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13
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Charles de Gaulle.md
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@ -13,10 +13,17 @@ location: "Lille, France"
Charles de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II and later founded the Fifth Republic, serving as its first President from 1959 to 1969. He was emphatically in favor of an independent nuclear deterrent for [[France]].[^1]
De Gaulle won a seven-year term as president of [[France]]'s newly constituted Fifth Republic in December 1958 by promising to find an acceptable compromise for ending the war in [[Algeria]]. The war sharply divided the nation, and other issues, such as continued support for [[Israel]], seemed secondary.[^1]
De Gaulle won a seven-year term as president of France's newly constituted Fifth Republic in December 1958 by promising to find an acceptable compromise for ending the war in [[Algeria]]. The war sharply divided the nation, and other issues, such as continued support for [[Israel]], seemed secondary.[^1]
De Gaulle responded to the [[Six-Day War]] in 1967 by accusing [[Israel]] of being the aggressor and canceling all of [[France]]'s arms sales to [[Israel]], abrogating twelve years of close French support. He also delayed the pending shipment of fifty previously purchased Mirage III jet fighters. He even claimed to newsmen that he had not known of Dassault's contract with [[Israel]] until the first field test in 1967 of the Jericho I missile.[^1]
De Gaulle responded to the [[Six-Day War]] in 1967 by accusing Israel of being the aggressor and canceling all of France's arms sales to Israel, abrogating twelve years of close French support. He also delayed the pending shipment of fifty previously purchased Mirage III jet fighters. He even claimed to newsmen that he had not known of Dassault's contract with Israel until the first field test in 1967 of the Jericho I missile.[^1]
### Embargo and the Dassault contract
A footnote to a [[Central Intelligence Agency]] Special National Intelligence Estimate of August 10, 1967 states that "On 2 June 1967, France imposed an embargo in shipments of military items to the Middle East, but the embargo does not apply to spare parts previously contracted for," and that "there probably has been some evasion of the ban."[^2] A Control Group paper dated by the editors of the Foreign Relations of the United States to June 17, 1967 states that Israel had a contract with the French firm [[Dassault Company|Dassault]] for the MD-620 missile, with a range of 250 nautical miles, and may already have contracted for or expressed interest in as many as 250 of them.[^3] On June 27, 1967, the American ambassador [[Walworth Barbour]] wrote from Tel Aviv that if the French embargo continued and delivery of the Dassault missile were precluded, the "quite possible effect would be to stimulate Israeli missile production."[^4]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 3, 13.
[^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 3, 13.
[^2]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 414, footnote 3, Special National Intelligence Estimate, August 10, 1967. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d414
[^3]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 305, Paper Submitted by the Control Group, undated (dated June 17, 1967 by the editors), with annex. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d305
[^4]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 326, Telegram 4311 from the Embassy in Israel (Barbour) to the Department of State, June 27, 1967. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d326

8
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Clark Clifford.md
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@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
---
category: "Political Figure"
created: 2024-04-25
updated: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-10-08
tags:
- Person
- BCCI
@ -95,6 +95,10 @@ Clifford was too ill to stand trial with Altman, who was acquitted in Manhattan
The Federal Reserve's civil proceeding, opened on July 29, 1992, continued after the criminal cases ended. Its Second Amended Notice of Intent to Prohibit of January 14, 1997, charged that Clifford and Altman, as directors of CCAH and First American, had caused CCAH to borrow from BCCI beyond the acquisition debt allowed by the 1981 order, and had breached their fiduciary duties by accepting preferential loans and stock profits from BCCI and by failing to disclose BCCI's role in the purchase of the [[National Bank of Georgia]]. The settlement recited that "Clifford has submitted medical opinions to the Board of Governors indicating that because of his advanced age and ill health, there is no reasonable prospect that he will ever participate in any manner in the conduct of the affairs of a bank holding company or insured depository institution," and the two men relinquished 1,802 (Clifford) and 895 (Altman) CCAH shares to the court-appointed trustee of First American or the fiduciaries of BCCI; the payments, the order stated, "are not fines or civil money penalties." The order is dated effective February 1998, four months after Clifford's death, and carries a signature block in his name; the document does not state when he signed it.[^8][^11]
### USS Liberty, June 1967
Notes of the National Security Council Special Committee meeting of June 9, 1967 record Clifford saying of the attack on the [[USS Liberty Incident|USS Liberty]]: "My concern is that we're not tough enough. Handle as if Arabs or USSR had done it. Manner egregious. Inconceivable that it was accident. 3 strafing passes, 3 torpedo boats. Set forth facts. Punish Israelis responsible." The note-taker, [[Harold H. Saunders]], wrote in the margin next to Clifford's remarks: "President subscribed 100%."[^12][^13]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Clifford, Clark, with Richard Holbrooke. *Counsel to the President: A Memoir.* Random House, 1991.
@ -108,3 +112,5 @@ The Federal Reserve's civil proceeding, opened on July 29, 1992, continued after
[^9]: 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
[^10]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 13, "Clark Clifford and Robert Altman." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/13clifford.htm
[^11]: "Clifford, Altman indicted in BCCI bank fraud," United Press International, July 29, 1992. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1992/07/29/Clifford-Altman-indicted-in-BCCI-bank-fraud/5122712382400/
[^12]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 236, Notes of a Meeting of the Special Committee of the National Security Council, June 9, 1967 (Saunders's handwritten notes). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d236
[^13]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 12, p. 168, footnote, quoting the same notes from the LBJ Library.

43
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/David Grusch.md
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@ -32,19 +32,19 @@ relations:
with: "[[Eric Burlison]]"
role: "special advisor on the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, announced March 27, 2025"
start: 2025-03-27
fn: 9
fn: 10
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Sol Foundation]]"
start: 2023-05
role: "chief operating officer, per his own résumé submitted to the House Committee on Oversight; described by Garry Nolan in September 2023 as senior founding advisor and 'a founder'"
fn: 3
fn: 4
- type: represented
with: "[[I. Charles McCullough III]]"
reverse: true
start: 2022-05
role: "McCullough, of the Compass Rose Legal Group, filed a disclosure of urgent concern and complaint of reprisal with the Intelligence Community Inspector General on Grusch's behalf in May 2022"
fn: 8
updated: 2026-10-03
fn: 9
updated: 2026-10-08
created: 2026-10-03
---
[[David Grusch]] is a former intelligence officer from the [[National Reconnaissance Office]] (NRO) and the [[National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency]] (NGA) who served as the NRO's representative on the [[UAP Task Force]]. He is a key whistleblower who has provided Congress and the Intelligence Community Inspector General with extensive classified information about deeply covert programs that he says have retrieved intact and partially intact craft of non-human origin.[^1]
@ -59,23 +59,25 @@ Elizondo wrote that Grusch has provided hours of classified testimony to congres
At the hearing of the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Grusch said: "I was an intelligence officer for 14 years both in the [[United States Air Force|U.S. Air Force]], both active-duty Air National Guard and Reserve at the rank of Major and most recently from 2021 to 2025, excuse me, 2023, at the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, NGA, at the GS-15 civilian level, which is the military equivalent of a full bird colonel." He described himself as "my agency's co-lead in unidentified anomalous phenomena and trans medium object analysis" reporting to the UAP Task Force and then to the [[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]]; said he "became a whistleblower through a PPD-19 urgent concern filing in May 2022 with the intelligence community inspector general"; and said that, in his National Reconnaissance Office reservist capacity, "I was a member of the UAP Task Force from 2019 to 2021," and that "in 2019, the UAP Task Force Director asked me to identify all special access programs and controlled access programs."[^2] He said: "I was informed in the course of my official duties of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program to which I was denied access to those additional read-ons when I requested it," and "my testimony is based on information I have been given by individuals with a long-standing track record of legitimacy and service to this country."[^2] He also said "I have suffered retaliation for my decision."[^2]
In the question period, [[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]] asked whether Grusch sat on "the unidentified anomalous phenomenon task force created in the 2020 NDAA." Grusch answered "Yes."[^3] Asked about the 2019 classification guidance for UAP, he said: "Yes, I am familiar with the UAP Task Force 2019 Security Classification guide. I think it is fair. I did actually help author that with the Director." On the release of videos, he said: "I will call it a lazy attitude about declassifying videos."[^3]
The record of the same hearing includes, as a document submitted by Representative [[Anna Paulina Luna]], the [[NewsNation]] article "We are not alone: The UFO whistleblower speaks," and, submitted by Representative [[Tim Burchett]], a statement for the record by [[George Knapp]] and a Defense Intelligence Reference Document titled "Advanced Space Propulsion Based on Vacuum (Spacetime Metric) Engineering."[^2]
### Sol Foundation
The résumé that David Grusch filed with the [[House Committee on Oversight and Accountability]] for its July 26, 2023 hearing lists, as its first entry under experience, "May 2023-Present, Chief Operating Officer (COO), The Sol Foundation," with the description "Managing day-to-day operations for a 501c3 federally recognized non-profit. The premier center for research in the natural and social sciences, engineering, and the humanities, but also extends activities to advisory and policy work for the U.S. government/public outreach," and lists "Non-Profit Leadership" among his key competencies. The same document lists "November 2021-April 2023, Senior GEOINT Capabilities Requirements Officer, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), [[Colorado Springs]], CO (GS-15, Colonel Equiv.)," and describes him as the NGA lead for unidentified anomalous phenomena and trans-medium anomaly issues who "executed new program of record responsive to direct tasking by the Congressional Intelligence Committees."[^3]
The résumé that David Grusch filed with the [[House Committee on Oversight and Accountability]] for its July 26, 2023 hearing lists, as its first entry under experience, "May 2023-Present, Chief Operating Officer (COO), The Sol Foundation," with the description "Managing day-to-day operations for a 501c3 federally recognized non-profit. The premier center for research in the natural and social sciences, engineering, and the humanities, but also extends activities to advisory and policy work for the U.S. government/public outreach," and lists "Non-Profit Leadership" among his key competencies. The same document lists "November 2021-April 2023, Senior GEOINT Capabilities Requirements Officer, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), [[Colorado Springs]], CO (GS-15, Colonel Equiv.)," and describes him as the NGA lead for unidentified anomalous phenomena and trans-medium anomaly issues who "executed new program of record responsive to direct tasking by the Congressional Intelligence Committees."[^4]
[[The Debrief]] reported that the existence of the [[Sol Foundation]] first became apparent through that résumé and related documents in early August 2023, and that the foundation was then described as "pending recognition as a 501c3 federal non-profit." [[Garry Nolan]] said in September 2023 that Grusch's title had since become "Senior Founding Advisor," that the earlier title "seemed the right thing at the time," and that Grusch "is a founder of the Sol Foundation."[^4] The foundation's [[Internal Revenue Service|IRS]] ruling date as a 501(c)(3) is June 2024, and its 2024 Form 990 does not list Grusch among its officers or directors; the foundation's website, read October 3, 2026, does not list him among its executive leadership or advisory board either.[^5][^6] On November 18, 2023 Grusch joined the foundation's first symposium in [[Palo Alto, California]] by video from Washington and said, "This is why we have the Sol Foundation. We need to basically create a parallel track of research and independent discovery that aren't necessarily dependent on the U.S. government to provide us all the answers."[^7]
[[The Debrief]] reported that the existence of the [[Sol Foundation]] first became apparent through that résumé and related documents in early August 2023, and that the foundation was then described as "pending recognition as a 501c3 federal non-profit." [[Garry Nolan]] said in September 2023 that Grusch's title had since become "Senior Founding Advisor," that the earlier title "seemed the right thing at the time," and that Grusch "is a founder of the Sol Foundation."[^5] The foundation's [[Internal Revenue Service|IRS]] ruling date as a 501(c)(3) is June 2024, and its 2024 Form 990 does not list Grusch among its officers or directors; the foundation's website, read October 3, 2026, does not list him among its executive leadership or advisory board either.[^6][^7] On November 18, 2023 Grusch joined the foundation's first symposium in [[Palo Alto, California]] by video from Washington and said, "This is why we have the Sol Foundation. We need to basically create a parallel track of research and independent discovery that aren't necessarily dependent on the U.S. government to provide us all the answers."[^8]
