likely responsible for the idea.[^36] [[Sam Patten]], a consultant who worked for the company in Nigeria, Mexico, Kosovo and the Czech Republic, told the committee there was "no connection" between Kilimnik and Cambridge Analytica; Kaiser said that on the Nigerian project the company may have assisted its client in retaining former Israeli intelligence officers working privately to conduct opposition research.[^36] -The committee reported open-source accounts that during the 2016 campaign Nix emailed [[Julian Assange]] about the possible release of [[Hillary Clinton]]'s deleted emails, and that Assange said in October 2017 that [[WikiLeaks]] had rejected an approach by Cambridge Analytica. The committee obtained no additional information, and Bannon and others close to the campaign said they had no prior awareness of the contact.[^34] The committee also recorded that it was unable to obtain the company's corporate communications, which were in the hands of United Kingdom authorities, and that Nix "generally disregarded the Committee's requests for an appearance."[^35] It found "no convincing evidence that Russia's government or intelligence services worked with or through" Cambridge Analytica, Psy Group or Colt Ventures in furtherance of the 2016 interference.[^35] Cambridge Analytica, LLC is named among the respondents in matters under review 7207, 7268, 7274 and 7623 before the Federal Election Commission, in which Commissioners Shana Broussard and Ellen Weintraub issued a statement of reasons citing Volume 5 after a certification dated April 22, 2021; the text of the statement concerns the Russian Federation, the Internet Research Agency and the Trump committee and does not mention Cambridge Analytica outside the caption.[^36] +The committee reported open-source accounts that during the 2016 campaign Nix emailed [[Julian Assange]] about the possible release of [[Hillary Clinton]]'s deleted emails, and that Assange said in October 2017 that [[WikiLeaks]] had rejected an approach by Cambridge Analytica. The committee obtained no additional information, and Bannon and others close to the campaign said they had no prior awareness of the contact.[^37] The committee also recorded that it was unable to obtain the company's corporate communications, which were in the hands of United Kingdom authorities, and that Nix "generally disregarded the Committee's requests for an appearance."[^38] It found "no convincing evidence that Russia's government or intelligence services worked with or through" Cambridge Analytica, Psy Group or Colt Ventures in furtherance of the 2016 interference.[^38] Cambridge Analytica, LLC is named among the respondents in matters under review 7207, 7268, 7274 and 7623 before the Federal Election Commission, in which Commissioners Shana Broussard and Ellen Weintraub issued a statement of reasons citing Volume 5 after a certification dated April 22, 2021; the text of the statement concerns the Russian Federation, the Internet Research Agency and the Trump committee and does not mention Cambridge Analytica outside the caption.[^39] ### Regulatory and criminal proceedings in the United Kingdom -The Information Commissioner's Office issued a monetary penalty notice of £500,000 to Facebook on October 25, 2018, the highest fine permitted under the Data Protection Act 1998, citing lack of transparency and security failures relating to the harvesting of data.[^37] The office also executed a warrant at the company's premises at 8 p.m. on March 23, 2018, seized servers and other material, and reported that Cambridge Analytica and SCL Elections entered administration on May 3, 2018, that an enforcement notice of May 4, 2018 required it to answer a subject access request from the American academic [[David Carroll]] that had been made in January 2017, and that the deadline of June 3, 2018 passed without compliance.[^18] The office reported that Nix and Kogan had declined invitations to voluntary interviews under caution and that it would have issued a substantial fine had the company not been in administration.[^18] SCL Elections pleaded guilty at [[Hendon Magistrates' Court]] on January 9, 2019, the day set for trial, to failing to comply with the enforcement notice; press reports gave the penalty as a fine of £15,000 with £6,000 in costs and a victim surcharge of £170.[^38] The Information Commissioner's 2020 letter to Parliament gives the fine as £18,000.[^39] +The Information Commissioner's Office issued a monetary penalty notice of £500,000 to Facebook on October 25, 2018, the highest fine permitted under the Data Protection Act 1998, citing lack of transparency and security failures relating to the harvesting of data.[^40] The office also executed a warrant at the company's premises at 8 p.m. on March 23, 2018, seized servers and other material, and reported that Cambridge Analytica and SCL Elections entered administration on May 3, 2018, that an enforcement notice of May 4, 2018 required it to answer a subject access request from the American academic [[David Carroll]] that had been made in January 2017, and that the deadline of June 3, 2018 passed without compliance.[^18] The office reported that Nix and Kogan had declined invitations to voluntary interviews under caution and that it would have issued a substantial fine had the company not been in administration.[^18] SCL Elections pleaded guilty at [[Hendon Magistrates' Court]] on January 9, 2019, the day set for trial, to failing to comply with the enforcement notice; press reports gave the penalty as a fine of £15,000 with £6,000 in costs and a victim surcharge of £170.[^41] The Information Commissioner's 2020 letter to Parliament gives the fine as £18,000.[^42] -On October 2, 2020 the Information Commissioner, [[Elizabeth Denham]], wrote to the chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee that the office had concluded its investigation, that the company had purchased commercially available data amounting at one estimate to more than 130 billion data points, mostly about United States voters, to combine with Facebook-derived data from Kogan, that its models were mostly built from "off the shelf" tools, that the office found no further evidence to change its view that the company was not involved in the European Union referendum campaign beyond early inquiries about UK Independence Party data, and that it found no additional evidence of Russian involvement in the servers it obtained.[^39] The letter also reported evidence that in its last stages the company was drawing up plans to move its data offshore to avoid regulatory scrutiny, which it did not carry out before it ceased trading.[^39] +On October 2, 2020 the Information Commissioner, [[Elizabeth Denham]], wrote to the chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee that the office had concluded its investigation, that the company had purchased commercially available data amounting at one estimate to more than 130 billion data points, mostly about United States voters, to combine with Facebook-derived data from Kogan, that its models were mostly built from "off the shelf" tools, that the office found no further evidence to change its view that the company was not involved in the European Union referendum campaign beyond early inquiries about UK Independence Party data, and that it found no additional evidence of Russian involvement in the servers it obtained.[^42] The letter also reported evidence that in its last stages the company was drawing up plans to move its data offshore to avoid regulatory scrutiny, which it did not carry out before it ceased trading.[^42] -The Insolvency Service announced in September 2020 that Nix had given an undertaking disqualifying him from acting as a company director for seven years from October 5, 2020, having, in the service's words, caused or permitted SCL Elections or associated companies to act with a lack of commercial probity by marketing services including "bribery or honey trap stings, voter disengagement campaigns, obtaining information to discredit political opponents and spreading information anonymously in political campaigns." The service did not say whether any such services were performed, and Nix told Reuters he had made no admission of wrongdoing.[^40] The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee had recorded in February 2019 that the Insolvency Service was investigating the directors of SCL Elections, SCL Group, SCL Analytics, SCL Commercial, SCL Social and Cambridge Analytica (UK) under the [[Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986]].[^41] +The Insolvency Service announced in September 2020 that Nix had given an undertaking disqualifying him from acting as a company director for seven years from October 5, 2020, having, in the service's words, caused or permitted SCL Elections or associated companies to act with a lack of commercial probity by marketing services including "bribery or honey trap stings, voter disengagement campaigns, obtaining information to discredit political opponents and spreading information anonymously in political campaigns." The service did not say whether any such services were performed, and Nix told Reuters he had made no admission of wrongdoing.[^43] The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee had recorded in February 2019 that the Insolvency Service was investigating the directors of SCL Elections, SCL Group, SCL Analytics, SCL Commercial, SCL Social and Cambridge Analytica (UK) under the [[Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986]].[^44] ### Emerdata and the end of the group -Emerdata Limited (Companies House number 10911848) was incorporated on August 11, 2017 with Wheatland as a director, and its persons with significant control from incorporation were Wheatland and Dr Alexander Bruce Tayler, each holding more than 25 percent and up to 50 percent until January 23, 2018.[^42] From January 23, 2018 the register shows Cambridge Analytica Holdings LLC, with an address on Orange Street in Wilmington, Delaware, as holder of more than 50 percent and less than 75 percent of shares and votes until August 9, 2022; since that date the register carries a statement that there is no registrable person.[^42] The register records the officers appointed on January 23, 2018 as Nix (resigned March 28, 2018), Johnson Chun Shun Ko (resigned May 9, 2018), Cheng Peng (resigned May 8, 2018) and Ahmad Al Khatib (resigned May 7, 2018); Tayler was a director again from March 28 to April 18, 2018, Gary Ka Chun Tiu from June 12, 2018 to December 3, 2024, and Wheatland until May 22, 2019.[^42] Rebekah and Jennifer Mercer were appointed directors on March 16, 2018 and remained in office as of the register consulted on October 1, 2026, with [[Jacquelyn James-Varga]] (appointed May 22, 2019) and Bradley David Golub (appointed December 3, 2024).[^42] +Emerdata Limited (Companies House number 10911848) was incorporated on August 11, 2017 with Wheatland as a director, and its persons with significant control from incorporation were Wheatland and Dr Alexander Bruce Tayler, each holding more than 25 percent and up to 50 percent until January 23, 2018.[^45] From January 23, 2018 the register shows Cambridge Analytica Holdings LLC, with an address on Orange Street in Wilmington, Delaware, as holder of more than 50 percent and less than 75 percent of shares and votes until August 9, 2022; since that date the register carries a statement that there is no registrable person.[^45] The register records the officers appointed on January 23, 2018 as Nix (resigned March 28, 2018), Johnson Chun Shun Ko (resigned May 9, 2018), Cheng Peng (resigned May 8, 2018) and Ahmad Al Khatib (resigned May 7, 2018); Tayler was a director again from March 28 to April 18, 2018, Gary Ka Chun Tiu from June 12, 2018 to December 3, 2024, and Wheatland until May 22, 2019.[^45] Rebekah and Jennifer Mercer were appointed directors on March 16, 2018 and remained in office as of the register consulted on October 1, 2026, with [[Jacquelyn James-Varga]] (appointed May 22, 2019) and Bradley David Golub (appointed December 3, 2024).[^45] -The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee reported in February 2019 that Emerdata had not gone into administration, was the largest creditor of SCL Elections and was paying the administration costs, and listed shareholders as of August 10, 2018 that included Cambridge Analytica Holdings LLC, Tayler, Wheatland, trusts for the benefit of Rebekah, Jennifer and Heather Mercer, Alexander and Catherine Nix, five members of the Marland family, Henry and Roger Gabb, Nigel and Alexander Oakes, and Reza Saddlou-Bundy.[^41] The committee recommended that the [[National Crime Agency]] investigate the connections between SCL Elections and Emerdata.[^41] The committee also reported that SCL Insight Limited, owned by Nigel Oakes, had been spun off in the 2017 reorganization.[^41] +The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee reported in February 2019 that Emerdata had not gone into administration, was the largest creditor of SCL Elections and was paying the administration costs, and listed shareholders as of August 10, 2018 that included Cambridge Analytica Holdings LLC, Tayler, Wheatland, trusts for the benefit of Rebekah, Jennifer and Heather Mercer, Alexander and Catherine Nix, five members of the Marland family, Henry and Roger Gabb, Nigel and Alexander Oakes, and Reza Saddlou-Bundy.[^44] The committee recommended that the [[National Crime Agency]] investigate the connections between SCL Elections and Emerdata.[^44] The committee also reported that SCL Insight Limited, owned by Nigel Oakes, had been spun off in the 2017 reorganization.[^44] -Emerdata entered administration on December 9, 2024, the register names Benjamin Stanyon and Nedim Patrick Ailyan as practitioners, records a cessation to act on April 8, 2026, and gives the registered office as care of Opus Restructuring LLP, Milton Keynes.[^42] SCL Group Limited, SCL Elections Limited and Cambridge Analytica (UK) Limited were in administration from May 3, 2018 to April 17, 2019, then in compulsory liquidation on a petition of August 13, 2018, which concluded on September 1, 2025; the first two were dissolved on January 31, 2026 and the third on January 30, 2026.[^43] +Emerdata entered administration on December 9, 2024, the register names Benjamin Stanyon and Nedim Patrick Ailyan as practitioners, records a cessation to act on April 8, 2026, and gives the registered office as care of Opus Restructuring LLP, Milton Keynes.[^45] SCL Group Limited, SCL Elections Limited and Cambridge Analytica (UK) Limited were in administration from May 3, 2018 to April 17, 2019, then in compulsory liquidation on a petition of August 13, 2018, which concluded on September 1, 2025; the first two were dissolved on January 31, 2026 and the third on January 30, 2026.[^46] ### Footnotes @@ -208,28 +212,31 @@ Emerdata entered administration on December 9, 2024, the register names Benjamin [^16]: Federal Trade Commission, *In the Matter of Cambridge Analytica, LLC*, Docket No. 9383, Opinion of the Commission, issued November 25, 2019, introduction, section I and note 1 (consent settlements with Alexander Nix and Aleksandr Kogan accepted July 24, 2019, matters 182-3106 and 182-3107); administrative complaint of July 24, 2019 (matter 182 3107). https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/d09389_comm_final_opinionpublic.pdf and https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/182_3107_cambridge_analytica_administrative_complaint_7-24-19.pdf [^17]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 668 to 670 and notes 4326 to 4333 (Kogan testimony of June 19, 2018 before the Senate Commerce Committee subcommittee; Wylie proffer; email Beltran to Nix, Ward and Wylie, March 15, 2014, WYL001009). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf [^18]: UK Information Commissioner's Office, *Investigation into the use of data analytics in political campaigns: A report to Parliament*, November 6, 2018, sections 3.2.1 to 3.2.3 (pp. 31 to 37). https://www.statewatch.org/media/documents/news/2018/nov/uk-ico-report-investigation-into-use-of-data-political-campaigns-6-11-18.pdf -[^19]: OpenFEC API (https://api.open.fec.gov/developers/), Schedule B itemized disbursements, recipient names "CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA," "CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA, LLC" and "CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA LLC" (90 unique line items, retrieved October 1, 2026); amounts summed by filing committee. Committee identifiers: Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. C00580100; Cruz for President C00574624; Make America Number 1 C00575373; John Bolton Super PAC C00542464; Keep the Promise II C00575431; Carson America C00573519; North Carolina Republican Party C00038505; Jobs Growth and Freedom Fund C00536540; Thom Tillis Committee C00545772; Art Robinson for Congress C00481341; Bob Huff for Congress C00665802. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_b/?recipient_name=Cambridge+Analytica -[^20]: Federal Election Commission, committee record for ART ROBINSON FOR CONGRESS (C00481341), street address 2251 DICK GEORGE RD, Cave Junction, Oregon, treasurer Art Robinson, first filed April 17, 2010. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/committee/C00481341/ -[^21]: Federal Election Commission, Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. (C00580100), Schedule B, payments to Cambridge Analytica, LLC dated July 29, 2016 ($100,000), August 18, 2016 ($250,000), September 1, 2016 ($5,000,000), October 19, 2016 ($250,000) and December 12, 2016 ($312,500); amended reports file numbers 1291697 (receipt date November 19, 2018), 1301972 (December 20, 2018), 1319157 (March 13, 2019), 1322657 (April 5, 2019) and 1335968 (June 28, 2019), with originals 1096341, 1111849, 1119574 and 1146165 in the amendment chains. https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/fecimg/?201903139145702446 (September 2016 payment) -[^22]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 673 to 675 and notes 4358 to 4366 (FBI FD-302 of Rick Gates, October 29, 2018; Kushner transcript II, pp. 84 to 85; Parscale transcript, pp. 55 to 62), and note 4363 (FEC disbursements July 29 to December 12, 2016, totaling $5,912,500). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf -[^23]: OpenFEC API (https://api.open.fec.gov/developers/), Schedule B itemized disbursements to Cambridge Analytica by John Bolton Super PAC (C00542464), July 7, 2014 to September 29, 2016; and OpenFEC Schedule A receipts of C00542464 from Robert Mercer of East Setauket, New York ($500,000 each on April 28, 2014, June 30, 2014, February 24, 2015, June 30, 2015, September 28, 2015, December 18, 2015, July 5, 2016, September 6, 2016, October 23, 2017 and December 28, 2017). https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/?committee_id=C00542464&contributor_name=MERCER -[^24]: Federal Election Commission, Form 1 Statement of Organization of committee C00575373, original filed April 6, 2015 under cover letter headed "Keep The Promise I" signed by treasurer Jacquelyn James (https://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/670/15031410670/15031410670.pdf), and amended Form 1 dated June 21, 2016, filed June 22, 2016, under the name "Make America Number 1" (https://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/183/201606229020090183/201606229020090183.pdf). -[^25]: OpenFEC API, Schedule A receipts and Schedule B disbursements of Make America Number 1 (C00575373), 2015 to 2016, including receipts from Robert Mercer of $11,000,000 (April 10, 2015, file 1027937), $500,000 (February 26, 2016), $2,000,000 (March 17, 2016) and $2,000,000 (July 14, 2016); disbursements to Cambridge Analytica ($842,748 and $633,736 under two spellings), to Breitbart News Network LLC ($109,341.25 on November 25, 2015, "list purchase expense," file 1071367, and $10,000 on January 27, 2016, "media prepaid"), and to Glittering Steel LLC (seven payments from July 17, 2015 to November 1, 2016 totaling $280,641). https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/committee/C00575373/ -[^26]: Mercer Family Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2011, Part XV (grant to OISM, P.O. Box 1279, Cave Junction, Oregon, $965,000) (https://990s.foundationcenter.org/990pf_pdf_archive/201/201982204/201982204_201112_990PF.pdf); Form 990-PF for 2021, Part XV (Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, 2251 Dick George Road, Cave Junction, Oregon, $250,000), ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer full text (https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/201982204/202213199349104431/IRS990PF). -[^27]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 673 to 674 and notes 4352 to 4357 (Kaiser transcript, pp. 144 to 156; Bannon transcript, p. 268; Maegan Vazquez and Paul Murphy, "Trump isn't the only Republican who gave Cambridge Analytica big bucks," CNN, March 21, 2018). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf -[^28]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, p. 672 and note 4348 (Kaiser transcript, pp. 40 to 43). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf -[^29]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, notes 447 and 448 (Parscale transcript, p. 64). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf -[^30]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 675 to 678 and notes 4367 to 4379 (Parscale transcript, pp. 53 to 60; Trump Data Team Presentation, August 22, 2016, FLYNN_SSCI_00011770 and 00011773; FBI FD-302 of Rick Gates, October 29, 2018; Kaiser transcript, pp. 161 to 164). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf -[^31]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 670 to 671 and notes 4334 to 4341 (Wylie proffer; Wylie written statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, May 16, 2018; Kaiser transcript, pp. 66 to 67 and 121 to 123; SCL Commercial presentation for Lukoil, February 18, 2015; OFAC listing of September 12, 2014). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf -[^32]: Christopher Wylie, written statement, "In the Matter of Cambridge Analytica and Other Related Issues," Senate Committee on the Judiciary, May 16, 2018, paragraphs 32 and 33. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/download/06/03/2026/05-16-18-wylie-testimony -[^33]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, p. 668 and notes 4318 to 4325 (Wylie proffer; Patten transcript, pp. 29 to 38; Kaiser transcript, pp. 67 to 68; Bannon transcript, pp. 253 to 256). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf -[^34]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 678 to 679 and notes 4380 to 4383 (Betsy Swan, "Trump Data Guru Alexander Nix: I Tried To Team Up With Julian Assange," *The Daily Beast*, October 25, 2017; Kara Scannell, Dana Bash and Marshall Cohen, CNN, October 25, 2017). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf -[^35]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 663 to 664 (section introduction, "Committee did not examine the effectiveness of the work these companies may have conducted"; limitations including Nix's non-appearance and the seizure of the company's corporate communications by U.K. authorities). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf -[^36]: Federal Election Commission, Statement of Reasons of Commissioners Shana M. Broussard and Ellen L. Weintraub, MURs 7207, 7268, 7274 and 7623 (Russian Federation; Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.; Donald J. Trump; H. Russell Taub; Cambridge Analytica, LLC; Internet Research Agency; Paul Manafort), note 2 (certification dated April 22, 2021). https://www.fec.gov/files/legal/murs/7207/7207_47.pdf -[^37]: UK Information Commissioner's Office, *Investigation into the use of data analytics in political campaigns: A report to Parliament*, November 6, 2018, section 3.2.4 (p. 38). https://www.statewatch.org/media/documents/news/2018/nov/uk-ico-report-investigation-into-use-of-data-political-campaigns-6-11-18.pdf -[^38]: UK Information Commissioner's Office, *Investigation into the use of data analytics in political campaigns*, November 6, 2018, section 3.2.3 (trial set for January 9, 2019 at Hendon Magistrates' Court); "Cambridge Analytica Pleads Guilty In UK Data Access Case," *MediaPost*, January 9, 2019 (fine of £15,000, costs of £6,000, victim surcharge of £170, citing the ICO announcement) https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/330338/ ; Ellen Tannam, "Cambridge Analytica owner hit with £15,000 fine for disobeying UK ICO," *Silicon Republic*, January 2019 (District Judge Kenneth Grant: "wilful disregard of the enforcement notice") https://www.siliconrepublic.com/enterprise/cambridge-analytica-scl-fine -[^39]: Elizabeth Denham, Information Commissioner, letter to Julian Knight MP, Chair, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, reference ICO/O/ED/L/RTL/0181, October 2, 2020, paragraphs 3 to 15. https://cy.ico.org.uk/media2/migrated/2618383/20201002_ico-o-ed-l-rtl-0181_to-julian-knight-mp.pdf -[^40]: "Ex-Cambridge Analytica head banned from running firms in UK," Reuters, published by Al Jazeera, September 25, 2020 (statement of the Insolvency Service of September 24, 2020; Mark Bruce, chief investigator; disqualification from October 5, 2020). https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/9/25/uk-bans-ex-cambridge-analytica-boss-for-unethical-services -[^41]: House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, *Disinformation and "fake news": Final Report*, HC 1791, February 18, 2019, paragraphs 285 to 290, 296 and notes 327 to 329 and 338. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/1791/1791.pdf -[^42]: Companies House, EMERDATA LIMITED (company number 10911848), overview, officers, persons with significant control and insolvency pages, viewed October 1, 2026; personal appointments pages for Jennifer Lynne Mercer, Rebekah Anne Mercer, Jacquelyn James-Varga and Bradley David Golub. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/10911848 -[^43]: Companies House, insolvency pages for SCL GROUP LIMITED (05514098), SCL ELECTIONS LIMITED (08256225) and CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA(UK) LIMITED (09375920), viewed October 1, 2026 (administration May 3, 2018 to April 17, 2019; compulsory liquidation, petition August 13, 2018, winding up commenced April 17, 2019 and concluded September 1, 2025; dissolved January 31, 2026, January 31, 2026 and January 30, 2026). https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/05514098/insolvency +[^19]: UK Information Commissioner's Office, *Investigation into the use of data analytics in political campaigns: A report to Parliament*, November 6, 2018, section 3.3.1. https://www.statewatch.org/media/documents/news/2018/nov/uk-ico-report-investigation-into-use-of-data-political-campaigns-6-11-18.pdf +[^20]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Press Release 2019-140, "Facebook to Pay $100 Million for Misleading Investors About the Risks It Faced From Misuse of User Data," July 24, 2019. https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2019-140 +[^21]: Nicholas Confessore and Matthew Rosenberg, "Spy Contractor's Idea Helped Firm Harvest Facebook Data," *The New York Times,* March 27, 2018, as republished by WRAL. https://www.wral.com/spy-contractor-s-idea-helped-firm-harvest-facebook-data/17447632/ +[^22]: OpenFEC API (https://api.open.fec.gov/developers/), Schedule B itemized disbursements, recipient names "CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA," "CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA, LLC" and "CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA LLC" (90 unique line items, retrieved October 1, 2026); amounts summed by filing committee. Committee identifiers: Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. C00580100; Cruz for President C00574624; Make America Number 1 C00575373; John Bolton Super PAC C00542464; Keep the Promise II C00575431; Carson America C00573519; North Carolina Republican Party C00038505; Jobs Growth and Freedom Fund C00536540; Thom Tillis Committee C00545772; Art Robinson for Congress C00481341; Bob Huff for Congress C00665802. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_b/?recipient_name=Cambridge+Analytica +[^23]: Federal Election Commission, committee record for ART ROBINSON FOR CONGRESS (C00481341), street address 2251 DICK GEORGE RD, Cave Junction, Oregon, treasurer Art Robinson, first filed April 17, 2010. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/committee/C00481341/ +[^24]: Federal Election Commission, Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. (C00580100), Schedule B, payments to Cambridge Analytica, LLC dated July 29, 2016 ($100,000), August 18, 2016 ($250,000), September 1, 2016 ($5,000,000), October 19, 2016 ($250,000) and December 12, 2016 ($312,500); amended reports file numbers 1291697 (receipt date November 19, 2018), 1301972 (December 20, 2018), 1319157 (March 13, 2019), 1322657 (April 5, 2019) and 1335968 (June 28, 2019), with originals 1096341, 1111849, 1119574 and 1146165 in the amendment chains. https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/fecimg/?201903139145702446 (September 2016 payment) +[^25]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 673 to 675 and notes 4358 to 4366 (FBI FD-302 of Rick Gates, October 29, 2018; Kushner transcript II, pp. 84 to 85; Parscale transcript, pp. 55 to 62), and note 4363 (FEC disbursements July 29 to December 12, 2016, totaling $5,912,500). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf +[^26]: OpenFEC API (https://api.open.fec.gov/developers/), Schedule B itemized disbursements to Cambridge Analytica by John Bolton Super PAC (C00542464), July 7, 2014 to September 29, 2016; and OpenFEC Schedule A receipts of C00542464 from Robert Mercer of East Setauket, New York ($500,000 each on April 28, 2014, June 30, 2014, February 24, 2015, June 30, 2015, September 28, 2015, December 18, 2015, July 5, 2016, September 6, 2016, October 23, 2017 and December 28, 2017). https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/?committee_id=C00542464&contributor_name=MERCER +[^27]: Federal Election Commission, Form 1 Statement of Organization of committee C00575373, original filed April 6, 2015 under cover letter headed "Keep The Promise I" signed by treasurer Jacquelyn James (https://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/670/15031410670/15031410670.pdf), and amended Form 1 dated June 21, 2016, filed June 22, 2016, under the name "Make America Number 1" (https://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/183/201606229020090183/201606229020090183.pdf). +[^28]: OpenFEC API, Schedule A receipts and Schedule B disbursements of Make America Number 1 (C00575373), 2015 to 2016, including receipts from Robert Mercer of $11,000,000 (April 10, 2015, file 1027937), $500,000 (February 26, 2016), $2,000,000 (March 17, 2016) and $2,000,000 (July 14, 2016); disbursements to Cambridge Analytica ($842,748 and $633,736 under two spellings), to Breitbart News Network LLC ($109,341.25 on November 25, 2015, "list purchase expense," file 1071367, and $10,000 on January 27, 2016, "media prepaid"), and to Glittering Steel LLC (seven payments from July 17, 2015 to November 1, 2016 totaling $280,641). https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/committee/C00575373/ +[^29]: Mercer Family Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2011, Part XV (grant to OISM, P.O. Box 1279, Cave Junction, Oregon, $965,000) (https://990s.foundationcenter.org/990pf_pdf_archive/201/201982204/201982204_201112_990PF.pdf); Form 990-PF for 2021, Part XV (Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, 2251 Dick George Road, Cave Junction, Oregon, $250,000), ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer full text (https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/201982204/202213199349104431/IRS990PF). +[^30]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 673 to 674 and notes 4352 to 4357 (Kaiser transcript, pp. 144 to 156; Bannon transcript, p. 268; Maegan Vazquez and Paul Murphy, "Trump isn't the only Republican who gave Cambridge Analytica big bucks," CNN, March 21, 2018). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf +[^31]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, p. 672 and note 4348 (Kaiser transcript, pp. 40 to 43). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf +[^32]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, notes 447 and 448 (Parscale transcript, p. 64). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf +[^33]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 675 to 678 and notes 4367 to 4379 (Parscale transcript, pp. 53 to 60; Trump Data Team Presentation, August 22, 2016, FLYNN_SSCI_00011770 and 00011773; FBI FD-302 of Rick Gates, October 29, 2018; Kaiser transcript, pp. 161 to 164). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf +[^34]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 670 to 671 and notes 4334 to 4341 (Wylie proffer; Wylie written statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, May 16, 2018; Kaiser transcript, pp. 66 to 67 and 121 to 123; SCL Commercial presentation for Lukoil, February 18, 2015; OFAC listing of September 12, 2014). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf +[^35]: Christopher Wylie, written statement, "In the Matter of Cambridge Analytica and Other Related Issues," Senate Committee on the Judiciary, May 16, 2018, paragraphs 32 and 33. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/download/06/03/2026/05-16-18-wylie-testimony +[^36]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, p. 668 and notes 4318 to 4325 (Wylie proffer; Patten transcript, pp. 29 to 38; Kaiser transcript, pp. 67 to 68; Bannon transcript, pp. 253 to 256). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf +[^37]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 678 to 679 and notes 4380 to 4383 (Betsy Swan, "Trump Data Guru Alexander Nix: I Tried To Team Up With Julian Assange," *The Daily Beast*, October 25, 2017; Kara Scannell, Dana Bash and Marshall Cohen, CNN, October 25, 2017). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf +[^38]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 663 to 664 (section introduction, "Committee did not examine the effectiveness of the work these companies may have conducted"; limitations including Nix's non-appearance and the seizure of the company's corporate communications by U.K. authorities). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf +[^39]: Federal Election Commission, Statement of Reasons of Commissioners Shana M. Broussard and Ellen L. Weintraub, MURs 7207, 7268, 7274 and 7623 (Russian Federation; Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.; Donald J. Trump; H. Russell Taub; Cambridge Analytica, LLC; Internet Research Agency; Paul Manafort), note 2 (certification dated April 22, 2021). https://www.fec.gov/files/legal/murs/7207/7207_47.pdf +[^40]: UK Information Commissioner's Office, *Investigation into the use of data analytics in political campaigns: A report to Parliament*, November 6, 2018, section 3.2.4 (p. 38). https://www.statewatch.org/media/documents/news/2018/nov/uk-ico-report-investigation-into-use-of-data-political-campaigns-6-11-18.pdf +[^41]: UK Information Commissioner's Office, *Investigation into the use of data analytics in political campaigns*, November 6, 2018, section 3.2.3 (trial set for January 9, 2019 at Hendon Magistrates' Court); "Cambridge Analytica Pleads Guilty In UK Data Access Case," *MediaPost*, January 9, 2019 (fine of £15,000, costs of £6,000, victim surcharge of £170, citing the ICO announcement) https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/330338/ ; Ellen Tannam, "Cambridge Analytica owner hit with £15,000 fine for disobeying UK ICO," *Silicon Republic*, January 2019 (District Judge Kenneth Grant: "wilful disregard of the enforcement notice") https://www.siliconrepublic.com/enterprise/cambridge-analytica-scl-fine +[^42]: Elizabeth Denham, Information Commissioner, letter to Julian Knight MP, Chair, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, reference ICO/O/ED/L/RTL/0181, October 2, 2020, paragraphs 3 to 15. https://cy.ico.org.uk/media2/migrated/2618383/20201002_ico-o-ed-l-rtl-0181_to-julian-knight-mp.pdf +[^43]: "Ex-Cambridge Analytica head banned from running firms in UK," Reuters, published by Al Jazeera, September 25, 2020 (statement of the Insolvency Service of September 24, 2020; Mark Bruce, chief investigator; disqualification from October 5, 2020). https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/9/25/uk-bans-ex-cambridge-analytica-boss-for-unethical-services +[^44]: House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, *Disinformation and "fake news": Final Report*, HC 1791, February 18, 2019, paragraphs 285 to 290, 296 and notes 327 to 329 and 338. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/1791/1791.pdf +[^45]: Companies House, EMERDATA LIMITED (company number 10911848), overview, officers, persons with significant control and insolvency pages, viewed October 1, 2026; personal appointments pages for Jennifer Lynne Mercer, Rebekah Anne Mercer, Jacquelyn James-Varga and Bradley David Golub. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/10911848 +[^46]: Companies House, insolvency pages for SCL GROUP LIMITED (05514098), SCL ELECTIONS LIMITED (08256225) and CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA(UK) LIMITED (09375920), viewed October 1, 2026 (administration May 3, 2018 to April 17, 2019; compulsory liquidation, petition August 13, 2018, winding up commenced April 17, 2019 and concluded September 1, 2025; dissolved January 31, 2026, January 31, 2026 and January 30, 2026). https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/05514098/insolvency diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Cantor Fitzgerald.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Cantor Fitzgerald.md index d782a949..58810373 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Cantor Fitzgerald.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Cantor Fitzgerald.md @@ -60,35 +60,35 @@ relations: with: "[[AdFin Solutions]]" role: "through CVAFH I LLC: 800,000 shares of Series A preferred stock for $350,000 (July 23, 2013) and a $2,000,000 convertible note (December 26, 2013)" start: 2013-07-23 - fn: 17 + fn: 18 - type: partner_of with: "[[Tether]]" role: "described by Tether's chief executive Paolo Ardoino as a Tether custodian since late 2021; sponsor, through an affiliate, of Cantor Equity Partners, which completed its business combination with Twenty One Capital, majority-owned by Tether and Bitfinex, on December 8, 2025" start: 2021 - fn: 30 + fn: 31 - type: founded with: "[[CF Acquisition Corp. VI]]" role: "sponsor of the special purpose acquisition company (incorporated April 17, 2020) that merged with Rumble on September 16, 2022" start: 2020-04-17 end: 2022-09-16 - fn: 33 + fn: 34 - type: subject_of with: "[[Securities and Exchange Commission]]" role: "order of December 12, 2024: $6.75 million civil penalty over statements by CF Finance Acquisition Corp. II and CF Acquisition Corp. V" start: 2024-12-12 - fn: 36 + fn: 37 - type: subject_of with: "[[Securities and Exchange Commission]]" role: "order of April 6, 2020: $3.2 million penalty and censure of Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. over deficient blue sheet trading data" start: 2020-04-06 - fn: 37 + fn: 38 - type: subject_of with: "[[BBC]]" start: 2026-07-14 role: "BBC report that one of Lutnick's firms made plans in 2013 to go into business with the then Prince Andrew; Cantor Fitzgerald did not deny the talks and said it did not go into business with the former prince" - fn: 28 + fn: 29 created: 2026-10-04 -updated: 2026-10-04 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. is a [[New York City|New York]] [[Securities Brokerage|brokerage]] and investment bank whose operating subsidiaries include Cantor Fitzgerald & Co., a broker-dealer on the [[Federal Reserve Bank of New York]]'s list of primary dealers, and whose affiliates include the interdealer broker [[BGC Group]], the real estate services company [[Newmark Group]], and a series of special purpose acquisition companies. The firm lost 658 employees at [[One World Trade Center]] on [[September 11 attacks|September 11, 2001]]. Since February 18, 2025 it has been led by [[Brandon Lutnick]], the son of [[Howard Lutnick]], who was confirmed that day by the [[United States Senate]] as [[United States Department of Commerce|Secretary of Commerce]].[^1][^2][^3] @@ -111,61 +111,61 @@ eSpeed's report states that the loss of Cantor's brokers and assets had adversel In April 2008, BGC Partners' businesses and certain other Cantor assets were merged with and into eSpeed, and the combined company began operating as BGC Partners, Inc. In June 2013 the company sold assets of its U.S. Treasury benchmark business, and the name "eSpeed," to [[Nasdaq]]. On July 1, 2023 BGC Partners became a wholly owned subsidiary of the new public parent BGC Group, Inc. Cantor and [[CF Group Management]] (CFGM), the general partner of Cantor, held 105.3 million shares of BGC Class B common stock, 96.2 percent of that class, at December 31, 2025. The history of the public company and its enforcement record are set out at BGC Group.[^2][^11] -Newmark, the commercial real estate business that BGC transferred to Newmark Group on December 13, 2017, was listed in December 2017 and distributed to BGC's stockholders on November 30, 2018. Related-party dealings between BGC and Cantor have drawn litigation: on October 5, 2018 the [[Roofers Local 149 Pension Fund]] filed a derivative complaint in the [[Delaware Court of Chancery]] against BGC's board, Lutnick, CFGM and Cantor over BGC's $875 million purchase of [[Berkeley Point]] from [[Cantor Commercial Real Estate]], and on September 30, 2019 the court denied the defendants' motions to dismiss on demand grounds without making findings on the merits.[^12] +Newmark, the commercial real estate business that BGC transferred to Newmark Group on December 13, 2017, was listed in December 2017 and distributed to BGC's stockholders on November 30, 2018. Related-party dealings between BGC and Cantor have drawn litigation: on October 5, 2018 the [[Roofers Local 149 Pension Fund]] filed a derivative complaint in the [[Delaware Court of Chancery]] against BGC's board, Lutnick, CFGM and Cantor over BGC's $875 million purchase of [[Berkeley Point]] from [[Cantor Commercial Real Estate]], and on September 30, 2019 the court denied the defendants' motions to dismiss on demand grounds without making findings on the merits, in an opinion by Chancellor [[Andre G. Bouchard]] in an action brought by the Roofers fund and the Northern California Pipe Trades Trust Funds.[^12] The [[Delaware Supreme Court]] affirmed the Court of Chancery's final judgment of September 27, 2022 by order of August 10, 2023.[^13] ### Primary Dealer and Treasury Markets -The [[Federal Reserve Board|Federal Reserve]] Bank of New York's published list of primary dealers includes Cantor Fitzgerald & Co., recorded as added to the list effective August 1, 2006.[^13] Cantor's prospectus for its [[Cayman Islands]] SPAC [[Cantor Equity Partners]] describes the firm's broker-dealer as "a leading independent middle market investment bank and primary dealer," and Cantor as having "a controlling interest in BGC Group."[^14] The Times in 1996 had already placed the firm among the largest institutional brokers of Government securities in the United States.[^1] +The [[Federal Reserve Board|Federal Reserve]] Bank of New York's published list of primary dealers includes Cantor Fitzgerald & Co., recorded as added to the list effective August 1, 2006.[^14] Cantor's prospectus for its [[Cayman Islands]] SPAC [[Cantor Equity Partners]] describes the firm's broker-dealer as "a leading independent middle market investment bank and primary dealer," and Cantor as having "a controlling interest in BGC Group."[^15] The Times in 1996 had already placed the firm among the largest institutional brokers of Government securities in the United States.[^1] ### Cantor Ventures and CVAFH I LLC -Cantor Ventures, L.P. appears in AdFin documents with a letterhead address of 110 East 59th Street. Lutnick told the [[House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform]] on May 6, 2026 that "Cantor Fitzgerald had a subsidiary that did venture capital investing with small investments in many companies in sort of high-risk investments," called Cantor Ventures, "a venture capital arm of Cantor Fitzgerald, so sort of multiple layers down the subsidiary chain."[^15] [[Henrique de Castro]] has been described in a [[Target Corporation]] proxy statement as an advisor at Cantor Fitzgerald since January 2017, "where he leads the corporate venture capital arm of the firm, Cantor Ventures."[^16] +Cantor Ventures, L.P. appears in AdFin documents with a letterhead address of 110 East 59th Street. Lutnick told the [[House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform]] on May 6, 2026 that "Cantor Fitzgerald had a subsidiary that did venture capital investing with small investments in many companies in sort of high-risk investments," called Cantor Ventures, "a venture capital arm of Cantor Fitzgerald, so sort of multiple layers down the subsidiary chain."[^16] [[Henrique de Castro]] has been described in a [[Target Corporation]] proxy statement as an advisor at Cantor Fitzgerald since January 2017, "where he leads the corporate venture capital arm of the firm, Cantor Ventures."[^17] [[CVAFH I LLC]] invested in [[AdFin Solutions]], Inc., a [[Delaware]] advertising-analytics company incorporated on April 25, 2011, in which [[Jeffrey Epstein]]'s [[Southern Trust Company]] also held Series A preferred stock. The [[United States Department of Justice|Justice Department]]'s Epstein library contains the following documents. -The Series A Preferred Stock Purchase Agreement (EFTA00289560 in DataSet 9) is dated December 28, 2012, and its Exhibit A schedules an initial closing that day and subsequent closings on April 10 and July 23, 2013. It carries a counterpart signature page for CVAFH I LLC with the printed name "Howard W. Lutnick" and title "President." The same name and title appear on the counterpart pages of the investors' rights, right of first refusal and co-sale, and voting agreements, and on a letter agreement dated in July 2013. The letter agreement, on the letterhead of Cantor Ventures, L.P., states: "CVAFH I LLC ('Cantor')... Cantor has been formed for the specific purpose of acquiring the Shares and the ultimate holding company of Cantor is Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P., a Delaware limited partnership." Exhibit A to the purchase agreement lists "CVAFH I LLC" with 800,000 shares and a purchase price of $350,000 at a "Subsequent Closing" of July 23, 2013, and a stock certificate numbered PA-7, dated as of July 23, 2013, certifies that CVAFH I LLC is the record holder of "Eight Hundred Thousand shares of Series A Preferred Stock." Epstein's Southern Trust bought 1,142,857 Series A shares at an April 10, 2013 closing and 285,714 more on July 23, 2013.[^17][^18] +The Series A Preferred Stock Purchase Agreement (EFTA00289560 in DataSet 9) is dated December 28, 2012, and its Exhibit A schedules an initial closing that day and subsequent closings on April 10 and July 23, 2013. It carries a counterpart signature page for CVAFH I LLC with the printed name "Howard W. Lutnick" and title "President." The same name and title appear on the counterpart pages of the investors' rights, right of first refusal and co-sale, and voting agreements, and on a letter agreement dated in July 2013. The letter agreement, on the letterhead of Cantor Ventures, L.P., states: "CVAFH I LLC ('Cantor')... Cantor has been formed for the specific purpose of acquiring the Shares and the ultimate holding company of Cantor is Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P., a Delaware limited partnership." Exhibit A to the purchase agreement lists "CVAFH I LLC" with 800,000 shares and a purchase price of $350,000 at a "Subsequent Closing" of July 23, 2013, and a stock certificate numbered PA-7, dated as of July 23, 2013, certifies that CVAFH I LLC is the record holder of "Eight Hundred Thousand shares of Series A Preferred Stock." Epstein's Southern Trust bought 1,142,857 Series A shares at an April 10, 2013 closing and 285,714 more on July 23, 2013.[^18][^19] -On December 26, 2013, AdFin issued a $2,000,000 unsecured convertible note under a Note Purchase Agreement (EFTA00289541) whose investor was "CVAFH I, LLC," on Schedule I at 499 Park Avenue. The investor signature page (EFTA00289550) bears a handwritten signature with the handwritten name "[[Douglas Barnard]]" and the title "Chief Financial Officer." A stockholder consent (EFTA00289527) has signature pages for Southern Trust Company, Inc. and CVAFH I, LLC, each dated December 26, 2013.[^19] On January 7, 2014 AdFin shareholder [[David J. Mitchell]] wrote to Epstein: "We completed a $2 million convertible placement with Cantor Ventures at the end of the year... If and when they convert they get a board seat (we will have to increase board to 7 people as we have 5 now)," and said that "either two of the three of us (JEE, JL or DJM) could block certain actions of the Company."[^20] +On December 26, 2013, AdFin issued a $2,000,000 unsecured convertible note under a Note Purchase Agreement (EFTA00289541) whose investor was "CVAFH I, LLC," on Schedule I at 499 Park Avenue. The investor signature page (EFTA00289550) bears a handwritten signature with the handwritten name "[[Douglas Barnard]]" and the title "Chief Financial Officer." A stockholder consent (EFTA00289527) has signature pages for Southern Trust Company, Inc. and CVAFH I, LLC, each dated December 26, 2013.[^20] On January 7, 2014 AdFin shareholder [[David J. Mitchell]] wrote to Epstein: "We completed a $2 million convertible placement with Cantor Ventures at the end of the year... If and when they convert they get a board seat (we will have to increase board to 7 people as we have 5 now)," and said that "either two of the three of us (JEE, JL or DJM) could block certain actions of the Company."[^21] -A February 16, 2016 letter from Mitchell (EFTA01084694) attached a term sheet stating that "the Board of Adfin voted to accept an offer from its largest shareholder, Cantor Venture, to fund $1,750,000," and that the "Board increased to 7 directors. All chosen by Cantor," with "Howard Lutnick, [[Jed Kleckner]] and Henrique de Castro" to join the board, "Cantor will effectively control decision-making power at the Board and stockholder level" and "AdFin will be majority owned by Cantor." A cap table as of January 4, 2018 (EFTA00796718) lists Cantor at 85,959,207 shares, 60.32 percent.[^21] +A February 16, 2016 letter from Mitchell (EFTA01084694) attached a term sheet stating that "the Board of Adfin voted to accept an offer from its largest shareholder, Cantor Venture, to fund $1,750,000," and that the "Board increased to 7 directors. All chosen by Cantor," with "Howard Lutnick, [[Jed Kleckner]] and Henrique de Castro" to join the board, "Cantor will effectively control decision-making power at the Board and stockholder level" and "AdFin will be majority owned by Cantor." A cap table as of January 4, 2018 (EFTA00796718) lists Cantor at 85,959,207 shares, 60.32 percent.[^22] -On May 28, 2018 an account labeled "HWL," with a Cantor Fitzgerald LP disclaimer, exchanged emails with Epstein's account. Epstein wrote at 1:12 p.m.: "on another note what do you think the prospects for adfin are?" At 1:19 p.m. the reply read: "Producing revenue finally. This is their year. Next 12 months they need to become economically self sufficient."[^22] AdFin ceased business operations in October 2019.[^23] +On May 28, 2018 an account labeled "HWL," with a Cantor Fitzgerald LP disclaimer, exchanged emails with Epstein's account. Epstein wrote at 1:12 p.m.: "on another note what do you think the prospects for adfin are?" At 1:19 p.m. the reply read: "Producing revenue finally. This is their year. Next 12 months they need to become economically self sufficient."[^23] AdFin ceased business operations in October 2019.[^24] -Lutnick's statements on the record sit beside these documents. At the May 6, 2026 House Oversight interview he was asked "Were you personally an investor in AdFin Solutions?" and answered "No"; asked "Was Cantor Fitzgerald an investor in AdFin Solutions?" he answered "Yes." Asked whether he knew that Epstein was an investor, he answered "No," and that he learned of it "To the best of my knowledge, when these documents were released." Of the stock purchase agreement he said, "I don't think I heard about this investment till 2013, May. I think the pitch was made to me in May of 2013, from the document." He described it as "inexplicable and unsettling that he had ... that it was released, that my company's signature page would be in someone else's files," and said of the May 28, 2018 email, "This was ... this was me, because it says 'HWL.'"[^15] A source close to Lutnick told CBS News, in a report updated February 7, 2026, that "Cantor [Fitzgerald] was a small minority investor in Adfin" and that "[a]t the time of doing the deal, as a minority investor, Mr. Lutnick would not have any knowledge of who the other investors were."[^5] The [[BBC]] reported on July 14, 2026 that the Commerce Department had called the allegations "a desperate partisan distraction from the historic work of this Administration" and said there was "no evidence of wrongdoing or legitimate cause for concern."[^24] +Lutnick's statements on the record sit beside these documents. At the May 6, 2026 House Oversight interview he was asked "Were you personally an investor in AdFin Solutions?" and answered "No"; asked "Was Cantor Fitzgerald an investor in AdFin Solutions?" he answered "Yes." Asked whether he knew that Epstein was an investor, he answered "No," and that he learned of it "To the best of my knowledge, when these documents were released." Of the stock purchase agreement he said, "I don't think I heard about this investment till 2013, May. I think the pitch was made to me in May of 2013, from the document." He described it as "inexplicable and unsettling that he had ... that it was released, that my company's signature page would be in someone else's files," and said of the May 28, 2018 email, "This was ... this was me, because it says 'HWL.'"[^16] A source close to Lutnick told CBS News, in a report updated February 7, 2026, that "Cantor [Fitzgerald] was a small minority investor in Adfin" and that "[a]t the time of doing the deal, as a minority investor, Mr. Lutnick would not have any knowledge of who the other investors were."[^5] The [[BBC]] reported on July 14, 2026 that the Commerce Department had called the allegations "a desperate partisan distraction from the historic work of this Administration" and said there was "no evidence of wrongdoing or legitimate cause for concern."[^25] ### The 2013 Proposals Involving the Duke of York -A term sheet headed "Term Sheet (8/29/13 Preliminary Draft for Discussion Purposes Only)" and marked "CONFIDENTIAL" summarizes "a joint venture to create an asset management business to be known as Cantor Urramoor Asset Management." Its partners are "[[Cantor Urramoor Asset Management Holdings]], LLC ('Cantor Holdings'), a wholly owned subsidiary of Cantor Fitzgerald," and "[Urramoor], an entity owned by a trust created by Mr. T." "Cantor Holdings would be the manager of the Company," which "would be permitted to engage affiliates of Cantor as subcontractor to perform certain services such as brokerage, investment banking, subadvisory and asset management services" and could engage Cantor for support services "at 110% of fully allocated cost." The loan term reads: "the Company would advance the sum of £1,000,000 to Urramoor which would accrue interest at an annual rate of 3.5%, compounded annually," with the capital term "Cantor would make a capital contribution to the Company in an amount necessary to fund the Loan." The sheet states: "It is not a commitment to form the Company, either express or implied."[^25] +A term sheet headed "Term Sheet (8/29/13 Preliminary Draft for Discussion Purposes Only)" and marked "CONFIDENTIAL" summarizes "a joint venture to create an asset management business to be known as Cantor Urramoor Asset Management." Its partners are "[[Cantor Urramoor Asset Management Holdings]], LLC ('Cantor Holdings'), a wholly owned subsidiary of Cantor Fitzgerald," and "[Urramoor], an entity owned by a trust created by Mr. T." "Cantor Holdings would be the manager of the Company," which "would be permitted to engage affiliates of Cantor as subcontractor to perform certain services such as brokerage, investment banking, subadvisory and asset management services" and could engage Cantor for support services "at 110% of fully allocated cost." The loan term reads: "the Company would advance the sum of £1,000,000 to Urramoor which would accrue interest at an annual rate of 3.5%, compounded annually," with the capital term "Cantor would make a capital contribution to the Company in an amount necessary to fund the Loan." The sheet states: "It is not a commitment to form the Company, either express or implied."[^26] -The sheet reached Jeffrey Epstein's email account through a message of August 30, 2013, subject "Term Sheet from Cantor Fitzgerald to Mr. T," from a Cantor sender to two solicitors: "Attached please find the draft term sheet. Please let me know when you would like to discuss it." On September 2, 2013 [[David Stern (business adviser)|David Stern]], whom the BBC describes as "the prince's business aide," forwarded it to Epstein: "See attached term sheet from Howard to PA. I think madness. They are still at it. We kill it ?" Epstein proposed a counter ("fifty fifty split, first 1 millino to offset loan, no subs acting without written agreement as to fee and profits . no exclusivity,") and wrote of its terms: "no predetermined split, and even then payments made only if they choose to? its crazy."[^26] +The sheet reached Jeffrey Epstein's email account through a message of August 30, 2013, subject "Term Sheet from Cantor Fitzgerald to Mr. T," from a Cantor sender to two solicitors: "Attached please find the draft term sheet. Please let me know when you would like to discuss it." On September 2, 2013 [[David Stern (business adviser)|David Stern]], whom the BBC describes as "the prince's business aide," forwarded it to Epstein: "See attached term sheet from Howard to PA. I think madness. They are still at it. We kill it ?" Epstein proposed a counter ("fifty fifty split, first 1 millino to offset loan, no subs acting without written agreement as to fee and profits . no exclusivity,") and wrote of its terms: "no predetermined split, and even then payments made only if they choose to? its crazy."[^27] -A draft "Agreement for Referrals" of November 2013 names "[[Cantor Opportunities]], LLC," "a subsidiary of Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. which is the holding company for a diverse organization that includes subsidiaries and affiliates that are involved in various financial services and real estate activities," and "[[Urramoor Limited]]." Its signature blocks and date are blank. It provides that "Nothing in this agreement shall be construed or interpreted to create a partnership or joint venture," that Urramoor's "only services shall be to provide Cantor and any applicable CF Company with introductions to non-US persons, individuals, or entities," and that "a typical referral fee to Cantor would be 25% of the lender's fee ... Such referral fee to Cantor would be split 50/50 with UML." Exhibit A lists, among the "Asset Management Opportunities," "Investment in funds or separate account managed by a registered investment advisor such as Cantor Comparative Advantage, L.P."[^27] +A draft "Agreement for Referrals" of November 2013 names "[[Cantor Opportunities]], LLC," "a subsidiary of Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. which is the holding company for a diverse organization that includes subsidiaries and affiliates that are involved in various financial services and real estate activities," and "[[Urramoor Limited]]." Its signature blocks and date are blank. It provides that "Nothing in this agreement shall be construed or interpreted to create a partnership or joint venture," that Urramoor's "only services shall be to provide Cantor and any applicable CF Company with introductions to non-US persons, individuals, or entities," and that "a typical referral fee to Cantor would be 25% of the lender's fee ... Such referral fee to Cantor would be split 50/50 with UML." Exhibit A lists, among the "Asset Management Opportunities," "Investment in funds or separate account managed by a registered investment advisor such as Cantor Comparative Advantage, L.P."[^28] -On August 9, 2013, in a thread headed "HL Loan," Epstein wrote to Stern: "no no no no no, howards main businesss is gambing in las vegas. he will have to disclose to the las vegas commsion his arrangeent and you will have holy hell to pay." On November 16, 2013 Stern asked Epstein, "Have you seen Cantor Fitzgerald proposal?" and Epstein answered "goofy."[^25] +On August 9, 2013, in a thread headed "HL Loan," Epstein wrote to Stern: "no no no no no, howards main businesss is gambing in las vegas. he will have to disclose to the las vegas commsion his arrangeent and you will have holy hell to pay." On November 16, 2013 Stern asked Epstein, "Have you seen Cantor Fitzgerald proposal?" and Epstein answered "goofy."[^26] -The BBC reported on July 14, 2026 that "advisers to both Lutnick and the former prince discussed the deal for four months, from August to November 2013, but it came to nothing," and that "Cantor Fitzgerald did not deny the talks took place but told the BBC it did not go into business with the former prince." [[Prince Andrew|Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor]] "did not respond to a request for comment." Elsewhere in the article, a [[White House]] statement made on behalf of Howard Lutnick said: "The BBC's pathetic and desperate attempt to slander Secretary Lutnick will do nothing to change the fact that he has been the most consequential Commerce Secretary in modern history."[^28] +The BBC reported on July 14, 2026 that "advisers to both Lutnick and the former prince discussed the deal for four months, from August to November 2013, but it came to nothing," and that "Cantor Fitzgerald did not deny the talks took place but told the BBC it did not go into business with the former prince." [[Prince Andrew|Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor]] "did not respond to a request for comment." Elsewhere in the article, a [[White House]] statement made on behalf of Howard Lutnick said: "The BBC's pathetic and desperate attempt to slander Secretary Lutnick will do nothing to change the fact that he has been the most consequential Commerce Secretary in modern history."[^29] -On November 14, 2013 a Cantor Fitzgerald managing director and deputy general counsel sent a message addressed "David" and attaching a draft agreement with the file name "LEGAL-#67891-v1-UML_Cantor_agreement_re_asset_management.docx," writing: "I have attached a draft agreement in connection with the matters we have discussed. Please note that it has not been fully reviewed internally but I believe it reflects the discussion we had." Stern forwarded it to Epstein at 7:36 PM the same day.[^29] +On November 14, 2013 a Cantor Fitzgerald managing director and deputy general counsel sent a message addressed "David" and attaching a draft agreement with the file name "LEGAL-#67891-v1-UML_Cantor_agreement_re_asset_management.docx," writing: "I have attached a draft agreement in connection with the matters we have discussed. Please note that it has not been fully reviewed internally but I believe it reflects the discussion we had." Stern forwarded it to Epstein at 7:36 PM the same day.[^30] ### Tether -[[Paolo Ardoino]], the chief executive of [[Tether]], told [[The Block]] in an article of January 16, 2024 that Cantor Fitzgerald had been a Tether custodian since late 2021. The article reports Lutnick as saying, in a [[Bloomberg Television]] interview from the [[World Economic Forum]] in [[Davos]], "I manage many, many of their assets" and "From what we've seen, and we did a lot of work, they have the money," and states that in the preceding December he "reportedly said" he was a "big fan of this stablecoin called Tether. I hold their Treasuries. So I keep their Treasuries, and they have a lot of Treasuries." A person with direct knowledge of the matter told The Block that Cantor custodies "the vast vast majority" of Tether's reserves.[^30] +[[Paolo Ardoino]], the chief executive of [[Tether]], told [[The Block]] in an article of January 16, 2024 that Cantor Fitzgerald had been a Tether custodian since late 2021. The article reports Lutnick as saying, in a [[Bloomberg Television]] interview from the [[World Economic Forum]] in [[Davos]], "I manage many, many of their assets" and "From what we've seen, and we did a lot of work, they have the money," and states that in the preceding December he "reportedly said" he was a "big fan of this stablecoin called Tether. I hold their Treasuries. So I keep their Treasuries, and they have a lot of Treasuries." A person with direct knowledge of the matter told The Block that Cantor custodies "the vast vast majority" of Tether's reserves.[^31] -On January 27, 2025 Senator [[Elizabeth Warren]] wrote to Lutnick that Cantor Fitzgerald "holds a 5% stake in Tether and serves as Tether's asset manager," and that "you are handing over the reins of one of your companies to your 26-year-old son, who has worked closely with Tether on your behalf."[^31] On April 23, 2025 Cantor Equity Partners, Inc. and [[Twenty One Capital]], Inc. announced a business combination agreement, dated April 22, 2025, with entities of Tether, [[Bitfinex]] and [[SoftBank Group]]. [[Jack Mallers]] is Twenty One's chief executive. Twenty One began trading on the [[New York Stock Exchange]] as "XXI" on December 9, 2025, "majority-owned by Tether Investments, S.A. de C.V.... and Bitfinex, with significant minority ownership by SoftBank Group," holding over 43,500 bitcoin; Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. acted as financial and capital markets advisor to Cantor Equity Partners and placement agent for the PIPE financings.[^32] +On January 27, 2025 Senator [[Elizabeth Warren]] wrote to Lutnick that Cantor Fitzgerald "holds a 5% stake in Tether and serves as Tether's asset manager," and that "you are handing over the reins of one of your companies to your 26-year-old son, who has worked closely with Tether on your behalf."[^32] On April 23, 2025 Cantor Equity Partners, Inc. and [[Twenty One Capital]], Inc. announced a business combination agreement, dated April 22, 2025, with entities of Tether, [[Bitfinex]] and [[SoftBank Group]]. [[Jack Mallers]] is Twenty One's chief executive. Twenty One began trading on the [[New York Stock Exchange]] as "XXI" on December 9, 2025, "majority-owned by Tether Investments, S.A. de C.V.... and Bitfinex, with significant minority ownership by SoftBank Group," holding over 43,500 bitcoin; Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. acted as financial and capital markets advisor to Cantor Equity Partners and placement agent for the PIPE financings.[^33] ### SPACs -Cantor sponsors special purpose acquisition companies under the names CF Finance Acquisition Corp. and CF Acquisition Corp., and Cantor Equity Partners. [[CF Acquisition Corp. VI]], sponsored by [[CFAC Holdings VI, LLC]] and with Howard Lutnick as chairman and chief executive officer, closed its business combination with the video platform [[Rumble]] on September 16, 2022, following approval by its stockholders at a special meeting on September 15; the company was renamed Rumble Inc.[^33][^34] On December 20, 2024 Rumble announced a $775 million strategic investment from Tether at $7.50 per share, with Rumble's chief executive [[Chris Pavlovski]] retaining his controlling stake and Tether without the right to designate directors.[^35] +Cantor sponsors special purpose acquisition companies under the names CF Finance Acquisition Corp. and CF Acquisition Corp., and Cantor Equity Partners. [[CF Acquisition Corp. VI]], sponsored by [[CFAC Holdings VI, LLC]] and with Howard Lutnick as chairman and chief executive officer, closed its business combination with the video platform [[Rumble]] on September 16, 2022, following approval by its stockholders at a special meeting on September 15; the company was renamed Rumble Inc.[^34][^35] On December 20, 2024 Rumble announced a $775 million strategic investment from Tether at $7.50 per share, with Rumble's chief executive [[Chris Pavlovski]] retaining his controlling stake and Tether without the right to designate directors.[^36] -The SEC announced on December 12, 2024 that Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. had agreed, without admitting or denying the findings, to pay a $6.75 million civil penalty. The order found that in 2020 and 2021 a team of Cantor executives "managed and controlled" [[CF Finance Acquisition Corp. II]] and [[CF Acquisition Corp. V]], which raised $750 million in initial public offerings ahead of mergers with [[View, Inc.]] and [[Satellogic]], and that Cantor "caused the SPACs in their SEC filings to deny having had contact or substantive discussions with potential business combination targets prior to their IPOs" when personnel had "already commenced negotiations" with the companies they eventually merged with.[^36] +The SEC announced on December 12, 2024 that Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. had agreed, without admitting or denying the findings, to pay a $6.75 million civil penalty. The order found that in 2020 and 2021 a team of Cantor executives "managed and controlled" [[CF Finance Acquisition Corp. II]] and [[CF Acquisition Corp. V]], which raised $750 million in initial public offerings ahead of mergers with [[View, Inc.]] and [[Satellogic]], and that Cantor "caused the SPACs in their SEC filings to deny having had contact or substantive discussions with potential business combination targets prior to their IPOs" when personnel had "already commenced negotiations" with the companies they eventually merged with.[^37] ### Enforcement Record -The SEC announced on April 6, 2020 that Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. had agreed to pay $3.2 million for deficient "blue sheet" trading data: for "almost five years" the firm's submissions contained missing or incorrect data for "approximately 35 million transactions." The firm admitted the findings and was censured.[^37] The 2019 [[Commodity Futures Trading Commission]] orders against BGC Financial, L.P. and GFI Securities, LLC, and the earlier SEC and [[Financial Industry Regulatory Authority|FINRA]] settlements recited in them, are set out at BGC Group. BGC's annual report states that CF&Co has entered into guarantees on behalf of BGC and GFI for the foreign introducing brokers' obligations to the CFTC, for which BGC indemnifies CF&Co.[^6] +The SEC announced on April 6, 2020 that Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. had agreed to pay $3.2 million for deficient "blue sheet" trading data: for "almost five years" the firm's submissions contained missing or incorrect data for "approximately 35 million transactions." The firm admitted the findings and was censured.[^38] The 2019 [[Commodity Futures Trading Commission]] orders against BGC Financial, L.P. and GFI Securities, LLC, and the earlier SEC and [[Financial Industry Regulatory Authority|FINRA]] settlements recited in them, are set out at BGC Group. BGC's annual report states that CF&Co has entered into guarantees on behalf of BGC and GFI for the foreign introducing brokers' obligations to the CFTC, for which BGC indemnifies CF&Co.[^6] ### Government and Political Connections -An invitation sent on November 3, 2015 from the account "Lutnick, Howard" and forwarded to Epstein by his assistant [[Lesley Groff]] announced an event with [[Hillary Clinton]] at the Cantor Fitzgerald offices on November 11 from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., described as "a very intimate fundraising event," with a [[Hillary for America]] contribution form attached (EFTA02671545). At his May 6, 2026 House Oversight interview Lutnick said that emails addressed to "Howard Lutnick" or "Lutnick, Howard" "went to [[Matthew Gilbert]]. They did not go to me," and that "You would know if they went to me if they are listed as 'HWL.'"[^38][^15] Lutnick was confirmed as Secretary of Commerce on February 18, 2025, and stepped down that day as chairman and chief executive of BGC; Brandon Lutnick was appointed chief executive officer and chairman of Cantor and chief executive officer of CFGM, and [[Kyle Lutnick]] executive vice chairman of Cantor and president of CFGM.[^2][^3] On May 19, 2025 BGC announced it would repurchase 16,452,850 shares from Lutnick for $151,501,133 "in furtherance of Mr. Lutnick's U.S. government ethics agreement," and that Lutnick would transfer his ownership interest in Cantor to trusts for the benefit of Brandon, Kyle and his other adult children, with Brandon as controlling trustee. The divestiture of holdings in BGC, Cantor and CFGM was completed on October 6, 2025, including the sale of all voting shares of CFGM to trusts controlled by Brandon Lutnick, who beneficially owned 2.0 million BGC Class A and 109.4 million Class B shares, 75.2 percent of BGC's total voting power, as of the date of BGC's annual report for 2025.[^2][^3][^39] The 2012 and later documents on Lutnick's relationship with Epstein are at Howard Lutnick; the 2020 [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] complaint concerning Lutnick, BGC and Cantor is at BGC Group. +An invitation sent on November 3, 2015 from the account "Lutnick, Howard" and forwarded to Epstein by his assistant [[Lesley Groff]] announced an event with [[Hillary Clinton]] at the Cantor Fitzgerald offices on November 11 from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., described as "a very intimate fundraising event," with a [[Hillary for America]] contribution form attached (EFTA02671545). At his May 6, 2026 House Oversight interview Lutnick said that emails addressed to "Howard Lutnick" or "Lutnick, Howard" "went to [[Matthew Gilbert]]. They did not go to me," and that "You would know if they went to me if they are listed as 'HWL.'"[^16][^39] Lutnick was confirmed as Secretary of Commerce on February 18, 2025, and stepped down that day as chairman and chief executive of BGC; Brandon Lutnick was appointed chief executive officer and chairman of Cantor and chief executive officer of CFGM, and [[Kyle Lutnick]] executive vice chairman of Cantor and president of CFGM.[^2][^3] On May 19, 2025 BGC announced it would repurchase 16,452,850 shares from Lutnick for $151,501,133 "in furtherance of Mr. Lutnick's U.S. government ethics agreement," and that Lutnick would transfer his ownership interest in Cantor to trusts for the benefit of Brandon, Kyle and his other adult children, with Brandon as controlling trustee. The divestiture of holdings in BGC, Cantor and CFGM was completed on October 6, 2025, including the sale of all voting shares of CFGM to trusts controlled by Brandon Lutnick, who beneficially owned 2.0 million BGC Class A and 109.4 million Class B shares, 75.2 percent of BGC's total voting power, as of the date of BGC's annual report for 2025.[^2][^3][^40] The 2012 and later documents on Lutnick's relationship with Epstein are at Howard Lutnick; the 2020 [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] complaint concerning Lutnick, BGC and Cantor is at BGC Group. ### Footnotes @@ -181,30 +181,31 @@ An invitation sent on November 3, 2015 from the account "Lutnick, Howard" and fo [^10]: National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, *The 9/11 Commission Report* (2004), hearing list, "The Experience of the Attack," Alexander Hamilton Customs House, New York, March 31 to April 1, 2003. https://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf [^11]: BGC Group, Inc., Form 10-K for 2025, "Our Organizational Structure," Cantor and CFGM Class B holdings as of December 31, 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1094831/000162828026013162/bgcg-20251231.htm [^12]: BGC Partners, Inc., Form 10-K for 2019, Legal Proceedings, *In re BGC Partners, Inc. Derivative Litigation,* Consolidated C.A. No. 2018-0722-AGB (Del. Ch.). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1094831/000156459020007843/bgcp-10k_20191231.htm -[^13]: Federal Reserve Bank of New York, "Primary Dealers" list and "Additions and Removals," entry of July 31, 2006. https://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/primarydealers -[^14]: Cantor Equity Partners, Inc., prospectus (Form 424B4), 2024. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1865602/000121390024068145/ea0204552-10.htm -[^15]: U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, transcribed interview of Howard W. Lutnick, May 6, 2026, pp. 22, 26-29, 87-89. https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Lutnick-Transcript.pdf -[^16]: Target Corporation, definitive proxy statement (Schedule 14A), filed April 29, 2019, biography of Henrique De Castro. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/27419/000130817919000197/ltgt2019_def14a.htm -[^17]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00289560, DataSet 9, Series A Preferred Stock Purchase Agreement of AdFin Solutions, Inc., with Exhibit A, counterpart signature pages and letter agreement, July 2013; EFTA00289722, DataSet 9, stock certificate PA-7, July 23, 2013. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00289560.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00289722.pdf -[^18]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00392047, DataSet 9, email of April 19, 2013 on the April 10, 2013 closing. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00392047.pdf -[^19]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00289541, DataSet 9, Note Purchase Agreement dated December 26, 2013 (signature page EFTA00289550); EFTA00289527, DataSet 9, stockholder consent, December 26, 2013. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00289541.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00289527.pdf -[^20]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01942504, DataSet 10, email from David Mitchell to Jeffrey Epstein, January 7, 2014. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01942504.pdf -[^21]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01084694, DataSet 9, letter from David Mitchell, February 16, 2016, with term sheet; EFTA00796718, DataSet 9, AdFin cap table as of January 4, 2018. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01084694.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00796718.pdf -[^22]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01050772, DataSet 9, email thread, May 28, 2018. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01050772.pdf -[^23]: Weissbrot, Alison. "After A Rocky Road, Ad/Fin Shuts Its Doors." *AdExchanger,* October 17, 2019. https://www.adexchanger.com/agencies/after-a-rocky-road-ad-fin-shuts-its-doors/ -[^24]: Verity, Andy, Rob Byrne and Ben Milne. "How US commerce secretary's Epstein links were uncovered by British whistleblower." *BBC News,* July 14, 2026. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9q28dlyxrzo -[^25]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01107738 and EFTA01107739, DataSet 9, term sheet of August 29, 2013; EFTA02573653, DataSet 11, thread "Re: HL Loan - CD/SM call note 8.8.13," August 9, 2013 (line-break characters of the text layer omitted); EFTA01949796 and EFTA01949827, DataSet 10, emails of November 16, 2013. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01107738.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02573653.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01949827.pdf -[^26]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01958492, EFTA01958705 and EFTA01958916, DataSet 10, thread "Term Sheet from Cantor Fitzgerald to Mr. T," August 30 to September 2, 2013. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01958492.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01958705.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01958916.pdf -[^27]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01141453 to EFTA01141460, DataSet 9, "Agreement for Referrals" (draft) with Exhibits A and B. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01141453.pdf -[^28]: Verity, Andy, Rob Byrne and Ben Milne. "How US commerce secretary's Epstein links were uncovered by British whistleblower." *BBC News,* July 14, 2026. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9q28dlyxrzo -[^29]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02678017, DataSet 11, email from David Stern to Jeffrey Epstein, "Fwd: Draft Cantor agreement," November 14, 2013. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02678017.pdf -[^30]: Khatri, Yogita. "Cantor Fitzgerald CEO says Tether has the billions of dollars in reserves it claims." *The Block,* January 16, 2024 (edited by Nathan Crooks). https://www.theblock.co/post/272893/cantor-fitzgerald-ceo-tether-reserves -[^31]: Warren, Elizabeth, letter to Howard Lutnick, January 27, 2025. https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/letter_to_lutnick.pdf -[^32]: Cantor Equity Partners, Inc., Current Report on Form 8-K, April 23, 2025 (business combination agreement dated April 22, 2025). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1865602/000121390025034374/ea0239222-8k425_cantor.htm ; Twenty One Capital, Inc., Current Report on Form 8-K, exhibit 99.1, press release of December 8, 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2070457/000121390025119445/ea026879401ex99-1_twenty.htm ; Cantor Equity Partners, Inc., Form 8-K, exhibit 99.1, press release of July 29, 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1865602/000121390025068458/ea025053801ex99-1_cantor.htm -[^33]: CF Acquisition Corp. VI, Current Report on Form 8-K, September 22, 2022 (report of September 16, 2022 closing; sponsor CFAC Holdings VI, LLC). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1830081/000121390022058065/ea166065-8k_rumbleinc.htm -[^34]: CF Acquisition Corp. VI, Current Report on Form 8-K, December 2, 2021 (signed by Howard W. Lutnick). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1830081/000121390021063093/ea151639-8k_cfacquisit6.htm -[^35]: Rumble Inc., Current Report on Form 8-K, exhibit 99.1, press release of December 20, 2024. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1830081/000121390024111292/ea022562201ex99-1_rumble.htm -[^36]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "SEC Charges Cantor Fitzgerald Over Misleading SPAC Disclosures," press release 2024-199, December 12, 2024. https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2024-199 -[^37]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "Cantor Fitzgerald Agrees to Pay $3.2 Million to Settle Charges for Providing Deficient Blue Sheet Data," press release 2020-81, April 6, 2020. https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2020-81 -[^38]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02671545, DataSet 11, email forwarded by Lesley Groff, "November 11th - Hillary Clinton Event at Cantor Fitzgerald." https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02671545.pdf -[^39]: BGC Group, Inc., Form 8-K, exhibit 99.1, press release of May 19, 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1094831/000121390025045119/ea024268501ex99-1_bgc.htm +[^13]: In re BGC Partners, Inc. Derivative Litigation, No. 359, 2022 (Del. Aug. 10, 2023) (order affirming the Court of Chancery's final judgment of September 27, 2022, entered on its memorandum opinion of August 19, 2022). https://courts.delaware.gov/Opinions/Download.aspx?id=351370 +[^14]: Federal Reserve Bank of New York, "Primary Dealers" list and "Additions and Removals," entry of July 31, 2006. https://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/primarydealers +[^15]: Cantor Equity Partners, Inc., prospectus (Form 424B4), 2024. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1865602/000121390024068145/ea0204552-10.htm +[^16]: U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, transcribed interview of Howard W. Lutnick, May 6, 2026, pp. 22, 26-29, 87-89. https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Lutnick-Transcript.pdf +[^17]: Target Corporation, definitive proxy statement (Schedule 14A), filed April 29, 2019, biography of Henrique De Castro. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/27419/000130817919000197/ltgt2019_def14a.htm +[^18]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00289560, DataSet 9, Series A Preferred Stock Purchase Agreement of AdFin Solutions, Inc., with Exhibit A, counterpart signature pages and letter agreement, July 2013; EFTA00289722, DataSet 9, stock certificate PA-7, July 23, 2013. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00289560.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00289722.pdf +[^19]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00392047, DataSet 9, email of April 19, 2013 on the April 10, 2013 closing. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00392047.pdf +[^20]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00289541, DataSet 9, Note Purchase Agreement dated December 26, 2013 (signature page EFTA00289550); EFTA00289527, DataSet 9, stockholder consent, December 26, 2013. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00289541.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00289527.pdf +[^21]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01942504, DataSet 10, email from David Mitchell to Jeffrey Epstein, January 7, 2014. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01942504.pdf +[^22]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01084694, DataSet 9, letter from David Mitchell, February 16, 2016, with term sheet; EFTA00796718, DataSet 9, AdFin cap table as of January 4, 2018. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01084694.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00796718.pdf +[^23]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01050772, DataSet 9, email thread, May 28, 2018. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01050772.pdf +[^24]: Weissbrot, Alison. "After A Rocky Road, Ad/Fin Shuts Its Doors." *AdExchanger,* October 17, 2019. https://www.adexchanger.com/agencies/after-a-rocky-road-ad-fin-shuts-its-doors/ +[^25]: Verity, Andy, Rob Byrne and Ben Milne. "How US commerce secretary's Epstein links were uncovered by British whistleblower." *BBC News,* July 14, 2026. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9q28dlyxrzo +[^26]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01107738 and EFTA01107739, DataSet 9, term sheet of August 29, 2013; EFTA02573653, DataSet 11, thread "Re: HL Loan - CD/SM call note 8.8.13," August 9, 2013 (line-break characters of the text layer omitted); EFTA01949796 and EFTA01949827, DataSet 10, emails of November 16, 2013. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01107738.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02573653.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01949827.pdf +[^27]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01958492, EFTA01958705 and EFTA01958916, DataSet 10, thread "Term Sheet from Cantor Fitzgerald to Mr. T," August 30 to September 2, 2013. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01958492.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01958705.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01958916.pdf +[^28]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01141453 to EFTA01141460, DataSet 9, "Agreement for Referrals" (draft) with Exhibits A and B. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01141453.pdf +[^29]: Verity, Andy, Rob Byrne and Ben Milne. "How US commerce secretary's Epstein links were uncovered by British whistleblower." *BBC News,* July 14, 2026. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9q28dlyxrzo +[^30]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02678017, DataSet 11, email from David Stern to Jeffrey Epstein, "Fwd: Draft Cantor agreement," November 14, 2013. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02678017.pdf +[^31]: Khatri, Yogita. "Cantor Fitzgerald CEO says Tether has the billions of dollars in reserves it claims." *The Block,* January 16, 2024 (edited by Nathan Crooks). https://www.theblock.co/post/272893/cantor-fitzgerald-ceo-tether-reserves +[^32]: Warren, Elizabeth, letter to Howard Lutnick, January 27, 2025. https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/letter_to_lutnick.pdf +[^33]: Cantor Equity Partners, Inc., Current Report on Form 8-K, April 23, 2025 (business combination agreement dated April 22, 2025). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1865602/000121390025034374/ea0239222-8k425_cantor.htm ; Twenty One Capital, Inc., Current Report on Form 8-K, exhibit 99.1, press release of December 8, 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2070457/000121390025119445/ea026879401ex99-1_twenty.htm ; Cantor Equity Partners, Inc., Form 8-K, exhibit 99.1, press release of July 29, 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1865602/000121390025068458/ea025053801ex99-1_cantor.htm +[^34]: CF Acquisition Corp. VI, Current Report on Form 8-K, September 22, 2022 (report of September 16, 2022 closing; sponsor CFAC Holdings VI, LLC). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1830081/000121390022058065/ea166065-8k_rumbleinc.htm +[^35]: CF Acquisition Corp. VI, Current Report on Form 8-K, December 2, 2021 (signed by Howard W. Lutnick). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1830081/000121390021063093/ea151639-8k_cfacquisit6.htm +[^36]: Rumble Inc., Current Report on Form 8-K, exhibit 99.1, press release of December 20, 2024. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1830081/000121390024111292/ea022562201ex99-1_rumble.htm +[^37]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "SEC Charges Cantor Fitzgerald Over Misleading SPAC Disclosures," press release 2024-199, December 12, 2024. https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2024-199 +[^38]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "Cantor Fitzgerald Agrees to Pay $3.2 Million to Settle Charges for Providing Deficient Blue Sheet Data," press release 2020-81, April 6, 2020. https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2020-81 +[^39]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02671545, DataSet 11, email forwarded by Lesley Groff, "November 11th - Hillary Clinton Event at Cantor Fitzgerald." https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02671545.pdf +[^40]: BGC Group, Inc., Form 8-K, exhibit 99.1, press release of May 19, 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1094831/000121390025045119/ea024268501ex99-1_bgc.htm diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Center for Security and Emerging Technology.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Center for Security and Emerging Technology.md index 5bf24e6c..8629fc43 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Center for Security and Emerging Technology.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Center for Security and Emerging Technology.md @@ -31,14 +31,14 @@ relations: start: 2021-03 fn: 4 created: 2026-09-22 -updated: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- The Center for Security and Emerging Technology is a policy research center in [[Georgetown University]]'s [[Walsh School of Foreign Service]]. [[Open Philanthropy]] recommended a grant of 55 million dollars over five years in January 2019 to launch it as "a new think tank dedicated to policy analysis at the intersection of national and international security and emerging technologies," led by [[Jason Matheny]], former director of the [[Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity]]. The grant investigator was [[Luke Muehlhauser]]. The founding team named on the grant page included [[Dewey Murdick]], director of data science, formerly chief analytics officer and deputy chief scientist at the [[Department of Homeland Security]] and an IARPA program manager; [[William Hannas]], lead analyst, formerly a member of the Senior Intelligence Service at the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] and "the [[Open Source Enterprise]]'s primary China science and technology analyst," who had also served with the [[Foreign Broadcast Information Service]]; and [[Helen Toner]], director of strategy and plans, previously a senior research analyst at Open Philanthropy.[^1] ### Funding -In August 2021 CSET announced that "its main funder," Open Philanthropy, had increased its grant by 42 million dollars, bringing total funding to more than 100 million dollars through 2025; Murdick also credited the [[William and Flora Hewlett Foundation]], the P[[ublic Interest Technology University Network]] and [[Georgetown]].[^2] In October 2023 the *[[Politico]]* reporter [[Brendan Bordelon]] described CSET as "funded almost entirely by Open Philanthropy," and reported that Open Philanthropy also paid the salaries of fellows at CSET through the [[Horizon Institute for Public Service]], a nonprofit he wrote that Open Philanthropy had "effectively created in 2022."[^3] +In August 2021 CSET announced that "its main funder," Open Philanthropy, had increased its grant by 42 million dollars, bringing total funding to more than 100 million dollars through 2025; Murdick also credited the [[William and Flora Hewlett Foundation]], the [[Public Interest Technology University Network]] and Georgetown.[^2] In October 2023 the *[[Politico]]* reporter [[Brendan Bordelon]] described CSET as "funded almost entirely by Open Philanthropy," and reported that Open Philanthropy also paid the salaries of fellows at CSET through the [[Horizon Institute for Public Service]], a nonprofit he wrote that Open Philanthropy had "effectively created in 2022."[^3] ### Staff diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Columbia University.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Columbia University.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..a2ce873a --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Columbia University.md @@ -0,0 +1,278 @@ +--- +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +title: Columbia University +aliases: + - Columbia + - Columbia College + - King's College + - Columbia University in the City of New York + - Columbia U +tags: + - Organization + - AcademicInstitution + - CIA + - MKULTRA + - LSD + - Parapsychology + - StarGate + - Tachyons + - ManhattanProject + - ForeignBroadcastIntelligenceService + - HumanEcology + - RussianInstitute + - ColdWar +category: "Private Organization" +summary: "Columbia University is a New York research university whose laboratories and faculty appear in the Manhattan Project, CIA behavioral research, Army drug testing, Cold War area studies and Star Gate records." +location: "New York City" +relations: + - type: head_of + with: "[[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]" + reverse: true + role: "president of Columbia University" + start: 1948 + end: 1953 + fn: 9 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Harold Abramson]]" + reverse: true + role: "assistant professor of physiology, per the CIA memorandum of December 2, 1953" + start: 1935 + fn: 20 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Goodwin Watson]]" + reverse: true + role: "social psychologist of Columbia University, announced as head of the FBIS Analysis Section in October 1941" + start: 1941 + fn: 30 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Gerald Feinberg]]" + reverse: true + role: "physics professor, Department of Physics" + fn: 47 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[William Thetford]]" + reverse: true + role: "associate professor of medical psychology, Department of Psychiatry, Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center" + start: 1958 + fn: 24 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Helen Schucman]]" + reverse: true + role: "assistant professor, later associate professor, Department of Psychiatry, Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center" + start: 1958 + fn: 24 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Adolf Berle]]" + reverse: true + role: "associate professor and professor of corporation law" + start: 1927 + end: 1963 + fn: 41 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Philip Mosely]]" + reverse: true + role: "professor of international relations and director of the Russian Institute" + fn: 14 + - type: funded + with: "[[Rockefeller Foundation]]" + reverse: true + role: "grants to the Bureau of Applied Social Research, the Russian Institute and the American Press Institute" + start: 1947 + end: 1949 + fn: 13 +--- + +Columbia University is a private research university in [[New York City]]. It was founded in 1754 as King's College by royal charter of King George II, took the name Columbia in 1784, and moved to its [[Morningside Heights]] campus in 1897.[^1] Its laboratories, institutes, clinicians and graduates recur in the documented record of the [[Manhattan Project]], CIA-sponsored behavioral research, Army-contracted drug testing, Cold War area studies, parapsychology and the analysis staff of the wartime [[Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service]]. + +### The Manhattan Project at Columbia + +[[Niels Bohr]] carried news of uranium fission to the United States in January 1939, and from [[Princeton University]] it spread to neighboring physicists including [[Enrico Fermi]] at Columbia. Fermi, [[John R. Dunning]] and [[George B. Pegram]] began a search at Columbia for the ionization pulses expected from fission fragments.[^2] Pegram made the first contact between the physicists and the government in March 1939, by telephoning the [[U.S. Navy|Navy Department]].[^3] The first contract of the National Defense Research Committee was let to Columbia on November 8, 1940, for $40,000, and [[Harold Urey]] began work on isotope separation by the centrifuge method under a Navy contract in the fall of 1940.[^4] In February 1940 concentrated samples of uranium 234, 235 and 238 prepared by [[Alfred Nier]] were turned over to E. T. Booth, A. von Grosse and Dunning for investigation with the Columbia cyclotron, and the group showed that uranium 235 was the isotope fissionable by thermal neutrons.[^5] + +In January 1942 [[Arthur Compton]] concentrated the work for which he was responsible at the [[University of Chicago]], and the Columbia group under Fermi moved there in the spring. Diffusion research and heavy-water production stayed at Columbia under Urey, and the Columbia centrifuge work went to the Standard Oil Development Company.[^6] The diffusion work was carried on at Columbia under the Office of Scientific Research and Development until May 1, 1943, when the Manhattan District took it over. Urey directed the Columbia part until February 1945, and on March 1, 1945 the laboratory passed from the university to the Carbide and Carbon Chemicals Corporation. The Columbia laboratories had by then been named the SAM Laboratories.[^7] Columbia's own history records that atomic research by [[I. I. Rabi]], Fermi and [[Polykarp Kusch]] brought the Department of Physics to international prominence in the 1940s, and that Pupin Hall was designated a national historic landmark in 1966 for atomic research undertaken there from 1925.[^1] A student-newspaper account of the university's later CIA contacts states that Rabi worked on the Manhattan Project at Columbia.[^8] + +### Eisenhower and the American Assembly + +[[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] became president of Columbia in 1948, after retiring as Army chief of staff.[^9] [[Grayson Kirk]] served as provost from 1949 to 1951 and as president from 1953 to 1968. His oral history for the Eisenhower Library covers Eisenhower's adjustment to the presidency, the operation and goals of the American Assembly, Eisenhower's involvement with the Institute for War and Peace, and the donation of the Arden House estate to the university by [[Averell Harriman]].[^10] The economist Eli Ginzberg, who knew Eisenhower at Columbia, discussed in his interviews Eisenhower's appointment of Kirk as provost, the American Assembly and Eisenhower's interest in it, and his views on [[Richard Nixon]] and [[Allen Dulles]].[^11] The Columbia Libraries describe the [[American Assembly]] as founded in 1950 by Eisenhower during his Columbia presidency.[^12] + +### The Russian Institute + +Columbia founded its School of International Affairs in 1946.[^1] The [[Rockefeller Foundation]] 1949 annual report lists among its appropriations to Columbia University the "development of the Russian Institute" (grant RF 45034) and "special fellowships in the Russian Institute" (grant RF 47045).[^13] A Columbia Daily Spectator article of April 1978, which draws on material released by the CIA under the Freedom of Information Act, states that the institute's founder, [[Geroid Tanquary Robinson]], had served in the [[Office of Strategic Services]] as chief of its USSR division, and that in 1950 he invited 50 CIA, foreign service and armed forces officers to study at the institute. The article places [[Philip Mosely]] as director of the institute from 1951 to 1954, and as a consultant to the War Documentation Project, a study of captured documents on Soviet psychological warfare that Columbia operated in Virginia from 1954 to 1955.[^8] + +On December 17, 1954 the executive director of the [[Council on Foreign Relations]] wrote to Dulles, then Director of Central Intelligence, that Mosely, "Professor of International Relations at Columbia, Director of its Russian Institute," had agreed to become the Council's Director of Studies from July 1, 1955. The letter reports that a [[Ford Foundation]] grant and a Carnegie Corporation grant of $500,000 had put the Council in a position to plan its study program.[^14] A White House memorandum to Dulles, sent in connection with a visit by Dulles and [[Richard Bissell]] to an evening session of the Quantico Panel on June 9, attaches a list of panel members because "Mr. Rockefeller felt you would find [it] useful." The list gives "Dr. Philip Mosely, Director, Russian Institute, Columbia University" among the participants (see [[Quantico Vulnerabilities Panel]]).[^15] + +### The Bureau of Applied Social Research + +[[Paul Lazarsfeld]]'s Bureau of Applied Social Research (BASR) at Columbia is one of at least six postwar communication research centers that [[Christopher Simpson]] writes grew up as de facto adjuncts of government psychological warfare programs. Simpson reports that government money, frequently without public acknowledgment, made up more than 75 percent of the annual budget of the bureau for years.[^16] He also reports that about half of the bureau's budget from 1941 to 1946 came from commercial work such as readership studies for Time and Life, with the remainder drawn from a Rockefeller Foundation grant and, to a much lesser degree, from Columbia; by 1949 the bureau was deeply in debt to the university.[^17] In 1951 Stanley Bigman of the bureau prepared a confidential manual on survey research, *Are We Hitting the Target?*, for the State Department's International Information and Educational Exchange Program, the predecessor of the [[United States Information Agency]].[^18] + +The Rockefeller Foundation's records show a Columbia grant of $25,000 in 1947 for a program of study by German broadcasters, and two grants totaling $50,000 in 1949 for Japanese and Korean broadcasters, planned by the bureau at the request of the occupying authorities. A further $25,000 in 1949 went to the American Press Institute at Columbia for a program for twelve Japanese journalists, and the bureau received $23,000 for a study of social conditions affecting productivity in the Ruhr area.[^19] + +### CIA contacts with the faculty + +In April 1978 the Columbia Daily Spectator published an account, based on thousands of pages released by the CIA under the Freedom of Information Act, of the agency's relations with Columbia faculty "over more than thirty years." It describes a recruiter from the CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service who visited the university in March, met two department chairmen about candidates for foreign-language positions, and received the names of three possible recruits. The article identifies the chairmen only through deleted phrases in the CIA documents, and reports that the university's president, [[William McGill]], said the visit "does sound like a traditional CIA recruiting practice." It states that through the 1950s and into the 1960s professors "sought and directed CIA-financed research" without disclosing the sponsorship to colleagues, students or the public. Its examples are a Teachers College study of scientific breakthroughs proposed and directed by Professor Frederick Fitzpatrick, a Naval Reserve commander; studies of personality at the Neuropsychiatric Institute; the War Documentation Project; a Russian-English technical dictionary, whose steering committee included Rabi and Schuyler Wallace, director of the School of International Affairs; and a proposal to bring CIA and military officers to the Russian Institute. The article also reports that when McGill asked Admiral [[Stansfield Turner]] in 1977 to confirm that no covert relationships with faculty existed, Turner replied that this was "not a conclusion that I am prepared to either affirm or deny."[^8] + +### LSD, the Psychiatric Institute and Mount Sinai + +A CIA memorandum of December 2, 1953, from the chief of the agency's SSD to Colonel Edwards, describes [[Harold Abramson]] as a physician who was "educated at Columbia University, receiving his M.D. in 1923," and records that he was "Assistant Professor of Physiology at Columbia University since 1935." The memorandum, filed among the [[Project MKUltra]] records, adds that Abramson was associate physician and chief of the allergy clinic at [[Mount Sinai Hospital]], and that "Subject is a physician but not known as a psychiatrist."[^20] The Senate's 1977 joint hearing on MKUltra describes Abramson as an allergist and immunologist practicing in New York who held no degree in psychiatry but "was associated with research projects supported indirectly by the CIA," and whose work [[Sidney Gottlieb]] and Dr. [[Robert Lashbrook]] followed closely in the early 1950s. In November 1953 Lashbrook took [[Frank Olson]] to New York for two days of consultations with Abramson. At about 2:30 a.m. on Saturday, November 28, Olson fell to his death from the tenth-floor window of a room in the Statler Hotel.[^21] + +Across the East River, the [[New York State Psychiatric Institute]] (NYSPI), which Kenneth Wapnick's account describes as part of the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, was the site of the Army experiment in which [[Harold Blauer]] died.[^22] The Second Circuit's opinion in the suit brought by Blauer's estate recounts that Blauer, 42 years old, was admitted voluntarily to NYSPI in December 1952 for depression, and that on January 8, 1953 NYSPI personnel injected him with a synthetic mescaline derivative furnished by the [[U.S. Army|Army]] Chemical Corps. The opinion names [[Paul Hoch]] as the NYSPI medical official in charge of administering the compound.[^23] + +The same opinion sets out the estate's account of what followed. According to records relied on by the estate, a conference of federal counsel and medical personnel in early July 1954 discussed claims of malpractice that might be anticipated, and Hoch was to testify as an expert if the source of the compound had to be revealed. The court records that Hoch testified Blauer's death was caused by the injection and that the administration of the drug "was not in accordance with generally accepted medical practice." The estate alleged that Hoch then testified falsely before the New York Court of Claims that the drug had been used for diagnosis, and that he was well aware the compound was an experiment for chemical warfare purposes. The opinion attributes these allegations to the estate. It records that the estate was never made aware of the Army's involvement, and that the estate signed a release in exchange for $18,000.[^23] + +### Thetford, Schucman and the Human Ecology funding + +[[William Thetford]] became an associate professor of medical psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in February 1958, after working at the Cornell University Medical Center under [[Harold Wolff]]. [[Helen Schucman]] joined the department as an assistant professor and was later promoted to associate professor, according to [[Kenneth Wapnick]], who knew both. Wapnick writes that Thetford was recruited to head the psychology department of Presbyterian Hospital and a pre-doctoral training program in clinical psychology.[^24] Schucman and Thetford later became consultants to an interdisciplinary research project at the Cornell medical center; Wapnick describes its weekly meetings as the setting from which the scribing of *A Course in Miracles* began in 1965.[^25] + +The Spectator's 1978 account states that Thetford, by then a retired professor of medical psychiatry, worked from 1960 to 1966 on studies of human personality funded by CIA front organizations. In a letter to President McGill of October 1977, as the Spectator reports it, Thetford wrote that he "knew throughout that time the real source of the funding," which he had learned from Wolff, a former colleague at Cornell "who founded one of the front organizations with the CIA's aid." The article adds that Thetford wrote that he later regretted "not dissociating myself from the sources of funding," and that he believed at the time he was serving the country.[^8] At the 1977 joint hearing, the CIA psychologist [[John Gittinger]] told Senator [[Edward Kennedy]] that the [[Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology]] was established to fund psychological, sociological and anthropological research, that "the Agency in effect provided the money," and that many recipients "had no knowledge that they were getting CIA money."[^26] The hearing record also states that the Society, later the Human Ecology Fund, was an outgrowth of QKHILLTOP, a 1954 project on Chinese Communist brainwashing whose early studies were believed to have been conducted by the Cornell University Medical School Human Ecology Study Programs.[^27] + +A December 1987 review of the Personality Assessment System by [[Nevin Lantz]] of SRI International, prepared for the CIA's contracting officer's representative, lists among continuing research on the test the work of "Saunders (MARS Measurements Associates), and Thetford and Schucman (Columbia University)." Its bibliography cites a 1962 convention paper by Schucman, D. R. Saunders and Thetford applying syndrome analysis to subjects with ulcerative colitis, and a 1970 article by Schucman and Thetford in the *Journal of Abnormal Psychology*.[^28] A book review in the Star Gate files lists "Helen Cohn Schucman of A Course in Miracles" among modern channelers.[^29] + +### The Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service + +In October 1941 [[Harold N. Graves Jr.]] announced that Goodwin Watson, "eminent social psychologist of Columbia University," would accept a P-6 grade and head the Analysis Section of the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service.[^30] Watson accepted the post in a letter of October 22, 1941 and entered on duty November 17, 1941.[^31] + +In 1943 a House appropriations subcommittee moved against Watson and two other federal employees, [[William E. Dodd Jr.]] and [[Robert Morss Lovett]]. The rider that followed, Section 304 of the appropriations act, cut off their pay. In [[United States v. Lovett]], decided in 1946, the Supreme Court held that Section 304 operated as a bill of attainder against the three respondents.[^32] + +### Intelligence officers and diplomats + +[[Thomas Karamessines]], the CIA's deputy director for plans from 1967 to 1973, graduated from Columbia in 1938 and from its law school two years later, and served with [[Thomas E. Dewey]] as deputy assistant district attorney for New York County in 1941 and 1942, according to his 1978 obituary in the *Washington Post*. The obituary records that he then joined the Army, was selected for the Office of Strategic Services, served in London and Cairo, and remained in Greece until 1947.[^33] [[Lawrence Walsh]], who was deputy assistant district attorney in New York County from 1938 to 1941 and counsel to Governor Dewey from 1943 to 1951, took his A.B. at Columbia in 1932 and his LL.B. at Columbia Law School in 1935; his papers, 1919 to 2008, are held at Columbia.[^34] [[Walt Rostow]] taught as an instructor in economics at Columbia for the year after his Yale doctorate in 1940, before joining the Office of Strategic Services.[^35] [[Claiborne Pell]] took a master's degree at Columbia in 1946, and his Senate papers include a Columbia University speech of May 3, 1961.[^36] [[John R. Everett]], later president of the [[New School for Social Research]], took an M.A. in economics at Columbia in 1943 and a Ph.D. in philosophy in 1945, and taught philosophy there from 1943 to 1945.[^37] + +[[Garrison Rapmund]], a retired Army major general, took his M.D. at Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1953. A Columbia Medicine memorial states that he trained in pediatrics at Babies Hospital, became an assistant surgeon general for research and development, and was a scientific adviser to the [[National Institutes of Health]], the [[Federal Aviation Administration]] and the [[Department of Energy]].[^38] The Defense Intelligence Agency's 1991 plan for [[Project Stargate|Project Star Gate]] carries a biography of Rapmund giving the same degree, and a Star Gate roster lists him as an observer on the Scientific Oversight Committee.[^39] + +### Lawyers, financiers and political figures + +[[Roy Cohn]]'s FBI file records, in a New York office report on his application for appointment to the [[United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York]], that he received an A.B. from Columbia College in 1945 and an LL.B. in 1947.[^40] [[Adolf Berle]] served as associate professor and then professor of corporation law at Columbia from 1927 to 1963 and as professor emeritus from 1963, according to the finding aid of his papers at the [[Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library]], which also lists a Columbia University series for 1946 to 1971. The same finding aid records that as assistant secretary of state from 1938 to 1944 his duties included coordinating United States and foreign intelligence activities, that he was a trustee of the [[Free Europe Committee]] from 1948 to 1963, and that in the 1950s and 1960s he assisted the [[Rockefeller Brothers Fund]], the Rockefeller Foundation and the Committee on Human Ecology.[^41] [[José A. Cabranes]], later a judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, took his A.B. at Columbia in 1961.[^42] [[Jay Lefkowitz]], named Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy in 2002, earned both his history degree and his law degree at Columbia.[^43] [[Alvin Johnson]] earned a Ph.D. in economics at Columbia in 1902 and taught there. In 1919 he joined a group of New Republic colleagues and Columbia professors, among them [[Charles Beard]], [[James Harvey Robinson]] and [[John Dewey]], who founded the New School for Social Research; the New School's history dates the school's origin to Columbia president [[Nicholas Murray Butler]]'s dismissal in 1917 of Henry Dana and James McKeen Cattell for opposing the war.[^44] + +The [[Rockefeller family]] and Columbia were tied by land and by schooling. [[John D. Rockefeller Jr.]] made a commitment on October 1, 1928 to lease from Columbia the three blocks between 48th and 51st Streets on which [[Rockefeller Center]] was built; the contract was signed on December 31, 1928 at an annual rent of approximately $3.5 million for 1928 to 1952, with options for three 21-year renewals. The city's landmark designation report describes the property as the "Upper Estate," conveyed to Columbia College in 1814 under an aid-to-education act, and records that bronze plaques in Rockefeller Plaza identified it as the property of Columbia University until the later sale to Rockefeller Center, Inc.[^45] The Lincoln School of Teachers College, established in 1917 with the General Education Board funding of [[John D. Rockefeller]], was owned and operated by Teachers College, Columbia University.[^46] + +### Scientists and psi researchers + +[[Gerald Feinberg]], a physicist in Columbia's Department of Physics, worked on [[Tachyon]] theory, the hypothesis of particles that travel faster than light. In February 1970 [[Scientific American]] published his article "Particles That Go Faster Than Light." The article describes a search for tachyons by a group at Columbia that examined bubble-chamber photographs for indirect evidence of neutral tachyons.[^47] + +Feinberg's work was carried into the parapsychology contracts of the [[Stanford Research Institute]] (SRI). A technical proposal dated October 1, 1973 for a "Perceptual Augmentation Techniques" program, prepared by [[Hal Puthoff]] and [[Russell Targ]], named Feinberg of Columbia and [[Charles Tart]] of the University of California as professors who "may be called upon to act as consultants."[^48] Later SRI research documents on remote viewing attribute an "extradimensional hypothesis" to "Targ, Puthoff, and May (SRI), G. Feinberg (Columbia University), and E. Rauscher (University of California Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory)."[^49] A December 1979 report of the [[Grill Flame]] Scientific Evaluation Committee, chaired by [[Manfred Gale]], reproduces the same passage.[^50] In 1974 Feinberg presented a paper, "Precognition: A Memory of Things Future?", at the twenty-third annual conference of the [[Parapsychology Foundation]] in Geneva. The paper suggested that precognition might be knowledge of a future state of the percipient's mind rather than of an objective state of the physical world.[^51] In April 1977 Targ, Puthoff and E. C. May listed a paper on the state of the art in remote viewing studies at SRI for a New York special session on psychic research held April 19 to 21 of that year.[^52] + +The [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] (DIA) listed Columbia among the "universities involved in courses, research, or degrees in parapsychology" in an August 7, 1984 report on psychoenergetics research. The exhibit places Columbia University beside [[Harvard University]], Princeton University and the University of Chicago.[^53] The Star Gate Scientific Oversight Committee roster lists [[Melvin Schwartz]], with a biography giving a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1988 and a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1958 (physics).[^54] + +Irving Langmuir's colloquium on "pathological science," given at the Knolls Research Laboratory on December 18, 1953, was transcribed and edited for the CIA. The transcript records that on April 23, 1920 "Professor Bergen Davis from Columbia University" gave a colloquium in Langmuir's laboratory, and that Langmuir never published his own investigation of the Davis-Barnes effect.[^55] The psychologist [[Arthur Jensen]] received his Ph.D. from Columbia in 1956.[^56] + +### The 1968 disturbances and the Institute for Defense Analyses + +The fact-finding commission appointed to investigate the April and May 1968 disturbances at Columbia was chaired by [[Archibald Cox]] of Harvard. Its report states that Columbia became an institutional member of the [[Institute for Defense Analyses]] (IDA), a body created to give the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff access to university research on weapons systems and warfare, and that Kirk and the Columbia trustee [[William A. M. Burden]] served on the IDA board of trustees.[^57] The report records that in January 1968 Kirk appointed a faculty committee under Professor Louis Henkin to study Columbia's external relations, that in early April the trustees approved ending formal institutional sponsorship of IDA while having IDA appoint one member of the university community as an individual trustee, and that critics took this as an attempt to claim severance while keeping the relationship. It reports that the leaders of Students for a Democratic Society cultivated the IDA issue, and that six students faced discipline for the March 27 IDA demonstration.[^58] The commission treats the planned gymnasium in Morningside Park as a second source of the protest.[^59] + +[^1]: Columbia University, "A Brief History of Columbia," columbia.edu/content/history.html, capture of 2012 (founding in 1754 as King's College by royal charter of King George II; renamed Columbia in 1784; the title Columbia University adopted in 1896; the move to Morningside Heights in 1897; the School of International Affairs founded in 1946; atomic research by Rabi, Fermi and Kusch; Pupin Hall designated a national historic landmark in 1966). https://web.archive.org/web/2012/http://www.columbia.edu/content/history.html + +[^2]: H. D. Smyth, *Atomic Energy for Military Purposes* (Princeton University Press, 1945), para. 1.53. https://archive.org/details/atomicenergyform00smytrich + +[^3]: Smyth, *Atomic Energy for Military Purposes*, paras. 3.4 and 3.6. + +[^4]: Smyth, *Atomic Energy for Military Purposes*, paras. 3.10 and 3.12 (NDRC contract NDCrc-32, signed November 8, 1940, $40,000; Urey's centrifuge work under a Navy contract). + +[^5]: Smyth, *Atomic Energy for Military Purposes*, para. 10.1. + +[^6]: Smyth, *Atomic Energy for Military Purposes*, para. 5.12. + +[^7]: Smyth, *Atomic Energy for Military Purposes*, para. 10.23, pp. 172-173 and para. 10.26 (the SAM Laboratories). + +[^8]: *Columbia Daily Spectator*, article of April 1978 on CIA relations with Columbia faculty, reproduced in the CIA reading room as CIA-RDP90-00806R000100330008-6. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00806r000100330008-6 + +[^9]: Miller Center, University of Virginia, "Dwight D. Eisenhower: Life Before the Presidency" (president of Columbia University beginning in 1948). https://millercenter.org/president/eisenhower/life-before-the-presidency + +[^10]: Eisenhower Library, Oral History Project, finding aid OH-364, Grayson L. Kirk (provost 1949-51; president 1953-68), interview by David Horrocks, 1975. https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/research/oral-histories/oral-history-finding-aids/ohfa364.pdf + +[^11]: Eisenhower Library, Oral History Project, finding aid OH-394, Eli Ginzberg, interviews by David Horrocks (1975) and Thomas Soapes (1978). https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/research/oral-histories/oral-history-finding-aids/ohfa394.pdf + +[^12]: Columbia University Libraries, finding aid, "The American Assembly records, 1950-2008." https://findingaids.library.columbia.edu/ead//nnc-ua/ldpd_14243034 + +[^13]: Rockefeller Foundation, *Annual Report 1949*, appropriations schedule, Columbia University, New York, School of International Affairs ("Development of the Russian Institute," RF 45034; "Special fellowships in the Russian Institute," RF 47045). https://archive.org/details/the-rockefeller-foundation-annual-report-1949 + +[^14]: Executive director, Council on Foreign Relations, to Allen W. Dulles, letter of December 17, 1954, CIA-RDP80R01731R001200030019-0. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80r01731r001200030019-0 + +[^15]: White House memorandum for Allen W. Dulles, with attached "Quantico Panel Participants," CIA-RDP80B01676R004300080005-4. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01676r004300080005-4 + +[^16]: Christopher Simpson, *Science of Coercion: Communication Research and Psychological Warfare, 1945-1960* (Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 5. https://archive.org/details/ScienceOfCoercionCommunicationResearchPsychologicalWarfare + +[^17]: Simpson, *Science of Coercion*, pp. 55-56. + +[^18]: Simpson, *Science of Coercion*, p. 74. + +[^19]: Rockefeller Foundation, *Annual Report 1949*, sections on Korean and Japanese broadcasters and on Japanese press personnel, and the social sciences grants list (Columbia University, Bureau of Applied Social Research, study of social conditions affecting productivity in the Ruhr area, $23,000). https://archive.org/details/the-rockefeller-foundation-annual-report-1949 + +[^20]: Central Intelligence Agency, memorandum, December 2, 1953, "ABRAMSON, Harold A.," from the Chief, SSD to Colonel Edwards, MKULTRA document 0000144974, CIA reading room. https://archive.org/details/DOC_0000144974 + +[^21]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Intelligence and Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, *Project MKULTRA, the CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification*, 95th Cong., 1st sess., August 3, 1977, narrative of the Olson case. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/hearings/95mkultra.pdf + +[^22]: Kenneth Wapnick, *Absence from Felicity: The Story of Helen Schucman and Her Scribing of A Course in Miracles* (Foundation for A Course in Miracles), introduction ("the Psychiatric Institute, part of the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center"). https://archive.org/details/absence-from-felicity-the-story-of-helen-schucman-and-her-scribing-of-a-course-i + +[^23]: *Barrett v. United States*, 798 F.2d 565 (2d Cir. 1986), opinion of July 31, 1986. The opinion attributes the allegations concerning Hoch, the July 1954 conference and the settlement to the estate or to the records it relied on. https://static.case.law/f2d/798/cases/0565-01.json + +[^24]: Wapnick, *Absence from Felicity*, ch. 4, "Psychology, Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center." + +[^25]: Wapnick, *Absence from Felicity*, ch. 4 (the Cornell consultancy and the events of June 1965). + +[^26]: *Project MKULTRA* joint hearing, August 3, 1977, testimony of John Gittinger in answer to Senator Edward Kennedy on the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology. + +[^27]: *Project MKULTRA* joint hearing, August 3, 1977, appendix note on QKHILLTOP. + +[^28]: Nevin D. Lantz, *Review of the Personality Assessment System*, Final Report, Objective C, Tasks 2 and 3, SRI Project 1291, December 1987, prepared for Peter J. McNelis, CIA-RDP96-00789R002200230001-2. + +[^29]: Book review in the Star Gate files, CIA-RDP96-00792R000400090001-4. + +[^30]: Joseph E. Roop, *Foreign Broadcast Information Service, History, Part I: 1941-1947*, p. 14, quoting Graves's October 1941 announcement. https://archive.org/details/ForeignBroadcastInformationServiceHistoryPart11941-1947 + +[^31]: Roop, *Foreign Broadcast Information Service, History, Part I: 1941-1947*, p. 189 (Watson's letter to Free of October 22, 1941; entry on duty November 17, 1941). + +[^32]: *United States v. Lovett*, 328 U.S. 303 (1946), consolidated with the actions of Watson and Dodd, on whether Section 304 of the appropriations act was a bill of attainder. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/328/303 + +[^33]: Jean R. Hailey, "T. H. Karamessines, Ex-Chief of CIA Covert Work, Dies," *Washington Post*, September 9, 1978, p. B4. https://archive.org/details/nsia-KaramessinesThomasHCIA + +[^34]: Federal Judicial Center, "Walsh, Lawrence Edward," Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/walsh-lawrence-edward + +[^35]: "Rostow, Walt Whitman (1916-2003)," encyclopedia.com. https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/history/us-history-biographies/walt-whitman-rostow + +[^36]: University of Rhode Island Library, "Register to the Senatorial Papers of Claiborne Pell: Subject File," Mss. Gr. 71.4, biographical note and box 15 (Columbia University Speech, May 3, 1961). https://webarchives.apps.uri.edu/Pell%20XML%20Files/pell/Mss.%20Gr.%2071.4b.html + +[^37]: Beth S. Harris, "John R. Everett (1918-1992)," Encyclopedia Virginia. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/everett-john-r-1918-1992/ + +[^38]: Columbia Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, *Columbia Medicine*, Fall/Winter 2018, "In Memoriam," Class of 1953. https://www.vagelos.columbia.edu/about-us/columbia-medicine-magazine/archives/fall-winter-2018/memoriam/alumni + +[^39]: Defense Intelligence Agency, Project Star Gate plan, Volume I, June 1991, biography roster, CIA-RDP96-00789R002600090001-4; Star Gate Scientific Oversight Committee roster, CIA-RDP96-00789R003000330001-2. + +[^40]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York office report on Roy Marcus Cohn, file NY 58-1232, in the FBI file on Cohn. https://archive.org/details/6434449-Roy-Cohn-FBI-file-OCR + +[^41]: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, finding aid, Adolf A. Berle papers (biographical note; series "Columbia University, 1946-1971"). https://www.fdrlibrary.org/documents/356632/390886/findingaid_berle.pdf/14404a65-cb54-4e46-bc5d-063088cda701 + +[^42]: Federal Judicial Center, "Cabranes, Jose Alberto," Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/cabranes-jose-alberto + +[^43]: The White House, "Personnel Announcement," January 31, 2002. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020131-10.html + +[^44]: New School Archives and Special Collections, "Alvin Saunders Johnson collection," NS-01-01-01, biographical note (https://findingaids.archives.newschool.edu/repositories/3/resources/230); New School Archives, "The Founding of the New School, 1919" (https://histories.newschool.edu/histories/founding-1919). + +[^45]: New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, *Rockefeller Center*, designation report LP-1446, April 23, 1985. http://s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/1446.pdf + +[^46]: WritLarge NYC, Columbia University, "Lincoln School of Teachers College." https://writlarge.ctl.columbia.edu/view/539 + +[^47]: Gerald Feinberg, "Particles That Go Faster Than Light," *Scientific American*, vol. 222, no. 2 (February 1970), reproduced in CIA reading room document CIA-RDP96-00787R000100030001-9. The article names Charles Baltay, Ralph Linsker and Noel K. Yeh as the Columbia group. + +[^48]: Harold E. Puthoff and Russell Targ, *Perceptual Augmentation Techniques*, Part One, Technical Proposal, SRI No. ISH 73-146, October 1, 1973, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200210001-8. + +[^49]: Puthoff and Targ, research approaches document (characteristics, analysis and theory of remote viewing), undated, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000010006-4. + +[^50]: Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee, report, December 1979, Manfred Gale, chairman, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5. + +[^51]: Gerald Feinberg, "Precognition: A Memory of Things Future?", 23rd Annual International Conference of the Parapsychology Foundation, Hotel La Reserve, Geneva, August 26-27, 1974, conference report summarized in CIA-RDP96-00787R000200090021-0 (dated October 28, 1974). + +[^52]: Russell Targ, Harold E. Puthoff and Edwin C. May, "State of the Art in Remote Viewing Studies at SRI," listed as presented at the Special Session on the State of the Art in Psychic Research, New York, April 19-21, 1977, in the references of CIA-RDP96-00787R000500070004-8. + +[^53]: Defense Intelligence Agency, Directorate for Scientific and Technical Intelligence, *Psychoenergetics Research*, August 7, 1984, Exhibit 5, "Universities Involved in Courses, Research, or Degrees in Parapsychology," CIA-RDP96-00788R001800210001-0. + +[^54]: Star Gate Scientific Oversight Committee roster and biographies, listing Melvin Schwartz with "Nobel Prize, Physics (1988)" and "Ph.D., Columbia University, 1958 (Physics)," CIA-RDP96-00789R003000330001-2; see also CIA-RDP96-00789R002900330001-4. + +[^55]: Irving Langmuir, colloquium "Pathological Science," Knolls Research Laboratory, December 18, 1953, transcribed and edited by R. N. Hall, CIA-RDP96-00791R000100490001-4. + +[^56]: John C. Loehlin, "Arthur R. Jensen, 1923-2012," *Twin Research and Human Genetics* 16, Supplement 1 (February 2013), pp. 499-500. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/twin-research-and-human-genetics/article/arthur-r-jensen-19232012/F033208B342BBA3F1C97E3055FFE17D4 + +[^57]: *Crisis at Columbia: Report of the Fact-Finding Commission Appointed to Investigate the Disturbances at Columbia University in April and May 1968* (New York: Vintage Books, 1968), section on the Institute for Defense Analyses. https://archive.org/details/cox_crisis + +[^58]: *Crisis at Columbia*, sections on the IDA affiliation and the March 27, 1968 IDA demonstration, and the Commission's appraisal of the IDA issue. + +[^59]: *Crisis at Columbia*, section "The Gymnasium in Morningside Park." diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Counter Extremism Project.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Counter Extremism Project.md index c62bc5dd..b3e8d91e 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Counter Extremism Project.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Counter Extremism Project.md @@ -98,14 +98,14 @@ relations: reverse: true start: 2020 role: "fiscal year 2020 Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention grant" - fn: 35 + fn: 36 - type: subject_of with: "[[Global Risk Advisors]]" start: 2017-03 role: "named in the Project ENDGAME document, per Fox News Digital; the firm's lawyer denies wrongdoing" - fn: 39 + fn: 40 created: 2026-10-01 -updated: 2026-10-01 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- The Counter Extremism Project (CEP) is a [[New York City]] advocacy organisation launched on 22 September 2014 by [[Mark Wallace]], a former [[United States]] ambassador to the [[United Nations]], with [[Frances Townsend]], a former Homeland Security adviser to [[George W. Bush]], and the former senator [[Joseph Lieberman]] as board members.[^1] It operates through [[Counter Extremism Project United Inc]] (CEPU), a 501(c)(4) social welfare organisation with the employer identification number 81-0878718, and through The Green Light Project Inc, a 501(c)(3) charity with the number 46-4631639, whose Form 990 describes it as "a non-partisan organization focused on countering extremism".[^2][^3] Its model was an earlier Wallace organisation, [[United Against Nuclear Iran]] (UANI): Wallace told a House subcommittee in January 2015 that CEP was modeled "in part on advocacy efforts to counter Iran's efforts to acquire nuclear weapons".[^4] @@ -150,25 +150,25 @@ Wallace testified on 27 January 2015 before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommitt In June 2016 CEP, "working with [[Dartmouth College|Dartmouth University]] computer scientist Hany Farid and funding from Microsoft", announced software to match known extremist images and videos by robust hashing, an approach Farid had invented in 2008 for child sexual abuse imagery with Microsoft.[^31] CEP's website lists Farid as a senior adviser.[^32] The Green Light Project's returns list Farid as a contractor for "strategic and policy analysis" at 160,000 dollars for 2020 and for "strategic consulting" at 120,000 dollars for 2022.[^24][^26] -CEP and Farid filed a brief as amici curiae in support of the petitioners in [[Gonzalez v. Google LLC]] (No. 21-1333) on 7 December 2022, represented by [[Kimberly Lambert Adams]] of the Pensacola firm [[Levin Papantonio|Levin, Papantonio, Rafferty, Proctor, Buchanan, O'Brien, Barr and Mougey]]. The brief states that no counsel for a party authored it and that no person other than the amici and their counsel made a monetary contribution to fund it. It describes Farid as a [[University of California, Berkeley|Berkeley]] professor who "has testified before Congress five times", advises "many of the largest tech companies on content moderation" and is a member of [[TikTok]]'s Content Advisory Council and [[Snap Inc.|Snap]]'s Safety Advisory Board, and states that CEP "has advocated against broad Section 230 immunity for tech companies that algorithmically amplify terrorist content".[^33] +CEP and Farid filed a brief as amici curiae in support of the petitioners in [[Gonzalez v. Google LLC]] (No. 21-1333) on 7 December 2022, represented by [[Kimberly Lambert Adams]] of the Pensacola firm [[Levin Papantonio|Levin, Papantonio, Rafferty, Proctor, Buchanan, O'Brien, Barr and Mougey]]. The brief states that no counsel for a party authored it and that no person other than the amici and their counsel made a monetary contribution to fund it. It describes Farid as a [[University of California, Berkeley|Berkeley]] professor who "has testified before Congress five times", advises "many of the largest tech companies on content moderation" and is a member of [[TikTok]]'s Content Advisory Council and [[Snap Inc.|Snap]]'s Safety Advisory Board, and states that CEP "has advocated against broad Section 230 immunity for tech companies that algorithmically amplify terrorist content".[^33] On May 18, 2023 the [[Supreme Court of the United States]] vacated the Ninth Circuit judgment and remanded in a per curiam opinion that declined to address the application of Section 230 to the complaint.[^34] -CEP states that it reports weekly on the methods extremists and terrorist groups use on the Internet to spread propaganda. Its press release of 21 January 2025 is titled "Extremist Content Online: White Supremacist Telegram Channels Identify Need for Alternative Platform After [[United States Department of State|State Department]]'s Terrorgram Collective Designation", concerning channels on [[Telegram]] and the [[Terrorgram Collective]].[^34] +CEP states that it reports weekly on the methods extremists and terrorist groups use on the Internet to spread propaganda. Its press release of 21 January 2025 is titled "Extremist Content Online: White Supremacist Telegram Channels Identify Need for Alternative Platform After [[United States Department of State|State Department]]'s Terrorgram Collective Designation", concerning channels on [[Telegram]] and the [[Terrorgram Collective]].[^35] ### Government Grants -A report prepared for the [[Department of Homeland Security]] by [[RTI International]] evaluated CEP's fiscal year 2020 Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention grant. It records that CEP developed a curriculum called Alternative Pathways with [[Parallel Networks]] and [[John Horgan|Dr John Horgan]], that CEP "was unable to identify a prison or other correctional institution willing to pilot its in-person AP course", and that ten incarcerated people completed a written version.[^35] The Green Light Project's return for 2020 lists a grant of 88,384 dollars to Parallel Networks of Alexandria, Virginia, for "combat extremism in respective communities".[^24] +A report prepared for the [[Department of Homeland Security]] by [[RTI International]] evaluated CEP's fiscal year 2020 Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention grant. It records that CEP developed a curriculum called Alternative Pathways with [[Parallel Networks]] and [[John Horgan|Dr John Horgan]], that CEP "was unable to identify a prison or other correctional institution willing to pilot its in-person AP course", and that ten incarcerated people completed a written version.[^36] The Green Light Project's return for 2020 lists a grant of 88,384 dollars to Parallel Networks of Alexandria, Virginia, for "combat extremism in respective communities".[^24] ### Gulf States and Turkey -[[LobeLog]] published on 21 July 2017 emails that it attributed to the account of the [[United Arab Emirates]] ambassador to Washington, [[Yousef Al Otaiba]], released by the group GlobalLeaks. Its author, Eli Clifton, wrote that on 3 September 2014 Wallace sent Otaiba cost estimates for a forum and wrote "Believe that this will be self-funding in short order with donors"; that on 8 January 2015 Townsend thanked Otaiba and [[Richard Mintz]] for "ongoing support of the CEP effort"; and that on 8 August 2016 the former senator [[Norm Coleman]] wrote to Otaiba at the suggestion of the [[Saudi Arabia|Saudi]] foreign minister, "The Counter Extremism Project is a 501c4".[^36] Clifton wrote that UANI, CEP, Townsend, the embassy and Coleman did not respond to written requests for comment. The authenticity of the emails was not established in the article.[^37] +[[LobeLog]] published on 21 July 2017 emails that it attributed to the account of the [[United Arab Emirates]] ambassador to Washington, [[Yousef Al Otaiba]], released by the group GlobalLeaks. Its author, Eli Clifton, wrote that on 3 September 2014 Wallace sent Otaiba cost estimates for a forum and wrote "Believe that this will be self-funding in short order with donors"; that on 8 January 2015 Townsend thanked Otaiba and [[Richard Mintz]] for "ongoing support of the CEP effort"; and that on 8 August 2016 the former senator [[Norm Coleman]] wrote to Otaiba at the suggestion of the [[Saudi Arabia|Saudi]] foreign minister, "The Counter Extremism Project is a 501c4".[^37] Clifton wrote that UANI, CEP, Townsend, the embassy and Coleman did not respond to written requests for comment. The authenticity of the emails was not established in the article.[^38] -CEP's report "Qatar, Money, and Terror" and its QATAR-HARBORS campaign called on [[Qatar]] to arrest, expel or cut off support to sanction-designated or wanted individuals domiciled there and to halt support to [[Hamas]], the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups.[^38] Fox News Digital reported on 20 January 2024 that a March 2017 document titled "Project ENDGAME", prepared for Qatar by the firm [[Global Risk Advisors]], founded by the former [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] employee [[Kevin Chalker]], also focused on CEP in an effort to "Mitigate Attacks" against Qatar. Wallace told Fox News Digital that after the Qatari operation "hacked accounts that contained email correspondence with members of CEP leadership, they engaged in a PR campaign to destroy us and paid Americans to do their bidding". Chalker's lawyer told Fox News Digital that no indictment was pending against Chalker or the firm and that allegations of wrongdoing were "just false".[^39] +CEP's report "Qatar, Money, and Terror" and its QATAR-HARBORS campaign called on [[Qatar]] to arrest, expel or cut off support to sanction-designated or wanted individuals domiciled there and to halt support to [[Hamas]], the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups.[^39] Fox News Digital reported on 20 January 2024 that a March 2017 document titled "Project ENDGAME", prepared for Qatar by the firm [[Global Risk Advisors]], founded by the former [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] employee [[Kevin Chalker]], also focused on CEP in an effort to "Mitigate Attacks" against Qatar. Wallace told Fox News Digital that after the Qatari operation "hacked accounts that contained email correspondence with members of CEP leadership, they engaged in a PR campaign to destroy us and paid Americans to do their bidding". Chalker's lawyer told Fox News Digital that no indictment was pending against Chalker or the firm and that allegations of wrongdoing were "just false".[^40] -The Intercept reported in November 2021 that Wallace also headed the [[Turkish Democracy Project]], launched in summer 2021, which had no Turkish members on its leadership board, and that eight of its eleven senior leaders and advisers held positions with UANI, CEP or both. It reported that Kaplan has "extensive business and philanthropic ties to the United Arab Emirates" and, in the [[Responsible Statecraft]] version of the article, that none of the groups had registered under the [[Foreign Agents Registration Act]].[^22][^36] +The Intercept reported in November 2021 that Wallace also headed the [[Turkish Democracy Project]], launched in summer 2021, which had no Turkish members on its leadership board, and that eight of its eleven senior leaders and advisers held positions with UANI, CEP or both. It reported that Kaplan has "extensive business and philanthropic ties to the United Arab Emirates" and, in the [[Responsible Statecraft]] version of the article, that none of the groups had registered under the [[Foreign Agents Registration Act]].[^22][^37] ### Databases and Reports on Far-Right Groups -CEP's website lists research databases titled "White Supremacy Groups in the United States", "White Supremacy Groups in Europe" and "Far-Left Extremist Groups in the United States", a program named "ARCHER at House 88", and a German branch, CEP Germany.[^34] The Green Light Project's return for 2023 describes its program as countering support for extremist groups "by pressuring their financial support networks, building a best-in-class clearinghouse and database of extremist groups and their supporters, countering the narrative of extremists and their online recruitment, and advocating for strong laws, policies and regulations".[^3] +CEP's website lists research databases titled "White Supremacy Groups in the United States", "White Supremacy Groups in Europe" and "Far-Left Extremist Groups in the United States", a program named "ARCHER at House 88", and a German branch, CEP Germany.[^35] The Green Light Project's return for 2023 describes its program as countering support for extremist groups "by pressuring their financial support networks, building a best-in-class clearinghouse and database of extremist groups and their supporters, countering the narrative of extremists and their online recruitment, and advocating for strong laws, policies and regulations".[^3] ### Footnotes @@ -205,9 +205,10 @@ CEP's website lists research databases titled "White Supremacy Groups in the Uni [^31]: Patrick Tucker, "How to Stop the Next Viral Jihadi Video", Defense One, 17 June 2016. http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2016/06/how-stop-next-viral-jihadi-video/129210/ [^32]: Counter Extremism Project, tag page "eGLYPH" (items describing "CEP Senior Advisor Dr. Hany Farid"), counterextremism.com, accessed 1 October 2026. https://www.counterextremism.com/news-free-tags/eglyph [^33]: Brief of Amici Curiae Counter Extremism Project (CEP) and Hany Farid in Support of Petitioners, Gonzalez v. Google LLC, No. 21-1333 (U.S. Supreme Court), filed 7 December 2022, Interest of Amici Curiae and footnote 1. https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-1333/249378/20221207151224344_No.%2021-1333_Brief%20of%20Amici%20Curiae.pdf -[^34]: Counter Extremism Project, press release "Extremist Content Online: White Supremacist Telegram Channels Identify Need for Alternative Platform After State Department's Terrorgram Collective Designation", 21 January 2025, with site navigation listing databases and programs. https://www.counterextremism.com/press/extremist-content-online-white-supremacist-telegram-channels-identify-need-alternative -[^35]: RTI International for the Department of Homeland Security, "Counter Extremism Project Site Profile: FY2020 Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention (TVTP) Grantee Evaluation", November 2023. https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2023-11/23_1108_st_CEP_SiteProfile.pdf -[^36]: Eli Clifton and Murtaza Hussain, "Dark money network pushes pro-UAE/Saudi policies from New York", Responsible Statecraft, 26 November 2021 (quotes the 2015 truth-in-testimony statement of Wallace, the August 2016 Coleman email to Otaiba, and the statement that none of the groups had registered under FARA). https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/11/26/dark-money-network-pushes-pro-uae-saudi-policies-from-new-york/ -[^37]: Eli Clifton, "Hacked Emails Reveal Close Ties Between UAE and Anti-Iran/Qatar Advocacy Groups", LobeLog, 21 July 2017. https://lobelog.com/hacked-emails-reveal-close-ties-between-uae-and-anti-iranqatar-advocacy-groups/ -[^38]: Counter Extremism Project, "Qatar, Money, and Terror" (key findings; "CEP's QATAR-HARBORS Campaign"), counterextremism.com, accessed 1 October 2026. https://www.counterextremism.com/content/qatar-money-and-terror -[^39]: Benjamin Weinthal, "Exclusive: Alleged Qatar spy operation said to have targeted GOP lawmakers opposed to Muslim Brotherhood", Fox News Digital, 20 January 2024. https://www.foxnews.com/world/exclusive-alleged-qatar-spy-operation-said-to-have-targeted-gop-lawmakers-opposed-to-muslim-brotherhood +[^34]: Gonzalez v. Google LLC, No. 21-1333, 598 U.S. ___ (18 May 2023) (per curiam), stating that the Court "decline[s] to address the application of 230 to a complaint that appears to state little, if any, plausible claim for relief" and vacating and remanding for reconsideration in light of Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1333_6j7a.pdf +[^35]: Counter Extremism Project, press release "Extremist Content Online: White Supremacist Telegram Channels Identify Need for Alternative Platform After State Department's Terrorgram Collective Designation", 21 January 2025, with site navigation listing databases and programs. https://www.counterextremism.com/press/extremist-content-online-white-supremacist-telegram-channels-identify-need-alternative +[^36]: RTI International for the Department of Homeland Security, "Counter Extremism Project Site Profile: FY2020 Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention (TVTP) Grantee Evaluation", November 2023. https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2023-11/23_1108_st_CEP_SiteProfile.pdf +[^37]: Eli Clifton and Murtaza Hussain, "Dark money network pushes pro-UAE/Saudi policies from New York", Responsible Statecraft, 26 November 2021 (quotes the 2015 truth-in-testimony statement of Wallace, the August 2016 Coleman email to Otaiba, and the statement that none of the groups had registered under FARA). https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/11/26/dark-money-network-pushes-pro-uae-saudi-policies-from-new-york/ +[^38]: Eli Clifton, "Hacked Emails Reveal Close Ties Between UAE and Anti-Iran/Qatar Advocacy Groups", LobeLog, 21 July 2017. https://lobelog.com/hacked-emails-reveal-close-ties-between-uae-and-anti-iranqatar-advocacy-groups/ +[^39]: Counter Extremism Project, "Qatar, Money, and Terror" (key findings; "CEP's QATAR-HARBORS Campaign"), counterextremism.com, accessed 1 October 2026. https://www.counterextremism.com/content/qatar-money-and-terror +[^40]: Benjamin Weinthal, "Exclusive: Alleged Qatar spy operation said to have targeted GOP lawmakers opposed to Muslim Brotherhood", Fox News Digital, 20 January 2024. https://www.foxnews.com/world/exclusive-alleged-qatar-spy-operation-said-to-have-targeted-gop-lawmakers-opposed-to-muslim-brotherhood diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Deutsche Bank.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Deutsche Bank.md index 49778610..71e8dace 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Deutsche Bank.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Deutsche Bank.md @@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ tags: summary: "German bank that handled Jeffrey Epstein's accounts from 2013 to 2018 after JPMorgan exited him, processed payments to women and alleged co-conspirators, and paid 225 million dollars in penalties and settlements." location: "Frankfurt, Germany" created: 2026-06-20 -updated: 2026-09-25 +updated: 2026-10-15 relations: - type: investigated with: "[[New York Department of Financial Services]]" @@ -59,13 +59,13 @@ In March 2019 Epstein's Southern Trust Company wired 2.4 million dollars to exer ### The DFS Penalty and Victim Settlement -The New York Department of Financial Services issued its consent order on July 6, 2020, finding that Deutsche Bank conducted business in an unsafe and unsound manner in violation of New York Banking Law section 44 and failed to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program in violation of 3 NYCRR section 116.2.[^1] The order, brought under sections 39 and 44 of the Banking Law, also addressed the bank's correspondent relationships with [[FBME Bank]] and [[Danske Bank]] Estonia, through which it cleared more than 267 billion dollars in transactions and identified hundreds of suspicious transactions.[^1] The order required Deutsche Bank to pay a penalty of 150 million dollars within ten business days, barred it from deducting the penalty for tax purposes or seeking insurance or indemnification for it, and credited the bank's cooperation and remediation. It did not appoint a new monitor but expanded the mandate of the independent monitor already in place under the January 30, 2017 consent order. The Department agreed to take no further action against the bank for the conduct described in the order, provided the bank complied with it, while reserving the right to act on conduct the bank had not disclosed. The order stated that the regulator left the question of what Epstein's cash was used for "to the criminal authorities." It was signed for the Department by Superintendent [[Linda Lacewell]] and for the bank by general counsel [[Karen Kuder]].[^1] +The New York Department of Financial Services announced its consent order on July 7, 2020, the order having been executed on July 6, finding that Deutsche Bank conducted business in an unsafe and unsound manner in violation of New York Banking Law section 44 and failed to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program in violation of 3 NYCRR section 116.2.[^1] The order, brought under sections 39 and 44 of the Banking Law, also addressed the bank's correspondent relationships with [[FBME Bank]] and [[Danske Bank]] Estonia, through which it cleared more than 267 billion dollars in transactions and identified hundreds of suspicious transactions.[^1] The order required Deutsche Bank to pay a penalty of 150 million dollars within ten business days, barred it from deducting the penalty for tax purposes or seeking insurance or indemnification for it, and credited the bank's cooperation and remediation. It did not appoint a new monitor but expanded the mandate of the independent monitor already in place under the January 30, 2017 consent order. The Department agreed to take no further action against the bank for the conduct described in the order, provided the bank complied with it, while reserving the right to act on conduct the bank had not disclosed. The order stated that the regulator left the question of what Epstein's cash was used for "to the criminal authorities." It was signed for the Department by Superintendent [[Linda Lacewell]] and for the bank by general counsel [[Karen Kuder]].[^1] The bank terminated the Epstein relationship after the [[Miami Herald]] published its November 2018 reporting on his 2008 plea deal, informing Epstein by letter on December 21, 2018 that it would no longer service his accounts.[^1] After the bank decided to offboard the accounts, a relationship manager nonetheless drafted reference letters to two other financial institutions stating that he was "unaware of any problems relating to the operation or use" of the accounts.[^1] After Epstein's July 2019 arrest, Deutsche Bank retroactively filed suspicious activity reports flagging more than 250 million dollars in wires, one of them covering 1,140 wires totaling 147 million dollars from 2013 to 2019, including payments to women in Russia and Eastern Europe and to modeling agencies; according to Wyden's report the bank had filed no contemporaneous report in almost six years. Wyden's staff asked the bank in June 2026 for the deposition transcript of Morris taken in the victims' suit, and the bank's lawyers declined.[^3] -In May 2023 Deutsche Bank agreed to pay 75 million dollars to settle a federal lawsuit in [[New York]] brought by a survivor identified as Jane Doe, who sought class-action status on behalf of other victims and alleged that the bank knowingly benefited from Epstein's sex trafficking and chose profit over compliance with the law.[^2] The plaintiffs were represented by [[Edwards Pottinger]] and [[Boies Schiller Flexner]], and one firm characterized the deal as among the largest sex-trafficking settlements with a bank in U.S. history; a federal judge approved it in October 2023.[^2][^9] +In May 2023 Deutsche Bank agreed to pay 75 million dollars to settle a federal lawsuit in [[New York City|New York]] brought by a survivor identified as Jane Doe, who sought class-action status on behalf of other victims and alleged that the bank knowingly benefited from Epstein's sex trafficking and chose profit over compliance with the law.[^2] The plaintiffs were represented by [[Edwards Pottinger]] and [[Boies Schiller Flexner]], and one firm characterized the deal as among the largest sex-trafficking settlements with a bank in U.S. history; a federal judge approved it in October 2023.[^2][^9] ### Footnotes diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Facebook.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Facebook.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..97334c2d --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Facebook.md @@ -0,0 +1,368 @@ +--- +aliases: + - Facebook Inc. + - Facebook, Inc. + - Meta + - Meta Platforms + - Meta Platforms, Inc. + - TheFacebook + - thefacebook.com +category: "Private Organization" +tags: + - Organization + - MetaPlatforms + - MarkZuckerberg + - PeterThiel + - FoundersFund + - CambridgeAnalytica + - PRISM + - EmotionalContagion + - Myanmar + - Christchurch + - WhatsApp + - ScaleAI + - SiliconValley + - Palantir + - RoyalCommission + - InQTel +summary: "Social network launched at Harvard in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, renamed Meta Platforms in 2021, whose first outside investor was Peter Thiel and which paid 2019 penalties over user data." +location: "Menlo Park, California" +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +relations: + - type: founded + with: "[[Mark Zuckerberg]]" + reverse: true + start: 2004-02 + role: "launched thefacebook.com while a student at Harvard University" + fn: 3 + - type: funded + with: "[[Peter Thiel]]" + reverse: true + start: 2004 + role: "first significant outside investor, 500,000 dollars" + fn: 4 + - type: director_of + with: "[[Peter Thiel]]" + reverse: true + start: 2005-04 + end: 2022-02 + role: "member of the board of directors" + fn: 7 + - type: director_of + with: "[[Marc Andreessen]]" + reverse: true + start: 2008-06 + role: "member of the board of directors" + fn: 7 + - type: director_of + with: "[[Jim Breyer]]" + reverse: true + start: 2005-04 + role: "member of the board of directors, partner of Accel" + fn: 7 + - type: funded + with: "[[Accel]]" + reverse: true + start: 2005 + role: "Series A investor; Accel IX held 149,527,730 Class B shares in 2012" + fn: 9 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Sheryl Sandberg]]" + reverse: true + start: 2008-03 + role: "chief operating officer" + fn: 7 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Dustin Moskovitz]]" + reverse: true + start: 2004-02 + end: 2008-11 + role: "senior roles at the company" + fn: 65 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Adam D'Angelo]]" + reverse: true + start: 2005-06 + end: 2008-06 + role: "senior roles, chief technology officer from November 2006" + fn: 65 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Bret Taylor]]" + reverse: true + start: 2009-08 + end: 2012-07 + role: "chief technology officer" + fn: 66 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Chamath Palihapitiya]]" + reverse: true + start: 2007 + end: 2011 + role: "vice president of growth, mobile and international" + fn: 67 + - type: owned + with: "[[WhatsApp]]" + start: 2014-02 + role: "acquisition announced for approximately 16 billion dollars including shares" + fn: 47 + - type: owned + with: "[[Oculus VR]]" + start: 2014-03 + role: "acquisition announced March 25, 2014 for approximately 2 billion dollars" + fn: 48 + - type: investigated + with: "[[Federal Trade Commission]]" + reverse: true + start: 2019-07 + role: "5 billion dollar penalty for violating a 2012 order" + fn: 20 + - type: investigated + with: "[[Information Commissioner's Office]]" + reverse: true + start: 2018-10 + role: "monetary penalty of 500,000 pounds" + fn: 19 + - type: investigated + with: "[[Securities and Exchange Commission]]" + reverse: true + start: 2019-07 + role: "settled charges over disclosures about misuse of user data, 100 million dollars" + fn: 18 + - type: participant_in + with: "[[PRISM]]" + start: 2009 + role: "listed as a provider on a leaked NSA slide; the company denied giving the government direct access" + fn: 13 + - type: funded + with: "[[Scale AI]]" + start: 2025-06 + role: "non-voting minority equity stake, 13.79 billion dollars recorded as non-marketable equity" + fn: 52 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Joel Kaplan]]" + reverse: true + start: 2025-01 + role: "policy chief, named January 2, 2025" + fn: 56 + - type: director_of + with: "[[Dana White]]" + reverse: true + start: 2025-01 + role: "elected to the board of directors January 6, 2025; president and chief executive of the Ultimate Fighting Championship" + fn: 58 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Sarah Wynn-Williams]]" + reverse: true + start: 2011 + role: "Director of Global Public Policy, nearly seven years from 2011" + fn: 45 +--- + +Facebook, Inc. is the social-networking company that [[Mark Zuckerberg]] launched as thefacebook.com while a student at [[Harvard University]] in February 2004. The company was renamed [[Meta Platforms]], Inc. in October 2021.[^1] Its first significant outside investor was [[Peter Thiel]]. Its February 2012 registration statement named Thiel, [[Marc Andreessen]] and [[Jim Breyer]] among its directors, and it listed Thiel-managed entities and [[Accel]] funds as holders of large blocks of its Class B stock.[^2] + +### Launch and first investment + +The [[Harvard Crimson]] reported on February 9, 2004 that Zuckerberg, a member of the class of 2006, had launched the site after coding for about a week. The article reads: "After about a week of coding, Zuckerberg launched thefacebook.com last Wednesday afternoon." The Wednesday in question was February 4, 2004.[^3] The company was incorporated in Delaware in July 2004.[^2] + +Thiel invested 500,000 dollars in thefacebook.com in 2004, which made him the first significant outside investor in the site.[^4] Thiel and Founders Fund sold the majority of the position across the 2012 public offering and the following years, with a realized return in the range of two billion dollars.[^5] A 2016 essay in the blog Cyborgology titled "Mimesis, Violence, and Facebook: Peter Thiel's French Connection" reads the investment through the mimetic theory of [[Rene Girard|René Girard]].[^6] + +### Board seats and holdings in the 2012 registration statement + +The company filed a Form S-1 registration statement with the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] on February 1, 2012, before its initial public offering.[^2] The filing states that Thiel has been a director "since April 2005," that he has been a partner of [[Founders Fund]] since 2005, and that he had been president of [[Clarium Capital Management]] since 2002 and was a co-founder of [[PayPal]].[^7] Breyer is listed as a director from the same month, as a partner of [[Accel Partners|Accel]] since 1987, and as the founder and chief executive of [[Breyer Capital]]. Andreessen is listed as a director since June 2008 and as a general partner of [[Andreessen Horowitz]] since July 2009.[^7] Andreessen, [[Erskine Bowles]] and Thiel formed the audit committee, and Breyer and [[Donald Graham]] formed the compensation committee.[^7] Andreessen's other directorships at the time were eBay Inc. and Hewlett-Packard, and Breyer's were Dell, News Corporation, Prosper Marketplace and Wal-Mart Stores.[^7] [[Sheryl Sandberg]] is listed as chief operating officer since March 2008.[^7] Mike Schroepfer is listed as vice president of engineering since September 2008.[^7] + +The holdings section of the filing shows the equity behind those seats. Rivendell One LLC held 32,875,670 shares of Class B common stock, and the filing states that Thiel is its beneficial owner. The Founders Fund partnerships held 5,978,140, 740,960, 36,640 and 22,400 shares, and Lembas, LLC held 5,070,290 shares, for which Thiel is the managing member.[^8] Accel's holdings were larger. Accel IX L.P. held 149,527,730 shares of Class B common stock, Accel IX Strategic Partners held 15,931,653 shares, and Accel 2005 held 13,939,214 shares. Breyer is one of the managing members of the general partners of these funds.[^8] The Class B stock carries ten votes per share, and the filing describes Zuckerberg as the holder of the majority of the voting power.[^2] + +The same filing describes an Investors' Rights Agreement that the company first entered in connection with its Series A financing in 2005. Entities affiliated with Thiel, Accel Partners and [[DST Global]] were parties to it.[^9] Thiel's board service ended in February 2022, when he announced that he would step down. CNBC reported that he declined reelection to focus on funding pro-Trump political candidates ahead of the midterms.[^10] + +The filing reports 845 million monthly active users as of December 31, 2011, an increase of 39 percent from 608 million a year earlier.[^2] + +### LifeLog and the February 2004 launch + +The [[Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency]] ran a program named LifeLog that was intended to record and organize a person's experiences. [[Noah Shachtman]] reported in Wired News on February 4, 2004, the day thefacebook.com went online, that the Pentagon had canceled the program, which he described as "an ambitious effort to build a database tracking a person's entire existence." LifeLog "aimed to gather in a single place just about everything an individual says, sees or does: the phone calls made, the TV shows watched, the magazines read, the plane tickets bought, the e-mail sent and received."[^11] The report states that researchers close to the project were unsure why it had been "dropped late last month," that DARPA gave no explanation, and that "A change in priorities" was the only rationale its spokeswoman, Jan Walker, gave. It places the cancellation after Congress eliminated the Terrorism Information Awareness data-mining initiative and after the withdrawal of the Policy Analysis Market, and it reports that civil libertarians had argued when the program debuted in spring 2003 that LifeLog "could become the ultimate tool for profiling potential enemies of the state."[^11][^12] [[Howard Shrobe]], who led a team from the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] Artificial Intelligence Laboratory that had spent weeks preparing a bid for a LifeLog contract, said the team was "quite disappointed." The same report records that private-sector work in the area continued, naming [[Gordon Bell]]'s MyLifeBits program at [[Microsoft]], and quotes an MIT computer scientist's expectation that such research "will continue" at DARPA.[^11] + +### PRISM + +In June 2013 the Guardian published a top-secret slide presentation describing a National Security Agency program called PRISM. The article reported that the NSA "has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants," according to the document. The slides listed Facebook as a provider that joined in 2009, along with Google and PalTalk, after Yahoo in 2008.[^13] + +The company answered on June 6, 2013. Its statement to TechCrunch read: "We do not provide any government organization with direct access to Facebook servers."[^14] On June 7 Zuckerberg published a personal statement that said "Facebook is not and has never been part of any program to give the US or any other government direct access to our servers," and added: "We hadn't even heard of PRISM before yesterday."[^15] A senior administration official's statement, published with the article, said that the Section 702 authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act "does not allow the targeting of any US citizen."[^13] Zuckerberg wrote that the company had "never received a blanket request or court order from any government agency asking for information or metadata in bulk," and that when governments ask, "we review each request carefully."[^15] + +The [[Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board]] described the mechanism in its report on Section 702 of July 2, 2014. In what it called "PRISM collection," the government, specifically the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] acting for the [[National Security Agency]], sends selectors such as an email address to a United States electronic communications service provider that "has been served a directive," and the provider "is compelled to give the communications sent to or from that selector to the government." The board reported that the NSA receives all PRISM collection, that the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] and the FBI each receive a select portion, and that "as of mid-2011, 91 percent of the Internet communications that the NSA acquired each year" under Section 702 were obtained through PRISM.[^16] + +### Cambridge Analytica and the 2018 and 2019 penalties + +On April 10, 2018 Zuckerberg testified at a joint hearing of the Senate Commerce and Judiciary committees. He told the committees: "In 2013, a Cambridge University researcher named Aleksandr Kogan created a personality quiz app." He said the app was installed by about 300,000 people who agreed to share information about themselves and, through their friends' privacy settings, about their friends, so that Kogan "was able to access some information about tens of millions of their friends." Asked about the episode, Zuckerberg testified: "We didn't take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake. It was my mistake, and I'm sorry."[^17] Zuckerberg also told the committees that in 2014 the company changed its platform "to dramatically limit the Facebook information apps could access," and that "In 2015, we learned from journalists at The Guardian that Kogan had shared data from his app with Cambridge Analytica." He testified that the company banned the app and demanded that Kogan and the other entities that received the data, including Cambridge Analytica, certify that they had deleted it.[^17] The data passed to the political consultancy [[Cambridge Analytica]], which the Securities and Exchange Commission later described as a now-defunct advertising and data analytics company.[^18] + +The [[Information Commissioner's Office]] of the United Kingdom issued a monetary penalty in October 2018. Its report to Parliament of November 6, 2018 records that "On 25 October 2018, the Information Commissioner issued a monetary penalty notice to Facebook, imposing a fine of £500,000," and describes the amount as "the highest permitted by the DPA1998."[^19] The same report found that Facebook "processed the personal information of users unfairly by allowing application developers access to their information, without sufficiently clear and informed consent." It found that the app developed by Kogan and his company harvested data of up to 87 million people worldwide, that the personal information of at least one million UK users was among the harvested data, and that a subset of the data was later shared with other organisations, including Cambridge Analytica.[^19] The office also found that Facebook "failed to make suitable checks on apps and developers using its platform," and it stated that the fine "would have been significantly higher had these failings occurred after the GDPR."[^19] + +On July 24, 2019 the Securities and Exchange Commission charged the company with misleading investors about risk. The SEC's release states that "For more than two years, Facebook's public disclosures presented the risk of misuse of user data as merely hypothetical," although the company had discovered in 2015 that a third-party developer had misused user data. The release also says that Cambridge Analytica paid an academic researcher, through a company he controlled, to collect and transfer data from Facebook to create personality scores for approximately 30 million Americans. The release states that "When the company finally did disclose the incident in March 2018, its stock price dropped," and that "Facebook has agreed to pay $100 million to settle the charges."[^18] The release also states that Facebook "continued to tell investors that 'our users' data may be improperly accessed, used or disclosed,'" and that when it told reporters investigating Cambridge Analytica that it had discovered "no evidence of wrongdoing," it "reinforced this false impression."[^18] + +The same day the [[Federal Trade Commission]] announced a settlement under which the company "will pay a record-breaking $5 billion penalty, and submit to new restrictions and a modified corporate structure." The FTC said the company had "violated a 2012 FTC order by deceiving users about their ability to control the privacy of their personal information." The commission announced separate actions against Cambridge Analytica, its former chief executive [[Alexander Nix]], and [[Aleksandr Kogan]].[^20] The FTC's release describes the penalty as the largest ever imposed on any company for violating consumers' privacy. The order establishes an independent privacy committee of the board "removing unfettered control by Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg over decisions affecting user privacy," and it requires quarterly certifications of compliance from Zuckerberg and from designated compliance officers.[^20] The company's 2025 annual report describes the settlement and modified consent order as taking effect in April 2020 with the 5.0 billion dollar penalty, and records a December 2025 settlement of a California consumer-protection suit, subject to court approval.[^21] + +### Palantir and the friend-data project + +[[Nicholas Confessore]] and [[Matthew Rosenberg]] reported in the New York Times on March 27, 2018 that in summer 2014, while Cambridge Analytica was seeking to collect the Facebook data of tens of millions of Americans, the company "received help from at least one employee at Palantir Technologies." According to documents the newspaper obtained, a Palantir employee in London, working closely with the data scientists building the firm's psychological profiling technology, suggested that they create their own mobile-phone personality quiz to reach Facebook users' friend networks. The newspaper named the employee as [[Alfredas Chmieliauskas]], who "works on business development for the company, according to his LinkedIn page."[^22] + +The same report states that beginning in 2013 Chmieliauskas corresponded from a Gmail account with [[Christopher Wylie]] and a colleague, both then working for the British contractor [[SCL Group]], which formed Cambridge Analytica with [[Robert Mercer]] the next year, and that the three shared Google documents to brainstorm behavioral profiling, a product code-named "Big Daddy." A former SCL intern, [[Sophie Schmidt]], the daughter of [[Eric Schmidt]], urged the company in June 2013 to link up with Palantir; in early 2013 Alexander Nix and a Palantir executive discussed working together on election campaigns, and emails indicated that Nix and Chmieliauskas sought to revive the talks through early 2014. Palantir, which Peter Thiel co-founded in 2003 and whose co-founder was then a member of Facebook's board, first said it had "never had a relationship with Cambridge Analytica, nor have we ever worked on any Cambridge Analytica data." Later the same day it said that "an employee, in 2013-2014, engaged in an entirely personal capacity with people associated with Cambridge Analytica." Wylie told British lawmakers: "There were senior Palantir employees that were also working on the Facebook data." He acknowledged that Palantir and Cambridge Analytica never signed a contract.[^22] [[Forbes]] reported in 2013 that [[In-Q-Tel]], the venture arm of the Central Intelligence Agency, funded Palantir in two rounds "totaling more than $2 million," and that from 2005 to 2008 the CIA was Palantir's patron and only customer.[^23] + +### The 2014 emotional-contagion experiment + +In June 2014 the [[Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences]] published "Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks." The authors were Adam Kramer, of the company's Core Data Science team, and Jamie Guillory and Jeffrey Hancock of [[Cornell University]]. The experiment reduced the amount of positive or negative content in the News Feeds of 689,003 users and measured what those users then posted.[^24] The article's summary of its finding is that "emotional states can be transferred to others via emotional contagion, leading people to experience the same emotions without their awareness."[^24] + +The article states that the research "was consistent with Facebook's Data Use Policy, to which all users agree prior to creating an account on Facebook, constituting informed consent for this research."[^24] The article also states that the scoring of posts ran on a system "such that no text was seen by the researchers."[^24] A correction and an expression of concern were published for the article in PNAS on July 3, 2014.[^25] + +### Myanmar + +The Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, which the [[United Nations Human Rights Council]] established, reported on September 12, 2018. Paragraph 74 of its report states: "Facebook has been a useful instrument for those seeking to spread hate, in a context where, for most users, Facebook is the Internet." The mission found that "the response of Facebook has been slow and ineffective," and it regretted that the company "is unable to provide country-specific data about the spread of hate speech on its platform."[^26] The mission also wrote: "The role of social media is significant."[^26] + +In December 2021 Rohingya refugees filed a class action against the company in California Superior Court for San Mateo County. The suit seeks "more than $150 billion" and is brought on behalf of anyone worldwide who survived the violence or had a relative who died in it.[^27] The plaintiffs allege that Facebook arrived in Myanmar in 2011, arranging for millions of residents to access the internet for the first time, and that the company did little to warn users about misinformation and fake accounts.[^27] + +### Livestreams and foreign influence operations + +The Christchurch attacker, [[Brenton Tarrant]], live-streamed his attack on the [[Al Noor Mosque]] on Facebook on March 15, 2019. The company's technical update of March 2019 states that "The video was viewed fewer than 200 times during the live broadcast," that the video was viewed "about 4,000 times in total before being removed from Facebook," and that the company had removed the attacker's video "within minutes of the New Zealand Police's outreach to us." The update also says that in the first 24 hours the company removed "more than 1.2 million videos of the attack at upload."[^28] Approximately 300,000 additional copies were removed after they were posted.[^28] + +The indictment of the [[Internet Research Agency]] returned in the [[United States District Court for the District of Columbia]] and filed February 16, 2018 (United States v. Internet Research Agency LLC, Criminal No. 1:18-cr-32) names Facebook in its description of the organization's structure and methods. It alleges that by April 2014 the organization had formed a department known as the "translator project" that "focused on the U.S. population and conducted operations on social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter," and that by July 2016 more than eighty employees were assigned to it.[^29] The defendants "created thematic group pages on social media sites, particularly on the social media platforms Facebook and Instagram," with group names including "Secured Borders," "Blacktivist," "United Muslims of America," "Army of Jesus," "South United" and "Heart of Texas."[^29] It describes a Facebook group called "Secured Borders," an account called "Stop A.I.," and Facebook accounts called "Clinton FRAUDation" and "Trumpsters United." From at least April 2016 through November 2016, the indictment alleges, the defendants bought political advertisements on United States social media, paid for them from Russian bank accounts and cards registered in the names of fictitious American personas and also through PayPal accounts, and did not report the expenditures to the [[Federal Election Commission]].[^30] The Facebook groups "United Muslims of America" and "Being Patriotic" are alleged to have been used to promote rallies in the District of Columbia and New York in June and July 2016, and Facebook advertisements for a "Florida Goes Trump" rally on August 4, 2016 are alleged to have reached over 59,000 Facebook users in Florida, of whom over 8,300 responded.[^30] + +The same indictment records Facebook's September 6, 2017 disclosure that it had identified Russian expenditures on political and social advertisements and had "shared [its] findings with US authorities investigating these issues," and alleges that after the disclosure the defendants destroyed evidence.[^31] + +The indictment of twelve officers of the [[GRU]] returned on July 13, 2018 (United States v. Netyksho, Criminal No. 1:18-cr-215) alleges that on June 8, 2016, at about the time the dcleaks.com website was launched, the conspirators "created a DCLeaks Facebook page using a preexisting social media account under the fictitious name 'Alice Donovan,'" and that they used accounts in the names of fictitious U.S. persons such as "Jason Scott" and "Richard Gingrey" to promote the site. It states that the conspirators created the Twitter account @dcleaks_ the same day.[^32] + +A November 12, 2025 response to a USPTO office action filed for [[ENNEA LLC]], which describes itself as linked to [[Sky Watcher]], included as evidence a Facebook post dated January 28, 2025 by an account called "Disclosure Team." The post's text describes ENNEA as "a sister organization to Skywatcher."[^33] + +### The Royal Commission on the Christchurch attack + +The Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Attack on Christchurch Mosques on 15 March 2019 reported on December 8, 2020 and described the attacker, whom the report calls "the individual," in its volume on his background. The report states that he became a Facebook member in 2013, that "the individual's history on Facebook is erratic," that he deleted data and friends and did not post for six months in 2018, and that he held "a number of Facebook accounts over the last few years, randomly closing one down and creating a new one."[^34] Between April 2016 and early 2017 he made approximately 30 comments on the Facebook page of the Australian group United Patriots Front, which had more than 120,000 followers; the report states that the group's page was removed by Facebook in May 2017, after which former members formed [[The Lads Society]].[^35] In 2017 he joined The Lads Society's Facebook group under the username "Barry Harry Tarry," and its private second-season group, in which he made his first post on September 19, 2017. He left the group on April 9, 2018 and six days later deleted 134 Facebook friends, including those made through it.[^34] + +The report states that on March 11, 2019 he saved to his phone walk-through video of Masjid an-Nur taken from a public Facebook page, posted by a Muslim visitor to New Zealand with family travel photographs and unconnected to the far right; that on March 13, 2019 he created a Facebook album titled "Open in case of Saracens" containing 155 images and two videos; and that at 12:19 pm on March 15, 2019 he searched on his phone for his own Facebook account, "likely to check his profile was publicly viewable so that the livestream could be viewed by an audience."[^36] The Commission recorded the answers of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service and a senior New Zealand Police counter-terrorism officer when asked what they would have done had his "Barry Harry Tarry" posts come to their attention: the agency said it would have "assessed the posts as not threatening violence and with a marginal connection to national security," and the officer said they would have seen the posts "as posing limited risk due to the absence of an explicit threat." The report adds that the agencies "did not have the capability or probably the legal authority to monitor social media activity on the scale necessary" to find usernames of that kind, and, in a separate passage on New Zealand's June 2020 Cabinet decision to pursue accession to the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime (the Budapest Convention), that the treaty framework facilitates cooperation on "private social media communications relating to a crime and stored in the cloud by companies such as Facebook."[^37] + +### Child safety reporting + +The [[National Center for Missing and Exploited Children]] reported that its CyberTipline received 36.2 million reports in 2023 and 20.5 million in 2024. The center attributed part of the 2024 decline to a bundling feature implemented by Meta Platforms that year, which consolidates reports tied to a single viral event into one or a smaller set of reports. NCMEC also stated that its Case Management Tool, which it uses to share reports with law enforcement, was developed with support from Meta.[^38] + +The center's annual tables of reports by electronic service provider list the Meta platforms separately. For 2022 they show 21,165,208 reports from Facebook, 5,007,902 from [[Instagram]] and 1,017,555 from [[WhatsApp]], within 31,802,525 reports from providers in all.[^39] For 2023 they show 17,838,422 from Facebook, 11,430,007 from Instagram and 1,389,618 from WhatsApp, within 35,944,826, against 1,470,958 from [[Google]].[^40] For 2024 they show 8,590,357 from Facebook, 3,320,008 from Instagram and 1,851,086 from WhatsApp, within 20,348,306.[^41] + +Law-enforcement and research sources on the network known as [[The Com]] list Instagram and Facebook among the platforms of initial contact with targets. Investigations of individual offenders also reach the company's records. In the Iowa State University Police Department investigation that produced the case against [[Clint Borge]], subpoenas were issued to electronic service providers including Google, PayPal, [[Venmo]], Instagram and Facebook.[^42] The Internet Watch Foundation's member list shows Meta among the members in the tier contributing over 90,000 pounds, with membership dated from December 2009.[^43] + +### Whistleblower testimony + +On April 9, 2025 the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing titled "A Time for Truth: Oversight of Meta's Foreign Relations and Representations to the United States Congress."[^44] The witness, [[Sarah Wynn-Williams]], testified that she had been "Director of Global Public Policy at Facebook, now Meta, for nearly seven years starting in 2011." She said the company's China project was called "Project Aldrin" and "was restricted to need-to-know staff," and she said the company had worked "hand in glove" with the Chinese Communist Party to build and test censorship tools.[^45] + +She told the committee that "they began offering products and services in China as early as 2014," and that "Meta started briefing the Chinese Communist Party as early as 2015." She described China as "Meta's second biggest market," citing the company's own SEC filings, and she wrote that Meta's Llama model "has contributed significantly to Chinese advances in AI technologies like DeepSeek."[^45][^46] She also wrote that she had filed a shareholder resolution asking the board to investigate the company's activity in China, and that she had filed whistleblower complaints with the SEC and the DOJ.[^45] + +Her testimony also addressed the legal order that the company obtained against her. She wrote that she had relied on a 2018 public commitment by the company to waive its rights to pursue forced arbitration. "Despite that public commitment, they brought a case against me for hundreds of millions of dollars," she said. She described the resulting order as "so expansive that it prohibits me from speaking with Members of Congress," and wrote: "This order silences me even as Meta and their proxies spread lies about me."[^45] + +### Acquisitions and the 2021 rename + +In February 2014 Facebook announced that it would acquire WhatsApp, a messaging company, "for a total of approximately $16 billion," including cash and Facebook shares.[^47] On March 25, 2014 it announced that it would acquire [[Oculus VR]], the virtual-reality company, "for a total of approximately $2 billion."[^48] Oculus's founder, [[Palmer Luckey]], later left the company. The [[Wall Street Journal]] reported in November 2018 that he had been fired in March 2017 over a political donation.[^49] + +The company's 2021 rename was announced under the headline "The Facebook Company Is Now Meta."[^1] + +In May 2025 a federal jury in the [[United States District Court for the Northern District of California]] returned a verdict in the suit that WhatsApp brought against the Israeli spyware maker [[NSO Group]]. After a six-day trial the jury ordered NSO to pay $167,254,000 in punitive damages and $444,719 in compensatory damages. The law firm that reported the verdict on its website called it the "first jury verdict against a commercial spyware company in U.S. court."[^50] + +### Artificial intelligence and the Scale AI investment + +The company's annual report for 2025 states that it is innovating in artificial intelligence "to advance our vision to deliver personal superintelligence for everyone," defines superintelligence as "AI that surpasses human intelligence," and describes a history of open-sourcing that includes releasing the Llama foundation models while stating that it expects "to continue training a combination of open and closed models going forward." The report gives a headcount of 78,865 at December 31, 2025, family daily active people of 3.58 billion for December 2025, and capital expenditures of 72.22 billion dollars for the year.[^21] It also states that Zuckerberg, as founder, chairman and chief executive, is able to exercise a majority of the voting power through Class B stock carrying ten votes per share.[^21] + +On June 12, 2025 [[Scale AI]] announced "a significant new investment from Meta Platforms, Inc." that valued Scale at over 29 billion dollars, and that its founder [[Alexandr Wang]] "is joining Meta to work on Meta's AI efforts" while remaining a Scale director; [[Jason Droege]] became interim chief executive.[^51] The company's quarterly report for the period ended June 30, 2025 says that it acquired "a non-voting minority of its outstanding equity," and that "$13.79 billion was included in non-marketable equity investments."[^52] In June 2025 Meta also attempted to acquire [[Safe Superintelligence]], the laboratory cofounded by [[Ilya Sutskever]]; CNBC reported that Sutskever rebuffed the approach, that Meta instead hired the laboratory's chief executive, [[Daniel Gross]], and [[Nat Friedman]] in a transaction in which Meta took a stake in their NFDG fund, and that Sutskever became chief executive of Safe Superintelligence on July 3, 2025.[^53] + +The company appears among the corporate supporters of two Washington policy organizations active on artificial intelligence. The [[Center for a New American Security]] lists Meta in the tier of contributions of 100,000 to 249,999 dollars for October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025, and the [[Foundation for American Innovation]] lists Meta among its corporate supporters and event sponsors alongside [[Anthropic]] and [[OpenAI]].[^54][^55] + +### Policy leadership and the January 2025 changes + +On January 2, 2025 the company named [[Joel Kaplan]] as its policy chief, replacing [[Nick Clegg]]. Kaplan had been a Facebook vice president for global public policy, and the change was reported as the appointment of a former Republican staffer ahead of the inauguration of [[Donald Trump]].[^56] CNBC reported that Kaplan had served as a deputy chief of staff to [[George W. Bush]].[^57] + +On January 6, 2025 Meta announced that [[Dana White]], president and chief executive of the [[Ultimate Fighting Championship]], [[John Elkann]], chief executive of [[Exor]], and [[Charlie Songhurst]] had been elected to its board of directors. Zuckerberg said the three would "add a depth of expertise and perspective that will help us tackle the massive opportunities ahead with AI, wearables and the future of human connection," and White said: "I've never been interested in joining a board of directors until I got the offer to join Meta's board."[^58] On January 7, 2025 Kaplan announced in the company newsroom that "Starting in the US, we are ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to a Community Notes model," and that the trust and safety teams that write the content policies and review content would move "out of California to Texas and other US locations."[^59] The Texas Tribune reported the same day that the company was moving the moderators as Zuckerberg sought to mend ties with the incoming Trump administration, and noted that in July 2024 the company had paid the State of Texas 1.4 billion dollars to settle a lawsuit over the use of biometric data without users' authorization.[^60] The company's 2025 annual report describes that July 2024 settlement as resolving a Texas suit over the "tag suggestions" feature and other uses of facial recognition technology.[^21] + +### The August 2015 dinner at Palo Alto + +A restaurant confirmation email dated July 31, 2015, produced in the Justice Department's Epstein library, describes a dinner at 6 pm on Sunday, August 2, 2015 at Baume in Palo Alto, for which the restaurant had been bought out so that "it will just be our group." The attendee list names [[Ed Boyden]], [[Reid Hoffman]], Mark Zuckerberg, [[Priscilla Chan]], Peter Thiel, [[Jeffrey Epstein]] and [[Elon Musk]] among eleven numbered places. A reply in the thread, which begins "replace one with Joi Ito," repeats the list with [[Joi Ito]] added.[^61] [[Fortune]] reported in 2026 that Epstein wrote to the financier [[Thomas Pritzker]] on August 20, 2015, "i had dinner with zuckerburg, mu=k, thiel hoffman, wild," and that he emailed himself a photograph from a gathering, both of which surfaced in the releases under the [[Epstein Files Transparency Act]]; the dinner had first been reported by [[Vanity Fair]] in 2019.[^62] A Meta spokesman stated in 2019 that Zuckerberg "met Epstein in passing one time at a dinner" and "did not communicate with Epstein again." Hoffman apologized in September 2019 for his part in fundraising at which Epstein was present.[^63] + +### Dustin Moskovitz and the grantmaking foundations + +[[Dustin Moskovitz]], who held senior roles at Facebook from February 2004 to November 2008, cofounded [[Asana]]. With his wife, [[Cari Tuna]], he established [[Good Ventures]], which funds [[Open Philanthropy]]. Forbes reported in November 2025 on the couple's plan to give away a fortune built on Facebook stock.[^64] + +### Other executives and linked figures + +[[Adam D'Angelo]] held senior roles at Facebook from June 2005 to June 2008, and was its chief technology officer from November 2006.[^65] [[Bret Taylor]] served as chief technology officer of Facebook from August 2009 to July 2012.[^66] [[Chamath Palihapitiya]] joined Facebook in 2007 as vice president of growth, mobile and international, and left in 2011.[^67] + +The [[Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism]] at the [[Middlebury Institute of International Studies]] announced on February 12, 2024 that [[Sarah Pollack]] would be its director of tech policy and strategy. The announcement describes her as having led communications for Meta's global counter-terrorism and violent extremism program.[^68] + +In May 2013 the journalist [[James Kirchick]] wrote in The Spectator that the rental service Toucan Apartments, run by [[Warwick Spinks]], had registered a Facebook page on April 12, 2013.[^69] + +Forbes called Zuckerberg the "most famous client and the key to his success" of [[Divesh Makan]], and wrote that Makan met him in 2004 when Makan was a broker at [[Goldman Sachs]]. The magazine named among the other clients of Makan's firm [[ICONIQ Capital]] "Facebook's Dustin Moskovitz and Sheryl Sandberg."[^70] The [[Horowitz Family Foundation]]'s return for the year ended June 2021 lists gifts of Facebook shares among its contributions.[^71] The facial-recognition company [[Clearview AI]] built its image database by automated scraping of public-facing images from platforms including Facebook and Instagram, which the platforms' terms of service prohibited.[^72] The LinkedIn profile of [[Abdulrahman Alfozan]] lists him as a senior systems engineer at Meta Platforms from 2017 to 2022.[^73] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Facebook, Inc., "The Facebook Company Is Now Meta," company newsroom, October 28, 2021. https://about.fb.com/news/2021/10/facebook-company-is-now-meta/ +[^2]: Facebook, Inc., Form S-1 Registration Statement, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on February 1, 2012 (incorporation in Delaware in July 2004; Class B stock carrying ten votes per share; the founder's majority voting power; 845 million monthly active users as of December 31, 2011, against 608 million as of December 31, 2010). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000119312512034517/d287954ds1.htm +[^3]: Harvard Crimson, "Hundreds Register for New Facebook Website," February 9, 2004 (quoting "After about a week of coding, Zuckerberg launched thefacebook.com last Wednesday afternoon"). https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2004/2/9/hundreds-register-for-new-facebook-website/ +[^4]: "Peter Thiel to step down from Facebook board," CNBC, February 7, 2022 (stating that Thiel invested $500,000 in thefacebook.com in 2004 and became the first significant outside investor). https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/07/peter-thiel-to-step-down-from-facebook-board.html +[^5]: For Founders Fund's portfolio, partners and investment history, the firm's published materials at foundersfund.com and the corporate filings of its portfolio companies. +[^6]: Cyborgology, "Mimesis, Violence, and Facebook: Peter Thiel's French Connection," August 13, 2016. https://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2016/08/13/mimesis-violence-and-facebook-peter-thiels-french-connection-full-essay/ +[^7]: Facebook, Inc., Form S-1, "Management" (director biographies of Peter A. Thiel, James W. Breyer, Marc L. Andreessen, Erskine B. Bowles, Donald E. Graham and Sheryl K. Sandberg) and the audit and compensation committee paragraphs of the board section. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000119312512034517/d287954ds1.htm +[^8]: Facebook, Inc., Form S-1, "Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management," footnotes on Rivendell One LLC, The Founders Fund, The Founders Fund II, The Founders Fund II Principals Fund, The Founders Fund II Entrepreneurs Fund, Lembas, LLC, Accel IX L.P., Accel IX Strategic Partners L.P., Accel 2005 and Accel Growth Fund. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000119312512034517/d287954ds1.htm +[^9]: Facebook, Inc., Form S-1, "Description of Capital Stock," "Registration Rights" (Sixth Amended and Restated Investors' Rights Agreement of December 27, 2010, and the original agreement entered in connection with the 2005 Series A financing). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000119312512034517/d287954ds1.htm +[^10]: "Peter Thiel to step down from Facebook board," CNBC, February 7, 2022. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/07/peter-thiel-to-step-down-from-facebook-board.html +[^11]: Noah Shachtman, "Pentagon Kills LifeLog Project," Wired News, February 4, 2004 (dateline 02.04.04), archived copy of wired.com/politics/security/news/2004/02/62158. http://web.archive.org/web/20131221014145/http://www.wired.com:80/politics/security/news/2004/02/62158 +[^12]: "Pentagon Kills LifeLog Project," CSO Online, February 5, 2004 (reporting the Wired News story and quoting DARPA spokeswoman Jan Walker on "a change in priorities"). https://www.csoonline.com/article/513833/data-protection-pentagon-kills-lifelog-project-questions-raised-on-earlier-ricin-case-rfid-privacy.html +[^13]: Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill and Laura Poitras, "Top-secret Prism program claims direct access to servers of firms including Google, Apple and Facebook," The Guardian, June 6, 2013 (the quoted sentence, the 2009 date for Facebook, and the administration official's statement on Section 702). https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data +[^14]: Facebook statement to TechCrunch, June 6, 2013, in "Google, Facebook, Apple Deny Participation In NSA PRISM Program." https://techcrunch.com/2013/06/06/google-facebook-apple-deny-participation-in-nsa-prism-program/ +[^15]: Mark Zuckerberg, "Personal Response From Mark Zuckerberg About PRISM," Facebook newsroom, June 7, 2013. https://about.fb.com/news/2013/06/personal-response-from-mark-zuckerberg-about-prism/ +[^16]: Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, "Report on the Surveillance Program Operated Pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act," July 2, 2014, executive summary and Part 3 ("PRISM Collection," pp. 33-34). http://web.archive.org/web/20140912152645/http://www.pclob.gov/Library/702-Report.pdf +[^17]: U.S. Senate, joint hearing of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and the Committee on the Judiciary, "Facebook, Social Media Privacy, and the Use and Abuse of Data," April 10, 2018, S. Hrg. 115-683, testimony of Mark Zuckerberg. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-115shrg37801/html/CHRG-115shrg37801.htm +[^18]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Press Release 2019-140, "Facebook to Pay $100 Million for Misleading Investors About the Risks It Faced From Misuse of User Data," July 24, 2019. https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2019-140 +[^19]: Information Commissioner's Office, "Investigation into the use of data analytics in political campaigns: A report to Parliament," November 6, 2018, sections 3.2.4 (p. 38) and 3.3.1 (findings on the Kogan application and the harvested data). https://www.statewatch.org/media/documents/news/2018/nov/uk-ico-report-investigation-into-use-of-data-political-campaigns-6-11-18.pdf +[^20]: Federal Trade Commission, "FTC Imposes $5 Billion Penalty and Sweeping New Privacy Restrictions on Facebook," press release, July 24, 2019. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2019/07/ftc-imposes-5-billion-penalty-sweeping-new-privacy-restrictions-facebook +[^21]: Meta Platforms, Inc., Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, filed January 29, 2026, Items 1, 1A and 7 and the discussion of regulatory matters (FTC settlement and modified consent order effective April 2020; December 2025 California settlement; July 2024 Texas settlement; personal superintelligence; Llama; headcount; family daily active people; capital expenditures; voting control). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000162828026003942/meta-20251231.htm +[^22]: Nicholas Confessore and Matthew Rosenberg, "Spy Contractor's Idea Helped Firm Harvest Facebook Data," The New York Times, March 27, 2018, as republished by WRAL. https://www.wral.com/spy-contractor-s-idea-helped-firm-harvest-facebook-data/17447632/ +[^23]: Andy Greenberg, "How A 'Deviant' Philosopher Built Palantir, A CIA-Funded Data-Mining Juggernaut," Forbes, August 14, 2013. https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/08/14/agent-of-intelligence-how-a-deviant-philosopher-built-palantir-a-cia-funded-data-mining-juggernaut/ +[^24]: Adam D. I. Kramer, Jamie E. Guillory and Jeffrey T. Hancock, "Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111(24): 8788-8790 (2014), doi:10.1073/pnas.1320040111, including the affiliations, the Significance statement and the passage on the Data Use Policy. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4066473/ +[^25]: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111(29): 10779 (July 3, 2014), correction and expression of concern for the Kramer, Guillory and Hancock article, as noted in the article's publication history at PMC4066473. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4066473/ +[^26]: United Nations Human Rights Council, Report of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, A/HRC/39/64, September 12, 2018, paragraph 74. https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/FFM-Myanmar/A_HRC_39_64.pdf +[^27]: "Rohingya sue Facebook for $150B, alleging role in violence," NBC News, December 2021 (class action filed in California Superior Court for San Mateo County, on behalf of anyone worldwide who survived the violence or had a relative who died). https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/rohingya-sue-facebook-150b-alleging-role-violence-rcna7862 +[^28]: Facebook, "An Update on the New Zealand Terrorist Attack," Facebook newsroom, March 2019 (the quoted viewing figures, the removal "within minutes of the New Zealand Police's outreach to us," and the 1.2 million videos removed in the first 24 hours). https://about.fb.com/news/2019/03/technical-update-on-new-zealand/ +[^29]: United States v. Internet Research Agency LLC et al., Indictment, Criminal No. 1:18-cr-00032-DLF, Document 1, filed February 16, 2018 (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia), paragraphs 10(d) (the "translator project"), 32 to 34 (social media accounts and thematic group pages). https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download +[^30]: United States v. Internet Research Agency LLC et al., Indictment, Criminal No. 1:18-cr-00032-DLF, paragraphs 43 and 44 (Facebook accounts), 47 (advertisements promoting the "Stop A.I." post), 48 and 49 (political advertisements from at least April 2016, payment through bank accounts, cards and PayPal accounts, no report to the Federal Election Commission), 53 and 54 (the "United Muslims of America" and "Being Patriotic" groups and rallies) and 71 (the "Florida Goes Trump" advertisements). https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download +[^31]: United States v. Internet Research Agency LLC et al., Indictment, Criminal No. 1:18-cr-00032-DLF, paragraph 58(b) and (c) (Facebook's September 6, 2017 disclosure) and paragraph 58(d). https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download +[^32]: United States v. Netyksho et al., Indictment, Criminal No. 1:18-cr-00215-ABJ, Document 1, filed July 13, 2018 (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia), paragraphs 38 and 39. https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download ; see also U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, "Grand Jury Indicts 12 Russian Intelligence Officers for Hacking Offenses Related to the 2016 Election," July 13, 2018, archived. http://web.archive.org/web/20200104195032/https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/grand-jury-indicts-12-russian-intelligence-officers-hacking-offenses-related-2016-election +[^33]: USPTO Trademark Status and Document Retrieval, ENNEA LLC, serial 98873547, office-action response filed November 12, 2025, with the "Disclosure Team" Facebook post of January 28, 2025 as an exhibit. https://tsdr.uspto.gov/statusview/sn98873547 +[^34]: Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Attack on Christchurch Mosques on 15 March 2019, "Ko tō tātou kāinga tēnei," Volume 2, Part 4 ("The terrorist"), the section headed "Facebook," paragraphs 28 to 39. https://christchurchattack.royalcommission.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/20123/ko-to-tatou-kainga-tenei-volume-2.pdf +[^35]: Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Attack on Christchurch Mosques, Volume 2, Part 4, paragraphs 12 to 15 (United Patriots Front Facebook page; removal in May 2017; The Lads Society). https://christchurchattack.royalcommission.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/20123/ko-to-tatou-kainga-tenei-volume-2.pdf +[^36]: Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Attack on Christchurch Mosques, Volume 2, Part 4, the chapter on his activities before the attack in Dunedin, paragraphs 32 to 35, and the passage on the walk-through video of Masjid an-Nur. https://christchurchattack.royalcommission.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/20123/ko-to-tatou-kainga-tenei-volume-2.pdf +[^37]: Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Attack on Christchurch Mosques, Volume 3, Part 8 on the counter-terrorism agencies' responses to the "Barry Harry Tarry" posts (paragraphs 28 to 30 and the passage on capability and legal authority) and the discussion of the Budapest Convention (paragraph 29). https://christchurchattack.royalcommission.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/20127/ko-to-tatou-kainga-tenei-volume-3.pdf +[^38]: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, CyberTipline data page (reports received in 2023 and 2024, the bundling feature implemented by Meta in 2024, and the Case Management Tool developed with Meta's support). https://www.missingkids.org/gethelpnow/cybertipline/cybertiplinedata +[^39]: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, "2022 CyberTipline Reports by Electronic Service Providers (ESP)." https://www.missingkids.org/content/dam/missingkids/pdfs/2022-reports-by-esp.pdf +[^40]: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, "2023 CyberTipline Reports by Electronic Service Providers (ESP)." https://www.missingkids.org/content/dam/missingkids/pdfs/2023-reports-by-esp.pdf +[^41]: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, "ESP Reports" table for 2024. https://www.missingkids.org/content/dam/missingkids/pdfs/2024-reports-by-esp.pdf +[^42]: Iowa State Daily, "How the ISUPD uncovered a Neo-Nazi sexual predator ring," March 31, 2026 (subpoenas to Google, PayPal, Venmo, Instagram and Facebook). https://iowastatedaily.com/335620/news/how-the-isupd-uncovered-a-neo-nazi-sexual-predator-ring/ +[^43]: Internet Watch Foundation, "Our Members" (Meta, member since December 2009, in the tier of members contributing over 90,000 pounds). https://www.iwf.org.uk/membership/our-members/ +[^44]: U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, hearing page "A Time for Truth: Oversight of Meta's Foreign Relations and Representations to the United States Congress," Wednesday, April 9, 2025. https://judiciary.senate.gov/committee-activity/hearings/a-time-for-truth-oversight-of-metas-foreign-relations-and-representations-to-the-united-states-congress +[^45]: Sarah Wynn-Williams, written testimony to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, April 9, 2025 (the opening statement; the "Project Aldrin" passage; the "hand in glove" passage; the passages on China briefings and the company's SEC filings; and the closing passage on the legal order). https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/download/2024-04-09_testimony_wynn-williams +[^46]: Sarah Wynn-Williams, written testimony, April 9, 2025, passages on China and Llama. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/download/2024-04-09_testimony_wynn-williams +[^47]: Facebook, Inc., "Facebook to Acquire WhatsApp," press release, February 2014 ("for a total of approximately $16 billion"). https://about.fb.com/news/2014/02/facebook-to-acquire-whatsapp/ +[^48]: Facebook, Inc., "Facebook to Acquire Oculus," press release, March 25, 2014 ("for a total of approximately $2 billion"). https://about.fb.com/news/2014/03/facebook-to-acquire-oculus/ +[^49]: Wall Street Journal, "Why Did Facebook Fire a Top Executive? Hint: It Had Something to Do With Trump," November 11, 2018. https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-did-facebook-fire-a-top-executive-hint-it-had-something-to-do-with-trump-1541965245 +[^50]: Davis Polk & Wardwell, "Trial victory for Meta and WhatsApp in spyware case," May 9, 2025 (WhatsApp LLC v. NSO Group Technologies Ltd., N.D. Cal., six-day jury trial; punitive award of $167,254,000 and compensatory award of $444,719). https://www.davispolk.com/experience/meta-and-whatsapp-awarded-168-million-damages-following-spyware-trial +[^51]: Scale AI, Inc., "Scale AI Announces Next Phase of Company's Evolution," press release, June 12, 2025. https://scale.com/blog/scale-ai-announces-next-phase-of-company-evolution +[^52]: Meta Platforms, Inc., Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2025, filed July 31, 2025, note on non-marketable equity investments (June 2025 investment in Scale AI). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000162828025036791/meta-20250630.htm +[^53]: "Meta tried to buy Safe Superintelligence, hired CEO Daniel Gross," CNBC, June 19, 2025; "Ilya Sutskever is CEO of Safe Superintelligence after Meta hired Gross," CNBC, July 3, 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/19/meta-tried-to-buy-safe-superintelligence-hired-ceo-daniel-gross.html ; https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/03/ilya-sutskever-is-ceo-of-safe-superintelligence-after-meta-hired-gross.html +[^54]: Center for a New American Security, "CNAS Supporters," contributions from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025. https://www.cnas.org/support-cnas/cnas-supporters +[^55]: Foundation for American Innovation, "About Us." https://www.thefai.org/about-us +[^56]: "Meta replaces policy chief Nick Clegg with former Republican staffer Joel Kaplan ahead of Trump inauguration," NBC 7 San Diego, January 2025, reporting the appointment announced January 2, 2025. https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/business/money-report/meta-replaces-global-affairs-president-nick-clegg-with-joel-kaplan-ahead-of-trump-inauguration/3713005/ +[^57]: "Meta names Joel Kaplan to succeed Nick Clegg as policy chief," CNBC, January 2, 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/02/meta-names-joel-kaplan-to-succeed-nick-clegg-as-policy-chief.html +[^58]: Meta Platforms, Inc., Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1, "Dana White, John Elkann and Charlie Songhurst to Join Meta Board of Directors," January 6, 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000132680125000005/jan62025exhibit991.htm +[^59]: Joel Kaplan, "More Speech and Fewer Mistakes," Meta newsroom, January 7, 2025. https://about.fb.com/news/2025/01/meta-more-speech-fewer-mistakes/ +[^60]: Pavan Acharya, "Meta to move content moderators to Texas as part of plan to end fact-checking program," The Texas Tribune, January 7, 2025. https://www.texastribune.org/2025/01/07/texas-meta-content-moderators-fact-checking/ +[^61]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00344556 and EFTA00344564, email thread "CONFIRMED: DINNER: Sunday, 8/2," July 31, 2015. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00344556.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00344564.pdf +[^62]: "Epstein emailed about a 2015 dinner with Zuckerberg, Musk and Thiel," Fortune, 2026, on the email to Thomas Pritzker of August 20, 2015, the self-addressed photograph and the releases under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, citing Vanity Fair's 2019 report of the dinner. https://fortune.com/2026/epstein-email-zuckerberg-musk-thiel-dinner/ +[^63]: "Meta says Zuckerberg met Epstein once," statements by spokesman Ben LaBolt, 2019; and Reid Hoffman's apology of September 12, 2019, Axios. https://www.axios.com/2019/09/12/reid-hoffman-jeffrey-epstein-apology +[^64]: Phoebe Liu, "Inside A Billionaire Couple's Plan To Give Away A $20 Billion Facebook Fortune," Forbes, November 7, 2025, archived. http://web.archive.org/web/20260730221730id_/https://www.forbes.com/sites/phoebeliu/2025/11/07/cari-tuna-billionaire-open-philanthropy-facebook/ +[^65]: Asana, Inc., Schedule 14A definitive proxy statement, filed April 20, 2026, biographies of Dustin Moskovitz and Adam D'Angelo (Facebook service from February 2004 to November 2008 for Moskovitz; from June 2005 to June 2008 for D'Angelo, including chief technology officer from November 2006). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1477720/000162828026025998/asan-20260420.htm +[^66]: Twitter, Inc., Schedule 14A definitive proxy statement, filed April 12, 2022, biography of Bret Taylor ("From August 2009 to July 2012, Mr. Taylor served as Chief Technology Officer of Facebook, Inc."). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000114036122014049/ny20001921x3_def14a.htm +[^67]: "How Canadian Facebook billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya plans to change the world," The Globe and Mail, 2017 (joined Facebook in 2007 as vice president of growth, mobile and international; left in 2011). https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-magazine/how-canadian-facebook-billionaire-chamath-palihapitiya-plans-to-change-the-world/article34109864/ +[^68]: Ian Driscoll, "CTEC Announces New Director of Tech Policy and Strategy," Middlebury Institute of International Studies, February 12, 2024 (naming Sarah Pollack and describing her communications work for Meta's global counter-terrorism and violent extremism program). https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/ctec/news/ctec-announces-new-director-tech-policy-and-strategy +[^69]: James Kirchick, "The British paedophile who's still on the run," The Spectator, May 24, 2013. https://spectator.com/article/the-british-paedophile-who-s-still-on-the-run/ +[^70]: Solomon, Brian, "The Spider Of Silicon Valley: Inside 'Zuck & Friends' Secret Billionaire Fund," *Forbes,* December 1, 2014. http://web.archive.org/web/20141201154053/http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2014/12/01/the-spider-of-silicon-valley-inside-zuck-friends-secret-billionaire-fund/ +[^71]: Horowitz Family Foundation (EIN 35-7050910), Form 990-PF for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2021 (IRS object 202113159349103201), Part XIV grants and Schedule B contributions. +[^72]: "What We Learned About Clearview AI's Hidden 'Co-Founder,'" *New York Times,* March 18, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/technology/clearview-facial-recognition-ai.html ; Consumer Watchdog, "Clearview AI" report, December 2023. https://consumerwatchdog.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Clearview-AI-Cover-Letter-and-Report.pdf +[^73]: Abdulrahman Alfozan, LinkedIn profile, viewed October 13, 2026. https://www.linkedin.com/in/alfozan diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Financial General Bankshares.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Financial General Bankshares.md index 7e23a2f0..b174ac01 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Financial General Bankshares.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Financial General Bankshares.md @@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ The [[BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report|Kerry-Brown Senate Report]] set out mutuall ### Litigation and Approval -Financial General sued on February 17, 1978, after learning that Middle Eastern investors had acquired twenty percent of its shares; the Securities and Exchange Commission filed and settled its own action on March 18, 1978. The Senate report dates the commission's complaint to March 17, 1978 (printed in the report's note 12 as "1078").[^4] The commission's News Digest of March 20, 1978 reported that on March 18 the court entered permanent injunctions, by consent, against eleven defendants including Lance (Civil Action 78-0469, D.D.C.), for failing to file Schedule 13D statements while acquiring about 20 percent of Financial General's common stock, with the group controlling about 28 percent.[^6] A separate civil action by the commission and the Comptroller of the Currency against The National Bank of Georgia, The Calhoun First National Bank and Bertram Lance, filed April 26, 1978 in the Northern District of Georgia, ended the same day in consent judgments of permanent injunction.[^7] The Senate report states that on April 27, 1978, a federal judge "permanently enjoined Lance and ten other defendants" from violating the securities laws and found that the BCCI clients had relied "heavily, if not exclusively" on Abedi and BCCI; the later opinion of the [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit|D.C. Circuit]] describes the order of that date as a preliminary injunction on the company's disclosure claim. On May 21, 1980, all the defendants except Metzger settled with the company, which agreed not to oppose the takeover in return for a premium price.[^4][^5] +Financial General sued on February 17, 1978, after learning that Middle Eastern investors had acquired twenty percent of its shares; the Securities and Exchange Commission filed and settled its own action on March 18, 1978. The Senate report dates the commission's complaint to March 17, 1978 (printed in the report's note 12 as "1078").[^4] The commission's News Digest of March 20, 1978 reported that on March 18 the court entered permanent injunctions, by consent, against eleven defendants including Lance (Civil Action 78-0469, D.D.C.), for failing to file Schedule 13D statements while acquiring about 20 percent of Financial General's common stock, with the group controlling about 28 percent.[^6] A separate civil action by the commission and the Comptroller of the Currency against The National Bank of Georgia, The Calhoun First National Bank and Bertram Lance, filed April 26, 1978 in the Northern District of Georgia, ended the same day in consent judgments of permanent injunction.[^7] The Senate report states that on April 27, 1978, a federal judge "permanently enjoined Lance and ten other defendants" from violating the securities laws and found that the BCCI clients had relied "heavily, if not exclusively" on Abedi and BCCI; the later opinion of the [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit|D.C. Circuit]] describes the order of that date as a preliminary injunction on the company's disclosure claim. The opinion recites that Financial General amended its complaint on March 21, 1978 to allege that the defendants' disclosure statements were false and misleading, and that on April 27, 1978, finding a likelihood of success on that claim, the district court entered a preliminary injunction ordering the defendants not to acquire any further interest in the company's common stock until they had offered rescission to the shareholders from whom they had purchased shares during December 1977 and January 1978. On May 21, 1980, all the defendants except Metzger settled with the company, which agreed not to oppose the takeover in return for a premium price.[^4][^5] The Virginia bank regulator Sidney A. Bailey objected that the acquisition "will be inimical to the convenience and needs of the community." After a hearing convened on April 23, 1981, the Federal Reserve approved the application of [[Credit and Commerce American Holdings]] (CCAH) on August 25, 1981, and at Altman's request sealed parts of the transcript. A year later the company changed the name of its banks to First American and of its holding company to First American Corporation; the holding company above the banks was later known as First American Bankshares, Inc.[^4][^8] The Federal Reserve found in 1991 that all four Middle Easterners who had appeared at the 1981 hearing had been BCCI nominees.[^4] @@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ The Virginia bank regulator Sidney A. Bailey objected that the acquisition "will [^2]: Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. *The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI*. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 191. [^3]: Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. *The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI*. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 183. [^4]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 6, "BCCI in the United States: Initial Entry." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/06early.htm -[^5]: *Financial General Bankshares, Inc. v. Metzger,* 680 F.2d 768 (D.C. Cir. 1982). https://openjurist.org/680/f2d/768 +[^5]: *Financial General Bankshares, Inc. v. Metzger,* 680 F.2d 768 (D.C. Cir. 1982) (complaint filed February 17, 1978; amended complaint March 21, 1978; preliminary injunction entered April 27, 1978). https://openjurist.org/680/f2d/768 [^6]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, News Digest, March 20, 1978, "Lance, Others Enjoined" (SEC v. Bank of Credit and Commerce International S.A., et al., U.S.D.C. D.C., Civil Action No. 78-0469, LR-8336). https://www.sec.gov/news/digest/1978/dig032078.pdf [^7]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, News Digest, April 28, 1978 (SEC and Comptroller of the Currency v. The National Bank of Georgia, The Calhoun First National Bank, Bertram Lance, U.S.D.C. N.D. Ga., Civil Action No. 78-758). https://www.sec.gov/news/digest/1978/dig042878.pdf [^8]: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, consent order, *In the Matter of Clark M. Clifford and Robert A. Altman,* Docket Nos. 92-080, effective February 1998. https://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/press/enforcement/1998/19980203/Attachment.pdf diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Future of Humanity Institute.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Future of Humanity Institute.md index 979f1330..aaff2ef0 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Future of Humanity Institute.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Future of Humanity Institute.md @@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ tags: summary: "The Future of Humanity Institute was a research center at the University of Oxford founded in 2005 by Nick Bostrom that became the academic headquarters of longtermism and AI-existential-risk research, drew funding from Elon Musk and the FTX Future Fund, and was closed by the university in April 2024." location: "Oxford, England" created: 2026-06-19 -updated: 2026-06-19 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- The Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) was a multidisciplinary research center at the [[University of Oxford]], founded in 2005 by the philosopher [[Nick Bostrom]] and closed by the university on April 16, 2024. For nearly two decades it was the academic headquarters of [[Longtermism|longtermism]] and of the study of existential risk, the danger of events that would permanently destroy humanity's long-term potential. Its personnel and arguments seeded the [[Effective Altruism]] movement, and its work on artificial-intelligence risk reinforced the doom thesis that runs through the [[Rationalist Community]] and the AI-safety organizations [[Peter Thiel]] funded.[^1][^2] @@ -22,25 +22,27 @@ The Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) was a multidisciplinary research center a FHI sat within Oxford's Faculty of Philosophy and the Oxford Martin School and worked on existential risk, AI safety, human enhancement, global catastrophic risk, and the anthropic reasoning Bostrom had formalized. Its researchers overlapped almost entirely with the founding figures of effective altruism: [[Toby Ord]], who founded [[Giving What We Can]], and [[William MacAskill]], who later wrote the longtermist book *What We Owe the Future*, were associated with the institute and the adjacent Oxford effective-altruism organizations, and the futurist [[Anders Sandberg]] was a long-serving senior fellow. The institute functioned as the scholarly counterpart to the Bay Area rationalist scene around the [[Machine Intelligence Research Institute]].[^1][^3] -The institute was established in 2005 on a three-year initial term and ran for nineteen years. Its output included Bostrom's *Superintelligence* and the formalization of "existential risk," Ord's 2020 book *The Precipice*, and influential papers on the "unilateralist's curse," the "vulnerable world hypothesis," and the simulation argument, alongside early technical AI-governance work that fed the policy conversation later taken up by the [[Future of Life Institute]] and government bodies. The historian of the milieu noted that FHI operated less as a conventional department than as a research collective of philosophers, mathematicians, and computer scientists working on questions most academic institutions regarded as speculative.[^6] +The institute was established in 2005 on a three-year initial term and ran for nineteen years. Its output included Bostrom's *Superintelligence* and the formalization of "existential risk," Ord's 2020 book *The Precipice*, and influential papers on the "unilateralist's curse," the "vulnerable world hypothesis," and the simulation argument, alongside early technical AI-governance work that fed the policy conversation later taken up by the [[Future of Life Institute]] and government bodies. The historian of the milieu noted that FHI operated less as a conventional department than as a research collective of philosophers, mathematicians, and computer scientists working on questions most academic institutions regarded as speculative.[^4] ### Funding -FHI drew support from technology philanthropy aligned with its longtermist mission. [[Elon Musk]], whom Bostrom's *Superintelligence* had influenced, funded AI-safety work in the institute's orbit, and the institute and its affiliated projects received money from [[Open Philanthropy]] and, before its 2022 collapse, the [[FTX Future Fund]] established by [[Sam Bankman-Fried]]. The funding tied Oxford academic longtermism to the same donor base that capitalized the effective-altruism and AI-safety infrastructure.[^2][^4] +FHI drew support from technology philanthropy aligned with its longtermist mission. [[Elon Musk]], whom Bostrom's *Superintelligence* had influenced, funded AI-safety work in the institute's orbit, and the institute and its affiliated projects received money from [[Open Philanthropy]] and, before its 2022 collapse, the [[FTX Future Fund]] established by [[Sam Bankman-Fried]]. The funding tied Oxford academic longtermism to the same donor base that capitalized the effective-altruism and AI-safety infrastructure.[^2][^5] -The reliance on a small number of mission-aligned donors became a structural problem once Oxford's Faculty of Philosophy froze the institute's fundraising in 2020, leaving it unable to bring in new money or replace departing staff. The collapse of the FTX Future Fund in November 2022, when Bankman-Fried's exchange failed and the fund's grant commitments evaporated, cut off a major prospective source for longtermist research across the field and deepened the reputational crisis that surrounded the institute in its final eighteen months. The institute's dependence on the effective-altruism donor base meant its fortunes tracked that movement's standing rather than ordinary university funding cycles.[^4][^6] +The reliance on a small number of mission-aligned donors became a structural problem once Oxford's Faculty of Philosophy froze the institute's fundraising in 2020, leaving it unable to bring in new money or replace departing staff. The collapse of the FTX Future Fund in November 2022, when Bankman-Fried's exchange failed and the fund's grant commitments evaporated, cut off a major prospective source for longtermist research across the field and deepened the reputational crisis that surrounded the institute in its final eighteen months. The institute's dependence on the effective-altruism donor base meant its fortunes tracked that movement's standing rather than ordinary university funding cycles.[^4][^5] ### Closure -The institute shut down on April 16, 2024, after years of administrative conflict with the Oxford philosophy faculty, including a freeze on hiring and fundraising. Bostrom left the university. The closure followed the reputational damage of Bostrom's 2023 admission of a 1990s racist email and the wider discrediting of effective altruism after the [[FTX]] fraud, and it removed longtermism's principal academic institution at the moment the movement was under its heaviest public scrutiny.[^5] +The institute shut down on April 16, 2024, after years of administrative conflict with the Oxford philosophy faculty, including a freeze on hiring and fundraising. The institute's website, as captured by the Internet Archive on December 31, 2024, states that it closed on 16 April 2024 and that research in the fields where it was active may continue to be pursued elsewhere within the university and in many external organizations that have sprung up.[^6] Bostrom left the university. The closure followed the reputational damage of Bostrom's 2023 admission of a 1990s racist email and the wider discrediting of effective altruism after the [[FTX]] fraud, and it removed longtermism's principal academic institution at the moment the movement was under its heaviest public scrutiny.[^7] -The institute's website was replaced on the closure date by a four-paragraph statement attributing the shutdown to "increasing administrative headwinds" from the Faculty of Philosophy. The Faculty had decided in late 2023 not to renew the contracts of the remaining staff, and Bostrom described the outcome to *The Guardian* as a "death by bureaucracy." Bostrom founded a successor organization, the nonprofit Macrostrategy Research Initiative, to continue the work outside Oxford. Several former staff dispersed to other existential-risk bodies, including the [[Centre for the Study of Existential Risk]] at Cambridge and independent AI-governance groups, but no institution replaced FHI's role as the field's academic center.[^5][^6] +The institute's website was replaced on the closure date by a four-paragraph statement attributing the shutdown to "increasing administrative headwinds" from the Faculty of Philosophy.[^8] The Faculty had decided in late 2023 not to renew the contracts of the remaining staff, and Bostrom described the outcome to *The Guardian* as a "death by bureaucracy."[^8] Bostrom founded a successor organization, the nonprofit Macrostrategy Research Initiative, to continue the work outside Oxford. Several former staff dispersed to other existential-risk bodies, including the [[Centre for the Study of Existential Risk]] at Cambridge and independent AI-governance groups, but no institution replaced FHI's role as the field's academic center.[^4][^7] ### Footnotes [^1]: Bostrom, Nick. *Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies.* Oxford University Press, 2014, and the Future of Humanity Institute research record, 2005 to 2024. [^2]: "Why longtermism is the world's most dangerous secular credo," *Aeon,* 2021. https://aeon.co/essays/why-longtermism-is-the-worlds-most-dangerous-secular-credo [^3]: "Elite Universities Gave Us Effective Altruism, the Dumbest Idea of the Century," *Jacobin,* January 2023. https://jacobin.com/2023/01/effective-altruism-longtermism-nick-bostrom-racism -[^4]: "Effective Altruism After Sam Bankman-Fried," Seven Pillars Institute, 2023. https://www.sevenpillarsinstitute.org/effective-altruism-after-sam-bankman-fried/ -[^5]: "The future of the future of humanity," Émile P. Torres, on the closure of the Future of Humanity Institute, 2024. https://xriskology.substack.com/p/the-future-of-the-future-of-humanity -[^6]: "Looking Back at the Future of Humanity Institute," *Asterisk,* on the institute's 2005 founding, nineteen-year run, research output, the 2020 fundraising and hiring freeze, the late-2023 contract decision, the April 16, 2024 closure statement, and the "death by bureaucracy" account; Bostrom subsequently founded the Macrostrategy Research Initiative. https://asteriskmag.com/issues/08/looking-back-at-the-future-of-humanity-institute +[^4]: "Looking Back at the Future of Humanity Institute," *Asterisk,* on the institute's 2005 founding, nineteen-year run, research output, the 2020 fundraising and hiring freeze, the late-2023 contract decision, the April 16, 2024 closure statement, and the "death by bureaucracy" account; Bostrom subsequently founded the Macrostrategy Research Initiative. https://asteriskmag.com/issues/08/looking-back-at-the-future-of-humanity-institute +[^5]: "Effective Altruism After Sam Bankman-Fried," Seven Pillars Institute, 2023. https://www.sevenpillarsinstitute.org/effective-altruism-after-sam-bankman-fried/ +[^6]: University of Oxford, Future of Humanity Institute, home page as captured by the Internet Archive on December 31, 2024, https://web.archive.org/web/20241231200603/https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/. +[^7]: "The future of the future of humanity," Émile P. Torres, on the closure of the Future of Humanity Institute, 2024. https://xriskology.substack.com/p/the-future-of-the-future-of-humanity +[^8]: "Oxford shuts down Elon Musk-funded Future of Humanity Institute," *The Oxford Student,* April 20, 2024, Internet Archive capture dated April 28, 2024, reporting that the Faculty of Philosophy shut the institute down on April 16, that the institute cited "administrative headwinds," that the Faculty imposed a freeze on fundraising and hiring in 2020, that the Governance of AI Program spun out in 2021, that Musk gave 1 million pounds in 2015, and quoting Bostrom's emailed statement to *The Guardian* describing "a death by bureaucracy." https://web.archive.org/web/20240428172104/https://www.oxfordstudent.com/2024/04/20/oxford-shuts-down-elon-musk-funded-future-of-humanity-institute/ diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/General Motors.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/General Motors.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..cbb8c22d --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/General Motors.md @@ -0,0 +1,303 @@ +--- +category: "Private Organization" +aliases: + - General Motors + - GM + - General Motors Corporation + - General Motors Corp. + - General Motors Company +tags: + - Organization + - GeneralMotors + - Automotive + - Opel + - HughesAircraft + - HughesElectronics + - Delco + - Delphi + - Nader + - Corvair + - KitGreen + - Stargate + - Letelier + - OaklandCountyChildKiller + - TARP + - DuPont + - Ethyl + - SovereigntyCommission + - Detroit +summary: "General Motors, incorporated in Delaware in 1916 and based in Detroit, bought Hughes Aircraft in 1985, controlled the German Opel works until 1939 by its own account, and received TARP loans in 2009." +location: "Detroit, Michigan" +relations: + - type: owned + with: "[[Adam Opel AG]]" + start: 1928 + end: 1939-11 + role: "Opel controlled through General Motors Overseas, according to a 1974 letter by Michael M. Mooney; GM's 1974 account says the Nazi government took over the Opel plant before the war" + fn: 6 + - type: owned + with: "[[Hughes Aircraft Company]]" + start: 1985-12-31 + end: 1997-12-17 + role: "acquired Hughes and its subsidiaries for 2.7 billion dollars in cash and 100 million shares of GM Class H common stock; defense business merged with Raytheon" + fn: 29 + - type: owned + with: "[[Electronic Data Systems]]" + end: 1996-06 + role: "split off from General Motors in June 1996" + fn: 58 + - type: owned + with: "[[Ethyl Gasoline Corporation]]" + role: "owner of part of the capital stock; the other half was held by Standard Oil of New Jersey" + fn: 4 + - type: owned + with: "[[E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company]]" + reverse: true + start: 1917 + end: 1919 + role: "acquired a 23 percent stock interest in General Motors in 1917 to 1919, per the Supreme Court in 1957" + fn: 2 + - type: owned + with: "[[Delphi Automotive Systems]]" + start: 1997-12-17 + role: "GM parts unit to which Delco Electronics was to be transferred from Hughes in the 1997 restructuring" + fn: 31 + - type: funded + with: "[[United States Department of the Treasury]]" + reverse: true + start: 2009-06 + role: "TARP loan of 30.1 billion dollars to fund GM's bankruptcy, within a combined TARP investment of 49.5 billion dollars" + fn: 60 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Kit Green]]" + reverse: true + start: 1985-03 + end: 1993-09 + role: "head of Automotive Safety and Health Research, North American Operations Research and Development Center, Warren, Michigan" + fn: 40 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Harold Lee Busch]]" + reverse: true + role: "executive financial director, according to S. Dovey (2023)" + fn: 50 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[James D. Mooney]]" + reverse: true + role: "president of General Motors Overseas, according to his son's 1974 letter" + fn: 6 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Henry L. Duncombe Jr.]]" + reverse: true + role: "chief economist, testifying for GM in April 1974" + fn: 13 + - type: head_of + with: "[[James M. Roche]]" + reverse: true + start: 1966 + role: "president of General Motors, who apologized to the Senate subcommittee on March 22, 1966 for the investigation of Ralph Nader" + fn: 24 + - type: investigated + with: "[[Ralph Nader]]" + start: 1966-01 + end: 1966-03-09 + role: "investigation through an outside law firm, which GM said was limited to Nader's qualifications and his association with plaintiffs' attorneys in Corvair cases" + fn: 21 + - type: contractor_to + with: "[[Vincent Gillen Associates]]" + reverse: true + role: "investigating firm used for the 1966 probe of Ralph Nader, per a March 1966 newspaper reprint in the Congressional Record" + fn: 23 + - type: contractor_to + with: "[[Scale AI]]" + reverse: true + role: "worked with GM's autonomous vehicle programs, according to Alexandr Wang's July 2023 testimony" + fn: 59 +--- + +General Motors Corporation, incorporated in Delaware in 1916 and based at 300 Renaissance Center in [[Detroit]], was an automobile manufacturer with overseas subsidiaries and defense electronics holdings.[^1] Its principal holdings in this record are the German automaker [[Adam Opel AG|Opel]], which its overseas subsidiary controlled from the late 1920s until 1939 by the company's own account, [[Hughes Aircraft Company]], which it owned from 1985 to 1997, and [[Electronic Data Systems]], which it split off in 1996. + +### Ownership, du Pont and Ethyl + +The [[E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company|du Pont]] company acquired a 23 percent stock interest in General Motors in 1917 through 1919. In 1949 the government sued over the holding under Section 7 of the Clayton Act. In 1957 the Supreme Court reversed the District Court's dismissal of the action as to du Pont and General Motors and remanded for equitable relief. Justice William J. Brennan wrote that "The fire that was kindled in 1917 continues to smolder. It burned briskly to forge the ties that bind the General Motors market to du Pont."[^2] + +The writer S. Dovey wrote in 2023 that [[Alfred P. Sloan]] managed General Motors on behalf of the du Ponts from 1923 to 1966, and that Sloan personally authorized the transfer of Ethyl lead to the [[Luftwaffe]] as late as 1938.[^3] + +The [[Ethyl Gasoline Corporation]], which licensed tetraethyl lead to refiners, was owned in part by [[Standard Oil|Standard Oil Company of New Jersey]]. In 1940 the Supreme Court recorded that Standard "owns one-half of the capital stock of the appellant" and that "The remainder is owned by General Motors Corporation and E. I. du Pont de Nemours Company."[^4] A German company, Ethyl G.m.b.H., was owned half by the British Associated Ethyl Company and half by I. G. Farbenindustrie. In a 1942 Senate reply, Standard Oil wrote that Ethyl G.m.b.H. "paid up in full a cash debit of nearly $900,000" owed to the American company about one month after the war began.[^5] + +### Opel and the German Government + +General Motors acquired control of the German automaker Adam Opel AG through its overseas subsidiary at the end of the 1920s. Michael M. Mooney, son of [[James D. Mooney]], who was president of General Motors Overseas, wrote to Senator Hart in 1974 that "About 1928 General Motors Overseas bought Adam Opel, A.G., manufacturers at the time of Germany's most popular car." He wrote that "The Company maintained control of Opel until about November 1939, when it had to be abandoned to the Nazi Government," and that General Motors resumed control after the war.[^6] + +In 1974 [[Bradford C. Snell]], assistant counsel of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly, wrote a report titled "American Ground Transport: A Proposal for Restructuring the Automobile, Truck, Bus, and Rail Industries." It was printed in the subcommittee's hearings on S. 1167 under the subcommittee's imprint.[^7] Philip W. Copelin, a former GM executive who was assistant general sales manager of General Motors Continental at Antwerp in 1940, wrote to GM chairman [[Richard C. Gerstenberg]] that he was outraged by Snell's charge that GM assisted the Nazis. Copelin wrote that when he returned to Antwerp and Paris in August 1940, instead of being considered "impeccable Nazis" (Snell's words) the German authorities were "furious with GM for having removed personnel, vehicles, tools and material from our plants before they took them over."[^8] + +Snell also wrote that "GM for example, was in complete management control of its Russelsheim war plane factory for nearly a full year after Germany's declaration of war against the United States on December 11, 1941." The quotation appears in a reply by C. G. Stradella, who had served as finance manager of General Motors Overseas Operations from 1942 to 1952. Stradella called the statement "completely absurd."[^9] Snell's report also described the Brandenburg plant: "GM's truck plant in Brandenburg, East Germany [and Ford's facilities in Hungary] have more than likely become substantial factors in these Communist economies." Stradella called that sentence "laughable and a reprehensible inference."[^10] + +Hart stated for the record that the report, though issued under the subcommittee's imprint, did not represent the subcommittee's position. [[Philip A. Hart]], who chaired the subcommittee, told the hearing that "just as your testimony does not represent the position of this committee or any of its members, the testimony to which you refer captioned 'American Ground Transport,' of the witness, Mr. Snell, does not represent the position of this subcommittee or any member of it."[^11] Hart said that the use of the Opel plant "as a resource for the development of war material by the Hitler government" was "a vivid reminder to us of the dilemma that we have in encouraging overseas investments by American firms."[^12] + +GM's chief economist, [[Henry L. Duncombe Jr.]], told the subcommittee that the charges against GM's railroad sales were "as unfounded as the ludicrous assertion also made recently that GM helped the Nazi war machine prosper." He added: "It amazes us that, after so many years, we have had to remind anyone that the Nazi government took over our Opel plant before the war."[^13] GM introduced Copelin's letter for the record. Copelin wrote that the American management at Opel was reassigned in the fall of 1939, that the American directors left the Opel board after Germany declared war on the United States, and that the Office of Strategic Services asked him in late 1941 or early 1942 to gather intelligence from former Opel managers who had returned to the United States. The report he prepared, dated January 9, 1942, included a concluding paragraph stating that the destruction of any one of the plants "would be a most serious blow to the German war machine."[^14] + +Stradella's reply stated that from the beginning of American involvement in the war, GM Overseas personnel "assisted the U.S. military by providing intelligence and strategic information with respect to the Adam Opel facilities in Germany for use against the German government." He wrote that in 1942 and 1943 he gave Colonel Edward L. Barlow, who had been introduced to him as a representative of United States military intelligence, drawings and blueprints of the Opel works at Russelsheim and Brandenburg that Barlow said would be useful for strategic bombing. He wrote that Barlow later showed the group an air photograph of "what was left of the Brandenburg truck plant" after its bombing.[^15] + +Federal records place Opel's plants under German control in November 1942. The Foreign Claims Settlement Commission's 1967 annual report, reproduced in the 1974 hearing, states that the Russelsheim plant "was placed under the control of the German Enemy Property Custodian on November 25, 1942," and that the Brandenburg plant "was placed under a German administrator as enemy property on November 25, 1942." The Commission was reviewing a claim by General Motors and General Motors Overseas for property losses under the War Claims Act of 1948. It recorded that the Russelsheim plant "sustained severe war damage as a result of allied bombing raids in 1942 and 1944."[^16] A Library of Congress translation of a German resolution dated November 25, 1942, appointed an administrator, "Prof. Dr. Carl Luer," to the Adam Opel company at Russelsheim.[^17] The Commission's report states that the Brandenburg plant has been "located in the Soviet controlled area of Germany since the end of World War II."[^18] + +The writer S. Dovey stated in 2023 that Opel was the largest tank manufacturer in Nazi Germany.[^19] The 1974 record describes the Russelsheim works as Snell's "war plane factory" and the Brandenburg works as a "truck plant."[^9] + +### Surveillance of Ralph Nader, 1966 + +[[Ralph Nader]]'s book [[Unsafe at Any Speed]] (1965) criticized the design of the [[Chevrolet Corvair]], a GM model. Nader testified before [[Abraham Ribicoff]]'s Senate Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization on February 10, 1966, on the federal role in traffic safety. On March 10, 1966, Ribicoff told the Senate that a GM statement issued the previous evening "raised issues which go beyond the question of witness harassment and a violation of the U.S. criminal code," and he invited Nader, the president of General Motors and the detective agencies to appear before the subcommittee on March 22.[^20] + +GM's statement of March 9, 1966, said that "following the publication of Mr. Ralph Nader's criticisms of the Corvair" its office of general counsel "initiated a routine investigation through a reputable law firm to determine whether Ralph Nader was acting on behalf of litigants or their attorneys in Corvair design cases pending against General Motors." The statement added that "It is a well known and accepted practice in the legal profession to investigate claims and persons making claims in the product liability field," that the investigation "did not include any of the alleged harassment or intimidation recently reported in the press," and that Nader had spent a day at the GM Technical Center in Warren, Michigan, early in January.[^21] + +[[Gaylord Nelson]], speaking for Wisconsin, described the episodes on the Senate floor. He said that two private investigators had shadowed Nader into the Senate Office Building, that his landlady had been questioned about his rent payments, that his stockbroker, editor and business associates had been questioned, and that on February 20 and February 23 women approached him in a drugstore and a grocery store with invitations to meetings. Nelson described an investigator who used "a fake reason for the interview, two different phony names, apparently even a recording device in an attaché case."[^22] + +A March 1966 newspaper article reprinted in the House section of the Congressional Record identified the investigating firm as Vincent Gillen Associates of Garden City. It reported that "General Motors publicly apologized for the probe which asked questions about the author's sex habits, political beliefs and attitudes toward Jews."[^23] + +The Senate hearing took place on March 22, 1966. [[James M. Roche]], the president of General Motors, testified: "As president of General Motors, I hold myself fully responsible for any action authorized or initiated by any officer of the corporation which may have had any bearing on the incidents related to our investigation of Mr. Nader." He added: "I am not here to excuse, condone, or justify in any way our investigating Mr. Nader. To the extent that General Motors bears responsibility, I want to apologize here and now to the members of this subcommittee and Mr. Nader."[^24] On March 25, 1966, Senator [[Paul Douglas|Paul H. Douglas]] told the Senate that when Nader appeared before the committee, "the president of General Motors had the good grace to apologize and say he did not know the nature of the investigation being made."[^25] + +Nader sued General Motors and three other defendants, alleging invasion of privacy among other torts. In January 1970 the New York Court of Appeals, in an opinion by Chief Judge Stanley Fuld and applying the law of the District of Columbia, held that the first two causes of action stated claims for invasion of privacy. The court recorded that "the mere observation of the plaintiff in a public place does not amount to an invasion of his privacy," and that "under certain circumstances, surveillance may be so 'overzealous' as to render it actionable." The opinion recorded Nader's allegation that one of the company's agents followed him into a bank, close enough to see the denominations of the bills he was withdrawing.[^26] On August 13, 1970, the suit was settled out of court for 425,000 dollars; Nader said the money would fund "continuous legal monitoring of General Motor's activities in the safety, pollution and consumer relations area," and his attorney called it "by far the largest amount ever paid as damages for invasion of privacy or in any similar type case."[^27] + +### Hughes Aircraft and General Motors + +In 1971 a CIA memorandum for the record described a "nonofficial cover arrangement" with the Aircraft Division of the [[Hughes Tool Company]] in Culver City, California, then being worked out by a former agency employee. The memorandum names [[Rhea Hopper]], vice president in charge of the division, as the "principle cleared witting official."[^28] The 1953 transfer that separated the aircraft business from the Hughes Tool Company is described in the Barlett and Steele biography of Hughes, and the aircraft company is the one General Motors later bought. + +General Motors acquired Hughes Aircraft Company and its subsidiaries effective December 31, 1985, for "$2.7 billion in cash and cash equivalents" and 100 million shares of GM Class H common stock, according to its 1993 annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission.[^29] The purchase price exceeded Hughes's net book value by 4,244.7 million dollars, of which 500 million was assigned to patents and related technology. On February 28, 1989, GM and the [[Howard Hughes Medical Institute]], agreed to terminate GM's guarantee obligations on the Institute's Class H shares in exchange for put options at 30 dollars per share, which the Institute exercised in 1991, 1992 and 1993.[^29] In the same 1993 report GM stated that Hughes was cooperating with a federal grand jury investigation in Boston into the delivery and quality of components of two missile guidance systems and had been advised that it was a target of the investigation, and that Hughes's 1973 suit over the Williams Patent on spin-stabilized satellites had produced a Federal Circuit ruling in 1983 that the government had infringed it, with Hughes asserting damages of 1.5 billion to 4.8 billion dollars.[^29] The Class H stock was a tracking stock. GM's 2002 annual report states that Class H holders "would have no direct claim against the assets of Hughes," and that their dividends were computed as a fraction of the earnings allocated to the Class H shares.[^30] + +On January 16, 1997, GM and Hughes announced the spin-off of the Hughes defense business to GM stockholders and its tax-free merger with [[Raytheon]]. The announcement said that "Delco Electronics will be transferred from Hughes to GM's [[Delphi Automotive Systems|Delphi]] unit," and that GM's Class H stock would be recapitalized into a tracking stock tied to the telecommunications and space business of Hughes.[^31] GM reported the completion of the transactions on December 17, 1997.[^32] + +The company's defense electronics business remained in the news after the spin-off. In December 1998 *The New York Times* reported that a [[Central Intelligence Agency]] scientist, [[Ronald Pandolfi]], had visited "the Hughes Electronics Corporation in Los Angeles in 1995 to learn more about China's missile capabilities," and had become concerned that the satellite manufacturer "might have helped improve Chinese military capabilities." The paper described the company as "a unit of General Motors and major customer of the C.I.A.," which had denied any wrongdoing and said it was cooperating with the investigations.[^33] + +In March 2003 DIRECTV Latin America, LLC, a 75 percent owned subsidiary of Hughes Electronics Corporation, which GM described as a wholly owned subsidiary of General Motors, announced a voluntary petition for reorganization under Chapter 11.[^34] On September 12, 2003, GM announced a private-letter ruling from the Internal Revenue Service confirming that the distribution of Hughes Electronics stock to the holders of GM Class H common stock, in connection with the split-off of Hughes, would be tax-free to GM and its Class H stockholders.[^35] + +### Defense and Space Work + +General Motors' defense and space work before and after the Hughes purchase ran through its electronics and engineering divisions. A January 15, 1967 student study guide on Apollo guidance and navigation for the Lunar Module computer was issued by the AC Electronics Division of General Motors.[^36] For the Apollo lunar roving vehicle, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center awarded the prime contract to the Boeing Company; with the exception of the chassis, the mobility subsystems were "designed, developed, and delivered by the General Motors Delco Electronics Division in Santa Barbara, California, under subcontract" to Boeing.[^37] + +In its 1993 annual report GM described its "other products" segment as consisting of "military vehicles, radar and weapon control systems, guided missile systems, and defense and commercial satellites." GM Hughes Electronics Corporation carried a 13.4 billion dollar backlog of defense and commercial contracts at the end of 1993, and defense electronics revenues for that year were 6,112.1 million dollars, 45 percent of the Hughes business mix.[^38] In the fourth quarter of 2002 GM agreed to sell its GM Defense operations, a light armored vehicle business, to General Dynamics Corporation for about 1.3 billion dollars in cash; the sale closed on March 1, 2003.[^39] + +### Kit Green and the General Motors Research Post + +[[Kit Green|Christopher C. Green]], a physician who served in the CIA's scientific and life sciences components, left the Central Intelligence Agency in March 1985 and joined General Motors that month. According to his curriculum vitae of November 20, 2007, he headed Automotive Safety and Health Research at the company's North American Operations Research and Development Center in Warren, Michigan, from March 1985 to September 1993. The CV describes a department of Biomedical Science with 80 physicians, pharmacologists, physiologists, physicists, engineers, toxicologists, microbiologists and biochemists.[^40] The CV, which Green wrote himself, lists work on the Glomar Explorer project among his CIA duties, the Glomar Explorer recovery operation, [[Project Azorian]], and lists advisory memberships of the Army Science Board and the National Research Council's Board on Army Science and Technology.[^41] + +In July 1993 the magazine [[Defense Electronics]] reported on closed briefings by the Russian physician [[Igor Smirnov]] on "a computerized acoustic device allegedly capable of implanting thoughts in a person's mind," held from March 17 in suburban Northern Virginia. The article said a participant in the meetings described FBI officials asking for a proposal on using the device in Waco, Texas, and that officials from the CIA, the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] and the Advanced Research Projects Agency were also present. Among the "non-military attendees" the article listed "Dr. [[Richard Nakamura]] of the [[National Institute of Mental Health]] and Dr. Christopher Green, director of General Motors Corp. (GM) biomedical research department in Detroit."[^42] + +A GM spokesman told the magazine that Green "attended the Smirnov briefings in his capacity as a member of a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panel on 21st Century Army technologies," and added: "This has no connection to anything being done by GM."[^43] The National Research Council's 1992 report on Army technologies, STAR 21, lists Green, of General Motors Research Labs, as lead expert of its Biotechnology and Biochemistry Technology Group.[^44] + +[[Luis Elizondo]]'s 2024 book includes Green among those who "worked with and supported AAWSAP/AATIP."[^45] Richard J. Boylan's roster of a network he called [[The Aviary]] lists Green as "Blue Jay."[^46] + +### A Private-Sector Program, 1994 + +[[Human Potential Foundation]] president [[C. B. Scott Jones]] wrote on August 11, 1994, to [[John Gibbons|John H. Gibbons]], Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, on Foundation letterhead, with a handwritten "Pell" at the top (the letter describes [[Claiborne Pell|Senator Pell]] as an active board member of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, founded in 1973 by the Apollo astronaut [[Edgar Mitchell]]). Jones wrote that he had spent several hours with Mitchell at a Chicago conference and briefed him on Foundation projects, and that he hoped "at a minimum someone senior in the administration will make a statement that the area we have been discussing is a researchable subject of potential great significance to a number of fields."[^47] + +The letter's second page begins with Jones's report that [[R. James Woolsey|James Woolsey]] "has a document search project under way" and "has not discovered anything of significance," and continues: "The Agency is not a logical place for a program on this subject." The letter continues: "If I had the responsibility to run a super safe black program on this subject, I would take it completely out of the government's bureaucracy and run it from the private sector, probably somewhere within the aerospace community, or perhaps General Motors. Then, when the time comes, as it surely will, when Congress wakes up to the subject, it would not be a lie to say 'No' to the question: 'Mr. Secretary, is there a program on this subject located in the Department of Defense?'"[^47] The foundation's primary donor in its first two and a half years was [[Laurance Rockefeller]], whose support was "conditional with a program designed to get the United States government to acknowledge the existence of alien life."[^48] + +### The Oakland County Child Killer and the Busch Family + +The [[Oakland County Child Killer]] case covered a series of child killings in Oakland County, Michigan, in 1976 and 1977. Investigators focused on two convicted pedophiles who were tied to [[Francis Shelden]] and the [[North Fox Island]] network, and both were cleared by polygraph.[^49] Dovey wrote that [[Christopher Busch]] was the son of [[Harold Lee Busch]], an executive financial director at General Motors, and that Christopher Busch attended the Swiss boarding school Institut Le Rosey during his father's European posting.[^50] + +Busch was arrested in January 1977 together with [[Gregory Greene]] for sexually assaulting a boy. Greene told police that Busch had killed a boy during a trip to the family cabin, and Busch was polygraphed and cleared.[^49] + +[[Richard Lawson]], an informant in the cold case, connected the North Fox Island network to Busch and said that an associate, Robert Moore, had taken young boys to visit H. Lee Busch at his home. Lawson's claims are reported in the Detroit Free Press's cold-case series.[^51] Tips in the investigation pointed to protection from powerful figures, among them General Motors executives.[^52] + +### The Letelier Car and the Townley Test + +[[Orlando Letelier]] was killed on September 21, 1976, when a bomb attached beneath the driver's seat of his car exploded at Sheridan Circle in Washington. Zach Dorfman described the car as a light blue Chevy Chevelle.[^53] Dorfman reported that the FBI agent [[Carter Cornick]] asked an agent in Detroit to contact General Motors and see whether the company could sell a car to blow up. Dorfman wrote that "It turned out GM had exactly the model and color Cornick was looking for."[^53] + +Cornick's own account, published in 2016 by the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, describes a replication test: a second car of the same model, a bomb built by [[Michael Townley]] from the same components, and a comparison of the damage. The request for the test went for approval to the bureau's deputy director.[^54] Dorfman reported that the FBI took Townley, chaperoned by U.S. marshals, to each place he had bought parts while building the bomb, including a Radio Shack behind FBI headquarters, and that the replica was attached to a car and detonated at an FBI training center in Quantico.[^53] + +### The Mississippi Sovereignty Commission and Wickliffe Draper + +Douglas A. Blackmon wrote in 1999 that [[John C. Satterfield]] organized the [[Coordinating Committee for Fundamental American Freedoms]] in Washington in 1963 to oppose the pending civil rights bill, and that [[Wickliffe Draper]], founder of the [[Pioneer Fund]], was the client behind an anonymous gift of stock to the [[Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission]].[^55] The Mississippi Department of Archives and History states that the commission took part in the national campaign to prevent passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, "establishing and providing funds for the Coordinating Committee for Fundamental American Freedoms."[^56] + +The shares Blackmon described were in [[R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company|Reynolds Tobacco]], General Motors, Standard Oil of New Jersey and [[Addressograph-Multigraph]]. [[Morgan Guaranty Trust]] sold them at Draper's direction and recorded the proceeds as a donation, which Blackmon wrote totaled 98,612 dollars.[^55] + +### Miami Dealerships + +Gary Webb wrote in *Dark Alliance* (1998) that [[Danilo Blandon|Danilo Blandón]] invested in Alpha II Rent-a-Car, which spread to twenty-four locations in southern Florida and became "an authorized outlet for Chrysler and General Motors vehicles." The company operated in [[Miami]].[^57] + +### Electronic Data Systems + +General Motors split off Electronic Data Systems in June 1996. The company's 2002 proxy statement says that the board structure "was established at the time of our split-off from General Motors Corporation in June 1996."[^58] [[James A. Baker III]], a director of EDS, is a senior partner of [[Baker Botts]], which EDS retained to provide legal services.[^58] + +### Scale AI and Later Contracts + +In July 2023 [[Alexandr Wang]], the founder of [[Scale AI]], told the House Armed Services Committee's cyber subcommittee that from the company's earliest days it had worked "with the leading autonomous vehicle programs at General Motors and Toyota."[^59] + +### The 2009 Bankruptcy and the Treasury Rescue + +In June 2009 the [[United States Department of the Treasury|Treasury]] loaned General Motors an additional 30.1 billion dollars from the [[Troubled Asset Relief Program]] to fund the company's bankruptcy. The loan was conditioned on the bankruptcy ending in 40 days. With 19.4 billion dollars already invested in GM under two administrations, the combined TARP investment was 49.5 billion dollars, and Treasury became the majority, 61 percent, owner of the new company that purchased substantially all of GM's assets.[^60] The new company emerged from the bankruptcy on July 10, 2009, with most of the company's debt and liabilities left with the old company.[^61] + +The [[Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program]] issued a 2013 report on Treasury's role in the decision for GM to top up the pension payments of certain Delphi hourly employees.[^62] The report concluded that the TARP injection in General Motors and Chrysler "was the only bailout with a President's Designee overseeing the companies' restructurings."[^63] The special inspector general also reported in July 2010 on the factors behind the decisions of GM and Chrysler to reduce their dealership networks.[^64] + +### Executives and Directors in the Record + +Richard C. Gerstenberg was GM's chairman in April 1974, when Copelin and Stradella addressed their letters to him.[^65] Henry L. Duncombe Jr. was GM's chief economist and its witness on the Snell report.[^13] James D. Mooney, president of General Motors Overseas, received the German decoration described in his son's letter. Michael M. Mooney wrote that the Order of the German Eagle was presented to his father at the German consulate in New York on August 17, 1938, that his father forwarded it to the Department of the Navy on August 22, 1938, and that the Navy passed it to the State Department.[^66] C. G. Stradella was finance manager of General Motors Overseas Operations from 1942 to 1952.[^67] Dovey wrote that Harold Lee Busch was an executive financial director at General Motors.[^50] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: General Motors Corporation, Form 10-K for fiscal 2002, Item 1 ("The Corporation"), SEC EDGAR accession 0000040730-03-000054, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40730/000004073003000054/complete10k.txt. +[^2]: United States v. E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 353 U.S. 586 (1957), opinion of Brennan, J., decided June 3, 1957, Harvard Caselaw Access Project, https://static.case.law/us/353/cases/0586-01.json. The opinion states the 1917 to 1919 purchase of a 23 percent interest and the 1949 complaint under Section 15 of the Clayton Act. +[^3]: Dovey, S. (2023). *Eye of the Chickenhawk*. United States: Thehotstar. +[^4]: Ethyl Gasoline Corp. v. United States, 309 U.S. 436 (1940), opinion of Stone, J., decided March 25, 1940, Harvard Caselaw Access Project, https://static.case.law/us/309/cases/0436-01.json. +[^5]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, *Investigation of the National Defense Program*, Hearings, 77th Cong., 2d Sess. (Washington: GPO, 1942), reply of Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) on Germany's rubber and foreign exchange position, https://archive.org/details/investigationofn1942unit. +[^6]: Mooney, Michael M., letter to Senator Philip A. Hart, Exhibit 3, in *The Industrial Reorganization Act: Hearings on S. 1167, Part 4, Ground Transportation Industries* (Washington: GPO, 1974), pp. 2387-2388, https://archive.org/details/industrialreorga04unit. +[^7]: Snell, Bradford C., *American Ground Transport: A Proposal for Restructuring the Automobile, Truck, Bus, and Rail Industries* (Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly, 1974), printed as an appendix to *The Industrial Reorganization Act: Hearings on S. 1167, Part 4, Ground Transportation Industries*, April 4, 9, 10 and 11, 1974, https://archive.org/details/industrialreorga04unit. +[^8]: Copelin, Philip W., letter to Richard C. Gerstenberg, April 5, 1974, Exhibit 2, *Hearings on S. 1167, Part 4*, pp. 2385-2387, https://archive.org/details/industrialreorga04unit. +[^9]: Stradella, C. G., letter to Richard C. Gerstenberg, April 10, 1974, Exhibit 4, *Hearings on S. 1167, Part 4*, pp. 2390-2392, quoting the Snell report, p. 22, https://archive.org/details/industrialreorga04unit. +[^10]: Stradella, letter of April 10, 1974 (note 9), pp. 2390-2392, quoting the Snell sentence on the Brandenburg plant. +[^11]: Hart, Philip A., remarks in the hearing, *Hearings on S. 1167, Part 4*, pp. 2325-2326, https://archive.org/details/industrialreorga04unit. +[^12]: Hart, Philip A., remarks on the Opel plant, *Hearings on S. 1167, Part 4*, p. 2327, https://archive.org/details/industrialreorga04unit. +[^13]: Duncombe, Henry L., Jr., statement for General Motors Corporation, *Hearings on S. 1167, Part 4*, p. 2325, https://archive.org/details/industrialreorga04unit. +[^14]: Copelin letter (note 8), pp. 2386-2387, describing the January 9, 1942 report to the Office of Strategic Services and quoting its concluding paragraph on the Opel and related German plants. +[^15]: Stradella letter (note 9), pp. 2390-2391, describing the 1942 and 1943 contacts with Colonel Edward L. Barlow. +[^16]: Foreign Claims Settlement Commission of the United States, *Annual Report to the Congress for the Period January 1-December 31, 1967*, excerpt on the claim of General Motors Corporation and General Motors Overseas Corporation, Exhibit 9, *Hearings on S. 1167, Part 4*, p. 2396, https://archive.org/details/industrialreorga04unit. +[^17]: Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, translation of a German resolution re handling of enemy property, Adam Opel A.G., Russelsheim, dated November 25, 1942, Exhibit 8, *Hearings on S. 1167, Part 4*, p. 2395, https://archive.org/details/industrialreorga04unit. +[^18]: Foreign Claims Settlement Commission excerpt (note 16), p. 2397, on the Brandenburg plant. +[^19]: Dovey, S. (2023). *Eye of the Chickenhawk*. United States: Thehotstar. +[^20]: Congressional Record, Senate, March 10, 1966, pp. 5565-5566, statement of Senator Abraham Ribicoff, https://archive.org/details/sim_congressional-record-proceedings-and-debates_march-10-28-1966_112. +[^21]: Congressional Record, Senate, March 10, 1966, pp. 5565-5566, reprinting the statement issued by General Motors on March 9, 1966 (same item as note 20). +[^22]: Congressional Record, Senate, March 10, 1966, pp. 5566-5567, remarks of Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin (same item as note 20). +[^23]: Congressional Record, House, March 1966, pp. 6652-6653, reprint of a newspaper article on the investigation of Ralph Nader, https://archive.org/details/sim_congressional-record-proceedings-and-debates_march-10-28-1966_112. +[^24]: Roche, James M., statement to the Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization, Senate Committee on Government Operations, March 22, 1966, as quoted by the Center for the Study of Responsive Law, "Unsafe At Any Speed, Fiftieth Anniversary," https://csrl.org/2015/11/19/unsafe-at-any-speed-fiftieth-anniversary. +[^25]: Congressional Record, Senate, March 25, 1966, pp. 6747-6748, remarks of Senator Paul H. Douglas, https://archive.org/details/sim_congressional-record-proceedings-and-debates_march-10-28-1966_112. +[^26]: Nader v. General Motors Corp., 25 N.Y.2d 560 (1970), decided January 8, 1970, Court of Appeals of New York, Fuld, C.J., Harvard Caselaw Access Project, https://static.case.law/ny-2d/25/cases/0560-01.json. +[^27]: "GM Settles Out of Court; To Award Nader $425,000," *The Harvard Crimson*, August 14, 1970, https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1970/8/14/gm-settles-out-of-court-to/. +[^28]: Central Intelligence Agency, memorandum for the record, "Robert D. Peloquin, President, International Intelligence, Inc. (INTERTEL)," May 20, 1971, NARA record number 104-10122-10288, pp. 2, 4 and 5, https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2025/0318/104-10122-10288.pdf. For the 1953 transfer, see Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, *Empire: The Life, Legend, and Madness of Howard Hughes* (New York: W. W. Norton, 1979), pp. 75-76, https://archive.org/details/empirelifelegend0000barl. +[^29]: General Motors Corporation, Form 10-K for fiscal 1993, notes on acquisition of Hughes, SEC EDGAR accession 0000040730-94-000002, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40730/0000040730-94-000002.txt. +[^30]: General Motors Corporation, Form 10-K for fiscal 2002 (note 1), description of the GM Class H common stock, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40730/000004073003000054/complete10k.txt. +[^31]: General Motors Corporation, Form 8-K filed April 14, 1997 (announcement of January 16, 1997), SEC EDGAR accession 0000040730-97-000015, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40730/0000040730-97-000015.txt. +[^32]: General Motors Corporation, Form 8-K filed December 18, 1997 (completion on December 17, 1997), SEC EDGAR accession 0000040730-97-000037, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40730/0000040730-97-000037.txt. +[^33]: Gerth, Jeff, "Old Concerns Over Data Transfer to China Get New Attention," *The New York Times*, December 7, 1998, p. A20, archived copy at https://web.archive.org/web/20201101033224/https://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/07/us/old-concerns-over-data-transfer-to-china-get-new-attention.html. +[^34]: General Motors Corporation, Form 8-K filed March 19, 2003 (event dated March 18, 2003), "Press Releases on Hughes Subsidiary," SEC EDGAR accession 0000040730-03-000056, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40730/000004073003000056/gmhughesdlachapter11031903.txt. +[^35]: General Motors Corporation, Form 8-K filed September 12, 2003, "GM Receives IRS Ruling on Hughes Transaction," SEC EDGAR accession 0000040730-03-000110, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40730/000004073003000110/irsrulingonhughes091203.txt. +[^36]: AC Electronics Division, General Motors Corporation, *Apollo Guidance and Navigation: Lunar Module Student Study Guide*, January 15, 1967, listed in the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory document collection, https://klabs.org/history/history_docs/mit_docs/gnc.htm. +[^37]: Morea, Saverio F., *The Lunar Roving Vehicle: Historical Perspective*, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, NTRS 19930004820, https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19930004820/downloads/19930004820.pdf. +[^38]: General Motors Corporation, Form 10-K for fiscal 1993 (note 29), Item 1 (other products segment; backlog) and management discussion of GM Hughes Electronics, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40730/0000040730-94-000002.txt. +[^39]: General Motors Corporation, Form 10-K for fiscal 2002 (note 1), Note 26, Subsequent Events, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40730/000004073003000054/complete10k.txt. +[^40]: Green, Christopher Canfield, *Curriculum Vita*, November 20, 2007, https://anomalyarchives.org/wp-content/uploads/DrGreen_Article.pdf. The CV is Green's own account of his career. +[^41]: Green, *Curriculum Vita* (note 40), sections on CIA duties and external boards and activities. +[^42]: Tapscott, Mark, "DoD, Intel Agencies Look at Russian Mind Control Technology, Claims," *Defense Electronics*, July 1993, p. 17, CIA-RDP96-00792R000600150001-5, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00792r000600150001-5. +[^43]: Tapscott, *Defense Electronics*, July 1993 (note 42), p. 17, reporting the GM spokesman's statement. +[^44]: National Research Council, Board on Army Science and Technology, *STAR 21: Strategic Technologies for the Army of the Twenty-First Century* (Washington: National Academy Press, 1992), appendix of contributors, https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/1888/chapter/12. +[^45]: Elizondo, Luis, *Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs* (New York: William Morrow, 2024), Acknowledgments, p. 250. +[^46]: Boylan, Richard J., "UFO/ET-Disclosure Policy Splits Covert Network," *Perceptions*, reproduced at think-aboutit.com, Wayback Machine capture of August 31, 2013, http://web.archive.org/web/20130831033026/http://www.think-aboutit.com/ufo/aviary.htm. +[^47]: Jones, C. B. Scott, letter to John H. Gibbons, August 11, 1994, pp. 1-2 (stamped received August 15, 1994), Rockefeller Initiative documents, Paradigm Research Group, letter pages 1 and 2, https://web.archive.org/web/20161227135139/http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-11-94.htm. +[^48]: University of Colorado Boulder Libraries, Rare and Distinctive Collections, "C. B. 'Scott' Jones papers," COU:4004, scope note and series descriptions, https://archives.colorado.edu/repositories/2/resources/346. +[^49]: ClickOnDetroit (WXYZ), "Oakland County Child Killer: 40 years later," timeline of the 1976-77 killings, Greene arrest, polygraphs, convictions and sentences, https://clickondetroit.com/news/defenders/oakland-county-child-killer-40-years-later. +[^50]: Dovey, S. (2023). *Eye of the Chickenhawk*. United States: Thehotstar. +[^51]: Coffey, Thomas, "Cold Case: The Oakland County Child Killer," *Detroit Free Press*, investigative series, various dates 2012-2017. +[^52]: Coffey, "Cold Case: The Oakland County Child Killer" (note 51). +[^53]: Dorfman, Zach, "Codename: Chilbom," *The Atavist Magazine*, no. 59, June 21, 2016, https://magazine.atavist.com/codename-chilbom. +[^54]: Cornick, L. Carter, Jr., "Chilbom," *The Grapevine* (Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI), August 2016, pp. 11-16, https://fbistudies.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/FBI-Grapevine-Chilbom.pdf. +[^55]: Blackmon, Douglas A., "Silent Partner: How the South's Fight to Uphold Segregation Was Funded Up North," *The Wall Street Journal*, June 11, 1999, p. A1, reproduced at https://slaverybyanothername.com/other-writings/silent-partner-how-the-souths-fight-to-uphold-segregation-was-funded-up-north/. +[^56]: Mississippi Department of Archives and History, "Agency History," Sovereignty Commission Online, https://da.mdah.ms.gov/sovcom/scagencycasehistory. +[^57]: Webb, Gary, *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion* (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1998), chapter 21. +[^58]: Electronic Data Systems Corporation, Schedule 14A definitive proxy statement, filed March 6, 2002, board structure and "Certain Transactions," SEC EDGAR accession 0000950109-02-001187, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1007456/000095010902001187/ddef14a.htm. +[^59]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation, "Man and Machine: Artificial Intelligence on the Battlefield," hearing of July 18, 2023, H.A.S.C. No. 118-37, statement of Alexandr Wang, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-118hhrg53627/pdf/CHRG-118hhrg53627.pdf. +[^60]: Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, *Treasury's Role in the Decision for GM to Provide Pension Payments to Delphi Employees* (SIGTARP 13-003), introduction, reproduced in House Committee on Financial Services, *Oversight of the SIGTARP Report on Treasury's Role in the Delphi Pension Bailout*, 113th Cong., https://archive.org/details/gov.gpo.fdsys.CHRG-113hhrg85115. +[^61]: SIGTARP 13-003 (note 60), section "GM Completes Bankruptcy in 40 Days." +[^62]: SIGTARP 13-003 (note 60), subject line and introduction. +[^63]: SIGTARP 13-003 (note 60), conclusion. +[^64]: SIGTARP, *Factors Affecting the Decisions of General Motors and Chrysler to Reduce their Dealership Networks*, SIGTARP-10-008, released July 19, 2010, as cited in the 2013 hearing (note 60). +[^65]: Copelin letter (note 8) and Stradella letter (note 9), both addressed to Richard C. Gerstenberg as chairman of General Motors Corp. +[^66]: Mooney, Michael M., letter (note 6), pp. 2388-2389, on the Order of the German Eagle, the Navy and the State Department. +[^67]: Stradella letter (note 9), p. 2390, describing his assignments from 1942 to 1952. diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/George Washington University.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/George Washington University.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..073fb4f5 --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/George Washington University.md @@ -0,0 +1,246 @@ +--- +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +title: George Washington University +aliases: + - GWU + - George Washington University Law School + - The George Washington University +tags: + - Organization + - AcademicInstitution + - HumRRO + - MilitaryPsychology + - PsychologicalWarfare + - SensoryDeprivation + - Interrogation + - NationalSecurityArchive + - OlsonExhumation + - MKULTRA + - JackAnderson + - Scientology + - Area51 + - ProgramOnExtremism + - NCITE + - JEdgarHoover + - ReaganShooting + - Casolaro + - Hammarskjold +category: "Private Organization" +summary: "A Washington, D.C. university whose Army contract ran the Human Resources Research Office from 1951 to 1969, whose Gelman Library houses the National Security Archive, and whose alumni and faculty recur in the record." +location: "Washington, D.C." +relations: + - type: contractor_to + with: "[[U.S. Army]]" + start: 1951 + end: 1969 + role: "operated the Human Resources Research Office under Army contract DA 44-188-ARO-2" + fn: 3 + - type: partner_of + with: "[[NCITE]]" + start: 2025 + role: "university partner listed in the March 2025 DHS fact sheet" + fn: 50 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Jonathan Turley]]" + reverse: true + start: 1994 + role: "law professor, George Washington University National Law Center" + fn: 37 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Joan Manley]]" + reverse: true + start: 1997 + role: "counsel for plaintiffs in Kasza v. Browner" + fn: 36 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Mark Feldstein]]" + reverse: true + start: 2022 + role: "journalism professor" + fn: 31 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[James E. Starrs]]" + reverse: true + start: 1992 + role: "professor of law and forensic sciences, George Washington University law school" + fn: 16 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Seamus Hughes]]" + reverse: true + start: 2015 + role: "deputy director of the Program on Extremism from its founding" + fn: 49 +--- + +The George Washington University is a university in Washington, D.C.[^1] Its Gelman Library houses the [[National Security Archive]], which was founded in 1985.[^1][^2] The university was also the contracting body for the [[HumRRO]] behavioral science laboratory from 1951 to 1969, and it is the institution through which forensic pathologist [[James E. Starrs]] examined the remains of [[Frank Olson]] in 1994, as the university affiliation of two counsel in [[Area 51]] environmental litigation, as the host of the [[GWU Program on Extremism]], and as a partner in the [[NCITE]] consortium. The record also places the university's law school in the education of J. Edgar Hoover and John Foster Dulles, its M.B.A. program in the education of Colin Powell, its professor of law and forensic sciences in a 1992 review of the autopsy of Danny Casolaro, and its hospital at the center of the events of March 30, 1981. + +### Human Resources Research Office + +The Human Resources Research Office was organized in 1951 as a unit of the university under a contract with the [[U.S. Army]].[^3] A HumRRO bibliography published in 1966 describes the office as a nongovernmental agency of the university, operating under Army contract DA 44-188-ARO-2.[^3] The 1966 bibliography gives the mission more narrowly, as studies and research in the fields of training, motivation and leadership.[^3] A 1963 HumRRO report gives the office's mission, as stated in Army Regulation 70-8, as studies and research in training, motivation, leadership and man-weapons system analysis.[^4] + +A 1973 study of the office prepared by CONSAD Research Corporation for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare records the sequence. A staff study titled "An Integrated Program in Human Resources Research," approved by the Under Secretary of the Army on June 21, 1951, recommended that a major contract be awarded to a recognized educational institution to form a Human Resources Research Office with primary responsibility for research on training methods, motivation and morale, and psychological warfare techniques. The study is credited to [[Harry Harlow]], then chief of the Army's Human Resources Research Program on leave from the University of Wisconsin. The contract between the Army and the university was executed on July 27, 1951.[^5] The CONSAD study states that the office was created by the university at the specific request of the Department of the Army, and that responsibility for psychological warfare was transferred after 1955 to the Special Operations Research Office at [[American University]].[^5] The office's director reported both to the university's vice president for academic affairs and to the Army's Office of the Chief of Research and Development, and the contracts provided that the civilian director had to be acceptable to both the university and the Army.[^5] + +According to [[Peter Watson]], the university affiliation gave HumRRO academic cover and access to research networks.[^6] Watson wrote that the relationship ended in October 1969 after student demonstrations over the university's connections to military research.[^6] He also wrote that campus opposition to the Vietnam War led universities to disentangle themselves from visibly military-sponsored social science, and he placed the university-based HumRRO alongside the Operations Research Office in that pattern.[^6] Watson's figures give the office's output as about 35 technical reports a year, of which about 3 percent was classified.[^6] After the separation, the office reorganized as an independent nonprofit with its headquarters in [[Alexandria, Virginia]].[^6] + +The CONSAD study records the separation in different terms. It states that in 1969 the office severed its ties with the university; that although the office had become self-sufficient in research administration, library resources and data processing, all formal, legal and fiscal transactions had been conducted by the university; and it quotes one participant: "The most visible effect was that the color of the checks changed." The office then became the Human Resources Research Organization, governed by a board of trustees.[^5] The office's president, [[Meredith P. Crawford]], wrote that in 1969, "again with the full concurrence of the Army," the office left the university and began operations as an independent nonprofit corporation, and the study dates the new corporation from September 1, 1969.[^5] The study adds that the office had moved to Alexandria, Virginia in 1963, six years before the formal severance.[^5] The organization's own history states that it parted company with the university in 1969 and incorporated independently that year, and that its status as a federal contract research center ended at the end of 1975.[^7] + +Watson also names two researchers who moved from HumRRO to the Special Operations Research Office at American University in the early 1960s, [[Theodore Vallance]] and [[Charles Windle]], and describes that office as the principal Army contractor for counterinsurgency social science in those years.[^6] Watson's account distinguishes HumRRO's emphasis on individual and unit performance from the population-level psychological and political analysis for counterinsurgency that SORO and its successor, [[CRESS]], pursued. He describes all three bodies as drawing mainly on Army funding and sharing access to the classified psychological warfare literature of the period.[^6] + +### Psychological warfare and interrogation studies + +A study titled Task PSYJOB, prepared by the HumRRO Psychological Warfare Division, evaluated psychological warfare job requirements against the curriculum of the Army Psychological Warfare School. The report was written by [[Lawrence Schlesinger]] and [[Harriet Beckwitt]], with a research team that included [[Alvin G. Edge]] and [[Lloyd Rogler]], and was approved in June 1956 by Joseph R. Hochstim, director of research for the division.[^8] The findings, as the report states them, were that the 105 school topics, rated by experienced psychological warfare personnel in the Far East, drew little agreement among four job groups (plans and policy, intelligence, propaganda preparation, and operations), and that the operations group differed most sharply from the others. About 57 percent of the curriculum was classified as background (34 percent) or organizational (23 percent) information rather than as directly job-related, and the report judged that the Soviet Union area study occupied more of the program than was justified.[^8] The title page of the August 1956 report identifies the office as operating under contract with the Department of the Army, and states that the research was conducted while [[Carleton F. Scofield]] was director of research for the division.[^8] + +A tactical interrogation study followed in the early 1960s. Its preface states that the investigation began on July 1, 1961, in response to a request from the Army's assistant chief of staff for intelligence for research on collecting information through tactical interrogation. The task was jointly sponsored by the Continental Army Command and that office, and its initial exploratory work was reported in a Task QUIZ research memorandum dated May 1962.[^9] The experiment tested three ways of screening enlisted sources for later interrogation: individually, in groups of four, and in groups of twelve. The 286 sources were enlisted men from the Combat Developments Experimentation Center, and four trained interrogators conducted the screening.[^9] The report concluded that screening was most efficient when sources were handled in groups of four, on the basis of a time advantage and the equivalence of the three procedures for accuracy, and it restricted that conclusion to cooperative enlisted sources.[^9] + +[[Hilton Bialek]] was task leader during the planning phase of the interrogation study, and John E. Taylor was acting task leader during its execution and writing. The research team included three other members.[^9] The report describes the Leadership Human Research Unit, which conducted the work, as operating under the command of the Continental Army Command, with the Human Resources Research Office providing technical supervision.[^4] The report judged the accuracy of the interrogators' screening satisfactory, although it found substantial variation among them.[^9] + +### Sensory deprivation research + +The office also ran a long series of studies on confinement in a dark, quiet cubicle. A HumRRO Technical Report issued in June 1966, under Contract DA 44-188 ARO-2 and written by [[Thomas Myers]], [[Donald B. Murphy]], [[Seward Smith]] and [[S. James Goffard]], states that the pilot studies began in 1956 with the confinement of research personnel, that full-scale experimentation began in 1959, and that data were collected through June 1961.[^10] The subjects were successive groups of enlisted men, 551 in total, brought to the laboratory immediately after completing Advanced Individual Training. Of the 401 who volunteered for the cubicle, 176 were chosen at random for cubicle treatment, and an equal number served as controls on normal treatment.[^10] They were described as above the Army average in intelligence and as having been screened for physical and psychiatric deficiencies.[^10] + +The report's research problem statement names as its primary stimulus a series of reports, issuing first from the laboratory of [[Donald Hebb]], on sensory deprivation and social isolation. It states that interest in these phenomena was heightened by reports about American prisoners of war in Korea who were reputedly subjected to similar conditions.[^10] The report lists among its concerns the ability to "maintain independence of judgment in the face of propaganda and group pressure," and it describes investigations of the effects of isolation, of concurrent stimulation, and of the subjects' own reactions to controlled isolation.[^10] The report states that subjects could request release from the cubicle at any time.[^10] It was prepared by HumRRO Division No. 3 (Recruit Training) and distributed under the Department of the Army's Office of the Chief of Research and Development.[^10] Its measures included vigilance tests, reaction times, a test of lever-pulling under unpleasant noise, conformity scores, and reported visual sensations, and the tables include an analysis of conformity scores for cubicle and control subjects.[^10] + +The report's conclusions list the effects it attributed to four days of sensory deprivation and social isolation: subjective stress, severe boredom and restlessness, disorientation in time, a blurring of the boundaries of sleep and reality, unrealistic fears, alterations of the body schema, frequent and complex visual sensations, some impairment of intellectual functioning in complex tasks, "increased susceptibility to influence," and a greater desire to hear information even when it was contrary to initial belief.[^10] The scheduled isolation was four days (96 hours), and the control subjects led a normal, only slightly restricted life at the Presidio of Monterey.[^10] + +### Operations Research Office and the Korean War studies + +HumRRO was one of several Army-funded behavioral research bodies of the Korean War period. The [[Operations Research Office]] was established at [[Johns Hopkins University]] and conducted early psychological studies of combat performance in Korea.[^11] A 1995 congressional history of federally funded research centers records that the Army's interest in psychological warfare in Korea led to the creation of HumRRO in 1951 under a contract administered by the university, and that most of the Operations Research Office's human factors work then passed to HumRRO and, later, to the Special Operations Research Office.[^11] + +The Operations Research Office was dissolved in June 1961, and the [[Research Analysis Corporation]] replaced it under a new Army contract that took effect September 1, 1961.[^11] The 1995 history records that the change was made so that the Army could remove the office's director, and that Johns Hopkins University declined to remove him under Army pressure, which led to the termination of the contract.[^11] + +### Frank Olson and the 1994 forensic examination + +The university's most documented connection to the intelligence record of the period is the 1994 examination of Frank Olson. Olson's son arranged the exhumation of his father's body, and the forensic examination was led by James E. Starrs of the university.[^12] Starrs found a hematoma on the left side of Olson's skull and injuries to the cheekbone that he regarded as inconsistent with a fall through a window. He classified the death as a homicide by unknown means.[^12] + +The Olson death is connected in the record to [[Sidney Gottlieb]], who directed the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]'s MKULTRA program from the agency's Technical Services Division. Gottlieb died in March 1999.[^13] The New York County District Attorney reopened the case as a possible homicide, and no prosecution followed.[^12] H. P. Albarelli's 2009 book on the death reports that Gottlieb had been under investigation for the death at the time of his death.[^14] + +The Washington Post reported on August 27, 1977 that the university had received documents from the CIA about its role in MKULTRA and had refused to release them, and that it was among the universities that had publicly acknowledged receiving similar letters from the agency.[^15] + +### Danny Casolaro autopsy review + +The university's forensic law professor appears in a second death investigation. The 1993 report of Special Counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] on the [[INSLAW]] allegations records that several months after the August 1991 autopsy of the journalist [[Danny Casolaro]], a group of journalists in Washington asked Professor James E. Starrs, described as a noted forensic pathology expert at the university's law school, to review the autopsy report of the pathologist who had examined Casolaro. Starrs agreed to do so.[^16] In an interview with the Washington Business Journal in November 1992, as the report summarizes it, Starrs stated that he agreed that Casolaro's wounds had been self-inflicted, doubted that additional scientific techniques would have changed the outcome of the autopsy, and agreed that the small contusions on the body were caused by embalming fluid, although he criticized the West Virginia authorities for embalming the body so quickly. The report also records that he noted the suicide note was typical in being unsigned and in apologizing to the family, and quotes him: "[I]f this was a homicide, it would be the most singularly remarkable murder on record, either in fiction or nonfiction."[^16] The report's conclusion cites the review as an independent opinion that "reportedly has arrived at the same opinion as that expressed in this report," and prints the name as James E. Starr.[^17] + +### National Security Archive + +The National Security Archive is a nongovernmental research institute and library whose public address is Suite 700 of the Gelman Library at the university, at 2130 H Street, NW.[^1] The archive's legal entity is the National Security Archive Fund, Inc., a District of Columbia nonprofit, and its founding director was [[Scott Armstrong]].[^2] + +The archive publishes electronic briefing books. Its copy of the CIA's KUBARK counterintelligence interrogation manual, of July 1963 and declassified in 1997 with portions redacted, is posted as Electronic Briefing Book No. 122.[^18] The declassified version was released with approximately fifteen pages still redacted.[^18] The archive's Electronic Briefing Book No. 222, "The CIA's Family Jewels," was posted June 21, 2007 and updated June 26, 2007.[^19] Its October 30, 2025 posting on the top secret testimony of the MKULTRA chief, fifty years after the testimony, is posted in the same series.[^20] Electronic Briefing Book No. 465, on the fiftieth anniversary of the 1964 Brazilian coup, reproduces an excerpt of a White House meeting tape of October 7, 1963 as Document 9. The briefing book was edited by [[James G. Hershberg]], whom the briefing book identifies as a George Washington University historian. Participants in the meeting, as listed for Document 9, include [[Lincoln Gordon]].[^21] + +The archive's connection to the [[Dag Hammarskjöld]] inquiry is documented in the report of the Commission of Jurists, transmitted by the Secretary-General on March 21, 2014. The commission recorded its assistance from "the National Security Archive at George Washington University, DC," in focusing its search, and noted that its request for disclosure of what it regarded as critical intercept records was still pending.[^22] The report describes a listening post near Nicosia, Cyprus, operated by the [[National Security Agency]], which occupied the upper floor of a building whose ground floor the CIA occupied, the two organizations not exchanging information.[^22] A witness named Southall, who worked there, recalled that about 9 p.m. on September 17, 1961 he was telephoned at home by the communications watch officer, who told him "Get yourself out here tonight. Something interesting is going to happen," and that shortly after midnight a recording was played back of a voice saying "I see a transport plane coming low. All the lights are on" and, after the sound of cannon fire, "I've hit it. There are flames. It's going down. It's crashing."[^23] The commission wrote that the narrative was not inconsistent with an accidental shooting-down, and listed among the features of the surrounding evidence the National Security Agency's apparent foreknowledge of the event.[^23] + +The commission concluded that, from the evidence of a physical United States presence at Ndola airport with radio monitoring equipment and from the National Security Agency's worldwide monitoring in about 1961, it was highly likely that the entirety of the local and regional Ndola radio traffic on the night of September 17 and 18, 1961 was tracked and recorded by the National Security Agency, and possibly also by the CIA.[^24] If the suggested attack or threat had occurred, the report continues, the cockpit narrative and the Ndola control tower dialogue should in the ordinary course have been monitored, recorded, logged and archived by that agency.[^24] The Freedom of Information Act requests that the National Security Archive made on the commission's behalf sought any recording or transcription of radio traffic intercepted by the National Security Agency at its Cyprus station on the night of September 17 and 18, 1961, and any message it intercepted between 2130 GMT on September 17 and 0030 GMT on September 18 concerning the landing or approach of an aircraft at Ndola.[^25] The National Security Agency's initial response indicated that two of the three responsive documents appeared exempt from disclosure under "top secret" classification on national security grounds. On July 19, 2013, Dr. Mary Curry, the Archive's public service coordinator, wrote to the commission that, according to the Archive's CIA expert, [[John Prados]], intercepts of the National Security Agency had always been highly guarded by declassifiers, and that an appeal had been lodged.[^25] The commission added that it understood the documents to be subject to a qualified 50-year rule, and recommended that the United Nations reopen its 1961 to 1962 inquiry for the purpose of confirming or refuting the attack evidence from intercept records, which appeared to be held, if anywhere, in the United States.[^25] + +### Jack Anderson papers + +The columnist [[Jack Anderson]] died in December 2005.[^26] After his death, the Federal Bureau of Investigation told the family that the Bureau wished to review his files and remove any documents it judged classified before they were opened to the public.[^27] On April 20, 2006, an FBI assistant director, [[John Miller]], told NPR that the Bureau wanted access before the archive was made public. NPR reported that FBI agents had told the family the papers included a document that could bear on a current espionage case involving pro-Israel lobbyists, and that 188 boxes were held by the university.[^27] + +A letter dated November 30, 2006 from Acting Associate Attorney General [[James H. Clinger]] to Senator [[Arlen Specter]] stated: "At this time, the FBI is not seeking to reclaim any documents."[^28] The Associated Press reported that the family then arranged for the papers to go to the university for archiving.[^29] The university's University Archivist, [[Sylvia Augusteijn]], had been working since April 2006 to categorize and re-file the documents in 186 boxes bequeathed by the Anderson family. The student newspaper's October 2008 report on the collection was headed "Gelman Library to receive FBI files on columnist Jack Anderson."[^30] + +[[Mark Feldstein]], a journalism professor at the university, wrote in a March 25, 2022 article for the Washington Post, reprinted by [[Stars and Stripes]], about a March 1972 conversation between [[Charles Colson]] and [[E. Howard Hunt]] concerning Anderson.[^31] The same episode, and Feldstein's 2010 book on the Nixon White House's campaign against Anderson, were reported by NBC News in September 2010.[^32] Anderson's own Washington Post columns of January 9, February 5 and March 30, 1981, on psychic weapons and Pentagon and CIA psychic programs, survive in CIA reading room copies.[^33][^34][^35] + +### Groom Lake litigation + +The Ninth Circuit's decision in [[Kasza v. Browner]], decided January 8, 1998 after argument on November 5, 1997, arose from two citizen suits under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The plaintiffs in Kasza, the widow of a former worker and others who had worked at a classified operating location near Groom Lake, Nevada, sued the [[Environmental Protection Agency]]. The companion case, Frost v. Perry, was brought against the Air Force, and the Secretary of the Air Force invoked the military and state secrets privilege.[^36] The district court granted summary judgment for the Air Force in Frost.[^36] The Ninth Circuit's opinion names the plaintiffs' counsel as [[Jonathan Turley]] and [[Joan Manley]], of the university, and the government's counsel as lawyers of the [[Department of Justice]]. The concurrence discusses the government's claim of privilege over what it called security sensitive environmental data.[^36] A 1994 report in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, drawn from a Cox News Service dispatch, described Turley as a law professor at the university's National Law Center who had sued the agency over the Groom Lake site.[^37] + +### J. Edgar Hoover + +[[J. Edgar Hoover]] was born in Washington, D.C. on January 1, 1895. After high school he worked at the Library of Congress and attended night classes at the university's law school, and in 1916 he was awarded his LL.B. and in 1917 his LL.M.[^38] A university interview with the historian Andrew Simpson, author of a 2009 article on Hoover's legal education in the journal Intelligencer, states that Hoover entered the law school in fall 1913, that the school required a college education for admission from 1909 but did not enforce the requirement until 1920, that he passed the bar examination on July 25, 1917, and that he began work at the Department of Justice the next day.[^39] The [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] biography states that he entered on duty with the Department of Justice on July 26, 1917, was named assistant to the attorney general in November 1918, and in 1919 led the department's General Intelligence Division.[^38] Simpson states that in 1917, at age 22, Hoover headed the department's Alien Enemy Bureau.[^39] He directed the Bureau from May 10, 1924 until his death on May 2, 1972.[^38] + +### George Washington University Hospital and March 30, 1981 + +On March 30, 1981 [[John Hinckley Jr.]] fired six shots outside the Washington Hilton Hotel at [[Ronald Reagan]], who had just addressed the national conference of the Building and Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO. The first bullet hit the press secretary, [[James Brady]]; the second a District of Columbia police officer, Thomas Delahanty; the fourth Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy; and the sixth ricocheted off the presidential limousine into Reagan. Secret Service agent [[Jerry Parr]] first directed the driver toward the White House and, on learning that Reagan had been shot, redirected the motorcade to George Washington University Hospital, where surgeons Benjamin Aaron and Joseph Giordano removed a bullet from the left lung.[^40] The White House press office issued the daily medical reports through Dr. Dennis O'Leary, dean for clinical affairs at the hospital. His evening briefing on March 30 stated that the president was in the recovery room, awake and stable, "at no time in any serious danger," that he had been in the operating room for about two hours, and that the single bullet had entered below the left armpit, traversed about three inches of chest wall, ricocheted off the seventh rib and lodged about three inches into the left lower lobe of the lung.[^41] O'Leary reported that McCarthy's bullet had passed through the liver, that blood in the abdominal cavity had required a drain, and that Brady was still in surgery in critical condition.[^41] The statement of [[George H.W. Bush]], the vice president, issued that evening on his return from Texas, summarized the same briefing.[^42] + +The Reagan Library holds the FBI collection on Hinckley, which includes photographs of the emergency room of George Washington University Hospital made on April 3 and April 4, 1981.[^43] The Houston Post reported that [[Neil Bush]], a son of the vice president, had been scheduled to have dinner the day after the shooting with [[Scott Hinckley]], the brother of the gunman, and Neil Bush acknowledged at a press conference that Scott Hinckley had been at his house at a surprise birthday party a couple of months earlier.[^44] + +### Colin Powell + +[[Colin Powell]] earned an M.B.A. from the university in 1971 and received an honorary Doctor of Public Service from the university in 1990, according to the university's alumni office.[^45] The biography issued by the administration of [[George W. Bush]] while Powell was Secretary of State states that his further academic achievements included a Master of Business Administration degree from the university.[^46] + +### Program on Extremism and NCITE + +The GWU Program on Extremism was established at the university in June 2015, and [[Lorenzo Vidino]] has led it since then.[^47] A December 17, 2015 newsletter of the program, among Department of Homeland Security records released to the [[American Civil Liberties Union]], describes the program as part of the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at the university, and reports that Hughes had testified before the House Committee on Homeland Security on July 15 of that year.[^48] The same newsletter reports that the program released its report on the Islamic State in the United States, "ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa," on December 1, 2015, and describes the program's collaborations with several government agencies, think tanks and study centers.[^48] [[Seamus Hughes]], who had been the program's deputy director from its founding, later became a senior research faculty member and policy associate at the [[National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center]], the consortium.[^49] + +A March 2025 fact sheet of the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate describes the center as a consortium led by the University of Nebraska at Omaha, with more than 40 university and industry partners, and lists the George Washington University among its university partners.[^50] In December 2025, the program's analysts [[Luke Baumgartner]] and [[Barry Jonas]] argued in Just Security that the Justice Department was prosecuting networks such as 764 under a statute traditionally reserved for international terrorism.[^51] The program hosted a panel on December 18, 2025, titled "Holding 764 Accountable," at which [[Justin Sher]] described the group's stated objective.[^52] + +In 2024, Farid Hafez, identified in press reports as a former senior researcher at the University of Salzburg, sued Vidino, the university and the program. The Intercept reported the suit under the headline "Lawsuit Links Wild UAE-Financed Smear Campaign to George Washington University," and the allegations are those of the plaintiff.[^53] + +### Degree holders and affiliates + +[[John Foster Dulles]] took a year of philosophy and international law at the Sorbonne after graduating from Princeton, then attended the George Washington University Law School and earned his LL.B. in 1911. He joined [[Sullivan and Cromwell]] the same year and worked there from 1911 to 1949, rising to senior partner.[^54] In 1907 he had attended the Second Hague Peace Conference as secretary to his grandfather, [[John Watson Foster]].[^54] + +[[Hank Brown]] received a J.D. from the University of Colorado in 1969 and an M.L. in tax from the university in 1986.[^55] He had served as a lieutenant in the United States Navy from 1962 to 1966 and was admitted to the Colorado bar in 1969.[^55] [[Raymond Banoun]] took a J.D. with honors from the university's law school in 1968, clerked for [[Harold H. Greene]], and served for three years as a special assistant to the United States Attorney.[^56] [[Anthony Moscato]] took a law degree from the university in 1970 and joined the Justice Department's Tax Division as a trial attorney in 1976.[^57] [[Lee Rawls]] took a law degree from the university and was chief of staff to Senator [[Pete Domenici]] by 1975.[^58] + +[[Nick Szabo]] studied computer science at the [[University of Washington]] and later took a law degree from the university.[^59] In 1996 he published "Smart Contracts: Building Blocks for Digital Markets," an essay on agreements whose terms are written into code.[^60] [[Ward Boston]] did graduate law studies at the university after the Korean War began, when he returned to active duty in the regular Navy as a Judge Advocate.[^61] [[C.B. Scott Jones]] held an A.B. in government from the university in 1961 before serving about fifteen years in naval intelligence.[^62] [[Richard Secord]] attended a one-year George Washington University graduate program at the [[Naval War College]] in Newport, Rhode Island, from 1971 to 1972, as one of 16 Air Force officers in the program.[^63] [[Brendan Bordelon]] holds a master's degree from the university.[^64] + +### L. Ron Hubbard's claimed degree + +[[L. Ron Hubbard]] claimed to have studied at the university from 1930 to 1932. The Victorian Board of Enquiry into Scientology, chaired by [[Kevin Victor Anderson]], Q.C., recorded that Hubbard "claims to have studied engineering" there, and that he had claimed a graduate qualification in civil engineering, using the letters "B.S." and "C.E." to convey that he had so graduated. The inquiry concluded: "In fact, he has no such qualification."[^65] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: National Security Archive, "About the National Security Archive," address block (Suite 700, Gelman Library, The George Washington University, 2130 H Street, NW, Washington, D.C.). https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/about +[^2]: National Security Archive, "The National Security Archive 1985 to 2025," anniversary booklet with founders, founding funders, board chairs and executive directors. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/sites/default/files/2025-12/Celebrating%20%2040%20YEARS%20%288c%29.pdf +[^3]: Human Resources Research Office, *Bibliography of Publications as of 30 June 1966* (Alexandria, Va.: HumRRO, September 1966), introductory statement on the office's status as a nongovernmental agency of The George Washington University. DTIC AD0643761. https://archive.org/details/DTIC_AD0643761 +[^4]: U.S. Army Leadership Human Research Unit, report on screening procedures for tactical interrogation, May 1963, front matter (AR 70-8 mission statement; Leadership Human Research Unit under the Continental Army Command). DTIC AD0487576. https://archive.org/details/DTIC_AD0487576 +[^5]: Human Resources Research Office history, in *Institutional Funding for Applied Research: The Case of HumRRO and the U.S. Army*, CONSAD Research Corporation for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, May 24, 1973, ERIC ED097560, chapters I and II (quoting William A. McClelland, Professional Paper 30-68; Meredith P. Crawford, *A Perspective on the Development of HumRRO*, 1967). https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED097560.pdf +[^6]: Peter Watson, *War on the Mind: The Military Uses and Abuses of Psychology* (Basic Books, 1978), pp. 462-468 (App. II). +[^7]: HumRRO, "Our History." https://www.humrro.org/who-we-are/our-history/ +[^8]: Lawrence Schlesinger and Harriet Beckwitt, *Psychological Warfare Job Requirements and Training: An Evaluation of the Psychological Warfare School Curriculum*, HumRRO Psychological Warfare Division, Task PSYJOB, August 1956, title page and approval page. DTIC AD0484337. https://archive.org/details/DTIC_AD0484337 +[^9]: U.S. Army Leadership Human Research Unit, report on screening procedures for tactical interrogation (Task QUIZ), May 1963, preface, summary, and composition of the research team. DTIC AD0487576. https://archive.org/details/DTIC_AD0487576 +[^10]: Thomas Myers, Donald B. Murphy, Seward Smith and S. James Goffard, *Experimental Studies of Sensory Deprivation and Social Isolation*, HumRRO Technical Report 66-8, June 1966, Contract DA 44-188 ARO-2, summary and research procedure. DTIC AD0636478. https://archive.org/details/DTIC_AD0636478 +[^11]: U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, "A History of the Department of Defense Federally Funded Research and Development Centers," OTA-BP-ISS-157, June 1995, pp. 20-21 (ORO in Korea, HumRRO 1951, SORO, ORO dissolved June 1961, RAC contract). https://web.archive.org/web/2016id_/https://www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk1/1995/9501/950106.PDF +[^12]: James E. Starrs, report of forensic examination, Olson exhumation, 1994, held in the New York County District Attorney investigation files (partial public record). +[^13]: Stephen Kinzer, *Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control* (Henry Holt, 2019). +[^14]: H. P. Albarelli, *A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments* (Trine Day, 2009). +[^15]: John Jacobs, "Dialogue Sought With Professor in CIA Probe," The Washington Post, August 27, 1977, CIA reading room copy at archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01315r000300020003-7. +[^16]: U.S. Department of Justice, *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua*, March 1993, p. 126 and note 4 (Washington Business Journal, week of November 9-15, 1992, p. 13). https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993 +[^17]: U.S. Department of Justice, *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.*, March 1993, pp. 248-250 (conclusion on the death of Danny Casolaro). https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993 +[^18]: CIA, *KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation*, July 1963 (declassified 1997, portions redacted), National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 122. +[^19]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 222, "The CIA's Family Jewels," posted June 21, 2007, updated June 26, 2007. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB222/index.htm +[^20]: National Security Archive, "The Top Secret Testimony of CIA's MKULTRA Chief, 50 Years Later," October 30, 2025. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/dnsa-intelligence/2025-10-30/top-secret-testimony-cias-mkultra-chief-50-years-later +[^21]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 465, "Brazil Marks 50th Anniversary of Military Coup," edited by James G. Hershberg and Peter Kornbluh, posted April 2, 2014, text and Document 9, "Excerpt from White House meeting tape, October 7, 1963." https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB465/ +[^22]: United Nations, Commission of Jurists, Inquiry into the Death of Dag Hammarskjöld, report transmitted by the Secretary-General, A/68/800 (March 21, 2014), paragraphs 11.2 and 13.24. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2F68%2F800&l=en&t=pdf +[^23]: United Nations, Commission of Jurists, A/68/800 (March 21, 2014), paragraphs 13.24 to 13.28 and the list following paragraph 13.50. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2F68%2F800&l=en&t=pdf +[^24]: United Nations, Commission of Jurists, A/68/800 (March 21, 2014), paragraphs 15.7 and 15.8. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2F68%2F800&l=en&t=pdf +[^25]: United Nations, Commission of Jurists, A/68/800 (March 21, 2014), paragraphs 15.11 to 15.14. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2F68%2F800&l=en&t=pdf +[^26]: Patricia Sullivan, "Obituary: Jack Anderson was Pulitzer winning columnist," *The Washington Post*, December 18, 2005. +[^27]: David Folkenflik, "FBI Defends Request for Columnist's Papers," NPR, *All Things Considered*, April 20, 2006. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/5353604 +[^28]: "FBI Abandons Its Effort to Obtain Jack Anderson's Files," Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, January 4, 2007, quoting the letter of Acting Associate Attorney General James H. Clinger to Senator Arlen Specter dated November 30, 2006. https://rcfp.org/?p=39395 +[^29]: "FBI Drops Demands For Jack Anderson Papers," Associated Press, January 4, 2007. https://cbsnews.com/news/fbi-drops-demands-for-jack-anderson-papers +[^30]: Lauren French, "Gelman Library to receive FBI files on columnist Jack Anderson," *The GW Hatchet*, October 27, 2008 (quoting University Archivist Sylvia Augusteijn on the 186 boxes). https://www.gwhatchet.com/2008/10/27/gelman-library-to-receive-fbi-files-on-columnist-jack-anderson/ +[^31]: Mark Feldstein, "50 years ago: Nixon White House plotted to assassinate journalist," *The Washington Post*, March 25, 2022, reprinted in *Stars and Stripes*. https://www.stripes.com/history/2022-03-25/50-years-ago-nixon-white-house-plotted-assassinate-journalist-5477284.html +[^32]: Michael Isikoff, "Nixon plot against newspaper columnist detailed," NBC News, September 13, 2010, reporting on Mark Feldstein, *Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson and the Rise of Washington's Scandal Culture* (2010). +[^33]: Jack Anderson, "Pentagon Invades Buck Rogers' Turf," *The Washington Post*, January 9, 1981, p. D16, CIA Reading Room copy. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00789r001001420001-3 +[^34]: Jack Anderson, "Yes, Psychic Warfare Is Part of the Game," *The Washington Post*, February 5, 1981, p. DC11, CIA Reading Room copy. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00789r001001420001-3 +[^35]: Jack Anderson, "CIA Toys with Extrasensory Weapons," *The Washington Post*, March 30, 1981, p. B13, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00788r001700360003-3 +[^36]: *Kasza v. Browner*, 133 F.3d 1159 (9th Cir. Jan. 8, 1998), counsel listing and concurrence. https://static.case.law/f3d/133/cases/1159-01.json +[^37]: "EPA Sued On Secret Air Base / Agency Didn't Shield Workers, Suit Says," Cox News Service, *St. Louis Post-Dispatch*, August 16, 1994, p. 2B. https://www.newspapers.com/image/142561425/ +[^38]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, "J. Edgar Hoover, May 10, 1924 - May 2, 1972," Directors, Then and Now. https://www.fbi.gov/history/directors/j-edgar-hoover +[^39]: "J. Edgar Hoover's GW Years" (interview with Andrew Simpson), *GW Today*, December 11, 2011. https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/j-edgar-hoovers-gw-years +[^40]: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, "Assassination Attempt on Reagan." https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/reagans/reagan-administration/assassination-attempt-reagan +[^41]: "Digest of Other White House Announcements," March 30, 1981, quoting the medical report of Dr. Dennis O'Leary, George Washington University Hospital, *The American Presidency Project*. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/digest-other-white-house-announcements-9127 +[^42]: "Statement by the Vice President About the Attempted Assassination of the President," March 30, 1981, *The American Presidency Project*. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/statement-the-vice-president-about-the-attempted-assassination-the-president +[^43]: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, John Hinckley Jr. (FBI) Collection, folders JHJ-74 and JHJ-75 (emergency room, George Washington University Hospital, April 3 and 4, 1981). https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/john-hinckley-jr-collection +[^44]: WhoWhatWhy, "Bush Angle to Reagan Shooting Still Unresolved as Hinckley Walks," August 16, 2016, reporting the *Houston Post* story and Neil Bush's press conference. https://whowhatwhy.org/2016/08/16/bush-angle-reagan-shooting-still-unresolved-hinckley-walks/ +[^45]: George Washington University Alumni Relations, "Colin L. Powell" (M.B.A. '71, Honorary Doctor of Public Service '90); "In Memoriam: Colin Powell," *GW Today*, October 2021. https://alumni.gwu.edu/colin-l-powell +[^46]: "Secretary of State Colin L. Powell," biography, White House archive of the George W. Bush administration. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/government/powell-bio.html +[^47]: "Program on Extremism Launches at GW," GW Today, June 22, 2015. https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/program-extremism-launches-gw (leadership by Lorenzo Vidino). +[^48]: Program on Extremism newsletter, "2015 No. 1," December 17, 2015, in Department of Homeland Security records (NPPD 001896 to 001899) released to the American Civil Liberties Union. https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/Emails-re-GWU-Program-on-Extremism-1896-1939.pdf +[^49]: NCITE, "Seamus Hughes," staff biography, University of Nebraska Omaha. https://www.unomaha.edu/ncite/about-ncite/staff-directory/seamus-hughes.php +[^50]: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Science and Technology Directorate, "National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center (NCITE)," fact sheet, March 2025, university partners list. https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2025-03/25_0331_st_ncite_fact_sheet.pdf +[^51]: Luke Baumgartner and Barry Jonas, "How the DOJ is Prosecuting Nihilistic Violent Extremism as Domestic Terrorism," *Just Security*, December 9, 2025. https://www.justsecurity.org/126226/prosecuting-nihilistic-violent-extremism-domestic-terrorism/ +[^52]: GWU Program on Extremism panel, "Holding 764 Accountable," December 18, 2025. +[^53]: The Intercept, "Lawsuit Links Wild UAE-Financed Smear Campaign to George Washington University," April 20, 2024. +[^54]: *Princeton University Library, John Foster Dulles papers*, Mudd Manuscript Library, finding aid MC016, biographical note (LL.B., George Washington University Law School, 1911; Sullivan and Cromwell, 1911 to 1949). https://findingaids.library.upenn.edu/records/PRIN_MUDD_MC016 +[^55]: "BROWN, George Hanks (Hank)," *Biographical Directory of the United States Congress*, U.S. House of Representatives, History, Art and Archives (J.D., University of Colorado, 1969; M.L. (tax), George Washington University, 1986). https://history.house.gov/People/Detail/9967 +[^56]: Banoun Law LLC, biography of Raymond Banoun. https://sites.google.com/site/banounlaw +[^57]: "Anthony (Tony) Charles Moscato," obituary, Fairfax Memorial Funeral Home, June 2026. https://www.fairfaxmemorialfuneralhome.com/obituaries/Anthony-Charles-Moscato?obId=48707990 +[^58]: "W. Lee Rawls, Justice Department official and Senate aide," obituary, *The Washington Post*, December 2010; Princeton Alumni Weekly memorial, Class of 1966. +[^59]: "Notable Crypto Personalities: Nick Szabo," *The Block*, profile. https://www.theblock.co/profile/350036/nick-szabo +[^60]: Nick Szabo, "Smart Contracts: Building Blocks for Digital Markets," 1996. +[^61]: Ward Boston Jr., obituary, *Connection Newspapers*, June 17, 2008. https://connectionnewspapers.com/news/2008/jun/17/obituary-captain-ward-boston-jr-dies-june-12 +[^62]: University of Colorado Boulder Libraries, Rare and Distinctive Collections, "C. B. 'Scott' Jones papers," COU:4004, biographical note. https://archives.colorado.edu/repositories/2/resources/346 +[^63]: Los Angeles Times, March 29, 1987, "Secord: A Specialist in Covert Deals," CIA Reading Room CIA-RDP90-00965R000201700001-4. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000201700001-4 +[^64]: Chris Roush, "National Journal hires Bordelon as tech reporter," *Talking Biz News*, March 20, 2017. https://talkingbiznews.com/they-talk-biz-news/national-journal-hires-bordelon-as-tech-reporter/ +[^65]: Kevin Victor Anderson, Q.C., *Report of the Board of Enquiry into Scientology* (Melbourne: Government of Victoria, 1965), passage on Hubbard's claimed study at the university, 1930 to 1932, and his claimed degrees. https://archive.org/details/AndersonReportReportOfTheBoardOfEnquiryIntoScientology diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Georgetown University.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Georgetown University.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..19e784f9 --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Georgetown University.md @@ -0,0 +1,305 @@ +--- +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +title: Georgetown University +aliases: + - Georgetown Law School +tags: + - Organization + - AcademicInstitution + - CIA + - MKULTRA + - GeschickterFund + - ColdWar + - Anticommunism + - Nuremberg + - CSIS + - SaudiArabia + - Qatar + - PROMIS + - INSLAW + - ArtificialIntelligence + - OpenPhilanthropy + - ExtremismResearch + - Section117 +category: "Private Organization" +summary: "Georgetown University is a Washington Jesuit university whose hospital, foreign service school and research centers appear in the record of CIA-funded MKULTRA research, Gulf donations and AI policy." +start: 1789 +location: "Washington, D.C." +relations: + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Edmund A. Walsh]]" + reverse: true + role: "dean of the College of Arts and Sciences (1918), head of the School of Foreign Service (1919)" + start: 1918 + fn: 2 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Charles Geschickter]]" + reverse: true + role: "professor of pathology, 1946 to 1971" + start: 1946 + end: 1971 + fn: 35 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[James D. Theberge]]" + reverse: true + role: "director of Latin American studies, 1970 to 1975" + start: 1970 + end: 1975 + fn: 16 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Ray S. Cline]]" + reverse: true + role: "executive director, Center for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown" + start: 1973 + fn: 14 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Andre Hellegers]]" + reverse: true + role: "founding director, Kennedy Institute of Ethics, 1971 to 1979" + start: 1971 + end: 1979 + fn: 12 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Jason Matheny]]" + reverse: true + role: "founding director, Center for Security and Emerging Technology" + start: 2019 + fn: 56 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Helen Toner]]" + reverse: true + role: "director of strategy and plans, Center for Security and Emerging Technology" + start: 2019 + fn: 57 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[William Hannas]]" + reverse: true + role: "lead analyst, Center for Security and Emerging Technology; earlier assistant professor of Chinese" + start: 2019 + fn: 57 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Dorothy Denning]]" + reverse: true + role: "chair of the Computer Science Department" + start: 1993 + fn: 66 + - type: funded + with: "[[Central Intelligence Agency]]" + reverse: true + role: "contribution of 375,000 dollars routed through the Geschickter Fund toward a research wing at Georgetown University Hospital (MKULTRA Subproject 35)" + start: 1955 + end: 1957 + fn: 25 + - type: funded + with: "[[Open Philanthropy]]" + reverse: true + role: "55 million dollars over five years to launch the Center for Security and Emerging Technology" + start: 2019 + fn: 56 + - type: funded + with: "[[Alwaleed bin Talal]]" + reverse: true + role: "20 million dollar gift to the center now named for him" + start: 2005 + fn: 47 + - type: funded + with: "[[Geschickter Fund for Medical Research]]" + reverse: true + role: "375,000 dollar gift toward the Gorman research building" + start: 1957 + fn: 39 + - type: investigated + with: "[[U.S. Department of Education]]" + reverse: true + role: "Section 117 investigation of foreign gift and contract reporting, letter of June 13, 2019" + start: 2019 + fn: 51 +--- +Georgetown University is a Jesuit research university in Washington, D.C., which describes itself as "the oldest Catholic and Jesuit institution of higher learning in the United States."[^1] Its [[Walsh School of Foreign Service|School of Foreign Service]], its hospital and its research centers appear in the record of the anticommunist and Nuremberg career of [[Edmund A. Walsh]], the intelligence-community figures who passed through the [[Center for Strategic and International Studies]] and the [[National Intelligence Study Center]], the CIA's 1955 contribution toward a research wing at [[Georgetown University Hospital]] that was part of [[Project MKUltra]], Saudi and Qatari gifts, the [[Center for Security and Emerging Technology]], and the alumni and faculty who moved between the university and government. + +### Founding and the School of Foreign Service + +Georgetown's history page dates the university to 1789, "in the spirit of the new republic," with teaching beginning in 1792 and [[John Carroll]] credited as founder.[^1] The School of Foreign Service opened in 1919 under the direction of Walsh, a Jesuit who had been named dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in 1918.[^2] + +The finding aid for Walsh's papers at the Booth Family Center describes the career that shaped the school. In 1922 he led the [[Papal Relief Mission to Russia]] against a famine there and served as the Vatican's representative for studying the treatment of the Roman Catholic Church in the Soviet Union. The collection says that it was in this period that "Fr. Walsh began to develop his anticommunism."[^3] He built courses on Russian history, politics and culture, published [[The Fall of the Russian Empire]] in 1928, and in 1931 published [[The Last Stand]], an analysis of the Soviet five-year plan.[^3] He served as president of the [[Catholic Near East Welfare Association]], helped organize [[Baghdad College]], a Jesuit school in Iraq, and acted as a consultant to the [[War Department]].[^3] + +At the [[Nuremberg trials]], the finding aid records, Walsh "was a civilian consultant to Robert H. Jackson, the lead U.S. counsel."[^4] In 1947 and 1948 he served as visitor general to the Jesuits in [[Japan]].[^4] His 1949 book [[Total Power]] examined the Nazis, and his 1951 book [[Total Empire]] addressed the Soviet Union. He created the Georgetown University Institute of Languages and Linguistics in 1949, died on October 31, 1956, and the school was renamed after him in 1958.[^5] + +[[Galo Plaza]], later President of [[Ecuador]] from 1948 to 1952 and head of the [[Organization of American States]] from 1968, was sent to the University of California and then to the University of Maryland, where he received a degree in agronomy, and to the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, where he received a degree in diplomacy.[^6] [[Bill Clinton]] received a bachelor's degree from the School of Foreign Service in 1968.[^7] [[Stacey Plaskett]] graduated from the school with a Bachelor of Science in History and Diplomacy, and her official House biography gives a Juris Doctorate from [[American University]]'s Washington College of Law.[^8] + +The school's [[Institute for the Study of Diplomacy]] dates from 1978, when R. Smith Simpson, a career Foreign Service officer, established it with Dean Peter F. Krogh.[^9][^10] The [[Kennedy Institute of Ethics]] was established at Georgetown in 1971 by the obstetrician Andre Hellegers with the support of the family of [[Joseph P. Kennedy Jr.]]; Hellegers had joined the faculty in 1967, served on the Presidential Commission on Population and Birth Control from 1968 to 1973, and directed the institute until his death in 1979.[^11][^12] + +### Intelligence studies and the Center for Strategic and International Studies + +The Center for Strategic and International Studies was founded in 1962 at Georgetown by [[Arleigh Burke]] and [[David Abshire]]. It operated as a center within the university and became an independent nonprofit institution in 1987.[^13] [[Ray S. Cline]], the CIA's deputy director for intelligence during the [[Cuban Missile Crisis]], left the State Department's intelligence bureau in 1973 and became an executive director of the center at Georgetown.[^14] The Georgetown library holds a May 16, 1962 [[New York Times]] clipping headlined "C.I.A. Appoints Intelligence Deputy," which reports his appointment to the agency's deputy post, among the papers of [[Richard Helms]].[^15] + +[[James D. Theberge]] directed Latin American studies at the center from 1970 to 1975. His papers at Georgetown describe the same post as director of the Latin American and Hispanic Studies Center.[^16] A January 1972 CIA paper on Caribbean and Latin American propaganda names him as one of the experts of the Georgetown center on Cuban and Latin American affairs, and reports his view that Salvador Allende was "a willing ally in the Cuban diplomatic thrust."[^17] Theberge was ambassador to [[Nicaragua]] from 1975 to 1977 and to [[Chile]] from 1982 to 1985.[^18] His papers record that he "died of a heart attack on a visit to Jamaica in January, 1988."[^16] + +A CIA reading room document records a November 3, 1983 invitation from the National Intelligence Study Center and the trustees of Georgetown University to an exhibit of books on intelligence from the collection of Colonel Russell J. Bowen in the Gunlocke Special Collections Room of the Lauinger Library. The advisory board listed on the invitation includes [[William J. Casey]], [[Daniel O. Graham]], [[Lyman B. Kirkpatrick Jr.]], [[Paul Nitze|Paul H. Nitze]] and [[Eugene F. Tighe Jr.]]; Cline and [[Stefan Halper]] appear among the directors; and the program names Cline and [[Walter Pforzheimer]] as speakers. Bowen had deposited more than six thousand books and documents at the university library, and the center had published a bibliography of the collection, Scholar's Guide to Intelligence Literature.[^19] + +The university also holds the papers of Helms. The finding aid says Helms was a United Press staff correspondent from 1935 to 1937, covered the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, and as a correspondent in Germany "attended a lunch given by Adolph Hitler in 1936."[^20] The same finding aid records a CIA career from 1947 to 1973, service as deputy director from 1965 to 1966 and as director from June 30, 1966. It records his appointment as ambassador to [[Iran]], which he held from February 8, 1973 to December 27, 1976, and says that he met the [[Mohammad Reza Pahlavi|Shah]] often in one-on-one meetings. In 1977 he pleaded no contest to charges that he had not fully disclosed to Congress the agency's plans to assassinate Cuban President [[Fidel Castro]].[^21] Helms wrote in his 2003 memoir that he interviewed Hitler at Nuremberg along with other correspondents in 1936.[^22] + +### The Georgetown University Hospital research wing and MKUltra Subproject 35 + +The most documented Georgetown entry in the record is [[MKUltra Subproject 35]]. The August 3, 1977 joint hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research published the subproject's file as Appendix C. The file opens in the printed record with a memorandum of December 21, 1954 from the agency's General Counsel, [[Lawrence R. Houston]], which states that "a gift of Government funds as such would exceed the intent of the Congress in granting that power," and then weighs whether the return to the agency would justify a gift of that kind. The memorandum says that "In a legal sense, there is little or no control," that once the funds were donated "the individual, his foundation, or the hospital could conceivably refuse to work for us or allow us the use of the facilities," and that the "ostensible source" of the money meant the agency's projects would not be charged the hospital's 80 percent overhead on research contracts.[^23] A General Counsel note of December 22, 1954 transmits the file with the comment that "there is no fundamental legal objection if the probable benefits are considered a fair return for this expenditure."[^24] + +The Director of Central Intelligence approved Subproject 35 on January 15, 1955, for a contribution of $125,000 to the construction of a new research wing estimated at $3,000,000.[^25] The memorandum of May 10, 1955 that recites the approval says that agency funds would be "transmitted through the [deletion] as cut-out," and that this would result in "one-sixth of the space in the new research wing being made available for Agency-sponsored research involving covert biological and chemical techniques of warfare." The hearing copy deletes the name of the recipient. Geschickter's own testimony identifies the fund. An April 8, 1955 General Counsel note acknowledged a request of April 6 for a further $250,000 for the project.[^24] A later amendment, titled "For the Purpose of Establishing a Cover Organization for Highly Sensitive Projects in the Field of Biological, Chemical and Radiological Warfare," raised the agency's contribution to $375,000, with federal matching funds under Public Law 221 bringing the building fund to $3,000,000.[^26] + +The amendment describes the financing. The university had allocated $1,000,000 and would assume upkeep and staffing obligations; the Fund would match the agency's $125,000 grant to make a donation of $250,000; and a second federal agency, whose name is deleted in the file, had indicated a willingness to contribute $500,000 on the basis that radiological research would be conducted in the new wing. When that agency's support changed to an annual research program of $50,000 to $75,000, the amendment proposed a $500,000 donation of which $375,000 was agency money, matched by $1,500,000 under Public Law 221. Senator Kennedy described the second agency as the Atomic Energy Commission and told Geschickter that when it did not participate the CIA proposed to double its contribution.[^27] The total Government contribution to the hospital fund remained $1,875,000. The amendment also states that the originally approved contribution had not been transmitted, that neither payment would be made until funds adequate to complete the project were available, and that the Director had specified this condition in approving the original contribution.[^26] Tab A adds that the agency's contribution was to be refunded if construction did not take place, and that the value to the agency of the $125,000 was $250,000 because of the matching federal funds.[^28] + +The amendment lists the advantages to the agency in plain terms. Among them are that "Agency sponsorship of sensitive research projects will be completely deniable," that "Full professional cover will be provided for up to three biochemical employees of the Chemical Division," and that "Human patients and volunteers for experimental use will be available under controlled clinical conditions" under the supervision of a person whose name is deleted. It says the subproject was "originally conceived in October and November of 1954," and that the facilities would permit "controlled experiments under safe clinical conditions using materials with which any Agency connection must be completely deniable."[^29] The Tab A justification states that "establishment of better cover both for the projects and for associated Agency scientists is of utmost importance," and records that over forty individual research and development projects had been established under the MKUltra framework.[^30] + +The Tab A background describes the Geschickter Fund's role. The Fund had a board of six members and an executive director, and it had "solicited funds from various individuals to finance a program of basic research in the chemotherapy of cancer, asthma, hypertension, psychosomatic disorders and other chronic diseases." Since 1951 it had "co-operated with the Chemical Division of TSS and acted smoothly and efficiently, both as a cut-out for dealing with contractors in the fields of covert chemical and biological warfare, and as a prime contractor for certain areas of biological research." The background of the Fund's leading figure, whose name is deleted, states that he "is TOP SECRET cleared and witting of Agency sponsorship of the programs carried out by the Fund as are two other members of the Fund's Board of Directors."[^31] The wing was described as a building six stories high, 320 feet long and 50 feet wide, with two-thirds of the space given to research laboratories and offices and 100 research beds in the remainder.[^30] + +Tab A also sets out the agency's difficulties in its own words. The use of the Fund as a cut-out was "increasingly limited" by the number of cleared people aware of the agency connection, by the feeling of its leading figure that the agency employees contacting him, among them "Drs. Gottlieb" and a deleted name, "have no cover of any sort and consequently expose him to unnecessary and highly undesirable personal risk," and by "widespread intra-Agency awareness of the nature of the relationship between the Fund and the Agency." The benefits listed include laboratory and office space, technical assistants and experimental animals, and "the equivalent of a hospital safehouse."[^28] + +The hearing record also places the Georgetown projects in time. Of the several MKUltra projects conducted at Georgetown, the statement says, only one involving human testing ran past March 1959, and that was Subproject 45, which ran from 1955 to 1963 and whose papers make no reference to a new annex.[^32] + +In the same hearing, Senator [[Richard S. Schweiker]] pressed Director [[Stansfield Turner]] on the one-sixth of the space. Turner answered that "there is no factual evidence of what went on as a result of that payment or what went on in that hospital," and added "It is just missing. It is not that it didn't happen." The agency's Inspector General representative, Alan Brody, said that any mention of the one-sixth "has to do with planning" and that there were no subsequent reports as to what happened after construction.[^33] The statement for the record states that construction of the Gorman Annex was begun in 1957 and the Annex was dedicated in March 1959. It says that authorization for the contribution is contained in Subproject 35, that Geschickter continued his research under the agency's [[MKSEARCH]] program through July 1967 at the hospital, and that "it is impossible to determine if the facilities of the Gorman Annex were involved."[^32] + +The [[Washington Post]] reported on August 7, 1977 that CIA documents on Georgetown described a "cover organization for highly sensitive projects" in chemical and biological warfare, and referred to research on terminally ill cancer patients.[^34] The paper identified the building as the Gorman Building, which it gave a cost of $3,035,000, begun in 1957 and dedicated in March 1959. The Post described it as the last of a connected string of buildings that make up the hospital. [[Matthew F. McNulty]], the head of the Georgetown University Medical Center, told the paper that the university destroys most research files after seven to ten years to save space, and that he probably would never be fully informed about events of fifteen and twenty years earlier. McNulty said that university records do not show exactly which building the $375,000 helped build, and that "it was apparently Gorman."[^34] + +### Charles Geschickter and the Geschickter Fund + +[[Charles Geschickter]] was a pathologist and cancer researcher who founded the [[Geschickter Fund for Medical Research]] in 1939, when he was on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins medical school. The Post reported on August 3, 1977 that his Who's Who entry ran to 25 lines and did not mention the foundation, and that his Georgetown colleagues apparently knew little about it.[^35] He taught at Georgetown from 1946 until his retirement in 1971 and kept a small office and laboratory in the Gorman Building.[^34] The Post reported that the foundation's money was "generally assumed" to have come partly from Geschickter's own means and partly from gifts by his patients and others interested in medical science. McNulty told the paper that it "was no secret that he had a private foundation," but that it was "not something that he pushed or promoted in any noticeable way."[^35] + +The Senate subcommittee subpoenaed him in August 1977 for a September session.[^36] The Post reported that Georgetown's lawyers would meet him, and that the university had received 70 pages of CIA documents.[^37] McNulty called the arrangement "an abuse of an institution's integrity and independence of operation and decision making," and said of the agency that "They didn't approach us above board or by open declaration."[^34] + +Geschickter testified on September 20, 1977 as the first witness before the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, chaired by Senator [[Edward M. Kennedy]], at a hearing titled [[Human Drug Testing by the CIA]]. He told the committee that the Fund had been in existence since 1939 and that the agency's first contract with it was for a group of anticancer compounds published in 1951. He said that the agency then enlarged its grants to his laboratory at Georgetown and that the Fund did not knowingly furnish money to other universities for separate projects until 1955. Asked why the agency was interested, he said he could "only give you the report that came to me from Allen Dulles," which included the line "Thank God there is something decent coming out of our bag of dirty tricks. We are delighted."[^38] + +On the building he said: "In 1957, I gave some money to the building fund of Georgetown University Medical Center. I never gave them a penny for any particular building." When Kennedy put the figure of $515,000 to him, he answered "$375,000, not $515,000," and then said "It turned out to be $375,000 CIA money." He said that he had never seen the Subproject 35 memorandum until the Saturday before the hearing, about 80 hours earlier. Asked whether he got one-sixth of the wing, he answered "Not at all," and asked whether he conducted research in the building, "Not a bit in this building."[^39] Asked by Schweiker about the agreement that set aside space for a hospital safehouse, he said: "I knew nothing of this. Neither did Georgetown."[^40] + +He gave the committee totals as well: $535,000 for Subproject 45; $655,500 for all projects that went to his own research; $375,000 for the building program; about $1,030,000 spent at Georgetown over thirteen years; and $2,088,600 to other institutions. He said the top floor of the building held isotope laboratories, that he had begun the effort to raise money for them through Admiral [[Lewis L. Strauss|Lewis Strauss]] of the [[Atomic Energy Commission]], and that the agency later told him it "got into a fight with Admiral Strauss of the AEC" and, when the commission would not put up the money, "were going to put it up themselves."[^41] + +Turner testified the next day. He said he had been told that Geschickter stated that the agency had given money to Georgetown for which it neither received nor asked for services, and called that "an utterly incredible allegation for anybody to make."[^42] [[Sidney Gottlieb]], who ran the Chemical Division in the 1950s, testified on the same day that the cover arrangements for three biochemists "were never implemented," that extensive legal opinion and approval "right up to the Director" had been received for the payment, and that his perspective was that of "an expensive project that just never took place." Schweiker put to him the suggestion that the payment had been "an artificial device for keeping Dr. Geschickter happy because he was useful to the CIA in some sort of consultant role." Gottlieb replied that an element in trying to implement the project was to insure the continuation of the services the agency was getting from Geschickter, but that Schweiker's perspective "was not mine."[^43] + +The journalist [[John D. Marks]] wrote that the 1955 contribution toward the research building was the only time in about twenty-five years that CIA officials sought [[White House]] approval for this kind of work, and that Dulles approved it.[^44] Marks also wrote that the foundation carried $655,000 in agency money for Geschickter's own research and about $2.1 million in total, and that it remained a conduit until President Johnson's 1967 order barring CIA support of foundations.[^45] + +### The university's response and the 1977 record + +The Post reported on August 27, 1977 that Georgetown had received "official notification" that it was part of the CIA program, and that the university was investigating the matter. The same article reported that CIA Director Turner had identified 86 institutions used, "knowingly or not," in MKUltra (Turner's letter of August 2, 1977 to Senator [[Daniel K. Inouye]] gave the number as 80 institutions, 44 of them colleges or universities[^46]); that the chancellor of the [[University of Denver]], Maurice Mitchell, had confirmed that his university had been notified; and that the [[University of Maryland]], [[George Washington University]], [[Harvard University]], [[Stanford University]], [[Columbia University]], [[Princeton University]], [[Ohio State University]] and the [[University of Pennsylvania]] had publicly acknowledged similar letters. The paper added that George Washington University had received documents from the CIA about its role but had refused to release them.[^37] + +The Post's account of McNulty's statements says that nearly two weeks of research and interviews had found no evidence that any research was ever done on the medical center's premises on the agency's behalf or with hidden agency funds, while McNulty conceded that the university could not be fully informed about the 1950s and 1960s.[^34] Geschickter testified that the space the agency's memorandum described was in fact used by ordinary hospital laboratories, a dentistry clinic, a psychiatry outpatient clinic and a baby clinic on the first floor.[^40] + +### Saudi and Gulf gifts + +In December 2005 Georgetown received a $20 million gift from [[Alwaleed bin Talal|Prince Alwaleed bin Talal]] of Saudi Arabia to support and expand its Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, which dates from 1993. The center is now named the HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.[^47] + +Foreign gifts and contracts reported under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act are published as public records.[^48] The Department of Education file, current through February 28, 2025, lists 330 Georgetown transactions, 139 gifts and 191 contracts. For Saudi Arabia it lists twelve gift entries totaling $30,590,000, among them two entries of $2,000,000 each dated December 19, 2005, a $6,000,000 entry dated July 15, 2010, a $5,500,000 entry dated December 30, 2014, a $5,000,000 entry dated January 15, 2009, a $4,000,000 entry dated November 26, 2007 and a $3,000,000 entry dated November 27, 2006. For Qatar it lists nine gift entries totaling $18,185,676, the largest of them $5,007,896, dated June 25, 2009.[^49] + +The Qatar-attributed contracts are the largest category in the file, with 67 entries totaling $952,891,407. The largest Qatar-attributed entry is $42,800,000, received in July 2010 under a contract with a start date of May 17, 2005. Grouped by the start date of each contract, or by the end date where no start date is given, the largest years are 2005, with 21 entries totaling about $531.2 million, and 2015, with 16 entries totaling about $373.0 million.[^50] + +The Department of Education opened its review in 2019. Its letter of June 13, 2019 to President John J. DeGioia, published in the Federal Register on June 28, 2019 over the signature of Acting General Counsel Reed D. Rubinstein, notified the university of an investigation under 20 U.S.C. 1011f into its reports of gifts and contracts from foreign sources.[^51] The letter says the department believed the university's reporting "may not fully capture all gifts, contracts, and/or restricted and conditional gifts or contracts" from foreign sources, and names as examples Chinese nationals and agents who fund the Georgetown Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues; the government of the People's Republic of China, its agencies and agents, including Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., Huawei Technologies USA, Inc. and ZTE Corp; the government of Saudi Arabia; and the government of Qatar, including the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development. It states that the university's reporting should have included Georgetown University Qatar and its affiliated foundations, among them the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.[^52] + +The letter requested within thirty days nine categories of records. They included all records of gifts and contracts with foreign sources since January 1, 2010; records on the governments of China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and [[Russia]], including [[Kaspersky Lab]]; records on Georgetown University Qatar; communications with foreign sources about the Georgetown Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue and the Alwaleed center since January 1, 2014; communications between Professor Theodore Moran and Huawei; records on Hanban and the Confucius Institute since January 1, 2015; records of steps taken to confirm that the foreign sources of gifts did not support persons designated under Executive Order 13224; and the university's and Georgetown University Qatar's IRS Form 990 filings for tax years 2014 through 2018.[^53] + +Prince [[Turki al-Faisal]], who had headed Saudi intelligence, gave a special address at Georgetown's [[Center for Contemporary Arab Studies]] on February 3, 2002. He said that "In 1976, after the Watergate matters took place here, your intelligence community was literally tied up by Congress," and that a group of countries formed the [[Safari Club]] to counter Soviet influence, listing France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Iran as its members.[^54][^55] The account is the speaker's, given in a speech at the university. + +### The Center for Security and Emerging Technology + +The [[Open Philanthropy]] grant page for the Georgetown project states that "The Open Philanthropy Project recommended a grant of $55,000,000 over five years to Georgetown University to launch the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET)." It names [[Luke Muehlhauser]] as grant investigator and says CSET is led by [[Jason Matheny]], "former Assistant Director of National Intelligence and Director of Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA)."[^56] The founding team, as the page lists it, includes [[Dewey Murdick]] as director of data science, previously chief analytics officer and deputy chief scientist at the [[Department of Homeland Security]] and an IARPA program manager; [[William Hannas]], a lead analyst who had been a member of the Senior Intelligence Service at the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] and the primary China science and technology analyst of its Open Source Enterprise, and earlier an assistant professor of Chinese at Georgetown who concurrently served with the [[Foreign Broadcast Information Service]]; and [[Helen Toner]] as director of strategy and plans, previously a senior research analyst at Open Philanthropy.[^57] The center reported in August 2021 that Open Philanthropy's increased commitment brought total funding to more than $100 million through 2025.[^58] + +Matheny left CSET for the White House in March 2021.[^59] A [[Washington Examiner]] report of April 17, 2026, based on documents obtained under the [[Freedom of Information Act]], states that while in the White House Matheny hired [[Ben Buchanan]], then director of CSET's CyberAI project, under the [[Intergovernmental Personnel Act]], with Georgetown continuing to pay Buchanan's salary and the government reimbursing the university. Buchanan told the paper that he had taken "a leave from my professorship at Georgetown University to advance this mission in the White House."[^60] Buchanan's CSET biography describes him as a senior faculty fellow there and an assistant teaching professor in the School of Foreign Service.[^61] + +Open Philanthropy's later grants to the [[RAND Corporation]], after Matheny became its chief executive, included $10.5 million in October 2023, which Muehlhauser recommended.[^62] The department Murdick left for CSET is shown by [[In-Q-Tel]]'s own milestones page as a limited partner of the fund from 2010.[^63] Toner sat on the nonprofit board of [[OpenAI]] when it voted to remove [[Sam Altman]] as chief executive in November 2023.[^64] + +### The Georgetown University Bridge Initiative + +A 2023 investigation by [[David D. Kirkpatrick]] reports that the [[Georgetown University Bridge Initiative]] described [[Lorenzo Vidino]], a researcher at the [[GWU Program on Extremism]], as someone who "promotes conspiracy theories about the Muslim Brotherhood."[^65] + +### INSLAW, PROMIS and the FOIMS review + +In 1992 and 1993 the Special Counsel's office retained [[Dorothy Denning]], chair of the Computer Science Department at Georgetown, to compare the FBI's FOIMS software with the [[PROMIS]] program. [[INSLAW]] had argued that FOIMS was derived from PROMIS. The Special Counsel's March 1993 report, signed by [[Nicholas J. Bua]], states that Denning's "credentials are impeccable," that the FBI "voiced no objection to our choice and processed her security clearance," and that she had earlier served as an expert for a criminal defendant in the Northern District of Illinois, where the charges were dismissed mid-trial.[^66] + +The report says the Special Counsel tried three times to reach [[William Hamilton]] of INSLAW to invite him or another representative to the on-site review of FOIMS at FBI headquarters.[^66] It states that Denning concluded that PROMIS, written in COBOL, was so different from FOIMS, written in the NATURAL and ADABASE environment, that one could not have served as the platform for the other, and that any further examination of the source code would be a waste of her time.[^67] The Department of Justice's September 27, 1994 review of the Bua report records the same conclusion and INSLAW's principal criticism, the failure of Denning to compare the code of the two programs directly.[^68] + +[[John L. Gizzarelli]] graduated from Georgetown University Law School in 1973 and that year was general counsel of INSLAW.[^69] + +### Alumni, faculty and figures in the record + +[[Trae Stephens]] graduated from the School of Foreign Service in 2006. His alumni profile says he wanted to learn Arabic, which made Georgetown a "natural choice," and that he began his career in the office of then-Congressman [[Rob Portman]] and in the political affairs office of the Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington. The profile also places the start of his career in the intelligence community.[^70] + +[[Robert Maheu|Robert M. Maheu]] entered Georgetown Law School in September 1940, according to the FBI's applicant file on him.[^71] [[Robert D. Peloquin]] attended the university from 1947 to 1951, served in the Navy, and studied at the law school from February 1953 to October 1956, according to an FBI applicant investigation of 1958.[^72] [[C. Richard D'Amato]] took his law degree at Georgetown in 1980, according to his resume.[^73] [[Mayer Nudell]] is described in a 1990 resume packet prepared by a counterterrorism consulting firm as holding a B.S. in foreign service from Georgetown.[^74] + +[[Clayton Hinchman]], chairman and chief executive of Ignite Fueling Innovation, is described on the affiliated Radiance Ignite Technologies About page as holding degrees from the [[United States Military Academy]] and Georgetown.[^75] [[Charles R. Work]] took an LL.M. from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1966 and passed the bar in 1965.[^76] [[E. Lawrence Barcella, Jr.]] died in November 2010 at Georgetown University Hospital, according to the Post.[^77] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Georgetown University, "Our History," georgetown.edu/about/history/. The page gives 1789 as the founding year, the phrase "Established in 1789 in the spirit of the new republic," teaching from 1792, John Carroll as founder, the description of the university as "the oldest Catholic and Jesuit institution of higher learning in the United States," and the School of Foreign Service as opened in 1919 under Edmund Walsh, S.J. +[^2]: Georgetown University Library, Booth Family Center for Special Collections, "Edmund A. Walsh, SJ Papers," GTM-090723, biographical note, findingaids.library.georgetown.edu/repositories/15/resources/10418. The note records the 1918 deanship of the College of Arts and Sciences and the 1919 leadership of the School of Foreign Service. +[^3]: Same, biographical note, on the 1922 Papal Relief Mission to Russia, the Vatican assignment on the treatment of the Catholic Church in the Soviet Union, the sentence "Fr. Walsh began to develop his anticommunism," the Russian history courses, the 1928 book "The Fall of the Russian Empire," the 1931 book "The Last Stand," the Catholic Near East Welfare Association, Baghdad College and the War Department consultancy. +[^4]: Same, biographical note, on Walsh as "a civilian consultant to Robert H. Jackson, the lead U.S. counsel" at the Nuremberg war crimes trials, and as visitor general to the Jesuits in Japan in 1947 and 1948. +[^5]: Same, biographical note, on the 1949 book "Total Power," the 1951 book "Total Empire," the Institute of Languages and Linguistics created in 1949, Walsh's death on October 31, 1956, and the renaming of the School of Foreign Service after him in 1958. +[^6]: Obituary of Galo Plaza Lasso, The New York Times, January 29, 1987 (accessed at findagrave.com/memorial/199014200). The obituary states that he was sent to the University of California, "then to the University of Maryland, where he received a degree in agronomy, and to the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Washington, where he got a degree in Diplomacy," and that he was President of Ecuador from 1948 to 1952 and head of the Organization of American States from 1968. +[^7]: National Governors Association, "Bill Clinton," governor biography, nga.org/?p=3705, stating that he received a bachelor's degree in 1968 from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. +[^8]: Office of Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett, "Biography," plaskett.house.gov/biography. The page gives the Georgetown School of Foreign Service degree in History and Diplomacy and the Juris Doctorate from American University's Washington College of Law. +[^9]: "SFS Pioneer Passes Away," The Georgetown Voice, September 16, 2010 (Wayback Machine capture of 2012), on R. Smith Simpson, a career Foreign Service officer who in 1978, with Dean Peter F. Krogh of the School of Foreign Service, established the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, and who created the school's required course Map of the Modern World. +[^10]: Georgetown University, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, "About," isd.georgetown.edu/about/, stating that the institute has advanced diplomatic scholarship and practice since 1978. +[^11]: Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University, "About the Institute," kennedyinstitute.georgetown.edu/?p=1109, stating that the institute was established in 1971 by Andre Hellegers with the support of the family of Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. +[^12]: Georgetown University Library, Booth Family Center for Special Collections, "Andre E. Hellegers Papers," GTM-810811, findingaids.library.georgetown.edu/repositories/15/resources/12281. The note records his 1967 appointment to the Georgetown faculty, his 1968 to 1973 service on the Presidential Commission on Population and Birth Control, his direction of the Joseph and Rose Kennedy Institute of Ethics from 1971 to 1979, and his death in 1979 at age 52. +[^13]: Center for Strategic and International Studies, "About Us," csis.org/about-us/. The page states that the center was founded in 1962 at Georgetown University by Admiral Arleigh Burke and David Abshire, and that it became an independent nonprofit institution in 1987. +[^14]: Tim Weiner, "Ray S. Cline, Chief C.I.A. Analyst, Is Dead at 77," The New York Times, March 16, 1996, Section 1, p. 49, nytimes.com/1996/03/16/us/ray-s-cline-chief-cia-analyst-is-dead-at-77.html (Wayback Machine capture of July 31, 2024). The article records his service as the agency's chief analyst during the Cuban missile crisis, his station posts in Taiwan (1958 to 1962) and Bonn (1966 to 1969), his service as the State Department's chief of intelligence analysis, and that "He gave up Government work in 1973, becoming an executive director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University." +[^15]: Georgetown University Library, "Cline, Ray S., 05/16/1962," Richard M. Helms Papers 2, Box 3, Folder 34, record GAMMS423.6.109, findingaids.library.georgetown.edu/repositories/15/archival_objects/1234224. The record describes a New York Times clipping headlined "C.I.A. Appoints Intelligence Deputy," reporting the appointment of Ray S. Cline to that deputy post. +[^16]: Georgetown University Library, Booth Family Center for Special Collections, "James Theberge Papers," collection 10585, findingaids.library.georgetown.edu/repositories/15/resources/10585. The biographical note gives his birth on Long Island circa 1931, his service as director of the Latin American and Hispanic Studies Center at Georgetown from 1970 to 1975, and the sentence "died of a heart attack on a visit to Jamaica in January, 1988." +[^17]: Central Intelligence Agency, "Caribbean and Latin American propaganda perspectives," January 1972, CREST document CIA-RDP79-01194A000200220001-0, archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp79-01194a000200220001-0. The document names Theberge as one of the experts of the Georgetown University Center for Strategic and International Studies and records his statement that Allende is "a willing ally in the Cuban diplomatic thrust." +[^18]: Department of State, Office of the Historian, "James Daniel Theberge (1930-1988)," history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/theberge-james-daniel, on his appointments as ambassador to Nicaragua and Chile. +[^19]: National Intelligence Study Center, invitation to an exhibit of books on intelligence from the Russell J. Bowen collection, Howard A. Gunlocke Special Collections Room, Joseph Mark Lauinger Memorial Library, Georgetown University, November 3, 1983, with advisory board, officers and board of directors lists, CIA-RDP90-00806R000100430001-2, archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00806r000100430001-2. The invitation names William J. Casey, Daniel O. Graham, Lyman B. Kirkpatrick Jr., Paul H. Nitze and Eugene F. Tighe Jr. on the advisory board, Ray S. Cline and Stefan A. Halper among the directors, and Walter Pforzheimer among the speakers. +[^20]: Georgetown University Library, "Richard M. Helms Papers," biographical note, findingaids.library.georgetown.edu/repositories/15/resources/10290. The note gives the United Press dates, the Berlin Olympics coverage and the sentence "he attended a lunch given by Adolph Hitler in 1936." +[^21]: Same, biographical note, on the CIA career from 1947 to 1973, the deputy directorship from 1965 to 1966, the directorship from June 30, 1966, the ambassadorship to Iran from February 8, 1973 to December 27, 1976 and the 1977 plea. +[^22]: Richard Helms with William Hood, A Look Over My Shoulder: A Life in the Central Intelligence Agency (New York: Random House, 2003), on the 1936 interview with Hitler at Nuremberg. +[^23]: "Project MKULTRA, The CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification," joint hearing before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, United States Senate, August 3, 1977, archive.org/details/project-mkultra-congress-hearing-1977, Appendix C, memorandum of December 21, 1954 from General Counsel Lawrence R. Houston to the Director of Central Intelligence on Subproject 35, pp. 121-122 (printed page numbers). +[^24]: "Project MKULTRA, The CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification," joint hearing before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, United States Senate, August 3, 1977, archive.org/details/project-mkultra-congress-hearing-1977, Appendix C, memorandum of the General Counsel of April 8, 1955 on the requested $250,000 increase, p. 123, and the General Counsel's transmittal note of December 22, 1954, p. 134. +[^25]: "Project MKULTRA, The CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification," joint hearing before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, United States Senate, August 3, 1977, archive.org/details/project-mkultra-congress-hearing-1977, Appendix C, memorandum of May 10, 1955, "Subproject 35 of Project MKULTRA," pp. 127-128, giving the DCI approval of January 15, 1955, the $125,000 contribution toward a $3,000,000 wing, the funding table and the $375,000 total. A handwritten note on the memorandum records that a resume of the project was circulated at a meeting on May 11, 1955. +[^26]: "Project MKULTRA, The CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification," joint hearing before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, United States Senate, August 3, 1977, archive.org/details/project-mkultra-congress-hearing-1977, Appendix C, "Amendment to Subproject 35, Project MKULTRA," "For the Purpose of Establishing a Cover Organization for Highly Sensitive Projects in the Field of Biological, Chemical and Radiological Warfare," pp. 129-131, on the six-story addition, Public Law 221, the $1,875,000 Government contribution, the condition imposed by the DCI and the supplemental $250,000. +[^27]: "Human Drug Testing by the CIA, 1977," hearings before the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, United States Senate, September 20 and 21, 1977, archive.org/details/human-drug-testing-by-the-cia-1977, Senator Edward M. Kennedy's questions to Geschickter, p. 84, on the Atomic Energy Commission, the April 6, 1955 document and the doubling of the agency's contribution. +[^28]: "Project MKULTRA, The CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification," joint hearing before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, United States Senate, August 3, 1977, archive.org/details/project-mkultra-congress-hearing-1977, Appendix C, Tab A, pp. 137-139, on the financial situation, the refund condition, the $250,000 value to the agency, Dr. Gottlieb and other agency employees contacting the Fund, the cover problem, and the hospital safehouse. +[^29]: "Project MKULTRA, The CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification," joint hearing before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, United States Senate, August 3, 1977, archive.org/details/project-mkultra-congress-hearing-1977, Appendix C, amendment, Part VII, "Justification," p. 132, and Part X, p. 133, on the one-sixth of space, deniability, cover for three employees, human patients and volunteers, and the matching funds and overhead savings. +[^30]: "Project MKULTRA, The CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification," joint hearing before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, United States Senate, August 3, 1977, archive.org/details/project-mkultra-congress-hearing-1977, Appendix C, Tab A, "Subproject 35 - Project MKULTRA," pp. 135-136, on over forty MKULTRA projects, the need for cover, and the building of six stories, 320 feet long and 50 feet wide with 100 research beds. +[^31]: "Project MKULTRA, The CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification," joint hearing before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, United States Senate, August 3, 1977, archive.org/details/project-mkultra-congress-hearing-1977, Appendix C, Tab A, p. 136, on the Fund's six-member board, its solicitation of funds for chemotherapy research, its cut-out role since 1951, and the clearance and witting status of its leading figure and two board members. +[^32]: "Project MKULTRA, The CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification," joint hearing before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, United States Senate, August 3, 1977, archive.org/details/project-mkultra-congress-hearing-1977, statement for the record following the testimony of Admiral Stansfield Turner, p. 40, stating that construction of the Gorman Annex began in 1957, that the Annex was dedicated in March 1959, that Subproject 45 ran from 1955 to 1963, that Geschickter continued research under MKSEARCH through July 1967 at Georgetown University Hospital, and that the use of the Annex's facilities could not be determined. +[^33]: "Project MKULTRA, The CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification," joint hearing before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, United States Senate, August 3, 1977, archive.org/details/project-mkultra-congress-hearing-1977, testimony of Admiral Stansfield Turner and Alan Brody, p. 22, on the one-sixth of the space and the absence of reports on what followed construction. +[^34]: Victor Cohn and John Jacobs, "CIA Tried to Use Georgetown Medical Center in 1950s," The Washington Post, August 7, 1977, CIA reading room copy at archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01315r000300020007-3. A second copy of the same article is at archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01315r000300030004-5. +[^35]: John M. Goshko, "Geschickter Research Fund Tightly Controlled by the Founder," The Washington Post, August 3, 1977, CIA reading room copy at archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01315r000300030007-2. The article gives the 1939 founding, the Who's Who entry, the colleagues' knowledge of the foundation and the statement that it was not part of the university. +[^36]: Bill Richards and John Jacobs, The Washington Post, August 6, 1977, CIA reading room copy at archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01315r000200230022-7. The article reports subpoenas issued by the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, including to Geschickter, for September 9. +[^37]: John Jacobs, "Dialogue Sought With Professor in CIA Probe," The Washington Post, August 27, 1977, CIA reading room copies at archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01315r000300020003-7 and archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01315r000400100025-3. The article reports the university's statement that it "seems promising" that its lawyers could meet Geschickter, the 70 pages of CIA documents, the "official notification," the 86 institutions named by Turner, the University of Denver chancellor Maurice Mitchell, the other universities that acknowledged CIA letters, and George Washington University's refusal to release its documents. +[^38]: "Human Drug Testing by the CIA, 1977," hearings before the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, United States Senate, September 20 and 21, 1977, archive.org/details/human-drug-testing-by-the-cia-1977, testimony of Charles F. Geschickter, Sr., M.D., pp. 44-45, on the Fund since 1939, the first contract for anticancer compounds, the enlarged grants after 1951, universities funded from 1955 and the Dulles remark (p. 45). +[^39]: "Human Drug Testing by the CIA, 1977," hearings before the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, United States Senate, September 20 and 21, 1977, archive.org/details/human-drug-testing-by-the-cia-1977, testimony of Geschickter, pp. 84-85, on the building fund, the $375,000 figure, the $515,000 figure put to him by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the statement that he first saw the Subproject 35 memorandum "about Saturday," and research in the building. +[^40]: "Human Drug Testing by the CIA, 1977," hearings before the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, United States Senate, September 20 and 21, 1977, archive.org/details/human-drug-testing-by-the-cia-1977, exchange with Senator Richard S. Schweiker on Subproject 35 and the hospital safehouse, p. 94. +[^41]: "Human Drug Testing by the CIA, 1977," hearings before the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, United States Senate, September 20 and 21, 1977, archive.org/details/human-drug-testing-by-the-cia-1977, testimony of Geschickter, pp. 88-89, giving $535,000 for Subproject 45, $655,500 for all research projects, $375,000 for the building program, about $1,030,000 spent at Georgetown and $2,088,600 to other institutions; and pp. 95-98 on the Gorman building, Admiral Strauss of the Atomic Energy Commission and the radioisotope laboratories. +[^42]: "Human Drug Testing by the CIA, 1977," hearings before the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, United States Senate, September 20 and 21, 1977, archive.org/details/human-drug-testing-by-the-cia-1977, testimony of Admiral Stansfield Turner, September 21, 1977, p. 133. +[^43]: "Human Drug Testing by the CIA, 1977," hearings before the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, United States Senate, September 20 and 21, 1977, archive.org/details/human-drug-testing-by-the-cia-1977, testimony of Sidney Gottlieb, M.D., September 21, 1977, pp. 193-194 and 198, on the cover for three biochemists, the $375,000 payment, and his statements that these things were "never implemented" and that the project was "an expensive project that just never took place." +[^44]: John D. Marks, The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control (New York: Times Books, 1979), chapter 12, on the 1955 contribution toward the research building as the only occasion in about twenty-five years when CIA officials sought White House approval for this kind of work, and on Dulles's approval. +[^45]: Same, chapter 12, on the $655,000 provided for Geschickter's own research, the approximately $2.1 million that passed through the foundation, and the 1967 order against foundation support. +[^46]: Stansfield Turner, Director of Central Intelligence, letter to Senator Daniel K. Inouye, chairman, Select Committee on Intelligence, August 2, 1977, in NS010102_000027, PDF pp. 96-103 (figures at p. 101). +[^47]: Georgetown University Global Engagement, "Georgetown Center Deepens Understanding between Muslims and Christians," May 22, 2014, global.georgetown.edu/features/prince-alwaleed-bin-talal-center-for-muslim-christian-understanding. The page gives the December 2005 gift, the center's founding in 1993 and its renaming. +[^48]: U.S. Department of Education, "Section 117 Foreign Gift and Contract Data," Knowledge Center, studentaid.gov, the page from which the public Section 117 spreadsheets are linked. +[^49]: U.S. Department of Education, Section 117 Foreign Gift and Contract Public Records, "Sec117PublicRecordsCompleteFeb2025.xlsx," current through February 28, 2025, fsapartners.ed.gov/sites/default/files/2025-05/Sec117PublicRecordsCompleteFeb2025.xlsx. Counts and sums are those of the rows for Georgetown University, OPEID 00144500, by transaction type and attribution country. +[^50]: Same spreadsheet, Georgetown rows with transaction type "Contract" and attribution country "QATAR," grouped by contract start date or, where absent, contract end date. +[^51]: U.S. Department of Education, Office of the General Counsel, "Notice of Investigation and Record Requests," Federal Register, June 28, 2019, Doc. 2019-13904, federalregister.gov/d/2019-13904, publishing the letters of June 13, 2019 to Georgetown University and Texas A&M University; Appendix A, letter to President John J. DeGioia. +[^52]: Same notice, Appendix A, on the Georgetown Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., Huawei Technologies USA, Inc., ZTE Corp, Kaspersky Lab and Kaspersky Lab US, the governments of the People's Republic of China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Russia, the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, Georgetown University Qatar and the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. +[^53]: Same notice, Appendix A, requests 1 through 9 and the thirty-day production deadline: records from January 1, 2010; communications between Prof. Theodore Moran and Huawei; records on Hanban and the Confucius Institute from January 1, 2015; records of steps taken to confirm that foreign sources do not support persons designated under Executive Order 13224; and IRS Form 990 filings for tax years 2014 through 2018. +[^54]: Prince Turki al-Faisal bin Abd al-Aziz Al-Saud, special address, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, February 3, 2002, transcript archived at web.archive.org/web/20030402032839/http://www.ccasonline.org/publicaffairs/turki_02032002.html. The quoted sentence appears in the transcript as given. +[^55]: Same transcript, on the Safari Club and the countries the speaker lists as its members. +[^56]: Open Philanthropy, "Georgetown University, Center for Security and Emerging Technology," grant of January 2019, archived January 2, 2025, web.archive.org/web/20250102035307/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/georgetown-university-center-for-security-and-emerging-technology/. The page gives the amount of $55,000,000, the award date of January 2019, the grant investigator Luke Muehlhauser, the sentence quoted in the text and the description of Matheny. +[^57]: Same grant page, on the founding team: Dewey Murdick, Director of Data Science, previously Chief Analytics Officer and Deputy Chief Scientist at the Department of Homeland Security and an IARPA program manager; William Hannas, Lead Analyst, previously a member of the Senior Intelligence Service at the Central Intelligence Agency and an assistant professor of Chinese at Georgetown; Helen Toner, Director of Strategy and Plans; Ben Buchanan, Faculty Fellow; Jamie Baker, Distinguished Fellow; and Michael Sulmeyer, Senior Fellow. +[^58]: Center for Security and Emerging Technology, "New Grant Agreement Boosts CSET Funding to More than $100 Million Through 2025," August 25, 2021, cset.georgetown.edu. +[^59]: Open Philanthropy grant page for CSET, January 2019, and Center for Security and Emerging Technology staff pages, on Matheny's departure from CSET for the White House in March 2021. +[^60]: Robert Schmad, "Documents show how a tech-connected nonprofit shaped Biden-era AI policy," Washington Examiner, April 17, 2026, washingtonexaminer.com/news/investigations/4532389/, including the quoted statement by Buchanan. +[^61]: Center for Security and Emerging Technology, "Ben Buchanan," staff biography, cset.georgetown.edu/staff/ben-buchanan/. +[^62]: Open Philanthropy, "RAND Corporation, Emerging Technology Initiatives," grant of October 2023, archived 2025, web.archive.org/web/20250122041729/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/rand-corporation-emerging-technology-initiatives/. +[^63]: In-Q-Tel, "Our Milestones," iqt.org/about/our-milestones, listing the Department of Homeland Security as a limited partner from 2010. +[^64]: CNBC, "Former OpenAI board member explains why CEO Sam Altman got fired before he was rehired," May 29, 2024, cnbc.com/2024/05/29/former-openai-board-member-explains-why-ceo-sam-altman-was-fired.html. +[^65]: David D. Kirkpatrick, "The Dirty Secrets of a Smear Campaign," The New Yorker, April 3, 2023 issue (online March 27, 2023), newyorker.com/magazine/2023/04/03/the-dirty-secrets-of-a-smear-campaign. +[^66]: U.S. Department of Justice, Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of INSLAW, Inc., March 1993, archive.org/details/InslawPROMISBuaReport, p. 144, on the retention of Professor Dorothy Denning, her earlier service as an expert for a defendant before Judge Bua in the Northern District of Illinois, the FBI's clearance of her, the statement "Professor Denning's credentials are impeccable," and the three calls to William Hamilton. +[^67]: Same report, p. 146, on Gordon Zacrep, Denning's viewing of FOIMS and PROMIS, her conclusion that PROMIS in COBOL could not have been the platform for FOIMS in the NATURAL/ADABASE environment, and the Special Counsel's conclusion. +[^68]: U.S. Department of Justice, Report of the United States Department of Justice on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report on the Allegations of INSLAW, Inc., September 27, 1994 (bound with the Bua report at archive.org/details/InslawPROMISBuaReport), pp. 60-61, on Denning's conclusion and INSLAW's criticism that the code of the two programs was not compared. +[^69]: Computerworld, 1973, p. 18, on John L. Gizzarelli's appointment as general counsel of INSLAW. +[^70]: Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, "Trae Stephens (SFS'06)," alumni profile, sfs.georgetown.edu/alumni/trae-stephens-sfs06/. The profile gives the 2006 graduation, the wish to learn Arabic, the Portman office, the Afghan Embassy political affairs office and the start of his career in the intelligence community. +[^71]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, file on Robert A. Maheu, FOI/PA no. 1342370-0, applicant investigation, 1940, archive.org/details/RobertMaheu. +[^72]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Robert Peloquin file, FOI/PA No. 1602405, Part 01, archive.org/details/robert-peloquin-fbi-file. +[^73]: C. Richard D'Amato, resume, megalomediadesigns.com/dickdamatoresume.pdf, Wayback Machine capture of April 28, 2016. +[^74]: CounterTerrorism Consultants, L.P., resume packet, June 1990, in the Danny Casolaro papers at the Missouri State Historical Society. +[^75]: Radiance Ignite Technologies, About Us page, radianceignite.com/. +[^76]: Atlantic Legal Foundation, "Charles R. Work - Director Biography," atlanticlegal.org. +[^77]: T. Rees Shapiro, "E. Lawrence Barcella Jr., lawyer," The Washington Post, November 9, 2010, washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/09/AR2010110905919.html. diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Geschickter Fund for Medical Research.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Geschickter Fund for Medical Research.md index 9d4c9848..9a84d0c3 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Geschickter Fund for Medical Research.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Geschickter Fund for Medical Research.md @@ -8,8 +8,14 @@ tags: - Georgetown summary: "CIA funding conduit operated by Dr. Charles Geschickter that channeled approximately $2.1 million to MKULTRA researchers, including a $375,000 contribution toward a Georgetown University Hospital research building with CIA-reserved patient beds." location: Washington, D.C. +relations: + - type: funded + with: "[[Georgetown University]]" + role: "375,000 dollar gift toward the Gorman research building, 1957 (CIA funds routed through the Fund)" + start: 1957 + fn: 4 created: 2026-06-03 -updated: 2026-06-03 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- The Geschickter Fund for Medical Research was a family foundation operated by Dr. Charles Geschickter that served as a [[CIA]] funding conduit. About $2.1 million flowed through the tightly controlled foundation to other researchers. In all, the Agency put $655,000 into Geschickter's own research on knockout drugs, stress-producing chemicals, and mind-altering substances at [[Georgetown University Hospital]] in [[Washington, D.C.]][^1] @@ -17,6 +23,10 @@ The Geschickter Fund for Medical Research was a family foundation operated by Dr In 1955, Geschickter convinced Agency officials to contribute $375,000 in secret funds toward construction of a new research building at Georgetown University Hospital. Since this money appeared to come from private sources, unwitting Federal bureaucrats doubled it under the matching grant program for hospital construction. The Agency had a clear understanding with Geschickter that in return, he would ensure they received use of one-sixth of the beds and total space for their own "hospital safehouse," providing a ready source of "human patients and volunteers for experimental use." The arrangement would provide cover for up to three TSS staff members. [[Allen Dulles]] personally approved the contribution and then took it to President Eisenhower's special committee to review covert operations, which also gave assent. This was the only time in a quarter-century of behavioral control activities when documents show CIA officials went to the [[White House]] for approval.[^1] +The Subproject 35 file printed in the August 3, 1977 joint hearing records a General Counsel memorandum of December 21, 1954 (pp. 121-122) and approval by the Director of Central Intelligence on January 15, 1955 of a $125,000 contribution through the Fund toward a research wing, with a further $250,000 requested in 1955 (memorandum of May 10, 1955, pp. 127-128).[^2] The file describes the Fund as a corporation with a six-member board and an executive director, which had "solicited funds from various individuals to finance a program of basic research in the chemotherapy of cancer, asthma, hypertension, psychosomatic disorders and other chronic diseases." Since 1951 it had "co-operated with the Chemical Division of TSS and acted smoothly and efficiently, both as a cut-out for dealing with contractors in the fields of covert chemical and biological warfare, and as a prime contractor for certain areas of biological research." The background of the Fund's leading figure, whose name is deleted in the file, states that he "is TOP SECRET cleared and witting of Agency sponsorship of the programs carried out by the Fund as are two other members of the Fund's Board of Directors."[^2] + +Geschickter testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research on September 20, 1977. He said that the Fund had existed since 1939, that the agency's first contract with it was for anticancer compounds, and that "the report that came to me from Allen Dulles" included the line "Thank God there is something decent coming out of our bag of dirty tricks. We are delighted."[^3] He said of the building: "In 1957, I gave some money to the building fund of Georgetown University Medical Center. I never gave them a penny for any particular building," and, when the figure of $515,000 was put to him, answered "$375,000, not $515,000." He said he had not seen the Subproject 35 memorandum until the Saturday before the hearing, that "I never had the money," and, of the hospital safehouse arrangement, "I knew nothing of this. Neither did Georgetown."[^4] + ### Continued Operations Under [[MKSEARCH]], Geschickter continued to provide TSS with a means to assess drugs rapidly. He branched into trying to knock out monkeys with radar waves to the head, a technique that worked but risked frying vital parts of the brain. The Fund remained available as a conduit until 1967, when President Johnson forbade CIA support of foundations. The Agency simply transferred funding from the foundation to a private company of which Geschickter's son was secretary-treasurer.[^1] @@ -24,3 +34,6 @@ Under [[MKSEARCH]], Geschickter continued to provide TSS with a means to assess ### Footnotes [^1]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*, Chapter 12. +[^2]: "Project MKULTRA, The CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification," joint hearing, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, August 3, 1977, archive.org/details/project-mkultra-congress-hearing-1977, Appendix C, memorandum of December 21, 1954, pp. 121-122; memorandum of May 10, 1955, pp. 127-128; Tab A, p. 136. +[^3]: "Human Drug Testing by the CIA, 1977," hearings before the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, United States Senate, September 20 and 21, 1977, archive.org/details/human-drug-testing-by-the-cia-1977, testimony of Charles F. Geschickter, Sr., M.D., pp. 44-45. +[^4]: "Human Drug Testing by the CIA, 1977," hearings before the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, United States Senate, September 20 and 21, 1977, archive.org/details/human-drug-testing-by-the-cia-1977, testimony of Charles F. Geschickter, Sr., M.D., pp. 84-85 and p. 94. diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Goldman Sachs.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Goldman Sachs.md index b85a1424..a7073818 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Goldman Sachs.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Goldman Sachs.md @@ -218,7 +218,7 @@ The staff report of the [[Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations]], issued on The subcommittee held a hearing on April 27, 2010. The witnesses were Sparks, [[Joshua Birnbaum]], [[Michael Swenson]], [[Fabrice Tourre]], the chief financial officer [[David Viniar]], the chief risk officer [[Craig Broderick]], and Blankfein. Blankfein told the subcommittee that the firm had received an investment from the government in 2008, held it for about eight months, and repaid it with a 23 percent annualized return. He also said: "We didn't have a massive short against the housing market and we certainly did not bet against our clients."[^21] -The SEC filed suit against Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Tourre on April 16, 2010 in the [[Southern District of New York]] (10 Civ. 3229). The complaint alleged that the marketing materials for ABACUS 2007-AC1 stated that the portfolio had been selected by [[ACA Management LLC]] without disclosing that the hedge fund [[Paulson & Co.]] had taken part in the selection and had taken a short position through credit default swaps with Goldman.[^22] On July 15, 2010, the SEC announced that Goldman had agreed to pay 550 million dollars. In the settlement papers the firm acknowledged that the marketing materials "contained incomplete information" and that it "was a mistake" to state that ACA had selected the portfolio without disclosing the role of Paulson & Co.[^23] A jury found Tourre liable on August 1, 2013, and the final judgment filed on March 27, 2014 imposed disgorgement of 175,463 dollars, interest of 31,150.91 dollars and a civil penalty of 650,000 dollars.[^24] +The SEC filed suit against Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Tourre on April 16, 2010 in the [[U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York|Southern District of New York]] (10 Civ. 3229). The complaint alleged that the marketing materials for ABACUS 2007-AC1 stated that the portfolio had been selected by [[ACA Management LLC]] without disclosing that the hedge fund [[Paulson & Co.]] had taken part in the selection and had taken a short position through credit default swaps with Goldman.[^22] On July 15, 2010, the SEC announced that Goldman had agreed to pay 550 million dollars. In the settlement papers the firm acknowledged that the marketing materials "contained incomplete information" and that it "was a mistake" to state that ACA had selected the portfolio without disclosing the role of Paulson & Co.[^23] A jury found Tourre liable on August 1, 2013, and the final judgment filed on March 27, 2014 imposed disgorgement of 175,463 dollars, interest of 31,150.91 dollars and a civil penalty of 650,000 dollars.[^24] On August 9, 2012, the Justice Department stated that its investigators and prosecutors, including those in its Criminal Division and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan, had "determined that, based on the law and evidence as they exist at this time, there is not a viable basis to bring a criminal prosecution with respect to Goldman Sachs or its employees in regard to the allegations set forth in the report" from Levin's subcommittee. [[David Ingram]] of [[Reuters]] reported that Levin had asked for a criminal investigation in April 2011.[^25] diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Google.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Google.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..80ea92ce --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Google.md @@ -0,0 +1,343 @@ +--- +aliases: + - Alphabet + - Alphabet Inc. + - Google LLC + - Google Inc. + - Google.org + - Google Public Sector +category: "Private Organization" +tags: + - Organization + - TechnologyCompany + - PRISM + - InQTel + - Keyhole + - ProjectMaven + - NSA + - Antitrust + - DeepMind + - ArtificialIntelligence + - Surveillance + - DefenseContracts +summary: "Technology company whose Keyhole mapping software was bought after a CIA-funded investor backed it, whose PRISM listing and Pentagon AI work are documented, and whose search and advertising businesses face federal antitrust judgments." +start: 1998 +location: "Mountain View, California" +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +relations: + - type: director_of + with: "[[Eric Schmidt]]" + reverse: true + end: 2019-06-19 + role: "director" + fn: 17 + - type: head_of + with: "[[Eric Schmidt]]" + reverse: true + start: 2001 + end: 2011 + role: "chief executive" + fn: 16 + - type: founded + with: "[[Larry Page]]" + reverse: true + start: 1998-09 + role: "co-founder" + fn: 1 + - type: founded + with: "[[Sergey Brin]]" + reverse: true + start: 1998-09 + role: "co-founder" + fn: 1 + - type: owned + with: "[[YouTube]]" + start: 2006-10 + fn: 3 + - type: owned + with: "[[DeepMind]]" + start: 2014-01 + fn: 46 + - type: owned + with: "[[Keyhole, Inc.]]" + start: 2004-10-27 + fn: 5 + - type: contractor_to + with: "[[Department of Defense]]" + start: 2009-02-05 + fn: 7 + - type: contractor_to + with: "[[Defense Information Systems Agency]]" + start: 2022-12-08 + role: "JWCC task order holder via Google Public Sector" + fn: 33 + - type: participant_in + with: "[[PRISM]]" + start: 2009-01-14 + fn: 12 + - type: participant_in + with: "[[Project Maven]]" + start: 2017-09 + end: 2019-03 + fn: 29 + - type: prosecuted + with: "[[Department of Justice]]" + reverse: true + start: 2020-10-20 + role: "civil antitrust suit" + fn: 78 + - type: funded + with: "[[HOPE not hate]]" + start: 2021 + end: 2021 + fn: 64 + - type: contractor_to + with: "[[Federation for American Immigration Reform]]" + start: 2021 + end: 2022 + role: "advertising vendor" + fn: 62 + - type: funded + with: "[[Anthropic]]" + fn: 50 + - type: funded + with: "[[Safe Superintelligence]]" + start: 2025-04 + fn: 51 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Timnit Gebru]]" + reverse: true + end: 2020-12 + role: "manager, Ethical AI team" + fn: 56 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Andrew Moore]]" + reverse: true + start: 2006 + end: 2014 + role: "founding director, Pittsburgh engineering office; later head of Google Cloud AI" + fn: 19 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Ray Kurzweil]]" + reverse: true + start: 2012-12-14 + role: "director of engineering" + fn: 49 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Ilya Sutskever]]" + reverse: true + start: 2013 + role: "researcher, Google Brain" + fn: 48 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Eyal Manor]]" + reverse: true + start: 2012 + role: "engineering director, Ad Exchange" + fn: 85 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Bret Taylor]]" + reverse: true + end: 2007-06 + role: "group product manager" + fn: 58 +--- + +Google is an American technology company incorporated in California in September 1998 and reincorporated in Delaware in August 2003, with executive offices in [[Mountain View, California]].[^1] The company was founded by [[Larry Page]] and [[Sergey Brin]]. Its parent, Alphabet Inc., has been the registrant in the company's annual filings since a holding company reorganization in October 2015, when a transfer restriction agreement between the company and [[Eric Schmidt]] was signed.[^2] Google bought [[YouTube]] in October 2006 in an all-stock transaction announced at 1.65 billion dollars.[^3] + +### Keyhole, In-Q-Tel and Google Earth + +In February 2003 [[In-Q-Tel]], the venture firm funded by the [[Central Intelligence Agency]], invested in [[Keyhole, Inc.]], a maker of three-dimensional satellite-imagery mapping software. In a June 25, 2003 announcement In-Q-Tel said the investment was its first engagement on behalf of the [[National Imagery and Mapping Agency]], and that within two weeks the agency was using the software within the [[Pentagon]] to support United States troops in [[Iraq]].[^4] The announcement described In-Q-Tel as "a private nonprofit venture funded by the Central Intelligence Agency," and said that Keyhole's EarthViewer client "uses videogame-like 3-D graphics and access to massive databases of network-hosted earth information, including satellite imagery and aerial photography."[^4] + +Google announced on October 27, 2004 that it had acquired Keyhole Corp., which it described as a Mountain View digital mapping company founded in 2001, with financial terms not disclosed. The announcement listed "public agencies" among Keyhole's customers and said the software combined "a multi-terabyte database of mapping information and images collected from satellites and airplanes." Jonathan Rosenberg, Google's vice president of product management, said the acquisition would enable users "to view 3D images of any place on earth."[^5] The product became [[Google Earth]]. [[Yasha Levine]] wrote that In-Q-Tel sold 5,636 shares of Google stock in 2005 for 2.18 million dollars, and that [[Rob Painter]], an In-Q-Tel executive, went to Google to run its federal sales. Levine also wrote that when he asked the CIA under the [[Freedom of Information Act]] for the terms of the transaction, the agency replied that it could neither confirm nor deny the existence of records.[^6] + +Federal contracting records list the [[Department of the Navy]] as a buyer of Google Earth Pro licenses from Google LLC. Awards in September 2009, September 2010 and November 2011 were recorded at 4,200, 4,230 and 4,200 dollars, and a February 2013 renewal of eleven licenses carries no recorded amount.[^7] + +### The 2010 cybersecurity arrangement and EPIC v. NSA + +On January 12, 2010, [[David Drummond]], Google's chief legal officer, published a post on the Official Google Blog describing "a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China" that the company had detected in mid-December 2009. The post said the attackers appeared to have aimed mainly at the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists, and that only two Gmail accounts appeared to have been accessed.[^8] Reports on February 4, 2010 said that Google had contacted the [[NSA]] immediately after the attack. The former NSA director [[Mike McConnell]] called collaboration between the agency and private companies like Google "inevitable."[^9] + +On February 4, 2010, the [[Electronic Privacy Information Center]] filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the NSA for any agreement between the agency and Google on cyber security, records of communications about Gmail encryption, and records of the NSA's role in Google's decision not to encrypt routinely cloud services such as Google Docs. The NSA's March 10, 2010 reply declined to confirm or deny that it had any relationship with Google, citing FOIA Exemption 3 and Section 6 of the National Security Agency Act of 1959.[^10] The district court wrote that "Section 6 of the NSA Act is a statutory exemption under Exemption 3," and described the NSA's information assurance mission as "protecting Department of Defense and other national-security information systems."[^10] In support of the agency's motion, a declaration by the NSA's deputy associate director for policy and records argued that "[t]o confirm or deny the existence of any such records would be to reveal whether the NSA ... determined that vulnerabilities or cybersecurity issues pertaining to Google or certain of its commercial technologies could make U.S. government information systems susceptible to exploitation or attack."[^10] + +Judge [[Richard J. Leon]] granted summary judgment to the NSA on July 13, 2011.[^10] The [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit]] affirmed on May 11, 2012. The panel described the request as seeking communications between the NSA and Google about encryption and cyber security, stated that the agency had issued a Glomar response under FOIA Exemption 3, and affirmed the judgment for the NSA.[^11] The opinion also recorded that Google had changed Gmail's privacy settings "to automatically encrypt all traffic to and from its servers" after the attack.[^11] + +### PRISM + +In June 2013 the [[Washington Post]] published NSA slides from the documents provided by [[Edward Snowden]]. One slide, headed "Dates When PRISM Collection Began For Each Provider," lists Google with the date 1/14/09. It appears after [[Microsoft]] (9/11/07), [[Yahoo]] (3/12/08) and [[Facebook]] (6/3/09), and before [[PalTalk]], YouTube, [[Skype]], [[AOL]] and [[Apple]], which the slide marks as added in October 2012. The same slide gives a program cost of about 20 million dollars per year.[^12] + +On June 7, 2013, Page and Drummond wrote on the Google blog that the company had not joined "any program that would give the U.S. government ... direct access to our servers," and that the government "does not have direct access or a 'back door' to the information stored in our data centers."[^13] In an April 2, 2026 staff report on the surveillance program operated under [[Section 702]] of the [[Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act]], the [[Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board]] stated that the 2024 reauthorization law "added a new category of electronic communication service providers." The report also stated that the government had reported applying the amended definition "in a limited manner consistent with" its commitments to Congress.[^14] The Board's July 2, 2014 report on the program had described PRISM collection as the transmission of selectors, such as an email address, by the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] on behalf of the NSA to a United States electronic communications service provider that had been served a directive. It stated that as of mid-2011, 91 percent of the Internet communications the NSA acquired each year were obtained through PRISM collection, that the NSA receives all PRISM collection and that the Central Intelligence Agency and the FBI each receive a portion, and that the government had not declassified the specific providers served with directives.[^15] + +### Eric Schmidt and the policy network + +Schmidt was chief executive of Google from 2001 to 2011.[^16] His term on the Alphabet board ended on June 19, 2019, when, according to the company's 2020 proxy statement, he and [[Diane Greene]] did not seek re-election.[^17] The 2020 proxy's beneficial ownership table lists Schmidt with 3,937,963 Class B shares, based on a Schedule 13G/A filed February 14, 2020 by Schmidt and the Schmidt Family Living Trust.[^17] The [[Tech Transparency Project]] reported that Schmidt chaired the [[Defense Innovation Board]] from 2016 to 2020 under [[Ash Carter]].[^18] + +The [[National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence]], established by Section 1051 of the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019, was chaired by Schmidt, with [[Robert Work]] as vice chair, and issued its final report in March 2021. The fifteen commissioners were nominated by Congress and the executive branch. Besides Schmidt they included [[Andrew Moore]], who had worked at Google from 2006 to 2014, founded its Pittsburgh engineering office in 2006, and became head of the Google Cloud artificial intelligence division in January 2019; [[Chris Darby]], president and chief executive of In-Q-Tel since September 2006; [[Gilman Louie]], In-Q-Tel's first chief executive from 1999 to 2006; [[Safra Catz]], chief executive of [[Oracle Corporation]]; [[Andrew Jassy]] of [[Amazon Web Services]]; and [[Eric Horvitz]] of Microsoft. The report listed among its recommendations a joint emerging-technology investment consortium "Modeled on In-Q-Tel" and described Project Maven, launched in 2017, as one of the "pockets of excellence" in the Defense Department's use of artificial intelligence.[^19] In October 2022 [[CNBC]] reported that Schmidt had helped write artificial intelligence laws in Washington without publicly disclosing his investments in AI start-ups.[^20] Schmidt and his wife [[Wendy Schmidt]] launched [[Schmidt Futures]] in 2017, which is funded chiefly through a private foundation.[^21] + +In March 2022 [[Politico]] reported that Schmidt Futures had paid for staff of the [[Office of Science and Technology Policy]]. Its chief innovation officer, [[Tom Kalil]], stayed on the Schmidt Futures payroll for four months while serving as an unpaid consultant to the office, and the organization indirectly covered the salary of the office's chief of staff for about six weeks. Schmidt called the report "largely false."[^22][^23] + +The [[Special Competitive Studies Project]] was announced on October 5, 2021 as a think tank founded by Schmidt and modeled on the Special Studies Project that [[Nelson Rockefeller]] sponsored in 1956 and [[Henry Kissinger]] led, and it grew directly out of the commission.[^24] Its board, as the project describes it, has included Work, [[Nadia Schadlow]], [[Michele Flournoy]] and [[Mac Thornberry]], and it is led by [[Ylli Bajraktari]].[^25] In 2024 Schmidt Futures consolidated its core scientific work into a new charitable organization, [[Schmidt Sciences]].[^26] In 2012 the video startup [[Waywire]] listed former Google chairman Eric Schmidt among its backers, according to a 2013 article in [[Inc. magazine]] that also examined the tech ties of [[Cory Booker]].[^27] + +### Project Maven + +On April 26, 2017, the deputy secretary of defense established the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team, known as [[Project Maven]], "to accelerate DoD's integration of big data and machine learning." Its first task was to field technology to augment or automate processing, exploitation and dissemination for tactical unmanned aerial systems and mid-altitude full-motion video in support of the [[Defeat-ISIS]] campaign. The memorandum said the team would initially provide computer vision algorithms for object detection, classification and alerts.[^28] + +[[The Intercept]] reported on June 1, 2018 that Google would keep working on Maven through March 2019 and would not renew the contract after its eighteen-month term.[^29] The report said that Google executives had tried to describe the work as a contract of about 9 million dollars, while leaked information indicated that the company expected the Maven work to grow to about 250 million dollars a year. The same report said that Google had not committed to forgo signing other military contracts involving artificial intelligence.[^29] + +In June 2018 Google published AI principles that list, among the applications it would not pursue, "Weapons or other technologies whose principal purpose or implementation is to cause or directly facilitate injury to people."[^30] The principles page also states: "while we are not developing AI for use in weapons, we will continue our work with governments and the military in many other areas. These include cybersecurity, training, military recruitment, veterans' healthcare, and search and rescue."[^30] [[Alex Karp]], chief executive of [[Palantir]], pointed to Google's 2018 withdrawal from Project Maven, under employee pressure, as a warning of what he called self-centered libertarianism, in his book *The Technological Republic*.[^31] Palantir's Maven Smart System contract was expanded by 795 million dollars in May 2025.[^32] + +### Government contracts + +Federal contracting records list Google Public Sector LLC as an awardee under the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) multiple-award contract. A task order from the [[Defense Information Systems Agency]] dated December 8, 2022 records an award amount of 13,216,056 dollars.[^33] On September 12, 2025 the [[U.S. Army|Department of the Army]] issued a task order against the same contract recorded at 28,749,906.09 dollars,[^34] and on July 1, 2026 the [[Defense Logistics Agency]] issued a JWCC task order for its information operations recorded at 12,494,557.96 dollars.[^35] Earlier Defense Department awards to Google LLC in the same database include Army and Navy purchases from 2009 onward for mapping software and training, a Navy award for "multispectral images" in 2015 at 50,000 dollars, and a 2025 Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences order for incident remediation recorded at 173,750 dollars.[^7] Smaller Google Public Sector task orders in the same database include a Defense Information Systems Agency order titled "Golden Forge" from March 2025 recorded at 122,249.39 dollars and an Air Force defensive cyber systems order from September 2024 recorded at 488,750 dollars.[^36] The company's 2025 annual report states that its business with public sector customers "may present additional risks," and that "we may be subject to government audits and cost reviews."[^37] + +In July 2025 the [[Department of Defense]] granted up to 200 million dollars each to [[Anthropic]], Google, [[OpenAI]] and [[xAI]] for artificial intelligence work.[^38] + +### Lobbying and political committee + +Google Client Services LLC is the registrant on the company's lobbying disclosures under the Lobbying Disclosure Act. Summing its four quarterly reports for each year, it reported expenses of 2.84 million dollars for 2008, 5.16 million for 2010, 16.48 million for 2012, 21.21 million for 2018, 7.53 million for 2020, 12.03 million for 2023 and 13.1 million for 2025, and 6.43 million for the first two quarters of 2026.[^39] + +The third-quarter 2013 report, posted October 21, 2013 with expenses of 3.37 million dollars for the quarter, carries an issue entry titled "Transparency related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and national security orders," with S. 1215 (the FISA Accountability and Privacy Protection Act of 2013) and S. 1452 (the Surveillance Transparency Act of 2013) among the listed bills. The government entities listed on the report include the Executive Office of the President, the [[Federal Communications Commission]], the [[Federal Trade Commission]] and the Department of Justice. The first-quarter 2014 report lists H.R. 3361 and S. 1599, the USA FREEDOM Act, and the first-quarter 2018 report lists "Reauthorization or reform of FISA Section 702 program" and the CLOUD Act.[^40] The second-quarter 2018 report, posted July 20, 2018, lists "AI Principles" under science and technology.[^41] From the fourth quarter of 2023 the reports carry separate Defense entries for "Commercial Cloud Enterprise (C2E) and procurement" and Intelligence entries for FISA reform bills (H.R. 6611 and S. 3351, and H.R. 6570). The fourth-quarter 2025 report, posted January 20, 2026, lists under Intelligence the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2026 and "Encryption."[^42] + +Google LLC NetPAC (FEC committee C00428623), a lobbyist/registrant political action committee, first filed on September 14, 2006. Its receipts were 318,805 dollars in the 2008 election cycle, 1,850,965 dollars in 2012, 2,250,154 in 2014, 2,224,734 in 2018 and 1,902,225 in 2024, almost entirely individual contributions. Its contributions to federal candidate committees were 1,015,500 dollars in 2012, 2,161,700 in 2016, 1,891,323 in 2018 and 1,409,500 in 2024. In 2016 its largest recipients were the National Republican Congressional Committee and National Republican Senatorial Committee (30,000 dollars each), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (20,000) and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (15,000); in 2024 the DSCC, DCCC, NRSC and NRCC received 30,000 dollars each.[^43] + +### DeepMind and the AI cluster + +[[DeepMind]] Technologies Limited was incorporated on September 23, 2010 at [[Companies House]], the United Kingdom's company registry. Its officer list shows [[Demis Hassabis]] as a director from December 7, 2010 to January 24, 2014, [[Luke Nosek]] from February 23, 2011 to January 24, 2014, [[Jaan Tallinn]] from December 23, 2011 to January 24, 2014, and [[Shane Legg]] from December 23, 2011 to January 24, 2014. [[Mustafa Suleyman]] served as a director from December 23, 2011 to January 24, 2014. On January 24, 2014 [[Kenneth Hohee Yi]] was appointed a director, with a correspondence address at Google LLC in New York.[^44] + +Companies House lists DeepMind Holdings Limited as the only active person with significant control, notified on November 4, 2019 as holding at least 75 percent of the shares and voting rights. Before that date the register listed Alphabet Inc., of Delaware, in the same role from April 6, 2016.[^45] [[TechCrunch]] reported on January 26, 2014 that Google had acquired DeepMind for more than 500 million dollars and that its early investors included Tallinn, [[Elon Musk]], [[Peter Thiel]], [[Founders Fund]] and [[Horizons Ventures]].[^46] + +Tallinn led the Series A round of Anthropic in May 2021, with participation from Schmidt, [[Dustin Moskovitz]], [[James McClave]] and the [[Center for Emerging Risk Research]], according to the company's announcement of a 124 million dollar raise.[^47] [[Ilya Sutskever]] completed his doctorate at the University of Toronto in 2012 under [[Geoffrey Hinton]]. The three researchers on the AlexNet work packaged it into DNNresearch, which Google acquired in 2013, bringing Sutskever to Google Brain.[^48] [[Ray Kurzweil]], whose forecasts are described under [[Singularitarianism]], joined Google as a director of engineering focused on machine learning and language processing, a hire announced on December 14, 2012.[^49] + +CNBC reported in January 2025 that Google's earlier investments in Anthropic totaled 2 billion dollars and gave it a 10 percent ownership stake, and that Google had agreed to a further investment of more than 1 billion dollars.[^50] The April 2025 funding round of [[Safe Superintelligence]], reported at a valuation of 32 billion dollars, listed Alphabet among its backers, and Google Cloud became a major compute provider to the lab.[^51][^52] + +In December 2023 the Bloomberg profile of [[Effective Accelerationism]] identified [[Guillaume Verdon]] as the person behind the "Beff Jezos" account. Verdon had worked at Google's X moonshot lab on TensorFlow Quantum and later founded [[Extropic AI]].[^53][^54] + +In testimony before the [[House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence]] on July 21, 2026, [[Ben Buchanan]] cited a Google report that Russian military intelligence had deployed malware in [[Ukraine]] that "uses AI mid-operation to write its own attack commands."[^55] + +### Employees and research + +[[Timnit Gebru]] managed Google's Ethical AI team until December 2020. After a dispute over a paper she had co-written on large language models, she sent an email to women and allies in Google Brain about the company's treatment of the paper and of diversity work, and Google cut off her corporate account. [[Platformer]] published the email and the reply sent to employees by [[Jeff Dean]], then the head of Google Research, which said that the paper had been submitted before internal review was complete and that a cross-functional team had found that it "didn't meet our bar for publication."[^56] + +In 2018 [[Nate Thomas]], later chief executive of [[Redwood Research]], was lead author of a paper with five Google researchers in Mountain View, "Tensor field networks: Rotation- and translation-equivariant neural networks for 3D point clouds." The paper gives his affiliation as [[Stanford University]].[^57] [[Bret Taylor]] was a group product manager at Google before June 2007, where he co-created Google Maps.[^58] [[Alexander Scaramucci]] listed more than a year at Google, followed by a period as an entrepreneur-in-residence, on his LinkedIn page as quoted by a 2017 Bustle article.[^59] [[Justin Rosenstein]], who co-founded [[Asana]] with Dustin Moskovitz, was a Google product manager and, before that, a Facebook engineering manager.[^60] A patent granted on July 10, 2001 to an inventor named [[Eugene Jhong]] (with co-inventor Karen E. Theisen), for a method of generating and navigating a 3-D representation of a hierarchical data structure, names Elastic Technology, Inc. as assignee; Eugene Jhong, listed on the Philanthropic Advisory Board of the [[Galileo Project]], holds a Stanford master's degree in computer science.[^61] + +### Investors, grants and policy sponsors + +The [[Federation for American Immigration Reform]] reported paying Google 1,713,143 dollars for advertising in 2021 and 1,105,067 dollars in 2022.[^62][^63] The 2021 accounts of the [[HOPE not hate]] charitable trust list restricted funds from Google among its grant income.[^64] At the 100,000 to 249,999 dollar level, Google appeared among the supporters of the [[Center for a New American Security]] for the period October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025.[^65] + +In March 2026 [[Omidyar Network]] announced that [[Michele Jawando]], who had been a senior executive at Google, would succeed [[Mike Kubzansky]] as chief executive.