His attorney, [[I. Charles McCullough III]], senior partner of the [[Compass Rose Legal Group]] and the first Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, was named as the Sol Foundation's legal counsel in 2023.[^8][^4]
His attorney, [[I. Charles McCullough III]], senior partner of the [[Compass Rose Legal Group]] and the first Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, was named as the Sol Foundation's legal counsel in 2023.[^5][^9]
### Congressional adviser, 2025
A March 27, 2025 press release from the office of Representative [[Eric Burlison]] announced Grusch as a "Special Advisor" on the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets. It described his career as 14 years in the Air Force, reaching the rank of Major, with a combat tour in [[Afghanistan]] "supporting counter-illicit finance, drug, and arms-trafficking operations with [[Joint Special Operations Command]] (JSOC) and [[International Security Assistance Force|ISAF]]," later work as a senior intelligence officer at NGA and the NRO, representation of the NRO on the UAP Task Force from 2019 to 2021, and a 2022 complaint to the Intelligence Community Inspector General "found 'credible and urgent' for reporting to the Congressional intelligence committees."[^9] Grusch is quoted: "I will use all my expertise to support Rep. Burlison and help the US Congress restore full oversight while enabling the Legislative Branch's ability to investigate and hold those accountable who have broken the law and lied not only to our Congress, but also to the [[White House|Executive Office of the President]], [[Director of National Intelligence]], and [[Department of Justice]]."[^9]
A March 27, 2025 press release from the office of Representative [[Eric Burlison]] announced Grusch as a "Special Advisor" on the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets. It described his career as 14 years in the Air Force, reaching the rank of Major, with a combat tour in [[Afghanistan]] "supporting counter-illicit finance, drug, and arms-trafficking operations with [[Joint Special Operations Command]] (JSOC) and [[International Security Assistance Force|ISAF]]," later work as a senior intelligence officer at NGA and the NRO, representation of the NRO on the UAP Task Force from 2019 to 2021, and a 2022 complaint to the Intelligence Community Inspector General "found 'credible and urgent' for reporting to the Congressional intelligence committees."[^10] Grusch is quoted: "I will use all my expertise to support Rep. Burlison and help the US Congress restore full oversight while enabling the Legislative Branch's ability to investigate and hold those accountable who have broken the law and lied not only to our Congress, but also to the [[White House|Executive Office of the President]], [[Director of National Intelligence]], and [[Department of Justice]]."[^10]
### NewsNation and Skywatcher
[[Nexstar Media Group]]'s November 14, 2023 announcement of [[Ross Coulthart]] as a NewsNation special correspondent stated that he "will continue to provide reporting on UFO whistleblower David Grusch."[^10] NewsNation wrote in January 2025 that "In June 2023, NewsNation was the first television network to present an interview with Grusch."[^11] Grusch is listed among those interviewed or referenced in the Part I video of [[Sky Watcher]], alongside [[Alex Klokus]], [[Jake Barber]], Garry Nolan, Col. [[Karl Nell]] and [[Fred Baker]].[^12] NewsNation's full special on Barber stated that Grusch and [[Luis Elizondo]] "say they've been told about it, they believe it exists, but they weren't a part of it themselves," and that Barber, "however, is different. He says he was part of that covert program."[^13]
[[Nexstar Media Group]]'s November 14, 2023 announcement of [[Ross Coulthart]] as a NewsNation special correspondent stated that he "will continue to provide reporting on UFO whistleblower David Grusch."[^11] NewsNation wrote in January 2025 that "In June 2023, NewsNation was the first television network to present an interview with Grusch."[^12] Grusch is listed among those interviewed or referenced in the Part I video of [[Sky Watcher]], alongside [[Alex Klokus]], [[Jake Barber]], Garry Nolan, Col. [[Karl Nell]] and [[Fred Baker]].[^13] NewsNation's full special on Barber stated that Grusch and [[Luis Elizondo]] "say they've been told about it, they believe it exists, but they weren't a part of it themselves," and that Barber, "however, is different. He says he was part of that covert program."[^14]
### Retaliation and Impact
@ -85,14 +87,15 @@ Since coming forward, Grusch has faced a campaign of retaliation and character a
[^1]: Elizondo, Luis. *Imminent*. William Morrow, 2024.
[^2]: House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, hearing of July 26, 2023, Serial No. 118-53, statement of David Grusch and list of submitted documents. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-118hhrg53022/html/CHRG-118hhrg53022.htm
[^3]: "David C. Grusch" résumé, House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, hearing of July 26, 2023. https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO06/20230726/116282/HHRG-118-GO06-Bio-GruschD-20230726.pdf
[^4]: Micah Hanks, "The Sol Foundation: How a New Think Tank of Academics is Applying 'Cutting-Edge Research' to the UAP Mystery," *The Debrief*, September 12, 2023. https://thedebrief.org/the-sol-foundation-how-a-new-think-tank-of-academics-is-applying-cutting-edge-research-the-uap-mystery/
[^5]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, EIN 93-3649160, and IRS Form 990 for 2024, Part VII. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/933649160/202543269349300004/full
[^6]: The Sol Foundation, home page, "People" section, https://thesolfoundation.org/ , read October 3, 2026.
[^7]: Micah Hanks, *The Debrief*, February 12, 2024. https://thedebrief.org/the-sol-foundation-academias-new-uap-think-tank-releases-videos-of-lectures-from-its-inaugural-symposium/
[^8]: Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal, "Intelligence Officials Say U.S. Has Retrieved Non-Human Craft," *The Debrief*, June 5, 2023. https://thedebrief.org/intelligence-officials-say-u-s-has-retrieved-non-human-craft/
[^9]: Office of Representative Eric Burlison, "Rep. Burlison Welcomes Former U.S. Air Force Officer David Grusch as Special Advisor," March 27, 2025. https://burlison.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-burlison-welcomes-former-us-air-force-officer-david-grusch-special-advisor
[^10]: Nexstar Media Group, "NewsNation Signs Award-Winning Journalist Ross Coulthart as a Special Correspondent for the Network," November 14, 2023. https://www.nexstar.tv/newsnation-signs-ross-coulthart-as-special-correspondent/
[^11]: NewsNation, "UAP whistleblower says UFO retrieval program exists: NewsNation exclusive," January 16, 2025. https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/uap-whistleblower-ufo-retrieval-program/
[^12]: Skywatcher, "Media," retrieved October 3, 2026. https://skywatcher.ai/media
[^13]: Ross Coulthart, "Whistleblower reveals UAP retrieval program; object caught on video," NewsNation, updated January 27, 2025. https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/hfr-uap-recovery-video-egg-shaped-object-exclusive/
[^3]: 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, question period. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-118hhrg53022/html/CHRG-118hhrg53022.htm
[^4]: "David C. Grusch" résumé, House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, hearing of July 26, 2023. https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO06/20230726/116282/HHRG-118-GO06-Bio-GruschD-20230726.pdf
[^5]: Micah Hanks, "The Sol Foundation: How a New Think Tank of Academics is Applying 'Cutting-Edge Research' to the UAP Mystery," *The Debrief*, September 12, 2023. https://thedebrief.org/the-sol-foundation-how-a-new-think-tank-of-academics-is-applying-cutting-edge-research-the-uap-mystery/
[^6]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, EIN 93-3649160, and IRS Form 990 for 2024, Part VII. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/933649160/202543269349300004/full
[^7]: The Sol Foundation, home page, "People" section, https://thesolfoundation.org/ , read October 3, 2026.
[^8]: Micah Hanks, *The Debrief*, February 12, 2024. https://thedebrief.org/the-sol-foundation-academias-new-uap-think-tank-releases-videos-of-lectures-from-its-inaugural-symposium/
[^9]: Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal, "Intelligence Officials Say U.S. Has Retrieved Non-Human Craft," *The Debrief*, June 5, 2023. https://thedebrief.org/intelligence-officials-say-u-s-has-retrieved-non-human-craft/
[^10]: Office of Representative Eric Burlison, "Rep. Burlison Welcomes Former U.S. Air Force Officer David Grusch as Special Advisor," March 27, 2025. https://burlison.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-burlison-welcomes-former-us-air-force-officer-david-grusch-special-advisor
[^11]: Nexstar Media Group, "NewsNation Signs Award-Winning Journalist Ross Coulthart as a Special Correspondent for the Network," November 14, 2023. https://www.nexstar.tv/newsnation-signs-ross-coulthart-as-special-correspondent/
[^12]: NewsNation, "UAP whistleblower says UFO retrieval program exists: NewsNation exclusive," January 16, 2025. https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/uap-whistleblower-ufo-retrieval-program/
[^13]: Skywatcher, "Media," retrieved October 3, 2026. https://skywatcher.ai/media
[^14]: Ross Coulthart, "Whistleblower reveals UAP retrieval program; object caught on video," NewsNation, updated January 27, 2025. https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/hfr-uap-recovery-video-egg-shaped-object-exclusive/

18
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Eugene Giaquinto.md
View file

@ -10,16 +10,28 @@ relations:
with: "[[Music Corporation of America]]"
role: "president, Home Entertainment division"
fn: 1
- type: director_of
with: "[[Meridian International Logistics]]"
role: "board member, per Seymour and Spy; resigned after the FBI investigation became known"
fn: 3
created: 2025-08-05
updated: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-10-08
---
Eugene F. Giaquinto was the president of the home entertainment division of [[Music Corporation of America|MCA]]. He was a subject of a two-year investigation by the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] and the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]]'s [[Los Angeles]] Organized Crime Strike Force into suspected labor racketeering in the film industry, overseen by the strike force attorney [[Richard Stavin]]. In September 1987 MCA security officers discovered an attempt by agents to tap Giaquinto's office telephone and wrongly blamed it on the prosecutor [[Marvin Rudnick]]. The investigators did tap the telephone of Giaquinto's confidant Marty Bacow, a labor negotiator with ties to the Teamsters president Jackie Presser, and Giaquinto was one of the people Bacow talked to most.[^1]
A newspaper report said the FBI believed Giaquinto had passed MCA funds annually to [[Edward Sciandra]], underboss of the [[Bufalino Crime Family]], and had a longstanding relationship with [[John Gotti]] of the [[Gambino Crime Family]]. Stavin resigned from the strike force in May 1989 with the case unresolved. Giaquinto was never prosecuted, and as of 1993 the wiretaps of his conversations with Bacow remained sealed; he then ran a video production and duplication firm in the San Fernando Valley.[^1]
According to [[Cheri Seymour]], Giaquinto sat on the board of [[Robert Booth Nichols]]'s holding company, [[Meridian International Logistics]], which was under investigation as a source of funding for narcotics trafficking; FBI wiretaps recorded communications between the two men, and both were described in the intercepts as having a close working relationship with the Justice Department.[^2]
The 1987 continuation wiretap affidavit of the FBI agent [[Thomas Gates]] names Giaquinto and [[Joseph Garofalo]] as persons committing offenses "involving the sale and possession of controlled substances," and lists among the matters the intercepts were to establish "The source of funding for the purchasing of narcotics/controlled substances and the allocation and use of the proceeds from its trafficking."[^2] [[Cheri Seymour]] wrote that Giaquinto sat on the board of [[Robert Booth Nichols]]'s holding company, [[Meridian International Logistics]], and that he resigned and returned his stock certificates when he and Nichols learned of the FBI investigation; a 1992 account of hers puts the shares at 10,000.[^3] John Connolly reported in [[Spy (magazine)|Spy]] in January 1993 that Giaquinto sat on the board of the parent company of Meridian Arms, left MCA and the board when reports of the investigation surfaced, and had proposed to [[Jack Valenti]] that the [[Motion Picture Association of America]] hire Nichols for anti-piracy work in Asia.[^4] Seymour reproduced reports she attributed to [[John Cohen]], an investigator for the [[House Committee on the Judiciary|House Judiciary Committee]], in which Gates is recorded as saying that the wiretaps showed a close working relationship between the MCA board and high-level Justice Department officials, and that Giaquinto told Bacow he would call Attorney General [[Edwin Meese]] and have the FBI investigation of MCA stopped.[^5]
### Wiretaps
The affidavit records a July 20, 1987 call in which Giaquinto told Nichols that MCA stock had fallen four points, and a July 23 call in which Giaquinto told Nichols that [[ZZZZ Best]] was a money-laundering operation for heroin money and asked what to do if Nichols's name came up.[^2] An excerpt of Gates's affidavit reproduced in Meridian's Ninth Circuit brief describes agents investigating whether others were using extortionate practices "to ensure that Eugene Giaquinto retains his position as the president of Home Entertainment for MCA/Universal, Inc.," and whether Giaquinto, Garofalo, Bacow and Nichols bought or sold stock by manipulative practices.[^6]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Knoedelseder, William. *Stiffed: A True Story of MCA, the Music Business, and the Mafia.* HarperCollins, 1993, pp. xvii, 434-448, 464. Read through the archive.org BookReader search, item stiffedtruestory00knoe.
[^2]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010. Sole source for the Meridian board seat, the narcotics-funding investigation, the Nichols intercepts and the Justice Department relationship.
[^2]: 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." https://archive.org/details/casolaro-notebooks (file Gates.pdf), paragraphs 5, 69 and 79.
[^3]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010, pp. 351 and 356; Seymour, "VORTEX," February 24, 1992. https://archive.org/details/VORTEXDocument . Sole source for the board seat and resignation. Seymour, *The Last Circle,* p. 356, paraphrases the narcotics-funding wording as describing Meridian International Logistics; the affidavit places it under the controlled-substance offenses of Giaquinto and Garofalo.
[^4]: Connolly, John. "The Story That Killed Danny Casolaro." *Spy,* January 1993. https://archive.org/details/SpyMagazine
[^5]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010, pp. 347-349 ("Report No. 5" and "Report No. 6"). Sole source for the passages so cited.
[^6]: Appellant's Opening Brief, *Meridian International Logistics, Inc. v. Gates,* No. 90-55281 (9th Cir.), certificate dated June 27, 1990 (case removed as CV 89-4383 RG (Kx), C.D. Cal.). https://archive.org/details/MeridianV.Gates

27
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Jacques Bergier.md
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@ -10,21 +10,38 @@ summary: "Jacques Bergier was a journalist, former French resistance spy, and au
born: 1912-08-21
died: 1978-11-23
location: "Odessa, Ukraine"
relations:
- type: participant_in
with: "[[The Nautilus (Telepathy Project)]]"
start: 1959
role: "author of the Constellation article of December 1959 and co-author of Le Matin des magiciens"
fn: 2
updated: 2026-10-08
---
Jacques Bergier was a journalist, former French resistance spy, and author with strong ties to the intelligence community and an interest in the supernatural. He is known for bringing secret government [[Extrasensory Perception|ESP]] programs to public attention[^1].
In December 1959, Bergier published an article in the French magazine *Constellation* titled "Thought Transfer, Weapon of War." The article reported that ESP tests had been conducted aboard the [[USS Nautilus]], the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, in 1958. The purpose of the experiment was to determine if long-distance telepathic communication could be achieved through barriers like thousands of miles of seawater, thick polar ice, and the metal walls of a submarine[^1].
In December 1959, Bergier published an article in the French magazine *Constellation* titled "La transmission de pensée, arme de guerre" (thought transfer, weapon of war). The article reported that ESP tests had been conducted aboard the [[The Nautilus|USS Nautilus]], the world's first nuclear-powered submarine. The purpose of the experiment was to determine if long-distance telepathic communication could be achieved through barriers like thousands of miles of seawater, thick polar ice, and the metal walls of a submarine[^1].
According to Bergier, the ESP experiment involved simple sender-receiver trials using [[Zener Cards]]. He identified [[William H. Bowers]], director of the Biological Department of the Air Force Research Institute, as the man overseeing the joint-service ESP experiment. Bergier's story claimed that the sender and receiver communicated telepathically over a sixteen-day period starting on July 25, 1958[^1].
According to Bergier, the ESP experiment involved simple sender-receiver trials using [[Zener Cards]]. He identified [[William H. Bowers]], director of the Biological Department of the Air Force Research Institute, as the man overseeing the joint-service ESP experiment. Bergier's story claimed that the sender and receiver communicated telepathically over a sixteen-day period; Bergier and [[Louis Pauwels]] give July 25, 1959 as the date the submarine embarked and August 10, 1959 as its return to Groton.[^1]
An expanded version of his story, "The Secret of the Nautilus," was published in France's top science journal, *Science et Vie*, in February 1960. While no authors were identified, editor [[Gérald Messadié]] stated that multiple sources had confirmed the story. [[J. B. Rhine]] of the [[Duke University Parapsychology Laboratory]] was identified as the civilian scientist assigned to the project, with reports of "about 75% of the telepathic tries are said to have been successful"[^1].
In Le Matin des magiciens, Bergier and Pauwels wrote that the [[Rand Corporation]] laid a report before [[Dwight D. Eisenhower|President Eisenhower]] at the beginning of 1957 proposing telepathic communication with submarines, and listed parapsychology laboratories at Rand, [[Westinghouse Electric Corporation|Westinghouse]], [[General Electric]], Bell Telephone and [[Redstone Arsenal]]. A footnote in the passage cites a Rand Corporation report of August 31, 1958.[^2]
Whether Bergier's story was true or fabricated remains a debate, but it had real-world consequences. The Soviets used the news story to their strategic advantage, with [[Leonid Vasiliev|Leonid L. Vasilev]], Russia's leading ESP researcher, claiming that Soviet parapsychology research was stimulated by the *Nautilus* reports[^1].
An expanded version of his story, "The Secret of the Nautilus," was published in France's top science journal, *Science et Vie*, in February 1960. While no authors were identified, editor [[Gerard Messadie|Gérald Messadié]] stated, according to [[Annie Jacobsen]], that multiple sources had confirmed the story; [[Martin Ebon]] recorded in 1980 that Messadié named Bergier as his source. [[J. B. Rhine]] of the [[Duke University Parapsychology Laboratory]] was identified as the civilian scientist assigned to the project, with reports of "about 75% of the telepathic tries are said to have been successful"[^1].
The Soviets used the news story to their strategic advantage, with [[Leonid Vasiliev|Leonid L. Vasilev]], Russia's leading ESP researcher, claiming that Soviet parapsychology research was stimulated by the *Nautilus* reports[^1].
In 1963 the Sunday supplement [[This Week]] printed excerpts of the book as "The Great Nautilus ESP Hoax" and, according to the Parapsychology Foundation, reported that Bergier and Pauwels admitted they "had elaborated on reports they had heard, but not verified" and had "given the submarine a name."[^3] Ebon, who visited Messadié in 1980, wrote that Bergier concocted the story, quotes a New York Times obituary of November 24, 1978 describing Bergier as a part-time consultant for French intelligence after the war, and quotes Messadié as saying that Bergier claimed to have extracted the information from intelligence sources.[^4] [[Jim Schnabel]] wrote that Bergier "apparently had connections to French intelligence services."[^5] In 1992 the Soviet defense newspaper [[Trud]] named Bergier as the author of the French article that had caused considerable commotion in December 1959.[^6]
### Publications
* "Thought Transfer, Weapon of War" (*Constellation*, 1959)
* "La transmission de pensée, arme de guerre" (*Constellation*, December 1959)
* *Morning of the Magicians* (co-authored with Louis Pauwels)
### 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]: Pauwels, Louis, and Jacques Bergier. *Le Matin des magiciens*, abridged and annotated university edition prepared by Yvonne Lenard with Monica Faulkner (Harper and Row, 1967), pp. 136-141. Annie Jacobsen, *Phenomena* (Little, Brown and Company, 2017), dates the sixteen-day period from July 25, 1958.
[^3]: Newsletter of the Parapsychology Foundation, "Nautilus Hoax Exposed," vol. 10, no. 6, November-December 1963, citing This Week, September 8, 1963. NSA-RDP96X00790R000100040002-2, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/nsa-rdp96x00790r000100040002-2.
[^4]: Ebon, Martin. *Psychic Warfare: Threat or Illusion?* McGraw-Hill, 1983, chapter 3, pp. 29-31.
[^5]: Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America's Psychic Spies*. Dell, 1997, pp. 90-93. Sole source for the passages so cited.
[^6]: Trud, April 10, 1992, no. 61, FBIS translation, CIA-RDP96-00792R000500610010-5, https://cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00792r000500610010-5.

27
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/James Jesus Angleton.md
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@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
---
created: 2026-05-15
updated: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-10-08
title: James Jesus Angleton
aliases:
- James Angleton
@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ tags:
- 1960s
- 1970s
category: "Intelligence & Government"
summary: "James Jesus Angleton served as the CIA's chief of counterintelligence from 1954 to 1974, running the illegal HT/LINGUAL mail opening program, overseeing Operation CHAOS domestic surveillance, opening a 201 file on Lee Harvey Oswald in 1960 under a deliberately wrong name, maintaining the CIA's Israeli intelligence liaison under KK MOUNTAIN, and conducting a mole hunt triggered by his betrayal by Kim Philby that destroyed dozens of CIA officers' careers while the actual Soviet penetrations - Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen - operated undetected for years after his 1974 firing."
summary: "CIA counterintelligence chief from 1954 to 1974 who ran HT/LINGUAL mail opening, the Israeli liaison KK MOUNTAIN, the HONETOL mole hunt and an Oswald 201 file opened in 1960."
born: 1917-12-09
died: 1987-05-11
location: "Washington, D.C."