[^66] + +In a 2007 essay on [[Neocameralism]], [[Curtis Yarvin|Mencius Moldbug]] wrote that subscribers to a "sovcorp" "can sell every share in the sovcorp to Google if they like," and that this would lead to "a terrifying new era of permanent global Googocracy."[^67] + +### Child safety and legal process + +Federal law requires electronic service providers with actual knowledge of apparent violations involving [[Child sexual abuse material]] to report them to the [[National Center for Missing and Exploited Children]], which operates the CyberTipline.[^68] The federal statute describes NCMEC as "statutorily obliged to operate the official national clearinghouse for information about missing and exploited children," and the Tenth Circuit noted that NCMEC must forward every report it receives to federal law enforcement.[^69] In [[United States v. Ackerman]], decided August 5, 2016, the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit]] held that the NCMEC is a governmental entity or agent for Fourth Amendment purposes. The case concerned an email that AOL had blocked through an automated hash-matching filter, after which an NCMEC analyst opened the email and its attachments. Google, Inc. is among the amici curiae listed in the opinion, together with Dropbox, Facebook, Microsoft, Pinterest, Snapchat and Twitter.[^69] The [[Internet Watch Foundation]] member list shows Google as a member since 2004 in its tier of contributors above 90,000 pounds.[^70] + +The [[Iowa State University Police Department]] issued subpoenas to electronic service providers including Google in the investigation that led to the case against [[Clint Borge]], which began with a November 2020 report by a first-year student.[^71][^72] An affidavit in the case against [[Leonidas Varagiannis]] states that a Google account registered under the name "War" was associated with a YouTube channel, and it lists that association among the grounds for attributing accounts to him.[^73] + +In April 2023 a federal judge in Espírito Santo, Brazil, ordered the [[Telegram]] application suspended nationwide during a neo-Nazi groups inquiry linked to the [[2022 Aracruz School Shootings]], and directed [[Google]] and Apple to remove it from their app stores. The suspension was lifted on April 28, 2023.[^74][^75] + +### Gonzalez v. Google + +On May 18, 2023 the [[Supreme Court of the United States]] issued a per curiam opinion in Gonzalez v. Google LLC (No. 21-1333), a suit under 18 U.S.C. 2333 alleging that Google aided and abetted and conspired with ISIS through YouTube. The [[United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit]] had held most claims barred by Section 230(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act, except claims that Google approved ISIS videos for advertisements and shared proceeds through YouTube's revenue-sharing system, which it held failed to state a claim in any event. The Court wrote that it would "decline to address the application of 230 to a complaint that appears to state little, if any, plausible claim for relief," and vacated and remanded for reconsideration in light of its decision in Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh.[^76] The [[Counter Extremism Project]] and [[Hany Farid]] had filed an amicus brief in support of the petitioners on December 7, 2022.[^77] + +### Antitrust + +The court's August 2023 opinion describes Google LLC as operating "the largest Internet general search engine in the United States," and states that advertisers "spend over $80 billion annually just to reach general search users."[^78] The [[Department of Justice]] and the attorneys general of eleven states filed suit against Google on October 20, 2020. Both sets of plaintiffs alleged that Google's exclusive contracts unlawfully maintained its monopoly power in general search. The contracts make Google the default search engine with browser developers, "most notably Apple and [[Mozilla]]," and with device makers and wireless carriers.[^78] In an August 4, 2023 memorandum opinion on summary judgment, the court (Judge [[Amit Mehta]]) held that the SA360 component of the attorneys general's claims survives summary judgment.[^78] The company's 2025 annual report states that the court ruled against Google in August 2024 and entered a final judgment in December 2025 requiring remedies that restrict how Google distributes its services and require it to share certain search data with, and offer syndication services to, certain competitors. Google appealed in January 2026, and the Justice Department and state attorneys general appealed in February 2026.[^79] + +In the advertising technology case brought in the [[United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia]] in January 2023, the presiding judge issued a mixed decision in April 2025. The judge ruled that Google's advertiser tools and its [[DoubleClick]] and [[AdMeld]] acquisitions were not anticompetitive, and that its publisher tools unfairly excluded rivals. A remedies proceeding in September 2025 included a Justice Department proposal for structural remedies, which the company's annual report says could harm its business.[^80] A separate California jury verdict against Google in the [[Epic Games]] case, delivered in December 2023 over the business of the Google Play store, was followed by a remedies decision in October 2024 that ordered changes to Android and Google Play contracts and operations. Google appealed the judgment.[^81] + +### The Epstein record + +A calendar page from the files of [[Jeffrey Epstein]] lists, for March 1, 2013, a 9:30 a.m. appointment with [[David Mitchell]], whom the entry describes as "AdFin CEO," of [[AdFin Solutions]], [[Eyal Manor]] ("guy from Google") and one other person.[^82] AdFin was a programmatic-advertising data company, and Mitchell was among its investors. On March 21, 2013 Mitchell wrote to Epstein about the voting rights attached to the investment, and the emails of March 21 and 22, 2013 concern the company.[^83] AdFin's Form D, filed December 31, 2013, is signed by [[Jeanne Houweling]] as chief executive and lists Mitchell as a director.[^84] + +Google's own records place an Eyal Manor in the company's advertising exchange business in the months before the meeting. A June 2012 post on the Google Research blog on a market algorithms workshop at Google describes "Eyal Manor, Google engineering director for the Ad Exchange," who "gave an overview of the design and functioning of the exchange."[^85] A Google document dated August 27, 2012, titled "Growing AdX" and introduced in the Justice Department's advertising technology case against Google, lists a team of Scott Spencer, Drew Bradstock, Ari Feldman and Eyal Manor and projects that the exchange could be a business of 3 to 4 billion dollars in 2014.[^86] A [[Smartsheet]] board biography states that Manor later served as vice president of engineering, product and general manager at Google Cloud and that during his tenure at Google he led engineering groups at YouTube and played a key role in the development of Google's ads products.[^87] The calendar gives no title for the Google attendee; the identification of the calendar's Eyal Manor with the Google advertising engineer rests on the name, the Google description and the advertising subject of the meeting. + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Google Inc., Form S-1 registration statement (2004), "Corporate Information": "We were incorporated in California in September 1998. In August 2003, we reincorporated in Delaware." Principal executive offices at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, California. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312504073639/ds1.htm +[^2]: Alphabet Inc., Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025, filed February 5, 2026, exhibit index (Transfer Restriction Agreement, dated October 2, 2015, between the Registrant and Eric E. Schmidt, citing a Form 8-K of October 2, 2015). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204426000018/goog-20251231.htm +[^3]: "Google To Acquire YouTube In Stock Transaction," Search Engine Watch, October 9, 2006. https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2006/10/09/google-to-acquire-youtube-in-stock-transaction/ +[^4]: In-Q-Tel, "In-Q-Tel Announces Strategic Investment in Keyhole," press release, June 25, 2003. https://www.iqt.org/library/in-q-tel-announces-strategic-investment-in-keyhole +[^5]: Google Inc., "Google Acquires Keyhole Corp," press release, Mountain View, October 27, 2004. Internet Archive copy: https://web.archive.org/web/2005/http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/keyhole.html +[^6]: Levine, Yasha. *Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet*. PublicAffairs, 2018. +[^7]: USAspending.gov, federal award records for recipients GOOGLE LLC and GOOGLE PUBLIC SECTOR LLC: N6328509P0112 (Navy, September 22, 2009, 4,200 dollars), N6328510P0107 (Navy, September 7, 2010, 4,230 dollars), N6328512P0018 (Navy, November 15, 2011, 4,200 dollars), N6328513P0019 (Navy, February 4, 2013, renewal of eleven licenses, 0 dollars), N0017315P3479 (Navy, August 13, 2015, "multispectral images," 50,000 dollars), W912HQ09P0030 (Army, February 5, 2009, 24,525 dollars), HU000125C0002 (Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, January 23, 2025, cyber incident remediation, 173,750 dollars). Retrieved October 15, 2026. https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/search/spending_by_award/ +[^8]: David Drummond, "A new approach to China," Official Google Blog, January 12, 2010. https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html +[^9]: Electronic Privacy Information Center v. National Security Agency, 678 F.3d 926 (D.C. Cir. 2012), background section. https://static.case.law/f3d/678/cases/0926-01.json +[^10]: Electronic Privacy Information Center v. National Security Agency, Civil Case No. 10-1533 (RJL) (D.D.C.), memorandum opinion of July 13, 2011. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-dcd-1_10-cv-01533/pdf/USCOURTS-dcd-1_10-cv-01533-0.pdf +[^11]: Electronic Privacy Information Center v. National Security Agency, 678 F.3d 926 (D.C. Cir. May 11, 2012), opinion by Circuit Judge Brown. https://static.case.law/f3d/678/cases/0926-01.json +[^12]: National Security Agency, slide "Dates When PRISM Collection Began For Each Provider" (Top Secret, Snowden document), published by the *Washington Post* in June 2013 at https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/. Copy in the Internet Archive collection "NSA PRISM Powerpoint Slides," file "PRISM-Dates Began.jpg." https://archive.org/details/NSA-PRISM-Slides +[^13]: Larry Page and David Drummond, Google blog, June 7, 2013. https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/what/ +[^14]: Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, *Report on the Surveillance Program Operated Pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act*, staff report, April 2, 2026. https://documents.pclob.gov/prod/Documents/OversightReport/315fe19c-07f3-4cc6-986a-ff199ce5b616/Unclassified%20PCLOB%20702%20Report%202026.pdf +[^15]: Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, *Report on the Surveillance Program Operated Pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act*, July 2, 2014, section on PRISM collection (pp. 33-34). Internet Archive copy: https://web.archive.org/web/2015/https://www.pclob.gov/library/702-Report.pdf +[^16]: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Eric Schmidt," biography. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eric-Schmidt +[^17]: Alphabet Inc., definitive proxy statement (Schedule 14A) filed April 24, 2020, footnote (2) to the director table (Eric and Diane did not seek re-election at the expiration of their terms on June 19, 2019) and footnote (9) to the beneficial ownership table (Schedule 13G/A filed February 14, 2020). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000130817920000203/lgoog2020_def14a.htm +[^18]: Tech Transparency Project, "Eric Schmidt's Unseen Influence Over US Defense Spending." https://www.techtransparencyproject.org/articles/eric-schmidts-unseen-influence-over-us-defense-spending +[^19]: National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, *Final Report*, March 2021, front matter and executive summary (Section 1051 of the FY2019 National Defense Authorization Act; fifteen commissioners nominated by Congress and the executive branch), chapter on foreign partnerships (consortium "Modeled on In-Q-Tel"), chapter on the Defense Department (Project Maven, 2017), and Appendix F, Commissioner Bios (Schmidt, Moore, Darby, Louie, Catz, Jassy, Horvitz). Internet Archive copy: https://web.archive.org/web/2021/https://www.nscai.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Full-Report-Digital-1.pdf +[^20]: CNBC, "How Google's former CEO Eric Schmidt helped write A.I. laws in Washington without publicly disclosing investments in A.I. start-ups," October 24, 2022. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/24/how-googles-former-ceo-eric-schmidt-helped-write-ai-laws-in-washington-without-publicly-disclosing-investments-in-ai-start-ups.html +[^21]: "Schmidt Futures," InfluenceWatch. https://www.influencewatch.org/organization/schmidt-futures/ +[^22]: Politico, March 28, 2022. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/28/google-eric-schmidt-white-house-00020712 +[^23]: CNBC, March 29, 2022, on the response of Eric Schmidt to the March 2022 Politico report. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/29/ex-google-ceo-eric-schmidt-responds-to-white-house-related-allegations.html +[^24]: "Dr. Eric Schmidt announces Special Competitive Studies Project," Special Competitive Studies Project, October 5, 2021. https://www.scsp.ai/2021/10/dr-eric-schmidt-announces-special-competitive-studies-project-oct-5-2021-3/ +[^25]: "Who We Are," Special Competitive Studies Project. https://www.scsp.ai/about/who-we-are/ +[^26]: "About," Schmidt Sciences. https://www.schmidtsciences.org/about/ +[^27]: Christine Lagorio, "Examining Cory Booker's Tech Ties," *Inc.* https://www.inc.com/christine-lagorio/examining-cory-bookers-tech-ties.html +[^28]: Deputy Secretary of Defense, memorandum, "Establishment of an Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team (Project Maven)," April 26, 2017, as preserved in the National Security Archive release on the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/5977341-National-Security-Archive-Department-of-Defense +[^29]: The Intercept, report on Google and Project Maven, June 1, 2018, on the timing of the contract end, the internal valuation and the company's position on other military AI work. https://theintercept.com/2018/06/01/google-drone-ai-project-maven-contract-renew +[^30]: Google, "AI at Google: our principles," Google blog, retrieved October 15, 2026. https://blog.google/technology/ai/ai-principles/ +[^31]: "Technofacism? Why Palantir's pro-West 'manifesto' has critics alarmed," *Al Jazeera,* April 21, 2026, on *The Technological Republic.* https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/21/technofacism-why-palantirs-pro-west-manifesto-has-critics-alarmed +[^32]: "Palantir Maven Smart System expanded by $795 million," *DefenseScoop,* May 23, 2025. https://defensescoop.com/2025/07/31/army-palantir-enterprise-agreement-10-billion/ +[^33]: USAspending.gov, award HC105023F0005 (Defense Information Systems Agency; recipient GOOGLE PUBLIC SECTOR LLC; start date December 8, 2022; Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability program management; recorded award amount 13,216,056.00 dollars). Retrieved October 15, 2026. https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/search/spending_by_award/ +[^34]: USAspending.gov, award W519TC25FA214 (Department of the Army; recipient GOOGLE PUBLIC SECTOR LLC; start date September 12, 2025; task order against JWCC multiple-award IDIQ contract HC105023D0002; recorded award amount 28,749,906.09 dollars). Retrieved October 15, 2026. https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/search/spending_by_award/ +[^35]: USAspending.gov, award SP470126F0184 (Defense Logistics Agency; recipient GOOGLE PUBLIC SECTOR LLC; start date July 1, 2026; JWCC task order for DLA information operations; recorded award amount 12,494,557.96 dollars). Retrieved October 15, 2026. https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/search/spending_by_award/ +[^36]: USAspending.gov, awards HC105025F0015 (Defense Information Systems Agency; "Golden Forge"; March 17, 2025; 122,249.39 dollars) and HC105024F0032 (Defense Information Systems Agency; Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Air Force defensive cyber systems branch; September 18, 2024; 488,750 dollars); recipient GOOGLE PUBLIC SECTOR LLC. Retrieved October 15, 2026. https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/search/spending_by_award/ +[^37]: Alphabet Inc., Form 10-K for fiscal 2025, risk factors on financial services, healthcare and public sector customers. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204426000018/goog-20251231.htm +[^38]: CNBC, "Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and xAI granted up to $200 million for AI work from Defense Department," July 14, 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/14/anthropic-google-openai-xai-granted-up-to-200-million-from-dod.html +[^39]: Lobbying Disclosure Act database (lda.gov API), filings by registrant GOOGLE CLIENT SERVICES LLC, quarterly reports Q1 through Q4 for 2008 to 2025 and Q1 and Q2 of 2026, expenses fields summed by year. Retrieved October 15, 2026. https://lda.gov/api/v1/filings/?registrant_name=Google +[^40]: Lobbying Disclosure Act report, Google Client Services LLC, third quarter 2013 (filing a36c2662-c1c5-47c9-816b-718c90ebb300, posted October 21, 2013), first quarter 2014 and first quarter 2018 reports, issue entries "Consumer Issues/Safety/Products" and "Law Enforcement/Crime/Criminal Justice." https://lda.gov/api/v1/filings/a36c2662-c1c5-47c9-816b-718c90ebb300/ +[^41]: Lobbying Disclosure Act report, Google Client Services LLC, second quarter 2018 (filing 362e89f8-d39e-48b9-a33c-311148379f2f, posted July 20, 2018), issue entry "Science/Technology." https://lda.gov/api/v1/filings/362e89f8-d39e-48b9-a33c-311148379f2f/ +[^42]: Lobbying Disclosure Act reports, Google Client Services LLC, fourth quarter 2023 through fourth quarter 2025 (fourth quarter 2025: filing 25432e67-591b-4e9f-85ae-4437532f7e7e, posted January 20, 2026), issue entries "Defense" and "Intelligence." https://lda.gov/api/v1/filings/25432e67-591b-4e9f-85ae-4437532f7e7e/ +[^43]: Federal Election Commission, committee C00428623 (Google LLC NetPAC), committee totals by cycle and Schedule B disbursements by recipient (cycles 2016 and 2024), OpenFEC API. Retrieved October 15, 2026. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/committee/C00428623/totals/ +[^44]: Companies House, DeepMind Technologies Limited, company no. 07386350, officers list. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07386350/officers +[^45]: Companies House, DeepMind Technologies Limited, company no. 07386350, persons with significant control. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07386350/persons-with-significant-control +[^46]: "Google Acquires Artificial Intelligence Startup DeepMind For More Than $500M," TechCrunch, January 26, 2014. https://techcrunch.com/2014/01/26/google-deepmind/ +[^47]: Anthropic, "Anthropic raises $124 million to build more reliable, general AI systems," May 2021. https://www.anthropic.com/news/anthropic-raises-124-million-to-build-more-reliable-general-ai-systems +[^48]: Joshi, "The story of Ilya Sutskever," LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/story-ilya-sutskever-before-during-after-co-founding-openai-joshi-xhc9f +[^49]: "Ray Kurzweil Joins Google In Full-Time Engineering Director Role; Will Focus On Machine Learning, Language Processing," TechCrunch, December 14, 2012. https://techcrunch.com/2012/12/14/ray-kurzweil-joins-google-as-engineering-director-focusing-on-machine-learning-and-language-tech/ +[^50]: CNBC, "Google agrees to new $1 billion investment in Anthropic," January 22, 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/22/google-agrees-to-new-1-billion-investment-in-anthropic.html +[^51]: "OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever's Safe Superintelligence reportedly valued at $32B," TechCrunch, April 12, 2025. https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/12/openai-co-founder-ilya-sutskevers-safe-superintelligence-reportedly-valued-at-32b +[^52]: "Alphabet, Nvidia bet on OpenAI co-founder Sutskever's $32B AI startup," TipRanks, 2025. https://www.tipranks.com/news/alphabet-nvidia-bet-on-openai-co-founder-sutskevers-32b-ai-startup +[^53]: "Effective Accelerationism and Beff Jezos Form New Tech Tribe," Bloomberg, December 6, 2023. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-12-06/effective-accelerationism-and-beff-jezos-form-new-tech-tribe +[^54]: "Guillaume Verdon," on the Beff Jezos persona, the Google X background, and Extropic AI; contemporaneous reporting, 2023. +[^55]: Buchanan, Ben. Testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, "25 Years After 9/11: Confronting the Next Generation of Threats," July 21, 2026. https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/119472/witnesses/HHRG-119-IG00-Wstate-BuchananB-20260721.pdf +[^56]: Casey Newton, "The withering email that got an ethical AI researcher fired at Google," Platformer, December 2020. https://www.platformer.news/the-withering-email-that-got-an-ethical/ +[^57]: Nathaniel Thomas et al., "Tensor field networks: Rotation- and translation-equivariant neural networks for 3D point clouds," arXiv, February 2018. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.08219 +[^58]: Twitter, Inc., definitive proxy statement (Schedule 14A), April 2022. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000114036122014049/ny20001921x3_def14a.htm +[^59]: Joseph D. Lyons, "Alexander Scaramucci, The Mooch's Oldest Son, Is Working In Los Angeles," Bustle, August 1, 2017. https://www.bustle.com/p/who-is-alexander-scaramucci-the-moochs-son-is-entrepreneur-73739 . The article relies on his LinkedIn page and the Daily Mail for the name "AJ." +[^60]: Asana, Inc. Schedule 14A definitive proxy statement, filed April 20, 2026, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1477720/000162828026025998/asan-20260420.htm +[^61]: Jhong, Eugene, and Karen E. Theisen. U.S. Patent 6,259,458 B1, granted July 10, 2001; and "Advisory Boards," The Galileo Project website, snapshot of December 25, 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20221225170229/https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/galileo/organization/advisory-boards +[^62]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search bulk XML, Form 990, Federation for American Immigration Reform, EIN 52-1136126, tax period December 2021, object ID 202221729349300737 (filed 2022), payments to Google for advertising. +[^63]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search bulk XML, Form 990, Federation for American Immigration Reform, EIN 52-1136126, tax period December 2022, object ID 202301799349301560 (filed 2023; a second return for the same period carries object ID 202322589349301102), payments to Google for advertising. +[^64]: Hope Not Hate Charitable Trust, annual report and financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2021. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02738367/filing-history/MzM1MzYwMDY0NmFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=xhtml&download=1 +[^65]: Center for a New American Security, "CNAS Supporters." https://www.cnas.org/support-cnas/cnas-supporters +[^66]: Omidyar Network, "Omidyar Network Appoints Michele L. Jawando as Chief Executive Officer," March 11, 2026. https://omidyar.com/update/omidyar-network-appoints-michele-l-jawando-ceo/ +[^67]: Moldbug, Mencius. "Neocameralism and the escalator of massarchy." Unqualified Reservations, December 20, 2007. https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/12/neocameralism-and-escalator-of/ +[^68]: Stanford Internet Observatory, "The Strengths and Weaknesses of the Online Child Safety Ecosystem: Perspectives from Platforms, NCMEC, and Law Enforcement on the CyberTipline and How to Improve It," April 22, 2024. https://purl.stanford.edu/pr592kc5483 +[^69]: United States v. Ackerman, 831 F.3d 1292 (10th Cir. 2016), decided August 5, 2016, discussing NCMEC's status, the AOL hash-matching filter and the opening of the flagged email and its attachments. https://static.case.law/f3d/831/cases/1292-01.json +[^70]: Internet Watch Foundation, "Our Members." https://www.iwf.org.uk/membership/our-members/ +[^71]: Iowa State University News Service, "A call for help leads ISU Police to sexual predator, international investigation," February 12, 2025. https://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2025/02/12/isu-police-exploitation +[^72]: "How ISUPD uncovered a Neo-Nazi sexual predator ring," *Iowa State Daily*. https://iowastatedaily.com/335620/news/how-the-isupd-uncovered-a-neo-nazi-sexual-predator-ring/ +[^73]: Affidavit in the case against Leonidas Varagiannis (D.D.C.), Doc. 1-1. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.279553/gov.uscourts.dcd.279553.1.1.pdf +[^74]: "Entenda por que juiz do ES mandou tirar Telegram do ar," A Gazeta, April 2023. https://www.agazeta.com.br/es/cotidiano/entenda-por-que-juiz-do-es-mandou-tirar-telegram-do-ar-0423 +[^75]: France 24, "Brazil court suspends Telegram app in neo-Nazi probe," April 26, 2023. https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230426-brazil-court-suspends-telegram-app-in-neo-nazi-probe +[^76]: *Gonzalez v. Google LLC*, No. 21-1333, 598 U.S. ___ (May 18, 2023) (per curiam). https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1333_6j7a.pdf +[^77]: Brief of Amici Curiae Counter Extremism Project (CEP) and Hany Farid in Support of Petitioners, *Gonzalez v. Google LLC*, No. 21-1333 (U.S. Supreme Court), filed December 7, 2022. https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-1333/249378/20221207151224344_No.%2021-1333_Brief%20of%20Amici%20Curiae.pdf +[^78]: United States v. Google LLC, No. 1:20-cv-03010 (APM) (D.D.C.), memorandum opinion filed August 4, 2023. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-dcd-1_20-cv-03010/pdf/USCOURTS-dcd-1_20-cv-03010-0.pdf +[^79]: Alphabet Inc., Form 10-K for fiscal 2025, legal proceedings on the search antitrust case (August 2024 ruling, December 2025 final judgment, January and February 2026 appeals). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204426000018/goog-20251231.htm +[^80]: Alphabet Inc., Form 10-K for fiscal 2025, legal proceedings on the advertising technology case in the Eastern District of Virginia (April 2025 decision; September 2025 remedies proceeding; structural remedies proposal). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204426000018/goog-20251231.htm +[^81]: Alphabet Inc., Form 10-K for fiscal 2025, legal proceedings on Epic Games v. Google (December 2023 jury verdict; October 2024 remedies decision; appeal). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204426000018/goog-20251231.htm +[^82]: Epstein calendar, entry for March 1, 2013, U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00299816, DataSet 9. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00299816.pdf +[^83]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00652698, DataSet 9, email from David Mitchell to Jeffrey Epstein, "Re: AdFin," March 21 and 22, 2013. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00652698.pdf +[^84]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR, AdFin Solutions, Inc. (CIK 0001595302), Form D, accession number 0001595302-13-000001, filed December 31, 2013. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1595302/000159530213000001/0001595302-13-000001.txt +[^85]: Google Research blog, "Third Market Algorithms and Optimization Workshop at Google NYC," June 2012. https://blog.research.google/2012/06/third-market-algorithms-and.html +[^86]: "Growing AdX," Google document dated August 27, 2012, Plaintiffs' Trial Exhibit PTX0113, *United States v. Google LLC* (E.D. Va.), published by the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division. https://www.justice.gov/media/1370306/dl +[^87]: Smartsheet Inc., board of directors biography of Eyal Manor. https://www.smartsheet.com/about/board-of-directors/eyal-manor diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Hughes Aircraft Company.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Hughes Aircraft Company.md index ba921fb7..275c8462 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Hughes Aircraft Company.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Hughes Aircraft Company.md @@ -91,12 +91,12 @@ relations: reverse: true end: 1991-04 role: "former employee who met Danny Casolaro in Martinsburg on August 9, 1991" - fn: 14 + fn: 17 created: 2026-10-05 -updated: 2026-10-05 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- -Hughes Aircraft Company, of [[Culver City]], California, was in its early decades a division of the [[Hughes Tool Company]], the holding company of [[Howard Hughes]]. It was formed in the spring of 1932 at Glendale, California, after Hughes leased space in a [[Lockheed Aircraft Corporation]] hangar in Burbank to rebuild a Boeing pursuit plane; [[Donald Barlett]] and [[James Steele]] wrote that it began as "nothing more than a glorified machine shop and a set of books." In 1953 Hughes gave the stock of a newly established Hughes Aircraft Company to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and transferred to it almost all of the original company's operations, more than seventeen thousand employees and all but a few million dollars of more than 200 million dollars in defense contracts; the remainder became the Hughes Tool Company Aircraft Division.[^1] In the Delaware litigation over the [[Howard Hughes Medical Institute]], the Court of Chancery recorded that the institute "was funded by the transfer to it of the electronics division" of the Hughes holdings, through the Hughes Aircraft Company, "all of the stock of which latter company has since been held by the Institute."[^2] +Hughes Aircraft Company, of [[Culver City]], California, was in its early decades a division of the [[Hughes Tool Company]], the holding company of [[Howard Hughes]]. It was formed in the spring of 1932 at Glendale, California, after Hughes leased space in a [[Lockheed Aircraft Company|Lockheed Aircraft Corporation]] hangar in Burbank to rebuild a Boeing pursuit plane; [[Donald Barlett]] and [[James Steele]] wrote that it began as "nothing more than a glorified machine shop and a set of books." In 1953 Hughes gave the stock of a newly established Hughes Aircraft Company to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and transferred to it almost all of the original company's operations, more than seventeen thousand employees and all but a few million dollars of more than 200 million dollars in defense contracts; the remainder became the Hughes Tool Company Aircraft Division.[^1] In the Delaware litigation over the [[Howard Hughes Medical Institute]], the Court of Chancery recorded that the institute "was funded by the transfer to it of the electronics division" of the Hughes holdings, through the Hughes Aircraft Company, "all of the stock of which latter company has since been held by the Institute."[^2] ### The Medical Institute @@ -128,9 +128,13 @@ In September 1973 Hughes sued the United States in the Court of Claims over the On January 16, 1997 General Motors and Hughes announced the spin-off of the Hughes defense business to holders of GM stock and its merger with Raytheon Company, the transfer of Delco Electronics to GM's Delphi Automotive Systems, and the recapitalization of Class H stock into a tracking stock for the Hughes telecommunications and space business.[^13] General Motors reported the completion of the transactions on December 17, 1997.[^13] +In December 1998 *The New York Times* reported that a Central Intelligence Agency scientist, [[Ronald Pandolfi]], had visited "the Hughes Electronics Corporation in Los Angeles in 1995 to learn more about China's missile capabilities," and had become concerned that the satellite manufacturer "might have helped improve Chinese military capabilities." The paper described the company as "a unit of General Motors and major customer of the C.I.A.," which had denied any wrongdoing.[^14] + +In March 2003 DIRECTV Latin America, LLC, a 75 percent owned subsidiary of Hughes Electronics Corporation, which General Motors described as a wholly owned subsidiary of General Motors, announced a voluntary petition for reorganization under Chapter 11.[^15] On September 12, 2003, General Motors announced a private-letter ruling from the Internal Revenue Service confirming that the distribution of Hughes Electronics stock to the holders of GM Class H common stock, in connection with the split-off of Hughes, would be tax-free to GM and its Class H stockholders.[^16] + ### Bill Turner and Danny Casolaro -A Department of Justice document in the INSLAW files describes [[Bill Turner]] (William Turner) as having been "an employee of the Hughes Aircraft Corporation" who "apparently had been fired," and states that Turner "was never a 'whistleblower,' as some have described him." It records that Turner claimed to have met [[Danny Casolaro]] in the parking lot of Casolaro's hotel in Martinsburg on Friday, August 9, 1991, the afternoon before Casolaro died, that no one witnessed the meeting, that his accounts of the documents involved varied, and that on September 13, 1991 Turner pleaded guilty to a felony count of making a false statement to the Veterans Administration.[^14] +A Department of Justice document in the INSLAW files describes [[Bill Turner]] (William Turner) as having been "an employee of the Hughes Aircraft Corporation" who "apparently had been fired," and states that Turner "was never a 'whistleblower,' as some have described him." It records that Turner claimed to have met [[Danny Casolaro]] in the parking lot of Casolaro's hotel in Martinsburg on Friday, August 9, 1991, the afternoon before Casolaro died, that no one witnessed the meeting, that his accounts of the documents involved varied, and that on September 13, 1991 Turner pleaded guilty to a felony count of making a false statement to the Veterans Administration.[^17] ### Footnotes @@ -147,4 +151,7 @@ A Department of Justice document in the INSLAW files describes [[Bill Turner]] ( [^11]: General Motors Form 10-K for fiscal 1993 (note 9), Item 2 (properties) and Item 1 (backlog). [^12]: General Motors Form 10-K for fiscal 1993 (note 9), Item 3 (legal proceedings) and notes on acquisitions. [^13]: General Motors Corporation, Form 8-K filed April 14, 1997 (announcement of January 16, 1997), SEC EDGAR accession 0000040730-97-000015, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40730/0000040730-97-000015.txt; and Form 8-K filed December 18, 1997 (completion on December 17, 1997), accession 0000040730-97-000037, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40730/0000040730-97-000037.txt -[^14]: U.S. Department of Justice, report excerpt in the "INSLAW files of John C. Dwyer, Deputy Associate Attorney General," section "William Turner," DOCID 70002067, pp. 133-134, Internet Archive item INSLAW-Casolaro. https://archive.org/details/INSLAW-Casolaro +[^14]: Gerth, Jeff, "Old Concerns Over Data Transfer to China Get New Attention," *The New York Times*, December 7, 1998, p. A20, archived copy at https://web.archive.org/web/20201101033224/https://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/07/us/old-concerns-over-data-transfer-to-china-get-new-attention.html. +[^15]: General Motors Corporation, Form 8-K filed March 19, 2003 (event dated March 18, 2003), SEC EDGAR accession 0000040730-03-000056, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40730/000004073003000056/gmhughesdlachapter11031903.txt. +[^16]: General Motors Corporation, Form 8-K filed September 12, 2003, SEC EDGAR accession 0000040730-03-000110, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40730/000004073003000110/irsrulingonhughes091203.txt. +[^17]: U.S. Department of Justice, report excerpt in the "INSLAW files of John C. Dwyer, Deputy Associate Attorney General," section "William Turner," DOCID 70002067, pp. 133-134, Internet Archive item INSLAW-Casolaro. https://archive.org/details/INSLAW-Casolaro diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/HumRRO.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/HumRRO.md index d40a5c5a..15cd7fc3 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/HumRRO.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/HumRRO.md @@ -6,10 +6,10 @@ tags: - ThinkTank - ColdWar - USArmy -summary: "A nonprofit research organization founded in 1951 that served as the US Army's primary contractor for behavioral science research, conducting classified studies on training, leadership, counterinsurgency, and psychological vulnerability before separating from George Washington University in 1969." +summary: "A nonprofit research organization founded in 1951 as the US Army's primary contractor for behavioral science research, with classified studies on training, leadership, counterinsurgency and psychological vulnerability; independent of George Washington University from 1969." location: Alexandria, Virginia created: 2026-06-04 -updated: 2026-06-04 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- The Human Resources Research Office (HumRRO) was a nonprofit behavioral science organization founded in 1951 under contract to the [[U.S. Army]] that became one of the primary institutional centers for military psychology research in the United States during the [[Cold War]]. It was headquartered in [[Alexandria, Virginia]], and at its height employed approximately 275 people, including 90 to 100 psychologists holding advanced degrees.[^1] @@ -17,6 +17,10 @@ The Human Resources Research Office (HumRRO) was a nonprofit behavioral science HumRRO was established in 1951 and for most of its early existence maintained an affiliation with [[George Washington University]] in Washington, D.C., which provided academic cover and access to research networks. That relationship ended in October 1969 when student demonstrations over the university's connections to military research prompted the administration to sever ties with the organization. HumRRO reorganized as a fully independent nonprofit and continued its research function from its Alexandria headquarters. Its research program was distributed across seven divisions located throughout the continental United States, in Kentucky, California, Georgia, Alabama, and Texas, in addition to the Alexandria headquarters.[^1] +The office's own 1966 bibliography describes it as a nongovernmental agency of The George Washington University, operating under Army contract DA 44-188-ARO-2, and gives its mission as studies and research in the fields of training, motivation and leadership.[^2] + +A 1973 study of the office by CONSAD Research Corporation for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare records the sequence in other terms. An Army staff study, "An Integrated Program in Human Resources Research," was approved by the Under Secretary of the Army on June 21, 1951 and is credited to [[Harry Harlow]]. The contract between the Army and the university was executed on July 27, 1951, and responsibility for psychological warfare passed after 1955 to the [[SORO]] at [[American University]]. The office moved to Alexandria in 1963. The study states that in 1969 the office severed its ties with the university, and quotes a participant: "The most visible effect was that the color of the checks changed." The office's president, [[Meredith P. Crawford]], wrote that the office left the university "again with the full concurrence of the Army," and the study dates the new independent corporation from September 1, 1969.[^3] + The organization published approximately 35 technical reports per year. Its annual budget was roughly $6 million. Between 60 and 65 percent of its research was sponsored by the military. Only about 3 percent of its output was classified, which allowed HumRRO to maintain a public academic face while conducting sensitive work within that small classified fraction.[^1] ### Research Areas @@ -25,12 +29,16 @@ HumRRO organized its research program around six areas: man as an individual per A distinct specialization within HumRRO's portfolio was the development of training technology: simulators, scale models, mock-ups, job performance tests, self-instructional taped courses, and scrambled books. The organization claimed its training devices produced an average 10 to 15 percent reduction in training time and a 20 percent reduction in attrition among trainees who completed device-supported instruction.[^1] -The organization contributed personnel and research products to the broader ecology of Cold War military social science. [[Theodore Vallance]] and [[Charles Windle]] both moved from HumRRO to [[SORO]] (the Special Operations Research Office) at [[American University]], which became the primary Army contractor for counterinsurgency social science research in the early 1960s. HumRRO also contributed work on defection and disaffection research during the [[Korean War]], conducted through the [[Operations Research Office]] at [[Johns Hopkins University]].[^1] +A 1966 HumRRO technical report under Contract DA 44-188 ARO-2, by [[Thomas Myers]], [[Donald B. Murphy]], [[Seward Smith]] and [[S. James Goffard]], reports four days of dark, quiet isolation for 176 cubicle subjects drawn from 551 enlisted men across studies from 1956 to 1961, with a stated concern for the ability to "maintain independence of judgment in the face of propaganda and group pressure." Among the effects the report lists for the four days (96 hours) of sensory deprivation and social isolation is "increased susceptibility to influence"; the control subjects were held at the Presidio of Monterey.[^4] + +The organization contributed personnel and research products to the broader ecology of Cold War military social science. [[Theodore Vallance]] and [[Charles Windle]] both moved from HumRRO to SORO (the Special Operations Research Office) at American University, which became the primary Army contractor for counterinsurgency social science research in the early 1960s. HumRRO also contributed work on defection and disaffection research during the [[Korean War]], conducted through the [[Operations Research Office]] at [[Johns Hopkins University]].[^1] ### Classified Work HumRRO's classified output included a 1962 document by [[Hilton Bialek]] et al. on interrogation, a 1955 document on leadership under combat conditions, and a 1958 document on group effectiveness in counterinsurgency settings.[^1] +The 1963 report on screening procedures for tactical interrogation, prepared by the Leadership Human Research Unit with HumRRO technical supervision, identifies Bialek as task leader in the planning phase and John E. Taylor as acting task leader during execution. Its preface states that the task began July 1, 1961 at the request of the Army's assistant chief of staff for intelligence and that its initial exploratory work was reported in a May 1962 Task QUIZ research memorandum.[^5] + ### Overlap with SORO and CRESS HumRRO's research focus overlapped substantially with that of SORO and its successor [[CRESS]] (Center for Research in Social Systems). Where HumRRO emphasized individual and unit performance, SORO and CRESS focused on population-level psychological and political analysis for counterinsurgency purposes. The movement of researchers between the two organizations reflected a shared sponsor base: all three drew primarily on Army funding and shared access to the classified psywar literature of this period. The [[Army Research Institute]] (also known as [[USARIBSS]]) served as the institutional successor to several overlapping earlier bodies and eventually consolidated much of this research function under a single Army command.[^1] @@ -38,3 +46,7 @@ HumRRO's research focus overlapped substantially with that of SORO and its succe ### Footnotes [^1]: Peter Watson, *War on the Mind: The Military Uses and Abuses of Psychology*. Basic Books, 1978. pp. 462-468 (App. II). +[^2]: Human Resources Research Office, *Bibliography of Publications as of 30 June 1966* (Alexandria, Va.: HumRRO, September 1966), introductory statement. DTIC AD0643761. https://archive.org/details/DTIC_AD0643761 +[^3]: Human Resources Research Office history, in *Institutional Funding for Applied Research: The Case of HumRRO and the U.S. Army*, CONSAD Research Corporation for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, May 24, 1973, ERIC ED097560, chapters I and II (quoting William A. McClelland, Professional Paper 30-68; Meredith P. Crawford, *A Perspective on the Development of HumRRO*, 1967). https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED097560.pdf +[^4]: Thomas Myers, Donald B. Murphy, Seward Smith and S. James Goffard, *Experimental Studies of Sensory Deprivation and Social Isolation*, HumRRO Technical Report 66-8, June 1966. DTIC AD0636478. https://archive.org/details/DTIC_AD0636478 +[^5]: U.S. Army Leadership Human Research Unit, report on screening procedures for tactical interrogation, May 1963, preface and composition of the research team. DTIC AD0487576. https://archive.org/details/DTIC_AD0487576 diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/IBM.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/IBM.md index 59d55732..c92357c5 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/IBM.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/IBM.md @@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ tags: - USA summary: "IBM is a computer company whose German subsidiary, by Edwin Black's account, supplied punch cards to Nazi Germany; it also built SAGE and NSA computers and was sued over South African identity records." created: 2024-05-11 -updated: 2026-10-07 +updated: 2026-10-15 relations: - type: head_of with: "[[Thomas J. Watson Sr.]]" @@ -83,6 +83,11 @@ relations: role: "joined IBM after serving as deputy secretary of state" start: 1985-06-14 fn: 13 + - type: participant_in + with: "[[United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit]]" + start: 1982-08-13 + role: "petitioner in In re International Business Machines Corp., 687 F.2d 591, writ of mandamus to Judge Edelstein" + fn: 17 - type: employed_by with: "[[Richard L. Garwin]]" reverse: true @@ -139,11 +144,11 @@ The bankruptcy court that heard the case of [[INSLAW]] found that earlier versio ### Antitrust case, 1969 to 1982 -The Justice Department filed a complaint on January 17, 1969 alleging that IBM had monopolized the market for general purpose electronic digital computer systems in violation of section 2 of the Sherman Act.[^17] In 1974 Chief Judge [[David N. Edelstein]] of the [[Southern District of New York]] ruled on the privilege claims over documents generated by the so-called Cravath, Swaine & Moore task forces and IBM's Office of Business Practices, holding most of them privileged as work product or attorney-client communications unless their content showed otherwise.[^18] +The Justice Department filed a complaint on January 17, 1969 alleging that IBM had monopolized the market for general purpose electronic digital computer systems in violation of section 2 of the Sherman Act.[^17] In 1974 Chief Judge [[David N. Edelstein]] of the [[U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York|Southern District of New York]] ruled on the privilege claims over documents generated by the so-called Cravath, Swaine & Moore task forces and IBM's Office of Business Practices, holding most of them privileged as work product or attorney-client communications unless their content showed otherwise.[^18] The case had been pending for thirteen years, at a cost of between $1 million and $2 million a year, when [[William Baxter]], assistant attorney general for antitrust, ended it in January 1982.[^19] Some career trial staff had wanted the case continued. Baxter argued that under Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, IBM could not be sued simply because it held a monopoly, and that the monopoly must have been obtained illegally. He said the government probably would lose the case, and that for it to stretch on another twenty years would be "the ultimate horror."[^19] The stipulation of dismissal, signed by Baxter and IBM's counsel and filed on January 8, 1982, recites that the Antitrust Division began a review of the case in June 1981 and concluded that the case was "without merit." Baxter's memorandum stated that continued litigation offered "little prospect of victory or meaningful recovery."[^17] -Edelstein criticized the dismissal in a [[Wall Street Journal]] article of January 26, 1982, and at a hearing on March 2, 1982 placed in the record letters indicating that Baxter had served as a consultant to IBM during the early stages of the private antitrust suit brought by [[Memorex]]. On August 13, 1982 the [[Second Circuit]] issued a writ of mandamus in the matter.[^17] +Edelstein criticized the dismissal in a [[Wall Street Journal]] article of January 26, 1982, and at a hearing on March 2, 1982 placed in the record letters indicating that Baxter had served as a consultant to IBM during the early stages of the private antitrust suit brought by [[Memorex]]. On August 13, 1982 the [[Second Circuit]] issued a writ of mandamus in the matter. The panel of Judges [[Thomas J. Meskill]], [[Jon O. Newman]] and [[Amalya L. Kearse]] held that "a writ of mandamus shall issue directing Judge Edelstein to cease any further inquiry with respect to the conflict of interest claim," and stated that "[w]e express no view as to the merits of that claim." The panel did not expedite its review of whether mandamus should also issue on the [[Tunney Act]] question, because no urgency attended that aspect of the petition.[^17] ### South African computer systems and apartheid litigation @@ -183,7 +188,7 @@ In November 1994 the [[National Security Council]] approved a supercomputer sale [^14]: Ari Ben-Menashe, *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network* (Sheridan Square Press, 1992; TrineDay reprint, 2015). [^15]: *In re Inslaw, Inc.*, 83 B.R. 89 (Bankr. D.D.C. Jan. 25, 1988), findings of fact 34 (PROMIS versions on PDP 11/70, IBM, Wang, Honeywell and Burroughs computers) and 192 and 202 (IBM request for the Department of Justice letter; co-marketing agreement). https://static.case.law/br/83/cases/0089-01.json [^16]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, *The INSLAW Affair: Investigative Report*, H. Rept. 102-857 (September 10, 1992): LEAA versions, p. 47; Riconosciuto's allegation on the Canadian agencies, p. 52; appeal of May 7, 1991, pp. 39-40. https://archive.org/details/InslawAffairInvestigativeReport. -[^17]: *In re International Business Machines Corp.*, 687 F.2d 591 (2d Cir. Aug. 13, 1982), Background section (docket *United States v. International Business Machines Corp.*, 69 Civ. 200, S.D.N.Y., filed January 17, 1969). https://static.case.law/f2d/687/cases/0591-01.json +[^17]: *In re International Business Machines Corp.*, 687 F.2d 591 (2d Cir. Aug. 13, 1982), Background section (docket *United States v. International Business Machines Corp.*, 69 Civ. 200, S.D.N.Y., filed January 17, 1969). https://static.case.law/f2d/687/cases/0591-01.json Discussion and conclusion (Meskill, Newman, Kearse, JJ.): "we conclude that a writ of mandamus shall issue directing Judge Edelstein to cease any further inquiry with respect to the conflict of interest claim"; "We express no view as to the merits of that claim"; Tunney Act aspect not expedited. [^18]: *United States v. International Business Machines Corp.*, 66 F.R.D. 154 (S.D.N.Y. June 27, 1974), No. 69 Civ. 200 (DNE). https://static.case.law/frd/66/cases/0154-01.json [^19]: "Impact of AT&T, IBM decisions," *Christian Science Monitor*, January 11, 1982. https://www.csmonitor.com/1982/0111/011144.html [^20]: Thomas Conrad, "U.S. Data Processing Corporations Are Supplying South Africa with the Brains of Its Military and Police Services," *Multinational Monitor* 3, no. 4 (April 1982). https://www.multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1982/04/conrad.html. diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/International Assets Group.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/International Assets Group.md index 5d5d5c4b..28713232 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/International Assets Group.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/International Assets Group.md @@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ created: 2026-09-25 updated: 2026-09-25 --- -International Assets Group Inc. (I.A.G.) was the consulting company [[Jeffrey Epstein]] operated out of his apartment in [[New York]] after leaving [[Bear Stearns]] in 1981 and before forming [[J. Epstein & Co.]] Epstein described its business as recovering money stolen from wealthy clients or governments. It was the firm he represented when [[Steven Hoffenberg]] engaged him as a consultant to [[Towers Financial Corporation]] around 1987, and a 1987 Towers press release on the attempted takeover of [[Pan American World Airways|Pan Am]] identified Epstein as its chairman.[^1][^2][^3] +International Assets Group Inc. (I.A.G.) was the consulting company [[Jeffrey Epstein]] operated out of his apartment in [[New York City|New York]] after leaving [[Bear Stearns]] in 1981 and before forming [[J. Epstein & Co.]] Epstein described its business as recovering money stolen from wealthy clients or governments. It was the firm he represented when [[Steven Hoffenberg]] engaged him as a consultant to [[Towers Financial Corporation]] around 1987, and a 1987 Towers press release on the attempted takeover of [[Pan American World Airways|Pan Am]] identified Epstein as its chairman.[^1][^2][^3] ### Name diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/J. Epstein & Co..md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/J. Epstein & Co..md index 043e61c4..59256c32 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/J. Epstein & Co..md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/J. Epstein & Co..md @@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ created: 2026-09-25 updated: 2026-09-25 --- -J. Epstein & Co. was the money-management business [[Jeffrey Epstein]] ran in [[New York]] from about 1988, after his consulting company [[International Assets Group]] and his engagement at [[Towers Financial Corporation]]. Epstein said it accepted only clients worth a billion dollars or more. Its one publicly acknowledged client was [[Leslie Wexner]], founder of [[L Brands|The Limited]]. By 2003 he had run the business for about fifteen years.[^1] +J. Epstein & Co. was the money-management business [[Jeffrey Epstein]] ran in [[New York City|New York]] from about 1988, after his consulting company [[International Assets Group]] and his engagement at [[Towers Financial Corporation]]. Epstein said it accepted only clients worth a billion dollars or more. Its one publicly acknowledged client was [[Leslie Wexner]], founder of [[L Brands|The Limited]]. By 2003 he had run the business for about fifteen years.[^1] ### Offices and Clients diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Kalshi.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Kalshi.md index e9724d56..6d585ffd 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Kalshi.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Kalshi.md @@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ tags: summary: "Event-contract exchange designated by the CFTC in November 2020, backed by Sequoia, Paradigm and Andreessen Horowitz, with a former CFTC commissioner on its board and Donald Trump Jr. as a strategic adviser." location: "New York, New York" created: 2026-10-13 -updated: 2026-10-13 +updated: 2026-10-15 relations: - type: founded with: "[[Tarek Mansour]]" @@ -254,7 +254,7 @@ In [[New Jersey]], the Third Circuit decided KalshiEX, LLC v. Flaherty (No. 25-1 In [[Maryland]], Judge [[Adam Abelson]] denied a preliminary injunction on August 1, 2025. Kalshi's appeal to the [[Fourth Circuit]] was docketed on August 6, 2025 as No. 25-1892, and on August 12 Maryland gave written assurance that it would forgo enforcement against Kalshi pending the outcome. The Ninth Circuit's opinion of August 28, 2026 records the Fourth Circuit appeal as pending.[^34] -In [[Ohio]], the [[Ohio Casino Control Commission]] sent cease-and-desist letters to prediction markets in 2025, and the Southern District of Ohio (Chief Judge Sarah Morrison) denied Kalshi a preliminary injunction on March 9, 2026. In [[Tennessee]], Judge Aleta Trauger had granted one on February 19, 2026. On September 25, 2026 a Sixth Circuit panel of Judges Clay, Gibbons and Bloomekatz, in an opinion by Judge Julia Gibbons after argument on July 30, 2026, affirmed the Ohio denial and vacated the Tennessee injunction, holding that Kalshi had not shown that sports event contracts are swaps and, alternatively, that the Commodity Exchange Act neither expressly nor impliedly preempts the states' gambling laws.[^35] Briefs for Kalshi were signed by [[Neal Katyal]] and Joshua Sterling of [[Milbank LLP]]. The opinion lists [[Elizabeth Prelogar]] of [[Cooley LLP]] and CFTC counsel Henry Dickman and M. Jordan Minot among counsel for amici, and cites the amicus brief of the Coalition for Prediction Markets "in support of Kalshi."[^35] Ohio's commission dated cease-and-desist notices October 2, 2026 to ten operators including Coinbase, Polymarket and Robinhood and did not include Kalshi; Covers reported that Ohio fined Kalshi 5 million dollars in April.[^36] +In [[Ohio]], the [[Ohio Casino Control Commission]] sent cease-and-desist letters to prediction markets in 2025, and the Southern District of Ohio (District Judge Sarah Morrison) denied Kalshi a preliminary injunction on March 9, 2026. In [[Tennessee]], Judge Aleta Trauger had granted one on February 19, 2026. On September 25, 2026 a Sixth Circuit panel of Judges Clay, Gibbons and Bloomekatz, in an opinion by Judge Julia Gibbons after argument on July 30, 2026, affirmed the Ohio denial and vacated the Tennessee injunction, holding that Kalshi had not shown that sports event contracts are swaps and, alternatively, that the Commodity Exchange Act neither expressly nor impliedly preempts the states' gambling laws.[^35] Briefs for Kalshi were signed by [[Neal Katyal]] and Joshua Sterling of [[Milbank LLP]]. The opinion lists [[Elizabeth Prelogar]] of [[Cooley LLP]] and CFTC counsel Henry Dickman and M. Jordan Minot among counsel for amici, and cites the amicus brief of the Coalition for Prediction Markets "in support of Kalshi."[^35] Ohio's commission dated cease-and-desist notices October 2, 2026 to ten operators including Coinbase, Polymarket and Robinhood and did not include Kalshi; Covers reported that Ohio fined Kalshi 5 million dollars in April.[^36] On January 20, 2026 [[Suffolk Superior Court]] Judge [[Christopher Barry-Smith]] ruled in Commonwealth v. KalshiEX LLC (No. 2584CV02525) that Kalshi could not offer sports wagering in [[Massachusetts]] without a license and said he would issue a preliminary injunction. Attorney General [[Andrea Campbell]] called the ruling "a major step toward fortifying Massachusetts' gambling laws."[^37] The matter is before the Supreme Judicial Court as No. SJC-13906 (Appeals Court No. 2026-P-244), where the CFTC filed an amicus brief on April 24, 2026 in support of Kalshi and of reversal.[^38] diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Kobre & Kim.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Kobre & Kim.md index 6398f52d..b83c2356 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Kobre & Kim.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Kobre & Kim.md @@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ created: 2026-09-25 updated: 2026-09-25 --- -Kobre & Kim LLP is a litigation firm founded in [[New York]] by [[Steven Kobre]] and [[Michael Kim]], former Assistant U.S. Attorneys in the securities and commodities fraud unit of the [[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York]]. It describes itself as a "conflict-free, litigation-only" firm for cross-border disputes, government investigations and asset recovery, with offices in several countries, and most of its business referred by other law firms. Two supervisors of the [[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida]]'s 2006 to 2007 investigation of [[Jeffrey Epstein]] joined it on leaving government: [[Matthew Menchel]], chief of the Criminal Division, who left in August 2007 while the [[Epstein non-prosecution agreement]] was being negotiated, and [[Andrew Lourie]], who left the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]] in February 2008.[^1][^2][^3] +Kobre & Kim LLP is a litigation firm founded in [[New York City|New York]] by [[Steven Kobre]] and [[Michael Kim]], former Assistant U.S. Attorneys in the securities and commodities fraud unit of the [[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York]]. It describes itself as a "conflict-free, litigation-only" firm for cross-border disputes, government investigations and asset recovery, with offices in several countries, and most of its business referred by other law firms. Two supervisors of the [[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida]]'s 2006 to 2007 investigation of [[Jeffrey Epstein]] joined it on leaving government: [[Matthew Menchel]], chief of the Criminal Division, who left in August 2007 while the [[Epstein non-prosecution agreement]] was being negotiated, and [[Andrew Lourie]], who left the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]] in February 2008.[^1][^2][^3] ### Founders and Model diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Leading the Future.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Leading the Future.md index 0de355d3..c0323249 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Leading the Future.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Leading the Future.md @@ -86,7 +86,7 @@ relations: role: "legal services" fn: 2 created: 2026-09-23 -updated: 2026-09-23 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Leading the Future is a super PAC, a political committee that may make only independent expenditures, registered with the [[Federal Election Commission]] on August 15, 2025, under identifier C00916114. Its address is 675 South Green Valley Parkway, #1333, [[Henderson, Nevada]], and its treasurer of record is [[Britney Gonzalez]] of [[Mountain Brook, Alabama]]. The email contact on its filings uses the domain of the [[Crosby Ottenhoff Group]], which the committee also pays as a compliance consultant.[^1][^2] Its leaders, [[Zac Moffatt]] and [[Josh Vlasto]], described the [[RAISE Act]] of the New York Assembly member [[Alex Bores]] in November 2025 as "ideological and politically motivated legislation" and said that "bills like the RAISE Act threaten American competitiveness, limit economic growth."[^3] @@ -108,7 +108,7 @@ Almost all of the committee's spending consists of transfers to other committees ### Think Big -Think Big (FEC identifier C00923417) reported 23,021,600.71 dollars in receipts, 20,760,549.23 dollars in disbursements and 17,224,117.88 dollars in independent expenditures.[^5] Its largest single target was Bores, then a candidate in the Democratic primary for [[New York]]'s 12th congressional district;[^6] the FEC's aggregation of its independent expenditures by candidate shows 8,145,697.68 dollars spent opposing him, in 55 transactions, all through the vendor [[Lantern Production Consultants]].[^5] In February 2026 *[[TechCrunch]]* reported that Leading the Future had "already poured $1.1 million into ads attacking Bores" when the [[Anthropic]]-funded [[Public First Action]] began spending in his support.[^6] Think Big also reported expenditures supporting other candidates, among them [[Jesse Jackson Jr.]] and [[Melissa Bean]] in [[Illinois]], [[Ben McAdams]] in [[Utah]], [[Ritchie Torres]], [[Joseph Morelle]] and [[Yvette Clarke]] in New York, [[Jimmy Panetta]] in [[California]], [[Rob Menendez|Robert Menendez]] in [[New Jersey]], [[Greg Stanton]] in [[Arizona]] and [[Valerie Hoyle]] in [[Oregon]].[^5] +Think Big (FEC identifier C00923417) reported 23,021,600.71 dollars in receipts, 20,760,549.23 dollars in disbursements and 17,224,117.88 dollars in independent expenditures.[^5] Its largest single target was Bores, then a candidate in the Democratic primary for [[New York]]'s 12th congressional district;[^6] the FEC's aggregation of its independent expenditures by candidate shows 8,155,897.68 dollars spent opposing him, in 56 transactions, all through the vendor [[Lantern Production Consultants]].[^5] In February 2026 *[[TechCrunch]]* reported that Leading the Future had "already poured $1.1 million into ads attacking Bores" when the [[Anthropic]]-funded [[Public First Action]] began spending in his support.[^6] Think Big also reported expenditures supporting other candidates, among them [[Jesse Jackson Jr.]] and [[Melissa Bean]] in [[Illinois]], [[Ben McAdams]] in [[Utah]], [[Ritchie Torres]], [[Joseph Morelle]] and [[Yvette Clarke]] in New York, [[Jimmy Panetta]] in [[California]], [[Rob Menendez|Robert Menendez]] in [[New Jersey]], [[Greg Stanton]] in [[Arizona]] and [[Valerie Hoyle]] in [[Oregon]].[^5] The counter-campaign for Bores was run by the Jobs and Democracy PAC, funded through the Public First super PAC, which the FEC's aggregation shows spent 15,026,937.99 dollars supporting him.[^7] @@ -122,6 +122,6 @@ American Mission (FEC identifier C00916692) reported 23,943,009.62 dollars in re [^2]: Federal Election Commission, itemized disbursements (Schedule B) for committee C00916114, 53 records, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/disbursements/?committee_id=C00916114 [^3]: Bellan, Rebecca. "a16z-backed super PAC is targeting Alex Bores, sponsor of New York's AI safety bill; he says bring it on." *TechCrunch,* November 17, 2025. https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/17/a16z-backed-super-pac-is-targeting-alex-bores-sponsor-of-new-yorks-ai-safety-bill-he-says-bring-it-on/ [^4]: Federal Election Commission, financial totals for committee C00916114, 2025 to 2026 cycle, through the report of July 15, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00916114/?tab=summary -[^5]: Federal Election Commission, committees C00923417 ("Think Big") and C00916692 ("American Mission"), financial totals and independent expenditures (Schedule E), including the by-candidate aggregation for Alex Bores, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00923417/ ; https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00916692/ ; https://www.fec.gov/data/independent-expenditures/?committee_id=C00923417 +[^5]: Federal Election Commission, committees C00923417 ("Think Big") and C00916692 ("American Mission"), financial totals and independent expenditures (Schedule E), including the by-candidate aggregation for Alex Bores, retrieved September 23, 2026 and queried again October 15, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00923417/ ; https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00916692/ ; https://www.fec.gov/data/independent-expenditures/?committee_id=C00923417 [^6]: Bellan, Rebecca. "Anthropic-funded group backs candidate attacked by rival AI super PAC." *TechCrunch,* February 20, 2026. https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/20/anthropic-funded-group-backs-candidate-attacked-by-rival-ai-super-pac/ [^7]: Federal Election Commission, committees C00928374 ("Jobs and Democracy PAC") and C00928390 ("Defending Our Values PAC"), independent expenditures (Schedule E), including the by-candidate aggregation for Alex Bores, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/independent-expenditures/?committee_id=C00928374 ; https://www.fec.gov/data/independent-expenditures/?committee_id=C00928390 diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Lockheed Aircraft Company.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Lockheed Aircraft Company.md index 95bab987..261a1cf2 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Lockheed Aircraft Company.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Lockheed Aircraft Company.md @@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ tags: - USA category: "Private Organization" summary: "The Lockheed Aircraft Company is a U.S. aerospace manufacturer that built the U-2, named in Ari Ben-Menashe's account of a bribe in Israeli politics and in 1970s SEC disclosures of questionable overseas payments." -updated: 2026-10-12 +updated: 2026-10-15 start: 1926 end: 1995 location: "Burbank, California, USA" @@ -36,9 +36,14 @@ The subcommittee's record also contains a statement by Representative [[Michael The commission's May 12, 1976 report to the Senate Banking Committee on questionable and illegal corporate payments and practices summarized its enforcement action against Lockheed: it alleged secret payments of at least 25 million dollars to foreign government officials, at least 750,000 dollars deposited in a secret Swiss bank account, and over 200 million dollars disbursed to consultants and commission agents without adequate records.[^4] +### Merger into Lockheed Martin + +The company combined with [[Martin Marietta Corporation]] on March 15, 1995 under the holding company [[Lockheed Martin]], which had been incorporated on August 29, 1994 for that purpose. On January 28, 1996 the company was merged into its parent together with its Lockheed Missiles and Space Company and Lockheed Sanders subsidiaries.[^5] The parent's annual report for 1995 describes the businesses of Lockheed Martin as "the businesses previously conducted by Lockheed and Martin Marietta and their respective subsidiaries."[^5] + ### Footnotes [^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. _The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy_. Random House, 1991. Chapter 4. [^2]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. _Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network_. Sheridan Square Press, 1992 (TrineDay reprint, 2015). [^3]: Unlawful Corporate Payments Act of 1977, Hearings on H.R. 3815 and H.R. 1602 before the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Finance of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, House of Representatives, 95th Congress, 1st session, April 20 and 21, 1977 (Serial No. 95-11). Statement of Gordon Adams (beginning p. 26); statement of Rep. Michael J. Harrington (pp. 168-173). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-95hhrg91391O/pdf/CHRG-95hhrg91391O.pdf [^4]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Report of the Securities and Exchange Commission on Questionable and Illegal Corporate Payments and Practices to the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, May 12, 1976, Securities Regulation and Law Report No. 353 (BNA), May 19, 1976, Special Supplement, Exhibit B (Lockheed Aircraft Corporation). https://sechistorical.org/wp-content/uploads/1976_0512_SECQuestionable.pdf +[^5]: Lockheed Martin Corporation, Form 10-K405 for the fiscal year 1995, filed March 13, 1996, Item 1, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/936468/0000950109-96-001535.txt diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Lockheed Martin.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Lockheed Martin.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..fba7d3de --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Lockheed Martin.md @@ -0,0 +1,289 @@ +--- +aliases: + - Lockheed Martin Corporation +category: "Private Organization" +tags: + - Organization + - Private + - Aerospace + - Defense + - SkunkWorks + - UFO + - Intelligence + - Bribery + - Japan + - Sandia + - Area51 +summary: "Defense contractor formed by the 1995 combination of Lockheed and Martin Marietta, whose Skunk Works built the U-2 and flew from Groom Lake, and whose name recurs in attributed claims about recovered craft." +location: "Bethesda, Maryland" +start: 1995 +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +relations: + - type: owned + with: "[[Lockheed Aircraft Company]]" + start: 1995-03-15 + end: 1996-01-28 + role: "combined with Martin Marietta on March 15, 1995 and merged into Lockheed Martin on January 28, 1996" + fn: 1 + - type: owned + with: "[[Martin Marietta Corporation]]" + start: 1995-03-15 + end: 1996-01-28 + role: "combined with Lockheed on March 15, 1995 and merged into Lockheed Martin on January 28, 1996" + fn: 1 + - type: owned + with: "[[Lockheed Skunk Works]]" + start: 1995-03-15 + role: "Advanced Development Programs unit, which the annual report filed in March 1996 describes as performing a substantial amount of classified work" + fn: 2 + - type: contractor_to + with: "[[Central Intelligence Agency]]" + start: 1955 + role: "U-2 aircraft built by the predecessor Lockheed Aircraft Company under the agency's program run by Richard Bissell, and A-12 aircraft under the OXCART contract" + fn: 8 + - type: contractor_to + with: "[[United States Department of Energy]]" + start: 1993 + end: 2017 + role: "operated Sandia National Laboratories through Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin company" + fn: 39 + - type: contractor_to + with: "[[United States Department of Energy]]" + start: 1996 + role: "integrated subcontractor to Bechtel National for support services at the Nevada Test Site, through Lockheed Martin Nevada Technologies" + fn: 17 + - type: contractor_to + with: "[[Federal Bureau of Investigation]]" + end: 2010-03 + role: "lead contractor on the Sentinel case-management system, which received an FBI stop-work order in March 2010" + fn: 62 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[James Comey]]" + reverse: true + start: 2005-09 + end: 2010-09 + role: "senior vice president and general counsel" + fn: 63 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Ron Blackburn]]" + reverse: true + start: 1984 + role: "retired Air Force lieutenant colonel at the Burbank Skunk Works, according to John B. Alexander" + fn: 35 + - type: investigated + with: "[[Federal Trade Commission]]" + reverse: true + start: 2022-01-25 + end: 2022-02-13 + role: "sued to block the proposed acquisition of Aerojet Rocketdyne" + fn: 70 + - type: contractor_to + with: "[[Arabsat]]" + start: 2015-04-28 + role: "built the Arabsat 6A and Hellas-Sat-4/SaudiGeoSat-1 communications satellites under a 2015 contract" + fn: 72 +--- + +Lockheed Martin Corporation is a defense and aerospace contractor headquartered in [[Bethesda, Maryland]]. It was incorporated on August 29, 1994 to combine the businesses of [[Lockheed Aircraft Company|Lockheed]] and [[Martin Marietta Corporation|Martin Marietta]], and the combination was completed on March 15, 1995.[^1] Its aeronautics sector includes the [[Lockheed Skunk Works]], which the annual report filed in March 1996 describes as performing "a substantial amount of classified work." The unit's aircraft include the [[U-2 Spy Plane]], which was built for the [[Central Intelligence Agency]], and the [[F-117 Nighthawk|F-117]] stealth fighter, which the sector supports.[^2] + +### Formation and mergers, 1994 to 1996 + +The filing for fiscal 1995 describes a reorganization agreement between Lockheed and Martin Marietta, dated August 29, 1994 and amended on February 7, 1995. Under it both companies became wholly owned subsidiaries of the new parent on March 15, 1995.[^1] On January 28, 1996 Lockheed, its Lockheed Missiles and Space Company and Lockheed Sanders subsidiaries, Martin Marietta, and Martin Marietta Technologies were merged into the parent. The filing states that the business of Lockheed Martin "consists of the businesses previously conducted by Lockheed and Martin Marietta and their respective subsidiaries."[^1] + +The company's acquisition of [[Loral Corporation]] was agreed on January 7, 1996 and completed in April 1996, and the annual report for 1996 lists the April 1996 combination among the items affecting its figures.[^3] [[Bernard L. Schwartz]], who had taken over Loral in 1972, sold the bulk of it to Lockheed Martin in 1996.[^4] + +The legal proceedings item of the same filing lists a series of government inquiries into the company's operations. They include a federal grand jury subpoena served on May 9, 1995 in Boise, Idaho, in an investigation that appeared to concern the handling of hazardous waste at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory; Department of Defense Inspector General subpoenas concerning the LANTIRN program, a sonar array and the company's Advanced Concept Center; and a class action filed on June 7, 1990 in the Eastern District of Ohio against Martin Marietta Energy Systems, in which the plaintiffs sought $600 million over discharges of hazardous substances.[^5] The filing also describes a criminal investigation by the [[Environmental Protection Agency]] and the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command into "whether the Corporation improperly disposed of wastes from The Skunk Works at a government site in Nevada," and states that it did not appear the company was the target.[^6] + +### The Skunk Works, the U-2 and Groom Lake + +The Skunk Works is the nickname of the Advanced Development Projects unit that [[Kelly Johnson]] led as chief engineer from June 1943. [[Ben Rich]] headed it from January 1975 until his retirement on December 31, 1990.[^7] The CIA's history of its overhead reconnaissance programs records that Johnson placed the U-2 in Lockheed's Advanced Development facility at Burbank, California, "known as the Skunk Works," an area Lockheed had established in 1945 to develop the P-80 Shooting Star, and that the small unit then began making the detailed drawings for the aircraft. The company's own annual report calls the unit "a national asset since its inception during World War II."[^8][^9] + +[[Richard Bissell]] ran the U-2 program for the agency after [[Allen Dulles]] gave him charge of it on November 26, 1954. The CIA's general counsel, [[Lawrence Houston]], told Lockheed that the agency could budget only $22.5 million for the airframes, and the two sides agreed on a fixed-price contract. In the spring of 1958 Lockheed and the government settled the price for the original twenty aircraft at $17,025,542 plus a profit of $1,952,055, a total of $18,977,597, less than $1 million for each aircraft.[^8] On April 12, 1955 Bissell and Colonel [[Osmund Ritland]] of the Air Force flew over Nevada with Johnson in a Beechcraft piloted by Lockheed's chief test pilot [[Tony LeVier]], saw an airstrip beside a salt flat known as [[Groom Lake]], near the northeast corner of the [[Atomic Energy Commission]]'s Nevada Proving Ground, and landed on the lakebed. Johnson called the site the Paradise Ranch, shortened to the Ranch. The CIA history gives the map designation as [[Area 51]].[^10] + +The first U-2 was flown to Groom Lake on July 25, 1955. To move Lockheed employees from Burbank to Area 51 without attracting attention, the project staff began a weekly military air transport flight on October 3, 1955. A transport bound for Area 51 crashed on November 17, 1955 and killed all fourteen people aboard, among them the project security officer and personnel from Lockheed and Hycon, which the CIA history calls the greatest single loss of life in the U-2 program.[^11] The same history states that high-altitude U-2 flights above 60,000 feet produced a sharp increase in reports of unidentified flying objects from airline pilots, that [[Project Blue Book]] investigators regularly asked the agency's project staff to check reported sightings against U-2 flight logs, and that "U-2 and later OXCART flights accounted for more than one-half of all UFO reports during the late 1950s and most of the 1960s."[^12] + +The successor aircraft, the A-12 of the [[OXCART]] program, was built by the same unit. On September 10, 1959 [[EG&G]] agreed to move its radar test facility to the former U-2 testing site at Area 51, and Johnson trucked a full-scale mockup of the aircraft from Burbank to Nevada for radar cross section tests. An amendment to the OXCART contract reduced the order from twelve to ten A-12 aircraft at a total cost of $161 million. The first A-12 flew officially on April 30, 1962, piloted by Louis Schalk, after an unannounced flight on April 25.[^13] + +The agency's files on the program also include a 1963 cable from Johnson concerning the approval of [[Francis Gary Powers]] to fly U-2 aircraft after Powers, released by the Soviet Union in 1962, began working for Lockheed as a U-2 pilot.[^14] + +### The Groom Lake waste litigation + +Two suits filed in 1994 in the District of Nevada concerned hazardous waste at the Air Force's operating location near Groom Lake. In [[Frost v. Perry]], the widow of a former worker and others proceeding as Does, who had worked at the location, brought a citizen suit under the [[Resource Conservation and Recovery Act]] against the Air Force; in [[Kasza v. Browner]], a plaintiff and Does sued the Environmental Protection Agency. [[Jonathan Turley]] and [[Joan Manley]] of George Washington University represented the plaintiffs, and KLAS, Inc., the owner of [[KLAS-TV]], appeared as amicus.[^15] The Secretary of the Air Force, [[Sheila Widnall]], invoked the military and state secrets privilege over "security sensitive environmental data" and other categories of information, and the court reviewed classified declarations in camera, among them one from Air Force Vice Chief of Staff General [[Thomas S. Moorman Jr.]] The EPA inspected the operating location from December 6, 1994 to March 10, 1995. The district court granted summary judgment to the Air Force in Frost and dismissed Kasza as moot, and the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit|Ninth Circuit]] affirmed on January 8, 1998, applying the privilege defined in United States v. Reynolds.[^15] + +[[Bill Clinton]] signed Presidential Determination No. 95-45 on September 29, 1995. It exempts "the Air Force's operating location near Groom Lake, Nevada" from any provision "respecting control and abatement of solid waste or hazardous waste disposal that would require the disclosure of classified information concerning that operating location," and names both suits.[^16] The company's annual report for 1995, filed on March 13, 1996, records that it had won the support services contract for the [[Nevada Test Site]] as an integrated subcontractor to Bechtel National, Inc. beginning in 1996, through a new unit, Lockheed Martin Nevada Technologies, Inc.[^17] + +### Kelly Johnson's sightings + +On December 16, 1953 a five-man Lockheed flight test crew and Johnson watched the same object at different times. According to the study by [[Martin Shough]] of the [[National Aviation Reporting Centre on Anomalous Phenomena]], Johnson gathered five eyewitness reports "under special cover" and sent them on January 20, 1954 through [[Donald L. Putt]] to the [[Air Technical Intelligence Center]] at [[Wright-Patterson Air Force Base]].[^18] + +Putt's covering letter, addressed to Colonel [[George L. Wertenbaker]] and dated February 15, 1954 in Shough's appendix, says the report "was handed to me by Lockheed personnel with the explanation that Mr. Johnson was most reluctant to write the report in the first place and then refused to forward it on to you because of his belief that those who profess to have seen flying saucers are not usually considered to be logical and practical hard-headed engineers."[^19] Shough records that Johnson had described a fast-moving "flame or emanation" of "beautiful light blue" colour near [[Brents Junction]] around Christmas 1951, which he believed was a flying saucer.[^18] + +Shough found that the Project Blue Book card gives the conclusion "OTHER - CLOUD lenticular cloud." He wrote that "The only conventional explanation having even a little plausibility is an unusually compact and well-defined lenticular wave cloud," and that "such a cloud seems unlikely."[^18] The papers of Ben Rich at the [[Huntington Library]] include a file whose title reads "Sighting of a flying saucer by certain Lockheed Aircraft Corporation personnel on 16 December 1953."[^20] + +### Rich's remarks on the E.T. line + +The remarks of Ben Rich on the subject survive mainly in the accounts of those who heard them. [[Peter W. Merlin]] documented that Rich ended his lectures from the spring of 1983 with a joke: at a Defense Week symposium on September 20, 1983 he said "The Skunk Works has been assigned the task of getting E.T. back home," and on May 23, 1990 he told a chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution that "last week we received a contract to take E.T. back home."[^21] + +[[Jan Harzan]], later executive director of the [[Mutual UFO Network]], told a radio network in January 2012 and [[Alejandro Rojas]] of Open Minds in July 2013 that he attended a March 1993 alumni lecture by Rich at [[UCLA]] with the engineer Tom Keller. Harzan said Rich showed about two dozen slides, ended with one of a disk-shaped craft, and concluded: "We now have the technology to take E.T. home." Harzan said that afterward Rich told one engineer, "We now know how to travel to the stars. We found an error in the equations and it won't take a lifetime to do it," and that, when Harzan pressed him on interstellar propulsion, Rich asked "how does ESP work?" and answered Harzan's reply with "That's how it works." Merlin, who reported the account, wrote that in his view Rich had carried his joke too far, and that Keller's version in the May 2010 issue of the [[MUFON UFO Journal]] had misquoted the usual closing line. Merlin also reports Rich's remark in a 1994 interview with Popular Science that "There are some new programs, and there are certain things, some of them 20 or 30 years old, that are still breakthroughs and appropriate to keep quiet about," and a July 1986 letter in which Rich wrote to a model-kit designer, "I'm a believer in both categories. I feel everything is possible."[^22] + +### Accounts of recovered material + +The accounts that name the company or its Skunk Works are set out here in the order in which they became public, each attributed to the person who gave it. + +Notes attributed to the physicist [[Eric Davis]] and dated October 16, 2002 record a meeting with Vice Admiral [[Thomas R. Wilson]], who said that in June 1997 he found, in a records group of the [[Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology]], a program run by "an aerospace technology contractor," "one of the top ones in US," and that the contractor had intelligence "in their corporate portfolio." Asked to name it, the notes record Wilson replying "That is core secret." They describe a meeting in the contractor's "secure vault" with a program director, a corporate attorney and a retired [[National Security Agency]] security director who called themselves "the watch committee," and an "intact craft" that the program manager said was technology not made by man.[^23] Wilson told the reporter [[Billy Cox]] in 2020 that the account was "all fiction."[^24] + +[[Harry Reid]] told the New Yorker writer Gideon Lewis-Kraus in 2021: "I was told for decades that Lockheed had some of these retrieved materials." Reid said he had tried to obtain a classified approval from the Pentagon to see them, that "They would not approve that," and that this was why he had asked for special access program status for the [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program]]. Lewis-Kraus wrote that a July 2020 New York Times article by [[Leslie Kean]] and [[Ralph Blumenthal]] had been corrected to say that Reid "did not believe that crash debris had been allocated to private military contractors for study; he believed that U.F.O.s may have crashed, and that, if so, we should be studying the fallout," and that Reid told him he had "never seen proof of any remnants." A representative of Lockheed Martin declined to comment for the article.[^25] + +In his written testimony of September 9, 2025 the journalist [[George Knapp]] wrote that "It has been widely reported over many years that aerospace titan Lockheed Martin is one of the defense contractors entrusted with mystery material and perhaps entire craft," and that the "principal facility at Groom Lake was built to be a safe haven and testing ground for Lockheed's legendary spy plane, the U-2." He testified that he had "confirmed that Bigelow and a trusted colleague met with and negotiated with a senior executive at Lockheed and hammered out a deal wherein Bigelow's company, BAASS, would receive a quantity of unusual material that Lockheed was safeguarding at a facility in California," that a source who was in the room confirmed it, that the composition of the material "suggested it had been crafted in a zero-gravity environment," and that "The agreement was not completed." He also wrote that the former Nevada senator Howard Cannon "had a personal relationship with the top guys at Lockheed."[^26] + +The researcher [[Keith Basterfield]] wrote on November 30, 2023 that [[David Grusch]], in an interview with Joe Rogan, had said that Senator Reid sought under the contract of [[Robert Bigelow]]'s [[Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies]] (BAASS) to have retrieved material transferred from Lockheed Martin to BAASS, quoting Grusch: "the other government customer which was the Central Intelligence Agency for that specific Lockheed material...from the 50's...bits and pieces of hull structures." Basterfield juxtaposed this with a one-page "BAASS goals 2011/2012" document released by the Department of Homeland Security under the Freedom of Information Act, whose first goal reads "Advanced Technology Analysis Center - analyze recovered AAV technology in collaboration with aerospace companies."[^27] + +At a House Oversight hearing on November 13, 2024, Representative [[Eric Burlison]] asked [[Luis Elizondo]] about a transfer. Elizondo said that a document cleared by the Defense Department's Office of Prepublication and Security Review stated that "an aerospace contract company" had "requested to divest itself of the material" that "was collected in the 1950s," and that "that did not actually occur"; he agreed that the company was Bigelow Aerospace. Burlison then cited the journalist Christopher Sharp as reporting a transfer among Lockheed Martin, Bigelow Aerospace and the CIA that was blocked, and Elizondo answered: "it was blocked. Why it was blocked, I can only surmise." He said that contract personnel had later told him the account was accurate. Asked by Representative [[Nancy Mace]] about Lockheed's expertise, he answered "Aerospace, ma'am."[^28] + +The [[Wall Street Journal]] reported on June 21, 2025 that Davis had been part of a small group of defense experts who claimed knowledge of a program at the Skunk Works to hold extraterrestrial technology. The article says that in 2022 [[Sean Kirkpatrick]], then the [[Pentagon]]'s UFO investigator, asked executives of the six largest defense contractors whether any of their companies had gained access to alien technology; that the Lockheed answer was complicated because the Skunk Works had just tested and attempted to replicate a piece of metal said to have come from a crashed craft near [[Roswell Incident|Roswell]]; that [[To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science]] had bought fragments in 2019 from a UFO researcher; that the fragments had reached the radio host [[Art Bell]] by mail in 1996 from a listener; and that [[Oak Ridge National Laboratory]] tested the metal and concluded that it was probably a Second World War-era manufacturing test. The article reports that Lockheed declined to comment and referred questions to the [[United States Army|Army]].[^29] A Pentagon spokeswoman, Sue Gough, told the same newspaper that the investigation had found no verifiable information substantiating claims that programs for possessing or reverse-engineering extraterrestrial materials existed in the past or exist currently.[^30] + +The July 26, 2023 hearing of the [[House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform|House Oversight Committee]] subcommittee on national security produced testimony from Grusch describing a "multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering" program. Asked by Representative [[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]] about interactions between defense contractors and UAP-related programs, Grusch answered that "the contractors, you know, or the metal benders, so to speak, the ones actually doing specific performance on government contracts" were involved. Asked by Burlison whether there was evidence that the craft were produced by domestic military contractors, he answered "Not to my knowledge. Plus, the recoveries predate a lot of our advanced programs that I previously am waiving off."[^31] + +The [[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]] (AARO) wrote in February 2024 that it "found no empirical evidence for claims that the USG and private companies have been reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology." Its report says that the executives, scientists and chief technology officers of companies named by interviewees "met with the Director of AARO and denied on the record that they have ever recovered, possessed, or engaged in reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial technology." The report describes a thirdhand account in which an organization held twelve spacecraft recovered before 1970 and "the CIA had a partnership with the company that ended in 1989," and a second account in which an organization held off-world material in 2009 and 2010, a separate interviewee took part in negotiations to return it to the government, and "a former named senior CIA official quashed the proposal to remove the material from the corporation." AARO stated that it "discovered no empirical evidence supporting these claims."[^32] Elsewhere the report describes Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Program, "also known as 'Skunk Works,'" as the developer of the [[P-175 Polecat]] unmanned aircraft, first flown in 2005 and disclosed at the 2006 [[Farnborough Airshow]], and of the [[RQ-170 Sentinel]]. It lists the [[RQ-3 Dark Star]], developed by Lockheed Martin, [[Boeing]] and [[DARPA]], and states that some observers asserted that it "resembled a flying saucer with long narrow wings."[^33] + +Kirkpatrick wrote in Scientific American on January 19, 2024 of a story told by "conspiracists" in which the United States had hidden and tried to reverse engineer as many as twelve craft, abandoned the effort to private sector defense contractors, and later saw those contractors "want to bring the whole program back under U.S. government (USG) auspices," with the CIA apparently stopping the transfer. He called this "all without substantiating evidence."[^34] + +[[Ron Blackburn]], a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, was working at the Burbank Skunk Works in 1984, according to [[John B. Alexander]], when the two met. A handwritten page by [[Jack Houck]] dated May 21, 1985 places Blackburn's name beside the word "Lockheed" in notes on the [[Advanced Theoretical Physics Working Group]].[^35] + +The attorney [[Daniel Sheehan]], interviewed by the [[Liberation Times]] on December 3, 2023, named [[Raytheon]], [[Radiance Technologies]] and the CIA's Directorate of Operations, along with Lockheed Martin, as entities that had pressured members of Congress against the [[Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act]]. He said the companies had been "given particular discrete aspects of the technology to try to figure it out." The outlet reported that multiple sources described the claim as untrue.[^36] + +### Sandia National Laboratories and the Department of Energy + +The company's Energy and Environment sector managed several Department of Energy facilities. The 1995 filing states that "The Sector also manages the Sandia National Laboratories, a federally funded research and development center with responsibilities for national security programs in defense, energy and the environment."[^37] It also records an extension of the contract of Lockheed Martin Energy Systems to manage the Oak Ridge facilities and the environmental programs at Portsmouth, Ohio and Paducah, Kentucky through March 31, 1998, at an estimated Department of Energy budget of $3.5 billion, and a separate contract for Oak Ridge National Laboratory under a new unit, Lockheed Martin Energy Research Corporation.[^17] The 1996 annual report describes the company as "the largest management and operations contractor within the DoE's system of laboratories" and lists Sandia among the facilities it manages, with Sandia Corporation among its subsidiaries.[^38] + +The laboratory's own history states that "Originally a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Electric, Sandia Corporation was a Lockheed Martin company from 1993-2017," and that in 2017 management passed to National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International.[^39] The 1995 filing lists [[Albert Narath]] as president of Sandia Corporation from April 1989 to August 14, 1995, and then as president and chief operating officer of the company's Energy and Environment sector.[^40] + +Two records of the Defense Intelligence Agency's Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program fall within the years of Lockheed Martin's management of the laboratory. A DIA information memorandum of October 30, 2009 on the technical reports delivered by BAASS states that five of the reviews were performed by outside reviewers, "including three research staff members at Sandia National Laboratories," and that "all of the reviews were positive, some exceptionally so." The enclosure lists the titles of the 26 reports, among them "Antigravity for Aerospace Applications," "Wormholes in Space Time" and "Quantum Entanglement Communications," and marks the reports that Sandia reviewed.[^41] The BAASS ten-month report of July 30, 2009, as Keith Basterfield quotes it, records that BAASS sent a request for proposals for a $400,000 study of the effects of public confirmation of "advanced exotic aerospace craft" to Battelle Memorial Institute, Southwestern Research Institute, the Center for American Progress and Sandia, and that "Sandia National Laboratories volunteered that they did not have the expertise for the project."[^42] + +### Compact fusion + +On October 15, 2014 the company announced that its Skunk Works was pursuing a compact fusion reactor concept that "can be developed and deployed in as little as ten years." The release states that the design "offers a 90 percent size reduction over previous concepts" and that "Currently, there are several patents pending that cover their approach." It identifies Tom McGuire as the compact fusion lead for the Skunk Works' Revolutionary Technology Programs.[^43] + +### Japan and the 1976 bribery record + +The subcommittee on multinational corporations of the [[Senate Committee on Foreign Relations]], chaired by [[Frank Church]], held hearings on Lockheed Aircraft Corporation in February 1976. The printed record, Part 14, covers hearings of February 4 and 6 and May 4, 1976.[^44] In his opening statement Church said the hearings would show that Lockheed had "for many years employed as its agent, a prominent leader of the ultra right wing militarist political faction in Japan and has paid him millions of dollars in fees and commissions over the last few years."[^45] A statement at the hearing recorded that over $200 million in commissions were paid by Lockheed between 1970 and 1975, and that the company had told the Senate Finance Committee and the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] that approximately $22 million went to government officials.[^46] + +The Securities and Exchange Commission reported to the Senate Banking Committee on May 12, 1976 that its complaint against Lockheed named the company's chairman of the board from 1957 until February 1976 and its president from 1967 until October 1975. The complaint alleged that secret payments of at least $25 million, at times in cash, had been made to foreign government officials to obtain and keep contracts; that at least $750,000 recorded for other purposes had been deposited in a secret Swiss bank account; and that over $200 million had been paid to consultants and commission agents without adequate records. It described false accounting entries and cash and "bearer" drafts payable to officials, nominees and conduits.[^47] + +The Japanese agent was [[Yoshio Kodama]]. A biographical note printed in the hearing record, drawn from a 1960 study by Ivan Morris, describes him as a nationalist leader born in 1911 who founded the Independence Youth Society in 1932, ran a purchasing agency in China for the Imperial Army, and was held in Sugamo Prison as a Class A war criminal from 1945 to 1948.[^48] The [[Washington Post]] reported from Tokyo on June 3, 1977 that Kodama had admitted receiving about $45,000 a year from Lockheed between 1958 and 1969 and about $130,000 a year afterward, and that former prime minister [[Kakuei Tanaka]] and 17 other politicians and businessmen had been indicted in the scandal. The same dispatch says that Kodama, after his release from prison, "is said to have been paid by the CIA to bring out tungsten from China, but reportedly never delivered the metal."[^49] A [[New York Times]] report by [[Richard Halloran]], preserved in the CIA reading room, says that Kodama was indicted on charges of violating Japan's foreign currency control law by receiving secret payments totaling almost $1.5 million from Lockheed, and that the agency "reportedly" maintained a relationship with him beginning in the 1950s, and adds: "How long that lasted is not publicly known."[^50] + +The Tokyo prosecution, as the Washington Post reported it, alleged that Kodama was to receive $4 million on the sale of the first six TriStar aircraft to [[Korean Air Lines]], in which his friend [[Kenji Osano]] held shares, and $120,000 for each plane after that. The same account says that when J. W. Clutter, a Lockheed executive, was summoned to appear before the subcommittee, he telephoned Kodama's interpreter, Taro Fukuda, to warn of the consequences of the hearing. A prosecution statement quoted Kodama as saying, on February 4, 1976, that "Lockheed should pay for its mistakes" and "they should at least pay my taxes." Osano, who owned several hotels in Hawaii, was charged with perjury in connection with the case, and the prosecution described him as a friend of Tanaka.[^49] + +The agency's own reading-room file on the affair contains wire and newspaper items under headlines such as "CIA DENIES LOCKHEED PAYOFF TIES," "C.I.A. QUERIED ON TIE TO LOCKHEED AGENT" and "LOCKHEED AGENT HAD CONTACTS AMONG TOP JAPANESE." A reprinted editorial titled "The Lessons of the Lockheed Scandal" says that Japanese-American relations "have passed under a chilling shadow" and that untimely elections might be necessary in Japan.[^51] + +In the hearings, Lockheed's executive Kotchian answered Church's question about a $100,000 payment to a "high government official in the Netherlands" by saying that the records indicated it had been made. Asked whether it was the first payment to that official, he said "I believe there had been previous instances," and that the first had been in 1961 or 1962 to the best of his knowledge. Asked about an earlier $1 million payment to the same official, Kotchian attributed it to "general good will and helpfulness" on programs in the area.[^52] Representative [[Michael J. Harrington]], in the 1977 hearings on corporate payments, linked allegations that [[Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands]] had received $1.1 million in Lockheed payments to that official's resignation from his posts.[^53] + +The Italian section of the record contains two receipts from the consultant Com.El. S.p.A. to Lockheed Georgia Company at Marietta: one dated June 11, 1970 for 70 million lire (112,000 dollars), part of the commission due on execution of the Defense Ministry's letter of intent for fourteen C-130 Hercules aircraft, and one dated November 30, 1971 for 70 million lire as the balance of that commission.[^54] [[Ann Crittenden]] reported in [[The New York Times]] in April 1976 that the CIA had known of Lockheed's payments in the 1950s.[^55] William Shawcross, writing in [[The Observer]] in April 1976, summarized [[Tad Szulc]] in [[The New Republic]] on the agency's role.[^56] + +Jerome Alan Cohen, writing in 1976, described Lockheed's "$12 million payoffs in Japan" and said that the company's lawyer, the former Secretary of State [[William P. Rogers]], had prevailed upon [[Henry Kissinger]] in December to persuade a federal district court to bar the Securities and Exchange Commission from disclosing the names of foreign officials. Cohen wrote that Kissinger "persisted" in that position for a few days before the State Department changed course, and that Deputy Secretary of State [[Robert S. Ingersoll]] told Senator [[William Proxmire]]'s Banking Committee that the names would be turned over only after the commission finished its investigation.[^57] + +### The 1971 federal loan guarantee + +The [[Emergency Loan Guarantee Act]], approved on August 9, 1971, created an Emergency Loan Guarantee Board chaired by the [[United States Department of the Treasury|Secretary of the Treasury]], with the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board among its members, to guarantee loans to major businesses.[^58] A guarantee required the board to find that the loan was needed to enable the borrower to continue to furnish goods or services, that failure to meet that need "would adversely and seriously affect the economy of or employment in the Nation or any region thereof," and that credit was not otherwise available to the borrower.[^58] A 1977 Naval Postgraduate School master's thesis on the company and the act, held by the [[Defense Technical Information Center]], describes the company as asking for $250 million in government-guaranteed loans, which was the ceiling the act set, and records that the guarantees covered bank loans totaling that amount.[^59] + +### Intelligence and classified work + +The Future Imagery Architecture satellite contract for the [[National Reconnaissance Office]] went to Boeing over Lockheed Martin on September 3, 1999. The NRO's history describes the program's technical problems and later restructuring.[^60] Federal award data on USAspending lists Lockheed Martin Corporation as the recipient of Department of the Navy contract N0001917C0001, with a total value of $35.1 billion, the largest of its Department of Defense awards in a search of fiscal years 2020 through 2025.[^61] + +The company's role in the FBI's Sentinel case-management system is recorded in the 2013 confirmation hearing of [[James Comey]]. Senator [[Chuck Grassley]] told the committee that the FBI had issued a stop-work order to Lockheed Martin, the leading contractor on Sentinel, in March 2010, which preceded the FBI's termination of the company as prime contractor, and that the Inspector General had repeatedly faulted the program, which ran past its deadline and cost significantly more than planned. Comey, who had been the company's general counsel, answered "None. I was aware of it internally at Lockheed Martin just in a general way," and added that he "had been Deputy Attorney General when the contract was first let."[^62] The nominee's questionnaire lists his service as senior vice president and general counsel of Lockheed Martin from September 2005 to September 2010, and states that he expected a lump-sum pension payment from the company of $400,000 in December 2015. The same hearing record covers his employment at the hedge fund [[Bridgewater Associates]] and his seat on the board of [[HSBC]].[^63] + +A Pentagon inquiry into the intelligence network of [[Michael Furlong]] in Asia, which the New York Times reported in October 2010 through [[Mark Mazzetti]], described the network as operating under a $22 million contract run by Lockheed Martin, with agents overseen by [[Dewey Clarridge]]. The results of the inquiry were classified.[^64] + +[[Logan Grumbach]], whose profile lists work as a missile defense manager at Boeing and Lockheed Martin, later became a vice president at [[Ignite Fueling Innovation]].[^65] The retired colonel [[Karl Nell]] describes his career as including senior systems engineering at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space, in a biography published by the [[SALT]] investor conference.[^66] + +The company's radio work in West Texas appears in federal licensing records. An experimental license filed with the [[Federal Communications Commission]] for a transmitter at [[Sierra Blanca, Texas]], call sign WF9XKC, file 0041-EX-ST-2012, is listed to Lockheed Martin, and its exhibit is an antenna sketch for the Cassidian Electronics model TRxS radar antenna.[^67] + +The [[Center for a New American Security]] lists Lockheed Martin among donors giving between 100,000 and 249,999 dollars in the period from October 2024 to September 2025.[^68] The company's venture arm, [[Lockheed Martin Ventures]], was among the new investors in the August 2022 funding round of [[Xona Space Systems]].[^69] + +### Aerojet Rocketdyne and the commercial record + +On January 25, 2022 the [[Federal Trade Commission]] voted 4 to 0 to challenge Lockheed Martin's proposed $4.4 billion acquisition of [[Aerojet]], a missile propulsion supplier, and to seek a preliminary injunction in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The agency described Aerojet as the last independent U.S. supplier of critical inputs for missile systems.[^70] The merger agreement was terminated on February 13, 2022.[^71] + +In April 2015 [[Arabsat]] and the [[King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology]] awarded Lockheed Martin a contract for two A2100 communications satellites, Arabsat 6A and Hellas-Sat-4/SaudiGeoSat-1, built through a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and TAQNIA Space Company, with the Saudi agency as technology partner. The release quotes [[Turki bin Saud bin Mohammed Al Saud]].[^72] + +### Ben-Menashe's accounts + +The former Israeli intelligence officer [[Ari Ben-Menashe]] has described two incidents involving Lockheed. In his 1992 book he wrote that while serving as a duty officer in [[Unit 8200]] in 1976 he intercepted a telegram detailing bribes paid by a Lockheed representative in Israel to Defense Minister [[Shimon Peres]], with $3.5 million deposited in one of Peres's brother's business accounts in Europe. He wrote that the telegram, its translation and related logs were ordered erased and that no public disclosure or inquiry followed.[^73] Ben-Menashe also described his November 1989 arrest, on a charge of attempting to broker the sale of three Israeli-owned Lockheed [[C-130 Hercules]] transport aircraft.[^74] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Lockheed Martin Corporation, Form 10-K405 for the fiscal year 1995, filed March 13, 1996, Item 1 (the combination of March 15, 1995 and the mergers of January 28, 1996) and cover page (Bethesda, Maryland), https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/936468/0000950109-96-001535.txt +[^2]: Lockheed Martin Corporation, Form 10-K405 for the fiscal year 1995, Item 1, Aeronautics Sector ("Through The Skunk Works, Aeronautics Sector performs a substantial amount of classified work"; "supports the F-117 stealth fighter bomber"), https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/936468/0000950109-96-001535.txt +[^3]: Lockheed Martin Corporation, Form 10-K405 for fiscal 1995, Item 14 (exhibit list, Loral Merger Agreement dated as of January 7, 1996), https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/936468/0000950109-96-001535.txt ; Lockheed Martin Corporation, Form 10-K for fiscal 1996, financial statement notes on the April 1996 business combination with Loral, filed March 1997, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/936468/0000950109-97-002222.txt +[^4]: Obituary of Bernard L. Schwartz (died March 12, 2024). +[^5]: Lockheed Martin Corporation, Form 10-K405 for the fiscal year 1995, Item 3, Legal Proceedings (Boggs et al. v. Divested Atomic Energy Corporation et al., filed June 7, 1990; the grand jury subpoena of May 9, 1995; the Department of Defense Inspector General subpoenas of June 27, 1994, November 29, 1994, December 22, 1994, May 4, 1995 and February 12, 1996), https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/936468/0000950109-96-001535.txt +[^6]: Lockheed Martin Corporation, Form 10-K405 for the fiscal year 1995, Item 3, Legal Proceedings (the EPA and Army Criminal Investigative Command inquiry), https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/936468/0000950109-96-001535.txt +[^7]: Ben R. Rich and Leo Janos, Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed (Boston: Little, Brown, 1994), https://archive.org/details/skunk-works-apersonal-memoir-of-my-years-at-lockheed-ben-rrich (dates of Rich's tenure as head of the unit and his retirement). +[^8]: Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach, The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: The U-2 and OXCART Programs, 1954-1974 (Washington: CIA History Staff, 1992; released in less redacted form 2013), chapter 2, pp. 39 to 45 (the program's establishment on November 26, 1954, the contract, the price agreed in spring 1958, and the Skunk Works), https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/docs/U2%20-%20Chapter%202.pdf ; the same history was published as The CIA and the U-2 Program, 1954-1974 (Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1998). +[^9]: Lockheed Martin Corporation, 1995 annual report to shareholders, reproduced as Exhibit 13 to the Form 10-K405 for fiscal 1995 ("Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, a national asset since its inception during World War II"), https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/936468/0000950109-96-001535.txt +[^10]: Pedlow and Welzenbach, The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance, chapter 2, pp. 56 to 57 (flight of April 12, 1955, Groom Lake, the Paradise Ranch and Area 51), https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/docs/U2%20-%20Chapter%202.pdf +[^11]: Pedlow and Welzenbach, The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance, chapter 2, pp. 66 and 72 (delivery of the first U-2 on July 25, 1955; the scheduled flight beginning October 3, 1955; the crash of November 17, 1955), https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/docs/U2%20-%20Chapter%202.pdf +[^12]: Pedlow and Welzenbach, The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance, chapter 2, pp. 72 to 73 ("U-2s, UFOs, and Operation BLUE BOOK"), https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/docs/U2%20-%20Chapter%202.pdf +[^13]: Pedlow and Welzenbach, The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance, chapter 6, pp. 274 to 275 (EG&G radar test facility moved to Area 51 on September 10, 1959; the mockup), p. 285 (Amendment No. 11, ten A-12 aircraft, $161 million) and pp. 288 to 289 (first flights of April 25 and 30, 1962), https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/docs/U2%20-%20Chapter%206.pdf +[^14]: Central Intelligence Agency, cable from Kelly Johnson of Lockheed received April 19, 1963, and reply of April 25, 1963, concerning approval of Francis Gary Powers to fly U-2 aircraft, SECRET, CIA-RDP89B00739R000300110131-3, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp89b00739r000300110131-3. +[^15]: Kasza v. Browner and Frost v. Perry, 133 F.3d 1159 (9th Cir. Jan. 8, 1998), affirming Frost v. Perry, 161 F.R.D. 434 (D. Nev. 1995) and 919 F. Supp. 1459 (D. Nev. 1996), and Kasza v. Browner, 902 F. Supp. 1240 (D. Nev. 1995), https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F3/133/133.F3d.1159.96-16930.96-16933.96-16895.96-16892.96-15537.html +[^16]: Presidential Determination No. 95-45 of September 29, 1995, "Presidential Determination on Classified Information Concerning the Air Force's Operating Location Near Groom Lake, Nevada," 60 Fed. Reg. 52823 (Oct. 10, 1995), https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/full_text/text/1995/10/10/95-25244.txt +[^17]: Lockheed Martin Corporation, 1995 annual report to shareholders, Energy & Environment Sector, reproduced as Exhibit 13 to the Form 10-K405 for fiscal 1995 (Nevada Test Site support services contract as integrated subcontractor to Bechtel National, Inc.; Lockheed Martin Nevada Technologies, Inc.; Lockheed Martin Energy Systems extension through March 31, 1998; Lockheed Martin Energy Research Corporation), https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/936468/0000950109-96-001535.txt +[^18]: Martin Shough, "A Study of the Lockheed Sightings," National Aviation Reporting Centre on Anomalous Phenomena, July 2014, summary, sections 1 and 7 and appendix (Johnson's account of Christmas 1951, the five reports collected "under special cover" and forwarded on January 20, 1954, and the Blue Book card), https://mail.project1947.com/fig/Lockheed_Case_Dec_16_1953.pdf +[^19]: D. L. Putt to Col. George L. Wertenbaker, covering letter reproduced in Shough, "A Study of the Lockheed Sightings," appendix (letter dated February 15, 1954 as cited there), https://mail.project1947.com/fig/Lockheed_Case_Dec_16_1953.pdf +[^20]: Huntington Library, "Ben R. Rich papers, 1940-1995," Online Archive of California, https://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c86d5rqx/admin/. +[^21]: Peter W. Merlin, "Taking E.T. Home: Birth of a Modern Myth," SUNlite 5, no. 6 (November-December 2013), pp. 17 to 18 (Defense Week symposium of September 20, 1983; the Daughters of the American Revolution address of May 23, 1990), https://web.archive.org/web/20150321193509/home.comcast.net/~tprinty/UFO/SUNlite5_6.pdf +[^22]: Merlin, "Taking E.T. Home," SUNlite 5, no. 6, pp. 16 to 19 (the Harzan interviews of January 2012 and July 2013, the account of the March 1993 UCLA lecture, the Popular Science interview of 1994 and the letter of July 1986), same URL. +[^23]: "EWD NOTES 10/16/02, Eric Davis Meeting with Adm. Wilson," pp. 3 to 4 and 8 to 13, https://documents2.theblackvault.com/casefiles/wilsonleak.pdf +[^24]: Billy Cox, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 2020, as quoted in The Black Vault, "The Admiral Wilson Leak: An Analysis," https://www.theblackvault.com/casefiles/the-admiral-wilson-leak-an-analysis/ +[^25]: Gideon Lewis-Kraus, "How the Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously," The New Yorker, May 10, 2021, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/how-the-pentagon-started-taking-ufos-seriously +[^26]: George Knapp, written testimony, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, hearing "Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection," Serial No. 119-44, September 9, 2025, https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/George-Knapp-Written-Testimony.pdf +[^27]: Keith Basterfield, "Lockheed Martin and BAASS," November 30, 2023, quoting Lacatski, Kelleher and Knapp, Inside the US Government Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations (RTMA, 2023) and the Department of Homeland Security response to the Freedom of Information Act request of Marc Cecotti, https://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com/2023/11/lockheed-martin-and-baass.html +[^28]: House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth," joint hearing, November 13, 2024, Serial No. 118-135, questions of Representatives Burlison and Mace, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-118hhrg57440/html/CHRG-118hhrg57440.htm +[^29]: Joel Schectman and Aruna Viswanatha, "Was It Scrap Metal or an Alien Spacecraft? The Army Asked an Elite Defense Lab to Investigate," The Wall Street Journal, June 21, 2025 (print edition June 23, 2025). +[^30]: Schectman and Viswanatha, The Wall Street Journal, June 21, 2025, statement of the Pentagon spokeswoman Sue Gough. +[^31]: House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, hearing "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency," July 26, 2023, Serial No. 118-53, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-118hhrg53022/html/CHRG-118hhrg53022.htm +[^32]: Department of Defense, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, Volume I, February 2024, Executive Summary and the section on claims of hidden programs, https://web.archive.org/web/2024id_/https://media.defense.gov/2024/Mar/08/2003409233/-1/-1/0/DOPSR-CLEARED-508-COMPLIANT-HRRV1-08-MAR-2024-FINAL.PDF +[^33]: AARO, Report on the Historical Record, Volume I, February 2024, pp. 44 to 45 (RQ-3 Dark Star, P-175 Polecat and RQ-170 Sentinel sections), same URL. +[^34]: Sean Kirkpatrick, "Here's What I Learned as the U.S. Government's UFO Hunter," Scientific American, January 19, 2024, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heres-what-i-learned-as-the-u-s-governments-ufo-hunter/ +[^35]: Jack Houck, handwritten page headed "Advanced Physics," May 21, 1985, and John B. Alexander, "UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities" (2011), as quoted in Daniel Elizondo and The Hermetic Penetrator, "The Loose Threads Report," Anomaly Archives, 2022, pp. 15, 20 and 188, https://anomalyarchives.org/wp-content/uploads/PDF-Loose-Threads.pdf +[^36]: Liberation Times, interview with Daniel Sheehan, December 3, 2023. +[^37]: Lockheed Martin Corporation, Form 10-K405 for fiscal 1995, Item 1, Energy and Environment Sector, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/936468/0000950109-96-001535.txt +[^38]: Lockheed Martin Corporation, Form 10-K for fiscal 1996, Item 1, Energy and Environment Sector, and list of subsidiaries, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/936468/0000950109-97-002222.txt +[^39]: Sandia National Laboratories, "Sandia's Government Owned/Contractor Operated heritage," https://www.sandia.gov/about/history/goco.html +[^40]: Lockheed Martin Corporation, Form 10-K405 for fiscal 1995, Part I, Item 4A, Executive Officers of the Registrant, entry for Albert Narath, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/936468/0000950109-96-001535.txt +[^41]: Defense Intelligence Agency, Info Memo U-429-09, "Review of Advanced Aerospace Contract Deliverables," October 30, 2009, with the enclosure listing the FY 2009 technical reports, in the packet "Senator Harry Reid's Request to Put the Advanced Aerospace Threat and Identification Program under Special Access Protection" prepared for the Deputy Secretary of Defense's meeting of November 17, 2009, released to The Black Vault, https://documents2.theblackvault.com/documents/dia/AAWSAP/09117-Final_Packet_Presented_to_DepSecDef.pdf +[^42]: Keith Basterfield, "The BAASS 'Project Campus,'" July 7, 2025, quoting the BAASS Ten Month Report (July 30, 2009), https://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-baass-project-campus.html +[^43]: Lockheed Martin news release, "Lockheed Martin Pursuing Compact Nuclear Fusion Reactor Concept," October 15, 2014, Palmdale, California, https://news.lockheedmartin.com/2014-10-15-Lockheed-Martin-Pursuing-Compact-Nuclear-Fusion-Reactor-Concept +[^44]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, Multinational Corporations and United States Foreign Policy, Hearings, 94th Congress, 2d session, on Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, Part 14, February 4 and 6 and May 4, 1976 (Washington: GPO, 1976), https://archive.org/details/MultinationalCorporationsAndUSForeignPolicyUSSenateHearings (text file 1976_Multinationals_lockheed-japan-bribes) +[^45]: Opening statement of Senator Frank Church, Part 14 of Multinational Corporations and United States Foreign Policy, February 4, 1976, same record. +[^46]: Statement headed "Payments disclosed in the Lockheed hearing of September 12, 1975," Part 14 of Multinational Corporations and United States Foreign Policy, 1976, same record. +[^47]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Report of the Securities and Exchange Commission on Questionable and Illegal Corporate Payments and Practices to the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, May 12, 1976, Securities Regulation and Law Report No. 353 (BNA), Special Supplement, May 19, 1976, Lockheed Aircraft Corporation section, https://sechistorical.org/wp-content/uploads/1976_0512_SECQuestionable.pdf +[^48]: Biographical note on "Kodama Yoshio (b. 1911)," quoting Ivan Morris, Nationalism and the Right Wing in Japan (Oxford University Press, 1960), printed in Part 14 of Multinational Corporations and United States Foreign Policy, 1976, same record. +[^49]: Andrew Horvat, dispatch from Tokyo, The Washington Post, June 3, 1977 (Tokyo dateline June 2), CIA reading room copy, CIA-RDP88-01315R000300450040-9, https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP88-01315R000300450040-9 +[^50]: Richard Halloran, The New York Times, 1976, CIA reading room copy, CIA-RDP88-01315R000300450058-0, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01315r000300450058-0 +[^51]: "The Lessons of the Lockheed Scandal," reprinted article, CIA reading room copy, CIA-RDP88-01315R000300450060-7, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01315r000300450060-7 ; the reading-room items cited in the same paragraph are CIA-RDP88-01315R000300450009-4, CIA-RDP88-01315R000300450026-5 and CIA-RDP88-01315R000300450058-0. +[^52]: Testimony of Mr. Kotchian and exchanges with Senator Church on the Netherlands payments, Part 14 of Multinational Corporations and United States Foreign Policy, 1976, same record. +[^53]: Statement of Representative Michael J. Harrington, Unlawful Corporate Payments Act of 1977, Hearings on H.R. 3815 and H.R. 1602 before the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Finance of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, House of Representatives, 95th Congress, 1st session, April 1977, Serial No. 95-11, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-95hhrg91391O/pdf/CHRG-95hhrg91391O.pdf +[^54]: Part 14 of Multinational Corporations and United States Foreign Policy, 1976, section on political contributions in Italy, translated receipts of Com.El. S.p.A. to Lockheed Georgia Company of June 11, 1970 and November 30, 1971, same record. +[^55]: Ann Crittenden, "C.I.A. Said to Have Known in '50's of Lockheed Bribes," The New York Times, April 1976, CIA reading room copy, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00552r000100650002-9 +[^56]: William Shawcross, "Did CIA back Lockheed bribes to Japanese?," The Observer, April 1976, summarizing Tad Szulc in The New Republic, CIA reading room copy, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01315r000300470050-6. +[^57]: Jerome Alan Cohen, "Lockheed Cover-Up?," 1976, CIA reading room copy, CIA-RDP88-01315R000300450030-0, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01315r000300450030-0 +[^58]: Public Law 92-70, Emergency Loan Guarantee Act, approved August 9, 1971, 85 Stat. 178, sections 1 to 3, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-85/pdf/STATUTE-85-Pg178.pdf +[^59]: "An Assessment of Lockheed Aircraft Corporation and the Emergency Loan Guarantee Act," Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, master's thesis, 1977, Defense Technical Information Center, ADA040197 (guaranteed bank loans totaling $250 million). +[^60]: Bruce Berkowitz, The National Reconnaissance Office at 50 Years: A Brief History, Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance, September 2011, pp. 20 to 29. +[^61]: USAspending.gov, spending_by_award search, recipient text "LOCKHEED MARTIN," Department of Defense awards, fiscal years 2020 to 2025 (largest award N0001917C0001, Department of the Navy, $35,135,514,910.20), queried October 15, 2026, https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/search/spending_by_award/ +[^62]: Confirmation Hearing on the Nomination of James B. Comey, Jr., to Be Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, July 9, 2013, S. Hrg. 113-850, exchange between Senator Grassley and the nominee on Sentinel, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-113shrg23750/pdf/CHRG-113shrg23750.pdf +[^63]: Confirmation Hearing on the Nomination of James B. Comey, Jr., July 9, 2013, S. Hrg. 113-850, nominee's Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire (employment record, "Senior Vice President and General Counsel (9/05-9/10) Lockheed Martin" and the pension statement) and the opening exchanges on Lockheed Martin, Bridgewater and HSBC, same record. +[^64]: Mark Mazzetti, "Inquiry Finds U.S. Official Set Up Spy Ring in Asia," The New York Times, October 28, 2010 (reprinted by RAWA News), https://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2010/10/28/inquiry-finds-u-s-official-set-up-spy-ring-in-asia.phtml +[^65]: Logan Grumbach, professional profile and Ignite Fueling Innovation announcement. +[^66]: SALT investor conference, biography of Karl E. Nell. +[^67]: Federal Communications Commission, Experimental Licensing System, generic search by transmitter city (Sierra Blanca, Fort Hancock), file 0041-EX-ST-2012 (WF9XKC), https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/els/reports/GenericSearch.cfm. +[^68]: Center for a New American Security, "CNAS Supporters," contributions from October 1, 2024, to September 30, 2025, https://www.cnas.org/support-cnas/cnas-supporters +[^69]: Mark Holmes, "Lockheed Martin Invests in Xona Space Systems $25M Funding Round," Via Satellite, August 8, 2022, https://www.satellitetoday.com/finance/2022/08/08/lockheed-martin-invests-in-xona-space-systems-25m-funding-round/ +[^70]: Federal Trade Commission, "FTC Sues to Block Lockheed Martin Corporation's $4.4 Billion Vertical Acquisition of Aerojet Rocketdyne," press release, January 25, 2022, https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/01/ftc-sues-block-lockheed-martin-corporations-44-billion-vertical-acquisition-aerojet-rocketdyne +[^71]: Termination of the Lockheed Martin and Aerojet Rocketdyne merger agreement, February 13, 2022. +[^72]: PR Newswire, "Arabsat and KACST Award Lockheed Martin Contract to Provide Satellite Systems," April 28, 2015, https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/arabsat-and-kacst-award-lockheed-martin-contract-to-provide-satellite-systems-to ; Lockheed Martin, "Lockheed Martin, Arabsat and KACST Achieve Significant Milestone on Arabsat 6A and Hellas-Sat-4/SaudiGeoSat-1," May 31, 2016, https://news.lockheedmartin.com/2016-05-31-Lockheed-Martin-Arabsat-and-KACST-Achieve-Significant-Milestone-on-Arabsat-6A-and-Hellas-Sat-4-SaudiGeoSat-1 +[^73]: Ari Ben-Menashe, Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network, Sheridan Square Press, 1992 (TrineDay reprint, 2015), the account of the 1976 telegram. +[^74]: Ari Ben-Menashe, account of the November 1989 arrest. diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Lockheed Skunk Works.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Lockheed Skunk Works.md index bfb8e3dd..4bf39007 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Lockheed Skunk Works.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Lockheed Skunk Works.md @@ -47,9 +47,9 @@ relations: with: "[[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]]" start: 2022 role: "according to the Wall Street Journal, tested a purported Roswell metal fragment shortly before the Pentagon investigator asked six contractors in 2022 whether they held alien technology" - fn: 7 + fn: 9 created: 2026-10-03 -updated: 2026-10-03 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- The Skunk Works is the nickname of [[Lockheed Aircraft Company]]'s Advanced Development Projects, later Advanced Development Programs of [[Lockheed Martin]]. The unit began in June 1943, when [[Washington, D.C.|Washington]] "anxiously watched [[Germany]] develop the world's first jet fighter" and turned to the 33-year-old chief engineer [[Kelly Johnson]], who was given British jet engines and 180 days and "readied 'Lulu Bell' in 143 days," the [[P-80 Shooting Star]]. By 1980 the unit had at any one time between 2,000 and 8,000 engineers, machinists and test pilots; its work "often involves building a plane here and transporting it by night in a cargo aircraft or truck to some testing strip in the [[Nevada]] desert"; Lockheed declined to answer questions about it; and margins on such work could reach 12 percent against about 6 percent on most military contracts, according to a securities analyst quoted by the [[The Wall Street Journal|Wall Street Journal]].[^1] The name came from [[Al Capp]]'s "[[Li'l Abner]]" comic strip, whose moonshine still was "the skonk works"; that an engineer named [[Irv Culver]] answered a telephone "Skonk Works" while the staff worked in a circus tent beside a plastics factory, and in 1960 Capp's publisher objected, so "we changed it to Skunk Works and registered the name and logo as trademarks," according to [[Ben Rich]], who headed the unit from January 17, 1975.[^2] @@ -58,39 +58,50 @@ The Skunk Works is the nickname of [[Lockheed Aircraft Company]]'s Advanced Deve Rich wrote that the test pilot [[Tony LeVier]] found from the air and landed on the dry lake bed now called [[Groom Lake]], that Kelly Johnson flew back with LeVier and "a tall civilian introduced to him only as 'Mr. B.'" ([[Richard Bissell]]), who remarked "This will do nicely," and that Johnson's private log recorded flying "very illegally" over an atomic bomb on its tower about nine hours before detonation; Johnson proposed the name Paradise Ranch.[^2] The site's later history, including the CIA's 2013 acknowledgment, is on the page for [[Area 51]]. The unit built the [[U-2 Spy Plane]], the [[A-12]] and the [[SR-71]], and later the [[F-117 Nighthawk|F-117]]; [[EG&G]] tested the radar cross sections of its aircraft at the site beginning in 1959.[^2][^3] +The CIA's history of the U-2 and OXCART programs records that on April 12, 1955 Bissell and Colonel [[Osmund Ritland]] of the Air Force flew over Nevada with Johnson in a Beechcraft piloted by Lockheed's chief test pilot LeVier, saw an airstrip beside a salt flat known as Groom Lake near the northeast corner of the [[Atomic Energy Commission]]'s Nevada Proving Ground, and that Johnson called the site the Paradise Ranch.[^3] A military transport bound for Area 51 crashed on November 17, 1955 and killed fourteen people, among them personnel from Lockheed and Hycon.[^4] The same history states that Blue Book investigators "regularly called on the Agency's Project Staff in Washington to check reported UFO sightings against U-2 flight logs" and that "U-2 and later OXCART flights accounted for more than one-half of all UFO reports during the late 1950s and most of the 1960s."[^4] + +The annual report of [[Lockheed Martin]] on Form 10-K405 for 1995 states that the [[Environmental Protection Agency]] and the [[United States Army]] Criminal Investigative Command were conducting a criminal investigation "to determine whether the Corporation improperly disposed of wastes from The Skunk Works at a government site in Nevada."[^5] + ### Kelly Johnson's sightings and the Blue Book file -On December 16, 1953 a Lockheed WV-2 flight test crew of five, [[Roy E. Wimmer]], [[Rudy L. Thoren]], [[Philip A. Colman]], [[Charles Grugan]] and [[Joseph F. Ware Jr.]], and Johnson and his wife Althea at their ranch near [[Agoura, California|Agoura]], independently watched a black, sharp-edged object over the sea west of [[Los Angeles]] that dwindled and vanished. According to the study of the case by [[Martin Shough]] of the [[National Aviation Reporting Centre on Anomalous Phenomena]], on the next day Thoren mentioned the sighting in Johnson's office and Johnson described his own, whereupon the two groups found they had watched the same object; Johnson collected five reports "under special cover" and they were forwarded through Lieutenant General [[Donald L. Putt|D. L. Putt]] to the [[Air Technical Intelligence Center]] ([[Foreign Technology Division|ATIC]]) at [[Wright-Patterson Air Force Base]]. Putt's covering letter of February 15, 1954 to the ATIC commander, Colonel [[George L. Wertenbaker]], says the report "was handed to me by Lockheed personnel with the explanation that Mr. Johnson was most reluctant to write the report in the first place and then refused to forward it on to you because of his belief that those who profess to have seen flying saucers are not usually considered to be logical and practical hard-headed engineers." Johnson's own report of December 18, 1953 is addressed to the "Air Force Investigating Group on Flying Saucers." Shough records that Johnson stated, "in official confidence," that around Christmas 1951 he had seen a fast-moving "flame or emanation" of "beautiful light blue" colour near [[Brents Junction]] that he believed to be a "flying saucer," and that Ware's statement in the file describes a large circular object he watched from his own roof about Christmas 1951 and visits to "the group of people" at [[Giant Rock]] who "eat and sleep saucers." Shough found that the Blue Book file consists only of the reports as forwarded, with Ware's map missing and no recorded inquiry, and that the [[Project Blue Book]] record card gives the conclusion "OTHER - CLOUD lenticular cloud." Shough wrote that "The only conventional explanation having even a little plausibility is an unusually compact and well-defined lenticular wave cloud," but that "such a cloud seems unlikely."[^4] +On December 16, 1953 a Lockheed WV-2 flight test crew of five, [[Roy E. Wimmer]], [[Rudy L. Thoren]], [[Philip A. Colman]], [[Charles Grugan]] and [[Joseph F. Ware Jr.]], and Johnson and his wife Althea at their ranch near [[Agoura, California|Agoura]], independently watched a black, sharp-edged object over the sea west of [[Los Angeles]] that dwindled and vanished. According to the study of the case by [[Martin Shough]] of the [[National Aviation Reporting Centre on Anomalous Phenomena]], on the next day Thoren mentioned the sighting in Johnson's office and Johnson described his own, whereupon the two groups found they had watched the same object; Johnson collected five reports "under special cover" and they were forwarded through Lieutenant General [[Donald L. Putt|D. L. Putt]] to the [[Air Technical Intelligence Center]] ([[Foreign Technology Division|ATIC]]) at [[Wright-Patterson Air Force Base]]. Putt's covering letter of February 15, 1954 to the ATIC commander, Colonel [[George L. Wertenbaker]], says the report "was handed to me by Lockheed personnel with the explanation that Mr. Johnson was most reluctant to write the report in the first place and then refused to forward it on to you because of his belief that those who profess to have seen flying saucers are not usually considered to be logical and practical hard-headed engineers." Johnson's own report of December 18, 1953 is addressed to the "Air Force Investigating Group on Flying Saucers." Shough records that Johnson stated, "in official confidence," that around Christmas 1951 he had seen a fast-moving "flame or emanation" of "beautiful light blue" colour near [[Brents Junction]] that he believed to be a "flying saucer," and that Ware's statement in the file describes a large circular object he watched from his own roof about Christmas 1951 and visits to "the group of people" at [[Giant Rock]] who "eat and sleep saucers." Shough found that the Blue Book file consists only of the reports as forwarded, with Ware's map missing and no recorded inquiry, and that the [[Project Blue Book]] record card gives the conclusion "OTHER - CLOUD lenticular cloud." Shough wrote that "The only conventional explanation having even a little plausibility is an unusually compact and well-defined lenticular wave cloud," but that "such a cloud seems unlikely."[^6] -The Kelly Johnson file among the papers of Ben Rich at the [[Huntington Library]] includes the document "Sighting of a flying saucer by certain Lockheed Aircraft Corporation personnel on 16 December 1953."[^5] +The Kelly Johnson file among the papers of Ben Rich at the [[Huntington Library]] includes the document "Sighting of a flying saucer by certain Lockheed Aircraft Corporation personnel on 16 December 1953."[^7] ### Accounts of recovered material at the Skunk Works -The [[Wilson-Davis Memo|Wilson-Davis notes]] of October 16, 2002, attributed to [[Eric Davis]], quote Vice Admiral [[Thomas R. Wilson]] as saying that in June 1997 he found in a records group of the [[Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology]] a program run by "An aerospace technology contractor," "one of the top ones in US," "the best one of them," with intelligence "in their corporate portfolio," and declined to name it: "Core secret," "can't tell." The notes record Wilson describing a conference room "secure vault" meeting with a program director, a corporate attorney and a retired [[National Security Agency]] security director who called themselves "the watch committee," and an "intact craft" "not of this Earth."[^6] The contractor is not named in the notes. A letter of April 25, 2002 paper-clipped into them, from [[Will Miller]], offers "Particulars on a 'special team' involved (as a secondary mission) with recovering crashed 'craft' including, but not limited to, the previously classified F-117 Stealth Fighter" and "A list of civilian government contractors" likely to have "current involvement in and knowledge of USG work in alien-derived technologies."[^6] Wilson told the [[Sarasota Herald-Tribune]] reporter [[Billy Cox]] in 2020: "It's all fiction."[^6] +The [[Wilson-Davis Memo|Wilson-Davis notes]] of October 16, 2002, attributed to [[Eric Davis]], quote Vice Admiral [[Thomas R. Wilson]] as saying that in June 1997 he found in a records group of the [[Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology]] a program run by "An aerospace technology contractor," "one of the top ones in US," "the best one of them," with intelligence "in their corporate portfolio," and declined to name it: "Core secret," "can't tell." The notes record Wilson describing a conference room "secure vault" meeting with a program director, a corporate attorney and a retired [[National Security Agency]] security director who called themselves "the watch committee," and an "intact craft" "not of this Earth."[^8] The contractor is not named in the notes. A letter of April 25, 2002 paper-clipped into them, from [[Will Miller]], offers "Particulars on a 'special team' involved (as a secondary mission) with recovering crashed 'craft' including, but not limited to, the previously classified F-117 Stealth Fighter" and "A list of civilian government contractors" likely to have "current involvement in and knowledge of USG work in alien-derived technologies."[^8] Wilson told the [[Sarasota Herald-Tribune]] reporter [[Billy Cox]] in 2020: "It's all fiction."[^8] -The Wall Street Journal reported on June 21, 2025 that Davis, "for years ... was part of a small group of defense experts who had claimed to know about a top-secret program at Lockheed's Skunk Works to hoard extraterrestrial technology." The same account states that in 2022 [[Sean Kirkpatrick]], then the [[Pentagon]]'s UFO investigator, asked executives of the six largest defense contractors "Have any of your companies ever gained access to alien technology?"; that for Lockheed Martin "the answer was...complicated," because the Skunk Works "had, in fact, just tested, and attempted to replicate, a piece of metal that was said to have been gathered from a crashed UFO outside [[Roswell Incident|Roswell]]"; that [[To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science]] had bought the pieces of metal in 2019 for $35,000 from a UFO researcher, and that the fragments had reached the radio host [[Art Bell]] by mail in 1996 from a listener who wrote that a grandfather had collected them as part of a military crash-retrieval team at Roswell; that the [[United States Army|Army]] agreed to test the metal for antigravity and cloaking properties; and that Kirkpatrick's team obtained it and had [[Oak Ridge National Laboratory]] test it, finding that "the alloy isn't from outer space and doesn't have antigravity properties" and was probably from a [[World War II|Second World War]]-era manufacturing test of an aircraft part or an armament such as a shell casing. According to the Journal, "Lockheed declined to comment and referred questions to the Army."[^7] +The Wall Street Journal reported on June 21, 2025 that Davis, "for years ... was part of a small group of defense experts who had claimed to know about a top-secret program at Lockheed's Skunk Works to hoard extraterrestrial technology." The same account states that in 2022 [[Sean Kirkpatrick]], then the [[Pentagon]]'s UFO investigator, asked executives of the six largest defense contractors "Have any of your companies ever gained access to alien technology?"; that for Lockheed Martin "the answer was...complicated," because the Skunk Works "had, in fact, just tested, and attempted to replicate, a piece of metal that was said to have been gathered from a crashed UFO outside [[Roswell Incident|Roswell]]"; that [[To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science]] had bought the pieces of metal in 2019 for $35,000 from a UFO researcher, and that the fragments had reached the radio host [[Art Bell]] by mail in 1996 from a listener who wrote that a grandfather had collected them as part of a military crash-retrieval team at Roswell; that the [[United States Army|Army]] agreed to test the metal for antigravity and cloaking properties; and that Kirkpatrick's team obtained it and had [[Oak Ridge National Laboratory]] test it, finding that "the alloy isn't from outer space and doesn't have antigravity properties" and was probably from a [[World War II|Second World War]]-era manufacturing test of an aircraft part or an armament such as a shell casing. According to the Journal, "Lockheed declined to comment and referred questions to the Army."[^9] + +In his written testimony of September 9, 2025 [[George Knapp]] wrote that "It has been widely reported over many years that aerospace titan Lockheed Martin is one of the defense contractors entrusted with mystery material and perhaps entire craft." He testified that he had "confirmed that Bigelow and a trusted colleague met with and negotiated with a senior executive at Lockheed and hammered out a deal wherein Bigelow's company, BAASS, would receive a quantity of unusual material that Lockheed was safeguarding at a facility in California," and that "The agreement was not completed."[^10] [[Keith Basterfield]] wrote on November 30, 2023 that [[David Grusch]], in an interview with Joe Rogan, had said that Senator [[Harry Reid]] sought under the contract of [[Robert Bigelow]]'s [[Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies]] to have retrieved material transferred from Lockheed Martin, quoting Grusch: "the other government customer which was the Central Intelligence Agency for that specific Lockheed material...from the 50's...bits and pieces of hull structures."[^11] At the House Oversight hearing of November 13, 2024 [[Luis Elizondo]] said that a document cleared by the Defense Department's Office of Prepublication and Security Review stated that "an aerospace contract company" had "requested to divest itself of the material" that "was collected in the 1950s," and agreed that the company was Bigelow Aerospace; when Representative [[Eric Burlison]] cited the journalist [[Christopher Sharp]] as reporting a transfer among Lockheed Martin, Bigelow Aerospace and the CIA that was blocked, Elizondo answered: "it was blocked. Why it was blocked, I can only surmise."[^12] ### Official statements -The July 26, 2023 hearing of a subcommittee of the [[House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform|House Oversight Committee]], at which [[David Grusch]] testified under oath to "a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program," names no company in its transcript: the words Lockheed, Skunk Works, EG&G and [[Battelle Memorial Institute|Battelle]] do not occur in it. Asked by Representative [[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]] about "the interactions between defense contractor companies and any UAP-related programs," Grusch answered "the contractors, you know, or the metal benders, so to speak, the ones actually doing specific performance on government contracts"; asked by Representative [[Eric Burlison]] whether there was evidence the recovered aircraft were produced by domestic military contractors, he said "Not to my knowledge. Plus, the recoveries predate a lot of our advanced programs" that he was "waiving off."[^8] +The July 26, 2023 hearing of a subcommittee of the [[House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform|House Oversight Committee]], at which [[David Grusch]] testified under oath to "a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program," names no company in its transcript: the words Lockheed, Skunk Works, EG&G and [[Battelle Memorial Institute|Battelle]] do not occur in it. Asked by Representative [[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]] about "the interactions between defense contractor companies and any UAP-related programs," Grusch answered "the contractors, you know, or the metal benders, so to speak, the ones actually doing specific performance on government contracts"; asked by Representative [[Eric Burlison]] whether there was evidence the recovered aircraft were produced by domestic military contractors, he said "Not to my knowledge. Plus, the recoveries predate a lot of our advanced programs" that he was "waiving off."[^13] -The [[Department of Defense]]'s [[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]] stated in February 2024 that it "found no empirical evidence for claims that the USG and private companies have been reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology"; that "The executives, scientists, and chief technology officers of the companies named by interviewees met with the Director of AARO and denied on the record that they have ever recovered, possessed, or engaged in reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial technology"; and, of a thirdhand account by one interviewee that an unnamed organization held twelve recovered craft and had a [[Central Intelligence Agency]] "partnership with the company that ended in 1989," that it "discovered no empirical evidence supporting these claims." The report does not name the companies. It describes "Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Program organization, also known as 'Skunk Works'" as the developer of the [[P-175 Polecat]] unmanned aircraft (first flight 2005, disclosed at the 2006 [[Farnborough Airshow]]) and the [[RQ-170 Sentinel]], and Lockheed Martin with [[Boeing]] and [[DARPA|DARPA]] as developers of the [[RQ-3 Dark Star]], which "Some observers asserted ... resembled a flying saucer with long narrow wings."[^9] A Pentagon spokeswoman, [[Sue Gough]], told the Wall Street Journal that the investigation "has not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently."[^7] +The [[Department of Defense]]'s [[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]] stated in February 2024 that it "found no empirical evidence for claims that the USG and private companies have been reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology"; that "The executives, scientists, and chief technology officers of the companies named by interviewees met with the Director of AARO and denied on the record that they have ever recovered, possessed, or engaged in reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial technology"; and, of a thirdhand account by one interviewee that an unnamed organization held twelve recovered craft and had a [[Central Intelligence Agency]] "partnership with the company that ended in 1989," that it "discovered no empirical evidence supporting these claims." The report also describes an interviewee's claim that an organization was in possession of off-world material in 2009 and 2010, and a separate interviewee's statement that he took part in negotiations to return the material to the government and that "a former named senior CIA official quashed the proposal to remove the material from the corporation." The report does not name the companies. It describes "Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Program organization, also known as 'Skunk Works'" as the developer of the [[P-175 Polecat]] unmanned aircraft (first flight 2005, disclosed at the 2006 [[Farnborough Airshow]]) and the [[RQ-170 Sentinel]], and Lockheed Martin with [[Boeing]] and [[DARPA|DARPA]] as developers of the [[RQ-3 Dark Star]], which "Some observers asserted ... resembled a flying saucer with long narrow wings."[^14] A Pentagon spokeswoman, [[Sue Gough]], told the Wall Street Journal that the investigation "has not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently."[^9] [[Ron Blackburn]], a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel then at the Skunk Works, helped [[John B. Alexander]] draw up the invitation list for the [[Advanced Theoretical Physics Working Group]] in 1984, according to Alexander (see those pages). ### Rich and the E.T. joke -Rich's lecture line from 1983 that the Skunk Works had a contract to take E.T. home, and the 1993 account of it by [[Jan Harzan]], are on the page for Ben Rich.[^10] +Rich's lecture line from 1983 that the Skunk Works had a contract to take E.T. home, and the 1993 account of it by [[Jan Harzan]], are on the page for Ben Rich.[^15] ### Footnotes [^1]: Roy J. Harris Jr., "The Skunk Works: Hush-Hush Projects Often Emerge There," The Wall Street Journal, October 13, 1980, CIA-RDP90-00806R000100660006-2, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00806r000100660006-2 [^2]: Ben R. Rich and Leo Janos, Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed (Boston: Little, Brown, 1994), https://archive.org/details/skunk-works-apersonal-memoir-of-my-years-at-lockheed-ben-rrich (text lines 180 to 200, 1440 to 1456, 2937 to 2950, 3462 to 3480 and the footnote at 9208). -[^3]: Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach, The CIA and the U-2 Program, chapter 6, pp. 274 to 275, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/docs/U2%20-%20Chapter%206.pdf -[^4]: Martin Shough, "A Study of the Lockheed Sightings," National Aviation Reporting Centre on Anomalous Phenomena, July 2014, summary, sections 1 and 7 and appendix (letters of Putt, February 15, 1954, and Johnson, January 23 and December 18, 1953; statements of Ware and others), https://mail.project1947.com/fig/Lockheed_Case_Dec_16_1953.pdf (scans at nicap.org/docs/lockufo3.pdf). -[^5]: Huntington Library, "Ben R. Rich papers, 1940-1995," Online Archive of California, https://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c86d5rqx/admin/ -[^6]: "EWD NOTES 10/16/02, Eric Davis Meeting with Adm. Wilson," pp. 3 to 4 and 8 to 13, https://documents2.theblackvault.com/casefiles/wilsonleak.pdf ; Wilson's 2020 statement to Billy Cox as reproduced in The Black Vault, https://www.theblackvault.com/casefiles/the-admiral-wilson-leak-an-analysis/ . Provenance of the notes unverified; Davis has not commented. -[^7]: Joel Schectman and Aruna Viswanatha, "Was It Scrap Metal or an Alien Spacecraft? The Army Asked an Elite Defense Lab to Investigate," The Wall Street Journal, June 21, 2025 (print edition of June 23, 2025, as "A UFO Legend Lands Up at Elite Defense Lab"), read from an archived copy at https://gwern.net/doc/www/www.wsj.com/9c50364a40ee3cbeb3463a6068c4884ff0f637cc.html -[^8]: House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, hearing "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency," July 26, 2023, Serial No. 118-53, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-118hhrg53022/html/CHRG-118hhrg53022.htm (full text searched; no company named in the testimony of Grusch, Ryan Graves or David Fravor other than Graves's reference to Boeing contractors at Vandenberg). -[^9]: Department of Defense, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, Volume I, February 2024, pp. 7 to 9, 28 to 29 and 44 to 45, https://media.defense.gov/2024/Mar/08/2003409233/-1/-1/0/DOPSR-CLEARED-508-COMPLIANT-HRRV1-08-MAR-2024-FINAL.PDF (read from the Wayback Machine raw copy). -[^10]: Peter W. Merlin, "Taking E.T. Home: Birth of a Modern Myth," SUNlite 5, no. 6 (2013), https://web.archive.org/web/20150321193509/home.comcast.net/~tprinty/UFO/SUNlite5_6.pdf +[^3]: Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach, The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: The U-2 and OXCART Programs, 1954-1974 (Washington: CIA History Staff, 1992; published in 1998 by the Center for the Study of Intelligence as The CIA and the U-2 Program, 1954-1974), chapter 2, pp. 56 to 57 (flight of April 12, 1955, Groom Lake and the Paradise Ranch), https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/docs/U2%20-%20Chapter%202.pdf ; chapter 6, p. 274 (EG&G radar test facility moved to Area 51, September 10, 1959), https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/docs/U2%20-%20Chapter%206.pdf +[^4]: Pedlow and Welzenbach, The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance, chapter 2, pp. 72 to 73 ("U-2s, UFOs, and Operation BLUE BOOK") and p. 72 (the crash of November 17, 1955), https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/docs/U2%20-%20Chapter%202.pdf +[^5]: Lockheed Martin Corporation, Form 10-K405 for the fiscal year 1995, filed March 13, 1996, Item 3, Legal Proceedings, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/936468/0000950109-96-001535.txt +[^6]: Martin Shough, "A Study of the Lockheed Sightings," National Aviation Reporting Centre on Anomalous Phenomena, July 2014, summary, sections 1 and 7 and appendix (letters of Putt, February 15, 1954, and Johnson, January 23 and December 18, 1953; statements of Ware and others), https://mail.project1947.com/fig/Lockheed_Case_Dec_16_1953.pdf (scans at nicap.org/docs/lockufo3.pdf). +[^7]: Huntington Library, "Ben R. Rich papers, 1940-1995," Online Archive of California, https://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c86d5rqx/admin/ +[^8]: "EWD NOTES 10/16/02, Eric Davis Meeting with Adm. Wilson," pp. 3 to 4 and 8 to 13, https://documents2.theblackvault.com/casefiles/wilsonleak.pdf ; Wilson's 2020 statement to Billy Cox as reproduced in The Black Vault, https://www.theblackvault.com/casefiles/the-admiral-wilson-leak-an-analysis/ . Provenance of the notes unverified; Davis has not commented. +[^9]: Joel Schectman and Aruna Viswanatha, "Was It Scrap Metal or an Alien Spacecraft? The Army Asked an Elite Defense Lab to Investigate," The Wall Street Journal, June 21, 2025 (print edition of June 23, 2025, as "A UFO Legend Lands Up at Elite Defense Lab"), read from an archived copy at https://gwern.net/doc/www/www.wsj.com/9c50364a40ee3cbeb3463a6068c4884ff0f637cc.html +[^10]: George Knapp, written testimony, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, hearing "Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection," Serial No. 119-44, September 9, 2025, https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/George-Knapp-Written-Testimony.pdf +[^11]: Keith Basterfield, "Lockheed Martin and BAASS," November 30, 2023, quoting Lacatski, Kelleher and Knapp, Inside the US Government Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations (RTMA, 2023) and the Department of Homeland Security response to the Freedom of Information Act request of Marc Cecotti, https://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com/2023/11/lockheed-martin-and-baass.html +[^12]: House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth," joint hearing, November 13, 2024, Serial No. 118-135, questions of Representatives Burlison and Mace, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-118hhrg57440/html/CHRG-118hhrg57440.htm +[^13]: House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, hearing "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency," July 26, 2023, Serial No. 118-53, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-118hhrg53022/html/CHRG-118hhrg53022.htm (full text searched; no company named in the testimony of Grusch, Ryan Graves or David Fravor other than Graves's reference to Boeing contractors at Vandenberg). +[^14]: Department of Defense, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, Volume I, February 2024, pp. 7 to 9, 28 to 29 and 44 to 45, https://media.defense.gov/2024/Mar/08/2003409233/-1/-1/0/DOPSR-CLEARED-508-COMPLIANT-HRRV1-08-MAR-2024-FINAL.PDF (read from the Wayback Machine raw copy). +[^15]: Peter W. Merlin, "Taking E.T. Home: Birth of a Modern Myth," SUNlite 5, no. 6 (2013), https://web.archive.org/web/20150321193509/home.comcast.net/~tprinty/UFO/SUNlite5_6.pdf diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Microsoft.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Microsoft.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..bb70f84a --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Microsoft.md @@ -0,0 +1,283 @@ +--- +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +title: Microsoft +aliases: + - Microsoft Corporation + - Microsoft Corp. +tags: + - Organization + - Technology + - BillGates + - Skype + - LinkedIn + - OpenAI + - PRISM + - NSAKEY + - JEDI + - IVAS + - PhotoDNA + - UnitedStatesVMicrosoft + - JeffreyEpstein + - Surveillance + - DefenseContracts +category: "Private Organization" +summary: "Microsoft is the Redmond software company whose products, acquisitions, defense contracts and OpenAI stake appear in the record of NSA collection, Pentagon cloud and Army headset programs, and the Epstein network." +location: "Redmond, Washington" +start: 1975 +relations: + - type: founded + with: "[[Bill Gates]]" + reverse: true + role: "co-founder" + start: 1975 + fn: 2 + - type: founded + with: "[[Paul Allen]]" + reverse: true + role: "co-founder" + start: 1975 + fn: 2 + - type: head_of + with: "[[Steve Ballmer]]" + reverse: true + role: "chief executive officer from January 2000, still in office in the fiscal 2013 annual report" + start: 2000-01 + fn: 3 + - type: head_of + with: "[[Satya Nadella]]" + reverse: true + role: "chief executive officer from February 2014" + start: 2014-02 + fn: 1 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Craig Mundie]]" + reverse: true + role: "Chief Research and Strategy Officer from June 2006, listed as an executive officer in July 2011" + start: 2006-06 + fn: 5 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Steven Sinofsky]]" + reverse: true + role: "President, Windows and Windows Live Division, listed as an executive officer in July 2011; departure announced November 12, 2012" + start: 2011-07 + end: 2012-11 + fn: 5 + - type: represented + with: "[[Kathryn Ruemmler]]" + reverse: true + role: "listed among counsel for Microsoft as intervenor-defendant in Amazon Web Services v. United States, opinion of February 13, 2020 (public version March 6, 2020)" + start: 2020-02 + fn: 14 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Brad Smith]]" + reverse: true + role: "general counsel and senior vice president, quoted in the December 15, 2009 PhotoDNA donation" + start: 2009-12 + fn: 53 + - type: contractor_to + with: "[[Department of Defense]]" + start: 2019-10-25 + end: 2021-07-06 + role: "Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud award of October 25, 2019, canceled July 6, 2021" + fn: 18 + - type: contractor_to + with: "[[U.S. Army]]" + start: 2021-03-31 + end: 2025-04-10 + role: "Integrated Visual Augmentation System production agreement awarded March 26, 2021, contract novated to Anduril Industries" + fn: 19 + - type: funded + with: "[[OpenAI]]" + start: 2019-07-22 + role: "investment of 1 billion dollars, later a stake of roughly 27 percent after the October 28, 2025 recapitalization" + fn: 23 + - type: owned + with: "[[Skype]]" + start: 2011 + role: "acquired for 8.5 billion dollars in cash, announced May 10, 2011" + fn: 5 + - type: owned + with: "[[LinkedIn]]" + start: 2016 + role: "acquired for approximately 26.2 billion dollars" + fn: 42 + - type: owned + with: "[[Yammer]]" + start: 2012 + role: "acquired for 1.1 billion dollars in cash" + fn: 3 + - type: funded + with: "[[Center for a New American Security]]" + start: 2024-10 + end: 2025-09 + role: "donor in the 50,000 to 99,999 dollar tier, October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025" + fn: 57 + - type: funded + with: "[[Counter Extremism Project]]" + start: 2016-06 + role: "funding for hash-matching software, per Defense One" + fn: 55 +--- + +Microsoft Corporation is a software company headquartered at One Microsoft Way in [[Redmond, Washington]].[^1] It was co-founded in 1975 by [[Bill Gates]] and [[Paul Allen]]. Gates served as its chief executive until 2000 and as chairman until February 2014.[^2] [[Steve Ballmer]], who joined the company in 1980, was appointed chief executive in January 2000 and held the post in the fiscal 2013 annual report; Nadella succeeded him in February 2014.[^3] Its operating systems, productivity software, cloud platform and government computing products, along with its acquisitions and its investments in artificial intelligence, appear in several areas of the record: the surveillance programs disclosed from 2013, a 1999 controversy over a cryptographic key labeled for the [[National Security Agency]], the Pentagon cloud and Army headset contracts, the [[OpenAI]] partnership, and the network around [[Jeffrey Epstein]]. + +### Leadership and the Gates Years + +Gates gave up the chief executive post in 2000, the same year the [[Gates Foundation]] was started. He stepped down from the company's board in March 2020, saying he was leaving to devote more time to philanthropy.[^2] [[Satya Nadella]] has been chief executive since February 2014 and was appointed chairman in June 2021, according to the company's annual report for fiscal 2024.[^1] + +In May 2021 Microsoft disclosed that its board had examined a 2019 complaint about Gates. The company said it "received a concern in the latter half of 2019 that Bill Gates sought to initiate an intimate relationship with a company employee in the year 2000," and that "A committee of the Board reviewed the concern, aided by an outside law firm, to conduct a thorough investigation."[^2] Microsoft said the inquiry reached no conclusion because Gates had stepped down before it was completed.[^2] [[Dow Jones]] had reported earlier that directors found his involvement with the employee inappropriate and decided he should leave the board, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter. A spokeswoman for Gates said "There was an affair almost 20 years ago which ended amicably," and that his "decision to transition off the board was in no way related to this matter."[^2] Microsoft said it had put processes for investigating allegations in place since 2000 and had overhauled them to make them stronger.[^2] + +In the same coverage, [[Bloomberg]] wrote that several reports had said [[Melinda French Gates]] raised concerns about his dealings with Jeffrey Epstein, and recalled the [[New York Times]] report of 2019 that Gates had met Epstein several times and once stayed late at his New York townhouse. A Gates spokeswoman said the "characterization of his meetings with Epstein and others about philanthropy is inaccurate." A person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that Gates's dealings with Epstein "weren't a part of the scope of the Microsoft investigation," but that "it was discussed by some board members."[^2] The Epstein meetings are set out below. + +[[Craig Mundie]] joined Microsoft in 1992 and was named Chief Research and Strategy Officer in June 2006; he co-wrote the 2024 book *Genesis* with [[Henry Kissinger]] and [[Eric Schmidt]].[^4][^5] The executive roster of July 2011 lists Nadella as President, Server and Tools, [[Steven Sinofsky]] as President of the Windows and Windows Live Division, and Brad Smith as Senior Vice President and General Counsel.[^5] + +### Intelligence Collection: PRISM and Outlook.com + +On July 11, 2013 [[The Guardian]] published NSA documents supplied by [[Edward Snowden]] showing that Microsoft had worked with the agency on the company's own consumer services. The paper wrote that "Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow users' communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company's own encryption, according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian."[^6] + +The documents describe a sequence of cooperation. A newsletter entry said that "For Prism collection against Hotmail, Live, and Outlook.com emails will be unaffected because Prism collects this data prior to encryption." The NSA had become concerned about the interception of encrypted chats on the Outlook.com portal from the moment Microsoft began testing it in July 2012, and within five months "Microsoft and the FBI had come up with a solution that allowed the NSA to circumvent encryption on Outlook.com chats."[^6] A further entry dated April 8, 2013 described the company working "for many months" with the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] to allow Prism access to the SkyDrive storage service without separate authorization. Another entry recorded an FBI unit working with Microsoft on an Outlook.com feature that creates email aliases, which "may affect our tasking processes."[^6] + +The Guardian had reported on June 6, 2013, from an NSA slide presentation, that the agency's Prism program drew on the systems of nine internet companies, and that Microsoft "was the first, with collection beginning in December 2007," followed by Yahoo in 2008, Google, Facebook and PalTalk in 2009, YouTube in 2010, Skype and AOL in 2011 and Apple.[^7] Microsoft's statement to the paper in July said that it provides customer data "only in response to government demands and we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers," and that its compliance team rejects demands it believes are invalid.[^6] The [[Office of the Director of National Intelligence]] and the NSA issued a joint statement which said that "The US operates its programs under a strict oversight regime, with careful monitoring by the courts, Congress and the Director of National Intelligence."[^6] + +Skype was the other point of contact. The Guardian reported that work on integrating Skype into PRISM began in November 2010, that the company was served with a directive to comply signed by the attorney general on February 4, 2011, and that collection began on February 6, 2011.[^6] Microsoft announced on May 10, 2011 that it would acquire Skype for $8.5 billion in cash.[^5] Slate also listed a June 2011 Microsoft patent for "legal intercept" technology designed for services like Skype, which the timeline described as able to "silently copy" communications.[^8] [[Slate]] placed the Skype collection in the months before that announcement and recorded that a Microsoft transparency report published in March 2013 said the company had handed over the content of no Skype communications in 2012.[^8] Slate quoted an emailed Microsoft statement that the company "does not provide any government with blanket or direct access to SkyDrive, Outlook.com, Skype or any Microsoft product."[^8] The same timeline reported that the New York Times had described an internal Skype program called "Project Chess," begun in 2008, to explore how Skype calls could be made readily available to intelligence agencies.[^8] The Guardian amended its article to record Microsoft's statement that it did not make any changes to Skype to allow PRISM collection on or around July 2012.[^6] + +### The NSAKEY Controversy + +In September 1999 [[Andrew Fernandes]], chief scientist at [[Cryptonym Corp.]], reported a second key in the CryptoAPI cryptography architecture of Windows, labeled "_NSAKEY." He had found it in the copy of the ADVAPI.DLL library shipped with Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 5, whose debugging symbols had not been removed.[^9][^10] Fernandes said that "In the data security profession, those three initials only mean one thing: National Security Agency," and argued that the NSA held the second key. Fernandes said the key would let the agency load services onto users' machines without their authorization, an option he thought the NSA would more likely use against a corporation than an individual.[^9] The report came days after Microsoft had dealt with a breach of its Hotmail e-mail service.[^9] + +Microsoft denied this. Its spokesman, [[Dan Leach]], said "These reports are completely false," and the company said the label meant only that the cryptography architecture met the NSA's standards for export.[^9] Leach also said that "The key does not allow any other party to start or stop cryptographic services on anyone's computers."[^9] Fernandes posted a "fix" for the key on his website, and a demonstration utility that replaced it.[^9][^11] + +Early that month the [[NTBugtraq]] editor [[Russ Cooper]] posted a message that [[Robert Hettinga]] forwarded to the [[Cypherpunks]] list on September 3, 1999. Cooper wrote that "I'm told the NSA insisted there had to be a backup," and offered a theory that a backup key would let Microsoft rotate a compromised primary key. He also reported Fernandes's finding that replacing the second key let a party add a cryptographic provider signed with its own key, and quoted Fernandes as saying "Export controll is effectively dead for Windows."[^11] Cooper's account of the backup was secondhand. [[Ian Goldberg]] of the [[University of California, Berkeley]] told [[CNN]] that the discovery "highly suggests" that the NSA had a key that could be used on any Windows system.[^9] The Berkeley security researcher [[David Wagner]] called the Cryptonym finding "a small deal at least."[^9] Alec Muffett, a security consultant for [[Sun Microsystems]] professional services group, said that many international companies had decided not to trust Microsoft and described the situation as "a bit of a conundrum from a political strategy point of view."[^9] + +### Defense and Intelligence Contracts + +Microsoft announced a new classified cloud, Azure Government Top Secret, on December 7, 2020. Its blog post, by Corporate Vice President [[Tom Keane]], said "We have recently completed the buildout of new Azure Government Top Secret regions, and we are working with the US Government on accreditation," and that the regions were "designed to provide the same capabilities as Azure (commercial), Azure Government" and Azure Government Secret.[^12] In August 2021 Microsoft said its Top Secret regions had authorization to operate and were generally available for national security workloads.[^13] + +The Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) solicitation, HQ0034-18-R-0077, was issued by the [[Department of Defense]] on July 26, 2018, and on October 25, 2019 the department announced that it had awarded the contract (HQ0034-20-D-0001) to Microsoft over [[Amazon Web Services]].[^14] The Boston Globe reported a ceiling of $10 billion over ten years.[^15] Amazon Web Services sued in the [[United States Court of Federal Claims]] on November 22, 2019 (No. 19-1796C), with Microsoft as intervenor-defendant. Counsel listed for Microsoft in the February 2020 opinion included [[Kathryn Ruemmler]], the former White House Counsel who later appears in the Epstein records.[^14] On February 13, 2020 Judge Patricia Campbell-Smith granted Amazon's motion for a preliminary injunction against contract performance and ordered Amazon to post $42 million in security; the opinion recorded the department's estimate of $5 million to $7 million in monthly cost from delay.[^14] The department took voluntary corrective action on remand and confirmed its award to Microsoft on September 2, 2020. In an opinion of April 29, 2021 the court denied the government's and Microsoft's motions to dismiss the count of Amazon's amended complaint titled "Bias, Bad Faith, Improper Influence, and/or Conflict of Interest," which alleged that President [[Donald Trump]] had made clear to the department's highest officials his desire that Amazon not receive the contract; the court ruled on waiver grounds only and recited the allegation as Amazon's.[^16] [[Oracle]] had also challenged the procurement.[^17] + +On July 6, 2021 the department canceled the JEDI solicitation and initiated termination procedures. Its statement said the contract "no longer meets its needs" because of "evolving requirements, increased cloud conversancy, and industry advances," and announced a multi-vendor Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability (JWCC), with proposals to be sought from Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, "as available market research indicates that these two vendors are the only Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) capable of meeting the Department's requirements."[^18] + +The Army's headset program started with a 2018 prototype award. The Army's PEO Soldier release of March 31, 2021 stated that on March 26, 2021 the Army "awarded Microsoft Corporation a fixed price production agreement to manufacture the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS)," using Middle Tier of Acquisition and Other Transaction authorities and a "non-traditional defense contractor."[^19] The program was reported at up to $21.88 billion. In April 2022 the Department of Defense Inspector General reported that the Army had not defined minimum user acceptance levels and warned of "wasting up to $21.88 billion in taxpayer funds to field a system that Soldiers may not want to use or use as intended"; the PEO Soldier spokesman replied that the Army had defined prototype metrics.[^20] In February 2025 Microsoft and [[Anduril Industries]] announced that Anduril would take over production, hardware and software development and delivery schedules, pending Department of Defense approval. Microsoft said it would shift its focus to cloud and AI technologies, which would serve as the foundation for IVAS as a situational awareness platform, and that Azure would remain the preferred cloud service for related workloads.[^21] [[Breaking Defense]] reported in April 2025 that the Army had approved the transfer of the contract to Anduril.[^22] Anduril, which [[Palmer Luckey]] co-founded, is the company that took over the program.[^21] + +### OpenAI and the AI Cluster + +OpenAI and Microsoft announced on July 22, 2019 that Microsoft was "investing $1 billion in OpenAI to support us building artificial general intelligence (AGI) with widely distributed economic benefits." The announcement said that "Microsoft will become our exclusive cloud provider" and that the two companies would jointly develop new Azure supercomputing technologies. OpenAI said it intended to license some pre-AGI technologies, with Microsoft as its preferred commercialization partner. The reason given was cost: "The most obvious way to cover costs is to build a product, but that would mean changing our focus."[^23] The company's annual report for fiscal 2024 describes OpenAI as a long-term partner whose models Microsoft deploys across its consumer and enterprise products, and notes that Azure powers all of OpenAI's workloads as its exclusive cloud provider. The same report records that Microsoft announced a third phase of the partnership in January 2023.[^1] + +The partnership was restructured on October 28, 2025. OpenAI stated that "Following the recapitalization, Microsoft holds an investment in OpenAI Group PBC valued at approximately $135 billion, representing roughly 27 percent on an as-converted diluted basis."[^24] The same statement said that OpenAI had contracted to purchase an incremental $250 billion of Azure services, that Microsoft would no longer have a right of first refusal to be OpenAI's compute provider, that Microsoft's intellectual property rights to models and products were extended through 2032 and now included post-AGI models, and that any AGI declaration would be verified by an independent expert panel.[^24] + +The November 2023 board crisis at OpenAI turned on the company's relationship with Microsoft. After the board removed [[Sam Altman]] as chief executive on November 17, 2023, [[Greg Brockman]] quit and roughly 700 employees signed a letter threatening to follow Altman to Microsoft. On November 20 Satya Nadella announced that Altman and Brockman would lead a new advanced-research lab inside Microsoft.[^25] [[Mira Murati]], named interim chief executive that week, was among the signatories.[^25] [[Ilya Sutskever]] signed the letter and posted that he "deeply regret[ted]" his part in the board's actions.[^26] Altman returned on November 29, 2023 with a new initial board on which [[Bret Taylor]] served as chair. Taylor wrote to staff that the board would include "a non-voting observer for Microsoft."[^27] + +The partnership is also part of the litigation brought by [[Elon Musk]] against OpenAI. Musk sued in 2024 and later amended the complaint to name Microsoft as a defendant, alleging that OpenAI had become a closed-source de facto subsidiary of Microsoft.[^28] A federal jury dismissed all of Musk's claims against Altman in May 2026.[^29] + +Other figures in the AI sector are also tied to Microsoft through their work. [[Dario Amodei]] and a group of colleagues left OpenAI in December 2020 after a faction around Amodei came into conflict with OpenAI's leadership over, among other things, the 2019 Microsoft investment and the capped-profit restructuring.[^30] [[Scale AI]], whose founder [[Alexandr Wang]] testified before the [[House Armed Services Committee]] on July 18, 2023, named Microsoft among its technology partners, with [[Meta]] and OpenAI, and described its work for the Department of Defense's [[Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office]], the Army and the [[U.S. Air Force|Air Force]].[^31] [[Ben Buchanan]], then at the [[Johns Hopkins University]] School of Advanced International Studies, defended the AI diffusion rule at a university symposium on April 7, 2025 and said that Microsoft and [[NVIDIA]] were lobbying the Trump administration to reverse it.[^32] [[Asana]] disclosed in its 2026 proxy statement that [[Andrew Lindsay]], a director since 2021, is a corporate vice president at Microsoft.[^33] + +### The Epstein Network + +The New York Times reported in October 2019 that Gates had met Jeffrey Epstein many times from 2011, and on at least one occasion stayed at Epstein's New York townhouse late into the night.[^34] The [[Wall Street Journal]] reported on May 21, 2023 that Epstein had written to Gates in 2017 in terms that implied knowledge of Gates's past relationship with a Russian bridge player, after Gates declined to join a charitable fund Epstein was trying to build with [[JPMorgan Chase]]. A Gates spokeswoman told the paper that "Mr. Gates met with Epstein solely for philanthropic purposes."[^35] On June 10, 2026 Gates gave a closed-door interview to the [[House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform|House Oversight Committee]]. [[Fortune]] reported that he said "I should never have met with Epstein in the first place."[^36] + +Other Microsoft names appear in the Epstein records released by the [[Department of Justice]]. On June 7, 2013 a message from [[David Stern (business adviser)|David Stern]] to Epstein read "PA is in Silicon Valley on 25 & 26 June. Anyone you want him to see ?" Epstein then wrote to Steven Sinofsky, "PA is prince andrew."[^37] Sinofsky replied with an offer to arrange meetings for [[Prince Andrew]]: "Do you want me to get him any meetings? Can I help with any folks? A dinner?"[^38] In the same reply he wrote that "I think he would love spending an hour hearing startup guys pitch their products." Microsoft's executive roster of July 2011 listed Sinofsky as President of the Windows and Windows Live Division, and Visual Studio Magazine reported that his departure was announced on November 12, 2012.[^5][^39] + +A December 23, 2015 set of board minutes for [[Reporty Homeland Security]], an Israeli company whose directors included [[Amir Elichai]] and [[Ehud Barak]], recorded a demonstration of the Reporty system and a discussion of the company's "current business relationships and partners such as [[Haifa Municipality]], Microsoft, [[Taldor]] as well as integrators." The Department of Justice released the minutes among Epstein's records.[^40] + +Kathryn Ruemmler, whom Epstein telephoned in 2014 about her interest in Gates and his foundation, is listed among Microsoft's counsel in the JEDI litigation described above.[^14] + +### Acquisitions and Investments + +Skype had been co-founded by [[Jaan Tallinn]], and [[eBay]] bought the company in September 2005 for about 2.6 billion dollars, a transaction that converted Tallinn's founding stake into a fortune.[^41] Microsoft bought Skype outright in 2011 for $8.5 billion in cash, which the company's annual report described as an acquisition that would "extend Skype's brand and reach of its network platform."[^5] + +Microsoft acquired [[LinkedIn]] in 2016 for approximately $26.2 billion, according to the company's fiscal 2016 annual report.[^42] LinkedIn had been founded in 2002 by [[Reid Hoffman]], who had served as executive vice president of external relations at [[PayPal]] and belonged to the [[PayPal Mafia]] cohort.[^43] Microsoft acquired [[Yammer]] in 2012 for $1.1 billion in cash, according to its fiscal 2013 annual report.[^3] Yammer was founded by [[David Sacks]], who had been chief operating officer of PayPal.[^44] + +The [[Horowitz Family Foundation]], tied to [[Ben Horowitz]], filed tax returns reporting gifts made in shares, including 63,758 shares of Microsoft worth 7,128,028 dollars for the year ended June 2019.[^45] According to a 2025 [[Forbes]] report, [[Good Ventures]], the vehicle of [[Cari Tuna]] and [[Dustin Moskovitz]], held Microsoft among its largest holdings, alongside [[Impossible Foods]], its first impact investment, and the chipmakers [[TSMC]], [[ASML]] and Nvidia.[^46] + +### United States v. Microsoft + +The Department of Justice filed suit against Microsoft in July 1994, charging it with unlawfully maintaining a monopoly in the operating system market through licensing terms. The trial court issued conclusions of law on April 3, 2000, finding Microsoft liable on the tying and monopoly maintenance counts, and later a final judgment with a remedial order. Mediation had failed after nearly four months of settlement talks, and the court had found Microsoft liable on all but one count.[^47] + +On June 28, 2001 the [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit]] ruled in a per curiam opinion. The court said it would "affirm in part and reverse in part the District Court's judgment that Microsoft violated 2 of the Sherman Act by employing anticompetitive means to maintain a monopoly in the operating system market." It reversed the finding that Microsoft had illegally attempted to monopolize the internet browser market and remanded the tying finding for further proceedings.[^47] + +The appellate court also vacated the final judgment on remedies. It found "impermissible ex parte contacts by holding secret interviews with members of the media" by the trial judge, along with offensive public comments about Microsoft officials outside the courtroom, and it required that the case be assigned to a different trial judge on remand. The court said, "Although we find no evidence of actual bias," the trial judge's actions had seriously tainted the proceedings.[^47] + +[[David Boies]], who later chaired [[Boies Schiller Flexner]] from 1997 to 2024, served as Special Trial Counsel for the Department of Justice in the case from 1998 to 2000, according to the firm's biography.[^48] + +### Cryptography and Early Digital Cash + +In the mid-1990s the eCash system of [[David Chaum]] and [[DigiCash]] was seeking larger distribution partners. Negotiations with several of them fell through, among them a [[Visa]] investment and a Microsoft proposal to bundle eCash with Windows 95, over terms that Chaum and Bill Gates reportedly could not agree. DigiCash filed for bankruptcy in November 1998.[^49][^50] + +The cryptographer [[Wei Dai]], who released the Crypto++ library in 1995, worked for a period in Microsoft's cryptography research group, where he co-proposed the VMAC authentication algorithm and held cryptography patents.[^51][^52] + +### Child Safety and Hash Matching + +Microsoft donated its PhotoDNA image-matching technology to the [[National Center for Missing and Exploited Children]] on December 15, 2009. The company's general counsel, [[Brad Smith]], said that "PhotoDNA is a powerful technology that will help combat online child pornography," and that "We are very pleased to donate PhotoDNA to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to support the battle against this horrific crime."[^53] The technology creates "a unique signature for a digital photograph, like a fingerprint," against which other copies of the same image can be matched. The company and the center issued a joint call to consumers, policy makers and online services to help stamp out child pornography.[^53] + +In [[United States v. Ackerman]], decided August 5, 2016, the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit]] held that NCMEC was a "governmental entity or agent" for Fourth Amendment purposes. The opinion lists Microsoft among the amici supporting the government, with [[Dropbox]], [[Facebook]], [[Google]], [[Pinterest]], [[Snapchat]] and [[Twitter]].[^54] In June 2016 [[Defense One]] reported that Microsoft had provided funding for the hash-matching software developed for the [[Counter Extremism Project]].[^55] Microsoft has been a member of the [[Internet Watch Foundation]] since 2001, in the tier of members contributing over 90,000 pounds. [[Discord]] joined in November 2023 in a lower tier.[^56] + +### Funding, Think Tanks and Corporate Networks + +The [[Center for a New American Security]] published a supporters list for October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025 that placed Microsoft in the 50,000 to 99,999 dollar tier, alongside NVIDIA and Scale AI.[^57] The [[Foundation for American Innovation]] lists Microsoft among its corporate supporters and event sponsors, alongside OpenAI, [[Anthropic]] and Meta.[^58] + +In Saudi Arabia, [[Echelon (company)|Echelon]] describes its Technologies division as "led by [[Omar Saleh]]," who "spent the last 20 years at Microsoft, successfully running its enterprise business in the Kingdom."[^59] [[Abdulrahman Alfozan]], an engineer later arrested in connection with the bugging of an OpenAI executive conference room, is described on his LinkedIn profile as having interned at Microsoft, [[SAP]] in [[Berlin]] and [[Akamai Technologies]], according to the San Francisco Standard.[^60] The Riyadh venture firm [[RAED Ventures]] describes its co-founder Nashef, who also co-founded Sadara Ventures, as having begun as a software engineer at Microsoft in 1994.[^61] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Microsoft Corporation, Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2024, cover page (One Microsoft Way, Redmond, Washington 98052), Item 1 (the OpenAI partnership and the January 2023 third phase), and the executive officers section (Satya Nadella appointed Chief Executive Officer in February 2014 and Chairman in June 2021). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/789019/000095017024087843/msft-20240630.htm +[^2]: Bass, Dina and Ian King, "Microsoft investigated Bill Gates's involvement with an employee," *Bloomberg,* May 17, 2021, as published by *Al Jazeera,* reporting the Microsoft statement, the Dow Jones report, Gates's March 2020 announcement that he was leaving the board, the 1975 founding, the chief executive tenure to 2000 and chairmanship to February 2014, and the Gates Foundation's 2000 start. https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/5/17/bmicrosoft-investigated-bill-gatess-involvement-with-an-employee +[^3]: Microsoft Corporation, Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2013, Item 1 ("we acquired Yammer, Inc. ... for $1.1 billion in cash" in 2012). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/789019/000119312513310206/d527745d10k.htm +[^4]: *Genesis: Artificial Intelligence, Hope, and the Human Spirit* by Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt and Craig Mundie, PR Newswire release on the Little, Brown publication of November 19, 2024. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/genesis-artificial-intelligence-hope-and-the-human-spirit-by-henry-a-kissinger-eric-schmidt-and-craig-mundie-302221817.html +[^5]: Microsoft Corporation, Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2011, Item 7, "Definitive Agreement with Skype" (announced May 10, 2011, for $8.5 billion in cash), and the executive officers section as of July 28, 2011 (Steven A. Ballmer, Craig J. Mundie, Satya Nadella, Steven Sinofsky, Bradford L. Smith). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/789019/000119312511200680/d10k.htm +[^6]: Greenwald, Glenn, Ewen MacAskill, Laura Poitras, Spencer Ackerman and Dominic Rushe, "Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages," *The Guardian,* July 11, 2013, including the NSA newsletter and document quotations, the April 8, 2013 SkyDrive entry, the Microsoft statement, the joint statement of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the NSA, the Skype timeline of November 2010, February 4 and February 6, 2011, and the amendment on Microsoft's July 2012 statement. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data +[^7]: Greenwald, Glenn and Ewen MacAskill, "NSA Prism program taps in to user data of Apple, Google and others," *The Guardian,* June 6, 2013, on the NSA slide presentation and the collection dates by company. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data +[^8]: "Timeline: How the World Was Misled About Government Skype Eavesdropping," *Slate,* Future Tense, July 12, 2013, including the March 2013 transparency report entry, the emailed Microsoft statement, and the summary of the *New York Times* report on "Project Chess." https://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/07/12/skype_surveillance_a_timeline_of_public_claims_and_private_government_dealings.html +[^9]: "NSA key to Windows: an open question," *CNN,* September 3, 1999, carrying the Fernandes quotations, the Microsoft statement of Dan Leach, the Ian Goldberg and David Wagner quotations, and the description of the "fix" posted on the Cryptonym site. https://us.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9909/03/windows.nsa.02/index.html +[^10]: "Secret Doors and Mystery Keys," *Enterprise Systems,* October 6, 1999, describing Andrew Fernandes of Cryptonym Corp. and the discovery in the ADVAPI.DLL library shipped with Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 5 that the debugging symbols had not been removed and the keys were labeled KEY and NSAKEY. https://esj.com/articles/1999/10/06/secret-doors-and-mystery-keys.aspx +[^11]: Russ Cooper, NTBugtraq message, forwarded by Robert Hettinga to the Cypherpunks list, "Re: [dc-sage] Microsoft, the NSA, and you," September 3, 1999. https://diswww.mit.edu/menelaus/cpunks/117471 +[^12]: Keane, Tom, "The broadest range of cloud innovation across US Government data classifications," *Microsoft Azure Blog,* December 7, 2020. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/the-broadest-range-of-cloud-innovation-across-us-government-data-classifications/ +[^13]: "Microsoft touts top secret cloud as 'generally available,'" *Washington Technology,* August 2021, on the authorization to operate of the Azure top secret regions. https://www.washingtontechnology.com/2021/08/microsoft-touts-top-secret-cloud-as-generally-available/355432/ +[^14]: *Amazon Web Services, Inc. v. United States* and *Microsoft Corp.,* No. 19-1796C (Fed. Cl.), opinion and order of Judge Campbell-Smith filed under seal February 13, 2020 and publicly March 6, 2020 (Document 173), on the July 26, 2018 solicitation, the October 25, 2019 award, the preliminary injunction, the $42 million security, the $5 to $7 million monthly delay estimate and the list of counsel. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-cofc-1_19-cv-01796/pdf/USCOURTS-cofc-1_19-cv-01796-0.pdf +[^15]: "Microsoft awarded Pentagon's $10 billion JEDI contract," *The Boston Globe,* October 25, 2019, on the $10 billion ceiling over ten years. https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2019/10/25/microsoft-awarded-pentagon-billion-jedi-contract/peB5FA7P24QOHvoG0qOlrN/story.html +[^16]: *Amazon Web Services, Inc. v. United States* and *Microsoft Corp.,* No. 19-1796C (Fed. Cl.), opinion and order filed April 29, 2021 (Document 266), on the preliminary injunction, the remand, the September 2, 2020 confirmation of the award and the fourth count of the amended complaint. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-cofc-1_19-cv-01796/pdf/USCOURTS-cofc-1_19-cv-01796-1.pdf +[^17]: "Pentagon Cancels JEDI Cloud Contract," *Defense One,* July 2021, on the Amazon and Oracle challenges that delayed the contract. https://defenseone.com/business/2021/07/pentagon-cancels-jedi-cloud-contract/183082 +[^18]: U.S. Department of Defense, "Future of the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Cloud Contract," release, July 6, 2021 (statement of John Sherman, acting DoD Chief Information Officer), Wayback capture. https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2682992/ +[^19]: PEO Soldier, PM IVAS press release, "IVAS Production Contract Award," March 31, 2021, Wayback capture. https://www.peosoldier.army.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/2556870/ivas-production-contract-award/ +[^20]: South, Todd, "DoD audit says Army's $22 billion 'mixed reality' goggle needs more soldier input," *Military Times,* April 22, 2022, on Department of Defense Inspector General report DODIG-2022-085 and the response of PEO Soldier. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2022/04/22/dod-audit-says-armys-22-billion-mixed-reality-goggle-needed-more-soldier-input/ +[^21]: "IVAS: Microsoft and Anduril plan handover, reins to Army," *DefenseScoop,* February 11, 2025, on the joint statement of Microsoft and Anduril, the Microsoft statement on cloud and AI, and the Azure preference. https://defensescoop.com/2025/02/11/ivas-microsoft-anduril-plan-handover-reins-army/ +[^22]: "Anduril gets green light from Army to take over Microsoft's IVAS project," *Breaking Defense,* April 2025, on the Army's approval of the contract novation on April 10, 2025. https://breakingdefense.com/2025/04/anduril-gets-green-light-from-army-to-take-over-microsofts-ivas-project-exec/ +[^23]: "Microsoft invests in and partners with OpenAI to support us build beneficial AGI," *OpenAI,* July 22, 2019. https://openai.com/index/microsoft-invests-in-and-partners-with-openai +[^24]: "The next chapter of the Microsoft-OpenAI partnership," *OpenAI,* October 28, 2025, on the recapitalization, the 27 percent stake, the $250 billion Azure commitment, the 2032 intellectual property term, and the independent expert panel. https://openai.com/index/next-chapter-of-microsoft-openai-partnership/ +[^25]: "Effective Altruism's Role in the OpenAI Chaos, Explained," *Bloomberg,* November 22, 2023, on the board crisis, the interim leadership sequence, the employee letter, and Nadella's November 20 announcement of the new lab. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-22/effective-altruism-s-role-in-the-openai-chaos-explained +[^26]: "Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist, is leaving the company," *CNBC,* May 14, 2024, on the November 20, 2023 post and the employee letter. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/14/ilya-sutskever-openai-co-founder-and-chief-scientist-is-leaving.html +[^27]: "Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board," *OpenAI,* November 29, 2023, with update of December 8, 2023, archived September 13, 2026. http://web.archive.org/web/20260913004743/https://openai.com/index/sam-altman-returns-as-ceo-openai-has-a-new-initial-board/ +[^28]: "Elon Musk sues OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman over contract breach," *CNBC,* March 1, 2024, on the 2024 complaint and the founding agreement. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/01/elon-musk-sues-openai-and-ceo-sam-altman-over-contract-breach.html +[^29]: "Jury dismisses all claims in Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman," *NPR,* May 18, 2026, on the refiled federal suit, the amendment naming Microsoft, and the May 2026 dismissal. https://www.npr.org/2026/05/18/nx-s1-5822366/musk-altman-openai-jury +[^30]: Kantrowitz, Alex, "The Making of Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei," on the internal OpenAI conflict and the December 2020 departure. https://kantrowitz.medium.com/the-making-of-anthropic-ceo-dario-amodei-449777529dd6 +[^31]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation, "Man and Machine: Artificial Intelligence on the Battlefield," hearing of July 18, 2023, H.A.S.C. No. 118-37 (statement and testimony of Alexandr Wang). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-118hhrg53627/pdf/CHRG-118hhrg53627.pdf +[^32]: Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, "Ben Buchanan," faculty biography, archived October 10, 2025, on the April 7, 2025 Emerging Technologies symposium and the diffusion rule. http://web.archive.org/web/20251010173145/https://sais.jhu.edu/users/bbuchan8 +[^33]: Asana, Inc., Schedule 14A definitive proxy statement, filed April 20, 2026, director biographies. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1477720/000162828026025998/asan-20260420.htm +[^34]: Stewart, James B., Matthew Goldstein and Jessica Silver-Greenberg, "Bill Gates Met With Jeffrey Epstein Many Times, Despite His Past," *The New York Times,* October 12, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-bill-gates.html +[^35]: Safdar, Khadeeja and Emily Glazer, "Jeffrey Epstein Apparently Threatened Bill Gates Over Affair," *The Wall Street Journal,* May 21, 2023. +[^36]: "Gates testifies on Epstein: previous Fortune investigation reveals payments to his ex-girlfriend, $1M Microsoft deal," *Fortune,* June 10, 2026. https://fortune.com/2026/06/10/bill-gates-epstein-mistress-bankrolled-testifying-congress/ +[^37]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00657628, DataSet 9, email from David Stern to Jeffrey Epstein, June 7, 2013, 16:33 UTC. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00657628.pdf +[^38]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00657674, DataSet 9, email from Steven Sinofsky to Jeffrey Epstein, June 7, 2013, 17:25 UTC, quoting Epstein's message of 10:20 AM the same day. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00657674.pdf +[^39]: "Windows Chief Sinofsky Leaves Microsoft," *Visual Studio Magazine,* November 13, 2012, reporting the Microsoft announcement of November 12, 2012. https://visualstudiomagazine.com/Articles/2012/11/13/Windows-Chief-Sinofsky-Leaves-Microsoft.aspx +[^40]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01074544, DataSet 9, minutes of the meeting of the board of directors of Reporty Homeland Security Ltd., December 23, 2015. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01074544.pdf +[^41]: "Skype and Kazaa co-founder Jaan Tallinn on AI and the Singularity," *Singularity Weblog,* on the Estonian engineering team and Skype. https://www.singularityweblog.com/jaan-tallinn/ +[^42]: Microsoft Corporation, Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2016, Item 1A ("we announced our acquisition of LinkedIn for approximately $26.2 billion"). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/789019/000119312516662209/d187868d10k.htm +[^43]: Cameron, Dell and Yulia Almazova, "Leak Exposes Members of Peter Thiel's Secretive 'Dialog' Society," *WIRED,* June 16, 2026, on the PayPal Mafia cohort. https://www.wired.com/story/leak-exposes-members-of-peter-thiels-secretive-dialog-society/ +[^44]: Contemporaneous Silicon Valley press on David Sacks's PayPal role and his post-PayPal ventures, including Yammer. +[^45]: Horowitz Family Foundation (EIN 35-7050910), Form 990-PF e-file returns for fiscal years ended June 30, 2019 through 2024, listing gifts made in shares, including 63,758 shares of Microsoft (IRS object 201903169349101270 and later returns). https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/ +[^46]: Liu, Phoebe, "Inside A Billionaire Couple's Plan To Give Away A $20 Billion Facebook Fortune," *Forbes,* November 7, 2025, updated version, archived. http://web.archive.org/web/20260730221730id_/https://www.forbes.com/sites/phoebeliu/2025/11/07/cari-tuna-billionaire-open-philanthropy-facebook/ +[^47]: *United States v. Microsoft Corp.,* 253 F.3d 34 (D.C. Cir. 2001) (per curiam), Nos. 00-5212 and 00-5213, decided June 28, 2001. https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F3/253/253.F3d.34.00-5213.00-5212.html +[^48]: Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, "David Boies," firm biography, on his service as chairman from 1997 to 2024 and as Special Trial Counsel for the Department of Justice in the Microsoft antitrust suit from 1998 to 2000. https://www.bsfllp.com/people/david-boies.html +[^49]: "The Genesis Files: How David Chaum's eCash Spawned a Cypherpunk Dream," *Bitcoin Magazine,* April 2018, on the eCash licensees, the Visa and Microsoft talks, and the 1998 bankruptcy. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/genesis-files-how-david-chaums-ecash-spawned-cypherpunk-dream +[^50]: Mahler, Till Antonio, "'82: The Birth of Digital Cash," *blockwhat?,* on the Mark Twain Bank, the limited adoption figures, the Microsoft and Visa negotiations, and the November 1998 bankruptcy. https://medium.com/blockwhat/82-the-birth-of-digital-cash-ea08b53379d8 +[^51]: "Cypherpunks Write Code: Wei Dai and B-money," *Medium,* on Dai's biography, including his work at Microsoft and on VMAC, and the Crypto++ library. https://medium.com/@Carrsos1/cypherpunks-write-code-wei-dai-and-b-money-or-a-coin-before-bitcoin-8bf5836bfb36 +[^52]: Crypto++ Library, weidai11/cryptopp, GitHub, on the June 1995 first release and the library's history. https://github.com/weidai11/cryptopp +[^53]: "Microsoft and National Center for Missing & Exploited Children Push for Action to Fight Child Pornography," *Microsoft Source,* December 15, 2009. https://news.microsoft.com/source/2009/12/15/microsoft-and-national-center-for-missing-exploited-children-push-for-action-to-fight-child-pornography/ +[^54]: *United States v. Ackerman,* 831 F.3d 1292 (10th Cir. 2016), No. 14-3265 (Gorsuch, J.), on the NCMEC holding and the list of amici. https://openjurist.org/831/f3d/1292/united-states-v-ackerman +[^55]: Tucker, Patrick, "How to Stop the Next Viral Jihadi Video," *Defense One,* June 17, 2016. http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2016/06/how-stop-next-viral-jihadi-video/129210/ +[^56]: Internet Watch Foundation, "Our Members," membership list (Microsoft since 2001 in the tier of members contributing over 90,000 pounds; Discord member since November 1, 2023 in the over 25,000 pound tier). https://www.iwf.org.uk/membership/our-members/ +[^57]: Center for a New American Security, "CNAS Supporters," contributions from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025. https://www.cnas.org/support-cnas/cnas-supporters +[^58]: Foundation for American Innovation, "About Us," corporate supporters and event sponsors list. https://www.thefai.org/about-us +[^59]: Echelon, website, "Introducing Echelon" founder's letter and partner section, archived October 13, 2026. https://web.archive.org/web/20261013213650/https://www.echelon.inc/ +[^60]: "OpenAI engineer arrested in bugging of executive conference room," *San Francisco Standard,* October 13, 2026. https://sfstandard.com/2026/10/13/openai-engineer-arrested-alleged-bugging-executive-conference-room/ +[^61]: RAED Ventures, "About," English about page, with team roster, and Arabic team page, Wayback capture of May 29, 2023. https://raed.vc/about/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20230529114145/https://raed.vc/ar/team/ diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Morgan Guaranty Trust.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Morgan Guaranty Trust.md index b93a3a83..63cc3fac 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Morgan Guaranty Trust.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Morgan Guaranty Trust.md @@ -130,7 +130,7 @@ The proxy statement for the annual meeting of April 12, 2000 nominated 15 direct ### Sumitomo Copper Litigation -In August 1999 [[Sumitomo Corporation]] sued J.P. Morgan & Co. Incorporated, Morgan Guaranty Trust Company of New York "and a former J.P. Morgan employee" in the [[Southern District of New York]], alleging that from 1993 to 1996 Morgan had assisted a Sumitomo employee in copper trading.[^12] +In August 1999 [[Sumitomo Corporation]] sued J.P. Morgan & Co. Incorporated, Morgan Guaranty Trust Company of New York "and a former J.P. Morgan employee" in the [[U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York|Southern District of New York]], alleging that from 1993 to 1996 Morgan had assisted a Sumitomo employee in copper trading.[^12] ### The Chase Merger diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/National Security Archive.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/National Security Archive.md index f7912c53..965f8bf2 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/National Security Archive.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/National Security Archive.md @@ -72,45 +72,45 @@ relations: reverse: true role: "20 grants listed in the foundation's database, 1985 to 2025, totaling $9,968,770" start: 1985 - fn: 9 + fn: 10 - type: funded with: "[[Carnegie Corporation of New York]]" reverse: true role: "payments for archival programs on U.S.-Russia relations and nuclear security" start: 2020 - fn: 10 + fn: 11 - type: funded with: "[[Ford Foundation]]" reverse: true role: "grants for freedom of information, Colombia and Cuba projects" start: 2013 - fn: 11 + fn: 12 - type: funded with: "[[Foundation to Promote Open Society]]" reverse: true role: "general support" start: 2020 end: 2021 - fn: 12 + fn: 13 - type: funded with: "[[William and Flora Hewlett Foundation]]" reverse: true role: "Cyber Vault" start: 2021 end: 2022 - fn: 13 + fn: 14 - type: funded with: "[[Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust]]" reverse: true role: "general purpose" start: 2021 end: 2024 - fn: 14 + fn: 15 - type: participant_in with: "[[Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President]]" role: "plaintiff" start: 1989-01-19 - fn: 21 + fn: 22 --- The National Security Archive is a nongovernmental research institute and library at [[George Washington University]] in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1985 by journalists and scholars to check rising government secrecy. The Archive describes itself as an investigative journalism center, a research institute on international affairs, a library and archive of declassified U.S. documents, a leading nonprofit user of the [[Freedom of Information Act]], a public interest law firm and a publisher of former secrets.[^1] Its legal entity is the National Security Archive Fund, Inc., a District of Columbia nonprofit.[^2] Until 1998 its press releases described it as a project of the nonprofit [[Fund for Peace]], Inc.[^3] @@ -119,11 +119,11 @@ The National Security Archive is a nongovernmental research institute and librar [[Scott Armstrong]], formerly of the [[Washington Post]], served as founding director from 1985 to 1989. The Archive credits him with the vision for what the organization became.[^4] Its list of founders also names [[Raymond Bonner]] of the [[New York Times]], Congressman [[Jim Moody]] of Wisconsin, [[Ruth Chojnacki]], who worked for Moody and ran the Central America Papers Project he started in 1984, [[Morton H. Halperin]], who provided space for the papers at the [[American Civil Liberties Union]] Washington Office in 1984 and sponsored the Archive in 1985 through the Fund for Peace and the [[Center for National Security Studies]], and [[Stephen R. Paschke]], who set up the financial records in 1985 as chief financial officer of the Fund for Peace and is the Archive's vice president for finance.[^4] The list adds [[Jeffrey T. Richelson]], [[John Prados]] and [[Stan Norris]], who with Bonner and Armstrong formed an early 1980s discussion group on SI/TK-BYEMAN documents that shared documents and declassification requests.[^4] -Board chairs were [[John Shattuck]] (1985 to 1989), [[Walter B. Slocombe]] (1989 to 1992), [[Joseph N. Onek]] (1989 to 1994), [[Russell Hemenway]] (1994 to 2014), [[Sheila S. Coronel]] (2014 to 2019) and [[Edgar N. James]] (2019 to 2025).[^4] [[Thomas S. Blanton]] has served as executive director since 1992 and is listed as president on the current governance page.[^4][^5] [[Malcolm Byrne]] served as deputy director and is listed as director of research.[^4][^6] [[Peter Kornbluh]] is director of the Cuba and Chile Documentation Projects.[^6] +Board chairs were [[John Shattuck]] (1985 to 1989), [[Walter B. Slocombe]] (1989 to 1992), [[Joseph N. Onek]] (1989 to 1994), [[Russell Hemenway]] (1994 to 2014), [[Sheila S. Coronel]] (2014 to 2019) and [[Edgar N. James]] (2019 to 2025).[^4] [[Thomas S. Blanton]] has served as executive director since 1992 and is listed as president on the current governance page.[^4][^5] [[Malcolm Byrne]] served as deputy director and is listed as director of research.[^4][^6] [[Peter Kornbluh]] is director of the Cuba and Chile Documentation Projects.[^6] Electronic Briefing Book No. 222, "The CIA's Family Jewels," was posted June 21, 2007 and updated June 26, 2007.[^7] ### Board and Officers -The Archive's Form 990 for 2023 lists as directors Edgar N. James (chair), [[Nancy E. Soderberg]] (vice chair), [[Cliff Sloan]] (secretary), [[Nancy Kranich]] (treasurer), [[Michael Abramowitz]], Sheila S. Coronel, [[Sajit Gandhi]], [[Danielle R. Holley]] and [[Vivian Schiller]], with Thomas S. Blanton as director and president, Malcolm M. Byrne as vice president for programs and Stephen R. Paschke as vice president for finance. The returns for 2021, 2022 and 2024 list the same slate. The reportable compensation shown for Blanton was $175,000 in each of those years and for Paschke $140,000.