@ -71,7 +71,7 @@ The internal mole hunt, run under the codeword [[HONETOL]], focused primarily on
On February 4, 1964 - eleven weeks after Kennedy's assassination - KGB officer Yuri Nosenko defected in [[Geneva]]. His timing and central claim created an immediate crisis for Angleton: Nosenko stated he had personally reviewed the KGB's file on Oswald during Oswald's Soviet sojourn (1959-1962) and that the KGB had not recruited Oswald, had not run him as an agent, and had no connection to the [[JFK Assassination|Kennedy assassination]].
Angleton and Golitsyn insisted Nosenko was a Soviet "provocation" - a false defector dispatched specifically to mislead the Warren Commission. Acting on Angleton's assessment, the CIA subjected Nosenko to a program that amounted to illegal imprisonment. From April 1964 to October 1967 - three and a half years - Nosenko was held in solitary confinement in a specially constructed cell at [[Camp Peary]] ("The Farm"), the CIA's training facility in [[Virginia]]. He was subjected to hostile interrogation designed to break a fabricator. He was never charged with any crime. He never received access to counsel. The confinement ran 1,277 days and the questioning extended across roughly 292 sessions, many under polygraph, in conditions that replicated the [[Lawrence Hinkle|Hinkle]]-[[Harold Wolff|Wolff]] account of Soviet isolation interrogation: continuous light, no reading material, and round-the-clock observation. After Helms ordered the release, the [[CIA Office of Security]] officer [[Bruce Solie]] re-examined the case methodically and concluded the defection was genuine.[^5]
Angleton and Golitsyn insisted Nosenko was a Soviet "provocation" - a false defector dispatched specifically to mislead the Warren Commission. Acting on Angleton's assessment, the CIA subjected Nosenko to a program that amounted to illegal imprisonment. From April 1964 to October 1967 - three and a half years - Nosenko was held in solitary confinement in a specially constructed cell at [[Camp Peary]] ("The Farm"), the CIA's training facility in [[Virginia]]. He was subjected to hostile interrogation designed to break a fabricator. He was never charged with any crime. He never received access to counsel. The confinement ran 1,277 days and the questioning extended across roughly 292 sessions, many under polygraph, in conditions that replicated the [[Lawrence Hinkle|Hinkle]]-[[Harold Wolff|Wolff]] account of Soviet isolation interrogation: continuous light, no reading material, and round-the-clock observation. After Helms ordered the release, the [[CIA Office of Security]] officer [[Bruce Solie]] re-examined the case methodically and concluded the defection was genuine.[^3]
The CIA's Soviet division eventually concluded Nosenko was genuine. [[Tennent Bagley]], his principal case officer, remained convinced he was a plant and published that argument as late as 2007. The operational consequence of treating him as fabricated: the Warren Commission was denied access to what may have been the most direct available KGB testimony about Oswald, because Angleton had rendered Nosenko's evidence institutionally unusable. What Nosenko actually knew about Oswald's KGB file - and whether his account would have materially changed the Commission's conclusions - remains one of the assassination record's unresolved questions.[^2]
@ -81,7 +81,7 @@ From 1952 to 1973, Angleton ran HT/LINGUAL, a covert CIA program that intercepte
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.
HT/LINGUAL intercepted correspondence to and from Soviet addresses. Lee Harvey Oswald, having defected to the Soviet Union in 1959, maintained correspondence with American family members and later with the Soviet Embassy after his return to the United States in 1962. Whether his specific correspondence was intercepted and whether that interception contributed to the opening of his CI/SIG 201 file in December 1960 was examined by the [[Church Committee]] and the [[Assassination Records Review Board|ARRB]] without definitive resolution. The timing - Oswald's file opened December 9, 1960, as a "marked cards" file under the wrong middle name "Henry" - is consistent with HT/LINGUAL as a trigger, though no document has confirmed this directly.[^3]
HT/LINGUAL intercepted correspondence to and from Soviet addresses. Lee Harvey Oswald, having defected to the Soviet Union in 1959, maintained correspondence with American family members and later with the Soviet Embassy after his return to the United States in 1962. Whether his specific correspondence was intercepted and whether that interception contributed to the opening of his CI/SIG 201 file in December 1960 was examined by the [[Church Committee]] and the [[Assassination Records Review Board|ARRB]] without definitive resolution. The timing - Oswald's file opened December 9, 1960, as a "marked cards" file under the wrong middle name "Henry" - is consistent with HT/LINGUAL as a trigger, though no document has confirmed this directly.[^4]
### The Oswald File: An Unresolved Thread
@ -89,7 +89,7 @@ CI/SIG - Angleton's Counterintelligence Special Investigations Group - opened th
Angleton's personal counterintelligence operation, rather than the standard Soviet division - opened and held the Oswald file has never been satisfactorily explained. The standard explanation is that Oswald was a defector under CI watch. But the specific handling - the wrong name, the bifurcated October 10, 1963 cable in which Angleton's staff processed information about Oswald's Mexico City Soviet Embassy visit while omitting known facts about his background, and Jane Roman's 1994 admission to journalist [[John Newman (historian)|John Newman]] that she was "signing off on something I know isn't true" - suggests active management rather than passive monitoring.
The question that has never been answered is whether Angleton's CI Staff was running an operation that involved Oswald - whether as a monitored subject, an unwitting asset, or something more complex - that required protecting the file from standard Soviet division handling? The "marked cards" technique implies concern about Soviet access to the file. The omissions in the Mexico City cable imply concern about something else. What both concerns were, and how they related to each other, remains the central unresolved question in the Oswald counterintelligence record.[^3]
The question that has never been answered is whether Angleton's CI Staff was running an operation that involved Oswald - whether as a monitored subject, an unwitting asset, or something more complex - that required protecting the file from standard Soviet division handling? The "marked cards" technique implies concern about Soviet access to the file. The omissions in the Mexico City cable imply concern about something else. What both concerns were, and how they related to each other, remains the central unresolved question in the Oswald counterintelligence record.[^4]
### KK MOUNTAIN: The Israeli Intelligence Liaison
@ -101,9 +101,11 @@ The KK MOUNTAIN relationship also produced accountability failures. Angleton's p
His CI files reportedly included a running study of American Jews in government, employing what his documents called a "Jewishness index" - tracking synagogue attendance and other markers of Jewish identity as factors in assessing loyalty risks and potential Israeli intelligence targeting. This practice ran alongside his most intimate intelligence relationship with a foreign service and his role as the CIA's primary protector of Israeli interests inside the agency - a contradiction that neither his contemporaries nor subsequent investigators have fully examined.[^1]
In May 1967, according to [[David S. Robarge]], the CIA's chief historian, the Israelis may have tried to exploit this relationship by submitting to Washington a Mossad estimate claiming that the Israeli military was badly outgunned; Robarge writes that Angleton had for years run the Israeli account out of his Counterintelligence Staff without involving the Near East Division. The [[Office of National Estimates]] appraised the Israeli paper as "probably a gambit intended to influence the US."[^5][^6] Hersh reports, on the account of [[James H. Critchfield]], then chief of the Near East Division, that after the [[Six-Day War]] Angleton argued at a White House meeting with [[McGeorge Bundy]] and Nicholas Katzenbach that a quick land-for-peace accord with Jordan, supported by [[Moshe Dayan]] and [[Zvi Zamir]], had to be reached before Israeli settlement began, and that they "were told to knock it off"; Katzenbach, Hersh writes, had no recollection of the meeting.[^7]
### MKULTRA and Operational Hypnosis
In June 1960 Angleton's Counterintelligence Staff partnered with the [[TSS|Technical Services Staff]] on an expanded program of operational experiments in [[Hypnosis]], which CI officials characterized as a potential "breakthrough in clandestine technology." Under the arrangement, [[Project MKUltra|MKULTRA]] scientists developed techniques in the laboratory while Counterintelligence handled the "field experimentation." The program pursued three goals: inducing hypnosis rapidly in unwitting subjects, creating durable amnesia, and implanting durable, operationally useful posthypnotic suggestion, the building blocks of a programmed agent. The Agency released no information on any field experimentation toward the latter two goals.[^5]
In June 1960 Angleton's Counterintelligence Staff partnered with the [[TSS|Technical Services Staff]] on an expanded program of operational experiments in [[Hypnosis]], which CI officials characterized as a potential "breakthrough in clandestine technology." Under the arrangement, [[Project MKUltra|MKULTRA]] scientists developed techniques in the laboratory while Counterintelligence handled the "field experimentation." The program pursued three goals: inducing hypnosis rapidly in unwitting subjects, creating durable amnesia, and implanting durable, operationally useful posthypnotic suggestion, the building blocks of a programmed agent. The Agency released no information on any field experimentation toward the latter two goals.[^3]
### Operation CHAOS (MHCHAOS)
@ -111,7 +113,7 @@ Separate from the mail opening program, Angleton's Counterintelligence Staff ran
At its peak in 1971, the MHCHAOS Special Operations Group employed 52 personnel. The program maintained a computerized index called [[HYDRA]] that ultimately contained files on approximately 7,200 American citizens and cross-references to approximately 300,000 names and 1,000 organizations. [[Project MERRIMAC]], a subprogram, placed CIA infiltrators inside domestic antiwar and Black activist organizations in the [[Washington, D.C.|Washington]] area. [[Project RESISTANCE]] involved CIA coordination with campus administrators, local police, and university security offices to compile dossiers on student organizations.
In a separate operation managed through Angleton's staff, the CIA purchased a Washington trash collection company holding contracts to collect garbage at various foreign embassies, including the Israeli Embassy - systematically sorting and analyzing the discarded material for intelligence. The program illustrated both Angleton's operational creativity and the blurring of foreign and domestic intelligence that characterized his tenure.[^4]
In a separate operation managed through Angleton's staff, the CIA purchased a Washington trash collection company holding contracts to collect garbage at various foreign embassies, including the Israeli Embassy - systematically sorting and analyzing the discarded material for intelligence. The program illustrated both Angleton's operational creativity and the blurring of foreign and domestic intelligence that characterized his tenure.[^8]
### Mary Meyer
@ -127,12 +129,15 @@ Whether Angleton's intervention was a personal act for a friend's family, an ins
His Church Committee testimony across 1975-1976 was extensive and carefully managed. He defended the principle of counterintelligence against what he characterized as Colby's reckless disclosure of sources and methods. He used T.S. Eliot's phrase "wilderness of mirrors" in testimony to characterize the nature of his work - the impossibility of distinguishing genuine intelligence from Soviet-fabricated provocation in an environment where the opponent's primary weapon was deception. He gave extended interviews to journalist [[Edward Jay Epstein]], published in *Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald* (1978), suggesting in carefully worded language that the Kennedy assassination needed to be understood in a context larger than what the Warren Commission had examined.
He never wrote a memoir. He grew orchids and tied fly-fishing lures and continued to believe in the reality of Soviet strategic penetration until his death from lung cancer on May 11, 1987.[^4]
He never wrote a memoir. He grew orchids and tied fly-fishing lures and continued to believe in the reality of Soviet strategic penetration until his death from lung cancer on May 11, 1987.[^8]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Mangold, Tom. *Cold Warrior: James Jesus Angleton - The CIA's Master Spy Hunter*. Simon & Schuster, 1991. Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Burleigh, Nina. *A Very Private Woman: The Life and Unsolved Murder of Presidential Mistress Mary Meyer*. Bantam Books, 1998.
[^2]: Martin, David C. *Wilderness of Mirrors: Intrigue, Deception, and the Secrets that Destroyed Two of the Cold War's Most Important Agents*. Harper & Row, 1980. Bagley, Tennent H. *Spy Wars: Moles, Mysteries, and Deadly Games*. Yale University Press, 2007. Golitsyn, Anatoli. *New Lies for Old: The Communist Strategy of Deception and Disinformation*. Dodd, Mead, 1984.
[^3]: Newman, John. *Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth About the Unknown Relationship Between the U.S. Government and the Alleged Killer of JFK*. Skyhorse Publishing, 2008 (updated ed.). Church Committee (Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities). Final Report, Book III: "Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans." S. Rept. 94-755, April 26, 1976.
[^4]: Church Committee. Final Report, Book II: "Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans." S. Rept. 94-755, April 26, 1976. Hersh, Seymour M. "Huge C.I.A. Operation Reported in U.S. Against Antiwar Forces." *New York Times*, December 22, 1974. Epstein, Edward Jay. *Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald*. Reader's Digest Press/McGraw-Hill, 1978. Colby, William, and Peter Forbath. *Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA*. Simon & Schuster, 1978.
[^5]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*. Times Books, 1979, Chapters 8 and 11.
[^3]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*. Times Books, 1979, Chapters 8 and 11.
[^4]: Newman, John. *Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth About the Unknown Relationship Between the U.S. Government and the Alleged Killer of JFK*. Skyhorse Publishing, 2008 (updated ed.). Church Committee (Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities). Final Report, Book III: "Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans." S. Rept. 94-755, April 26, 1976.
[^5]: 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 Robarge cites Tom Mangold's Cold Warrior for the arrangement.
[^6]: 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
[^7]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 14, p. 185, footnote. Sole source for the passages so cited.
[^8]: Church Committee. Final Report, Book II: "Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans." S. Rept. 94-755, April 26, 1976. Hersh, Seymour M. "Huge C.I.A. Operation Reported in U.S. Against Antiwar Forces." *New York Times*, December 22, 1974. Epstein, Edward Jay. *Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald*. Reader's Digest Press/McGraw-Hill, 1978. Colby, William, and Peter Forbath. *Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA*. Simon & Schuster, 1978.

77
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Luis Elizondo.md
View file

@ -12,25 +12,25 @@ relations:
start: 2008
end: 2017-10-04
role: "GS-15 civilian; information-sharing work with DHS and state, local and tribal law enforcement from 2008, counterintelligence and security for AAWSAP from 2009, Director of National Programs, Special Management Staff, Office of the Secretary of Defense (Guantanamo portfolio); resignation effective October 4, 2017, as he wrote"
fn: 5
fn: 6
- type: employed_by
with: "[[To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science]]"
start: 2017
end: 2020-12
role: "chief of security and special programs, in his account; salary cut in half during the period; relationship ended by a call from Tom DeLonge a few days before Christmas 2020"
fn: 20
fn: 20?UNUSED
- type: reported_to
with: "[[Garry Reid]]"
start: 2017
end: 2017-10-04
role: "top boss in the Pentagon chain of command, whom Elizondo wrote he kept out of the loop on AATIP; Elizondo wrote that Reid opened an Air Force Office of Special Investigations inquiry after the resignation"
fn: 20
fn: 20?UNUSED
- type: subject_of
with: "[[NewsNation]]"
role: "NewsNation reported on June 30 and July 29, 2026 on disputes between Elizondo and its correspondent Ross Coulthart and the researcher UAPGerb over his role in the Legacy Program and a rumored disclosure post"
start: 2026-06-30
fn: 12
updated: 2026-10-03
fn: 13
updated: 2026-10-08
created: 2026-10-03
---
[[Luis Elizondo]] is a former U.S. Army Counterintelligence Special Agent and former employee of the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. He is a central figure in the effort to disclose information about [[Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena]] (UAP), due to his role leading the [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program]] (AATIP), a clandestine [[Pentagon]] program that studied the phenomenon.[^1]
@ -49,7 +49,7 @@ His career as an intelligence officer was extensive, involving missions across t
### Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP)
In early 2009, Elizondo was approached by [[Jay Stratton]] and a colleague, "[[Rosemary Caine]]," for a role in a highly classified [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] (DIA) program. He was introduced to [[James Lacatski]], a rocket scientist who revealed the program's true purpose: the investigation of UAP. The program was initially called the [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program]] (AAWSAP) and was funded by a bipartisan group of senators: [[Harry Reid]], [[Ted Stevens]], and [[Daniel Inouye]]. The primary contractor was [[Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies]] (BAASS), owned by [[Robert Bigelow]], with [[Hal Puthoff]] serving as chief scientist.[^1]
In early 2009, Elizondo was approached by [[Jay Stratton]] and a colleague, "[[Rosemary Caine]]," for a role in a highly classified [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] (DIA) program. He was introduced to [[James Lacatski]], a rocket scientist who revealed the program's true purpose: the investigation of UAP. The program was initially called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AAWSAP) and was funded by a bipartisan group of senators: [[Harry Reid]], [[Ted Stevens]], and [[Daniel Inouye]]. The primary contractor was [[Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies]] (BAASS), owned by [[Robert Bigelow]], with [[Hal Puthoff]] serving as chief scientist.[^1]
AATIP investigated numerous UAP cases, developing a framework of five key "observables" to analyze their behavior: hypersonic velocity, instantaneous acceleration, low observability, transmedium travel, and antigravity. A sixth observable, biological effects, was also noted. The program explored a wide range of phenomena, from the 2004 [[Tic Tac]] to the [[Colares Incidents]] in Brazil and the strange occurrences at [[Skinwalker Ranch]].[^1]
@ -61,61 +61,64 @@ Elizondo's involvement with AATIP was not without personal cost. He and his fami
### Resignation and Public Disclosure
Frustrated by the bureaucratic stonewalling, the refusal of the [[United States Air Force|US Air Force]] to cooperate, and the inability to brief senior leadership like Secretary of Defense [[James Mattis]], Elizondo resigned from the Pentagon on October 4, 2017. His resignation letter to Secretary Mattis, which was later made public, explicitly stated that the Department was not taking the potential threat posed by UAP seriously.[^1]
Frustrated by the bureaucratic stonewalling, the refusal of the [[United States Air Force|US Air Force]] to cooperate, and the inability to brief senior leadership like Secretary of Defense [[James Mattis]], Elizondo resigned from the Pentagon on October 4, 2017. His resignation letter to Secretary Mattis, which was later made public, explicitly stated that the Department was not taking the potential threat posed by UAP seriously.[^1][^2]
Working with [[Christopher Mellon]] and [[Jim Semivan]], Elizondo went public. He was the primary source for a landmark New York Times article in December 2017 that disclosed the existence of AATIP. The article carried the Navy videos later known as "FLIR1" (Tic Tac) and "[[GIMBAL]]" (the article carried two videos; "GOFAST" followed in March 2018). [[Politico]] reported in 2021 that the [[Washington Headquarters Services]] declassification division approved the videos "for unlimited distribution" inside the government; the Department of Defense stated on April 27, 2020 that it authorized the release of three unclassified Navy videos, which had been circulating in the public domain after "unauthorized releases in 2007 and 2017."[^2][^3] The Office of the Secretary of Defense file released to [[The Black Vault]] under the Freedom of Information Act in August 2019 contains an August 23, 2017 email in which Elizondo asked Michael Russo of the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review to "consider our request for unrestricted release"; an August 24, 2017 reply from Russo that if the service-level classification authority verified that removing the metadata made the videos unclassified, "please feel free to move forward with release"; and a DD Form 1910 whose publication-data block reads "Not Applicable. Not for publication. Research and analysis ONLY and info sharing with other USG and industry partners for the purposes of developing a database to help identify, analyze and ultimately defeat UAS threats." Joseph Gradisher, a Navy spokesman, said in 2019 that neither the cognizant Navy offices nor the review office had a record of correspondence responding to a request for unrestricted release of the videos in 2017.[^4] This event ignited a global conversation and marked a pivotal moment for the disclosure movement.[^1]
Working with [[Christopher Mellon]] and [[Jim Semivan]], Elizondo went public. He was the primary source for a landmark New York Times article in December 2017 that disclosed the existence of AATIP. The article carried the Navy videos later known as "FLIR1" (Tic Tac) and "[[GIMBAL]]" (the article carried two videos; "GOFAST" followed in March 2018). [[Politico]] reported in 2021 that the [[Washington Headquarters Services]] declassification division approved the videos "for unlimited distribution" inside the government; the Department of Defense stated on April 27, 2020 that it authorized the release of three unclassified Navy videos, which had been circulating in the public domain after "unauthorized releases in 2007 and 2017."[^3][^4] The Office of the Secretary of Defense file released to [[The Black Vault]] under the Freedom of Information Act in August 2019 contains an August 23, 2017 email in which Elizondo asked Michael Russo of the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review to "consider our request for unrestricted release"; an August 24, 2017 reply from Russo that if the service-level classification authority verified that removing the metadata made the videos unclassified, "please feel free to move forward with release"; and a DD Form 1910 whose publication-data block reads "Not Applicable. Not for publication. Research and analysis ONLY and info sharing with other USG and industry partners for the purposes of developing a database to help identify, analyze and ultimately defeat UAS threats." Joseph Gradisher, a Navy spokesman, said in 2019 that neither the cognizant Navy offices nor the review office had a record of correspondence responding to a request for unrestricted release of the videos in 2017.[^5] This event ignited a global conversation and marked a pivotal moment for the disclosure movement.[^1]
Post-resignation, Elizondo joined [[To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science]] (TTSA), founded by musician [[Tom DeLonge]], and has worked relentlessly to advocate for UAP transparency. His efforts, in concert with Mellon and others, have been crucial in briefing members of Congress, which led directly to the creation of the [[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]] (AARO) and the passage of historic UAP disclosure legislation within the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).[^1]
### Recruitment, offices and resignation, in Elizondo's account
Elizondo wrote that in 2008 he returned to the Department of Defense in the [[Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence]], working on information sharing among the department, the [[Department of Homeland Security]] and state, local and tribal law enforcement, from an eleventh-floor corner office in a building in [[Arlington County, Virginia|Arlington]] that the Pentagon rented and that housed divisions of [[Boeing]] including Phantom Works, at the GS-15 grade, and that in early 2009 his assistant announced two visitors, Jay Stratton and a colleague he calls "Rosemary Caine," who asked for his counterintelligence and security experience for "a highly classified program led out of our office at DIA," which Stratton said he had helped create under the name AAWSAP, later AATIP, and which they said reported "directly to the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and to Congress." After two more meetings he was taken to a tenth-floor office in a Virginia building where he met James Lacatski, who asked "What do you think about UFOs?"; at a second meeting Lacatski told him the program had the support of the DIA director, Lieutenant General [[Michael D. Maples]], and had been funded by Harry Reid, Ted Stevens and Daniel Inouye. Elizondo wrote that an Army friend he calls "John Robert," who served with him in Korea in the 1990s and acted as liaison between another intelligence agency and AAWSAP, had referred him.[^5]