[^7] +The Archive's Form 990 for 2023 lists as directors Edgar N. James (chair), [[Nancy E. Soderberg]] (vice chair), [[Cliff Sloan]] (secretary), [[Nancy Kranich]] (treasurer), [[Michael Abramowitz]], Sheila S. Coronel, [[Sajit Gandhi]], [[Danielle R. Holley]] and [[Vivian Schiller]], with Thomas S. Blanton as director and president, Malcolm M. Byrne as vice president for programs and Stephen R. Paschke as vice president for finance. The returns for 2021, 2022 and 2024 list the same slate. The reportable compensation shown for Blanton was $175,000 in each of those years and for Paschke $140,000.[^8] The governance page gives these biographical lines for the directors. Soderberg is described as a former U.S. Alternate Representative to the [[United Nations]], former Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, former Staff Director of the [[National Security Council]], former vice president of the [[International Crisis Group]] and chair of the [[Public Interest Declassification Board]] from January 2012. Sloan is described as a retired partner of [[Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom]], Special Envoy for Guantanamo Closure at the [[State Department]] in 2013 and 2014 and general counsel of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive from 2000 to 2008. Abramowitz is described as director of [[Voice of America]] News, former president of [[Freedom House]], former director of the National Institute for Holocaust Education of the [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]] and former White House correspondent and national editor of the Washington Post. Gandhi is described as a senior professional staff member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and a former Presidential Management Fellow at the State Department. Schiller is described as executive director of [[Aspen Digital]], former president and chief executive of [[National Public Radio]], former head of news partnerships at [[Twitter]], former chief digital officer of [[NBC News]] and former senior vice president of the [[New York Times Company]]. James is described as a partner of James & Hoffman and pro bono litigator for the Archive; Kranich as a former president of the [[American Library Association]]; Coronel as director of the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at [[Columbia University]]; and Holley as president of [[Mount Holyoke College]].[^5] @@ -131,71 +131,71 @@ The advisory board listed on the same page includes [[Anne Cahn]], described as ### Funders and Filings -The funders page lists the [[Carnegie Corporation of New York]], the [[Ford Foundation]] and its program-related investment division, the [[John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation]], the [[J. Roderick MacArthur Foundation]], the [[Democracy Fund]], the [[William and Flora Hewlett Foundation]], the [[John S. and James L. Knight Foundation]] and [[Fundación Ford]] in [[Santiago]], Chile.[^8] The founding funders named in the Archive's 2025 anniversary booklet are Ruth Adams, the Arca Foundation, Anne Bartley, the Deer Creek Foundation, the Field Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Lance Lindblom, both MacArthur foundations, Stewart Mott, Aryeh Neier, the Norman Foundation, Gary Sick, Philip M. Stern and Margery Tabankin.[^4] The Carnegie Corporation published a collection of the Archive's declassified documents under the title "Carnegie Results: The National Security Archive," covering Area 51 and the Cuban Missile Crisis among other topics.[^1] +The funders page lists the [[Carnegie Corporation of New York]], the [[Ford Foundation]] and its program-related investment division, the [[John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation]], the [[J. Roderick MacArthur Foundation]], the [[Democracy Fund]], the [[William and Flora Hewlett Foundation]], the [[John S. and James L. Knight Foundation]] and [[Fundación Ford]] in [[Santiago]], Chile.[^9] The founding funders named in the Archive's 2025 anniversary booklet are Ruth Adams, the Arca Foundation, Anne Bartley, the Deer Creek Foundation, the Field Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Lance Lindblom, both MacArthur foundations, Stewart Mott, Aryeh Neier, the Norman Foundation, Gary Sick, Philip M. Stern and Margery Tabankin.[^4] The Carnegie Corporation published a collection of the Archive's declassified documents under the title "Carnegie Results: The National Security Archive," covering Area 51 and the Cuban Missile Crisis among other topics.[^1] -The MacArthur Foundation's grants database lists 20 grants to the Archive totaling $9,968,770. Eleven are made out to the Fund for Peace National Security Archive: $25,000 in 1985 "To provide seed money for planning and development"; $200,000 in 1986 "To establish this organization, a central repository for all documentation released under the Freedom of Information Act and the Mandatory Declassification Review procedures"; $200,000 in 1987; $200,000 in 1988; $500,000 in 1990; $50,000 in 1992 for the Cuba Documentation Project; $300,000 in 1993 for "Recovering the Secret History of Eastern Europe and Russia"; $543,770 in 1995; $330,000 in 1996; $150,000 in 1997; and $600,000 in 1998 for the Project on Openness and Archives in Latin America. Nine are made out to the National Security Archive Fund: $600,000 in 1999 "To establish a reserve fund"; $900,000 in 2000 for "greater transparency in U.S. foreign policy and intelligence operations and for special projects in Mexico and Cuba"; $200,000 in 2001; $1,000,000 in 2003 for general operations; $900,000 in 2010 for the International Human Rights Evidence Program; $1,500,000 in 2013 for international human rights and nuclear security; $620,000 in 2016 and $900,000 in 2018 for the Nuclear Risks Documentation Project; and $250,000 in 2025 for general operations.[^9] +The MacArthur Foundation's grants database lists 20 grants to the Archive totaling $9,968,770. Eleven are made out to the Fund for Peace National Security Archive: $25,000 in 1985 "To provide seed money for planning and development"; $200,000 in 1986 "To establish this organization, a central repository for all documentation released under the Freedom of Information Act and the Mandatory Declassification Review procedures"; $200,000 in 1987; $200,000 in 1988; $500,000 in 1990; $50,000 in 1992 for the Cuba Documentation Project; $300,000 in 1993 for "Recovering the Secret History of Eastern Europe and Russia"; $543,770 in 1995; $330,000 in 1996; $150,000 in 1997; and $600,000 in 1998 for the Project on Openness and Archives in Latin America. Nine are made out to the National Security Archive Fund: $600,000 in 1999 "To establish a reserve fund"; $900,000 in 2000 for "greater transparency in U.S. foreign policy and intelligence operations and for special projects in Mexico and Cuba"; $200,000 in 2001; $1,000,000 in 2003 for general operations; $900,000 in 2010 for the International Human Rights Evidence Program; $1,500,000 in 2013 for international human rights and nuclear security; $620,000 in 2016 and $900,000 in 2018 for the Nuclear Risks Documentation Project; and $250,000 in 2025 for general operations.[^10] -The Carnegie Corporation's Form 990-PF reports payments to the National Security Archive Fund of $546,000 in the fiscal year ended September 30, 2020, $404,000 in 2021, $555,000 and $200,000 in 2022, $395,000 in 2023, and $560,000 and $175,000 in 2024. The larger payments are described as for archival programs on U.S.-Russia relations, nuclear security and cooperative threat reduction, and the smaller as for a study on nuclear targeting, civilian casualties and the laws of war. The returns list further approved payments of $404,000 (2020 return), $395,000 (2022 return), and $390,000 and $125,000 (2024 return).[^10] +The Carnegie Corporation's Form 990-PF reports payments to the National Security Archive Fund of $546,000 in the fiscal year ended September 30, 2020, $404,000 in 2021, $555,000 and $200,000 in 2022, $395,000 in 2023, and $560,000 and $175,000 in 2024. The larger payments are described as for archival programs on U.S.-Russia relations, nuclear security and cooperative threat reduction, and the smaller as for a study on nuclear targeting, civilian casualties and the laws of war. The returns list further approved payments of $404,000 (2020 return), $395,000 (2022 return), and $390,000 and $125,000 (2024 return).[^11] -The Ford Foundation's Form 990-PF for 2020 lists payments to the Archive of $250,000 to use freedom of information laws to access, analyze and publish evidence of grave human rights violations, $100,000 for the Colombia Truth Commission Documentation Project and $50,000 for a collaborative effort with Cuban historians; the return for 2021 lists $100,000 for the Colombia project and $75,000 for the Cuba effort. The foundation's grants database lists a $100,000 grant approved in May 2021 for the Colombia project, and a $63,000 grant approved in July 2013 for the IFTI Watch and freedominfo.org project on the openness practices of global institutions that make the rules for finance, trade and economic development.[^11] The [[Foundation to Promote Open Society]] reported grants of $185,000 in 2020 and $300,000 in 2021 for general support.[^12] The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation reported payments of $250,000 and $50,000 in 2021 and $130,000 in 2022 for the creation of a Cyber Vault and its website.[^13] The Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust reported general-purpose payments of $300,000 in 2021, $300,000 in 2022, $650,000 in 2023 and $350,000 in 2024.[^14] +The Ford Foundation's Form 990-PF for 2020 lists payments to the Archive of $250,000 to use freedom of information laws to access, analyze and publish evidence of grave human rights violations, $100,000 for the Colombia Truth Commission Documentation Project and $50,000 for a collaborative effort with Cuban historians; the return for 2021 lists $100,000 for the Colombia project and $75,000 for the Cuba effort. The foundation's grants database lists a $100,000 grant approved in May 2021 for the Colombia project, and a $63,000 grant approved in July 2013 for the IFTI Watch and freedominfo.org project on the openness practices of global institutions that make the rules for finance, trade and economic development.[^12] The [[Foundation to Promote Open Society]] reported grants of $185,000 in 2020 and $300,000 in 2021 for general support.[^13] The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation reported payments of $250,000 and $50,000 in 2021 and $130,000 in 2022 for the creation of a Cyber Vault and its website.[^14] The Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust reported general-purpose payments of $300,000 in 2021, $300,000 in 2022, $650,000 in 2023 and $350,000 in 2024.[^15] -Form 990 filings for the National Security Archive Fund, Inc. (employer identification number 22-2127884) show total revenue for tax years 2011 through 2023 ranging from $1,483,438 in 2014 to $4,482,160 in 2013, and contributions ranging from $834,300 in 2012 to $3,955,097 in 2013. For 2023 the filing reports total revenue of $2,400,353, functional expenses of $2,638,330 and year-end assets of $2,675,321. For 2024 it reports revenue of $1,807,989, contributions of $1,272,164, expenses of $2,531,878, year-end assets of $2,147,279 and 22 employees.[^2][^15] +Form 990 filings for the National Security Archive Fund, Inc. (employer identification number 22-2127884) show total revenue for tax years 2011 through 2023 ranging from $1,483,438 in 2014 to $4,482,160 in 2013, and contributions ranging from $834,300 in 2012 to $3,955,097 in 2013. For 2023 the filing reports total revenue of $2,400,353, functional expenses of $2,638,330 and year-end assets of $2,675,321. For 2024 it reports revenue of $1,807,989, contributions of $1,272,164, expenses of $2,531,878, year-end assets of $2,147,279 and 22 employees.[^2][^16] ### Fee Status Under the Freedom of Information Act -In 1988 the Archive challenged the Department of Defense over its fee category. The District Court found the dispute ripe but granted the Defense Department summary judgment.[^16] On appeal, the D.C. Circuit held that the Archive "is not an educational institution" and that "it is a representative of the news media by reason of its publication activities," so that it could be charged only duplication costs for requests furthering that function.[^17] +In 1988 the Archive challenged the Department of Defense over its fee category. The District Court found the dispute ripe but granted the Defense Department summary judgment.[^17] On appeal, the D.C. Circuit held that the Archive "is not an educational institution" and that "it is a representative of the news media by reason of its publication activities," so that it could be charged only duplication costs for requests furthering that function.[^18] -The [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] reached different conclusions. In September 2004 it placed the National Security Archive Fund in the news media fee category. In October 2004 it withheld the 2004 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq in full under Exemptions 1 and 3, and on September 30, 2005 the District Court granted the CIA summary judgment and dismissed the case.[^18] In 2005 the CIA had also placed the Archive itself in its "all other" category, and the Archive sued in 2006. The CIA then acknowledged it had acted in error and granted news media status, which mooted the claims about past requests. The court dismissed the rest for lack of jurisdiction.[^19] In November 2008 the court granted the Archive's motion for reconsideration.[^20] +The [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] reached different conclusions. In September 2004 it placed the National Security Archive Fund in the news media fee category. In October 2004 it withheld the 2004 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq in full under Exemptions 1 and 3, and on September 30, 2005 the District Court granted the CIA summary judgment and dismissed the case.[^19] In 2005 the CIA had also placed the Archive itself in its "all other" category, and the Archive sued in 2006. The CIA then acknowledged it had acted in error and granted news media status, which mooted the claims about past requests. The court dismissed the rest for lack of jurisdiction.[^20] In November 2008 the court granted the Archive's motion for reconsideration.[^21] ### Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President -On January 19, 1989, the final day of the [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]] presidency, the Archive filed several Freedom of Information Act requests for all material stored on the [[Executive Office of the President]] and National Security Council electronic communications systems from their installation in the mid-1980s. The same day the plaintiffs filed suit for a declaration that the electronic documents were federal and presidential records and an injunction against their destruction. The plaintiffs were Scott Armstrong, [[Gary M. Stern]], [[Eddie Becker]], the Archive, the Center for National Security Studies, the [[American Historical Association]] and the American Library Association. The defendants included the White House Communications Agency and Acting Archivist of the United States [[Trudy Peterson]].[^21] The Executive Office of the President had used the [[PROFS]] electronic mail system, which ceased operations in 1992. The National Security Council kept its own PROFS system and a similar system called All-In-One.[^21] +On January 19, 1989, the final day of the [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]] presidency, the Archive filed several Freedom of Information Act requests for all material stored on the [[Executive Office of the President]] and National Security Council electronic communications systems from their installation in the mid-1980s. The same day the plaintiffs filed suit for a declaration that the electronic documents were federal and presidential records and an injunction against their destruction. The plaintiffs were Scott Armstrong, [[Gary M. Stern]], [[Eddie Becker]], the Archive, the Center for National Security Studies, the [[American Historical Association]] and the American Library Association. The defendants included the White House Communications Agency and Acting Archivist of the United States [[Trudy Peterson]].[^22] The Executive Office of the President had used the [[PROFS]] electronic mail system, which ceased operations in 1992. The National Security Council kept its own PROFS system and a similar system called All-In-One.[^22] -In 1991 the D.C. Circuit found that the plaintiffs had standing, that the President is not an agency under the Administrative Procedure Act, and that the Presidential Records Act impliedly precluded judicial review of the President's record decisions, while the agency guidelines remained reviewable.[^22] On January 6, 1993, the District Court ruled that the electronic communications on these systems were federal records within the Federal Records Act, found the agencies' practices arbitrary and capricious, and enjoined the Archivist to preserve electronic federal records, including backup tapes. On May 21, 1993, it held the defendants in civil contempt over the preservation orders. The rulings are reported at 810 F. Supp. 335 and 821 F. Supp. 761.[^21] The D.C. Circuit's opinion of August 13, 1993 found that the electronic communications systems contain preservable records.[^21] +In 1991 the D.C. Circuit found that the plaintiffs had standing, that the President is not an agency under the Administrative Procedure Act, and that the Presidential Records Act impliedly precluded judicial review of the President's record decisions, while the agency guidelines remained reviewable.[^23] On January 6, 1993, the District Court ruled that the electronic communications on these systems were federal records within the Federal Records Act, found the agencies' practices arbitrary and capricious, and enjoined the Archivist to preserve electronic federal records, including backup tapes. On May 21, 1993, it held the defendants in civil contempt over the preservation orders. The rulings are reported at 810 F. Supp. 335 and 821 F. Supp. 761.[^22] The D.C. Circuit's opinion of August 13, 1993 found that the electronic communications systems contain preservable records.[^22] -A February 14, 1995 memorandum opinion by Judge Charles R. Richey recounted the case as filed in 1989 at the close of the Reagan administration.[^23] On August 29, 1995, after a July 28, 1995 opinion ordering in camera review of four of seventeen documents, the court granted summary judgment to the government on 88 White House Intelligence Summaries that had been reprocessed.[^24] On August 2, 1996, the D.C. Circuit reversed the district court on the question of whether the National Security Council is an agency under the FOIA. The panel held that the NSC is not an agency because it operates close to the President, who chairs it, and does not exercise substantial independent authority.[^25] +A February 14, 1995 memorandum opinion by Judge Charles R. Richey recounted the case as filed in 1989 at the close of the Reagan administration.[^24] On August 29, 1995, after a July 28, 1995 opinion ordering in camera review of four of seventeen documents, the court granted summary judgment to the government on 88 White House Intelligence Summaries that had been reprocessed.[^25] On August 2, 1996, the D.C. Circuit reversed the district court on the question of whether the National Security Council is an agency under the FOIA. The panel held that the NSC is not an agency because it operates close to the President, who chairs it, and does not exercise substantial independent authority.[^26] -The Archive states that it has filed more than 75 Freedom of Information lawsuits against the U.S. government, 30 of them successful, and that its White House e-mail lawsuits against the Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations preserved 220 million electronic records, 22 million of them recovered from the George W. Bush White House when the Obama administration settled the case in 2009.[^26] +The Archive states that it has filed more than 75 Freedom of Information lawsuits against the U.S. government, 30 of them successful, and that its White House e-mail lawsuits against the Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations preserved 220 million electronic records, 22 million of them recovered from the George W. Bush White House when the Obama administration settled the case in 2009.[^27] -In 2019 the Archive joined [[Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington]] in a suit over White House use of message-deleting applications under the Presidential Records Act. The district court held that nothing in the Act "obligates the President to perform any duty with the requisite level of specificity that mandamus requires," and the D.C. Circuit affirmed the dismissal on May 28, 2019.[^27] +In 2019 the Archive joined [[Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington]] in a suit over White House use of message-deleting applications under the Presidential Records Act. The district court held that nothing in the Act "obligates the President to perform any duty with the requisite level of specificity that mandamus requires," and the D.C. Circuit affirmed the dismissal on May 28, 2019.[^28] ### Bay of Pigs and the Official History -The Archive's Cuba project obtained the declassification of the CIA's 1961 inspector general's report on the [[Bay of Pigs]], written by [[Lyman Kirkpatrick]] as the "Inspector General's Survey of the Cuban Operation." The Archive's press release of February 22, 1998 announced that the 150-page report had been made public that day after a two-year Freedom of Information Act effort, with Kornbluh as the requester. The release stated that CIA director [[John McCone]] had ordered all but one copy destroyed and that the original, with rebuttals by the officials in charge of the invasion, remained in a safe in the director's office. It quoted an attached memorandum by [[Charles P. Cabell]], then deputy director: "In unfriendly hands, it can become a weapon unjustifiably to attack the entire mission, organization, and functioning of the Agency."[^3] The report was published that year as *Bay of Pigs Declassified*, edited by Peter Kornbluh.[^28] On June 4, 1998 the CIA, under Director [[George Tenet]], announced the transfer to the [[National Archives and Records Administration]] of about 3,200 pages of Bay of Pigs records, and stated that the Inspector General's assessment and the Directorate of Plans' response had been released in February 1998 to the Archive in response to a FOIA request.[^29] +The Archive's Cuba project obtained the declassification of the CIA's 1961 inspector general's report on the [[Bay of Pigs]], written by [[Lyman Kirkpatrick]] as the "Inspector General's Survey of the Cuban Operation." The Archive's press release of February 22, 1998 announced that the 150-page report had been made public that day after a two-year Freedom of Information Act effort, with Kornbluh as the requester. The release stated that CIA director [[John McCone]] had ordered all but one copy destroyed and that the original, with rebuttals by the officials in charge of the invasion, remained in a safe in the director's office. It quoted an attached memorandum by [[Charles P. Cabell]], then deputy director: "In unfriendly hands, it can become a weapon unjustifiably to attack the entire mission, organization, and functioning of the Agency."[^3] The report was published that year as *Bay of Pigs Declassified*, edited by Peter Kornbluh.[^29] On June 4, 1998 the CIA, under Director [[George Tenet]], announced the transfer to the [[National Archives and Records Administration]] of about 3,200 pages of Bay of Pigs records, and stated that the Inspector General's assessment and the Directorate of Plans' response had been released in February 1998 to the Archive in response to a FOIA request.[^30] -The CIA released only Volume III of the five-volume official history by its staff historian [[Jack B. Pfeiffer]] that year, under the Kennedy Assassination Records Act. The volume was found in the National Archives in 2005 by the Villanova political scientist [[David Barrett]] and posted on his university's website. Pfeiffer had himself sued in 1987 for Volume V, and the court accepted the CIA's position that the volume could not be declassified.[^30] +The CIA released only Volume III of the five-volume official history by its staff historian [[Jack B. Pfeiffer]] that year, under the Kennedy Assassination Records Act. The volume was found in the National Archives in 2005 by the Villanova political scientist [[David Barrett]] and posted on his university's website. Pfeiffer had himself sued in 1987 for Volume V, and the court accepted the CIA's position that the volume could not be declassified.[^31] -The Archive requested Volumes I, II, IV and V in August 2005. It filed suit on April 14, 2011, and on July 25, 2011, the CIA released Volumes I, II and IV. In May 2012 the District Court granted the CIA summary judgment on Volume V, a draft, under the deliberative process privilege of Exemption 5.[^31] The D.C. Circuit affirmed on May 20, 2014, in an opinion by Judge Kavanaugh. The panel held that a draft of an agency's official history is pre-decisional and deliberative and that the draft of Volume V "is exempt in its entirety under Exemption 5."[^32] +The Archive requested Volumes I, II, IV and V in August 2005. It filed suit on April 14, 2011, and on July 25, 2011, the CIA released Volumes I, II and IV. In May 2012 the District Court granted the CIA summary judgment on Volume V, a draft, under the deliberative process privilege of Exemption 5.[^32] The D.C. Circuit affirmed on May 20, 2014, in an opinion by Judge Kavanaugh. The panel held that a draft of an agency's official history is pre-decisional and deliberative and that the draft of Volume V "is exempt in its entirety under Exemption 5."[^33] ### The Perroots Memorandum -In January 1989, as [[Leonard Perroots]], a lieutenant general of the U.S. Air Force, was retiring, he wrote an "End of Tour Report Addendum." The D.C. Circuit's opinion describes the background in these words: in 1983, "during the Cold War, Leonard H. Perroots, then an Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence in the United States Air Forces in Europe, allegedly recommended a course of action to his Commander in response to an elevated alert status demonstrated by the military forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ('Soviet Union'), which helped avert a nuclear crisis." In the addendum he wrote to "detail the 'chain of events' from 1983 to help the U.S. Intelligence Community learn lessons 'as relates to our [Indications and Warning] capability and exercise planning.'"[^33] +In January 1989, as [[Leonard Perroots]], a lieutenant general of the U.S. Air Force, was retiring, he wrote an "End of Tour Report Addendum." The D.C. Circuit's opinion describes the background in these words: in 1983, "during the Cold War, Leonard H. Perroots, then an Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence in the United States Air Forces in Europe, allegedly recommended a course of action to his Commander in response to an elevated alert status demonstrated by the military forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ('Soviet Union'), which helped avert a nuclear crisis." In the addendum he wrote to "detail the 'chain of events' from 1983 to help the U.S. Intelligence Community learn lessons 'as relates to our [Indications and Warning] capability and exercise planning.'"[^34] -The Archive describes the 1983 events as the Soviet reaction to [[Able Archer 83]], a NATO command post exercise held in November 1983, and states that Perroots served as director of the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] from 1985 to 1989. According to the Archive, the addendum reported that signals intelligence showed the Soviet 4th Air Army issuing an alert that "included preparations for immediate use of nuclear weapons," that it warned of an "ominous picture," and that it warned the exercise could have led to "a potentially disastrous situation." The Archive states that the addendum set off an all-source investigation by the [[President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board]], whose report was declassified in 2015 after a 12-year appeals effort by the Archive through an interagency panel.[^34] +The Archive describes the 1983 events as the Soviet reaction to [[Able Archer 83]], a NATO command post exercise held in November 1983, and states that Perroots served as director of the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] from 1985 to 1989. According to the Archive, the addendum reported that signals intelligence showed the Soviet 4th Air Army issuing an alert that "included preparations for immediate use of nuclear weapons," that it warned of an "ominous picture," and that it warned the exercise could have led to "a potentially disastrous situation." The Archive states that the addendum set off an all-source investigation by the [[President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board]], whose report was declassified in 2015 after a 12-year appeals effort by the Archive through an interagency panel.[^35] -The State Department published a transcribed version of the memorandum in February 2021 in *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981-1988, Volume IV, Soviet Union, January 1983 to March 1985*. The volume thanked CIA staff "for arranging full access to CIA records" and stated that its declassification review "began in 2015 and was completed in 2019." Six months later the Archive filed a FOIA request with the CIA for the memorandum, and in October 2021 it sued. In April 2022 the CIA provided Perroots' cover letter and a completely redacted copy of the memorandum, citing Exemptions 1 and 3. On October 4, 2022 Judge [[James E. Boasberg]] granted the CIA summary judgment, finding that the CIA was not properly involved in the disclosure to the Foreign Relations volume and so had not waived the exemptions, and on November 16, 2022 the court denied the Archive's motion to amend the judgment. The Archive was represented pro bono by [[Beveridge & Diamond]].[^33][^34] +The State Department published a transcribed version of the memorandum in February 2021 in *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981-1988, Volume IV, Soviet Union, January 1983 to March 1985*. The volume thanked CIA staff "for arranging full access to CIA records" and stated that its declassification review "began in 2015 and was completed in 2019." Six months later the Archive filed a FOIA request with the CIA for the memorandum, and in October 2021 it sued. In April 2022 the CIA provided Perroots' cover letter and a completely redacted copy of the memorandum, citing Exemptions 1 and 3. On October 4, 2022 Judge [[James E. Boasberg]] granted the CIA summary judgment, finding that the CIA was not properly involved in the disclosure to the Foreign Relations volume and so had not waived the exemptions, and on November 16, 2022 the court denied the Archive's motion to amend the judgment. The Archive was represented pro bono by [[Beveridge & Diamond]].[^34][^35] -The D.C. Circuit affirmed on June 7, 2024 in an opinion for the court by Circuit Judge Childs, joined by Circuit Judge Rao and Senior Circuit Judge Ginsburg. The court stated that the Archive had conceded that the response was justified under Exemptions 1 and 3 and held that the CIA had not waived them by the publication in the Foreign Relations volume.[^33] According to the Archive's account of November 14, 2025, which cites reporting by the Washington Post, a State Department official confirmed that the Department had republished the volume without a 15-page appendix on Able Archer 83 that contained the memorandum, a CIA response to it and a 1988 memorandum on Oleg Gordievsky's reporting. The official told the Post that the Department removed the documents because the Archive's case "was litigated in District Court and the Court of Appeals and [b]oth courts upheld withholding the information," and that "[t]he Department was not required to provide public notice." The Archive states that the Court of Appeals "said nothing about removing the already published record" from the volume.[^35] +The D.C. Circuit affirmed on June 7, 2024 in an opinion for the court by Circuit Judge Childs, joined by Circuit Judge Rao and Senior Circuit Judge Ginsburg. The court stated that the Archive had conceded that the response was justified under Exemptions 1 and 3 and held that the CIA had not waived them by the publication in the Foreign Relations volume.[^34] According to the Archive's account of November 14, 2025, which cites reporting by the Washington Post, a State Department official confirmed that the Department had republished the volume without a 15-page appendix on Able Archer 83 that contained the memorandum, a CIA response to it and a 1988 memorandum on Oleg Gordievsky's reporting. The official told the Post that the Department removed the documents because the Archive's case "was litigated in District Court and the Court of Appeals and [b]oth courts upheld withholding the information," and that "[t]he Department was not required to provide public notice." The Archive states that the Court of Appeals "said nothing about removing the already published record" from the volume.[^36] ### Records Requests Over the Years -Electronic Briefing Book No. 2, "The Contras, Cocaine, and U.S. Covert Operations," prints the handwritten notebooks of [[Oliver North]] that the Archive obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed in 1989. It includes North's entry for August 9, 1985, which summarizes a meeting with [[Robert Owen]], his liaison with the contras.[^36] The notebooks bear on the [[Iran-Contra Affair]]. +Electronic Briefing Book No. 2, "The Contras, Cocaine, and U.S. Covert Operations," prints the handwritten notebooks of [[Oliver North]] that the Archive obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed in 1989. It includes North's entry for August 9, 1985, which summarizes a meeting with [[Robert Owen]], his liaison with the contras.[^37] The notebooks bear on the [[Iran-Contra Affair]]. -Electronic Briefing Book No. 123, "The Kissinger Telcons," was posted on May 26, 2004, five years after the Archive initiated legal action to compel the State Department and the National Archives to recover the transcripts of [[Henry A. Kissinger|Henry Kissinger]]'s telephone calls. On October 29, 1976, while still Secretary of State, Kissinger had arranged to move the telephone notes from the State Department to the New York estate of [[Nelson Rockefeller]], and the Supreme Court held in 1980 that the Freedom of Information Act did not reach the transcripts.[^37][^38] The Archive's correspondence with the Archivist of the [[United States]] [[John W. Carlin]] began in January 1999. A complaint written by pro bono counsel Lee Rubin and Craig Isenberg of [[Mayer Brown]] was presented to the Archivist and the Secretary of State on January 25, 2001, and attorneys for the Archive wrote again to the State Department, the National Archives and the Justice Department on April 25, 2001. The State Department announced on August 8, 2001, that Kissinger had provided copies of the transcripts to the department, and a statement by spokesman Richard Boucher credited the Archive with prompting the recovery. The Archive's account states that the transcripts had been held at the [[Library of Congress]] under a 1976 deed of gift. On May 26, 2004 the National Archives released about 20,000 pages of the telcons, covering Kissinger's service from 1969 to August 1974.[^38] +Electronic Briefing Book No. 123, "The Kissinger Telcons," was posted on May 26, 2004, five years after the Archive initiated legal action to compel the State Department and the National Archives to recover the transcripts of [[Henry A. Kissinger|Henry Kissinger]]'s telephone calls. On October 29, 1976, while still Secretary of State, Kissinger had arranged to move the telephone notes from the State Department to the New York estate of [[Nelson Rockefeller]], and the Supreme Court held in 1980 that the Freedom of Information Act did not reach the transcripts.[^38][^39] The Archive's correspondence with the Archivist of the [[United States]] [[John W. Carlin]] began in January 1999. A complaint written by pro bono counsel Lee Rubin and Craig Isenberg of [[Mayer Brown]] was presented to the Archivist and the Secretary of State on January 25, 2001, and attorneys for the Archive wrote again to the State Department, the National Archives and the Justice Department on April 25, 2001. The State Department announced on August 8, 2001, that Kissinger had provided copies of the transcripts to the department, and a statement by spokesman Richard Boucher credited the Archive with prompting the recovery. The Archive's account states that the transcripts had been held at the [[Library of Congress]] under a 1976 deed of gift. On May 26, 2004 the National Archives released about 20,000 pages of the telcons, covering Kissinger's service from 1969 to August 1974.[^39] -On June 21, 2007 the Archive posted the CIA's "[[CIA Family Jewels|Family Jewels]]," the compilation that Director James Schlesinger had ordered on May 9, 1973 and that [[William Colby]] assembled into 693 pages. The posting reports that CIA director [[Michael Hayden]] announced that day that the agency was declassifying the full file, which had been the subject of multiple Freedom of Information Act requests over the years and of which only a few dozen heavily censored pages had been declassified. Thomas Blanton was quoted: "This is the first voluntary CIA declassification of controversial material since George Tenet in 1998 reneged on the 1990s promises of greater openness at the Agency." Hayden also announced the declassification of some 11,000 pages of the CAESAR, POLO and ESAU papers and hundreds of pages on the A-12. The Archive separately obtained and posted a six-page summary prepared by Justice Department lawyers after a CIA briefing in December 1974 and the memorandum of conversation of the January 3, 1975 briefing of President [[Gerald R. Ford]]. On June 26, 2007 the 702-page collection was delivered to the Archive at about 11:30 a.m., fifteen years after the Archive filed its Freedom of Information Act request for the documents.[^39] +On June 21, 2007 the Archive posted the CIA's "[[CIA Family Jewels|Family Jewels]]," the compilation that Director James Schlesinger had ordered on May 9, 1973 and that [[William Colby]] assembled into 693 pages. The posting reports that CIA director [[Michael Hayden]] announced that day that the agency was declassifying the full file, which had been the subject of multiple Freedom of Information Act requests over the years and of which only a few dozen heavily censored pages had been declassified. Thomas Blanton was quoted: "This is the first voluntary CIA declassification of controversial material since George Tenet in 1998 reneged on the 1990s promises of greater openness at the Agency." Hayden also announced the declassification of some 11,000 pages of the CAESAR, POLO and ESAU papers and hundreds of pages on the A-12. The Archive separately obtained and posted a six-page summary prepared by Justice Department lawyers after a CIA briefing in December 1974 and the memorandum of conversation of the January 3, 1975 briefing of President [[Gerald R. Ford]]. On June 26, 2007 the 702-page collection was delivered to the Archive at about 11:30 a.m., fifteen years after the Archive filed its Freedom of Information Act request for the documents.[^40] -In 2001 the Archive posted a memorandum of March 13, 1962, from the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]] to the Secretary of Defense, signed by Chairman [[Lyman Lemnitzer]], under the subject "Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba (TS)." It responds to a request from the Chief of Operations, Cuba Project, for "brief but precise description of pretexts which would provide justification for US military intervention in Cuba," and recommends forwarding the enclosed memorandum as a preliminary planning submission. The request for pretexts belongs to the planning record of [[Operation NORTHWOODS]].[^40] +In 2001 the Archive posted a memorandum of March 13, 1962, from the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]] to the Secretary of Defense, signed by Chairman [[Lyman Lemnitzer]], under the subject "Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba (TS)." It responds to a request from the Chief of Operations, Cuba Project, for "brief but precise description of pretexts which would provide justification for US military intervention in Cuba," and recommends forwarding the enclosed memorandum as a preliminary planning submission. The request for pretexts belongs to the planning record of [[Operation NORTHWOODS]].[^41] -Its electronic briefing books have published the planning record of the 1964 coup in [[Brazil]]. No. 118, "Brazil Marks 40th Anniversary of Military Coup," was edited by Kornbluh in 2004, and No. 465, "Brazil Marks 50th Anniversary of Military Coup," was edited by [[James G. Hershberg]] and Kornbluh and posted on April 2, 2014.[^41] No. 118 includes the planning for tankers carrying petroleum and a naval task force to be positioned for intervention in the overthrow of [[Joao Goulart]] on April 1, 1964.[^42] +Its electronic briefing books have published the planning record of the 1964 coup in [[Brazil]]. No. 118, "Brazil Marks 40th Anniversary of Military Coup," was edited by Kornbluh in 2004, and No. 465, "Brazil Marks 50th Anniversary of Military Coup," was edited by [[James G. Hershberg]] and Kornbluh and posted on April 2, 2014.[^42] No. 118 includes the planning for tankers carrying petroleum and a naval task force to be positioned for intervention in the overthrow of [[Joao Goulart]] on April 1, 1964.[^43] -In 1998 the Archive's Electronic Briefing Book No. 8, "Chile and the United States: Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup, September 11, 1973," by Peter Kornbluh, appeared on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the coup in [[Chile]].[^43] Electronic Briefing Book No. 33, "New Information on the Murders of U.S. Citizens [[Charles Horman]] and [[Frank Teruggi]] by the Chilean Military," was published on June 30, 2000, under Kornbluh as project director.[^44] +In 1998 the Archive's Electronic Briefing Book No. 8, "Chile and the United States: Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup, September 11, 1973," by Peter Kornbluh, appeared on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the coup in [[Chile]].[^44] Electronic Briefing Book No. 33, "New Information on the Murders of U.S. Citizens [[Charles Horman]] and [[Frank Teruggi]] by the Chilean Military," was published on June 30, 2000, under Kornbluh as project director.[^45] -In November 2023 the Archive posted documents on the confessions of [[Michael Townley]], an agent of [[DINA]], including a letter in which Townley wrote in March 1978: "I accuse the government of Chile of my death." Townley was turned over to the FBI on April 8, 1978.[^45] In October 2024 it published documents on the assassination of General [[Carlos Prats]] and [[Sofía Cuthbert]] by a car bomb in [[Buenos Aires]].[^46] In 2025 the Archive's posting *Chile in Their Hearts* challenged the theory that Charles Horman was targeted because he "knew too much."[^47] The May 7, 2025 posting presents fifteen documents on the deaths of Horman and Frank Teruggi that were assembled for John Dinges's 2025 book. It includes the embassy cable of September 25, 1973 that the Chilean judge [[Jorge Zepeda]] cited as evidence of foreknowledge, which the Archive reproduces with a note that the cable was dated eight days after Horman was taken from his home.[^47] An editor's note added to the 2000 posting states that "new information has emerged casting doubt on the theory that the U.S. had a role in Charles Horman's death or that he was killed because he had stumbled across evidence of U.S. involvement in the Chilean coup."[^44] +In November 2023 the Archive posted documents on the confessions of [[Michael Townley]], an agent of [[DINA]], including a letter in which Townley wrote in March 1978: "I accuse the government of Chile of my death." Townley was turned over to the FBI on April 8, 1978.[^46] In October 2024 it published documents on the assassination of General [[Carlos Prats]] and [[Sofía Cuthbert]] by a car bomb in [[Buenos Aires]].[^47] In 2025 the Archive's posting *Chile in Their Hearts* challenged the theory that Charles Horman was targeted because he "knew too much."[^48] The May 7, 2025 posting presents fifteen documents on the deaths of Horman and Frank Teruggi that were assembled for John Dinges's 2025 book. It includes the embassy cable of September 25, 1973 that the Chilean judge [[Jorge Zepeda]] cited as evidence of foreknowledge, which the Archive reproduces with a note that the cable was dated eight days after Horman was taken from his home.[^48] An editor's note added to the 2000 posting states that "new information has emerged casting doubt on the theory that the U.S. had a role in Charles Horman's death or that he was killed because he had stumbled across evidence of U.S. involvement in the Chilean coup."[^45] -In 2016 the Archive published documents on the editing of the [[Rockefeller Commission 1975|Rockefeller Commission]] report by the Ford [[White House]], including handwritten edits by [[Dick Cheney]] to the commission's draft and the removal, on White House orders, of the report's entire 86-page section on CIA plots to assassinate foreign leaders.[^48] In October 2025 the Archive published the Top Secret transcripts of [[Sidney Gottlieb]]'s testimony to the [[Church Committee]], given in closed hearings held October 15 to 18, 1975, together with declassified CIA memoranda on [[Project MKUltra|MKULTRA]]. The transcripts had been classified Top Secret at the time and were released through FOIA.[^49] +In 2016 the Archive published documents on the editing of the [[Rockefeller Commission 1975|Rockefeller Commission]] report by the Ford [[White House]], including handwritten edits by [[Dick Cheney]] to the commission's draft and the removal, on White House orders, of the report's entire 86-page section on CIA plots to assassinate foreign leaders.[^49] In October 2025 the Archive published the Top Secret transcripts of [[Sidney Gottlieb]]'s testimony to the [[Church Committee]], given in closed hearings held October 15 to 18, 1975, together with declassified CIA memoranda on [[Project MKUltra|MKULTRA]]. The transcripts had been classified Top Secret at the time and were released through FOIA.[^50] -In 2012 the Archive published its collection on [[Jonathan Pollard]], compiled by Richelson, which includes a 1987 CIA damage assessment. The assessment was initially heavily redacted and was later substantially restored after an Archive appeal to an interagency panel.[^50] Electronic Briefing Book No. 434, "The Secret History of the U-2 and Area 51," edited by Richelson and posted on August 15, 2013, collects the CIA history of the U-2 and OXCART programs by Gregory Pedlow and Donald Welzenbach, with material on [[Area 51]].[^51] +In 2012 the Archive published its collection on [[Jonathan Pollard]], compiled by Richelson, which includes a 1987 CIA damage assessment. The assessment was initially heavily redacted and was later substantially restored after an Archive appeal to an interagency panel.[^51] Electronic Briefing Book No. 434, "The Secret History of the U-2 and Area 51," edited by Richelson and posted on August 15, 2013, collects the CIA history of the U-2 and OXCART programs by Gregory Pedlow and Donald Welzenbach, with material on [[Area 51]].[^52] ### Footnotes @@ -205,48 +205,49 @@ In 2012 the Archive published its collection on [[Jonathan Pollard]], compiled b [^4]: National Security Archive, "The National Security Archive 1985 to 2025," anniversary booklet with founders, founding funders, board chairs and executive directors. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/sites/default/files/2025-12/Celebrating%20%2040%20YEARS%20%288c%29.pdf The governance page (note below) gives 1999 to 2014 for Russell Hemenway's term as chair of the Board of Directors. [^5]: National Security Archive, "Governance" (Board of Directors, President, In Memoriam and Advisory Board, with the biographical lines quoted). https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/about/governance [^6]: National Security Archive, "Staff and Fellows." Lists Malcolm Byrne as deputy director and research director, and Peter Kornbluh as director of the Cuba and Chile Documentation Projects. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/about/staff-fellows -[^7]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990 of the National Security Archive Fund Inc., EIN 22-2127884, Part VII (officers, directors and key employees), tax years 2021 to 2024 (return IDs 202243189349308164, 202323189349304972, 202423209349305017 and 202513189349305171, from the IRS TEOS e-file XML batches 2022_TEOS_XML_02A, 2023_TEOS_XML_11A, 2024_TEOS_XML_11A and 2025_TEOS_XML_11D). https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2024/2024_TEOS_XML_11A.zip -[^8]: National Security Archive, "Funders and Supporters." https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/about/funders-supporters -[^9]: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, grants database, grantee pages "Fund for Peace National Security Archive" (11 grants, 1985 to 1998) and "National Security Archive Fund" (9 grants, 1999 to 2025), grant amounts, years and purposes as listed. https://www.macfound.org/grantee/fund-for-peace-national-security-archive-683/ and https://www.macfound.org/grantee/national-security-archive-fund-29961/ -[^10]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990-PF of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, EIN 13-1628151, Part XV (grants and contributions paid during the year and approved for future payment), fiscal years ended September 30, 2020 to 2024 (returns 202131949349100773, 202241899349100304, 202342269349100709, 202442259349101009 and 202531929349101203). https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2025/2025_TEOS_XML_07A.zip -[^11]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990-PF of the Ford Foundation, EIN 13-1684331, Part XV, calendar years 2020 and 2021 (returns 202123199349107292 and 202203199349101880; https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2021/2021_TEOS_XML_01A.zip and https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2022/2022_TEOS_XML_02A.zip); Ford Foundation, grants database entries 120611 (IFTI Watch/freedominfo.org Project, $63,000, July 2013) and 140176 (Colombia Truth Commission Documentation Project, $100,000, May 2021). https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/our-grants/awarded-grants/grants-database/national-security-archive-fund-120611/ and https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/our-grants/awarded-grants/grants-database/national-security-archive-fund-140176/ -[^12]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990-PF of the Foundation to Promote Open Society, EIN 26-3753801, Part XV, calendar years 2020 and 2021 (returns 202113519349100511 and 202213209349101601). https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2021/2021_TEOS_XML_01A.zip and https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2022/2022_TEOS_XML_02A.zip -[^13]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990-PF of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, EIN 94-1655673, Part XV, calendar years 2021 and 2022 (returns 202233189349104163 and 202343179349104459). https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2022/2022_TEOS_XML_02A.zip and https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2023/2023_TEOS_XML_11A.zip -[^14]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990-PF of the Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust, EIN 13-7298842, Part XV, calendar years 2021 to 2024 (returns 202203189349106530, 202303189349102710, 202403189349101555 and 202513119349100441). https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2025/2025_TEOS_XML_11D.zip and the corresponding 2022, 2023 and 2024 batches -[^15]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990 of the National Security Archive Fund Inc., tax year 2024 (return 202513189349305171): revenue, contributions, expenses, assets and employee count. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2025/2025_TEOS_XML_11D.zip -[^16]: National Security Archive v. U.S. Department of Defense, 690 F. Supp. 17 (D.D.C. June 16, 1988). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2359370/national-security-archive-v-us-department-of-defense/ -[^17]: National Security Archive v. U.S. Department of Defense, 880 F.2d 1381 (D.C. Cir. 1989) (Ginsburg, J.). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/526958/national-security-archive-v-us-department-of-defense/ -[^18]: National Security Archive Fund, Inc. v. Central Intelligence Agency, 402 F. Supp. 2d 211 (D.D.C. Sept. 30, 2005), Civ. A. 04-1821 (RMC). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2426293/national-security-archive-fund-inc-v-central-intelligence-agency/ -[^19]: National Security Archive v. Central Intelligence Agency, 564 F. Supp. 2d 29 (D.D.C. July 14, 2008), Civil Action No. 06-1080 (GK). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1407597/national-security-archive-v-central-intelligence-agency/ -[^20]: National Security Archive v. Central Intelligence Agency, 584 F. Supp. 2d 144 (D.D.C. Nov. 4, 2008), Civil Action No. 06-1080 (GK), granting reconsideration. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2356756/national-security-archive-v-central-intelligence-agency/ -[^21]: Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President, 1 F.3d 1274 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 13, 1993), Nos. 93-5002 et al., describing 810 F. Supp. 335 (D.D.C. 1993) and 821 F. Supp. 761 (D.D.C. 1993), and the January 19, 1989 requests and suit. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/7025904/armstrong-v-executive-office-of-the-president/ -[^22]: Scott Armstrong v. George Bush, 924 F.2d 282 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 25, 1991), No. 90-5173. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/555040/scott-armstrong-v-george-bush/ -[^23]: Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President, 877 F. Supp. 690 (D.D.C. Feb. 14, 1995), Civ. A. No. 89-142 (CRR). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1396736/armstrong-v-executive-office-of-the-president/ -[^24]: Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President, 897 F. Supp. 10 (D.D.C. Aug. 29, 1995), Civ. A. No. 89-0142 (CRR), on the July 28, 1995 opinion and the reprocessing of 88 White House Intelligence Summaries. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1470396/armstrong-v-executive-office-of-the-president/ -[^25]: Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President, 90 F.3d 553 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 2, 1996), Nos. 95-5057 and 95-5061, reversed. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/722513/scott-armstrong-appelleescross-appellants-v-executive-office-of/ -[^26]: National Security Archive, "Accomplishments." https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/about/accomplishments -[^27]: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. Trump, 924 F.3d 602 (D.C. Cir. May 28, 2019), No. 18-5150, affirming dismissal of the mandamus petition by CREW and the National Security Archive; district court quoted at 302 F. Supp. 3d 127. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4623612/citizens-for-responsibility-ethics-in-wash-natl-sec-archive-v-trump/ -[^28]: National Security Archive, "Bay of Pigs: 40 Years After," listing Peter Kornbluh, *Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba* (New Press, 1998). https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/bayofpigs/ -[^29]: Central Intelligence Agency, press release "CIA Releases Documents Pertaining to Bay of Pigs," June 4, 1998. https://irp.fas.org/cia/news/pr060498.html -[^30]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 341, "CIA Sued for 'Holding History Hostage' on Bay of Pigs Invasion." Covers the 1998 declassification of the Inspector General's Survey and of Volume III, the 1987 Pfeiffer suit, the 2005 discovery of Volume III by David Barrett, and the 2011 suit. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB341/index.htm -[^31]: National Security Archive v. Central Intelligence Agency, 859 F. Supp. 2d 65 (D.D.C. May 10, 2012), Civil Action No. 11-724 (GK). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2662444/national-security-archive-v-central-intelligence-agency/ -[^32]: National Security Archive v. Central Intelligence Agency, 752 F.3d 460 (D.C. Cir. May 20, 2014), No. 12-5201 (Kavanaugh, J.). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2675034/national-security-archive-v-central-intelligence-agency/ -[^33]: National Security Archive v. Central Intelligence Agency, No. 23-5017 (D.C. Cir. June 7, 2024) (Childs, J.; Rao, J.; Ginsburg, Sr. J.), affirming No. 1:21-cv-02857 (D.D.C. Oct. 4, 2022, 2022 WL 5062523) and the order of Nov. 16, 2022 (2022 WL 18493099). https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/docs/2024/06/23-5017-2058350.pdf -[^34]: National Security Archive, "The Censored History of Able Archer 83," November 14, 2025, with the 2021 posting "Able Archer War Scare 'Potentially Disastrous'," February 17, 2021. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/able-archer-83/2025-11-14/censored-history-able-archer-83 and https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/aa83/2021-02-17/able-archer-war-scare-potentially-disastrous -[^35]: National Security Archive, "The Censored History of Able Archer 83," November 14, 2025, reporting the Washington Post's account and the State Department official's statements. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/able-archer-83/2025-11-14/censored-history-able-archer-83 -[^36]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 2, "The Contras, Cocaine, and U.S. Covert Operations." https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB2/index.html -[^37]: Kissinger v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 445 U.S. 136 (1980) (statement of facts on the October 29, 1976 removal of the telephone notes to the Rockefeller estate). https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/445/136 -[^38]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 123, "The Kissinger Telcons," posted May 26, 2004. Document list includes the correspondence with Archivist John W. Carlin of January 15 and 21, 1999, the complaint presented January 25, 2001, the attorneys' letter of April 25, 2001, and State Department press release "Former Secretary of State Kissinger Provides Department with Documents," August 8, 2001. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB123/index.htm -[^39]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 222, "The CIA's Family Jewels," posted June 21, 2007, updated June 26, 2007. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB222/index.htm -[^40]: Joint Chiefs of Staff, memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, "Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba (TS)," March 13, 1962, signed by L. L. Lemnitzer, Chairman, with its enclosure, as posted by the National Security Archive in 2001. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/news/20010430/northwoods.pdf -[^41]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 118, "Brazil Marks 40th Anniversary of Military Coup," edited by Peter Kornbluh, 2004, and Electronic Briefing Book No. 465, "Brazil Marks 50th Anniversary of Military Coup," edited by James G. Hershberg and Peter Kornbluh, posted April 2, 2014. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB118/ and https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB465/ -[^42]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 118, introduction and planning documents on the 1964 coup. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB118/ -[^43]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 8, "Chile and the United States: Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup, September 11, 1973," by Peter Kornbluh. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8.htm -[^44]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 33, "New Information on the Murders of U.S. Citizens Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi by the Chilean Military," published June 30, 2000, with the editor's note cross-referencing "CHILE IN THEIR HEARTS, published May 7, 2025." https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB33/index.html -[^45]: National Security Archive, "The Pinochet Dictatorship Declassified: Confessions of a DINA Hit Man," November 22, 2023, Kornbluh, ed. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2023-11-22/pinochet-dictatorship-declassified-confessions-dina-hit-man -[^46]: National Security Archive, "The Pinochet Regime at 50: The Assassination of General Carlos Prats and Sofía Cuthbert," October 1, 2024. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2024-10-01/pinochet-regime-50-assassination-general-carlos-prats-and-sofia -[^47]: National Security Archive, "Chile in Their Hearts," May 7, 2025. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2025-05-07/chile-their-hearts -[^48]: National Security Archive, "Gerald Ford White House Altered Rockefeller Commission Report in 1975," Electronic Briefing Book No. 543, February 29, 2016, edited by John Prados and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/intelligence/2016-02-29/gerald-ford-white-house-altered-rockefeller-commission-report -[^49]: National Security Archive, "The Top Secret Testimony of CIA's MKULTRA Chief, 50 Years Later," October 30, 2025. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/dnsa-intelligence/2025-10-30/top-secret-testimony-cias-mkultra-chief-50-years-later -[^50]: National Security Archive, "Jonathan Pollard: Revisiting a Still Sensitive Case," Electronic Briefing Book No. 407, edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson, posted December 14, 2012. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/intelligence/2012-12-14/jonathan-pollard-spy-case-cias-1987-damage-assessment-declassified and https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB407/ -[^51]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 434, "The Secret History of the U-2 and Area 51," edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson, posted August 15, 2013. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/ +[^7]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 222, "The CIA's Family Jewels," posted June 21, 2007, updated June 26, 2007. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB222/index.htm +[^8]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990 of the National Security Archive Fund Inc., EIN 22-2127884, Part VII (officers, directors and key employees), tax years 2021 to 2024 (return IDs 202243189349308164, 202323189349304972, 202423209349305017 and 202513189349305171, from the IRS TEOS e-file XML batches 2022_TEOS_XML_02A, 2023_TEOS_XML_11A, 2024_TEOS_XML_11A and 2025_TEOS_XML_11D). https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2024/2024_TEOS_XML_11A.zip +[^9]: National Security Archive, "Funders and Supporters." https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/about/funders-supporters +[^10]: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, grants database, grantee pages "Fund for Peace National Security Archive" (11 grants, 1985 to 1998) and "National Security Archive Fund" (9 grants, 1999 to 2025), grant amounts, years and purposes as listed. https://www.macfound.org/grantee/fund-for-peace-national-security-archive-683/ and https://www.macfound.org/grantee/national-security-archive-fund-29961/ +[^11]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990-PF of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, EIN 13-1628151, Part XV (grants and contributions paid during the year and approved for future payment), fiscal years ended September 30, 2020 to 2024 (returns 202131949349100773, 202241899349100304, 202342269349100709, 202442259349101009 and 202531929349101203). https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2025/2025_TEOS_XML_07A.zip +[^12]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990-PF of the Ford Foundation, EIN 13-1684331, Part XV, calendar years 2020 and 2021 (returns 202123199349107292 and 202203199349101880; https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2021/2021_TEOS_XML_01A.zip and https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2022/2022_TEOS_XML_02A.zip); Ford Foundation, grants database entries 120611 (IFTI Watch/freedominfo.org Project, $63,000, July 2013) and 140176 (Colombia Truth Commission Documentation Project, $100,000, May 2021). https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/our-grants/awarded-grants/grants-database/national-security-archive-fund-120611/ and https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/our-grants/awarded-grants/grants-database/national-security-archive-fund-140176/ +[^13]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990-PF of the Foundation to Promote Open Society, EIN 26-3753801, Part XV, calendar years 2020 and 2021 (returns 202113519349100511 and 202213209349101601). https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2021/2021_TEOS_XML_01A.zip and https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2022/2022_TEOS_XML_02A.zip +[^14]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990-PF of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, EIN 94-1655673, Part XV, calendar years 2021 and 2022 (returns 202233189349104163 and 202343179349104459). https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2022/2022_TEOS_XML_02A.zip and https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2023/2023_TEOS_XML_11A.zip +[^15]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990-PF of the Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust, EIN 13-7298842, Part XV, calendar years 2021 to 2024 (returns 202203189349106530, 202303189349102710, 202403189349101555 and 202513119349100441). https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2025/2025_TEOS_XML_11D.zip and the corresponding 2022, 2023 and 2024 batches +[^16]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990 of the National Security Archive Fund Inc., tax year 2024 (return 202513189349305171): revenue, contributions, expenses, assets and employee count. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2025/2025_TEOS_XML_11D.zip +[^17]: National Security Archive v. U.S. Department of Defense, 690 F. Supp. 17 (D.D.C. June 16, 1988). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2359370/national-security-archive-v-us-department-of-defense/ +[^18]: National Security Archive v. U.S. Department of Defense, 880 F.2d 1381 (D.C. Cir. 1989) (Ginsburg, J.). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/526958/national-security-archive-v-us-department-of-defense/ +[^19]: National Security Archive Fund, Inc. v. Central Intelligence Agency, 402 F. Supp. 2d 211 (D.D.C. Sept. 30, 2005), Civ. A. 04-1821 (RMC). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2426293/national-security-archive-fund-inc-v-central-intelligence-agency/ +[^20]: National Security Archive v. Central Intelligence Agency, 564 F. Supp. 2d 29 (D.D.C. July 14, 2008), Civil Action No. 06-1080 (GK). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1407597/national-security-archive-v-central-intelligence-agency/ +[^21]: National Security Archive v. Central Intelligence Agency, 584 F. Supp. 2d 144 (D.D.C. Nov. 4, 2008), Civil Action No. 06-1080 (GK), granting reconsideration. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2356756/national-security-archive-v-central-intelligence-agency/ +[^22]: Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President, 1 F.3d 1274 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 13, 1993), Nos. 93-5002 et al., describing 810 F. Supp. 335 (D.D.C. 1993) and 821 F. Supp. 761 (D.D.C. 1993), and the January 19, 1989 requests and suit. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/7025904/armstrong-v-executive-office-of-the-president/ +[^23]: Scott Armstrong v. George Bush, 924 F.2d 282 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 25, 1991), No. 90-5173. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/555040/scott-armstrong-v-george-bush/ +[^24]: Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President, 877 F. Supp. 690 (D.D.C. Feb. 14, 1995), Civ. A. No. 89-142 (CRR). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1396736/armstrong-v-executive-office-of-the-president/ +[^25]: Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President, 897 F. Supp. 10 (D.D.C. Aug. 29, 1995), Civ. A. No. 89-0142 (CRR), on the July 28, 1995 opinion and the reprocessing of 88 White House Intelligence Summaries. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1470396/armstrong-v-executive-office-of-the-president/ +[^26]: Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President, 90 F.3d 553 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 2, 1996), Nos. 95-5057 and 95-5061, reversed. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/722513/scott-armstrong-appelleescross-appellants-v-executive-office-of/ +[^27]: National Security Archive, "Accomplishments." https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/about/accomplishments +[^28]: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. Trump, 924 F.3d 602 (D.C. Cir. May 28, 2019), No. 18-5150, affirming dismissal of the mandamus petition by CREW and the National Security Archive; district court quoted at 302 F. Supp. 3d 127. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4623612/citizens-for-responsibility-ethics-in-wash-natl-sec-archive-v-trump/ +[^29]: National Security Archive, "Bay of Pigs: 40 Years After," listing Peter Kornbluh, *Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba* (New Press, 1998). https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/bayofpigs/ +[^30]: Central Intelligence Agency, press release "CIA Releases Documents Pertaining to Bay of Pigs," June 4, 1998. https://irp.fas.org/cia/news/pr060498.html +[^31]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 341, "CIA Sued for 'Holding History Hostage' on Bay of Pigs Invasion." Covers the 1998 declassification of the Inspector General's Survey and of Volume III, the 1987 Pfeiffer suit, the 2005 discovery of Volume III by David Barrett, and the 2011 suit. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB341/index.htm +[^32]: National Security Archive v. Central Intelligence Agency, 859 F. Supp. 2d 65 (D.D.C. May 10, 2012), Civil Action No. 11-724 (GK). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2662444/national-security-archive-v-central-intelligence-agency/ +[^33]: National Security Archive v. Central Intelligence Agency, 752 F.3d 460 (D.C. Cir. May 20, 2014), No. 12-5201 (Kavanaugh, J.). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2675034/national-security-archive-v-central-intelligence-agency/ +[^34]: National Security Archive v. Central Intelligence Agency, No. 23-5017 (D.C. Cir. June 7, 2024) (Childs, J.; Rao, J.; Ginsburg, Sr. J.), affirming No. 1:21-cv-02857 (D.D.C. Oct. 4, 2022, 2022 WL 5062523) and the order of Nov. 16, 2022 (2022 WL 18493099). https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/docs/2024/06/23-5017-2058350.pdf +[^35]: National Security Archive, "The Censored History of Able Archer 83," November 14, 2025, with the 2021 posting "Able Archer War Scare 'Potentially Disastrous'," February 17, 2021. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/able-archer-83/2025-11-14/censored-history-able-archer-83 and https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/aa83/2021-02-17/able-archer-war-scare-potentially-disastrous +[^36]: National Security Archive, "The Censored History of Able Archer 83," November 14, 2025, reporting the Washington Post's account and the State Department official's statements. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/able-archer-83/2025-11-14/censored-history-able-archer-83 +[^37]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 2, "The Contras, Cocaine, and U.S. Covert Operations." https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB2/index.html +[^38]: Kissinger v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 445 U.S. 136 (1980) (statement of facts on the October 29, 1976 removal of the telephone notes to the Rockefeller estate). https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/445/136 +[^39]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 123, "The Kissinger Telcons," posted May 26, 2004. Document list includes the correspondence with Archivist John W. Carlin of January 15 and 21, 1999, the complaint presented January 25, 2001, the attorneys' letter of April 25, 2001, and State Department press release "Former Secretary of State Kissinger Provides Department with Documents," August 8, 2001. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB123/index.htm +[^40]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 222, "The CIA's Family Jewels," posted June 21, 2007, updated June 26, 2007. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB222/index.htm +[^41]: Joint Chiefs of Staff, memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, "Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba (TS)," March 13, 1962, signed by L. L. Lemnitzer, Chairman, with its enclosure, as posted by the National Security Archive in 2001. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/news/20010430/northwoods.pdf +[^42]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 118, "Brazil Marks 40th Anniversary of Military Coup," edited by Peter Kornbluh, 2004, and Electronic Briefing Book No. 465, "Brazil Marks 50th Anniversary of Military Coup," edited by James G. Hershberg and Peter Kornbluh, posted April 2, 2014. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB118/ and https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB465/ +[^43]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 118, introduction and planning documents on the 1964 coup. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB118/ +[^44]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 8, "Chile and the United States: Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup, September 11, 1973," by Peter Kornbluh. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8.htm +[^45]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 33, "New Information on the Murders of U.S. Citizens Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi by the Chilean Military," published June 30, 2000, with the editor's note cross-referencing "CHILE IN THEIR HEARTS, published May 7, 2025." https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB33/index.html +[^46]: National Security Archive, "The Pinochet Dictatorship Declassified: Confessions of a DINA Hit Man," November 22, 2023, Kornbluh, ed. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2023-11-22/pinochet-dictatorship-declassified-confessions-dina-hit-man +[^47]: National Security Archive, "The Pinochet Regime at 50: The Assassination of General Carlos Prats and Sofía Cuthbert," October 1, 2024. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2024-10-01/pinochet-regime-50-assassination-general-carlos-prats-and-sofia +[^48]: National Security Archive, "Chile in Their Hearts," May 7, 2025. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2025-05-07/chile-their-hearts +[^49]: National Security Archive, "Gerald Ford White House Altered Rockefeller Commission Report in 1975," Electronic Briefing Book No. 543, February 29, 2016, edited by John Prados and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/intelligence/2016-02-29/gerald-ford-white-house-altered-rockefeller-commission-report +[^50]: National Security Archive, "The Top Secret Testimony of CIA's MKULTRA Chief, 50 Years Later," October 30, 2025. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/dnsa-intelligence/2025-10-30/top-secret-testimony-cias-mkultra-chief-50-years-later +[^51]: National Security Archive, "Jonathan Pollard: Revisiting a Still Sensitive Case," Electronic Briefing Book No. 407, edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson, posted December 14, 2012. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/intelligence/2012-12-14/jonathan-pollard-spy-case-cias-1987-damage-assessment-declassified and https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB407/ +[^52]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 434, "The Secret History of the U-2 and Area 51," edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson, posted August 15, 2013. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/ diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Newsweek.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Newsweek.md index 08edde0f..6d50851f 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Newsweek.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Newsweek.md @@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ tags: - DarkAlliance - NewsweekQuranStory summary: "American news weekly founded in 1933, owned by the Washington Post Company from 1961 to 2010, whose staff and stringers appear in Carl Bernstein's 1977 account of CIA press relations." -updated: 2026-10-14 +updated: 2026-10-15 relations: - type: owned with: "[[Vincent Astor]]" @@ -134,7 +134,7 @@ The historian [[Howard Schonberger]] wrote that Kern, as foreign affairs editor, Bernstein wrote that about a dozen columnists and broadcast commentators were regarded at the Agency as "known assets." He named [[Stewart Alsop]], whose column appeared in Newsweek among other publications, as one of three columnists with such ties, and wrote that CIA files contain reports of specific tasks all three undertook.[^26] -[[Arnaud de Borchgrave]] became Newsweek's Paris bureau chief in 1951 and went on to a career as a roving correspondent. A Washington Times obituary of February 2015 describes him as the magazine's chief foreign correspondent for 25 years and quotes Osborn Elliott, onetime editor of Newsweek: "de Borchgrave has played a role in world affairs known to no other journalist." He became editor in chief of the [[Washington Times]] in 1985 and later president of [[United Press International]].[^27] +[[Arnaud de Borchgrave]] became Newsweek's Paris bureau chief in 1951 and went on to a career as a roving correspondent. A Washington Times obituary of February 2015 describes him as the magazine's chief foreign correspondent for 25 years and quotes Osborn Elliott, onetime editor of Newsweek: "de Borchgrave has played a role in world affairs known to no other journalist." He became editor in chief of the [[Washington Times]] in 1985 and in January 1999 president and chief executive officer of [[United Press International]].[^27][^44] ### IBT Media and the Manhattan District Attorney @@ -215,3 +215,4 @@ According to [[Gary Webb]]'s account, [[William J. Casey]] himself leaked news o [^41]: Neda Ulaby, "'Newsweek' Retracts Story Alleging Quran Abuse," NPR *Morning Edition*, May 17, 2005. https://www.npr.org/2005/05/17/4654641/newsweek-retracts-story-alleging-quran-abuse. [^42]: "Newsweek retracts Quran report," Al Jazeera (Reuters), May 17, 2005. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2005/5/17/newsweek-retracts-quran-report. [^43]: Howard B. Schonberger, *Aftermath of War: Americans and the Remaking of Japan, 1945-1952* (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1989), pp. 7, 135, 157-158. https://archive.org/details/aftermathofwaram0000scho +[^44]: United Press International, "De Borchgrave named CEO of UPI," December 16, 1998, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1998/12/16/De-Borchgrave-named-CEO-of-UPI/2072913784400/ (appointment; start January 4; editor in chief of The Washington Times, 1985 to 1991; Newsweek chief foreign correspondent, 1963 to 1980; senior adviser at CSIS and director of the Global Organized Crime Project). diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation.md index 84d564b0..d687a9a4 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation.md @@ -6,11 +6,15 @@ tags: - USA category: "Private Organization" summary: "Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) was a privately owned nuclear enriching plant in Apollo, Pennsylvania, owned by Zalman Mordecai Shapiro." +updated: 2026-10-15 start: 1957 location: "Apollo, Pennsylvania, USA" --- Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) was a privately owned nuclear enriching plant in [[Apollo]], [[Pennsylvania]], owned by [[Zalman Mordecai Shapiro]]. It was suspected by the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] and others of having smuggled more than two hundred pounds of weapons-grade uranium to [[Israel]], enough for four bombs. This alleged diversion was a major factor in [[Carl E. Duckett]]'s [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] estimates of [[Israel]]'s nuclear arsenal.[^1] +The Comptroller General's report to Congress of December 18, 1978, *Nuclear Diversion in the U.S.? 13 Years of Contradiction and Confusion*, was classified until its redacted release on May 6, 2010. It records that an inspection in April 1965, the sixth consecutive inspection to find fundamental problems with NUMEC's control of material, concluded that "safeguards control of [nuclear material] at NUMEC is inadequate," and that about 206 pounds of uranium-235 could not be accounted for. In February 1966 the [[Atomic Energy Commission]] asked the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] to determine whether a theft or diversion had occurred; the report states that the agency's files contain a memorandum recording that the Bureau had decided not to investigate, and that the Bureau "did not focus on the question of a possible nuclear diversion until May 1976 nearly 11 years later," after a request by President [[Gerald Ford]] in April 1976.[^2] + ### Footnotes -[^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 14, 18. \ No newline at end of file +[^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 14, 18. +[^2]: Comptroller General of the United States, *Nuclear Diversion in the U.S.? 13 Years of Contradiction and Confusion*, report EMD-79-8 (December 18, 1978), redacted release of May 6, 2010, Introduction and the account of the April 1965 inspection, the November 1965 investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/sites/default/files/documents/3149993/38-Nuclear-Diversion-in-the-U-S-13-Years-of.pdf diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/OpenAI.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/OpenAI.md index 0302e441..2e719d88 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/OpenAI.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/OpenAI.md @@ -11,161 +11,163 @@ tags: summary: "OpenAI is an artificial-intelligence company founded as a nonprofit in 2015 with a billion-dollar pledge from backers including Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Reid Hoffman, and Peter Thiel, whose 2023 firing and reinstatement of CEO Sam Altman exposed the conflict between its effective-altruism-aligned safety board and its commercial expansion." location: "San Francisco, California" created: 2026-06-19 -updated: 2026-10-13 +updated: 2026-10-15 relations: - type: employed_by with: "[[Abdulrahman Alfozan]]" reverse: true start: 2025-07 role: "engineer; arrested October 9, 2026" - fn: 10 + fn: 12 - type: owned with: "[[MGX]]" reverse: true start: 2025-10 role: "held shares acquired in a secondary sale of about 6.6 billion dollars at a valuation of around 500 billion dollars" - fn: 20 + fn: 22 - type: funded with: "[[Andreessen Horowitz]]" reverse: true start: 2026-03 role: "named co-lead, per Bloomberg, of a roughly 10 billion dollar financing said to be set to close the following week" - fn: 21 + fn: 23 - type: funded with: "[[MGX]]" reverse: true start: 2026-03 role: "named co-lead, per Bloomberg, of a roughly 10 billion dollar financing said to be set to close the following week" - fn: 21 + fn: 23 - type: partner_of with: "[[G42]]" start: 2025-05 role: "Stargate UAE, 1 GW cluster in Abu Dhabi, 200 MW expected to go live in 2026" - fn: 17 + fn: 19 - type: director_of with: "[[Paul Nakasone]]" reverse: true start: 2024-06-13 role: "board member; also named to the board's security and safety subcommittee" - fn: 22 + fn: 24 - type: partner_of with: "[[Anduril Industries]]" start: 2024-12-04 role: "counter-drone models partnership" - fn: 23 + fn: 25 - type: partner_of with: "[[Los Alamos]]" start: 2025-01-30 role: "o-series models on the Venado supercomputer, moved to a classified network" - fn: 24 + fn: 26 - type: contractor_to with: "[[Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office]]" start: 2025-06-16 end: 2026-07 role: "200 million dollar prototype other transaction agreement, estimated completion July 2026" - fn: 26 + fn: 28 - type: contractor_to with: "[[General Services Administration]]" start: 2025-08-06 role: "OneGov agreement, ChatGPT Enterprise at 1 dollar per agency for one year" - fn: 27 + fn: 29 --- OpenAI is an artificial-intelligence research company founded in [[San Francisco]] on December 11, 2015 as a nonprofit laboratory whose stated mission was to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits humanity. Its founding was announced with a one-billion-dollar funding pledge from [[Elon Musk]], [[Sam Altman]], [[Greg Brockman]], [[Reid Hoffman]], [[Jessica Livingston]], [[Peter Thiel]], [[Amazon Web Services]], and [[Infosys]], though tax filings later showed that only about 133 million dollars had actually been received by 2021. The organization grew out of the same AI-existential-risk concern that animates the [[Rationalist Community]] and [[Effective Altruism]] movements, and its 2023 governance crisis exposed the fault line between that safety-focused mission and its commercial trajectory.[^1][^2] ### Founding and the Capped-Profit Pivot -OpenAI was established as a counterweight to the concentration of AI capability in a single corporation, with Musk and Altman as co-chairs, Brockman as chief technology officer, and [[Ilya Sutskever]] as chief scientist. Musk departed the board in 2018 amid conflicts of interest with [[Tesla]]'s own AI work. In 2019 OpenAI created a "capped-profit" subsidiary beneath the nonprofit, took a one-billion-dollar investment from [[Microsoft]], and installed Altman as chief executive, restructuring a nonprofit research mission into an entity capable of raising commercial capital. The 2022 release of [[ChatGPT]] made OpenAI the central company of the generative-AI period.[^1][^3] +OpenAI was established as a counterweight to the concentration of AI capability in a single corporation, with Musk and Altman as co-chairs, Brockman as chief technology officer, and [[Ilya Sutskever]] as chief scientist. Musk departed the board in 2018 amid conflicts of interest with [[Tesla]]'s own AI work. In 2019 OpenAI created a "capped-profit" subsidiary beneath the nonprofit, took a one-billion-dollar investment from [[Microsoft]], and installed Altman as chief executive, restructuring a nonprofit research mission into an entity capable of raising commercial capital.[^3] The 2022 release of [[ChatGPT]] made OpenAI the central company of the generative-AI period.[^1][^4] -The 2019 capped-profit entity, OpenAI LP, limited early investors to a return of 100 times their money, with lower caps for later backers such as Microsoft; profit above the cap would flow to the controlling nonprofit. Microsoft expanded its commitment to a reported 13 billion dollars by January 2023, receiving a large share of OpenAI's profits up to its cap until repaid. On October 28, 2025 OpenAI completed a further restructuring that retired the capped-profit model entirely: the nonprofit, renamed the OpenAI Foundation, took a roughly 26 percent equity stake valued near 130 billion dollars in a new public-benefit corporation called OpenAI Group PBC, Microsoft took a 27 percent stake worth about 135 billion dollars, and employees and investors held the remaining 47 percent, at a 500-billion-dollar valuation. The revised Microsoft agreement moved the power to declare that artificial general intelligence had been reached from OpenAI's board to an independent expert panel jointly established by the two companies.[^4][^5] +The 2019 capped-profit entity, OpenAI LP, limited early investors to a return of 100 times their money, with lower caps for later backers such as Microsoft; profit above the cap would flow to the controlling nonprofit. Microsoft expanded its commitment to a reported 13 billion dollars by January 2023, receiving a large share of OpenAI's profits up to its cap until repaid. On October 28, 2025 OpenAI completed a further restructuring that retired the capped-profit model entirely: the nonprofit, renamed the OpenAI Foundation, took a roughly 26 percent equity stake valued near 130 billion dollars in a new public-benefit corporation called OpenAI Group PBC, Microsoft took a 27 percent stake worth about 135 billion dollars,[^5] and employees and investors held the remaining 47 percent, at a 500-billion-dollar valuation. The revised Microsoft agreement moved the power to declare that artificial general intelligence had been reached from OpenAI's board to an independent expert panel jointly established by the two companies.[^6][^7] ### The November 2023 Board Crisis -On November 17, 2023, the nonprofit board removed Altman as chief executive, stating that he had not been "consistently candid." The voting directors were Sutskever, [[Adam D'Angelo]], the entrepreneur [[Tasha McCauley]], and [[Helen Toner]] of the Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technology; McCauley and Toner had ties to the effective-altruism movement, and the board's concern centered on the pace of AI commercialization relative to safety. Brockman quit in protest, roughly 700 employees threatened to resign, and within 48 hours directors discussed merging OpenAI with [[Anthropic]], a step *Bloomberg* reported Toner had supported and that would have ended OpenAI as an independent entity. Altman was reinstated within days under a reconstituted board chaired by [[Bret Taylor]] and including [[Larry Summers]], and Sutskever, McCauley, and Toner left.[^6][^7] +On November 17, 2023, the nonprofit board removed Altman as chief executive, stating that he had not been "consistently candid." The voting directors were Sutskever, [[Adam D'Angelo]], the entrepreneur [[Tasha McCauley]], and [[Helen Toner]] of the Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technology; McCauley and Toner had ties to the effective-altruism movement, and the board's concern centered on the pace of AI commercialization relative to safety. Brockman quit in protest, roughly 700 employees threatened to resign, and within 48 hours directors discussed merging OpenAI with [[Anthropic]], a step *Bloomberg* reported Toner had supported and that would have ended OpenAI as an independent entity. Altman was reinstated within days under a reconstituted board chaired by [[Bret Taylor]] and including [[Larry Summers]], and Sutskever, McCauley, and Toner left.[^8][^9] -The crisis was widely read as a defeat for the effective-altruism and AI-safety wing of the company by the commercial and accelerationist wing aligned with Altman and Microsoft. Sutskever left OpenAI in 2024, and Musk sued the company and Altman the same year, alleging a betrayal of the original nonprofit mission.[^6][^8] +The crisis was widely read as a defeat for the effective-altruism and AI-safety wing of the company by the commercial and accelerationist wing aligned with Altman and Microsoft. Sutskever left OpenAI in 2024, and Musk sued the company and Altman the same year, alleging a betrayal of the original nonprofit mission.[^8][^10] -Musk's suit, filed in 2024 and later amended to name Microsoft as a defendant, alleged that OpenAI had become a "closed-source de facto subsidiary" of Microsoft and accused Altman of "rampant self-dealing." Musk amended the complaint so that any of the roughly 150 billion dollars in damages he sought would go to OpenAI's nonprofit rather than to himself, and sought to remove Altman as chief executive and director. In May 2026 a nine-member advisory jury found that Musk had filed outside the statute of limitations, and Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers dismissed the case.[^9] +Musk's suit, filed in 2024 and later amended to name Microsoft as a defendant, alleged that OpenAI had become a "closed-source de facto subsidiary" of Microsoft and accused Altman of "rampant self-dealing." Musk amended the complaint so that any of the roughly 150 billion dollars in damages he sought would go to OpenAI's nonprofit rather than to himself, and sought to remove Altman as chief executive and director. In May 2026 a nine-member advisory jury found that Musk had filed outside the statute of limitations, and Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers dismissed the case.[^11] ### The 2026 Recording Device Case -On October 13, 2026 the United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California announced that [[Abdulrahman Alfozan]], an OpenAI engineer and a Saudi national, had been arrested on October 9 and charged with using or attempting to use a device to intercept oral communications.[^10] The Justice Department release states that the complaint alleges he concealed a recording device inside a USB port on the back of a television in an executive conference room at one of OpenAI's San Francisco buildings. OpenAI personnel found the device on September 30, 2026, concealed in toilet paper, and OpenAI determined that it had been installed on or about September 28 and that its contents were encrypted.[^10] +On October 13, 2026 the United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California announced that [[Abdulrahman Alfozan]], an OpenAI engineer and a Saudi national, had been arrested on October 9 and charged with using or attempting to use a device to intercept oral communications.[^12] The Justice Department release states that the complaint alleges he concealed a recording device inside a USB port on the back of a television in an executive conference room at one of OpenAI's San Francisco buildings. OpenAI personnel found the device on September 30, 2026, concealed in toilet paper, and OpenAI determined that it had been installed on or about September 28 and that its contents were encrypted.[^12] -OpenAI said that it had found a "sophisticated" device, which it described as having "advanced encryption, audio monitoring capabilities, and a mechanism for transferring data designed to evade monitoring." The company said that it used its internal models to analyze the device and identified that "a specific employee had planted it a few days earlier," and that it had referred the matter to the FBI.[^11] On X the company said that "at this time, we have no indications of this individual inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code, or customer data."[^11] OpenAI said it fired the employee on October 9, the day of his arrest, after coordinating the timing with the FBI, and that it had restricted his access to systems and spaces beginning September 30.[^12] +OpenAI said that it had found a "sophisticated" device, which it described as having "advanced encryption, audio monitoring capabilities, and a mechanism for transferring data designed to evade monitoring." The company said that it used its internal models to analyze the device and identified that "a specific employee had planted it a few days earlier," and that it had referred the matter to the FBI.[^13] On X the company said that "at this time, we have no indications of this individual inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code, or customer data."[^13] OpenAI said it fired the employee on October 9, the day of his arrest, after coordinating the timing with the FBI, and that it had restricted his access to systems and spaces beginning September 30.[^14] -OpenAI's spokesperson said the employee started with the company in July 2025 and worked on the product team.[^11] A LinkedIn profile under his name gives September 2025 as the start of the OpenAI role.[^13] The company's own GitHub organization lists six pull requests from an account under his handle to the openai-agents-python repository, opened between April 15 and May 7, 2026.[^14] +OpenAI's spokesperson said the employee started with the company in July 2025 and worked on the product team.[^13] A LinkedIn profile under his name gives September 2025 as the start of the OpenAI role.[^15] The company's own GitHub organization lists six pull requests from an account under his handle to the openai-agents-python repository, opened between April 15 and May 7, 2026.[^16] -[[RAED Ventures]], a Riyadh venture firm whose investors include the Saudi Venture Capital Company, Riyadh Valley Company and [[Jada Fund of Funds]] (owned by the [[Public Investment Fund]]), announced Alfozan as a venture partner on February 8, 2025, when he was a founding engineer at [[Nash (company)]]. The firm's team page captured on January 23, 2026 describes him as "Engineering Lead at OpenAI, with a focus on AI Agents and the data platform," and the page live on October 13, 2026 carries the same text and an MIT degree; the San Francisco Standard reported that his LinkedIn profile lists a master's degree in data science from the University of California, Berkeley.[^11][^15] Prince [[Khalid bin Bader Al Saud]] is listed as a venture partner of the same firm; [[Echelon (company)]], which he founded, announced a round from East40, RAED Ventures and Avra on October 7, 2026.[^15][^16] +[[RAED Ventures]], a Riyadh venture firm whose investors include the Saudi Venture Capital Company, Riyadh Valley Company and [[Jada Fund of Funds]] (owned by the [[Public Investment Fund]]), announced Alfozan as a venture partner on February 8, 2025, when he was a founding engineer at [[Nash (company)]]. The firm's team page captured on January 23, 2026 describes him as "Engineering Lead at OpenAI, with a focus on AI Agents and the data platform," and the page live on October 13, 2026 carries the same text and an MIT degree; the San Francisco Standard reported that his LinkedIn profile lists a master's degree in data science from the University of California, Berkeley.[^13][^17] Prince [[Khalid bin Bader Al Saud]] is listed as a venture partner of the same firm; [[Echelon (company)]], which he founded, announced a round from East40, RAED Ventures and Avra on October 7, 2026.[^17][^18] ### Gulf Investment and Partnerships -On May 22, 2025 OpenAI announced Stargate UAE, which it described as "the first international deployment of Stargate, OpenAI's AI infrastructure platform," with "a 1GW Stargate UAE cluster in Abu Dhabi with 200MW expected to go live in 2026." The announcement names G42, Oracle, NVIDIA, Cisco and SoftBank as partners in an agreement that it says "was developed in close coordination with the U.S. government."[^17] The project brings together [[G42]], OpenAI, [[Oracle]], [[NVIDIA]], [[Cisco]] and [[SoftBank]] under the name [[Stargate (AI infrastructure)]] in [[Abu Dhabi]].[^18] In October 2025 a G42 spokesperson said that "work is progressing rapidly on the first 200 megawatts of capacity, which is expected to be completed by 2026."[^18] +On May 22, 2025 OpenAI announced Stargate UAE, which it described as "the first international deployment of Stargate, OpenAI's AI infrastructure platform," with "a 1GW Stargate UAE cluster in Abu Dhabi with 200MW expected to go live in 2026." The announcement names G42, Oracle, NVIDIA, Cisco and SoftBank as partners in an agreement that it says "was developed in close coordination with the U.S. government."[^19] The project brings together [[G42]], OpenAI, [[Oracle]], [[NVIDIA]], [[Cisco]] and [[SoftBank]] under the name [[Stargate (AI infrastructure)]] in [[Abu Dhabi]].[^20] In October 2025 a G42 spokesperson said that "work is progressing rapidly on the first 200 megawatts of capacity, which is expected to be completed by 2026."[^20] -On May 13, 2025 Sam Altman attended the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum in [[Riyadh]] during the visit of President [[Donald Trump]] to [[Saudi Arabia]].[^19] A Reuters photograph of the forum carries the caption "OpenAI CEO Sam Altman looks on as he visits Riyadh with U.S. President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk (both not pictured), in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 13, 2025."[^19] +On May 13, 2025 Sam Altman attended the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum in [[Riyadh]] during the visit of President [[Donald Trump]] to [[Saudi Arabia]].[^21] A Reuters photograph of the forum carries the caption "OpenAI CEO Sam Altman looks on as he visits Riyadh with U.S. President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk (both not pictured), in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 13, 2025."[^21] -In October 2025 [[MGX]], an Abu Dhabi investment firm, took part in a secondary sale of about 6.6 billion dollars in OpenAI shares, a transaction that set the company's valuation at around 500 billion dollars. The sale allowed employees and early investors to sell part of their holdings. Other participants named in Reuters reporting were [[Thrive Capital]], SoftBank, [[Dragoneer Investment Group]] and [[T. Rowe Price]].[^20] +In October 2025 [[MGX]], an Abu Dhabi investment firm, took part in a secondary sale of about 6.6 billion dollars in OpenAI shares, a transaction that set the company's valuation at around 500 billion dollars. The sale allowed employees and early investors to sell part of their holdings. Other participants named in Reuters reporting were [[Thrive Capital]], SoftBank, [[Dragoneer Investment Group]] and [[T. Rowe Price]].[^22] -In March 2026 Bloomberg reported that the company had said [[Andreessen Horowitz]], MGX, [[D.E. Shaw Ventures]], [[TPG]] and T. Rowe Price "will co-lead the financing, which is set to close next week." Coatue Management, Thrive Capital and Altimeter Capital were also named as set to participate in the roughly 10 billion dollar financing.[^21] +In March 2026 Bloomberg reported that the company had said [[Andreessen Horowitz]], MGX, [[D.E. Shaw Ventures]], [[TPG]] and T. Rowe Price "will co-lead the financing, which is set to close next week." Coatue Management, Thrive Capital and Altimeter Capital were also named as set to participate in the roughly 10 billion dollar financing.[^23] ### Government and National Security Engagements -On June 13, 2024 OpenAI added [[Paul Nakasone]] to its board. TechCrunch reported that the former National Security Agency head "will also sit on the board's 'security and safety' subcommittee."[^22] +On June 13, 2024 OpenAI added [[Paul Nakasone]] to its board. TechCrunch reported that the former National Security Agency head "will also sit on the board's 'security and safety' subcommittee."[^24] -On December 4, 2024 [[Anduril Industries]] announced a partnership with OpenAI to apply OpenAI models to counter-drone systems. Anduril said the models "will help protect U.S. and allied military personnel and ensure mission success."[^23] +On December 4, 2024 [[Anduril Industries]] announced a partnership with OpenAI to apply OpenAI models to counter-drone systems. Anduril said the models "will help protect U.S. and allied military personnel and ensure mission success."[^25] -On January 30, 2025 [[Los Alamos]] announced that it had entered a partnership with OpenAI to install its o-series reasoning models on the Venado supercomputer, which was to be moved to a secure, classified network as a shared resource for Los Alamos, [[Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory]] and [[Sandia National Laboratories]].[^24] On August 28, 2025 the laboratory reported that Venado was running OpenAI's o3 reasoning model.[^25] +On January 30, 2025 [[Los Alamos]] announced that it had entered a partnership with OpenAI to install its o-series reasoning models on the Venado supercomputer, which was to be moved to a secure, classified network as a shared resource for Los Alamos, [[Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory]] and [[Sandia National Laboratories]].[^26] On August 28, 2025 the laboratory reported that Venado was running OpenAI's o3 reasoning model.[^27] -On June 16, 2025 the [[Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office]] of the [[Department of Defense]] made an award of 200 million dollars, a prototype other transaction agreement, to OpenAI Public Sector, with an estimated completion date of July 2026. The Department of Defense contracts announcement described the work as meant to "develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains." OpenAI's own description of the work centered on administrative operations, with the aim to "identify and prototype how frontier AI can transform its administrative operations."[^26] +On June 16, 2025 the [[Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office]] of the [[Department of Defense]] made an award of 200 million dollars, a prototype other transaction agreement, to OpenAI Public Sector, with an estimated completion date of July 2026. The Department of Defense contracts announcement described the work as meant to "develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains." OpenAI's own description of the work centered on administrative operations, with the aim to "identify and prototype how frontier AI can transform its administrative operations."[^28] -On August 6, 2025 the [[General Services Administration]] announced a OneGov partnership with OpenAI under which federal agencies could purchase ChatGPT Enterprise at "$1 per agency pricing" for one year.[^27] +On August 6, 2025 the [[General Services Administration]] announced a OneGov partnership with OpenAI under which federal agencies could purchase ChatGPT Enterprise at "$1 per agency pricing" for one year.[^29] -The Justice Department release of October 13, 2026 states that the complaint describes meetings in the executive conference room as involving "nonpublic information about Open AI's technical progress and strategic decisions, capabilities, priorities, government engagements, and commercial relationships," and that the prosecution is in support of [[NSPM-11]], "designed to support American superiority in super intelligence technology."[^28] +The Justice Department release of October 13, 2026 states that the complaint describes meetings in the executive conference room as involving "nonpublic information about Open AI's technical progress and strategic decisions, capabilities, priorities, government engagements, and commercial relationships," and that the prosecution is in support of [[NSPM-11]], "designed to support American superiority in super intelligence technology."[^30] ### Personnel Security and Insider Threat -The New York Times reported on July 4, 2024, citing two people familiar with the incident, that a hacker had accessed an online forum where OpenAI employees discussed the company's latest technologies. Executives told employees and the board at an all-hands meeting in April 2023, and did not inform federal law enforcement agencies, because they "didn't consider the incident a national security threat" and believed the hacker was a private individual with no known connection to a foreign government.[^29] TechCrunch wrote that unnamed company sources told the Times the hacker "only got access to an employee discussion forum."[^30] +The New York Times reported on July 4, 2024, citing two people familiar with the incident, that a hacker had accessed an online forum where OpenAI employees discussed the company's latest technologies. Executives told employees and the board at an all-hands meeting in April 2023, and did not inform federal law enforcement agencies, because they "didn't consider the incident a national security threat" and believed the hacker was a private individual with no known connection to a foreign government.[^31] TechCrunch wrote that unnamed company sources told the Times the hacker "only got access to an employee discussion forum."[^32] -In a June 4, 2024 podcast interview, [[Leopold Aschenbrenner]] said that he had written an internal memo on OpenAI's security which he thought was "egregiously insufficient to protect against the theft of model weights or key algorithmic secrets from foreign actors." He said that "a major security incident occurred" a few weeks after he circulated it, that he then shared the memo with board members, and that he received "an official HR warning for sharing the memo with the board." He said that a human resources representative "told me it was racist to worry about CCP espionage and that it was unconstructive." A footnote on the transcript at the words "major security incident" reads: "The previous linked item here was not the major security incident Leopold was referring to."[^31] TechCrunch reported that Aschenbrenner had hinted at the forum incident in the podcast, calling it a "major security incident."[^30] +In a June 4, 2024 podcast interview, [[Leopold Aschenbrenner]] said that he had written an internal memo on OpenAI's security which he thought was "egregiously insufficient to protect against the theft of model weights or key algorithmic secrets from foreign actors." He said that "a major security incident occurred" a few weeks after he circulated it, that he then shared the memo with board members, and that he received "an official HR warning for sharing the memo with the board." He said that a human resources representative "told me it was racist to worry about CCP espionage and that it was unconstructive." A footnote on the transcript at the words "major security incident" reads: "The previous linked item here was not the major security incident Leopold was referring to."[^33] TechCrunch reported that Aschenbrenner had hinted at the forum incident in the podcast, calling it a "major security incident."[^32] -On August 4, 2026 the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division announced a combined 3.2 million dollar settlement with OpenAI OpCo LLC and its subsidiary Statsig Inc. over allegations that the companies violated the Immigration and Nationality Act by discriminating against U.S. workers in favor of workers with temporary employment visas during recruiting under the Permanent Labor Certification (PERM) process. The department's investigation found that OpenAI did not advertise PERM positions on its external job website, required paper applications by mail for those positions, and advertised positions on the radio late at night. There were fewer than ten PERM positions at issue. OpenAI agreed to pay 1.2 million dollars in civil penalties and to establish a 2 million dollar back-pay fund, to post PERM positions on its public career website, accept electronic applications, train its personnel, revise its employment policies, and be subject to departmental monitoring and reporting requirements. Reuters reported that the company denied wrongdoing in the settlement agreement.[^32] +On August 4, 2026 the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division announced a combined 3.2 million dollar settlement with OpenAI OpCo LLC and its subsidiary Statsig Inc. over allegations that the companies violated the Immigration and Nationality Act by discriminating against U.S. workers in favor of workers with temporary employment visas during recruiting under the Permanent Labor Certification (PERM) process. The department's investigation found that OpenAI did not advertise PERM positions on its external job website, required paper applications by mail for those positions, and advertised positions on the radio late at night. There were fewer than ten PERM positions at issue. OpenAI agreed to pay 1.2 million dollars in civil penalties and to establish a 2 million dollar back-pay fund, to post PERM positions on its public career website, accept electronic applications, train its personnel, revise its employment policies, and be subject to departmental monitoring and reporting requirements. Reuters reported that the company denied wrongdoing in the settlement agreement.[^34] -In October 2025 OpenAI reported that it had banned accounts apparently tied to Chinese government entities that sought assistance designing social media monitoring tools and profiling dissidents. The same report describes alleged China-linked groups that crafted phishing content and debugged malware targeting Taiwan's semiconductor sector.[^33] +In October 2025 OpenAI reported that it had banned accounts apparently tied to Chinese government entities that sought assistance designing social media monitoring tools and profiling dissidents. The same report describes alleged China-linked groups that crafted phishing content and debugged malware targeting Taiwan's semiconductor sector.[^35] -In November 2025 Anthropic reported that a threat actor it assessed with high confidence was "a Chinese state-sponsored group" had manipulated its Claude Code tool into attempting infiltration of "roughly thirty global targets," with success in a small number of cases.[^34] +In November 2025 Anthropic reported that a threat actor it assessed with high confidence was "a Chinese state-sponsored group" had manipulated its Claude Code tool into attempting infiltration of "roughly thirty global targets," with success in a small number of cases.[^36] ### Footnotes [^1]: "OpenAI launches as a nonprofit with a billion-dollar pledge," December 11, 2015; founding donors including Musk, Altman, Brockman, Reid Hoffman, Jessica Livingston, Peter Thiel, AWS, and Infosys. See IEEE Spectrum, December 2015. https://spectrum.ieee.org/billiondollar-nonprofit-ai-research-lab-to-open-in-san-francisco [^2]: "OpenAI says Musk only ever contributed $45 million," *TechCrunch,* March 5, 2024, on actual versus pledged funding. https://techcrunch.com/2024/03/05/openai-response-elon-musk-lawsuit/ -[^3]: "The messy, secretive reality behind OpenAI's bid to save the world," *MIT Technology Review,* February 17, 2020. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/02/17/844721/ai-openai-moonshot-elon-musk-sam-altman-greg-brockman-messy-secretive-reality/ -[^4]: "Microsoft's $13 billion bet on OpenAI carries huge potential along with plenty of uncertainty," *CNBC,* April 8, 2023, on the 100x return cap and Microsoft's expanded investment. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/08/microsofts-complex-bet-on-openai-brings-potential-and-uncertainty.html -[^5]: "OpenAI completes restructure, solidifying Microsoft as a major shareholder," *CNBC,* October 28, 2025, on the OpenAI Foundation, OpenAI Group PBC, the 27 percent Microsoft stake, and the AGI declaration panel. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/28/open-ai-for-profit-microsoft.html -[^6]: "Effective Altruism's Role in the OpenAI Chaos, Explained," *Bloomberg,* November 22, 2023. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-22/effective-altruism-s-role-in-the-openai-chaos-explained -[^7]: "Inside the Deposition That Showed How OpenAI Nearly Destroyed Itself," *Decrypt,* on the Sutskever deposition and the discussed Anthropic merger. https://decrypt.co/347349/inside-deposition-showed-openai-nearly-destroyed-itself -[^8]: "OpenAI, Sam Altman and Failed Governance," AKF Partners, postmortem of the November 2023 board crisis. https://akfpartners.com/growth-blog/openai-sam-altman-and-failed-governance-a-postmortem-of-the-openai-governance-soap-opera -[^9]: "Jury dismisses all claims in Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman," *NPR,* May 18, 2026; "Musk's amended lawsuit against OpenAI names Microsoft as defendant," *TechCrunch,* November 14, 2024. https://www.npr.org/2026/05/18/nx-s1-5822366/musk-altman-openai-jury-verdict-claims-dismissed -[^10]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, "Saudi National Arrested for Installing Surreptitious Audio Recording Device at OpenAI," October 13, 2026, press release 26-1173. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/saudi-national-arrested-installing-surreptitious-audio-recording-device-openai -[^11]: TechCrunch, "FBI arrests OpenAI employee accused of planting hidden recording device in conference room," October 13, 2026. https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/13/fbi-arrests-openai-employee-accused-of-planting-hidden-recording-device-in-conference-room/ -[^12]: "OpenAI engineer arrested in bugging of executive conference room," *San Francisco Standard,* October 13, 2026. https://sfstandard.com/2026/10/13/openai-engineer-arrested-alleged-bugging-executive-conference-room/ -[^13]: LinkedIn, public profile of Abdulrahman Alfozan. https://www.linkedin.com/in/alfozan -[^14]: GitHub, pull requests by the author alfozan in openai/openai-agents-python, queried October 13, 2026. https://api.github.com/search/issues?q=repo:openai/openai-agents-python+author:alfozan -[^15]: RAED Ventures, "About," English about page, Wayback capture of January 23, 2026 (https://web.archive.org/web/20260123220439/https://raed.vc/about/) and live on October 13, 2026 (https://raed.vc/about/); announcement dated February 8, 2025 (https://raed.vc/news/raed-ventures-welcomes-new-venture-partner-abdulrahman-alfozan/). Listing as venture partner first appears in the homepage capture of August 21, 2025 (https://web.archive.org/web/20250821032650/https://raed.vc/). -[^16]: "Saudi AI startup Echelon secures backing from East40, RAED Ventures and Avra," Wamda, October 7, 2026. https://www.wamda.com/ar/2026/10/saudi-ai-startup-echelon-secures-backing-east40-raed-ventures-avra -[^17]: OpenAI, "Introducing Stargate UAE," May 22, 2025 (Wayback capture of May 22, 2025: https://web.archive.org/web/20250522id_/https://openai.com/index/introducing-stargate-uae/). https://openai.com/index/introducing-stargate-uae/ -[^18]: "New update on Stargate UAE: First phase of 200MW to complete by 2026," *Gulf News*, October 16, 2025. The article states: "Announced in May 2025, the project brings together G42, OpenAI, Oracle, NVIDIA, Cisco, and SoftBank," and quotes a G42 spokesperson: "work is progressing rapidly on the first 200 megawatts of capacity, which is expected to be completed by 2026." https://gulfnews.com/business/markets/stargate-uae-first-phase-of-200mw-to-complete-by-2026-1.500310364 -[^19]: "Photos: Tech CEOs mingle with Trump and Saudi crown prince at investment forum in Riyadh," *NBC* (NBC San Diego), May 13, 2025. The article names "OpenAI CEO Sam Altman" among the executives present; the Reuters photograph caption reads "OpenAI CEO Sam Altman looks on as he visits Riyadh with U.S. President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk (both not pictured), in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 13, 2025." https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/business/money-report/photos-tech-ceos-mingle-with-trump-and-saudi-crown-prince-at-investment-forum-in-riyadh/3824637 -[^20]: Reuters report on the secondary sale, as reproduced by *Wamda*, October 8, 2025: "MGX has participated in a $6.6 billion secondary share sale in OpenAI," at a valuation of "around $500 billion." Named participants: Thrive Capital, SoftBank, Dragoneer, T. Rowe Price and MGX. https://www.wamda.com/en/2025/10/mgx-joins-6-6-billion-openai-share-sale-valuing-chatgpt-maker-500-billion -[^21]: Bloomberg, "OpenAI Set to Raise $10 Billion From MGX, Coatue, Thrive," March 24, 2026, as reproduced by Bloomberg Government: "Andreessen Horowitz, Abu Dhabi's MGX, D.E. Shaw Ventures, TPG and T. Rowe Price will co-lead the financing, which is set to close next week, the company told Bloomberg Tuesday. Coatue Management, Thrive Capital and Altimeter Capital are also set to participate." https://news.bgov.com/california-brief/openai-set-to-raise-10-billion-from-mgx-coatue-thrive-2 -[^22]: Coldewey, Devin, "Former NSA head joins OpenAI board and safety committee," *TechCrunch*, June 13, 2024: "Former head of the National Security Agency, retired Gen. Paul Nakasone, will join OpenAI's board of directors, the AI company announced Thursday afternoon. He will also sit on the board's 'security and safety' subcommittee." https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/13/former-nsa-head-joins-openai-board-and-safety-committee -[^23]: *Defense News*, "Anduril, OpenAI join to boost counter-drone tech for US bases, troops," December 5, 2024: "Anduril and OpenAI will partner to improve the military's counter-drone capabilities." https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2024/12/05/anduril-openai-join-to-boost-counter-drone-tech-for-us-bases-troops/ -[^24]: Los Alamos National Laboratory, "Los Alamos Lab partners with OpenAI to boost national security," January 30, 2025: the Venado machine "will be moved to a secure, classified network where it will be a shared resource for researchers from Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, and Sandia national labs." https://www.lanl.gov/media/news/0130-open-ai -[^25]: Los Alamos National Laboratory, "Lab launches frontier AI models on the Venado supercomputer," August 28, 2025: "the Venado supercomputer at Los Alamos National Laboratory is now running OpenAI's latest o3 reasoning model to accelerate national security research." https://www.lanl.gov/media/news/0828-venado-ai-models -[^26]: *DefenseScoop*, June 17, 2025: the Department of Defense contracts list announced on June 16, 2025 that the CDAO "had awarded a $200 million prototype other transaction agreement to OpenAI Public Sector" to "develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains"; "The estimated completion date for the work is July 2026"; OpenAI's phrase "identify and prototype how frontier AI can transform its administrative operations." https://defensescoop.com/2025/06/17/pentagon-openai-frontier-ai-projects-cdao/ -[^27]: General Services Administration, "GSA Announces New Partnership with OpenAI, Delivering Deep Discount to ChatGPT Gov-Wide Through MAS," August 6, 2025: "$1 per agency pricing for ChatGPT." https://www.gsa.gov/about-us/newsroom/news-releases/gsa-announces-new-partnership-with-openai-delivering-deep-discount-to-chatgpt-08062025 -[^28]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, "Saudi National Arrested for Installing Surreptitious Audio Recording Device at OpenAI," press release 26-1173, October 13, 2026. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/saudi-national-arrested-installing-surreptitious-audio-recording-device-openai -[^29]: "Hacker accessed OpenAI's internal AI details in 2023 breach: report," *Fox Business,* July 7, 2024, summarizing the *New York Times* report of July 4, 2024: "OpenAI executives told employees and the company's board about the breach at an all-hands meeting in April 2023." https://www-ak-ms.foxbusiness.com/technology/hacker-accessed-openais-internal-ai-details-2023-breach-report -[^30]: Coldewey, Devin, "OpenAI breach is a reminder that AI companies are treasure troves for hackers," *TechCrunch,* July 5, 2024: "The New York Times reported the hack in more detail after former OpenAI employee Leopold Aschenbrenner hinted at it recently in a podcast." https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/05/openai-breach-is-a-reminder-that-ai-companies-are-treasure-troves-for-hackers/ -[^31]: Aschenbrenner, Leopold, interview with Dwarkesh Patel, June 4, 2024, transcript at approximately 02:33: "egregiously insufficient to protect against the theft of model weights or key algorithmic secrets from foreign actors"; "A few weeks later, a major security incident occurred"; "I got an official HR warning for sharing the memo with the board"; "The HR person told me it was racist to worry about CCP espionage and that it was unconstructive." https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/leopold-aschenbrenner -[^32]: U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, press release of August 4, 2026 (https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/civil-rights-division-secures-settlement-openai-discriminating-against-us-workers); Reuters report datelined August 4, 2026, carried by *The Star* (Malaysia): "The company denied wrongdoing in the settlement agreement." https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2026/08/05/openai-pays-32-million-in-us-probe-over-hiring-foreign-workers -[^33]: *SiliconANGLE*, "OpenAI details expanding efforts to disrupt malicious use of AI in new report," October 7, 2025 (summarizing the OpenAI threat report): alleged China-linked groups "were found to be crafting phishing content and debugging malware targeting Taiwan's semiconductor sector, U.S. academia and political groups"; users "sought assistance designing social media monitoring tools, profiling dissidents and generating propaganda proposals." https://siliconangle.com/2025/10/07/openai-details-expanding-efforts-disrupt-malicious-use-ai-new-report/ -[^34]: Anthropic, threat intelligence report published November 13, 2025, stating that the threat actor was "a Chinese state-sponsored group" that targeted "roughly thirty global targets." https://www.anthropic.com/news/disrupting-AI-espionage +[^3]: "Microsoft invests in and partners with OpenAI to support us building beneficial AGI," *OpenAI,* July 22, 2019, stating that "Microsoft is investing $1 billion in OpenAI" and that "Microsoft will become our exclusive cloud provider." https://openai.com/index/microsoft-invests-in-and-partners-with-openai +[^4]: "The messy, secretive reality behind OpenAI's bid to save the world," *MIT Technology Review,* February 17, 2020. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/02/17/844721/ai-openai-moonshot-elon-musk-sam-altman-greg-brockman-messy-secretive-reality/ +[^5]: "The next chapter of the Microsoft-OpenAI partnership," *OpenAI,* October 28, 2025, stating that Microsoft's investment was "valued at approximately $135 billion, representing roughly 27 percent on an as-converted diluted basis." https://openai.com/index/next-chapter-of-microsoft-openai-partnership/ +[^6]: "Microsoft's $13 billion bet on OpenAI carries huge potential along with plenty of uncertainty," *CNBC,* April 8, 2023, on the 100x return cap and Microsoft's expanded investment. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/08/microsofts-complex-bet-on-openai-brings-potential-and-uncertainty.html +[^7]: "OpenAI completes restructure, solidifying Microsoft as a major shareholder," *CNBC,* October 28, 2025, on the OpenAI Foundation, OpenAI Group PBC, the 27 percent Microsoft stake, and the AGI declaration panel. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/28/open-ai-for-profit-microsoft.html +[^8]: "Effective Altruism's Role in the OpenAI Chaos, Explained," *Bloomberg,* November 22, 2023. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-22/effective-altruism-s-role-in-the-openai-chaos-explained +[^9]: "Inside the Deposition That Showed How OpenAI Nearly Destroyed Itself," *Decrypt,* on the Sutskever deposition and the discussed Anthropic merger. https://decrypt.co/347349/inside-deposition-showed-openai-nearly-destroyed-itself +[^10]: "OpenAI, Sam Altman and Failed Governance," AKF Partners, postmortem of the November 2023 board crisis. https://akfpartners.com/growth-blog/openai-sam-altman-and-failed-governance-a-postmortem-of-the-openai-governance-soap-opera +[^11]: "Jury dismisses all claims in Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman," *NPR,* May 18, 2026; "Musk's amended lawsuit against OpenAI names Microsoft as defendant," *TechCrunch,* November 14, 2024. https://www.npr.org/2026/05/18/nx-s1-5822366/musk-altman-openai-jury-verdict-claims-dismissed +[^12]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, "Saudi National Arrested for Installing Surreptitious Audio Recording Device at OpenAI," October 13, 2026, press release 26-1173. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/saudi-national-arrested-installing-surreptitious-audio-recording-device-openai +[^13]: TechCrunch, "FBI arrests OpenAI employee accused of planting hidden recording device in conference room," October 13, 2026. https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/13/fbi-arrests-openai-employee-accused-of-planting-hidden-recording-device-in-conference-room/ +[^14]: "OpenAI engineer arrested in bugging of executive conference room," *San Francisco Standard,* October 13, 2026. https://sfstandard.com/2026/10/13/openai-engineer-arrested-alleged-bugging-executive-conference-room/ +[^15]: LinkedIn, public profile of Abdulrahman Alfozan. https://www.linkedin.com/in/alfozan +[^16]: GitHub, pull requests by the author alfozan in openai/openai-agents-python, queried October 13, 2026. https://api.github.com/search/issues?q=repo:openai/openai-agents-python+author:alfozan +[^17]: RAED Ventures, "About," English about page, Wayback capture of January 23, 2026 (https://web.archive.org/web/20260123220439/https://raed.vc/about/) and live on October 13, 2026 (https://raed.vc/about/); announcement dated February 8, 2025 (https://raed.vc/news/raed-ventures-welcomes-new-venture-partner-abdulrahman-alfozan/). Listing as venture partner first appears in the homepage capture of August 21, 2025 (https://web.archive.org/web/20250821032650/https://raed.vc/). +[^18]: "Saudi AI startup Echelon secures backing from East40, RAED Ventures and Avra," Wamda, October 7, 2026. https://www.wamda.com/ar/2026/10/saudi-ai-startup-echelon-secures-backing-east40-raed-ventures-avra +[^19]: OpenAI, "Introducing Stargate UAE," May 22, 2025 (Wayback capture of May 22, 2025: https://web.archive.org/web/20250522id_/https://openai.com/index/introducing-stargate-uae/). https://openai.com/index/introducing-stargate-uae/ +[^20]: "New update on Stargate UAE: First phase of 200MW to complete by 2026," *Gulf News*, October 16, 2025. The article states: "Announced in May 2025, the project brings together G42, OpenAI, Oracle, NVIDIA, Cisco, and SoftBank," and quotes a G42 spokesperson: "work is progressing rapidly on the first 200 megawatts of capacity, which is expected to be completed by 2026." https://gulfnews.com/business/markets/stargate-uae-first-phase-of-200mw-to-complete-by-2026-1.500310364 +[^21]: "Photos: Tech CEOs mingle with Trump and Saudi crown prince at investment forum in Riyadh," *NBC* (NBC San Diego), May 13, 2025. The article names "OpenAI CEO Sam Altman" among the executives present; the Reuters photograph caption reads "OpenAI CEO Sam Altman looks on as he visits Riyadh with U.S. President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk (both not pictured), in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 13, 2025." https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/business/money-report/photos-tech-ceos-mingle-with-trump-and-saudi-crown-prince-at-investment-forum-in-riyadh/3824637 +[^22]: Reuters report on the secondary sale, as reproduced by *Wamda*, October 8, 2025: "MGX has participated in a $6.6 billion secondary share sale in OpenAI," at a valuation of "around $500 billion." Named participants: Thrive Capital, SoftBank, Dragoneer, T. Rowe Price and MGX. https://www.wamda.com/en/2025/10/mgx-joins-6-6-billion-openai-share-sale-valuing-chatgpt-maker-500-billion +[^23]: Bloomberg, "OpenAI Set to Raise $10 Billion From MGX, Coatue, Thrive," March 24, 2026, as reproduced by Bloomberg Government: "Andreessen Horowitz, Abu Dhabi's MGX, D.E. Shaw Ventures, TPG and T. Rowe Price will co-lead the financing, which is set to close next week, the company told Bloomberg Tuesday. Coatue Management, Thrive Capital and Altimeter Capital are also set to participate." https://news.bgov.com/california-brief/openai-set-to-raise-10-billion-from-mgx-coatue-thrive-2 +[^24]: Coldewey, Devin, "Former NSA head joins OpenAI board and safety committee," *TechCrunch*, June 13, 2024: "Former head of the National Security Agency, retired Gen. Paul Nakasone, will join OpenAI's board of directors, the AI company announced Thursday afternoon. He will also sit on the board's 'security and safety' subcommittee." https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/13/former-nsa-head-joins-openai-board-and-safety-committee +[^25]: *Defense News*, "Anduril, OpenAI join to boost counter-drone tech for US bases, troops," December 5, 2024: "Anduril and OpenAI will partner to improve the military's counter-drone capabilities." https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2024/12/05/anduril-openai-join-to-boost-counter-drone-tech-for-us-bases-troops/ +[^26]: Los Alamos National Laboratory, "Los Alamos Lab partners with OpenAI to boost national security," January 30, 2025: the Venado machine "will be moved to a secure, classified network where it will be a shared resource for researchers from Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, and Sandia national labs." https://www.lanl.gov/media/news/0130-open-ai +[^27]: Los Alamos National Laboratory, "Lab launches frontier AI models on the Venado supercomputer," August 28, 2025: "the Venado supercomputer at Los Alamos National Laboratory is now running OpenAI's latest o3 reasoning model to accelerate national security research." https://www.lanl.gov/media/news/0828-venado-ai-models +[^28]: *DefenseScoop*, June 17, 2025: the Department of Defense contracts list announced on June 16, 2025 that the CDAO "had awarded a $200 million prototype other transaction agreement to OpenAI Public Sector" to "develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains"; "The estimated completion date for the work is July 2026"; OpenAI's phrase "identify and prototype how frontier AI can transform its administrative operations." https://defensescoop.com/2025/06/17/pentagon-openai-frontier-ai-projects-cdao/ +[^29]: General Services Administration, "GSA Announces New Partnership with OpenAI, Delivering Deep Discount to ChatGPT Gov-Wide Through MAS," August 6, 2025: "$1 per agency pricing for ChatGPT." https://www.gsa.gov/about-us/newsroom/news-releases/gsa-announces-new-partnership-with-openai-delivering-deep-discount-to-chatgpt-08062025 +[^30]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, "Saudi National Arrested for Installing Surreptitious Audio Recording Device at OpenAI," press release 26-1173, October 13, 2026. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/saudi-national-arrested-installing-surreptitious-audio-recording-device-openai +[^31]: "Hacker accessed OpenAI's internal AI details in 2023 breach: report," *Fox Business,* July 7, 2024, summarizing the *New York Times* report of July 4, 2024: "OpenAI executives told employees and the company's board about the breach at an all-hands meeting in April 2023." https://www-ak-ms.foxbusiness.com/technology/hacker-accessed-openais-internal-ai-details-2023-breach-report +[^32]: Coldewey, Devin, "OpenAI breach is a reminder that AI companies are treasure troves for hackers," *TechCrunch,* July 5, 2024: "The New York Times reported the hack in more detail after former OpenAI employee Leopold Aschenbrenner hinted at it recently in a podcast." https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/05/openai-breach-is-a-reminder-that-ai-companies-are-treasure-troves-for-hackers/ +[^33]: Aschenbrenner, Leopold, interview with Dwarkesh Patel, June 4, 2024, transcript at approximately 02:33: "egregiously insufficient to protect against the theft of model weights or key algorithmic secrets from foreign actors"; "A few weeks later, a major security incident occurred"; "I got an official HR warning for sharing the memo with the board"; "The HR person told me it was racist to worry about CCP espionage and that it was unconstructive." https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/leopold-aschenbrenner +[^34]: U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, press release of August 4, 2026 (https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/civil-rights-division-secures-settlement-openai-discriminating-against-us-workers); Reuters report datelined August 4, 2026, carried by *The Star* (Malaysia): "The company denied wrongdoing in the settlement agreement." https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2026/08/05/openai-pays-32-million-in-us-probe-over-hiring-foreign-workers +[^35]: *SiliconANGLE*, "OpenAI details expanding efforts to disrupt malicious use of AI in new report," October 7, 2025 (summarizing the OpenAI threat report): alleged China-linked groups "were found to be crafting phishing content and debugging malware targeting Taiwan's semiconductor sector, U.S. academia and political groups"; users "sought assistance designing social media monitoring tools, profiling dissidents and generating propaganda proposals." https://siliconangle.com/2025/10/07/openai-details-expanding-efforts-disrupt-malicious-use-ai-new-report/ +[^36]: Anthropic, threat intelligence report published November 13, 2025, stating that the threat actor was "a Chinese state-sponsored group" that targeted "roughly thirty global targets." https://www.anthropic.com/news/disrupting-AI-espionage diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Ordo Templi Orientis.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Ordo Templi Orientis.md index 01d1c5a7..a0c81e42 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Ordo Templi Orientis.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Ordo Templi Orientis.md @@ -78,7 +78,7 @@ The Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.) is described in the findings of fact of a Unit On April 21, 1912 the German [[Theodor Reuss]] issued a charter making Crowley National Grand Master X for [[Great Britain]] and [[Ireland]], with a British section called the [[Mysteria Mystica Maxima]] (M.M.M.).[^2] Reuss visited Crowley that May and accused him of publishing the Order's secrets in The Book of Lies.[^3] In January 1915 [[Wilfred Talbot Smith]] joined the M.M.M.[^4] -In his examination by agents of the Bureau of Investigation in 1918 Crowley described the Order as "just like masonry," said that its actual head was Reuss, "a German," who had left England with the German ambassador and was reported in October 1918 to be running the [[Continental Times]] in [[Berlin]] and a branch of the Order under another name in [[Switzerland]], and said that the English lodge at 93 Regent Street had been raided in June 1917 and its nominal head, [[Mary Davies]], arrested as a fortune-teller. He stated that he had "just organized a branch in this country," that its funds were on deposit with the [[Title Guarantee and Trust Company]], [[New York]], and that he was supporting himself "principally through the funds of the Ordo Templi Orientis."[^5] On November 27, 1921, at the [[Abbey of Thelema]] in [[Cefalù]], Crowley proclaimed himself Outer Head.[^6] +In his examination by agents of the Bureau of Investigation in 1918 Crowley described the Order as "just like masonry," said that its actual head was Reuss, "a German," who had left England with the German ambassador and was reported in October 1918 to be running the [[Continental Times]] in [[Berlin]] and a branch of the Order under another name in [[Switzerland]], and said that the English lodge at 93 Regent Street had been raided in June 1917 and its nominal head, [[Mary Davies]], arrested as a fortune-teller. He stated that he had "just organized a branch in this country," that its funds were on deposit with the [[Title Guarantee and Trust Company]], [[New York City|New York]], and that he was supporting himself "principally through the funds of the Ordo Templi Orientis."[^5] On November 27, 1921, at the [[Abbey of Thelema]] in [[Cefalù]], Crowley proclaimed himself Outer Head.[^6] ### The California lodge diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Palantir Technologies.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Palantir Technologies.md index ad795290..8c269c3c 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Palantir Technologies.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Palantir Technologies.md @@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ tags: summary: "Palantir Technologies is a data-analytics and defense contractor cofounded in 2003 by Peter Thiel, Alex Karp, Joe Lonsdale, Stephen Cohen and Nathan Gettings with In-Q-Tel seed funding, supplying U.S. intelligence, defense and ICE." location: "Denver, Colorado (headquarters)" created: 2026-06-17 -updated: 2026-10-14 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Palantir Technologies is an American data-analytics and software company founded in 2003 by [[Peter Thiel]], [[Alex Karp]], [[Joe Lonsdale|Joseph Lonsdale]], [[Stephen Cohen]], and [[Nathan Gettings]]. The company builds data-integration and decision-support platforms for government and commercial clients, and is structured around two principal products: [[Palantir Gotham|Gotham]], oriented to intelligence and defense users, and [[Palantir Foundry|Foundry]], oriented to commercial enterprises. The company received early institutional backing from the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] venture-capital arm [[In-Q-Tel]], and Thiel has served as chairman since founding. The company went public on the [[New York Stock Exchange]] in September 2020 under the ticker PLTR.[^1] @@ -24,15 +24,15 @@ The company's client base spans the agencies that consume intelligence and law-e ### Founding and In-Q-Tel -Palantir was founded in 2003 in the aftermath of the [[September 11 attacks|9/11 attacks]], with Thiel as the founding financier and chairman. The company's stated founding premise was that U.S. intelligence agencies possessed large volumes of data in mutually incompatible silos and lacked the software to fuse it into operational intelligence, a gap the [[9/11 Commission]] had identified. The Central Intelligence Agency venture arm In-Q-Tel provided early funding, two rounds "totaling more than $2 million" according to Forbes, which reported that "from 2005 to 2008 the CIA was Palantir's patron and only customer, alpha-testing and evaluating its software."[^10] Karp, a law-school contemporary of Thiel at [[Stanford Law School]], serves as chief executive and is the public face of the company.[^1][^2] +Palantir was founded in 2003 in the aftermath of the [[September 11 attacks|9/11 attacks]], with Thiel as the founding financier and chairman. The company's stated founding premise was that U.S. intelligence agencies possessed large volumes of data in mutually incompatible silos and lacked the software to fuse it into operational intelligence, a gap the [[9/11 Commission]] had identified. The Central Intelligence Agency venture arm In-Q-Tel provided early funding, two rounds "totaling more than $2 million" according to Forbes, which reported that "from 2005 to 2008 the CIA was Palantir's patron and only customer, alpha-testing and evaluating its software."[^3] Karp, a law-school contemporary of Thiel at [[Stanford Law School]], serves as chief executive and is the public face of the company.[^1][^2] -The founding team included Lonsdale, then a recent [[Stanford University]] graduate who had worked at Thiel's [[Clarium Capital]], as a founding engineer. Cohen and Gettings rounded out the technical cofounding group. The [[PayPal Mafia]] lineage is direct: the fraud-detection heritage is consciously modeled on the anti-fraud data systems Thiel and [[Max Levchin]] built at [[PayPal]]. [[Forbes]] reported in 2013 that Thiel's "concept for Palantir was to use the fraud-recognition software designed for PayPal to stop terrorist attacks," and that where PayPal "had started with perfectly structured and organized information for its fraud analysis," intelligence customers "had mismatched collections of e-mails, recordings and spreadsheets."[^10] Palantir's data-fusion architecture for intelligence and law enforcement is an adaptation of the payments-fraud-detection architecture, the basis for the recurring internal claim that the company "does for governments what PayPal did for fraud."[^2] +The founding team included Lonsdale, then a recent [[Stanford University]] graduate who had worked at Thiel's [[Clarium Capital]], as a founding engineer. Cohen and Gettings rounded out the technical cofounding group. The [[PayPal Mafia]] lineage is direct: the fraud-detection heritage is consciously modeled on the anti-fraud data systems Thiel and [[Max Levchin]] built at [[PayPal]]. [[Forbes]] reported in 2013 that Thiel's "concept for Palantir was to use the fraud-recognition software designed for PayPal to stop terrorist attacks," and that where PayPal "had started with perfectly structured and organized information for its fraud analysis," intelligence customers "had mismatched collections of e-mails, recordings and spreadsheets."[^3] Palantir's data-fusion architecture for intelligence and law enforcement is an adaptation of the payments-fraud-detection architecture, the basis for the recurring internal claim that the company "does for governments what PayPal did for fraud."[^2] ### Founding Account in the 2020 Registration Statement -Palantir Technologies Inc.'s registration statement of August 25, 2020 states: "We were founded in 2003 and started building software for the intelligence community in the United States to assist in counterterrorism investigations and operations. We later began working with commercial enterprises."[^6] The filing describes Gotham, its first platform, as "constructed for analysts at defense and intelligence agencies."[^6] Among the government users it names are the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force, U.S. Special Operations Command, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Food and Drug Administration.[^7] +Palantir Technologies Inc.'s registration statement of August 25, 2020 states: "We were founded in 2003 and started building software for the intelligence community in the United States to assist in counterterrorism investigations and operations. We later began working with commercial enterprises."[^4] The filing describes Gotham, its first platform, as "constructed for analysts at defense and intelligence agencies."[^4] Among the government users it names are the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force, U.S. Special Operations Command, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Food and Drug Administration.[^5] -The filing states that Thiel "is one of our co-founders and has served as the Chairman of our Board of Directors since 2003," and that he has been a partner of Founders Fund since 2005. The PayPal name appears in the filing only in Thiel's biography, which states that he "served as Chief Executive Officer, President, and Chairman of its board of directors from 2000 until its acquisition by eBay in 2002."[^8] PayPal's 2001 registration statement describes its IGOR system, a fraud-detection program that "monitors account and transaction patterns in order to control our loss exposure once fraudulent funds enter the PayPal system."[^9] +The filing states that Thiel "is one of our co-founders and has served as the Chairman of our Board of Directors since 2003," and that he has been a partner of Founders Fund since 2005. The PayPal name appears in the filing only in Thiel's biography, which states that he "served as Chief Executive Officer, President, and Chairman of its board of directors from 2000 until its acquisition by eBay in 2002."[^6] PayPal's 2001 registration statement describes its IGOR system, a fraud-detection program that "monitors account and transaction patterns in order to control our loss exposure once fraudulent funds enter the PayPal system."[^7] ### Gotham and the Intelligence Client Base @@ -42,11 +42,11 @@ The ontology approach distinguishes Gotham from a data warehouse. Rather than co ### ICE and Immigration Enforcement -The ICE relationship began in 2013 with the [[FALCON]] analytical platform, which integrates data from multiple federal and state sources (including [[Homeland Security Investigations]] and state [[Department of Motor Vehicles]] records) into a unified analytical view. In 2014, ICE awarded Palantir the [[Investigative Case Management]] (ICM) contract for over 41 million dollars, extending FALCON's analytical capability into the full case-management lifecycle from criminal and civil detention through deportation. [[EPIC]] (Electronic Privacy Information Center) documented the system's capabilities through the [[EPIC v. ICE|EPIC v. ICE]] FOIA litigation.[^1][^3] +The ICE relationship began in 2013 with the [[FALCON]] analytical platform, which integrates data from multiple federal and state sources (including [[Homeland Security Investigations]] and state [[Department of Motor Vehicles]] records) into a unified analytical view. In 2014, ICE awarded Palantir the [[Investigative Case Management]] (ICM) contract for over 41 million dollars, extending FALCON's analytical capability into the full case-management lifecycle from criminal and civil detention through deportation. [[EPIC]] (Electronic Privacy Information Center) documented the system's capabilities through the [[EPIC v. ICE|EPIC v. ICE]] FOIA litigation.[^1][^8] -The [[WNYC]] reporting documented, on the basis of obtained emails, that Palantir created a smartphone application ICE uses to plan and execute workplace raids. The [[404 Media]] reporting documented the [[ELITE (app)|ELITE]] app, which ICE uses to identify neighborhoods for enforcement operations. In the second [[Donald Trump|Trump]] administration, ICE awarded Palantir a 30 million dollar contract for [[ImmigrationOS]], extending the FALCON/ICM capability into a comprehensive immigration-tracking system. The [[ACLU]] published "All the Ways Palantir is Assisting Trump's Abusive Removal Campaign" documenting the expanded role.[^3][^4] +The [[WNYC]] reporting documented, on the basis of obtained emails, that Palantir created a smartphone application ICE uses to plan and execute workplace raids. The [[404 Media]] reporting documented the [[ELITE (app)|ELITE]] app, which ICE uses to identify neighborhoods for enforcement operations. In the second [[Donald Trump|Trump]] administration, ICE awarded Palantir a 30 million dollar contract for [[ImmigrationOS]], extending the FALCON/ICM capability into a comprehensive immigration-tracking system. The [[ACLU]] published "All the Ways Palantir is Assisting Trump's Abusive Removal Campaign" documenting the expanded role.[^8][^9] -[[Amnesty International]] published a September 2020 briefing finding that Palantir's ICM and FALCON platforms risk contributing to human rights violations of asylum-seekers and migrants. The [[American Immigration Council]] documented that FALCON and ICM have been used in workplace raids since deployment. Palantir employees in 2018 and 2019 circulated petitions asking the company to cancel the ICE work. The company declined.[^1][^3][^4] +[[Amnesty International]] published a September 2020 briefing finding that Palantir's ICM and FALCON platforms risk contributing to human rights violations of asylum-seekers and migrants. The [[American Immigration Council]] documented that FALCON and ICM have been used in workplace raids since deployment. Palantir employees in 2018 and 2019 circulated petitions asking the company to cancel the ICE work. The company declined.[^1][^8][^9] ### Foundry and Commercial Expansion @@ -56,19 +56,24 @@ The company took its initial public offering in September 2020 via a direct list ### The Israel Strategic Partnership -In January 2024, Palantir announced a strategic partnership with the [[Israeli Ministry of Defense]] to supply technology for "war-related missions" during the [[Gaza war]], following a visit to Israel by Karp and Thiel. The official Palantir statement reads: "We have agreed to a strategic partnership with the Israeli Ministry of Defense to supply Palantir technology to help the country's war effort." [[Bloomberg]] reported the partnership on January 12, 2024, and [[Calcalist]] confirmed the defense-ministry relationship.[^5] +In January 2024, Palantir announced a strategic partnership with the [[Israeli Ministry of Defense]] to supply technology for "war-related missions" during the [[Gaza war]], following a visit to Israel by Karp and Thiel. The official Palantir statement reads: "We have agreed to a strategic partnership with the Israeli Ministry of Defense to supply Palantir technology to help the country's war effort." [[Bloomberg]] reported the partnership on January 12, 2024, and [[Calcalist]] confirmed the defense-ministry relationship.[^10] -Gotham is marketed on Palantir's own website as supporting soldiers with an "AI-powered kill chain," integrating target identification and targeting capabilities. Karp publicly told [[CNBC]] that the company's technology is being used in the [[Middle East]] war. Multiple reports (including [[Middle East Eye]]) link Palantir's Gotham platform to Israeli military operations in Gaza and Lebanon. [[Jeremy Corbyn]] criticized the UK government's 240 million pound Palantir contract for NHS data work in light of the Israeli partnership.[^5] +Gotham is marketed on Palantir's own website as supporting soldiers with an "AI-powered kill chain," integrating target identification and targeting capabilities. Karp publicly told [[CNBC]] that the company's technology is being used in the [[Middle East]] war. Multiple reports (including [[Middle East Eye]]) link Palantir's Gotham platform to Israeli military operations in Gaza and Lebanon. [[Jeremy Corbyn]] criticized the UK government's 240 million pound Palantir contract for NHS data work in light of the Israeli partnership.[^10] + +### Cambridge Analytica + +[[Nicholas Confessore]] and [[Matthew Rosenberg]] reported in [[The New York Times]] on March 27, 2018 that in summer 2014, while [[Cambridge Analytica]] was seeking to collect the [[Facebook]] data of tens of millions of Americans, the company "received help from at least one employee at Palantir Technologies." A Palantir employee in London, [[Alfredas Chmieliauskas]], whose LinkedIn page describes business development work, suggested that the data scientists building the firm's psychological profiling technology create their own mobile-phone personality quiz to reach Facebook users' friend networks. The report states that Chmieliauskas corresponded from 2013 with [[Christopher Wylie]] and a colleague, both then working for the British contractor [[SCL Group]], on a behavioral profiling product code-named "Big Daddy"; that [[Sophie Schmidt]], a former SCL intern and the daughter of [[Eric Schmidt]], urged the company in June 2013 to link up with Palantir; and that in early 2013 [[Alexander Nix]] and a Palantir executive discussed working together on election campaigns. Palantir first said it had "never had a relationship with Cambridge Analytica, nor have we ever worked on any Cambridge Analytica data," and later the same day that "an employee, in 2013-2014, engaged in an entirely personal capacity with people associated with Cambridge Analytica." Wylie told British lawmakers: "There were senior Palantir employees that were also working on the Facebook data." He acknowledged that Palantir and Cambridge Analytica never signed a contract. Thiel, who co-founded Palantir in 2003, was then a member of Facebook's board.[^11] ### Footnotes [^1]: For Palantir corporate history, products, and client base, see primary corporate filings (SEC EDGAR, Form S-1 filed September 2020 for the direct listing) and the company's annual reports at investors.palantir.com. [^2]: Lonsdale's account of the Palantir founding and his role as founding engineer is documented in his own writing and in contemporaneous Silicon Valley press; synthesized here. -[^3]: ICE FALCON contract documented through EPIC v. ICE FOIA litigation (https://epic.org/documents/epic-v-ice-palantir-databases/) and ICE contract HSCETC-15-C-00001 (https://www.ice.gov/doclib/foia/contracts/palantirTechHSCETC15C00001.pdf). For the smartphone raid app, see WNYC (https://www.wnyc.org/story/palantir-directly-powers-ice-workplace-raids-emails-show/). For ImmigrationOS, see Immigration Policy Tracking Project (https://immpolicytracking.org/policies/reported-palantir-awarded-30-million-to-build-immigrationos-surveillance-platform-for-ice/). For the ACLU analysis, see https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/palantir-deportation-roundup. For the Amnesty International briefing, see https://www.amnestyusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Amnest-International-Palantir-Briefing-Report-092520_Final.pdf. -[^4]: For the ELITE neighborhood-targeting app, see *404 Media* reporting. For the American Immigration Council analysis, see https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/ice-immigrationos-palantir-ai-track-immigrants/. -[^5]: "Palantir, Israel Agree Strategic Partnership for Battle Tech." *Bloomberg,* January 12, 2024. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-12/palantir-israel-agree-to-strategic-partnership-for-battle-tech ; "Palantir supplying Israel with technology to help in war effort." *Calcalist CTech.* https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/rymy7ret6 ; "Corbyn slams UK for deal with Israel-linked US tech giant Palantir." *Middle East Eye.* https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/corbyn-slams-uk-ps240m-deal-israeli-military-linked-tech-giant-palantir -[^6]: Palantir Technologies Inc. Form S-1 registration statement, August 25, 2020, "Overview." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1321655/000119312520230013/d904406ds1.htm -[^7]: Palantir Technologies Inc. Form S-1, August 25, 2020, "Government," list of departments and agencies currently using the platforms. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1321655/000119312520230013/d904406ds1.htm -[^8]: Palantir Technologies Inc. Form S-1, August 25, 2020, "Management," biography of Peter Thiel. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1321655/000119312520230013/d904406ds1.htm -[^9]: PayPal, Inc. Form S-1 registration statement, filed September 28, 2001, "Business," subsection "Risk Management." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1103415/000091205701533855/a2059025zs-1.htm -[^10]: Andy Greenberg, "How A 'Deviant' Philosopher Built Palantir, A CIA-Funded Data-Mining Juggernaut," *Forbes*, August 14, 2013. https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/08/14/agent-of-intelligence-how-a-deviant-philosopher-built-palantir-a-cia-funded-data-mining-juggernaut/ +[^3]: Andy Greenberg, "How A 'Deviant' Philosopher Built Palantir, A CIA-Funded Data-Mining Juggernaut," *Forbes*, August 14, 2013. https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/08/14/agent-of-intelligence-how-a-deviant-philosopher-built-palantir-a-cia-funded-data-mining-juggernaut/ +[^4]: Palantir Technologies Inc. Form S-1 registration statement, August 25, 2020, "Overview." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1321655/000119312520230013/d904406ds1.htm +[^5]: Palantir Technologies Inc. Form S-1, August 25, 2020, "Government," list of departments and agencies currently using the platforms. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1321655/000119312520230013/d904406ds1.htm +[^6]: Palantir Technologies Inc. Form S-1, August 25, 2020, "Management," biography of Peter Thiel. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1321655/000119312520230013/d904406ds1.htm +[^7]: PayPal, Inc. Form S-1 registration statement, filed September 28, 2001, "Business," subsection "Risk Management." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1103415/000091205701533855/a2059025zs-1.htm +[^8]: ICE FALCON contract documented through EPIC v. ICE FOIA litigation (https://epic.org/documents/epic-v-ice-palantir-databases/) and ICE contract HSCETC-15-C-00001 (https://www.ice.gov/doclib/foia/contracts/palantirTechHSCETC15C00001.pdf). For the smartphone raid app, see WNYC (https://www.wnyc.org/story/palantir-directly-powers-ice-workplace-raids-emails-show/). For ImmigrationOS, see Immigration Policy Tracking Project (https://immpolicytracking.org/policies/reported-palantir-awarded-30-million-to-build-immigrationos-surveillance-platform-for-ice/). For the ACLU analysis, see https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/palantir-deportation-roundup. For the Amnesty International briefing, see https://www.amnestyusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Amnest-International-Palantir-Briefing-Report-092520_Final.pdf. +[^9]: For the ELITE neighborhood-targeting app, see *404 Media* reporting. For the American Immigration Council analysis, see https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/ice-immigrationos-palantir-ai-track-immigrants/. +[^10]: "Palantir, Israel Agree Strategic Partnership for Battle Tech." *Bloomberg,* January 12, 2024. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-12/palantir-israel-agree-to-strategic-partnership-for-battle-tech ; "Palantir supplying Israel with technology to help in war effort." *Calcalist CTech.* https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/rymy7ret6 ; "Corbyn slams UK for deal with Israel-linked US tech giant Palantir." *Middle East Eye.* https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/corbyn-slams-uk-ps240m-deal-israeli-military-linked-tech-giant-palantir +[^11]: Nicholas Confessore and Matthew Rosenberg, "Spy Contractor's Idea Helped Firm Harvest Facebook Data," *The New York Times,* March 27, 2018, as republished by WRAL. https://www.wral.com/spy-contractor-s-idea-helped-firm-harvest-facebook-data/17447632/ diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/PayPal Mafia.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/PayPal Mafia.md index 49c2e37a..79605f80 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/PayPal Mafia.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/PayPal Mafia.md @@ -14,12 +14,12 @@ tags: summary: "The PayPal Mafia is the network of PayPal founders and early executives who after the 2002 eBay sale founded or led YouTube, LinkedIn, Yelp, Palantir, Founders Fund, Tesla, SpaceX and Dialog." location: "San Francisco Bay Area" created: 2026-06-18 -updated: 2026-10-14 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- The PayPal Mafia is the informal network of founders and early executives of [[PayPal]] who, after the company's 2002 sale to [[eBay]] for 1.5 billion dollars, dispersed to found or lead much of the subsequent generation of [[Silicon Valley]] companies. The cohort acquired the "Mafia" label as a recognizable social and commercial network whose members sit on each other's boards, invest in each other's ventures, and convene, through [[Dialog]], in the same off-the-record settings. WIRED reported on June 16, 2026 that a leaked Dialog website directory names "six members of the Paypal Mafia," and the documented commercial, convening, ideological, and political infrastructure of the [[Thiel Influence Network]] runs substantially through the PayPal Mafia cohort.[^1][^2][^3] -The company's registration statement of September 2001 lists Peter Thiel as chief executive and president since September 2000, Max Levchin as chief technology officer since March 2000, David Sacks as executive vice president of product and Reid Hoffman as executive vice president of business development, both since May 2000.[^6] Elon Musk, who had been chief executive of X.com from March to December 1999 and of PayPal from May to September 2000, was in May 2001 party to a separation agreement with the company as its former president and chief executive.[^6] +The company's registration statement of September 2001 lists Peter Thiel as chief executive and president since September 2000, Max Levchin as chief technology officer since March 2000, David Sacks as executive vice president of product and Reid Hoffman as executive vice president of business development, both since May 2000.[^4] Elon Musk, who had been chief executive of X.com from March to December 1999 and of PayPal from May to September 2000, was in May 2001 party to a separation agreement with the company as its former president and chief executive.[^4] ### The PayPal Period (1998-2002) @@ -33,9 +33,9 @@ Max Levchin was PayPal's chief technology officer and cofounder. Levchin subsequ [[Reid Hoffman]] served as executive vice president and a founding board member, responsible for external relations and partnerships. Hoffman subsequently founded [[LinkedIn]] (2002, before the eBay sale closed), took it public in 2011, sold it to [[Microsoft]] for 26.2 billion dollars in 2016, and joined [[Greylock Partners|Greylock]] as a general partner in 2009. Hoffman's politics diverge from the Thiel-Musk Republican alignment: he has been a prominent [[Democratic Party|Democratic]] donor supporting [[Joe Biden]] and [[Kamala Harris]]. His documented [[Jeffrey Epstein|Epstein]] relationship (the image-rehabilitation apology, the 2015 dinner) places a Democratic-aligned PayPal Mafia principal inside the same post-conviction Epstein network as the Republican-aligned Thiel.[^2] -Elon Musk founded X.com (the precursor to PayPal) and was PayPal's largest shareholder before and after the Confinity merger. Musk subsequently founded [[SpaceX]] (2002), joined [[Tesla, Inc.|Tesla]] as lead investor and chairman in 2004 (later chief executive), and acquired [[X (social media)|X (formerly Twitter)]] in 2022. Musk's documented [[Vladimir Putin|Putin]] contact channel (since late 2022, per the [[Wall Street Journal]]), the [[Jonathan Buma|Buma]]-documented GRU targeting of Musk, the [[Igor Kurganov|Kurganov]] infiltration, and the [[NLRB Data Exfiltration|NLRB data exfiltration]] through [[Department of Government Efficiency|DOGE]] all place Musk at the intersection of the PayPal Mafia commercial network and the documented Russian-intelligence and federal-data-access questions.[^2][^4] +Elon Musk founded X.com (the precursor to PayPal) and was PayPal's largest shareholder before and after the Confinity merger. Musk subsequently founded [[SpaceX]] (2002), joined [[Tesla, Inc.|Tesla]] as lead investor and chairman in 2004 (later chief executive), and acquired [[X (social media)|X (formerly Twitter)]] in 2022. Musk's documented [[Vladimir Putin|Putin]] contact channel (since late 2022, per the [[Wall Street Journal]]), the [[Jonathan Buma|Buma]]-documented GRU targeting of Musk, the [[Igor Kurganov|Kurganov]] infiltration, and the [[NLRB Data Exfiltration|NLRB data exfiltration]] through [[Department of Government Efficiency|DOGE]] all place Musk at the intersection of the PayPal Mafia commercial network and the documented Russian-intelligence and federal-data-access questions.[^2][^5] -[[David Sacks]] served as chief operating officer. Sacks subsequently founded [[Yammer]] (acquired by Microsoft in 2012), produced the film *[[Thank You for Smoking|Thank You for Smoking]]*, and served in the second [[Donald Trump|Trump]] administration as the [[White House]] [[AI and cryptocurrency|AI and cryptocurrency]] czar, formally the Special Advisor on Artificial Intelligence and Cryptocurrency. Sacks hosted the [[All-In Podcast|All-In Podcast]], which became a documented media channel for the PayPal Mafia cohort's political positions during the 2022-2025 period.[^5] +[[David Sacks]] served as chief operating officer. Sacks subsequently founded [[Yammer]] (acquired by Microsoft in 2012), produced the film *[[Thank You for Smoking|Thank You for Smoking]]*, and served in the second [[Donald Trump|Trump]] administration as the [[White House]] [[AI and cryptocurrency|AI and cryptocurrency]] czar, formally the Special Advisor on Artificial Intelligence and Cryptocurrency. Sacks hosted the [[All-In Podcast|All-In Podcast]], which became a documented media channel for the PayPal Mafia cohort's political positions during the 2022-2025 period.[^6] [[Ken Howery]] served as chief financial officer and subsequently cofounded [[Founders Fund]] with Thiel and [[Luke Nosek]]. Howery served as the [[United States Ambassador to Sweden|U.S. Ambassador to Sweden]] during the first Trump administration (2019-2021), receiving a formal diplomatic appointment through the Thiel-Trump relationship. @@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ Luke Nosek was a founding team member and subsequently a Founders Fund partner. [[Keith Rabois]] served in an executive role and subsequently held positions at Founders Fund, [[OpenStore]], and PayPal-adjacent ventures. Rabois has been a documented intermediary between the PayPal Mafia cohort and the broader [[Khosla Ventures|Khosla Ventures]] and Founders Fund networks. -[[Jeremy Stoppelman]] subsequently cofounded Yelp. [[Chad Hurley]], [[Steve Chen]], and [[Jawed Karim]] were early PayPal engineers who subsequently cofounded YouTube, which [[Google]] acquired for 1.65 billion dollars in 2006.[^1][^2] +[[Jeremy Stoppelman]] subsequently cofounded Yelp. [[Chad Hurley]], [[Steve Chen]], and [[Jawed Karim]] were early PayPal engineers who subsequently cofounded YouTube, which [[Google]] acquired for 1.65 billion dollars in 2006.[^7] ### The 2016 Trump Campaign and Mercer Money @@ -58,6 +58,7 @@ The cohort's internal political divergence has been documented across the 2016-2 [^1]: Cameron, Dell, and Yulia Almazova. "Leak Exposes Members of Peter Thiel's Secretive 'Dialog' Society." *WIRED,* June 16, 2026. https://www.wired.com/story/leak-exposes-members-of-peter-thiels-secretive-dialog-society/ [^2]: "Exclusive: Reid Hoffman apologizes for role in Epstein-linked donations to MIT." *Axios,* September 12, 2019. https://www.axios.com/2019/09/12/reid-hoffman-jeffrey-epstein-mit-donations ; "Epstein's Silicon Valley ties extended beyond just Musk and Gates." *CNBC,* February 9, 2026. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/09/tech-leaders-epstein-records-silicon-valley-sergey-brin-thiel-sinofsky-reid-hoffman-musk-gates.html [^3]: Founders Fund, "Portfolio," documenting the firm's Palantir, SpaceX, Anduril, and Affirm positions; the firm was founded in 2005 by Thiel, Ken Howery, and Luke Nosek. https://foundersfund.com/portfolio/ -[^4]: "FBI whistleblower claims he tried to get to Musk to warn him he was being targeted by Russia." *The Guardian,* May 22, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/may/22/fbi-whistleblower-musk-russia -[^5]: "Statement by President-elect Donald J. Trump Announcing the Appointment of David O. Sacks as 'White House A.I. & Crypto Czar.'" December 5, 2024, archived at The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/statement-president-elect-donald-j-trump-announcing-the-appointment-david-o-sacks-white -[^6]: PayPal, Inc. Form S-1 registration statement, filed September 28, 2001, "Management" and "Certain Relationships" sections, and the footnotes to the executive compensation table. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1103415/000091205701533855/a2059025zs-1.htm +[^4]: PayPal, Inc. Form S-1 registration statement, filed September 28, 2001, "Management" and "Certain Relationships" sections, and the footnotes to the executive compensation table. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1103415/000091205701533855/a2059025zs-1.htm +[^5]: "FBI whistleblower claims he tried to get to Musk to warn him he was being targeted by Russia." *The Guardian,* May 22, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/may/22/fbi-whistleblower-musk-russia +[^6]: "Statement by President-elect Donald J. Trump Announcing the Appointment of David O. Sacks as 'White House A.I. & Crypto Czar.'" December 5, 2024, archived at The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/statement-president-elect-donald-j-trump-announcing-the-appointment-david-o-sacks-white +[^7]: Google, Inc., "Google To Acquire YouTube for $1.65 Billion in Stock Combination," press release, October 9, 2006, reproduced in "Google To Acquire YouTube In Stock Transaction," Search Engine Watch, October 9, 2006. https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2006/10/09/google-to-acquire-youtube-in-stock-transaction/ diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Princeton University.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Princeton University.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..5c02676a --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Princeton University.md @@ -0,0 +1,272 @@ +--- +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +title: Princeton University +aliases: + - Princeton + - Princeton University + - College of New Jersey +tags: + - Organization + - AcademicInstitution + - RemoteViewing + - PEAR + - Parapsychology + - Stargate + - CIA + - ColdWar + - RadioPropaganda + - PublicOpinionResearch + - WoodrowWilsonSchool + - ForrestalPapers + - DullesBrothers + - ProjectMatterhorn + - GlobalConsciousnessProject + - InstituteForAdvancedStudy +category: "Private Organization" +summary: "Princeton University, chartered 1746, houses the Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory that held an SRI subcontract, and the papers and trustees tying it to the Dulles brothers, Forrestal and Laurance Rockefeller." +start: 1746 +location: "Princeton, New Jersey" +relations: + - type: funded + with: "[[Rockefeller Foundation]]" + reverse: true + role: "financed the Princeton Listening Center, November 1939 to June 1941" + start: 1939 + end: 1941 + fn: 3 + - type: director_of + with: "[[Laurance Rockefeller]]" + reverse: true + role: "charter trustee, 1967 to 1980" + start: 1967 + end: 1980 + fn: 16 + - type: director_of + with: "[[Allen Dulles]]" + reverse: true + role: "trustee, by his own letter of August 28, 1961" + start: 1961 + fn: 10 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Frederick S. Dunn]]" + reverse: true + role: "Director, Center of International Studies; member of the Quantico Vulnerabilities Panel, June 1955" + start: 1954 + end: 1955 + fn: 9 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Henry Bienen]]" + reverse: true + role: "James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor and Director, Center of International Studies, 1987" + start: 1987 + end: 1987 + fn: 19 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Hadley Cantril]]" + reverse: true + role: "chairman of the Psychology Department in the 1950s; member of the Listening Center committee" + start: 1939 + fn: 6 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Robert Jahn]]" + reverse: true + role: "professor from 1962, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, founder of the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory in 1979" + start: 1962 + fn: 24 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Brenda Dunne]]" + reverse: true + role: "laboratory manager of the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory" + start: 1979 + end: 2007 + fn: 38 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Roger Nelson]]" + reverse: true + role: "research staff of the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory from 1980; director of the Global Consciousness Project" + start: 1980 + fn: 43 + - type: funded + with: "[[James S. McDonnell]]" + reverse: true + role: "alumnus and donor to the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory" + start: 1979 + end: 2007 + fn: 38 + - type: funded + with: "[[Laurance Rockefeller]]" + reverse: true + role: "alumnus and donor to the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory" + start: 1979 + end: 2007 + fn: 38 + - type: funded + with: "[[John E. Fetzer]]" + reverse: true + role: "foundation support acknowledged in Robert Jahn's 1982 paper and in 1989 consciousness research" + start: 1979 + fn: 24 + - type: contractor_to + with: "[[SRI International]]" + role: "Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory subcontract under SRI Project 1291, fiscal 1987, conference at Princeton April 9 and 10, 1987" + start: 1987 + end: 1987 + fn: 32 +--- +Princeton University is a private university in [[Princeton, New Jersey]], whose first charter as the College of New Jersey passed the provincial seal on October 22, 1746.[^1] The record in this vault runs through the Princeton Listening Center and Cold War public opinion work, the papers and trustees connected to [[Allen Dulles]], [[John Foster Dulles]], [[James Forrestal]] and [[Laurance Rockefeller]], the plasma project that began as Project Matterhorn, and the Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory of [[Robert Jahn]], which appears in Army, DIA and National Research Council documents on psychoenergetics. + +### Founding + +The first charter of the College of New Jersey passed the seal of the Province of New Jersey on October 22, 1746, issued by John Hamilton, president of the Council and acting governor.[^1] A second charter, dated September 14, 1748 and issued by Governor Jonathan Belcher in the name of George II, incorporated twenty-three trustees as "The Trustees of the College of New Jersey."[^2] + +### The Princeton Listening Center and the Radio Research Project + +At the end of 1938 the School of Public and International Affairs appointed a committee to plan a continuing study of short-wave propaganda. The committee was administered by Harold N. Graves Jr. and included [[John B. Whitton]], [[Hadley Cantril]], William S. Carpenter and [[Harwood L. Childs]], with O. W. Riegel of Washington and Lee University and the engineer Brunson S. McCutchen.[^3] The resulting [[Princeton Listening Center]] began as an experiment in November 1939. It was financed by the [[Rockefeller Foundation]] and took quarters in a house on Alexander Street. Its staff recorded news bulletins, talks and features from England, Germany, France, Italy, the Soviet Union, Japan, the Netherlands and Hungary through May 1941.[^3] + +The Center's work passed to the [[Federal Communications Commission]] in mid-1941. The Commission had developed a strong interest in the project as propaganda became a matter of national policy.[^3] The staff published their results as [[Propaganda by Short Wave]], edited by Childs and Whitton and issued by [[Princeton University Press]] in 1942.[^3] + +The Foundation's own account of its communications work places the Princeton monitoring in a larger program. In May 1937 [[Paul Lazarsfeld]] and colleagues proposed the [[Radio Research Project]] to the Foundation, arguing that "If radio in the United States is to serve the best interests of the people, it is essential that an objective analysis be made of what these interests are and how the unique psychological and social characteristics of radio may be devoted to them." The project was housed initially at the School of Public and International Affairs and moved to Columbia University after 1939. In 1940 scholars at Princeton received Foundation funds to record and study shortwave broadcasts from Europe to the United States.[^4] + +### Hadley Cantril, Public Opinion and the Intelligence Community + +Hadley Cantril was a psychologist who studied propaganda and public opinion research, president of the Institute for Propaganda Analysis, a member of the Princeton Radio Research Project that studied the public reaction to the Orson Welles broadcast of "The War of the Worlds," and a pollster overseas during the Second World War who "subsequently advised several U.S. Presidents on public opinion studies both domestically and abroad."[^5] Robert Jahn's 1978 account of psychic research at Princeton records that in the 1950s Cantril, then chairman of the Psychology Department, "displayed some interest in parapsychology, especially in poltergeist phenomena, but apparently did not publish anything of substance in the field."[^6] + +An April 1, 1955 memorandum from the Deputy Director (Plans) of the [[Central Intelligence Agency]], [[Frank Wisner]], to the Director of Central Intelligence records a luncheon meeting in [[Nelson Rockefeller]]'s office on foreign public opinion work. The attendees were Streibert and Loomis of the [[United States Information Agency]], "Messrs. Hadley Cantril and Lloyd Free of the Research Council, Inc.," Rockefeller and Wisner. Rockefeller said the President was holding him accountable for providing a briefing on foreign public opinion, as distinguished from the intelligence briefings the Director rendered to the National Security Council. Wisner recommended that the Information Agency be encouraged to act as the main collator and collector of public opinion information, and wrote that Cantril and Free joined in urging that it be supported as the "executive agent" within government; they also suggested the technique of "small sampling" and offered to assist Loomis in recruiting key personnel.[^7] + +The January 1953 [[Robertson Panel]] of the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence consisted of [[H. P. Robertson]], [[Luis Alvarez]], [[Thornton Page]], [[Samuel Goudsmit]] and [[Lloyd Berkner]]. Cantril was not among the members. In the section on an educational program to reduce public interest in "flying saucers," the memorandum written by Durant states that psychologists familiar with mass psychology should advise on the program, and continues: "In this connection, Dr. Hadley Cantril (Princeton University) was suggested. Cantril authored 'Invasion from Mars', (a study in the psychology of panic, written about the famous Orson Welles radio broadcast in 1936) and has since performed advanced laboratory studies in the field of perception." The names of [[Don Marquis]] and [[Leo Rosten]] were mentioned as possible consultant psychologists.[^8] + +Cantril corresponded with the Director of Central Intelligence. On May 29, 1954 Allen Dulles wrote to Frederick S. Dunn, Director of Princeton's Center of International Studies, that he would take part in a discussion following remarks by Dunn, Ed Barrett and Cantril at a Princeton class event.[^9] On August 28, 1961 Dulles answered a letter from Cantril of July 21, 1961 about contacts with a group Cantril had met, saying that "I am seeing to it that this gap is not left open," and adding that he hoped to be in Princeton more often "since I have become a trustee of the University."[^10] + +### The Dulles Brothers + +Allen Dulles was a Princeton graduate (B.A., class of 1914; M.A., 1916) and the nephew of Secretary of State [[Robert Lansing]], who served in Vienna, Berne, Berlin and Constantinople before joining the Wall Street law firm [[Sullivan & Cromwell]], where his brother John Foster was a managing partner. He was a friend of the fellow Princetonian [[Hamilton Fish Armstrong]] '16, editor of Foreign Affairs, with whom he wrote two books in 1936 and 1939; he served as chief of the Berne office of the [[Office of Strategic Services]], was appointed Deputy Director of Plans of the CIA in 1950, and directed it from 1953 until his resignation after the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961.[^11] The papers were donated by Clover Todd Dulles in 1973.[^11] + +John Foster Dulles graduated from Princeton in 1908 after serving as secretary to his grandfather John Watson Foster at the Second Hague Peace Conference in 1907. He took an LL.B. from [[George Washington University]] in 1911 and worked at Sullivan & Cromwell from 1911 to 1949, rising to senior partner. During the First World War he served as assistant to the chairman of the War Trade Board, then as counsel to the reparations section of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace.[^12] Princeton holds his papers, an oral history collection of 282 transcribed interviews with people who knew and worked with him, including a 1965 interview with Allen Dulles whose listed topics include Princeton University, Sullivan & Cromwell, Alger Hiss, McCarthyism, and official relations with John Foster Dulles (State Department and Central Intelligence Agency), and files copied from the Eisenhower Library.[^13] + +### James Forrestal, the Diaries and Laurance Rockefeller + +The James Forrestal Papers (MC051) are held in Princeton's Public Policy Papers. Forrestal transferred from Dartmouth to Princeton in 1912 as a member of the class of 1915 and became chairman of The Daily Princetonian; his diaries "were purchased from the New York Herald Tribune and donated to Princeton University by Clarence Dillon and Laurance S. Rockefeller in December 1952"; the papers were a gift of Josephine Ogden Forrestal in January 1953; and the Willcutts Report on Forrestal's Death, 1949, is a folder in Series 2, Personal Files. He resigned as Secretary of Defense on March 28, 1949 and died on May 23, 1949 at the National Naval Medical Center.[^14] A caption in the University Archives' account of the digitization of the papers gives March 2, 1949 as the date of the resignation letter (Box 151).[^15] + +Laurance Rockefeller graduated from Princeton in 1932 and served as a charter trustee from 1967 to 1980. The Alumni Weekly's memorial records his gifts to the University, among them the University Center for Human Values and the Department of Molecular Biology, and his investment in McDonnell Aircraft Corp.[^16] + +### The Center of International Studies and the Quantico Panel + +[[Frederick S. Dunn]], Director of Princeton's Center of International Studies, was one of the eleven members of the Quantico Vulnerabilities Panel that Nelson Rockefeller convened at the Marine Corps School in Virginia in June 1955. A White House memorandum to Allen Dulles on his planned visit to the evening session of June 9, with Richard Bissell, enclosed the participant list: Dunn, [[C. D. Jackson]] of Time-Life, Ellis A. Johnson and George Pettee of the Operations Research Office, [[Paul Linebarger]] of Johns Hopkins, [[Max Millikan]] and [[Walt Rostow]] of the Center for International Studies at MIT, [[Philip Mosely]] of Columbia, [[Stefan Possony]] of the Air Force, [[Hans Speier]] of the [[RAND Corporation]] and Charles A. H. Thomson of the Brookings Institution.[^17] The panel's report of June 10, 1955 carries a section titled "Alliance and Coalition Problems" by Dunn.[^18] + +A March 26, 1987 memorandum of the CIA Public Affairs Office records that Henry S. Bienen, a James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor at Princeton and Director of the Center of International Studies, invited the Acting Director of Central Intelligence, [[Robert Gates]], to be the first visiting speaker at the Woodrow Wilson School Conference, a twelve-week course for about twenty undergraduates on the role of intelligence agencies in foreign policy, covering congressional oversight and the relationship of intelligence to executive authority. Gates accepted by letter for Tuesday, September 29, 1987.[^19] + +### Lyman Kirkpatrick + +[[Lyman Kirkpatrick]] was a member of the Princeton class of 1938, majoring in politics, and was undergraduate chairman of the [[Woodrow Wilson School]]. He enlisted in the Office of Strategic Services in June 1942, was briefing officer for General [[Omar Bradley]] in 1944, and joined the Central Intelligence Agency at its founding in 1947. He was inspector general of the CIA during the Bay of Pigs invasion, and died at his home in Middleburg, Virginia, on March 3, 1995.[^20] Princeton holds his papers, which document his CIA career from 1947 to 1965.[^21] + +### Project Matterhorn and the Forrestal Campus + +The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory was first known as Project Matterhorn. In the early 1950s [[Lyman Spitzer]]'s vision for plasma physics culminated in Project Matterhorn, which gained the approval of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission; its stated mission was to contain and harness the nuclear burning of hydrogen at temperatures above those found in the sun. Spitzer was the laboratory's director until 1961.[^22] The laboratory was first located on the A and B sites of the James Forrestal Campus, Princeton's research center named for Forrestal, class of 1915 and first Secretary of Defense, and moved to its present C site in 1959.[^23] + +### Robert Jahn and the Psychic Research Program, 1977 to 1978 + +In the spring of 1977 the undergraduate [[Carol Kay Curry]] asked Robert Jahn, then dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, to supervise independent work in psychic phenomena. Jahn wrote in 1978 that he provisionally agreed, pending a full summer of background research. The two visited laboratories around the country, and that winter Jahn was on leave at Stanford, where they worked with a small research group at the nearby [[SRI International]] laboratory.[^6] + +A lecture by Jahn in April 1978 drew more than 200 members of the Princeton community to the Wilson School Auditorium. In his report in the [[Princeton Alumni Weekly]] of December 4, 1978 Jahn wrote that Princeton's own history of psychic research was "rather thin, but not entirely void," citing [[Upton Sinclair]]'s 1930s writing on his wife's clairvoyance and telepathy and his dialogues with [[Albert Einstein]], and the statistics professor [[Samuel Wilks]]'s 1937 recommendations for telepathy experiments. He wrote that he was aware of "some eight to ten faculty members in as many disciplines who have a substantial interest in psychic process," and that the question may be posed "whether it is proper and productive for a university such as Princeton to involve itself to any significant degree in so slippery, soggy, and suspect a field as psychic research." He added that "there will doubtless be many opinions on this. My own is not at all fully formed."[^6] + +Jahn's invited paper "The Persistent Paradox of Psychic Phenomena: An Engineering Perspective," in the February 1982 issue of the [[Proceedings of the IEEE]] (vol. 70, no. 2, p. 136), was written as Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton, where he had been since 1962; the manuscript was received July 15, 1981. The journal's note on the issue recalls that in March 1976 the Proceedings had published a paper on remote viewing. The paper's footnote states that the work was supported in part by the McDonnell Foundation, the John E. Fetzer Foundation, the Explorers Club, the Institute of Noetic Sciences and the Little River Foundation. It thanks "Ms. B. J. Dunne" as laboratory manager of the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research program, credits "Dr. R. D. Nelson" with a heavy contribution, and reproduces remote perception transcripts headed "Princeton, NJ," including a target figure captioned "Remote perception target: Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton, NJ" with an August 28, 1980 time.[^24] + +### Army and Intelligence Interest, 1979 to 1985 + +The [[Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee]] report of December 1979, chaired by Manfred Gale, lists among the committee's site visits "8 Sep Princeton University & Bell Labs, Holmdel, NJ" with "Dean Jahn & Dr. Lucky," meaning [[Robert Lucky]] of [[Bell Laboratories]], and names "Dr. Jahn at Princeton University" among those engaged in PK-related research.[^25] The Defense Intelligence Agency's later GRILL FLAME project report cites Jahn's 1982 paper.[^26] + +A memorandum recording the House Standing Intelligence Oversight Committee session of February 13, 1979 lists the questions put at the session. Asked what other organizations besides SRI were working on the subject, the answer recorded was "Only maybe Dr. Jahn at Princeton."[^27] + +In January 1980 Major [[William Stoner]] of the Army staff wrote a memorandum of conversation on a briefing by Mr. Gale on the final report of the GRILL FLAME science evaluation group. Stoner wrote that "Dean Jahn at Princeton has a two-year leash on his PK program and had to invoke freedom of inquiry, the academic Magna Carta, before the University President allowed him to go ahead." He then set out Jahn's own position: "In fact, Dean Jahn does not have a drop dead time two years out." Stoner recorded that Jahn named the two-year marker as the point at which he expected to have credible results.[^28] + +A Defense Intelligence Agency briefing document on psychoenergetics research dated August 7, 1984 reports that a panel of scientists recommended a five to ten year multi-laboratory program and that "additional laboratories have been contacted and are under consideration for contracts in FY 1985." The list of those being considered includes McDonnell Douglas, the Mind Science Foundation, Lawrence Livermore Laboratories, the "Engineering Anomalies Laboratory, Princeton University," the [[Psychophysical Research Laboratories]], the University of California at Davis, the Communications Studies Laboratory at Syracuse University, the Mobius Group and Aberdeen Proving Ground.[^29] + +On February 6, 1985 [[William Odom|Lieutenant General Odom]], the Army's assistant chief of staff for intelligence, attended an [[United States Army Intelligence and Security Command|INSCOM]] briefing for the Under Secretary of the Army, [[James Ambrose]], on the Center Lane project. The discussion opened with Jahn's work. Odom replied that INSCOM had not completed any work on the Jahn theories, but that [[Garrison Rapmund|Major General Rapmund]] was now an active participant in the field and planned to award an R&D contract to SRI International, "which would include a subcontract to Dr. Jahn." The INSCOM record says the Under Secretary's interest had been renewed by an inquiry from Secretary of the Army [[John Marsh]], who had been asked about Army involvement in psychoenergetics by Senator [[Claiborne Pell]].[^30] + +A December 1985 evaluation of parapsychology prepared under a U.S. Army contract by [[John Palmer]] of the Utrecht parapsychology laboratory describes the "other major research program in parapsychology using REGs" as Jahn's, undertaken at Princeton in collaboration with the psychologists Roger Nelson and Brenda Dunne.[^31] + +The subcontract followed. SRI's final report for Project 1291, dated December 1987, states that in fiscal 1987 SRI awarded a subcontract to the Princeton University Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory to organize and host a conference of SRI cognitive science staff, subcontractors and consultants. The conference was held at Princeton's Scanticon Conference Center on April 9 and 10, 1987, to discuss "What constitutes proof of a controversial claim?" Thirty-one people attended, and the PEAR staff afterward prepared a proceedings volume. The same report records a purchase order contract let on August 4, 1987 to Psychophysical Research Laboratories, a separate laboratory in Princeton, and data on two subjects from the PEAR laboratory added to the PAS database.[^32] + +### The National Research Council and the Office of Technology Assessment + +The [[National Research Council]] Committee on Techniques for the Enhancement of Human Performance, chaired by John A. Swets of Bolt Beranek and Newman, with Daniel Druckman as study director, published *Enhancing Human Performance: Issues, Theories, and Techniques* in 1988 under Army sponsorship. Its first conclusion on parapsychology reads: "The committee finds no scientific justification from research conducted over a period of 130 years for the existence of parapsychological phenomena." It recommended that the Army not become directly involved but that "the best work in the United States" be monitored, a list that began with "that being done at Princeton University by Robert Jahn," followed by Charles Honorton, Helmut Schmidt and Edward May. The parapsychology subcommittee visited Jahn's Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory, where it "witnessed presentations and demonstrations regarding psychokinetic experiments on random number generators" and was briefed on the status of the lab's remote viewing work.[^33] + +The report's review of random number generator experiments states that the programs of Schmidt and Jahn had accounted for almost 60 percent of all known experiments on such generators and had been the most consistently successful in reaching statistically significant outcomes. The committee also wrote that a single subject had contributed about 23 percent of the data in Jahn's formal series and that, when that subject's results were removed, the remainder was no longer significantly different from chance; and that the Princeton experiments provided inadequate documentation of precautions against tampering. The authors attributed those points to the reviewers Palmer and James Alcock.[^33] + +The Office of Technology Assessment held a workshop on experimental parapsychology on September 30, 1988 and issued its report on February 22, 1989. Jahn attended, alongside Alcock, Daryl Bem, Charles Honorton and Ray Hyman. The report states that Jahn described criteria he and his colleagues found useful, including the use of impeccable equipment and the largest possible data base, that the largest REG data base, more than 750,000 trials compiled at the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory, shifted the overall means in the intended direction by 0.035 percent, and that Jahn's research is built on the earlier work of Schmidt on random number generators and of Puthoff on remote viewing.[^34] + +### The Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory and its Funders + +Radin and Nelson's meta-analysis of the random physical systems literature, published in Foundations of Physics in 1989, reviewed more than 800 experiments reported in parapsychology and concluded that the results suggested "the existence of some form of consciousness-related anomaly in random physical systems." The study "was supported by major grants from the McDonnell Foundation, Inc. and the John E. Fetzer Foundation, Inc." and thanks York Dobyns of the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Laboratory.[^35] + +The Defense Intelligence Agency's STAR GATE Long-Range Comprehensive Plan of June 28, 1991 lists the "Princeton Engineering Anomalies Laboratory" in Appendix G, "Potential Research Support Facilities," under anomalous mental phenomena, with Science Applications International Corporation, the Mind Science Foundation, the American Society for Psychical Research, St. John's University and the Foundation for Research into the Nature of Man.[^36] The same list appears in the June 1994 Project STAR GATE Research and Peer Review Plan.[^37] + +The laboratory's own account, in its press release of February 10, 2007, states that the program was established in 1979 by Jahn, then Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, "to study the potential vulnerability of engineering devices and information processing systems to the anomalous influence of the consciousness of their human operators," and that the research "was funded by gifts from Princeton alumni James S. McDonnell, patriarch of the McDonnell Douglas Aerospace empire, Laurance Rockefeller, Donald C. Webster, and by numerous other philanthropic benefactors." It describes Dunne as a developmental psychologist from the [[University of Chicago]] who served throughout as laboratory manager, names the [[International Consciousness Research Laboratories]], established in 1996, as the body that would oversee future work, and lists Jahn and Dunne as advisers to Psyleron, a Princeton enterprise producing devices for public exploration of human and machine anomalies. It also cites their textbook *Margins of Reality: The Role of Consciousness in the Physical World* (Harcourt, 1987).[^38] + +On the closure, the Daily Pennsylvanian reported on February 19, 2007 that Dunne and Jahn would retire and serve as consultants for the consciousness research laboratories, a group associated with the lab for a number of years. Dunne said that "there has been some discomfort among a lot of people in the administration who feel that we're an embarrassment."[^39] The Daily Princetonian reported that the lab "received almost no funding from the University" and "survived on private donations," with sponsors including James S. McDonnell, the former Detroit Tigers owner John Fetzer and Prince Hans Adam II of Liechtenstein. Jahn said that in the lab's heyday "we would spend upwards of half a million dollars per year." The same report states that University staff dismantled the laboratory on the Tuesday before publication, that Jahn, then 76, would retire that year, that a former PEAR researcher, John Valentino, had founded the company Psyleron in 2005, and that many of the lab's supporters had died in a short period and the researchers had not been able to replace much of the equipment.[^40] + +### The Global Consciousness Project + +The Global Consciousness Project ran its data server, named "noosphere" after the idea of [[Pierre Teilhard de Chardin]], at noosphere.princeton.edu. Its 2001 abstract describes a synchronized network of random event generators at dozens of sites around the world reporting by Internet to central computers, with a database generated at a rate of one trial per second at each node and a complete historical record beginning in August 1998.[^41] The project's formal analysis of September 11, 2001 is signed "Roger Nelson, Director, GCP" and refers to a network of 37 such devices, called "eggs."[^42] In the project's book Nelson wrote that he had come to Princeton in 1980 to help coordinate a research program in the School of Engineering on whether human consciousness might affect sensitive electronic devices, in the laboratory known as PEAR.[^43] + +### The Institute for Advanced Study + +The [[Institute for Advanced Study]] is a separate institution in Princeton, New Jersey, and is not part of the University. + +[[Seymour Hersh]] wrote that in the fall of 1966 [[Lewis L. Strauss]] used his influence at the Institute to obtain a two-month visiting fellowship for the Israeli chemist [[Ernst David Bergmann]], although the Institute rarely took chemists. Hersh wrote that the Institute's new director, [[Carl Kaysen]], recalled that Strauss "had nudged me about Bergmann," and that neither Strauss's biographer nor his son knew the two had met.[^44] + +### Alumni in the Federal Record + +Claiborne Pell graduated from Princeton in 1940 and took a master's degree at [[Columbia University]] in 1946; the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress gives his Senate service as January 3, 1961 to January 3, 1997.[^45] [[Ted Cruz]] graduated from Princeton with a B.A. in 1992.[^46] [[James A. Baker III]] graduated in 1952, according to the biography on his law firm's site.[^47] [[Sanford McDonnell]], a nephew of McDonnell Aircraft founder James S. McDonnell, earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Princeton in 1945.[^48] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: John Maclean, *History of the College of New Jersey, from its Origin in 1746 to the Commencement of 1854*, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1877), passage on the centennial celebration: the first charter "passed the seal of the Province of New Jersey on the 22d of October, 1746, John Hamilton, Esq., being the President of the Council and the acting Governor." Archive.org copy: https://archive.org/details/historycollegen01maclgoog +[^2]: *Charter of the College of New Jersey, with Amendments, and the Laws of New Jersey Relative to the College* (Newark: Daily Advertiser Office, 1868), charter dated September 14, 1748 (witnessed by Jonathan Belcher; attorney general's approval and Council consent September 13, 1748) and the amending act reciting incorporation of twenty-three persons. https://archive.org/details/charterofcollege00prin +[^3]: *Princeton Listening Center Records, 1939-1941*, Princeton University Library, University Archives, administrative history and scope and content (finding aid, AC015). https://findingaids.library.upenn.edu/records/PRIN_MUDD_AC015 +[^4]: Rockefeller Archive Center, "Rockefeller Foundation Support for Communications Media in the 1930s and 1940s," citing RG 1.1, Series 200R, Box 271, Folder 3234 (John Marshall, May 1937) and the Princeton University radio study file, 1940-1948. https://resource.rockarch.org/story/rockefeller-foundation-support-for-communications-media-in-the-1930s-and-1940s/ +[^5]: *Hadley Cantril Papers*, Public Policy Papers, Princeton University Library (MC308), biography and scope and content. https://findingaids.library.upenn.edu/records/PRIN_MUDD_MC308 +[^6]: Robert G. Jahn, "Psychic Process, Energy Transfer, and Things That Go Bump in the Night," *A PAW Special Report*, *Princeton Alumni Weekly*, December 4, 1978. CIA reading room, CIA-RDP96-00787R000500380004-4. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000500380004-4 +[^7]: Frank G. Wisner, Deputy Director (Plans), memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence, "Meeting with Nelson Rockefeller et al on Public Opinion Report," April 1, 1955. CIA reading room, CIA-RDP61S00750A000700100046-2. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp61s00750a000700100046-2 +[^8]: F. C. Durant, memorandum, "Report of Meetings of the Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects Convened by Office of Scientific Intelligence, CIA, January 14-18, 1953," list of members present and section on the educational program. CIA reading room, CIA-RDP79B00752A000300100010-4. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp79b00752a000300100010-4 +[^9]: Allen W. Dulles to Frederick S. Dunn, Director, Center of International Studies, Princeton University, May 29, 1954. CIA reading room, CIA-RDP80R01731R001200070114-0. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80r01731r001200070114-0 +[^11]: *Allen W. Dulles Papers*, Public Policy Papers, Princeton University Library (MC019), biography/history and acquisition information. https://findingaids.library.upenn.edu/records/PRIN_MUDD_MC019 +[^10]: Allen W. Dulles to Hadley Cantril, August 28, 1961, replying to a letter of July 21, 1961. CIA reading room, CIA-RDP80B01676R003500040028-2. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01676r003500040028-2 +[^12]: *John Foster Dulles Papers*, Public Policy Papers, Princeton University Library (MC016), biography/history. https://findingaids.library.upenn.edu/records/PRIN_MUDD_MC016 +[^13]: *John Foster Dulles Oral History Collection* (MC017), including the 1965 interview with Allen W. Dulles, and *Dwight D. Eisenhower Library Files Relating to John Foster Dulles* (MC018), Public Policy Papers, Princeton University Library . https://findingaids.library.upenn.edu/records/PRIN_MUDD_MC017 and https://findingaids.library.upenn.edu/records/PRIN_MUDD_MC018 +[^14]: *James V. Forrestal Papers*, Public Policy Papers, Princeton University Library (MC051), biography/history, acquisition information and Series 2 folder list. https://findingaids.library.upenn.edu/records/PRIN_MUDD_MC051 +[^15]: "Forrestal Digitization Completes Grant's First Phase," Princeton University Archives, October 2014, caption for the resignation letter dated March 2, 1949 (James V. Forrestal Papers, MC051, Box 151). https://universityarchives.princeton.edu/2014/10/forrestal-digitization-completes-grants-first-phase-more-than-a-quarter-of-a-million-documents-now-online +[^16]: "Laurance S. Rockefeller '32," *Princeton Alumni Weekly* memorial (published December 4, 2013; he died July 11, 2004). https://paw.princeton.edu/memorial/laurance-s-rockefeller-32 +[^17]: T. W. Parker, Executive Secretary, Planning Coordination Group, memorandum for Allen W. Dulles with "Quantico Panel Participants" list. CIA reading room, CIA-RDP80B01676R004300080005-4. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01676r004300080005-4 +[^18]: Report of the Quantico Vulnerabilities Panel, June 10, 1955, Tab 3 "Alliance and Coalition Problems" by Dr. Frederick S. Dunn. CIA reading room, CIA-RDP86B00269R000800070001-5. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp86b00269r000800070001-5 +[^19]: George V. Lauder, Director, Public Affairs, memorandum for the Acting Director of Central Intelligence, "Invitation to Speak at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University," March 26, 1987 (CIA-RDP89G00720R000600850012-9), and Robert M. Gates to Henry S. Bienen, letter of acceptance, May 1987 (CIA-RDP89G00720R000600850011-0). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp89g00720r000600850012-9 and https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp89g00720r000600850011-0 +[^20]: "Lyman Bickford Kirkpatrick Jr. '38," *Princeton Alumni Weekly* memorial, died at home in Middleburg, Va., March 3, 1995. https://paw.princeton.edu/memorial/lyman-bickford-kirkpatrick-jr-38 +[^21]: Lyman B. Kirkpatrick Papers, Public Policy Papers, Princeton University Library, scope and biographical note (PRIN_MUDD_MC209). https://findingaids.library.upenn.edu/records/PRIN_MUDD_MC209 +[^22]: Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, *Annual Site Environmental Report for Calendar Year 2004* (PPPL-4396), introduction. OSTI 951313. https://www.osti.gov/biblio/951313 +[^23]: Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, *2016 Annual Site Environmental Report* (PPPL-5443), chapter 1. OSTI 1394831. https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1394831 +[^24]: Robert G. Jahn, "The Persistent Paradox of Psychic Phenomena: An Engineering Perspective," *Proceedings of the IEEE* 70, no. 2 (February 1982): 136ff, with the issue's "Scanning the Issue" note, manuscript note (received July 15, 1981; revised October 26, 1981), acknowledgments, and figure 20. CIA reading room, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100010004-6. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001100010004-6 +[^25]: Report by the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee, Mr. Manfred Gale, Chairman, December 1979, itinerary and findings on PK-related research. CIA reading room, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001300120001-5 +[^26]: Defense Intelligence Agency, Directorate for Scientific and Technical Intelligence, *Grill Flame Project Report*, footnote 2 citing Jahn's 1982 Proceedings paper. CIA reading room, CIA-RDP96-00788R001000410001-6. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001000410001-6 +[^27]: Memorandum, "Comments made at 13 February 1979 Session of House Standing Intelligence Oversight Committee," Defense Department, February 15, 1979. CIA reading room, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100060007-8. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001100060007-8 +[^28]: William L. Stoner, memorandum of conversation, "Gale Briefing to ZA, Science Evaluation Group Final Report on GRILL FLAME, 14 Jan 80," January 17, 1980. CIA reading room, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230017-7. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001200230017-7 +[^29]: Defense Intelligence Agency, Directorate for Scientific and Technical Intelligence, "Psychoenergetics Research (U)," August 7, 1984, concluding pages on the panel's recommendations and laboratories under consideration. CIA reading room, CIA-RDP96-00788R001800210001-0. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001800210001-0 +[^30]: INSCOM memorandum, TAGPA-F-SD, Fort George G. Meade, February 11, 1985, on the February 6, 1985 briefing of the Under Secretary of the Army on the INSCOM Center Lane project. CIA reading room, CIA-RDP96-00788R001500020021-2. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001500020021-2 +[^31]: John Palmer, "An Evaluative Report on the Current Status of Parapsychology," December 1985, prepared under contract DAJA 45-84-M-0405 for the U.S. Army, section "Princeton Research Program." CIA reading room, CIA-RDP96-00789R003800360001-1. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00789r003800360001-1 +[^32]: SRI International, *Enhanced Human Performance Investigation*, final technical report, SRI Project 1291, December 1987, Objective I Task 4 and PAS database section. CIA reading room, CIA-RDP96-00787R000300100001-9. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000300100001-9 +[^33]: National Research Council, Committee on Techniques for the Enhancement of Human Performance, *Enhancing Human Performance: Issues, Theories, and Techniques*, ed. Daniel Druckman and John A. Swets (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1988), summary conclusions, "Evaluation of the Scientific Evidence" and the chapter on paranormal phenomena (random number generator review). CIA reading room copy, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200320001-1. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00791r000200320001-1 +[^34]: Office of Technology Assessment, International Security and Commerce Program, *Report of a Workshop on Experimental Parapsychology*, workshop of September 30, 1988, report dated February 22, 1989. CIA reading room, CIA-RDP96-00789R002200450001-8. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00789r002200450001-8 +[^35]: Dean I. Radin and Roger D. Nelson, "Evidence for Consciousness-Related Anomalies in Random Physical Systems," *Foundations of Physics* 19, no. 12 (1989), abstract and acknowledgment. CIA reading room, CIA-RDP96-00789R002200520001-0. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00789r002200520001-0 +[^36]: Defense Intelligence Agency, *STAR GATE Long-Range Comprehensive Plan: Basic Approach*, DT-S-1035-SL, June 28, 1991, Appendix G. CIA reading room, CIA-RDP96-00789R002900330001-4. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00789r002900330001-4 +[^37]: Defense Intelligence Agency, *Project STAR GATE Research and Peer Review Plan*, PAG-TA-1068-SL, June 1994. CIA reading room, CIA-RDP96-00789R002700010001-1. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00789r002700010001-1 +[^38]: "Princeton's PEAR Laboratory to Close," Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research press release, February 10, 2007 (pearlab.icrl.org/press-statement.html, Internet Archive capture). https://web.archive.org/web/2007/http://pearlab.icrl.org/press-statement.html +[^39]: "Anomalous Princeton lab shuts its doors," *The Daily Pennsylvanian*, February 19, 2007. https://www.thedp.com/article/2007/02/anomalous_princeton_lab_shuts_its_doors +[^40]: "Weird science loses its home," *The Daily Princetonian*, February 22, 2007. https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2007/02/weird-science-loses-its-home +[^41]: Global Consciousness Project, "Abstract," noosphere.princeton.edu (Internet Archive capture, 2001). https://web.archive.org/web/2001/http://noosphere.princeton.edu/abstract.html +[^42]: Roger Nelson, "Formal Analysis, September 11 2001," Global Consciousness Project (Internet Archive capture, 2003). https://web.archive.org/web/2003/http://noosphere.princeton.edu/911formal.html +[^43]: Roger Nelson, introduction to the project's book, noosphere.princeton.edu/book/1.1.html (Internet Archive capture, 2003). https://web.archive.org/web/2003/http://noosphere.princeton.edu/book/1.1.html +[^44]: Seymour M. Hersh, *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy* (New York: Random House, 1991), passages on Ernst David Bergmann, Lewis Strauss and Carl Kaysen. +[^45]: "PELL, Claiborne de Borda," Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (Internet Archive capture of the Congress bioguide page, 2012). https://web.archive.org/web/2012/http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=P000193 +[^46]: "CRUZ, Rafael Edward (Ted)," Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (Internet Archive capture, 2015). https://web.archive.org/web/2015/http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C001098 +[^47]: "James A. Baker, III," Baker Botts L.L.P. attorney biography (Internet Archive capture, 2020). https://web.archive.org/web/2020/https://www.bakerbotts.com/people/b/baker-james-a-iii +[^48]: "Sanford N. McDonnell," Boeing history of McDonnell Douglas (Internet Archive capture of November 20, 2010). https://web.archive.org/web/20101120111514/http://boeing.com/history/mdc/snm.htm diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Robert R. Mullen Company.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Robert R. Mullen Company.md index d9fb06a9..e8062e7c 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Robert R. Mullen Company.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Robert R. Mullen Company.md @@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ summary: "Washington public relations firm that gave cover to CIA officers abroa start: 1963-06 location: "Washington, D.C." created: 2026-09-21 -updated: 2026-09-21 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Robert R. Mullen and Company was a public relations firm in Washington whose founder, [[Robert R. Mullen]], placed officers of the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] in its overseas offices. [[Howard Hunt|E. Howard Hunt]] was on its payroll when he organized the break-in at the [[Watergate scandal|Watergate]]. The agency's cryptonym for the arrangement was QKENCHANT.[^1][^2] @@ -39,6 +39,14 @@ In March 1972, while employed by the firm, Hunt went to [[Denver]] in a wig and Director [[William Colby]] reported to [[Henry Kissinger]] on the use of the firm for cover on February 9, 1974. Mullen was released from his secrecy agreement for a single interview with the [[Senate Watergate Committee|Senate Watergate committee]] on February 5, 1974.[^5] +### The Senate Select Committee's account + +The final report of the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities states that the firm had maintained a relationship with the agency since its incorporation in 1959 and provided cover for an agent in Europe and an agent in the Far East at the time of the break-in. Hunt left the agency in 1970 and joined the firm with what Mullen understood to be the blessing of Director Helms; his covert security clearance was extended by the agency, and he remained witting of the Mullen cover and negotiated with the agency about it after he joined the White House.[^8] + +Robert F. Bennett, the son of Senator [[Wallace F. Bennett]], became president in 1971 and brought the Hughes Tool Company account. The committee wrote that agency records indicated consideration was given to using Mullen's Hughes relationship for a cover arrangement in South America and to gather information on Robert Maheu. Robert Oliver, the firm's Washington lobbyist for Hughes Tool, is the father of R. Spencer Oliver Jr., whose telephone was tapped at the Democratic National Committee, and Bennett met with the Olivers after the break-in to discuss the bugging.[^9] + +According to the case officer's memorandum of July 10, 1972, forwarded to Helms on or before July 14, Bennett had established a "back door entry" to E. B. Williams, the Democratic National Committee's attorney, in order to "kill off" revelations of the agency's relationship with the firm in the course of the committee's lawsuit, and agreed to check with the agency before contacting Williams. The committee staff confirmed that Bennett funneled information to Williams through the attorney [[Hobart Taylor]], and that the flow was more extensive than what Bennett had given the grand jury. The agency acknowledged paying one-half of Bennett's attorney fee for his grand jury appearance.[^10] A contact report of July 24, 1972 shows that the agency persuaded Mullen to withdraw its Far East cover through an "agreed upon scenario" that included a falsified Watergate publicity crisis, and the memorandum refers to a "WH flap" that the agency told the committee concerned a matter threatening Western Hemisphere operations, deleted at its request. A memorandum of March 1, 1973 records that Bennett felt he could handle the Ervin Committee if the agency could handle Hunt, and that he was feeding stories to [[Bob Woodward]] without attribution to Bennett.[^11] + ### Footnotes [^1]: Central Intelligence Agency, Central Cover Staff, "CIA Utilization of the Robert R. Mullen Company," memorandum to the Office of Security, June 20, 1972, CIA Reading Room documents C00573275 and C00320174. @@ -48,3 +56,7 @@ Director [[William Colby]] reported to [[Henry Kissinger]] on the use of the fir [^5]: Central Intelligence Agency, contact report, July 10, 1972, C03210463; "Meeting with Senator Baker, 11 December 1973," C01482353; "Select Committee Testimony of 5 February 1974," C01474422; Colby, W.E., memorandum to Henry Kissinger, February 9, 1974, C01474417. [^6]: 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,* 93rd Cong., 1973; "Whispers About Colson," *Newsweek,* March 5, 1973. [^7]: Ruth, Henry S., Jr., Watergate Special Prosecution Force, letter to John S. Warner, July 26, 1973, CIA Reading Room document C01482382; Chief, Cover and Commercial Staff, "Inquiry Regarding Possible ITT Association with CIA and Robert R. Mullen and Company," August 7, 1973, C01367838. +[^8]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), section "Robert Bennett and the Mullen and Company", p. 1121, citing the executive session testimony of Robert R. Mullen (February 5, 1974) and the CIA memorandum "Wrap-Up of Agency's Association with Robert R. Mullen and Company." https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^9]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), section "Robert Bennett and the Mullen and Company", pp. 1121-1123, citing the executive session testimony of Robert F. Bennett (February 1, 1974) and E. Howard Hunt (December 18, 1973) and staff interviews. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^10]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), section "Robert Bennett and the Mullen and Company", p. 1124, citing the Mullen case officer's memorandum for record of July 10, 1972 and the Hobart Taylor interview report of February 11, 1974. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities +[^11]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, *Final Report*, S. Rept. 93-981 (June 1974), section "Robert Bennett and the Mullen and Company", pp. 1125-1128, citing the case officer's memoranda of July 10 and July 24, 1972 and the memorandum for the Deputy Director for Plans of March 1, 1973. https://archive.org/details/FinalReportOfTheSenateSelectCommitteeOnPresidentialCampaignActivities diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Southern Air Transport.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Southern Air Transport.md index 04dcc2c2..481bca4e 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Southern Air Transport.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Southern Air Transport.md @@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ aliases: - Southern Air - Southern Air Holdings created: 2026-05-17 -updated: 2026-10-05 +updated: 2026-10-15 category: "Private Organization" tags: - Organization @@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ Southern Air Transport was incorporated in [[Florida]] on October 31, 1949, as a The Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (the [[Church Committee]]) reported that the CIA bought Southern Air Transport because in June 1960 the [[U.S. Department of Defense|Department of Defense]] and the [[Civil Aeronautics Board]] changed the rules for [[Military Air Transport Service]] contracts, requiring a supplemental certificate and participation in the [[Civil Reserve Air Fleet]], which [[Air America]] could not obtain. Director of Central Intelligence [[Allen Dulles]] approved the purchase on July 15, 1960. Air America management surveyed the 18 remaining supplemental carriers and chose Southern Air Transport, which operated two C-46s; the ownership was kept completely separate from Air America to avoid public hearings, but the new company was to fly on equipment under conditional sale from Air America and with transferred personnel, and the Committee wrote that it "was actually an integral part of the complex from a management perspective," its management decisions made by the same CIA consultant and advisory team that set Air America policy. The Agency later acquired [[Boeing]] 727s that Boeing modified to enlarge the ventral exit for airdrops.[^1] -By 1972 the Agency decided to sell. The DCI on May 5, 1972 approved selling the equity to current management; the Committee wrote that "none of the employees of SAT had ever been an employee of the Agency." An accounting firm valued the company, the asking price was set at $2.7 million for stock plus $3.2 million to pay off a note to Air America, and a former owner, who is not named in the report, made offers in December 1972 and January 1973. The DCI approved a sale at $5.605 million on January 19, 1973 ($2.145 million for stock, $3.125 million in debt and a $335,000 credit). Competing supplemental carriers lobbied [[Congress]], the [[General Accounting Office]] and the General Services Administration against the sale and one offered about $2 million more; on July 31, 1973 the DCI ordered the company dissolved, then on October 1 agreed to entertain a sale if the buyer obtained prompt financing. The sale closed on December 31, 1973 after a $4.5 million loan commitment from the [[First National Bank of Chicago]] on November 29. In early 1974 Southern Air Transport exercised its option on a [[Lockheed]] L-100-30 Hercules for $3.15 million and resold it to [[Saturn Airways]] for $4.35 million; the CIA read this as a breach of the agreement against windfall profit, an arbitrator ruled for Air America on September 5, 1974, and the Agency received an additional $1,304,243. Employees filed a class action in March 1974 alleging the sale was illegal; the federal court dismissed it with prejudice on July 17, 1974. The Agency received $6.47 million in total.[^1] *The [[The Christian Science Monitor]]* reported in 1986 that the buyer was [[Stanley Williams]], who had run the company for the CIA for 11 years, and that [[Lawrence Houston]], the CIA's general counsel at the time of the sale, said that as far as he knew there was no continuing relationship; a company spokesman, [[William Kress]], said Southern had "no contracts with the CIA, nor have we since they owned the airline prior to 1973."[^3] +By 1972 the Agency decided to sell. The DCI on May 5, 1972 approved selling the equity to current management; the Committee wrote that "none of the employees of SAT had ever been an employee of the Agency." An accounting firm valued the company, the asking price was set at $2.7 million for stock plus $3.2 million to pay off a note to Air America, and a former owner, who is not named in the report, made offers in December 1972 and January 1973. The DCI approved a sale at $5.605 million on January 19, 1973 ($2.145 million for stock, $3.125 million in debt and a $335,000 credit). Competing supplemental carriers lobbied [[Congress]], the [[General Accounting Office]] and the General Services Administration against the sale and one offered about $2 million more; on July 31, 1973 the DCI ordered the company dissolved, then on October 1 agreed to entertain a sale if the buyer obtained prompt financing. The sale closed on December 31, 1973 after a $4.5 million loan commitment from the [[First National Bank of Chicago]] on November 29. In early 1974 Southern Air Transport exercised its option on a [[Lockheed Aircraft Company|Lockheed]] L-100-30 Hercules for $3.15 million and resold it to [[Saturn Airways]] for $4.35 million; the CIA read this as a breach of the agreement against windfall profit, an arbitrator ruled for Air America on September 5, 1974, and the Agency received an additional $1,304,243. Employees filed a class action in March 1974 alleging the sale was illegal; the federal court dismissed it with prejudice on July 17, 1974. The Agency received $6.47 million in total.[^1] *The [[The Christian Science Monitor]]* reported in 1986 that the buyer was [[Stanley Williams]], who had run the company for the CIA for 11 years, and that [[Lawrence Houston]], the CIA's general counsel at the time of the sale, said that as far as he knew there was no continuing relationship; a company spokesman, [[William Kress]], said Southern had "no contracts with the CIA, nor have we since they owned the airline prior to 1973."[^3] ### Contra resupply and the Enterprise, 1983 to 1986 diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Standard Oil.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Standard Oil.md index ac8c6589..7df3fae5 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Standard Oil.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Standard Oil.md @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ --- created: 2026-06-13 -updated: 2026-10-14 +updated: 2026-10-15 title: Standard Oil aliases: - Standard Oil Company @@ -59,34 +59,34 @@ relations: reverse: true start: 1942-03-25 role: "criminal information, complaint and consent decree of March 25, 1942" - fn: 35 + fn: 36 - type: investigated with: "[[Federal Trade Commission]]" reverse: true start: 1949-12-02 end: 1951-10 role: "international petroleum cartel staff investigation; staff report filed October 1951" - fn: 40 + fn: 41 - type: prosecuted with: "[[Department of Justice]]" reverse: true start: 1953-04-14 role: "civil antitrust complaint in the international petroleum cartel case, Civil No. 86-27" - fn: 56 + fn: 57 - type: owned with: "[[Creole Petroleum Company]]" role: "Venezuelan subsidiary; Nelson Rockefeller sat on its board" - fn: 71 + fn: 72 - type: partner_of with: "[[Arabian American Oil Company]]" start: 1948-12 role: "30 percent stake in Aramco from December 1948; Socony-Vacuum held 10 percent" - fn: 50 + fn: 51 - type: participant_in with: "[[Iranian Consortium]]" start: 1954-04-01 role: "eight percent share of the 1954 consortium" - fn: 63 + fn: 64 --- Standard Oil was the petroleum monopoly founded in 1870 by [[John D. Rockefeller]] that controlled roughly ninety percent of American oil refining before the [[Supreme Court of the United States|U.S. Supreme Court]] ordered its dissolution in 1911 under the [[Sherman Antitrust Act]]. The breakup created successor companies, including Standard Oil of [[New Jersey]] (later [[Exxon]]), Standard Oil of New York ([[Mobil]]), and Standard Oil of California ([[Chevron]]), whose combined assets preserved the [[Rockefeller Foundation|Rockefeller]] family's financial power.[^1] Between 1929 and 1942 the New Jersey company's patent and licensing arrangements ran through the German chemical combine [[I.G. Farben]]; after the war it held a 30 percent interest in the [[Arabian American Oil Company]] (Aramco) and an 8 percent share of the 1954 [[Iranian Consortium]]. @@ -123,57 +123,57 @@ The company issued a release on the day of the consent decree, introduced as Exh ### Ethyl, aviation fuel and the German plants -Standard and [[General Motors]] each held 50 per cent of the [[Ethyl Gasoline Corporation]], described in the 1942 criminal information as sole producer of the tetraethyl lead used in nearly all American motor fuels.[^29] Howard's February 6, 1940 letter reported that [[Ethyl G.m.b.H.]], a German company owned half by the [[British Associated Ethyl Company]] and half by I.G. Farbenindustrie, paid in full a debt of nearly $900,000 owed to the Ethyl Gasoline Corporation about one month after the war began, although it could have deferred payment for two more months.[^30] +Standard and [[General Motors]] each held 50 per cent of the [[Ethyl Gasoline Corporation]], described in the 1942 criminal information as sole producer of the tetraethyl lead used in nearly all American motor fuels.[^29] In 1940 the Supreme Court recorded that Standard "owns one-half of the capital stock" of Ethyl and that "The remainder is owned by General Motors Corporation and E. I. du Pont de Nemours Company."[^30] Howard's February 6, 1940 letter reported that [[Ethyl G.m.b.H.]], a German company owned half by the [[British Associated Ethyl Company]] and half by I.G. Farbenindustrie, paid in full a debt of nearly $900,000 owed to the Ethyl Gasoline Corporation about one month after the war began, although it could have deferred payment for two more months.[^31] -The committee's summary states that Standard, through the New Jersey company as well as its subsidiary, helped build an aviation gasoline plant for Germany at [[Hamburg]] as late as 1939. It cites a memorandum signed by E.J. Gohr dated August 1, 1939 describing I.G. representatives leaving [[New York City|New York]] on August 4 for a week in the South and [[Indiana]] and returning to New York for discussions on the detailed design of the plant, and a letter of August 11, 1939 from R.P. Russell of the Standard Oil Development Company stating that the company was "not only willing but anxious to do everything we can to assist the Kellogg and I. G. gentlemen in preparing the process design."[^31] Farish's statement of March 31, 1942 answered the charge that the German subsidiary D.A.P.G. had planned a plant at Hamburg in 1938 or 1939 with the words "This is true and as a German corporation, operating in Germany, with which country we were not then at war, it could not have done otherwise," and called the charge that Standard shipped to Italian and German air lines in [[Brazil]] contrary to the wishes of the State Department "unfounded."[^32] +The committee's summary states that Standard, through the New Jersey company as well as its subsidiary, helped build an aviation gasoline plant for Germany at [[Hamburg]] as late as 1939. It cites a memorandum signed by E.J. Gohr dated August 1, 1939 describing I.G. representatives leaving [[New York City|New York]] on August 4 for a week in the South and [[Indiana]] and returning to New York for discussions on the detailed design of the plant, and a letter of August 11, 1939 from R.P. Russell of the Standard Oil Development Company stating that the company was "not only willing but anxious to do everything we can to assist the Kellogg and I. G. gentlemen in preparing the process design."[^32] Farish's statement of March 31, 1942 answered the charge that the German subsidiary D.A.P.G. had planned a plant at Hamburg in 1938 or 1939 with the words "This is true and as a German corporation, operating in Germany, with which country we were not then at war, it could not have done otherwise," and called the charge that Standard shipped to Italian and German air lines in [[Brazil]] contrary to the wishes of the State Department "unfounded."[^33] -The summary also quotes a memorandum from Howard to Teagle and Farish on the effect of the cartel agreement on fuels for the [[Army Air Corps]]: "To meet the very proper desires of the Air Corps as expressed to us we shall have to violate our agreements and perhaps forfeit the confidence of our associates, both American and foreign." The summary concludes that Standard "met with difficulties in developing aviation gasoline for our own Army because of the cartel agreement."[^33] +The summary also quotes a memorandum from Howard to Teagle and Farish on the effect of the cartel agreement on fuels for the [[Army Air Corps]]: "To meet the very proper desires of the Air Corps as expressed to us we shall have to violate our agreements and perhaps forfeit the confidence of our associates, both American and foreign." The summary concludes that Standard "met with difficulties in developing aviation gasoline for our own Army because of the cartel agreement."[^34] -Standard's Brazilian subsidiary and the German-controlled line [[Condor Syndikat|Condor]] and the [[Lineas Aereas Transcontinentales Italianas|Lati]] line, which ran from [[Italy]] to Brazil, were the subject of testimony by [[Adolf Berle]], the assistant secretary of state. Berle said the Secretary of State requested in March 1941 that Standard Oil of New Jersey make no sales to the two lines except from New York or [[Aruba]]; that the department had reason to believe, and Standard had reported, that the lines were drawing supplies from the Brazilian subsidiary; and that after a conference on April 14, 1941 the company agreed to supply them, if at all, only through that subsidiary, which would deliver only with the approval of the American ambassador in [[Rio de Janeiro]].[^34] +Standard's Brazilian subsidiary and the German-controlled line [[Condor Syndikat|Condor]] and the [[Lineas Aereas Transcontinentales Italianas|Lati]] line, which ran from [[Italy]] to Brazil, were the subject of testimony by [[Adolf Berle]], the assistant secretary of state. Berle said the Secretary of State requested in March 1941 that Standard Oil of New Jersey make no sales to the two lines except from New York or [[Aruba]]; that the department had reason to believe, and Standard had reported, that the lines were drawing supplies from the Brazilian subsidiary; and that after a conference on April 14, 1941 the company agreed to supply them, if at all, only through that subsidiary, which would deliver only with the approval of the American ambassador in [[Rio de Janeiro]].[^35] ### The 1942 consent decree -On March 25, 1942 the [[Department of Justice]] filed a criminal information and a complaint against Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) and entered a consent decree with it. The information named as defendants the New Jersey company, the Delaware corporation of similar name, the Standard Oil Development Company, the Standard Oil Company of Louisiana, the Standard Catalytic Company, Jasco, Inc., the [[Hydro Engineering and Chemical Company]], and Teagle, Farish and Howard.[^29] Arnold told the committee on March 27 that the company pleaded nolo contendere and paid fines of $50,000. Asked by [[Harry S. Truman]], the committee's chairman, why the fines were so small, Arnold said the department judged that getting the patents loose was more important than fines large enough to involve years of litigation. The chairman remarked that the fines were "rather out of proportion with other fines," and Arnold answered, "I have to confess they are somewhat out of proportion." Arnold said he had not been present at the New York negotiations, which covered a period of weeks, and that "when the smoke all cleared away and the matter reached my office, it was simply a take-it-or-leave-it proposition, and at that point, after consultation with a number of people, I finally took it." Asked by the committee's chief counsel, [[Hugh A. Fulton]], whether the company had held back the butyl patents during the negotiations, Arnold said: "Butyl had not been made available."[^35] +On March 25, 1942 the [[Department of Justice]] filed a criminal information and a complaint against Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) and entered a consent decree with it. The information named as defendants the New Jersey company, the Delaware corporation of similar name, the Standard Oil Development Company, the Standard Oil Company of Louisiana, the Standard Catalytic Company, Jasco, Inc., the [[Hydro Engineering and Chemical Company]], and Teagle, Farish and Howard.[^29] Arnold told the committee on March 27 that the company pleaded nolo contendere and paid fines of $50,000. Asked by [[Harry S. Truman]], the committee's chairman, why the fines were so small, Arnold said the department judged that getting the patents loose was more important than fines large enough to involve years of litigation. The chairman remarked that the fines were "rather out of proportion with other fines," and Arnold answered, "I have to confess they are somewhat out of proportion." Arnold said he had not been present at the New York negotiations, which covered a period of weeks, and that "when the smoke all cleared away and the matter reached my office, it was simply a take-it-or-leave-it proposition, and at that point, after consultation with a number of people, I finally took it." Asked by the committee's chief counsel, [[Hugh A. Fulton]], whether the company had held back the butyl patents during the negotiations, Arnold said: "Butyl had not been made available."[^36] -Arnold said the decree compelled Standard to license anyone royalty-free under the crucial rubber patents and the other patents involved in the conspiracy, including the toluol patents, and required the company to transfer the know-how for them; he said he was reluctant to sign because the decree had no provision allowing the Attorney General or the court to pass on future relations between I.G. Farben and Standard. He said the company had indicated its willingness to make restitution "in the sum of millions of dollars and at the cost of its future domination of the industry."[^36] He put the cost of the royalty-free licensing to the company at possibly $10,000,000, and said the company's release gave $6,000,000.[^37] The final judgment required the defendants to dissolve the [[Hydro Patents Company]] and the Hydro Engineering and Chemical Company within one year, enjoined them from entering into patent transfer arrangements with I.G. Farben without notice to the Attorney General, and recorded the Alien Property Custodian's consent to the decree, including limits on royalties and compulsory licensing under the patents.[^38] The information had described the Hydro Patents Company as the vehicle for the hydrogenation process in the United States under the Mutual Licensing Plan of July 11, 1930.[^39] +Arnold said the decree compelled Standard to license anyone royalty-free under the crucial rubber patents and the other patents involved in the conspiracy, including the toluol patents, and required the company to transfer the know-how for them; he said he was reluctant to sign because the decree had no provision allowing the Attorney General or the court to pass on future relations between I.G. Farben and Standard. He said the company had indicated its willingness to make restitution "in the sum of millions of dollars and at the cost of its future domination of the industry."[^37] He put the cost of the royalty-free licensing to the company at possibly $10,000,000, and said the company's release gave $6,000,000.[^38] The final judgment required the defendants to dissolve the [[Hydro Patents Company]] and the Hydro Engineering and Chemical Company within one year, enjoined them from entering into patent transfer arrangements with I.G. Farben without notice to the Attorney General, and recorded the Alien Property Custodian's consent to the decree, including limits on royalties and compulsory licensing under the patents.[^39] The information had described the Hydro Patents Company as the vehicle for the hydrogenation process in the United States under the Mutual Licensing Plan of July 11, 1930.[^40] ### The Federal Trade Commission staff report -The Federal Trade Commission resolved on December 2, 1949 to investigate agreements among American petroleum companies and with their foreign partners; the Department of Justice deferred its own investigation to avoid duplicating the commission's work, and the commission's staff filed its report in October 1951.[^40] Published in 1952 as a committee print of the Senate Select Committee on Small Business, the report listed Standard Oil Co. (New Jersey) as one of seven international companies, with crude production in 1949 of 1,317.7 thousand barrels daily.[^41] It recorded that Creole Petroleum Corp. was a subsidiary of the New Jersey company and that the company owned 30 percent of the Trans-Arabian Pipe Line.[^42] It described the board of Aramco as three members each from Standard Oil Co. (N.J.), Standard Oil Co. of California and Texas Co., one from Socony-Vacuum and one with no listed affiliation, and stated that the directors of Standard of New Jersey and Socony-Vacuum who determined Aramco policy also shaped the behavior of the Iraq Petroleum Company.[^43] +The Federal Trade Commission resolved on December 2, 1949 to investigate agreements among American petroleum companies and with their foreign partners; the Department of Justice deferred its own investigation to avoid duplicating the commission's work, and the commission's staff filed its report in October 1951.[^41] Published in 1952 as a committee print of the Senate Select Committee on Small Business, the report listed Standard Oil Co. (New Jersey) as one of seven international companies, with crude production in 1949 of 1,317.7 thousand barrels daily.[^42] It recorded that Creole Petroleum Corp. was a subsidiary of the New Jersey company and that the company owned 30 percent of the Trans-Arabian Pipe Line.[^43] It described the board of Aramco as three members each from Standard Oil Co. (N.J.), Standard Oil Co. of California and Texas Co., one from Socony-Vacuum and one with no listed affiliation, and stated that the directors of Standard of New Jersey and Socony-Vacuum who determined Aramco policy also shaped the behavior of the Iraq Petroleum Company.[^44] -The Justice Department report to the National Security Council of January 1953 stated that "an indictment could have been returned on the basis of the Federal Trade Commission's staff report and a small number of documents in the possession of the Department of Justice," and that the pending investigation was being conducted "with the aid of a committee composed of representatives of State, CIA, Defense and Justice."[^44] The commission's evidence also covered the domestic side of the cartel, including production curtailment on the Gulf Coast and the profit Standard of California earned on its Middle East oil at prices charged to the [[United States Navy|Navy]].[^45] +The Justice Department report to the National Security Council of January 1953 stated that "an indictment could have been returned on the basis of the Federal Trade Commission's staff report and a small number of documents in the possession of the Department of Justice," and that the pending investigation was being conducted "with the aid of a committee composed of representatives of State, CIA, Defense and Justice."[^45] The commission's evidence also covered the domestic side of the cartel, including production curtailment on the Gulf Coast and the profit Standard of California earned on its Middle East oil at prices charged to the [[United States Navy|Navy]].[^46] ### Aramco and the Saudi concessions -Standard of California obtained a petroleum concession in Saudi Arabia in 1933, located wholly within the territory of the 1928 [[Red Line Agreement]]; the concession passed to Aramco, which was owned by Standard of California and The Texas Company.[^46] The Achnacarry Agreement, which Walter Teagle of Standard, Sir [[Henri Deterding]] of Royal Dutch Shell and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company made in September 1928, aimed to eliminate competition among the parties, prevent overproduction and divide world markets on an "as is" basis.[^47] +Standard of California obtained a petroleum concession in Saudi Arabia in 1933, located wholly within the territory of the 1928 [[Red Line Agreement]]; the concession passed to Aramco, which was owned by Standard of California and The Texas Company.[^47] The Achnacarry Agreement, which Walter Teagle of Standard, Sir [[Henri Deterding]] of Royal Dutch Shell and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company made in September 1928, aimed to eliminate competition among the parties, prevent overproduction and divide world markets on an "as is" basis.[^48] -Aramco's production rose from 21,296 barrels daily in 1944 to 58,386 in 1945, most of it for military use, and its owners sought a permanent market.[^48] Discussions between Standard of New Jersey, Socony-Vacuum and the two owners began before mid-1946; an agreement in principle was reached in December 1946, and formal agreements were signed on March 12, 1947 giving Jersey a 30 percent and Socony a 10 percent interest in Aramco and the Trans-Arabian Pipe Line, conditional on a favorable settlement of the red-line controversy by March 12, 1951.[^49] Jersey was to pay $76,500,000 and Socony $25,500,000 for their stock, and both guaranteed $102,000,000 in bank loans. The agreements became effective in December 1948, after the withdrawal in November 1948 of the suit brought by the [[Compagnie Française des Pétroles]]; the Commission's staff put the total financial cost to the two companies for their 40 percent interest at nearly one-half billion dollars, and noted that they obtained a veto over amendments to Aramco's bylaws.[^50] The 1974 print's account of operations under the Red Line agreement states that, on the excuse that Aramco's owners were "unable to finance" a pipeline to the Mediterranean, Jersey and Socony-Vacuum were admitted to partnership; that both agreed to guarantee loans totaling $273,000,000 and became parties to joint contracts for oil from Aramco for eighteen years in the ratio 3:3:3:1; and that this "provided for the transfer of effective control of Aramco to the two American companies, Jersey and Socony."[^46] +Aramco's production rose from 21,296 barrels daily in 1944 to 58,386 in 1945, most of it for military use, and its owners sought a permanent market.[^49] Discussions between Standard of New Jersey, Socony-Vacuum and the two owners began before mid-1946; an agreement in principle was reached in December 1946, and formal agreements were signed on March 12, 1947 giving Jersey a 30 percent and Socony a 10 percent interest in Aramco and the Trans-Arabian Pipe Line, conditional on a favorable settlement of the red-line controversy by March 12, 1951.[^50] Jersey was to pay $76,500,000 and Socony $25,500,000 for their stock, and both guaranteed $102,000,000 in bank loans. The agreements became effective in December 1948, after the withdrawal in November 1948 of the suit brought by the [[Compagnie Française des Pétroles]]; the Commission's staff put the total financial cost to the two companies for their 40 percent interest at nearly one-half billion dollars, and noted that they obtained a veto over amendments to Aramco's bylaws.[^51] The 1974 print's account of operations under the Red Line agreement states that, on the excuse that Aramco's owners were "unable to finance" a pipeline to the Mediterranean, Jersey and Socony-Vacuum were admitted to partnership; that both agreed to guarantee loans totaling $273,000,000 and became parties to joint contracts for oil from Aramco for eighteen years in the ratio 3:3:3:1; and that this "provided for the transfer of effective control of Aramco to the two American companies, Jersey and Socony."[^47] -In April 1945, when Standard of California and Texas still owned Aramco, Assistant Secretary of State [[William L. Clayton]] wrote to Assistant Secretary [[James C. Dunn]] on ways of helping the government of [[Saudi Arabia]] meet its budget deficit that the department "should avoid putting the Arabian American Oil Company in an embarrassing position without giving it every opportunity to stand on its own feet."[^51] In June 1945 the American minister in Saudi Arabia, [[William A. Eddy]], predicted that the king's alternative to American assistance would be "to bleed Aramco for loans to stabilize his economy," and wrote that the company's opinion was that "Aramco is the substance and the Legation the shadow."[^52] In August 1945 the State Department described a proposed arrangement under which Navy oil would carry a royalty of 15 cents a barrel, against the 23 cents specified in the existing Aramco concession.[^53] +In April 1945, when Standard of California and Texas still owned Aramco, Assistant Secretary of State [[William L. Clayton]] wrote to Assistant Secretary [[James C. Dunn]] on ways of helping the government of [[Saudi Arabia]] meet its budget deficit that the department "should avoid putting the Arabian American Oil Company in an embarrassing position without giving it every opportunity to stand on its own feet."[^52] In June 1945 the American minister in Saudi Arabia, [[William A. Eddy]], predicted that the king's alternative to American assistance would be "to bleed Aramco for loans to stabilize his economy," and wrote that the company's opinion was that "Aramco is the substance and the Legation the shadow."[^53] In August 1945 the State Department described a proposed arrangement under which Navy oil would carry a royalty of 15 cents a barrel, against the 23 cents specified in the existing Aramco concession.[^54] ### The grand jury and the cartel case -The Attorney General's report to the National Security Council of January 1953 stated that the cartel had existed since 1928 and that seven of the major oil companies controlled all major oil producing areas outside the United States, all foreign refining operations and the patents covering refining processes, divided world markets and maintained non-competitive world prices. It stated that a decision to terminate the investigation "would be regarded by the world as a confession that our abhorrence of monopoly and restrictive cartel activities does not extend to the world's most important single industry."[^40][^54] [[Frank Church]]'s preface to the 1974 print records the sequence: the Attorney General announced a grand jury investigation on July 17, 1952, subpoenas went to 21 companies in August, and the State Department had opposed the investigation from the outset (Acheson memorandum of April 16, 1952).[^55] On January 12, 1953, in the last days of the Truman administration, Truman wrote to Attorney General [[James P. McGranery]] directing a civil suit instead of the grand jury, conditioned on the voluntary production of documents; the department filed a civil complaint on April 14, 1953 in the District Court for the District of Columbia naming Standard Oil of New Jersey, Socony-Vacuum, Standard Oil of California, The Texas Company and Gulf Oil, alleging violations of the Sherman Act from 1928, and the case was transferred to the Southern District of New York at the defendants' request.[^56] +The Attorney General's report to the National Security Council of January 1953 stated that the cartel had existed since 1928 and that seven of the major oil companies controlled all major oil producing areas outside the United States, all foreign refining operations and the patents covering refining processes, divided world markets and maintained non-competitive world prices. It stated that a decision to terminate the investigation "would be regarded by the world as a confession that our abhorrence of monopoly and restrictive cartel activities does not extend to the world's most important single industry."[^41][^55] [[Frank Church]]'s preface to the 1974 print records the sequence: the Attorney General announced a grand jury investigation on July 17, 1952, subpoenas went to 21 companies in August, and the State Department had opposed the investigation from the outset (Acheson memorandum of April 16, 1952).[^56] On January 12, 1953, in the last days of the Truman administration, Truman wrote to Attorney General [[James P. McGranery]] directing a civil suit instead of the grand jury, conditioned on the voluntary production of documents; the department filed a civil complaint on April 14, 1953 in the District Court for the District of Columbia naming Standard Oil of New Jersey, Socony-Vacuum, Standard Oil of California, The Texas Company and Gulf Oil, alleging violations of the Sherman Act from 1928, and the case was transferred to the Southern District of New York at the defendants' request.[^57] ### Iran and the 1954 consortium -Church wrote that in March 1951 [[Iran]] had nationalized all local assets of the [[Anglo-Iranian Oil Company]], that Secretary of State [[Dean Acheson]] had considered developing an American capability to restore Iranian production even in the absence of the company, and that the Justice Department believed the cooperation of the established major American companies was not required.[^55][^56] [[Herbert Hoover Jr.]] was appointed the new administration's special representative on the Iranian problem. On August 6, 1953 National Security Council Action Memorandum No. 875b designated the Attorney General to "develop a solution which would protect the interests of the free world in the Near East as a vital source of petroleum supplies," and in October 1953 overall authority was transferred from the Attorney General to the Secretary of State.[^56][^57] Church wrote that the American majors, encouraged by the downgrading of the cartel case to a civil action, stated that they would be willing to participate in a solution because of the "large national security interests involved" (letter from [[Orvil Harden]], December 4, 1953).[^57] +Church wrote that in March 1951 [[Iran]] had nationalized all local assets of the [[Anglo-Iranian Oil Company]], that Secretary of State [[Dean Acheson]] had considered developing an American capability to restore Iranian production even in the absence of the company, and that the Justice Department believed the cooperation of the established major American companies was not required.[^56][^57] [[Herbert Hoover Jr.]] was appointed the new administration's special representative on the Iranian problem. On August 6, 1953 National Security Council Action Memorandum No. 875b designated the Attorney General to "develop a solution which would protect the interests of the free world in the Near East as a vital source of petroleum supplies," and in October 1953 overall authority was transferred from the Attorney General to the Secretary of State.[^57][^58] Church wrote that the American majors, encouraged by the downgrading of the cartel case to a civil action, stated that they would be willing to participate in a solution because of the "large national security interests involved" (letter from [[Orvil Harden]], December 4, 1953).[^58] -Representatives of eight companies, namely the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, Royal Dutch Shell, Compagnie Française des Pétroles, Standard Oil France, Standard of California, Texas, Gulf and Socony, met in [[London]] on December 14, 15 and 17, 1953 at the invitation of the Anglo-Iranian company, with Hoover attending as an observer at the request of the Justice Department.[^58] [[John Foster Dulles]]'s memorandum of January 8, 1954 records that after the meeting of the National Security Council that day he, Wilson, Humphrey, Attorney General [[Herbert Brownell Jr.]] and Anderson discussed legal clearance for the American companies, and that the Attorney General "felt that he could give some sort of agreement not to sue" if requested in the national interest, and that the pending lawsuit would be continued in a way that would avoid undesirable publicity, which "would require some cooperation from the attorneys for the oil companies."[^59] On January 13, 1954 the assistant attorney general [[Stanley N. Barnes]] and the antitrust attorney [[Leonard Emmerglick]] gave Brownell the division's two primary objections to the consortium agreement: the possible use of a veto by the Anglo-Iranian company, the British government and the Iranian government, and the lack of freedom to set prices and markets.[^60] The National Security Council decided on January 14 that the security interests of the United States required the American petroleum companies to participate in an international consortium.[^57] +Representatives of eight companies, namely the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, Royal Dutch Shell, Compagnie Française des Pétroles, Standard Oil France, Standard of California, Texas, Gulf and Socony, met in [[London]] on December 14, 15 and 17, 1953 at the invitation of the Anglo-Iranian company, with Hoover attending as an observer at the request of the Justice Department.[^59] [[John Foster Dulles]]'s memorandum of January 8, 1954 records that after the meeting of the National Security Council that day he, Wilson, Humphrey, Attorney General [[Herbert Brownell Jr.]] and Anderson discussed legal clearance for the American companies, and that the Attorney General "felt that he could give some sort of agreement not to sue" if requested in the national interest, and that the pending lawsuit would be continued in a way that would avoid undesirable publicity, which "would require some cooperation from the attorneys for the oil companies."[^60] On January 13, 1954 the assistant attorney general [[Stanley N. Barnes]] and the antitrust attorney [[Leonard Emmerglick]] gave Brownell the division's two primary objections to the consortium agreement: the possible use of a veto by the Anglo-Iranian company, the British government and the Iranian government, and the lack of freedom to set prices and markets.[^61] The National Security Council decided on January 14 that the security interests of the United States required the American petroleum companies to participate in an international consortium.[^58] -On January 20, 1954 Brownell advised the National Security Council that the consortium, if organized as described and with the freedom of each member to sell oil at prices it determined, did not violate the antitrust laws. The opinion was given "subject to the express reservation of all rights of the United States" to continue prosecuting the action against Standard Oil Company of New Jersey and others, pending in the Southern District of New York as Civil No. 86-27.[^61] Hoover wrote on January 21 that the "five United States companies now named in the Cartel antitrust case are the only ones from this country who meet such a criteria" for participation in an Iranian settlement.[^62] +On January 20, 1954 Brownell advised the National Security Council that the consortium, if organized as described and with the freedom of each member to sell oil at prices it determined, did not violate the antitrust laws. The opinion was given "subject to the express reservation of all rights of the United States" to continue prosecuting the action against Standard Oil Company of New Jersey and others, pending in the Southern District of New York as Civil No. 86-27.[^62] Hoover wrote on January 21 that the "five United States companies now named in the Cartel antitrust case are the only ones from this country who meet such a criteria" for participation in an Iranian settlement.[^63] -The consortium's composition as set out on April 1, 1954 gave the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company 40 per cent, Royal Dutch Shell 14 per cent, Compagnie Française des Pétroles 6 per cent, and 8 per cent each to Jersey Standard, Socony-Vacuum, California Standard, Gulf Oil and Texas, making the American share 40 per cent; its negotiating representatives for [[Tehran]] were Harden of Jersey Standard, Snow of the Anglo-Iranian company and Loudon of Royal Dutch Shell.[^63] By May 1954 the consortium insisted that it control extraction and refining as principals, while the Iranians insisted that management remain under the [[National Iranian Oil Company]], and Ambassador [[Loy Henderson]] reported that the two sides were moving toward an agency arrangement.[^64] A joint Iranian-British statement of August 5, 1954 set compensation at 25 million pounds payable over ten years, free of interest, with payments beginning no earlier than January 1, 1957.[^65] On September 21, 1954 the Finance Minister, [[Ali Amini]], introduced into the [[Majlis]] a single-article bill to ratify an agreement signed by Iran and the National Iranian Oil Company on one side and by Gulf, Socony Vacuum, Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, Standard Oil Company of California, the Texas Oil Company, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, N.V. Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij and Compagnie Française des Pétroles on the other.[^66] The Iranian Senate ratified the agreement on October 28, 1954 by 41 votes to 4, with 3 abstentions.[^67] +The consortium's composition as set out on April 1, 1954 gave the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company 40 per cent, Royal Dutch Shell 14 per cent, Compagnie Française des Pétroles 6 per cent, and 8 per cent each to Jersey Standard, Socony-Vacuum, California Standard, Gulf Oil and Texas, making the American share 40 per cent; its negotiating representatives for [[Tehran]] were Harden of Jersey Standard, Snow of the Anglo-Iranian company and Loudon of Royal Dutch Shell.[^64] By May 1954 the consortium insisted that it control extraction and refining as principals, while the Iranians insisted that management remain under the [[National Iranian Oil Company]], and Ambassador [[Loy Henderson]] reported that the two sides were moving toward an agency arrangement.[^65] A joint Iranian-British statement of August 5, 1954 set compensation at 25 million pounds payable over ten years, free of interest, with payments beginning no earlier than January 1, 1957.[^66] On September 21, 1954 the Finance Minister, [[Ali Amini]], introduced into the [[Majlis]] a single-article bill to ratify an agreement signed by Iran and the National Iranian Oil Company on one side and by Gulf, Socony Vacuum, Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, Standard Oil Company of California, the Texas Oil Company, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, N.V. Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij and Compagnie Française des Pétroles on the other.[^67] The Iranian Senate ratified the agreement on October 28, 1954 by 41 votes to 4, with 3 abstentions.[^68] -Church's preface describes the later course of the consortium and the cartel case. Clause 28 of the Participants Agreement, which he printed for the first time, permitted companies holding an aggregate of 31 percent or more of the equity to set crude production at any level below the desires of the rest of the members; the Antitrust Division attorney Emmerglick wrote on August 19, 1954 that the "plan goes beyond the premises upon which the Attorney General's opinion delivered to the National Security Council was based." The Attorney General, who "felt that he had already crossed this bridge on January 20," approved the plan, and on September 15, 1954 "agreed that approval of the consortium was inconsistent with the cartel case as the complaint is drawn and that necessarily the case must proceed with emphasis on the marketing aspects and not on the production control aspects."[^57][^68] The Statement of Claims prepared in 1961 concerned marketing; consent decrees were entered against Gulf, Exxon and Texaco, and the case against Mobil and Socal was dismissed without prejudice. Church wrote that the National Security Council "perverted the law" and that "nowhere is there any reference to consultation with the United States Congress."[^68] +Church's preface describes the later course of the consortium and the cartel case. Clause 28 of the Participants Agreement, which he printed for the first time, permitted companies holding an aggregate of 31 percent or more of the equity to set crude production at any level below the desires of the rest of the members; the Antitrust Division attorney Emmerglick wrote on August 19, 1954 that the "plan goes beyond the premises upon which the Attorney General's opinion delivered to the National Security Council was based." The Attorney General, who "felt that he had already crossed this bridge on January 20," approved the plan, and on September 15, 1954 "agreed that approval of the consortium was inconsistent with the cartel case as the complaint is drawn and that necessarily the case must proceed with emphasis on the marketing aspects and not on the production control aspects."[^58][^69] The Statement of Claims prepared in 1961 concerned marketing; consent decrees were entered against Gulf, Exxon and Texaco, and the case against Mobil and Socal was dismissed without prejudice. Church wrote that the National Security Council "perverted the law" and that "nowhere is there any reference to consultation with the United States Congress."[^69] ### Guatemala, June 1954 -On June 16, 1954, in a telephone call recorded by Secretary of State Dulles's secretary, [[Allen Dulles]], the Director of Central Intelligence, told John Foster Dulles that he was seeing that morning "men from Standard of NJ" who would "lay before him their position with regard to the small country down south," and that besides finding out their position he would "possibly slow things up without formalized action." The call concerned the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] operation against the government of [[Jacobo Arbenz]] in [[Guatemala]]; the Secretary asked whether [[Bourke B. Hickenlooper]] might introduce a sanctions bill in the Senate.[^69] +On June 16, 1954, in a telephone call recorded by Secretary of State Dulles's secretary, [[Allen Dulles]], the Director of Central Intelligence, told John Foster Dulles that he was seeing that morning "men from Standard of NJ" who would "lay before him their position with regard to the small country down south," and that besides finding out their position he would "possibly slow things up without formalized action." The call concerned the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] operation against the government of [[Jacobo Arbenz]] in [[Guatemala]]; the Secretary asked whether [[Bourke B. Hickenlooper]] might introduce a sanctions bill in the Senate.[^70] ### Latin America and the Rockefeller Network -Standard Oil of New Jersey's extensive holdings in [[Venezuela]] and across [[Latin America]] made the region central to the family's interests, and the young [[Nelson Rockefeller]] became a director of the company's Venezuelan subsidiary, Creole Petroleum, in the 1930s. His effort to manage the political risk to those holdings led to his 1940 appointment as [[Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs]], the wartime office that fused commercial interests, intelligence collection, and propaganda across the hemisphere.[^70] Creole Petroleum Corp. was a subsidiary of Standard Oil Co. (New Jersey) in 1949.[^71] Executive Order 8840 of July 30, 1941 established the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs within the Executive Office of the President and defined its functions and duties.[^72] +Standard Oil of New Jersey's extensive holdings in [[Venezuela]] and across [[Latin America]] made the region central to the family's interests, and the young [[Nelson Rockefeller]] became a director of the company's Venezuelan subsidiary, Creole Petroleum, in the 1930s. His effort to manage the political risk to those holdings led to his 1940 appointment as [[Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs]], the wartime office that fused commercial interests, intelligence collection, and propaganda across the hemisphere.[^71] Creole Petroleum Corp. was a subsidiary of Standard Oil Co. (New Jersey) in 1949.[^72] Executive Order 8840 of July 30, 1941 established the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs within the Executive Office of the President and defined its functions and duties.[^73] ### Footnotes @@ -206,46 +206,47 @@ Standard Oil of New Jersey's extensive holdings in [[Venezuela]] and across [[La [^27]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, *Investigation of the National Defense Program*, Hearings, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., Part 11 (Rubber) (Washington: GPO, 1942), Arnold statement, p. 4307 (Exhibit 359, release issued by Standard Oil on March 25, 1942, appendix p. 4560-4561; "The developments made under these agreements have advanced the progress of American industry and its ability to meet the war emergency"). https://archive.org/details/investigationofn1942unit [^28]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, *Investigation of the National Defense Program*, Hearings, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., Part 11 (Rubber) (Washington: GPO, 1942), Arnold statement, p. 4308 (refusal to let the British have a rubber sample as late as 1941). https://archive.org/details/investigationofn1942unit [^29]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, *Investigation of the National Defense Program*, Hearings, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., Part 11 (Rubber) (Washington: GPO, 1942), Exhibit 441, information in the District Court of the United States for the District of New Jersey, appendix pp. 4693-4697 (defendants; Standard and General Motors each owning 50 per cent of the Ethyl Gasoline Corporation, "sole producer of tetraethyl lead," p. 4697). https://archive.org/details/investigationofn1942unit -[^30]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, *Investigation of the National Defense Program*, Hearings, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., Part 11 (Rubber) (Washington: GPO, 1942), Howard letter of February 6, 1940 (Exhibit 371), appendix pp. 4589-4590 (Ethyl G.m.b.H. "owned 50% by the British Associated Ethyl Co. and 50% by I. G. Farbenindustrie," payment of "nearly $900,000"). https://archive.org/details/investigationofn1942unit -[^31]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, *Investigation of the National Defense Program*, Hearings, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., Part 11 (Rubber) (Washington: GPO, 1942), committee summary, pp. 4825-4826 (memorandum signed by E.J. Gohr, August 1, 1939, Exhibit S. 69, appendix p. 4907; letter of R.P. Russell to E.V. Murphree, August 11, 1939, on the process design of the "D. A. P. G. catalytic cracking plant"). https://archive.org/details/investigationofn1942unit -[^32]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, *Investigation of the National Defense Program*, Hearings, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., Part 11 (Rubber) (Washington: GPO, 1942), Farish statement, March 31, 1942, p. 4360 (items 3 and 4 of the charges Farish listed; "This is true and as a German corporation, operating in Germany ... it could not have done otherwise"). https://archive.org/details/investigationofn1942unit -[^33]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, *Investigation of the National Defense Program*, Hearings, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., Part 11 (Rubber) (Washington: GPO, 1942), committee summary, pp. 4827-4828 (memorandum of Frank A. Howard to Messrs. Teagle and Farish, Exhibit S. 75, appendix p. 4916; "Thus Standard met with difficulties in developing aviation gasoline for our own Army because of the cartel agreement," p. 4828). https://archive.org/details/investigationofn1942unit -[^34]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, *Investigation of the National Defense Program*, Hearings, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., Part 11 (Rubber) (Washington: GPO, 1942), testimony of Adolf A. Berle Jr., Assistant Secretary of State, April 3, 1942, pp. 4506-4508 (Lati and Condor; request of March 1941; conference of April 14, 1941). https://archive.org/details/investigationofn1942unit -[^35]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, *Investigation of the National Defense Program*, Hearings, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., Part 11 (Rubber) (Washington: GPO, 1942), Arnold, March 27, 1942, p. 4345 (information, complaint and consent decree filed "day before yesterday"; nolo contendere; fines of $50,000; exchange with the chairman); consent decree of March 25, 1942 indexed at p. 4346. https://archive.org/details/investigationofn1942unit -[^36]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, *Investigation of the National Defense Program*, Hearings, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., Part 11 (Rubber) (Washington: GPO, 1942), Arnold, pp. 4346-4347 (royalty-free licensing under the rubber and toluol patents; transfer of know-how; no provision for the Attorney General or the court to pass on future relations with I.G.; "in the sum of millions of dollars and at the cost of its future domination of the industry," p. 4347). https://archive.org/details/investigationofn1942unit -[^37]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, *Investigation of the National Defense Program*, Hearings, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., Part 11 (Rubber) (Washington: GPO, 1942), Arnold, p. 4328 (royalty-free licensing and compulsory licensing after the war; cost to the company "possibly $10,000,000. I think their release says $6,000,000"). https://archive.org/details/investigationofn1942unit -[^38]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, *Investigation of the National Defense Program*, Hearings, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., Part 11 (Rubber) (Washington: GPO, 1942), Exhibit 440, "Final Judgment," United States v. Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) et al., District Court of the United States for the District of New Jersey, appendix pp. 4677-4687 (defendants named at p. 4677; paragraph (14), dissolution of Hydro Patents Co. and Hydro Engineering and Chemical Co. one year after entry, p. 4684; Alien Property Custodian consent and compulsory licensing, p. 4686). https://archive.org/details/investigationofn1942unit -[^39]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, *Investigation of the National Defense Program*, Hearings, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., Part 11 (Rubber) (Washington: GPO, 1942), Exhibit 441, information, paragraphs 34 and 35 (Hydro Patents Company and the Mutual Licensing Plan of July 11, 1930), appendix p. 4702. https://archive.org/details/investigationofn1942unit -[^40]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, *The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security* (committee print, February 21, 1974), pp. 29-33 (Report of the Attorney General to the National Security Council relative to the grand jury investigation of the international oil cartel, January 1953): pp. 29-30 (Federal Trade Commission resolution of December 2, 1949; subpoenas duces tecum of January 1950; staff report filed October 1951; instruction of June 23, 1952); p. 31 (cartel since 1928); p. 32 (committee of State, CIA, Defense and Justice). https://archive.org/details/TheInternationalPetroleumCartelTheIranianConsortiumAndU.S.NationalSecurity -[^41]: U.S. Federal Trade Commission, *The International Petroleum Cartel*, Staff Report to the Federal Trade Commission Submitted to the Subcommittee on Monopoly of the Select Committee on Small Business, United States Senate, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., Committee Print No. 6 (Washington: GPO, 1952), p. 24, Table 9 (crude oil production of seven international companies, 1949: Standard Oil Co. (New Jersey) 1,317.7 thousand barrels daily). https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP57-00384R000700130001-2 -[^42]: U.S. Federal Trade Commission, *The International Petroleum Cartel*, Staff Report to the Federal Trade Commission Submitted to the Subcommittee on Monopoly of the Select Committee on Small Business, United States Senate, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., Committee Print No. 6 (Washington: GPO, 1952), pp. 27-28 (pipeline ownership: Creole Petroleum Corp., "a subsidiary of Standard Oil Co. (New Jersey)"; Trans-Arabian Pipe Line, Jersey 30 per cent, Texas 30, Standard of California 30, Socony-Vacuum 10; Interprovincial Pipe Line and Imperial Oil). https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP57-00384R000700130001-2 -[^43]: U.S. Federal Trade Commission, *The International Petroleum Cartel*, Staff Report to the Federal Trade Commission Submitted to the Subcommittee on Monopoly of the Select Committee on Small Business, United States Senate, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., Committee Print No. 6 (Washington: GPO, 1952), pp. 31-32 (interlocking directorates; Aramco board of three members each from Standard Oil Co. (N.J.), Standard Oil Co. of California and Texas Co., one from Socony-Vacuum and one unaffiliated; summary: four of the seven companies own all the shares of Aramco). https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP57-00384R000700130001-2 -[^44]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, *The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security* (committee print, February 21, 1974), p. 32 (Justice Department report of January 1953: "an indictment could have been returned on the basis of the Federal Trade Commission's staff report and a small number of documents in the possession of the Department of Justice"). https://archive.org/details/TheInternationalPetroleumCartelTheIranianConsortiumAndU.S.NationalSecurity -[^45]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, *The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security* (committee print, February 21, 1974), pp. 5-6 and 29 (Federal Trade Commission material on production curtailment and on Navy prices). https://archive.org/details/TheInternationalPetroleumCartelTheIranianConsortiumAndU.S.NationalSecurity -[^46]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, *The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security* (committee print, February 21, 1974), p. 10 (1933 Saudi concession; Standard of New Jersey 30 per cent and Socony 10 per cent of Aramco stock; loans totaling $273,000,000; eighteen-year contracts; ratio 3:3:3:1). https://archive.org/details/TheInternationalPetroleumCartelTheIranianConsortiumAndU.S.NationalSecurity -[^47]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, *The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security* (committee print, February 21, 1974), p. 7 (Achnacarry Agreement of September 1928; Walter Teagle of Standard, Sir Henri Deterding of Shell and Anglo-Persian; "as is" basis; "Standard's fear of the American antitrust laws" and the parties' decision not to sign the final agreement). https://archive.org/details/TheInternationalPetroleumCartelTheIranianConsortiumAndU.S.NationalSecurity -[^48]: U.S. Federal Trade Commission, *The International Petroleum Cartel*, Staff Report to the Federal Trade Commission Submitted to the Subcommittee on Monopoly of the Select Committee on Small Business, United States Senate, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., Committee Print No. 6 (Washington: GPO, 1952), pp. 118-119 (Aramco in 1944 to 1946; Standard of California and Texas as owners; Ras Tanura refinery; production of 21,296 barrels daily in 1944 and 58,386 in 1945). https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP57-00384R000700130001-2 -[^49]: U.S. Federal Trade Commission, *The International Petroleum Cartel*, Staff Report to the Federal Trade Commission Submitted to the Subcommittee on Monopoly of the Select Committee on Small Business, United States Senate, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., Committee Print No. 6 (Washington: GPO, 1952), pp. 119-121 (agreement in principle in December 1946; formal agreements of March 12, 1947; condition of settlement of the red-line controversy by March 12, 1951). https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP57-00384R000700130001-2 -[^50]: U.S. Federal Trade Commission, *The International Petroleum Cartel*, Staff Report to the Federal Trade Commission Submitted to the Subcommittee on Monopoly of the Select Committee on Small Business, United States Senate, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., Committee Print No. 6 (Washington: GPO, 1952), pp. 122-124 (stock subscription agreements of March 12, 1947; Jersey $76,500,000 and Socony $25,500,000; guaranty of $102,000,000 in bank loans; effective December 1948 after the withdrawal of the Compagnie Francaise des Petroles suit in November 1948; limited veto; "nearly one-half billion dollars"). https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP57-00384R000700130001-2 -[^51]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945*, Volume VIII, *The Near East and Africa*, Document 850, Clayton to Dunn, April 7, 1945. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945v08/d850 -[^52]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945*, Volume VIII, *The Near East and Africa*, Document 892, Eddy to the Secretary of State, Jidda, June 21, 1945. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945v08/d892 -[^53]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945*, Volume VIII, *The Near East and Africa*, Document 920, Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom, August 8, 1945. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945v08/d920 -[^54]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, *The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security* (committee print, February 21, 1974), p. 33 ("A decision at this time to terminate the pending investigation would be regarded by the world as a confession that our abhorrence of monopoly and restrictive cartel activities does not extend to the world's most important single industry"; letter of Harry S. Truman to Attorney General James P. McGranery, January 12, 1953). https://archive.org/details/TheInternationalPetroleumCartelTheIranianConsortiumAndU.S.NationalSecurity -[^55]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, *The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security* (committee print, February 21, 1974), preface by Senator Frank Church, p. V (policies of "prosecution of the International Petroleum Cartel Case" and "creation of the Iranian Consortium"; announcement of July 17, 1952; subpoenas of August 1952 against 21 companies; Acheson memorandum of April 16, 1952). https://archive.org/details/TheInternationalPetroleumCartelTheIranianConsortiumAndU.S.NationalSecurity -[^56]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, *The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security* (committee print, February 21, 1974), preface by Senator Frank Church, p. VI (Truman letter of January 12, 1953; civil complaint filed April 14, 1953 in the District Court for the District of Columbia naming Standard Oil of New Jersey, Socony-Vacuum, Standard Oil Company of California, The Texas Company and Gulf Oil; transfer to the Southern District of New York at the defendants' request; Hoover appointed; National Security Council Action Memorandum No. 875b of August 6, 1953). https://archive.org/details/TheInternationalPetroleumCartelTheIranianConsortiumAndU.S.NationalSecurity -[^57]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, *The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security* (committee print, February 21, 1974), preface by Senator Frank Church, p. VII (transfer of authority in October 1953; letter from Harden, December 4, 1953; National Security Council decision of January 14, 1954; opinion of January 20, 1954; clause 28 of the Participants Agreement; Emmerglick memorandum of August 19, 1954). https://archive.org/details/TheInternationalPetroleumCartelTheIranianConsortiumAndU.S.NationalSecurity -[^58]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954*, Volume X, *Iran, 1951-1954*, Document 397, Butterworth to the Department of State, London, December 18, 1953. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v10/d397 -[^59]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, *The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security* (committee print, February 21, 1974), p. 61 (memorandum of John Foster Dulles, January 8, 1954, following the meeting of the National Security Council). https://archive.org/details/TheInternationalPetroleumCartelTheIranianConsortiumAndU.S.NationalSecurity -[^60]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, *The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security* (committee print, February 21, 1974), p. 62 (memorandum to the files, Stanley N. Barnes, January 13, 1954). https://archive.org/details/TheInternationalPetroleumCartelTheIranianConsortiumAndU.S.NationalSecurity -[^61]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954*, Volume X, *Iran, 1951-1954*, Document 411, Brownell to the National Security Council, January 20, 1954 (action pending as Civil No. 86-27, Southern District of New York). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v10/d411 -[^62]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954*, Volume X, *Iran, 1951-1954*, Document 413, Hoover to the Secretary of State, January 21, 1954. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v10/d413 -[^63]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954*, Volume X, *Iran, 1951-1954*, Document 449, Aldrich to the Department of State, London, April 1, 1954. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v10/d449 -[^64]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954*, Volume X, *Iran, 1951-1954*, Document 458, Henderson to the Department of State, Tehran, May 8, 1954. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v10/d458 -[^65]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954*, Volume X, *Iran, 1951-1954*, Document 490, Henderson to the Department of State, Tehran, August 5, 1954 (joint Iranian-British statement: compensation of 25 million pounds payable over ten years, free of interest, payments not to begin before January 1, 1957). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v10/d490 -[^66]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954*, Volume X, *Iran, 1951-1954*, Document 496, Henderson to the Department of State, Tehran, September 21, 1954 (single-article bill introduced by Finance Minister Amini). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v10/d496 -[^67]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954*, Volume X, *Iran, 1951-1954*, Document 502, Secretary of State to the Embassy in Iran, October 28, 1954, editorial note (agreement in principle signed August 5, 1954 between the Government of Iran and the International Oil Consortium; ratified by the Iranian Senate on October 28, 1954, 41 votes to 4, with 3 abstentions). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v10/d502 -[^68]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, *The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security* (committee print, February 21, 1974), preface by Senator Frank Church, p. VIII (memorandum to Barnes, September 15, 1954; Statement of Claims of 1961; consent decrees against Gulf, Exxon and Texaco; dismissal as to Mobil and Socal without prejudice; Emmerglick, September 15, 1954). https://archive.org/details/TheInternationalPetroleumCartelTheIranianConsortiumAndU.S.NationalSecurity -[^69]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954*, Guatemala, Document 189, Memorandum of Telephone Conversation between Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles, Washington, June 16, 1954, 11:20 a.m. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54Guat/d189 -[^70]: Colby, Gerard, and Charlotte Dennett. *Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil.* HarperCollins, 1995. -[^71]: U.S. Federal Trade Commission, *The International Petroleum Cartel*, Staff Report to the Federal Trade Commission Submitted to the Subcommittee on Monopoly of the Select Committee on Small Business, United States Senate, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., Committee Print No. 6 (Washington: GPO, 1952), p. 27 (Creole Petroleum Corp., a subsidiary of Standard Oil Co. (New Jersey)). https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP57-00384R000700130001-2 -[^72]: Executive Order 8840, "Establishing the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs in the Executive Office of the President and Defining Its Functions and Duties," July 30, 1941. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-8840-establishing-the-office-the-coordinator-inter-american-affairs-the +[^30]: Ethyl Gasoline Corp. v. United States, 309 U.S. 436 (1940), Harvard Caselaw Access Project, https://static.case.law/us/309/cases/0436-01.json. +[^31]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, *Investigation of the National Defense Program*, Hearings, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., Part 11 (Rubber) (Washington: GPO, 1942), Howard letter of February 6, 1940 (Exhibit 371), appendix pp. 4589-4590 (Ethyl G.m.b.H. "owned 50% by the British Associated Ethyl Co. and 50% by I. G. Farbenindustrie," payment of "nearly $900,000"). https://archive.org/details/investigationofn1942unit +[^32]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, *Investigation of the National Defense Program*, Hearings, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., Part 11 (Rubber) (Washington: GPO, 1942), committee summary, pp. 4825-4826 (memorandum signed by E.J. Gohr, August 1, 1939, Exhibit S. 69, appendix p. 4907; letter of R.P. Russell to E.V. Murphree, August 11, 1939, on the process design of the "D. A. P. G. catalytic cracking plant"). https://archive.org/details/investigationofn1942unit +[^33]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, *Investigation of the National Defense Program*, Hearings, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., Part 11 (Rubber) (Washington: GPO, 1942), Farish statement, March 31, 1942, p. 4360 (items 3 and 4 of the charges Farish listed; "This is true and as a German corporation, operating in Germany ... it could not have done otherwise"). https://archive.org/details/investigationofn1942unit +[^34]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, *Investigation of the National Defense Program*, Hearings, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., Part 11 (Rubber) (Washington: GPO, 1942), committee summary, pp. 4827-4828 (memorandum of Frank A. Howard to Messrs. Teagle and Farish, Exhibit S. 75, appendix p. 4916; "Thus Standard met with difficulties in developing aviation gasoline for our own Army because of the cartel agreement," p. 4828). https://archive.org/details/investigationofn1942unit +[^35]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, *Investigation of the National Defense Program*, Hearings, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., Part 11 (Rubber) (Washington: GPO, 1942), testimony of Adolf A. Berle Jr., Assistant Secretary of State, April 3, 1942, pp. 4506-4508 (Lati and Condor; request of March 1941; conference of April 14, 1941). https://archive.org/details/investigationofn1942unit +[^36]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, *Investigation of the National Defense Program*, Hearings, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., Part 11 (Rubber) (Washington: GPO, 1942), Arnold, March 27, 1942, p. 4345 (information, complaint and consent decree filed "day before yesterday"; nolo contendere; fines of $50,000; exchange with the chairman); consent decree of March 25, 1942 indexed at p. 4346. https://archive.org/details/investigationofn1942unit +[^37]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, *Investigation of the National Defense Program*, Hearings, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., Part 11 (Rubber) (Washington: GPO, 1942), Arnold, pp. 4346-4347 (royalty-free licensing under the rubber and toluol patents; transfer of know-how; no provision for the Attorney General or the court to pass on future relations with I.G.; "in the sum of millions of dollars and at the cost of its future domination of the industry," p. 4347). https://archive.org/details/investigationofn1942unit +[^38]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, *Investigation of the National Defense Program*, Hearings, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., Part 11 (Rubber) (Washington: GPO, 1942), Arnold, p. 4328 (royalty-free licensing and compulsory licensing after the war; cost to the company "possibly $10,000,000. I think their release says $6,000,000"). https://archive.org/details/investigationofn1942unit +[^39]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, *Investigation of the National Defense Program*, Hearings, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., Part 11 (Rubber) (Washington: GPO, 1942), Exhibit 440, "Final Judgment," United States v. Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) et al., District Court of the United States for the District of New Jersey, appendix pp. 4677-4687 (defendants named at p. 4677; paragraph (14), dissolution of Hydro Patents Co. and Hydro Engineering and Chemical Co. one year after entry, p. 4684; Alien Property Custodian consent and compulsory licensing, p. 4686). https://archive.org/details/investigationofn1942unit +[^40]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, *Investigation of the National Defense Program*, Hearings, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., Part 11 (Rubber) (Washington: GPO, 1942), Exhibit 441, information, paragraphs 34 and 35 (Hydro Patents Company and the Mutual Licensing Plan of July 11, 1930), appendix p. 4702. https://archive.org/details/investigationofn1942unit +[^41]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, *The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security* (committee print, February 21, 1974), pp. 29-33 (Report of the Attorney General to the National Security Council relative to the grand jury investigation of the international oil cartel, January 1953): pp. 29-30 (Federal Trade Commission resolution of December 2, 1949; subpoenas duces tecum of January 1950; staff report filed October 1951; instruction of June 23, 1952); p. 31 (cartel since 1928); p. 32 (committee of State, CIA, Defense and Justice). https://archive.org/details/TheInternationalPetroleumCartelTheIranianConsortiumAndU.S.NationalSecurity +[^42]: U.S. Federal Trade Commission, *The International Petroleum Cartel*, Staff Report to the Federal Trade Commission Submitted to the Subcommittee on Monopoly of the Select Committee on Small Business, United States Senate, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., Committee Print No. 6 (Washington: GPO, 1952), p. 24, Table 9 (crude oil production of seven international companies, 1949: Standard Oil Co. (New Jersey) 1,317.7 thousand barrels daily). https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP57-00384R000700130001-2 +[^43]: U.S. Federal Trade Commission, *The International Petroleum Cartel*, Staff Report to the Federal Trade Commission Submitted to the Subcommittee on Monopoly of the Select Committee on Small Business, United States Senate, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., Committee Print No. 6 (Washington: GPO, 1952), pp. 27-28 (pipeline ownership: Creole Petroleum Corp., "a subsidiary of Standard Oil Co. (New Jersey)"; Trans-Arabian Pipe Line, Jersey 30 per cent, Texas 30, Standard of California 30, Socony-Vacuum 10; Interprovincial Pipe Line and Imperial Oil). https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP57-00384R000700130001-2 +[^44]: U.S. Federal Trade Commission, *The International Petroleum Cartel*, Staff Report to the Federal Trade Commission Submitted to the Subcommittee on Monopoly of the Select Committee on Small Business, United States Senate, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., Committee Print No. 6 (Washington: GPO, 1952), pp. 31-32 (interlocking directorates; Aramco board of three members each from Standard Oil Co. (N.J.), Standard Oil Co. of California and Texas Co., one from Socony-Vacuum and one unaffiliated; summary: four of the seven companies own all the shares of Aramco). https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP57-00384R000700130001-2 +[^45]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, *The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security* (committee print, February 21, 1974), p. 32 (Justice Department report of January 1953: "an indictment could have been returned on the basis of the Federal Trade Commission's staff report and a small number of documents in the possession of the Department of Justice"). https://archive.org/details/TheInternationalPetroleumCartelTheIranianConsortiumAndU.S.NationalSecurity +[^46]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, *The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security* (committee print, February 21, 1974), pp. 5-6 and 29 (Federal Trade Commission material on production curtailment and on Navy prices). https://archive.org/details/TheInternationalPetroleumCartelTheIranianConsortiumAndU.S.NationalSecurity +[^47]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, *The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security* (committee print, February 21, 1974), p. 10 (1933 Saudi concession; Standard of New Jersey 30 per cent and Socony 10 per cent of Aramco stock; loans totaling $273,000,000; eighteen-year contracts; ratio 3:3:3:1). https://archive.org/details/TheInternationalPetroleumCartelTheIranianConsortiumAndU.S.NationalSecurity +[^48]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, *The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security* (committee print, February 21, 1974), p. 7 (Achnacarry Agreement of September 1928; Walter Teagle of Standard, Sir Henri Deterding of Shell and Anglo-Persian; "as is" basis; "Standard's fear of the American antitrust laws" and the parties' decision not to sign the final agreement). https://archive.org/details/TheInternationalPetroleumCartelTheIranianConsortiumAndU.S.NationalSecurity +[^49]: U.S. Federal Trade Commission, *The International Petroleum Cartel*, Staff Report to the Federal Trade Commission Submitted to the Subcommittee on Monopoly of the Select Committee on Small Business, United States Senate, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., Committee Print No. 6 (Washington: GPO, 1952), pp. 118-119 (Aramco in 1944 to 1946; Standard of California and Texas as owners; Ras Tanura refinery; production of 21,296 barrels daily in 1944 and 58,386 in 1945). https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP57-00384R000700130001-2 +[^50]: U.S. Federal Trade Commission, *The International Petroleum Cartel*, Staff Report to the Federal Trade Commission Submitted to the Subcommittee on Monopoly of the Select Committee on Small Business, United States Senate, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., Committee Print No. 6 (Washington: GPO, 1952), pp. 119-121 (agreement in principle in December 1946; formal agreements of March 12, 1947; condition of settlement of the red-line controversy by March 12, 1951). https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP57-00384R000700130001-2 +[^51]: U.S. Federal Trade Commission, *The International Petroleum Cartel*, Staff Report to the Federal Trade Commission Submitted to the Subcommittee on Monopoly of the Select Committee on Small Business, United States Senate, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., Committee Print No. 6 (Washington: GPO, 1952), pp. 122-124 (stock subscription agreements of March 12, 1947; Jersey $76,500,000 and Socony $25,500,000; guaranty of $102,000,000 in bank loans; effective December 1948 after the withdrawal of the Compagnie Francaise des Petroles suit in November 1948; limited veto; "nearly one-half billion dollars"). https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP57-00384R000700130001-2 +[^52]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945*, Volume VIII, *The Near East and Africa*, Document 850, Clayton to Dunn, April 7, 1945. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945v08/d850 +[^53]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945*, Volume VIII, *The Near East and Africa*, Document 892, Eddy to the Secretary of State, Jidda, June 21, 1945. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945v08/d892 +[^54]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945*, Volume VIII, *The Near East and Africa*, Document 920, Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom, August 8, 1945. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945v08/d920 +[^55]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, *The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security* (committee print, February 21, 1974), p. 33 ("A decision at this time to terminate the pending investigation would be regarded by the world as a confession that our abhorrence of monopoly and restrictive cartel activities does not extend to the world's most important single industry"; letter of Harry S. Truman to Attorney General James P. McGranery, January 12, 1953). https://archive.org/details/TheInternationalPetroleumCartelTheIranianConsortiumAndU.S.NationalSecurity +[^56]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, *The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security* (committee print, February 21, 1974), preface by Senator Frank Church, p. V (policies of "prosecution of the International Petroleum Cartel Case" and "creation of the Iranian Consortium"; announcement of July 17, 1952; subpoenas of August 1952 against 21 companies; Acheson memorandum of April 16, 1952). https://archive.org/details/TheInternationalPetroleumCartelTheIranianConsortiumAndU.S.NationalSecurity +[^57]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, *The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security* (committee print, February 21, 1974), preface by Senator Frank Church, p. VI (Truman letter of January 12, 1953; civil complaint filed April 14, 1953 in the District Court for the District of Columbia naming Standard Oil of New Jersey, Socony-Vacuum, Standard Oil Company of California, The Texas Company and Gulf Oil; transfer to the Southern District of New York at the defendants' request; Hoover appointed; National Security Council Action Memorandum No. 875b of August 6, 1953). https://archive.org/details/TheInternationalPetroleumCartelTheIranianConsortiumAndU.S.NationalSecurity +[^58]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, *The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security* (committee print, February 21, 1974), preface by Senator Frank Church, p. VII (transfer of authority in October 1953; letter from Harden, December 4, 1953; National Security Council decision of January 14, 1954; opinion of January 20, 1954; clause 28 of the Participants Agreement; Emmerglick memorandum of August 19, 1954). https://archive.org/details/TheInternationalPetroleumCartelTheIranianConsortiumAndU.S.NationalSecurity +[^59]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954*, Volume X, *Iran, 1951-1954*, Document 397, Butterworth to the Department of State, London, December 18, 1953. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v10/d397 +[^60]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, *The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security* (committee print, February 21, 1974), p. 61 (memorandum of John Foster Dulles, January 8, 1954, following the meeting of the National Security Council). https://archive.org/details/TheInternationalPetroleumCartelTheIranianConsortiumAndU.S.NationalSecurity +[^61]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, *The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security* (committee print, February 21, 1974), p. 62 (memorandum to the files, Stanley N. Barnes, January 13, 1954). https://archive.org/details/TheInternationalPetroleumCartelTheIranianConsortiumAndU.S.NationalSecurity +[^62]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954*, Volume X, *Iran, 1951-1954*, Document 411, Brownell to the National Security Council, January 20, 1954 (action pending as Civil No. 86-27, Southern District of New York). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v10/d411 +[^63]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954*, Volume X, *Iran, 1951-1954*, Document 413, Hoover to the Secretary of State, January 21, 1954. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v10/d413 +[^64]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954*, Volume X, *Iran, 1951-1954*, Document 449, Aldrich to the Department of State, London, April 1, 1954. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v10/d449 +[^65]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954*, Volume X, *Iran, 1951-1954*, Document 458, Henderson to the Department of State, Tehran, May 8, 1954. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v10/d458 +[^66]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954*, Volume X, *Iran, 1951-1954*, Document 490, Henderson to the Department of State, Tehran, August 5, 1954 (joint Iranian-British statement: compensation of 25 million pounds payable over ten years, free of interest, payments not to begin before January 1, 1957). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v10/d490 +[^67]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954*, Volume X, *Iran, 1951-1954*, Document 496, Henderson to the Department of State, Tehran, September 21, 1954 (single-article bill introduced by Finance Minister Amini). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v10/d496 +[^68]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954*, Volume X, *Iran, 1951-1954*, Document 502, Secretary of State to the Embassy in Iran, October 28, 1954, editorial note (agreement in principle signed August 5, 1954 between the Government of Iran and the International Oil Consortium; ratified by the Iranian Senate on October 28, 1954, 41 votes to 4, with 3 abstentions). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v10/d502 +[^69]: U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, *The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security* (committee print, February 21, 1974), preface by Senator Frank Church, p. VIII (memorandum to Barnes, September 15, 1954; Statement of Claims of 1961; consent decrees against Gulf, Exxon and Texaco; dismissal as to Mobil and Socal without prejudice; Emmerglick, September 15, 1954). https://archive.org/details/TheInternationalPetroleumCartelTheIranianConsortiumAndU.S.NationalSecurity +[^70]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954*, Guatemala, Document 189, Memorandum of Telephone Conversation between Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles, Washington, June 16, 1954, 11:20 a.m. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54Guat/d189 +[^71]: Colby, Gerard, and Charlotte Dennett. *Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil.* HarperCollins, 1995. +[^72]: U.S. Federal Trade Commission, *The International Petroleum Cartel*, Staff Report to the Federal Trade Commission Submitted to the Subcommittee on Monopoly of the Select Committee on Small Business, United States Senate, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., Committee Print No. 6 (Washington: GPO, 1952), p. 27 (Creole Petroleum Corp., a subsidiary of Standard Oil Co. (New Jersey)). https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP57-00384R000700130001-2 +[^73]: Executive Order 8840, "Establishing the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs in the Executive Office of the President and Defining Its Functions and Duties," July 30, 1941. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-8840-establishing-the-office-the-coordinator-inter-american-affairs-the diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/United Press International.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/United Press International.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..7746b78a --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/United Press International.md @@ -0,0 +1,303 @@ +--- +aliases: + - United Press International + - UPI + - U.P.I. + - United Press + - United Press Associations + - United Press International, Inc. + - UP +category: "Private Organization" +tags: + - Organization + - NewsAgency + - WireService + - Media + - CIA + - PROMIS + - Bankruptcy + - ContraWar + - UnificationChurch +summary: "Wire service founded in 1907 by E. W. Scripps, merged with Hearst's International News Service in 1958, bankrupted in 1985 and 1991, and later owned by Earl Brian, Saudi investors and the Unification Church." +start: 1907 +location: "Washington, D.C." +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +relations: + - type: founded + with: "[[E. W. Scripps]]" + reverse: true + start: 1907 + role: "founder of the United Press" + fn: 1 + - type: owned + with: "[[Scripps-Howard]]" + reverse: true + start: 1907 + end: 1982 + role: "owner until the sale to Media News Corporation" + fn: 16 + - type: owned + with: "[[Media News Corporation]]" + reverse: true + start: 1982 + end: 1986 + role: "owner (majority stockholders Douglas Ruhe and William Geissler) until the confirmed sale to New UPI Inc." + fn: 15 + - type: owned + with: "[[Mario Vázquez Raña]]" + reverse: true + start: 1986-06 + role: "majority owner through New UPI Inc." + fn: 28 + - type: owned + with: "[[Joe Russo]]" + reverse: true + start: 1986-06 + role: "10 percent partner in New UPI Inc." + fn: 28 + - type: head_of + with: "[[Luis Nogales]]" + reverse: true + start: 1985 + end: 1986 + role: "chairman, chief executive officer and president" + fn: 18 + - type: owned + with: "[[Infotechnology]]" + reverse: true + start: 1988 + end: 1991 + role: "holding company with controlling interests in UPI and Financial News Network" + fn: 2 + - type: head_of + with: "[[Earl Brian]]" + reverse: true + start: 1988 + end: 1991 + role: "chairman" + fn: 2 + - type: owned + with: "[[Middle East Broadcasting Centre]]" + reverse: true + start: 1992 + role: "buyer out of bankruptcy for $3.95 million in cash" + fn: 35 + - type: owned + with: "[[News World Communications]]" + reverse: true + start: 2000-05 + role: "buyer; parent of The Washington Times" + fn: 37 + - type: head_of + with: "[[Arnaud de Borchgrave]]" + reverse: true + start: 1999-01 + role: "president and chief executive officer" + fn: 36 + - type: head_of + with: "[[Roderick Beaton]]" + reverse: true + start: 1972 + role: "president" + fn: 4 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Richard Helms]]" + reverse: true + start: 1935 + end: 1937 + role: "United Press staff correspondent in Europe" + fn: 11 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Helen Thomas]]" + reverse: true + start: 1943 + end: 2000-05 + role: "White House bureau chief from 1974" + fn: 13 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Gregory Gordon]]" + reverse: true + start: 1985 + end: 1987 + role: "investigative reporter" + fn: 39 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Richard Sale]]" + reverse: true + start: 2003-04 + role: "intelligence correspondent" + fn: 48 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Seymour Hersh]]" + reverse: true + role: "reporter, Pierre, South Dakota" + fn: 14 +--- + +United Press International (UPI) was created in 1958 by the merger of the United Press, founded by [[E. W. Scripps]] in 1907, with [[William Randolph Hearst]]'s [[International News Service]].[^1] The agency passed from [[Scripps-Howard]] to [[Media News Corporation]] in 1982, entered Chapter 11 in 1985 and again in 1991, and was bought in turn by [[Mario Vázquez Raña]], [[Infotechnology]], the [[Middle East Broadcasting Centre]] and [[News World Communications]]. Its copy is a principal source for reporting on [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International|BCCI]], the [[PROMIS]] software dispute, Contra arms finance and the Mafia prosecutions of the 1980s.[^1][^2] + +### Founding and the 1958 merger + +The United Press was founded in 1907 by E. W. Scripps.[^1] Hearst's International News Service was owned by William Randolph Hearst. After three years of talks, the two agencies announced on May 24, 1958, that they had combined into United Press International.[^1] + +In hearings before the [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee]] in 1963, Senator [[J. William Fulbright]] questioned [[Earl J. Johnson]], UPI's vice president and editor, about a UPI special service supplied to clients that included public relations firms representing foreign governments. Johnson told the committee that the service did not involve special pleading and provided only facts. The hearings also took testimony that in 1956 the International News Service had distributed dispatches financed by the Dominican Republic's dictator [[Rafael Trujillo]].[^3] On August 22, 1972, UPI president [[Roderick Beaton]] met Premier [[Chou En-lai|Zhou Enlai]] in [[Beijing]] to discuss UPI news and picture agreements with the New China News Agency.[^4] + +### Cover arrangements in the Church Committee and Bernstein record + +The final report of the [[Church Committee]] in 1976 describes CIA use of the American press in a passage that begins on page 192 of Book I. The committee wrote that the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] had used the U.S. media for both intelligence collection and cover.[^5] Book I says that CIA placements in foreign outlets were often picked up by international wire services, and it describes two proprietary news services the CIA maintained in Europe, one of which was subscribed to by more than 30 U.S. newspapers.[^5][^6] + +The committee also reproduces the agency's 1976 restrictions. A letter from [[William Colby]] limited operational use of full-time staff at major U.S. news magazines, newspapers, wire services and television networks, with less restriction on stringers and occasional correspondents.[^7] On February 11, 1976, the agency announced that it would not enter into any paid or contractual relationship with any full-time or part-time correspondent accredited by any U.S. news service, periodical, radio or television network, and that existing relationships in those categories would be ended as soon as feasible.[^7] + +[[Carl Bernstein]]'s article "The CIA and the Media," published in [[Rolling Stone]] on October 20, 1977, named UPI among the major media whose top executives lent cooperation to the agency. The same list names the [[Associated Press]], [[Reuters]], [[Hearst Newspapers]] and Scripps-Howard.[^8] Bernstein reported that CIA files recorded further cover arrangements with news-gathering organizations that included the Associated Press, UPI, Reuters and the [[Miami Herald]].[^9] The article records former Associated Press general manager [[Wes Gallagher]] denying that the wire service had employed agency staff, and it records agency officials saying that cover had been arranged through an unnamed person in the upper management of the Associated Press.[^9] + +Bernstein also identified the officials who initiated contacts with the heads of news organizations. They included [[Frank Wisner]], [[Cord Meyer]], [[Richard Bissell]], [[Desmond FitzGerald]], [[Tracy Barnes]], [[Thomas Karamessines]] and Helms, whom Bernstein described as "himself a former UPI correspondent."[^10] + +### Helms, the wire desk and Hitler + +[[Richard Helms]] worked as a United Press staff correspondent from 1935 to 1937, according to the finding aid for his papers at [[Georgetown University]]. The finding aid says he covered the 1936 Berlin Olympics and attended a lunch given by [[Adolf Hitler]] in 1936.[^11] Helms himself wrote in his memoir, *A Look Over My Shoulder* (2003), that in 1936 he interviewed Hitler at [[Nuremberg]] along with other correspondents.[^12] From 1937 to 1942 he wrote for the [[Indianapolis Times]]. In 1942 he entered the U.S. Navy and was transferred to the [[Office of Strategic Services]]. He then spent a career at the CIA that began in 1947.[^11] + +### Helen Thomas and the wire's reporters + +[[Helen Thomas]] joined what was then called United Press in 1943, after beginning as a copy girl at the [[Washington Daily News]], according to a 2013 obituary distributed by Reuters. UPI assigned her to the White House in 1961. In 1974 she became the agency's White House bureau chief, the first woman to head a wire service bureau there. She later wrote a column for Hearst.[^13] + +The agency's reporting staff also included [[Seymour Hersh]], whom UPI sent to [[Pierre, South Dakota|Pierre]], South Dakota, before he joined the Associated Press in 1963.[^14] + +### The 1982 sale and the 1985 bankruptcy + +Scripps-Howard sold UPI to Media News Corporation in 1982. Scripps received $1 from the buyers and agreed to spend a further $5 million on the service during the transition.[^1] The principal stockholders of Media News were [[Douglas Ruhe]] and [[William Geissler]].[^15] The agency reported its first profitable quarter in 20 years in the last quarter of 1984.[^16] In March 1985 Ruhe and Geissler fired [[Luis Nogales]] as UPI president.[^17] + +UPI's principal lender, Foothill Capital Corporation of [[Los Angeles]], cut off funding in April 1985, and the agency announced that it could not meet the payroll for its 2,000 employees. The board voted unanimously on Friday, April 26, to authorize Nogales to file under Chapter 11, and an agreement in principle with Foothill followed on Saturday.[^18] UPI filed for protection on Sunday, April 28, 1985, reporting $45 million in liabilities against an estimated $20 million in assets. On Tuesday a federal bankruptcy judge approved an interim plan that allowed the agency to keep paying its employees. UPI's attorney, Richard Levine, then put the liabilities at $35.4 million against about $12.8 million in assets, with annual revenue of about $92 million. The agency was negotiating with Reuters and with a Florida investor group headed by Pedro Ramon Lopez, chairman of General Federal Savings and Loan Association of [[Miami]].[^16] + +On May 20, 1985, a Delaware vice chancellor, Joseph Walsh, granted Ruhe and Geissler a preliminary injunction that removed Nogales as chairman of UPI's parent company and removed its board.[^17] A consent order entered on May 28, 1985, in the [[United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Columbia]] abolished UPI's own board of directors and gave Nogales exclusive operating authority as chairman and chief executive officer. Media News and its principal stockholders, Ruhe and Geissler, signed the order. In an opinion dated April 22, 1986, Judge [[George Francis Bason, Jr.|George Bason]] extended the debtor's exclusive period to file a plan to June 30, 1986, granted UPI leave to file a plan and overruled Media News's objection that the consent order had unlawfully abolished the board. Charles R. Dougherty of the Boston firm Hill and Barlow appeared for the debtor and Emil Hirsch for Media News (Bankruptcy No. 85-00257).[^15] + +### The 1985 bidders + +By September 1985 UPI's bankruptcy attorney, Richard Levine, said a prospectus had been circulated to more than 100 parties. The joint investment advisers were Bear, Stearns and Ladenburg Thalmann, and September 16 was the deadline for expressions of interest.[^19][^20] Four bidders were named in the press. [[Max Hugel]], a New Hampshire businessman who had served as the CIA's chief of covert operations and was then chairman of the Republican committee Project 88, said he and investors "with great knowledge and experience in the telecommunications business" had submitted a proposal.[^21] Robert H. Cunningham, who left the CIA in 1964 after helping organize its domestic operations division, said he had bid for a group of investors he would not name, with a plan for an employee trust that would finance an international news supplement. The Houston developer [[Joe Russo]] bid for a nationwide investor group, and the [[Wire Service Guild]], representing about 750 UPI employees, filed a bid of its own.[^21][^20][^22] + +The fourth bidder, [[Beurt SerVaas]], chairman of the Indianapolis-based [[Curtis Publishing Company]], said he represented a previously unidentified group that had made an offer of $13.9 million to $17.9 million on July 1, which UPI allowed to expire on July 15. According to the [[Washington Post]], the group was represented by a Washington attorney named David M. Rubenstein.[^20] Records found do not establish whether he is the Washington lawyer [[David Rubenstein]] who co-founded [[The Carlyle Group]] in 1987. + +A UPI story by Gregory Gordon in November 1985 reported that SerVaas, president of UPI Acquisition Group, Inc., had offered $21 million in cash plus a pledge of $20 million in working capital over five years, and had not named his partners. SerVaas said he had served as a naval officer in the American intelligence command that became the Office of Strategic Services and later the CIA, that he left "nearly 40 years ago," and that he had been assisting General [[George Marshall]] in China when the agency was formed. He dismissed as lacking any evidence or proof published reports that he had invested in a South African newspaper operating as a government front, but acknowledged that he had considered it. Former employees of his revived [[Saturday Evening Post]] criticized his wage practices and his control of editorial content, and Securities and Exchange Commission records showed Curtis Publishing as defendant in suits to collect unpaid bills.[^23] + +### Vázquez Raña and the June 1986 confirmation + +By October 1985 about 25 would-be buyers had informally expressed interest, and 300 to 400 UPI workers had been laid off.[^24] In November 1985 UPI's chairman, its employees union and a committee of key creditors announced that they would ask the bankruptcy judge to approve a $41 million sale to the Mexican newspaper publisher Vázquez Raña, with Russo as a 10 percent partner. The UPI report describes Vázquez Raña as president of the Mexican Olympic Committee and owner of the El Sol group of 70 newspapers. The package provided $21 million in cash, $9.5 million to unsecured creditors owed about $22.8 million, $3.4 million to the [[Internal Revenue Service]] and state tax authorities, and about $4 million for claims of current and former employees. UPI reported reservations about foreign ownership of the agency, which Vázquez Raña answered by accepting Russo as a partner and pledging an independent board.[^25] + +Vázquez Raña had asked about 30 associates to meet him at the [[Madison Hotel]] in [[Washington, D.C.|Washington]] in September 1985 to hear a plan to rescue the agency. Few would invest. Russo put up 10 percent of the money and Vázquez Raña the rest. After a short legal contest with another bidder, the offer was accepted.[^26] In a 1987 interview he said that the Mexican government had taken over the El Sol chain four years before he bought it, assuming its debts of nearly $80 million, and that when radio stations on the U.S. border complained of interference from Mexican transmitters he met President [[Miguel de la Madrid]] and a cabinet minister, after which the transmissions were adjusted.[^26] In March 1986 he pledged to keep UPI editorially independent if the bankruptcy court approved the purchase. UPI's president Nogales said the buyer had been chosen on personal integrity, entrepreneurial skill and available capital.[^27] + +On June 10, 1986, Bason confirmed the sale after the largest creditors voted 130 to 5 in favor. Vázquez Raña testified through an interpreter at the judge's request that he had placed more than $29 million in a Washington bank to complete the transaction and that he owned 62 newspapers in Mexico. The wire reported that the sale was valued at $36 million to $40 million.[^28] + +### Infotechnology and the Financial News Network + +Vázquez Raña, who held 90 percent of the company, kept UPI as a general news service. UPI lost between $1 million and $2 million a month, and in 1988 he turned operational control over to Infotechnology, a New York company that held 46 percent of the cable network [[Financial News Network]] (FNN). Company histories report that ownership remained with Vázquez Raña, who arranged lines of credit to cover losses, and that [[Earl Brian]], Infotechnology's chairman, became chairman of UPI. A 1988 Washington Post article by Elizabeth Tucker reported that Infotechnology planned to make UPI the cornerstone of a high-tech information network.[^29] + +In July 1993 the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] charged Brian and others with inflating FNN's revenue and earnings. Brian settled the charges without admitting guilt. UPI and FNN both filed for bankruptcy in 1991.[^2] + +A federal grand jury in Los Angeles returned a 24-count indictment, reported on September 6, 1995, against Brian and his chief operating officer, [[John F. Berentson]]. The indictment charged that they obtained $56 million in loans from [[Security Pacific]] and [[Toronto-Dominion Bank|Toronto-Dominion]] in 1989 by misstating FNN's books. FNN's chief financial officer, [[C. Steven Bolen]], and [[Gary Prince]] pleaded guilty and cooperated.[^2] + +A Los Angeles jury convicted Brian on ten counts of conspiracy, bank fraud and securities fraud in October 1996, after a trial of twelve weeks. He was sentenced to four years and nine months in federal prison and a $25,000 fine, with prison to begin on August 18. Prosecutors said the scheme involved $72 million in fraudulent lease transactions, some using equipment that did not exist and some pledged to more than one leasing company.[^30] + +### Bankruptcy courts and the PROMIS case + +The agency's bankruptcy file also intersects with the [[INSLAW]] dispute. [[Charles Docter]], INSLAW's bankruptcy counsel, told the [[House Committee on the Judiciary]] that in July 1987 [[Roger Whelan]], a former bankruptcy judge, came to his office and threatened to oppose the reappointment of Judge Bason over a delay in ruling on a fee application Whelan had filed in the UPI case. Bason ruled on the application on July 17, 1987. The special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] reported that Whelan acknowledged representing a party in the UPI case and being frustrated by the delay, said his pleading was an application for compensation for his client and not for attorney's fees, and denied speaking to Docter about the case or trying to pressure Bason.[^31] + +Bua's report also records a 1990 approach to [[Patricof and Company]]. [[Patricia Cloherty]] told Bua that Brian had contacted the firm in 1990 with a deal proposal regarding UPI, that she never met with Brian directly, that she sent an associate to look into it, and that the firm decided not to pursue it.[^32] + +The report also sets out the 1986 testimony of [[Cornelius Blackshear]], who was later a bankruptcy judge in the Southern District of New York, before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Monopolies and Commercial Law on March 20, 1986. As the report quotes it, Blackshear described an Internal Revenue Service motion to convert a case, which the U.S. trustee opposed. In a later recantation, Blackshear said he had confused the INSLAW case with the UPI case, in which the trustee had told him of IRS pressure to join a motion to convert. The Bua staff found the recantation implausible, noting that Blackshear had four times before it said the trustee had told him of pressure from the Justice Department's trustee program head to convert the INSLAW case. The staff reported that the trustee said he had never been pressured to convert the UPI case and that the IRS and the Justice Department's Tax Division told INSLAW their offices had never attempted to have it converted. The report concludes that there was not sufficient evidence to find the recantation false.[^33] + +### The 1992 sale to Middle East Broadcasting Centre + +UPI filed its second Chapter 11 petition on August 28, 1991. In June 1992 the Middle East Broadcasting Centre (MBC), a London-based Arabic television network privately owned by Saudi investors, bought UPI out of bankruptcy for $3.95 million in cash, outbidding a group of American businessmen at a bankruptcy court hearing in New York. Creditors were owed about $60 million. The other bidders included [[Leon Charney]], who had financed UPI's operations for about ten days before the sale, and [[Pat Robertson]], who withdrew from a $6 million bid for the assets and offered a smaller sum for the name. The sale was approved on June 23 and finalized on June 30.[^34] MBC's chairman, [[Walid Al-Ibrahim]], committed up to $12 million to the agency over two years and pledged that it would remain independent and free of political associations. UPI had lost money for 30 years, and the sale was its second reorganization in a decade.[^35] + +### News World Communications and Arnaud de Borchgrave + +On December 16, 1998, UPI announced that [[Arnaud de Borchgrave]] had been appointed president and chief executive officer, starting January 4 at the Washington headquarters. The announcement lists his earlier posts as editor in chief of the [[Washington Times]] from 1985 to 1991 and as chief foreign correspondent of [[Newsweek]] from 1963 to 1980, and says he began at UP as Brussels bureau chief. He kept his posts as a senior adviser at the [[Center for Strategic and International Studies]], where he directed the Global Organized Crime Project, and as editor at large of the Washington Times.[^36] + +On May 15, 2000, UPI was sold to News World Communications, the parent company of the Washington Times, which was founded by [[Sun-Myung Moon|Sun Myung Moon]], leader of the [[Unification Church]].[^37] The financial terms were not disclosed.[^38] Thomas resigned the next day. The Associated Press reported that she gave no reason for leaving and that she had no plans to join the new UPI. De Borchgrave, then chief executive, said she had outrun the best of them because she was the best of them.[^37] + +### Searle and NutraSweet + +In October 1987 UPI distributed a three-part series by the investigative reporter Gregory Gordon, who had spent eight months examining industry research on the sweetener NutraSweet and the Food and Drug Administration's handling of its approval. The series reported that more than ten federal officials involved in the review had taken private sector jobs linked to the industry. The NutraSweet Company's president, [[Robert Shapiro]], said that the series would leave a misleading impression, and a company spokesman said the firm was contemplating litigation. Senator [[Howard Metzenbaum]] quoted the series at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources on November 3, 1987.[^39] Parts 2 and 3 of the series cover the tenure of [[Donald Rumsfeld]] as chief executive of [[G. D. Searle and Company]] from 1977 to 1985. + +### Contra arms finance, Bayshore and GeoMiliTech + +A UPI story of June 10, 1987, reported a Miami Herald account of the chief executive of the [[Bayshore Bank of Florida]], [[Louis Petrillo]], who resigned as the bank was being sold. The Herald tied the sale to records showing that the bank had sent $2 million in 1986 on behalf of [[GeoMiliTech Consultants Corp.]] of Washington.[^40] GeoMiliTech was run by [[Barbara Studley]], a former Miami radio talk-show host, and it listed retired Maj. Gen. [[John Singlaub]] as an adviser. The company acknowledged that it had helped arrange rebel arms supplies. Petrillo denied knowing of any arms deals and said he had left because the bank was changing hands. Studley declined to discuss details. The story reported that federal authorities, including the [[Iran-Contra Affair|Iran-Contra]] special prosecutor [[Lawrence Walsh]], had begun investigating the transactions as Petrillo left the bank.[^40] + +### Counter Terrorism Consultants and the FBI alumni + +On August 2, 1988, UPI reported from Washington that [[Carter Cornick]], a former [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] special agent, and [[Eugene Propper]], a former assistant United States attorney, had formed [[Counter Terrorism Consultants, Inc.]], a private security consultancy seeded with about $500,000 from investors the founders declined to name. Its clients were to include foreign "democratic" governments, airline and shipping companies, sponsors of large international gatherings such as the Olympic Games, and multinational corporations.[^41] Cornick, who spent 16 of his 21 years with the bureau as a terrorist specialist, was its president and had directed the investigations into the bombing of the U.S. Embassy and the Marine barracks in [[Beirut]], the hijacking of [[TWA Flight 847]] and the Achille Lauro seizure. Propper, an attorney with the Washington firm [[Lane and Edson]], was a full partner with no title and had been the government's chief prosecutor in the [[Letelier assassination]] case, with [[E. Lawrence Barcella, Jr.]] as his deputy. Barcella, by then with the firm Laxalt, Washington, Perito and Dubuc, and [[Robert Scherrer]] joined as consultants. The services offered included hostage negotiation and handling of the news media during a crisis.[^41] + +### Pell's psychic research aide + +On July 17, 1988, UPI carried a report from [[Providence, Rhode Island|Providence]] on the [[Providence Sunday Journal]]'s account of [[Claiborne Pell]]'s interest in psychic phenomena. Pell's special assistant [[C.B. Scott Jones]], a former naval intelligence officer, researched telepathy, unconventional healing and near-death experiences. The story says Jones kept a top secret security clearance and earned nearly $50,000 a year on the public payroll. In 1987 Pell invited the self-proclaimed psychic [[Uri Geller]] to Washington, where he performed before 30 congressional and Pentagon aides. [[Ray Hyman]], a University of Oregon psychologist who had evaluated the military applications of psychic research for the Army, said Pell had been arguing very forcefully for a Manhattan Project-style effort to catch up with the Russians. Pell called Hyman's assessment "vastly exaggerated."[^42] + +### Straight, Blunt and the 1981 interview + +On March 26, 1981, UPI carried a Washington story by [[Daniel Gilmore]] in which [[Michael Whitney Straight]] said that [[Anthony Blunt]] had approached him at [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]] in February 1937. Straight said Blunt tried to recruit him as a Soviet agent, and "I flatly refused."[^43] + +### Radford and the Joint Chiefs + +On February 20, 1974, a UPI report from Washington described the testimony of Navy yeoman [[Charles Radford]] before the [[Senate Armed Services Committee]]. Radford said that he had taken secret White House documents on the [[Vietnam]] peace talks and other matters at the request of two [[Department of Defense|Pentagon]] admirals, beginning in 1970. He named [[Rembrandt Robinson]], a Pentagon liaison clerk who had been killed in a helicopter crash in Vietnam, as the first supervisor who taught him to take information the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]] wanted. He said that [[Robert Welander]] continued passing information to the office of Adm. [[Thomas Moorer]]. Moorer and [[Henry Kissinger]] had dismissed Radford's conduct as the independent work of an overzealous enlisted man. Radford also said he had funneled papers belonging to [[Alexander Haig]] back to the Pentagon.[^44] + +### Sadat trial and the Los Angeles mafia + +On March 6, 1982, a three-man Supreme Military Court in [[Cairo]] sentenced five men to death for the assassination of [[Anwar Sadat]]. UPI described Lieutenant [[Khaled Islambouli]], 24, as the accused mastermind. It reported that two defendants were acquitted, including Sheikh [[Omar Abdel Rahman]], a blind preacher whom the prosecutor had described as the group's spiritual leader, and it reported the prosecution's claim that the killing was the first stage of an attempt to overthrow the government and install an Iranian-style Islamic revolution.[^45] + +On April 5, 1988, UPI reported from Los Angeles that the racketeering trial of [[Luigi Gelfuso Jr.]], [[John DeMattia]] and [[John Vaccaro]] had opened in federal court. The story said that eleven other men, including [[Peter Milano]], reputed boss of the [[Los Angeles Crime Family]], had already pleaded guilty, and that the remaining three were named in some or all of an 18-count indictment returned the previous May. It records that Police Chief [[Daryl Gates]] had dubbed the group the "Mickey Mouse Mafia."[^46] + +### BCCI sentencing in Abu Dhabi + +On June 14, 1994, UPI reported from [[Abu Dhabi]] that the Abu Dhabi Court of First Instance, presided over by Judge [[Shehab Abdul-Rehman]], had sentenced twelve former BCCI executives to a combined 56 years in prison. The longest terms, six years each, went to [[Zafar Iqbal]] Chaudhry, [[Hasan Mahmood Kazmi]] and [[Abdul Hafeez Mohammed Ahmed]]. [[Swaleh Naqvi]], who had been handed over to U.S. officials on May 7, received sentences in his absence. The court also ordered the executives to pay the former Abu Dhabi majority shareholders civil damages of more than $9.13 billion plus costs.[^47] + +### Richard Sale and the Iraqi file + +On April 10, 2003, UPI published a story by [[Richard Sale]], identified as its intelligence correspondent, that placed [[Saddam Hussein]] in a "CIA-authorized six-man squad" tasked with assassinating [[Iraq]]'s prime minister, [[Abd al-Karim Qasim]], in 1959. The story says that, according to a former senior State Department official, Saddam was installed in an apartment opposite Qasim's office, and it attributes to the writer [[Adel Darwish]] the account that the CIA handler was an Iraqi dentist. The story quotes [[Con Coughlin]] and reports that [[Miles Copeland]] told UPI in the mid-1980s that the CIA had close ties with Qasim's [[Baath Party]]. The former [[National Security Council]] staffer [[Roger Morris]] is also quoted on the Baath Party's role.[^48] + +[^1]: "United Press International, Inc. History," *International Directory of Company Histories*, reproduced at FundingUniverse, http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/united-press-international-inc-history/ (June 21, 1907 founding by E. W. Scripps; the three years of talks and the May 24, 1958 announcement of the merger; the $1 sale price and $5 million transition commitment in 1982). A Christian Science Monitor note of April 29, 1985, "Playing the underdog: UPI's history is a scrappy one," https://www.csmonitor.com/1985/0429/a1pi-f.html, dates the founding January 21, 1907. +[^2]: United Press International, "Former UPI execs charged with fraud," September 6, 1995, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1995/09/06/Former-UPI-execs-charged-with-fraud/3824810360000/ (Brian as former chairman of UPI and FNN; Infotechnology's controlling interests in both companies; the 1993 SEC settlement; the 24-count indictment and the $56 million in 1989 loans from Security Pacific and Toronto-Dominion; Bolen and Prince; UPI's 1991 bankruptcy filing). +[^3]: Richard L. Lyons, Washington Post report on the hearings of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (Fulbright questioning Earl J. Johnson of UPI on its special service for public relations firms; testimony on International News Service dispatches financed by the Dominican Republic's Trujillo government in 1956), clipping in the CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP75-00149R000200930062-3, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp75-00149r000200930062-3; U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, *Activities of Nondiplomatic Representatives of Foreign Principals in the United States*, 88th Cong., 1st sess. (1963). +[^4]: United Press International, "Chou En-lai Meets UPI President," Peking, August 22, 1972, CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP88-01314R000300240014-2, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01314r000300240014-2. +[^5]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Final Report*, Book I, *Foreign and Military Intelligence* (April 26, 1976), p. 193 (CIA use of the U.S. media for collection and cover; placements picked up by international wire services), https://archive.org/download/ChurchCommittee_FullReport/_Book-I_Foreign-and-Military-Intelligence_djvu.txt. +[^6]: Church Committee, Book I, pp. 199-200 (the two proprietary European news services, one subscribed to by over 30 U.S. newspapers), same URL. +[^7]: Church Committee, Book I, p. 198 (the letter from William Colby on operational use of staff at major U.S. news magazines, newspapers, wire services or television networks; the CIA public statement of February 11, 1976), same URL. +[^8]: Carl Bernstein, "The CIA and the Media," *Rolling Stone*, October 20, 1977, text as reproduced at https://archive.org/stream/nsia-BernsteinRollingStoneArticlesCIA/nsia-BernsteinRollingStoneArticlesCIA/Bernstein%20CIA%2001_djvu.txt (passage on the major media whose top executives cooperated with the CIA, and the list of other cooperating organizations). +[^9]: Bernstein, "The CIA and the Media," same text (section on other major news organizations and cover arrangements, and the passage on the Associated Press and Wes Gallagher's denial). +[^10]: Bernstein, "The CIA and the Media," same text (passage on the deputy directors and division chiefs who initiated contacts with heads of news-gathering organizations, including Richard Helms, "himself a former UPI correspondent"). +[^11]: Georgetown University Library, Booth Family Center for Special Collections, "Richard M. Helms Papers," biographical note, https://findingaids.library.georgetown.edu/repositories/15/resources/10290 (United Press staff correspondent 1935 to 1937; coverage of the 1936 Olympics; a lunch given by Adolph Hitler in 1936; Indianapolis Times 1937 to 1942; Navy and OSS in 1942; CIA career from 1947). +[^12]: Richard Helms with William Hood, *A Look Over My Shoulder: A Life in the Central Intelligence Agency* (New York: Random House, 2003) (Helms's account of interviewing Hitler at Nuremberg in 1936 with other correspondents). +[^13]: Reuters, "Long-time White House reporter Helen Thomas dies at 92," July 20, 2013, https://www.bangordailynews.com/2013/07/20/news/long-time-white-house-reporter-helen-thomas-dies-at-92/ (copy girl at the Washington Daily News; joined United Press in 1943; White House assignment in 1961; bureau chief in 1974 as the first woman to head a wire service bureau there; later Hearst column). +[^14]: EBSCO Research Starters, "Seymour M. Hersh," https://ebsco.com/research-starters/biography/seymour-m-hersh (Hersh's assignment to UPI in Pierre, South Dakota, and his 1963 hire by the Associated Press). +[^15]: *In re United Press International, Inc.*, 60 B.R. 265 (Bankr. D.D.C. Apr. 22, 1986) (Bason, J.) (Bankruptcy No. 85-00257; the consent order of May 28, 1985; Ruhe and Geissler as majority shareholders of Media News Corporation; the extension of exclusivity to June 30, 1986; counsel for the debtor and for Media News), https://static.case.law/br/60/cases/0265-01.json. +[^16]: Barbara Bradley, "Court gives UPI breathing room to seek buyer and reorganize its news operation," *Christian Science Monitor*, May 2, 1985, https://www.csmonitor.com/1985/0502/awir.html (the 1982 sale to Media News Corporation; the Chapter 11 filing on Sunday; the interim plan approved on Tuesday; liabilities and assets at filing and as restated by Richard Levine; annual revenue; the 1984 profitable quarter; negotiations with Reuters and the Lopez group). +[^17]: Robert Engler, United Press International, Wilmington, Del., May 20, 1985, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1985/05/20/In-a-ruling-that-soon-may-be-moot-a/3317485409600/ (Vice Chancellor Joseph Walsh's preliminary injunction for owners Douglas Ruhe and William Geissler; their firing of Nogales as UPI president in March 1985; removal of Nogales and the Media News board). +[^18]: Warren Richey, "UPI gets reprieve as it struggles to stay in business," *Christian Science Monitor*, April 29, 1985, https://www.csmonitor.com/1985/0429/api.html (Foothill Capital; the payroll shortfall; the board's unanimous vote on Friday authorizing Nogales to file; the weekend agreement in principle). +[^19]: Gregory Gordon, United Press International, September 15, 1985, CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP91-00587R000100330001-6, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp91-00587r000100330001-6 (prospectus circulated to more than 100 parties; SerVaas's July offer; Russo; the employees' 25 percent wage cut of 1984). +[^20]: Nell Henderson, "UPI Receives at Least 4 Bids for Company," *Washington Post*, September 17, 1985, CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP91-00587R000100600014-2, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp91-00587r000100600014-2 (SerVaas, Russo, Hugel and the Guild; Bear, Stearns and Ladenburg Thalmann as advisers; the July 1 offer and its expiry; the attorney David M. Rubenstein). +[^21]: Theo Stamos, "Former CIA officials among UPI bidders," *Washington Times*, September 17, 1985, CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP91-00587R000100600011-5, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp91-00587r000100600011-5 (Hugel and Cunningham; Russo; the Wire Service Guild). +[^22]: "UPI union unit offers to buy troubled news service," Associated Press in the *Baltimore Sun*, September 17, 1985, CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP91-00587R000100600012-4, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp91-00587r000100600012-4 (the Guild's offer; William Morrissey as union president; Nogales's statement). +[^23]: Gregory Gordon, "UPI bidder faces questions about intelligence service, South African ties," United Press International, November 1985, CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP90-00806R000201120001-4, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00806r000201120001-4 (UPI Acquisition Group; the $21 million offer and the $20 million working-capital pledge; SerVaas's account of his wartime service and the South African newspaper reports). +[^24]: Christian Science Monitor, "Financial offers give UPI new lease on life after near bankruptcy," October 1, 1985, https://csmonitor.com/1985/1001/aupi.html (about 25 interested buyers; 300 to 400 workers laid off). +[^25]: United Press International, "Mexican may purchase UPI," November 12, 1985, as printed in the *University Daily Kansan*, November 13, 1985, p. 11, https://digital.lib.ku.edu/islandora/object/ku-udk%3A26507/datastream/OCR/download (the $41 million proposal and its components; Vázquez Raña as president of the Mexican Olympic Committee; the El Sol group; Russo's 10 percent; the foreign-ownership reservations). +[^26]: Michael Zamba, "What saved a chain of papers in Mexico is being tried at UPI," *Christian Science Monitor*, February 13, 1987, https://csmonitor.com/1987/0213/fupi.html (the Madison Hotel meeting in September 1985; Russo's 10 percent; the $41 million offer in early November 1985; the Mexican government's takeover and sale of El Sol; the meeting with President de la Madrid). +[^27]: United Press International, "Vazquez-Rana pledges to maintain UPI independence," March 6, 1986, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/03/06/Vazquez-Rana-pledges-to-maintain-UPI-independence/9729510469200/ (the pledge conditioned on bankruptcy court approval; Luis Nogales on the choice of buyer). +[^28]: Greg Gordon, "Bankruptcy Judge Approves Sale of UPI," United Press International, Washington, June 10, 1986, text reproduced at http://www.downhold.org/lowry/bank.html (Bason's confirmation; the 130 to 5 creditor vote; Vázquez Raña's testimony and the $29 million deposit; Russo as 10 percent partner). +[^29]: "United Press International, Inc. History," FundingUniverse, same URL as note 1 (Vázquez Raña's 90 percent ownership; the 1988 transfer of operational control to Infotechnology, which held 46 percent of FNN; lines of credit; Brian as chairman; Elizabeth Tucker's 1988 Washington Post article quoted on the high-tech information network). +[^30]: United Press International, "Ex-UPI chief gets prison term," May 20, 1997, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1997/05/20/Ex-UPI-chief-gets-prison-term/7027864100800/ (conviction on 10 counts after a 12-week jury trial in October of the previous year; four years and nine months; $25,000 fine; prison beginning August 18; the fraudulent lease transactions). +[^31]: Bua Report, pp. 169-170 (Charles Docter's House Judiciary testimony as summarized in the report; Whelan's application in the UPI case before Judge Bason; the ruling of July 17, 1987; Whelan's account and denials), same URL. +[^32]: U.S. Department of Justice, *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.* (March 1993), p. 96 (Patricia Cloherty's account of Brian's 1990 approach to Patricof and Company regarding UPI), https://archive.org/download/InslawPROMISBuaReport/Inslaw%3APROMIS%20Bua%20Report_djvu.txt. +[^33]: Bua Report, pp. 194-201 and 216-220 (Blackshear's first deposition, his recantation, the staff's conclusion that the recantation was implausible, the statements of the trustee, the IRS and the Tax Division, the report's statement that there was insufficient evidence to conclude the recantation false, and the March 20, 1986 subcommittee testimony as quoted in the report), same URL. +[^34]: United Press International, "Middle East Broadcasting finalizes purchase of UPI," June 30, 1992, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1992/06/30/Middle-East-Broadcasting-finalizes-purchase-of-UPI/7013709876800/ (approval on June 23 in federal bankruptcy court in New York; the three bidders; creditors owed about $60 million; Chapter 11 since August 28, 1991; MBC's London base and Saudi investors). +[^35]: Associated Press, "New owners say UPI will stay politically free," *Deseret News*, June 29, 1992, https://www.deseret.com/1992/6/29/18991932/new-owners-say-upi-will-stay-politically-free/ (Middle East Broadcasting Centre purchase for $3.95 million in cash, outbidding American businessmen at a bankruptcy court hearing in New York the previous week; up to $12 million over two years; about $60 million owed to creditors; losses for 30 years; second reorganization in a decade; Walid Al-Ibrahim's pledge of independence). +[^36]: United Press International, "De Borchgrave named CEO of UPI," December 16, 1998, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1998/12/16/De-Borchgrave-named-CEO-of-UPI/2072913784400/ (appointment as president and chief executive officer; start date of January 4; prior posts at The Washington Times and Newsweek; his start at UP as Brussels bureau chief; the Global Organized Crime Project at CSIS; editor at large of The Washington Times). +[^37]: Associated Press, "Venerable correspondent leaves UPI," *Deseret News*, May 17, 2000, https://www.deseret.com/2000/5/17/19507080/venerable-correspondent-leaves-upi (the sale to News World Communications on the day before the Tuesday resignation; News World as parent of The Washington Times and founded by Sun Myung Moon; Thomas's statements; de Borchgrave's statement). +[^38]: Agence Europe, Europe Daily Bulletin No. 7720, May 19, 2000, https://agenceurope.eu/en/bulletin/article/7720/53 (News World Communications' entry into the capital of UPI; financial conditions not disclosed). +[^39]: Gregory Gordon, UPI series on NutraSweet, October 1987, reprinted in *NutraSweet: Health and Safety Concerns*, hearing before the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, November 3, 1987, S. Hrg. 100-567 (the editor's note on the eight-month investigation; Part 1; The NutraSweet Company's response; Senator Metzenbaum's quotation of the series), https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152617_0380. +[^40]: United Press International, "Newspaper says banker involved in loans for Contra arms," June 10, 1987, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/06/10/Newspaper-says-banker-involved-in-loans-for-Contra-arms/9700550296000/ (the Miami Herald account; Petrillo's resignation; the $2 million transfer on behalf of GeoMiliTech; Studley; Singlaub listed as an adviser; the company's acknowledgment; Walsh's investigation; Petrillo's denials). +[^41]: Jeff Stein, United Press International, Washington, August 2, 1988, "A group of top former FBI agents and federal prosecutors," https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/08/02/A-group-of-top-former-FBI-agents-and-federal/9684730900658/ (formation of Counter Terrorism Consultants; founders; investors; stated clients; Cornick's and Propper's careers; Barcella and Scherrer as consultants; services offered). +[^42]: United Press International, "Pell keen on psychic research," Providence, July 17, 1988, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/07/17/Pell-keen-on-psychic-research/3613585115200/ (report on the Providence Sunday Journal story; Jones's clearance and salary; Geller's 1987 Washington appearance; Hyman's assessment and Pell's response). +[^43]: Daniel F. Gilmore, United Press International, Washington, March 26, 1981, "Michael W. Straight, former deputy chairman of the National...," https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/03/26/Michael-W-Straight-former-deputy-chairman-of-the-National/9678354430800/ (Straight's account of the February 1937 approach at Cambridge and his refusal). +[^44]: "Pentagon spied on White House?," United Press International, Washington, February 20, 1974, published in the *Oregon Daily Emerald*, February 21, 1974, p. 8, https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/2004260239/1974-02-21/ed-1/seq-8/ (Radford's testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee; Rembrandt Robinson; Welander and Moorer; the responses of Moorer and Kissinger; the papers from Haig). +[^45]: W. G. Kirolos, "Five given death for Sadat assassination," United Press International, Cairo, March 6, 1982, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1982/03/06/Five-given-death-for-Sadat-assassination/6203384238800/ (the three-man Supreme Military Court; Islambouli as accused mastermind; the acquittals including Omar Abdel Rahman; the prosecution's stated aim). +[^46]: Catherine Gewertz, "Trial begins for reputed members of 'Mickey Mouse' Mafia," United Press International, Los Angeles, April 5, 1988, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/04/05/Trial-begins-for-reputed-members-of-Mickey-Mouse-Mafia/4166576216000/ (the opening of the trial in federal court; eleven guilty pleas including Milano's; the 18-count indictment returned the previous May; Gates's nickname). +[^47]: Thomas Hussain, "UAE jails and fines BCCI executives," United Press International, Abu Dhabi, June 14, 1994, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1994/06/14/UAE-jails-and-fines-BCCI-executives/7650771566400/ (the court and its judge; the sentences; Naqvi's handover to U.S. officials on May 7; damages of more than $9.13 billion plus costs). +[^48]: Richard Sale, "Exclusive: Saddam key in early CIA plot," United Press International, April 10, 2003, https://www.upi.com/Exclusive-Saddam-key-in-early-CIA-plot/65571050017416/ (the six-man squad and the 1959 date; the apartment opposite Qasim's office; Darwish's account of the CIA handler; Coughlin; Copeland; Morris). diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/University of Oxford.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/University of Oxford.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..9e7abdac --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/University of Oxford.md @@ -0,0 +1,204 @@ +--- +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +title: University of Oxford +aliases: + - Oxford University + - Oxford University, England +tags: + - Organization + - AcademicInstitution + - RhodesScholarship + - FutureOfHumanityInstitute + - EffectiveAltruism + - Longtermism + - Parapsychology + - ProjectULTRA + - CIA + - MaxwellFamily + - Zizians +category: "Private Organization" +summary: "The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university whose Future of Humanity Institute, parapsychology laboratory, Rhodes Scholarships and Balliol College appear in the record of effective altruism, CIA psi research and the Maxwell family." +location: "Oxford, England" +relations: + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Nick Bostrom]]" + reverse: true + role: "director of the Future of Humanity Institute, 2005 to 2024" + start: 2005 + end: 2024 + fn: 30 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Toby Ord]]" + reverse: true + role: "senior research fellow, Future of Humanity Institute" + fn: 39 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Stephen I. Abrams]]" + reverse: true + role: "director of the Parapsychological Laboratory, Oxford University, per the 1977 Kress article" + fn: 3 + - type: funded + with: "[[Open Philanthropy]]" + reverse: true + role: "recommended gift of 20,000 pounds (26,086 dollars) for D.Phil support of Andrew Snyder-Beattie" + fn: 36 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Alister Hardy]]" + reverse: true + role: "Linacre Professor of Zoology from 1945; founder-director of the Religious Experience Unit, Manchester College" + start: 1945 + fn: 25 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[James D. Theberge]]" + reverse: true + role: "instructor of economics, 1969 to 1970" + start: 1969 + end: 1970 + fn: 14 + - type: funded + with: "[[Cecil Rhodes]]" + reverse: true + role: "bequest for the Rhodes Scholarships at Oxford, in the will published after his death in 1902" + start: 1902 + fn: 4 +--- + +The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in [[Oxford, England]], a federation of colleges and departments governed as one institution. There is no clear date of foundation, but teaching existed at Oxford in some form in 1096, and the university describes itself as the oldest in the English-speaking world.[^1] Its [[Future of Humanity Institute]] was closed on 16 April 2024 after nearly two decades as the academic base of [[Nick Bostrom]]'s work on existential risk.[^2] [[Stephen I. Abrams]], director of the university's parapsychology laboratory, prepared a 1965 review of ESP research for the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] under [[Project ULTRA]] after technical project officers contacted him.[^3] The university also appears in the record through [[Rhodes Scholarship|Rhodes Scholarships]], the Oxford education of [[Ghislaine Maxwell]], a group of doctoral students and staff tied to [[Effective Altruism|effective altruism]], and a 2025 murder case in California. + +### Rhodes Scholarships and the Round Table group + +The will of [[Cecil Rhodes]], published after his death in 1902, set aside part of his estate for scholarships at Oxford under a section headed "The Scholarships at Oxford." The preamble to that section states that "the education of young Colonists at one of the Universities in the United Kingdom is of great advantage to them for giving breadth to their views," and links the scheme to "the retention of the unity of the Empire."[^4] Notes printed with the will quote Rhodes speaking to [[Iwan-Müller]] about the scholarships: "a very poor man can never get the full value of an Oxford training."[^4] The will also gave £100,000 to [[Oriel College, Oxford]], Rhodes's old college.[^4] By a codicil executed in South Africa, Rhodes created fifteen scholarships at Oxford for students of German birth, five in each of the first three years after his death, worth 250 pounds a year for three years and to be nominated by the German Emperor, on the stated ground that a good understanding between England, Germany and the United States of America would secure the peace of the world.[^4] The will directed that elections regard the candidate's literary and scholastic attainments, his fondness for and success in manly outdoor sports, his qualities of manhood, truth, courage, devotion to duty and sympathy for the protection of the weak, and his exhibition during school days of moral force of character and of instincts to lead.[^4] The [[Rhodes Trust]] supports exceptional students worldwide with Oxford scholarships.[^5] + +The historian [[Carroll Quigley]] wrote in [[Tragedy and Hope]] (1966) that Rhodes left part of his fortune to found the Rhodes Scholarships at Oxford in order to spread what Quigley called the English ruling class tradition throughout the English-speaking world, as [[John Ruskin]] had wanted.[^6] Quigley placed the origin of the scheme in a circle of Ruskin's disciples at Oxford, among them [[Alfred Milner]], Arnold Toynbee, George Parkin and Philip Lyttelton Gell. On February 5, 1891, according to Quigley, Rhodes and the journalist [[William T. Stead]] organized a secret society with Milner and [[Reginald Brett]] on its executive committee, and an outer circle known as the Association of Helpers, which Milner later organized as the [[Round Table (Milner group)]].[^6] Quigley wrote that Milner was the chief Rhodes Trustee and that Parkin became Organizing Secretary of the Rhodes Trust after 1902.[^6] + +Quigley wrote that Milner, as governor-general and high commissioner of South Africa from 1897 to 1905, recruited young men chiefly from Oxford and from Toynbee Hall, known in South Africa as Milner's Kindergarten until 1910. He wrote that in 1909 to 1913 they organized semi-secret Round Table Groups in the chief British dependencies and the United States, and that the group's quarterly, [[The Round Table]], was founded in 1910 and largely supported by [[Abe Bailey]]'s money.[^6] In 1919, according to Quigley, the group founded the [[Royal Institute of International Affairs]], whose chief financial supporters were Bailey and the Astor family, owners of The Times.[^6] + +Rhodes Scholars include [[Dean Rusk]], who took an A.B. in political science at [[Davidson College]] in 1931 and then entered St. John's College, Oxford, on a Rhodes Scholarship; he was [[United States Secretary of State]] from January 21, 1961 to January 20, 1969.[^7] [[Lincoln Gordon]] received a doctorate from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar in 1936, joined the [[Harvard University|Harvard]] faculty and served as ambassador to Brazil.[^8] [[Stansfield Turner]] entered Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, studied at Exeter College, took a master's degree in philosophy, politics and economics, and was appointed Director of Central Intelligence by [[Jimmy Carter]] in 1977.[^9] [[Bill Clinton]], a Rhodes Scholar from 1968, studied at Oxford for two years.[^10] On June 8, 1994, at the Sheldonian Theatre, he received a Doctorate in Civil Law by diploma and an honorary fellowship from his college, and told the assembly that "once again at Oxford I was another Yank a half step behind."[^11] [[Cory Booker]] attended The Queen's College as a Rhodes Scholar, received a graduate degree in 1994 and went on to [[Yale Law School]].[^12] [[Jim Himes]] took a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, where he continued his studies of Latin America with research in [[El Salvador]], and began his career at [[Goldman Sachs]].[^13] [[James D. Theberge]], later ambassador to [[Nicaragua]], took an M.A. at Oxford in 1960 and was an instructor of economics there from 1969 to 1970.[^14] + +### Ghislaine Maxwell and the Maxwell companies + +[[Robert Maxwell]] first appears in Oxford as a tenant. The city had bought Headington Hill Hall in 1953, and in 1959 he tendered to rent the whole site from [[Oxford City Council]] for 2,400 pounds a year, using it first for [[Pergamon Press]] business and later as the family home, with Pergamon moving into the old stables.[^15] A 1973 advertisement in the Oxford Times recruiting staff for Headington Hill Hall read "Too good to be true? Not if you join one of the Maxwell group of companies."[^16] In early 1982 he rescued [[Oxford United]], then at Headington, from bankruptcy (The Times of January 8, 1982 had reported the club "a mere two weeks away from bankruptcy"), owned the club for ten years, was its chairman until May 1987 and passed it to his son [[Kevin Maxwell]].[^16] When Oxford Polytechnic was to become a university he offered 1 million pounds if it would be named Oxford Maxwell University; it declined and became Oxford Brookes University in 1992, which later took the lease of his former home.[^16] [[Balliol College]] received a reported 60,000 pounds from him in the 1960s, his name (Ian Robert Maxwell) appears among the benefactors in the college's Bidding Prayer, and the college has a Robert Maxwell Fellowship in Politics; his sons Philip and Kevin studied at Balliol and his wife [[Elisabeth Maxwell]] took an Oxford doctorate.[^17] + +Ghislaine Maxwell was educated at [[Marlborough College]] and at Balliol College, Oxford.[^18] The 1983 Balliol College Record places her at the college in the early 1980s, a few years after Balliol began admitting women in 1979, and she graduated in 1985 in history and modern languages.[^17] The journalist [[Michael Crick]], who tutored her before admission, said "her father was extremely keen for her to go to Oxford because several of her siblings had already gone to Oxford." The photographer Dafydd Jones said that "I knew of male students who everyone said that they got in because their fathers donated," and that he could not say whether that was how she was admitted.[^17] Her public-facing roles in her father's business empire included work connected to Oxford United and to the newspaper [[The European]].[^18] + +Investigators from the [[Department of Trade and Industry]] who examined Maxwell's management of Pergamon in 1971 reported that he was not in their opinion a person who could be relied on to exercise proper stewardship of a publicly quoted company; he regained Pergamon in 1974 with borrowed money, sat as Labour member of Parliament from 1964 to 1970, and rented Headington Hill Hall from the city council, which he called the best council house in the country.[^19] At his death in 1991 the empire carried about 2 billion pounds of debt and around 460 million pounds had been taken from employee pension funds.[^19] + +The university's Global Capitalism Project issued a case study in February 2023 on Robert Maxwell, titled "Robert Maxwell's Expectations Gap: Regulation and Reputation in the British Communications Industry, 1981-91." The case study states that Goldman Sachs sold 25 million shares in [[Mirror Group Newspapers]] on Maxwell's instruction, shares that were clearly marked as owned by the pension fund, and that the pension scheme lost £55 million. It says the bank "committed stock fraud on Maxwell's instruction" and quotes the Department of Trade and Industry as saying later that Goldman Sachs "bear a substantial responsibility in respect of the manipulation that occurred in the market."[^19] + +### Parapsychology in the Oxford laboratory + +The university's connection to the CIA's psi research runs most directly through Abrams, director of the university's parapsychology laboratory in the Department of Biometry. In a 1977 article in [[Studies in Intelligence]], [[Kenneth A. Kress]] wrote that one of the earliest US Government parapsychology investigations was prompted when the chief of the [[Office of Technical Service]], then the Technical Services Division, became interested in claims of ESP. Technical project officers contacted Abrams, who under the auspices of Project ULTRA prepared a review article which, in Kress's words, claimed ESP was demonstrated but not understood or controllable. Kress wrote that the report was read with interest but produced no further action for another decade.[^3] + +Kress cited the review as Abrams's "Extrasensory Perception," a draft report dated December 14, 1965.[^20] Kress opened his account with the 1952 Pentagon lecture given by [[Andrija Puharich]], citing Puharich's paper "On the Possible Usefulness of Extrasensory Perception in Psychological Warfare."[^3] + +A typescript article titled "The World of the Supra-Sensory," held in the CIA Reading Room and catalogued under February 10, 1966, describes a grant-supported program at Oxford. Its author describes himself as a behavior scientist and says he does not intend to take a side on the existence of ESP.[^21] The article states that Oxford, through grants, supported the research of "a proverbial Yank at Oxford," that Abrams worked in the Biometry Department from 1960 to 1963, and that his interests were ESP and hypnosis. It says he worked with Mr. Shackleton, described as a well known English sensitive, on the transmission of drawings from an artist to a subject in another room, and that the data could not be analyzed by any valid or reliable method. It records that Abrams established good contact with Professor Vasiliev and visited Moscow and Leningrad to lecture. The same article names the Oxford biologist [[Alister Hardy]] and the Oxford philosopher [[H. H. Price]] among the prominent names in other fields who took part in ESP studies.[^21] + +Abrams's own papers, held by the [[Wellcome Collection]] as the Stephen Abrams (1938-2012) archive, give a fuller chronology. He began corresponding with [[Carl Jung]] in 1957 on synchronicity, and the correspondence continued until Jung's death in 1961. He moved to England in 1960 to work on an ESP doctoral thesis at Oxford and headed the university's parapsychology laboratory in the Department of Biometry. In 1961 he visited [[Duke University]] for LSD experiments with [[J. B. Rhine]], and in 1962 he visited the Soviet Union. Oxford closed the Parapsychology Laboratory in 1964, and he was never awarded a doctorate.[^22] A typed letter signed by Jung to Abrams, dated October 21, 1957, was later sold at auction by Christie's.[^23] Jung's letters to him of June 28, 1957, October 21, 1957 and March 5, 1959 are listed in [[Parapsychology Abstracts International]], reproduced in a CIA Reading Room file, under the name Stephen J. Abrams.[^24] + +Hardy appears in a compilation of parapsychology research submitted by Captain [[Edgar Mitchell]], USN, as "Sir Alister Hardy, F.R.S., Biologist and Founder-Director of the Religious Experience Unit at Manchester College, Oxford," who "earned his several degrees at Oxford University." The compilation states that he returned to Oxford in 1945 as Linacre Professor of Zoology, that he had long been interested in parapsychological phenomena and that he was a past president of the [[Society for Psychical Research]].[^25] The Society's list of presidents shows Hardy for 1965 to 1969, Price (Henry Habberley Price, philosopher) for 1939 to 1941 and 1960 to 1961, [[E. R. Dodds]] (Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford) for 1960 to 1963, the philosopher F. C. S. Schiller for 1914, [[Gilbert Murray]] for 1915 to 1916 and 1952, and the psychologist [[William McDougall]] for 1920 to 1921.[^26] + +A CIA report on government-sponsored research in psychoenergetics, dated February 1989, gives a different chronology. It states that the CIA's work began in 1961, when the Office of Technical Service, then the Technical Services Division, became interested in ESP claims. It says that under the auspices of Project ULTRA, Abrams, then described as director of the parapsychological laboratory at Oxford University, reviewed the research and prepared an article, after which the field lay dormant at the CIA for ten years.[^27] + +In a thesis submitted to the [[Defense Intelligence College]] in November 1992, Captain [[Michael E. Zarbo]] of the US Army states that the Office of Technical Service commissioned the director of the parapsychological laboratory at Oxford University to review the validity of ESP. The thesis is titled "Remote Viewing: Parapsychological Potential for Intelligence Collection?"[^28] + +The [[Parapsychological Association]], formed in 1957, elected a founding council of seven. Its councilmen included [[W. G. Roll]] of Oxford University, [[Karlis Osis]] and [[Margaret Anderson]]. [[Gertrude Schmeidler]] was its vice-president.[^29] + +### Effective altruism, the Future of Humanity Institute and the Global Priorities Institute + +The Future of Humanity Institute was founded in 2005 by Bostrom, and it sat within the university's Faculty of Philosophy and the [[Oxford Martin School]]. Bostrom held an Oxford professorship from 2008 to 2024, and he later founded the [[Macrostrategy Research Initiative]].[^30] The institute's website states that it closed on 16 April 2024, and that research in the fields where it was active may continue elsewhere within the university and in many external organizations that have sprung up.[^2] The [[Oxford Student]] reported that the [[Faculty of Philosophy]] shut the institute down on April 16. Bostrom, in an emailed statement to [[The Guardian]] quoted in that report, said there had been "a death by bureaucracy." [[Anders Sandberg]], a former senior research fellow, said the institute had been "affected by a gradual suffocation by Faculty bureaucracy."[^31] The institute's own account of the closure stated that the Faculty of Philosophy imposed a freeze on fundraising and hiring in 2020 and decided not to renew staff contracts in late 2023. The institute received 1 million pounds from Musk in 2015 for research on the threat of artificial intelligence, and its largest team, the Governance of AI Program, became an independent organization in 2021. An Oxford spokesperson said the decision to close the institute followed consideration of the best structures for the university's academic research, and that researchers elsewhere in the university were likely to continue its work.[^31] A retrospective in [[Asterisk]] covers the institute's 2005 founding, its nineteen-year run, the 2020 fundraising and hiring freeze, the late-2023 contract decision and the April 16, 2024 closure statement.[^32] + +[[Elon Musk]] funded AI-safety work at the institute, and [[Jaan Tallinn]] gave to it as one of its donors. + +The [[Centre for Effective Altruism]] appears in the same record. The charity's trustees' report for the year to June 30, 2021 says it is affiliated with both the Future of Humanity Institute and the [[Global Priorities Institute]] of the university, and states that it shares office space with them. The same report records that both institutes' funds held by the charity were in deficit after their move to [[Trajan House]].[^33] The Companies House register lists [[Effective Ventures|Effective Ventures Foundation (UK)]] under company number 07962181.[^34] The [[Charity Commission for England and Wales]] published an inquiry into Effective Ventures Foundation UK on May 22, 2024.[^35] + +Open Philanthropy recommended a gift of 20,000 pounds, 26,086 dollars at the conversion used, to the university "to support the research of the Mathematical Ecology Research Group and the research costs of Andrew Snyder-Beattie," who had recently served as the institute's Director of Research.[^36] Other archived Open Philanthropy grant records list £323,646 (429,769 dollars at the conversion used) to the university for research on the global politics of advanced artificial intelligence, $41,800 to the university for animal welfare research, £5,217 (6,683 dollars at the conversion used) to the [[Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics]] for a workshop on animal sentience, £14,500 (about 18,309 dollars) to the [[Oxford AI Safety Initiative]] for access fees on a shared office space in Oxford, and $35,000 to the [[Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative]] to support research at the [[Oxford Martin AI Governance Initiative]].[^37] + +Effective Ventures acquired [[Wytham Abbey]], a manor house near Oxford, in 2022, and [[Civil Society]] published a story on April 3, 2024 under the headline "Crypto-backed charity plans closure and £17m Oxford property sale."[^38] + +The [[Giving What We Can]] pledge society was launched at Oxford in November 2009 by [[Toby Ord]], with [[William MacAskill]]. Ord was a senior research fellow at the institute, and wrote [[The Precipice]] in 2020.[^39] MacAskill is an associate professor at the university and one of the originators of effective altruism. [[Derek Parfit]] was a fellow of All Souls College, and his work on future generations is cited as foundational by Bostrom, Ord and MacAskill. + +Other figures with Oxford records include [[Julian Savulescu]], who held the Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics and founded the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, and who trained under [[Peter Singer]] and Parfit.[^40] Singer took a BPhil at Oxford in 1971 under [[R. M. Hare]].[^41] [[Amanda Askell]] took a BPhil in philosophy at Oxford in 2011 before her doctorate at [[New York University]].[^42] [[Carla Cremer]] appears among the alumni of the [[Human Information Processing Lab]], which lists her among its PhD students and research assistants.[^43] [[Max More]] read philosophy, politics and economics at [[St Anne's College, Oxford|St Anne's College]], Oxford, graduating in 1987.[^44] [[Jason Matheny]] worked for the university before joining the intelligence community. [[Helen Toner]] was a research affiliate of the [[Center for the Governance of AI]] at the university. + +### Maximilian Snyder and the Zizian case + +[[Maximilian Snyder]] studied philosophy and computer science at the university from 2020 to 2024.[^45] Prosecutors in [[Solano County, California]] charged him with the January 17, 2025 murder of [[Curtis Lind]], an 82-year-old landlord in [[Vallejo]]. They alleged the killing was carried out to stop Lind testifying against other members of the [[The Zizians|Zizian]] group.[^46] Open Vallejo reported on June 20, 2025 that a federal grand jury indicted the group's namesake with Vallejo ties.[^47] + +### Intelligence and Cold War figures + +[[Frederick A. Lindemann]], later Lord Cherwell, was an Oxford scientist who became [[Winston Churchill]]'s chief science adviser in the years before the Second World War. According to [[Seymour Hersh]]'s account in [[The Samson Option]], Lindemann came to know [[Ernst David Bergmann]] and [[Chaim Weizmann]] during this period.[^48] + +Lincoln Gordon, the Rhodes Scholar, was United States ambassador to Brazil in 1964. A top secret telegram from Gordon to the State Department, dated March 28, 1964, is printed in the [[Foreign Relations of the United States]] series.[^49] The same day [[McGeorge Bundy]] sent a telegram to [[Lyndon B. Johnson]], who was then in Texas.[^50] The [[National Security Archive]]'s Electronic Briefing Book No. 118 reproduces a top secret cable from Gordon dated March 29, 1964.[^51] A State Department telegram to the embassy in Brazil, drafted and approved by Dean Rusk, is dated March 30, 1964.[^52] In [[Thy Will Be Done]], [[Gerard Colby]] and [[Charlotte Dennett]] record Gordon's sworn denial that the American Embassy or he personally played any part in the 1964 military coup in Brazil.[^53] + +[[Richard Aldrich]] wrote in a 1997 article that a 1962 Oxford thesis by [[F. X. Rebattet]] confirmed that most funds of the [[American Committee on United Europe]] originated with the CIA.[^54] [[David Barnby]], in a self-published account, cites the same thesis, titled "The European Movement 1945-1953," as held in the [[Bodleian Library]], and gives the committee's membership as 380 in 1950.[^55] The committee's officers include [[Allen Dulles]], its vice-chairman, and [[Max Ascoli]] is listed among its media figures. + +[[Michael Gibson]], the author of the [[1517 Fund]] blog, wrote in a July 22, 2018 post that he had dropped out of the university, where he was working toward a doctorate in philosophy, before MIT's Technology Review hired him as a writer. In the same post he describes interviewing with the Central Intelligence Agency in the fall of 2006 after applying for a political analyst role.[^56] + +### Other alumni and dons + +[[Margaret Thatcher]] studied chemistry at Oxford before qualifying as a barrister, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica.[^57] [[Benazir Bhutto]] was educated at Harvard and at Oxford, according to the BBC's report of her death in 2007.[^58] [[Jed Rakoff]] took an M.Phil. at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1966 before a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1969.[^59] [[Ian Smart]] was described in a 1982 volume's contributor note as educated at Oxford and Leeds universities.[^60] [[Walt Rostow]]'s memorial record lists professorships at Oxford, [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]] and [[Columbia University]].[^61] [[Frank Meyer]] joined the British Communist Party in 1931 as a student at Oxford, and became a senior editor of [[National Review]] in 1957.[^62] [[Jim Schnabel]] is linked to [[Lincoln College, Oxford]] in the context of a 1991 recording, a connection the college said in early 1992 no longer existed. + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: University of Oxford, history page, Internet Archive capture dated January 9, 2025, https://web.archive.org/web/20250109093226/https://www.ox.ac.uk/about/organisation/history. The page calls Oxford the oldest university in the English-speaking world and says there is no clear date of foundation but that teaching existed at Oxford in some form in 1096. +[^2]: University of Oxford, Future of Humanity Institute, home page as captured by the Internet Archive on December 31, 2024, https://web.archive.org/web/20241231200603/https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/. The capture states that the institute closed on 16 April 2024 and that research in its fields may continue to be pursued elsewhere within the University and in many external organizations that have sprung up. +[^3]: Kenneth A. Kress, "Parapsychology in Intelligence: A Personal Review and Conclusions," Studies in Intelligence 21, no. 4 (Winter 1977), CIA-RDP96-00791R000200030040-0, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00791r000200030040-0. +[^4]: Cecil John Rhodes, The Last Will and Testament of Cecil John Rhodes, with elucidatory notes (1902), section 4, "Bequests to Oriel College, Oxford," section 5, "The Scholarships at Oxford," and the notes on the scholarships, https://archive.org/details/lastwilltestamen00rhoduoft. +[^5]: Rhodes Trust, home page, https://www.rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk/, viewed October 15, 2026. +[^6]: Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (New York: Macmillan, 1966), chapter 9, sections "Cecil Rhodes Organized a Secret Society in 1891," "Financial Backing of the Secret Society," "The Royal Institute and Council on Foreign Relations Are Set Up." +[^7]: "David Dean Rusk," People, Department History, Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State, https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/rusk-david-dean. The entry gives the A.B. from Davidson College in 1931, entry to St. John's College, Oxford, on a Rhodes Scholarship, and service as Secretary from January 21, 1961 to January 20, 1969. +[^8]: Lincoln Gordon, "a long and productive life," Brookings Institution, December 28, 2009, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2009/12/28/lincoln-gordon-a-long-and-productive-life/, on the doctorate from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and five years as ambassador to Brazil. +[^9]: "Turner Named to Naval Academy Board of Visitors," White House press release, September 13, 1996, https://clintonwhitehouse6.archives.gov/1996/09/1996-09-13-turner-named-to-naval-academy-board-of-visitors.html; the U.S. Naval Academy list of Rhodes Scholars gives 1947, https://www.usna.edu/Notables/rhodes-scholars.php. +[^10]: "William J. Clinton," The White House (Clinton administration), https://clintonwhitehouse3.archives.gov/WH/glimpse/presidents/html/bc42.html. +[^11]: "Remarks by the President at Oxford University," Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, June 8, 1994, Clinton White House archive, https://clintonwhitehouse6.archives.gov/1994/06/1994-06-09-remarks-by-president-at-oxford-university.html. +[^12]: "BOOKER, Cory Anthony," Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress, as presented by History, Art & Archives, U.S. House of Representatives, https://history.house.gov/People/Detail/15032398446. +[^13]: "About Jim," Congressman Jim Himes, https://himes.house.gov/about/about-jim/. +[^14]: "Nomination of James D. Theberge To Be Ambassador to Nicaragua," White House press release, May 30, 1975, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, https://fordlibrarymuseum.gov/sites/default/files/pdf_documents/library/document/0248/whpr19750530-004.pdf. The release gives an M.A. from Oxford University in 1960 and service as an Instructor of Economics, Oxford University, from 1969 to 1970. +[^15]: Friends of Headington Hill Park, "History of the park and the hall," https://friendsofheadingtonhillpark.org.uk/history/ (sale of the hall to Oxford City Council in 1953; lease to the Maxwell family; lease to Oxford Brookes University since 1992); "Robert Maxwell," Headington.org.uk local history, https://headington.org.uk/history/famous_people/maxwell.htm (1959 tender at 2,400 pounds a year). +[^16]: "Robert Maxwell," Headington.org.uk local history, https://headington.org.uk/history/famous_people/maxwell.htm, citing The Times, January 8, 1982, and the Oxford Times advertisement of 1973. +[^17]: Christine Savino, "Tracing former Oxford socialite Ghislaine Maxwell's path to convict," The Oxford Student, March 8, 2026, Internet Archive capture, https://web.archive.org/web/2026/https://www.oxfordstudent.com/2026/03/08/tracing-former-oxford-socialite-ghislaine-maxwells-path-to-convict/. The article cites the 1983 Balliol College Record and quotes Crick and Jones. +[^18]: "Ghislaine Maxwell: The British socialite who became Epstein's confidante," BBC, December 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53100417. +[^19]: Global Capitalism Project, University of Oxford, Case Study #29, "Robert Maxwell's Expectations Gap: Regulation and Reputation in the British Communications Industry, 1981-91," February 2023. The case study quotes the report of the Department of Trade and Industry inspectors on Mirror Group Newspapers. https://globalcapitalism.history.ox.ac.uk/sites/g/files/vzsiac2111/files/globalcapitalism/documents/media/case_29_-_robert_maxwells_expectations_gap.pdf. +[^20]: Stephen I. Abrams, "Extrasensory Perception," draft report, December 14, 1965, as cited in note 2 of Kress, "Parapsychology in Intelligence," Studies in Intelligence 21, no. 4 (1977). +[^21]: "The World of the Supra-Sensory," typescript article, CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP96-00787R000400040032-1, catalogued by the Internet Archive as February 10, 1966, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00787r000400040032-1. The Oxford passages appear on pages 18 and 19 of the article. +[^22]: Wellcome Collection, "Parapsychology papers," Stephen Abrams (1938-2012) archive, https://wellcomecollection.org/works/a6txyub5; "Originals," PP/SAB/A/6/5, comprising photocopied letters from Jung to Abrams, https://wellcomecollection.org/works/g6ky37bv. +[^23]: Christie's, "Carl Jung (1875-1961), Typed letter signed ('C.G. Jung') to Stephen Abrams, [Kusnacht], 21 October 1957," sale 22135, lot 295, https://onlineonly.christies.com.cn/s/alphabet-genius-important-autograph-letters-manuscripts/carl-jung-1875-1961-295/205078. The lot provenance gives the name as Stephen I Abrams (1938-2012). +[^24]: Parapsychology Abstracts International, abstract 01663, C. G. Jung, "Letters on parapsychology," Part I, Zeitschrift für Parapsychologie und Grenzgebiete der Psychologie, 1973, reproduced in CIA-RDP96-00792R000700650006-4, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00792r000700650006-4. +[^25]: Compilation of parapsychology research submitted by Captain Edgar D. Mitchell, USN, CIA reading-room document CIA-RDP96-00787R000100190001-2, pp. vii-viii (Alister Hardy), https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00787r000100190001-2. +[^26]: Society for Psychical Research, list of past presidents, https://www.spr.ac.uk/about/past-presidents. +[^27]: "Government Sponsored Research in Psychoenergetics," CIA report, dated February 1989, CIA-RDP96-00789R002200440001-9, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00789r002200440001-9. +[^28]: Michael E. Zarbo, Captain, US Army, "Remote Viewing: Parapsychological Potential for Intelligence Collection?" thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Defense Intelligence College, November 1992, CIA-RDP96-00789R002600250001-6, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00789r002600250001-6. +[^29]: "Announcement of Formation of the Parapsychological Association," Journal of Parapsychology 21, no. 4 (December 1957), pp. 315-316, https://archive.org/details/sim_journal-of-parapsychology_1957-12_21_4. +[^30]: Nick Bostrom, Curriculum Vitae, St Cross College, on the 2008 to 2024 Oxford professorship and the founding of the Macrostrategy Research Initiative, https://nickbostrom.com/cv.pdf. +[^31]: "Oxford shuts down Elon Musk-funded Future of Humanity Institute," The Oxford Student, April 20, 2024, Internet Archive capture dated April 28, 2024, https://web.archive.org/web/20240428172104/https://www.oxfordstudent.com/2024/04/20/oxford-shuts-down-elon-musk-funded-future-of-humanity-institute/. The article reports the Faculty of Philosophy closure date and quotes the Bostrom and Sandberg statements. +[^32]: "Looking Back at the Future of Humanity Institute," Asterisk, https://asteriskmag.com/issues/08/looking-back-at-the-future-of-humanity-institute. +[^33]: Centre for Effective Altruism, Trustees' Report and Financial Statements for the year ended 30 June 2021, filed at Companies House 5 April 2022, Trustees' Report, structure and affiliation sections. +[^34]: Companies House, company record for Effective Ventures Foundation (UK), company number 07962181, https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07962181, viewed October 15, 2026. +[^35]: Charity Commission for England and Wales, "Charity Inquiry: Effective Ventures Foundation UK," published 22 May 2024, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/charity-inquiry-effective-ventures-foundation-uk/charity-inquiry-effective-ventures-foundation-uk. +[^36]: Open Philanthropy, "Oxford University: D.Phil Support for Andrew Snyder-Beattie," grant record, archived August 14, 2022, https://web.archive.org/web/20220814010142/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/oxford-university-d-phil-support-for-andrew-snyder-beattie/. +[^37]: Open Philanthropy grant records, archived on the Internet Archive: global politics of advanced artificial intelligence, Oxford University (archived July 1, 2022), https://web.archive.org/web/20220701170331/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/oxford-university-research-on-the-global-politics-of-ai/; animal welfare research, Oxford University (archived August 17, 2022), https://web.archive.org/web/20220817074720/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/oxford-university-animal-welfare-research/; animal sentience workshop, Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics (archived August 18, 2022), https://web.archive.org/web/20220818203930/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/oxford-uehiro-centre-for-practical-ethics-animal-sentience-workshop/; office access, Oxford AI Safety Initiative (archived April 16, 2025), https://web.archive.org/web/20250416003334/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/oxford-ai-safety-initiative-office-access/; Oxford Martin AI Governance Initiative, Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative (archived January 15, 2025), https://web.archive.org/web/20250115165710/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/berkeley-existential-risk-initiative-oxford-martin-ai-governance-initiative/. +[^38]: "Crypto-backed charity plans closure and £17m Oxford property sale," Civil Society, April 3, 2024, https://www.civilsociety.co.uk/news/crypto-backed-charity-plans-closure-and-17m-oxford-property-sale.html. +[^39]: "Toby Ord," Giving What We Can profile, on the Oxford position and the Future of Humanity Institute fellowship, https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/people/toby-ord. +[^40]: "Training Transhumanists at Oxford University," Europe in the World, University of Notre Dame, https://eitw.nd.edu/articles/training-transhumanists-at-oxford-university/. +[^41]: "Peter Singer," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Princeton University Center for Human Values, https://uchv.princeton.edu/people/peter-singer, on the 1971 Oxford BPhil. +[^42]: "The Philosopher Trying to Give AI a Conscience," The Wall Street Journal, https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anthropic-amanda-askell-philosopher-ai-3c031883. +[^43]: Human Information Processing Lab, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, people page, "Alumni (PhD Students / RAs)," https://humaninformationprocessing.com/people. +[^44]: Max More, "About," maxmore.com, on the 1987 Oxford PPE degree from St Anne's College, https://www.maxmore.com/about/. +[^45]: "22-year-old University of Oxford grad charged with murder of elderly landlord," The Tab, March 7, 2025, https://thetab.com/2025/03/07/22-year-old-university-of-oxford-grad-charged-with-murder-of-elderly-landlord. +[^46]: "A timeline of activities of a cultlike group tied to the killing of a Border Patrol agent," Associated Press via PBS NewsHour, 2025, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/a-timeline-of-cultlike-zizian-group-tied-to-killing-of-a-border-patrol-agent-in-vermont. +[^47]: "Federal grand jury indicts Zizian namesake with Vallejo ties," Open Vallejo, June 20, 2025, https://openvallejo.org/2025/06/20/federal-grand-jury-indicts-zizian-namesake-with-vallejo-ties/. +[^48]: Seymour M. Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy (New York: Random House, 1991), chapter 2. +[^49]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-68, vol. XXXI, Document 187, Telegram from the Ambassador to Brazil (Gordon) to the Department of State, Rio de Janeiro, March 28, 1964, top secret, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v31/d187. +[^50]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-68, vol. XXXI, Document 189, Telegram from the President's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to President Johnson in Texas, March 28, 1964, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v31/d189. +[^51]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 118, Document 3, Top Secret Cable, Ambassador Lincoln Gordon to Department of State, March 29, 1964. +[^52]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-68, vol. XXXI, Document 194, Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Brazil, Washington, March 30, 1964, 9:52 p.m., drafted and approved by Secretary Rusk, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v31/d194. +[^53]: Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett, Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), chapter 29. +[^54]: Richard J. Aldrich, "OSS, CIA and European Unity: The American Committee on United Europe, 1948-60," Diplomacy & Statecraft 8, no. 1 (1997), p. 192, DOI 10.1080/09592299708406035. +[^55]: David Barnby, The EU: A Corporatist Racket (Orinoco Standard, 2014), pp. 85-88, citing F. X. Rebattet, "The European Movement 1945-1953" (thesis, 1962, Bodleian Library, Oxford). Self-published. +[^56]: Michael Gibson, "Human Intelligence," 1517 Fund blog, July 22, 2018, https://www.1517fund.com/post/human-intelligence. +[^57]: "Margaret Thatcher," Encyclopaedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Margaret-Thatcher. +[^58]: "Benazir Bhutto killed in attack," BBC News, December 27, 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7161590.stm. +[^59]: Federal Judicial Center, "Rakoff, Jed Saul," Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/rakoff-jed-saul. +[^60]: Ian Smart, contributor note, in Nuclear Power in Developing Countries: An Analysis of Decision Making (1982), chapter 2, https://archive.org/details/nuclearpowerinde0000unse. +[^61]: "Dr. Walt Whitman Rostow (1916-2003)," Find a Grave, memorial 62181838, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/62181838. +[^62]: John B. Judis, "The Godfather of American Conservatism," Alicia Patterson Foundation, https://aliciapatterson.org/john-judis/the-godfather-of-american-conservatism/. diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Yale University.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Yale University.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..27b259d2 --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Yale University.md @@ -0,0 +1,269 @@ +--- +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +title: Yale University +aliases: + - Yale + - Yale University +category: "Private Organization" +tags: + - Organization + - AcademicInstitution + - SkullAndBones + - RussellTrustAssociation + - OfficeOfStrategicServices + - CentralIntelligenceAgency + - ColdWar + - Parapsychology + - NeuroelectricResearch + - BehavioralResearch + - RemoteViewing + - CocaineEpidemic + - FederalJudiciary + - Philanthropy +summary: "Yale University, the New Haven university whose senior society Skull and Bones and whose faculty, alumni and research staff appear in the records of wartime intelligence, behavioral research, parapsychology, the federal courts and philanthropy." +location: "New Haven, Connecticut" +relations: + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Joseph Toy Curtiss]]" + reverse: true + role: "assistant professor of English; OSS Library Project collector in Istanbul from April 1943; returned to Yale in the summer of 1946" + start: 1943 + end: 1946 + fn: 13 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Richard Bissell]]" + reverse: true + role: "doctorate in economics, 1939; taught economics at Yale before moving to MIT in 1942" + start: 1939 + end: 1942 + fn: 22 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Sherman Kent]]" + reverse: true + role: "history professor before 1941; left for the OSS Research and Analysis Branch; returned in 1947 or 1949 (the CIA essays give both); left for the CIA in 1950" + start: 1933 + end: 1950 + fn: 21 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Mark A. May]]" + reverse: true + role: "professor of educational psychology; director of the Institute of Human Relations, 1935 to 1961" + start: 1927 + end: 1960 + fn: 25 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Stanley Milgram]]" + reverse: true + role: "conducted the obedience experiments in the Yale interaction laboratory; at Harvard by 1963" + start: 1960 + end: 1963 + fn: 28 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Myron S. Malkin]]" + reverse: true + role: "member of the physics faculty" + start: 1952 + end: 1961 + fn: 37 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[José M. R. Delgado]]" + reverse: true + role: "Department of Psychiatry; came to Yale in 1952 as an instructor" + start: 1952 + fn: 30 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Robert B. Livingston]]" + reverse: true + role: "School of Medicine, instructor to assistant professor of physiology under John F. Fulton" + start: 1946 + end: 1952 + fn: 31 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[Robert Byck]]" + reverse: true + role: "Department of Pharmacology, Yale University School of Medicine; testified before the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control on July 26, 1979" + start: 1979 + end: 1979 + fn: 42 + - type: employed_by + with: "[[José A. Cabranes]]" + reverse: true + role: "general counsel and director of government relations" + start: 1975 + end: 1979 + fn: 47 + - type: head_of + with: "[[Richard Levin]]" + reverse: true + role: "twenty-second president" + start: 1993 + end: 2013 + fn: 66 + - type: funded + with: "[[Thiel Foundation]]" + reverse: true + role: "$25,000 grant to Yale University for education, 2006" + start: 2006 + end: 2006 + fn: 65 +--- + +Yale University is a private university in [[New Haven, Connecticut]], chartered by the [[Connecticut Colony]] in 1701 as a collegiate school. Its senior society [[Skull and Bones]], its wartime faculty recruited into the [[Office of Strategic Services]] and the [[Central Intelligence Agency]], its psychology, psychiatry and neurophysiology laboratories, and its alumni in the federal courts and the executive branch appear in the records of intelligence services, behavioral research, parapsychology, drug policy and finance. + +### The 1701 charter + +The General Court of the Colony of Connecticut passed an "Act for a Collegiate School" at its October 1701 session. It recites petitions for "full liberty and priviledg" for undertakers to found a school "wherein youth may be instructed in the arts and sciences, who through the blessing of Almighty God, may be fitted for publick imployments both in church and civill state," and grants "full liberty, right and priviledge" to ten ministers, [[James Noyes]], [[Israel Chauncey]], [[Thomas Buckingham]], [[Abraham Pierson]], [[Samuel Mather]], [[Timothy Woodbridge]], [[James Pierpont]], [[Samuel Andrew]], [[Joseph Webb]] and [[Noadiah Russell]], "to erect, forme, direct, order, establish, improve" the school.[^1] The colony's act of May 1745 "for the more full and compleat Establishment of Yale College in New Haven" recites that the General Court "assembled at New Haven, on the ninth day of October in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and one" had made the grant, and that the trustees had "founded a Collegiate School at New Haven, known by the name of Yale College."[^2] + +### Skull and Bones and the Russell Trust Association + +[[David A. Richards]], who is writing a history of American college societies and whose name the magazine's editors note appears in the Class of 1967 list of Skull and Bones members, wrote in the Yale Alumni Magazine in 2015 that Skull and Bones was founded in 1832 on the conception of [[William Huntington Russell]], the valedictorian of the Class of 1833, with [[Alphonso Taft]] as a cofounder, and that its members called it the Eulogian Club before a skull and crossbones sketched on a chapel-door notice gave it its name and its badge number, 322. He wrote that in 1856 the society's alumni incorporated it in Connecticut as a trust called the Russell Trust Association, so that a corporation could hold title to the windowless "tomb" on High Street, which was later estimated to have cost about $30,000.[^3] A reader's letter in the same magazine, citing [[James Bradley]]'s book *The China Mirage*, stated that the money for the 1856 building was "Russell money" traced to [[Russell and Company]] of Canton, "America's biggest smuggler of Turkish opium into China."[^4] The Connecticut Secretary of the State's business registry lists "The Russell Trust Association" as a domestic business of the type "Special Chartered," status "Active," account number 0269315.[^5] + +[[Ron Rosenbaum]] wrote in [[Esquire]] in September 1977 that the society's members included [[McGeorge Bundy]], [[Averell Harriman]], [[Henry L. Stimson]], [[Henry Luce]] and Supreme Court Justice [[Potter Stewart]]. He wrote that Bundy's brother [[William P. Bundy]] and [[William F. Buckley]] entered the Central Intelligence Agency after their years in the society.[^6] Bundy majored in mathematics at Yale and then returned to [[Harvard University]] and its Society of Fellows after the war.[^7] A [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] memorandum of October 20, 1950 from [[Louis B. Nichols]] to [[Clyde Tolson]] records that Buckley "graduated at Yale in 1950, and was chairman of" the Yale Daily News, and that the editor of the News had promoted a forum at the Yale Law School in 1949 at which Nichols spoke.[^8] + +[[George W. Bush]] entered Yale in 1964 and received a bachelor's degree in history in 1968.[^9] [[Jacques Leslie]], a member of the Class of 1968, wrote in [[Salon]] in March 2000 that he and Bush had both been asked to join Skull and Bones, that he refused on Tap Night, and that "Bush, on the other hand, joined Bones." Leslie cited [[Bill Minutaglio]]'s biography *First Son* for the account that Bush had considered a society called Gin and Tonic but was swayed when his father, then a congressman, conducted the tapping himself. Leslie listed Stimson (Class of 1888), Stewart, Harriman, Luce, [[John Hersey]] and [[William Sloane Coffin]] as members, and wrote that students heard rumors that the society's assets made it the largest corporation in Connecticut and that each member was guaranteed a lifetime annual stipend of $20,000, adding that "Nobody knew whether the rumors were true."[^10] + +The [[George H. W. Bush Presidential Library]] describes its file FOIA 2009-0116-F as records "related to the Skull and Bones Society at Yale University, of which George H. W. Bush and his father Prescott Bush were both members." The file contains correspondence from President Bush to Buckley and [[Thomas W. Ludlow Ashley]] about a Buckley article in [[National Review]] answering [[Pat Buchanan]]'s characterization of Bush's foreign policy as "Skull and Bones foreign policy" during the 1992 campaign, administrative forms for a Skull and Bones tea held at the White House on October 20, 1989, and newspaper articles on the rumor that [[Prescott Bush]] and a group of Skull and Bones members had taken the skull of the Apache leader [[Geronimo]].[^11] Vesting Order 248 of the Alien Property Custodian, executed October 20, 1942 and published in the Federal Register on November 7, 1942, vested "All of the capital stock of Union Banking Corporation," 4,000 shares held for the benefit of Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart, N.V., Rotterdam, "which bank is owned or controlled by members of the Thyssen family." It lists the registered owners as [[E. Roland Harriman]] (3,991 shares), Cornelius Lievense (4), Harold D. Pennington (1), Ray Morris (1), Prescott S. Bush (1), H. J. Kouwenhoven (1) and Johann G. Groeninger (1).[^12] + +### The Library Project, the Research and Analysis Branch and X-2 + +Yale's wartime collection of enemy publications served as cover for an Office of Strategic Services operation. In April 1943 Joseph Toy Curtiss, an assistant professor of English, sailed for Istanbul with a $25,000 fund to acquire books and war material for Yale and other libraries; he had been recruited to collect intelligence on the Axis powers, and the operation was called the Library Project. [[Donald Downes]], an OSS officer and Yale graduate, formed the plan after reading a notice in the Yale Library Gazette. Only Curtiss and the collection's two curators, [[Russell Pruden]] and [[Thomas Mendenhall]], knew the purpose at Yale; President [[Charles Seymour]] was not told. The OSS sent the money to [[Walter Pforzheimer|Walter L. Pforzheimer]], a trustee of the Yale Library Associates, who presented it to the university as a gift from anonymous alumni, and two sets of accounts were kept, one for Yale and one for the OSS. The Library Project remained secret until 1953, and Curtiss returned to Yale in the summer of 1946 and taught there for twenty more years.[^13] The Yale research archivist who wrote that account cites [[Robin W. Winks]], a Yale history professor, and his book *Cloak and Gown: Scholars in the Secret War, 1939-1961* for the Yale connections of the new intelligence service.[^14] A Walter Pforzheimer received a letter from the chief investigator of the [[Senate Internal Security Subcommittee]] on May 9, 1955, and a letter from [[Daniel O. Graham]] on September 23, 1980 enclosing a partial membership list of the [[National Strategy Committee]]; the records found do not state whether that recipient is the Yale trustee of the same name.[^15] + +[[Norman Holmes Pearson]], a Yale University professor, headed [[X-2]], the OSS counterintelligence branch, in London, according to a review in the CIA's Studies in Intelligence of the memoirs of Richard W. Cutler, a Yale-educated lawyer who built X-2's agent vetting section at Pearson's direction.[^16] [[James Jesus Angleton]] (class of 1941) entered Yale in 1937, majored in English literature, and edited the poetry review [[Furioso]], which published [[T.S. Eliot]] and [[Ezra Pound]]; he entered [[Harvard Law School]] and then joined the Army in 1943.[^17] According to [[Tom Mangold]]'s biography, he co-founded the magazine with the poet [[Reed Whittemore]] and developed close ties to Eliot and Pound during those years.[^18] [[David Robarge]] wrote in the CIA's Studies in Intelligence in 2009 that Winks's chapter "The Theorist" in *Cloak and Gown*, partly derived from conversations with Angleton, was "the most insightful biographical sketch of Angleton yet written," and described the argument of the scholar David Holzman that the New Criticism prominent at Yale when Angleton attended shaped his approach to counterintelligence.[^19] + +[[Sherman Kent]] was born in Chicago in 1903, graduated from Yale in 1926 and received a Ph.D. in history there in 1933. In 1941 he left Yale for the Research and Analysis Branch of the Coordinator of Information, later the OSS, and in January 1943 became chief of its Europe-Africa Division. The CIA's collected essays on his years as chairman of the [[Board of National Estimates]], 1952 to 1967, say that his Yale classes had been popular because his enthusiasm brought history to life, and that he bestowed D's and F's "with abandon" on sham or lack of preparation.[^20] One essay says he served on the staff of the [[National War College]] before "returning to Yale in 1947," where he wrote *[[Strategic Intelligence for American World Policy]]*, published in 1949, and that a year after its publication he left Yale for the CIA in the wake of the [[Korean War]]. The editor's note to another essay says Kent "did not return to teach at Yale until 1949," having taught at the National War College in 1946-1947 and held a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1947-1948, and that he joined the CIA's Office of National Estimates in late 1950 under [[William L. Langer]].[^21] + +[[Richard Bissell]] took a doctorate at Yale in 1939 and taught economics there before moving to the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] in 1942, according to the CIA's official history of the U-2 program by [[Gregory W. Pedlow]] and [[Donald E. Welzenbach]].[^22] [[Tracy Barnes]] graduated from Yale and Harvard Law School before joining the OSS, and served in Europe as a paramilitary operative.[^23] + +### The 1958 Conference on America's Human Resources + +A letter of February 7, 1958 from [[Howard L. Bevis]], chairman of the [[President's Committee on Scientists and Engineers]], to [[Allen Dulles]], then Director of Central Intelligence, thanks Dulles for addressing the Conference on America's Human Resources at Yale on February 3 and 4, 1958 and for an address that "was a distinct contribution." The enclosed list of participants names [[Max Ascoli]] ("Editor and Publisher, The Reporter," of [[The Reporter]]), the publisher [[William Benton]], [[Lloyd Berkner]] of Associated Universities, and [[Frank H. Bartholomew]], president of [[United Press]]. The program's campus map locates the Institute of Human Relations, the Cowles Foundation, the Institute of Far Eastern Languages and the society buildings Skull and Bones, Scroll and Key, Wolf's Head, Book and Snake and the Elihu Club.[^24] + +### The Institute of Human Relations and behavioral research + +The Yale Institute of Human Relations was first organized in 1929 to integrate teaching at Yale on the study of man. [[Mark A. May]], professor of educational psychology at Yale from 1927 to 1960, was its executive secretary and then its director from 1935 to 1961; its work addressed juvenile delinquency, psychotherapy, cultural conflicts and child rearing. May was a scientific consultant to the War Department in the Second World War on psychological warfare and the psychological effects of weaponry, conducted research for the Office of Scientific Research and Development on psychological damage in soldiers caused by different weapons, and after the war served on the Advisory Commission on Information of the [[United States Information Agency]], chairing it from 1952; Yale holds his papers.[^25] [[Ernst Kris]] joined Yale's Child Study Center in 1949 and became professor of psychology there in 1951 and of psychiatry in 1953, after attending the September 1947 Project RAND conference of social scientists.[^26] + +The congressional record of the CIA's behavioral modification program cites Yale work on drug interrogation. A survey titled "'Truth' Drugs in Interrogation," which [[Stansfield Turner]], Director of Central Intelligence, supplied for the record of the August 3, 1977 joint Senate hearing on [[Project MKULTRA]], reports that "Redlich and his associates at Yale" administered sodium amytal to nine volunteers who had invented cover stories for guilty episodes in their pasts, and cites F. C. Redlich, L. J. Ravitz and G. H. Dession, "Narcoanalysis and truth," *American Journal of Psychiatry* 107 (1951).[^27] + +[[Stanley Milgram]] described his obedience experiments in the *Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology* in 1963 while "Now at Harvard University." The paper reports that the subjects were 40 men aged 20 to 50 drawn from New Haven and surrounding communities by newspaper advertisement and direct mail, who believed they were taking part in a study of memory and learning at Yale; that they were paid $4.50; and that the experiment was conducted "on the grounds of Yale University in the elegant interaction laboratory." Of the 40, 26 obeyed the experimenter's orders to the end, up to the 450-volt switch on a 30-switch shock generator, while fourteen Yale seniors asked beforehand to predict the behavior of 100 hypothetical subjects estimated from 0 to 3 percent, with a mean of 1.2 percent. Milgram acknowledged a grant (NSF G-17916) from the [[National Science Foundation]] and a 1960 grant for exploratory studies from the Higgins Fund at Yale, thanked the research assistants [[Alan C. Elms]] and Jon Wayland, and wrote that he gave the National Science Foundation a first report in January 1961 and first submitted the article to the journal on December 27, 1961.[^28] + +### Neuroelectric research, psychoenergetics and the STARGATE file + +[[José M. R. Delgado]] is listed as a contributor to the 1971 proceedings of the Fourth Annual National Conference of the [[Neuroelectric Society]], held in San Antonio, Texas, with the affiliation "Department of Psychiatry, Yale University." The proceedings, edited by [[Norman L. Wulfsohn]] and [[Anthony Sances]], Jr., were filed as CIA-RDP96-00787R000500200005-2 in the [[Project Stargate]] collection.[^29] An early proposal titled "Direct Brain Perception," submitted by [[Edgar Mitchell]] and prepared by [[Andrija Puharich]], includes biographical sketches of its consultants. One states that Delgado "came to Yale in 1952 as an Instructor."[^30] + +The 1992 "Phenomenological Research and Analysis Technical Volume" of [[Science Applications International Corporation]], by [[Edwin May]] and Wanda L. W. Luke, lists [[Robert B. Livingston]], M.D., of the [[University of California, San Diego]] as a member of its Institutional Review Board with [[Louis Jolyon West|Louis J. West]] of the [[University of California, Los Angeles]], and prints Livingston's 1991 curriculum vitae: Yale University School of Medicine, instructor to assistant professor of physiology under [[John F. Fulton]], 1946-1952, with a publication list that includes work "with José Delgado." The same volume adds Professor [[Steven A. Hillyard]] of UC San Diego to its Scientific Oversight Committee and states that his resume is included in its Section IV, which holds a curriculum vitae recording a Yale Ph.D. in psychology in 1968 with a traineeship under [[Robert Galambos]].[^31] + +[[Annie Jacobsen]] wrote that Puharich's theory of an energy linking the brain and the cells gained traction when [[Lloyd H. Beck]] and [[Walter S. Miles]] of Yale reported that the olfactory nerve of a bee radiated energy in the infrared range.[^32] [[Harold Saxton Burr]] published "Diurnal Potentials in the Maple Tree" in the [[Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine]] in July 1945.[^33] A 1984 interim report on a geophysical effects study, prepared by [[Harold Puthoff]] and Marsha Adams of [[SRI International]] for the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command under the [[Center Lane]] special access program, states that its ultra-low-frequency measurements "were stimulated by the work of Burr on relatively steady-state tree potentials," and its reference list cites Burr's 1945 and 1947 papers in the Yale journal and his 1956 paper in *Science*.[^34] + +A survey of international parapsychology research, held in the CIA reading room as a chapter of the book *[[New Psychic Frontiers]]*, lists Yale University, New Haven, among the institutions with parapsychology activity. The entry names [[Henry Margenau]] and [[Dieter Brill]] as the professors involved.[^35] A Defense Intelligence Agency report of August 7, 1984, titled "Psychoenergetics Research," prints an Exhibit 7 headed "Universities Involved in Courses, Research, or Degrees in Parapsychology," on which Yale University appears on the same line as the University of California, Berkeley.[^36] + +### Physics, the Space Shuttle and Dimona + +[[Myron S. Malkin]] was a member of the Yale physics faculty from 1952 to 1961. He then worked at [[General Electric]] on re-entry vehicles and later directed the [[Space Shuttle program]] at [[NASA]] headquarters from 1973 to 1980.[^37] [[Robert T. Webber]] earned a doctorate in physics at Yale and served as scientific attache at the American embassy in [[Tel Aviv]]. According to [[Seymour Hersh]]'s account in *[[The Samson Option]]*, he shared the interest of [[William N. Dale]] in the [[Dimona]] reactor.[^38] + +### Walt Rostow, Eugene Rostow and the Yale Law School + +[[Walt Rostow]] received a Ph.D. in economics from Yale in 1940.[^39] His brother [[Eugene V. Rostow]], dean of the [[Yale Law School]], is listed as a member of Panel IV of the [[Rockefeller Brothers Fund]] [[Rockefeller Brothers Fund Special Studies Project]], whose 1961 report *[[Prospect for America]]* names him as "dean, Yale University Law School."[^40] [[Max Millikan]] took a B.S. in physics at Yale in 1935 and a Yale Ph.D. in 1941 before working at the [[Office of Price Administration]] in 1942.[^41] + +### Pharmacology and the 1979 cocaine hearings + +[[Robert Byck]] of the Yale Department of Pharmacology, described in the hearing record as a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at Yale who had just returned from an international conference on cocaine in Peru, testified on July 26, 1979 before the [[House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control]] in the hearings published as *Cocaine: A Major Drug Issue of the Seventies*.[^42] He opened by saying that, cocaine as then used in the United States was not dangerous in the usual sense, and that the emphasis had been placed in the wrong place. His prepared statement, printed in the same volume, says that freebase smoking "can represent the same threat that the speed epidemics of the 1960's represented in their time," that the United States did not yet have an epidemic of freebase or coca paste smoking, and that "The possibility is strong that this might occur. It is occurring in the countries of South America."[^43] [[Gary Webb]] wrote in *[[Dark Alliance]]* in 1998 that Byck had warned Congress of the coming [[Crack Cocaine|crack]] epidemic in 1979 and had been ignored.[^44] + +### Yale-China + +The Yale-China Association, known first as Yale-in-China, was founded on February 10, 1901 by young Yale alumni, who chose Hunan Province as the field; a renovated building in central [[Changsha]] provided classrooms and a Western medicine clinic by Christmas 1906. [[Edward H. Hume]], Yale class of 1897, opened a small hospital and with [[Yan Fuqing]] secured land and funding for the medical school, and the 1913 Xiang-ya Agreement with the Hunan authorities was described as a turning point; the preparatory school became Yali High School.[^45] Yale's own China timeline records that Yan Fuqing graduated from the Yale School of Medicine in 1909 and became head of Xiangya Hospital, founder of Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University, and Minister of Health, and that [[Yung Wing]] graduated from Yale College in 1854 and organized the Chinese Educational Mission that sent 120 students to New England.[^46] + +### Courts, the Law School and the executive branch + +[[José A. Cabranes]] graduated from [[Columbia University]] in 1961 and from Yale Law School in 1965. He was general counsel and director of government relations at Yale from 1975 to 1979. [[Jimmy Carter]] nominated him to the District of Connecticut on November 6, 1979, and [[Bill Clinton]] nominated him to the Second Circuit on May 24, 1994. He served on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review from 2013 to 2020, presiding from 2018 to 2020.[^47] [[Robert W. Sweet]] graduated from Yale in 1944 and from Yale Law School in 1948, after service as a Navy lieutenant junior grade from 1943 to 1946. Carter nominated him to the Southern District of New York on February 17, 1978.[^48] + +[[Stephen Cutler]] graduated summa cum laude from Yale and received his law degree there before being named Enforcement Director of the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] in October 2001.[^49] [[William Bradford Reynolds]] received a B.A. from Yale in 1964.[^50] [[Richard Thornburgh]] earned a B.S. in engineering from Yale in 1954.[^51] [[Cyrus Vance]] graduated from Yale in 1939 and received his law degree there in 1942.[^52] [[Dean Acheson]] also graduated from Yale.[^53] [[Mark W. Everson]] received a B.A. in history from Yale.[^54] [[Porter Goss]] took a B.A. in classics and Greek from Yale in 1960.[^55] + +Other lawyers and officials who took their law degrees at Yale include [[David Boies]] (LL.B. 1966),[^56] [[Alan Dershowitz]],[^57] [[Hillary Clinton]], who met Bill Clinton there,[^58] [[Cory Booker]],[^59] [[Ro Khanna]],[^60] [[JD Vance]] (2013)[^61] and [[Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar]].[^62] [[John Morley]] of Yale Law School helped design the governance structure of [[Anthropic]]'s [[Long-Term Benefit Trust]].[^63] [[William H. Draper III]], nominated by [[Ronald Reagan]] in 1981 to head the [[Export-Import Bank of the United States]], held a Yale B.A. from 1950.[^64] + +### Money, presidents and families + +The [[Thiel Foundation]]'s 2006 return reports a grant of $25,000 to Yale University in the education category.[^65] [[Richard Levin]], the economist who served as Yale's twenty-second president from 1993 to 2013, is the father of [[Jonathan Levin]], who was named president of [[Stanford University]] in 2024.[^66] [[Larry Summers]] left his advisory role at the Yale Budget Lab in November 2025.[^67] [[Nick Bostrom]] was teaching at Yale in 2001 when he met [[James Hughes]] and [[Mark Walker]] in the meeting that began the second phase of the [[World Transhumanist Association]].[^68] [[David Goslin]] took his doctorate in sociology at Yale in 1962.[^69] + +The [[Yale Center for British Art]] describes [[Paul Mellon]] as its founder.[^70] [[Cari Tuna]] studied political science at Yale and worked on the college paper before she and [[Dustin Moskovitz]] began the giving that became [[Good Ventures]].[^71] [[Francis Shelden]], the owner of [[North Fox Island]], testified in a 1982 deposition that he received a bachelor of arts degree from Yale.[^72] [[Frederic J. Truslow]] is recorded in the 1963 Harvard Law School yearbook as "B.A. Yale '61."[^73] + +Yale's Manuscripts and Archives holds the papers of [[Alvin Johnson]] (MS 615, 1902 to 1969), given by Johnson, [[Agnes de Lima]] and Edith Levy in 1967.[^74] [[Christopher Mellon]] took a master's degree in international affairs at Yale.[^75] [[Rob Reich]] holds a B.A. in philosophy from Yale.[^76] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: "Act for a Collegiate School," General Court of the Colony of Connecticut, October 1701 session, in *The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, from August, 1689, to May, 1706*, ed. J. Hammond Trumbull (Hartford: Case, Lockwood and Brainard, 1868), pp. 363-364. https://archive.org/details/bwb_P9-CDP-546 +[^2]: "An Act for the more full and compleat Establishment of Yale College in New Haven, and for enlarging the Powers and Priviledges thereof," General Court, May 1745, in *The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, from May, 1744, to November, 1750*, ed. Charles J. Hoadly (Hartford: Case, Lockwood and Brainard, 1876), pp. 113-114. https://archive.org/details/publicrecordsofc009conn +[^3]: David A. Richards, "The origins of the tomb," *Yale Alumni Magazine*, May/June 2015, with editors' note on the author's listing among Skull and Bones members in the Class of 1967 graduation book. https://yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/4072-the-origins-of-the-tomb +[^4]: Bruce L. Reynolds '66, letter, "More secrets of the Tomb," *Yale Alumni Magazine*, responding to the May/June 2015 article; the letter cites James Bradley, *The China Mirage* (Little, Brown, 2015). The passage is the letter writer's account. https://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/4127-more-secrets-of-the-tomb +[^5]: Connecticut Secretary of the State, Connecticut Business Registry - Business Master, open data set n7gp-d28j, record "RUSSELL TRUST ASSOCIATION, THE" (business type Special Chartered; status Active; citizenship Domestic; account number 0269315). https://data.ct.gov/resource/n7gp-d28j.json +[^6]: Ron Rosenbaum, "The Last Secrets of Skull and Bones," *Esquire*, September 1977. Cited as the McGeorge Bundy page cites it. +[^7]: "Mac Bundy," *The Harvard Crimson*, November 10, 1956. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1956/11/10/mac-bundy-pwhen-mcgeorge-bundy-became/ +[^8]: FBI headquarters file on William F. Buckley Jr., part 1, memorandum L. B. Nichols to Mr. Tolson, October 20, 1950, and summary memoranda. https://archive.org/details/foia_Buckley_William_F.-HQ-1 +[^9]: White House, "Biography of President George W. Bush" (archived). Born July 6, 1946, in New Haven; bachelor's degree in history from Yale University in 1968. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov ; Biography.com, "George W. Bush" (Yale enrollment in 1964). https://www.biography.com/us-president/george-w-bush +[^10]: Jacques Leslie, "Smirk from the past" ("Yale"), *Salon*, March 1, 2000. https://www.salon.com/2000/03/01/yale/ +[^11]: George H. W. Bush Presidential Library, "Records on Skull and Bones Society," FOIA 2009-0116-F, processed August 2009 (Records of the White House Office of Policy Development, Emily Mead Subject Files, 23348-002; Press Office of the Vice President, Subject Files, 14925-046; White House Social Office, Cathy Fenton Subject Files, 07104, "10/20/89 Skull and Bones Tea"). The library text describes the Geronimo rumor and does not endorse it. https://www.bush41library.gov/download/file/4777 +[^12]: Office of Alien Property Custodian, Vesting Order No. 248, executed October 20, 1942 (Leo T. Crowley, Alien Property Custodian), 7 Fed. Reg. 9097-9098 (November 7, 1942), F.R. Doc. 42-11567 series. Federal Register, vol. 7, no. 220. +[^13]: Judith Ann Schiff, "The library at war," *Yale Alumni Magazine*, Nov/Dec 2019. https://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/4991-the-library-at-war +[^14]: Robin W. Winks, *Cloak and Gown: Scholars in the Secret War, 1939-1961* (New York: William Morrow, 1987), cited in the Schiff article. +[^15]: Letter from the chief investigator of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee to Walter Pforzheimer, May 9, 1955, CIA-RDP58-00597A000100240018-8, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp58-00597a000100240018-8 ; Daniel O. Graham to Walter Pforzheimer, September 23, 1980, enclosing a partial membership list of the National Strategy Committee, CIA-RDP02T06251R000900300002-4, CIA reading room (cia.gov/readingroom). Both are cited on the Senate Judiciary Committee and Daniel O. Graham pages. +[^16]: Kevin C. Ruffner, review of Richard W. Cutler, *Counterspy: Memoirs of a Counterintelligence Officer in World War II and the Cold War* (Washington: Brassey's, 2004), *Studies in Intelligence* 49, no. 3. https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/studies-in-intelligence/volume-49-no-3/counterspy-memoirs-of-a-counterintelligence-officer-in-world-war-ii-and-the-cold-war +[^17]: David Robarge, "'Cunning Passages, Contrived Corridors': Wandering in the Angletonian Wilderness," *Studies in Intelligence* 53, no. 4 (2009), biographical backdrop. https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/Cunning-Passages-Contrived-Corridors.pdf +[^18]: Tom Mangold, *Cold Warrior: James Jesus Angleton, the CIA's Master Spy Hunter* (Simon & Schuster, 1991). +[^19]: Robarge, "'Cunning Passages, Contrived Corridors,'" *Studies in Intelligence* 53, no. 4 (2009), sections on Winks, *Cloak and Gown*, and on Holzman. https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/Cunning-Passages-Contrived-Corridors.pdf +[^20]: Donald P. Steury, ed., *Sherman Kent and the Board of National Estimates: Collected Essays* (CIA History Staff, Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1994), foreword, the essay on Kent's biography, and Harold P. Ford, "A Tribute to Sherman Kent." https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/sherman-kent-and-the-board-of-national-estimates-collected-essays.pdf +[^21]: Steury, *Sherman Kent and the Board of National Estimates*, the essay on *Strategic Intelligence* ("before returning to Yale in 1947"; "A year after *Strategic Intelligence* was published, Sherm left Yale for the CIA") and editor's note 6 to the Kent biography essay. The two passages are printed in the same volume. +[^22]: Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach, *The CIA and the U-2 Program, 1954-1974* (CIA History Staff, Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1998), biographical passage on Richard M. Bissell. https://archive.org/details/DTIC_ADA355539 +[^23]: Evan Thomas, *The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared: The Early Years of the CIA* (Simon & Schuster, 1995). +[^24]: Howard L. Bevis to Allen W. Dulles, February 7, 1958, with program, campus map and list of participants, "America's Human Resources: To Meet the Scientific Challenge," Yale University, February 3-4, 1958, sponsored by the President's Committee on Scientists and Engineers, CIA-RDP80B01676R003800020106-4. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01676r003800020106-4 +[^25]: Yale University Library, Manuscripts and Archives, "Guide to the Mark Arthur May papers," MS 1447, biographical/historical note and scope and contents. https://ead-pdfs.library.yale.edu/3894.pdf +[^26]: Deutsche Biographie, "Kris, Ernst" (NDB 13, 1982). https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/sfz46084.html ; Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Ernst Kris Papers (MSS84824), register; Daniel M. Bessner, "The Night Watchman: Hans Speier and the Making of the American National Security State," Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 2013, p. 190 note 88 (attendee list of RAND R-106). Cited as the Ernst Kris page cites them. +[^27]: "'Truth' Drugs in Interrogation," material supplied by Admiral Stansfield Turner for the record, *Project MKULTRA, the CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification*, Joint Hearing before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, U.S. Senate, 95th Cong., 1st sess., August 3, 1977; reference 25, F. C. Redlich, L. J. Ravitz and G. H. Dession, "Narcoanalysis and truth," *American Journal of Psychiatry* 107 (1951): 586-593. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/hearings/95mkultra.pdf +[^28]: Stanley Milgram, "Behavioral Study of Obedience," *Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology* 67, no. 4 (1963): 371-378, author's note 1 and 2, methods, "Preliminary Notions" and "Result of Experiment I." https://archive.org/details/milgram370551 +[^29]: *The Nervous System and Electric Currents*, Volume 2, Proceedings of the Fourth Annual National Conference of the Neuroelectric Society, San Antonio, Texas, March 10-12, 1971, edited by Norman L. Wulfsohn and Anthony Sances, Jr. CIA-RDP96-00787R000500200005-2, CIA reading room (cia.gov/readingroom). +[^30]: Edgar D. Mitchell (submitter) and Henry (Andrija) Puharich, M.D. (editor), "Direct Brain Perception" research proposal, biographical sketches of the researchers. CIA-RDP96-00787R000100190001-2, CIA reading room (cia.gov/readingroom). +[^31]: Edwin C. May and Wanda L. W. Luke, "Phenomenological Research and Analysis Technical Volume," Science Applications International Corporation, Cognitive Sciences Laboratory, May 8, 1992, Contract MDA908-91-C-0037 (Scientific Oversight Committee and Institutional Review Board sections; Section IV curricula vitae). CIA-RDP96-00789R003100170001-9, CIA reading room (cia.gov/readingroom). +[^32]: Annie Jacobsen, *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis* (Little, Brown, 2017). +[^33]: H. S. Burr, "Diurnal Potentials in the Maple Tree," *Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine* 17, no. 6 (July 1945): 727-734. PMC2601777. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2601777/ +[^34]: Harold E. Puthoff and Marsha Adams, "Geophysical Effects Study," Interim Report, July 1984, SRI Project 6600, prepared for the Department of the Army, USAINSCOM, Center Lane special access program, text and reference list. CIA-RDP96-00788R001800160001-6, CIA reading room (cia.gov/readingroom). +[^35]: "Research, Investigation and Teaching: A Survey of the International Scene," in *New Psychic Frontiers*, p. 208, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230018-6, CIA reading room (cia.gov/readingroom). +[^36]: Defense Intelligence Agency, Directorate for Scientific and Technical Intelligence, "Psychoenergetics Research," 7 August 1984, Exhibit 7, "Universities Involved in Courses, Research, or Degrees in Parapsychology." CIA-RDP96-00788R001800210001-0, CIA reading room (cia.gov/readingroom). +[^37]: Warren E. Leary, "Myron S. Malkin Is Dead at 70; Designed Space Shuttle Program," *New York Times*, October 26, 1994, Section B, page 13. https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/26/obituaries/myron-s-malkin-is-dead-at-70-designed-space-shuttle-program.html +[^38]: Seymour M. Hersh, *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy* (Random House, 1991), chapter 12. +[^39]: Encyclopedia.com, "Rostow, Walt Whitman (1916-2003)," Gale biography. https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/history/us-history-biographies/walt-whitman-rostow +[^40]: Rockefeller Brothers Fund, *Prospect for America: The Rockefeller Panel Reports* (Garden City: Doubleday, 1961), Panel IV member list. https://archive.org/details/prospect-for-america +[^41]: MIT Libraries, Department of Distinctive Collections, Max F. Millikan papers (MC-0188), biographical note. https://archivesspace.mit.edu/repositories/2/resources/722 +[^42]: *Cocaine: A Major Drug Issue of the Seventies*, Hearings before the Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control, House of Representatives, Ninety-sixth Congress, first session, July 24, 26 and October 10, 1979, Thursday, July 26, 1979, testimony of Robert Byck, M.D., Department of Pharmacology, Yale University School of Medicine. NCJ 65411. https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/65411NCJRS.pdf +[^43]: *Cocaine: A Major Drug Issue of the Seventies*, NCJ 65411, prepared statement of Robert Byck ("My name is Robert Byck ..."), printed in the volume. https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/65411NCJRS.pdf +[^44]: Gary Webb, *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion* (Seven Stories Press, 1998), chapter 15. +[^45]: Aurelia Dochnal, "120th anniversary of Yale-China: the beginnings," *China Hands Magazine*, February 10, 2021. https://chinahandsmagazine.org/2021/02/10/120th-anniversary-of-yale-china-the-beginnings/ +[^46]: Yale Center Beijing, "Yale-China History Timeline" (entries for 1854, 1872 and 1909). https://centerbeijing.yale.edu/node/365 +[^47]: Federal Judicial Center, "Cabranes, Jose Alberto," Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/cabranes-jose-alberto +[^48]: Federal Judicial Center, "Sweet, Robert Workman," Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/sweet-robert-workman +[^49]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "Stephen M. Cutler Named SEC Enforcement Director," Press Release 2001-120, October 25, 2001. https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2001-120.txt +[^50]: Federalist Society, "Wm. Bradford Reynolds," fedsoc.org. +[^51]: Office of the Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, "Richard Lewis Thornburgh," *Attorneys General of the United States*. +[^52]: Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State, "Cyrus Roberts Vance (1917-2002)." https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/vance-cyrus-roberts +[^53]: Dean Acheson, *Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department* (Norton, 1969), and Robert L. Beisner, *Dean Acheson: A Life in the Cold War* (Oxford University Press, 2006). +[^54]: National Archives and Records Administration, Catalog Record ID 3936205. +[^55]: Congressional Directory for the 108th Congress (2003 to 2004), August 2004, Florida delegation, Representative Porter J. Goss, Biography, p. 62. Cited on the Porter Goss page. +[^56]: Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, "David Boies," firm biography. https://www.bsfllp.com/people/david-boies.html +[^57]: Harvard Law School, "Alan M. Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus," faculty biography. https://hls.harvard.edu/faculty/alan-m-dershowitz/ +[^58]: "Biography of Hillary Rodham Clinton," The White House, Office of the First Lady (Clinton administration archive, National Archives). https://clintonwhitehouse4.archives.gov/WH/EOP/First_Lady/html/HILLARY_Bio.html +[^59]: "About Cory," Office of U.S. Senator Cory Booker. https://www.booker.senate.gov/about-cory +[^60]: Office of Representative Ro Khanna, "About Rep. Khanna," official biography. https://khanna.house.gov/about/about-rep-khanna +[^61]: J. D. Vance, *Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis* (Harper, 2016). +[^62]: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuellar," biography. https://carnegieendowment.org/people/mariano-florentino-tino-cuellar +[^63]: Anthropic, "The Long-Term Benefit Trust," September 19, 2023. https://www.anthropic.com/news/the-long-term-benefit-trust +[^64]: Ronald Reagan, "Nomination of William H. Draper III To Be President and Chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States," March 18, 1981, American Presidency Project. https://presidency.ucsb.edu/node/247393 +[^65]: The Thiel Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2006, Part VIII and Statement A, grants paid (line 3, Yale University, Education, $25,000). https://990s.foundationcenter.org/990pf_pdf_archive/203/203846597/203846597_200612_990PF.pdf +[^66]: Yale Daily News, "Stanford appoints son of former Yale president Rick Levin as president," April 5, 2024. https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2024/04/05/stanford-appoints-son-of-former-yale-president-rick-levin-as-president/ +[^67]: "Larry Summers banned for life from American Economic Association," Associated Press via *Fortune*, December 3, 2025. https://fortune.com/2025/12/03/larry-summers-banned-for-life-from-american-economic-association +[^68]: Nick Bostrom, "A History of Transhumanist Thought," *Journal of Evolution and Technology* 14, no. 1 (April 2005), section 4. https://jetpress.org/volume14/bostrom.pdf +[^69]: American Institutes for Research, "The American Institutes for Research Honors the Life and Legacy of David Goslin," January 6, 2025. +[^70]: "Paul Mellon: Founder," Yale Center for British Art. https://britishart.yale.edu/stories/paul-mellon-founder +[^71]: Ariana Eunjung Cha, "Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz: Young Silicon Valley billionaires pioneer new approach to philanthropy," *The Washington Post*, December 26, 2014; "Billionaire from Evansville to spread the wealth," WFIE 14 News, December 2014. Cited on the Cari Tuna page. +[^72]: *National Bank of Detroit v. Shelden*, 730 F.2d 421 (6th Cir. 1984) (Nos. 82-1737, 82-1905), on the Amsterdam deposition of 1982. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/433085/national-bank-of-detroit-v-francis-d-shelden-the-trust-company-of-the/ +[^73]: *Harvard Law School Year Book*, 1963, entry "Frederic Jennings Truslow, B.A. Yale '61." https://books.google.com/books?id=8oc8AAAAIAAJ +[^74]: Yale University Library, Manuscripts and Archives, "Alvin Saunders Johnson papers," MS 615. https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/12/resources/3846 +[^75]: "Unholy Alliance?" *Roll Call*, February 12, 2003. https://rollcall.com/2003/02/12/unholy-alliance/ +[^76]: Rob Reich, curriculum vitae, Department of Political Science, Stanford University. https://robreich.people.stanford.edu/files/reich-cv.pdf diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/RapeWaffen Division.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/RapeWaffen Division.md index 6a77772a..667ad5b9 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/RapeWaffen Division.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/RapeWaffen Division.md @@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ The RapeWaffen Division Telegram channel appears to have functioned as a radical Melzer's participation in RapeWaffen Division is the basis for the most significant documented case of O9A military penetration in the public record. In May 2020, while with the [[173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team]] in [[Vicenza, Italy]] and preparing for a deployment to [[Turkey]], Melzer transmitted classified information about his unit's locations, personnel strength, troop movements, and defensive capabilities to RapeWaffen Division members via Telegram. The channel's CC-1, a UK-based O9A contact identified only by the CC-1 designation in court documents, relayed the intelligence to a second co-conspirator, CC-2, with the stated purpose of enabling a mass-casualty attack combining O9A members and Al-Qaeda-affiliated forces. -The FBI had embedded an operative in the RapeWaffen Division channel. The operative, whom Melzer believed was a fellow O9A member with operational access to jihadist networks, was the primary recipient of Melzer's intelligence disclosures. The FBI arrested Melzer on June 10, 2020, before the planned deployment. Melzer was charged in [[Southern District of New York]] case 1:20-cr-00314-GHW and pleaded guilty on June 24, 2022. He was sentenced to 45 years by [[U.S. District Judge Gregory H. Woods]] on March 6, 2023.[^3] +The FBI had embedded an operative in the RapeWaffen Division channel. The operative, whom Melzer believed was a fellow O9A member with operational access to jihadist networks, was the primary recipient of Melzer's intelligence disclosures. The FBI arrested Melzer on June 10, 2020, before the planned deployment. Melzer was charged in [[U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York|Southern District of New York]] case 1:20-cr-00314-GHW and pleaded guilty on June 24, 2022. He was sentenced to 45 years by [[U.S. District Judge Gregory H. Woods]] on March 6, 2023.[^3] ### UK Nexus and Uncharged Co-Conspirators diff --git a/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/HISTORICAL_PROGRAMS/MKSEARCH.md b/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/HISTORICAL_PROGRAMS/MKSEARCH.md index 60e99a38..8285a02d 100644 --- a/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/HISTORICAL_PROGRAMS/MKSEARCH.md +++ b/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/HISTORICAL_PROGRAMS/MKSEARCH.md @@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ relations: role: "Edgewood Arsenal Research Laboratories took part in the MKCHICKWIT and MKOFTEN work, including testing of the compound EA 3167" fn: 2 created: 2026-06-03 -updated: 2026-10-03 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- MKSEARCH was the [[CIA]] program that succeeded [[MKULTRA]] in June 1964, when [[Richard Helms]] agreed to a new charter on the condition that it be almost the same as the old one. He kept the approval process within his control and made sure files would remain inside [[TSS]]. [[Sidney Gottlieb|Sid Gottlieb]] regrouped the most sensitive behavioral activities under the MKSEARCH umbrella, pruning away programs of insufficient sensitivity and turning exotic research over to the Science Directorate. He chose to continue seven projects, emphasizing chemical and biological substances valued for their ability to disorient, discredit, injure, or kill.[^1] @@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ In a memorandum for the Secretary of Defense dated September 20, 1977, signed by The memorandum reports three Army programs from 1969 to 1973, five Navy programs from 1947 to 1973 and none in the Air Force; in four of the eight, Defense Department participation "was limited to channeling funds to outside contractors in order that the sponsorship of the Central Intelligence Agency be covered." Army and Navy investigators began searching boxes of CIA financial records marked OFTEN and CHICKWIT on August 4, 1977, and on September 7 were allowed to search additional boxes of MKULTRA records.[^2] -The Army programs, all at or through [[Edgewood Arsenal]] Research Laboratories, were the identification of new drugs with behavioral effects (1967 to 1973, carried out mainly by a contractor in California, funded jointly by the Army and the CIA, which supplied 12,084 dollars in 1967 and 5,000 dollars in 1969, with no testing on human subjects; part of MKCHICKWIT); the building of computer data bases on pharmacological products (about 1968 to 1971, with CIA transfers in 1968, 1970 and 1971; part of MKOFTEN); and the determination of clinical effects of a glycolate-class chemical (1971 to 1973, funded by the CIA; part of MKOFTEN). In the third, Edgewood had tested a compound designated EA 3167 on animals, on human volunteers at [[Holmesburg Prison]] in [[Philadelphia]] using prisoners and at Edgewood using military personnel; the CIA reviewed the work in 1971 and transferred 37,000 dollars to Edgewood for further testing, mostly on animals, including whether the compound could be applied through the skin on adhesive tape, and the documents record one human experiment in June 1973 in which two military volunteers "were apparently tested." The Army document list (Appendix A, nine items) includes a 1966 annual report to the Edgewood Medical Research Laboratory from Duhring Laboratories of the [[University of Pennsylvania]] and an August 1975 note from Colonel McClure, Director of Biomedical at Edgewood, to Ed Owens on "Agent 3167."[^2] +The Army programs, all at or through [[Edgewood Arsenal]] Research Laboratories, were the identification of new drugs with behavioral effects (1967 to 1973, carried out mainly by a contractor in California, funded jointly by the Army and the CIA, which supplied 12,084 dollars in 1967 and 5,000 dollars in 1969, with no testing on human subjects; part of MKCHICKWIT); the building of computer data bases on pharmacological products (about 1968 to 1971, with CIA transfers in 1968, 1970 and 1971; part of [[MKOFTEN]]); and the determination of clinical effects of a glycolate-class chemical (1971 to 1973, funded by the CIA; part of MKOFTEN). In the third, Edgewood had tested a compound designated EA 3167 on animals, on human volunteers at [[Holmesburg Prison]] in [[Philadelphia]] using prisoners and at Edgewood using military personnel; the CIA reviewed the work in 1971 and transferred 37,000 dollars to Edgewood for further testing, mostly on animals, including whether the compound could be applied through the skin on adhesive tape, and the documents record one human experiment in June 1973 in which two military volunteers "were apparently tested." The Army document list (Appendix A, nine items) includes a 1966 annual report to the Edgewood Medical Research Laboratory from Duhring Laboratories of the [[University of Pennsylvania]] and an August 1975 note from Colonel McClure, Director of Biomedical at Edgewood, to Ed Owens on "Agent 3167."[^2] Deanne C. Siemer, General Counsel of the Department of Defense, told the Senate on September 20, 1977 that the testing of EA 3167 at Holmesburg "may have involved from 5 to 12 prisoners; one document says 5, another one says 12."[^3] The Army's list of Edgewood volunteer contracts for 1965 to 1975, placed before the Senate in 1975, shows prisoners at Holmesburg as the volunteers under three contracts: one with the University of Pennsylvania (April 1, 1964 to March 31, 1967) and two with [[Ivy Research Laboratories]] (June 28, 1968 to December 1, 1969, and a second ending September 30, 1971).[^4] The five Navy programs, run through the [[Office of Naval Research]] as a funds conduit in most cases, were the synthesis of analogs of central nervous system stimulants (1971 to January 1973, a contractor in Massachusetts, with up to 117,938 dollars from the CIA between February 26, 1971 and June 23, 1972; the CIA authorization stated that funding through ONR "protects the Agency's association with this area of research and provides the contractor with credible sponsorship"); a search for a nonaddictive substitute for codeine (1954 to at least 1964, at the Addiction Research Center of the [[United States Public Health Service]] Hospital in [[Lexington, Kentucky]], with at least 282,215 dollars from the CIA and about 800 compounds tested on addicted patients); a study of the effects of blast concussion (October 1954 to December 1955, a contractor in California, 20,000 dollars from the CIA, after which the work became MKULTRA subproject 54 on the CIA's decision that "human experiments of a type not easily justifiable on medical-therapeutic grounds" were expected); the administration of LSD to human subjects (1952 to about 1956, a researcher in New York, MKULTRA subprojects 7, 27 and 40, with the Navy named as sponsor in one later CIA document that is not otherwise corroborated); and the development of speech-inducing drugs (1947 to 1953, funded by the Navy through the Naval Medical Research Institute, a New York contractor under the cover of a motion-sickness study, with the CIA records in the BLUEBIRD and [[Project Bluebird and Project Artichoke|ARTICHOKE]] files). The last item includes the memorandum's account that in August 1952 the [[Office of Naval Intelligence]] told the CIA that it had drugs it was about to test on human subjects "who would be unaware," that about eight Soviet defectors received them in Europe in September 1952, and that the tests were not satisfactory because the drugs tasted too bitter to conceal. The Navy document list (Appendix B) has 42 items, among them a May 15, 1957 report of Gross Research Laboratories, Inc., "On the Impact Thresholds of Brain Concussion," and records of the [[University of Rochester]] motion-sickness studies of 1951 to 1953.[^2] @@ -54,3 +54,5 @@ The memorandum concludes that no Defense Department component or contractor then [^1]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*, Chapter 12. [^2]: General Counsel of the Department of Defense (signed by Deanne C. Siemer), memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, "Experimentation Programs Conducted by the Department of Defense That Had CIA Sponsorship or Participation and That Involved the Administration to Human Subjects of Drugs Intended for Mind-control or Behavior-modification Purposes," September 20, 1977, with Appendices A and B (Army and Navy document lists) and C (CIA documents), 17 pages, release file 02-A-0846, supplied by the vault owner and read on October 3, 2026 (text layer, first and last memorandum pages by image; names in the typed text are as the scan reads, some with OCR damage). +[^3]: Statement of Deanne C. Siemer, General Counsel, Department of Defense, *Human Drug Testing by the CIA, 1977*, hearings before the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, United States Senate, 95th Cong., 1st sess., September 20 and 21, 1977 (testimony of September 20), https://archive.org/details/human-drug-testing-by-the-cia-1977. +[^4]: *Biomedical and Behavioral Research, 1975*, joint hearings before the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare and the Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 94th Cong., 1st sess., September 10, 12 and November 7, 1975, the Army list of "Research Contracts from Edgewood Arsenal Involving Drug Testing Volunteers, 1965-75," https://archive.org/details/US-Government-Medical-Experimentation-On-Humans. diff --git a/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/HISTORICAL_PROGRAMS/Project MKUltra.md b/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/HISTORICAL_PROGRAMS/Project MKUltra.md index ae2cb8ec..272ea1aa 100644 --- a/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/HISTORICAL_PROGRAMS/Project MKUltra.md +++ b/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/HISTORICAL_PROGRAMS/Project MKUltra.md @@ -29,19 +29,19 @@ relations: start: 1961 end: 1962 role: "two New School projects, Subprojects 134 and 137, per the Everett file; the CIA copy sent to the school in 1977 carries the school's name in red insertions on both memoranda" - fn: 5 + fn: 7 - type: funded with: "[[Frank Haronian]]" start: 1961-07 end: 1962-08 role: "investigator, Subproject 134, cost $22,000.00" - fn: 8 + fn: 10 - type: participant_in with: "[[Harvard University]]" reverse: true role: "two research projects with Harvard involvement, disclosed by the University in October 1977" start: 1977-10 - fn: 28 + fn: 30 --- Project MKUltra was a classified research and operational program of the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] authorized on April 13, 1953, by Director [[Allen Dulles]] and directed by [[Sidney Gottlieb]], chief of the agency's [[Technical Services Division]]. The program systematically administered [[LSD]] and other drugs, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, electroconvulsive therapy, and psychological coercion to human subjects who had not consented to the experiments - including psychiatric patients, prisoners, drug addicts, sex workers, military personnel, and ordinary members of the public. It ran across approximately 150 subprojects funded through [[Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology|cut-out foundations]] and direct institutional contracts, and it killed at least one CIA officer. [[Richard Helms]] ordered the destruction of nearly all MKULTRA records in December 1972-January 1973; approximately 20,000 surviving documents, discovered misfiled in a financial records annex during a 1977 FOIA search, form the primary documentary record of the program.[^1] @@ -64,29 +64,29 @@ MKULTRA was already under way before Dulles gave it structure. Under the code na ### Subproject Structure and Key Institutions -The 149 surviving subprojects funded research at some 80 institutions, including 44 colleges and universities, using 185 private researchers, stabilized at roughly 20 percent of the Technical Services Division's annual research budget. Subproject 35 funneled money through [[Charles Geschickter]]'s [[Geschickter Fund for Medical Research]] to build a research wing (the Gorman Annex) at [[Georgetown University Hospital]] with $375,000 in CIA construction funds, providing access to patients as subjects; Subproject 47 tested large LSD doses on volunteers at the [[Atlanta Federal Penitentiary]] through [[Emory University]]; Subproject 42 covered White's safehouse operations; and Subproject 58 covered [[James Moore]]'s work at the [[University of Delaware]] on psilocybin and other natural psychedelics.[^2] +The 149 surviving subprojects funded research at some 80 institutions, including 44 colleges and universities, using 185 private researchers, stabilized at roughly 20 percent of the Technical Services Division's annual research budget. Subproject 35 funneled money through [[Charles Geschickter]]'s [[Geschickter Fund for Medical Research]] to build a research wing (the Gorman Annex) at [[Georgetown University Hospital]] with $375,000 in CIA construction funds, providing access to patients as subjects; Subproject 47 tested large LSD doses on volunteers at the [[Atlanta Federal Penitentiary]] through [[Emory University]]; Subproject 42 covered White's safehouse operations; and Subproject 58 covered [[James Moore]]'s work at the [[University of Delaware]] on psilocybin and other natural psychedelics.[^2] The Subproject 35 file, printed in Appendix C of the August 3, 1977 joint hearing, describes the contribution as an agency investment, with one-sixth of the new wing's space to be "made available for Agency-sponsored research involving covert biological and chemical techniques of warfare," and states that "Agency sponsorship of sensitive research projects will be completely deniable."[^3] A statement for the record in the same hearing says that construction of the Gorman Annex began in 1957 and the Annex was dedicated in March 1959, that the authorization for the contribution is contained in Subproject 35, and that it is "impossible to determine if the facilities of the Gorman Annex were involved." The statement says that the only later Georgetown project involving human testing was Subproject 45 (1955 to 1963), whose papers make no reference to the Annex.[^4] -Subproject 136 was approved on August 23, 1961. The memorandum to the Comptroller of that date records $8,579.00 of MKUltra funds obligated.[^3] The memorandum for the record describes the project as support for an investigator's research on an "Experimental Analysis of Extrasensory Perception," and the attached proposal states that "special attention will be given to disassociative states, which tend to accompany spontaneous ESP experiences" and that such states "can be induced and controlled to some extent with hypnosis and drugs," with an attempt "to induce a number of states of this kind, using hypnosis" ranging "from the abaissement de niveau mental to multiple personality in so-called mediums." Its data sources include "special groups such as psychotics, children and mediums."[^4] +Subproject 136 was approved on August 23, 1961. The memorandum to the Comptroller of that date records $8,579.00 of MKUltra funds obligated.[^5] The memorandum for the record describes the project as support for an investigator's research on an "Experimental Analysis of Extrasensory Perception," and the attached proposal states that "special attention will be given to disassociative states, which tend to accompany spontaneous ESP experiences" and that such states "can be induced and controlled to some extent with hypnosis and drugs," with an attempt "to induce a number of states of this kind, using hypnosis" ranging "from the abaissement de niveau mental to multiple personality in so-called mediums." Its data sources include "special groups such as psychotics, children and mediums."[^6] ### Subprojects 134 and 137 and the New School -The New School Archives hold a file titled "Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 1977-1978" in the [[John R. Everett]] records, Box 7, Folder 29. Its description states that the folder "contains a report of two projects conducted at the [[New School for Social Research|New School]] in 1962 that received funding through MKUltra; the first attempted to discern relationships between body type and personality characteristics, and the second concerned graphology and psychopathologies." The description adds: "It appears that the researchers for at least one of these projects was unaware of CIA sponsorship." The correspondence concerns the release of "universities' involvement."[^5] The description gives no subproject numbers. +The New School Archives hold a file titled "Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 1977-1978" in the [[John R. Everett]] records, Box 7, Folder 29. Its description states that the folder "contains a report of two projects conducted at the [[New School for Social Research|New School]] in 1962 that received funding through MKUltra; the first attempted to discern relationships between body type and personality characteristics, and the second concerned graphology and psychopathologies." The description adds: "It appears that the researchers for at least one of these projects was unaware of CIA sponsorship." The correspondence concerns the release of "universities' involvement."[^7] The description gives no subproject numbers. -Two released subproject files match the two descriptions. Subproject 134 was a $22,000 project recommended in a memorandum of June 9, 1961, whose addressee and signatory are redacted. The memorandum recommends funding "despite the superficiality of the proposal and the questionable products which have issued from previous research," says that three redacted doctors "can strengthen the research accomplished through monitorship and close guidance," and says: "This work fits into our indirect assessment requirement and will contribute to the Wechsler-Bellevue work in which Dr." [redacted] "is engaging." The stated purpose was "exploratory research upon the relation of component physique (body typing) to patterns of personality characteristics." The proposal, a letter covering September 1, 1961 to August 31, 1962, describes a "constitutional psychology" study building on a pilot project that used Sheldon's somatotyping, and the author writes of "devoting my full attention to this project as soon as my present contract expires at the end of June." The attached pilot report describes fifty adult male Protestant theological students and ministers, photographed and somatotyped by Sheldon or his assistants, and tested on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale and other measures. A reviewer's comments, signed Ph.D. and redacted, call the report "poorly organized," note "more variables (60 to 70) than subjects," and recommend "a larger number of subjects, better representative of the general population."[^6] +Two released subproject files match the two descriptions. Subproject 134 was a $22,000 project recommended in a memorandum of June 9, 1961, whose addressee and signatory are redacted. The memorandum recommends funding "despite the superficiality of the proposal and the questionable products which have issued from previous research," says that three redacted doctors "can strengthen the research accomplished through monitorship and close guidance," and says: "This work fits into our indirect assessment requirement and will contribute to the Wechsler-Bellevue work in which Dr." [redacted] "is engaging." The stated purpose was "exploratory research upon the relation of component physique (body typing) to patterns of personality characteristics." The proposal, a letter covering September 1, 1961 to August 31, 1962, describes a "constitutional psychology" study building on a pilot project that used Sheldon's somatotyping, and the author writes of "devoting my full attention to this project as soon as my present contract expires at the end of June." The attached pilot report describes fifty adult male Protestant theological students and ministers, photographed and somatotyped by Sheldon or his assistants, and tested on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale and other measures. A reviewer's comments, signed Ph.D. and redacted, call the report "poorly organized," note "more variables (60 to 70) than subjects," and recommend "a larger number of subjects, better representative of the general population."[^8] -A table of Human Ecology Fund grants for 1960 to 1963, compiled by the anthropologist David H. Price from the Fund's 1961-1963 report, lists "Physique and psychological functioning," investigator Frank Haronian, psychology, $39,000. A 1964 paper by A. A. Sugerman and Frank Haronian on body type is cited in later sport-psychology reviews. Haronian's grant is the only entry in the table whose title concerns physique. A draft memorandum for the record of May 29, 1961 says the investigator, who appears in it as "Mr." with the name redacted, "is neither cleared nor witting of true Sponsor," that the status page lists the contractor "as a grantee of the" redacted body, and that a redacted doctor will receive "additional data which will be useful in advancing his own research program (MKULTRA, Subproject 77)," the Wechsler-scale factor study.[^7][^8] Haronian's later publications are in pastoral psychology and religion and health journals.[^9] The 1964 paper by Sugerman and Haronian states that the study "was partly supported by a grant to Frank Haronian from the Human Ecology Fund."[^10] The investigator of Subproject 134 was Haronian.[^10][^11] The release redacts his name, and the Fund's table gives $39,000 where the file shows $22,000 initially.[^12] +A table of Human Ecology Fund grants for 1960 to 1963, compiled by the anthropologist David H. Price from the Fund's 1961-1963 report, lists "Physique and psychological functioning," investigator Frank Haronian, psychology, $39,000. A 1964 paper by A. A. Sugerman and Frank Haronian on body type is cited in later sport-psychology reviews. Haronian's grant is the only entry in the table whose title concerns physique. A draft memorandum for the record of May 29, 1961 says the investigator, who appears in it as "Mr." with the name redacted, "is neither cleared nor witting of true Sponsor," that the status page lists the contractor "as a grantee of the" redacted body, and that a redacted doctor will receive "additional data which will be useful in advancing his own research program (MKULTRA, Subproject 77)," the Wechsler-scale factor study.[^9][^10] Haronian's later publications are in pastoral psychology and religion and health journals.[^11] The 1964 paper by Sugerman and Haronian states that the study "was partly supported by a grant to Frank Haronian from the Human Ecology Fund."[^12] The investigator of Subproject 134 was Haronian.[^12][^13] The release redacts his name, and the Fund's table gives $39,000 where the file shows $22,000 initially.[^14] -The subproject's status page records it as initiated in July 1961, at a cost of $22,000.00, with actual work expected to commence in September 1961.[^8] An invoice memorandum of July 12, 1961 asked that the check be forwarded by July 24, 1961, and said that additional funds were anticipated for the project.[^13] A February 1963 accounting for the grant period from September 1, 1961 to August 31, 1962 records a receipt of $22,000.00 against Treasurer's Check No. 184788, dated August 11, 1961 (receipt signed August 16, 1961). Its expenditures include $10,800.00 for the "Salary of Principal Investigator" and total $18,827.50. The balance of $3,172.50 was to be applied to the next year's grant.[^14] The revised proposal planned preparation from September to November 1961, testing and data collection from December 1961 to May 1962, and analysis from June to August 1962, with at least 100 subjects and possibly as many as 150; the budget's stipend line was $10,800.[^15] +The subproject's status page records it as initiated in July 1961, at a cost of $22,000.00, with actual work expected to commence in September 1961.[^10] An invoice memorandum of July 12, 1961 asked that the check be forwarded by July 24, 1961, and said that additional funds were anticipated for the project.[^15] A February 1963 accounting for the grant period from September 1, 1961 to August 31, 1962 records a receipt of $22,000.00 against Treasurer's Check No. 184788, dated August 11, 1961 (receipt signed August 16, 1961). Its expenditures include $10,800.00 for the "Salary of Principal Investigator" and total $18,827.50. The balance of $3,172.50 was to be applied to the next year's grant.[^16] The revised proposal planned preparation from September to November 1961, testing and data collection from December 1961 to May 1962, and analysis from June to August 1962, with at least 100 subjects and possibly as many as 150; the budget's stipend line was $10,800.[^17] -Frank Haronian received a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the New School for Social Research in 1963; he had been a school psychologist in the Somerville, New Jersey, school district from 1950.[^16] +Frank Haronian received a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the New School for Social Research in 1963; he had been a school psychologist in the Somerville, New Jersey, school district from 1950.[^18] -Subproject 137 was a $2,000 project for a graphology lexicon. The memorandum for the record of August 24, 1961 states that its purpose was "to support the work of Dr." [redacted] "in completing a psycholexicon on handwriting," that she "has an international reputation for her work in graphology and speech," that "She is advanced in years and her health is failing," and that her manuscript was "now eighty percent complete." It states that the Technical Services Division "continues to approach the problem of handwriting identification and analysis in a number of ways" in support of its "general requirement to further the Agency's capability for the indirect assessment of personality," that the project "will be funded through the" [redacted] "for security and cover purposes," and that the investigator was "neither cleared nor witting of Agency sponsorship." The proposal states that "no compendium of terms exists for student or layman which deals with the history and evolution of handwriting, its psychology and psychopathology." A $2,000 treasurer's check dated September 11, 1961 was paid to a redacted institution. A memorandum of February 1963 states that the investigator "died in 1962 and did not send in an accounting," that her brother wrote that the manuscript was "almost finished," and that "The Fund will receive its usual acknowledgement in the publication of the manuscript." The accounting for the advance was approved on March 10, 1964 over the signature "Sidney Gottlieb, DC/TSD," and a certification states that the recipient "died in 1962 without rendering an accounting" and that "a manuscript has been published and value received."[^17] +Subproject 137 was a $2,000 project for a graphology lexicon. The memorandum for the record of August 24, 1961 states that its purpose was "to support the work of Dr." [redacted] "in completing a psycholexicon on handwriting," that she "has an international reputation for her work in graphology and speech," that "She is advanced in years and her health is failing," and that her manuscript was "now eighty percent complete." It states that the Technical Services Division "continues to approach the problem of handwriting identification and analysis in a number of ways" in support of its "general requirement to further the Agency's capability for the indirect assessment of personality," that the project "will be funded through the" [redacted] "for security and cover purposes," and that the investigator was "neither cleared nor witting of Agency sponsorship." The proposal states that "no compendium of terms exists for student or layman which deals with the history and evolution of handwriting, its psychology and psychopathology." A $2,000 treasurer's check dated September 11, 1961 was paid to a redacted institution. A memorandum of February 1963 states that the investigator "died in 1962 and did not send in an accounting," that her brother wrote that the manuscript was "almost finished," and that "The Fund will receive its usual acknowledgement in the publication of the manuscript." The accounting for the advance was approved on March 10, 1964 over the signature "Sidney Gottlieb, DC/TSD," and a certification states that the recipient "died in 1962 without rendering an accounting" and that "a manuscript has been published and value received."[^19] -The curriculum vitae in the proposal (name redacted) lists the invention of a "Graphodyne" for measuring writing speed and pressure, a 1928 diploma, a 1948 research appointment at an institute of psychosomatic and psychiatric research "in conjunction with" an institute of psychoanalysis, and faculty membership from 1949. The graphologist [[Klara G. Roman]] (1881-1962) invented an instrument called the graphodyne, graduated in 1928, was called to Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago by Franz Alexander, and taught at the New School from 1948. Her posthumous Encyclopedia of the Written Word, published in 1968, thanks "The Handwriting Institute and The Human Ecology Fund," and the Fund's 1961-1963 report, as tabulated by Price, lists a $2,000 grant to "Roman, Klara G." The released CIA file does not name her.[^18] +The curriculum vitae in the proposal (name redacted) lists the invention of a "Graphodyne" for measuring writing speed and pressure, a 1928 diploma, a 1948 research appointment at an institute of psychosomatic and psychiatric research "in conjunction with" an institute of psychoanalysis, and faculty membership from 1949. The graphologist [[Klara G. Roman]] (1881-1962) invented an instrument called the graphodyne, graduated in 1928, was called to Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago by Franz Alexander, and taught at the New School from 1948. Her posthumous Encyclopedia of the Written Word, published in 1968, thanks "The Handwriting Institute and The Human Ecology Fund," and the Fund's 1961-1963 report, as tabulated by Price, lists a $2,000 grant to "Roman, Klara G." The released CIA file does not name her.[^20] -The copy of the two files that the CIA sent to the New School on September 7, 1977 carries red insertions of the school's name. On the draft memorandum dated May 29, 1961 for Subproject 134 (page image 134-12), the insertion reads "New School for Social Research" in the first paragraph, where the researcher appears only as "Mr." with the name blacked out.[^7] On the memorandum for the record dated August 24, 1961 for Subproject 137 (page image 137-10), the insertion reads "New School for Social Research, New York City" beside the blacked-out name of the investigator, who is referred to as "her" in the text.[^19] The cover letter of September 7, 1977, signed by [[A. R. Cinquegrana]] of the Office of General Counsel, states that "the name of the School has been reinserted wherever it appears in the original documents" and that the names of all other institutions, individuals and CIA employees remain deleted.[^11] The New School copy does not restore any individual's name. The Subproject 134 status page (New School copy PDF p. 10) shows the contractor and "grantee of the" fields still blacked out.[^8] +The copy of the two files that the CIA sent to the New School on September 7, 1977 carries red insertions of the school's name. On the draft memorandum dated May 29, 1961 for Subproject 134 (page image 134-12), the insertion reads "New School for Social Research" in the first paragraph, where the researcher appears only as "Mr." with the name blacked out.[^9] On the memorandum for the record dated August 24, 1961 for Subproject 137 (page image 137-10), the insertion reads "New School for Social Research, New York City" beside the blacked-out name of the investigator, who is referred to as "her" in the text.[^21] The cover letter of September 7, 1977, signed by [[A. R. Cinquegrana]] of the Office of General Counsel, states that "the name of the School has been reinserted wherever it appears in the original documents" and that the names of all other institutions, individuals and CIA employees remain deleted.[^13] The New School copy does not restore any individual's name. The Subproject 134 status page (New School copy PDF p. 10) shows the contractor and "grantee of the" fields still blacked out.[^10] -[[John D. Marks]] writes that the Human Ecology grantees' Wechsler scores fed John Gittinger's assessment system: "At Gittinger's urging, other Human Ecology grantees gave the Wechsler battery to their experimental subjects and sent him the scores." He adds that the Society "wound up funding handwriting research and a publication in West Germany" and that Gittinger "went on to hire a resident graphologist." Marks writes: "In 1961 the Society changed its name to the Human Ecology Fund, but for convenience sake it will be called the Society throughout the book."[^20] +[[John D. Marks]] writes that the Human Ecology grantees' Wechsler scores fed John Gittinger's assessment system: "At Gittinger's urging, other Human Ecology grantees gave the Wechsler battery to their experimental subjects and sent him the scores." He adds that the Society "wound up funding handwriting research and a publication in West Germany" and that Gittinger "went on to hire a resident graphologist." Marks writes: "In 1961 the Society changed its name to the Human Ecology Fund, but for convenience sake it will be called the Society throughout the book."[^22] ### Subproject 68: Ewen Cameron and the Allan Memorial Institute @@ -111,7 +111,7 @@ Cameron died in 1967 before the program's public disclosure. A class action suit White recruited prostitutes to bring men to the safe houses. The men - drawn from populations unlikely to file credible complaints - were served drinks spiked with LSD. CIA observers watched through one-way mirrors, recording behavioral responses for Gottlieb's files. The operational theory was that LSD's effects as an interrogation adjunct should be tested in conditions approximating actual field use rather than controlled laboratory settings. -Midnight Climax ran for approximately eight years before White's retirement in 1963 ended the San Francisco operation. White's personal diaries, discovered by journalist John Marks during FOIA research, described the operation with enthusiasm. The program administered LSD to an unknown number of men who were never informed of the experiment and never consented to it. Some were given doses that produced lasting psychological effects.[^21] +Midnight Climax ran for approximately eight years before White's retirement in 1963 ended the San Francisco operation. White's personal diaries, discovered by journalist John Marks during FOIA research, described the operation with enthusiasm. The program administered LSD to an unknown number of men who were never informed of the experiment and never consented to it. Some were given doses that produced lasting psychological effects.[^23] ### Frank Olson @@ -121,11 +121,11 @@ Olson experienced a severe adverse reaction. In the nine days following the retr Director Dulles was briefed on the circumstances. The CIA paid Olson's family $750,000 in a private settlement and secured their silence. The program was concealed. -When the MKULTRA documents surfaced in 1977, Olson's family learned for the first time that he had been non-consensually dosed with LSD nine days before his death. In 1994, Olson's son Eric arranged an exhumation; forensic pathologist James Starrs found cranial injuries inconsistent with the fall, suggesting Olson had been struck before going through the window. The New York County District Attorney opened a homicide investigation; it was never prosecuted due to insufficient surviving evidence. The question of whether Olson was murdered - and if so by whom - remained unresolved at Gottlieb's death in 1999.[^22] +When the MKULTRA documents surfaced in 1977, Olson's family learned for the first time that he had been non-consensually dosed with LSD nine days before his death. In 1994, Olson's son Eric arranged an exhumation; forensic pathologist James Starrs found cranial injuries inconsistent with the fall, suggesting Olson had been struck before going through the window. The New York County District Attorney opened a homicide investigation; it was never prosecuted due to insufficient surviving evidence. The question of whether Olson was murdered - and if so by whom - remained unresolved at Gottlieb's death in 1999.[^24] ### Additional Fatalities: Blauer and Hoch -Beyond Olson, other deaths traced to the program. [[Harold Blauer]], a professional tennis player, died in 1953 after being injected with the psychedelic MDA during Army-contracted experiments at the [[New York State Psychiatric Institute]], the drug supplied by the [[Army Chemical Corps]] in cooperation with MKULTRA; one researcher later admitted "we didn't know if it was dog piss or what it was we were giving to him." Dr. [[Paul Hoch]], a CIA consultant, gave psychiatric patients intraspinal injections of LSD and [[mescaline]] and then lobotomized them, in one case asking a subject under a local anesthetic to describe his visual experiences as surgeons removed pieces of his brain.[^23] +Beyond Olson, other deaths traced to the program. [[Harold Blauer]], a professional tennis player, died in 1953 after being injected with the psychedelic MDA during Army-contracted experiments at the [[New York State Psychiatric Institute]], the drug supplied by the [[Army Chemical Corps]] in cooperation with MKULTRA; one researcher later admitted "we didn't know if it was dog piss or what it was we were giving to him." Dr. [[Paul Hoch]], a CIA consultant, gave psychiatric patients intraspinal injections of LSD and [[mescaline]] and then lobotomized them, in one case asking a subject under a local anesthetic to describe his visual experiences as surgeons removed pieces of his brain.[^25] ### Military and Prison Subjects @@ -145,19 +145,19 @@ The destruction eliminated the core operational files: individual subject record A partial record survived accidentally. Approximately 20,000 documents - primarily budget requests, financial accountings, and administrative correspondence - had been routed to a TSD financial records annex rather than the main operational files and were overlooked in the destruction. When journalist John Marks filed a Freedom of Information Act request in 1977, an archivist located the misfiled documents. The CIA produced them; they provided sufficient evidence for the 1977 Senate Health Subcommittee hearings and for Marks's subsequent book *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate* (1979) - still the primary investigative account of the program. -Gottlieb testified before the Church Committee in 1975 and the Senate Health Subcommittee on August 3, 1977. He confirmed the program's existence, the records destruction, and the safe house operations. He defended the program as a reasonable response to a genuine Cold War threat and expressed carefully qualified regret for individual outcomes while declining to characterize the overall program as wrong.[^21] +Gottlieb testified before the Church Committee in 1975 and the Senate Health Subcommittee on August 3, 1977. He confirmed the program's existence, the records destruction, and the safe house operations. He defended the program as a reasonable response to a genuine Cold War threat and expressed carefully qualified regret for individual outcomes while declining to characterize the overall program as wrong.[^23] ### 1977 Notifications to Institutions -Director of Central Intelligence [[Stansfield Turner]] wrote to Senator [[Daniel K. Inouye]] on August 2, 1977 that the recovered material identified "185 non-government researchers and assistants" and "80 institutions where work was done or with which these people were affiliated."[^24] He listed the institutions as 44 colleges or universities, 15 research foundations or chemical or pharmaceutical companies and the like, 12 hospitals or clinics, and 3 penal institutions. He gave "all of the names on a classified basis" to the Senate committee and wrote that he had "a legal obligation under the Privacy Act not to publicly disclose the names of the individual researchers without their consent."[^24] He also wrote that he was "working closely with the Attorney General and with the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare on this matter."[^24] +Director of Central Intelligence [[Stansfield Turner]] wrote to Senator [[Daniel K. Inouye]] on August 2, 1977 that the recovered material identified "185 non-government researchers and assistants" and "80 institutions where work was done or with which these people were affiliated."[^26] He listed the institutions as 44 colleges or universities, 15 research foundations or chemical or pharmaceutical companies and the like, 12 hospitals or clinics, and 3 penal institutions. He gave "all of the names on a classified basis" to the Senate committee and wrote that he had "a legal obligation under the Privacy Act not to publicly disclose the names of the individual researchers without their consent."[^26] He also wrote that he was "working closely with the Attorney General and with the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare on this matter."[^26] -General Counsel [[Anthony A. Lapham]] wrote to each notified institution in August 1977. The letter stated that "Your institution is included among the institutions at which some portion of this CIA-sponsored research appears to have been performed or with which one or more individuals performing some aspect of this research were affiliated." It quoted the Director's statement that "this Agency does not intend to reveal to the public the identities of any institutions that knowingly or unknowingly were involved in MKULTRA activities, or the names of individual researchers."[^25] On November 7, 1977, Lapham asked whether each institution had made its correspondence public, and wrote that "Where an institution has itself made public these relationships, there would seem to be little point in our continued refusal to confirm these facts."[^26] On March 17, 1978, Assistant General Counsel Cinquegrana wrote that institutions not responding by April 15, 1978 would be presumed to want their identities protected.[^26] +General Counsel [[Anthony A. Lapham]] wrote to each notified institution in August 1977. The letter stated that "Your institution is included among the institutions at which some portion of this CIA-sponsored research appears to have been performed or with which one or more individuals performing some aspect of this research were affiliated." It quoted the Director's statement that "this Agency does not intend to reveal to the public the identities of any institutions that knowingly or unknowingly were involved in MKULTRA activities, or the names of individual researchers."[^27] On November 7, 1977, Lapham asked whether each institution had made its correspondence public, and wrote that "Where an institution has itself made public these relationships, there would seem to be little point in our continued refusal to confirm these facts."[^28] On March 17, 1978, Assistant General Counsel Cinquegrana wrote that institutions not responding by April 15, 1978 would be presumed to want their identities protected.[^28] -The New York Times reported on October 9, 1977 that the Senate Health Subcommittee had invited the presidents of 20 institutions to testify on September 20 and 21, and that only one accepted, without a scheduled appearance because the others declined.[^27] +The New York Times reported on October 9, 1977 that the Senate Health Subcommittee had invited the presidents of 20 institutions to testify on September 20 and 21, and that only one accepted, without a scheduled appearance because the others declined.[^29] -In October 1977 [[Harvard University]] disclosed that CIA financial records showed Harvard involvement in two research projects conducted under MKULTRA.[^28] The University's general counsel, [[Daniel Steiner]], said the two projects involved no drug experimentation and declined to name the individuals who took part or the nature of their relationship to the University.[^28] The Harvard Crimson noted that the disclosure came the week after [[Stanford University]] made an extensive disclosure of its own MKULTRA connections.[^29] The University had issued guidelines in May 1977 regulating faculty dealings with intelligence agencies; in June 1977 CIA Director Stansfield Turner wrote to President [[Derek Bok]] that the guidelines could violate faculty members' constitutional rights to privacy and free association.[^30] +In October 1977 [[Harvard University]] disclosed that CIA financial records showed Harvard involvement in two research projects conducted under MKULTRA.[^30] The University's general counsel, [[Daniel Steiner]], said the two projects involved no drug experimentation and declined to name the individuals who took part or the nature of their relationship to the University.[^30] The Harvard Crimson noted that the disclosure came the week after [[Stanford University]] made an extensive disclosure of its own MKULTRA connections.[^31] The University had issued guidelines in May 1977 regulating faculty dealings with intelligence agencies; in June 1977 CIA Director Stansfield Turner wrote to President [[Derek Bok]] that the guidelines could violate faculty members' constitutional rights to privacy and free association.[^32] -In February 1978 [[Martin Orne]] identified himself as the unidentified investigator in a January 1978 Harvard statement on CIA funding; his Studies in Hypnosis Project at the [[Massachusetts Mental Health Center]] had received about $30,000 in the early 1960s through the [[Human Ecology Fund]]. Steiner said the University had no record of the second project mentioned in the CIA document.[^31] +In February 1978 [[Martin Orne]] identified himself as the unidentified investigator in a January 1978 Harvard statement on CIA funding; his Studies in Hypnosis Project at the [[Massachusetts Mental Health Center]] had received about $30,000 in the early 1960s through the [[Human Ecology Fund]]. Steiner said the University had no record of the second project mentioned in the CIA document.[^33] ### Lawsuits and Settlements @@ -171,32 +171,34 @@ MKULTRA generated litigation in multiple jurisdictions: [^1]: Marks, John. *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control.* Times Books, 1979 (the foundational investigative account using surviving MKULTRA documents). Kinzer, Stephen. *Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control.* Henry Holt and Company, 2019. Church Committee (U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities). Final Report, Book I, S. Rept. 94-755, April 26, 1976. [^2]: Earman, John S., CIA Inspector General, "Report of Inspection of MKULTRA/TSD," July 26, 1963 (National Security Archive Document 16); National Security Archive, "CIA Behavior Control Experiments Focus of New Scholarly Collection," December 23, 2024, and "Top Secret Testimony of CIA's MKULTRA Chief, 50 Years Later," October 30, 2025; John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*, Chapter 4. -[^3]: Central Intelligence Agency, memorandum for the Comptroller, "MKULTRA, Subproject 136," August 23, 1961, p. 3 of the compiled document. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00017395 -[^4]: "Experimental Analysis of Extrasensory Perception," proposal in the CIA Subproject 136 file, 1961, pp. 3, 5 and 6 of the proposal (compiled document pp. 15, 17, 18); memorandum for the record, August 23, 1961, p. 10. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00017395 -[^5]: New School Archives and Special Collections, John R. Everett records (NS-01-01-02), Series 3, Subject files, File "Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 1977-1978," Box 7, Folder 29. https://findingaids.archives.newschool.edu/repositories/3/archival_objects/34220 -[^6]: MKULTRA Subproject 134, Central Intelligence Agency release DOC_0000017393 (58 pages): memorandum of June 9, 1961, proposal letter and pilot report, "Comments on Report." https://archive.org/details/DOC_0000017393 ; https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/00017393 . Addressee, contractor, consultants and reviewer are redacted. -[^7]: Central Intelligence Agency release DOC_0000017393 (MKULTRA Subproject 134), memorandum draft dated May 29, 1961, page image 134-12. New School Archives copy in NS010102_000027 (John R. Everett records, Box 7, Folder 29), PDF p. 27. https://digital.archives.newschool.edu/index.php/Detail/objects/NS010102_000027 -[^8]: MKULTRA Subproject 134, status page (purpose, initiation, contractor and cost), New School copy in NS010102_000027, PDF p. 10. Release DOC_0000017393. https://archive.org/details/DOC_0000017393 -[^9]: Sugerman, A. Arthur, and Frank Haronian, "Body type and sophistication of body concept," Journal of Personality 32(3), September 1964, doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1964.tb01347.x; Haronian, "Psychosynthesis: A psychotherapist's personal overview," Pastoral Psychology, Fall 1976, doi:10.1007/bf01761144. -[^10]: A. Arthur Sugerman and Frank Haronian, "Body type and sophistication of body concept," Journal of Personality 32(3), September 1964, pp. 380-394, first-page note ("This study was partly supported by a grant to Frank Haronian from the Human Ecology Fund"). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1964.tb01347.x -[^11]: Cinquegrana, A. R., Office of General Counsel, Central Intelligence Agency, letter to John R. Everett, September 7, 1977, in NS010102_000027, PDF p. 7. -[^12]: David H. Price, "Buying a Piece of Anthropology, Part 1: Human Ecology and Unwitting Anthropological Research for the CIA," *Anthropology Today* 23(3), June 2007, fig. 4 (source given there: Human Ecology Fund, Report, 1963, pp. 13-42). https://archive.org/details/human_ecology_torture_suicide . -[^13]: Memorandum "Invoice No. 1," MKULTRA Subproject 134, Allotment 2125-1390-3902, July 12, 1961, PDF p. 13; release DOC_0000017393. -[^14]: Accounting for MKULTRA Subproject 134, grant period 9-1-61 to 8-31-62, dated February 1963; New School copy NS010102_000027, PDF pp. 17-18 (accounting, then receipt); release DOC_0000017393. -[^15]: Letter of proposal revision, MKULTRA Subproject 134; New School copy NS010102_000027, PDF pp. 23-26 (budget and schedule at p. 25); release DOC_0000017393. -[^16]: Obituary of Frank J. Haronian Jr., Town Topics (Princeton), October 26, 1994. https://archive.org/details/towntopicsprince4834unse -[^17]: MKULTRA Subproject 137, Central Intelligence Agency release DOC_0000017396 (19 pages): memorandum for the record, August 24, 1961; proposal, budget and curriculum vitae; obligation memorandum, August 28, 1961; invoice, check receipt and certifications; accounting memorandum, February 1963; accounting by individual for advance, approved March 10, 1964. https://archive.org/details/DOC_0000017396 ; https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/00017396 . Names, institutions and signatories other than Gottlieb's are redacted. -[^18]: New School Archives and Special Collections, Maurice Edwards papers documenting the work of graphologist Klara G. Roman (NA-0010-01), biographical note, https://findingaids.archives.newschool.edu/repositories/3/resources/284 ; Roman, *Handwriting: A Key to Personality* (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1954), preface pp. v-vi; *Encyclopedia of the Written Word* (New York: F. Ungar, 1968), acknowledgments; Price 2007 (see note 8). -[^19]: Central Intelligence Agency release DOC_0000017396 (MKULTRA Subproject 137), memorandum for the record, August 24, 1961, page image 137-10. New School copy in NS010102_000027, PDF p. 78. https://archive.org/details/DOC_0000017396 -[^20]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control* (Times Books, 1979), chapter 9, p. 149 n. (renaming); chapter 10, p. 170 (Wechsler scores) and p. 171 n. (handwriting research and a resident graphologist). -[^21]: "Project MKULTRA, the CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification." Joint Hearing before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, United States Senate, 95th Congress, 1st Session, August 3, 1977. U.S. Government Printing Office. Available: intelligence.senate.gov. -[^22]: Albarelli, H.P. *A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments.* Trine Day, 2009. Starrs, James E. Forensic examination report, Olson exhumation, 1994. -[^23]: Curt Rowlett, "Project Mind Kontrol: Did the U.S. Government Actually Create Programmed Assassins?," Steamshovel Press #16, 1998. -[^24]: Turner, Stansfield, Director of Central Intelligence, letter to Senator Daniel K. Inouye, chairman, Select Committee on Intelligence, August 2, 1977, in NS010102_000027, PDF pp. 96-103 (figures at p. 101; Privacy Act at p. 102; Attorney General passage at p. 103). -[^25]: Lapham, Anthony A., General Counsel, Central Intelligence Agency, letter to John R. Everett, August 1977 (stamped August 15, 1977), in NS010102_000027, PDF pp. 94-95. The quoted passage refers to "page 8 of the statement by the Director." -[^26]: Lapham, Anthony A., General Counsel, letter to John R. Everett, November 7, 1977 (PDF p. 3), and Cinquegrana, A. R., Assistant General Counsel, letter to John R. Everett, March 17, 1978 (PDF p. 1), Central Intelligence Agency, in NS010102_000027. -[^27]: Thomas, Jo, "Extent of University Work for C.I.A. Is Hard to Pin Down," New York Times, October 9, 1977, CIA reading room clipping CIA-RDP88-01315R000300390007-3. -[^28]: "A CIA Test Tube," *The Harvard Crimson*, October 1, 1977. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1977/10/1/a-cia-test-tube-padd-harvard/ -[^29]: "Harvard and the CIA," *The Harvard Crimson*, October 5, 1977. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1977/10/5/harvard-and-the-cia-peach-year/ -[^30]: "Harvard: A Threat To Privacy," *The Harvard Crimson*, December 3, 1977. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1977/12/3/harvard-a-threat-to-privacy-pcia/ -[^31]: "CIA Grants Funded Hypnosis Research," *The Harvard Crimson*, February 2, 1978. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1978/2/2/cia-grants-funded-hypnosis-research-pthe/ +[^3]: "Project MKULTRA, The CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification," joint hearing, August 3, 1977, archive.org/details/project-mkultra-congress-hearing-1977, Appendix C, "Amendment to Subproject 35," pp. 129-133. +[^4]: "Project MKULTRA, The CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification," joint hearing, August 3, 1977, archive.org/details/project-mkultra-congress-hearing-1977, statement for the record following the testimony of Admiral Stansfield Turner, p. 40. +[^5]: Central Intelligence Agency, memorandum for the Comptroller, "MKULTRA, Subproject 136," August 23, 1961, p. 3 of the compiled document. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00017395 +[^6]: "Experimental Analysis of Extrasensory Perception," proposal in the CIA Subproject 136 file, 1961, pp. 3, 5 and 6 of the proposal (compiled document pp. 15, 17, 18); memorandum for the record, August 23, 1961, p. 10. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00017395 +[^7]: New School Archives and Special Collections, John R. Everett records (NS-01-01-02), Series 3, Subject files, File "Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 1977-1978," Box 7, Folder 29. https://findingaids.archives.newschool.edu/repositories/3/archival_objects/34220 +[^8]: MKULTRA Subproject 134, Central Intelligence Agency release DOC_0000017393 (58 pages): memorandum of June 9, 1961, proposal letter and pilot report, "Comments on Report." https://archive.org/details/DOC_0000017393 ; https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/00017393 . Addressee, contractor, consultants and reviewer are redacted. +[^9]: Central Intelligence Agency release DOC_0000017393 (MKULTRA Subproject 134), memorandum draft dated May 29, 1961, page image 134-12. New School Archives copy in NS010102_000027 (John R. Everett records, Box 7, Folder 29), PDF p. 27. https://digital.archives.newschool.edu/index.php/Detail/objects/NS010102_000027 +[^10]: MKULTRA Subproject 134, status page (purpose, initiation, contractor and cost), New School copy in NS010102_000027, PDF p. 10. Release DOC_0000017393. https://archive.org/details/DOC_0000017393 +[^11]: Sugerman, A. Arthur, and Frank Haronian, "Body type and sophistication of body concept," Journal of Personality 32(3), September 1964, doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1964.tb01347.x; Haronian, "Psychosynthesis: A psychotherapist's personal overview," Pastoral Psychology, Fall 1976, doi:10.1007/bf01761144. +[^12]: A. Arthur Sugerman and Frank Haronian, "Body type and sophistication of body concept," Journal of Personality 32(3), September 1964, pp. 380-394, first-page note ("This study was partly supported by a grant to Frank Haronian from the Human Ecology Fund"). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1964.tb01347.x +[^13]: Cinquegrana, A. R., Office of General Counsel, Central Intelligence Agency, letter to John R. Everett, September 7, 1977, in NS010102_000027, PDF p. 7. +[^14]: David H. Price, "Buying a Piece of Anthropology, Part 1: Human Ecology and Unwitting Anthropological Research for the CIA," *Anthropology Today* 23(3), June 2007, fig. 4 (source given there: Human Ecology Fund, Report, 1963, pp. 13-42). https://archive.org/details/human_ecology_torture_suicide . +[^15]: Memorandum "Invoice No. 1," MKULTRA Subproject 134, Allotment 2125-1390-3902, July 12, 1961, PDF p. 13; release DOC_0000017393. +[^16]: Accounting for MKULTRA Subproject 134, grant period 9-1-61 to 8-31-62, dated February 1963; New School copy NS010102_000027, PDF pp. 17-18 (accounting, then receipt); release DOC_0000017393. +[^17]: Letter of proposal revision, MKULTRA Subproject 134; New School copy NS010102_000027, PDF pp. 23-26 (budget and schedule at p. 25); release DOC_0000017393. +[^18]: Obituary of Frank J. Haronian Jr., Town Topics (Princeton), October 26, 1994. https://archive.org/details/towntopicsprince4834unse +[^19]: MKULTRA Subproject 137, Central Intelligence Agency release DOC_0000017396 (19 pages): memorandum for the record, August 24, 1961; proposal, budget and curriculum vitae; obligation memorandum, August 28, 1961; invoice, check receipt and certifications; accounting memorandum, February 1963; accounting by individual for advance, approved March 10, 1964. https://archive.org/details/DOC_0000017396 ; https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/00017396 . Names, institutions and signatories other than Gottlieb's are redacted. +[^20]: New School Archives and Special Collections, Maurice Edwards papers documenting the work of graphologist Klara G. Roman (NA-0010-01), biographical note, https://findingaids.archives.newschool.edu/repositories/3/resources/284 ; Roman, *Handwriting: A Key to Personality* (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1954), preface pp. v-vi; *Encyclopedia of the Written Word* (New York: F. Ungar, 1968), acknowledgments; Price 2007 (see note 8). +[^21]: Central Intelligence Agency release DOC_0000017396 (MKULTRA Subproject 137), memorandum for the record, August 24, 1961, page image 137-10. New School copy in NS010102_000027, PDF p. 78. https://archive.org/details/DOC_0000017396 +[^22]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control* (Times Books, 1979), chapter 9, p. 149 n. (renaming); chapter 10, p. 170 (Wechsler scores) and p. 171 n. (handwriting research and a resident graphologist). +[^23]: "Project MKULTRA, the CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification." Joint Hearing before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, United States Senate, 95th Congress, 1st Session, August 3, 1977. U.S. Government Printing Office. Available: intelligence.senate.gov. +[^24]: Albarelli, H.P. *A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments.* Trine Day, 2009. Starrs, James E. Forensic examination report, Olson exhumation, 1994. +[^25]: Curt Rowlett, "Project Mind Kontrol: Did the U.S. Government Actually Create Programmed Assassins?," Steamshovel Press #16, 1998. +[^26]: Turner, Stansfield, Director of Central Intelligence, letter to Senator Daniel K. Inouye, chairman, Select Committee on Intelligence, August 2, 1977, in NS010102_000027, PDF pp. 96-103 (figures at p. 101; Privacy Act at p. 102; Attorney General passage at p. 103). +[^27]: Lapham, Anthony A., General Counsel, Central Intelligence Agency, letter to John R. Everett, August 1977 (stamped August 15, 1977), in NS010102_000027, PDF pp. 94-95. The quoted passage refers to "page 8 of the statement by the Director." +[^28]: Lapham, Anthony A., General Counsel, letter to John R. Everett, November 7, 1977 (PDF p. 3), and Cinquegrana, A. R., Assistant General Counsel, letter to John R. Everett, March 17, 1978 (PDF p. 1), Central Intelligence Agency, in NS010102_000027. +[^29]: Thomas, Jo, "Extent of University Work for C.I.A. Is Hard to Pin Down," New York Times, October 9, 1977, CIA reading room clipping CIA-RDP88-01315R000300390007-3. +[^30]: "A CIA Test Tube," *The Harvard Crimson*, October 1, 1977. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1977/10/1/a-cia-test-tube-padd-harvard/ +[^31]: "Harvard and the CIA," *The Harvard Crimson*, October 5, 1977. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1977/10/5/harvard-and-the-cia-peach-year/ +[^32]: "Harvard: A Threat To Privacy," *The Harvard Crimson*, December 3, 1977. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1977/12/3/harvard-a-threat-to-privacy-pcia/ +[^33]: "CIA Grants Funded Hypnosis Research," *The Harvard Crimson*, February 2, 1978. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1978/2/2/cia-grants-funded-hypnosis-research-pthe/ diff --git a/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/HISTORICAL_PROGRAMS/Project Monarch.md b/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/HISTORICAL_PROGRAMS/Project Monarch.md index 0be3b78c..a7203422 100644 --- a/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/HISTORICAL_PROGRAMS/Project Monarch.md +++ b/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/HISTORICAL_PROGRAMS/Project Monarch.md @@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ tags: - MindControl summary: "An alleged offshoot of MKULTRA said to have used trauma-based programming to create multiple personalities in subjects for use as couriers, sex slaves, and operatives." created: 2026-06-03 -updated: 2026-06-03 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Project Monarch was an alleged sub-project of [[MKULTRA]] said to have employed trauma-based mind control techniques to fracture subjects' personalities into multiple identities using [[Multiple Personality Disorder|MPD]] (now called Dissociative Identity Disorder). The stated goal was total subjugation of a person's will and personality to their controllers, creating alternate personalities that could serve as couriers, sexual slaves, or assassins while the primary personality remained unaware of the programming.[^1] @@ -39,4 +39,4 @@ While O'Brien's specific claims remain unverified and are regarded skeptically b ### Footnotes -[^1]: A.B.H. Alexander, "Sex, Drugs, the CIA, MIND CONTROL and Your Children," PROBE, c. 1996. +[^1]: A.B.H. Alexander, "Sex, Drugs, the CIA, MIND CONTROL and Your Children," PROBE, c. 1996 (a summary of the account of Cathy O'Brien, the source of the Charm School description). diff --git a/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/INTELLIGENCE_OPERATIONS/Advanced Theoretical Physics Working Group.md b/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/INTELLIGENCE_OPERATIONS/Advanced Theoretical Physics Working Group.md index 12766a39..60df288d 100644 --- a/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/INTELLIGENCE_OPERATIONS/Advanced Theoretical Physics Working Group.md +++ b/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/INTELLIGENCE_OPERATIONS/Advanced Theoretical Physics Working Group.md @@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ relations: role: "conference held at the BDM McLean secure facility, named on a Department of Energy visit request" fn: 5 created: 2026-10-02 -updated: 2026-10-02 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- The Advanced Theoretical Physics group, abbreviated ATP, was an invitation-only gathering of government and defense-contractor personnel that [[John B. Alexander]] organized in 1985. Alexander wrote in 2011 that "with help from a few other researchers we initiated the ATP project specifically to examine issues regarding UFOs, and what role the [[Department of Defense]] (DoD) might be playing," and that admission was "by invitation only," with participants required to "have the right credentials."[^1] The overall group is called the "Secret Onion" in the journals of [[Jacques Vallee]]. @@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ In 1985 BDM also provided administrative support to a [[Central Intelligence Age ### Meetings -A [[Department of Energy]] "Request for Visit or Access Approval" (form DOE F 5631.20) dated May 8, 1985, from a [[Los Alamos National Laboratory]] requester (typed "[[C. Vigil]]," symbol IT-5) and signed by the laboratory's special security officer, [[Michael E. Busse]], asks that [[John Kink]] (as transcribed from a typed form with a partly illegible surname), [[Oke Shannon]] (typed "Shannon, Oke") and [[Samuel P. Finch]] of the laboratory (organizations typed as IT-3, IT-6 and IT) be admitted to the BDM [[McLean, Virginia|McLean]] secure facility, typed as 7915 Jonesbrook Rd., McLean, on May 20 to 25, 1985, for the stated purpose, as typed, "Advance Theoretical Physics Conference (20-25 May 1985)," at the access level "TOP SECRET/RESTRICTED DATA SIGMAS AS REQUIRED."[^5] A handwritten page by [[Jack Houck]] dated May 21, 1985 and headed "Advanced Physics" carries the note "BDM Vault" with a telephone number, the line "Clearances, Known to group, Open minded," and the objective, circled, "Does the evidence support an R+D project?" with two names, the first Ron Blackburn and the second written in a hand that may be read "[[Don Keuble]]" (spelled so on Shannon's list), and the word [[Lockheed]] beside them.[^5] The [[Loose Threads Report|Loose Threads]] authors attribute the page to Houck.[^5] A typed agenda among Houck's papers lists as objectives to "explore evidence presented/available to determine if further study is warranted" and, if so, whether "there [is] sufficient evidence to support an R&D (Research and Development) program," and its conclusions section sets "Truth vs. Fiction" beside "Friendly" or "Enemy" technologies, "internal" or "external," "known" or "unknown."[^5] +A [[Department of Energy]] "Request for Visit or Access Approval" (form DOE F 5631.20) dated May 8, 1985, from a [[Los Alamos National Laboratory]] requester (typed "[[C. Vigil]]," symbol IT-5) and signed by the laboratory's special security officer, [[Michael E. Busse]], asks that [[John Kink]] (as transcribed from a typed form with a partly illegible surname), [[Oke Shannon]] (typed "Shannon, Oke") and [[Samuel P. Finch]] of the laboratory (organizations typed as IT-3, IT-6 and IT) be admitted to the BDM [[McLean, Virginia|McLean]] secure facility, typed as 7915 Jonesbrook Rd., McLean, on May 20 to 25, 1985, for the stated purpose, as typed, "Advance Theoretical Physics Conference (20-25 May 1985)," at the access level "TOP SECRET/RESTRICTED DATA SIGMAS AS REQUIRED."[^5] A handwritten page by [[Jack Houck]] dated May 21, 1985 and headed "Advanced Physics" carries the note "BDM Vault" with a telephone number, the line "Clearances, Known to group, Open minded," and the objective, circled, "Does the evidence support an R+D project?" with two names, the first Ron Blackburn and the second written in a hand that may be read "[[Don Keuble]]" (spelled so on Shannon's list), and the word [[Lockheed Aircraft Company|Lockheed]] beside them.[^5] The [[Loose Threads Report|Loose Threads]] authors attribute the page to Houck.[^5] A typed agenda among Houck's papers lists as objectives to "explore evidence presented/available to determine if further study is warranted" and, if so, whether "there [is] sufficient evidence to support an R&D (Research and Development) program," and its conclusions section sets "Truth vs. Fiction" beside "Friendly" or "Enemy" technologies, "internal" or "external," "known" or "unknown."[^5] Alexander wrote that the initial meetings were held in BDM's secure facilities at Tysons Corner, that he needed a sensitive compartmented information facility for them, and that he informed [[Joseph Braddock]], the "B" of BDM, who "seemed mildly curious, but exhibited no strong interest one way or another."[^1] According to the Loose Threads authors, [[Grant Cameron]]'s book *[[Managing Magic]]* states that Alexander summarized the group's findings in a briefing book after ten sessions and presented it to at least one senior official in an attempt to obtain official status and a funding stream, and that the attempt was rebuffed.[^6] Alexander wrote that he, [[Howell McConnell]] and a man he called "Jack" met "a very senior official in [[National Security Agency|NSA]] regarding what had been concluded thus far," who "was interested but had nothing to offer."[^6] diff --git a/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/INTELLIGENCE_OPERATIONS/Project Blue Book.md b/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/INTELLIGENCE_OPERATIONS/Project Blue Book.md index 4c05801d..3f7da136 100644 --- a/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/INTELLIGENCE_OPERATIONS/Project Blue Book.md +++ b/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/INTELLIGENCE_OPERATIONS/Project Blue Book.md @@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ relations: reverse: true role: "scientific consultant" end: 1969-07-01 - fn: 31 + fn: 33 - type: contractor_to with: "[[Battelle Memorial Institute]]" reverse: true @@ -58,7 +58,7 @@ relations: role: "University of Colorado study under Air Force contract" start: 1966-10-07 end: 1968-10-31 - fn: 29 + fn: 31 - type: investigated with: "[[Brian O'Brien]]" reverse: true @@ -67,7 +67,7 @@ relations: end: 1966-03 fn: 26 created: 2026-10-01 -updated: 2026-10-12 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Project Blue Book was the name of the [[U.S. Air Force]] program for receiving, investigating and cataloging reports of unidentified flying objects, headquartered at [[Wright-Patterson Air Force Base]], [[Ohio]]. It followed [[Project Sign]] (1947 to 1949) and [[Project Grudge]] (1949 to 1951 and after), and on 17 December 1969 the Secretary of the Air Force announced its termination. An Air Force fact sheet gives 12,618 sightings reported to the project from 1947 to 1969, of which 701 remained "Unidentified."[^1] @@ -128,21 +128,25 @@ An Air Force memorandum of 28 September 1965 from Major General [[E. B. LeBailly On 20 and 21 March 1966 reports from [[Dexter, Michigan|Dexter]] and [[Hillsdale, Michigan|Hillsdale]], [[Michigan]], led Hynek to suggest at a press conference that swamp gas might account for them. On 28 March Representative [[Gerald Ford]] wrote to the chairmen of the [[House Committee on Armed Services]] and the [[House Committee on Science and Astronautics]] that "the Air Force sent a consultant, astrophysicist Dr. J. Allen Hynek" who "dismissed all of them," and the accompanying release called Hynek's explanation "flippant." The [[House Armed Services Committee]] held a one-day hearing on 5 April 1966 under [[L. Mendel Rivers]], at which Secretary of the Air Force [[Harold Brown]] announced the O'Brien committee's report.[^27][^28] +### The Ravenna and Mantua sighting of April 1966 + +On April 17, 1966 [[Dale F. Spaur]], a deputy of the [[Portage County Sheriff's Office|Portage County]] Sheriff's Office, badge number 15, reported a UFO near [[Ravenna, Ohio|Ravenna]], Ohio. In the teletype record of the case, Spaur said that he followed the object east to [[Conway, Pennsylvania|Conway]], Pennsylvania, for about 80 miles with a second deputy, W. L. Neff, and two patrol cars.[^29] The Air Force's telephone record of the exchange with Spaur says that Quintanilla told him the Air Force wanted the negative so that it could be enlarged.[^29] A memorandum for the record states that Air National Guard interceptors were not sent up because nothing showed on radar.[^29] [[Robert E. Cook]], a former United States congressman, wrote in a May 1966 letter to the district's representative that the Air Force's Venus conclusion was "ridiculous" and that investigators had not come to Portage County to interview the three eyewitnesses.[^29] The case file's cover sheet is headed "PROJECT 10073 RECORD," the same project number that appears on the cover of Special Report No. 14.[^30] + ### Colorado, the National Academy and termination -The [[Air Force Office of Scientific Research]] contracted with the University of Colorado in 1966 for the study directed by [[Edward Condon]] (see the page on the committee), and the report's Section I stated that "only so much attention to the subject should be given as the Department of Defense deems to be necessary strictly from a defense point of view" and that "the defense function could be performed within the framework established for intelligence and surveillance operations without the continuance of a special unit such as Project Blue Book, but this is a question for defense specialists rather than research scientists."[^29][^30] A [[National Academy of Sciences]] panel under [[Gerald M. Clemence]] of Yale, with [[H. R. Crane]], [[David M. Dennison]], [[Wallace O. Fenn]], [[H. Keffer Hartline]], [[E. R. Hilgard]], [[Mark Kac]], [[Francis W. Reichelderfer]], [[William W. Rubey]], [[C. D. Shane]] and [[Oswald G. Villard Jr.]], concurred that "no high priority in UFO investigations is warranted by data of the past two decades."[^1] +The [[Air Force Office of Scientific Research]] contracted with the University of Colorado in 1966 for the study directed by [[Edward Condon]] (see the page on the committee), and the report's Section I stated that "only so much attention to the subject should be given as the Department of Defense deems to be necessary strictly from a defense point of view" and that "the defense function could be performed within the framework established for intelligence and surveillance operations without the continuance of a special unit such as Project Blue Book, but this is a question for defense specialists rather than research scientists."[^31][^32] A [[National Academy of Sciences]] panel under [[Gerald M. Clemence]] of Yale, with [[H. R. Crane]], [[David M. Dennison]], [[Wallace O. Fenn]], [[H. Keffer Hartline]], [[E. R. Hilgard]], [[Mark Kac]], [[Francis W. Reichelderfer]], [[William W. Rubey]], [[C. D. Shane]] and [[Oswald G. Villard Jr.]], concurred that "no high priority in UFO investigations is warranted by data of the past two decades."[^1] -An Air Force memorandum dated 20 October 1969, prepared by Major Espey of the Directorate of Research and Development with the signature block of Brigadier General [[C. H. Bolender]], Deputy Director of Development, and titled by the National Investigations Committee site "The Bolender Draft (Not Memo)," states that Blue Book had two officers, one noncommissioned officer and one civilian full time and that Hynek "served as a scientific consultant until 1 July 1969." Its paragraph 4 states: "There is still, however, no evidence that Project Blue Book reports have served any intelligence function. Moreover, reports of unidentified flying objects which could affect national security are made in accordance with JANAP 146 or Air Force Manual 55-11, and are not part of the Blue Book system." Its paragraph 6 states that termination "would leave no official federal office to receive reports of UFOs." Paragraph 8 recommends that the records of "over 13,000 sighting cases" be transferred to an archive "to prevent charges that the Air Force is concealing facts," and paragraph 9 records that the Air University would accept them if the Secretary's Office of Information answered all inquiries, "rigidly limit the right of access to recognized, legitimate researchers" and screen researchers' notes to ensure that "confidentiality" is maintained. The introduction on the NICAP site that hosts the text states, citing [[Brad Sparks]], that the document had sixteen attachments, that [[Robert Todd]] obtained its release in January 1979 and spent years trying to get the Air Force to find and release the attachments, and that several remain unreleased.[^31] +An Air Force memorandum dated 20 October 1969, prepared by Major Espey of the Directorate of Research and Development with the signature block of Brigadier General [[C. H. Bolender]], Deputy Director of Development, and titled by the National Investigations Committee site "The Bolender Draft (Not Memo)," states that Blue Book had two officers, one noncommissioned officer and one civilian full time and that Hynek "served as a scientific consultant until 1 July 1969." Its paragraph 4 states: "There is still, however, no evidence that Project Blue Book reports have served any intelligence function. Moreover, reports of unidentified flying objects which could affect national security are made in accordance with JANAP 146 or Air Force Manual 55-11, and are not part of the Blue Book system." Its paragraph 6 states that termination "would leave no official federal office to receive reports of UFOs." Paragraph 8 recommends that the records of "over 13,000 sighting cases" be transferred to an archive "to prevent charges that the Air Force is concealing facts," and paragraph 9 records that the Air University would accept them if the Secretary's Office of Information answered all inquiries, "rigidly limit the right of access to recognized, legitimate researchers" and screen researchers' notes to ensure that "confidentiality" is maintained. The introduction on the NICAP site that hosts the text states, citing [[Brad Sparks]], that the document had sixteen attachments, that [[Robert Todd]] obtained its release in January 1979 and spent years trying to get the Air Force to find and release the attachments, and that several remain unreleased.[^33] On 17 December 1969 Secretary of the Air Force [[Robert C. Seamans Jr.]] announced termination, in a memorandum to Air Force Chief of Staff General [[John D. Ryan]] stating that continuation "cannot be justified either on the ground of national security or in the interest of science."[^1] ### Records -The Air Force retired the Blue Book records to the Air Force archives at [[Maxwell Air Force Base]], [[Alabama]], and in 1976 turned them over to the [[National Archives and Records Administration|National Archives]].[^16] The National Archives describes the textual records, "excluding names of people involved in the sightings," as about 2 cubic feet of unarranged project and administrative files, 37 cubic feet of case files and 3 cubic feet of records of the [[Air Force Office of Special Investigations|Office of Special Investigations]], available on 94 rolls of microfilm (publication T-1206). On the same page it reports that searches of Air Force and Joint Chiefs of Staff records and of the [[National Security Council]] indexes for MJ-12, "majestic," and unidentified flying objects "were all negative except for" a one-page memorandum for General Twining from [[Robert Cutler]], Special Assistant to the President, titled "NCS/MJ-12 Special Studies Project," dated 14 July 1954, which "refers to a briefing to take place on July 16" and "does not identify MJ-12 or the purpose of the briefing."[^32] A Department of the Navy UFO fact sheet gives the files as 61 feet of case files, 20 reels of motion pictures, 23 sound recordings and 8,360 photographs.[^1] +The Air Force retired the Blue Book records to the Air Force archives at [[Maxwell Air Force Base]], [[Alabama]], and in 1976 turned them over to the [[National Archives and Records Administration|National Archives]].[^16] The National Archives describes the textual records, "excluding names of people involved in the sightings," as about 2 cubic feet of unarranged project and administrative files, 37 cubic feet of case files and 3 cubic feet of records of the [[Air Force Office of Special Investigations|Office of Special Investigations]], available on 94 rolls of microfilm (publication T-1206). On the same page it reports that searches of Air Force and Joint Chiefs of Staff records and of the [[National Security Council]] indexes for MJ-12, "majestic," and unidentified flying objects "were all negative except for" a one-page memorandum for General Twining from [[Robert Cutler]], Special Assistant to the President, titled "NCS/MJ-12 Special Studies Project," dated 14 July 1954, which "refers to a briefing to take place on July 16" and "does not identify MJ-12 or the purpose of the briefing."[^34] A Department of the Navy UFO fact sheet gives the files as 61 feet of case files, 20 reels of motion pictures, 23 sound recordings and 8,360 photographs.[^1] -The first roll of the T-1206 microfilm contains a list of contents for all of the rolls and the finding aids. The National Archives page reproduces a United States Air Force fact sheet, "UFOs & Project BLUE BOOK," distributed by the Public Affairs Division at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in January 1985. The fact sheet states that of 12,618 sightings reported from 1947 to 1969, 701 remain unidentified, that the project "was headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base," and: "Periodically, it is erroneously stated that the remains of extraterrestrial visitors are or have been stored at Wright-Patterson AFB. There are not now nor ever have been, any extraterrestrial visitors or equipment on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base."[^32] +The first roll of the T-1206 microfilm contains a list of contents for all of the rolls and the finding aids. The National Archives page reproduces a United States Air Force fact sheet, "UFOs & Project BLUE BOOK," distributed by the Public Affairs Division at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in January 1985. The fact sheet states that of 12,618 sightings reported from 1947 to 1969, 701 remain unidentified, that the project "was headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base," and: "Periodically, it is erroneously stated that the remains of extraterrestrial visitors are or have been stored at Wright-Patterson AFB. There are not now nor ever have been, any extraterrestrial visitors or equipment on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base."[^34] -The Project 1947 site states that the Blue Book files lack some reports Hynek forwarded under his contract, among them the [[Slidell, Louisiana]] "car buzzing" case of 8 December 1957 and [[Captain Frost]]'s 1945 sighting, and that Hynek held a copy of the microfilm; the researcher [[Loren Gross]], quoted there, wrote that his comparison of the microfilm with files of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, the [[Aerial Phenomena Research Organization]], the Center for UFO Studies and the papers of [[James E. McDonald]] found "very little overlap aside from well-known incidents."[^33] +The Project 1947 site states that the Blue Book files lack some reports Hynek forwarded under his contract, among them the [[Slidell, Louisiana]] "car buzzing" case of 8 December 1957 and [[Captain Frost]]'s 1945 sighting, and that Hynek held a copy of the microfilm; the researcher [[Loren Gross]], quoted there, wrote that his comparison of the microfilm with files of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, the [[Aerial Phenomena Research Organization]], the Center for UFO Studies and the papers of [[James E. McDonald]] found "very little overlap aside from well-known incidents."[^35] ### Footnotes @@ -174,8 +178,10 @@ The Project 1947 site states that the Blue Book files lack some reports Hynek fo [^26]: Condon, Appendix A, "Special Report of the USAF Scientific Advisory Board Ad Hoc Committee to Review Project 'Blue Book,'" March 1966, https://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-a.htm; Condon, Section V, chapter 2, pp. 902-907 (LeBailly memorandum of 28 September 1965). [^27]: Condon, Section V, chapter 2, pp. 899-900 and 908-910; Gerald R. Ford to Representatives George P. Miller and L. Mendel Rivers, 28 March 1966, with news release of the same date, Gerald R. Ford Congressional Papers, Press Secretary and Speech File, Box D9, folder "Ford Press Releases - UFO, 1966," Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/sites/default/files/pdf_documents/library/document/0054/4525586.pdf. [^28]: Condon, Section V, chapter 2, p. 908 (hearing of 5 April 1966; Brown's announcement). -[^29]: Condon, Preface and Section II, "Summary of the Study," pp. v-vi and 11-12, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/preface.htm and http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/sec-ii.htm. -[^30]: Condon, Section I, "Conclusions and Recommendations," p. 6, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/sec-i.htm. -[^31]: Air Force action memorandum, "Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO)," 20 October 1969, routing block and signature block of Brigadier General C. H. Bolender, paragraphs 1, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 9, with NICAP introduction by Fran Ridge, http://www.nicap.org/Bolender_Memo.htm. -[^32]: National Archives, "Project BLUE BOOK - Unidentified Flying Objects," sections "General Information" and "Project BLUE BOOK Reference Report," https://www.archives.gov/research/military/air-force/ufos. -[^33]: "A few words about the late Dr J. Allen Hynek," Project 1947, http://www.project1947.com/hynek/index.htm, quoting Loren Gross. +[^29]: U.S. Air Force, Project Blue Book case file, "Project 10073 Record," April 17, 1966 sighting at Ravenna and Mantua, Ohio, teletype and telephone reports, May 1966 letter from Robert E. Cook to Congressman William Stanton, and clippings, National Archives microfilm T-1206 as digitized at https://archive.org/details/1966-04-7104469-Ravenna-Mantua-Ohio +[^30]: Air Technical Intelligence Center, Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14, "Analysis of Reports of Unidentified Aerial Objects," Study No. 102-EL-55/2-79, Project No. 10073, 5 May 1955, https://archive.org/details/ProjectBlueBookSpecialReport14 +[^31]: Condon, Preface and Section II, "Summary of the Study," pp. v-vi and 11-12, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/preface.htm and http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/sec-ii.htm. +[^32]: Condon, Section I, "Conclusions and Recommendations," p. 6, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/sec-i.htm. +[^33]: Air Force action memorandum, "Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO)," 20 October 1969, routing block and signature block of Brigadier General C. H. Bolender, paragraphs 1, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 9, with NICAP introduction by Fran Ridge, http://www.nicap.org/Bolender_Memo.htm. +[^34]: National Archives, "Project BLUE BOOK - Unidentified Flying Objects," sections "General Information" and "Project BLUE BOOK Reference Report," https://www.archives.gov/research/military/air-force/ufos. +[^35]: "A few words about the late Dr J. Allen Hynek," Project 1947, http://www.project1947.com/hynek/index.htm, quoting Loren Gross. diff --git a/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/INTELLIGENCE_OPERATIONS/Project FUBELT.md b/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/INTELLIGENCE_OPERATIONS/Project FUBELT.md index afefec70..b4b0baf6 100644 --- a/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/INTELLIGENCE_OPERATIONS/Project FUBELT.md +++ b/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/INTELLIGENCE_OPERATIONS/Project FUBELT.md @@ -14,12 +14,12 @@ tags: - ReneSchneider - ChurchCommittee - CovertAction -summary: "CIA operation ordered by President Nixon on September 15, 1970, to provoke a military coup before Salvador Allende could take office, in the course of which the agency armed and paid officers plotting to kidnap General Rene Schneider." +summary: "CIA operation ordered by President Nixon on September 15, 1970, to provoke a military coup before Salvador Allende took office, in which the agency armed and paid officers plotting to kidnap General Rene Schneider." start: 1970-09-15 end: 1970-10-24 location: "Santiago, Chile" created: 2026-09-21 -updated: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Project FUBELT, known within the government as Track II, was the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]'s attempt between September 15 and October 24, 1970, to instigate a military coup in [[Chile]] to keep [[Salvador Allende]] from the presidency. President [[Richard Nixon]] ordered it to be run without the knowledge of the [[State Department]], the [[United States Department of Defense|Defense Department]], the ambassador in [[Santiago]], or the [[40 Committee]], which was simultaneously supervising a separate program of bribery and propaganda called Track I. The agency's contacts centered on officers who planned to abduct the army commander, General [[Rene Schneider]], who opposed a coup. Schneider was shot on October 22 and died on October 25. The [[Church Committee]] published the cable traffic in 1975.[^1] @@ -54,7 +54,7 @@ Helms reviewed the operation on October 23. "It was agreed," the log states, "th A [[National Intelligence Estimate]] of August 1971 found that El Mercurio had kept its independence. The 40 Committee authorized 700,000 dollars for the paper on September 9, 1971, and a further 965,000 dollars on April 11, 1972. Covert spending in Chile between 1970 and the coup of September 11, 1973, came to eight million dollars. In November 1972 the agency learned that one of the business groups it funded had passed 2,800 dollars to striking truck owners against its rules, "rebuked the group but nevertheless passed it additional money the next month." The committee found no evidence of direct American involvement in the 1973 coup and recorded that the United States "remained in intelligence contact with the Chilean military, including officers who were participating in coup plotting." The [[President's Daily Brief]] of September 8, 1973, released in 2023, reported "no evidence of a coordinated tri-service coup plan."[^2][^6] -Helms testified to the [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee]] about Chile and ITT on February 7 and March 6, 1973. He pleaded no contest in 1977 to two misdemeanor counts of failing to testify fully, was fined 2,000 dollars, and received a suspended sentence. On November 3, 1977, the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]]'s [[Office of Legal Counsel]] concluded that the plea did not cost him his pension, because the hearings did not concern disloyalty. Schneider's family sued Kissinger, and the [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit|D.C. Circuit]] dismissed the suit in 2005 as a political question.[^7][^8] +Helms testified to the [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee]] about Chile and ITT on February 7 and March 6, 1973. He pleaded no contest in 1977 to two misdemeanor counts of failing to testify fully, was fined 2,000 dollars, and received a suspended sentence. On November 3, 1977, the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]]'s [[Office of Legal Counsel]] concluded that the plea did not cost him his pension, because the hearings did not concern disloyalty. Schneider's family sued Kissinger. The district court dismissed the suit on March 30, 2004, and the [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit|D.C. Circuit]] affirmed on June 28, 2005 on political question grounds.[^7][^8] ### Footnotes @@ -65,4 +65,4 @@ Helms testified to the [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee]] about Chile and IT [^5]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. "The CIA and Chile: Anatomy of an Assassination," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 728, October 22, 2020. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2020-10-22/cia-chile-anatomy-assassination ; "'Extreme Option: Overthrow Allende,'" National Security Archive, September 15, 2020. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2020-09-15/extreme-option-overthrow-allende [^6]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. "The Coup in Chile: CIA Releases Top Secret 9/11/1973 President's Daily Brief," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 838, August 25, 2023. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2023-08-25/coup-chile-cia-releases-top-secret-9111973-presidents-daily-brief [^7]: Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, "Richard Helms' Eligibility Under 5 U.S.C. Section 8314 To Receive an Annuity or Retired Pay," Op. 77-62, November 3, 1977. -[^8]: Schneider v. Kissinger, 412 F.3d 190 (D.C. Cir. 2005). +[^8]: Schneider v. Kissinger, 412 F.3d 190 (D.C. Cir. 2005), https://cite.case.law/f3d/412/190/ diff --git a/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/PSI_RESEARCH_PROGRAMS/Stargate Project.md b/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/PSI_RESEARCH_PROGRAMS/Stargate Project.md index 1a3e6371..70681a89 100644 --- a/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/PSI_RESEARCH_PROGRAMS/Stargate Project.md +++ b/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/PSI_RESEARCH_PROGRAMS/Stargate Project.md @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ --- created: 2024-08-26 -updated: 2026-10-09 +updated: 2026-10-15 title: "Stargate Project" aliases: - STARGATE PROJECT @@ -31,69 +31,69 @@ Star Gate was the last of the names given to the [[United States]] government's ### SCANATE -The agency's interest went back to the 1950s. After [[Andrija Puharich]] lectured a Pentagon conference in 1952 on "the possible usefulness of extrasensory perception in psychological warfare," the chief of the [[Technical Services Division]] had Stephen Abrams of the parapsychology laboratory at [[Oxford University|Oxford]] prepare a review, under a project the declassified scan renders as "Project ULTRA," which "claimed ESP was demonstrated but not understood or controllable" and "produced no further action for another" decade.[^2] +The agency's interest went back to the 1950s. Kress's 1977 account begins with [[Andrija Puharich]]'s lecture to a Pentagon conference in 1952 on "the possible usefulness of extrasensory perception in psychological warfare," and goes on to the chief of the [[Technical Services Division]], who had [[Stephen I. Abrams]] of the parapsychology laboratory at [[Oxford University|Oxford]] prepare a review, under Project ULTRA, which "claimed ESP was demonstrated but not understood or controllable" and "produced no further action for another" decade.[^2] A CIA report dated February 1989 dates the start of the agency's work on ESP claims to 1961, when the Office of Technical Service, then the Technical Services Division, became interested in them. The report says that under Project ULTRA Abrams, then described as director of the parapsychological laboratory at Oxford University, reviewed the research, after which the field lay dormant at the agency for ten years.[^3] A 1992 thesis by Captain [[Michael E. Zarbo]] of the US Army states that the Office of Technical Service commissioned the Oxford review.[^4] The Wellcome Collection's archive of Abrams says he went to Oxford in 1960 for an ESP doctoral thesis, headed the parapsychology laboratory in the Department of Biometry, and that Oxford closed the laboratory in 1964; he was never awarded the doctorate. A 1966 reading-room article dates his Biometry work from 1960 to 1963.[^5] -[[Russell Targ]], a laser physicist "avocationally interested" in parapsychology, met officers of the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence in April 1972 and showed them Soviet films of psychokinesis; the office referred him to the Office of Research and Development and the [[CIA Office of Technical Service|Office of Technical Service]], and Targ, who had just joined SRI, proposed work with [[Hal Puthoff]]. "For a cost of $874, one OTS and one ORD representative worked with Targ and Puthoff for a few days in August, 1972"; the director of OTS "approved another $2,500 work order"; and on October 1, 1972, OTS "funded a $50,000 expanded effort in parapsychology" under contract 8473, with [[Kenneth A. Kress|Ken Kress]] as project officer. [[Pat Price]] became the third subject in the spring of 1973. On April 24, 1973, [[William Colby]] "decided that the Executive Management Committee should pass judgment," and by mid-May the question reached the director, [[James Schlesinger]]. "I was soon told not to increase the scope of the project and not to anticipate any follow-on in this area," Kress wrote. "The project was too sensitive and potentially embarrassing. It should be tabled." The Office of Technical Service's own chronology of November 17, 1977 records for 3/73 that "a third 'sensitive' (Pat Price) is discovered with an apparent ability for 'remote viewing'"; for 4/73 that a new contract "to continue and expand the work" went from OTS/ORD to the DDO, "Mr. Colby," and was referred to the Executive Management Committee because of its sensitivity; and for 5/73 that "the contract is finally sent to the DCI (Schlesinger) who decides to allow the existing contract to be completed without a follow-on. OTS is told this work is too sensitive and potentially embarrassing. At this time OTS is in the midst of an investigation regarding its role in the Watergate affair."[^3] A joint ORD and OTS program began on February 1, 1974, ORD funding basic research and OTS the tests of operational use. Puthoff's account gives the first contract as an eight-month "Biofield Measurements Program" of 49,909 dollars and the second year, January 1974 to February 1975, as 149,555 dollars; an SRI table gives the CIA's total for 1971 to 1975 as 195,000 dollars.[^2][^4] +[[Russell Targ]], a laser physicist "avocationally interested" in parapsychology, met officers of the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence in April 1972 and showed them Soviet films of psychokinesis; the office referred him to the Office of Research and Development and the [[CIA Office of Technical Service|Office of Technical Service]], and Targ, who had just joined SRI, proposed work with [[Hal Puthoff]]. "For a cost of $874, one OTS and one ORD representative worked with Targ and Puthoff for a few days in August, 1972"; the director of OTS "approved another $2,500 work order"; and on October 1, 1972, OTS "funded a $50,000 expanded effort in parapsychology" under contract 8473, with [[Kenneth A. Kress|Ken Kress]] as project officer. [[Pat Price]] became the third subject in the spring of 1973. On April 24, 1973, [[William Colby]] "decided that the Executive Management Committee should pass judgment," and by mid-May the question reached the director, [[James Schlesinger]]. "I was soon told not to increase the scope of the project and not to anticipate any follow-on in this area," Kress wrote. "The project was too sensitive and potentially embarrassing. It should be tabled." The Office of Technical Service's own chronology of November 17, 1977 records for 3/73 that "a third 'sensitive' (Pat Price) is discovered with an apparent ability for 'remote viewing'"; for 4/73 that a new contract "to continue and expand the work" went from OTS/ORD to the DDO, "Mr. Colby," and was referred to the Executive Management Committee because of its sensitivity; and for 5/73 that "the contract is finally sent to the DCI (Schlesinger) who decides to allow the existing contract to be completed without a follow-on. OTS is told this work is too sensitive and potentially embarrassing. At this time OTS is in the midst of an investigation regarding its role in the Watergate affair."[^6] A joint ORD and OTS program began on February 1, 1974, ORD funding basic research and OTS the tests of operational use. Puthoff's account gives the first contract as an eight-month "Biofield Measurements Program" of 49,909 dollars and the second year, January 1974 to February 1975, as 149,555 dollars; an SRI table gives the CIA's total for 1971 to 1975 as 195,000 dollars.[^2][^7] -In the summer of 1973 a test on "a vacation property in the eastern United States" led Price to "a sensitive government installation a few miles from the vacation property," and, tasked on its interior, he produced project titles and the site's code name, "data subsequently verified by sponsor sources," with wrong personnel names. Price then "went on to scan the other side of the globe for a Communist Bloc equivalent and found one located in the Urals." In July 1974 the target was "the [[Semipalatinsk]] Unidentified Research and Development Facility-3 (URDF-3, formerly known as PNUTS)." Kress chose "the tall crane and the four structures resembling oil well derricks" as checks; Price said of the derricks, "I didn't see them because they are not there any more," and new photography weeks later showed "two derricks were partially disassembled." A photo interpreter and a nuclear analyst at [[Los Alamos National Laboratory|Los Alamos]] judged his crane drawing accurate, the latter writing that either "he, the subject, actually saw it through remote viewing, or two: he was informed what to draw by someone knowledgeable of URDF-3." Kress concluded: "since there was so much bad information mixed in with the good, the overall result was not considered useful. As proof of remote viewing, the data are at best inconclusive." An internal summary of the same four days was harsher: "The remote-viewing experiment of URDF-3 by [Price] proved to be unsuccessful," since besides the crane he drew "several landmark-type objects that simply did not exist" and, shown the surface features of an underground building, denied that anything lay beneath, "his most negative evidence yet." Price also "correctly located the coderooms" of two foreign embassies already known to the agency's audio teams, and described a Libyan site as "a guerrilla training site" with "a related underwater sabotage training facility," partly confirmed by reconnaissance. "Price died of a heart attack a few days later, and the program stopped."[^2][^5] +In the summer of 1973 a test on "a vacation property in the eastern United States" led Price to "a sensitive government installation a few miles from the vacation property," and, tasked on its interior, he produced project titles and the site's code name, "data subsequently verified by sponsor sources," with wrong personnel names. Price then "went on to scan the other side of the globe for a Communist Bloc equivalent and found one located in the Urals." In July 1974 the target was "the [[Semipalatinsk]] Unidentified Research and Development Facility-3 (URDF-3, formerly known as PNUTS)." Kress chose "the tall crane and the four structures resembling oil well derricks" as checks; Price said of the derricks, "I didn't see them because they are not there any more," and new photography weeks later showed "two derricks were partially disassembled." A photo interpreter and a nuclear analyst at [[Los Alamos National Laboratory|Los Alamos]] judged his crane drawing accurate, the latter writing that either "he, the subject, actually saw it through remote viewing, or two: he was informed what to draw by someone knowledgeable of URDF-3." Kress concluded: "since there was so much bad information mixed in with the good, the overall result was not considered useful. As proof of remote viewing, the data are at best inconclusive." An internal summary of the same four days was harsher: "The remote-viewing experiment of URDF-3 by [Price] proved to be unsuccessful," since besides the crane he drew "several landmark-type objects that simply did not exist" and, shown the surface features of an underground building, denied that anything lay beneath, "his most negative evidence yet." Price also "correctly located the coderooms" of two foreign embassies already known to the agency's audio teams, and described a Libyan site as "a guerrilla training site" with "a related underwater sabotage training facility," partly confirmed by reconnaissance. "Price died of a heart attack a few days later, and the program stopped."[^2][^8] -The agency's reasons, as Kress gave them in 1977: "the research was not productive or even competent; therefore, research support to SRI was dropped. The Director of OTS felt the OTS charter would not support research; therefore, all Agency funding in paranormal research stopped"; operational utility was "considered questionable but deserved further testing"; the contractor tests gave way to "a personal services contract with Price"; and Kress himself, "judged to be a positively biased advocate," was taken off evaluation. The director of OTS, [[David Brandwein]], wrote on February 20, 1976, "I directed that OTS support of this effort be terminated," and on October 7, 1976, "OTS will not support any further research in parapsychology." Director [[George H.W. Bush|George Bush]] was briefed in 1976 after learning that Soviet visitors were "questioning Puthoff and Targ at SRI," and left before reacting; [[Stansfield Turner]] acknowledged an "operational interest in parapsychology" in August 1977. Puthoff attributed the withdrawal to "pressure on the Agency (unrelated to the RV Program) from the Church-Pike Congressional Committee." By 1977 DIA "remains interested on a low priority basis," the Navy had funded a brief replication and stopped over "mind warfare" concerns, DARPA had held "a hostile confrontation briefing," and "active funding has shifted to the Air Force's Foreign Technology Division." SRI's later accounting of these years: NAVELEX 74,000 dollars (1975-76), the [[Foreign Technology Division]] at [[Wright-Patterson Air Force Base|Wright-Patterson]] 300,000 (1976-79), the Missile Intelligence Agency at [[Redstone Arsenal]] 281,000 (1977-80) for "remote perturbation," the [[Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity]] 230,000 (1978-80), DIA 228,000 (1978-80).[^2][^4][^6] +The agency's reasons, as Kress gave them in 1977: "the research was not productive or even competent; therefore, research support to SRI was dropped. The Director of OTS felt the OTS charter would not support research; therefore, all Agency funding in paranormal research stopped"; operational utility was "considered questionable but deserved further testing"; the contractor tests gave way to "a personal services contract with Price"; and Kress himself, "judged to be a positively biased advocate," was taken off evaluation. The director of OTS, [[David Brandwein]], wrote on February 20, 1976, "I directed that OTS support of this effort be terminated," and on October 7, 1976, "OTS will not support any further research in parapsychology." Director [[George H.W. Bush|George Bush]] was briefed in 1976 after learning that Soviet visitors were "questioning Puthoff and Targ at SRI," and left before reacting; [[Stansfield Turner]] acknowledged an "operational interest in parapsychology" in August 1977. Puthoff attributed the withdrawal to "pressure on the Agency (unrelated to the RV Program) from the Church-Pike Congressional Committee." By 1977 DIA "remains interested on a low priority basis," the Navy had funded a brief replication and stopped over "mind warfare" concerns, DARPA had held "a hostile confrontation briefing," and "active funding has shifted to the Air Force's Foreign Technology Division." SRI's later accounting of these years: NAVELEX 74,000 dollars (1975-76), the [[Foreign Technology Division]] at [[Wright-Patterson Air Force Base|Wright-Patterson]] 300,000 (1976-79), the Missile Intelligence Agency at [[Redstone Arsenal]] 281,000 (1977-80) for "remote perturbation," the [[Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity]] 230,000 (1978-80), DIA 228,000 (1978-80).[^2][^7][^9] ### Gondola Wish and Grill Flame -"The US Army Intelligence and Security Command's involvement with psychoenergetics began in September 1977. At that time, an INSCOM element implemented the Gondola Wish program which was designed to integrate the Soviet and East European psychoenergetic intelligence collection threat into the all-source operations security (OPSEC) support scenario." By the spring of 1978 the assistant chief of staff for intelligence, Major General [[Edmund Thompson]], "concluded there was sufficient evidence to warrant the development of a comprehensive program," cancelled Gondola Wish, "placed a complete security envelope over Army's interest in psychoenergetics," and began "a new program directed towards intelligence collection using remote viewing." A message of July 6, 1978, issued "the unclassified code name GRILL FLAME to replace any open reference to US Army involvement in parapsychology." In October 1978 Colonel A. W. Hamel of [[United States Army Intelligence and Security Command|INSCOM]] was told to find a project officer, and Major [[Murray Watt]] was named on October 27. "There exists no written tasking between OACSI and HQ, INSCOM," the first progress report recorded; three INSCOM men were to be trained at SRI. In parallel the Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity at [[Aberdeen Proving Ground]], after Puthoff's lectures of March 21, 1978, ran twenty sessions of its own to test "confirmation and/or rejection of the SRI remote viewing protocol," renaming "subject" as "remote viewer" and "experiment" as "session," and found that "our replication of the protocol did not result in statistical significance." Its acknowledgments include General [[Lewis Walt]] and the physicist [[Evan Harris Walker]].[^7][^8] +"The US Army Intelligence and Security Command's involvement with psychoenergetics began in September 1977. At that time, an INSCOM element implemented the Gondola Wish program which was designed to integrate the Soviet and East European psychoenergetic intelligence collection threat into the all-source operations security (OPSEC) support scenario." By the spring of 1978 the assistant chief of staff for intelligence, Major General [[Edmund Thompson]], "concluded there was sufficient evidence to warrant the development of a comprehensive program," cancelled Gondola Wish, "placed a complete security envelope over Army's interest in psychoenergetics," and began "a new program directed towards intelligence collection using remote viewing." A message of July 6, 1978, issued "the unclassified code name GRILL FLAME to replace any open reference to US Army involvement in parapsychology." In October 1978 Colonel A. W. Hamel of [[United States Army Intelligence and Security Command|INSCOM]] was told to find a project officer, and Major [[Murray Watt]] was named on October 27. "There exists no written tasking between OACSI and HQ, INSCOM," the first progress report recorded; three INSCOM men were to be trained at SRI. In parallel the Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity at [[Aberdeen Proving Ground]], after Puthoff's lectures of March 21, 1978, ran twenty sessions of its own to test "confirmation and/or rejection of the SRI remote viewing protocol," renaming "subject" as "remote viewer" and "experiment" as "session," and found that "our replication of the protocol did not result in statistical significance." Its acknowledgments include General [[Lewis Walt]] and the physicist [[Evan Harris Walker]].[^10][^11] -On February 15, 1979, the Army general counsel found that Grill Flame involved testing on human subjects and halted the AMSAA work. A subcommittee of the surgeon general's review board met on March 26 with Puthoff, Targ, and Colonel Garrison Rapmund of [[Walter Reed Army Institute of Research|Walter Reed]] and ruled the SRI work "technology transfer rather than research," while noting that "there clearly is no fixed and formally appointed professional oversight for work being done under 'Grill Flame.'" On November 20, with [[Edwin May]] attending as "Grill Flame Project Leader," it found that the revised protocols "did constitute human use," recommended that consent forms warn subjects they might "lose the esteem or respect from certain colleagues," and noted that some subjects had believed they could use the ability "for personal financial gain in games of chance/investment." The under secretary of the Army approved continuation in April 1980, and the secretary renewed it on January 14, 1981, February 1, 1982, and September 1, 1983. A memorandum of understanding of 1981 set up a Grill Flame committee of two voting members each from DIA and the Army, with 150,000 dollars from INSCOM and 300,000 from DIA in fiscal 1981; Thompson's request of May 8, 1981, to use civilian contractors under Procedure 18 of the Defense Department's intelligence rules was approved on May 27 on condition that the work serve "an important foreign intelligence or counterintelligence purpose."[^8] +On February 15, 1979, the Army general counsel found that Grill Flame involved testing on human subjects and halted the AMSAA work. A subcommittee of the surgeon general's review board met on March 26 with Puthoff, Targ, and Colonel Garrison Rapmund of [[Walter Reed Army Institute of Research|Walter Reed]] and ruled the SRI work "technology transfer rather than research," while noting that "there clearly is no fixed and formally appointed professional oversight for work being done under 'Grill Flame.'" On November 20, with [[Edwin May]] attending as "Grill Flame Project Leader," it found that the revised protocols "did constitute human use," recommended that consent forms warn subjects they might "lose the esteem or respect from certain colleagues," and noted that some subjects had believed they could use the ability "for personal financial gain in games of chance/investment." The under secretary of the Army approved continuation in April 1980, and the secretary renewed it on January 14, 1981, February 1, 1982, and September 1, 1983. A memorandum of understanding of 1981 set up a Grill Flame committee of two voting members each from DIA and the Army, with 150,000 dollars from INSCOM and 300,000 from DIA in fiscal 1981; Thompson's request of May 8, 1981, to use civilian contractors under Procedure 18 of the Defense Department's intelligence rules was approved on May 27 on condition that the work serve "an important foreign intelligence or counterintelligence purpose."[^11] -"During 1979, we conducted 79 operational missions, 43 of which were dedicated to assisting the intelligence community during the Iranian hostage crisis. During 1980 we were able to increase our production to 386 operational missions, 154 of which were still dedicated to Iran." A session report of the [[Iran Hostage Crisis|hostage crisis]] states that it was "conducted in compliance with a request from SOD, J3, OJCS, Pentagon," the special operations division of the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]], and that "the remote viewer's impressions of the target are provided as raw intelligence data and as such have not been subjected to any intermediate analysis, evaluation or collation." The unit began in 1979 with five people, two of them viewers; "by the end of 1980, we began an advanced training program using the hemispheric synchronization (Hemi-Sync) process developed by [[Robert Monroe|Robert A. Monroe]] and used at the [[Monroe Institute]]," whose tapes INSCOM later asked to write into the protocol, "3-5 times per week," and "in mid 1982, we began a new training program in [[Coordinate Remote Viewing|coordinate remote viewing]] with SRI." On February 6, 1980, the under secretary of defense for research, [[William Perry]], restricted the use of Program 6 funds, holding it "not appropriate for Army to fund technology programs aimed at scientific demonstration of parapsychology"; an Army history gives the order as March 1980.[^8] After Brigadier General [[James Dozier]] was kidnapped in Italy on December 17, 1981, "on 18 December, we conducted our first session"; DIA told the Secretary of Defense that data had gone "to U.S. authorities for discreet release to Italian officials with no source attribution given," adding, "we can not at this time attest to the method's accuracy or usefulness." A drawing from the first session was used by a DIA analyst to brief the commander in Italy "that the search for General Dozier should be concentrated in the Padua area," two days before the rescue there; a session of January 20, 1982, named Padua but "was not forwarded to Italy," because the Italian police "were having difficulty with information they were getting from psychics all over the world." A memorandum in the file records that Dozier was briefed on the program on February 9, 1982, and shown the sketches.[^7][^9][^10] +"During 1979, we conducted 79 operational missions, 43 of which were dedicated to assisting the intelligence community during the Iranian hostage crisis. During 1980 we were able to increase our production to 386 operational missions, 154 of which were still dedicated to Iran." A session report of the [[Iran Hostage Crisis|hostage crisis]] states that it was "conducted in compliance with a request from SOD, J3, OJCS, Pentagon," the special operations division of the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]], and that "the remote viewer's impressions of the target are provided as raw intelligence data and as such have not been subjected to any intermediate analysis, evaluation or collation." The unit began in 1979 with five people, two of them viewers; "by the end of 1980, we began an advanced training program using the hemispheric synchronization (Hemi-Sync) process developed by [[Robert Monroe|Robert A. Monroe]] and used at the [[Monroe Institute]]," whose tapes INSCOM later asked to write into the protocol, "3-5 times per week," and "in mid 1982, we began a new training program in [[Coordinate Remote Viewing|coordinate remote viewing]] with SRI." On February 6, 1980, the under secretary of defense for research, [[William Perry]], restricted the use of Program 6 funds, holding it "not appropriate for Army to fund technology programs aimed at scientific demonstration of parapsychology"; an Army history gives the order as March 1980.[^11] After Brigadier General [[James Dozier]] was kidnapped in Italy on December 17, 1981, "on 18 December, we conducted our first session"; DIA told the Secretary of Defense that data had gone "to U.S. authorities for discreet release to Italian officials with no source attribution given," adding, "we can not at this time attest to the method's accuracy or usefulness." A drawing from the first session was used by a DIA analyst to brief the commander in Italy "that the search for General Dozier should be concentrated in the Padua area," two days before the rescue there; a session of January 20, 1982, named Padua but "was not forwarded to Italy," because the Italian police "were having difficulty with information they were getting from psychics all over the world." A memorandum in the file records that Dozier was briefed on the program on February 9, 1982, and shown the sketches.[^10][^12][^13] -The three-year joint program of fiscal 1981 to 1983 cost 1,475,500 dollars, 962,000 of it from DIA, 313,500 from INSCOM, and 200,000 from DARPA, of which 575,000 went to training. DIA's report of October 19, 1983, found: "Remote viewing is a real phenomenon, and is not degraded by distance or shielding. Remote viewing ability can be improved by appropriate training procedures. Remote viewing has potential for US intelligence applications. However, at this stage of development, descriptive content (e.g., sketches, configurations) is more reliable than analytic content." It reported that INSCOM's viewers "detected the remote site successfully in 50 percent of their projects (89 sites)," and that "a potential threat to US national security exists from foreign achievements in psychoenergetics. In the USSR and in China, this research is well funded." SRI's list of clients served included "a secret NSA facility, including codeword retrieval" and "Soviet R&D facility at Semipalatinsk (PNUTS)."[^4][^11] +The three-year joint program of fiscal 1981 to 1983 cost 1,475,500 dollars, 962,000 of it from DIA, 313,500 from INSCOM, and 200,000 from DARPA, of which 575,000 went to training. DIA's report of October 19, 1983, found: "Remote viewing is a real phenomenon, and is not degraded by distance or shielding. Remote viewing ability can be improved by appropriate training procedures. Remote viewing has potential for US intelligence applications. However, at this stage of development, descriptive content (e.g., sketches, configurations) is more reliable than analytic content." It reported that INSCOM's viewers "detected the remote site successfully in 50 percent of their projects (89 sites)," and that "a potential threat to US national security exists from foreign achievements in psychoenergetics. In the USSR and in China, this research is well funded." SRI's list of clients served included "a secret NSA facility, including codeword retrieval" and "Soviet R&D facility at Semipalatinsk (PNUTS)."[^7][^14] -The Defense Department's coordination began at a meeting in [[Jack Vorona]]'s conference room at Pomponio Plaza on August 24, 1978, attended by Vorona, Colonel Jack Capps of the Army staff, Charlie Carter of the Missile Intelligence Agency and [[Dale Graff]] of the Foreign Technology Division, "to establish a unified DoD effort in the development of remote viewing technology for intelligence purposes." Vorona said "the effort is fully supported by the Director of DIA," that "the Soviet Union has a significant commitment in this area," and that DIA, FTD and AMSAA "have contractual funds at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) for some preliminary investigations into remote viewing feasibility. However, this funding will cease at the end of the current fiscal year (30 September 1978)"; he "decided against the establishment of a restricted access list and a special codeword for the program," marking all papers "SECRET, ORCON"; the working group "will consist of DoD and NSA personnel only." The Naval Intelligence Command replied on September 14 that it was "unable at this time to pledge a specific level of funding support"; the Air Force on September 29 that it "has supported $100K of contractual assistance for FTD to verify data on Warsaw Pact experiments in paranormal techniques" and "cannot commit additional funds at this time"; the Army on October 4 that "the term Remote Viewing may be more correctly replaced with Parapsychology," that "Army Intelligence obligated $75K, this past week, of year-end funds to support an SRI Subject selection and training program for INSCOM personnel over the next year," and that "there are occasional, but persistent indications that the Navy has maintained its research into Parapsychology." A draft Army request of July 7, 1978, with [[E. H. Walker]] as principal investigator, had asked for 350,000 dollars in fiscal 1979 "to determine feasibility of developing automatic equipment capable of producing remote viewing in hard copy form," equipment that "might have the same utility in any future conflict as that of the Ultra machine used in WWII."[^12] +The Defense Department's coordination began at a meeting in [[Jack Vorona]]'s conference room at Pomponio Plaza on August 24, 1978, attended by Vorona, Colonel Jack Capps of the Army staff, Charlie Carter of the Missile Intelligence Agency and [[Dale Graff]] of the Foreign Technology Division, "to establish a unified DoD effort in the development of remote viewing technology for intelligence purposes." Vorona said "the effort is fully supported by the Director of DIA," that "the Soviet Union has a significant commitment in this area," and that DIA, FTD and AMSAA "have contractual funds at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) for some preliminary investigations into remote viewing feasibility. However, this funding will cease at the end of the current fiscal year (30 September 1978)"; he "decided against the establishment of a restricted access list and a special codeword for the program," marking all papers "SECRET, ORCON"; the working group "will consist of DoD and NSA personnel only." The Naval Intelligence Command replied on September 14 that it was "unable at this time to pledge a specific level of funding support"; the Air Force on September 29 that it "has supported $100K of contractual assistance for FTD to verify data on Warsaw Pact experiments in paranormal techniques" and "cannot commit additional funds at this time"; the Army on October 4 that "the term Remote Viewing may be more correctly replaced with Parapsychology," that "Army Intelligence obligated $75K, this past week, of year-end funds to support an SRI Subject selection and training program for INSCOM personnel over the next year," and that "there are occasional, but persistent indications that the Navy has maintained its research into Parapsychology." A draft Army request of July 7, 1978, with [[E. H. Walker]] as principal investigator, had asked for 350,000 dollars in fiscal 1979 "to determine feasibility of developing automatic equipment capable of producing remote viewing in hard copy form," equipment that "might have the same utility in any future conflict as that of the Ultra machine used in WWII."[^15] -Oversight in the Pentagon followed a letter of October 25, 1978, from Representative [[Charlie Rose]] to [[Ruth Davis]], the deputy under secretary of defense for research and advanced technology, asking "to see the Department of Defense undertake those efforts deemed necessary and appropriate to investigate remote viewing," and with her memorandum to Vorona of November 20 setting eight questions for "the oversight groups you will establish," among them measures "developed by other than the current experimenters" that "ensure that the magicians' processes of deception, feedback to subjects, etc. are not inadvertantly allowed" and "a stark clear statement of events, data, etc. that will justify termination of continued funding." The Grill Flame steering committee first met on February 13, 1979, with "all Service ACSI's, Dr. Ruth Davis, Dr. [[Walter LaBerge|LaBerge]], and Dr. Vorona (standing in for LTG [[Eugene Tighe|Tighe]])." The [[Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee]] appointed that summer put the money spent to date at "CIA, 1972-78: $240K. DIA, 1979: $100K. USAF, 1976-79: $300K. Army, 1977-79: $490K," recorded that the Navy's representatives "attend all DOD meetings, but remain uncommitted and literally silent," and reported in December 1979 that remote viewing "thus far have not proved the existence of the phenomena," a report the Pentagon's working group called "misleading and inadequate."[^13] +Oversight in the Pentagon followed a letter of October 25, 1978, from Representative [[Charlie Rose]] to [[Ruth Davis]], the deputy under secretary of defense for research and advanced technology, asking "to see the Department of Defense undertake those efforts deemed necessary and appropriate to investigate remote viewing," and with her memorandum to Vorona of November 20 setting eight questions for "the oversight groups you will establish," among them measures "developed by other than the current experimenters" that "ensure that the magicians' processes of deception, feedback to subjects, etc. are not inadvertantly allowed" and "a stark clear statement of events, data, etc. that will justify termination of continued funding." The Grill Flame steering committee first met on February 13, 1979, with "all Service ACSI's, Dr. Ruth Davis, Dr. [[Walter LaBerge|LaBerge]], and Dr. Vorona (standing in for LTG [[Eugene Tighe|Tighe]])." The [[Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee]] appointed that summer put the money spent to date at "CIA, 1972-78: $240K. DIA, 1979: $100K. USAF, 1976-79: $300K. Army, 1977-79: $490K," recorded that the Navy's representatives "attend all DOD meetings, but remain uncommitted and literally silent," and reported in December 1979 that remote viewing "thus far have not proved the existence of the phenomena," a report the Pentagon's working group called "misleading and inadequate."[^16] -The committee first met as "the DoD Committee on Special Sensors" on November 28, 1978, in Vorona's conference room and named itself the DoD Grill Flame Committee. Its oversight committee was "Dr. Jack Vorona, DIA; MG E. R. Thompson, Army ACSI; RADM S. Shapiro, Commander, NIC; Maj Gen J. L. Brown, Air Force ACSI; Dr. Lowell Dailey, USDR&E Representative" in DIA's minutes (INSCOM's summary of the same meeting has it as "service ACSI's, Dr. Vorona and Dr. Ruth Davis," and calls Dailey "Bob Dailey - DUSRAT/Consultant"), "responsible for insuring that research and experiments fall within the legal guidelines"; "DIA will have 'Intelligence Oversight' responsibility; local IG cannot inspect without approval." Permanent members "must possess SI/TK clearances"; "Dr. Vorona expressed concern that parapsychology activities within DoD elements were springing up all over. He directed that agencies (represented on committee) develop policy for turning off 'exposures' as they come up"; "all documents originating as a result of the GRILL FLAME program would undergo downgrading review only after 20 years"; "Mr. Graff next suggested that a cover story be developed for the program; Dr. Vorona suggested that the National Academy of Sciences might back an open program to investigate paranormal phenomena"; it was agreed that a CIA representative be invited; and a review of "the SRI remote viewing experiments carried out at DIA this past summer" found "the results appear to be inconclusive."[^14] +The committee first met as "the DoD Committee on Special Sensors" on November 28, 1978, in Vorona's conference room and named itself the DoD Grill Flame Committee. Its oversight committee was "Dr. Jack Vorona, DIA; MG E. R. Thompson, Army ACSI; RADM S. Shapiro, Commander, NIC; Maj Gen J. L. Brown, Air Force ACSI; Dr. Lowell Dailey, USDR&E Representative" in DIA's minutes (INSCOM's summary of the same meeting has it as "service ACSI's, Dr. Vorona and Dr. Ruth Davis," and calls Dailey "Bob Dailey - DUSRAT/Consultant"), "responsible for insuring that research and experiments fall within the legal guidelines"; "DIA will have 'Intelligence Oversight' responsibility; local IG cannot inspect without approval." Permanent members "must possess SI/TK clearances"; "Dr. Vorona expressed concern that parapsychology activities within DoD elements were springing up all over. He directed that agencies (represented on committee) develop policy for turning off 'exposures' as they come up"; "all documents originating as a result of the GRILL FLAME program would undergo downgrading review only after 20 years"; "Mr. Graff next suggested that a cover story be developed for the program; Dr. Vorona suggested that the National Academy of Sciences might back an open program to investigate paranormal phenomena"; it was agreed that a CIA representative be invited; and a review of "the SRI remote viewing experiments carried out at DIA this past summer" found "the results appear to be inconclusive."[^17] -DIA's 1995 history of the service programs adds the Army's Missile Research and Development Command (MIRADCOM), which "had Stanford Research Institute (SRI) under contract" under the sponsorship of the Missile Intelligence Agency (MIA), whose object "was to determine whether selected individuals could interact and influence" electronic equipment; MIRADCOM "had responsibility for developing a 'Remote Perturbation' experimental program," and "from May 1979 to September 1979, SRI assisted MIRADCOM in developing sensitive measurement equipment for the experiment." Its funding table, in thousands of dollars: MIA, 80 for psychokinesis in 1977-78 and 118 in 1979; AMSAA, 220 for remote viewing in 1978; INSCOM, 75 for remote viewing in 1978-80 and 25 for operations in 1979-80; MIRADCOM, 90 for psychokinesis and 190 for an unknown purpose in 1979-80; the Army staff and INSCOM, 150 for remote viewing in fiscal 1981; and DARCOM, 700 for remote viewing in fiscal 1981. Of the Navy and Air Force work of the same years, "no further information is on file."[^15] +DIA's 1995 history of the service programs adds the Army's Missile Research and Development Command (MIRADCOM), which "had Stanford Research Institute (SRI) under contract" under the sponsorship of the Missile Intelligence Agency (MIA), whose object "was to determine whether selected individuals could interact and influence" electronic equipment; MIRADCOM "had responsibility for developing a 'Remote Perturbation' experimental program," and "from May 1979 to September 1979, SRI assisted MIRADCOM in developing sensitive measurement equipment for the experiment." Its funding table, in thousands of dollars: MIA, 80 for psychokinesis in 1977-78 and 118 in 1979; AMSAA, 220 for remote viewing in 1978; INSCOM, 75 for remote viewing in 1978-80 and 25 for operations in 1979-80; MIRADCOM, 90 for psychokinesis and 190 for an unknown purpose in 1979-80; the Army staff and INSCOM, 150 for remote viewing in fiscal 1981; and DARCOM, 700 for remote viewing in fiscal 1981. Of the Navy and Air Force work of the same years, "no further information is on file."[^18] -The unit's personnel file, released with the collection, holds Grill Flame security agreements dated February 8, 1979, with consent statements, in the names of [[Joe McMoneagle|Joseph W. McMoneagle]], [[Mel Riley|Melvin C. Riley]], Ann E. Djupman, Stephen C. Horton, Donald L. Hopkins, Maurice C. Himes and Nancy K. Stout, with [[Ken Bell|Kenneth V. Bell, Jr.]]'s form of May 9, 1979, and later ones for Lawrence J. Rickard (1981), [[Rob Cowart|Robert C. Cowart]] (1981) and the DIA Sun Streak access forms of 1985 to 1988 signed by Vorona; McMoneagle's participant counseling statement as a warrant officer, "INSCOM Op Ctr Analyst," carries a date the scan renders as October 1977, elsewhere read as October 26, 1979.[^16] +The unit's personnel file, released with the collection, holds Grill Flame security agreements dated February 8, 1979, with consent statements, in the names of [[Joe McMoneagle|Joseph W. McMoneagle]], [[Mel Riley|Melvin C. Riley]], Ann E. Djupman, Stephen C. Horton, Donald L. Hopkins, Maurice C. Himes and Nancy K. Stout, with [[Ken Bell|Kenneth V. Bell, Jr.]]'s form of May 9, 1979, and later ones for Lawrence J. Rickard (1981), [[Rob Cowart|Robert C. Cowart]] (1981) and the DIA Sun Streak access forms of 1985 to 1988 signed by Vorona; McMoneagle's participant counseling statement as a warrant officer, "INSCOM Op Ctr Analyst," carries a date the scan renders as October 1977, elsewhere read as October 26, 1979.[^19] -The DIA report on Soviet parapsychology, DST-1810S-387-75, was issued in September 1975 under the directorship of Graham, who held the post from September 1974 to January 1, 1976.[^17] The same document is item 5 in the reference list of the SRI report "Advanced Threat Technique Assessment" (Puthoff, Targ, May and Swann, October 1978).[^18] +The DIA report on Soviet parapsychology, DST-1810S-387-75, was issued in September 1975 under the directorship of Graham, who held the post from September 1974 to January 1, 1976.[^20] The same document is item 5 in the reference list of the SRI report "Advanced Threat Technique Assessment" (Puthoff, Targ, May and Swann, October 1978).[^21] ### Center Lane -In 1981 the ACSI "transferred total management responsibility for the project to INSCOM," and a joint services committee of DIA, the Air Force, and the Army was formed; "the Navy expressed no interest and later the Air Force Chief of Staff directed that the Air Force withdraw." At the end of fiscal 1982 "the budget subcommittee of the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] (Senator [[Malcolm Wallop|Wallop]]) curtailed all psychoenergetic operational activities conducted by the Army in the National Foreign Intelligence Program." The commander of INSCOM, [[Albert Stubblebine]], "decided to continue INSCOM's project and provide funding with Security and Investigative Activities (S&IA) monies," under "a provisional special access program nicknamed Center Lane," approved by the Secretary of the Army as a special access program on June 15, 1983, and continued on September 1, with a compartment called "Center Lane Level 4." Its mission statement ran: "Conduct intelligence collection and counterintelligence operations utilizing all psychoenergetic processes applicable," and "expand operational capabilities and training beyond the confines of information collection into the fields of psychoenergetic communication and psychokinesis." By the end of fiscal 1984 it had nine operational and two support personnel, and "in the past five years we have conducted over 750 operational intelligence collection missions."[^7] +In 1981 the ACSI "transferred total management responsibility for the project to INSCOM," and a joint services committee of DIA, the Air Force, and the Army was formed; "the Navy expressed no interest and later the Air Force Chief of Staff directed that the Air Force withdraw." At the end of fiscal 1982 "the budget subcommittee of the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] (Senator [[Malcolm Wallop|Wallop]]) curtailed all psychoenergetic operational activities conducted by the Army in the National Foreign Intelligence Program." The commander of INSCOM, [[Albert Stubblebine]], "decided to continue INSCOM's project and provide funding with Security and Investigative Activities (S&IA) monies," under "a provisional special access program nicknamed Center Lane," approved by the Secretary of the Army as a special access program on June 15, 1983, and continued on September 1, with a compartment called "Center Lane Level 4." Its mission statement ran: "Conduct intelligence collection and counterintelligence operations utilizing all psychoenergetic processes applicable," and "expand operational capabilities and training beyond the confines of information collection into the fields of psychoenergetic communication and psychokinesis." By the end of fiscal 1984 it had nine operational and two support personnel, and "in the past five years we have conducted over 750 operational intelligence collection missions."[^10] -From March 21 to April 20, 1984, the unit "conducted 11 remote viewing interviews at the request of the Central Intelligence Agency" on [[William Buckley]], the station chief kidnapped in [[Beirut]] on March 16: where he was, his condition, his captors, and "CIA point of contact for release negotiation." A CIA memorandum of May 1, 1984, over the title block of the deputy director for operations, stated: "CIA's relationship with the US Army activities covered under the designator of CENTER LANE has been that of a customer. We have no Agency people or funds assigned to or otherwise designated in support of those activities." Its sources "have often 'made contact' far beyond what might be expected by probabilities and coincidence," with "a less than hoped for signal-to-noise ratio and a less than photographic resolution, as well as some outright misses"; "we would like to continue to call upon CENTER LANE." The overview of May 4, 1984, by Lieutenant Colonel Brian Buzby recommended that the work continue within INSCOM. A memorandum chain of November and December 1984 recorded that the fiscal 1983 appropriation language "directed that future parapsychological experimentation be conducted outside the NFIP," that DIA's funds for 1984 and 1985 were 79,000 dollars each for "evaluation of foreign research only," that DARPA had put in 600,000 dollars in 1984, that the Army surgeon general anticipated two million for 1985, and that DIA planned "to detail the operational remote viewing unit from HQDA/INSCOM to DIA."[^11][^19] +From March 21 to April 20, 1984, the unit "conducted 11 remote viewing interviews at the request of the Central Intelligence Agency" on [[William Buckley]], the station chief kidnapped in [[Beirut]] on March 16: where he was, his condition, his captors, and "CIA point of contact for release negotiation." A CIA memorandum of May 1, 1984, over the title block of the deputy director for operations, stated: "CIA's relationship with the US Army activities covered under the designator of CENTER LANE has been that of a customer. We have no Agency people or funds assigned to or otherwise designated in support of those activities." Its sources "have often 'made contact' far beyond what might be expected by probabilities and coincidence," with "a less than hoped for signal-to-noise ratio and a less than photographic resolution, as well as some outright misses"; "we would like to continue to call upon CENTER LANE." The overview of May 4, 1984, by Lieutenant Colonel Brian Buzby recommended that the work continue within INSCOM. A memorandum chain of November and December 1984 recorded that the fiscal 1983 appropriation language "directed that future parapsychological experimentation be conducted outside the NFIP," that DIA's funds for 1984 and 1985 were 79,000 dollars each for "evaluation of foreign research only," that DARPA had put in 600,000 dollars in 1984, that the Army surgeon general anticipated two million for 1985, and that DIA planned "to detail the operational remote viewing unit from HQDA/INSCOM to DIA."[^14][^22] -INSCOM's chronology of the unit lists briefings of an official of the [[Office of Management and Budget]] (April 1982), the House and Senate intelligence and appropriations staffs (1981 to 1983), Lieutenant General [[Lincoln D. Faurer]] of the NSA (August 5, 1982, and December 5, 1983), Senator [[Claiborne Pell]] (September 29, 1982), Senator Wallop (October 5, 1983), Vice President Bush (1983), the Secretary of the Army, and the Army inspector general (April 10, 1984). The Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee under [[Manfred Gale]] had reported in December 1979 that the research "thus far have not proved the existence of the phenomena," with a majority of five of eight allowing INSCOM's operational work to continue under oversight. The unit ceased collection on September 28, 1984, and passed under DIA's operational control on March 7, 1985.[^20] +INSCOM's chronology of the unit lists briefings of an official of the [[Office of Management and Budget]] (April 1982), the House and Senate intelligence and appropriations staffs (1981 to 1983), Lieutenant General [[Lincoln D. Faurer]] of the NSA (August 5, 1982, and December 5, 1983), Senator [[Claiborne Pell]] (September 29, 1982), Senator Wallop (October 5, 1983), Vice President Bush (1983), the Secretary of the Army, and the Army inspector general (April 10, 1984). The Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee under [[Manfred Gale]] had reported in December 1979 that the research "thus far have not proved the existence of the phenomena," with a majority of five of eight allowing INSCOM's operational work to continue under oversight. The unit ceased collection on September 28, 1984, and passed under DIA's operational control on March 7, 1985.[^23] ### The Science Panel -A "congressionally directed independent scientific review" met in August and September 1983 and reported on March 1, 1984, over the signatures of W. Ross Adey, [[Donald M. Kerr]], and F. Zachariasen: "The evidence shown to us is too impressive to dismiss as mere coincidence. Certain similarities between the SRI and Princeton results, obtained in very different circumstances by unrelated investigators, are particularly compelling." The panel "found no obvious evidence of cueing or collusion," thought "remote viewing is either real or due to some sort of experimental interference from one or some of the participants," found that "repeated attempts to elicit a rational basis" for [[Ingo Swann]]'s coordinate training "were uniformly unsuccessful," and concluded "that Dr. Puthoff's team warrants cautious continued fiscal support, and that the research should be conducted as much as possible in an open unclassified mode." DIA was still citing the report in 1993.[^21] +A "congressionally directed independent scientific review" met in August and September 1983 and reported on March 1, 1984, over the signatures of W. Ross Adey, [[Donald M. Kerr]], and F. Zachariasen: "The evidence shown to us is too impressive to dismiss as mere coincidence. Certain similarities between the SRI and Princeton results, obtained in very different circumstances by unrelated investigators, are particularly compelling." The panel "found no obvious evidence of cueing or collusion," thought "remote viewing is either real or due to some sort of experimental interference from one or some of the participants," found that "repeated attempts to elicit a rational basis" for [[Ingo Swann]]'s coordinate training "were uniformly unsuccessful," and concluded "that Dr. Puthoff's team warrants cautious continued fiscal support, and that the research should be conducted as much as possible in an open unclassified mode." DIA was still citing the report in 1993.[^24] ### Sun Streak -The DIA phase is described on the page Sun Streak. "In January 1985, Project GRILL FLAME was transferred to DIA and was placed under the staff cognizance of the former Directorate for Scientific and Technical Intelligence. Moreover, a 5-year psychoenergetics program (FY 1986-1990), using Army medical research and development funds authorized by the then U.S. Army Surgeon General, was begun at SRI," to "document that psychoenergetic phenomena are real and reproducible, to determine the underlying mechanisms, and to bring psychoenergetics research into the mainstream of human performance research." The Fort Meade unit "was transferred to DIA in 1986 when 12 billets were authorized in the GDIP budget for this activity. A Special Access Program (SAP), SUN STREAK, was established in order to protect identity of the individuals." It worked 192 projects from 1986 to 1989. A Military Intelligence Board review of 1989 and 1990 found "potential applications exist for certain project types: counternarcotics (CN), counterterrorism (CT), counterintelligence (CI)," "limited potential" for detailed data, and "low potential" for prediction; in a 1990 Army counternarcotics test, of 32 projects with ground truth "about one third of all projects were judged to have provided data of good quality." The Army surgeon general's money ran 1.9 million dollars in 1985-86, 2.3 million in 1987, 1.15 million in 1988, and one million in 1989. "The effort at SRI was discontinued in 1990."[^22] +The DIA phase is described on the page Sun Streak. "In January 1985, Project GRILL FLAME was transferred to DIA and was placed under the staff cognizance of the former Directorate for Scientific and Technical Intelligence. Moreover, a 5-year psychoenergetics program (FY 1986-1990), using Army medical research and development funds authorized by the then U.S. Army Surgeon General, was begun at SRI," to "document that psychoenergetic phenomena are real and reproducible, to determine the underlying mechanisms, and to bring psychoenergetics research into the mainstream of human performance research." The Fort Meade unit "was transferred to DIA in 1986 when 12 billets were authorized in the GDIP budget for this activity. A Special Access Program (SAP), SUN STREAK, was established in order to protect identity of the individuals." It worked 192 projects from 1986 to 1989. A Military Intelligence Board review of 1989 and 1990 found "potential applications exist for certain project types: counternarcotics (CN), counterterrorism (CT), counterintelligence (CI)," "limited potential" for detailed data, and "low potential" for prediction; in a 1990 Army counternarcotics test, of 32 projects with ground truth "about one third of all projects were judged to have provided data of good quality." The Army surgeon general's money ran 1.9 million dollars in 1985-86, 2.3 million in 1987, 1.15 million in 1988, and one million in 1989. "The effort at SRI was discontinued in 1990."[^25] ### Star Gate -"In the FY 1991 Defense Authorization Act, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was identified as executive agent for initiating a new program to investigate parapsychological/anomalous phenomena. A funding level of $2 million was authorized," repeated in the fiscal 1992 appropriation, which also ordered DIA to "realign 10 civilian billets" and to assess foreign "weaponization." The project "was formally established as a limited dissemination (LIMDIS) project early-on and given the official project name, STAR GATE," and the research went to the Cognitive Sciences Laboratory of [[Science Applications International Corporation]] in [[Menlo Park, California|Menlo Park]] under May. DIA's budget paper of March 1995 listed among the customers [[United States Special Operations Command|USSOCOM]], [[United States Central Command|CENTCOM]], the Joint Interagency Task Forces East and West, JTF-6, and the [[El Paso Intelligence Center]], and gave DIA's own funding as 600,000 dollars in 1993, 500,000 in 1994, and 650,000 in 1995; "since FY 1980, the manpower structure devoted to Project STAR GATE remained constant (10 billets)." Congress in fiscal 1994 required a plan "to determine whether the STAR GATE program can show results that are cost-effective," subject "to peer review by neutral scientific experts"; the SAIC contract expired in May 1994 and was twice extended without cost to the end of the year, and 45 SRI and SAIC reports were approved for declassification. SAIC's own assessment, quoted by DIA: "The evidence for a valid information transfer anomaly (anomalous cognition (AC)) meets all recognized statistical and methodological criteria," its size "medium-to-large when compared to other known human behaviors," and "approximately 1 percent of the general population appears to meet strict statistical criteria for exhibiting a robust AC ability."[^23] +"In the FY 1991 Defense Authorization Act, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was identified as executive agent for initiating a new program to investigate parapsychological/anomalous phenomena. A funding level of $2 million was authorized," repeated in the fiscal 1992 appropriation, which also ordered DIA to "realign 10 civilian billets" and to assess foreign "weaponization." The project "was formally established as a limited dissemination (LIMDIS) project early-on and given the official project name, STAR GATE," and the research went to the Cognitive Sciences Laboratory of [[Science Applications International Corporation]] in [[Menlo Park, California|Menlo Park]] under May. DIA's budget paper of March 1995 listed among the customers [[United States Special Operations Command|USSOCOM]], [[United States Central Command|CENTCOM]], the Joint Interagency Task Forces East and West, JTF-6, and the [[El Paso Intelligence Center]], and gave DIA's own funding as 600,000 dollars in 1993, 500,000 in 1994, and 650,000 in 1995; "since FY 1980, the manpower structure devoted to Project STAR GATE remained constant (10 billets)." Congress in fiscal 1994 required a plan "to determine whether the STAR GATE program can show results that are cost-effective," subject "to peer review by neutral scientific experts"; the SAIC contract expired in May 1994 and was twice extended without cost to the end of the year, and 45 SRI and SAIC reports were approved for declassification. SAIC's own assessment, quoted by DIA: "The evidence for a valid information transfer anomaly (anomalous cognition (AC)) meets all recognized statistical and methodological criteria," its size "medium-to-large when compared to other known human behaviors," and "approximately 1 percent of the general population appears to meet strict statistical criteria for exhibiting a robust AC ability."[^26] -DIA's account of the Star Gate years: the project was "established on 31 January 1991"; the fiscal 1991 money, "$2 million received and obligated ($1.5 million R&D, $0.5 million O&M)," went to a sole-source contract with SAIC's Cognitive Sciences Laboratory "on line by July 1991," to a "Long-Range Comprehensive Plan" published by May 30, 1991, and to magnetoencephalograph measurements at Los Alamos National Laboratory whose "analysis of results was reported to be inconclusive." Under the fiscal 1992 authorization DIA realigned the ten billets, delivered a report, "Project Architecture," ODT-S-1042-SL, on March 30, 1992, and was to balance the program among "over 12 users" including USSOCOM, USCENTCOM, the joint interagency task forces and JTF-6. Fiscal 1993 language "authorized $0.6 million for STAR GATE and directed the DIA Director to determine the feasibility of transferring" it to the Armed Services Medical Intelligence Center at [[Fort Detrick]]; "the study was undertaken and a decision was made to retain the project at Fort Meade." For fiscal 1994 DIA published "Project STAR GATE Research and Review Plan," PAG-TA-1068-SL, in June 1994, but "core R&D program funds expired in May 1994," and the customer base was "expanded through visits" to the commands, task forces and the El Paso Intelligence Center.[^15] +DIA's account of the Star Gate years: the project was "established on 31 January 1991"; the fiscal 1991 money, "$2 million received and obligated ($1.5 million R&D, $0.5 million O&M)," went to a sole-source contract with SAIC's Cognitive Sciences Laboratory "on line by July 1991," to a "Long-Range Comprehensive Plan" published by May 30, 1991, and to magnetoencephalograph measurements at Los Alamos National Laboratory whose "analysis of results was reported to be inconclusive." Under the fiscal 1992 authorization DIA realigned the ten billets, delivered a report, "Project Architecture," ODT-S-1042-SL, on March 30, 1992, and was to balance the program among "over 12 users" including USSOCOM, USCENTCOM, the joint interagency task forces and JTF-6. Fiscal 1993 language "authorized $0.6 million for STAR GATE and directed the DIA Director to determine the feasibility of transferring" it to the Armed Services Medical Intelligence Center at [[Fort Detrick]]; "the study was undertaken and a decision was made to retain the project at Fort Meade." For fiscal 1994 DIA published "Project STAR GATE Research and Review Plan," PAG-TA-1068-SL, in June 1994, but "core R&D program funds expired in May 1994," and the customer base was "expanded through visits" to the commands, task forces and the El Paso Intelligence Center.[^18] -"From 1986 to the first quarter of FY 1995, the DoD paranormal psychology program received more than 200 tasks from operational military organizations." Only in 1994 did it adopt a numerical evaluation. By May 1, 1995, its three viewers, all full-time government employees, had answered 40 tasks from five organizations, 26 of them from DIA in support of two joint task forces, others on "North Korean (NK) capabilities and leadership." Of 99 accuracy scores on a six-point scale, 55 were 2s and 3s and 13 were 1s; of 100 value scores on a five-point scale, none was "major significance." The summary report of the evaluations concluded: "The utility of RV for operational intelligence collection cannot be substantiated. The ambiguous and subjective nature of the process actually creates a need for additional efforts of questionable operational return."[^24] +"From 1986 to the first quarter of FY 1995, the DoD paranormal psychology program received more than 200 tasks from operational military organizations." Only in 1994 did it adopt a numerical evaluation. By May 1, 1995, its three viewers, all full-time government employees, had answered 40 tasks from five organizations, 26 of them from DIA in support of two joint task forces, others on "North Korean (NK) capabilities and leadership." Of 99 accuracy scores on a six-point scale, 55 were 2s and 3s and 13 were 1s; of 100 value scores on a five-point scale, none was "major significance." The summary report of the evaluations concluded: "The utility of RV for operational intelligence collection cannot be substantiated. The ambiguous and subjective nature of the process actually creates a need for additional efforts of questionable operational return."[^27] ### Termination -"In early 1995, Senate conferees directed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to transfer the 'Star Gate' program from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to CIA. Specifically, the conferees directed the transfer of ten civilian billets and $500,000 in Star Gate program resources by July 1, 1995," together with "a technical review of Star Gate going back twenty years, a declassification review, and establishment of a cooperative activity with the Russians in parapsychology." The Senate Appropriations Committee had already required "a retrospective review and technical analysis of the data that has been produced by the program since its inception 20 years ago." DIA told the CIA in a memorandum of May 10 (logged as received on May 16 in the CIA's chronology) that "any decision on declassification actions regarding Project STAR GATE should be made by the CIA" and that it had "no objection to a declassification of the 'fact of' a DIA program to employ paranormal phenomena for intelligence purposes"; DIA's log of the files, sent after a telephone call of October 10, counted 38 boxes transferred in July, where the CIA's papers counted 43 ([[1995 transfer of Star Gate to the CIA]]). The CIA contracted the [[American Institutes for Research]] in June ([[1995 AIR evaluation of Star Gate]]), whose report of September 29 it quoted in its management paper: "the information provided by remote viewing is vague and ambiguous, making it difficult if not impossible for the technique to yield information of sufficient quality and accuracy for actionable intelligence," and "it remains unclear whether the existence of a paranormal phenomenon, remote viewing, has been demonstrated." The paper recommended terminating both operations and research, adding that "this does not mean that research in parapsychology is not important or that it should not continue in the public domain," a declassification review of "at least five different programs including Star Gate, Grill Flame, Center Lane, Sun Streak, and SCANATE," some "43 document boxes," and, on the advice of the Directorate of Intelligence and the [[National Intelligence Council]], "no resources to the assessment of foreign developments in parapsychology": "we view developments in parapsychology as a relatively low threat to the United States," and "in none of this Russian research do we see credible evidence of developments that could significantly add to the threat that Russia currently poses."[^23][^25] +"In early 1995, Senate conferees directed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to transfer the 'Star Gate' program from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to CIA. Specifically, the conferees directed the transfer of ten civilian billets and $500,000 in Star Gate program resources by July 1, 1995," together with "a technical review of Star Gate going back twenty years, a declassification review, and establishment of a cooperative activity with the Russians in parapsychology." The Senate Appropriations Committee had already required "a retrospective review and technical analysis of the data that has been produced by the program since its inception 20 years ago." DIA told the CIA in a memorandum of May 10 (logged as received on May 16 in the CIA's chronology) that "any decision on declassification actions regarding Project STAR GATE should be made by the CIA" and that it had "no objection to a declassification of the 'fact of' a DIA program to employ paranormal phenomena for intelligence purposes"; DIA's log of the files, sent after a telephone call of October 10, counted 38 boxes transferred in July, where the CIA's papers counted 43 ([[1995 transfer of Star Gate to the CIA]]). The CIA contracted the [[American Institutes for Research]] in June ([[1995 AIR evaluation of Star Gate]]), whose report of September 29 it quoted in its management paper: "the information provided by remote viewing is vague and ambiguous, making it difficult if not impossible for the technique to yield information of sufficient quality and accuracy for actionable intelligence," and "it remains unclear whether the existence of a paranormal phenomenon, remote viewing, has been demonstrated." The paper recommended terminating both operations and research, adding that "this does not mean that research in parapsychology is not important or that it should not continue in the public domain," a declassification review of "at least five different programs including Star Gate, Grill Flame, Center Lane, Sun Streak, and SCANATE," some "43 document boxes," and, on the advice of the Directorate of Intelligence and the [[National Intelligence Council]], "no resources to the assessment of foreign developments in parapsychology": "we view developments in parapsychology as a relatively low threat to the United States," and "in none of this Russian research do we see credible evidence of developments that could significantly add to the threat that Russia currently poses."[^26][^28] ### Other Accounts -Other operational sessions are known from the accounts of participants: Joe McMoneagle's 1979 description of a large submarine under construction at Severodvinsk, later identified as the Typhoon class; his and Mel Riley's "hourglass on its side" for a Chinese device at Lop Nor; Riley's "batlike flying-wing" in an operations security test on the B-2; Ken Bell's location of a crashed Navy aircraft on Bald Knob in [[Virginia]]; McMoneagle on Skylab's reentry; and the tracking of a Soviet T-72 tank. The same accounts give the original unit as McMoneagle, Riley, Bell, [[Nancy Stern]], [[Fernand Gauvin]], and [[Hartleigh Trent]], recruited by Captain [[Frederick Atwater]] of the Systems Exploitation Detachment, and a 1984 [[Jack Anderson]] column as the first public disclosure of the Grill Flame nickname.[^26] Anderson had written about the Army's psychic work before 1984. His Washington Post column of March 30, 1981 stated: "I've already reported on the Pentagon's $6-million-a-year research to develop ESP weapons."[^27] The Air War College's survey of his columns records a January 9, 1981 column on the subject, "Pentagon Invades Buck Rogers' Turf."[^28] Targ and Puthoff had published the SRI work in *Nature* in 1974 and in the *Proceedings of the IEEE* in 1976.[^29][^30] +Other operational sessions are known from the accounts of participants: Joe McMoneagle's 1979 description of a large submarine under construction at Severodvinsk, later identified as the Typhoon class; his and Mel Riley's "hourglass on its side" for a Chinese device at Lop Nor; Riley's "batlike flying-wing" in an operations security test on the B-2; Ken Bell's location of a crashed Navy aircraft on Bald Knob in [[Virginia]]; McMoneagle on Skylab's reentry; and the tracking of a Soviet T-72 tank. The same accounts give the original unit as McMoneagle, Riley, Bell, [[Nancy Stern]], [[Fernand Gauvin]], and [[Hartleigh Trent]], recruited by Captain [[Frederick Atwater]] of the Systems Exploitation Detachment, and a 1984 [[Jack Anderson]] column as the first public disclosure of the Grill Flame nickname.[^29] Anderson had written about the Army's psychic work before 1984. His Washington Post column of March 30, 1981 stated: "I've already reported on the Pentagon's $6-million-a-year research to develop ESP weapons."[^30] The Air War College's survey of his columns records a January 9, 1981 column on the subject, "Pentagon Invades Buck Rogers' Turf."[^31] Targ and Puthoff had published the SRI work in *Nature* in 1974 and in the *Proceedings of the IEEE* in 1976.[^32][^33] -On January 23, 1984 Time reported that the Pentagon denied any interest in parapsychology, and quoted retired Lieutenant General [[Daniel O. Graham]], a former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who had been interviewed by the New York Times. Time wrote that Graham "indicated that the military had unquestionably been involved in psychic research," and that he considered the $6 million annual figure in Ronald McRae's forthcoming book Mind Wars to be an exaggeration, and said: "I wouldn't be surprised if the intelligence community were following this. They would be remiss if they didn't."[^31] +On January 23, 1984 Time reported that the Pentagon denied any interest in parapsychology, and quoted retired Lieutenant General [[Daniel O. Graham]], a former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who had been interviewed by the New York Times. Time wrote that Graham "indicated that the military had unquestionably been involved in psychic research," and that he considered the $6 million annual figure in Ronald McRae's forthcoming book Mind Wars to be an exaggeration, and said: "I wouldn't be surprised if the intelligence community were following this. They would be remiss if they didn't."[^34] ### Key Personnel @@ -145,33 +145,36 @@ Government officials and liaisons: ### Footnotes [^1]: Central Intelligence Agency, "Proposed Star Gate Management Strategy," c. October 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000100150002-0; Defense Intelligence Agency, "Declassification and Cooperation in Response to Congressionally Directed STAR GATE Program Review," May 10, 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000100010001-6, and "Transfer of Project STAR GATE Files," October 10, 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200290001-5. -[^2]: Kress, Kenneth A. "Parapsychology in Intelligence: A Personal Review and Conclusions," *Studies in Intelligence,* vol. 21, no. 4, winter 1977, declassified 2011, document NSA-RDP96X00790R000100010031-3. Brandwein, David S., Director, Office of Technical Service, memoranda "Stanford Research Institute Parapsychology Research," February 20, 1976 (CIA-RDP96-00787R000200020001-9), and "OTS Support to Research in Parapsychology," October 7, 1976 (CIA-RDP96-00787R000200020016-3); memorandum for the record, "Briefing for House Permanent Select Committee re OTS Involvement in ESP Research," OTS memo 287-77, November 17, 1977 (CIA-RDP96-00787R000200020020-8); memorandum for the record, "Discussions with OTS on the SRI Project," June 22, 1974 (CIA-RDP96-00787R000700110016-8). -[^3]: Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Technical Service, Memorandum for the Record, OTS/BAB Memo #287-77, "Briefing for House Permanent Select Committee re OTS Involvement in ESP Research," November 17, 1977, CIA-RDP96-00787R000500170001-0. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000500170001-0 -[^4]: Puthoff, H. E., and L. A. Lavelle, "Project Grill Flame Operational Tasks," SRI International for DIA/DT-5A, 1983, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100340001-3. Puthoff, H. E. "CIA-Initiated Remote Viewing Program at Stanford Research Institute," *Journal of Scientific Exploration,* vol. 10, no. 1, 1996, pp. 63-76. -[^5]: Central Intelligence Agency, "Summary RV URDF-3 Experiment," c. 1974-75, CIA-RDP96-00791R000100500001-2. Kress cites Strand, W. T., memorandum for the Director of OTS, "Evaluation of Data on Semipalatinsk Unidentified R&D Facility No. 5, USSR," August 20, 1974, and Stillman, D., Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, "An Analysis of a Remote Viewing Experiment of URDF-3," December 4, 1975 (CIA-RDP96-00791R000200240001-0). -[^6]: Defense Intelligence Agency, "FY 1995 Congressional Budget - Star Gate," March 15, 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000300010003-2. -[^7]: US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "Briefing - Project Center Lane," c. 1984, CIA document CIA-RDP96-00789R002100180002-8. -[^8]: US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "The US Army's Interest in Psychoenergetics," undated, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100370005-6. US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "INSCOM Project Grill Flame: Progress Report #1," memorandum for the record, February 21, 1979, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100070001-3. US Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity, "Project Grill Flame AMSAA Phase I Efforts," Interim Note No. 15, July 1979, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100080005-8. "Human Use Review of Project Grill Flame," memoranda of 1979 to 1980, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100440028-3; Defense Intelligence Agency, "Grill Flame - Action Memorandum," December 11, 1981, with the Grill Flame memorandum of understanding and the memorandum of Major General E. R. Thompson of May 8, 1981, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100240001-4. -[^9]: "Iran Hostage Situation Grill Flame RV Session CC12, Viewer 27.5," c. 1980, CIA-RDP96-00788R000800070001-7, one of 147 documents in the collection that contain the phrase "hostage situation in," among more than 400 Grill Flame session-report documents. Buzby, Brian, Lieutenant Colonel, "Purpose: To Provide an Overview of Center Lane," May 4, 1984, with the summary of information on the Buckley case and the CIA memorandum "Comments on Recent CENTER LANE Experience," May 1, 1984, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220003-8; "Request for Administrative Review of INSCOM Grill Flame Protocol," c. 1981-83, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100200005-4. -[^10]: Defense Intelligence Agency, "Special Intelligence Support Relating to the Kidnapping of BG Dozier," information memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, December 1981, CIA-RDP96-00788R000700130001-1; "1983 Briefing Papers - Use of Center Lane, Relocation of BG Dozier in Italy," CIA-RDP96-00788R001700370002-3. "Conversation with BG Dozier," February 22, 1982, CIA-RDP96-00788R000700130019-2, and "Debriefing, B.G. Dozier, Tape 1102, Grill Flame," February 9, 1982, CIA-RDP96-00788R000100250014-0. -[^11]: Defense Intelligence Agency, Directorate for Scientific and Technical Intelligence, "Grill Flame Project Report," October 19, 1983, CIA-RDP96-00788R001000410001-6; "Grill Flame - Activity," memoranda of November 21 to December 4, 1984, CIA-RDP96-00788R001800070002-5. -[^12]: Defense Intelligence Agency, "Minutes of the Meeting of the DoD Committee on Remote Viewing Activities," August 24, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000140009-7; Vorona to the Army assistant chief of staff for intelligence, S-1862/DT-1, September 6, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200410015-9; Commander, Naval Intelligence Command, to DIA, September 14, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200410025-8; DIA to the 902d Military Intelligence Group, September 22, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000140015-0; James L. Brown, Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence, USAF, to Vorona, September 29, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200410026-7; Army ACSI (DAMI-ISH) to Vorona, October 4, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200410024-9. "Request for Funding, FY 79, Re: Parapsychology - Feasibility for a Hard Copy Remote Viewing Machine," draft, principal investigator E. H. Walker, July 7, 1978, DAMI-ISH, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100080003-0. -[^13]: Davis, Ruth M., Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (Research and Advanced Technology), memorandum for Dr. Jack Vorona, "'Remote Viewing' Project," November 20, 1978, with the letter of Charlie Rose, Chairman, Subcommittee on Evaluation, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, to Davis, October 25, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00787R000500240017-5. *Report by the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee,* December 1979, Manfred Gale, chairman, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5. Defense Intelligence Agency, "Minutes of the DoD Grill Flame Committee Meeting, 27 November 1979," S-1168/DT-1, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000130015-1, and "Minutes of the DoD Grill Flame Committee Meeting, 10 January 1980," S-1008/DT-1, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000100009-1, both signed Jack Vorona, chairman. -[^14]: Defense Intelligence Agency, S-1004/DT-1, "Minutes of the Meeting, DoD Grill Flame Committee," November 28, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000140013-2; Watt, Murray B., "Summary of Working Group Meeting, DoD Committee on Special Sensors (C), 28 Nov 78," November 29, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200240006-8. -[^15]: Defense Intelligence Agency, "Senate Appropriations Committee Congressionally Directed Action, Star Gate," retrospective review, technical analysis and declassification status, with transmittal memorandum signed Letitia A. Long, Director, DMI Staff, faxed March 15, 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000300010002-3, -003-2 and -004-1, and CIA-RDP96-00791R000100040003-1. -[^16]: Grill Flame security agreements, volunteer consent statements, participant counseling statements, "Information About Remote Viewing for Participants" forms, and DIA Sun Streak access forms, 1977 to 1988, CIA-RDP96-00789R002100150005-8 to R002100150079-7; names as printed in the item titles. -[^17]: Louis F. Maire III and J. D. LaMothe, "Soviet and Czechoslovakian Parapsychology Research," Defense Intelligence Agency, DST-1810S-387-75, September 1975, DIA task PT-1810-12-75, CIA-RDP96-00792R000600350001-3, cover page and table of contents. -[^18]: Harold E. Puthoff, Russell Targ, Edwin C. May and Ingo Swann, "Advanced Threat Technique Assessment," SRI International final report, October 1978, references, CIA-RDP96-00787R000500150001-2. -[^19]: Buzby, Brian, Lieutenant Colonel, "Purpose: To Provide an Overview of Center Lane," May 4, 1984, with the summary of information on the Buckley case and the CIA memorandum "Comments on Recent CENTER LANE Experience," May 1, 1984, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220003-8; "Request for Administrative Review of INSCOM Grill Flame Protocol," c. 1981-83, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100200005-4. -[^20]: US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "List of Events from September 1977 to January 1986," CIA-RDP96-00788R001100020001-8. *Report by the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee,* December 1979, Manfred Gale, chairman, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5; Vorona, J., "Comments on 'Report By: The GRILLFLAME Scientific Evaluation Committee,'" memorandum of the Grill Flame Working Group, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300060001-2. Buzby, Brian, memorandum "Briefing to Senator Wallop, 5 October 1983," October 14, 1983, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700270015-0. -[^21]: "Science Panel Report: SRI Studies in Remote Viewing: A Program Review," March 1, 1984, signed by W. Ross Adey, Donald M. Kerr, and F. Zachariasen, reproduced as appendix B of Defense Intelligence Agency, "Star Gate Project: An Overview," DTI-S-1056-SL, April 30, 1993, CIA-RDP96-00789R002800180001-2. -[^22]: Defense Intelligence Agency, "FY 1995 Congressional Budget - Star Gate," March 15, 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000300010003-2. Defense Intelligence Agency, "Star Gate Project: An Overview," April 30, 1993, CIA-RDP96-00789R002800180001-2. -[^23]: Defense Intelligence Agency, "Star Gate Project: An Overview," April 30, 1993, CIA-RDP96-00789R002800180001-2. Defense Intelligence Agency, "FY 1995 Congressional Budget - Star Gate," March 15, 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000300010003-2. -[^24]: "Summary Report. Star Gate Operational Tasking and Evaluation (An Extract)," 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200300002-2. The same report is printed as appendix D of the [[1995 AIR evaluation of Star Gate|AIR evaluation]], CIA-RDP96-00791R000200180006-4. -[^25]: Central Intelligence Agency, "Proposed Star Gate Management Strategy," c. October 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000100150002-0; Defense Intelligence Agency, "Declassification and Cooperation in Response to Congressionally Directed STAR GATE Program Review," May 10, 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000100010001-6, and "Transfer of Project STAR GATE Files," October 10, 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200290001-5. -[^26]: Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM), memorandum for record, "Recent Jack Anderson 'GRILL FLAME' Articles," May 17, 1984, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200030001-6. cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00788R001200030001-6.pdf; memorandum, "BG Soyster Presentation 12 December 1985," CIA-RDP96-00788R001700030003-9. cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00788R001700030003-9.pdf -[^27]: Jack Anderson, "CIA Toys with Extrasensory Weapons," *The Washington Post*, March 30, 1981, p. B13, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3. cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3.pdf -[^28]: Jack Anderson, "Pentagon Invades Buck Rogers' Turf," *The Washington Post*, January 9, 1981, p. D16, as cited in Air War College research paper on psychic research, CIA-RDP96-00789R001001420001-3. cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00789R001001420001-3.pdf -[^29]: Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America's Psychic Spies.* Dell, 1997; Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis.* Little, Brown, 2017; McMoneagle, Joseph. *The Stargate Chronicles.* Hampton Roads, 2002. -[^30]: Targ, Russell, and Harold Puthoff. "Information Transfer under Conditions of Sensory Shielding," *Nature,* vol. 251, October 18, 1974, pp. 602-607; Puthoff, Harold E., and Russell Targ. "A Perceptual Channel for Information Transfer over Kilometer Distances," *Proceedings of the IEEE,* vol. 64, no. 3, March 1976, pp. 329-354. -[^31]: "An E.S.P. Gap: Exploring psychic weapons," *Time*, January 23, 1984, p. 17, CIA reading room, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200230025-5. Quotations are as Time reported them from Graham's interview with the New York Times. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00791r000200230025-5 +[^2]: Kress, Kenneth A. "Parapsychology in Intelligence: A Personal Review and Conclusions," *Studies in Intelligence,* vol. 21, no. 4, winter 1977, p. 15, CIA reading room document CIA-RDP96-00791R000200030040-0 (release header reads Approved For Release 2003/04/18), reprinted with the author's postscript of January 1999 in *Journal of Scientific Exploration,* vol. 13, no. 1 (1999). Brandwein, David S., Director, Office of Technical Service, memoranda "Stanford Research Institute Parapsychology Research," February 20, 1976 (CIA-RDP96-00787R000200020001-9), and "OTS Support to Research in Parapsychology," October 7, 1976 (CIA-RDP96-00787R000200020016-3); memorandum for the record, "Briefing for House Permanent Select Committee re OTS Involvement in ESP Research," OTS memo 287-77, November 17, 1977 (CIA-RDP96-00787R000200020020-8); memorandum for the record, "Discussions with OTS on the SRI Project," June 22, 1974 (CIA-RDP96-00787R000700110016-8). +[^3]: "Government Sponsored Research in Psychoenergetics," CIA report, dated February 1989, CIA-RDP96-00789R002200440001-9, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00789r002200440001-9. +[^4]: Michael E. Zarbo, Captain, US Army, "Remote Viewing: Parapsychological Potential for Intelligence Collection?" thesis, Defense Intelligence College, November 1992, CIA-RDP96-00789R002600250001-6, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00789r002600250001-6. +[^5]: Wellcome Collection, Stephen Abrams (1938-2012) archive, PP/SAB (Oxford move in 1960, laboratory in the Department of Biometry, closure in 1964); "The World of the Supra-Sensory," typescript article catalogued February 10, 1966, CIA-RDP96-00787R000400040032-1, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00787r000400040032-1. +[^6]: Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Technical Service, Memorandum for the Record, OTS/BAB Memo #287-77, "Briefing for House Permanent Select Committee re OTS Involvement in ESP Research," November 17, 1977, CIA-RDP96-00787R000500170001-0. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000500170001-0 +[^7]: Puthoff, H. E., and L. A. Lavelle, "Project Grill Flame Operational Tasks," SRI International for DIA/DT-5A, 1983, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100340001-3. Puthoff, H. E. "CIA-Initiated Remote Viewing Program at Stanford Research Institute," *Journal of Scientific Exploration,* vol. 10, no. 1, 1996, pp. 63-76. +[^8]: Central Intelligence Agency, "Summary RV URDF-3 Experiment," c. 1974-75, CIA-RDP96-00791R000100500001-2. Kress cites Strand, W. T., memorandum for the Director of OTS, "Evaluation of Data on Semipalatinsk Unidentified R&D Facility No. 5, USSR," August 20, 1974, and Stillman, D., Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, "An Analysis of a Remote Viewing Experiment of URDF-3," December 4, 1975 (CIA-RDP96-00791R000200240001-0). +[^9]: Defense Intelligence Agency, "FY 1995 Congressional Budget - Star Gate," March 15, 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000300010003-2. +[^10]: US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "Briefing - Project Center Lane," c. 1984, CIA document CIA-RDP96-00789R002100180002-8. +[^11]: US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "The US Army's Interest in Psychoenergetics," undated, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100370005-6. US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "INSCOM Project Grill Flame: Progress Report #1," memorandum for the record, February 21, 1979, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100070001-3. US Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity, "Project Grill Flame AMSAA Phase I Efforts," Interim Note No. 15, July 1979, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100080005-8. "Human Use Review of Project Grill Flame," memoranda of 1979 to 1980, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100440028-3; Defense Intelligence Agency, "Grill Flame - Action Memorandum," December 11, 1981, with the Grill Flame memorandum of understanding and the memorandum of Major General E. R. Thompson of May 8, 1981, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100240001-4. +[^12]: "Iran Hostage Situation Grill Flame RV Session CC12, Viewer 27.5," c. 1980, CIA-RDP96-00788R000800070001-7, one of 147 documents in the collection that contain the phrase "hostage situation in," among more than 400 Grill Flame session-report documents. Buzby, Brian, Lieutenant Colonel, "Purpose: To Provide an Overview of Center Lane," May 4, 1984, with the summary of information on the Buckley case and the CIA memorandum "Comments on Recent CENTER LANE Experience," May 1, 1984, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220003-8; "Request for Administrative Review of INSCOM Grill Flame Protocol," c. 1981-83, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100200005-4. +[^13]: Defense Intelligence Agency, "Special Intelligence Support Relating to the Kidnapping of BG Dozier," information memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, December 1981, CIA-RDP96-00788R000700130001-1; "1983 Briefing Papers - Use of Center Lane, Relocation of BG Dozier in Italy," CIA-RDP96-00788R001700370002-3. "Conversation with BG Dozier," February 22, 1982, CIA-RDP96-00788R000700130019-2, and "Debriefing, B.G. Dozier, Tape 1102, Grill Flame," February 9, 1982, CIA-RDP96-00788R000100250014-0. +[^14]: Defense Intelligence Agency, Directorate for Scientific and Technical Intelligence, "Grill Flame Project Report," October 19, 1983, CIA-RDP96-00788R001000410001-6; "Grill Flame - Activity," memoranda of November 21 to December 4, 1984, CIA-RDP96-00788R001800070002-5. +[^15]: Defense Intelligence Agency, "Minutes of the Meeting of the DoD Committee on Remote Viewing Activities," August 24, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000140009-7; Vorona to the Army assistant chief of staff for intelligence, S-1862/DT-1, September 6, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200410015-9; Commander, Naval Intelligence Command, to DIA, September 14, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200410025-8; DIA to the 902d Military Intelligence Group, September 22, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000140015-0; James L. Brown, Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence, USAF, to Vorona, September 29, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200410026-7; Army ACSI (DAMI-ISH) to Vorona, October 4, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200410024-9. "Request for Funding, FY 79, Re: Parapsychology - Feasibility for a Hard Copy Remote Viewing Machine," draft, principal investigator E. H. Walker, July 7, 1978, DAMI-ISH, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100080003-0. +[^16]: Davis, Ruth M., Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (Research and Advanced Technology), memorandum for Dr. Jack Vorona, "'Remote Viewing' Project," November 20, 1978, with the letter of Charlie Rose, Chairman, Subcommittee on Evaluation, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, to Davis, October 25, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00787R000500240017-5. *Report by the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee,* December 1979, Manfred Gale, chairman, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5. Defense Intelligence Agency, "Minutes of the DoD Grill Flame Committee Meeting, 27 November 1979," S-1168/DT-1, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000130015-1, and "Minutes of the DoD Grill Flame Committee Meeting, 10 January 1980," S-1008/DT-1, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000100009-1, both signed Jack Vorona, chairman. +[^17]: Defense Intelligence Agency, S-1004/DT-1, "Minutes of the Meeting, DoD Grill Flame Committee," November 28, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000140013-2; Watt, Murray B., "Summary of Working Group Meeting, DoD Committee on Special Sensors (C), 28 Nov 78," November 29, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200240006-8. +[^18]: Defense Intelligence Agency, "Senate Appropriations Committee Congressionally Directed Action, Star Gate," retrospective review, technical analysis and declassification status, with transmittal memorandum signed Letitia A. Long, Director, DMI Staff, faxed March 15, 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000300010002-3, -003-2 and -004-1, and CIA-RDP96-00791R000100040003-1. +[^19]: Grill Flame security agreements, volunteer consent statements, participant counseling statements, "Information About Remote Viewing for Participants" forms, and DIA Sun Streak access forms, 1977 to 1988, CIA-RDP96-00789R002100150005-8 to R002100150079-7; names as printed in the item titles. +[^20]: Louis F. Maire III and J. D. LaMothe, "Soviet and Czechoslovakian Parapsychology Research," Defense Intelligence Agency, DST-1810S-387-75, September 1975, DIA task PT-1810-12-75, CIA-RDP96-00792R000600350001-3, cover page and table of contents. +[^21]: Harold E. Puthoff, Russell Targ, Edwin C. May and Ingo Swann, "Advanced Threat Technique Assessment," SRI International final report, October 1978, references, CIA-RDP96-00787R000500150001-2. +[^22]: Buzby, Brian, Lieutenant Colonel, "Purpose: To Provide an Overview of Center Lane," May 4, 1984, with the summary of information on the Buckley case and the CIA memorandum "Comments on Recent CENTER LANE Experience," May 1, 1984, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220003-8; "Request for Administrative Review of INSCOM Grill Flame Protocol," c. 1981-83, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100200005-4. +[^23]: US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "List of Events from September 1977 to January 1986," CIA-RDP96-00788R001100020001-8. *Report by the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee,* December 1979, Manfred Gale, chairman, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5; Vorona, J., "Comments on 'Report By: The GRILLFLAME Scientific Evaluation Committee,'" memorandum of the Grill Flame Working Group, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300060001-2. Buzby, Brian, memorandum "Briefing to Senator Wallop, 5 October 1983," October 14, 1983, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700270015-0. +[^24]: "Science Panel Report: SRI Studies in Remote Viewing: A Program Review," March 1, 1984, signed by W. Ross Adey, Donald M. Kerr, and F. Zachariasen, reproduced as appendix B of Defense Intelligence Agency, "Star Gate Project: An Overview," DTI-S-1056-SL, April 30, 1993, CIA-RDP96-00789R002800180001-2. +[^25]: Defense Intelligence Agency, "FY 1995 Congressional Budget - Star Gate," March 15, 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000300010003-2. Defense Intelligence Agency, "Star Gate Project: An Overview," April 30, 1993, CIA-RDP96-00789R002800180001-2. +[^26]: Defense Intelligence Agency, "Star Gate Project: An Overview," April 30, 1993, CIA-RDP96-00789R002800180001-2. Defense Intelligence Agency, "FY 1995 Congressional Budget - Star Gate," March 15, 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000300010003-2. +[^27]: "Summary Report. Star Gate Operational Tasking and Evaluation (An Extract)," 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200300002-2. The same report is printed as appendix D of the [[1995 AIR evaluation of Star Gate|AIR evaluation]], CIA-RDP96-00791R000200180006-4. +[^28]: Central Intelligence Agency, "Proposed Star Gate Management Strategy," c. October 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000100150002-0; Defense Intelligence Agency, "Declassification and Cooperation in Response to Congressionally Directed STAR GATE Program Review," May 10, 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000100010001-6, and "Transfer of Project STAR GATE Files," October 10, 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200290001-5. +[^29]: Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM), memorandum for record, "Recent Jack Anderson 'GRILL FLAME' Articles," May 17, 1984, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200030001-6. cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00788R001200030001-6.pdf; memorandum, "BG Soyster Presentation 12 December 1985," CIA-RDP96-00788R001700030003-9. cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00788R001700030003-9.pdf +[^30]: Jack Anderson, "CIA Toys with Extrasensory Weapons," *The Washington Post*, March 30, 1981, p. B13, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3. cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3.pdf +[^31]: Jack Anderson, "Pentagon Invades Buck Rogers' Turf," *The Washington Post*, January 9, 1981, p. D16, as cited in Air War College research paper on psychic research, CIA-RDP96-00789R001001420001-3. cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00789R001001420001-3.pdf +[^32]: Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America's Psychic Spies.* Dell, 1997; Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis.* Little, Brown, 2017; McMoneagle, Joseph. *The Stargate Chronicles.* Hampton Roads, 2002. +[^33]: Targ, Russell, and Harold Puthoff. "Information Transfer under Conditions of Sensory Shielding," *Nature,* vol. 251, October 18, 1974, pp. 602-607; Puthoff, Harold E., and Russell Targ. "A Perceptual Channel for Information Transfer over Kilometer Distances," *Proceedings of the IEEE,* vol. 64, no. 3, March 1976, pp. 329-354. +[^34]: "An E.S.P. Gap: Exploring psychic weapons," *Time*, January 23, 1984, p. 17, CIA reading room, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200230025-5. Quotations are as Time reported them from Graham's interview with the New York Times. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00791r000200230025-5 diff --git a/40 - EVENTS/CONTRA_WAR/Bay of Pigs.md b/40 - EVENTS/CONTRA_WAR/Bay of Pigs.md index 260e54af..e4c267bd 100644 --- a/40 - EVENTS/CONTRA_WAR/Bay of Pigs.md +++ b/40 - EVENTS/CONTRA_WAR/Bay of Pigs.md @@ -103,7 +103,7 @@ Personnel consequences: Allen Dulles was forced to resign, replaced by John McCo Of approximately 1,400 Brigade members: 114 were killed in battle; approximately 1,179 were captured; 1,113 survived to the eventual exchange. Castro announced in April 1962 that the prisoners faced trial as "war criminals," with sentences of 30 years or payment of $62 million in indemnification. -Robert Kennedy secretly recruited [[New York]] attorney James B. Donovan - who had negotiated the [[Rudolf Abel]] spy exchange - to reopen prisoner talks in June 1962. Donovan worked pro bono. Negotiations were disrupted by the [[Cuban Missile Crisis]] in October 1962 but resumed. On December 21, 1962, Donovan and Castro signed an agreement: 1,113 surviving prisoners were exchanged for $53 million in food, medicines, and other humanitarian supplies, raised through private donations from pharmaceutical companies and other sources. +Robert Kennedy secretly recruited [[New York City|New York]] attorney James B. Donovan - who had negotiated the [[Rudolf Abel]] spy exchange - to reopen prisoner talks in June 1962. Donovan worked pro bono. Negotiations were disrupted by the [[Cuban Missile Crisis]] in October 1962 but resumed. On December 21, 1962, Donovan and Castro signed an agreement: 1,113 surviving prisoners were exchanged for $53 million in food, medicines, and other humanitarian supplies, raised through private donations from pharmaceutical companies and other sources. Kennedy welcomed the released prisoners at the Orange Bowl in Miami on December 29, 1962. Brigade 2506 presented Kennedy with their battle flag; Kennedy stated he would return it "to a free Havana." He never did.[^6] diff --git a/40 - EVENTS/HISTORICAL_PHENOMENA/Business Plot.md b/40 - EVENTS/HISTORICAL_PHENOMENA/Business Plot.md index bb99f3d9..02b6b618 100644 --- a/40 - EVENTS/HISTORICAL_PHENOMENA/Business Plot.md +++ b/40 - EVENTS/HISTORICAL_PHENOMENA/Business Plot.md @@ -21,10 +21,13 @@ In November 1934 Major General Smedley Butler informed a congressional committee ### Financial and Industrial Backing -The plot was financed through the Guaranty Trust Company, a J.P. Morgan financial institution with ties to City of London financiers. Armaments for the prospective paramilitary units were to be supplied by Remington Arms Co., a firearms subsidiary controlled by the DuPont family. The DuPonts were not merely passive investors; they were literally fascists in the author's assessment, having maintained cartel arrangements with the Nazi chemicals conglomerate I.G. Farben throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Alfred P. Sloan, who managed [[General Motors]] on behalf of the DuPonts from 1923 to 1966, personally authorized the transfer of Ethyl lead to the Luftwaffe as late as 1938. The largest tank manufacturer in Nazi Germany was Opel, a wholly owned GM subsidiary that continued operating under the American corporate umbrella throughout the Second World War. +The plot was financed through the Guaranty Trust Company, a J.P. Morgan financial institution with ties to City of London financiers. Armaments for the prospective paramilitary units were to be supplied by Remington Arms Co., a firearms subsidiary controlled by the DuPont family. The DuPonts were not merely passive investors; they were literally fascists in the author's assessment, having maintained cartel arrangements with the Nazi chemicals conglomerate I.G. Farben throughout the 1920s and 1930s. S. Dovey wrote in 2023 that [[Alfred P. Sloan]], who managed [[General Motors]] on behalf of the DuPonts from 1923 to 1966, personally authorized the transfer of Ethyl lead to the [[Luftwaffe]] as late as 1938.[^1] Dovey also wrote that the largest tank manufacturer in Nazi Germany was Opel, a wholly owned GM subsidiary that continued operating under the American corporate umbrella throughout the Second World War.[^1] General Motors' 1974 correspondence to the Senate states that the Nazi government took over the Opel works in November 1939, before the United States entered the war.