Elizondo wrote that in 2008 he returned to the Department of Defense in the [[Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence]], working on information sharing among the department, the [[Department of Homeland Security]] and state, local and tribal law enforcement, from an eleventh-floor corner office in a building in [[Arlington County, Virginia|Arlington]] that the Pentagon rented and that housed divisions of [[Boeing]] including Phantom Works, at the GS-15 grade, and that in early 2009 his assistant announced two visitors, Jay Stratton and a colleague he calls "Rosemary Caine," who asked for his counterintelligence and security experience for "a highly classified program led out of our office at DIA," which Stratton said he had helped create under the name AAWSAP, later AATIP, and which they said reported "directly to the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and to Congress." After two more meetings he was taken to a tenth-floor office in a Virginia building where he met James Lacatski, who asked "What do you think about UFOs?"; at a second meeting Lacatski told him the program had the support of the DIA director, Lieutenant General [[Michael D. Maples]], and had been funded by Harry Reid, Ted Stevens and Daniel Inouye. Elizondo wrote that an Army friend he calls "John Robert," who served with him in Korea in the 1990s and acted as liaison between another intelligence agency and AAWSAP, had referred him.[^6]
He wrote that after the program lost support at DIA, in 2010, he moved its remnants into his own portfolio as Director of National Programs, Special Management Staff, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, which managed national-level special access programs for the National Security Council and the White House and, in his case, Guantanamo Bay; that his base was office 3C503A in the Pentagon; that he "dual-used" existing funds so that a video sent for analysis could be tested both as a possible Russian MiG-25 and as a UAP; and that the only contractors who remained with Stratton and himself were Puthoff, a physician he calls Will Livingston and [[Eric Davis]]. He named as his superiors in this period [[Neill Tipton]], whom he described as running the Intelligence Sharing and Foreign Intelligence Relationship Office, and Tipton's boss John Pede.[^6]
He wrote that after the program lost support at DIA, in 2010, he moved its remnants into his own portfolio as Director of National Programs, Special Management Staff, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, which managed national-level special access programs for the National Security Council and the White House and, in his case, Guantanamo Bay; that his base was office 3C503A in the Pentagon; that he "dual-used" existing funds so that a video sent for analysis could be tested both as a possible Russian MiG-25 and as a UAP; and that the only contractors who remained with Stratton and himself were Puthoff, a physician he calls Will Livingston and [[Eric Davis]]. He named as his superiors in this period [[Neill Tipton]], whom he described as running the Intelligence Sharing and Foreign Intelligence Relationship Office, and Tipton's boss John Pede.[^7]
Elizondo wrote that in 2016 the Joint Staff declined to give Stratton's OPLAN Interloper an Alternative Compensatory Control Measures designation, that in 2017 he sought a briefing of Secretary of Defense James Mattis through a SECDEF liaison, a White House advisor named Brad Byers and a [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] liaison officer he calls "Shari Smith," that Tipton agreed to take over AATIP and accepted a draft memo but delayed signing it; and that he resigned in a letter to Mattis "effective 4 October 2017," after more than twenty-two years of service, with a second, shorter letter to his chain of command.[^7] He wrote that his immediate supervisor on the Guantanamo portfolio, John Garrity, telephoned that day to say that Garry Reid, whom he described as controlling security, law enforcement and security clearances for the department, wanted to see him; that Reid said he would have to tell people Elizondo was "acting crazy"; and that Reid seized his computers and files, questioned his staff and began an inquiry through the Air Force [[Office of Special Investigations]] which, he wrote, "found no impropriety in my actions."[^8]
Elizondo wrote that in 2016 the Joint Staff declined to give Stratton's OPLAN Interloper an Alternative Compensatory Control Measures designation, that in 2017 he sought a briefing of Secretary of Defense James Mattis through a SECDEF liaison, a White House advisor named Brad Byers and a [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] liaison officer he calls "Shari Smith," that Tipton agreed to take over AATIP and accepted a draft memo but delayed signing it; and that he resigned in a letter to Mattis "effective 4 October 2017," after more than twenty-two years of service, with a second, shorter letter to his chain of command.[^8] He wrote that his immediate supervisor on the Guantanamo portfolio, John Garrity, telephoned that day to say that Garry Reid, whom he described as controlling security, law enforcement and security clearances for the department, wanted to see him; that Reid said he would have to tell people Elizondo was "acting crazy"; and that Reid seized his computers and files, questioned his staff and began an inquiry through the Air Force [[Office of Special Investigations]] which, he wrote, "found no impropriety in my actions."[^9]
After the [[New York Times]] story of December 16, 2017, Elizondo wrote, the Pentagon spokesperson Dana White confirmed his role in AATIP to Politico, but in 2019 the spokesperson [[Christopher Sherwood]] told reporters that "Mr. Elizondo had no responsibilities with regard to the AATIP program," which Elizondo wrote Sherwood privately acknowledged was untrue; that a [[Freedom of Information Act]] response said his electronic files had been deleted as having "no historic value," and that an email transferring AATIP duties to Tipton in 2017 was released in May 2024 after a FOIA appeal; and that after a Defense Department inspector general review Garry Reid was reassigned to DIA as a "special advisor." Elizondo wrote that a Pentagon spokesperson later confirmed that he "provides technical advice on a variety of classified topics for the US Space Force."[^9] The Department of Defense's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office found in 2024 that AATIP "was never an official DoD program" (see Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program).
After the [[New York Times]] story of December 16, 2017, Elizondo wrote, the Pentagon spokesperson Dana White confirmed his role in AATIP to Politico, but in 2019 the spokesperson [[Christopher Sherwood]] told reporters that "Mr. Elizondo had no responsibilities with regard to the AATIP program," which Elizondo wrote Sherwood privately acknowledged was untrue; that a [[Freedom of Information Act]] response said his electronic files had been deleted as having "no historic value," and that an email transferring AATIP duties to Tipton in 2017 was released in May 2024 after a FOIA appeal; and that after a Defense Department inspector general review Garry Reid was reassigned to DIA as a "special advisor." Elizondo wrote that a Pentagon spokesperson later confirmed that he "provides technical advice on a variety of classified topics for the US Space Force."[^10] The Department of Defense's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office found in 2024 that AATIP "was never an official DoD program" (see Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program).
### NewsNation, 2025 and 2026
NewsNation's January 16, 2025 article on [[Jake Barber]] stated that "other whistleblowers, including Lue Elizondo and [[David Grusch]], have alleged a secret government UFO program exists but Barber says he knows it's true because he's part of it," and the full-special article of the same month stated that Grusch and Elizondo "say they've been told about it, they believe it exists, but they weren't a part of it themselves."[^10][^11]
NewsNation's January 16, 2025 article on [[Jake Barber]] stated that "other whistleblowers, including Lue Elizondo and [[David Grusch]], have alleged a secret government UFO program exists but Barber says he knows it's true because he's part of it," and the full-special article of the same month stated that Grusch and Elizondo "say they've been told about it, they believe it exists, but they weren't a part of it themselves."[^11][^12]
On June 30, 2026 NewsNation reported that its special correspondent [[Ross Coulthart]] had said on his "[[Reality Check (NewsNation)|Reality Check]]" podcast that "There are people who bitterly resent and don't think it's a good idea that Lue be appointed to a position of power in UAP transparency, because they think that he was part of a previous agenda that was essentially to try to control the narrative, to restrict what the public is entitled to know about the UAP disclosure," and "I've spoken to people in the [[Legacy Program]] who knew Lue." Elizondo told NewsNation's [[Chris Cuomo]] that "I've committed myself to transparency to the degree that I could," that "I didn't say I worked for the Legacy Program," that "we cannot confirm or deny" statements are not "some sort of implicit 'yes,'" and that "I think Ross is an excellent investigative journalist." The article gives Elizondo's account that he directed the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program and "resigned in 2017 in protest."[^12]
On June 30, 2026 NewsNation reported that its special correspondent [[Ross Coulthart]] had said on his "[[Reality Check (NewsNation)|Reality Check]]" podcast that "There are people who bitterly resent and don't think it's a good idea that Lue be appointed to a position of power in UAP transparency, because they think that he was part of a previous agenda that was essentially to try to control the narrative, to restrict what the public is entitled to know about the UAP disclosure," and "I've spoken to people in the [[Legacy Program]] who knew Lue." Elizondo told NewsNation's [[Chris Cuomo]] that "I've committed myself to transparency to the degree that I could," that "I didn't say I worked for the Legacy Program," that "we cannot confirm or deny" statements are not "some sort of implicit 'yes,'" and that "I think Ross is an excellent investigative journalist." The article gives Elizondo's account that he directed the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program and "resigned in 2017 in protest."[^13]
On July 29, 2026 NewsNation reported that the anonymous researcher known online as [[UAPGerb]] (named Sam in the article), speaking to Coulthart, said Elizondo was part of a "controlled narrative" and noted speculation that he was "being positioned for a role with the National Security Council or as an adviser to the White House"; the article states "Elizondo has not confirmed the rumors." In a [[YouTube]] video Elizondo called the claims false, confirmed he was moving to [[Washington, D.C.]] because "fighting for UAP disclosure is a full-time job," and told Coulthart "please, for the love of God, be more careful with who you decide to have on your program." The article states that Elizondo said one narrative, which he claims the researcher made up, was that he and [[James Clapper]], the former [[Director of National Intelligence]], "had colluded to create a network" for "soft disclosure," and quotes Elizondo: "That is 1,000% not accurate. In fact, we never had such a conversation, and Jim Clapper and I never met to have that conversation."[^13]
On July 29, 2026 NewsNation reported that the anonymous researcher known online as [[UAPGerb]] (named Sam in the article), speaking to Coulthart, said Elizondo was part of a "controlled narrative" and noted speculation that he was "being positioned for a role with the National Security Council or as an adviser to the White House"; the article states "Elizondo has not confirmed the rumors." In a [[YouTube]] video Elizondo called the claims false, confirmed he was moving to [[Washington, D.C.]] because "fighting for UAP disclosure is a full-time job," and told Coulthart "please, for the love of God, be more careful with who you decide to have on your program." The article states that Elizondo said one narrative, which he claims the researcher made up, was that he and [[James Clapper]], the former [[Director of National Intelligence]], "had colluded to create a network" for "soft disclosure," and quotes Elizondo: "That is 1,000% not accurate. In fact, we never had such a conversation, and Jim Clapper and I never met to have that conversation."[^14]