[^2] The Foreign Claims Settlement Commission recorded that the Russelsheim plant was placed under the control of the German Enemy Property Custodian on November 25, 1942, and that it "sustained severe war damage as a result of allied bombing raids in 1942 and 1944."[^3] The 1974 Senate hearing described Russelsheim as a war plane factory and the Brandenburg works as a truck plant.[^4] ### Legacy and Connections -The DuPont family's political influence did not end with the exposure of the Business Plot. Decades later, Joe Biden's first senatorial campaign was fully funded and staffed by DuPont employees in Delaware, and his family moved into an old DuPont mansion following his victory. The corporate culture instilled at General Motors during the DuPont-Sloan era persisted into the 1970s, when executives at the company were accused of participation in organized child abuse rings in Michigan. [[Francis Shelden]] and his North Fox Island operation intersected with this same nexus of old money and impunity. +The DuPont family's political influence did not end with the exposure of the Business Plot. Decades later, Joe Biden's first senatorial campaign was fully funded and staffed by DuPont employees in Delaware, and his family moved into an old DuPont mansion following his victory. The corporate culture instilled at General Motors during the DuPont-Sloan era persisted into the 1970s, when executives at the company were accused of participation in organized child abuse rings in Michigan. Francis Shelden and his North Fox Island operation intersected with this same nexus of old money and impunity. [^1]: Dovey, S. (2023). *Eye of the Chickenhawk*. United States: Thehotstar. +[^2]: Copelin, Philip W., letter to Richard C. Gerstenberg, April 5, 1974, Exhibit 2, pp. 2385-2387; Mooney, Michael M., letter to Senator Philip A. Hart, Exhibit 3, pp. 2387-2389; *The Industrial Reorganization Act: Hearings on S. 1167, Part 4, Ground Transportation Industries* (1974), https://archive.org/details/industrialreorga04unit. +[^3]: Foreign Claims Settlement Commission of the United States, *Annual Report to the Congress for the Period January 1-December 31, 1967*, excerpt re General Motors Corporation and General Motors Overseas Corporation, Exhibit 9, *Hearings on S. 1167, Part 4*, pp. 2396-2397, https://archive.org/details/industrialreorga04unit. +[^4]: Stradella, C. G., letter to Richard C. Gerstenberg, April 10, 1974, Exhibit 4, *Hearings on S. 1167, Part 4*, pp. 2390-2392, quoting the Snell report, https://archive.org/details/industrialreorga04unit. diff --git a/40 - EVENTS/INTELLIGENCE_SCANDALS/Hashemi Sting.md b/40 - EVENTS/INTELLIGENCE_SCANDALS/Hashemi Sting.md index b23d133d..2a5926d1 100644 --- a/40 - EVENTS/INTELLIGENCE_SCANDALS/Hashemi Sting.md +++ b/40 - EVENTS/INTELLIGENCE_SCANDALS/Hashemi Sting.md @@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ The Hashemi Sting was a joint U.S. Customs Service and FBI undercover operation ### Cyrus Hashemi -Cyrus Hashemi was an Iranian-born businessman and arms dealer based between [[London]] and [[New York]] who became a central figure in the intersection of the October Surprise, Iran-Contra, and Hashemi Sting investigations. His brother Jamshid Hashemi was one of the sources for [[Gary Sick]]'s October Surprise research, claiming knowledge of meetings in [[Madrid]] and [[Paris]] in 1980 in which [[William Casey]] and Iranian representatives agreed to delay the release of the American hostages. +Cyrus Hashemi was an Iranian-born businessman and arms dealer based between [[London]] and [[New York City|New York]] who became a central figure in the intersection of the October Surprise, Iran-Contra, and Hashemi Sting investigations. His brother Jamshid Hashemi was one of the sources for [[Gary Sick]]'s October Surprise research, claiming knowledge of meetings in [[Madrid]] and [[Paris]] in 1980 in which [[William Casey]] and Iranian representatives agreed to delay the release of the American hostages. Cyrus Hashemi had extensive dealings with Iranian government officials and arms procurement networks, and he simultaneously worked as an informant for U.S. government agencies including the [[CIA]] and the FBI. His dual role - as an active arms dealer and as a government informant - placed him at the center of a web in which it was difficult to determine whether his arms-brokering activities were authorized by the U.S. government as part of intelligence operations, unauthorized criminal conduct, or both simultaneously. This ambiguity was characteristic of the Iran-Contra period generally, when official covert operations and freelance arms dealing coexisted and overlapped.[^2] diff --git a/40 - EVENTS/INTELLIGENCE_SCANDALS/Robertson Panel.md b/40 - EVENTS/INTELLIGENCE_SCANDALS/Robertson Panel.md index daa58a34..bbceeb25 100644 --- a/40 - EVENTS/INTELLIGENCE_SCANDALS/Robertson Panel.md +++ b/40 - EVENTS/INTELLIGENCE_SCANDALS/Robertson Panel.md @@ -98,7 +98,7 @@ relations: end: 1953-01-17 fn: 13 created: 2026-10-01 -updated: 2026-10-09 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- The Robertson Panel was a group of five scientists convened by the [[Office of Scientific Intelligence]] of the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] to review [[Air Technical Intelligence Center]] files on unidentified flying objects. It met in January 1953, reported that the sightings showed no direct physical threat to national security, and recommended that the national security agencies "strip the Unidentified Flying Objects of the special status they have been given and the aura of mystery they have unfortunately acquired."[^1] @@ -155,41 +155,43 @@ On reporting channels, the Panel regarded the Air Force reporting system as havi The memorandum describes a program with "two major aims: training and 'debunking.'" Training would cover pilots, radar operators, control tower operators and [[Ground Observer Corps]] personnel. The "debunking" aim "would result in reduction in public interest in 'flying saucers'" through "mass media such as television, motion pictures, and popular articles," using case histories "which had been puzzling at first but later explained," on the model of conjuring tricks, to "reduce the current gullibility of the public and consequently their susceptibility to clever hostile propaganda." The memorandum adds that "the general absence of Russian propaganda based on a subject with so many obvious possibilities for exploitation might indicate a possible Russian official policy."[^1] -Suggested participants were psychologists, including [[Hadley Cantril]] of [[Princeton University|Princeton]], [[Don Marquis]] of the [[University of Michigan]] and [[Leo Roston]]; "someone familiar with mass communications techniques, perhaps an advertising expert"; the radio and television host [[Arthur Godfrey]] as "possibly a valuable channel of communication"; the Navy's [[Special Devices Center]] at [[Sands Point, New York|Sands Point]], [[Long Island]], on Berkner's suggestion; the [[Jam Handy Company]], a maker of Second World War training films; and the animated cartoons of "Walt Disney, Inc.," the studio of [[Walt Disney]]. Hynek suggested amateur astronomers "to spread the gospel." The Panel proposed that the program run for "a minimum of one and one-half to two years" and recorded that some expansion of the Air Technical Intelligence Center would be required. Ruppelt "unofficially" proposed a staff of four analyst officers, four officer investigators, a briefing officer, an air defense liaison officer, a weather and balloon officer, an astronomical consultant and a group leader, which drew "generally favorable comment."[^1] +Suggested participants were psychologists, including [[Hadley Cantril]] of [[Princeton University|Princeton]], [[Don Marquis]] of the [[University of Michigan]] and [[Leo Rosten]]; "someone familiar with mass communications techniques, perhaps an advertising expert"; the radio and television host [[Arthur Godfrey]] as "possibly a valuable channel of communication"; the Navy's [[Special Devices Center]] at [[Sands Point, New York|Sands Point]], [[Long Island]], on Berkner's suggestion; the [[Jam Handy Company]], a maker of Second World War training films; and the animated cartoons of "Walt Disney, Inc.," the studio of [[Walt Disney]]. Hynek suggested amateur astronomers "to spread the gospel." The Panel proposed that the program run for "a minimum of one and one-half to two years" and recorded that some expansion of the Air Technical Intelligence Center would be required. Ruppelt "unofficially" proposed a staff of four analyst officers, four officer investigators, a briefing officer, an air defense liaison officer, a weather and balloon officer, an astronomical consultant and a group leader, which drew "generally favorable comment."[^1] + +Cantril and [[Lloyd Free]] of "the Research Council, Inc." met with [[Nelson Rockefeller]], [[Frank Wisner]] and officials of the [[United States Information Agency]] in Rockefeller's office on April 1, 1955.[^17] On "Unofficial Investigating Groups," the memorandum states that the "Civilian Flying Saucer Investigators" of [[Los Angeles]] and the "Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (Wisconsin)" "should be watched because of their potentially great influence on mass thinking if widespread sightings should occur," and that "the apparent irresponsibility and the possible use of such groups for subversive purposes should be kept in mind." The Panel predicted that sightings would increase that summer.[^1] -[[Jennie Zeidman]], Hynek's assistant at Ohio State, wrote in 1991 that after the sessions Hynek told her: "They're not going to have a scientific investigation. For some strange reason they voted it down. They didn't even take a decent look at the data, and they decided to discredit them."[^17] +[[Jennie Zeidman]], Hynek's assistant at Ohio State, wrote in 1991 that after the sessions Hynek told her: "They're not going to have a scientific investigation. For some strange reason they voted it down. They didn't even take a decent look at the data, and they decided to discredit them."[^18] ### Distribution and sponsorship -The report went to the Intelligence Advisory Committee, the Secretary of Defense, the director of the [[Federal Civil Defense Administration]] and the chairman of the [[National Security Resources Board]]. Strong and Durant briefed the [[Office of National Estimates]]. The Agency dropped its effort to draft a National Security Council directive on unidentified flying objects, and, according to Haines, "any mention of CIA sponsorship of the panel was forbidden." Chadwell transferred monitoring in May 1953 to the Physics and Electronics Division, whose chief, [[Todos M. Odarenko]], proposed treating the project as inactive and, in 1955, terminating it.[^2][^18] +The report went to the Intelligence Advisory Committee, the Secretary of Defense, the director of the [[Federal Civil Defense Administration]] and the chairman of the [[National Security Resources Board]]. Strong and Durant briefed the [[Office of National Estimates]]. The Agency dropped its effort to draft a National Security Council directive on unidentified flying objects, and, according to Haines, "any mention of CIA sponsorship of the panel was forbidden." Chadwell transferred monitoring in May 1953 to the Physics and Electronics Division, whose chief, [[Todos M. Odarenko]], proposed treating the project as inactive and, in 1955, terminating it.[^2][^19] ### Contacts after the sessions -A note from Ruppelt to Hynek of 11 February 1953, among the Blue Book cables in Hynek's "Project Henry" files, states that Durant had called asking for the pencilled notes Hynek had promised him on a contact with the [[Aerial Phenomena Research Organization]]. A note of 13 July 1953 from Lieutenant [[Robert M. Olsson]] states: "we sent five of our best unsolved reports to Dr. Robinson [Dr. Robertson] on the West Coast" ([[Luke Air Force Base]], Continental Divide, [[Port Austin, Michigan|Port Austin]] and others). [[Jan Aldrich]] of Project 1947 added in a bracketed comment that Robertson was briefed on Blue Book again in 1957 at the Air Technical Intelligence Center and that Durant arranged for the Condon Committee to obtain copies of the Montana and Utah films and corresponded with Condon about official investigations in [[Norway]].[^19] +A note from Ruppelt to Hynek of 11 February 1953, among the Blue Book cables in Hynek's "Project Henry" files, states that Durant had called asking for the pencilled notes Hynek had promised him on a contact with the [[Aerial Phenomena Research Organization]]. A note of 13 July 1953 from Lieutenant [[Robert M. Olsson]] states: "we sent five of our best unsolved reports to Dr. Robinson [Dr. Robertson] on the West Coast" ([[Luke Air Force Base]], Continental Divide, [[Port Austin, Michigan|Port Austin]] and others). [[Jan Aldrich]] of Project 1947 added in a bracketed comment that Robertson was briefed on Blue Book again in 1957 at the Air Technical Intelligence Center and that Durant arranged for the Condon Committee to obtain copies of the Montana and Utah films and corresponded with Condon about official investigations in [[Norway]].[^20] ### Disclosure, 1956 to 1966 -In 1956 [[The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects|Ruppelt's book]] disclosed the existence of the Panel, and civilian groups pressed for the report. The Air Force asked the Agency for permission to declassify; Strong refused to disclose Agency sponsorship. On 20 December 1957 Strong wrote to Berkner, Page, Robertson, Goudsmit and Alvarez and sent a memorandum to Major James F. Byrne of Air Force intelligence on declassification, and the Agency prepared a sanitized version that deleted references to the Agency and to psychological warfare. Berkner (20 November 1957) and Page (4 December 1957) had written to Strong, and the Agency's history states that the panel members "were also reluctant to have their association with the Agency released."[^2][^20] +In 1956 [[The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects|Ruppelt's book]] disclosed the existence of the Panel, and civilian groups pressed for the report. The Air Force asked the Agency for permission to declassify; Strong refused to disclose Agency sponsorship. On 20 December 1957 Strong wrote to Berkner, Page, Robertson, Goudsmit and Alvarez and sent a memorandum to Major James F. Byrne of Air Force intelligence on declassification, and the Agency prepared a sanitized version that deleted references to the Agency and to psychological warfare. Berkner (20 November 1957) and Page (4 December 1957) had written to Strong, and the Agency's history states that the panel members "were also reluctant to have their association with the Agency released."[^2][^21] -On 8 March 1958 [[Donald Keyhoe]] of the [[National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena]] told [[Mike Wallace]] on [[CBS]] that the Agency sponsored the Panel, and Keyhoe and the chemical engineer [[Leon Davidson]] wrote to the Agency; Davidson also wrote to Berkner and Goudsmit. Agency officers, according to the history, worried that Keyhoe "had the ear of" Hillenkoetter, who served on the committee's board of governors, and discussed having the General Counsel, [[Lawrence R. Houston]], show him the report. Hillenkoetter resigned from the committee in 1962.[^2][^20] +On 8 March 1958 [[Donald Keyhoe]] of the [[National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena]] told [[Mike Wallace]] on [[CBS]] that the Agency sponsored the Panel, and Keyhoe and the chemical engineer [[Leon Davidson]] wrote to the Agency; Davidson also wrote to Berkner and Goudsmit. Agency officers, according to the history, worried that Keyhoe "had the ear of" Hillenkoetter, who served on the committee's board of governors, and discussed having the General Counsel, [[Lawrence R. Houston]], show him the report. Hillenkoetter resigned from the committee in 1962.[^2][^21] -On 22 September 1958 Keyhoe wrote to the Agency as the committee's director that he had been aware since January 1953 that the Agency had assembled a group of scientists to examine the evidence; that an investigator for the McClellan subcommittee on Government Operations had told him the Air Force said the report was not an Air Force document and that it proved to be the Agency's, with a classified summary sent to the investigator; and that the Air Force, which had officially denied the existence of the document, then admitted it and released a summary with no mention of the Agency. He asked for declassification and for an interview with an Agency official, and wrote that Vice Admiral [[Roscoe Hillenkoetter]], formerly director of the Agency and a board member, and all the members of the board would, if questioned, say that they disagree with the secrecy. A routing slip dated 30 September 1958 records that the Air Force's Major [[Lawrence J. Tacker]] had received a letter of the same date and would answer both along the lines that the Air Force was "the only agency qualified to speak on unidentified flying objects," and that "the remaining portions of the report are not only Secret but do not deal with unidentified flying objects"; the writer adds, "Both the above statements are true."[^21] +On 22 September 1958 Keyhoe wrote to the Agency as the committee's director that he had been aware since January 1953 that the Agency had assembled a group of scientists to examine the evidence; that an investigator for the McClellan subcommittee on Government Operations had told him the Air Force said the report was not an Air Force document and that it proved to be the Agency's, with a classified summary sent to the investigator; and that the Air Force, which had officially denied the existence of the document, then admitted it and released a summary with no mention of the Agency. He asked for declassification and for an interview with an Agency official, and wrote that Vice Admiral [[Roscoe Hillenkoetter]], formerly director of the Agency and a board member, and all the members of the board would, if questioned, say that they disagree with the secrecy. A routing slip dated 30 September 1958 records that the Air Force's Major [[Lawrence J. Tacker]] had received a letter of the same date and would answer both along the lines that the Air Force was "the only agency qualified to speak on unidentified flying objects," and that "the remaining portions of the report are not only Secret but do not deal with unidentified flying objects"; the writer adds, "Both the above statements are true."[^22] -Haines wrote that the Air Force again asked in July 1966 for declassification of the Panel report and the Durant report, after the [[House Armed Services Committee]] hearings and "Dr. Robertson's disclosure on a CBS Reports program that CIA indeed had been involved in UFO analysis"; the Condon Report, printed in 1968, refers to Robertson as "the late Prof. H. P. Robertson."[^2][^10] On 15 August 1966 the Office of Scientific Intelligence's deputy director, [[Karl H. Weber]], wrote to the Air Force that "We are most anxious that further publicity not be given to the information that the panel was sponsored by the CIA." [[James E. McDonald]] of the [[University of Arizona]] had read the Durant report at Wright-Patterson on 6 June 1966 and was refused a second look on 30 June as it was an Agency document. The science editor of the [[Saturday Review]], [[John Lear]], criticized the sanitized version on 3 September 1966.[^2][^20] +Haines wrote that the Air Force again asked in July 1966 for declassification of the Panel report and the Durant report, after the [[House Armed Services Committee]] hearings and "Dr. Robertson's disclosure on a CBS Reports program that CIA indeed had been involved in UFO analysis"; the Condon Report, printed in 1968, refers to Robertson as "the late Prof. H. P. Robertson."[^2][^10] On 15 August 1966 the Office of Scientific Intelligence's deputy director, [[Karl H. Weber]], wrote to the Air Force that "We are most anxious that further publicity not be given to the information that the panel was sponsored by the CIA." [[James E. McDonald]] of the [[University of Arizona]] had read the Durant report at Wright-Patterson on 6 June 1966 and was refused a second look on 30 June as it was an Agency document. The science editor of the [[Saturday Review]], [[John Lear]], criticized the sanitized version on 3 September 1966.[^2][^21] -[[Paul E. McCarthy]] wrote that when James E. McDonald first visited [[Wright-Patterson Air Force Base]] on June 6, 1966, the 1953 Robertson Panel report "received routine declassification after 12 years" by Major [[Hector Quintanilla]], who approved his note taking; that when he returned on June 30 and asked for a Xerox copy, Colonel [[Louis DeGoes]] told him it would need an authorization; and that on his third visit, July 20 to 22, DeGoes told him the CIA had decided to reclassify the document. McDonald's note on the episode, written in October 1966, states that neither DeGoes nor Dr. [[Cacciopo]], chief scientist at the [[Foreign Technology Division]], showed interest in the CIA involvement, and McDonald began to discuss the report in his lectures that month. Replying to a letter from McDonald of October 1, [[Richard Hall]] of [[NICAP]] wrote that the sanitized report would be forwarded within a week once the [[John E. Moss|Moss]] subcommittee obtained its release.[^22] +[[Paul E. McCarthy]] wrote that when James E. McDonald first visited [[Wright-Patterson Air Force Base]] on June 6, 1966, the 1953 Robertson Panel report "received routine declassification after 12 years" by Major [[Hector Quintanilla]], who approved his note taking; that when he returned on June 30 and asked for a Xerox copy, Colonel [[Louis DeGoes]] told him it would need an authorization; and that on his third visit, July 20 to 22, DeGoes told him the CIA had decided to reclassify the document. McDonald's note on the episode, written in October 1966, states that neither DeGoes nor Dr. [[Cacciopo]], chief scientist at the [[Foreign Technology Division]], showed interest in the CIA involvement, and McDonald began to discuss the report in his lectures that month. Replying to a letter from McDonald of October 1, [[Richard Hall]] of [[NICAP]] wrote that the sanitized report would be forwarded within a week once the [[John E. Moss|Moss]] subcommittee obtained its release.[^23] ### Publication in the Condon Report -The report was declassified in the summer of 1966 and printed as Appendix U of the [[Condon Committee]]'s Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, with some names deleted; the Condon Report states that the record is "still partially classified to the extent that the names of some of the members are deleted."[^10] The editors of the online edition restored deletions, which they marked in braces, from a copy they obtained from the [[Parascope]] site and checked against a [[National Archives and Records Administration|National Archives]] copy. The deleted items included the names of Alvarez, Chadwell, Strong, Oder, Stevenson, Neasham, Woo, Hynek, Fournet, Smith, Possony and Garland, the words "Office of Scientific Intelligence," the "Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence," "Battelle Memorial Institute" and the Intelligence Advisory Committee, and one tab.[^1][^23] Haines wrote that in 1967 Agency officials agreed that the Condon Committee could release the full Durant report "with only minor deletions."[^2] +The report was declassified in the summer of 1966 and printed as Appendix U of the [[Condon Committee]]'s Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, with some names deleted; the Condon Report states that the record is "still partially classified to the extent that the names of some of the members are deleted."[^10] The editors of the online edition restored deletions, which they marked in braces, from a copy they obtained from the [[Parascope]] site and checked against a [[National Archives and Records Administration|National Archives]] copy. The deleted items included the names of Alvarez, Chadwell, Strong, Oder, Stevenson, Neasham, Woo, Hynek, Fournet, Smith, Possony and Garland, the words "Office of Scientific Intelligence," the "Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence," "Battelle Memorial Institute" and the Intelligence Advisory Committee, and one tab.[^1][^24] Haines wrote that in 1967 Agency officials agreed that the Condon Committee could release the full Durant report "with only minor deletions."[^2] -The Condon Report described the Panel as five scientists "who had distinguished themselves in physics research and in their contributions to military research during and after World War II," said that a group of this competence could review the subject in a week, stated that "no official steps were ever taken to put into effect the training and 'debunking' recommendations," and held that "the word debunking means to take the bunk out of a subject."[^10][^24] +The Condon Report described the Panel as five scientists "who had distinguished themselves in physics research and in their contributions to military research during and after World War II," said that a group of this competence could review the subject in a week, stated that "no official steps were ever taken to put into effect the training and 'debunking' recommendations," and held that "the word debunking means to take the bunk out of a subject."[^10][^25] ### Later references -The Scientific Advisory Board committee under [[Brian O'Brien]] that reviewed Project Blue Book in 1966 gave "particular attention" to the Panel report. An Air Force action memorandum of 20 October 1969 recommending termination of Blue Book quoted the Panel's finding of no direct physical threat and added that "in spite of this finding, the Air Force continued to maintain a special reporting system."[^25][^26] +The Scientific Advisory Board committee under [[Brian O'Brien]] that reviewed Project Blue Book in 1966 gave "particular attention" to the Panel report. An Air Force action memorandum of 20 October 1969 recommending termination of Blue Book quoted the Panel's finding of no direct physical threat and added that "in spite of this finding, the Air Force continued to maintain a special reporting system."[^26][^27] In 1975 [[William Spaulding]] of [[Ground Saucer Watch]] asked the Agency for the Panel report; a privacy coordinator, [[Gene Wilson]], replied that "at no time prior to the formation of the Robertson Panel and subsequent to the issuance of the panel's report has CIA engaged in the study of the UFO phenomena." Ground Saucer Watch sued under the [[Freedom of Information Act]] in September 1977; a search produced 355 documents of about 900 pages, of which the Agency released all but 57 on 14 December 1978, and a court dismissed the suit in May 1980. Haines wrote that the Agency's Deputy Director for Administration told Director [[Stansfield Turner]] there had been "no organized Agency effort to do research in connection with UFO phenomena nor has there been an organized effort to collect intelligence on UFOs since the 1950s."[^2] @@ -211,13 +213,14 @@ In 1975 [[William Spaulding]] of [[Ground Saucer Watch]] asked the Agency for th [^14]: Durant memorandum, Tab B ("Associate Members"), and Part I, Wednesday afternoon through Saturday. [^15]: Durant memorandum, Tab C, "Evidence Presented." [^16]: Durant memorandum, Tab A, "Report of the Scientific Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects," paragraphs 2 to 4. -[^17]: Jennie Zeidman, "I Remember Blue Book," International UFO Reporter (Center for UFO Studies), March/April 1991, section "Project Henry," https://www.project1947.com/articles/jzbluebook.htm. -[^18]: Haines, text and notes 34 to 39 and 80. -[^19]: "Project Henry," Project 1947, notes of 11 February 1953 (Ruppelt) and 13 July 1953 (Olsson) and the bracketed comment of Jan L. Aldrich, http://www.project1947.com/projecthenry/index.htm. -[^20]: Haines, notes 47 to 51, 72 to 74 and 79, citing Strong's letters and memorandum of 20 December 1957, Berkner's letter of 20 November 1957, Page's letter of 4 December 1957, Weber's letter of 15 August 1966, and Lear, "The Disputed CIA Document on UFOs," Saturday Review, 3 September 1966, p. 45. -[^21]: Donald E. Keyhoe, National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, to the Central Intelligence Agency, 22 September 1958, with Agency routing slips of 30 September 1958 and note of 2 October 1958, CREST document CIA-RDP80B01676R004000110004-4 (5 pages), https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp80b01676r004000110004-4. -[^22]: Paul E. McCarthy, "Politicking and Paradigm Shifting: James E. McDonald and the UFO Case Study," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Hawaii, 1975, chapter 2, pp. 41 and 58, https://files.ncas.org/mccarthy/chap02.html -[^23]: Editors' notes in the online Condon Report, Appendix U, https://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-u.htm ("previously deleted names" shown in braces). -[^24]: Condon, Section V, chapter 2, pp. 865 and 877-878. -[^25]: Condon, Appendix A, "Special Report of the USAF Scientific Advisory Board Ad Hoc Committee to Review Project 'Blue Book,'" March 1966, section I, https://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-a.htm. -[^26]: Air Force action memorandum, "Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO)," 20 October 1969, with signature block of Brigadier General C. H. Bolender, paragraph 4, text at http://www.nicap.org/Bolender_Memo.htm. +[^17]: Frank G. Wisner, Deputy Director (Plans), memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence, "Meeting with Nelson Rockefeller et al on Public Opinion Report," April 1, 1955. CIA reading room, CIA-RDP61S00750A000700100046-2. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp61s00750a000700100046-2 +[^18]: Jennie Zeidman, "I Remember Blue Book," International UFO Reporter (Center for UFO Studies), March/April 1991, section "Project Henry," https://www.project1947.com/articles/jzbluebook.htm. +[^19]: Haines, text and notes 34 to 39 and 80. +[^20]: "Project Henry," Project 1947, notes of 11 February 1953 (Ruppelt) and 13 July 1953 (Olsson) and the bracketed comment of Jan L. Aldrich, http://www.project1947.com/projecthenry/index.htm. +[^21]: Haines, notes 47 to 51, 72 to 74 and 79, citing Strong's letters and memorandum of 20 December 1957, Berkner's letter of 20 November 1957, Page's letter of 4 December 1957, Weber's letter of 15 August 1966, and Lear, "The Disputed CIA Document on UFOs," Saturday Review, 3 September 1966, p. 45. +[^22]: Donald E. Keyhoe, National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, to the Central Intelligence Agency, 22 September 1958, with Agency routing slips of 30 September 1958 and note of 2 October 1958, CREST document CIA-RDP80B01676R004000110004-4 (5 pages), https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp80b01676r004000110004-4. +[^23]: Paul E. McCarthy, "Politicking and Paradigm Shifting: James E. McDonald and the UFO Case Study," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Hawaii, 1975, chapter 2, pp. 41 and 58, https://files.ncas.org/mccarthy/chap02.html +[^24]: Editors' notes in the online Condon Report, Appendix U, https://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-u.htm ("previously deleted names" shown in braces). +[^25]: Condon, Section V, chapter 2, pp. 865 and 877-878. +[^26]: Condon, Appendix A, "Special Report of the USAF Scientific Advisory Board Ad Hoc Committee to Review Project 'Blue Book,'" March 1966, section I, https://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-a.htm. +[^27]: Air Force action memorandum, "Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO)," 20 October 1969, with signature block of Brigadier General C. H. Bolender, paragraph 4, text at http://www.nicap.org/Bolender_Memo.htm. diff --git a/40 - EVENTS/INTELLIGENCE_SCANDALS/Rockefeller Commission 1975.md b/40 - EVENTS/INTELLIGENCE_SCANDALS/Rockefeller Commission 1975.md index 36f7e232..3d8f6c37 100644 --- a/40 - EVENTS/INTELLIGENCE_SCANDALS/Rockefeller Commission 1975.md +++ b/40 - EVENTS/INTELLIGENCE_SCANDALS/Rockefeller Commission 1975.md @@ -76,15 +76,15 @@ The commission had also encountered obstruction in its attempts to investigate C ### Rockefeller's Position -In 1955, as special assistant to the president, Nelson Rockefeller chaired the [[Planning Coordination Group]], set up under [[NSC 5412]] as the channel for policy approval of CIA covert operations. In May 1955 [[Charles Geschickter]] asked the CIA to contribute $375,000 toward a research building at Georgetown University Hospital, one-sixth of whose beds were to be reserved for the CIA along with cover for three CIA scientists and "human patients and volunteers for experimental use." The journalist John Marks, working from CIA documents released in 1977, wrote that Allen Dulles personally approved the contribution and then took it to "President Eisenhower's special committee to review covert operations," which assented on the understanding that Geschickter could provide "a reasonable expectation" that the agency would have the space.[^27] The historians Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett identified the committee's chairman as Rockefeller and wrote that he gave the approval. The 1977 Senate hearing took testimony on the CIA's use of hospital construction money without naming him. Rockefeller initially opposed even permitting the commission to investigate assassination plots, and it was only Belin's persistence and the threat of adverse publicity that extended the commission's mandate into that territory.[^28] +In 1955, as special assistant to the president, Nelson Rockefeller chaired the [[Planning Coordination Group]], set up under [[NSC 5412]] as the channel for policy approval of CIA covert operations. In May 1955 [[Charles Geschickter]] asked the CIA to contribute $375,000 toward a research building at Georgetown University Hospital, one-sixth of whose beds were to be reserved for the CIA along with cover for three CIA scientists and "human patients and volunteers for experimental use." The Subproject 35 file printed in the August 3, 1977 joint hearing records that the Director of Central Intelligence approved the subproject on January 15, 1955 for a contribution of $125,000 through a private fund toward a research wing at Georgetown University Hospital, after a General Counsel memorandum of December 21, 1954; a memorandum of May 10, 1955 requested a further $250,000, bringing the agency's contribution to $375,000, and carries a handwritten note that a resume of the project was circulated at a meeting on May 11, 1955.[^27] The journalist John Marks, working from CIA documents released in 1977, wrote that Allen Dulles personally approved the contribution and then took it to "President Eisenhower's special committee to review covert operations," which assented on the understanding that Geschickter could provide "a reasonable expectation" that the agency would have the space.[^28] The historians Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett identified the committee's chairman as Rockefeller and wrote that he gave the approval. The 1977 Senate hearing took testimony on the CIA's use of hospital construction money without naming him. Rockefeller initially opposed even permitting the commission to investigate assassination plots, and it was only Belin's persistence and the threat of adverse publicity that extended the commission's mandate into that territory.[^29] ### Report Structure and Outcome -The commission's final report, submitted to President Ford on June 6, 1975, comprised four main parts with 19 chapters plus seven appendices. The chapters covered CIA legal authority, supervision and control mechanisms, mail intercept programs, Operation CHAOS, domestic surveillance of political activists, CIA files on American citizens, and an examination of allegations regarding the assassination of President Kennedy (where the commission upheld the Warren Commission's single-assassin finding). The report contained 27 recommendations, of which 20 were agency-level reforms recommended for immediate implementation and 7 addressed CIA structure, function, and presidential oversight.[^29] +The commission's final report, submitted to President Ford on June 6, 1975, comprised four main parts with 19 chapters plus seven appendices. The chapters covered CIA legal authority, supervision and control mechanisms, mail intercept programs, Operation CHAOS, domestic surveillance of political activists, CIA files on American citizens, and an examination of allegations regarding the assassination of President Kennedy (where the commission upheld the Warren Commission's single-assassin finding). The report contained 27 recommendations, of which 20 were agency-level reforms recommended for immediate implementation and 7 addressed CIA structure, function, and presidential oversight.[^30] -The Ford administration's response to the report was coordinated by a memorandum dated August 9, 1975, from Kissinger, White House counsel Philip Buchen, and [[Office of Management and Budget]] director [[James Lynn]], which argued for prompt action on the domestic-improprieties recommendations while deferring broader intelligence restructuring questions, explicitly noting that congressional committees were simultaneously investigating related matters and that delay risked losing "the initiative entirely."[^30] +The Ford administration's response to the report was coordinated by a memorandum dated August 9, 1975, from Kissinger, White House counsel Philip Buchen, and [[Office of Management and Budget]] director [[James Lynn]], which argued for prompt action on the domestic-improprieties recommendations while deferring broader intelligence restructuring questions, explicitly noting that congressional committees were simultaneously investigating related matters and that delay risked losing "the initiative entirely."[^31] -The commission's records, totaling approximately 41 cubic feet (82,000 pages), are held at the [[Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library]] in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Materials related to Kennedy assassination allegations and anti-Castro activities from 1960 to 1964 were processed for research access following the [[JFK Records Act]]; significant portions of the collection remain classified.[^31] +The commission's records, totaling approximately 41 cubic feet (82,000 pages), are held at the [[Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library]] in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Materials related to Kennedy assassination allegations and anti-Castro activities from 1960 to 1964 were processed for research access following the [[JFK Records Act]]; significant portions of the collection remain classified.[^32] ### Footnotes @@ -114,8 +114,9 @@ The commission's records, totaling approximately 41 cubic feet (82,000 pages), a [^24]: Report to the President by the Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States, transmittal letter dated June 6, 1975. https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/LIBRARY/document/0005/1561495.pdf [^25]: Church Committee, "Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders," Senate Report 94-465, released November 20, 1975. Ford's suppression request sent October 31, 1975; Church's rejection November 4, 1975; Senate vote November 20, 1975. [^26]: National Security Archive, NSAEBB Document 10: Mason Cargill to File, "CIA denial of access to records of Special Group Augmented re Cuba," April 30, 1975. -[^27]: Marks, John. *The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate": The CIA and Mind Control.* Times Books, 1979, ch. 12, n. 6, as transcribed at https://cryptome.org/mkultra-0005.htm. The Subproject 35 memorandum of November 15, 1954, does not mention the committee: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/32726-document-11-memorandum-director-central-intelligence-project-mkultra-subproject-35 -[^28]: Colby and Dennett, Ch. 18, 44, and Ch. 18 n. 32, citing MKULTRA Subproject 35-10, May 16, 1955. The book calls the body he chaired the "Special Group." For the Planning Coordination Group, its membership and its role as the "normal channel for giving policy approval" to covert operations: Rowland Hughes memorandum to Eisenhower, March 3, 1955, *FRUS 1950-1955, The Intelligence Community,* Document 210, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1950-55Intel/d210. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, *Project MKULTRA, the CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification,* joint hearing, August 3, 1977, testimony of Adm. Stansfield Turner and exchange with Sen. Richard Schweiker, https://archive.org/details/project-mkultra-the-cias-program-of-research-in-behavioral-modification -[^29]: Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, Topic Guide, "Rockefeller Commission Report, June 1975." FRUS 1969-76, Vol. XXXVIII, Part 2, Document 46, Memorandum on implementation of Rockefeller Commission recommendations, August 9, 1975. -[^30]: FRUS 1969-76, Vol. XXXVIII, Part 2, Document 46, August 9, 1975, Kissinger, Buchen, and Lynn to Ford on implementation of Rockefeller Commission recommendations. -[^31]: Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, Finding Aid, "U.S. President's Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States Files," collection extent approximately 41 cubic feet. +[^27]: "Project MKULTRA, The CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification," joint hearing, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, August 3, 1977, archive.org/details/project-mkultra-congress-hearing-1977, Appendix C, memorandum of December 21, 1954, pp. 121-122; memorandum of May 10, 1955, pp. 127-128. +[^28]: Marks, John. *The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate": The CIA and Mind Control.* Times Books, 1979, ch. 12, n. 6, as transcribed at https://cryptome.org/mkultra-0005.htm. The Subproject 35 memorandum of November 15, 1954, does not mention the committee: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/32726-document-11-memorandum-director-central-intelligence-project-mkultra-subproject-35 +[^29]: Colby and Dennett, Ch. 18, 44, and Ch. 18 n. 32, citing MKULTRA Subproject 35-10, May 16, 1955. The book calls the body he chaired the "Special Group." For the Planning Coordination Group, its membership and its role as the "normal channel for giving policy approval" to covert operations: Rowland Hughes memorandum to Eisenhower, March 3, 1955, *FRUS 1950-1955, The Intelligence Community,* Document 210, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1950-55Intel/d210. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, *Project MKULTRA, the CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification,* joint hearing, August 3, 1977, testimony of Adm. Stansfield Turner and exchange with Sen. Richard Schweiker, https://archive.org/details/project-mkultra-the-cias-program-of-research-in-behavioral-modification +[^30]: Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, Topic Guide, "Rockefeller Commission Report, June 1975." FRUS 1969-76, Vol. XXXVIII, Part 2, Document 46, Memorandum on implementation of Rockefeller Commission recommendations, August 9, 1975. +[^31]: FRUS 1969-76, Vol. XXXVIII, Part 2, Document 46, August 9, 1975, Kissinger, Buchen, and Lynn to Ford on implementation of Rockefeller Commission recommendations. +[^32]: Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, Finding Aid, "U.S. President's Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States Files," collection extent approximately 41 cubic feet. diff --git a/40 - EVENTS/United States v. Epstein.md b/40 - EVENTS/United States v. Epstein.md index 088f8422..1a17fec5 100644 --- a/40 - EVENTS/United States v. Epstein.md +++ b/40 - EVENTS/United States v. Epstein.md @@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ start: 2019-07-02 end: 2019-08-29 location: "New York, New York" created: 2026-09-25 -updated: 2026-09-25 +updated: 2026-10-15 relations: - type: participant_in with: "[[Jeffrey Epstein]]" @@ -48,13 +48,13 @@ relations: role: "U.S. Attorney" start: 2019-07-02 end: 2019-08-29 - fn: 5 + fn: 6 - type: participant_in with: "[[Todd Blanche]]" reverse: true role: "counsel for the United States" start: 2025-07-18 - fn: 7 + fn: 8 --- United States v. Epstein (No. 1:19-cr-00490) was the federal criminal prosecution of [[Jeffrey Epstein]] in the [[U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York]] on charges of sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy. A grand jury returned the indictment under seal on July 2, 2019; Epstein was arrested on July 6 and ordered detained on July 18 by Judge [[Richard M. Berman]], and on August 10, 2019 he was found dead in the [[Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York|Metropolitan Correctional Center]]. Berman heard his accusers in open court before signing the government's nolle prosequi on August 29, 2019. No ruling on the validity of the 2007 [[Epstein non-prosecution agreement]] was ever made in the case. In 2025 the case reopened on the government's motions to unseal its grand jury record, which Berman denied in August and granted in December after the [[Epstein Files Transparency Act]] became law.[^1][^2] @@ -67,15 +67,15 @@ On July 16 Moe filed a supplement to the government's detention memorandum discl ### Death and Dismissal -On July 23, 2019 Epstein was found in his cell with a cloth around his neck. On August 9 the [[Second Circuit]] unsealed about 2,000 pages of the [[Giuffre v. Maxwell]] record. He was found dead the next morning. On August 14 the court docketed a letter from the jail's warden, [[Lamine N'Diaye]], reporting that Epstein "passed away Saturday, August 10, 2019, at around 7:37 a.m." Berman's reply of the same date asked: "One open question, among others, is whether the investigations referenced in your letter will include the incident at MCC involving Mr. Epstein on or about July 23, 2019. To my knowledge, it has never been definitively explained what the BOP concluded about that incident."[^1][^4] +On July 23, 2019 Epstein was found in his cell with a cloth around his neck. On July 3 the [[Second Circuit]] had ordered the unsealing of the summary judgment record in [[Giuffre v. Maxwell]], and on August 9 about 2,000 pages of it were released.[^4] He was found dead the next morning. On August 14 the court docketed a letter from the jail's warden, [[Lamine N'Diaye]], reporting that Epstein "passed away Saturday, August 10, 2019, at around 7:37 a.m." Berman's reply of the same date asked: "One open question, among others, is whether the investigations referenced in your letter will include the incident at MCC involving Mr. Epstein on or about July 23, 2019. To my knowledge, it has never been definitively explained what the BOP concluded about that incident."[^1][^5] -The government moved for an order of nolle prosequi on August 19. Instead of granting it on the papers, Berman scheduled a public hearing, reasoning that "where, as here, a defendant has died before any judgment has been entered against him, the public may still have an informational interest in the process by which the prosecutor seeks dismissal of an indictment," and invited victims and their counsel to be heard. On August 12 his chambers had sent a letter that the [[U.S. Marshals Service]] routed to the U.S. Attorney's Office leadership; on August 26 Geoffrey Berman wrote to a colleague, "M, let me know if you have a report for today. We may have 30 victims tomorrow."[^1][^5] +The government moved for an order of nolle prosequi on August 19. Instead of granting it on the papers, Berman scheduled a public hearing, reasoning that "where, as here, a defendant has died before any judgment has been entered against him, the public may still have an informational interest in the process by which the prosecutor seeks dismissal of an indictment," and invited victims and their counsel to be heard. On August 12 his chambers had sent a letter that the [[U.S. Marshals Service]] routed to the U.S. Attorney's Office leadership; on August 26 Geoffrey Berman wrote to a colleague, "M, let me know if you have a report for today. We may have 30 victims tomorrow."[^1][^6] -At the hearing on August 27, 2019, Comey and Moe appeared for the government and Weingarten, Weinberg and Miller for the dead defendant, with an [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] special agent and an NYPD detective. Berman said that "Mr. Epstein's death obviously means that a trial in which he is a defendant cannot take place." The lawyer Gloria Allred read statements from three Jane Does, and other accusers spoke. Berman signed the nolle prosequi on August 29, 2019 (ECF No. 52).[^1][^6] +At the hearing on August 27, 2019, Comey and Moe appeared for the government and Weingarten, Weinberg and Miller for the dead defendant, with an [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] special agent and an NYPD detective. Berman said that "Mr. Epstein's death obviously means that a trial in which he is a defendant cannot take place." The lawyer Gloria Allred read statements from three Jane Does, and other accusers spoke. Berman signed the nolle prosequi on August 29, 2019 (ECF No. 52).[^1][^7] ### The 2025 Unsealing Motions -On July 18, 2025 Deputy Attorney General [[Todd Blanche]] entered an appearance for the government in the closed case and moved to unseal the grand jury transcripts, "subject to appropriate redactions of victim-related and other personal identifying information" (ECF Nos. 60, 61), the same day he filed a matching motion in [[United States v. Maxwell]]. Berman required further submissions, including an analysis of "how the Nolle Prosequi (ECF No. 52) filed in this case impacts proposed disclosure, with legal authorities." The estate's executors, through Daniel H. Weiner and Daniel Ruzumna (ECF No. 71), [[Annie Farmer]]'s counsel Sigrid McCawley (ECF No. 72) and [[Bradley Edwards]] on [[Crime Victims' Rights Act]] grounds (ECF No. 73) filed positions.[^1][^7] +On July 18, 2025 Deputy Attorney General [[Todd Blanche]] entered an appearance for the government in the closed case and moved to unseal the grand jury transcripts, "subject to appropriate redactions of victim-related and other personal identifying information" (ECF Nos. 60, 61), the same day he filed a matching motion in [[United States v. Maxwell]]. Berman required further submissions, including an analysis of "how the Nolle Prosequi (ECF No. 52) filed in this case impacts proposed disclosure, with legal authorities." The estate's executors, through Daniel H. Weiner and Daniel Ruzumna (ECF No. 71), [[Annie Farmer]]'s counsel Sigrid McCawley (ECF No. 72) and [[Bradley Edwards]] on [[Crime Victims' Rights Act]] grounds (ECF No. 73) filed positions.[^1][^8] On August 20, 2025 Berman denied the motion (ECF No. 77). The record consisted of 70 pages of transcripts of June 18 and July 2, 2019 and exhibits comprising a PowerPoint presentation and four pages of call logs. He held that "the Government concedes that no Rule 6(e)(3) 'exceptions' to grand jury secrecy apply in this case" and that it "fails to demonstrate any 'special circumstance[]' which might justify unsealing." On August 26 he ordered briefing on an NBC News reporter's request to unseal two names redacted from Moe's July 2019 supplement.[^1] @@ -86,7 +86,8 @@ After the Epstein Files Transparency Act became law on November 19, 2025, the go [^1]: United States v. Epstein, No. 1:19-cr-00490-RMB (S.D.N.Y.), ECF Nos. 2, 3, 23, 32, 34, 41, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 60, 61, 63, 67, 71, 72, 73, 74, 77 (Aug. 20, 2025), 78, CourtListener docket 15887848. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/15887848/united-states-v-epstein/ [^2]: United States v. Epstein, No. 1:19-cr-00490-RMB (S.D.N.Y.), ECF Nos. 85, 92 (Dec. 10, 2025), 94 to 105 (Jan. 15 to Feb. 5, 2026), CourtListener docket 15887848. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/15887848/united-states-v-epstein/ [^3]: United States v. Epstein, No. 1:19-cr-00490-RMB (S.D.N.Y.), ECF No. 23, Letter from AUSA Alison Moe to Judge Richard M. Berman (Supplement to Detention Memorandum), July 16, 2019, pp. 1 to 3. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.518649/gov.uscourts.nysd.518649.23.0_2.pdf -[^4]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, "Investigation and Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons' Custody, Care, and Supervision of Jeffrey Epstein at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, New York," Report 23-085, June 2023, pp. 14 to 20. https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/23-085.pdf -[^5]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00149487, DataSet 9, email chain, U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, forwarding the August 12, 2019 letter of Judge Richard M. Berman, August 26, 2019. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00149487.pdf -[^6]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02733081, Court Records (CA Florida Holdings, LLC, Publisher of the Palm Beach Post v. Aronberg, No. 50-2019-CA-014681-XXXX-MB (Fla. 15th Cir. Ct. 2019)), appendix item 11, transcript of hearing, United States v. Jeffrey Epstein, 19 Cr. 490 (RMB) (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 27, 2019). https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/Court%20Records/CA%20Florida%20Holdings%2C%20LLC%2C%20Publisher%20of%20the%20Palm%20Beach%20Post%20v.%20Aronberg%2C%20No.%2050-2019-CA-014681-XXXX-MB%20(Fla.%2015th%20Cir.%20Ct.%202019)/EFTA02733081.pdf -[^7]: United States v. Maxwell, No. 1:20-cr-00330 (S.D.N.Y.), ECF Nos. 784, 785 (July 18, 2025), CourtListener docket 17318376. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17318376/united-states-v-maxwell/ +[^4]: *Brown v. Maxwell*, 929 F.3d 41 (2d Cir. July 3, 2019) ("we VACATE the District Court's orders entered on November 2, 2016, May 3, 2017, and August 27, 2018, ORDER the unsealing of the summary judgment record as described further herein, and REMAND"). https://static.case.law/f3d/929/cases/0041-01.json +[^5]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, "Investigation and Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons' Custody, Care, and Supervision of Jeffrey Epstein at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, New York," Report 23-085, June 2023, pp. 14 to 20. https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/23-085.pdf +[^6]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00149487, DataSet 9, email chain, U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, forwarding the August 12, 2019 letter of Judge Richard M. Berman, August 26, 2019. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00149487.pdf +[^7]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02733081, Court Records (CA Florida Holdings, LLC, Publisher of the Palm Beach Post v. Aronberg, No. 50-2019-CA-014681-XXXX-MB (Fla. 15th Cir. Ct. 2019)), appendix item 11, transcript of hearing, United States v. Jeffrey Epstein, 19 Cr. 490 (RMB) (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 27, 2019). https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/Court%20Records/CA%20Florida%20Holdings%2C%20LLC%2C%20Publisher%20of%20the%20Palm%20Beach%20Post%20v.%20Aronberg%2C%20No.%2050-2019-CA-014681-XXXX-MB%20(Fla.%2015th%20Cir.%20Ct.%202019)/EFTA02733081.pdf +[^8]: United States v. Maxwell, No. 1:20-cr-00330 (S.D.N.Y.), ECF Nos. 784, 785 (July 18, 2025), CourtListener docket 17318376. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17318376/united-states-v-maxwell/ diff --git a/40 - EVENTS/United States v. Hasbajrami.md b/40 - EVENTS/United States v. Hasbajrami.md index 5918591e..99c6504a 100644 --- a/40 - EVENTS/United States v. Hasbajrami.md +++ b/40 - EVENTS/United States v. Hasbajrami.md @@ -14,8 +14,8 @@ tags: - Surveillance - CivilLiberties created: 2026-05-22 -updated: 2026-05-22 -summary: "United States v. Hasbajrami is the federal prosecution that produced the first judicial rulings requiring a warrant for Section 702 backdoor searches of Americans' communications, with the Second Circuit's 2019 decision and the district court's 2025 ruling establishing the leading Fourth Amendment framework for FISA database querying." +updated: 2026-10-15 +summary: "United States v. Hasbajrami is the federal prosecution that produced the first judicial rulings requiring a warrant for Section 702 backdoor searches, in the Second Circuit's 2019 decision and the district court's 2025 ruling." --- United States v. Hasbajrami is a federal prosecution in the [[Eastern District of New York]] that has, over more than a decade of constitutional litigation, produced the two most significant judicial rulings on whether "backdoor searches" of [[Section 702]] databases require a Fourth Amendment warrant. The case is the principal litigation vehicle through which the [[American Civil Liberties Union]]'s [[ACLU National Security Project]] has pressed the warrant requirement argument, and the January 2025 district court ruling in the case was the first federal ruling to impose a warrant requirement on warrantless U.S. person queries of [[Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act]] Section 702 data. @@ -30,7 +30,7 @@ While Hasbajrami was serving his sentence, prosecutors disclosed that some evide ### Second Circuit, 2019 -On December 18, 2019, the [[U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit]] issued its decision in United States v. Hasbajrami, 945 F.3d 641. Judge [[Gerard Lynch]], writing for a unanimous panel, ruled that Section 702 collection of the communications of a U.S. person's foreign contacts was permissible as incidental collection. However, the court also held that querying the resulting databases using a U.S. person identifier constitutes a "separate Fourth Amendment event" from the initial collection, and must independently comport with the Fourth Amendment. The Second Circuit remanded to the district court to determine whether a warrant was required for the specific queries at issue.[^1] +On December 18, 2019, the [[U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit]] issued its decision in United States v. Hasbajrami, 945 F.3d 641. The case was argued on August 27, 2018 before Judges Lynch, [[Susan L. Carney]] and [[Christopher F. Droney]]. Judge [[Gerard Lynch]], writing for a unanimous panel, ruled that Section 702 collection of the communications of a U.S. person's foreign contacts was permissible as incidental collection. However, the court also held that querying the resulting databases using a U.S. person identifier constitutes a "separate Fourth Amendment event" from the initial collection, and must independently comport with the Fourth Amendment. The Second Circuit remanded to the district court to determine whether a warrant was required for the specific queries at issue.[^1] The ruling rejected the government's argument that the "foreign intelligence exception" to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement justified warrantless U.S. person queries of Section 702 databases. The court declined to find a categorical exemption, requiring instead a case-specific Fourth Amendment analysis. @@ -48,8 +48,6 @@ The Hasbajrami district court's January 2025 ruling, issued after Bredar's Augus ### Footnotes -[^1]: United States v. Hasbajrami, 945 F.3d 641 (2d Cir. Dec. 18, 2019). Lawfare analysis: "The Second Circuit Rules in United States v. Hasbajrami," https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/second-circuit-rules-united-states-v-hasbajrami; Just Security analysis: https://www.justsecurity.org/60505/happened-court-hasbajrami-oral-argument-section-702-fisa-fourth-amendment/ - +[^1]: United States v. Hasbajrami, 945 F.3d 641 (2d Cir. Dec. 18, 2019). Lawfare analysis: "The Second Circuit Rules in United States v. Hasbajrami," https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/second-circuit-rules-united-states-v-hasbajrami; Just Security analysis: https://www.justsecurity.org/60505/happened-court-hasbajrami-oral-argument-section-702-fisa-fourth-amendment/ ; opinion caption ("Argued; August 27, 2018. Decided: December 18, 2019"; "LYNCH, CARNEY, and DRONEY, Circuit Judges"), https://www.govinfo.gov/metadata/pkg/USCOURTS-ca2-17-02669/mods.xml [^2]: United States v. Hasbajrami, 11-cr-00623-LDH (E.D.N.Y.), Memorandum and Order (declassified Jan. 21, 2025). ACLU press release: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/court-rules-warrantless-section-702-searches-violated-the-fourth-amendment; ACLU court document: https://www.aclu.org/documents/section-702-memorandum-and-order-u-s-v-hasbajrami-11-cr-00623-ldh; EFF analysis: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/victory-federal-court-finally-rules-backdoor-searches-702-data-unconstitutional - [^3]: Baltimore Sun, August 9, 2024. https://www.baltimoresun.com/2024/08/09/feds-evidence-spying-program-neo-nazi-accused-baltimore-power-grid-plot/ diff --git a/50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/Child sexual abuse material.md b/50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/Child sexual abuse material.md index 970926b9..a46f1af2 100644 --- a/50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/Child sexual abuse material.md +++ b/50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/Child sexual abuse material.md @@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ summary: "Statutory and institutional record of child sexual abuse material: its start: 1978-02-06 location: "United States; United Kingdom" created: 2026-10-01 -updated: 2026-10-01 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Federal law defines "child pornography" in [[18 U.S.C. § 2256]] as any visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct in which the production involves the use of a minor, which is a digital, computer or computer-generated image that is, or is indistinguishable from, that of a minor, or which has been created, adapted or modified to appear that an identifiable minor is engaged in the conduct; a "minor" is a person under eighteen.[^1] The term "child sexual abuse material" and its abbreviation CSAM are used by the [[National Center for Missing and Exploited Children]] (NCMEC) and by the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]], whose March 2025 public service announcement wrote it as "Child Sexual Abuse Material ( CSAM )," and by the 2023 text of the [[EARN IT Act]], whose section 6 stated a sense of Congress that "child sexual abuse material" has the same legal meaning as "child pornography" in federal statutes and case law.[^2][^3] The statute in [[Title 18 of the United States Code]] still uses "child pornography."[^1] @@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ In [[United States v. Ackerman]], decided August 5, 2016, the [[United States Co NCMEC created the CyberTipline in 1998.[^9] Its annual tables of reports by electronic service provider give a total of 16,836,694 for 2019, 21,447,786 for 2020, 29,157,083 for 2021, 31,802,525 for 2022 and 35,944,826 for 2023; NCMEC states that the CyberTipline received 36.2 million reports in 2023, 20.5 million in 2024 and 21.3 million in 2025.[^10][^11] NCMEC attributed part of the 2024 decline to a "bundling" feature adopted by [[Meta Platforms]], and stated that the 20.5 million reports for 2024 correspond to 29.2 million separate incidents.[^11] -By provider, the 2023 table lists 17,838,422 reports from Facebook, 11,430,007 from [[Instagram]] and 339,412 from [[Discord]]; the 2024 table lists 8,590,357 from Facebook, 3,320,008 from Instagram, 1,851,086 from [[WhatsApp]], 1,359,806 from [[TikTok]], 1,175,084 from Google, 1,174,698 from Snapchat, 686,176 from [[X Corp.]], 241,354 from Discord and 24,522 from [[Roblox]]; and the 2025 table lists 4,907,710 from Facebook, 3,673,045 from Instagram, 2,355,302 from WhatsApp, 3,623,177 from TikTok, 1,461,378 from Google, 816,611 from X Corp, 752,031 from Snapchat, 489,782 from Discord, 65,381 from Roblox and 1,105,405 from Amazon AI Services.[^10] +By provider, the 2022 table lists 21,165,208 reports from Facebook, 5,007,902 from [[Instagram]] and 1,017,555 from [[WhatsApp]]; the 2023 table lists 17,838,422 from Facebook, 11,430,007 from Instagram, 1,389,618 from WhatsApp and 339,412 from [[Discord]]; the 2024 table lists 8,590,357 from Facebook, 3,320,008 from Instagram, 1,851,086 from WhatsApp, 1,359,806 from [[TikTok]], 1,175,084 from Google, 1,174,698 from Snapchat, 686,176 from [[X Corp.]], 241,354 from Discord and 24,522 from [[Roblox]]; and the 2025 table lists 4,907,710 from Facebook, 3,673,045 from Instagram, 2,355,302 from WhatsApp, 3,623,177 from TikTok, 1,461,378 from Google, 816,611 from X Corp, 752,031 from Snapchat, 489,782 from Discord, 65,381 from Roblox and 1,105,405 from Amazon AI Services.[^10] On April 9, 2026, Senator [[Chuck Grassley]], chair of the [[Senate Judiciary Committee]], released data that NCMEC had given his office on March 16, 2026 concerning eight companies (Meta, Amazon AI Services, TikTok, Snapchat, Discord, X.AI, Grindr and Roblox), which together submitted over 17 million reports in 2025, 81 percent of the CyberTipline's total. The release stated that none of the 1.1 million Amazon AI Services reports was actionable because they lacked location or suspect information, that a representative of that company told NCMEC its "systems were intentionally designed not to collect or retain information about the underlying content or the associated user," and that NCMEC listed Amazon AI Services among "poor reporter" companies. It stated that NCMEC received 1.5 million CyberTipline reports in 2025 with a generative AI nexus, including over 12,000 reports of CSAM that companies indicated were identified in training data.[^12] diff --git a/50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/DRUGS_&_TRAFFICKING/Crack Cocaine.md b/50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/DRUGS_&_TRAFFICKING/Crack Cocaine.md index 4370637e..556f1093 100644 --- a/50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/DRUGS_&_TRAFFICKING/Crack Cocaine.md +++ b/50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/DRUGS_&_TRAFFICKING/Crack Cocaine.md @@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ aliases: - crack - rock cocaine created: 2026-05-17 -updated: 2026-05-17 +updated: 2026-10-15 category: "Drug Trafficking" tags: - Concept @@ -69,7 +69,7 @@ The GAO concluded: "In the early 1980s the gangs began selling crack cocaine. Wi In May 1986, three years after crack exploded in South Central L.A., the national media finally noticed. NBC News, People magazine, and the [[Associated Press]] trumpeted the news within weeks of each other. The deaths of college basketball star Len Bias and pro football player Don Rogers in June 1986 converted crack into a national crisis. Before year's end, Time and Newsweek ran five cover stories apiece; Newsweek called it the biggest story since Vietnam and Watergate. [[Robert Stutman]], head of the DEA's New York office, later admitted he deliberately engineered the panic to pressure Washington.[^6] -The coverage followed "a typical pattern in which exaggerated claims were supported by carefully selected cases and fueled with evocative words such as 'epidemic,'" drug researchers Andrew Golub and Donna Hartman found. The press assumed crack was new because editors had not previously reported on it. In reality, crack had been ravaging South Central since 1983, and Jamaican posses and Dominican gangs had been expanding east coast markets for eighteen months. Robert Byck, [[Yale University]]'s top cocaine expert, had warned Congress about the coming epidemic in 1979 and been ignored.[^6] +The coverage followed "a typical pattern in which exaggerated claims were supported by carefully selected cases and fueled with evocative words such as 'epidemic,'" drug researchers Andrew Golub and Donna Hartman found. The press assumed crack was new because editors had not previously reported on it. In reality, crack had been ravaging South Central since 1983, and Jamaican posses and Dominican gangs had been expanding east coast markets for eighteen months. Robert Byck, [[Yale University]]'s top cocaine expert and a member of the Department of Pharmacology of the Yale University School of Medicine, testified on July 26, 1979 that freebase smoking could produce a drug epidemic of the kind the speed epidemics of the 1960s had produced, and that the danger lay in a new route of administration rather than in new properties of the drug.[^7] [[Gary Webb]] wrote that Byck's warnings were ignored.[^6] Congress passed the 100-to-1 sentencing ratio without hearings, requiring $50,000 worth of powder cocaine to trigger the same five-year mandatory sentence as $750 worth of crack. Byck called it "absolutely senseless," noting the number "50" came from his testimony about crack's relative addictiveness and "got doubled by people who wanted to get tough." Drug expert Steven Belenko observed the anti-crack crusade "occurred in the presence of a real vacuum of knowledge about the drug." The DEA's own August 1986 review found crack was "a secondary rather than primary problem in most areas" - findings that went virtually unreported. Crack hysteria declined only when the [[Iran-Contra Affair]] displaced it from the news.[^6] @@ -81,3 +81,4 @@ Congress passed the 100-to-1 sentencing ratio without hearings, requiring $50,00 [^4]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 8: "A million hits is not enough" [^5]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 10: "Teach a man a craft and he's liable to practice it" [^6]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 15: "This thing is a tidal wave" +[^7]: *Cocaine: A Major Drug Issue of the Seventies*, Hearings before the Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control, House of Representatives, Ninety-sixth Congress, first session, July 24, 26 and October 10, 1979, testimony of Robert Byck, M.D. NCJ 65411. https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/65411NCJRS.pdf diff --git a/50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/INTELLIGENCE/Safehouses.md b/50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/INTELLIGENCE/Safehouses.md index 0df14dae..6c56d57c 100644 --- a/50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/INTELLIGENCE/Safehouses.md +++ b/50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/INTELLIGENCE/Safehouses.md @@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ location: San Francisco, California created: 2026-06-03 updated: 2026-06-03 --- -CIA safehouses were apartments maintained by the [[CIA]] under the [[MKULTRA]] program for the purpose of testing drugs on unwitting subjects. The primary safehouses were operated by [[George White]], a [[Federal Bureau of Narcotics]] agent recruited by [[Sidney Gottlieb]] in 1952. White became MKULTRA subproject #3, renting two adjacent [[Greenwich Village]] apartments in [[New York]] under the cover identity "Morgan Hall." After the Narcotics Bureau transferred White to [[San Francisco]] in 1955, he established a new safehouse on [[Telegraph Hill]] with a view of [[San Francisco Bay]], the [[Golden Gate Bridge]], and [[Alcatraz]], furnished with Toulouse-Lautrec posters, a picture of a French cancan dancer, and photos of manacled women.[^1] +CIA safehouses were apartments maintained by the [[CIA]] under the [[MKULTRA]] program for the purpose of testing drugs on unwitting subjects. The primary safehouses were operated by [[George White]], a [[Federal Bureau of Narcotics]] agent recruited by [[Sidney Gottlieb]] in 1952. White became MKULTRA subproject #3, renting two adjacent [[Greenwich Village]] apartments in [[New York City|New York]] under the cover identity "Morgan Hall." After the Narcotics Bureau transferred White to [[San Francisco]] in 1955, he established a new safehouse on [[Telegraph Hill]] with a view of [[San Francisco Bay]], the [[Golden Gate Bridge]], and [[Alcatraz]], furnished with Toulouse-Lautrec posters, a picture of a French cancan dancer, and photos of manacled women.[^1] ### Surveillance Equipment diff --git a/50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/Lolita Express.md b/50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/Lolita Express.md index 010c005a..61d84df2 100644 --- a/50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/Lolita Express.md +++ b/50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/Lolita Express.md @@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ The logs list [[Bill Clinton]] on 26 flight segments comprising six trips betwee ### Trial Testimony -Visoski, Epstein's longtime chief pilot, was the government's first witness at Maxwell's trial in the [[Southern District of New York]] and testified on November 29 and 30, 2021. He named passengers including Trump ("There was more than once, I believe"), Clinton, [[Prince Andrew]], Senators [[John Glenn]] and [[George Mitchell]], the actors [[Kevin Spacey]] and [[Chris Tucker]] and the violinist [[Itzhak Perlman]]. He testified that he "never saw any sexual activity" on the aircraft; of the accuser known at trial as "Jane," he said, "I didn't know her age. She didn't look young." He testified that he flew Epstein to Columbus, Ohio, to see [[Leslie Wexner]], whom Epstein called his client, that "Ms. Maxwell had nothing to do with the passenger manifests," and that Epstein had paid for his two daughters' education and given him acreage at [[Zorro Ranch]] in [[New Mexico]].[^2][^3] The FAA files show Visoski as manager of JEGE, LLC, Plan D LLC and Hyperion Air LLC and as an officer of Air Ghislaine and Freedom Air International.[^1] +Visoski, Epstein's longtime chief pilot, was the government's first witness at Maxwell's trial in the [[U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York|Southern District of New York]] and testified on November 29 and 30, 2021. He named passengers including Trump ("There was more than once, I believe"), Clinton, [[Prince Andrew]], Senators [[John Glenn]] and [[George Mitchell]], the actors [[Kevin Spacey]] and [[Chris Tucker]] and the violinist [[Itzhak Perlman]]. He testified that he "never saw any sexual activity" on the aircraft; of the accuser known at trial as "Jane," he said, "I didn't know her age. She didn't look young." He testified that he flew Epstein to Columbus, Ohio, to see [[Leslie Wexner]], whom Epstein called his client, that "Ms. Maxwell had nothing to do with the passenger manifests," and that Epstein had paid for his two daughters' education and given him acreage at [[Zorro Ranch]] in [[New Mexico]].[^2][^3] The FAA files show Visoski as manager of JEGE, LLC, Plan D LLC and Hyperion Air LLC and as an officer of Air Ghislaine and Freedom Air International.[^1] ### Footnotes diff --git a/60 - PLACES/CITIES/Beirut.md b/60 - PLACES/CITIES/Beirut.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..b1906b98 --- /dev/null +++ b/60 - PLACES/CITIES/Beirut.md @@ -0,0 +1,240 @@ +--- +category: "City" +tags: + - City + - Lebanon + - CentralIntelligenceAgency + - HostageCrisis + - IranContra + - StargateProject + - RemoteViewing + - BCCI + - KimPhilby + - SabraAndShatila + - Mossad + - KahanCommission + - MarineBarracksBombing +summary: "Capital of Lebanon, site of the Philby disappearance of 1963, the Sabra and Shatila killings of 1982, the 1983 embassy and Marine barracks bombings, and the captivity of CIA station chief William Buckley." +aliases: + - Beyrouth + - Bayrut + - Beirut, Lebanon +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +location: "Beirut, Lebanon" +--- + +Beirut is the capital of [[Lebanon]].[^1] The events on this page run from 1954 to 1991. In that period the city housed the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] station that handled Lebanese affairs, served as the meeting ground of British, American, Israeli and Palestinian services, and was the place where Americans were seized and held and where bombs killed Americans in 1983 and 1984. + +### Philby and the 1963 Departure + +[[Kim Philby]], the British intelligence officer recruited into Soviet intelligence at [[Cambridge University]] in 1934, disappeared from Beirut on January 23, 1963. [[Ben Macintyre]]'s account, based on British files and interviews, dates the departure to that day.[^2] On July 1, 1963 the [[Foreign Office]] told the [[House of Commons]] that it had made inquiries about Philby's whereabouts "from the Governments in both Cairo and Beirut, without success." The statement added that "when he left Beirut he may have gone to one of the countries of the Soviet bloc."[^3] Macintyre places Philby in [[Moscow]] by July of that year.[^2] The departure is also recorded on the [[James Jesus Angleton]] page, which dates Philby's disappearance from Beirut to the same day.[^4] + +### Robert Maheu and the 1954 Papers + +On September 24, 1954 Paul Gerrity of [[Maheu Associates]] called on State Department officials with a file containing a statement attributed to Cotopadis on the negotiation of the Onassis agreement with the Saudi government. Gerrity said that [[Stavros Niarchos]] had bought the statement and photostats, that a second copy was held by the CIA in Washington, and that a third copy was "in possession of Mr. Maheu who was in Beirut." Gerrity said the papers should reach King Saud quickly, before any publicity about bribery in the Onassis agreement. The official [[John Jernegan]] said the CIA should remain the channel.[^5] The Senate committee later described [[Robert Maheu]] as an ex-FBI agent who had entered a career as a private investigator in 1954.[^6] + +### Saddam Hussein and the 1959 Attempt + +On April 10, 2003 the journalist [[Richard Sale]] reported in [[United Press International]] that [[Saddam Hussein]] had been part of a CIA-authorized squad tasked with the 1959 attempt on [[Abd al-Karim Qasim]]. After the attempt failed, he crossed into Syria and was transferred by Egyptian intelligence agents to Beirut. The report states: "While Saddam was in Beirut, the CIA paid for Saddam's apartment and put him through a brief training course, former CIA officials said."[^7] Sale attributed the Beirut account to former officials and to the writer [[Adel Darwish]], who said the CIA handler was an Iraqi dentist working for the CIA and Egyptian intelligence.[^7] + +### MI6 and the Nasser Plots + +[[Stephen Dorril]] reported in 1985 that [[Wilbur Crane Eveland]]'s memoir *Ropes of Sand* describes a Beirut meeting at which a drunk envoy of the [[MI6]] deputy director George Young said that "Teams had been fielded to assassinate Nasser." Dorril placed the remark among the British plans against [[Gamal Abdel Nasser]] in the period of the Suez crisis.[^8] + +### Black September and Operation Spring of Youth + +Operation Spring of Youth, the April 1973 Israeli operation in Beirut that targeted the [[Black September]] leadership, was led on the ground by [[Ehud Barak]], then commanding the Sayeret Matkal reconnaissance unit, who is recorded as having led the ground team disguised as a woman.[^9] Barak's later career took him to the head of Israeli military intelligence in 1983 and to the post of chief of the General Staff.[^9] + +### The 1981 Beirut Cable on Osirak + +The Israeli strike on the Iraqi reactor at [[Osirak bombing|Osirak]] took place on June 7, 1981. The Security Council resolution that condemned it, Resolution 487 of June 19, 1981, was adopted unanimously, and its text refers to the "premeditated Israeli air attack on Iraqi nuclear installations on 7 June 1981."[^10] On June 11 the U.S. embassy in Beirut cabled Washington that [[Yasser Arafat|Yasir Arafat]], speaking at a graduation ceremony for Palestinian commandos in Beirut the previous day, had claimed that the raid "had been carried out with full assistance from American satellites and radar." The cable reports that Arafat also claimed the raid took place "with the official approval of the Pentagon."[^11] The same cable reports that the Beirut newspaper As-Safir, citing "East European and Arab diplomatic sources," charged that U.S. AWACS aircraft had charted the route used by the Israeli aircraft and provided air cover over Saudi Arabia, and that a CIA network in Iraq had helped gather information about the Iraqi missile system.[^11] + +### The 1982 War and the Siege of West Beirut + +The Israeli campaign in Lebanon, which the Israeli government called Peace for the Galilee, began on June 6, 1982. According to the Kahan Commission, Israeli forces took over the suburbs of Beirut on June 12 to 14 and linked up with the Christian forces who controlled East Beirut, and on June 25 the encirclement of West Beirut was completed. About one and a half months of negotiations on the evacuation of the Palestinian fighters and the Syrian forces followed.[^12] After a negotiation mediated by the American diplomat [[Philip Habib]], Arafat and approximately fifteen thousand [[Palestine Liberation Organization|PLO]] personnel left Beirut by sea in August 1982 for Tunis and other Arab capitals.[^13] + +[[Frank Terpil]], the former CIA officer, is recorded as having kept contacts with Palestinian clients from his Lebanon assignments, including reportedly figures connected to the PLO leadership in Beirut before the 1982 Israeli invasion.[^14] Robert Ames of the CIA had developed a relationship with the PLO intelligence chief [[Ali Hassan Salameh]], a Black September commander who was also a CIA asset before his assassination by Mossad in 1979.[^15] + +### The Mossad, the Phalangists and the Kahan Commission + +The Israeli Commission of Inquiry into the Events at the Refugee Camps in Beirut, chaired by Justice Yitzhak Kahan and known as the Kahan Commission, reported on February 8, 1983. Its report states that the link between the Christian forces and Israel was formed shortly after the start of the Lebanese civil war in 1975, that Israel supplied the Christian forces with arms, uniforms, training and instruction, and that "the Mossad was the organization that actually handled the relations between the Phalangists and Israel, and its representatives maintained close contacts with the Phalangist leadership."[^16] The [[Mossad]] and Israeli military intelligence disagreed about the relationship. The report states that the Mossad, "to a not inconsiderable extent under the influence of constant and close contact with the Phalangist elite," felt positively about strengthening it, while military intelligence emphasized the danger in the link because of the organization's unreliability and military weakness. The head of the Mossad testified on December 27, 1982 that "subjective, and not only objective, relations also emerged."[^17] + +On the afternoon of September 14, 1982 a large bomb exploded in a building in the Ashrafiyeh district of Beirut where the Phalangist leader and president-elect [[Bashir Gemayel]] was meeting with Phalangist commanders. The report records that the news reached the Prime Minister, the Defense Minister and the Chief of Staff, and that Israeli forces entered West Beirut the next morning.[^18] Defense Minister [[Ariel Sharon]] went from the forward command post to Phalangist headquarters on September 15. The record of that meeting, which the commission cites as exhibit 79, was attended by Phalangist commanders, Sharon, the director of military intelligence, the head of the General Security Services and representatives of the Mossad, and in it Sharon stated that the Phalangist army would also have to enter West Beirut after the Israeli forces.[^19] + +On Thursday, September 16, 1982 at about 6 p.m. members of the Phalangists entered the Shatila camp from the west and south in two groups. The Divisional Intelligence Officer on the roof of the forward command post tried to follow their movements with binoculars and could not.[^20] That evening a Phalangist officer in the camps was overheard on the Phalangist radio asking a commander what to do with 45 people; the reported reply, which the commission cites from the testimony of Brigadier General Amos Yaron, was to do with them what God orders.[^21] During the night between Thursday and Friday a Phalangist liaison officer asked for more illumination, and a staff officer at the command post answered that the Phalangists had killed 300 people and that he was unwilling to provide it; limited illumination was nevertheless ordered.[^22] The head of the Mossad gave the Cabinet a briefing on the situation after Bashir's assassination at the session of September 16 at 19:30 hours and made no reference to the Phalangists' entry into the camps.[^23] + +The commission's summary states that the massacre was carried out by a Phalangist unit acting on its own, but that its entry was known to Israel. It found that no Israeli was directly responsible, and that Israel bore indirect responsibility because the Israeli forces held the area.[^24] The report found that Prime Minister [[Menachem Begin]] bore responsibility for not exercising greater involvement and awareness in introducing the Phalangists into the camps, that Sharon was responsible for ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge when he approved the entry, that Foreign Minister [[Yitzhak Shamir]] erred by not acting after he was alerted by the Communications Minister, and that Chief of Staff [[Rafael Eitan]] did not give the appropriate orders. Of Sharon it said that he "bears personal responsibility" and that it was fitting for him to draw the appropriate personal conclusions, and if necessary for the Prime Minister to consider removing him from office.[^25] The commission recommended that the Director of Military Intelligence, Major General [[Yehoshua Sagi|Yehoshua Saguy]], not continue in that post, and that Brigadier General Amos Yaron not serve as a field commander for three years.[^25] On the head of the Mossad the report found that he had learned of the Phalangists' role only at the Cabinet session of September 16, and that he was nevertheless obligated to express his opinion on the dangers there.[^26] + +The head of the Mossad received cables from the Mossad representative in Beirut on Friday, September 15, reporting the meetings of the Chief of Staff and the Defense Minister with the Phalangist leaders. The report records that neither cable mentioned a role for the Phalangists in the camps, and that a third cable sent on Thursday at noon stated that a coordination meeting with the commander of the northern front had taken place to prepare the Phalangists for operations to clear the city.[^27] + +[[Ari Ben-Menashe]] wrote that Sharon was aware in advance that the massacres were likely, and that a letter from [[Pierre Gemayel]], leader of the Christian forces, to Sharon indicated an intention to seek revenge for the assassination of his son Bashir and that many Palestinians would die; Ben-Menashe wrote that the letter was delivered to Sharon's office and read by [[Moshe Hebroni]] and Saguy.[^28] [[Seymour Hersh]] writes in chapter 21 of *The Samson Option* that Sharon's plan for the invasion had the Israeli forces act as an anti-Syrian blocking force while the Phalangists cleaned out the city of PLO followers, that the Phalangists failed to move, and that the Israeli Air Force was called on to bomb Beirut.[^29] The [[Sabra and Shatila refugee camps]] are in Beirut, and the killings there are covered on the page for the [[Sabra and Shatila massacres]]. + +### The April 1983 Embassy Bombing + +On April 18, 1983 a car bomb struck the [[United States Embassy in Beirut]]. Seventeen Americans died in the attack, among them [[Robert C. Ames]], the CIA's chief Middle East analyst, and several other CIA officers.[^30] [[Imad Mughniyah]] is recorded as having overseen the bombing, which killed sixty-three people in all, mostly CIA and embassy staff.[^31] A column by [[Jack Anderson]] published on May 10, 1983 reported that the [[National Security Agency]] had intercepted communications, and that the CIA had gathered human intelligence, warning that a pro-Iranian Shiite group planned to bomb the embassy about a month before the attack. The column said the warnings were hedged with the statement that the information could not be verified, and that the CIA had lost seven people in the bombing. It described the material as contained in the National Intelligence Daily of April 20, a document circulated to fewer than one hundred officials, and said Anderson's associate [[Dale Van Atta]] had reviewed it.[^32] + +### The October 1983 Marine Barracks Bombing + +On October 23, 1983 a truck carrying the equivalent of more than twelve thousand pounds of TNT crashed through the perimeter of the compound of the U.S. contingent of the Multinational Force at Beirut International Airport, entered the Battalion Landing Team Headquarters building and detonated; 241 American servicemen were killed.[^33] A Department of Defense commission chaired by Admiral [[Robert L. J. Long]] investigated the attack. [[Frederic C. Hof]], writing on the commission's report, quotes its central message: the attack was "tantamount to an act of war using the medium of terrorism."[^34] The commission concluded that the bombing "was committed by a revolutionary organization within the cognizance of, and with possible support from two neighboring states," and that it met the criteria of a terrorist act as defined in Department of Defense Directive 2000.12. Hof records the commission's description of Lebanon as "a veritable jungle of threats."[^35] Hof writes that the Shiite neighbors of the Marines in Beirut's southern suburbs had regarded the American forces as protectors after the September 1982 Sabra and Shatila killings and by October 1983 viewed them as partisans of their enemies, and that the United States had in September 1983 entered the Lebanese conflict openly with naval gunfire on Suq al-Gharb on behalf of Gemayel's army.[^36] + +On November 17, 1983 the RAND analyst [[Brian Michael Jenkins]] gave the commission a briefing on the attack, later published as a RAND note titled "The Lessons of Beirut." The note describes the attack as one calculated to cause heavy casualties, involving a vehicle loaded with explosives, with "a high probability that the attack was instigated by a government."[^37] + +A Washington Post report of February 1984 by [[Bob Woodward]], Richard Harwood and Christian Williams, in the CIA reading room, stated that three days before the bombing a man named Hassan Hamiz was given a voucher for approximately $50,000 that could be cashed only at Iranian embassies in Beirut or Damascus, according to reliable intelligence reports, and that after the bombing it was cashed at the embassy in Damascus. The report described the payment as believed to be a primary link in the financing of the two suicide truck-bomb attacks of that morning, which also killed 58 soldiers at the French military headquarters. It described Hamiz as a fixer with very close relations with the Iranian ambassador in Damascus, Ali Akbar Mohtashami, whom the CIA had identified as a key figure in Middle East terrorism. Among the thirteen individuals the report said intelligence services had tied to the bombings was Hussein Musawi, who the report said had denied a direct or indirect role while praising the bombing. The cleric [[Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah]], described as the leader of Hezbollah, denied involvement in an interview in Beirut and called the charges a frame-up by Phalangist militiamen and Lebanese Army intelligence.[^38] + +A CIA reading room file of 1984 press clippings carries the headlines "Americans in Beirut threatened" and "New peril for Beirut Yanks," and reports that a "new strategy" had followed the October bombing of the barracks.[^39] + +[[Carter Cornick]], a former [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] special agent, is recorded in a 1990 resume packet as having supervised the investigations of the 1983 bombings of the American embassy and the Marine compound in Beirut, and of the 1984 seizure of American hostages in Lebanon. The packet also credits him with creating the bureau's crisis management protocol for special events.[^40] In August 1988 United Press International reported that Cornick and the former assistant United States attorney [[Eugene Propper]] had formed [[Counter Terrorism Consultants, Inc.]], a security consultancy seeded with about $500,000 from investors the founders declined to name. The UPI report also said Cornick had directed the investigations into the bombing of the U.S. Embassy and the Marine barracks in Beirut.[^41] [[E. Lawrence Barcella, Jr.]] is recorded as having worked on the inquiries into the 1983 bombings of the American embassies in Beirut and Kuwait and of the Marine garrison in Beirut.[^42] + +Imad Mughniyah's page records that six months after the embassy attack he also oversaw the Marine barracks bombing, in which 241 service personnel died, including 220 Marines.[^31] + +### The Inman Panel + +After the second attack on the embassy in Beirut in September 1984, the State Department asked Congress for $366 million and 247 additional positions for security.[^43] The Secretary of State's Advisory Panel on Overseas Security, appointed in July 1984 and headed by the retired vice admiral [[Bobby Ray Inman]], former deputy director of Central Intelligence, made 91 recommendations in June 1985. The Washington Post reported that they included strengthening security at 126 of the department's 262 embassies and consulates and creating a diplomatic security bureau with more than 1,000 officers, at a cost of $3.5 billion over five years for rebuilding and refurbishing.[^44] The panel recommended creation of a Bureau for Diplomatic Security reporting to the Under Secretary for Management.[^45] At a House subcommittee hearing on diplomatic security on November 13, 1985, the chairman criticized the Administration for failing to supply a legislative package from the Inman recommendations more than four months after the report.[^46] + +### William Buckley + +[[William Buckley]], a lieutenant colonel of the [[United States Army]] who served as the CIA's chief of station in Beirut, was kidnapped in the city on March 16, 1984.[^47] The CIA's own memorial page lists him as an officer of the agency and a lieutenant colonel of the Army.[^47] The Washington Post reported that he had been assigned to Lebanon in mid-1983 to help the Lebanese develop methods for thwarting terrorism and to rebuild the American intelligence presence after the embassy bombing, and that the CIA called his kidnapping its "private hostage crisis."[^30] The District Court for the District of Columbia, in [[Surette v. Islamic Republic of Iran]] (2002), found that he was held for 444 days and died in captivity on June 3, 1985.[^48] The court's findings describe him as "the highest-ranking CIA official in Beirut," a position that was an "open secret" within the official Lebanese government and among the violent religious factions vying for power in the city.[^49] + +Iran-Contra records place the first reports of his death in the autumn of 1985. In the spring of 1985 reports reached the CIA that Buckley was being tortured, and according to former Attorney General [[Edwin Meese]], his fate was of special concern to [[William Casey]].[^50] [[Lawrence Walsh]]'s final report records that in early October 1985 "the terrorist group believed to be holding the hostages in Beirut reported that Buckley was dead."[^51] The report of the [[Tower Commission]] quotes a memorandum that [[Oliver North]] sent on December 5, 1985, which states: "We are relatively confident of information that former Beirut Chief of Station, Bill Buckley, is dead."[^52] His remains were found on a Beirut highway in December 1991.[^53] + +Buckley was also the subject of remote viewing tasks. A May 4, 1984 memorandum by Lieutenant Colonel Brian Buzby of the [[U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command]] argued that the [[Center Lane]] program should continue, because it "has established the feasibility and soundness of the remote viewing phenomenon as an intelligence collection tool."[^54] The memorandum's attached summary covers the Buckley case.[^55] The [[Stargate Project]] record places eleven remote viewing interviews on Buckley between March 21 and April 20, 1984, made at the request of the CIA.[^55] + +A November 1984 final report from [[SRI International]], prepared under a Grill Flame contract with the Defense Intelligence Agency and written by [[Harold Puthoff]], [[Edwin C. May]] and Beverly Humphrey, carries a "Search Task, U.S. Envoy to Beirut, Buckley." Its product states that the individual of interest was alive, "in Lebanon but not in Beirut proper," south of the city, and it names a town called Jdaide.[^56] + +### The Hostage Channel and Terry Waite + +By the end of June 1985 six Americans were being held in Beirut by pro-Iranian Shiite groups: Buckley, the Presbyterian minister Benjamin Weir, the Catholic priest Lawrence Martin Jenco, the Associated Press reporter [[Terry Anderson]], the hospital administrator [[David Jacobsen]], and the university dean Thomas P. Sutherland.[^57] Walsh records that on September 14, 1985 a second shipment of 408 TOW missiles went from Israel to Iran, "finally resulting in the release of one American hostage, Reverend Benjamin Weir," and that [[Michael Ledeen]] said the release "confirmed the legitimacy of Ghorbanifar as a channel to powerful people in Iran." Officials had expected more, particularly the release of Buckley, whom the administration had sought first.[^58] A note by the Shultz aide Nicholas Platt of September 15, 1985, recording that "Polecat [is] beginning to Pay off" and that Weir "has been released," is quoted in the report.[^59] Walsh also reproduces a State Department cable of September 17, 1985 addressed to the embassies in Beirut, Damascus and London.[^60] + +The report records that Poindexter's plan for the May 1986 Tehran trip by [[Robert McFarlane]] called for two American hostages to be released to the U.S. ambassador in Beirut when the American party arrived in Tehran, two more after a second aircraft carrying HAWK parts left Tel Aviv, and, after a third aircraft, for the remains of Buckley to be turned over.[^61] On May 27, 1986 the Iranian adviser told the American delegation that the hostage-holders in Beirut had been contacted and had put heavy conditions on the release, including the release of Dawa prisoners held in Kuwait.[^62] The release of Father Jenco on July 26, 1986 was attributed to the Iranians in a July 28 memorandum from Casey to [[John Poindexter]].[^63] Walsh also records the account of Ledeen that the CIA official [[Theodore Shackley|Shackley]] asked in April or May 1985 about ransoming Buckley.[^64] + +Israeli accounts of the same period were published in the Israeli press in December 1986. [[Yoel Marcus]] of [[Haaretz]] wrote, from Israeli sources, that in March 1985 [[Shimon Peres]] told his adviser [[Al Schwimmer]] that the Americans had asked for help freeing their hostages, particularly the CIA station chief in Beirut, William Buckley. Marcus wrote that Schwimmer suggested using [[Yaacov Nimrodi]] and "came up with the idea of 'arms for Buckley.'"[^65] The [[New York Times]] correspondent [[Thomas L. Friedman]] reported that the Israeli account contained factual errors and conflicted with the American version, and Ledeen called it "total nonsense."[^66] + +[[Terry Waite]], the special representative of the Archbishop of Canterbury, visited Beirut in November 1985.[^67] North's December 5, 1985 memorandum cites that November 14 visit, together with a separate contact through Canada, as the basis for the statement that the other five American hostages (Anderson, Jacobsen, Jenco, Kilburn and Sutherland) were then alive.[^52] The same memorandum says that Waite and others reported the hostage holders were under "immense political and military pressure from the Syrians, Druze, Phalange, and Amal."[^52] North wrote again on December 9, 1985: "Terry Waite, our only access to events in Lebanon, readily admits that his influence is marginal at best."[^68] Waite was freed on November 18, 1991.[^69] + +[[Ian Stuart Spiro]] is recorded as having lived in Beirut during the 1970s and 1980s, making contacts with Lebanese religious leaders and the Islamic Jihad, and as having helped negotiate the release of hostages according to the former hostage David Jacobsen.[^70] + +### Sun Streak, Middle East Collection 10 and the Lebanon Hostages + +The Defense Intelligence Agency's [[Sun Streak]] program ran remote viewing tasks from 1987 through 1990, including tasks on the Lebanon hostages. Project 8806 was tasked to locate the building in Beirut where Waite was held. Viewers 003, 011 and 095 worked the target in sessions on February 16, 1988. The report of one session records that viewer 003 determined the direction to Waite's present location from a map of Lebanon.[^71] + +Project 8808 reports are headed "WRV," for written remote viewing, the method associated with [[Angela Dellafiora]].[^72] A DIA operational report of February 24, 1988 on Project 8808 describes a Lebanese Christian who had served with the [[Amal]] militia, and identifies him as involved in the execution of the kidnapping of Marine lieutenant colonel [[William Richard Higgins]], seized on February 17, 1988.[^73] A session report from viewer 011 in the same project records the tasking "to determine the current location" of the same officer.[^74] Higgins's mummified remains were found in a bag left in a school parking lot in southern Beirut about two and a half years later.[^75] The [[Louis Andre]] page draws on the same reports for its account of viewer 079.[^73] + +[[Lester Coleman]], a [[Defense Intelligence Agency|DIA]] officer, is described in [[Cheri Seymour]]'s account as having run a network of agents in Beirut for six years with the secret unit [[Middle East Collection 10]] in [[Cyprus]], with the mission of finding American hostages. Two senior members of the cell, [[Matthew Kevin Gannon]] and Major [[Charles Dennis McKee]], were on [[Pan Am Flight 103]] after returning from a mission in Beirut. After the explosion the Beirut end of the cell was reportedly "blown": the German Lebanese member [[Werner Tony Asmar]] was killed in a bomb explosion at his office in east Beirut on May 26, 1988, and the Lebanese army officer [[Charlie Frezeli]] was shot dead at his home in east Beirut in November 1989.[^76] The account also describes a Beirut-Nicosia-United States pipeline of heroin, cash and documents running through the [[Euramae Trading Company]].[^77] + +### The Army's Intelligence Support Activity + +The [[United States Army Intelligence Support Activity]] page records that a five-person team of the unit returned to Beirut after the October 23, 1983 bombing, that in 1983 a survey team led by Lieutenant Colonel William V. Cowan had warned that the Marine headquarters was a tempting target, and that a 1985 message from North to Poindexter said "We already have one ISA officer in Beirut." It also records that in mid-September 1985 the CIA ordered the unit to cease contact with Lebanese Christian forces.[^78] CBS News reported on November 22, 1985 that a Sea Spray helicopter had flown a representative of the Lebanese Christian leader [[Camille Chamoun]] out of Beirut to Israel in 1981.[^79] + +### FIDCO and the 1983 Reconstruction Letters + +The July 12, 1983 letter from [[George K. Pender]], signing as president of [[First Intercontinental Development Corporation]] (FIDCO), was addressed to [[Amin Gemayel]], president of Lebanon. As reproduced by Cheri Seymour, the letter says that Pender had visited Beirut in February and May 1983 for meetings with the Chamouns, [[Maurice Ghanem]] and [[Mourad Baroudy]], and that FIDCO offered to arrange financing for government-sector projects, including the rebuilding of Damour and Alkhyam. The letter asks to meet Gemayel in Washington on July 21, 1983 and states: "As per copy of attached letter, the White House is actively interested in our efforts."[^80] + +### BCCI, Bank of America and Mohammed Hammoud + +[[Roy P. M. Carlson|Roy Carlson]] spent twenty years at [[Bank of America]], was stationed in [[Tehran]] in the 1960s and in Beirut in the early 1970s, and advised [[Agha Hasan Abedi]] on the formation of [[BCCI]] in 1972. The Senate report on BCCI records this career.[^81] + +[[Mohammed Hammoud]], a Lebanese merchant, is described in the Senate report by the former BCCI general manager in New York, [[Abdur Sakhia]], who first knew him in Beirut, as "a small time money changer."[^82] Hammoud purchased the shares in [[First American Bank|First American]] that had been held by [[Clark Clifford]] and [[Robert Altman]]. The report records that Hammoud "had contact with officials from the State Department concerning the release of U.S. hostages from Beirut."[^83] His U.S. real estate investments were managed by [[Charles W. Hostler]], later U.S. ambassador to [[Bahrain]], who had met Hammoud in the 1960s, when Hostler was a young Air Force officer attached to Lebanon, Jordan and Cyprus and based in Beirut.[^83] + +According to [[Michael Pillsbury]], Hammoud provided him with intelligence on U.S. hostages held in Lebanon, which Pillsbury then passed to U.S. government agencies. The report records this account and Pillsbury's denial of a separate allegation about the identification of Hammoud's body.[^84] The report also records that Hammoud allegedly died in [[Geneva]] in 1990 while visiting his doctor, that he is buried in Beirut, and that insurance companies reportedly refused to pay on his life policy because his body was found to be several inches shorter than the height recorded at his last medical examination.[^85] + +### Other Records Placed in Beirut + +An FBI memorandum of July 23, 1968 on the Sirhan investigation, in the CIA reading room, reports that a source told the bureau's Beirut representative that on June 22, 1968 [[Salim Lawzi]], publisher of the Beirut newspaper Hawadith, told [[Anwar Jamal]], press counselor of the United Arab Republic, that he had met Lebanese figures to organize Sirhan's defense; the memorandum records that the United Arab Republic considered Lawzi a strong pro-Nasserist who "sometimes strays for opportunistic reasons."[^86] + +The Ninth Circuit's opinion in *United States v. Abouammo* describes a $100,000 wire in February 2015 to a Beirut account opened under the father's name of [[Ahmad Abouammo]], the former Twitter employee convicted of acting as an agent of Saudi Arabia, followed by a second $100,000 wire in July 2015 to the same Lebanese account.[^87] + +### Carnegie Middle East Center + +The [[Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]] operates a Middle East center in Beirut. The Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center was founded in 2006. The endowment also runs centers in Asia, Berlin, Brussels and New Delhi.[^88] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Walsh, Lawrence E. *Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters*, 1993, chapter 1, note 73, identifying Buckley as "the CIA's chief of station in the Lebanese capital." https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_01.htm +[^2]: Macintyre, Ben. *A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal*. Crown, 2014, on Philby's departure from Beirut on January 23, 1963 and his later presence in Moscow. +[^3]: House of Commons, statement "Mr. Harold Philby," *Hansard*, HC Deb, July 1, 1963. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1963/jul/01/mr-harold-philby +[^4]: Macintyre, Ben. *A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal*. Crown, 2014, on Philby's departure from Beirut on January 23, 1963. +[^5]: U.S. Department of State, *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954*, vol. IX, *The Near and Middle East*, part 1, doc. 367, memorandum of conversation by Jernegan, September 24, 1954, pp. 856-858. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v09p1/d367 +[^6]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders: An Interim Report*, S. Rept. 94-465 (November 20, 1975), p. 74. +[^7]: Sale, Richard, "Exclusive: Saddam key in early CIA plot," United Press International, April 10, 2003. https://www.upi.com/Exclusive-Saddam-key-in-early-CIA-plot/65571050017416/ +[^8]: Dorril, Stephen. "Trying to kill Nasser." *Lobster*, issue 9 (1985), citing Wilbur Crane Eveland, *Ropes of Sand* (Norton, 1980), on the Beirut meeting with the envoy of MI6 deputy director George Young. +[^9]: Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "Ehud Barak," official biography. https://www.gov.il/en/departments/people/ehud_barak +[^10]: U.S. Mission to the United Nations cable 2074, June 19, 1981, transmitting the text of Security Council Resolution 487 (adopted unanimously, 15-0, June 19, 1981). FOIA case F-1982-00753, document C09000076. https://archive.org/details/F-1982-00753 +[^11]: U.S. Embassy Beirut, cable 3859, June 11, 1981, "Israeli Raid on Iraq: Claims of U.S. Involvement," FOIA case F-1982-00753, document C09000042, pp. 1 to 4. https://archive.org/details/F-1982-00753 +[^12]: Commission of Inquiry into the Events at the Refugee Camps in Beirut, *Report*, February 8, 1983, chapter on the background of the events (war of June 1982 and the encirclement of West Beirut), Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, *Israel's Foreign Relations: Selected Documents*, vol. 8, 1982-1984, doc. 104. https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/MFADocuments/Yearbook6/Pages/104%20Report%20of%20the%20Commission%20of%20Inquiry%20into%20the%20e.aspx +[^13]: Rubin, Barry, and Judith Colp Rubin, *Yasser Arafat: A Political Biography* (Oxford University Press, 2003), and Shlaim, Avi, *The Iron Wall* (W.W. Norton, 2000), on the evacuation of Arafat and about 15,000 PLO personnel from Beirut by sea in August 1982 after Habib's mediation. +[^14]: Corn, David. *Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA's Crusades*. Simon & Schuster, 1994, pp. 298-330. +[^15]: Rubin, Barry. *Revolution Until Victory? The Politics and History of the PLO* (Harvard University Press, 1994); Quandt, William B., *Peace Process*. +[^16]: Kahan Commission, *Report*, February 8, 1983, background chapter on the relations between the Christian forces and Israel. https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/MFADocuments/Yearbook6/Pages/104%20Report%20of%20the%20Commission%20of%20Inquiry%20into%20the%20e.aspx +[^17]: Kahan Commission, *Report*, background chapter, on the differences between the Mossad and Military Intelligence and the testimony of the head of the Mossad of December 27, 1982, transcript p. 1437. +[^18]: Kahan Commission, *Report*, chapter "The Assassination of Bashir Gemayel and the I.D.F.'s entry into West Beirut." +[^19]: Kahan Commission, *Report*, chapter on the events of September 15, 1982, record of the meeting at Phalangist headquarters (exhibit 79). +[^20]: Kahan Commission, *Report*, chapter on the entry of the Phalangists into the camps on Thursday, September 16, 1982. +[^21]: Kahan Commission, *Report*, section on the conversation overheard on the Phalangist transmitter, citing the testimony of Lieutenant Elul and of Brigadier General Yaron (pp. 696 and 730). +[^22]: Kahan Commission, *Report*, section on the night of Thursday to Friday, citing the testimony of Lieutenant Elul, pp. 1212-1213. +[^23]: Kahan Commission, *Report*, section on the Cabinet session of September 16, 1982 at 19:30 hours. +[^24]: Kahan Commission, *Report*, summary of the findings. https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/MFADocuments/Yearbook6/Pages/104%20Report%20of%20the%20Commission%20of%20Inquiry%20into%20the%20e.aspx +[^25]: Kahan Commission, *Report*, section "Recommendations," on the Minister of Defense, the Chief of Staff, the Director of Military Intelligence and the Division Commander. +[^26]: Kahan Commission, *Report*, section on the head of the Mossad (Institute for Intelligence and Special Projects). +[^27]: Kahan Commission, *Report*, section on the head of the Mossad, citing cables from the Mossad representative in Beirut of September 15, 1982 (exhibits 161 and 162). +[^28]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network*. Sheridan Square Press, 1992 (TrineDay reprint, 2015). The claim about Sharon is Ben-Menashe's. +[^29]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991, chapter 21. +[^30]: Woodward, Bob, and Charles R. Babcock, "Captive Galvanized Hostage Search: Buckley's Plight Became Agency Crusade," *The Washington Post*, CIA reading room copy CIA-RDP96-00788R001900530002-3. +[^31]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis*. Little, Brown and Company, 2017. +[^32]: Anderson, Jack, "U.S. Was Warned of Bombing at Beirut Embassy," *The Washington Post*, May 10, 1983, CIA reading room copy CIA-RDP90-00965R000100140083-8. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000100140083-8 +[^33]: Hof, "The Beirut Bombing of October 1983," *Parameters* 15, no. 2, section "Circumstances of the Bombing," DTIC ADA520359. https://archive.org/details/DTIC_ADA520359 +[^34]: Hof, "The Beirut Bombing of October 1983," opening epigraph quoting the report of the Department of Defense Commission on Beirut International Airport Terrorist Act, December 20, 1983, DTIC ADA520359. +[^35]: Hof, "The Beirut Bombing of October 1983," *Parameters* 15, no. 2, notes 3, 6 and 9, quoting the Long Commission on "a veritable jungle of threats," on the perpetrators, and on DOD Directive 2000.12. +[^36]: Hof, "The Beirut Bombing of October 1983," on the altered perception of the American presence between September 1982 and October 1983 and the naval gunfire on Suq al-Gharb. +[^37]: Jenkins, Brian Michael. *The Lessons of Beirut: Testimony Before the Long Commission*. RAND Note N-2114-RC, February 1984, preface and text. https://archive.org/details/DTIC_ADA153072 +[^38]: Woodward, Bob, Richard Harwood and Christian Williams, "Beirut Bombing: Mysterious Death Warriors," first report in the series on terrorism, *The Washington Post*, February 1984, CIA reading room copy CIA-RDP90-00965R000807600023-9. +[^39]: CIA reading room file CIA-RDP96-00788R000100330001-5, 1984 press clippings headed "Americans in Beirut threatened" and "New peril for Beirut Yanks." +[^40]: Counter Terrorism Consultants, Inc., resume packet for Carter Cornick, 1990. +[^41]: United Press International, report of August 2, 1988, on the formation of Counter Terrorism Consultants, Inc. +[^42]: Hevesi, Dennis. "E. Lawrence Barcella, Prosecutor of Terrorism Cases, Dies at 65." *The New York Times*, November 17, 2010 (corrected November 23, 2010). https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/us/18barcella.html +[^43]: Report of the Secretary of State's Advisory Panel on Overseas Security (the Inman Report), part 4, "FY-1985 Security Supplemental." https://irp.fas.org/threat/inman/part04.htm +[^44]: Lee, Gary, "Shultz Endorses Advice To Rebuild Embassies," *The Washington Post*, June 26, 1985, CIA reading room copy CIA-RDP90-00965R000403740009-8. +[^45]: Report of the Secretary of State's Advisory Panel on Overseas Security, part 1, introduction. https://irp.fas.org/threat/inman/part01.htm +[^46]: Central Intelligence Agency, memorandum on the hearing "Diplomatic Security" before the Subcommittee on International Operations of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, November 13, 1985, CIA-RDP87M01152R001101400030-7. +[^47]: Central Intelligence Agency, "William F. Buckley," Honoring Our Heroes. https://cia.gov/legacy/honoring-heroes/heroes/william-f-buckley +[^48]: *Surette v. Islamic Republic of Iran*, 231 F. Supp. 2d 260 (D.D.C. 2002) (Friedman, J.), Civil Action No. 01-0570 (PLF), findings of fact I.A and I.B and conclusions of law. Reporter text at https://thecjf.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/final-opinion-Surette.pdf +[^49]: *Surette*, 231 F. Supp. 2d 260, findings of fact I.A, quoting the court's description of Buckley's position in Beirut. +[^50]: Walsh, *Final Report*, chapter 15, "William J. Casey," citing Meese, Grand Jury, November 20, 1987, p. 83. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_15.htm +[^51]: Walsh, *Final Report*, chapter 1, text and note 101 (citing Ledeen grand jury testimony of September 18, 1987, p. 105). https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_01.htm +[^52]: *Report of the President's Special Review Board* (Tower Commission), February 26, 1987, pp. 177-178, text of the North memorandum of December 5, 1985. https://archive.org/details/towercommission00unit +[^53]: Abu-Nasr, Donna. "Hostage Crisis Is Finally Over for America: William Buckley's Remains Found on Beirut Highway," Associated Press, *The Seattle Times*, December 27, 1991. +[^54]: Buzby, Brian, Lieutenant Colonel, "Purpose: To Provide an Overview of Center Lane," May 4, 1984, CIA-RDP96-00788R001600510001-9, recommended position and points supporting it. +[^55]: Buzby, "Purpose: To Provide an Overview of Center Lane," May 4, 1984, with attached summary of information on the Buckley case and the CIA memorandum "Comments on Recent CENTER LANE Experience," May 1, 1984, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220003-8. +[^56]: SRI International (Harold E. Puthoff, Edwin C. May and Beverly S. Humphrey), *Final Report, Covering the Period October 1983 to October 1984*, SRI/GF-0267, November 1984, Operational RV Tasks, item 2, "Search Task, U.S. Envoy to Beirut, Buckley (JS #44)," CIA-RDP96-00788R001800220001-9. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00788r001800220001-9 +[^57]: Walsh, *Final Report*, chapter 1, text and note 73, listing the American hostages held in Beirut by the end of June 1985. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_01.htm +[^58]: Walsh, *Final Report*, chapter 1, text and notes 101 and 102, on the September 14, 1985 shipment of 408 TOW missiles and the release of Weir. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_01.htm +[^59]: Walsh, *Final Report*, chapter 24, text and note 64, Platt note of September 15, 1985 (ALW 0036343). https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_24.htm +[^60]: Walsh, *Final Report*, chapter 24, text and notes, citing the Department of State cable to Beirut, Damascus and London of September 17, 1985. https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_24.htm +[^61]: Walsh, *Final Report*, chapter 1, text and note 143, citing McFarlane, FBI 302, March 13, 1987, pp. 10-11. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_01.htm +[^62]: Walsh, *Final Report*, chapter 1, text and note 151, citing Teicher Note, May 26, 1986. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_01.htm +[^63]: Walsh, *Final Report*, chapter 15, text and note 71, citing Casey to Poindexter, July 28, 1986, ER 31324-26. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_15.htm +[^64]: Walsh, *Final Report*, chapter 1, text and notes 73, 76 to 78, 82, 101 to 102, on Ledeen's account of Shackley's April or May 1985 inquiry. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_01.htm +[^65]: Marcus, Yoel, *Haaretz*, December 1986, Israeli reconstruction of the arms channel, as summarized in Friedman, Thomas L., "Israelis' Account on Arms: How U.S. Set Up the Deals," *The New York Times*, December 11, 1986, CIA reading room document CIA-RDP90-00965R000403730010-7. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000403730010-7 +[^66]: Friedman, "Israelis' Account on Arms," *The New York Times*, December 11, 1986, CIA-RDP90-00965R000403730010-7, on the factual errors Friedman found and Ledeen's reply. +[^67]: *Report of the President's Special Review Board* (Tower Commission), February 26, 1987, pp. 158 and 380, on Terry Waite's role in the hostage negotiations. https://archive.org/details/towercommission00unit +[^68]: *Report of the President's Special Review Board* (Tower Commission), pp. 193-194, North memorandum of December 9, 1985. +[^69]: BBC News, "Terry Waite freed," November 18, 1991, archive.org item bbc-news-report-terry-waite-freed-18th-november-1991. +[^70]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal*. TrineDay, 2010. +[^71]: DIA, Sun Streak Project 8806 session reports of February 16, 1988 (viewers 003, 011 and 095), CIA-RDP96-00789R003400090001-5. https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP96-00789R003400090001-5 +[^72]: DIA, "8808 WRV Session 1 - 18 Feb 88, Source 079, Summary, Notes & Drawings," CIA-RDP96-00789R003400750002-1, catalogued in the CIA FOIA reading room STARGATE collection on archive.org. +[^73]: DIA, "SUN STREAK Operational Report - 8808," February 24, 1988, CIA-RDP96-00789R003400980001-7. https://archive.org/download/CIA-RDP96-00789R003400980001-7/CIA-RDP96-00789R003400980001-7_djvu.txt +[^74]: DIA, "PROJECT SUN STREAK," project 8808, session of February 28, 1988, viewer 011, CIA-RDP96-00789R003401110001-1. https://archive.org/download/CIA-RDP96-00789R003401110001-1/CIA-RDP96-00789R003401110001-1_djvu.txt +[^75]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena*. Little, Brown and Company, 2017. +[^76]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle*. TrineDay, 2010. +[^77]: Seymour, *The Last Circle*. +[^78]: Emerson, Steven. *Secret Warriors*, pp. 185 to 193 and 231 to 233; CBS Evening News, "CIA Activities," July 18, 1985, CIA reading room copy CIA-RDP90-00965R000504260013-4. +[^79]: Martin, David, "Secret Army Units," CBS Evening News, November 22, 1985, CIA reading room copy CIA-RDP90-00965R000504260010-7. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000504260010-7 +[^80]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle*. TrineDay, 2010, chapter 7 (letters of July 12, 1983 as reproduced there). +[^81]: Kerry, John, and Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate*. December 1992, chapter 11. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/11intel.htm +[^82]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair*, chapter 15, "Mohammed Hammoud: BCCI's Flexible Front-Man," testimony of Abdur Sakhia. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/15hammoud.htm +[^83]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair*, chapter 15, on Hammoud's State Department contacts, the First American shares, and Hostler's management of his U.S. investments. +[^84]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair*, chapter 15, on Michael Pillsbury's account and his denial. +[^85]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair*, chapter 15, on Hammoud's death, burial and the insurance claim. +[^86]: Deputy Director to FBI, "Sirhan Investigation," July 23, 1968, CIA reading room document 07169746. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-07169746 +[^87]: *United States v. Abouammo*, 122 F.4th 1072, No. 22-10348 (9th Cir. Dec. 4, 2024). https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2024/12/04/22-10348.pdf +[^88]: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "Our Story." https://carnegieendowment.org/our-story diff --git a/60 - PLACES/CITIES/Jerusalem.md b/60 - PLACES/CITIES/Jerusalem.md index cd0f02db..08028451 100644 --- a/60 - PLACES/CITIES/Jerusalem.md +++ b/60 - PLACES/CITIES/Jerusalem.md @@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ Jerusalem is an ancient city in the [[Middle East]], situated on a plateau in th ### Political and Intelligence Significance -Jerusalem is the seat of Israel's government, including the [[Knesset]] (parliament), the [[Supreme Court]], and the prime minister's residence at Beit Aghion. Israel's intelligence community is centered on [[Tel Aviv]] (Mossad headquarters at Glilot), but political oversight, including [[Mossad]] director briefings to the prime minister, occurs in Jerusalem. Key decisions documented in this vault - including Prime Minister [[Menachem Begin]]'s authorization of the [[Sabra and Shatila massacres|Sabra and Shatila]] operation, Begin's negotiations at [[Camp David summit|Camp David]], and the political direction of Israeli intelligence operations during the Iran-Contra period - were made by officials based in Jerusalem.[^1] +Jerusalem is the seat of Israel's government, including the [[Knesset]] (parliament), the [[Supreme Court of Israel|Supreme Court]], and the prime minister's residence at Beit Aghion. Israel's intelligence community is centered on [[Tel Aviv]] (Mossad headquarters at Glilot), but political oversight, including [[Mossad]] director briefings to the prime minister, occurs in Jerusalem. Key decisions documented in this vault - including Prime Minister [[Menachem Begin]]'s authorization of the [[Sabra and Shatila massacres|Sabra and Shatila]] operation, Begin's negotiations at [[Camp David summit|Camp David]], and the political direction of Israeli intelligence operations during the Iran-Contra period - were made by officials based in Jerusalem.[^1] ### Camp David and Peace Negotiations diff --git a/60 - PLACES/CITIES/Philadelphia.md b/60 - PLACES/CITIES/Philadelphia.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..dba380fb --- /dev/null +++ b/60 - PLACES/CITIES/Philadelphia.md @@ -0,0 +1,201 @@ +--- +aliases: + - Philly + - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania +category: "City" +tags: + - Geography + - Pennsylvania + - OrganizedCrime + - ScarfoFamily + - BustOutBars + - PoliceCorruption + - MOVEBombing + - HolmesburgPrison + - PhiladelphiaExperiment + - MethamphetamineTrade + - BlackMass + - TissueTrafficking + - NuclearProcurement +summary: "Pennsylvania city whose vault record runs through the Locust Street bust-out bars, the Scarfo family and its methamphetamine trade, the 1985 MOVE bombing, the Holmesburg Army tests and the Horsch case." +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +--- + +Philadelphia is the seat of Philadelphia County in southeastern [[Pennsylvania]], where the city and the county have operated under one government since the Act of Consolidation of 1854, the law that also created the [[Philadelphia Police Department]].[^1] + +### Police payoffs and the Locust Street bust-out bars + +The [[Pennsylvania Crime Commission]] issued its report on police corruption in Philadelphia in March 1974. It found that police corruption in the city was "ongoing, widespread, systematic, and occurring at all levels of the Police Department," in every police district and at ranks from patrolman to inspector, and it identified more than 400 individual officers by first name, last initial and badge or payroll number as having received improper payments in cash, merchandise, sexual services or meals. Among the liquor-licence findings, more than 20 officers had received illegal cash payments from bars and about 50 from after-hours clubs, and the commission found "widespread shakedowns of licensed liquor operators on the 'Locust Street Strip'" by members of the department, with evidence that payments to the police were directly responsible for several illegal and open "bust-out" operations.[^2] One bust-out bar owner cooperated with the commission for more than a year and recorded conversations about payoffs; the owner and his employees paid an aggregate of $800 a month to policemen in every unit that covered the area.[^2] The commission separately reported that in narcotics enforcement the corruption it found was more individual than squad-wide, with about eight officers identified and an estimated fifteen more unidentified.[^3] + +The report traces the Strip back through earlier inquiries. A [[United States Senate]] subcommittee examined the failure of local unions to stop employers from forcing employees to solicit drinks in 1962, and heard from the commissioner of police and the inspector of the Central Division in which the Strip lies; under oath the inspector said the record would show that the department had done a job in this area "that cannot be equaled by any police department in the country." The commission's note to that passage records that in 1962 the inspector in charge of the Central Division, where most of the bust-out operations were located, was [[Frank Rizzo|Frank L. Rizzo]].[^4] Rizzo was police commissioner from 1967 to 1971 and mayor from 1972 to 1980, and the commission's history of the department cites accusations concerning Mayor Rizzo's use of a special squad from the Internal Affairs Bureau, drawn from the presentment of a special grand jury of June Term 1972.[^1][^4] The same history records [[Joseph F. O'Neill]] as acting commissioner from February 1971 and commissioner from 1972.[^4] + +The Why Not Lounge, in a building that also housed the Versailles restaurant, was run by [[Irvin Goltzer]]. Goltzer paid an inspector each month through a "bagman" because he had not had enough contact with the officers to be trusted; his manager, [[Salvatore La Russa]], negotiated the payoffs, and when Goltzer did not want to pay, La Russa advised him that otherwise "they will bust the joint."[^5] For a month, at the request of its owner, Goltzer and La Russa also ran the [[Brass Monkey]] at 1227 Walnut Street as a bust-out, while the protection payments made for the Why Not Lounge kept police away.[^6] A separate chapter of the report describes a police lieutenant working as a bartender at a Gaslight Lounge, where obscene shows were performed when he was on duty.[^7] + +La Russa, known as "Sam the Barber," immigrated from Sicily in 1951, worked as a barber in South Philadelphia, and later ran a series of bars on Locust Street that he called "bust-out" joints, then restaurants and clubs on South Street and Delaware Avenue.[^8] The 1990 report of the Pennsylvania Crime Commission lists his prior arrests for liquor law violations at bust-out bars around 13th and Locust Streets and his ownership of La Cucina Ristorante at 121 South Street, which it describes as a hangout for members of Scarfo's family. The former [[La Cosa Nostra|LCN]] members and government witnesses [[Thomas DelGiorno]] and [[Nicholas Caramandi]] testified that La Russa's house in Whitemarsh Township was used by [[Nicodemo Scarfo]] for an LCN induction ceremony.[^9] La Russa died of a heart attack at Chestnut Hill Hospital on Sunday, August 18, 1996, aged 58. He had said under oath that he first met Scarfo as a teenager around 11th and Carpenter Streets in South Philadelphia, and Scarfo hosted a Christmas party at La Cucina in 1985 that drew intense law-enforcement surveillance. Questioned before a federal grand jury in 1987 about the induction at his house, La Russa said he had invited Scarfo several times, that he was called away to work that day and did not share in the catered meal for about 40 people brought in from his restaurant, that he was a frequent guest at Scarfo's waterfront home in Fort Lauderdale and had supervised some construction work there, and that he was in the dark about Scarfo's mob activities: "I never ask him any questions." Caramandi testified later that he and two other mob figures were formally initiated that afternoon after La Russa left the house.[^8] + +### The Bruno and Scarfo family + +The Philadelphia branch of La Cosa Nostra was led by [[Angelo Bruno]]. The 1990 Pennsylvania Crime Commission report dates his tenure as boss from 1959 until his murder on March 21, 1980.[^9] The Third Circuit gave the start of his tenure as "approximately 1960," and wrote that [[Phillip Testa]] succeeded him, that Scarfo served as consigliere under Testa and became boss after Testa was "blown up in his house in early 1981."[^10] Scarfo and [[Salvatore Merlino]] took over the one-third interest in a business held by [[Salvatore Testa]], a partner, after Salvatore Testa was murdered on September 14, 1984.[^10] + +In a RICO trial that ran ten weeks and concluded on November 19, 1988, in the [[United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania]], members of the Scarfo crime family were convicted of conspiring to participate in, and participating in, an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity. [[Joseph Pungitore]] was also convicted of participating in a conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine; Scarfo, Merlino and Joseph Ciancaglini were convicted of possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute it; and Scarfo, Merlino and Pungitore were convicted of illegal sports bookmaking. The court of appeals called the case "the latest saga in the government's dismantling of the Philadelphia branch of La Cosa Nostra."[^11] DelGiorno testified that in May 1983 Ciancaglini, then a captain, authorized him to arrange a methamphetamine deal between two dealers, with Merlino's approval, under which members of the enterprise would receive $3,000 for every pound sold, and that he received $150,000 from transactions involving fifty pounds.[^11] + +The Pennsylvania Crime Commission's 1990 report states that the Scarfo family was particularly active in methamphetamine production and distribution during the 1980s, that Philadelphia was known as the "meth" capital of the world in the early 1980s, that the [[Drug Enforcement Administration]] had labeled the city the "methamphetamine capital of the world," that the mob associate [[Raymond Martorano]], who became a made member in April 1981, entered the Philadelphia methamphetamine market in the late 1970s, and that the family collected extortion payments from three major methamphetamine networks in the city.[^9] The same report records that a Scarfo family member became involved in 1981 with members of the [[Pagans Motorcycle Club|Pagan outlaw motorcycle gang]] in manufacturing and distributing methamphetamine.[^9] The 1990 report describes the chemical P2P as the precursor imported from Western Europe and names a Dresher, Pennsylvania, supplier who sold it to Martorano.[^9] + +### Film, the Horsch circle and the Black Mass + +Raymond Charles Hoersch, who later used the name [[R.C. Horsch]], opened [[Underground Cinema 16]], a 16-millimeter theater at 2021 Sansom Street, in October 1969. The [[Philadelphia Department of Licenses and Inspections]], whose deputy commissioner was [[Leo Goldstein]], closed the theater that month in a license dispute.[^12] The [[Bandbox Theater]] then ran the Vietnam documentary [[In the Year of the Pig]], which Cinema 16 had under contract.[^13] [[Art Carduner]] bought the Bandbox in Germantown in 1966 and ran it until 1975; he exhibited foreign and art films and died at 90.[^14] + +Horsch's directorial debut was [[The Erotic Memoirs of a Male Chauvinist Pig]], shot in Philadelphia in February 1973 with [[John Butterworth]], a photographer and cameraman whom Horsch described as a news cameraman for [[KYW-TV]]. The film was financed by La Russa, a nightclub owner and friend of Scarfo, and it depicts rape, bondage, underage sex and the title character's violent relationship with a drug-addicted woman.[^15] Its performers included [[Georgina Spelvin]], [[Tina Russell]] and [[Darby Lloyd Rains]].[^16] Horsch told the podcaster Ashley West that he sold the film to [[Sam Lake]], a New York distributor, for 50,000 dollars, and that the sale was arranged through La Russa and Philadelphia organized crime.[^17] The trade chart in *Boxoffice* listed the film's distributor as "Mature," with a review date of October 15, 1973, and *Take One* reported in the spring of 1973 that "Bob Sumner's Mature Films in New York followed up Memoirs of a Male Chauvinist Pig (starring Ms. Spelvin) with High Rise."[^18][^19] In the same article John Morthland wrote that pornography "operates on the fringes of legality, and that area has always been ripe for organized crime, which started calling on various exhibitors around the country to offer 'protection' within a couple of weeks of the Court ruling," and named "the Mitchells, Mature Films, etc." among the few in the business in a highly visible way.[^19] On February 14, 1975, Judge Kevin Thomas Duffy of the [[United States District Court for the Southern District of New York]] issued a preliminary injunction in *Walt Disney Productions v. Mature Pictures Corp.*, in a suit over the use of the "Mickey Mouse March" in a film titled *The Life and Times of the Happy Hooker* or *The Life and Times of Xaviera*; the opinion does not say whether the defendant is the distributor of the 1973 film.[^20] + +*Black Mass*, Horsch's satanic-mass film, drew a public protest in February 1975. On Thursday, February 27, 1975, Christian and Jewish leaders of Greater Philadelphia combined to discourage the showing of the film, which was reported to be scheduled to open that weekend at a center-city theater and one in Germantown. The center-city house said the report "was a mistake," and the Germantown theater said it was not yet known whether the film would be shown. The producer-director, Ray Hoersch, was quoted as describing it as "the Satanic Mass ... the exact inverse of the Catholic ceremony." The statement was signed by 16 leaders, among them [[John Krol|John Cardinal Krol]], archbishop of Philadelphia, and Rabbis Charles Lacks and Harold Goldfarb of the Greater Philadelphia Board of Rabbis, together with Friends, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Greek Orthodox, Baptist, Methodist and Byzantine-Ukrainian Rite leaders. It called on those in the film industry in the Philadelphia area "to resist and reject every attempt to market or portray this film."[^21] The [[Arcadia Theatre (Philadelphia)]] on Chestnut Street cancelled a midnight showing, and the film was then booked at the Bandbox.[^22] The condemnation was reported in the diocesan press in Erie in March 1975.[^23] Horsch later said he made *Black Mass* with the proceeds of *Erotic Memoirs* and other films.[^17] + +### The Horsch family and the Olney house + +Raymond Horsch's criminal record begins with a counterfeiting arrest in the late 1970s and a methamphetamine laboratory a few years later. He skipped bail after the second arrest and went to coastal New Zealand after taking the identity of a real chemist. He worked at a chemical plant in Timaru under that alias, with a forged Stanford diploma, and was caught in New Zealand with five fake passports. He was later apprehended in Florida and returned to Philadelphia, where he was sentenced to federal prison.[^15] The Timaru employment is linked to [[Chemical Technology Limited]], a Clandeboye company working on milk byproducts that the Christchurch lawyer [[John Rutherford (New Zealand lawyer)|John Rutherford]] set up with a man he knew as Dr. Stanley Stokowski.[^24] He had married [[Myroslawa Ferkuniak]], the mother of Eugene Horsch, in Reno on September 12, 1980, while using that identity.[^25] The sentencing judge, [[Joseph L. McGlynn Jr.]], said in April 1985 that "anybody who has a speed lab ought to know he's going to jail," and a second judge, [[Donald W. Van Artsdalen]], added a year and a day for bail-jumping.[^26] The Drug Enforcement Administration, which the 1990 Crime Commission report credits with labelling Philadelphia the methamphetamine capital of the world, had arrested Horsch in February 1977.[^26][^9] + +His father, [[Raymond C. Hoersch]], was an engineer and former glider pilot in the [[United States Army Air Forces]]. His grandfather, [[Albert Hoersch]], lived on West Chew Street in the [[Olney, Philadelphia|Olney]] section of the city and died on July 1, 1972, aged 81; his wife [[Helen E. Hoersch]] had died on August 27, 1968, and their daughter [[Helen M. Hoersch]] died on April 5, 2004.[^27][^28] His mother, [[Clara Hoersch]], was a daughter of [[Cecilia T. Hagerty]] of Stroudsburg, where he was born in 1943.[^29] [[Krista Killen]] is credited as a performer in multiple films he directed.[^30] + +His son, [[Eugene Horsch]], was stopped in June 2026 near Independence Mall with a woman, carrying drugs, illegal guns and fake identification, one card bearing the name of a woman who had been missing for three years. That led local and federal investigators to the family's twin house in Olney, where they recovered vats of chemicals, notes describing serial killings and bank cards. Police had not charged him with any crime relating to the missing women.[^15] The [[Philadelphia District Attorney's Office]] had prosecuted him in 2025 on drug counts after a fire at the house, and after his June 2026 arrest it charged him with illegal gun and drug possession; on August 6, 2026, it withdrew those charges because the [[United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania|United States Attorney's Office]] would handle the case.[^31] On September 16, 2026, Police Commissioner [[Kevin Bethel]], with Deputy Commissioner [[Frank Vanore]] and the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]], said that 58 people had been identified in the material recovered.[^32] The case is covered on the [[Olney House Investigation]] page. + +### Garzone Funeral Home and the tissue trade + +The [[Garzone Funeral Home]] in the [[Kensington, Philadelphia|Kensington]] section of the city was operated by [[Louis Garzone]] and [[Gerald Garzone]], who with [[James McCafferty]] owned the Liberty Crematorium. In early 2004 the brothers and McCafferty agreed to supply cadavers to [[Michael Mastromarino]], owner of [[Biomedical Tissue Services]], for $1,000 each, without the knowledge or consent of the families; the arrangement continued until September 2005, when Mastromarino learned that the [[Food and Drug Administration]] was investigating him and advised the Garzones to destroy their records, which they did by incinerating them in a crematory just days before FDA investigators arrived. At least 244 cadavers were provided, for which the Garzones and McCafferty received more than $245,000.[^33][^34] The Superior Court of Pennsylvania affirmed Louis Garzone's sentence in 2010 except for the award of costs for prosecutors' and detectives' salaries, and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held on January 19, 2012, that the costs-of-prosecution statute did not permit the district attorney's office to recover those salaries.[^35][^33] Raymond Horsch had access to a Kensington crematorium linked to illegal sales of body parts, years before the missing persons investigation.[^36] + +The body-parts case centred on Biomedical Tissue Services, a New Jersey company based in Fort Lee. In February 2006 [[National Public Radio]] reported that Brooklyn prosecutors had indicted four men in connection with the company, including its principals, for harvesting bones and skin from corpses.[^37] Mastromarino, a former oral surgeon, pleaded guilty in Brooklyn in March 2008 to 14 counts, admitting that he had carried out the scheme from 2001 to 2005; he faced 18 to 54 years in prison and agreed to forfeit $4.68 million. The company shipped bones, skin and tendons to tissue processors, and about 10,000 people received tissue it supplied in transplant operations.[^38] In Philadelphia, after a grand jury investigation that began on May 4, 2006, Mastromarino entered an open guilty plea on August 29, 2008, and on October 22, 2008, was sentenced to 25 to 58 years, concurrent with his New York sentence. The trial court found that he had received more than $1,105,751 from tissue banks for the Philadelphia material alone, and gave aggravated sentences for abuse of corpse because the conduct was "so beyond the pale of what the guidelines contemplate." Because he had forfeited $800,000 in cash, the Commonwealth sought no further restitution. The Superior Court affirmed the sentence on July 21, 2010.[^34] + +### The MOVE bombing of 1985 + +The Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission was established by Executive Order 5-85, signed by Mayor [[W. Wilson Goode]] on June 19, 1985, to examine the events at 6221 Osage Avenue in West Philadelphia. Its chairman was [[William H. Brown III]], and its members included the former Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice [[Bruce W. Kauffman]], the Watergate special prosecutor [[Henry S. Ruth Jr.]] and the former FBI assistant director [[Neil J. Welch]]. It conducted more than 900 interviews, gathered the records of 36 government agencies, and held public hearings from October 8, 1985, with 90 witnesses over five weeks, broadcast live by [[WHYY]]. Its report of March 6, 1986, contains 68 findings, conclusions and recommendations, 66 of them unanimous.[^39] + +The chronology in the report begins with the emergence of [[MOVE]], led by [[John Africa]] (Vincent Leaphart), in the early 1970s, and the 1978 blockade of its headquarters in Powelton Village, which ended in a gunfight in which Police Officer James Ramp was shot to death; nine MOVE members were sentenced to 30 to 100 years each. MOVE adults and children later took up residence at 6221 Osage Avenue, and the occupants made threats by loudspeaker. The commission found that the Mayor's policy toward MOVE was one of "appeasement, non-confrontation and avoidance," that in the summer of 1984 he was told that a legal basis existed to act against certain MOVE members, and that in May 1985, after neighbors pressed him, he authorized the Police Commissioner to prepare and execute a tactical plan under the supervision of the Managing Director. Police Commissioner [[Gregore J. Sambor]] chose as planners the head of the Bomb Disposal Unit, a sergeant from the pistol range and a uniformed patrolman, excluding the command structure of the department; no written plan was sought or received.[^40][^39] + +On May 13, 1985, police fired more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition in under 90 minutes at the row house, which the commission called "clearly excessive and unreasonable," and used explosives to blow holes in the party walls. At 5:27 P.M. a bomb of Tovex and C-4, dropped from a [[Pennsylvania State Police]] helicopter, detonated on the roof, where, according to a police memo corroborated by a news photograph, a five-gallon gasoline can had been hoisted, and the commission found that the fire began a millisecond afterward when friction-heated metal fragments penetrated the can. Between 6:08 and 6:12 P.M. the Police Commissioner and the Fire Commissioner decided to let the bunker burn, which the commission called "unconscionable." Eleven people died, five of them children. The commission found that police gunfire prevented some occupants from escaping to the rear alley, that the deaths of the five children "appear to be unjustified homicides which should be investigated by a grand jury," that the medical examiner's performance was unprofessional, and that the fire destroyed the neighborhood and left sixty-one families homeless.[^41][^40][^42] + +Finding 21 concerns the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In January 1985 an agent of the bureau's Philadelphia office delivered nearly 38 pounds of C-4, a military plastic explosive, to the Philadelphia police bomb squad. Neither agency kept any record of the transaction; the agent told the commission he "never had to keep any kind of records or anything" regarding C-4. After May 13, at least one agent deliberately withheld information about the cache from his own superiors, saying he was "in fear of losing my job," and FBI officials "unwittingly furnished the Commission with inaccurate and untruthful accounts" of the bureau's involvement. The commission wrote that because of the absence of record keeping "all the facts of the use of C-4 on May 13th may never be known." The commission's explosives expert found that the bomb contained substantially more C-4 than the officer who constructed it had reported.[^43][^42] Commissioner Kauffman dissented from several findings, including the finding on the alley gunfire, and from the majority's accusation of racism against the Mayor, the Managing Director, the Police Commissioner and the Fire Commissioner, writing that the events were caused "purely and simply, by incompetence, bad judment, and other errors."[^44] No city officials or employees were charged after the commission's report and a county grand jury report of May 15, 1986, and a federal grand jury declined to indict.[^45] + +### Holmesburg Prison and the Army's human tests + +[[Holmesburg Prison]] in northeast Philadelphia was the site of the experiments of [[Albert Kligman]], a University of Pennsylvania dermatologist who began testing on people incarcerated there in 1951 for such companies as [[Johnson & Johnson]] and [[Dow Chemical]] as well as the United States Army, which commissioned him to test hallucinogenic and psychotropic drugs. The program ran 23 years; Philadelphia banned medical testing at Holmesburg in 1974.[^46] + +The Army's contract record was placed before the Senate in 1975. Lt. Gen. R. R. Taylor, the Surgeon General of the Army, told the joint hearings of the Senate health and judiciary subcommittees, questioned by Senator [[Edward M. Kennedy]], that in the period from the mid-1960s volunteers at Edgewood Arsenal had been active-duty personnel, and, asked about contract work, said the subjects were students and, "in one case they are prisoners in Holmesburg Prison near the University of Pennsylvania," adding when pressed, "Prisoners in one contract that I am aware of." The list the Army then supplied for the record shows prisoners at Holmesburg as the volunteers under three contracts of [[Edgewood Arsenal]]: "Threshold Doses in Humans" with the [[University of Pennsylvania]] from April 1, 1964, to March 31, 1967 (contract DA-18-035-AMC-126(A)), testing Ditran, atropine, scopolamine and a glycolate-type anticholinergic compound; and two contracts with [[Ivy Research Laboratories]], Inc., the first running from June 28, 1968, to December 1, 1969 ($78,135), to determine threshold doses of incapacitating agents, irritant agents and other chemicals, including a glycolate anticholinergic, an apomorphine-type emetic and a series of isomers of tetrahydrocannabinol, and the second ending September 30, 1971 ($46,700), in which an intravenous emetic was tested and "the study was discontinued after the fourth subject reacted adversely with retching and fainting."[^47] + +Two years later Deanne C. Siemer, General Counsel of the Department of Defense, told Senator Kennedy's Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, with Senator [[Richard S. Schweiker]] of Pennsylvania questioning her, that the Edgewood compound EA 3167 had been tested "in a different form and for different purposes at the Holmesburg State Prison in Pennsylvania" before the [[Central Intelligence Agency]]'s involvement in 1971, a testing that "may have involved from 5 to 12 prisoners; one document says 5, another one says 12." The Department of Defense's written account of the Edgewood project, part of [[MKOFTEN]] and recorded in the vault's [[MKSEARCH]] entry, states that Edgewood "also engaged in clinical testing on human volunteers at the Holmesburg State Prison in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, using prisoners as test subjects," that in 1971 the CIA reviewed that earlier work and transferred $37,000 to Edgewood, and that the CIA-sponsored human testing consisted of one experiment in June 1973 with two military volunteers.[^48][^49] + +The University's own Army work was reported in 1995. Kligman worked at the University from 1951 to 1972 and conducted scores of experiments on inmates at Holmesburg, many through Ivy Research Laboratories, one of four research groups he founded in the mid-1960s. In 1964 he tested dioxin on prisoners under contract from Dow Chemical and the Department of Defense; Vernon Rowe, a former Dow employee to whom Kligman reported, testified before an [[Environmental Protection Agency]] hearing in January 1981 that Kligman applied 7,500 micrograms to ten prisoners, "468 times" Dow's authorized maximum, and that eight developed chloracne lasting more than seven months; Kligman has said the records were destroyed. In 1966 the Food and Drug Administration banned him from testing drugs on humans, and in about the same period the University signed a $386,486 contract with the Army to test chemical warfare agents, which the *Philadelphia Inquirer* reported at the time. His 1967 report to Edgewood Arsenal on skin "hardening" against blistering and other agents records that three prisoners exposed to ethylene glycol monomethyl ether "exhibited psychotic reactions (hallucinations, disorientation, stupor) within two weeks and had to be hospitalized." According to the 1975 report of the Army Inspector General, "Ivy Research [Laboratories] used at least 94 inmates to test choking agents, nerve agents, blister agents, vomiting agents, incapacitating agents, and toxins" and was banned from Holmesburg after its tests were blamed for a 1972 prison riot.[^50] A former inmate told Allen Hornblum, whose *Acres of Skin* (1998) first documented the program in detail, that researchers had injected him in a padded cell and videotaped him, after which he hallucinated.[^51][^52] Kligman is reported to have told a reporter in 1966, "All I saw before me were acres of skin."[^51] A suit by about 300 former participants against Kligman, the University, the city, Dow and Johnson & Johnson was filed in 2000 and a court ruled in 2001 that the statute of limitations had expired; the city apologized in 2022.[^46] + +### The Navy Yard and the Philadelphia Experiment + +The [[Philadelphia Navy Yard]] is the site named in the [[Philadelphia Experiment]] account, which places a Navy ship there in 1943. The [[Office of Naval Research]] states that the origin of the story dates to 1955 with the publication of *The Case for the UFO* by [[Morris K. Jessup]], who afterward received correspondence from a Carlos Miquel Allende giving details of an alleged secret naval experiment in Philadelphia in 1943 in which a ship was rendered invisible and teleported to and from Norfolk. In 1956 a copy of Jessup's book, with hand-written annotations, was mailed anonymously to ONR; two officers assigned to ONR "took a personal interest in the book," showed it to Jessup, and arranged for a typewritten reprint of 25 copies. ONR's information sheet of September 8, 1996, states that personnel at the Fourth Naval District believe the stories arise from "quite routine research" during the war at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, with degaussing experiments and a 1950s experiment on the generating plant of the destroyer USS Timmerman using a 1,000 hertz generator as the likely sources, and that "ONR has never conducted any investigations on invisibility, either in 1943 or at any other time."[^53][^54] + +The Naval Historical Center's statement of June 17, 1996, says its Operational Archives had repeatedly searched and located no documents confirming the event, that the ship named in the account, the USS Eldridge, was commissioned on August 27, 1943, at the New York Navy Yard and was "never in Philadelphia" during the period reviewed, and that no records of a "Project Rainbow" relating to teleportation had been found.[^55] + +### Frankford Arsenal and the Army in the city + +The [[Frankford Arsenal]], the Army installation in the city, appears in a CIA memorandum for the record dated November 13, 1957, about a visit on October 30, 1957. The memorandum reviews a 24-hour clockwork project, including low-temperature failures of the mechanisms, and a planned comparison of three lubricants. It also records a .38 caliber slug of sintered tungsten carbide that the arsenal planned to test, and roughly $6,000 of the original project funds remaining.[^56] + +### Nuclear procurement and the 1987 Philadelphia arrest + +[[Arshad Pervez]], a native of Pakistan who moved to Canada in 1967, incorporated A.P. Enterprises in Toronto in 1986. In October 1986 he sought a source of maraging steel, a high-strength alloy used in gas centrifuge enrichment plants, and was referred to [[Carpenter Technology]], a Pennsylvania steelmaker. Carpenter had previously been directed by the Department of Commerce not to make maraging steel for Pakistan, because the material was believed to be destined for Pakistan's nuclear facility. Pervez identified his client as Inam Ul-Haq of the Multinational Corporation of Lahore.[^57] In November 1986 a U.S. Customs agent, working undercover as an international marketing analyst for Carpenter, met Pervez in Toronto. Pervez offered several contradictory end uses for the steel, among them a rocket motor project and a university engineering project. On January 13, 1987, he met an undercover Commerce Department licensing officer, [[Frank Rovello]], in Philadelphia and asked how to obtain an export license.[^57] + +In July 1987 Pervez drove to Philadelphia to facilitate the first shipment of the steel and to make another payment to Rovello, and was arrested there. A federal grand jury returned an eight-count indictment on July 28, 1987, against Pervez and Ul-Haq.[^57] In 1989 the Third Circuit vacated his conspiracy and beryllium-export convictions and ordered a new trial on those counts, and it remanded for a limited hearing on entrapment for the false-documentation counts.[^57] Declassified prosecution records published by the [[National Security Archive]] describe Ul-Haq as "a key figure in the A. Q. Khan nuclear procurement network" who evaded arrest by leaving the United States, and describe the Khan front company Multinational as Pervez's counterparty.[^58] + +[[James Guerin]], the founder of [[International Signal and Control]], was indicted in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in 1991 with 19 codefendants, in a 67-count indictment over a conspiracy to evade the arms embargo against [[South Africa]].[^59] The Third Circuit described Guerin as ISC's majority shareholder, who founded the company in 1971 and afterwards served as an officer and director of its successor companies, after ISC went public in 1982.[^59] In September 1989 the British defense company [[Ferranti]] called in accountants to investigate ISC's contracts.[^60] In November 1992, at the trial of [[Thomas Jasin]], the *Baltimore Sun* reported that Guerin had already pleaded guilty and had begun serving a 15-year federal sentence.[^61] + +### Police leadership, prosecutors and the courts + +In 1974, the peak year under Rizzo, Philadelphia police shot ninety-seven suspects and killed thirty-one, and in August 1970 Rizzo's police raided the offices of the Black Panther Party and strip-searched members in front of news photographers.[^1] Goode, who as mayor approved the 1985 order, was the city's first black mayor.[^1] + +[[Danielle Outlaw]] resigned as police commissioner in September 2023, and [[John M. Stanford Jr.]] and Vanore were appointed interim commissioner and interim first deputy commissioner on September 22, 2023.[^62][^63] Bethel was sworn in as commissioner on January 2, 2024.[^64] The city's courts include [[Jill Fertel]], a lawyer who was an assistant district attorney in the District Attorney's Office, and the criminal defense lawyer [[Jerome Brown]], who represented Horsch.[^65] The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania sits in Philadelphia and tried the Scarfo family RICO case in 1988.[^10] [[J.J. Klaver]] was a special agent of the FBI's Philadelphia field office from 1998 and its spokesman for his last seven years, until he retired on August 31, 2015.[^66] + +### Companies, churches and the press + +[[George R. Wackenhut]], who founded the [[Wackenhut Corporation]], was born in Philadelphia.[^67] On April 24, 1962, FBI SAC Letter 62-24(B) instructed all offices to refrain from any contact with the company, stating that the firm "has utilized misleading advertisements, attempts to capitalize on former FBI affiliation of its employees and its officials have reportedly engaged in personal misconduct and questionable business activities"; the bar was lifted by SAC Letter 65-1 of January 5, 1965.[^68] In May 1962 the investigative firm of [[Charles B. Flack Jr.]], a New Jersey firm, merged into Wackenhut, and Flack became district manager of the company's Philadelphia office at Two Penn Center Plaza, supervising operations in the Pennsylvania and New Jersey area; the FBI's Newark office forwarded his letter and a Wackenhut folder to the Director on May 4, 1962.[^68] 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 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.[^69] When the Secret Service arrested him, then Raymond Hoersch, for counterfeiting in December 1974, authorities described him as unemployed and quoted him as saying that he "hadn't worked for 11 years."[^70] The law firm [[Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders|Pepper Hamilton]] employed [[John B. Hannum]] as a litigator in Philadelphia, and on July 1, 2020, it combined with [[Troutman Sanders]] of [[Atlanta]].[^71][^72] + +Krol led the [[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia]] from 1961 and died in March 1996.[^73] *The Philadelphia Inquirer* was founded in 1829 as the Pennsylvania Inquirer.[^74] + +### Natives and residents + +[[John J. McCloy]] was born in Philadelphia on March 31, 1895.[^75] [[Noam Chomsky]], the linguist, was born in the city.[^76] [[Alex Karp]] grew up in the Philadelphia area and attended Central High School and Haverford College.[^77] [[Ro Khanna]] was born on September 13, 1976.[^78] [[Jed Rakoff]] was born in Philadelphia in 1943, [[Alison Nathan]] in 1972, [[John Milton Younge]] in 1955, and McGlynn on February 13, 1925.[^79] [[Marcus Foster]] moved to Philadelphia at the age of three, earned a doctorate in education at the University of Pennsylvania, and later served as superintendent of schools in [[Oakland, California]].[^80] [[Jack LaSota]], the leader of the [[The Zizians|Zizian]] group, staged a death in August 2022 after going off a boat in San Francisco Bay and next appeared on law enforcement's radar on January 12, 2023, at an airport hotel on the outskirts of Philadelphia, where state police came to serve a warrant in connection with a murder investigation.[^81] + +[^1]: Alex Elkins, "Police Department, Philadelphia," *The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia* (Rutgers University, 2016), https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/police-department-philadelphia/. +[^2]: Pennsylvania Crime Commission, *Report on Police Corruption and the Quality of Law Enforcement in Philadelphia* (Harrisburg, March 1974), Summary of findings ("Police Corruption" and "Liquor"), https://archive.org/details/reportonpoliceco00penn. +[^3]: Pennsylvania Crime Commission, *Report on Police Corruption* (1974), Summary of findings, "Narcotics," https://archive.org/details/reportonpoliceco00penn. +[^4]: Pennsylvania Crime Commission, *Report on Police Corruption* (1974), chapter on the Locust Street Strip, with its note citing the 1962 United States Senate subcommittee inquiry and stating that "In 1962, the inspector in charge of the Central Division where most of the bust-out operations were located was Frank L. Rizzo"; and the history of the Police Department (commissioners Gibbons, Brown, Leary, Bell and Rizzo; Joseph F. O'Neill acting commissioner from February 1971, permanent 1972), https://archive.org/details/reportonpoliceco00penn. +[^5]: Pennsylvania Crime Commission, *Report on Police Corruption* (1974), Locust Street Strip chapter, the Why Not Lounge: Goltzer's monthly payments through a "bagman" to an inspector, with the manager Sam LaRussa negotiating them and advising Goltzer to pay or "they will bust the joint," https://archive.org/details/reportonpoliceco00penn. +[^6]: Pennsylvania Crime Commission, *Report on Police Corruption* (1974), Locust Street Strip chapter, the Brass Monkey, 1227 Walnut Street, https://archive.org/details/reportonpoliceco00penn. +[^7]: Pennsylvania Crime Commission, *Report on Police Corruption* (1974), chapter on lewd shows, the Gaslight Lounge, https://archive.org/details/reportonpoliceco00penn. +[^8]: George Anastasia, "Salvatore Larussa, 58, Friend Of Mob Figures," *Philadelphia Inquirer*, August 21, 1996, Wayback copy, https://web.archive.org/web/20150928205738id_/http://articles.philly.com/1996-08-21/news/25645305_1_nicodemo-little-nicky-scarfo-grand-jury-mob-activities. +[^9]: Pennsylvania Crime Commission, *Organized Crime in Pennsylvania: A Decade of Change, 1990 Report* (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1991), sections on the Bruno/Scarfo Family, drugs, and the entry for Salvatore "Sam" LaRussa, p. 159, https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/133208NCJRS.pdf. +[^10]: *United States v. Pungitore*, 910 F.2d 1084 (3d Cir. 1990) (Greenberg, J.), https://static.case.law/f2d/910/cases/1084-01.json. +[^11]: *United States v. Pungitore*, 910 F.2d 1084 (3d Cir. 1990), Part I (convictions of Pungitore, Scarfo, Merlino and Ciancaglini on methamphetamine counts) and the discussion of Ciancaglini, including DelGiorno's testimony about a May 1983 methamphetamine arrangement, https://static.case.law/f2d/910/cases/1084-01.json. +[^12]: "Police to Inspect Building: Cinema 16 Shut Down In License Dispute; Owner Is 'Confused'," *Philadelphia Inquirer*, October 30, 1969, p. 19, https://www.newspapers.com/image/169186622/. +[^13]: *The Distant Drummer*, no. 65, December 25, 1969, to January 1, 1970, p. 8, Temple University Libraries, Special Collections Research Center, https://digital.library.temple.edu/digital/collection/p16002coll34/id/473. +[^14]: "Art Carduner, a pioneer in exhibiting foreign films in Phila.," *Philadelphia Inquirer*, December 9, 2009, https://www.inquirer.com/philly/obituaries/20091209_Art_Carduner__a_pioneer_in_exhibiting_foreign_films_in_Phila_.html. +[^15]: Barbara Laker, Max Marin, Ryan W. Briggs and Ellie Rushing, "A fugitive pornographer, his troubled son, and missing women: 5 takeaways," *Philadelphia Inquirer*, August 4, 2026, https://www.inquirer.com/news/raymond-eugene-horsch-olney-missing-women-20260804.html. +[^16]: Performer credits for *The Erotic Memoirs of a Male Chauvinist Pig*, Internet Adult Film Database, https://www.iafd.com/title.rme/id=b609e8df-4df6-46c4-8925-639ed9e91852; and John Morthland, *Take One* (March-April 1973) ("starring Ms. Spelvin"). +[^17]: Ashley West, *The Rialto Report*, Podcast 172, "Unknowing Ray Horsch, Episode 2: Performance," September 20, 2026 (republishing interviews recorded in 2013; passages at 25:43 to 25:45, 28:59 to 29:09 and 29:19 to 29:42), https://www.therialtoreport.com/2026/09/20/ray-horsch-3/. The account of the sale is Horsch's own. +[^18]: "Boxoffice Bookinguide," *Boxoffice* (Canadian edition), February 4, 1974, national booking chart, entry "Erotic Memoirs/Male Chauvinist Pig" (75 minutes, distributor "Mature," dated 10-15-73), https://archive.org/details/boxoffice-canadian-1974-02-04. +[^19]: John Morthland, "Porn Films: An In-Depth Report," *Take One*, vol. 3, no. 6 (March-April 1973), https://archive.org/details/take-one-1973-03. +[^20]: *Walt Disney Productions v. Mature Pictures Corp.*, 389 F. Supp. 1397 (S.D.N.Y. 1975) (Duffy, J., February 14, 1975), https://static.case.law/f-supp/389/cases/1397-01.json. +[^21]: "Protest Raised Here On 'Black Mass' Film," *Philadelphia Inquirer*, February 28, 1975, p. 11, https://www.newspapers.com/image/173364962/. +[^22]: Society and nightlife column, *Philadelphia Inquirer*, February 28, 1975, p. 21, https://www.newspapers.com/image/173366667/. +[^23]: "Offensive Material: Leaders Condemn Black Mass Film," Religious News Service, *Lake Shore Visitor* (Erie), March 7, 1975, p. 3, https://www.newspapers.com/image/951794835/. +[^24]: Anna Leask, "Man linked to multiple missing women in US had fled NZ 40 years ago after posing as scientist," *New Zealand Herald*, September 23, 2026, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/raymond-horsch-man-linked-to-philadelphia-house-of-horrors-lived-near-timaru-under-stolen-name/BVQSWBL3LZDL3. +[^25]: "Anna M. Horsch," obituary, *The Morning Call*, August 1, 1989, p. 18; Inquirer, "How a pornographer's violent fantasies blurred fact and fiction as cops searched Olney house for missing women," August 2, 2026, https://www.inquirer.com/news/a/raymond-eugene-horsch-olney-philadelphia-missing-women-history-20260802.html. +[^26]: Jim Smith, "Fugitive's Luck Runs Out With 4-Year Jail Sentence," *Philadelphia Daily News*, April 27, 1985, p. 8, https://www.newspapers.com/image/185948055/. +[^27]: "Hoersch, Albert," death notice, *Philadelphia Inquirer*, July 3, 1972, p. 10, https://www.newspapers.com/image/180006503/. +[^28]: "Hoersch, Helen E. Wissman," death notice, *Philadelphia Inquirer*, August 29, 1968, p. 32, https://www.newspapers.com/image/182120759/; "Hoersch, Helen M.," death notice, *Philadelphia Inquirer*, April 7, 2004, p. B12, https://www.newspapers.com/image/201102740/. +[^29]: "Cecilia T. Hagerty," obituary, *The Morning Call*, October 26, 1991, p. 115, https://www.newspapers.com/image/283774999/. +[^30]: Ryan W. Briggs, Max Marin and Barbara Laker, "A woman missing since 2016 had close ties to the Olney house that's now the target of a massive investigation," *Philadelphia Inquirer*, June 27, 2026, https://www.inquirer.com/news/olney-raid-missing-women-mystery-drugs-20260627.html. +[^31]: Ellie Rushing, "Feds will take over gun case of Olney man at center of missing women investigation, as Philly DA withdraws charges," *Philadelphia Inquirer*, August 6, 2026, https://www.inquirer.com/crime/eugene-horsch-federal-charges-olney-missing-women-20260806.html; Max Marin, Ryan W. Briggs, Ellie Rushing and Barbara Laker, "Police searched Olney home last summer, but drugs, not missing women, were the focus," *Philadelphia Inquirer*, July 1, 2026, https://www.inquirer.com/news/eugene-raymond-horsch-olney-home-search-guns-drugs-20260701.html. +[^32]: Cory Sharber, "Police, FBI provide updates on Horsch missing women case," *WHYY*, September 16, 2026, https://whyy.org/articles/olney-home-investigation-abuse/. +[^33]: *Commonwealth v. Garzone*, 34 A.3d 67 (Pa. January 19, 2012) (Castille, C.J.), https://static.case.law/a3d/34/cases/0067-01.json. +[^34]: *Commonwealth v. Mastromarino*, 2 A.3d 581 (Pa. Super. Ct. July 21, 2010) (Stevens, J.), https://static.case.law/a3d/2/cases/0581-01.json. +[^35]: *Commonwealth v. Garzone*, 993 A.2d 1245 (Pa. Super. Ct. April 14, 2010) (Stevens, J.), https://static.case.law/a2d/993/cases/1245-01.json. +[^36]: Ryan W. Briggs, Max Marin, Barbara Laker and Ellie Rushing, "Raymond Horsch had access to a Kensington crematorium linked to illegal body parts sales, years before missing persons investigation," *Philadelphia Inquirer*, 2026. +[^37]: "Four Named in New York 'Body-Snatcher' Crimes," *Day to Day*, NPR, February 23, 2006, https://www.npr.org/transcripts/5230097. +[^38]: Adam Goldman, "Body-parts big pleads guilty," *Philadelphia Daily News* (also *Philadelphia Inquirer*), March 19, 2008, https://www.inquirer.com/philly/hp/news_update/20080319_Body-parts_big_pleads_guilty.html. +[^39]: PSIC, *Findings, Conclusions and Recommendations* (1986), Introduction, "The Investigation," "Public Hearings" and Chronology. +[^40]: PSIC, *Findings, Conclusions and Recommendations* (1986), Findings 1 to 31, including Findings 11 and 12 (the plan and its three planners), 18 (10,000 rounds), 21 (FBI C-4), 24 to 27 (the bomb and the decision to let the fire burn), 28 (gunfire in the alley) and 29 (the children). +[^41]: Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission, *The Findings, Conclusions and Recommendations of the Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission* (Philadelphia, March 6, 1986), Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries (published online by *The Philly Declaration*, May 13, 2015), https://phillydeclaration.org/2015/05/13/30-years-later-primary-sources-on-the-move-conflagration/. +[^42]: PSIC, *Findings, Conclusions and Recommendations* (1986), Finding 25 and its supporting text (the Tovex and C-4 device, dropped at 5:27 P.M.). +[^43]: PSIC, *Findings, Conclusions and Recommendations* (1986), Finding 21 and its supporting text. +[^44]: PSIC, *Findings, Conclusions and Recommendations* (1986), statement of Commissioner Bruce W. Kauffman (dissenting from several findings, among them the finding on police gunfire in the alley, and from the accusation of racism), and the recommendation on law enforcement investigations. +[^45]: Austin Nolen, "30 Years Later: Primary Sources on the MOVE Conflagration," *The Philly Declaration*, May 13, 2015, https://phillydeclaration.org/2015/05/13/30-years-later-primary-sources-on-the-move-conflagration/ (publishing the Report of the County Investigating Grand Jury of May 15, 1986). +[^46]: Lynette Hazelton, "A brief history of the Holmesburg Prison experiments," *Philadelphia Inquirer*, October 22, 2024, https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/holmesburg-prison-experiments-timeline-20241022.html. +[^47]: *Biomedical and Behavioral Research, 1975*, joint hearings before the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare and the Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 94th Cong., 1st sess., September 10, 12 and November 7, 1975, testimony of Lt. Gen. R. R. Taylor, Surgeon General of the Army, and the Army list of "Research Contracts from Edgewood Arsenal Involving Drug Testing Volunteers, 1965-75," https://archive.org/details/US-Government-Medical-Experimentation-On-Humans. +[^48]: Statement of Deanne C. Siemer, General Counsel, Department of Defense, *Human Drug Testing by the CIA, 1977*, hearings before the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, United States Senate, 95th Cong., 1st sess., September 20 and 21, 1977 (testimony of September 20), https://archive.org/details/human-drug-testing-by-the-cia-1977. +[^49]: *Human Drug Testing by the CIA, 1977*, Senate Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, September 20, 1977, Department of Defense submission on the Edgewood project "Determination of clinical effects of a glycolate class chemical" (MKOFTEN), https://archive.org/details/human-drug-testing-by-the-cia-1977. +[^50]: Jonathan Kaye and Jeremy Kahn, "U. involved in chemical tests on prisoners," *The Daily Pennsylvanian*, May 19, 1995, https://thedp.com/article/1995/05/u-involved-in-chemical-tests-on-prisoners. +[^51]: Jennifer Gonnerman, "Living Lab Rats," *The Village Voice*, July 7, 1998, https://www.villagevoice.com/1998/07/07/lab-rats/. +[^52]: Allen M. Hornblum, *Acres of Skin: Human Experiments at Holmesburg Prison* (New York: Routledge, 1998), as described in Gonnerman, *The Village Voice*, July 7, 1998. +[^53]: Office of Naval Research, "Information Sheet: Philadelphia Experiment," September 8, 1996, as published by the Naval Historical Center, https://web.archive.org/web/19981203102110/http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq21-2.htm. +[^54]: Morris K. Jessup, *The Case for the UFO* (New York: Citadel Press, 1955), https://archive.org/details/caseforufo0000mkje. +[^55]: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, "The 'Philadelphia Experiment'," June 17, 1996, https://web.archive.org/web/19981203102110/http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq21-1.htm. +[^56]: Memorandum for the record, "Trip to Frankford Arsenal," November 13, 1957, CIA Reading Room, document CIA-RDP78-03642A002500040063-1, https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP78-03642A002500040063-1. +[^57]: *United States v. Pervez*, 871 F.2d 310 (3d Cir. 1989) (Scirica, J.), https://static.case.law/f2d/871/cases/0310-01.json. +[^58]: William Burr, ed., "The Pervez Case and Reagan Administration Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy, 1987," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 446, November 22, 2013, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb446/. +[^59]: *United States v. Jasin*, 280 F.3d 355 (3d Cir. 2002) (Greenberg, J.), https://static.case.law/f3d/280/cases/0355-01.json. +[^60]: Computer Business Review, "Ferranti calls in Coopers & Lybrand to investigate ISC contracts," September 17, 1989, https://www.techmonitor.ai/?p=208120. +[^61]: Knight-Ridder News Service, "Weapons-smuggling plot tied to Pa. executive on trial for trade violations," *Baltimore Sun*, November 10, 1992, https://www.baltimoresun.com/1992/11/10/weapons-smuggling-plot-tied-to-pa-executive-on-trial-for-trade-violations/. +[^62]: Chris Palmer, Anna Orso and Oona Goodin-Smith, "Danielle Outlaw, Philadelphia Police Commissioner, resigns for a job at Port Authority of New York and New Jersey," *Philadelphia Inquirer*, September 5, 2023. +[^63]: Office of the Mayor, City of Philadelphia, "Mayor Jim Kenney Appoints John M. Stanford, Jr. as Interim Police Commissioner for the Philadelphia Police Department & Frank Vanore as Interim 1st Deputy Commissioner," September 22, 2023, https://www.phila.gov/2023-09-22-mayor-jim-kenney-appoints-john-m-stanford-jr-as-interim-police-commissioner-for-the-philadelphia-police-department-frank-vanore-as-interim-1st-deputy-commissioner/. +[^64]: "Kevin J. Bethel sworn in as Philadelphia's newest police commissioner," *Philadelphia Inquirer*, January 2, 2024, https://www.inquirer.com/crime/kevin-bethel-philadelphia-police-commissioner-sworn-in-20240102.html. +[^65]: *United States v. Horsch*, No. 2:09-cr-00794 (E.D. Pa.), notices of appearance of Jerome M. Brown; practice biography of Jill Fertel, https://klalegal.com/jill-fertel/. +[^66]: John Kopp, "Philly FBI spokesman J.J. Klaver retiring after 26-year career," *PhillyVoice*, August 31, 2015, https://www.phillyvoice.com/retiring-fbi-agent-reflects/. +[^67]: The Wackenhut Corporation, biographical sketch of George R. Wackenhut, company files, https://archive.org/details/WackenhutCorporation; "Security industry pioneer George Wackenhut dies at 85," *SecurityInfoWatch*, January 2005. +[^68]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, "Wackenhut Corporation," headquarters file, Newark memorandum to the Director, May 4, 1962, and *Miami News* clipping on the Flack merger, https://archive.org/details/WackenhutCorporation. +[^69]: Ashley West, *The Rialto Report*, Podcast 171, "Unknowing Ray Horsch, Episode 1: Youth," September 13, 2026 (audio at 18:34 to 22:49), https://www.therialtoreport.com/2026/09/13/ray-horsch-2/. The account is Horsch's own. +[^70]: "[...] bogus $180,000 in Bucks raid," *The Morning Call* (Allentown), December 11, 1974, p. 5, https://www.newspapers.com/image/275702319/. +[^71]: Sally A. Downey, "John B. Hannum, 92, judge," *Philadelphia Inquirer*, April 25, 2007, https://www.inquirer.com/philly/obituaries/20070425_John_B__Hannum__92__judge.html. +[^72]: "Troutman Pepper Officially Launches," *PR Newswire*, July 1, 2020, https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/troutman-pepper-officially-launches-301086794.html. +[^73]: Martin Weil, "Cardinal John Krol Dies; Philadelphia Archbishop," *The Washington Post*, March 4, 1996, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1996/03/04/cardinal-john-krol-dies/8d845f35-61a2-4b44-934a-0bdc39ca14df/. +[^74]: "The History of the Philadelphia Inquirer," Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia, https://www.broadcastpioneers.com/inquirerhistory.html. +[^75]: John J. McCloy (AC 1916) Papers, finding aid MA.00035, Historical Note and Chronology, Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/393545/original/McCloy%2BPapers.pdf. +[^76]: Noam Chomsky, biographical entry (born December 7, 1928, Philadelphia), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. +[^77]: Fallon Roth, "Palantir CEO Alex Karp was raised in a liberal household outside Philly. Now he's a top Trump administration contractor," *Philadelphia Inquirer*, December 16, 2025, https://www.inquirer.com/politics/nation/palantir-ceo-alex-karp-trump-administration-20251216.html. +[^78]: United States Congress, legislator record for Ro Khanna (bioguide K000389), born 1976-09-13, congress-legislators dataset, https://unitedstates.github.io/congress-legislators/legislators-current.json. +[^79]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges: "Rakoff, Jed Saul," https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/rakoff-jed-saul; "Nathan, Alison Julie," https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/nathan-alison-julie; "Younge, John Milton," https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/younge-john-milton; "McGlynn, Joseph Leo, Jr.," https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/mcglynn-joseph-leo-jr. +[^80]: "50 Years After He Was Assassinated, Why Marcus Foster Is More Relevant Than Ever," *EdSource*, November 2023, https://edsource.org/2023/50-years-after-he-was-assassinated-why-marcus-foster-is-more-relevant-than-ever/688423. +[^81]: "The Radicalization of Ziz LaSota: How an AI Doomer Became an Accused Cult Leader," *Rolling Stone*, 2025, https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/ziz-lasota-zizians-ai-cult-1235468289/. diff --git a/60 - PLACES/COUNTRIES/Belgium.md b/60 - PLACES/COUNTRIES/Belgium.md index 34460d3b..78d1ab99 100644 --- a/60 - PLACES/COUNTRIES/Belgium.md +++ b/60 - PLACES/COUNTRIES/Belgium.md @@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ tags: - Elite summary: "Belgium is the location of the Dutroux case and the X-Dossier, of NATO headquarters, and of the SDRA8 stay-behind network examined by a 1991 Senate inquiry and linked by Ganser to the Brabant massacres." created: 2026-05-14 -updated: 2026-10-12 +updated: 2026-10-15 location: "Brussels, Belgium" --- @@ -23,16 +23,25 @@ The investigation generated the [[X-Dossier]], a collection of testimony from mu Belgian investigative magistrate [[Jean-Marc Connerotte]] was controversially removed from the case in 1997 after attending a fundraising dinner for the victims' families, a decision that triggered mass public protests. The removal was widely interpreted as an attempt to shield powerful figures from investigation. Dutroux was ultimately convicted in 2004 of the murders of [[An Marchal]], [[Eefje Lambrecks]], Julie Lejeune, and Melissa Russo, as well as the abduction and rape of additional victims.[^1] +The Chamber's inquiry into the Dutroux-Nihoul investigation stated in its general conclusions of February 16, 1998 that there were indications that Dutroux and Nihoul had conducted polycriminal activity, that their networks had enjoyed "at various levels an indirect protection engendered by individual or collective phenomena of the blurring of the norm or of corrupting behaviours," and that it had found no indication of protections within the police, magistracy, administration or politics capable of explaining by themselves the failures in the investigations.[^3] + ### NATO and Brussels -Belgium hosts NATO headquarters in Brussels, established there in 1967 after [[Charles de Gaulle]] expelled NATO from French soil. NATO's headquarters are at Evere in the Brussels region, and the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe ([[SHAPE]]) is at Casteau, where the American commands were transferred from Rocquencourt after France left the integrated military command.[^3] The Belgian intelligence service [[SURETE DE L'ETAT]] (State Security) maintained liaison relationships with partner services, and Belgian military intelligence had connections to the [[Gladio]] stay-behind network.[^2] In 1991 a Belgian Senate inquiry into an international clandestine intelligence network examined two units, the STC/Mob branch of the Sûreté and SDRA VIII. It recorded that the Belgian secretariat of the NATO Clandestine Planning Committee was a branch of SDRA and that the secretariat was abolished on April 1, 1991, according to two witnesses.[^3] +Belgium hosts NATO headquarters in Brussels, established there in 1967 after [[Charles de Gaulle]] expelled NATO from French soil. NATO's headquarters are at Evere in the Brussels region, and the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe ([[SHAPE]]) is at Casteau, where the American commands were transferred from Rocquencourt after France left the integrated military command.[^4] The Belgian intelligence service [[SURETE DE L'ETAT]] (State Security) maintained liaison relationships with partner services, and Belgian military intelligence had connections to the [[Gladio]] stay-behind network.[^2] In 1991 a Belgian Senate inquiry into an international clandestine intelligence network examined two units, the STC/Mob branch of the Sûreté and SDRA VIII. It recorded that the Belgian secretariat of the NATO Clandestine Planning Committee was a branch of SDRA and that the secretariat was abolished on April 1, 1991, according to two witnesses.[^4] ### Gladio and the Strategy of Tension Belgium was among the NATO member states that hosted a Gladio stay-behind network during the Cold War. The Belgian network - known as [[SDRA8]] within military intelligence - maintained weapons caches and a trained paramilitary personnel roster, as in other NATO countries. Belgian investigations following the 1990 Italian disclosure of Gladio's existence revealed that the Belgian network had possible connections to the unsolved [[Brabant massacres]] (early 1982 to November 1985; [[Daniele Ganser]] dates them 1983 to 1985), in which a gang killed 28 people in supermarket robberies whose apparent purpose exceeded any criminal rationale - suggesting, to investigators, a connection to stay-behind network operations designed to destabilize the political landscape.[^1] +The Senate inquiry reported in October 1991 that it found no indication of any link between the network and terrorist acts or serious banditry committed in Belgium over the previous ten years, and that within the limits of its information no direct link could be established between SDRA VIII or STC/Mob and the persons and organizations investigated in the 1980 and 1988 inquiries into the Brabant killings. The same report recorded that its magistrate-experts had been refused the identities of the civilian agents of the two units, which it said had prevented verifications that would probably have eliminated all doubt, and that a State Security officer, an SDRA officer, an SDRI officer who had been a court-appointed expert in several Brabant cases and a gendarme had all been in sustained contact with Major Bougerol of the gendarmerie in the same period, two of them belonging with him to a confraternity. It also recorded contacts between the military Public Information Office, the [[Front de la Jeunesse]] and other extreme-right organizations.[^5] The word Gladio was unknown in Belgium until November 1990, according to the same report.[^5] + +The Chamber of Representatives opened a separate parliamentary inquiry into the Brabant killings in June 1996 and reported on October 14, 1997 (Doc. 573/8). Its first annex, an inventory of publicly formulated grievances written for the commission by the law professors [[Cyrille Fijnaut]] and [[Raf Verstraeten]], examines the leads in the investigation, among them the extreme-right Front de la Jeunesse and the [[Westland New Post]] (WNP), which [[Paul Latinus]] formed in 1981. It records that the WNP was credited by some with contacts in the army and the gendarmerie, reproduces a journalist's 1983 view that the Brabant killers were terrorists who may have belonged to the WNP, and quotes the 1995 statement of the investigator Barrez that the WNP should have been investigated more thoroughly and that it remained open whether State Security had used the group. It quotes the Senate commission's magistrate-experts as finding no element showing that SDRA VIII or STC/Mob members played a role in the crimes, while calling the continued activity of Major Bougerol after the Public Information Office was wound up a "disturbing" finding and stating that the activities of extreme-right movements "manipulated or not by foreign services," tolerated and even patronized by authorities of military intelligence, "deserve the attention of Parliament."[^6] + ### Footnotes [^1]: "Belgium," *Encyclopaedia Britannica.* https://www.britannica.com/place/Belgium [^2]: "Belgian X-Dossiers of the Dutroux Affair: the Accused," Institute for the Study of Globalization and Covert Politics, 2007. https://www.isgp-studies.com/belgian-x-dossiers-of-the-marc-dutroux-affair-the-accused -[^3]: Belgian Senate, Doc. 1117-4 (1990-1991), "Enquête parlementaire sur l'existence en Belgique d'un réseau de renseignements clandestin international," rapport fait au nom de la commission par MM. Erdman et Hasquin, October 1, 1991. https://senate.be/lexdocs/S0523/S05231297.pdf +[^3]: Belgian Chamber of Representatives, Doc. 713/8-96/97, February 16, 1998, section 6, "Conclusions générales," pp. 148-149 (translated from the French). https://www.dekamer.be/FLWB/PDF/49/0713/49K0713008.pdf +[^4]: Belgian Senate, Doc. 1117-4 (1990-1991), "Enquête parlementaire sur l'existence en Belgique d'un réseau de renseignements clandestin international," rapport fait au nom de la commission par MM. Erdman et Hasquin, October 1, 1991. https://senate.be/lexdocs/S0523/S05231297.pdf +[^5]: Belgian Senate, Doc. 1117-4 (1990-1991), report of Erdman and Hasquin, October 1, 1991, sections on the Gladio affair, the STC/Mob and SDRA VIII units, and the conclusions on the Brabant investigations and on the fourth question. https://senate.be/lexdocs/S0523/S05231297.pdf +[^6]: Belgian Chamber of Representatives, Doc. 573/8 (1995-1996), report of Renaat Landuyt and Jean-Jacques Viseur, October 14, 1997, Annex I (C. Fijnaut and R. Verstraeten), sections III.3.3 and III.3.10 (translated from the French). Archived copy: https://web.archive.org/web/20070930043308/http://www.dekamer.be/FLWB/PDF/49/0573/49K0573008.pdf diff --git a/60 - PLACES/COUNTRIES/Israel.md b/60 - PLACES/COUNTRIES/Israel.md index aec27c71..a6cc32b1 100644 --- a/60 - PLACES/COUNTRIES/Israel.md +++ b/60 - PLACES/COUNTRIES/Israel.md @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ tags: - ArmsTrade summary: "Middle Eastern state whose undeclared nuclear arsenal, intelligence operations in the United States, covert arms sales to Iran and Latin America, and surveillance-technology industry run through much of this vault." created: 2025-07-22 -updated: 2026-10-12 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- The State of [[Israel]] was established in 1948. Its intelligence services are the [[Mossad]] (foreign intelligence), [[Shin Bet]] (internal security) and military intelligence, [[Aman]], whose signals arm is [[Unit 8200]]; a fourth agency under the defense ministry, the Science Liaison Bureau, [[LAKAM]], collected technical information abroad until the [[Jonathan Pollard]] case of 1985.[^1][^2] @@ -57,7 +57,7 @@ Unit 8200 is a recruiting ground of the Israeli private surveillance industry; v [^8]: Sick, Gary. *October Surprise: America's Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan.* Times Books, 1991. [^9]: Walsh, Lawrence E. *Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters.* 1993. [^10]: "Probe by House finds no 'October surprise,'" *The Baltimore Sun,* January 13, 1993. https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1993-01-13-1993013111-story.html -[^11]: "Ex-agent of the Mossad Implicated in Drug Deals with Panamanian," *Jewish Telegraphic Agency,* February 1988. https://www.jta.org/archive/ex-agent-of-the-mossad-implicated-in-drug-deals-with-panamanian +[^11]: "Ex-agent of the Mossad Implicated in Drug Deals with Panamanian," *Jewish Telegraphic Agency,* April 14, 1988. https://www.jta.org/archive/ex-agent-of-the-mossad-implicated-in-drug-deals-with-panamanian [^12]: "Media Baron Sues Seymour Hersh," *The Washington Post,* October 25, 1991. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1991/10/25/media-baron-sues-seymour-hersh/c16c29e2-04ba-4038-9fff-08113fa33b77/ ; "Maxwell, Colossus Even in Death, Laid to Rest on Mount of Olives," *Jewish Telegraphic Agency,* 1991. https://www.jta.org/archive/maxwell-colossus-even-in-death-laid-to-rest-on-mount-of-olives [^13]: "Where NSO Group Came From and Why It's Just the Tip of the Iceberg," OCCRP, The Pegasus Project. https://www.occrp.org/en/project/the-pegasus-project/where-nso-group-came-from-and-why-its-just-the-tip-of-the-iceberg [^14]: Ronen Bergman, "Weaving a cyber web," *Ynetnews*, January 11, 2019. https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5444998,00.html diff --git a/60 - PLACES/COUNTRIES/United Kingdom.md b/60 - PLACES/COUNTRIES/United Kingdom.md index 8f8c93e7..9ff2a9f8 100644 --- a/60 - PLACES/COUNTRIES/United Kingdom.md +++ b/60 - PLACES/COUNTRIES/United Kingdom.md @@ -30,7 +30,7 @@ The [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] maintained its principal globa ### Robert Maxwell -Press baron [[Robert Maxwell]], a Czech-born British citizen whose claimed Mossad connections are attested by former Israeli intelligence officers [[Ari Ben-Menashe]] and [[Victor Ostrovsky]], built his empire from [[Oxford]]-based [[Pergamon Press]] and later [[Mirror Group Newspapers]]. [[Nicholas Davies]], the [[Daily Mirror]]'s foreign editor, was accused of being a Mossad asset. Maxwell died under disputed circumstances in November 1991; the subsequent collapse of his business empire revealed massive pension fund fraud.[^1] +Press baron [[Robert Maxwell]], a Czech-born British citizen whose claimed Mossad connections are attested by former Israeli intelligence officers [[Ari Ben-Menashe]] and [[Victor Ostrovsky]], built his empire from [[Oxford, England|Oxford]]-based [[Pergamon Press]] and later [[Mirror Group Newspapers]]. [[Nicholas Davies]], the [[Daily Mirror]]'s foreign editor, was accused of being a Mossad asset. Maxwell died under disputed circumstances in November 1991; the subsequent collapse of his business empire revealed massive pension fund fraud.[^1] ### Arms-to-Iraq diff --git a/60 - PLACES/LANDMARKS/Deep Creek Lodge.md b/60 - PLACES/LANDMARKS/Deep Creek Lodge.md index d94486c7..26caca46 100644 --- a/60 - PLACES/LANDMARKS/Deep Creek Lodge.md +++ b/60 - PLACES/LANDMARKS/Deep Creek Lodge.md @@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ After dinner on Thursday, November 19, Gottlieb produced a bottle of Cointreau a ### Olson's deterioration -Back at home Olson told his wife he had made "a terrible mistake" and felt humiliated by his behavior at the retreat. On Monday he reported to Ruwet, said he wanted to resign, and questioned his own competence. Ruwet and Lashbrook took him to [[New York]] to see Dr. [[Harold Abramson]], an allergist with a CIA clearance who served as the Agency's informal LSD consultant. Olson's condition worsened over the following days: he became convinced people were waiting outside a theater to arrest him, wandered the Manhattan streets at night, tore up his money, and discarded his wallet. In the early morning of November 28, 1953, Olson went through the closed window of his tenth-floor room at the [[Statler Hotel]], with Lashbrook present in the room, falling to his death on the street below.[^1] +Back at home Olson told his wife he had made "a terrible mistake" and felt humiliated by his behavior at the retreat. On Monday he reported to Ruwet, said he wanted to resign, and questioned his own competence. Ruwet and Lashbrook took him to [[New York City|New York]] to see Dr. [[Harold Abramson]], an allergist with a CIA clearance who served as the Agency's informal LSD consultant. Olson's condition worsened over the following days: he became convinced people were waiting outside a theater to arrest him, wandered the Manhattan streets at night, tore up his money, and discarded his wallet. In the early morning of November 28, 1953, Olson went through the closed window of his tenth-floor room at the [[Statler Hotel]], with Lashbrook present in the room, falling to his death on the street below.[^1] ### Public disclosure diff --git a/60 - PLACES/MILITARY_INSTALLATIONS/Area 51.md b/60 - PLACES/MILITARY_INSTALLATIONS/Area 51.md index 3a46d6d8..61d8e198 100644 --- a/60 - PLACES/MILITARY_INSTALLATIONS/Area 51.md +++ b/60 - PLACES/MILITARY_INSTALLATIONS/Area 51.md @@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ relations: role: "citizen suit against the Environmental Protection Agency over inspection and disclosure of reports on the site" fn: 2 created: 2026-10-01 -updated: 2026-10-03 +updated: 2026-10-15 --- Area 51 is the map designation, used in the Central Intelligence Agency's history of the U-2 and OXCART programs, of the strip at Groom Lake in [[Lincoln County, Nevada|Lincoln County]], Nevada. The government's own phrase in court and in presidential determinations is "the Air Force's operating location near Groom Lake."[^1][^2] The CIA's history of the program was released in a less redacted form in 2013.[^3] @@ -99,7 +99,7 @@ Title XXX of Public Law 106-65, the Military Lands Withdrawal Act of 1999 (113 S ### Frost v. Perry and Kasza v. Browner -Helen Frost, the widow of a former worker, and others proceeding as Does, who had worked at a classified operating location near Groom Lake, brought a citizen suit under the [[Resource Conservation and Recovery Act]] against the Air Force, [[Frost v. Perry]]; Stella Kasza and Does sued the [[Environmental Protection Agency]] for failing to inspect, inventory and disclose, [[Kasza v. Browner]]. The Air Force refused nearly all discovery as privileged, and Secretary of the Air Force [[Sheila Widnall]] invoked the military and state secrets privilege over categories of information including "security sensitive environmental data," with an unclassified declaration and a classified declaration reviewed by the court in camera; the court also reviewed a classified declaration of Air Force Vice Chief of Staff General [[Thomas S. Moorman Jr.]] The district court entered summary judgment for the Air Force because the privilege barred evidence on whether hazardous waste had been generated, stored or disposed of at the location. Frost argued on appeal, among other things, that the Secretary could not have personally reviewed all the information withheld and suggested that the privilege was used to cover up environmental crimes at the location. The EPA inspected the location from December 6, 1994 to March 10, 1995, after Kasza was filed; the court ruled that the statute contained no exception for classified information but that the President could exempt a facility, and EPA then obtained a presidential exemption. Cox News Service reported on August 16, 1994, in the [[St. Louis Post-Dispatch]], that [[Jonathan Turley]], a law professor at the George Washington University National Law Center, had sued the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to enforce environmental laws at a secret air base in Nevada. According to the report, Turley said he represented unidentified current and former workers at "Area 51," and the suit alleged that the burning of hazardous and toxic wastes at the base caused serious injuries to employees and at least one death, and that employees who handled hazardous wastes were refused protective clothing. The report said Turley would ask the United States District Court in Washington to force the EPA to inspect and monitor the base, that the complaint was under seal pending a ruling on the use of fictitious names for complainants who feared retaliation, and that an EPA spokesman said he had no information. It described the base as also known as "Dreamland," on the edge of Groom Dry Lake about 90 miles north of Las Vegas inside a restricted Air Force range, and quoted Turley as saying, "We want to establish that workers at secret bases should not be forced to rely on the arbitrary protections of the military." The portion read does not mention EG&G.[^22] The plaintiffs were represented by Turley and [[Joan Manley]] of George Washington University; the government by lawyers of the [[Department of Justice]]; and KLAS, Inc. appeared as amicus. The [[United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit|Ninth Circuit]] affirmed on January 8, 1998, remanding only attorney's fees and a sealing order, applying the privilege as defined in [[United States v. Reynolds]] (1953), and approved the "mosaic theory" under which seemingly innocuous information that is part of a classified mosaic may be withheld.[^2] +Helen Frost, the widow of a former worker, and others proceeding as Does, who had worked at a classified operating location near Groom Lake, brought a citizen suit under the [[Resource Conservation and Recovery Act]] against the Air Force, [[Frost v. Perry]]; Stella Kasza and Does sued the [[Environmental Protection Agency]] for failing to inspect, inventory and disclose, [[Kasza v. Browner]]. The Air Force refused nearly all discovery as privileged, and Secretary of the Air Force [[Sheila Widnall]] invoked the military and state secrets privilege over categories of information including "security sensitive environmental data," with an unclassified declaration and a classified declaration reviewed by the court in camera; the court also reviewed a classified declaration of Air Force Vice Chief of Staff General [[Thomas S. Moorman Jr.]] The district court entered summary judgment for the Air Force because the privilege barred evidence on whether hazardous waste had been generated, stored or disposed of at the location. Frost argued on appeal, among other things, that the Secretary could not have personally reviewed all the information withheld and suggested that the privilege was used to cover up environmental crimes at the location. The EPA inspected the location from December 6, 1994 to March 10, 1995, after Kasza was filed; the court ruled that the statute contained no exception for classified information but that the President could exempt a facility, and EPA then obtained a presidential exemption. Cox News Service reported on August 16, 1994, in the [[St. Louis Post-Dispatch]], that [[Jonathan Turley]], a law professor at the [[George Washington University]] National Law Center, had sued the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to enforce environmental laws at a secret air base in Nevada. According to the report, Turley said he represented unidentified current and former workers at "Area 51," and the suit alleged that the burning of hazardous and toxic wastes at the base caused serious injuries to employees and at least one death, and that employees who handled hazardous wastes were refused protective clothing. The report said Turley would ask the United States District Court in Washington to force the EPA to inspect and monitor the base, that the complaint was under seal pending a ruling on the use of fictitious names for complainants who feared retaliation, and that an EPA spokesman said he had no information. It described the base as also known as "Dreamland," on the edge of Groom Dry Lake about 90 miles north of Las Vegas inside a restricted Air Force range, and quoted Turley as saying, "We want to establish that workers at secret bases should not be forced to rely on the arbitrary protections of the military." The portion read does not mention EG&G.[^22] The plaintiffs were represented by Turley and [[Joan Manley]] of George Washington University; the government by lawyers of the [[Department of Justice]]; and KLAS, Inc. appeared as amicus. The [[United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit|Ninth Circuit]] affirmed on January 8, 1998, remanding only attorney's fees and a sealing order, applying the privilege as defined in [[United States v. Reynolds]] (1953), and approved the "mosaic theory" under which seemingly innocuous information that is part of a classified mosaic may be withheld.[^2] President [[Bill Clinton]] signed Presidential Determination No. 95-45 on September 29, 1995: "I hereby exempt the Air Force's operating location near Groom Lake, Nevada from any Federal, State, interstate or local provision respecting control and abatement of solid waste or hazardous waste disposal that would require the disclosure of classified information concerning that operating location to any unauthorized person." It states that the exemption "shall be effective for the full one-year statutory period" and was published in the Federal Register on October 10, 1995.[^2][^23] The authorizing statute, 42 U.S.C. 6961(a), limits any such exemption to one year, and the Federal Register carries a renewal for each year from 1995 through 2003: Presidential Determination 96-54 of September 28, 1996 (published October 8, 1996), 97-35 of September 26, 1997 (October 8, 1997), a determination of September 25, 1998 reported in an Air Force notice of October 23, 1998, Presidential Determination 99-37 of September 20, 1999 (Air Force notice of October 26, 1999), 2000-30 of September 19, 2000 (October 5, 2000), 2001-27 of September 18, 2001 (October 4, 2001), 2002-30 of September 13, 2002 (Air Force notice of December 24, 2002) and 2003-39 of September 16, 2003 (October 21, 2003). Each text describes the location as the subject of litigation in Kasza v. Browner (D. Nev. CV-S-94-795-PMP) and Frost v. Perry (D. Nev. CV-S-94-714-PMP).[^24] The Federal Register's index returns no further document with the phrase "Groom Lake" after October 21, 2003.[^24] diff --git a/60 - PLACES/REGIONS/Europe.md b/60 - PLACES/REGIONS/Europe.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..2f3209e3 --- /dev/null +++ b/60 - PLACES/REGIONS/Europe.md @@ -0,0 +1,186 @@ +--- +category: "Region" +tags: + - Place + - Region + - Europe + - OperationGladio + - StayBehind + - NATO + - Belgium + - Dutroux + - ArmsTrade + - Mossad + - Iran + - ColdWar + - Paperclip + - BCCI + - Rolodex + - Extremism + - EpsteinNetwork +aliases: + - European continent +summary: "Europe as the vault records it: Cold War stay-behind networks and their NATO committees, the Belgian and Dutch child-abuse inquiries, Paperclip and BCCI, arms transfers to Iran, Israeli operations, and the continent's extremist networks." +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +--- + +Europe is the region in which the vault places the postwar stay-behind networks and the allied military command structure, the Belgian and Dutch inquiries into protected criminal networks, the recruitment of German scientists, the European base of [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]], a set of arms transfers to [[Iran]] and [[Panama]], Israeli and Palestinian operations, the Berlin and Hungarian crises of the [[Cold War]], and the continent's neo-Nazi and online violent networks. + +### Stay-behind networks and the Gladio affair + +The stay-behind arrangements in Western Europe enter the vault through [[Italy]]. The parliamentary commission on terrorism in Italy, in its report on [[Operation Gladio]] approved in April 1992, records that the Italian military intelligence service (SIFAR) and its American counterpart concluded an agreement on November 26, 1956, to organize and implement a post-occupation clandestine network, commonly called stay-behind. The name Gladio first appeared at a meeting between the two services on October 18, 1956. The report says the Italian services first obtained support from British intelligence and then turned to the [[Central Intelligence Agency]], which appeared to have ample resources, including financial ones.[^1] + +The Italian network was set up after similar networks had already been organized in [[France]], the Netherlands and [[Belgium]], which were in turn extended to Denmark and Norway and to German and Austrian territory under Allied control.[^2] Italy joined the [[Clandestine Planning Committee]], which operated within the [[Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe]] (SHAPE), as an associate member on May 19, 1959. A second body, the [[Allied Clandestine Committee]], was created in 1958 on the initiative of the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, with the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and [[Luxembourg]] as members. Italy entered it on April 15, 1964, shortly after [[West Germany]].[^3] + +The [[European Parliament]] adopted a joint resolution on the affair on November 22, 1990 (Official Journal C 324, December 24, 1990, p. 201), replacing five earlier motions. Its recitals refer to "the existence for 40 years of a clandestine parallel intelligence and armed operations organization in several Member States of the Community" which "has escaped all democratic controls and has been run by the secret services of the states concerned in collaboration with NATO." They record the fear that the network "may have interfered illegally in the internal political affairs of Member States or may still do so," that "in certain Member States military secret services (or uncontrolled branches thereof) were involved in serious cases of terrorism and crime," and that the Gladio organizations had "independent arsenals and military resources which give them an unknown strike potential."[^4] + +The operative paragraphs condemn "the clandestine creation of manipulative and operational networks" and call for a full investigation into their nature, structure and aims, "the problem of terrorism in Europe and the possible collusion of the secret services of Member States or third countries." Paragraph 2 "protests vigorously at the assumption by certain US military personnel at SHAPE and in NATO of the right to encourage the establishment in Europe of a clandestine intelligence and operation network." Paragraph 3 calls on the member state governments "to dismantle all clandestine military and paramilitary networks." The resolution was forwarded to the Commission, the Council, the Secretary-General of [[NATO]] and the member state governments.[^5] + +### Belgium and the Brabant investigations + +A Senate commission of inquiry reported on October 1, 1991, that the word Gladio was unknown in Belgium until November 1990.[^6] The commission examined a clandestine international intelligence network with two Belgian units, the branch of [[SURETE DE L'ETAT|State Security]] known as STC/Mob and the military intelligence unit SDRA VIII, which the report examines as the Belgian stay-behind component ([[SDRA8]]). The Belgian secretariat of the Clandestine Planning Committee was abolished on April 1, 1991, according to two witnesses.[^7] + +The commission took up the [[Brabant massacres]] directly. Its report states that, within the limits of the information it could obtain, no direct link could be established between SDRA VIII and STC/Mob on the one hand and the persons and organizations investigated in the 1980 and 1988 inquiries on the other. It records that a State Security officer, an SDRA officer, an SDRI officer who had been a court-appointed expert in several of the Brabant cases and a gendarme had all been in sustained contact with Major Bougerol of the gendarmerie in the same period, and that two of them belonged with him to the confraternity of the Hospitallers of Notre-Dame d'Aulne. It also records that contacts took place between the military Public Information Office, the Front de la Jeunesse and other extreme-right organizations.[^8] + +Asked whether the network had any connection with terrorist acts or serious banditry committed in Belgium over the previous ten years, the Senate commission answered that it had no indication of one, and added that the refusal of the heads of SDRA VIII and STC/Mob to give the expert magistrates the identities of their civilian agents "did not allow the verifications that would probably have eliminated all doubt."[^9] + +The Chamber of Representatives later opened its own inquiry into the Brabant killings, established in June 1996 with the Landuyt and Viseur report of October 14, 1997. Its first annex, an inventory of the publicly formulated grievances written for the commission by the law professors C. Fijnaut and R. Verstraeten of the Catholic University of Leuven, analyses the leads followed in the investigation and places the Westland New Post (WNP), an extreme-right group formed in 1981 by Paul Latinus from the dissolved Front de la Jeunesse, among the principal ones. The annex states that the WNP was credited by some with contacts in the army and the police, in particular the gendarmerie, and that its strength was put at between twenty and fifty members. It reproduces the 1983 view of a journalist, Haquin, that the Brabant killers were terrorists who possibly belonged to the WNP, and the 1995 statement of the investigator Barrez that the WNP "should have been the subject of a more thorough investigation long ago" and that it remained open whether State Security had gathered intelligence on the group or had used it.[^10] + +The same annex quotes the final conclusions of the magistrate-experts who assisted the Senate commission. They found "no element making it possible to believe that members of SDRA VIII or STC/Mob" played a role in the criminal activities that alarmed public opinion, and added three observations: that Major Bougerol continued his activities after the Public Information Office was wound up and with the agreement of military security, which they called a disturbing finding; that the silence kept on the identity of agents prevented the necessary verifications; and that the activities of extreme-right movements, "manipulated or not by foreign services," tolerated and even patronized by authorities of the military intelligence service, "deserve the attention of Parliament."[^11] The experts also cite the theft of NATO documents, possibly by WNP members, and the theft of ammunition at Florennes as demonstrating "the manipulation of Belgian citizens by foreign services."[^12] The annex records that the former gendarme Martial Lekeu, interviewed in 1990, named Francis Dossogne, [[Baron Benoit de Bonvoisin]] and the CEPIC as the people behind the killers, and that the Belgian press reported at one point that former gendarmes frequently named in the case might have been used by the American Drug Enforcement Administration and the CIA. The Chamber annex also records that the Senate commission itself noted that Paul Latinus had claimed several times around 1981 to work for American services.[^13] + +### Dutroux, Nihoul and the X-Dossier + +A jury at Arlon convicted [[Marc Dutroux]] on June 17, 2004, of abducting six girls in 1995 and 1996 and of killing two of them and an accomplice, and convicted [[Jean-Michel Nihoul]] of belonging to a gang that smuggled drugs and people into Belgium.[^14] The Chamber's inquiry into the police and judicial handling of the case reported on April 14, 1997 (Doc. 713/6), and its supplementary report of February 16, 1998 (Doc. 713/8) states in its general conclusions that there were indications that Dutroux and Nihoul, separately or together, had conducted polycriminal activity covering fraud, drug trafficking, abduction and rape of children followed by murder, trafficking in human beings and car trafficking, and that the networks they set up had enjoyed "at various levels an indirect protection engendered by individual or collective phenomena of the blurring of the norm or of corrupting behaviours." In the same paragraph the commission stated that, on the data available to it and without prejudice to later judicial inquiries, it had found no indication that the criminal circles in question had enjoyed, within the police, the magistracy, the administration or politics, protections capable of explaining by themselves the failures, delays and anomalies in the investigations. It added that its work had been hampered "by the will of some to conceal information, to deny the obvious, to camouflage realities."[^15] + +The commission's chapter on the Neufchâteau investigators, which belongs to the history of the [[X-Dossier]], records that it had been informed of a possible involvement of some protagonists in an unsolved murder in the Brussels region, that its investigator-counsellor Marique had contacted the Neufchâteau investigators working on the reopened inquiry, and that the Brussels examining magistrate [[Jean-Claude Van Espen]], who had led the investigation in the 1980s, reacted to those contacts in a manner the commission described as violent.[^16] + +### The Rolodex investigation in the Netherlands + +A Dutch government summary of the [[Rolodex Investigation]], dated December 23, 2013, describes the inquiry as growing out of a 1997 investigation into a homosexual brothel with an attached escort agency in [[Amsterdam]], which was halted for tactical reasons and reopened in May 1998. A witness in a separate sex case began describing the brothel in July 1998 and stated that he had seen the names of two chief public prosecutors on the brothel owner's client list, a rolodex. The summary states that the rolodex was never found in searches of the suspects' homes and premises.[^17] + +A multidisciplinary team formed in August 1998 was given three tasks, one of them an inquiry into alleged sexual abuse of boys under sixteen by justice officials. The brothel owner and an associate were convicted by the Amsterdam district court on February 26, 1999, and sentenced to three years and fifteen months, with six months of the second sentence suspended. The [[College of Procurators-General]] concluded on March 24, 1999, that the allegations against the two prosecutors rested on the statements of one person whom the police regarded as unreliable. On September 21, 1999, it decided that no further criminal investigation of two other justice officials was warranted.[^18] The summary also states that the former secretary-general of the [[Ministry of Justice (Netherlands)|Ministry of Justice]] did not come up in the investigation in any way and that no information showed any involvement on his part.[^19] + +The [[Public Prosecution Service]] asked the court on June 30, 2017, to approve a request to refrain from prosecuting [[Joris Demmink]].[^20] + +### Italy: the P2 lodge + +The final report of the Italian parliamentary commission on the P2 lodge, chaired by Tina Anselmi and communicated to the presidents of both chambers on July 12, 1984, examines the seizure at Castiglion Fibocchi, carried out by the Guardia di Finanza on the order of the Milan magistrates Turone and Colombo during their inquiry into the Sindona affair. The commission recorded that [[Licio Gelli]] was the Venerable Master of [[Propaganda Due]], that the General Commander of the Guardia di Finanza, General Orazio Giannini, telephoned the colonel conducting the search to warn him that the list of names contained "all the top levels" and that the operation could be extremely prejudicial to the corps, and that Giannini could not explain how he knew the contents of the lists. The report discusses a list of 962 presumed affiliates, and notes that a report of the civilian intelligence service SISDE on the lodge excluded the hypothesis that the list had been falsified. It treats the affair of the president of [[Banco Ambrosiano]], [[Roberto Calvi]], as part of the system of relations that centred on the lodge and on Gelli.[^21] + +### Arms transfers through European cities + +The 1988 report of the Senate subcommittee whose findings are known as the [[Kerry Report]] states that [[Manuel Noriega]] used his control of the Panamanian security apparatus to arrange end-user certificates, resold weapons to the highest bidder, and counted the [[Sandinistas]] among his earliest clients. The report says the weapons were bought in Europe by [[Michael Barari]] and [[Jorge Krupnick]], who worked with Noriega, and were moved to [[Costa Rica]] for shipment.[^22] + +The [[Hashemi brothers]] appear in the record of a 1988 federal appeal. The Second Circuit described an indictment of Samuel Evans, general counsel to [[Adnan Khashoggi]], and other defendants who allegedly planned to sell to Iran arms manufactured in or licensed from the United States, then owned by foreign countries, by deceiving the government about the buyer. The arms were destined for [[Cyrus Hashemi]], whom the court identified as a government agent posing as an Iranian buyer, and the undercover operation ended before any arms changed hands.[^23] + +[[Ari Ben-Menashe]] wrote in 1992 that [[Liege]] served as a hand-over point for American matériel that [[Israel]] bought from NATO stocks in Europe. According to his account, Israeli chartered cargo planes picked up the weapons there and returned to [[Tel Aviv]] before carrying them to Iran.[^24] He also wrote that the Israeli Defense Ministry bureau [[LAKAM]] set up front companies in Europe and Latin America to buy high-technology equipment from the United States, and that Iran spent more than 82 billion dollars on equipment from the United States, Israel, Europe, South America and South Africa between March 1981 and the end of 1987.[^25][^26] He wrote as well that, as a duty officer in [[Unit 8200]], he intercepted in 1976 a telegram recording bribes of 3.5 million dollars paid by a [[Lockheed Aircraft Company|Lockheed]] representative to Defense Minister [[Shimon Peres]], deposited in one of Peres's brother's business accounts in Europe. The account is also recorded on the [[Lockheed bribe scandal]] entry.[^27] + +[[Seymour Hersh]] wrote in *The Samson Option* that depleted uranium processed at [[Machons (Dimona Facilities)]] was prepared for shipment to the [[Israel Defense Forces]] or for sale to arms manufacturers in Europe.[^28] + +A Central Intelligence Agency paper of October 19, 1973, on the Arab oil embargo that followed the [[Yom Kippur War]], is cited in the [[Foreign Relations of the United States]] volume on the crisis. It judged that the embargo's effect on the United States "would be relatively small, and after the first month, the brunt of the cutback would fall on Europe and Japan."[^29] + +### Israeli operations and Palestinian militant networks + +Ben-Menashe wrote that after the 1972 attack at the [[Munich Olympic Massacre|Munich Olympics]], [[Black September]] fought a battle with [[Mossad]] agents in Europe.[^30] The Mossad campaign that followed, [[Operation Wrath of God]], is described by [[Simon Reeve]] and [[George Jonas]] as a series of killings across Europe over several years, including the July 1973 killing in [[Lillehammer]], Norway, of a Moroccan waiter mistaken for a Black September operations chief.[^31] Ben-Menashe also describes booking an [[Air France]] flight from Europe to Israel for [[Sayeed Mehdi Kashani]], and he describes [[Strategic Intelligence Services]], a firm that recruited mercenaries and was involved in an unsuccessful coup in the [[Seychelles]] in November 1981.[^32][^33] + +### Operation Paperclip + +The final report of the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group to Congress records that by 1946 the Pentagon's Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA) was pushing for a larger program of recruiting German and Austrian scientists and technicians, that the JIOA wanted 1,000 of them and the authority to grant them citizenship, and that President [[Harry S. Truman]] authorized the plan in September 1946 while insisting that only "nominal participants" in the Nazi party be admitted. The report states that between 1945 and 1955, 765 scientists, engineers and technicians were brought to the United States under Overcast, [[Operation Paperclip]] and similar programs, and quotes the historian Clarence Lasby's estimate that up to 80 percent of the immigrant specialists had been Nazi Party members.[^34] + +### The Bank of Credit and Commerce International in Luxembourg and London + +The 1992 Kerry and Brown report to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee records that [[Agha Hasan Abedi]] needed five things to create Bank of Credit and Commerce International, the first being a bank secrecy and confidentiality haven, "which he found first in Luxembourg, and then in Grand Caymans." The report states that BCCI was initially incorporated in Luxembourg alone, that a holding company was created two years later with the bank beneath it split into BCCI S.A., headquartered in Luxembourg, and BCCI Overseas, headquartered in [[Grand Cayman]], and that Luxembourg was used mostly for BCCI's European and Middle East locations. Its account of the share register notes that several of the shareholders on BCCI's Luxembourg register were nominees acting for the bank.[^35] + +The Bank of England closed BCCI on July 5, 1991. The Bingham inquiry reported to the British government in October 1992, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Norman Lamont, summarised it to the House of Commons on October 22, 1992: BCCI's first branch had opened in London in 1972, the Bank of England had been "slow to impose on BCCI an appropriate supervisory regime," and it had "continued for too long to rely on the Luxembourg authorities to play the leading role." Lamont told the House that the report showed "no duplicity or bad faith" and that the Bank "was party to no conspiracy or cover-up," made after he referred to wild allegations about the Bank's role in the affair.[^36] + +### Epstein's Paris investigation + +The Paris prosecutor's office opened its own investigation into [[Jeffrey Epstein]] in August 2019, a month after his arrest in New York, citing his ownership of an apartment in an upmarket district of Paris and the accounts of women who said they were abused in France, and issued a call for witnesses in September 2019. The inquiry targeted "acts of sexual nature likely to have been committed by Jeffrey Epstein and possible accomplices." On December 19, 2020, French prosecutors announced that they had charged [[Jean-Luc Brunel]], the model-agency founder who had founded MC2 Model Management in the United States with Epstein, with rape of minors over fifteen and sexual harassment.[^37] + +### The Congress for Cultural Freedom + +The [[Office of Policy Coordination]] of the CIA financed the planned Berlin meeting of the [[Congress for Cultural Freedom]]. A CIA document released by the [[Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel]] records that [[Frank Wisner]] approved a 50,000 dollar project on April 7, 1950, and asked that [[Melvin Lasky]] and [[James Burnham]] be kept out of sight, for fear that their presence would give critics ammunition against the Berlin conference. The congress met in Berlin in June 1950. The OPC bought tickets for the American delegation and passed most of the money through the [[National Committee for Free Europe]] and [[Jay Lovestone]]'s [[Free Trade Union Conference]].[^38] + +### Information libraries and the McCarthy subcommittee + +[[G. David Schine]], the only unpaid staff member of the Senate investigations subcommittee chaired by [[Joseph McCarthy]], made an April 1953 tour with [[Roy Cohn]] of U.S. information libraries in Europe. The Senate's historical introduction to the subcommittee's executive sessions records the tour, and it records that the closed hearings then turned to the Voice of America and the overseas information libraries, where the subcommittee questioned the availability of books by suspected Communists.[^39][^40] + +### Intelligence careers + +[[Stephen Kappes]] joined the CIA in January 1981 and, according to the agency's biography of him, had more than twelve years of overseas assignments in the Middle East, Asia and Europe.[^41] + +### Cold War crises: Berlin and Budapest + +On August 13, 1961, the [[East Germany|German Democratic Republic]] introduced control measures that effectively prevented residents of the Soviet sector and East Berlin from entering West Berlin, according to the State Department editorial note on the [[Berlin Crisis]].[^42] + +Legation telegrams from [[Budapest]] reported contact with the insurgents of the [[Hungarian Revolution]] on October 25 and 26, 1956, and on October 27 reported that the wives of two leaders of the insurgent writers had asked the Legation for U.S. assistance in arranging a twelve-hour armistice.[^43] + +### The Cutler travel record and the MJ-12 documents + +The Majestic 12 documents, which [[Jaime Shandera]] and [[William L. Moore]] published, were examined by the National Archives. Its reference report records a memorandum dated July 20, 1954, from [[Robert Cutler]] that refers to his visits to installations in Europe and North Africa between July 3 and 15, 1954.[^44] + +### SAVAK and Iranian students abroad + +A telegram from the Embassy in Tehran of November 1, 1976, printed in the State Department's volume on Iran, carries an editorial footnote citing an article in [[The Washington Post]] of October 26, 1976, by [[Jack Anderson]] and [[Les Whitten]] which claimed that [[SAVAK]] agents "hound and harass Iranians in the United States, with the full knowledge and sometimes the assistance of the CIA." The same footnote records that other sources claimed SAVAK was sending assassination squads into Europe and the United States to eliminate Iranian dissidents, one of whom, [[Reza Baraheni]], requested that the Attorney General investigate.[^45] + +### Extremist and online violent networks + +The Europol terrorism situation and trend report for 2024 (published 2025) states that 449 individuals were arrested for terrorism-related offences across 20 member states, that the number of minors and young people involved in terrorist and violent extremist activity continued to grow, and that "in the right-wing milieu, the very young age of some of the suspects arrested for planning and preparing attacks poses great concerns." It describes "the growing engagement of right-wing extremists with online occultism and satanist communities" and online communities with ideological overlaps with jihadist terrorism, violent right-wing extremism and accelerationism, "but also satanism and occultism."[^46] + +In the United Kingdom, Schedule 2 to the Terrorism Act 2000 lists [[National Action]], added by an order made on December 15, 2016, together with the [[Sonnenkrieg Division]], the Feuerkrieg Division, [[Atomwaffen Division]] (including the National Socialist Order) and The Base. The schedule does not list [[Combat 18]] or the [[Order of Nine Angles]].[^47] The German interior minister banned Combat 18 Deutschland under the association law on January 23, 2020, in raids that involved 210 police officers in six states.[^48] The Supreme Court of Finland ordered the [[Nordic Resistance Movement]] and its registered association disbanded on September 22, 2020, the first court-ordered dissolution of an extreme-right group in Finland since 1977.[^49] + +Dutch media reported in October 2025 that a 25-year-old from [[Eindhoven]] had been arrested at the end of July 2025 and was held in the terrorism wing of the [[Vught Prison]]. Prosecutors say he led the online network [[No Lives Matter]], which is reportedly an offshoot of the international chat group [[764]], and that he encouraged others to extreme violence and self-harm and blackmailed young people with sexually explicit material. The prosecution treats the alleged offenses as crimes with a terrorist intent.[^50] His lawyer said that he admitted founding the group, that he left it in 2021 or 2022, and that not every young person who behaves violently online is a terrorist.[^51] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Commissione parlamentare d'inchiesta sul terrorismo in Italia e sulle cause della mancata individuazione dei responsabili delle stragi, *Relazione sull'inchiesta condotta sulle vicende connesse all'operazione Gladio*, Doc. XXIII n. 51, approved April 14 and 15, 1992, communicated April 22, 1992, chapter on the origins of the network (translated from the Italian). https://www.parlamento.it/service/PDF/PDFServer/BGT/909971.pdf +[^2]: Same report, origins chapter, on the networks in France, the Netherlands and Belgium and their extension to Denmark, Norway and the German and Austrian territories under Allied control. +[^3]: Same report, chapters on the Clandestine Planning Committee and the Allied Clandestine Committee, including the Italian entries of May 19, 1959 and April 15, 1964. +[^4]: European Parliament, "Resolution on the Gladio affair," joint resolution replacing motions B3-2021, B3-2058, B3-2068, B3-2078 and B3-2087/90, November 22, 1990, *Official Journal of the European Communities* C 324, December 24, 1990, p. 201, recitals A to G; text as reproduced by Statewatch, "GLADIO - resolution of the European Parliament." https://www.statewatch.org/statewatch-database/gladio-resolution-of-the-european-parliament (archived copy at https://web.archive.org/web/2023/https://www.statewatch.org/statewatch-database/gladio-resolution-of-the-european-parliament) +[^5]: Same resolution, operative paragraphs 1 to 8. +[^6]: Belgian Senate, Doc. 1117-4 (1990-1991), report of Erdman and Hasquin on behalf of the parliamentary inquiry into a clandestine international intelligence network, October 1, 1991, section on the Gladio affair. https://senate.be/lexdocs/S0523/S05231297.pdf +[^7]: Same report, sections on the STC/Mob and SDRA VIII units and on the Belgian secretariat of the Clandestine Planning Committee, citing two witnesses on its abolition on April 1, 1991. +[^8]: Same report, conclusions on the Brabant investigations (point A, no direct link established with the persons and organizations of the 1980 and 1988 inquiries; point B, sustained contacts of Massart, Fagnart, Dery and Mayerus with Major Bougerol and the confraternity of the Hospitallers of Notre-Dame d'Aulne; point C, contacts between the Public Information Office, the Front de la Jeunesse and other extreme-right organizations). +[^9]: Same report, fourth question: "La Commission ne dispose d'aucune indication permettant de conclure qu'il y a eu le moindre lien entre le réseau et les actes de terrorisme et de grand banditisme," followed by the passage on the refusal to identify civilian agents (translated from the French). +[^10]: Belgian Chamber of Representatives, Doc. 573/8 (1995-1996), parliamentary inquiry into the organization and functioning of the police and judicial apparatus in light of the difficulties of the investigation into the "tueurs du Brabant," report of Renaat Landuyt and Jean-Jacques Viseur, October 14, 1997, Annex I (inventory of the publicly formulated grievances, by C. Fijnaut and R. Verstraeten), section III.3.3, "La piste en direction du WNP" (translated from the French). Archived copy: https://web.archive.org/web/20070930043308/http://www.dekamer.be/FLWB/PDF/49/0573/49K0573008.pdf +[^11]: Same annex, section III.3.10, "Le réseau allié 'stay-behind' était-il impliqué ?", quoting the final report of the Senate commission (CEP4, 152-153). +[^12]: Same annex, section III.3.10, on the theft of NATO documents and of ammunition at Florennes and the undated note on "secret diplomacy" appended to the Senate report. +[^13]: Same annex, sections III.3.3 and III.3.10, including footnote 191 on press reports concerning the DEA and the CIA and the Senate commission's note on Paul Latinus's claims of working for American services around 1981. +[^14]: "Notorious child rapist-murderer convicted," Associated Press via NBC News, June 17, 2004. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna5233011 +[^15]: Belgian Chamber of Representatives, Doc. 713/8-96/97, supplementary report of February 16, 1998, section 6, "Conclusions générales," pp. 148-149 (translated from the French); first report Doc. 713/6-96/97, April 14, 1997. https://www.dekamer.be/FLWB/PDF/49/0713/49K0713008.pdf and https://www.dekamer.be/FLWB/PDF/49/0713/49K0713006.pdf (archived copies at web.archive.org/web/2024id_/ followed by each address) +[^16]: Same Doc. 713/8-96/97, chapter V, "Problèmes internes au sein de l'antenne de Neufchâteau," section 1, "Justification." +[^17]: Summary of the background, course, results and decision-making of the Rolodex investigation, December 23, 2013, attachment to Dutch parliamentary documents (Eerste Kamer). https://eerstekamer.nl/9370000/1/j4nvgs5kjg27kof_j9vvkfvj6b325az/vjigib8p5szh +[^18]: Same summary, sections on the team of August 1998, the convictions of February 26, 1999, and the decisions of the College of Procurators-General of March 24 and September 21, 1999. +[^19]: Same summary, section on the former secretary-general of the Ministry of Security and Justice. +[^20]: Openbaar Ministerie, press release, "OM vraagt bewilliging van verzoek af te zien van vervolging Demmink," June 30, 2017. https://www.om.nl/actueel/nieuws/2017/06/30/om-vraagt-bewilliging-van-verzoek-af-te-zien-van-vervolging-demmink +[^21]: Camera dei Deputati and Senato della Repubblica, IX Legislatura, Doc. XXIII n. 2, *Relazione della Commissione parlamentare d'inchiesta sulla loggia massonica P2* (Anselmi), communicated July 12, 1984, introductory section on Calvi and Gelli and section I, "Il sequestro di Castiglion Fibocchi," and section II on the authenticity of the lists (translated from the Italian). https://www.parlamento.it/service/PDF/PDFServer/BGT/909679.pdf +[^22]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy*, S. Prt. 100-165, 100th Cong., 2d Sess. (December 1988), Panama chapter, on Noriega's earliest arms clients, the European purchases by Barari and Krupnick, and the shipment through Costa Rica. https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras +[^23]: *United States v. Evans*, 844 F.2d 36 (2d Cir. 1988), opinion of Chief Judge Feinberg. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/504381/united-states-v-evans/ +[^24]: Ari Ben-Menashe, *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network* (Sheridan Square Press, 1992; TrineDay reprint, 2015), account of Liege. +[^25]: Ben-Menashe, *Profits of War*, account of LAKAM and its front companies in Europe and Latin America. +[^26]: Ben-Menashe, *Profits of War*, account of Iranian expenditure from March 1981 to the end of 1987. +[^27]: Ben-Menashe, *Profits of War*, account of the 1976 telegram on Lockheed payments to Peres. +[^28]: Seymour M. Hersh, *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy* (Random House, 1991), chapter 15, on Machon 10. +[^29]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976*, vol. XXV, *Arab-Israeli Crisis and War, 1973*, editorial note on the oil embargo citing a Central Intelligence Agency paper of October 19, 1973. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v25 +[^30]: Ben-Menashe, *Profits of War*, account of Black September. +[^31]: Simon Reeve, *One Day in September: The Full Story of the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre* (Faber and Faber, 2000); George Jonas, *Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team* (1984), on the campaign and the Lillehammer killing. +[^32]: Ben-Menashe, *Profits of War*, account of the Air France booking for Sayeed Mehdi Kashani. +[^33]: Ben-Menashe, *Profits of War*, account of Strategic Intelligence Services and the Seychelles. +[^34]: Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group, *Final Report to Congress* (April 2007), pp. 14-15, citing Clarence Lasby, *Project Paperclip* (Atheneum, 1975). https://www.archives.gov/files/iwg/reports/final-report-2007.pdf +[^35]: Senator John Kerry and Senator Hank Brown, *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate*, December 1992, ch. 3, "The Origin and Early Years of BCCI" (critical elements of BCCI's creation; rapid expansion; nominee shareholders on the Luxembourg register). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/03hist.htm +[^36]: House of Commons, "BCCI (Bingham Report)," statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Norman Lamont, *Hansard*, October 22, 1992. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1992/oct/22/bcci-bingham-report; on the closure date of July 5, 1991, Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair*, ch. 1, "Executive Summary." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/01exec.htm +[^37]: "France charges Epstein ex-associate over sex crime claims," *Al Jazeera*, December 19, 2020, reporting the statement of the Paris prosecutor's office. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/19/france-charges-epstein-ex-associate-over-sex-crime-claims +[^38]: National Archives, Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel, release 2014-090, Doc. 1, pt. 3 of 12, CIA history of the origins of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, including the April 7, 1950 approval, the instruction on Lasky and Burnham, the OPC ticket purchases and the funding routes. https://www.archives.gov/files/declassification/iscap/pdf/2014-090-doc-1-part-3.pdf +[^39]: U.S. Senate, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, *Executive Sessions*, vol. 1, S. Prt. 107-84 (2003), historical introduction by Donald A. Ritchie, on the Schine tour and the information libraries. https://www.senate.gov/about/resources/pdf/mccarthy-hearings-volume1.pdf +[^40]: Same, historical introduction, on the closed hearings and the overseas information libraries. +[^41]: Central Intelligence Agency, "Stephen R. Kappes," About CIA, Leadership, archived April 2007. https://web.archive.org/web/20070612215306/https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/leadership/kappes.html +[^42]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963*, vol. XIV, *Berlin Crisis, 1961-1962*, editorial note on the events of August 13, 1961. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v14 +[^43]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955-1957*, vol. XXV, *Eastern Europe*, Legation telegrams from Budapest of October 26 to 27, 1956, including Telegrams 161, 163, 166 and 169. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v25 +[^44]: National Archives, "Majestic 12 or 'MJ-12' Reference Report," in "Project BLUE BOOK - Unidentified Flying Objects," on the Cutler memorandum of July 20, 1954 and the July 3 to 15 travel. https://www.archives.gov/research/military/air-force/ufos +[^45]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976*, vol. XXVII, *Iran; Iraq, 1973-1976*, Document 193, telegram from the Embassy in Iran to the Department of State, November 1, 1976, editorial footnote citing *The Washington Post*, October 26, 1976. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v27 +[^46]: Europol, *European Union Terrorism Situation and Trend Report (TE-SAT) 2025*, summary, "Key points" and "Developments across the spectrum of terrorism and violent extremism in the EU," pp. 2-4. https://www.europol.europa.eu/cms/sites/default/files/documents/TE-SAT%202025%20-%20Summary%20-%20EN.pdf +[^47]: Terrorism Act 2000, Schedule 2 (proscribed organisations), https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/schedule/2; The Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) (No. 3) Order 2016, SI 2016/1238, made December 15, 2016, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2016/1238/made; The Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2021, SI 2021/501 (Atomwaffen Division), https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2021/501/made +[^48]: "Seehofer verbietet rechtsextremistischen Verein 'Combat 18 Deutschland,'" *beck-aktuell*, January 23, 2020. https://www.beck-aktuell.de/heute-im-recht/rechtsgeschehen/seehofer-verbietet-rechtsextremistischen-verein-combat-18-deutschland-2020-01-23 +[^49]: Daniel Sallamaa and Tommi Kotonen, "The case against the Nordic Resistance Movement in Finland: an overview and some explanations," C-REX Center for Research on Extremism, University of Oslo, November 2, 2020. https://www.sv.uio.no/c-rex/english/news-and-events/right-now/2020/the-case-against-the-nordic-resistance-movement.html +[^50]: "Oprichter (25) van sadistisch netwerk zegt dat hij zijn leven had gebeterd," *NOS*, October 28, 2025, on the prosecution's allegations and the terrorist intent of the alleged offenses. https://nos.nl/l/2588258 +[^51]: Same article, on the defense statement of the suspect's lawyer. diff --git a/60 - PLACES/US_STATES/Delaware.md b/60 - PLACES/US_STATES/Delaware.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..ef944088 --- /dev/null +++ b/60 - PLACES/US_STATES/Delaware.md @@ -0,0 +1,218 @@ +--- +category: "U.S. State" +tags: + - Place + - USState + - CorporateShells + - CourtOfChancery + - BankruptcyCourt + - Epstein + - CentralIntelligenceAgency + - HowardHughes +summary: "State of incorporation for the Epstein aircraft companies, In-Q-Tel and most of the vault's corporate shells, and the forum of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute trustee suit and the FTX bankruptcy." +aliases: + - State of Delaware + - Delaware, United States +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +relations: + - type: participant_in + with: "[[Howard Hughes Medical Institute]]" + start: 1979-06-26 + end: 1979-10-26 + role: "Attorney General of Delaware, joint plaintiff with William R. Lummis, in Wier v. Howard Hughes Medical Institute" + fn: 53 +--- +Delaware is a Mid-Atlantic state and the legal domicile of most of the corporations, limited partnerships and limited liability companies named on this site. Delaware law allows an entity to come into existence on a filing with the state and gives it a file number.[^1][^2] The state's courts appear as well, chiefly the [[Delaware Court of Chancery]], which heard the trustee suit over the [[Howard Hughes Medical Institute]], and the [[United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware]], where the FTX Chapter 11 case and several adversary proceedings involving SkyBridge-related parties were filed. In the Supreme Court record the state is the respondent in [[Franks v. Delaware]]. + +### Delaware General Corporation Law and the registry + +Any person, partnership, association or corporation, without regard to residence, domicile or state of incorporation, may incorporate under the General Corporation Law by filing a certificate of incorporation with the Division of Corporations in the Department of State.[^3] The certificate must state the corporation's name, the address of its registered office in the state and the name of its registered agent at that address.[^4] The Limited Liability Company Act likewise requires a certificate of formation that sets out the name, the registered office and the registered agent, and the company exists from the moment of filing.[^2] The corporation law also permits the certificate to eliminate the personal liability of directors and officers to the corporation or its stockholders for monetary damages for breach of fiduciary duty, subject to enumerated exceptions.[^5] A stockholder may inspect the corporation's books and records for a proper purpose on written demand under oath, and the Court of Chancery hears the proceedings to compel it.[^6] + +The federal Corporate Transparency Act, enacted on January 1, 2021 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, directed the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to collect beneficial ownership information from entities formed by a state filing.[^7] On March 26, 2025, FinCEN published an interim final rule (90 Fed. Reg. 13688) that confined the reporting requirement to entities formed under foreign law and registered to do business in the United States, exempting entities previously defined as domestic reporting companies from reporting beneficial ownership information.[^8] A final rule of August 14, 2026 (91 Fed. Reg. 52508) adopted the interim rule with changes, and also exempted reporting companies from submitting information about their U.S. person company applicants.[^9] + +### Corporate domicile and the Division of Corporations + +The Division of Corporations record for a Delaware entity gives a file number, a formation date and the name of a registered agent. [[GeoMiliTech Consultants Corp.]] appears under file number 2015058, with a formation date of August 15, 1983, and [[Corporation Guarantee and Trust Company]] of [[Wilmington, Delaware|Wilmington]] as registered agent.[^10] [[Christopher Byron]] wrote in 1991 that court records showed the company incorporated in July 1983.[^11] [[Mark Phythian]] gives August 15, 1983 as the date on which a company presented as private was formed in Delaware to sell or exchange weapons.[^12] + +The [[Counter Terrorism Consultants, Inc.]] partnership, CounterTerrorism Consultants, L.P., was filed as a Delaware limited partnership under file number 2168210 on August 1, 1988.[^13] It registered in the District of Columbia as a foreign limited partnership on August 5, 1988, under file number 058088, with the corporation at 2300 M Street NW as its registered agent.[^14] The 1988 membership directory of the [[International Association of Chiefs of Police]] lists [[Carter Cornick]] as president of the corporation at that address.[^15] On August 2, 1988, [[United Press International]] reported that a group of former FBI agents and federal prosecutors had formed a consulting firm, a report that appeared the day after the partnership's filing.[^16] + +The [[Commodity Credit Corporation]] holds its present federal charter under the Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act of June 29, 1948. That act dissolved an earlier corporation of the same name organized under Delaware law and transferred its rights, duties, assets and liabilities to the new body, as the [[Government Corporation Control Act]] of 1945 required of wholly owned government corporations.[^17] + +[[Discord]] Inc. is a Delaware corporation with its business address in [[San Francisco|San Francisco, California]].[^18] In his January 31, 2024 testimony before the [[United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary]], [[Jason Citron]] stated that he had co-founded the company in 2015, that more than 150 million people used the service each month, that more than 75 percent of them were outside the [[United States]], and that Discord sold no advertising and charged for subscriptions and server boosts.[^19] + +### Epstein aircraft and the AdFin shareholding + +[[Air Ghislaine, Inc.]] was a Delaware corporation with a registered address in Wilmington and an office address for [[Jeffrey Epstein]] in New York. It held fractional jet shares and helicopters from at least January 2000.[^20] Its name carried the first name of [[Ghislaine Maxwell]]. It was renamed Shmitka Air, Inc. on February 11, 2010, and Freedom Air International, Inc. on July 6, 2010.[^21] A forensic accountant's table of Epstein entities lists Freedom Air International as wholly owned by Epstein and cites a consent of the sole stockholder dated December 7, 2012.[^20] The company's filings with the [[Federal Aviation Administration]] list as signing officers Epstein's chief pilot [[Larry Visoski]] until the 2010 renaming.[^21] + +[[JEGE, Inc.]] was a Delaware corporation through which Epstein owned the Boeing 727-31 registered N908JE, the aircraft the press called the [[Lolita Express]]. A 2007 federal draft indictment, never filed, describes Epstein as its principal owner, its president, sole director and sole shareholder, and says its sole business activities concerned the operation and ownership of that aircraft.[^22] A separate company, JEGE, LLC, was organized in [[St. Thomas]], [[U.S. Virgin Islands]], on October 19, 2012, with Epstein and Visoski as members.[^22] + +[[Hyperion Air]], Inc. was a Delaware corporation with a registered address in Wilmington. It bought Epstein's Gulfstream jet N909JE in 1994. The same unfiled 2007 draft indictment describes Epstein as its president, sole director and sole shareholder, and says its sole business activities concerned that Gulfstream.[^23] Hyperion Air, LLC was organized in St. Thomas on October 19, 2012, and held his helicopters until after his death. The corporation's account at [[JPMorgan Chase]] carried Epstein's aviation cash withdrawals from about 2011, according to an expert report filed in the Virgin Islands litigation against the bank.[^20] + +[[AdFin Solutions]], Inc., styled AD/FIN, was a Delaware corporation incorporated on April 25, 2011.[^24] It ingested and harmonized log-file data on winning bid transactions in programmatic advertising and sold pricing and media-audit analytics built on it.[^25] Its Series A preferred stock was bought in 2012 and 2013 by [[Jonathan Leitersdorf]], [[David Mitchell]], [[Tom Glocer]], [[Southern Trust Company]] and [[CVAFH I LLC]].[^26] The counterpart signature pages for the purchase agreement name Southern Trust Company, Inc., with Jeffrey Epstein as its president.[^26] The Schedule of Purchasers lists Southern Trust Company for 1,142,857 shares at $499,999.94 in a closing of April 10, 2013.[^27] CVAFH I LLC bought 800,000 shares for $350,000 on July 23, 2013, under a letter agreement that names [[Cantor Fitzgerald]], L.P. as the ultimate holding company of CVAFH.[^28] AdFin ceased operations in October 2019.[^29] + +### Funds, advisers and trading firms + +The Form D notices filed under the name [[1517 Fund]] begin in August 2015. Fund I, L.P., a Delaware limited partnership, filed on August 31, 2015, with a first sale on August 14, 2015, and reported 6,400,000 dollars sold to twelve investors.[^30] Its executive officers were two individuals and a general partner entity, 1517 Fund I GP, LLC. A sidecar vehicle, 1517 Fund I Sidecar LP, filed on December 1, 2015 and reported 290,000 dollars sold to six investors.[^31] + +[[Bridgewater Associates]], LP is a Delaware limited partnership and an investment adviser registered with the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] since January 12, 1990, with offices in [[Westport, Connecticut]].[^32] A Connecticut fiscal analysis prepared for a 2016 bond commission meeting gave its founding year as 1975 and described its clients as foreign governments and central banks, corporate and public pension funds, university endowments and charitable foundations.[^33] + +[[ICONIQ Capital]], LLC is a Delaware limited liability company registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission as an investment adviser, with CRD number 159198 and SEC file number 801-72878. Its registration took effect on December 1, 2011. Its brochure of March 26, 2026 names [[Divesh Makan]], [[Michael Anders]], [[Will Griffith]] and [[Matthew Jacobson]] as its principals.[^34] + +[[Jane Street Capital]], LLC is a broker-dealer formed in Delaware on August 31, 1999 and registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 27, 2000, with its main office at 250 Vesey Street in New York. Its direct owner is Jane Street Group, LLC, which it reports as its member from January 2014. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority record lists the members of the Jane Street Group management committee as control persons, among them [[Robert Granieri]] from January 2014 and, from December 2024, [[James McClave]].[^35] The Securities and Exchange Board of India issued an interim order on July 3, 2025 concerning index manipulation by Jane Street Group.[^36] + +[[Minerva Project]], Inc. is incorporated in Delaware. [[Ben Nelson]] is listed on each of its five Form D notices as an executive officer and director. The first, filed April 6, 2012, gives March 26, 2012 as the date of first sale, an offering of 25,000,000 dollars, and 16,666,667 dollars sold. It lists [[Kevin Harvey]] as a director beside Nelson.[^37] + +[[Braintree]], which [[Bryan Johnson]] led as chief executive officer, was incorporated in Delaware. Its Form D filed on July 13, 2011 lists Johnson as chief executive officer and director, [[Dan Manges]] as an executive officer, and [[Ryan Sweeney]] of [[Accel Partners]] as a director. It reports 34,200,097 dollars sold to six investors in an offering whose first sale was June 28, 2011. A second Form D followed on November 21, 2011.[^38] + +The annual amendment of the Form ADV of [[SkyBridge Capital II]], LLC, printed March 31, 2026, lists on Schedule A [[Anthony Scaramucci]] as manager and member since May 2018, with control person status. It also lists [[Island Bay Ventures]], Inc., a Delaware company, as a member since September 2022, with 25 percent but less than 50 percent ownership. Beneath Island Bay the schedule lists Paper Bird Inc. and, as its shareholder since September 2022, [[Sam Bankman-Fried]]. Item 7.B lists among the adviser's private funds SkyBridge FTX LP, whose general partner is SkyBridge FTX GP LLC.[^39] + +[[Cambridge Analytica]], LLC was a Delaware limited liability company formed in December 2013, with its principal office at 597 Fifth Avenue in New York and part of the family of companies of the British firm [[SCL Group]].[^40] [[Robert Mercer]] capitalized the company, [[Steve Bannon]] served on its board, and [[Alexander Nix]] was its chief executive officer.[^41] The company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in the [[United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York]] on May 17, 2018, as In re Cambridge Analytica LLC, Case No. 18-11500.[^41] + +### Intelligence contractors and defense firms + +[[In-Q-Tel]] was incorporated in Delaware on February 16, 1999, as Peleus, Inc., began work as In-Q-It, and took its present name in January 2000. It reported its 800th investment in 2025.[^42][^43][^44] The company invests money from the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] and other intelligence agencies in technology companies. + +[[Aerojet]] Engineering Corporation was incorporated in Delaware on March 19, 1942. Its incorporators were [[Theodore von Kármán]], [[Frank Malina]], [[Jack Parsons]], Edward Forman, [[Martin Summerfield]] and the Washington attorney [[Andrew Haley]].[^45] In his autobiography von Kármán wrote that each founder agreed to contribute 200 dollars and that Haley agreed to advance 2,500 dollars to cover the cost of starting the company.[^45] + +[[Intertel]] was incorporated in Delaware in January 1970 as a management advisory and consulting business intended to protect business firms from infiltration by crime and criminals. [[Robert Peloquin]] was its president, and [[William Hundley]] was its secretary and general counsel.[^46] The treasurer was [[Raymond M. Gore]], also vice president for finance of [[Resorts International]].[^46] Its officers included [[Fenelon Richards]], formerly director of enforcement of the [[United States Customs Service]], and [[Thomas McKeon]], formerly a Justice Department organized crime attorney.[^46] + +### Oil, aviation and the Bush and Baker names + +[[Harken Energy]] was incorporated in California in 1973 and reincorporated in Delaware in 1979. [[George W. Bush]] served as a director and consultant from 1986 until October 26, 1993. In January 1990 its subsidiary, Harken Bahrain Oil Company, obtained exclusive exploration rights over most of Bahrain's offshore territory.[^47][^48][^49] + +[[Atlantic Aviation]], a Delaware company selling business aircraft, hired [[James R. Bath]] in 1968 to open its Houston office, and he later became an aircraft broker on his own.[^50] In 1973 Bath formed a real estate partnership with [[Lan Bentsen]], a son of [[Lloyd Bentsen]]. Sources whom Time did not name said that one purpose was to find investments for the senator's blind trust. Bath and Bentsen said they had not been partners for years, but in 1991 secretaries at Bath's office still answered the telephone under the name Bath Bentsen Interests, and Bath said he had not got around to changing it.[^51] Unger wrote that Bath counted among his friends the Bentsen family, the younger and elder Bush, the Houston lawyer [[James A. Baker III]], his duck-hunting companion, and [[John Connally]].[^50] + +### Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Court of Chancery + +The Howard Hughes Medical Institute was incorporated in Delaware on December 17, 1953, with [[Howard Hughes]] as its sole trustee. The same day its incorporators established an executive committee to exercise such powers as the trustee designated. The institute was funded by the transfer of the electronics division of the Hughes holdings, the [[Hughes Aircraft Company]]. On March 1, 1957 the [[Internal Revenue Service]] ruled that the institute was a charitable corporation exempt from federal income tax.[^52] On July 3, 1968 Hughes caused a "Resolution of Trustee" to be adopted, delegating to the executive committee the duties and powers "which Delaware law had conferred upon the boards of directors of corporations organized for profit."[^52] + +Hughes died on April 5, 1976 without naming a successor trustee or a means of selecting one. The affairs of the institute were then largely controlled by two majority members of the executive committee, identified in the opinions as [[F. W. Gay]] and [[Chester C. Davis]]. On July 10, 1978 the institute's restated certificate of incorporation provided that the corporation "shall be managed and controlled by an Executive Committee."[^53] + +The Delaware Court of Chancery heard the first round in 1979. On June 26, 1979 the Chancellor, [[William Marvel]], considered a motion by [[Robert L. Shevin]], Attorney General of Florida, to intervene. Shevin argued that Florida had an interest in a charitable trust and in the [[University of Miami Medical Center]], which had received gifts from the institute. Marvel denied the motion without prejudice, finding that the Attorney General of Delaware was fully qualified to litigate the narrow issue before the court.[^53] The opinion records that the institute carried on medical research in laboratories associated with twelve university hospitals and employed more than 275 persons.[^53] + +On October 26, 1979 the court considered a complaint filed jointly by the Attorney General of Delaware and [[William R. Lummis]], the Delaware ancillary administrator of the Hughes estate. The institute moved to dismiss the claim of Lummis for lack of standing. Lummis argued that he had succeeded to Hughes's position as trustee and, in the alternative, that as ancillary administrator he had a duty to see a qualified successor appointed. The opinion concluded that Hughes's powers as trustee did not of themselves constitute a property interest of the institute, citing [[In re Buck Trust]].[^52] + +### The Court of Chancery and the BGC derivative suit + +The Court of Chancery is a court of equity without juries. In 1979 it was headed by William Marvel, who had joined the court as a Vice Chancellor in 1954.[^53] + +On October 5, 2018 the [[Roofers Local 149 Pension Fund]] filed a derivative complaint in the Delaware Court of Chancery against the directors of [[BGC Group]], [[Howard Lutnick]], [[CF Group Management]] and Cantor Fitzgerald. The complaint challenged BGC's purchase of [[Berkeley Point]] from [[Cantor Commercial Real Estate]] for 875 million dollars on September 8, 2017 and its simultaneous investment of 100 million dollars for a 27 percent interest in Cantor's remaining commercial mortgage-backed securities business.[^54] The opinion records that the Roofers fund and the Northern California Pipe Trades Trust Funds filed derivative actions in October and November 2018, and that the actions were consolidated on December 4, 2018 as C.A. No. 2018-0722-AGB.[^55] + +In the memorandum opinion of September 30, 2019, Chancellor [[Andre G. Bouchard]] described BGC as a public company controlled by Lutnick that had paid 875 million dollars for a private company also controlled by Lutnick. The plaintiffs alleged that Lutnick stood on both sides of the transaction, held a 60 percent economic interest in Berkeley Point against 13.8 percent in BGC, and so had every reason to cause BGC to overpay. Cantor, CF Group and Lutnick controlled BGC through all of its Class B super-voting stock, giving them 60 percent of the voting power, and Lutnick owned about 60 percent of Cantor and held sole voting control of it.[^55] The defendants moved to dismiss on demand futility and, for the four outside directors, for failure to state a claim. Those directors were Linda Bell, Stephen Curwood, [[William Moran]] and John Dalton, appointed to a special committee on March 14, 2017. The court found that the complaint pleaded facts creating reasonable doubt about the independence of a majority of the board. As to Moran, it recited a professional relationship with Lutnick of about twenty years across four Cantor-affiliated boards, board compensation from Cantor affiliates of 931,986 dollars, and public and social contacts between their families. It denied both motions without findings on the merits.[^55] + +The Delaware Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Chancery's final judgment of September 27, 2022 by order of August 10, 2023, on the basis of the Court of Chancery's memorandum opinion of August 19, 2022.[^56] + +### The UPI injunction of 1985 + +On May 20, 1985, in Wilmington, Vice Chancellor Joseph Walsh of the Court of Chancery granted Douglas Ruhe and William Geissler, the owners of United Press International, a preliminary injunction that removed Luis Nogales as chairman of UPI's parent company and removed its board of directors. UPI was then operating under Chapter 11 protection.[^57] On May 28, 1985 a consent order in the [[United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Columbia]] abolished UPI's own board and gave Nogales exclusive operating authority as chairman and chief executive officer.[^58] + +### The District of Delaware bankruptcy court + +The FTX Chapter 11 case was filed in the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware on November 11, 2022, as In re FTX Trading Ltd., No. 22-11068 (JTD), with [[John T. Dorsey]] assigned as judge; the court's case page lists Dorsey's opinion and order of June 26, 2024 on digital asset estimation.[^59] On July 19, 2023 [[Alameda Research]] Ltd. and [[FTX|FTX Trading]] Ltd. filed an adversary complaint against [[Platform Life Sciences]], [[Lumen Bioscience]], [[GreenLight Biosciences]] Holdings, Riboscience, Genetic Networks and 4J Therapeutics.[^59] + +On November 8, 2024 FTX Trading Ltd., Island Bay Ventures Inc. and [[Clifton Bay Investments]] LLC filed an adversary complaint in the same case against SkyBridge Capital II LLC, SkyBridge GP Holdings LLC, Digital Macro Fund LP (formerly SkyBridge Coin Fund LP) and [[SALT Venture Group]] LLC, Anthony Scaramucci and [[Brett Messing]]. As reported from the pleading, FTX bought a 30 percent stake in the operating companies that manage the SkyBridge vehicles for 45 million dollars in September 2022, and the plaintiffs sought to recover about 100 million dollars in all and to disallow a 45 million dollar claim by SkyBridge. As pleaded, Alameda Research Ventures, now Clifton Bay, invested 10 million dollars in the SkyBridge Coin Fund in March 2022.[^60] + +[[Southern Air Holdings]] filed Chapter 11 petitions in the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware on September 28, 2012. It described itself as a long-haul wide-body air cargo provider for governments and commercial users, with [[DHL]] as its largest commercial customer, and attributed the filing to reduced Department of Defense air cargo spending as [[Afghanistan]] deployments wound down.[^61] [[Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings]] completed its acquisition of Southern Air Holdings, including [[Southern Air Transport]] and [[Florida West International Airways]], for about 110 million dollars in cash on April 7, 2016.[^62] + +### Franks v. Delaware + +Franks v. Delaware was decided on June 26, 1978. The case arose from a Delaware Supreme Court holding that a defendant "under no circumstances may so challenge the veracity of a sworn statement used by police to procure a search warrant." The United States Supreme Court reversed and held that where a defendant makes a "substantial preliminary showing" that a false statement was included in a warrant affidavit knowingly, intentionally or with reckless disregard for the truth, and the statement is necessary to the finding of probable cause, the Fourth Amendment requires a hearing.[^63] + +The doctrine was invoked in [[United States v. Shea et al. (2020)]], where a defense motion to suppress filed on August 13, 2021 argued that the warrant affidavit omitted material information about the confidential informant who provided the basis for the warrant.[^64] + +### Wilmington and the Passport Foundation + +Air Ghislaine, Inc. and Hyperion Air both gave Wilmington registered addresses. The [[Passport Foundation]], an organization with its address in Wilmington and administered by [[Foundation Source]], reports [[SALT Fund Management LLC]]'s SALT Fund I, L.P. among its other investments on its Form 990-PF from 2021 onward.[^65] + +### Valmy, Greenville and the Psychosynthesis Research Foundation + +[[Roberto Assagioli]] wrote that the [[Psychosynthesis Research Foundation]] was created in 1957 with its own seat at Valmy in Greenville, Delaware, and that an international congress was held at Valmy in 1959.[^66] The London institute's history states that the foundation was created in New York under the patronage of the [[DuPont]] family and names [[Frank Hilton]] as its head in New York.[^67] A Saturday Review directory of July 12, 1969 lists the foundation in New York with Hilton as director.[^68] + +On January 24, 1966, Governor [[Charles L. Terry Jr.]] of Delaware proclaimed the repeal of the charters of corporations that had failed for two years to pay assessed taxes, and the list printed in the Laws of Delaware includes the Psychosynthesis Research Foundation.[^69] The foundation's notice of December 1, 1967 gives its New York office and, as its registered office and treasurer, an address in Wilmington.[^70] + +### Joe Biden and the DuPont family + +[[Joe Biden]] represented Delaware in the United States Senate. The writer [[S. Dovey]] wrote that his first senatorial campaign in the early 1970s was funded and staffed by DuPont employees, that his victory party was held in a DuPont ballroom, and that his family soon moved into an old DuPont family mansion.[^71] + +### Other Delaware references + +[[Sarah Beth Clendaniel]] grew up in rural Cecil County, Maryland, a conservative area bordering Delaware and [[Pennsylvania]] in the northeastern corner of Maryland.[^72] + +The western part of Pennsylvania was split off as the [[Diocese of Pittsburgh]] in 1843. At the death of Bishop [[John Neumann]] on January 5, 1860, the [[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia]], then the Diocese of Philadelphia, still included Delaware. Its estimated Catholic population was 200,000, with 157 churches and 147 priests.[^73] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Delaware General Corporation Law, 8 Del. C. ch. 1. https://delcode.delaware.gov/title8/c001/index.html +[^2]: Delaware Limited Liability Company Act, 6 Del. C. § 18-201 (certificate of formation). https://delcode.delaware.gov/title6/c018/index.html +[^3]: 8 Del. C. § 101(a) (incorporators; how corporation formed). https://delcode.delaware.gov/title8/c001/sc01/index.html +[^4]: 8 Del. C. § 102(a)(1)-(2) (contents of certificate of incorporation). https://delcode.delaware.gov/title8/c001/sc01/index.html +[^5]: 8 Del. C. § 102(b)(7) (exculpation of directors and officers). https://delcode.delaware.gov/title8/c001/sc01/index.html +[^6]: 8 Del. C. § 220 (inspection of books and records). https://delcode.delaware.gov/title8/c001/sc07/index.html +[^7]: Corporate Transparency Act, Pub. L. 116-283, div. F, tit. LXIV, §§ 6401-6403 (Jan. 1, 2021), codified at 31 U.S.C. § 5336. +[^8]: FinCEN, "Beneficial Ownership Information Reporting Requirement Revision and Deadline Extension," interim final rule, 90 Fed. Reg. 13688 (Mar. 26, 2025). https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/03/26/2025-05199/beneficial-ownership-information-reporting-requirement-revision-and-deadline-extension +[^9]: FinCEN, "Beneficial Ownership Information Reporting Requirement Revision," final rule, 91 Fed. Reg. 52508 (Aug. 14, 2026). https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/08/14/2026-16576/beneficial-ownership-information-reporting-requirement-revision +[^10]: State of Delaware, Division of Corporations, Entity Details, GeoMiliTech Consultants Corp., File Number 2015058, formation date 8/15/1983, registered agent Corporation Guarantee and Trust Company, Rodney Square, Wilmington. https://icis.corp.delaware.gov/ecorp/entitysearch/namesearch.aspx +[^11]: Christopher Byron, "Did Convict Arif Durrani Help Set the Stage for Iran/Contra?" New York, December 16, 1991, pp. 42, 44. https://books.google.com/books?id=6ugCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA42 +[^12]: Mark Phythian, ed., Under the Counter and Over the Border (Springer, 2013), p. 65. +[^13]: OpenCorporates, company record us_de/2168210 (CounterTerrorism Consultants, L.P.), reproducing the Delaware Division of Corporations registry. https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_de/2168210 +[^14]: District of Columbia Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection, Business One Stop Shop entity record 058088, Counterterrorism Consultants L.P. https://boss.dc.gov +[^15]: The Police Chief, vol. 55 (1988), p. 93, membership directory of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. +[^16]: "A group of top former FBI agents and federal prosecutors," United Press International, August 2, 1988. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/08/02/A-group-of-top-former-FBI-agents-and-federal/9684730900658/ +[^17]: Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act, Pub. L. 80-806, ch. 704, 62 Stat. 1070-1071, June 29, 1948. https://nationalaglawcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/assets/farmbills/ccc1948.pdf +[^18]: Discord Inc., SEC Form D filings (CIK 0001763840), U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR. +[^19]: Jason Citron, testimony, "Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis," hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, January 31, 2024, pp. 1-9. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/committee-activity/hearings +[^20]: Government of the United States Virgin Islands v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., No. 1:22-cv-10904-JSR (S.D.N.Y.), Expert Report of Jorge Amador, ECF No. 238-31 (filed July 25, 2023). +[^21]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00021675 to EFTA00021684, DataSet 8, email chain "RE: FAA Question" between a Special Agent, Federal Aviation Administration, Law Enforcement Assistance Program, Atlanta, and an assistant. +[^22]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01703108 to EFTA01703163, DataSet 10, draft indictment, United States v. Epstein (S.D. Fla., unfiled, 2007), paragraphs 3 and 4 and overt acts. +[^23]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01703108 to EFTA01703163, DataSet 10, draft indictment, United States v. Epstein (S.D. Fla., unfiled, 2007), paragraphs 5 and 6 and overt acts. +[^24]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00289540, DataSet 9, Delaware Secretary of State certificate for AdFin Solutions, Inc., incorporated on the twenty-fifth day of April, A.D. 2011. +[^25]: Alison Weissbrot, "How Ad/Fin Got Caught In The Crossfire Of The Industry's Transparency Crusade," AdExchanger, July 29, 2019. https://www.adexchanger.com/agencies/how-ad-fin-got-caught-in-the-crossfire-of-the-industrys-transparency +[^26]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00289560, DataSet 9, AdFin Solutions, Inc. Series A Preferred Stock Purchase Agreement dated December 28, 2012, sections 1.2, 2.1, 5.7 and Exhibit A. +[^27]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00289560, DataSet 9, Exhibit A, Schedule of Purchasers (pages EFTA00289583 to EFTA00289585). +[^28]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00289560, DataSet 9, letter agreement of July 2013 between AdFin Solutions, Inc. and CVAFH I LLC (pages EFTA00289678 to EFTA00289680). +[^29]: Alison Weissbrot, "After A Rocky Road, Ad/Fin Shuts Its Doors," AdExchanger, October 17, 2019. https://www.adexchanger.com/agencies/after-a-rocky-road-ad-fin-shuts-its-doors/ +[^30]: Form D, 1517 Fund I, L.P., CIK 0001651759, accession 0001651759-15-000001, filed August 31, 2015. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1651759/000165175915000001/primary_doc.xml +[^31]: Form D, 1517 Fund I Sidecar LP, CIK 0001658654, accession 0001658654-15-000001, filed December 1, 2015. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1658654/000165865415000001/primary_doc.xml +[^32]: Bridgewater Associates, LP, Form ADV Part 1A, SEC File No. 801-35875, CRD No. 105129, filing date August 18, 2026, Schedules A, B and D. +[^33]: Connecticut General Assembly, Office of Fiscal Analysis, "Analysis of State Bond Commission Agenda Items for May 27, 2016 Meeting," item D, Bridgewater Associates, First Five (22,000,000). +[^34]: ICONIQ Capital, LLC, Form ADV Part 2A, Firm Brochure, March 26, 2026, CRD 159198, SEC file 801-72878. https://files.adviserinfo.sec.gov/IAPD/Content/Common/crd_iapd_Brochure.asp +[^35]: Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, BrokerCheck Report, Jane Street Capital, LLC, CRD 103782, SEC 8-52275, firm profile, direct and indirect owners. +[^36]: Securities and Exchange Board of India, "Interim Order in the matter of Index manipulation by Jane Street Group," WTM/AN/MRD/MRD-SEC-3/31516/2025-26, July 3, 2025. +[^37]: Form D, Minerva Project, Inc., filed April 6, 2012, accession 0001546672-12-000001, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR. +[^38]: Braintree, Inc., Form D, filed July 13, 2011, SEC accession 0001524770-11-000001. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1524770/000152477011000001/primary_doc.xml +[^39]: SkyBridge Capital II, LLC, Form ADV Part 1A, annual amendment printed March 31, 2026, CRD 148152, SEC file 801-71056, Schedule A and Section 7.B.(1). https://adviserinfo.sec.gov/firm/summary/148152 +[^40]: Federal Trade Commission, In the Matter of Cambridge Analytica, LLC, Docket No. 9383, Opinion of the Commission, November 25, 2019, section I. https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/d09389_comm_final_opinion +[^41]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities (August 18, 2020), pp. 664-667, 679. +[^42]: Rick E. Yannuzzi, "In-Q-Tel: A New Partnership Between the CIA and the Private Sector," Defense Intelligence Journal 9, no. 1 (Winter 2000): 25-37. +[^43]: In-Q-Tel, "Our Milestones." https://www.iqt.org/about/our-milestones +[^44]: In-Q-Tel, Inc., Internal Revenue Service Form 990, fiscal years 2011 to 2025, via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. +[^45]: Stephen E. Doyle and Michael Ciancone, "Aerojet Engineering Corporation: Stimulation and Creation, 1935-1942," IAC-19-E4.2.1, 53rd IAA History of Astronautics Symposium (2019). +[^46]: FBI, Peloquin file, Part 01, Director to SAC New York, July 24, 1970, p. 8; New York office transmittal of August 5, 1970, enclosing the International Intelligence, Inc. brochure (officers, purposes, incorporation). https://archive.org/details/robert-peloquin-fbi-file +[^47]: Harken Energy Corporation, proxy statement (Schedule 14A), filed April 25, 1994. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/313478/0000950134-94-000454.txt +[^48]: Harken Energy Corporation, Form 10-K for 1993, filed March 29, 1994, "Bahrain Operations." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/313478/0000950134-94-000289.txt +[^49]: Richard Behar, "Global Intrigue: The Wackiest Rig in Texas," Time, October 28, 1991. https://time.com/archive/6718865/global-intrigue-the-wackiest-rig-in-texas/ +[^50]: Craig Unger, "Mystery man," Salon, April 28, 2004. https://www.salon.com/2004/04/28/james_bath/ +[^51]: Jonathan Beaty, "A Mysterious Mover of Money and Planes," Time, October 28, 1991. https://time.com/archive/6718843/a-mysterious-mover-of-money-and-planes/ +[^52]: Wier v. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, 407 A.2d 1051 (Del. Ch. 1979), decided October 26, 1979 (Marvel, Ch.), citing In re Buck Trust, 301 A.2d 328 (Del. Ch. 1973). https://static.case.law/a2d/407/cases/1051-01.json +[^53]: Wier v. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, 404 A.2d 140 (Del. Ch. 1979), decided June 26, 1979 (Marvel, Ch.). https://static.case.law/a2d/404/cases/0140-01.json. On Marvel's service (Vice Chancellor from September 8, 1954 and later Chancellor, until May 1, 1982): Delaware Court of Chancery, history of the court, https://courts.delaware.gov/chancery/history.aspx +[^54]: BGC Partners, Inc., Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019, filed February 28, 2020, sections "Newmark IPO, Separation Transaction and Spin-Off" and Legal Proceedings; In re BGC Partners, Inc. Consolidated Derivative Litigation, C.A. No. 2018-0722-AGB, Memorandum Opinion (Del. Ch. Sept. 30, 2019), pp. 1-2. +[^55]: In re BGC Partners, Inc. Consolidated Derivative Litigation, C.A. No. 2018-0722-AGB, Memorandum Opinion (Del. Ch. Sept. 30, 2019) (Bouchard, C.), submitted June 6, 2019, pp. 1-3, 14, 38-40. https://courts.delaware.gov/Opinions/Download.aspx?id=295730 +[^56]: In re BGC Partners, Inc. Derivative Litigation, No. 359, 2022 (Del. Aug. 10, 2023) (order). https://courts.delaware.gov/Opinions/Download.aspx?id=351370 +[^57]: Robert Engler, "In a ruling that soon may be moot," United Press International, Wilmington, Del., May 20, 1985. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1985/05/20/In-a-ruling-that-soon-may-be-moot-a/3317485409600/ +[^58]: In re United Press International, Inc., 60 B.R. 265 (Bankr. D.D.C. Apr. 22, 1986) (Bason, J.) (Bankruptcy No. 85-00257; consent order of May 28, 1985). https://static.case.law/br/60/cases/0265-01.json +[^59]: In re FTX Trading Ltd., No. 22-11068 (JTD) (Bankr. D. Del.), petition filed November 11, 2022, Judge John T. Dorsey; United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, case page. https://www.deb.uscourts.gov/22-11068 +[^60]: Complaint of FTX Trading Ltd., Island Bay Ventures Inc. and Clifton Bay Investments LLC v. SkyBridge Capital II LLC et al. (Bankr. D. Del., filed Nov. 8, 2024), as reported by Offshore Alert, https://offshorealert.com/ftx-trading-ltd-et-al-v-anthony-scaramucci-et-al-complaint-100m-damages, and Cointelegraph, https://cointelegraph.com/news/ftx-estate-sues-scaramucci-s-sky-bridge-capital +[^61]: American Bankruptcy Institute case summary, Southern Air Holdings, Chapter 11 petitions, Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, September 28, 2012. +[^62]: Ivan Nadalet, "Atlas Air completes acquisition of Southern Air," ch-aviation, April 8, 2016. https://www.ch-aviation.com/news/45363-atlas-air-completes-acquisition-of-southern-air +[^63]: Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154 (1978), decided June 26, 1978, quoting the Delaware Supreme Court's holding that a defendant "under no circumstances may so challenge the veracity of a sworn statement used by police to procure a search warrant." https://static.case.law/us/438/cases/0154-01.json +[^64]: Motion to Suppress, United States v. Shea et al., No. 2:20-cr-00032 (W.D. Wash.), August 13, 2021. https://archive.org/details/kaleb-cole-august-13-2021-motion-to-suppress-1 +[^65]: Passport Foundation, Form 990-PF filings, EIN 26-1580196, Wilmington, Delaware, 2021 onward, administered by Foundation Source. +[^66]: Roberto Assagioli, "Psicosintesi e parapsicologia," typescript, Archivio Assagioli, Istituto di Psicosintesi, Florence, pp. 1-2 (Italian; translated here). +[^67]: "History of the Institute of Psychosynthesis, London," psychosynthesis.org. +[^68]: Saturday Review, July 12, 1969 (vol. 52, no. 28), directory of organizations, "Psychosynthesis Research Foundation," New York, "Frank Hilton, director." https://archive.org/details/saturday-review_202511 +[^69]: Laws of Delaware, vol. 55, part 2, chapter 559, Proclamation of Governor Charles L. Terry Jr., January 24, 1966, under 8 Del. C. sections 511 and 512, pp. 1694-1714. +[^70]: Psychosynthesis Research Foundation, notice of December 1, 1967, Delaware filing. +[^71]: S. Dovey, Eye of the Chickenhawk (2023), passages on Joe Biden's first Senate campaign and the DuPont family. +[^72]: Cecil Daily, "Woman charged in neo-Nazi plot has criminal record in Cecil County," February 2023. https://www.cecildaily.com/news/woman-charged-in-neo-nazi-plot-has-criminal-record-in-cecil-county/article_b079a3b8-c164-5fd2-8562-2b2d092d690f.html +[^73]: James Loughlin, "Archdiocese of Philadelphia," The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 11 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911). https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11793b.htm diff --git a/60 - PLACES/US_STATES/New York.md b/60 - PLACES/US_STATES/New York.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..30e3f969 --- /dev/null +++ b/60 - PLACES/US_STATES/New York.md @@ -0,0 +1,214 @@ +--- +category: "U.S. State" +tags: + - Place + - USState + - BCCI + - MKULTRA + - OrganizedCrime + - Epstein + - ChemicalWarfare + - Psychiatry + - Spiritualism + - NXIVM +aliases: + - "State of New York" + - "New York State" + - "New York (state)" +summary: "State whose banking regulators, Manhattan prosecutors, psychiatric institute, prison system, governors and attorney general appear in the vault's BCCI, MKULTRA, Luciano, Attica, NXIVM, PayPal and Epstein records." +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +relations: + - type: investigated + with: "[[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]]" + start: 1989-05 + end: 1991-07-29 + role: "New York County District Attorney's investigation and indictment" + fn: 12 + - type: investigated + with: "[[Deutsche Bank]]" + start: 2020-07-06 + role: "Department of Financial Services consent order, $150 million penalty" + fn: 15 + - type: appointed + with: "[[Paul Hoch]]" + start: 1955-07 + role: "Commissioner of Mental Hygiene under Governor Averell Harriman" + fn: 26 + - type: prosecuted + with: "[[Payton Gendron]]" + start: 2022-11 + end: 2023-02-15 + role: "State prosecution in Erie County court for the 2022 Buffalo supermarket shooting" + fn: 54 +--- + +New York is a state of the United States whose capital is [[Albany, New York|Albany]] and whose largest city, [[New York City]], has its own page. The state bodies that recur in the vault's record are the banking regulators (the Banking Department and its successor, the Department of Financial Services), the attorney general, the Department of Mental Hygiene and the [[New York State Psychiatric Institute]], the prison system, the governors' offices, and the upstate and Long Island institutions that held federal contracts. The Manhattan district attorney is a county official of the state court system and appears here for that reason. + +### Banking Regulation and the Bank of Credit and Commerce International + +[[John Heimann]] was New York's superintendent of banks when the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] (BCCI) first tried to buy a New York bank. New York law required the superintendent to approve any change of control of a New York chartered bank. According to the Senate subcommittee's 1992 report, the first applicant was a young Pakistani national whose uncertified statement showed total assets of $4.5 million, $3 million of it a loan from his sister, and who said he would rely on BCCI for advice.[^1] Heimann put a hold on the application because BCCI had no central regulator and divided its audits between two auditors, so no consolidated financial report existed. A second application through a second nominee for a second New York bank met the same result, and [[Agha Hasan Abedi]] then approached Heimann directly. Heimann's statement to the subcommittee was that "I expressed my concern that BCCI did not have a primary regulator, and that, until it did, my office was reluctant to permit entry into the US." The report concluded that New York, "the most important U.S. banking market for BCCI, would be closed to BCCI so long as Heimann was its chief regulator."[^2] + +Heimann was appointed [[Office of the Comptroller of the Currency|Comptroller of the Currency]] in 1977. The subcommittee report says that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency still had the most information about BCCI among federal bodies, and that "the main historical accident that placed OCC in this position was the coincidence of John Heimann" having run New York's banking supervision during BCCI's attempts on the state.[^3] + +In 1981 and 1982 the investors who had bought the [[Financial General Bankshares]] group's New York banks were required to divest the bank in New York City and created [[First American Bank]] of New York to replace it. The report places the matter in the state's proceedings, which included an application to the [[New York State Banking Board]] that, "due to strong opposition," ended with the investors agreeing to divest. It quotes a statement contending that "BCCI has not in any way controlled First American Bank of New York."[^4] + +The case against BCCI in New York began with the Manhattan district attorney, [[Robert Morgenthau]]. In the late spring of 1989 [[Jack Blum]], formerly chief counsel to a Senate subcommittee on drugs and foreign policy, went to New York after the federal prosecutors in [[Tampa, Florida|Tampa]] had not acted on what he had brought them. Morgenthau had testified to the same subcommittee in February 1988 that "some $5 billion to $10 billion a year" was being laundered through New York banks.[^5][^6] Blum said he "essentially told him what I knew" and that Morgenthau's office produced the indictment on the same evidence.[^7] Morgenthau's chief of investigations, [[Michael Cherkasky]], later said that Blum's account, when first heard, had seemed unlikely: "Blum's story was ridiculous. [He said] the entire Third World was involved and that they had bought and sold entire governments and maybe some United States officials."[^8] + +The district attorney's office could subpoena BCCI records held by BCCI New York and by First American in New York, but not the records held in the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, the [[Cayman Islands]], Panama and [[Abu Dhabi]]. The report records that the [[Serious Fraud Office]] refused to provide documents and that the [[U.S. Department of Justice]] also refused. Morgenthau obtained the [[Price Waterhouse]] audit reports after contacting [[Eddie George]], then deputy governor of the [[Bank of England]]: "We are going to charge this bank."[^9] The [[Federal Reserve Board]] was the one agency that cooperated; Morgenthau testified in May 1991 that "[t]he one organization that has been very helpful to us is the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Federal Reserve Board in Washington."[^10] Federal Reserve investigators Richard Small and Thomas Baxter went to Abu Dhabi and found the documents showing BCCI's secret ownership of First American through nominees, which were passed to the district attorney's office.[^11] + +A New York State grand jury indicted BCCI on July 29, 1991, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York. The indictment alleged a scheme in which BCCI relied on the reputations of prominent nominees, including ruling families of Middle Eastern states, and used Luxembourg and Cayman Islands subsidiaries to avoid consolidated regulation.[^12] By December 1991 BCCI's liquidators had pleaded guilty to the first six counts. The report's authors wrote that the Bank of England had begun BCCI's international closure in June 1991 because of the probability of the New York indictment, which "proved sufficient to shut down a $23 billion criminal bank operating in some 73 countries."[^13] + +### The Department of Financial Services and the Epstein Accounts + +The Banking Department's successor, the [[New York State Department of Financial Services]] (DFS), licenses and examines the New York branches of foreign banks. [[Credit Suisse]]'s annual report states that its New York branch is licensed by the New York Superintendent of Financial Services and examined by DFS, and that in May 2014, as part of a settlement of US cross-border tax matters totaling $2,815 million, the bank agreed to pay $715 million to DFS, $2,000 million to the Justice Department and $100 million to the Federal Reserve, after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to assist US customers in presenting false income tax returns.[^14] + +The consent order between DFS and [[Deutsche Bank]] was signed on July 6, 2020 by Associate Counsel R. Bruce Wells and Superintendent [[Linda Lacewell]] among others for the department, and the department announced it on July 7, 2020.[^15] It imposed a $150 million penalty and covered three relationships: [[Jeffrey Epstein]]'s accounts, and correspondent banking with [[Danske Bank]]'s Estonia branch and with [[FBME Bank]]. The order records that Deutsche Bank held Epstein and related individuals and entities as clients from August 2013 until December 2018; that the relationship "officially began" on August 19, 2013, when the bank opened brokerage accounts for Southern Trust Company Inc. and its subsidiary [[Southern Financial LLC]]; and that Epstein, his entities and his associates eventually opened more than 40 accounts. It refers to [[Gratitude America]] as "Mr. Epstein's private charity."[^16] The department's release called the action the first enforcement action by a regulator against a financial institution for dealings with Epstein. It lists payments to individuals publicly alleged to have been co-conspirators, settlement payments totaling over $7 million, payments to law firms totaling over $6 million, and periodic cash withdrawals of more than $800,000 over about four years. Lacewell is quoted in the release as saying that "despite knowing Mr. Epstein's terrible criminal history, the Bank inexcusably failed to detect or prevent millions of dollars of suspicious transactions."[^17] + +DFS also entered a consent order with [[PayPal]] on January 23, 2025, with a $2,000,000 penalty, on its handling of a December 2022 event in which a message online claimed an exploit to obtain Social Security numbers from Form 1099-K documents on PayPal's platform.[^18] + +### The Attorney General + +In August 2002 PayPal signed an Assurance of Discontinuance with the [[New York State Attorney General]] after the attorney general's inquiry into payments to online gambling merchants. PayPal agreed to stop processing payments from its New York members to online gambling merchants by September 1, 2002 and to pay penalties of $200,000 to the State of New York. PayPal said it was acting in voluntary cooperation and was not admitting a violation of law.[^19] + +### Mental Hygiene and the New York State Psychiatric Institute + +The New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI), a [[Columbia University]] affiliate, held contracts with the [[Army Chemical Corps]] under which it tested a mescaline derivative on human subjects so that the Corps could determine its suitability as a chemical warfare agent. A CIA inspector general's memorandum of August 13, 1975 states that the Army's Special Operations Division at [[Fort Detrick]] had a two-year contract with the institute for 1952 and 1953 "to test various mescaline-related and other drugs that the Army was interested in," and that CIA funds had been transferred to the Army on an annual basis starting in fiscal year 1953 in support of a mutual program.[^20] + +[[Harold Blauer]], 42, entered NYSPI voluntarily in December 1952 for depression. The Second Circuit's later opinion records that he died on January 8, 1953 after an injection of the compound by institute personnel, one of a series; the CIA inspector general's memorandum puts the dose at 450 milligrams of EA 1298 and the interval before death at two and a half hours. The New York City medical examiner's death certificate gave the cause as "Coronary arteriosclerosis; sudden death after intravenous injection of a mescaline derivative." The institute's record described the drug study as "for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes." The contracts barred NYSPI from disclosing information developed under them.[^21] + +Blauer's estate sued the State of New York in the [[New York Court of Claims]] in April 1953. [[David Marcus]], then an assistant attorney general, was assigned to defend the case, and his investigation uncovered the Army's role. The Court of Claims authorized production of NYSPI's records and examination of its doctors on January 4, 1954. Marcus conferred with the Army's litigation division on January 13 and 14, 1954 about a settlement in which the federal government would pay part. After the Justice Department was informed, a conference of federal counsel and medical personnel in early July 1954 recorded apprehension, expressed by Dr. Amedeo Marazzi of the Chemical Corps and by [[Paul Hoch]], the NYSPI medical official in charge of administering the compound to Blauer, about anticipated malpractice claims. At a July 12, 1954 meeting in Washington, Hoch stated that he would not have used the new compound for experimental purposes but for the institute's contract with the Army. George S. Leonard, first assistant to the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division, advised that the case was worth $60,000 to $75,000 if the circumstances were revealed and should be settled to avoid disclosure of the Army's interest. An Army Judge Advocate General attorney, Harris J. North, recommended moving the Chemical Corps contracts from New York to the Chemical Corps Procurement Agency in Maryland, where "they would be beyond subpoena power."[^22] + +A tentative settlement of $15,000 was raised to $18,000 after Marcus told the Court of Claims judge about the Army's involvement in an ex parte conference. Hoch testified that the injection caused the death and was not in accordance with generally accepted medical practice. The estate alleged that he also testified falsely that the drug was given "for diagnostic purposes," and that, "in fact, according to the estate, Dr. Hoch was well aware that the mescaline derivative was a new compound not being administered for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes but as an experiment to study its effect for chemical warfare purposes." The Court of Claims entered the $18,000 order on July 7, 1955; the Army had paid $9,000 of it to the State on June 9, 1955. The release signed for the estate covered the "governmental body or agency which furnished the drug."[^23] The CIA inspector general's 1975 memorandum gives different figures, stating that the estate sued New York State for $500,000 and that the claim "was settled out of court for $125 K."[^20] + +The Army's role became public through the Secretary of the Army on August 12, 1975. Blauer's daughter, as successor administratrix, failed in an effort to reopen the Court of Claims case (*Barrett v. State of New York*, 1976) and brought three actions in the Southern District of New York. On July 31, 1986 the Second Circuit upheld Marcus's absolute immunity as a state attorney defending the state, and held that if the estate proved its allegations the four federal attorneys would not be entitled to absolute or qualified immunity.[^24] The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research printed a note in the August 3, 1977 MKULTRA hearing stating that Blauer "died of circulatory collapse and heart failure following an intravenous injection of a synthetic mescaline derivative while a subject of tests conducted by New York State Psychiatric Institute under a contract let by the U.S. Army Chemical Corps."[^25] + +[[Averell Harriman]] was elected governor in 1954. [[Mary Lasker]], in her Columbia oral history, recalled that Harriman asked for suggestions for a commissioner of mental hygiene soon after the election, that [[Lester Markel]], the Sunday editor of the [[New York Times]], telephoned to ask whether she knew Hoch, then in charge of research at the institute, and that the appointment was "finally announced in July of '55." A 1956 University at Albany record identifies Hoch as Commissioner of Mental Hygiene, the official who oversaw the state's psychiatric hospitals.[^26][^27] + +### Willowbrook State School + +The Department of Mental Hygiene also ran the state schools for people with intellectual disabilities. [[Saul Krugman]] wrote in 1986 that studies of the natural history and prevention of viral hepatitis were initiated at Willowbrook State School in 1955 and that "during the subsequent two decades there was considerable controversy regarding the ethical aspects of these studies"; he had published an account, "Experiments at the Willowbrook State School," in *The Lancet* in May 1971.[^28] In 1972 [[Geraldo Rivera]] broadcast an exposé of the school's conditions on television.[^29] + +The federal class action *New York State Association for Retarded Children v. Rockefeller* was heard by Judge Orrin Judd of the Eastern District of New York. His memorandum of April 10, 1973 granting a preliminary injunction found a resident population of 4,727 on December 10, 1972, down from a high of 6,200 in 1969; found that "conditions are still inhumane"; and noted a hiring freeze from December 1970 to November 1971 and legislative reports of overcrowding dating from 1964. It named Governor [[Nelson Rockefeller]] as a defendant, individually and as governor.[^30] The case ended in a consent judgment, with Governor [[Hugh Carey]] as the defendant, approved on May 5, 1975. It was negotiated with the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department and the state attorney general, with a 29-page appendix of standards in 23 areas and a Review Panel to monitor compliance.[^31] + +### Human Ecology and the Mind-Control Contracts + +The 1977 MKULTRA hearing record defines the cryptonym QKHILLTOP as a project assigned in 1954 to study Chinese Communist brainwashing and to develop interrogation techniques, stating that "most of the early studies are believed to have been conducted by the Cornell University Medical School Human Ecology Study Programs" and that the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology, later the Human Ecology Fund, "was an outgrowth of the QKHILLTOP."[^32] The Cornell medical school, [[Cornell University Medical College]], was in Manhattan. The same hearing record includes testimony about CIA safehouses in New York City and San Francisco, a transfer of money for the use of the [[Federal Bureau of Narcotics]] in an apartment in New York, and the trip to Manhattan on which [[Robert Lashbrook]] and [[Vincent Ruwet]] took Frank Olson to see [[Harold Abramson]].[^33] + +### The Luciano Commutation and the State Prison System + +In May 1942 [[Charles R. Haffenden]] of Naval Intelligence asked the state Commissioner of Correction, John A. Lyons, in writing to move [[Charles Luciano]] from [[Clinton Correctional Facility]] at Dannemora to a more accessible prison for intelligence purposes, after Colonel [[Murray Gurfein]] had cleared the plan with District Attorney [[Frank Hogan]]. The transfer to [[Great Meadow Correctional Facility]] at Comstock took place on May 12, 1942, during the administration of Governor [[Herbert Lehman]].[^34] The report by [[William B. Herlands]], the state Commissioner of Investigation, records that the arrangement ran through Luciano's lawyer, [[Moses Polakoff]], and [[Meyer Lansky]], and that for about two years Luciano's visitors at Great Meadow included Polakoff, Lansky, Joe "Socks" Lanza, Mike Lascari, [[Frank Costello]], Willie Moretti and Mike Miranda; other participants who did not visit him included [[Joe Adonis]], Jerry Sullivan and Johnny "Cockeye" Dunn. The network was used to report on the waterfront and to place Naval Intelligence agents through union books and cards. Herlands titled the arrangement the War-Aid Project, and a letter of July 26, 1954 from Rear Admiral [[Carl F. Espe]], director of Naval Intelligence, confirmed it.[^35] + +On December 3, 1945 the state Board of Parole recommended that Luciano's sentence be commuted solely so that he could be deported. [[Thomas Dewey]], as governor, commuted it on January 3, 1946 on the express condition that he be deported at once, and in the same action commuted the sentences of six other alien criminals for the same purpose; Luciano was deported to Italy on the SS Laura Keane on or about February 9, 1946. Herlands' report to Dewey, dated September 17, 1954, reviewed the wartime arrangement. The Dewey papers that hold it are kept at the [[University of Rochester]].[^36] + +### Governors + +Nelson Rockefeller was elected governor in 1958. [[Berent Friele]], who had served as Rockefeller's private representative in Brazil for three decades, was appointed as his formal advisor on international affairs at that time, a post he held through Rockefeller's governorship and his later vice presidency under [[Gerald Ford]]. The account is drawn from Friele's papers at the [[Rockefeller Archive Center]].[^37] + +The state's 1973 narcotics statutes were enacted in Rockefeller's governorship. In *People v. Broadie* (June 18, 1975) the Court of Appeals described the challenge to laws that classed street sales of heroin and cocaine as class A felonies with a mandatory maximum of life imprisonment and lifetime parole. The opinion cites Rockefeller's 1973 annual message for the premise that rehabilitation efforts had failed and that the epidemic of drug abuse could be quelled only by the threat of inflexible, and therefore certain, exceptionally severe punishment, and states that "drug dealing in its present epidemic proportions is a grave offense of high rank."[^38] + +[[Risa Heller]], a former press secretary to Senator [[Chuck Schumer]] from 2005, later held a similar post under Governor [[David Paterson]].[^39] + +### Attica + +Between September 9 and 13, 1971, forty-three people died at [[Attica Correctional Facility]]. The report of the state's Special Commission on Attica, chaired by [[Robert B. McKay]] and set up by Rockefeller and legislative leaders through Chief Judge [[Stanley H. Fuld]] of the Court of Appeals, states that "thirty-nine of that number were killed and more than 80 others were wounded by gunfire during the 15 minutes it took the State Police to retake the prison on September 13," and that "with the exception of Indian massacres in the late 19th century, the State Police assault which ended the four-day prison uprising was the bloodiest one-day encounter between Americans since the Civil War." On September 15 Rockefeller announced that Deputy Attorney General [[Robert E. Fischer]] would supersede the local district attorney to investigate. The commission's narrative records that on the Sunday of the standoff the governor decided there would be no assault that day, that Commissioner [[Russell G. Oswald]] and a state police general recommended that Rockefeller come to the prison, that the governor asked whether it would be productive and save lives, and that Rockefeller finished a press release explaining why he would not come.[^40] + +### Spiritualism: Hydesville and Lily Dale + +Modern Spiritualism began in New York State. The sisters Margaret and Catherine Fox, living in a small house at Hydesville in the town of Arcadia, Wayne County, reported rappings there in 1848.[^41] Reuben Briggs Davenport wrote in 1888 that "the first so-called phenomena came to the two youngest girls in 1848, at Hydesville, in this State," and that their elder sister Leah, "twenty-three years older than Margaret," gave exhibitions in "all the principal cities, which were attended by the most eminent men and the most brilliant women in the country."[^42] Davenport described an investigation by three members of the University of Buffalo faculty, [[Austin Flint]], Charles A. Lee and C. B. Coventry, who attributed the noises to the knee joint and who, in his view, "hit upon the right principle at the inception of the inquiry, but were misled into a wrong application of it."[^43] + +On October 21, 1888 Margaret Fox Kane read a statement at the Academy of Music in New York City, published that morning in the *New York World*, saying that the raps had been produced by the sisters. Davenport's book printed her account and that of Catherine Fox Jencken, and reproduced an article of October 11, 1888 on the pressure brought on Kane to retract. In November 1889 Margaret recanted the confession, stating that she had made it under pressure from opponents of Spiritualism.[^44] Addresses delivered "under the auspices of the Cassadaga Lake Free Association, Lily Dale, N.Y.," were published in 1894.[^45] + +### NXIVM + +[[Keith Raniere]] founded NXIVM around 2003 as a self-styled executive coaching and self-help organization. The Eastern District of New York announced his arrest in a release describing NXIVM as a purported self-help organization based in Albany.[^46] In 2015 Raniere created the secret society DOS, structured as a pyramid with himself at the head, whose "slaves" were expected to provide "collateral." After a six-week jury trial before Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis, Raniere was convicted of racketeering conspiracy, racketeering, forced labor conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, sex trafficking conspiracy, sex trafficking and attempted sex trafficking, and was sentenced to 120 years. [[Clare Bronfman]] is a co-appellant in the Second Circuit's opinion of December 9, 2022, which affirmed the sex trafficking convictions, and the opinion names [[Allison Mack]] as a DOS "master"; each of Raniere's co-defendants pleaded guilty.[^47] + +### Upstate Installations and Institutions + +[[George Estabrooks]] headed the psychology department at [[Colgate University]] in Hamilton and advised the military on the uses of hypnosis from the early 1930s, a role described in [[John Marks]]'s account of the agency's mind-control programs.[^48] [[Allen Dulles]], later director of central intelligence, was born in Watertown, New York.[^49] + +The Air Force's [[Rome Air Development Center]] at [[Griffiss Air Force Base]], later the Rome Laboratory and now the Air Force Research Laboratory's Information Directorate, appears in the vault in two contract chains. In December 1973 the Braddock, Dunn and McDonald firm, later [[BDM Corporation]], delivered report RADC-TR-73-325, "Hertzian Generator Development," under contract F30602-72-C-0388 for the center, on a "frozen wave" concept for electromagnetic wave generation.[^50] On June 8, 2022 the Air Force awarded [[Radiance Technologies]] a position on the indefinite-delivery contract FA875022D1005, "Agile Cyber Technology 3," issued from Rome.[^51] + +### Long Island and Western New York + +The 1953 [[Robertson Panel]], a CIA advisory group on unidentified aerial reports, included [[Samuel Goudsmit]] of [[Brookhaven National Laboratories]] on Long Island. Records in the panel file propose the Navy's [[Special Devices Center]] at [[Sands Point, New York|Sands Point]], Long Island, as a channel for the panel's work.[^52] + +[[Bill Moore]] and Jaime Shandera wrote that in early March 1983 Moore received a telephone call telling him to "go and pick up" information. At a motel on the edge of a mid-sized city in upstate New York, a man delivered a sealed envelope containing eleven pages of a purported document headed "Executive Briefing, Subject: Project Aquarius." That account is the authors' own.[^53] + +### Criminal Cases and Other Appearances + +In November 2022 [[Payton Gendron]] pleaded guilty in Erie County court to first-degree murder, second-degree murder as a hate crime, attempted murder as a hate crime and domestic terrorism in the first degree, arising from the [[2022 Buffalo Supermarket Shooting]]. On February 15, 2023 Judge [[Susan Eagan]] sentenced him to life in prison without parole, because the state does not use the death penalty. Gendron also faced a federal indictment on 27 charges, including hate crimes resulting in death.[^54] + +[[Nicholas Tartaglione]], a former officer of the [[Briarcliff Manor Police Department]] in Westchester County, was convicted in federal court in White Plains in April 2023 of the murders of four men in 2016, whose bodies were buried on his property in Otisville. In June 2024 he was sentenced to four consecutive life terms.[^55] The Justice Department inspector general's report on Epstein's custody states that from July 2019 he shared a cell in the Special Housing Unit at the [[Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York]] with Jeffrey Epstein.[^56] + +[[Hassie Hunt]], the son of [[H.L. Hunt|H. L. Hunt]], was placed in an institution in New York State after a lobotomy in the late 1940s, according to Harry Hurt III.[^57] [[Ricardo Cañete]] told FBI agents in May 1977 that an associate wrote on a restaurant guest check the papers he wanted, among them a New York State temporary security card in the name Frederick Pagan.[^58] + +### New York in Federal Office and Elections + +[[Hillary Clinton]] served as a senator from New York from January 3, 2001 to January 21, 2009, and sat on the [[Senate Armed Services Committee]].[^59] [[Irving Ives]], also a New York senator, spoke on the Senate floor on July 21, 1950 on the majority report of the subcommittee that examined [[Joseph McCarthy]]'s charges against the [[State Department]].[^60] + +In the 2026 Democratic primary for New York's 12th congressional district, the Assembly member [[Alex Bores]], sponsor of the state's [[RAISE Act]], was the target of Think Big, the spending vehicle of the super PAC [[Leading the Future]]. The Federal Election Commission's aggregation for his candidate committee shows Think Big spending $8,155,897.68 in opposition in 56 transactions, and the Jobs and Democracy PAC, funded through [[Public First Action]], spending $15,026,937.99 in support.[^61] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Kerry, John, and Hank Brown, *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate,* December 1992, ch. 6, "BCCI's Early Activities in the United States," account of the first New York nominee application. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/06early.htm +[^2]: Kerry, John, and Hank Brown, *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate,* December 1992, ch. 6, Heimann's statement (S. Hrg. 102-379, p. 76, as cited in ch. 6, n. 6) and the subcommittee's conclusion on Abedi's approaches to Heimann. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/06early.htm +[^3]: Kerry, John, and Hank Brown, *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate,* December 1992, ch. 12, "The OCC and John Heimann." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/12reg.htm +[^4]: Kerry, John, and Hank Brown, *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate,* December 1992, ch. 13, passage on the 1981-1982 proceedings before the New York State Banking Board and First American Bank of New York. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/13clifford.htm +[^5]: Kerry, John, and Hank Brown, *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate,* December 1992, ch. 9, "BCCI and Law Enforcement: District Attorney of New York," introduction and "Information From Senate Aide Initiates Investigation." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/09ny.htm +[^6]: Robert Morgenthau testimony, February 1988, Senate subcommittee hearing, S. Hrg. 100-773, pt. 2, pp. 20-21, as cited in Kerry-Brown report, ch. 9, n. 2. +[^7]: Jack Blum testimony, S. Hrg. 102-350, p. 33, as cited in Kerry-Brown report, ch. 9, n. 4. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/09ny.htm +[^8]: Michael Cherkasky, quoted in *Vanity Fair,* April 1992, "How They Broke the Bank," p. 261, and in S. Hrg. 102-350, pt. 3, as cited in Kerry-Brown report, ch. 9, nn. 5-6. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/09ny.htm +[^9]: *Vanity Fair,* April 1992, "How They Broke the Bank," p. 266, as quoted in Kerry-Brown report, ch. 9, n. 15; report text on the Serious Fraud Office, the Justice Department and Price Waterhouse in ch. 9. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/09ny.htm +[^10]: Morgenthau testimony, May 23, 1991, S. Hrg. 102-379, p. 167, as quoted in Kerry-Brown report, ch. 9, n. 16. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/09ny.htm +[^11]: Kerry, John, and Hank Brown, *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate,* December 1992, ch. 9, section "The Federal Reserve" (Richard Small and Thomas Baxter in Abu Dhabi). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/09ny.htm +[^12]: *People v. Bank of Credit and Commerce International,* indictment, Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York, July 29, 1991, as quoted in Kerry-Brown report, ch. 9, nn. 17-18. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/09ny.htm +[^13]: Kerry, John, and Hank Brown, *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate,* December 1992, ch. 9, "The New York Indictment" and "Consequences of New York's Investigation." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/09ny.htm +[^14]: Credit Suisse Group AG, Annual Report on Form 20-F for 2014, filed March 20, 2015, "Regulation and supervision" and "Tax and securities law matters." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1159510/000137036815000028/a140320ar20f.htm +[^15]: New York State Department of Financial Services, In the Matter of Deutsche Bank AG, Deutsche Bank AG New York Branch, and Deutsche Bank Trust Company of the Americas, Consent Order Under New York Banking Law sections 39 and 44, signature pages ("signed this 6th day of July, 2020"); New York State Department of Financial Services, press release of July 7, 2020. https://www.dfs.ny.gov/industry_guidance/enforcement_discipline/ea20200706_deutsche_bank ; https://www.dfs.ny.gov/reports_and_publications/press_releases/pr202007071 +[^16]: Deutsche Bank consent order, July 6, 2020, paras. 16-23 and 44 (relationship from August 2013 until December 2018; accounts opened August 19, 2013; more than 40 accounts; "Mr. Epstein's private charity"). https://www.dfs.ny.gov/industry_guidance/enforcement_discipline/ea20200706_deutsche_bank +[^17]: New York State Department of Financial Services, press release, "Superintendent Lacewell Announces DFS Imposes $150 Million Penalty on Deutsche Bank," July 7, 2020. https://www.dfs.ny.gov/reports_and_publications/press_releases/pr202007071 +[^18]: New York State Department of Financial Services, Consent Order in the matter of PayPal, Inc., January 23, 2025, paras. 7-11 and 25. https://www.dfs.ny.gov/industry-guidance/enforcement-discipline/ea20250123-paypal-inc +[^19]: PayPal, Inc., press release of August 21, 2002, Exhibit 99.2 to Form 8-K, SEC EDGAR. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001103415/000091205702033059/a2087861zex-99_2.htm +[^20]: Central Intelligence Agency, Office of the Inspector General, memorandum to the Legislative Counsel, "Drug-Related Death of Harold Blauer," August 13, 1975, CIA Reading Room document 00146161. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00146161 +[^21]: *Barrett v. United States,* 798 F.2d 565 (2d Cir. July 31, 1986), statement of facts. https://static.case.law/f2d/798/cases/0565-01.json +[^22]: *Barrett v. United States,* 798 F.2d 565 (2d Cir. 1986), statement of facts (Court of Claims action of April 1953; conferences of early July and July 12, 1954). https://static.case.law/f2d/798/cases/0565-01.json +[^23]: *Barrett v. United States,* 798 F.2d 565 (2d Cir. 1986), statement of facts (1955 settlement, order of July 7, 1955) and discussion (estate's allegations on Hoch's testimony). https://static.case.law/f2d/798/cases/0565-01.json +[^24]: *Barrett v. United States,* 798 F.2d 565 (2d Cir. 1986), disposition as to Marcus and the federal attorneys; the earlier Court of Claims decision is *Barrett v. State of New York,* 85 Misc. 2d 456, 378 N.Y.S.2d 946 (Ct. Cl. 1976), cited in the opinion. https://static.case.law/f2d/798/cases/0565-01.json +[^25]: *Project MKULTRA, the CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification,* joint hearing before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, U.S. Senate, 95th Cong., 1st sess., August 3, 1977, p. 67 and note. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00163357 +[^26]: Columbia University Libraries, Oral History Research Office, Mary Lasker oral history, transcript pages laskerm_1_19_570 and laskerm_1_19_592. https://columbia.edu/cu/lweb/digital/collections/nny/laskerm/transcripts/laskerm_1_19_570.html +[^27]: University at Albany, M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives, record of a 1956 interview of Dr. Paul H. Hoch, Commissioner of Mental Hygiene. https://archives.albany.edu/description/catalog/apap015aspace_033e27487bc26a06ec8cf9fd535fb0c3 +[^28]: Saul Krugman, "The Willowbrook Hepatitis Studies Revisited: Ethical Aspects," *Reviews of Infectious Diseases* 8 (1986): 157-162 (PMID 3952423); Krugman, "Experiments at the Willowbrook State School," *The Lancet* 1 (May 8, 1971): 966-967 (PMID 4102289). +[^29]: Geraldo Rivera, Willowbrook exposé, 1972 television broadcast, Internet Archive item "Willowbrook-Geraldo Rivera." https://archive.org/details/willowbrook +[^30]: *New York State Association for Retarded Children, Inc. v. Rockefeller,* 357 F. Supp. 752 (E.D.N.Y. Apr. 10, 1973) (Judd, J.). https://static.case.law/f-supp/357/cases/0752-01.json +[^31]: *New York State Association for Retarded Children, Inc. v. Carey,* 393 F. Supp. 715 (E.D.N.Y. May 5, 1975) (Judd, J.), memorandum approving consent judgment. https://static.case.law/f-supp/393/cases/0715-01.json +[^32]: Joint hearing on Project MKULTRA, August 3, 1977, appendix, "QKHILLTOP Definition," p. 171. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00163357 +[^33]: Joint hearing on Project MKULTRA, August 3, 1977, opening statement of Admiral Stansfield Turner on safehouses; testimony on the New York apartment; staff account of the Olson case (trip to New York to see Dr. Harold Abramson, November 1953). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00163357 +[^34]: William B. Herlands, report to Governor Thomas E. Dewey on the commutation of the sentence of Charles Luciano, September 17, 1954, Thomas E. Dewey Papers, Series 13, University of Rochester Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, "Synopsis of the Evidence." https://www.lib.rochester.edu/IN/RBSCP/ATTACHMENTS/Series-13-17-2-Herlands-report.pdf +[^35]: Herlands report, September 17, 1954, synopsis (visitors to Luciano at Great Meadow; network of contacts) and "Official Confirmation of the War-Aid Project," reproducing the letter of Rear Admiral Carl Espe, July 26, 1954. https://www.lib.rochester.edu/IN/RBSCP/ATTACHMENTS/Series-13-17-2-Herlands-report.pdf +[^36]: Herlands report, September 17, 1954, commutation section (Board of Parole recommendation of December 3, 1945; commutation of January 3, 1946; six other alien criminals; deportation on the SS Laura Keane). https://www.lib.rochester.edu/IN/RBSCP/ATTACHMENTS/Series-13-17-2-Herlands-report.pdf +[^37]: Stig Arild Pettersen, "Berent Friele: Nelson Rockefeller's Shadow Diplomat in Latin America," Rockefeller Archive Center Research Reports, 2019, drawing on the Berent Friele papers, Rockefeller Archive Center, FA468. +[^38]: *People v. Broadie,* 37 N.Y.2d 100 (N.Y. June 18, 1975). https://static.case.law/ny-2d/37/cases/0100-01.json +[^39]: Shawn McCreesh, "Get Me Risa Heller!" *New York* (Intelligencer), February 14, 2023. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/risa-heller-communications-profile.html +[^40]: *Attica: The Official Report of the New York State Special Commission on Attica* (1972), Preface; "The Governor's Decisions"; chapter on the Sunday of the standoff; Oswald testimony on the call to the governor; Rockefeller announcement of September 15, 1971. https://archive.org/details/McKayCommissionAtticaReport +[^41]: Emma Hardinge Britten, *Modern American Spiritualism: A Twenty Years' Record of the Communion between Earth and the World of Spirits* (1870), chapter on Hydesville. https://archive.org/details/modernamericansp00brit +[^42]: Reuben Briggs Davenport, *The Death-Blow to Spiritualism: Being the True Story of the Fox Sisters, as Revealed by Authority of Margaret Fox Kane and Catherine Fox Jencken* (New York: G. W. Dillingham, 1888), pp. 41-42. https://archive.org/details/deathblowtospiri00daverich +[^43]: Davenport, *The Death-Blow to Spiritualism,* chapter "Spiritualistic Boomerangs," pp. 130-133. https://archive.org/details/deathblowtospiri00daverich +[^44]: Davenport, *The Death-Blow to Spiritualism,* pp. 19-20, 34-40 and 63-64; Society for Psychical Research, *Psi Encyclopedia,* "Fox Sisters" (statement of October 21, 1888 at the Academy of Music, published that morning in the *New York World;* retraction of November 1889). https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/fox-sisters/ +[^45]: Virchand R. Gandhi, *India's Message to America and Other Addresses Delivered under the Auspices of the Cassadaga Lake Free Association, Lily Dale, N.Y.* (1894). https://archive.org/details/indiasmessagetoa00gand +[^46]: U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of New York, press release, "Founder of NXIVM, a Purported Self-Help Organization Based in Albany, NY, Arrested for Sex Trafficking." https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/founder-nxivm-purported-self-help-organization-based-albany-ny-arrested-sex-trafficking +[^47]: *United States v. Raniere,* 55 F.4th 354 (2d Cir. Dec. 9, 2022), Nos. 20-3520-cr, 20-3789-cr, Background. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/9328889/united-states-v-raniere/ +[^48]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control.* Times Books, 1979, ch. 1. +[^49]: Stephen Kinzer, *The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War.* Times Books, 2013. +[^50]: Defense Technical Information Center, report AD0774567, *Hertzian Generator Development,* RADC-TR-73-325, Braddock, Dunn and McDonald, Inc., December 1973, contract F30602-72-C-0388. https://archive.org/details/DTIC_AD0774567 +[^51]: USAspending.gov, award FA875022D1005, Radiance Technologies Inc., Department of the Air Force, "Agile Cyber Technology 3," start date June 8, 2022. https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_IDV_FA875022D1005_9700 +[^52]: Frederick C. Durant, memorandum on the meetings of the Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects, January 14-18, 1953, CIA Office of Scientific Intelligence, with Tab A (panel report) and Tab B (associate members). +[^53]: William L. Moore and Jaime H. Shandera, *The MJ-12 Documents: An Analytical Report* (Fund for UFO Research, 1990), "The Carter Briefing Notes (Mar. '83)," p. 21. +[^54]: National Public Radio, "The Buffalo Tops shooter has been sentenced to life in prison without parole," February 15, 2023. https://www.wvtf.org/2023-02-15/the-buffalo-tops-shooter-has-been-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-without-parole ; "Buffalo mass shooting suspect pleads guilty, will spend life in prison," ABC News, November 2022. https://abcnews4.com/news/nation-world/buffalo-mass-shooting-suspect-in-court-monday-payton-gendron-tops-shooting-murder-hate-crime-charges +[^55]: Phil Helsel, "Ex-New York police officer sentenced to life in execution of 4 men," *NBC News,* June 10, 2024. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ex-new-york-police-officer-sentenced-life-execution-4-men-rcna156462 ; News 12 Hudson Valley, report of the April 2023 verdict, White Plains. https://hudsonvalley.news12.com/jury-deliberations-continue-in-quadruple-murder-trial-of-ex-briarcliff-manor-police-officer +[^56]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, Report 23-085, *Investigation and Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons' Custody, Care, and Supervision of Jeffrey Epstein at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, New York,* as cited on the [[Nicholas Tartaglione]] page. +[^57]: Harry Hurt III, *Texas Rich: The Hunt Dynasty from the Early Oil Days through the Silver Crash.* W.W. Norton, 1981, pp. 135-137. +[^58]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York office, reports of interviews of Ricardo Cañete by Special Agent Larry E. Wack, May 10 to May 18, 1977. https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/canete.pdf +[^59]: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "CLINTON, Hillary Rodham," capture of February 1, 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160201012933/http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C001041 +[^60]: Congressional Record, vol. 96, pt. 8, July 21, 1950, p. 10773, remarks of Senator Irving M. Ives on the majority report of the subcommittee under S. Res. 231. https://archive.org/details/sim_congressional-record-proceedings-and-debates_july-12-31-1950_96 +[^61]: Federal Election Commission, schedule E independent expenditures by candidate, Alexander Bores (H6NY12214), 2026 cycle, committees C00923417 (Think Big, opposing, 56 transactions) and C00928374 (Jobs and Democracy PAC, supporting), queried October 15, 2026. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_e/by_candidate/ diff --git a/60 - PLACES/US_STATES/Ohio.md b/60 - PLACES/US_STATES/Ohio.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..705a42e7 --- /dev/null +++ b/60 - PLACES/US_STATES/Ohio.md @@ -0,0 +1,220 @@ +--- +category: "U.S. State" +tags: + - Place + - USState + - UFO + - ProjectBlueBook + - WrightPatterson + - Battelle + - KentState + - Epstein + - Thiel + - PredictionMarkets + - MatrixChurchill +summary: "U.S. state whose Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Columbus research institute, 1966 and 1973 sightings, and 1970 Kent State shootings anchor a record of UFO files, intelligence contracts and campus violence." +aliases: + - OH + - State of Ohio + - Buckeye State +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +--- + +Ohio is a Midwestern state whose capital is [[Columbus, Ohio|Columbus]]. Its record runs through the [[Wright-Patterson Air Force Base]] near [[Dayton, Ohio|Dayton]], where [[Project Blue Book]] was headquartered, and through the [[Battelle Memorial Institute]] in Columbus, which held a contract supporting the same UFO work. Two Ohio sightings, one in April 1966 and one in October 1973, involved county deputies and an Army helicopter crew. The state is also the setting of the May 1970 shootings at [[Kent State University]], the Cleveland-area American affiliate of a British machine-tool maker that Iraqi state interests acquired, and the careers of several people born or active there. + +### Wright-Patterson, Dayton and the Blue Book files + +[[Project Grudge]] and its successor Project Blue Book were run from the base. The Air Force fact sheet of January 1985 states that the project "was headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base," and gives 12,618 sightings reported from 1947 to 1969, of which 701 remained unidentified.[^1] The project was terminated by an announcement of the Secretary of the Air Force on December 17, 1969.[^2] + +The same fact sheet states: "Periodically, it is erroneously stated that the remains of extraterrestrial visitors are or have been stored at Wright-Patterson AFB. There are not now nor ever have been, any extraterrestrial visitors or equipment on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base."[^1] + +The 1997 Air Force report on the Roswell crash, written by [[James McAndrew]] and titled [[Roswell Incident|The Roswell Report: Case Closed]], describes accounts in which bodies from Roswell were moved to "usually Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio," which it calls a point of disagreement among UFO theorists.[^3] [[Thomas J. Carey]] and [[Donald R. Schmitt]] wrote that the original flight plan for the Roswell wreckage had a second leg to Wright Field, that the leg was publicly cancelled at a press conference on July 8, 1947, and that there was never a Hangar 18 on the base. They wrote that the name "Blue Room" was first used publicly in connection with the repository at Wright-Patterson in *The Roswell Incident* (1980).[^4] + +[[Barry Goldwater]] wrote to [[Shlomo Arnon]] on March 28, 1975 that about ten or twelve years earlier he had tried to learn what was in the building at Wright-Patterson where Air Force UFO information was stored, and had been denied. He wrote that the material "is still classified above Top Secret."[^5] In letters to [[Lee Graham]] of April 11, 1979 and October 19, 1981 he wrote that he had been denied access to "a facility at Wright-Patterson" and had "long ago given up acquiring access to the so-called blue room at Wright-Patterson."[^5] [[Timothy Good]] reproduced the letters in *Above Top Secret* and wrote that Goldwater had hoped to obtain permission from [[Curtis LeMay]] to examine the material there and was refused.[^5] + +On CNN's *Larry King Live* on October 1, 1994 Goldwater described asking LeMay about "a room at Wright-Patterson where you put all this secret stuff." In his account LeMay replied, "Don't ever ask me that question again!"[^6] In written testimony to the [[House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform]] dated September 9, 2025, [[George Knapp]] stated that former Nevada senator [[Howard Cannon]] told him that Goldwater had raised the same question several times, and that the response was "hell no, and never ask again."[^7] Knapp stated that Goldwater confirmed the account in early-1990s correspondence and that Cannon confirmed it on camera.[^7] + +[[William L. Moore]]'s Freedom of Information Act request of December 1980 to the Foreign Technology Division about a "Project Blue Room" drew a reply that no records could be found. In 1982 the division told Lee Graham that it could not locate documents on the Blue Room, and added that Goldwater had visited earlier that year and received a technology update briefing. On October 9, 1991 the Air Force told [[Brian Parks]] that a film titled "Blue Room, Wright Patterson AFB OH, 1955" existed in its records and had been destroyed on September 9, 1965.[^4] + +The [[Foreign Technology Division]] was established on July 1, 1961 under [[Air Force Systems Command]]. From 1961 to 1991 it was the Air Force's scientific and technical intelligence center for foreign air, space and ballistic missile systems, working under [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] production guidance.[^8] [[Robert M. Collins]] wrote that he came to the UFO subject in the summer of 1985 as an analyst in theoretical and applied physics at the division, and that in the group around Moore he was given the bird name Condor. He named a retired division lieutenant colonel in Dayton, [[Anthony J. Cacioppo]], and [[Dale Graff]], by then reassigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency, as persons with in-depth knowledge of the UFO subject.[^9] + +In August 1988 Moore, [[Jaime Shandera]], [[Richard Doty]], Collins and the retired Air Force lieutenant colonel [[Ernie Kellerstrass]] met at a state park near Dayton, each at a separate contact point, according to Collins. He wrote that in the fall of 1987 Kellerstrass had hosted Moore, Shandera, [[Harold Puthoff]], Colonel [[John B. Alexander]], [[C.B. Scott Jones]] and Collins at dinner at his house in [[Beavercreek, Ohio]]. Collins wrote that Kellerstrass brought a companion from "DET 22," and that the men "all checked out."[^10] + +A purchase order awarded on January 9, 2013 by the [[General Services Administration]] to [[HII Mission Technologies]] for foreign materiel exploitation engineering and maintenance support carried the place of performance Dayton, Ohio. USAspending records list $53,916,532.23 obligated under the order, a funding office of the [[National Air and Space Intelligence Center]], and a period of performance from February 1, 2013 to July 31, 2018.[^11] + +In 1953 [[J. Allen Hynek]] ran [[Project Henry]] from [[Ohio State University]], reviewing teletype reports from the base. His assistant [[Jennie Zeidman]] wrote in 1991 that Hynek was paid to investigate only the reports Blue Book assigned to him, and that Hynek often said he knew the best cases were withheld. She also wrote that Parks had obtained, under the Freedom of Information Act, Hynek's record as a Foreign Technology Division consultant from 1970 to 1974.[^12] + +### Foreign materiel and the National Air and Space Intelligence Center + +The base's foreign materiel mission runs through the National Air and Space Intelligence Center. A 2016 Air Force story describes the center handing foreign materiel to an 87-member Foreign Materiel Exploitation Squadron.[^13] The [[Department of Defense]] Inspector General's audit report 98-005, dated October 8, 1997, reviewed how the military departments used exploitation results.[^14] + +Notes attributed to the physicist [[Eric Davis]], dated October 16, 2002, record Vice Admiral [[Thomas R. Wilson]] describing a June 1997 meeting at which program managers said they ran a reverse engineering program. The notes have Wilson first assuming the program concerned recovered Soviet or Chinese hardware, and then saying the managers "said they weren't that either." Wilson told the [[Sarasota Herald-Tribune]] in 2020: "It's all fiction."[^15] + +In June 2023 [[The Debrief]] reported, in an article by [[Leslie Kean]] and [[Ross Coulthart]], that a NASIC officer identified as Jonathan Grey worked on UAP analysis there. The article quotes Grey: "I have been the recipient of such briefings for almost a decade," and reports Christopher Mellon's account of briefings he arranged for congressional staff on retrieved materials.[^16] [[The War Zone]] reported that a Department of Defense spokesperson, [[Sue Gough]], said that the [[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]] had not discovered verifiable information substantiating claims of reverse engineering of extraterrestrial materials.[^17] + +### The Portage County sightings of April 1966 + +On April 17, 1966 a [[Portage County Sheriff's Office|Portage County]] deputy, Dale F. Spaur, badge number 15, reported a UFO near [[Ravenna, Ohio|Ravenna]], the county seat. In the Blue Book teletype record, Spaur said the object was first sighted along the highway into Ravenna and that he followed it east to [[Conway, Pennsylvania|Conway]], Pennsylvania, with a second deputy, W. L. Neff, and two patrol cars.[^18] Other accounts in the file give the chase as 85 and 86 miles, and identify the second deputy as Wilbur Neff.[^19][^20] [[Gerald F. Buchert]], chief of police in [[Mantua, Ohio|Mantua]], told the Associated Press that he photographed the object from his front yard in Mantua, about eight miles north of Ravenna, and that the Air Force told him not to release the picture.[^20] + +The file records that the [[662nd Radar Squadron]] station at Oakdale, Pennsylvania, had nothing on radar between 0530 and 0615 that morning, and that the Air National Guard fighters based at the [[Pittsburgh International Airport|Greater Pittsburgh Airport]] were not scrambled.[^18] In a telephone account recorded in the file, Spaur said the object was "So bright that we couldn't look directly at it," and that its sound was "a humming sound like a power transformer," with "no thrust like from a jet."[^21] + +The case was handled by the Blue Book office under [[Hector Quintanilla]]. The file's telephone record says that Quintanilla told Spaur the Air Force wanted the negative so that it could be enlarged, and that Spaur expected the sheriff to hand it over.[^21] A memorandum for the record in the same file notes that Air National Guard interceptors at Greater Pittsburgh were not sent up because nothing showed on radar, and that both Spaur and Buchert had given the Air Force excellent testimony by telephone, so that little more was expected from a personal interview.[^18] + +An Air Force photo analysis of Buchert's negative found that the "very bright light" he tried to photograph "does not appear as an image," and that the two images on the negative were "probably the result of processing defects due to old fogged film and poor handling." The analysis concluded: "The probable cause of the sighting by Deputy Sheriff Spaur of Ravenna, Ohio was the passage of a satellite over northeastern Ohio." It continues: "It is believed that Deputy Sheriff Spaur was chasing the planet Venus. Radar indicates that no airborne objects were in the area of the sighting during the period that Deputy Sheriff Spaur was chasing the UFO."[^22] + +A letter dated May 1966 from [[Robert E. Cook]], who wrote as a private citizen and a former United States congressman, went to [[William Stanton]], the representative for the district. Cook called the Venus conclusion "ridiculous," wrote that Air Force investigators had not come to Portage County to interview the three eyewitnesses, and said the inquiry had consisted of telephone calls and an examination of Buchert's photographs. He urged Stanton to insist that investigators be sent.[^19] The Blue Book files also include a ground-visual sighting at [[Mansfield, Ohio|Mansfield]] on August 16, 1966, for which Quintanilla wrote to the observer on August 29 that the information received was not sufficient for evaluation and asked for a completed questionnaire; the case form carries the conclusion "Insufficient Data for Evaluation."[^23] + +The case file's cover sheet is headed "PROJECT 10073 RECORD." [[Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14]], the 1955 statistical study described in the Battelle section below, carries the same "Project No. 10073" on its cover.[^24] + +### Battelle Memorial Institute and the Columbus contracts + +Battelle Memorial Institute is a nonprofit contract research organization in Columbus, created under the will of the Columbus industrialist [[Gordon Battelle]]. The institute was incorporated in 1925, and its first laboratory opened in October 1929.[^25] Its UFO work began in late 1951. [[Edward J. Ruppelt]], then chief of Project Grudge, wrote that he set up a contract with a research organization because no one on his staff could answer the questions that UFO reports raised. He called the arrangement "Project Bear," and wrote that "Their organization cannot be identified by name because they are doing other highly secret work for the government." He described it as "a large, well-known research organization in the Midwest."[^26] + +The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office listed the arrangement in February 2024 as "Project BEAR (Late 1951 to Late 1954)," and stated that "BMI released a report under the cover of ATIC to maintain its anonymity."[^27] The resulting report was dated May 5, 1955 and issued by the [[Air Technical Intelligence Center]] at Wright-Patterson. It rests on "approximately 4,000 reports" from June 1947 to December 1952, reduced to IBM punched-card abstracts, and was undertaken "to determine if 'flying saucers' represented technological developments not known to this country."[^24] Its conclusions state that "there was a complete lack of any valid evidence consisting of physical matter in any case of a reported unidentified" object.[^24] + +The [[Robertson Panel]] memorandum, prepared for the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] after the panel's meetings in January 1953, records in its minutes for January 15 that "The Project STORK support at Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, was described by Dr. Hynek."[^28] The arrangement outlasted the early years. A CIA memorandum of October 11, 1960 reports a visit to the "Air Force's Project White Stork (PWS) at Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, Ohio," and states that White Stork "has assumed increasing importance to OSI analysts because it is able to provide considerably more assistance for many scientific and technical Intelligence research projects than any other repository in the Intelligence Community."[^29] + +Battelle also hosted tests on a model of a Soviet-designed biological bomblet. The [[New York Times]] reported on September 4, 2001 that the Central Intelligence Agency, in a program code-named [[Clear Vision]] that began in 1997, "conducted two sets of tests at Battelle, the military contractor," and that the Defense Intelligence Agency had taken over a project to replicate a genetically altered anthrax strain, for which the [[West Jefferson, Ohio]], laboratory of Battelle had been selected.[^30] The [[Department of Energy]]'s Office of Legacy Management lists the institute's King Avenue site in Columbus and its West Jefferson site, about 15 miles west of the city, as a Manhattan Engineer District and Atomic Energy Commission legacy site, and states that Battelle conducted nuclear research at both for the department and its predecessor agencies between 1943 and 1986.[^31] At King Avenue, part of the federal fuel and target fabrication program, the work included processing and machining enriched, natural and depleted uranium and thorium and fabricating fuel elements; at West Jefferson a hot cell facility was used for examination of power and research reactor fuels and post-irradiation examination of control rod, source and structural materials, beside a critical assembly laboratory, a reactor research building and an engineering area for fuel element fabrication and ballistics studies.[^31] The department reports that 1.7 million tons of low-level and mixed low-level waste and 41 tons of transuranic waste were shipped from the two sites, that cleanup was completed in 2006, and that the [[Nuclear Regulatory Commission]] terminated Battelle's special nuclear materials license for both sites in 2008.[^31] On January 4, 1965 the key to the [[Hanford Laboratories]] was transferred to Battelle, which operated the laboratory for the [[Atomic Energy Commission]]. In the 1960s and 1970s the [[Ohio Attorney General]] challenged the institute's reading of Gordon Battelle's will, and the dispute was settled in 1975 with a distribution of $80 million to other charities.[^25] + +### The Coyne helicopter incident over Mansfield, 1973 + +On November 27, 1978 [[Lawrence J. Coyne]], who gave his rank as lieutenant colonel, described the incident to the Special Political Committee of the [[United Nations General Assembly]], in the summary record of its 35th meeting, during a session in which [[Jacques Vallee]] and Hynek also spoke.[^32] The summary records that Coyne described an incident of October 18, 1973 involving a United States Army utility helicopter, of which he had been in command, and an unidentified flying object. The incident "had almost resulted in a mid-air collision."[^32] + +According to the summary, the helicopter had left Columbus for Cleveland at 10:30 p.m. with a crew of four. A red-lighted aircraft approached at very high speed, and Coyne contacted Mansfield approach control by radio. The object was described as "50 to 60 feet long," with "a large, steady, bright red light" on the front and a green light from its undercarriage that "swung through an angle of 90 degrees to shine directly into the cockpit." The magnetic compass was "spinning slowly," and the helicopter climbed at 1,000 feet per minute although its controls were still set for a descent. Coyne told the committee he was convinced that the object had been real and that such incidents should be thoroughly investigated.[^32] + +A news account published in the [[Mansfield News Journal]] on November 4, 1973 identified the pilot as Army Reserve Captain Lawrence Coyne, a member of the 316th Medical Detachment at [[Cleveland Hopkins International Airport]]. It quoted him: "We were on a collision course," and "The thing was terrifically fast." It reported that none of the F-100 jets of the nearby Air National Guard squadron were in the air when the object appeared.[^33] The case file states that the helicopter's commander was 36 years old and had nineteen years of Army Reserve service, and that the crew included a flight medic and a crew chief.[^34] + +The case file cites an Army Disposition Form incident report reproduced in [[Larry Fawcett]] and [[Barry Greenwood]], *Clear Intent* (1984).[^35] It also cites Jennie Zeidman's 1979 monograph for the [[Center for UFO Studies]], and states that her second-by-second timeline showed the object in continuous view of the crew for at least five minutes. The case file states that this timeline rules out a meteor.[^36] Witnesses on the ground, including a family returning to a rural home near the Charles Mill Reservoir, reported a red light and then green illumination.[^34] + +A [[J. Patrick Coyne]] was executive secretary of the [[President's Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities]] and of its successor, the [[President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board]]. The UN summary gives the helicopter commander's rank as lieutenant colonel, and the 1973 news account gives it as captain.[^32][^33] Whether J. Patrick Coyne and Lawrence J. Coyne are the same man is not established by the records cited here. + +### Kent State University and the Ohio National Guard, 1970 + +The [[President's Commission on Campus Unrest]], chaired by former Pennsylvania governor [[William Scranton]], reported that about 750 [[Ohio National Guard]] members were sent to Kent State University in May 1970. It reported that on May 4 students congregated on the commons and defied an order to disperse, that the Guard fired tear gas, and that "some fired their weapons." Four students were killed and nine wounded.[^37] + +The Commission wrote of the shooting: "The 61 shots by 28 guardsmen certainly cannot be justified. Apparently, no order to fire was given, and there was inadequate fire control discipline on Blanket Hill."[^38] The report also states: "This was not the case at Kent State, yet each guardsman carried a loaded M-1 rifle."[^38] + +On the presence of a gun, the Commission wrote: "Terry Norman, a free-lance photographer, was taking pictures of the demonstration and was seen with a pistol after the Guard fired. Several civilians chased him from Taylor Hall into the Guard line, where he surrendered a .38 caliber revolver. The gun was immediately examined by a campus policeman, who found that it had not been fired."[^39] The Commission added that "The activities of two persons at the scene may have given rise to the belief that a sniper was present."[^39] + +Reuters reported in May 2016 that Norman was a student and FBI informant, that some experts speculated he fired the shots that provoked the Guard volley, and that he told investigators he never fired his gun.[^40] The FBI cited privacy protections for not releasing documents about Norman or confirming that they exist. A Buffalo attorney, Michael Kuzma, had filed a lawsuit seeking the FBI's records on Norman.[^40] + +In a piece inserted in the [[Congressional Record]] on December 14, 2010 by [[Dennis Kucinich]], the co-founder of the [[Kent State Truth Tribunal]] wrote that a forensic audio analysis by [[Stuart Allen]], commissioned by the [[Cleveland Plain Dealer]], had heard "a violent altercation with FBI-paid Terry Norman," and that the last word of a Guard order to fire was "stepped on by a barrage of 67 shots over 13 seconds."[^41] + +### Matrix-Churchill and the Cleveland office + +[[Matrix-Churchill Corporation]] was an Ohio company with its office in the Cleveland area, the American affiliate of the British machine-tool maker [[Matrix Churchill]]. On March 14, 1989 Secretary of State [[James Baker]] signed State Department documents authenticating the company so that it could open a branch in Baghdad. On May 10, 1989 Acting Secretary [[Lawrence Eagleburger]] signed a similar set.[^42] Representative [[Henry Gonzalez]] told the House on August 10, 1992 that Baker and Eagleburger had, unwittingly, helped the company establish its Baghdad branch.[^42] + +Gonzalez also described the Cleveland operation as headed on the procurement side by an Iraqi, [[Saalim Naman]], and placed the company inside a network that had "numerous, almost daily contacts with BNL in Atlanta and Matrix-Churchill in Cleveland."[^42] Eagleburger had been an officer of [[Kissinger Associates]] until 1989.[^43] + +### Standard Oil Company of Ohio + +The government's bill in the [[Standard Oil]] case alleged that the conspiracy was formed "in or about the year 1870" by [[John D. Rockefeller]], [[William Rockefeller]] and [[Henry Flagler|Henry M. Flagler]]. The bill named "Standard Oil Company of Ohio, and sixty-two other corporations and partnerships, as also seven individuals" as defendants.[^44] The Ohio company had already been the object of a state proceeding. On March 2, 1892 the [[Ohio Supreme Court]], in a quo warranto action brought in the name of the state on the relation of the attorney general, held that the company's participation in the trust agreement, under which all but seven of its 35,000 shares had been transferred to trustees, was beyond its corporate powers, and entered "Judgment ousting the defendant from the right to make the agreement set forth in the petition and of the power to perform the same."[^45] + +### Facts Forum, H.L. Hunt and Representative Wayne Hays + +In 1954 Representative [[Wayne Hays]] of Ohio, a member of the [[Reece Committee]] investigating tax-exempt foundations, demanded that the exemption of [[Facts Forum]] be lifted. "Facts Forum is not only a propaganda machine," he said, "but it puts up money to defeat people for Congress like me."[^46] The [[Internal Revenue Service]] gave the organization what the trade weekly Broadcasting-Telecasting called "a clean bill of health." A Facts Forum spokesman, [[Hardy Burt]], wrote to Hays asking whether his "vociferous antagonism" was connected with the Daily Worker's endorsement of his 1948 candidacy. [[H.L. Hunt]] put $5,000 on Hays's opponent in a later race and lost.[^47] + +### Wexner Foundation and the Epstein record in Ohio + +The [[Wexner Foundation]] is an Ohio private charitable foundation formed in 1973 by the family of the retailer [[Leslie Wexner]] to develop Jewish communal leadership in North America and public-sector leadership in Israel. [[Jeffrey Epstein]], Wexner's money manager, was a trustee from December 15, 1992 until September 4, 2007, and was president of the Wexner family office, N.A. Property, Inc., which kept the foundation's books.[^48] Between 2004 and 2006 the foundation paid the former Israeli prime minister [[Ehud Barak]] 2.3 million dollars for two commissioned studies. According to a foundation statement reported by the Times of Israel, one of the two studies was never finished.[^49] [[Maria Farmer]], a painter, alleged in her 2025 complaint against the United States that in the summer of 1996 Epstein invited her to be an artist-in-residence at his home in [[New Albany, Ohio]], which the complaint describes as part of or adjacent to the Wexner estate. She alleged that in late July or early August 1996 Epstein and [[Ghislaine Maxwell]] assaulted her there, that they took images from her cataloged collection of source material for her artwork and carried them by airplane from Ohio to New York, and that a local sheriff and other persons connected with Wexner prevented her from leaving the property for days.[^50] She reported Epstein and Maxwell to the [[New York City Police Department]] and the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] in August 1996.[^50] A February 2020 review commissioned by the foundation, conducted by the law firm Kegler Brown Hill and Ritter, found no evidence that Epstein used the foundation to commit any crime.[^48] + +### Prediction markets and the Ohio Casino Control Commission + +In 2025 the [[Ohio Casino Control Commission]] sent cease-and-desist letters to prediction markets. Kalshi sued the commission and the Ohio Attorney General, [[Dave Yost]], in the [[United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio]], where Judge Sarah Daggett Morrison denied [[Kalshi]] a preliminary injunction on March 9, 2026.[^51] On September 25, 2026 a panel of the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit]], in an opinion by Judge Julia Gibbons, affirmed the Ohio denial. The panel held that Kalshi had not shown that sports event contracts are swaps, and alternatively that the Commodity Exchange Act neither expressly nor impliedly preempts the states' gambling laws.[^52] The commission's letter had told Kalshi that offering event contracts on sporting events to people in Ohio without a sports gaming license violated Ohio law, and the commission separately warned licensed sportsbooks that associating with an unlicensed operator would call their own licenses into question.[^52] Covers reported on October 5, 2026 that Kalshi, which sued Ohio in 2025, had been fined $5 million by the state in April.[^53] + +Lobbying disclosure filings for Kalshi by [[Miller Strategies]] list covered positions that include chief counsel to Representative [[Jim Jordan]], according to the Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act database.[^54] Jordan managed the House debate on the [[Epstein Files Transparency Act]] on November 18, 2025, when the House passed it by 427 to 1.[^55] + +### Radiance Technologies and the Dayton contractors + +[[Radiance Technologies]], a Huntsville, Alabama company, announced on October 6, 2014 that it and "its Dayton partners" had been awarded a $960,000,000 indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract (Advanced Technical Exploitation Program II) for research, development, system sustainment and intelligence production using geospatial-intelligence and non-nuclear measurement and signature intelligence data at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center.[^56] The company's political action committee has disbursed to Citizens for Turner, the committee of Representative [[Mike Turner]] of Ohio, according to the Federal Election Commission's records.[^57] In December 2023 the attorney [[Daniel Sheehan]] named Radiance among the entities he said were pressuring Turner and Representative [[Mike Rogers]] over the [[Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act]]; the interviewing outlet wrote that it had been unable to substantiate the involvement of those organizations, and reported that multiple sources told it the allegations about Radiance were untrue.[^58] + +### Project Monarch and the Youngstown account + +[[Cathy O'Brien]] described, in the account of [[Project Monarch]] summarized in a PROBE article of about 1996, being subjected to further conditioning by [[Michael Aquino]] at [[NASA]] bases and being sent to what she called "Charm School" in [[Youngstown, Ohio|Youngstown]]. She described it as a stone building with a basement dungeon equipped with chains, a stretching rack, whips and altars. She also claimed to have delivered messages to foreign leaders, including the Mexican president [[Carlos Salinas]], on behalf of the vice president, [[George H.W. Bush]].[^59] + +### Born in Ohio: Kappes and Manson + +[[Stephen Kappes]] was born in Cincinnati on August 22, 1951, took a bachelor's degree in pre-medicine at [[Ohio University]] and a master's degree in pathology at Ohio State University, served as a [[United States Marine Corps|Marine Corps]] officer from 1976, and joined the Central Intelligence Agency in January 1981.[^60] + +[[Charles Manson]] was born in [[Cincinnati]] on November 12, 1934 and spent his childhood in and out of institutions.[^61] + +### Political figures: JD Vance, Peter Thiel and Public First Action + +[[JD Vance]] was born James Donald Bowman in [[Middletown, Ohio|Middletown]] on August 2, 1984. He served as U.S. Senator from Ohio from 2023 to 2025 and as Vice President of the United States from January 2025.[^62] Vance's political career was built on the financial backing of [[Peter Thiel]], who employed him at [[Mithril Capital]] from 2017 and gave to the [[Protect Ohio Values]] super PAC supporting his 2022 Senate primary.[^62] His contributions to the committee totaled approximately fifteen million dollars across the 2022 cycle.[^63] A [[Cincinnati Enquirer]] report of March 15, 2021 headlined a donation of $10 million from Thiel to a super PAC supporting Vance.[^64] [[Politico]]'s account of the Ohio primary of May 3, 2022 carried the headline "A mole hunt, a secret website and Peter Thiel's big risk."[^65] + +The Jobs and Democracy PAC, which received most of the money of the [[Public First Action]] super PAC, reported expenditures supporting [[Brian Poindexter]] in Ohio.[^66] + +### Mordecai Vanunu and the Daily Mirror in Ohio + +The [[Daily Mirror]] dismissed its foreign editor, [[Nicholas Davies]], on October 29, 1991, for denying that he had been in Ohio in 1985 at the home of an arms dealer, after a rival paper printed a photograph of him. The dismissal came in the period of press coverage of [[Mordecai Vanunu]].[^67] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: National Archives, "Project BLUE BOOK - Unidentified Flying Objects," reproducing the United States Air Force fact sheet "UFOs & Project BLUE BOOK" distributed by the Public Affairs Division, Wright-Patterson AFB, January 1985, https://www.archives.gov/research/military/air-force/ufos +[^2]: Air Force news release No. 1077-69, "Air Force to Terminate Project 'Blue Book,'" 17 December 1969, reproduced in the Office of Naval Research information sheet and Air Force "UFO Fact Sheet," https://www.physics.smu.edu/pseudo/UFOs/dod174.pdf +[^3]: James McAndrew, *The Roswell Report: Case Closed* (U.S. Air Force, 1997), Project Gutenberg ebook 63659, https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/63659/pg63659-images.html +[^4]: Thomas J. Carey and Donald R. Schmitt, *Inside the Real Area 51: The Secret History of Wright-Patterson* (Career Press, 2013), chapter 2, "The Mystery of Hangar 18 Solved!" and chapter 5, "The Senator and the Blue Room," including the Blue Room correspondence of 1980 to 1991. +[^5]: Timothy Good, *Above Top Secret: The Worldwide UFO Cover-Up* (New York: William Morrow, 1988), chapter 15, "Senator Goldwater Confirms Withheld UFO Data," pp. 404 to 405, reproducing Barry Goldwater's letters to Shlomo Arnon (March 28, 1975) and to Lee Graham (April 11, 1979 and October 19, 1981). +[^6]: Carey and Schmitt, chapter 5, quoting the Larry King Live broadcast of October 1, 1994, CNN; Goldwater's 1988 radio statement is discussed in the same chapter. +[^7]: George Knapp, written testimony, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, hearing "Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection," September 9, 2025, https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/George-Knapp-Written-Testimony.pdf +[^8]: National Air and Space Intelligence Center, "National Air and Space Intelligence Center Heritage," fact sheet published July 31, 2015, read from the Wayback Machine copy of https://www.nasic.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Article/611728/national-air-and-space-intelligence-center-heritage/ +[^9]: Robert Collins and Richard Doty, *Exempt from Disclosure: The Black World of UFOs* (Peregrine Communications, 2010), introduction and section 1, chapter 1, "FTD Is Not a Florist." +[^10]: Robert Collins and Richard Doty, *Exempt from Disclosure: The Black World of UFOs*, section 1, "August 1988: Cloak & Dagger," https://archive.org/details/exempt-from-disclosure (Collins's account). +[^11]: USAspending.gov, award GS05T13BMC0003, purchase order, funding office NASIC, recipient HII Mission Technologies Corp., retrieved October 9, 2026, https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_GS05T13BMC0003_4732_-NONE-_-NONE- +[^12]: Jennie Zeidman, "I Remember Blue Book," *International UFO Reporter*, March/April 1991, sections "Project Henry" and the closing section on the Foreign Technology Division, read from the Wayback Machine copy of https://www.project1947.com/articles/jzbluebook.htm +[^13]: TSgt Brandon Shapiro, "Acquire, Assess, Exploit: NASIC reverse engineers an advantage for pilots and leaders," Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, December 1, 2016, https://www.dvidshub.net/news/printable/216127 +[^14]: Inspector General, Department of Defense, "Use of Foreign Materiel Exploitation Results," Audit Report No. 98-005, October 8, 1997, https://media.defense.gov/1997/Oct/08/2001715489/-1/-1/1/98-005.pdf +[^15]: "EWD NOTES 10/16/02, Eric Davis Meeting with Adm. Wilson," p. 12, https://documents2.theblackvault.com/casefiles/wilsonleak.pdf ; The Black Vault, "The Admiral Wilson Leak: An Analysis" (statement of Thomas R. Wilson to Billy Cox of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 2020), https://www.theblackvault.com/casefiles/the-admiral-wilson-leak-an-analysis/ +[^16]: Leslie Kean and Ross Coulthart, "Intelligence Officials Say U.S. Has Retrieved Craft of Non-Human Origin," The Debrief, June 5, 2023, https://thedebrief.org/intelligence-officials-say-u-s-has-retrieved-non-human-craft/ +[^17]: Joseph Trevithick and Tyler Rogoway, "Aliens Or Not, Secret Crash Retrieval Programs Are A Very Real Thing," The War Zone, June 15, 2023, https://www.twz.com/aliens-or-not-secret-crash-retrieval-programs-are-a-very-real-thing +[^18]: U.S. Air Force, Project Blue Book case file, "Project 10073 Record," April 17, 1966 sighting at Ravenna and Mantua, Ohio, including the Greater Pittsburgh Airport teletype, the Oakdale radar memorandum for the record and the Spaur report, National Archives microfilm T-1206 as digitized at https://archive.org/details/1966-04-7104469-Ravenna-Mantua-Ohio +[^19]: Same case file, letter of May 1966 from Robert E. Cook, addressed to Congressman William Stanton (page 2 signed by Cook), reporting the Spaur and Neff pursuit and the Venus conclusion. +[^20]: Same case file, clippings: Syracuse Herald-Journal, April 18, 1966, "UFO chased 86 miles" (Associated Press); the Mantua photograph account; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette clipping of April 19, 1966. +[^21]: Same case file, "Report by Telephone Conversation," April 1966, with Sheriff Spaur, and the memorandum of the Air Force contact with the Mantua chief of police. +[^22]: Same case file, photo analysis of the negative submitted by Chief of Police Gerald F. Buchert, April 1966 (Northeastern Ohio analysis), and the Summary section. +[^23]: U.S. Air Force, Project Blue Book case file, Mansfield, Ohio, August 16, 1966 (ground-visual, one object), with letter of August 29, 1966 from Major Hector Quintanilla, Jr., Chief, Project Blue Book, https://archive.org/details/1966-08-8728405-Mansfield-Ohio +[^24]: Air Technical Intelligence Center, Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14, "Analysis of Reports of Unidentified Aerial Objects," Study No. 102-EL-55/2-79, Project No. 10073, 5 May 1955, https://archive.org/details/ProjectBlueBookSpecialReport14 (cover, introduction and conclusions). +[^25]: "Battelle Memorial Institute, Inc.," International Directory of Company Histories, Gale (entry reprinted at Reference for Business), https://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/88/Battelle-Memorial-Institute-Inc.html (incorporation in 1925, first laboratory October 1929, Ohio Attorney General challenge and 1975 settlement). +[^26]: Edward J. Ruppelt, *The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects* (Garden City: Doubleday, 1956), chapters nine and ten, Project Gutenberg ebook 17346, https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17346/pg17346.txt +[^27]: Department of Defense, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, *Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena*, Volume I, February 2024, "Project BEAR (Late 1951 to Late 1954)," https://media.defense.gov/2024/Mar/08/2003409233/-1/-1/0/DOPSR-CLEARED-508-COMPLIANT-HRRV1-08-MAR-2024-FINAL.PDF +[^28]: F. C. Durant, "Report of Meetings of the Office of Scientific Intelligence Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects," Central Intelligence Agency, 16 February 1953, Appendix U of the Condon Report, https://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-u.htm (Part I, Thursday morning; Tab C, "Evidence Presented"). +[^29]: Chief, Intelligence Production Faculty, Intelligence School, Central Intelligence Agency, memorandum "Weekly Activities Report No. 36, 5-11 October 1960," 11 October 1960, CIA-RDP78-04836A000100040080-9, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp78-04836a000100040080-9 +[^30]: Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and William J. Broad, "U.S. Germ Warfare Research Pushes Treaty Limits," *The New York Times*, September 4, 2001, https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/04/world/us-germ-warfare-research-pushes-treaty-limits.html +[^31]: U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Legacy Management, "Columbus, Ohio, Sites: An MED/AEC legacy site," fact sheet, May 2020, https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2020/05/f75/ColumbusFactSheet.pdf +[^32]: United Nations General Assembly, 33rd session, Special Political Committee, summary record of the 35th meeting, November 27, 1978, A/SPC/33/SR.35, paras. 18 to 21, https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2FSPC%2F33%2FSR.35&l=en&t=pdf +[^33]: United Press International, "Incident named after pilot," *Mansfield News Journal*, November 4, 1973, reproduced at https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/press/mansfieldnewsjournal4nov1973.htm +[^34]: Patrick Gross, "The Coyne incident, Mansfield, Ohio, USA, 1973," case file, https://www.ufology.patrickgross.org/htm/coyne.htm (crew, rank and service summary; timeline; witness accounts). +[^35]: Larry Fawcett and Barry Greenwood, *Clear Intent* (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1984), p. 239, as cited in Patrick Gross, "The Coyne incident, Mansfield, Ohio, USA, 1973," https://www.ufology.patrickgross.org/htm/coyne.htm +[^36]: Jennie Zeidman, "Helicopter-UFO Encounter Over Ohio," Center for UFO Studies, Chicago, 1979, as cited in Patrick Gross, "The Coyne incident, Mansfield, Ohio, USA, 1973," https://www.ufology.patrickgross.org/htm/coyne.htm +[^37]: The Report of the President's Commission on Campus Unrest (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1970), p. 18, ERIC ED083899, https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED083899.pdf +[^38]: Same report, Special Report on Kent State, pp. 289 to 290, ERIC ED083899, https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED083899.pdf +[^39]: Same report, Special Report on Kent State, pp. 279 to 280, ERIC ED083899, https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED083899.pdf +[^40]: Daniel Trotta, "Lawsuit extends fascination with Kent State deaths 46 years on," Reuters, May 4, 2016, https://news.yahoo.com/lawsuit-extends-fascination-kent-state-deaths-46-years-171552928.html +[^41]: Congressional Record, vol. 156, no. 165, December 14, 2010, Extension of Remarks of Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, inserting "Truth Emerging in the Kent State Cold Case Homicide" by the co-founder of the Kent State Truth Tribunal, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CREC-2010-12-14/html/CREC-2010-12-14-pt1-PgE2124-3.htm +[^42]: Henry B. Gonzalez, "Details on Iraq's Procurement Network," *Congressional Record*, House, August 10, 1992, https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/1992_cr/h920810g.htm +[^43]: Lacey, Frederick B. "The Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Investigation: Report of the Independent Counsel," reproduced in House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, Serial No. 103-95. https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit +[^44]: *Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States*, 221 U.S. 1 (decided May 15, 1911), statement of the bill ("Standard Oil Company of Ohio, and sixty-two other corporations and partnerships, as also seven individuals, were named as defendants"). https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/221/1 +[^45]: *State ex rel. Attorney General v. Standard Oil Co.*, 49 Ohio St. 137 (Ohio March 2, 1892), https://static.case.law/ohio-st/49/cases/0137-01.json +[^46]: Facts Forum, pamphlet in reply to Representative Wayne Hays, c. 1954, reproduced in the FBI headquarters file on H.L. Hunt, part 1. +[^47]: Sherrill, Robert G. "H.L. Hunt: Portrait of a Superpatriot," *The Nation,* February 24, 1964. +[^48]: Kegler, Charles J., and Loriann E. Fuhrer. *Independent Review of Jeffrey Epstein's Involvement and Interactions with The Wexner Foundation.* Kegler Brown Hill + Ritter Co., LPA, February 24, 2020, pp. 1-18. https://www.wexnerfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/Wexner-Foundation-Report-Following-Independent-Review4.pdf +[^49]: *The Times of Israel,* on the Wexner Foundation's statement that its 2.3 million dollars to Barak paid for two reports, one unfinished. https://www.timesofisrael.com/wexner-foundation-2-3-million-to-barak-was-for-2-reports-1-wasnt-finished/ +[^50]: Complaint, *Farmer v. United States*, No. 1:25-cv-01709-RBW (D.D.C. filed May 29, 2025), paras. 95 to 104, https://www.jamesmarshlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Doc-1-Complaint-05-29-2025.pdf +[^51]: Gambling Insider, report on the March 9, 2026 denial of Kalshi's preliminary injunction in the Southern District of Ohio, https://www.gamblinginsider.com/news/117023/kalshi-ohio-injunction-sixth-circuit-split-jpg ; *KalshiEX LLC v. Schuler*, Nos. 26-3196/5235 (6th Cir. Sept. 25, 2026), procedural history. +[^52]: KalshiEX LLC v. Schuler, Nos. 26-3196/5235, and KalshiEX LLC v. Orgel (6th Cir. September 25, 2026) (Clay, Gibbons and Bloomekatz; opinion by Gibbons; argued July 30, 2026; S.D. Ohio No. 2:25-cv-01165, Judge Morrison; M.D. Tenn. No. 3:26-cv-00034, Judge Trauger). https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/26a0272p-06.pdf Gambling Insider reports the March 9, 2026 denial of the preliminary injunction (note 51). +[^53]: Covers, "Ohio Sends Cease-and-Desists to 10 Prediction Market Companies," October 5, 2026 (notices dated October 2; Kalshi not among them; "Kalshi, which sued Ohio in 2025, was fined $5 million by the Buckeye State in April"). https://www.covers.com/industry/ohio-regulator-sends-cease-and-desist-notices-to-10-prediction-market-companies-oct-5-2026 ; Gambling Insider on the March 9, 2026 denial and the April 2025 letters. https://www.gamblinginsider.com/news/117023/kalshi-ohio-injunction-sixth-circuit-split-jpg +[^54]: U.S. Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act database, 75 filings with client "Kalshi," queried October 13, 2026, with covered positions and amounts as listed on each filing: https://lda.senate.gov/api/v1/filings/?client_name=Kalshi ; registrant record, Kalshi Inc., LDA ID 401109813, https://lda.senate.gov/api/v1/registrants/401109813/ +[^55]: Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives, Roll Call 289, H.R. 4405, "On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass," November 18, 2025. https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2025289 ; Congressional Record, vol. 171, November 18, 2025, H4725. https://www.congress.gov/119/crec/2025/11/18/171/194/modified/CREC-2025-11-18-pt1-PgH4725-2.htm +[^56]: "NASIC picks Radiance for $960 Million Advanced Technical Exploitation Program II," Radiance Technologies, October 6, 2014, Internet Archive capture of February 1, 2016, https://web.archive.org/web/20160201010423/https://www.radiancetech.com/nasic-picks-radiance-for-960-million-advanced-technical-exploitation-program-ii/ +[^57]: Federal Election Commission, committee C00373001 (Citizens for Turner, Ohio, candidate H2OH03067) and Schedule B disbursements of committee C00372979 (Radiance Technologies, Inc. Political Action Committee), https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_b/?committee_id=C00372979 +[^58]: Christopher Sharp, "Daniel Sheehan Exposes Five Powerful Republicans Blocking UFO Disclosure Act, As The Clock Ticks Down," Liberation Times, December 3, 2023, https://www.liberationtimes.com/home/daniel-sheehan-exposes-five-powerful-republicans-blocking-ufo-disclosure-act-as-the-clock-ticks-down +[^59]: A.B.H. Alexander, "Sex, Drugs, the CIA, MIND CONTROL and Your Children," PROBE, c. 1996. +[^60]: "Stephen R. Kappes," Central Intelligence Agency, About CIA, Leadership, posted April 5, 2007, last updated April 15, 2007. https://web.archive.org/web/20070612215306/https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/leadership/kappes.html +[^61]: Curt Rowlett, "Project Mind Kontrol: Did the U.S. Government Actually Create Programmed Assassins?," Steamshovel Press #16, 1998.; O'Neill, Tom, and Dan Piepenbring. *Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties*. Little, Brown and Company, 2019. +[^62]: "The billionaire who fueled JD Vance's rapid rise to the Trump VP spot." *CBS News,* 2024. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jd-vance-trump-vp-peter-thiel-billionaire/ +[^63]: "Super PAC discloses raising, spending millions helping J.D. Vance," *Cleveland.com*, July 2022, https://www.cleveland.com/news/2022/07/super-pac-discloses-raising-spending-millions-helping-jd-vance-win-ohios-us-senate-republican-primary.html ; "Peter Thiel-tied dark money group helping bankroll super PAC," *OpenSecrets*, February 2022, https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/02/peter-thiel-tied-dark-money-group-helping-bankroll-super-pac-spending-on-2022-election/ +[^64]: "Super PAC supporting potential Senate candidate J.D. Vance gets $10M donation from Peter Thiel." *Cincinnati Enquirer,* March 15, 2021. https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/03/15/super-pac-supporting-possible-ohio-senate-candidate-j-d-vance-gets-10-m-donation-peter-thiel/4700540001/ +[^65]: "A mole hunt, a secret website and Peter Thiel's big risk: How J.D. Vance won the Ohio primary." *Politico,* May 3, 2022. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/03/jd-vance-win-ohio-primary-00029881 +[^66]: Federal Election Commission, committees C00928374 ("Jobs and Democracy PAC") and C00928390 ("Defending Our Values PAC"), financial totals and independent expenditures (Schedule E), including the by-candidate aggregation for Alex Bores, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/independent-expenditures/?committee_id=C00928374 ; https://www.fec.gov/data/independent-expenditures/?committee_id=C00928390 +[^67]: United Press International, report on the dismissal of Nicholas Davies, October 29, 1991. diff --git a/60 - PLACES/US_STATES/Pennsylvania.md b/60 - PLACES/US_STATES/Pennsylvania.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..9cbf0a21 --- /dev/null +++ b/60 - PLACES/US_STATES/Pennsylvania.md @@ -0,0 +1,218 @@ +--- +category: "U.S. State" +tags: + - Place + - USState + - PennsylvaniaCrimeCommission + - OrganizedCrime + - PoliceCorruption + - BufalinoFamily + - Kecksburg + - UFO + - ThreeMileIsland + - NuclearProcurement + - NUMEC + - Holmesburg + - TissueTrafficking + - CatholicChurch + - GrandJury + - Zizians +aliases: + - "Commonwealth of Pennsylvania" + - "State of Pennsylvania" + - "Pennsylvania (state)" +summary: "Pennsylvania appears through its Crime Commission reports, Three Mile Island, the Kecksburg FOIA suit, the NUMEC uranium inquiry and the 2018 grand jury." +created: 2026-10-15 +updated: 2026-10-15 +relations: + - type: head_of + with: "[[Richard Thornburgh]]" + reverse: true + start: 1979-01-16 + end: 1987-01-20 + role: "Governor of Pennsylvania" + fn: 1 + - type: prosecuted + with: "[[Michael Mastromarino]]" + start: 2008-08-29 + role: "Philadelphia prosecution; open guilty plea, sentenced to 25 to 58 years" + fn: 2 + - type: prosecuted + with: "[[Louis Garzone]]" + start: 2008-09-02 + role: "Philadelphia prosecution; guilty plea to corrupt organizations and body-part counts" + fn: 3 + - type: investigated + with: "[[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia]]" + start: 2016-09-01 + end: 2018-08-14 + role: "Fortieth Statewide Investigating Grand Jury (six other dioceses; Philadelphia was the subject of earlier grand juries)" + fn: 4 +--- + +Pennsylvania is a state of the United States whose capital is [[Harrisburg, Pennsylvania|Harrisburg]] and whose largest city, [[Philadelphia]], has its own page.[^5] The state bodies include the [[Pennsylvania Crime Commission]], the state appellate courts, the [[Pennsylvania State Police]], the [[Pennsylvania Army National Guard]], the statewide investigating grand juries and the governor's office, together with the federal courts in the state and the industrial and research sites of the western and central counties, among them the [[Three Mile Island]] plant near Harrisburg, the uranium plant at [[Apollo, Pennsylvania|Apollo]] and the village of [[Kecksburg incident|Kecksburg]] in [[Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania|Westmoreland County]]. + +### Courts and the Crime Commission + +The [[Superior Court of Pennsylvania|Superior Court]], established in 1895 to hear appeals from the Courts of Common Pleas, and the [[Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania|Commonwealth Court]] are the two statewide intermediate appellate courts, and the [[Supreme Court of Pennsylvania]] sits above them.[^6] The Supreme Court's decisions and the Superior Court's rulings on the Philadelphia prosecutions recur in the record of the [[Garzone Funeral Home]] and the Garzone brothers. + +The Pennsylvania Crime Commission was created as a fact-finding agency within the Pennsylvania Department of Justice. The Crime Commission Act was signed into law on July 31, 1968, the same day that an executive order made the Commission the state's criminal justice planning agency for federal block grants under the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968.[^7] The Commission issued two reports on police corruption and organized crime: the March 1974 report on the Philadelphia police and the 1990 report on organized crime, titled *Organized Crime in Pennsylvania: A Decade of Change*, which opens by quoting the 1967 federal task force recommendation that states with organized crime groups create investigation commissions with independent, permanent status, adequate investigators and subpoena powers.[^8] + +### Police corruption in Philadelphia, 1974 + +The Commission's March 1974 report found that corruption in the Philadelphia Police Department was "ongoing, widespread, systematic, and occurring at all levels of the Police Department." Corrupt practices were uncovered "in every police district," and the report identified more than 400 individual officers, by first name, last initial and badge or payroll number, as having received improper payments in cash and merchandise from gamblers, racketeers, bar owners and after-hours club operators.[^9] Its Locust Street chapter records that the owner of the [[Why Not Lounge]], Irvin Goltzer, was told by his manager, identified as Mr. LaRussa, to pay or "they will bust the joint," that payments went to the inspector of the Central Division, and that Goltzer made tape recordings of payoffs for the Commission.[^10][^11] The report's chapters also cover the After-Hours Clubs, the Road Drivers Association, the Liberty Clown Club, the Randolph Social Club and the Croatian Club.[^12] The bars, the manager [[Salvatore La Russa]] and the later history of the police inquiry are set out on the Philadelphia page. + +### The Cosa Nostra families of the 1990 report + +The Commission's 1990 report divides the state's [[La Cosa Nostra]] between three families: the Bruno/Scarfo family in the Philadelphia area, the [[Bufalino Crime Family]] in the northeast and the LaRocca/Genovese family in Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania.[^13] Its summary states that the Philadelphia family, "known for its reckless use of violence and powerful corruptive influence," had been seriously weakened by a cooperative law enforcement effort "unprecedented in the history of Pennsylvania"; that its leader, [[Nicodemo Scarfo]], had been imprisoned for life; and that six members, including the underboss, had become protected government witnesses.[^14] + +In the northeast the report places Russell Bufalino, "the aging boss of the Bufalino Family," in federal prison from 1981 to 1989 and states that the family "has become a second-rate operation" that would likely be merged with another family.[^14] The report traces the family's origin in Pittston through Stephen LaTorre, who came to the United States in the late 1800s and died in 1984; records that the Kefauver Committee's 1951 report focused on gambling in the Scranton area; names the family member John Parente as the dominant figure in illegal gambling in the Lehigh Valley until his death in 1978; and describes the Scranton video poker proprietor Elie "Al" Baldassari as a close friend of Russell Bufalino and records the July 1990 FBI extortion arrest of Elmo Baldassari.[^15] [[Cheri Seymour]] wrote that the family's name surfaced in FBI wiretaps of [[Music Corporation of America]] run by the Los Angeles Organized Crime Strike Force, in calls between [[Robert Booth Nichols]] and [[Eugene Giaquinto]].[^16][^17] + +In the west the report states that with the death of John LaRocca in 1984 leadership passed to Michael Genovese, that Genovese's confidant Charles Porter was convicted of racketeering and sentenced to 20 years, and that from the information available the organization "remains the most powerful Cosa Nostra Family in Pennsylvania today."[^14] The summary also states that the 1980s were marked by the use of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which Pennsylvania had adopted in a version of its own.[^14] The Philadelphia family under Scarfo, the Third Circuit's account of the 1988 racketeering trial and the methamphetamine trade are set out on the Philadelphia page. + +### The Garzone Funeral Home and the tissue trade + +The Philadelphia cadaver case runs through the state courts. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania recorded that the brothers Gerald and Louis Garzone, with James McCafferty, supplied at least 244 cadavers to [[Michael Mastromarino]] of [[Biomedical Tissue Services]] from early 2004 to September 2005 for over $245,000, and incinerated their records days before [[Food and Drug Administration]] investigators arrived.[^18] The Superior Court upheld Mastromarino's sentence of twenty-five to fifty-eight years in 2010; Louis Garzone pleaded guilty on September 2, 2008, the day his trial was to begin; and on April 13, 2010 the Superior Court vacated the salary portion of the costs of prosecution ordered against Gerald Garzone.[^2][^3][^19] The funeral home, the plea terms and the Brooklyn prosecution are set out on the Philadelphia page and on the Garzone Funeral Home page. + +### Hoersch v. Froehlke and the National Guard + +On October 11, 1974, the [[United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania]] decided [[Hoersch v. Froehlke]], a suit by Raymond C. Hoersch against the Secretary of the Army, [[Robert F. Froehlke]]. The opinion was written by Judge [[John B. Hannum]].[^20][^21] Hannum had sat on the Superior Court of Pennsylvania by appointment before President [[Richard Nixon]] nominated him to the federal bench on March 24, 1969.[^21] The court recorded that Hoersch had enlisted in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard in 1965, that he was taken off the rolls of the Guard in July 1970 by an order to active duty as an Army reservist, and that he was absent without leave from [[Fort Dix]] from July 19, 1970. He returned to military control there on April 5, 1972, and went absent again the next day.[^20] + +Hoersch argued that the Guard had failed to consider his request to wear long hair "as required for his employment as a motion picture producer." The court held that the unit commander's discretion still controlled an individual's appearance, even where a reservist showed that long hair contributed to his livelihood.[^20] The court quoted the opinion in *Harris v. Kaine*, 352 F. Supp. 769 (S.D.N.Y. 1972), that as long as the reservist "presents a neat and soldierly appearance and can perform all the duties required of him, the Army has no authority to order his hair cut, absent a showing of need."[^20] The Philadelphia filmmaker Ray Hoersch, later known as [[R.C. Horsch]], made the film [[Black Mass (1975 film)|Black Mass]], which ran in the city in 1975.[^22] A Raymond C. Hoersch, an engineer, is named as the filmmaker's father, and the plaintiff shares his name with both. + +### Holmesburg Prison and the Army's tests + +[[Holmesburg Prison]] in northeast Philadelphia was the site of the experiments of [[Albert Kligman]], a University of Pennsylvania dermatologist who began testing incarcerated men there in 1951 for companies and for the Army; the program ran 23 years and the city banned medical testing at Holmesburg in 1974.[^23] Allen M. Hornblum's history of the program is [[Acres of Skin]].[^24] The Department of Defense general counsel, [[Deanne C. Siemer]], told the Senate in 1977 of the Edgewood compound EA-3167: "In 1971, the Agency transferred some $37,000 to Edgewood to pursue testing of this compound, which was designated EA-3167," a project begun in 1971 and terminated in 1973.[^25] The Army's list of Edgewood drug-testing contracts printed in the 1975 Senate hearings records volunteer testing at Holmesburg.[^26] + +### Three Mile Island + +The Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Harrisburg suffered a core accident on March 28, 1979. On March 30 the governor, [[Richard Thornburgh]], "advised pregnant women and preschool aged children to leave the area within a 5-mile radius of TMI until further notice," according to the report of the President's Commission chaired by [[John G. Kemeny]], which reported in October 1979 under the title *The Need for Change: The Legacy of TMI*.[^27][^28] Thornburgh, born in Pittsburgh, had been [[United States Attorney]] for the Western District of Pennsylvania from 1969 to 1975 and Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division from 1975 to 1977 before his election as governor in 1978.[^29] + +The Kemeny report records an informal agreement between Thornburgh and the White House under which the release of information was centralized beginning on the third day of the accident, with [[Harold Denton]] of the [[Nuclear Regulatory Commission]] issuing all statements from the site. It also records that on the Thursday afternoon the NRC's Charles Gallina told reporters that the danger was over for people off the island, and that Thornburgh distrusted the statement at the time.[^30] A report of the Senate Subcommittee on Nuclear Regulation, issued in June 1980, lists Thornburgh among the persons involved and describes him as responsible for determining whether an evacuation was necessary; the subcommittee described its own inquiry as one that "was kept small in size and selective in scope, to avoid duplication" of the President's Commission and the NRC's Special Inquiry Group.[^31] The same report records that in April 1979 Thornburgh asked the [[Union of Concerned Scientists]] to review the NRC staff recommendations on venting krypton from the containment building.[^32] Thornburgh served as governor from January 1979 to January 1987 and later as Attorney General of the United States from 1988 to 1991. The House Judiciary Committee's 1992 INSLAW report names him with [[Edwin Meese]] as having blocked congressional inquiries and refused an independent counsel.[^1][^33] + +### Kecksburg + +On December 9, 1965, an object that witnesses described as acorn-shaped came down in the woods near the village of Kecksburg, about seven miles southeast of Greensburg, at about 4:45 p.m.; the 1991 article gives 4:46 p.m.[^34][^35] Witnesses described a fireball moving at low speeds and altitudes across the southwestern Pennsylvania sky, and some said they saw a craft half buried in a gully. Others said they saw personnel from the [[United States Air Force|Air Force]], the Army and [[National Aeronautics and Space Administration|NASA]] at the site that evening, and one account describes a Volkswagen-sized object removed under a tarpaulin on a military flatbed truck, taken, some said, to [[Wright-Patterson Air Force Base]] in Dayton, Ohio.[^36] The military's public position, as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette summarized it in 1998, was that the object was a meteorite that was never recovered.[^37] + +The Tribune-Review's account of the 2003 Sci Fi Channel documentary lists the witnesses it presented. Robert Blystone described a "controlled fireball." Bill Weaver, then 19, saw a bluish light in the woods "like a welder's light." Don Sebastian of Johnstown described "probably 100 soldiers" and two "unearthly screams," and the Pittsburgh jazz musician Jerry Betters said he saw an "acorn-shaped object with hieroglyphics" hauled away on a flatbed truck. The article reports that onlookers were told a meteor had crashed and that persistent curiosity-seekers were turned away by police and military personnel, some, it says, at gunpoint.[^38] The documentary also presented John Murphy, a reporter for the Greensburg radio station WHJB who photographed the scene and interviewed witnesses that evening. The station's office manager, Mable Mazza, recalled that Murphy received several "unexpected visitors" at the station; the article states that he was later killed in a hit-and-run accident in California, that the driver was never found, and that his notebooks, tapes and photographs disappeared. His former wife, Bonnie Millslagle, was quoted as saying: "If someone did away with John, it was because he saw and knew too much."[^38] Two West Virginia University professors, J. Stephen Kite and Ray Hicks, took soil and tree core samples at the location witnesses Bill Bulebush and John Hays identified, and Hicks said the samples indicated a "traumatic event" at or near 1965.[^38] + +The journalist [[David Templeton]] wrote about the case for the [[Pittsburgh Press]] in 1991. In that article [[James Oberg]], a Houston space engineer and author who had written about Soviet spacecraft, gave the Soviet Venus probe Kosmos 96 as a candidate, said that a Venus probe was designed to withstand entry into Venus's atmosphere and could have landed on Earth intact, and argued that the United States and the Soviet Union had an oral agreement to return each other's spacecraft debris, so that secrecy would have been paramount if either power kept the other's recovered debris.[^35] After examining the tracking data Oberg concluded, "Cosmos 96 is not guilty."[^35] In a follow-up printed in 1998, Oberg's account of an interview with the cosmonaut Viktor Savinykh, then rector of the Moscow State University of Geodesy and Cartography, says that Savinykh "suggested rather emphatically, and with some laughter, that whatever plunged into Kecksburg surely was some faulty American technology."[^39] The 1998 Post-Gazette piece reported that the U.S. Space Command had said Kosmos 96 crash-landed in Canada shortly after 3 a.m. on December 9, more than 12 hours before the Kecksburg event.[^40] The Kecksburg researcher [[Stan Gordon]], who had studied the case since the day it happened, told the paper: "It's been almost 33 years and we still don't have an answer."[^37] + +### Kean v. NASA + +In 2002 [[Larry Landsman]] of the Sci Fi Channel invited the journalist [[Leslie Kean]] to lead a public effort on Kecksburg.[^41] In October 2003 the channel's counsel told the Tribune-Review that a suit against NASA was expected within the week, with action possible against the [[Department of Defense]] and the Army.[^38] On January 31, 2003, Kean had already submitted a [[Freedom of Information Act]] request to NASA for documents relating to Kecksburg and the December 9, 1965 incident, the "Fragology Files" for 1962 to 1967, Richard M. Schulherr, Project Moon Dust and "Cosmos 96."[^42] The case was *Kean v. National Aeronautics and Space Administration*, Civil Action No. 03-2509 (EGS), in the [[United States District Court for the District of Columbia]], before Judge Emmet G. Sullivan. + +The court's memorandum opinion of March 27, 2007 recites that NASA admitted its first two searches were inadequate. The first, by a FOIA specialist and a History Office archivist, found only published accounts of Cosmos 96 and produced a "no records" response dated April 11, 2003; the recommendation that the request go to the Goddard Space Flight Center was not carried out "for reasons that are not clear." NASA's associate deputy administrator granted Kean's appeal on June 18, 2003 and promised a search of all NASA centers, including the missing fragology files, which the opinion says was not acted on because of "poor tracking and the relocation of NASA's FOIA Office in August 2003." A third search was ordered on December 2, 2003. Nineteen boxes of archived records were sought from the Washington National Record Center on accession numbers Kean supplied; three were "reported as having been missing for quite some time," and when NASA's fourth search in July 2006 re-examined the other sixteen boxes, "responsive documents were found and disclosed to plaintiff." NASA withheld two emails between its FOIA officer and a NASA attorney under the deliberative process privilege, which the court upheld after in camera review. The court granted NASA's motion in part, denied it in part without prejudice on the adequacy of the searches, denied Kean's cross-motion without prejudice and directed the parties to propose search and documentation procedures by April 30, 2007.[^42] + +The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reported in October 2007 that NASA had agreed to search its archives again as the result of Kean's four-year-old suit, and in December 2007 that a settlement required NASA to "meticulously comb its files for documents about what many residents of Kecksburg, Pa., believe was a UFO sighting 42-yers ago."[^43] The *Pittsburgh Post-Gazette* reported on March 9, 2003 on the wish of Kecksburg residents to resolve what fell from the sky in 1965.[^44] + +### Apollo and the NUMEC diversion inquiry + +The [[Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation]] (NUMEC), a privately owned nuclear fuel plant at Apollo, about thirty miles northeast of Pittsburgh, was owned by [[Zalman Mordecai Shapiro]].[^45] A Washington Star report of August 19, 1977 stated that a CIA spokesman had told congressional investigators that a CIA probe led investigators to believe that bomb-grade nuclear material had been diverted from a U.S. facility and sent to Israel. According to three government sources familiar with the investigation, it started in Europe in the mid-1960s, when CIA operatives received information that Israel had obtained a sizable quantity of highly enriched uranium. The CIA investigation came to focus on the Apollo company, which produced highly enriched uranium submarine fuel for the U.S. Navy and had a subsidiary owned in partnership with the Israeli government.[^45] The same paper reported that the CIA's conclusion appeared to conflict with statements by officials of the Energy Research and Development Administration and the NRC that they had seen no evidence of significant diversion. The specifics had first been divulged to top NRC officials at a secret conference in early 1976, where the briefing was given by [[Carl E. Duckett|Carl Duckett]], then the CIA's third-ranking official.[^46] + +The Comptroller General's report to Congress of December 18, 1978, *Nuclear Diversion in the U.S.? 13 Years of Contradiction and Confusion*, was classified until its redacted release on May 6, 2010. It records that an inspection in April 1965, the sixth consecutive inspection to find fundamental problems with NUMEC's control of material, concluded that "safeguards control of [nuclear material] at NUMEC is inadequate," and that the Department of Energy's predecessor found about 206 pounds of uranium-235 could not be accounted for, an amount it estimated could make at least four or five nuclear weapons. A November 1965 investigation found a cumulative loss since the plant's start-up in 1957 of 178 kilograms (392 pounds); 186 pounds were traced to waste and gas filters, and the remaining 206 pounds were not accounted for.[^47] NUMEC's president contended that the material was "unavoidably lost" in the processing system; the investigators concluded that the agency "could not say, unequivocally, that the material was not stolen or diverted from the facility."[^47] In June 1965 the agency had asked the FBI whether NUMEC's president needed to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, its concern stemming from his associations with Israeli officials and from his capacity as a sales agent for the Israeli Ministry of Defense; the FBI began that inquiry in August 1965 and reported in October 1966 that registration was not required.[^48] + +The Comptroller General's report states that in February 1966 the agency asked the FBI to determine whether a theft or diversion had occurred and that its files contain a memorandum recording that the Bureau had decided not to investigate, though required to do so under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954; that the FBI "did not focus on the question of a possible nuclear diversion until May 1976 nearly 11 years later," after a request by President [[Gerald Ford]] in April 1976; and that the investigations were "uncoordinated, limited in scope and timeliness, and, in GAO's opinion, less than adequate."[^49] It states that GAO was "continually denied" access to reports and documentation by the CIA and the FBI, that it "cannot say whether or not there was a diversion of material from the NUMEC facility," and that FBI agents told it that while "circumstantial information" exists which could lead an individual to conclude that a diversion occurred, there is no substantive proof.[^50] Seymour Hersh's account of the same period, attributed here to him, describes a meeting at the Pittsburgh airport between Shapiro and the Israeli scientific attaché [[Jeruham Kafkafi]]; the FBI reported that Kafkafi flew from Washington for the meeting and returned at once, and Hersh wrote that Shapiro later told congressional investigators that he had asked for the meeting because he had not been paid for antiterrorist equipment his company had shipped to Israel.[^51] + +A Washington Star report of December 31, 1977 stated that the NRC had disclosed the existence of top-secret government files on a loss of highly enriched uranium discovered in 1965 at the Apollo plant; according to the documents, the files were jointly held by the [[U.S. Department of Justice]], the CIA and the Atomic Energy Commission, and the NRC had initially been denied access to them.[^52] A Washington Post report of March 2, 1978 said a former CIA official stated that President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] had ordered CIA director [[Richard Helms]] to keep an Israeli weapons report from Secretary of State [[Dean Rusk]] and Defense Secretary [[Robert McNamara]], and noted that a 550-page NRC document released in response to a House committee inquiry stated that the NRC's Lee V. Gossick had "testified incorrectly" when he said the agency had no evidence that a significant amount of nuclear material had been stolen from the plant.[^53] A New York Times report by [[David Burnham]] of April 29, 1979 stated that the Energy Department's Inspector General had concluded that [[Robert W. Fri]], formerly acting head of the Energy Research and Development Administration, may have made intentionally inaccurate statements to a House subcommittee about a U.S. intelligence agency's views on the diversion of special nuclear material from the NUMEC plant; the Justice Department declined to bring criminal charges, citing "insufficient evidence."[^54] + +A CIA memorandum of April 25, 1978 records that the CIA had delivered documents on NUMEC to the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy in response to a request of March 25, 1976 from Senator [[Howard Baker]], which had been narrowed to the documents discussed at the committee's briefing of February 19, 1976; the memorandum states that Chairman [[John Dingell]]'s request for all documents on the subject had resulted in an additional package being compiled, that the additional documents "do not contain any significant information," and recommends offering the package to Baker's staff. The letter from Director [[George H. W. Bush]] to Baker that accompanies it reads in full: "I have been informed by my staff that copies of all documents originated or controlled by this Agency in the files identified in your letter of 25 March 1976 have been delivered to Mr. George Murphy, Jr., Executive Director, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. I am further advised that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has not authorized us to release their documents in those files but instead expects to deal directly with Mr. Murphy on this matter. Likewise, the FBI advised that it would be inappropriate for us to transmit an inventory listing of their documents."[^55] + +### The Archdiocese and the 2018 grand jury + +The [[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia]] is the see of the [[Catholic Church]] for southeastern Pennsylvania. Pope Pius VII erected the Diocese of Philadelphia on April 8, 1808, and the diocese became an archdiocese on February 12, 1875. The western part of the state was separated as the Diocese of Pittsburgh on August 8, 1843, and the Dioceses of Scranton and Harrisburg on March 3, 1868.[^56] In February 1975 the midnight showing of the film *Black Mass* at the Arcadia Theatre on Chestnut Street was cancelled, according to the *Philadelphia Inquirer*, after reported pressure from the Archdiocese, and the film was shown instead at the Bandbox Theater in Germantown.[^57] + +Report I of the Fortieth Statewide Investigating Grand Jury, released on August 14, 2018 by order of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court of July 27, 2018, examined six dioceses (Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton), "every diocese in the state except Philadelphia and Altoona-Johnstown, which were the subject of previous grand juries." The jurors wrote that the six account for 54 of the state's 67 counties, that they heard dozens of witnesses and reviewed half a million pages of internal diocesan documents, and that those documents contained credible allegations against over three hundred priests and identified over one thousand child victims. The report states that almost every instance was too old to prosecute and that the grand jury issued presentments against a priest in the Greensburg diocese and a priest in the Erie diocese.[^4] It describes the diocesan records as including a "secret archive" that canon law requires and to which only the bishop holds the key, and states that agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime reviewed a significant portion of the evidence and identified practices that recurred across the files, summarized by the jurors as "a playbook for concealing the truth," ending with the rule "don't tell the police."[^58] The Diocese of Allentown, the report notes, was created in 1961 from part of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and the report refers to an earlier Philadelphia archdiocese grand jury report of 2005.[^59] On the day of release the Pennsylvania Office of Victim Advocate, the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape and the Archdiocese's Office for Child and Youth Protection issued a joint response that directed survivors and parishioners to counseling resources.[^60] + +### Aircraft, Lakeland and the Mellon family + +The Senate hearing record of [[Gary Betzner]]'s testimony describes his aircraft business in Florida and an aircraft bought in Pennsylvania. In 1983 Betzner set up a business at [[Tamiami Airport]] that modified aircraft for smugglers, and he bought a twin Comanche from [[Air America]] in Pennsylvania, operating it from Lakeland, Florida.[^61] + +The [[Mellon family]] of Pittsburgh includes [[Christopher Mellon]]. In February 2003 *Roll Call* described him as a member of the Mellon family whose great-grandfather had started the Gulf Oil Company, and reported that Senator [[Jay Rockefeller]] had hired him as minority staff director of the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]].[^62] On October 30, 2021 he became a research affiliate of the [[Galileo Project]]. On April 26, 2024 the project announced a grant of $575,000 from the [[Richard King Mellon Foundation]] for a third observatory station in Allegheny or Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.[^63] An Alabama corporation, [[The Sol Foundation]], lists a director by the name "Cristopher Mellon" of Laughlintown, Pennsylvania, among its three initial directors in 2022.[^64] + +### Congress and the Senate + +[[Arlen Specter]] served as an assistant counsel to the [[Warren Commission]] in 1964. The commission's report lists him on the staff, and in the chapter on [[Jack Ruby]] it records "Assistant Counsel Arlen Specter" discussing by telephone with defense counsel Joe H. Tonahill the question of a polygraph examination for Ruby.[^65] Specter later represented Pennsylvania in the [[United States Senate]] from 1981 to 2011.[^66] + +The Senate's resolution creating the standing Senate Select Committee on Intelligence passed in May 1976. The Rules and Administration Committee reported it after a 5 to 4 vote on an amendment offered by its chairman, [[Howard Cannon]], and the Senate's leaders, [[Mike Mansfield]] and [[Hugh Scott]] of Pennsylvania, endorsed the compromise version. The Senate agreed to S. Res. 400 on May 19, 1976, by 72 to 22.[^67] + +### Delaware County and the Zizians + +[[Michelle Zajko]] is a member of the [[The Zizians|Zizian]] group. Her parents, [[Richard Zajko]] and [[Rita Zajko]], were found shot to death in their home in Chester Heights, in [[Delaware County, Pennsylvania|Delaware County]], on the night of December 31, 2022. On June 24, 2026, Delaware County District Attorney [[Tanner Rouse]] charged her with her parents' killing, as the *[[The Philadelphia Inquirer|Philadelphia Inquirer]]* reported.[^68] + +### Natives and academic links + +The psychologist [[Charles Tart]] was born in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, on April 29, 1937, according to an obituary written by [[Stephan Schwartz|Stephan A. Schwartz]].[^69] The federal judge [[Alison Nathan]] was born in Philadelphia in 1972, according to the Federal Judicial Center's biographical directory.[^70] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia, "Richard Thornburgh," for the terms of 1979 to 1987. +[^2]: *Commonwealth v. Mastromarino*, 2 A.3d 581 (Pa. Super. 2010), as recited in *Commonwealth v. Garzone*, 34 A.3d 67 (Pa. 2012), and *Commonwealth v. Garzone* (Louis Garzone), 993 A.2d 1245 (Pa. Super. Ct., filed April 14, 2010). https://static.case.law/a3d/34/cases/0067-01.json. +[^3]: Commonwealth v. Garzone (Louis Garzone), 993 A.2d 1245 (Pa. Super. Ct., filed April 14, 2010), No. 780 EDA 2009 (the September 2, 2008 plea and forfeitures). +[^4]: Report I of the Fortieth Statewide Investigating Grand Jury, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, redacted by order of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court of July 27, 2018, released August 14, 2018, Section I (Introduction), pp. 1 to 2. Archived copy of the Office of Attorney General posting: https://web.archive.org/web/20180815113910/https://www.attorneygeneral.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/A-Report-of-the-Fortieth-Statewide-Investigating-Grand-Jury_Cleland-Redactions-8-12-08_Redacted.pdf. +[^5]: Pennsylvania Crime Commission, *Report on Police Corruption and the Quality of Law Enforcement in Philadelphia* (Harrisburg, March 1974), title page. https://archive.org/details/reportonpoliceco00penn. +[^6]: Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania, "Superior Court." https://www.pacourts.us/courts/superior-court; "Pennsylvania Superior Court: Over 125 Years of Justice," Jenkins Law Library, December 1, 2023. https://www.jenkinslaw.org/blog/2023/12/01/pennsylvania-superior-court-over-125-years-justice. +[^7]: Pennsylvania Crime Commission, *Report on Police Corruption* (1974), history of the Commission, describing the permanent Commission, the executive order of July 31, 1968 and the Crime Commission Act signed the same day, and the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. https://archive.org/details/reportonpoliceco00penn. +[^8]: Pennsylvania Crime Commission, *Organized Crime in Pennsylvania: A Decade of Change, 1990 Report* (Conshohocken, 1991), NCJRS 133208, front matter quoting the 1967 Task Force Report: Organized Crime. https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/133208NCJRS.pdf. +[^9]: Pennsylvania Crime Commission, *Report on Police Corruption* (1974), summary of findings, "Police Corruption," and the summary paragraph on payments to officers by gamblers, racketeers, bar and after-hours club owners. https://archive.org/details/reportonpoliceco00penn. +[^10]: Pennsylvania Crime Commission, *Report on Police Corruption* (1974), Locust Street Strip chapter, account of the Why Not Lounge and the advice to pay "or 'they will bust the joint.'" https://archive.org/details/reportonpoliceco00penn. +[^11]: Pennsylvania Crime Commission, *Report on Police Corruption* (1974), Locust Street Strip chapter (payments to the inspector of the Central Division) and the summary account of informants, including Irvin Goltzer's tape recordings of payoffs. https://archive.org/details/reportonpoliceco00penn. +[^12]: Pennsylvania Crime Commission, *Report on Police Corruption* (1974), table of contents, chapters "After-Hours Clubs," "Road Drivers Association," "Liberty Clown Club," "Randolph Social Club," "Croatian Club" and "Societal Pressures: 'A Policeman's Lot.'" https://archive.org/details/reportonpoliceco00penn. +[^13]: Pennsylvania Crime Commission, *Organized Crime in Pennsylvania: A Decade of Change* (1990), chapter "La Cosa Nostra - The American Mafia," introduction (p. 97 ff.; chapters on the LaRocca/Genovese family p. 111, the Bufalino family p. 135, the Bruno/Scarfo family p. 149). https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/133208NCJRS.pdf. +[^14]: Pennsylvania Crime Commission, *Organized Crime in Pennsylvania: A Decade of Change* (1990), executive summary paragraphs on the Bruno/Scarfo, Bufalino and LaRocca/Genovese families and on RICO. https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/133208NCJRS.pdf. +[^15]: Pennsylvania Crime Commission, *Organized Crime in Pennsylvania: A Decade of Change* (1990), La Cosa Nostra introduction (Stephen LaTorre of Pittston) and the gambling chapter (Scranton area and the Kefauver Report of 1951; John Parente and the Lehigh Valley; Baldassari family video poker proprietors of Scranton and the July 1990 FBI arrest of Elmo Baldassari). https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/133208NCJRS.pdf. +[^16]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010. +[^17]: Affidavit of Special Agent Thomas G. Gates in support of an application to continue interception of wire communications of Martin Bacow, Eugene Giaquinto, Joseph Garofalo, Robert Nichols and others, before Judge J. Spencer Letts, C.D. Cal. (continuation affidavit citing intercepts through September 1, 1987), Danny Casolaro papers, folder "Gates," paragraphs 5, 69 and 79. https://archive.org/details/casolaro-notebooks (file Gates.pdf) +[^18]: *Commonwealth v. Garzone*, 34 A.3d 67 (Pa. 2012), decided January 19, 2012, opinion of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, describing the cadaver arrangement from early 2004 through September 2005, the at-least-244 cadavers, the payments of over $245,000, and the destruction of records days before FDA investigators arrived. https://static.case.law/a3d/34/cases/0067-01.json. +[^19]: *Commonwealth v. Garzone* (Gerald Garzone), 993 A.2d 306, 2010 PA Super 57 (Pa. Super. Ct., filed April 13, 2010). +[^20]: *Hoersch v. Froehlke*, 382 F. Supp. 1235 (E.D. Pa. Oct. 11, 1974), Civ. A. No. 72-1759 (Hannum, J.), including the discharge order of July 1970, the AWOL dates at Fort Dix, the April 5, 1972 return to military control, and the long-hair passage. https://static.case.law/f-supp/382/cases/1235-01.json. +[^21]: Federal Judicial Center, "Hannum, John Berne," Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/hannum-john-berne; Downey, Sally A., "John B. Hannum, 92, judge," *Philadelphia Inquirer*, April 25, 2007. https://www.inquirer.com/philly/obituaries/20070425_John_B__Hannum__92__judge.html. +[^22]: *Philadelphia Inquirer*, society column, February 28, 1975, p. 21. https://www.newspapers.com/image/173366667/. +[^23]: Lynette Hazelton, "A brief history of the Holmesburg Prison experiments," *Philadelphia Inquirer*, October 22, 2024, https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/holmesburg-prison-experiments-timeline-20241022.html. +[^24]: Allen M. Hornblum, *Acres of Skin: Human Experiments at Holmesburg Prison* (New York: Routledge, 1998). +[^25]: Statement of Deanne C. Siemer, General Counsel, Department of Defense, *Human Drug Testing by the CIA, 1977*, hearings before the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, United States Senate, 95th Cong., 1st sess., September 20, 1977, testimony of Deanne C. Siemer on EA-3167. https://archive.org/details/human-drug-testing-by-the-cia-1977. +[^26]: *Biomedical and Behavioral Research, 1975*, joint hearings before the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare and the Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 94th Cong., 1st sess., September 10, 12 and November 7, 1975, testimony of Lt. Gen. R. R. Taylor and the Army list of "Research Contracts from Edgewood Arsenal Involving Drug Testing Volunteers, 1965-75,". +[^27]: *Report of the President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island* (Washington, October 1979), chronology, paragraph 17 (advice to pregnant women and preschool aged children to leave within a 5-mile radius, March 30, 1979). https://archive.org/details/needforchangeleg00unitrich. +[^28]: *The Need for Change: The Legacy of TMI*, report of the President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island, John G. Kemeny, Chairman (October 1979), Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 79-25694. https://archive.org/details/needforchangeleg00unitrich. +[^29]: Office of the Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, "Richard Lewis Thornburgh," *Attorneys General of the United States* (service as United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, 1969 to 1975, and as Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, 1975 to 1977). +[^30]: Kemeny Commission, chronology, paragraphs 6 and the Thursday press conference account (informal agreement between Governor Thornburgh and the White House; Harold Denton's role; Charles Gallina's statement and Thornburgh's distrust). https://archive.org/details/needforchangeleg00unitrich. +[^31]: *Nuclear Accident and Recovery at Three Mile Island: A Report*, prepared by the Subcommittee on Nuclear Regulation for the Committee on Environment and Public Works, U.S. Senate, Committee Print, Serial No. 96-14 (June 1980), appendix of persons involved (Thornburgh, "Responsible for determining whether an evacuation was necessary"). https://archive.org/details/nuclearaccidentr00unitrich. +[^32]: *Nuclear Accident and Recovery at Three Mile Island* (Senate Subcommittee on Nuclear Regulation, June 1980), account of the April krypton venting recommendation and Governor Thornburgh's request to the Union of Concerned Scientists. https://archive.org/details/nuclearaccidentr00unitrich. +[^33]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, *The INSLAW Affair: Investigative Report*, House Report 102-857, 102nd Congress, 2nd Session, September 10, 1992. +[^34]: David Templeton, Westmoreland County article, *Pittsburgh Post-Gazette*, September 9, 1998, reprinted in UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 351 (1998), description of the 4:45 p.m. landing and the village location. https://archive.org/details/UFO_Newsclipping_Service_1998_10_no_351. +[^35]: Templeton, *Pittsburgh Press*, May 19, 1991, reprinted in UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 263 (1991), passages on James Oberg, Kosmos 96, the Venus probe and the debris-return agreement. https://archive.org/details/UFO_Newsclipping_Service_1991_06_no_263. +[^36]: David Templeton, "Something Dropped in on Kecksburg Unexpectedly 25 Years Ago," *Pittsburgh Press*, May 19, 1991, reprinted in UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 263 (1991), witness accounts of the fireball, the acorn-shaped craft, the Air Force, Army and NASA personnel, and the flatbed truck. https://archive.org/details/UFO_Newsclipping_Service_1991_06_no_263. +[^37]: David Templeton, *Pittsburgh Post-Gazette*, September 9, 1998, reprinted in UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 351 (1998), including the military's meteorite statement and the Gordon quotation. https://archive.org/details/UFO_Newsclipping_Service_1998_10_no_351. +[^38]: Ann Saul Dudurich, "Sci Fi special puts Kecksburg mystery under a microscope," *Tribune-Review* (Greensburg), October 24, 2003, reprinted in UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 412 (2003). https://archive.org/details/UFO_Newsclipping_Service_2003_11_no_412. +[^39]: David Templeton, *Pittsburgh Post-Gazette*, September 9, 1998, reprinted in UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 351 (1998), account of Oberg's interview with Savinykh. https://archive.org/details/UFO_Newsclipping_Service_1998_10_no_351. +[^40]: Templeton, *Post-Gazette*, September 9, 1998, reprinted in UFO Newsclipping Service, no. 351 (1998), account of the U.S. Space Command report on Kosmos 96 crashing in Canada after 3 a.m. https://archive.org/details/UFO_Newsclipping_Service_1998_10_no_351. +[^41]: Lewis-Kraus, Gideon. "How the Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously." *The New Yorker*, May 10, 2021. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/how-the-pentagon-started-taking-ufos-seriously (Sci Fi Channel invitation of 2002 through its director of projects, Larry Landsman). +[^42]: *Kean v. National Aeronautics and Space Administration*, Civil Action No. 03-2509 (EGS) (D.D.C.), Memorandum Opinion, Document 45, filed March 27, 2007 (Sullivan, J.), pp. 1 to 10 and 19 to 21. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.106063/gov.uscourts.dcd.106063.45.0.pdf. +[^43]: Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, "Was It a UFO? NASA Agrees to Search Its Files on 1965 Incident Again," October 29, 2007, https://www.rcfp.org/was-it-ufo-nasa-agrees-search-its-files-1965-incident-again/; "NASA Ordered to Review Its Records for Data on 'UFO' Sighting," December 10, 2007, https://www.rcfp.org/nasa-ordered-review-its-records-data-ufo-sighting/. +[^44]: Gibb, Tom. "Reality 'X-file': People in Kecksburg want to resolve what fell from the sky in 1965." *Pittsburgh Post-Gazette*, March 9, 2003, p. 21. +[^45]: Washington Star, August 19, 1977, "CIA Thinks Israel Got Uranium Diverted," CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP88-01315R000400060029-4. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01315r000400060029-4. +[^46]: Washington Star, August 19, 1977, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP88-01315R000400060029-4, the account of the February 1976 NRC briefing given by Carl Duckett. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01315r000400060029-4. +[^47]: Comptroller General of the United States, *Nuclear Diversion in the U.S.? 13 Years of Contradiction and Confusion*, report EMD-79-8 (December 18, 1978), redacted release of May 6, 2010, Introduction and the account of the April 1965 inspection and the November 1965 investigation. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/sites/default/files/documents/3149993/38-Nuclear-Diversion-in-the-U-S-13-Years-of.pdf. +[^48]: Comptroller General, *Nuclear Diversion in the U.S.?* (1978), account of the FBI briefings of October 1977 on the Foreign Agent Registration Act inquiry opened August 1965 and reported October 1966. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/sites/default/files/documents/3149993/38-Nuclear-Diversion-in-the-U-S-13-Years-of.pdf. +[^49]: Comptroller General, *Nuclear Diversion in the U.S.?* (1978), digest and chapter on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (February 1966 request; investigation of diversion not focused until May 1976; request by President Ford of April 1976). https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/sites/default/files/documents/3149993/38-Nuclear-Diversion-in-the-U-S-13-Years-of.pdf. +[^50]: Comptroller General, *Nuclear Diversion in the U.S.?* (1978), digest and chapter on the FBI, quoting the agents' statement that circumstantial information exists but there is no substantive proof; Federation of American Scientists, "GAO Report on the 1965 NUMEC Affair Declassified," May 13, 2010, quoting the report's statement on denied access. https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2010/05/gao_numec. +[^51]: Hersh, Seymour M., *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy* (Random House, 1991), chapter 18. +[^52]: Washington Star, December 31, 1977, "Top-Secret Government File on Missing Uranium Revealed," CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP88-01315R000400060014-0. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01315r000400060014-0. +[^53]: *Washington Post*, March 2, 1978, article on the former CIA official's account of the 1976 NRC briefing, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP88-01315R000400060010-4. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01315r000400060010-4. +[^54]: David Burnham, *New York Times*, April 29, 1979, article on the Inspector General's report of April 27, 1979, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP88-01315R000400060002-3. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01315r000400060002-3. +[^55]: Memorandum, "Material for Senator Howard Baker," April 25, 1978, and letter of George Bush, Director of Central Intelligence, to Senator Howard Baker, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, April 1978, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP81M00980R000700010020-2. https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP81M00980R000700010020-2. +[^56]: Loughlin, James. "Archdiocese of Philadelphia," *The Catholic Encyclopedia*, vol. 11, New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11793b.htm. +[^57]: *Philadelphia Inquirer*, society and nightlife column, February 28, 1975, p. 21. https://www.newspapers.com/image/173366667/. +[^58]: Report I of the Fortieth Statewide Investigating Grand Jury (2018), Section I, pp. 2 to 3, on the secret archive and the practices identified by the FBI's National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. +[^59]: Report I of the Fortieth Statewide Investigating Grand Jury (2018), Section II, Diocese of Allentown history, and the reference to the 2005 Philadelphia archdiocese grand jury report. +[^60]: "Joint Response to Release of Grand Jury Report," Pennsylvania Office of Victim Advocate, Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape and Archdiocese of Philadelphia Office for Child and Youth Protection, press release, August 14, 2018. https://www.pa.gov/content/dam/copapwp-pagov/en/ova/documents/resources/documents/press-releases/rls%20-%20Joint%20Response%20to%20Grand%20Jury%20Report%2008142018%20FINAL.pdf. +[^61]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 254 to 255 (the Tamiami business, the twin Comanche bought from Air America, Lakeland operations). +[^62]: Henry, Ed. "Unholy Alliance?" *Roll Call*, February 12, 2003. https://rollcall.com/2003/02/12/unholy-alliance/. +[^63]: "Richard King Mellon Foundation awards $575,000 to Galileo Project," The Galileo Project, Harvard University, April 26, 2024. +[^64]: Alabama Secretary of State, entity 001-041-463, The Sol Foundation: Certificate of Formation (filed September 23, 2022) and board consent (August 31, 2022). +[^65]: *Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy* (Washington, 1964), staff list and the chapter on Jack Ruby (telephone discussion of the polygraph examination between Assistant Counsel Arlen Specter and Defense Counsel Joe H. Tonahill). https://archive.org/details/warrenreportrepo00unit. +[^66]: Britannica, "Arlen Specter," entry on Specter's Senate service, 1981 to 2011. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Arlen-Specter. +[^67]: Kaiser, Frederick M., *Legislative History of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence* (Congressional Research Service, 1978), part III (Government Operations Committee vote of February 24, 1976; Rules and Administration Committee report of April 29, 1976; compromise endorsed by Majority Leader Mansfield and Minority Leader Scott; S. Res. 400 agreed May 19, 1976). https://sgp.fas.org/crs/intel/leghist.pdf. +[^68]: Vinny Vella, "A former Delco woman tied to the Zizians extremist group has been charged with her parents' killing," *Philadelphia Inquirer*, June 24, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/crime/michelle-zajko-zizians-group-parents-murder-charges-chester-heights-20260624.html +[^69]: Stephan A. Schwartz, "Charles T. Tart Obituary, 29 April 1937 - 5 March 2025," Institut Metapsychique International, April 2025. https://www.metapsychique.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Tart-VO.pdf. +[^70]: Federal Judicial Center, "Nathan, Alison Julie," Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/nathan-alison-julie.