### Resignation and the December 2017 placement
Elizondo's resignation took effect October 4, 2017, according to the Pentagon; a Pentagon official told Politico that Mattis's receipt of the letter could not be confirmed. His letter to Defense Secretary James Mattis cited "bureaucratic challenges and inflexible mindsets" and the "overwhelming evidence" at "both the classified and unclassified levels," and, [[Keith Kloor]] wrote in *[[The Intercept]]*, "does not mention AATIP or Elizondo's role as its director."[^14][^15] [[Gideon Lewis-Kraus]] wrote that the previous day had been his last day of work, and that on October 4, 2017 [[Leslie Kean]] met him, Hal Puthoff and Jim Semivan in a hotel bar near the Pentagon at the request of Christopher Mellon; Kean told Lewis-Kraus that Elizondo "had incredible gravitas."[^16] Elizondo spoke onstage at the To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science launch later in October 2017.[^16] In an August 2017 email reviewed by Politico he proposed an unclassified "community of interest" database; "Washington Headquarters Services" approved three [[United States Navy|Navy]] videos "for unlimited distribution" within government, and Elizondo, Mellon and others concluded that more was needed. Politico reported in 2021 that the Pentagon "officially acknowledged the existence of the AATIP program and Elizondo's role in it."[^2] In December 2017 Politico quoted Elizondo: "We tried to work within the system. We were trying to take the voodoo out of voodoo science," and he described sightings "often reported in the vicinity of nuclear facilities, either ships at sea or power plants"; the Times quoted his resignation letter's phrase "unusual aerial systems interfering with military weapon platforms and displaying beyond-next-generation capabilities."[^17]
Elizondo's resignation took effect October 4, 2017, according to the Pentagon; a Pentagon official told Politico that Mattis's receipt of the letter could not be confirmed. His letter to Defense Secretary James Mattis cited "bureaucratic challenges and inflexible mindsets" and the "overwhelming evidence" at "both the classified and unclassified levels," and, [[Keith Kloor]] wrote in *[[The Intercept]]*, "does not mention AATIP or Elizondo's role as its director."[^15][^16] [[Gideon Lewis-Kraus]] wrote that the previous day had been his last day of work, and that on October 4, 2017 [[Leslie Kean]] met him, Hal Puthoff and Jim Semivan in a hotel bar near the Pentagon at the request of Christopher Mellon; Kean told Lewis-Kraus that Elizondo "had incredible gravitas."[^17] Elizondo spoke onstage at the To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science launch later in October 2017.[^17] In an August 2017 email reviewed by Politico he proposed an unclassified "community of interest" database; "Washington Headquarters Services" approved three [[United States Navy|Navy]] videos "for unlimited distribution" within government, and Elizondo, Mellon and others concluded that more was needed. Politico reported in 2021 that the Pentagon "officially acknowledged the existence of the AATIP program and Elizondo's role in it."[^3] In December 2017 Politico quoted Elizondo: "We tried to work within the system. We were trying to take the voodoo out of voodoo science," and he described sightings "often reported in the vicinity of nuclear facilities, either ships at sea or power plants"; the Times quoted his resignation letter's phrase "unusual aerial systems interfering with military weapon platforms and displaying beyond-next-generation capabilities."[^18]
The resignation letter, dated October 3, 2017, states: "Effective 4 October 2017, I humbly submit my resignation as Director, National Programs Special Management Staff," and says the resignation is submitted "in hopes it will encourage you to ask the hard questions."[^19] An information memorandum from [[Garry Reid]], Director for Defense Intelligence, states that Elizondo "has provided three different explanations for his sudden resignation," that he first told his supervisor he was leaving for a job opportunity "that required his immediate availability," and that an informal Air Force assessment "did not find any wrongdoing by Mr. Elizondo."[^19]
### Pentagon statements beside his account
December 2017: Politico's [[Bryan Bender]] wrote that Pentagon spokeswoman [[Dana White]] "confirmed to Politico that the program existed and was run by Elizondo." June 1, 2019: spokesperson Christopher Sherwood told *The Intercept* that AATIP "did pursue research and investigation into unidentified aerial phenomena" but that "Mr. Elizondo had no responsibilities with regard to the AATIP program while he worked in OUSDI," that he "cannot confirm" White's statement, and that Elizondo "worked for other organizations in DoD." June 13, 2019: [[Susan Gough]] told [[The Black Vault]] that Reid's July 24, 2009 memorandum was authentic and "makes no change to previous statements," and that "Elizondo did interact with the DIA office managing the program while the program was still ongoing, but he did not lead it." Bender wrote on June 2, 2019 that he expected "a much more definitive statement from the Pentagon" and that The Intercept's "assertions and innuendo" were wrong. Elizondo, in the Intercept article, did not respond to requests for comment; he told Kloor earlier in 2019 that he was a government contractor "but it's not what you think it is."[^15][^18]
December 2017: Politico's [[Bryan Bender]] wrote that Pentagon spokeswoman [[Dana White]] "confirmed to Politico that the program existed and was run by Elizondo." June 1, 2019: spokesperson Christopher Sherwood told *The Intercept* that AATIP "did pursue research and investigation into unidentified aerial phenomena" but that "Mr. Elizondo had no responsibilities with regard to the AATIP program while he worked in OUSDI," that he "cannot confirm" White's statement, and that Elizondo "worked for other organizations in DoD." June 13, 2019: [[Susan Gough]] told The Black Vault that Reid's July 24, 2009 memorandum was authentic and "makes no change to previous statements," and that "Elizondo did interact with the DIA office managing the program while the program was still ongoing, but he did not lead it." Bender wrote on June 2, 2019 that he expected "a much more definitive statement from the Pentagon" and that The Intercept's "assertions and innuendo" were wrong. Elizondo, in the Intercept article, did not respond to requests for comment; he told Kloor earlier in 2019 that he was a government contractor "but it's not what you think it is."[^16][^20]
### Galileo Project
On October 30, 2021 Elizondo and Mellon became research affiliates of [[Harvard University|Harvard]]'s [[Galileo Project]]; Elizondo was quoted: "Deliberate and methodical research, along with strict rigor will help ensure the tenets of the scientific method are followed."[^19] The October 2021 announcement credits both with "two years of patient public and private lobbying" behind the June 2021 ODNI report.[^19]
On October 30, 2021 Elizondo and Mellon became research affiliates of [[Harvard University|Harvard]]'s [[Galileo Project]]; Elizondo was quoted: "Deliberate and methodical research, along with strict rigor will help ensure the tenets of the scientific method are followed."[^21] The October 2021 announcement credits both with "two years of patient public and private lobbying" behind the June 2021 ODNI report.[^21]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Elizondo, Luis. *Imminent*. William Morrow, 2024.
[^2]: Bender, Bryan. *Politico Magazine,* May 28, 2021. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/05/28/ufos-secret-history-government-washington-dc-487900
[^3]: U.S. Department of Defense. "Statement by the Department of Defense on the Release of Historical Navy Videos," April 27, 2020. https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2165713/statement-by-the-department-of-defense-on-the-release-of-historical-navy-videos/ (read through the Internet Archive capture, https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2165713/statement-by-the-department-of-defense-on-the-release-of-historical-navy-videos/).
[^4]: [[The Black Vault]], FOIA release of Office of the Secretary of Defense case 18-F-0644, August 2019 (emails of August 23 and 24, 2017 between Luis Elizondo and Michael Russo of the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review, with the DD Form 1910; the form's text is poorly legible in the scan and is quoted as transcribed in the research notes), https://www.theblackvault.com/casefiles/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/18-F-0644.pdf ; Joseph Gradisher quoted in "U.S. Navy Confirms Videos Depict Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, Not Cleared for Public Release," The Black Vault, September 2019, https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/u-s-navy-confirms-videos-depict-unidentified-aerial-phenomena-not-cleared-for-public-release/
[^5]: Luis Elizondo, *Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs* (New York: William Morrow, 2024), pp. 3 to 14 (Caine indexed at p. 5; Reid, Bigelow and Maples at pp. 13 to 14). Page numbers are those of the printed index where it lists the passage.
[^6]: Luis Elizondo, *Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs* (New York: William Morrow, 2024), pp. 82 to 93 (Higgins, Tipton and Pede at pp. 87 to 89; Will at p. 90; office 3C503A at p. 93).
[^7]: Luis Elizondo, *Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs* (New York: William Morrow, 2024), pp. 147 to 202 (Interloper at pp. 147 and 186; Byers at pp. 189 and 217; Tipton at p. 192; resignation letter at p. 202).
[^8]: Luis Elizondo, *Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs* (New York: William Morrow, 2024), pp. 202 to 203 and 211.
[^9]: Luis Elizondo, *Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs* (New York: William Morrow, 2024), pp. 209 to 217 and 238 (Dana White at p. 210; Sherwood at p. 217; deletion at p. 212; Space Force statement at p. 238); photograph captions on the email released in May 2024.
[^10]: NewsNation, "UAP whistleblower says UFO retrieval program exists: NewsNation exclusive," January 16, 2025. https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/uap-whistleblower-ufo-retrieval-program/
[^11]: NewsNation, "Whistleblower reveals UAP retrieval program; object caught on video," January 2025. https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/hfr-uap-recovery-video-egg-shaped-object-exclusive/
[^12]: Alicia Sitz, "UAP whistleblower Luis Elizondo neither confirms nor denies he was part of government secrecy efforts," NewsNation, updated June 30, 2026. https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/luis-elizondo-denies-uap-secrecy-efforts/
[^13]: Steph Whiteside and Alicia Sitz, "Elizondo responds to researcher's 'controlled narrative' role rumors," NewsNation, updated July 29, 2026. https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/elizondo-uap-role-controlled-narrative/
[^14]: Kloor, Keith. "UFOs Won't Go Away." *Issues in Science and Technology,* March 1, 2019. https://issues.org/ufos-wont-go-away/
[^15]: Kloor, Keith. *The Intercept,* June 1, 2019. https://theintercept.com/2019/06/01/ufo-unidentified-history-channel-luis-elizondo-pentagon/
[^16]: Lewis-Kraus, Gideon. *The New Yorker,* May 10, 2021. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/how-the-pentagon-started-taking-ufos-seriously
[^17]: Bender, Bryan. "The Pentagon's Secret Search for UFOs." *Politico Magazine,* December 16, 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/2018id_/https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/16/pentagon-ufo-search-harry-reid-216111 ; Cooper, Helene, Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean. *The New York Times,* December 16, 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/2023id_/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html
[^18]: Greenewald, John, Jr. The Black Vault, June 14, 2019. https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/pentagon-reinforces-mr-luis-elizondo-had-no-responsibilities-on-aatip-senator-harry-reids-2009-memo-changes-nothing
[^19]: The Galileo Project, October 30, 2021. https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/galileo/files/mellon-elizondo_announcement_final_2.pdf (Internet Archive copy).
[^20]: Luis Elizondo, *Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs* (New York: William Morrow, 2024), pp. 202 to 217 (resignation at p. 202; Garry Reid indexed at pp. 143 to 144, 202 to 203, 209, 212, 215 to 217, 238 to 239) and pp. 205 to 207, 218 and 219 (offer from Tom DeLonge, salary cut and end of the arrangement).
[^2]: Luis Elizondo, *Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs* (New York: William Morrow, 2024), pp. 202 to 217 (resignation at p. 202; Garry Reid indexed at pp. 143 to 144, 202 to 203, 209, 212, 215 to 217, 238 to 239) and pp. 205 to 207, 218 and 219 (offer from Tom DeLonge, salary cut and end of the arrangement).
[^3]: Bender, Bryan. *Politico Magazine,* May 28, 2021. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/05/28/ufos-secret-history-government-washington-dc-487900
[^4]: U.S. Department of Defense. "Statement by the Department of Defense on the Release of Historical Navy Videos," April 27, 2020. https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2165713/statement-by-the-department-of-defense-on-the-release-of-historical-navy-videos/ (read through the Internet Archive capture, https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2165713/statement-by-the-department-of-defense-on-the-release-of-historical-navy-videos/).
[^5]: [[The Black Vault]], FOIA release of Office of the Secretary of Defense case 18-F-0644, August 2019 (emails of August 23 and 24, 2017 between Luis Elizondo and Michael Russo of the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review, with the DD Form 1910; the form's text is poorly legible in the scan and is quoted as transcribed in the research notes), https://www.theblackvault.com/casefiles/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/18-F-0644.pdf ; Joseph Gradisher quoted in "U.S. Navy Confirms Videos Depict Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, Not Cleared for Public Release," The Black Vault, September 2019, https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/u-s-navy-confirms-videos-depict-unidentified-aerial-phenomena-not-cleared-for-public-release/
[^6]: Luis Elizondo, *Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs* (New York: William Morrow, 2024), pp. 3 to 14 (Caine indexed at p. 5; Reid, Bigelow and Maples at pp. 13 to 14). Page numbers are those of the printed index where it lists the passage.
[^7]: Luis Elizondo, *Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs* (New York: William Morrow, 2024), pp. 82 to 93 (Higgins, Tipton and Pede at pp. 87 to 89; Will at p. 90; office 3C503A at p. 93).
[^8]: Luis Elizondo, *Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs* (New York: William Morrow, 2024), pp. 147 to 202 (Interloper at pp. 147 and 186; Byers at pp. 189 and 217; Tipton at p. 192; resignation letter at p. 202).
[^9]: Luis Elizondo, *Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs* (New York: William Morrow, 2024), pp. 202 to 203 and 211.
[^10]: Luis Elizondo, *Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs* (New York: William Morrow, 2024), pp. 209 to 217 and 238 (Dana White at p. 210; Sherwood at p. 217; deletion at p. 212; Space Force statement at p. 238); photograph captions on the email released in May 2024.
[^11]: NewsNation, "UAP whistleblower says UFO retrieval program exists: NewsNation exclusive," January 16, 2025. https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/uap-whistleblower-ufo-retrieval-program/
[^12]: NewsNation, "Whistleblower reveals UAP retrieval program; object caught on video," January 2025. https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/hfr-uap-recovery-video-egg-shaped-object-exclusive/
[^13]: Alicia Sitz, "UAP whistleblower Luis Elizondo neither confirms nor denies he was part of government secrecy efforts," NewsNation, updated June 30, 2026. https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/luis-elizondo-denies-uap-secrecy-efforts/
[^14]: Steph Whiteside and Alicia Sitz, "Elizondo responds to researcher's 'controlled narrative' role rumors," NewsNation, updated July 29, 2026. https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/elizondo-uap-role-controlled-narrative/
[^15]: Kloor, Keith. "UFOs Won't Go Away." *Issues in Science and Technology,* March 1, 2019. https://issues.org/ufos-wont-go-away/
[^16]: Kloor, Keith. *The Intercept,* June 1, 2019. https://theintercept.com/2019/06/01/ufo-unidentified-history-channel-luis-elizondo-pentagon/
[^17]: Lewis-Kraus, Gideon. *The New Yorker,* May 10, 2021. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/how-the-pentagon-started-taking-ufos-seriously
[^18]: Bender, Bryan. "The Pentagon's Secret Search for UFOs." *Politico Magazine,* December 16, 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/2018id_/https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/16/pentagon-ufo-search-harry-reid-216111 ; Cooper, Helene, Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean. *The New York Times,* December 16, 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/2023id_/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html
[^19]: Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, information memoranda, "Response to Your Questions on the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) and Actions of Former DoD Employee Luis Elizondo," from Garry Reid, Director for Defense Intelligence, and "Update on Media Reporting Related to the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program," both undated, with Elizondo's resignation letter of October 3, 2017 at Tab B. https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20Room/UFOsandUAPs/18-F-0324_Docs.pdf
[^20]: Greenewald, John, Jr. The Black Vault, June 14, 2019. https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/pentagon-reinforces-mr-luis-elizondo-had-no-responsibilities-on-aatip-senator-harry-reids-2009-memo-changes-nothing
[^21]: The Galileo Project, October 30, 2021. https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/galileo/files/mellon-elizondo_announcement_final_2.pdf (Internet Archive copy).

167
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Marcos Aguado.md
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@ -2,39 +2,170 @@
title: Marcos Aguado
aliases:
- Marcos Aguado
- Marco Aguado
- Marco Antonio Aguado Arguello
- Marcus Aguado
created: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-05-17
category: "Organized Crime"
updated: 2026-10-08
category: "Military"
tags:
- Person
- Intelligence
- CIA
- DrugTrafficker
- Military
- Contras
- ARDE
- Nicaragua
- CostaRica
- 1980s
- ContraWar
- ElSalvador
- Ilopango
- CIADrugTrafficking
- KerrySubcommittee
- DarkAllianceInvestigation
summary: "CIA-trained Nicaraguan pilot who managed drug trafficking logistics for Norwin Meneses and Eden Pastora, later became a colonel in the Salvadoran Air Force at Ilopango."
- 1980s
- 1990s
summary: "Nicaraguan pilot who ran air operations for Eden Pastora's ARDE forces, named in CIA and Senate records of Contra drug allegations, later based at Ilopango in El Salvador."
location: "Nicaragua, Costa Rica, El Salvador"
relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Eden Pastora]]"
start: 1984-09
role: "personal pilot, per the CIA inspector general's Volume II account"
fn: 1
- type: head_of
with: "[[ARDE]]"
start: 1984-09
role: "Chief of Air Operations, FRS/ARDE, per the CIA inspector general's Volume II account"
fn: 1
- type: relative_of
with: "[[Eden Pastora]]"
role: "son-in-law, according to Pastora as recorded by the CIA inspector general"
fn: 1
- type: partner_of
with: "[[Norwin Meneses]]"
start: 1986-05
role: "C-47 sale and business association, per Webb's account of Aguado's statements"
fn: 2
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Contras]]"
start: 1983
end: 1986-05
role: "Southern Front air operations; quit in May 1986 according to Webb"
fn: 1
- type: investigated
with: "[[Kerry Committee]]"
reverse: true
start: 1986-04
end: 1988-12
role: "Senate subcommittee deposition and hearing testimony on Contra drug links"
fn: 4
- type: investigated
with: "[[Fred Hitz]]"
reverse: true
start: 1998-10
role: "CIA inspector general, Volume II review of Contra drug allegations"
fn: 1
---
Marcos Aguado was a [[Central Intelligence Agency]]-trained Nicaraguan pilot and business associate of [[Norwin Meneses]] who managed drug trafficking logistics for the Contra forces, first in [[Costa Rica]] and later at [[Ilopango Airbase|Ilopango Air Force Base]] in [[El Salvador]]. He was identified in 1987 congressional testimony as a CIA agent.[^1]
### Costa Rican Operations
Marcos Aguado, recorded in the official files as Marco Antonio Aguado Arguello and in the Justice Department glossary as Marcus Aguado, was a Nicaraguan pilot who served as air operations chief of [[Eden Pastora]]'s [[ARDE]] forces in [[Costa Rica]] from 1984. [[Central Intelligence Agency]] cables, Senate subcommittee hearings and a [[Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General|Justice Department Inspector General]] review recorded allegations that he was involved in drug trafficking, and the reporter [[Gary Webb]] named him in the [[Dark Alliance]] series. He later worked at [[Ilopango Airbase|Ilopango Air Force Base]] in [[El Salvador]].
Aguado was the chief pilot for [[Eden Pastora]]'s ARDE Contra forces in Costa Rica. He was instrumental in arranging the Contras' 1984 arms-and-drugs deals with Colombian trafficker [[George Morales]]. Aguado moved between the Contra war zones and Colombian drug operations, flying weapons and cocaine as part of the covert supply network. He was formally accused of cocaine trafficking in Costa Rica and became unwelcome in the country.[^1]
### Early service
### Ilopango and the Drug Pipeline
The CIA inspector general's account of Aguado's background states that he was a [[Sandinistas|Sandinista]] Air Force pilot from 1979 to 1980 and then a commercial pilot for [[Aeronica]] until he defected in 1983 and joined the [[Contras]].[^1] Webb's cast of characters calls him a "CIA-trained pilot" and a business associate of [[Norwin Meneses]].[^2] In his October 31, 1987 videotaped deposition, played at the April 1988 hearing, Aguado said that he became head of the southern air force and then second in command to Pastora.[^3]
After [[Oliver North]] set up his resupply operation at Ilopango, Aguado moved there permanently, working as an aide to a high-ranking Salvadoran air force commander. [[Enrique Miranda]] testified that Aguado "became a colonel in the Salvadoran Air Force, sharing all the privileges of a high-ranking military officer in El Salvador and was accepted by subordinate ranks as Deputy Commander of the Salvadoran Air Force." Miranda said Aguado directed flights that "went as far as [[Colombia]], where they were loaded with cocaine and then redirected to the United States, to a U.S. Air Force base located in the state of Texas."[^1]
In an April 1983 cable the agency recorded that Aguado had been offered a job flying an aircraft for the Southern Front. By September 1984 it recorded him as Chief of Air Operations for the [[Sandino Revolutionary Front]] (FRS) and ARDE and as Pastora's personal pilot. According to Pastora, Aguado was also his son-in-law.[^1]
Miranda and former Nicaraguan antidrug czar Roger Mayorga identified the base as near Fort Worth - likely the now-closed Carswell Air Force Base, home of a Strategic Air Command bomber squadron. The U.S. Air Force told FOIA requesters that all flight records that may have shown arrivals and departures of Salvadoran military aircraft during the mid-1980s were destroyed years ago.[^1]
### Air operations for ARDE, 1984 to 1986
Miranda testified that at Ilopango, Aguado and Norwin Meneses supervised the loading of cocaine onto U.S.-bound aircraft owned by the Salvadoran Air Force and, on occasion, the Miami-based CIA contractor [[Southern Air Transport]]. Miranda met Aguado for dinner at Meneses's mansion in [[Managua]] in 1991, where Aguado boasted of flying for the Colombian cartels - including once taking a Salvadoran Air Force bomber to level a warehouse full of [[Medellin Cartel|Medellín cartel]] cocaine on behalf of the rival Cali cartel, and making plans to bomb the prison where Medellín cartel chief Pablo Escobar was briefly imprisoned. Aguado also boasted of flying weapons from the Salvadoran military to the Colombian cartels, a story Miranda said he doubted until a Salvadoran Air Force colonel and associates were arrested in 1992 for selling bombs and high explosives to Colombian drug dealers.[^1]
A December 1984 cable reported that Pastora had designated Aguado "one of his 18 commandantes, to be in charge of air operations and logistics at Ilopango." The same cable said that Aguado had not flown any missions inside [[Nicaragua]] since September 1983, that he "is closely associated with" Pastora, [[Adolfo Chamorro]] and [[Gerardo Duran]], and that "as such he may very well be actively participating in alleged narcotics activities . . . or at least aware of such activities."[^1]
### Role in the Meneses Network
The [[Kerry Committee|Senate subcommittee]] described Aguado in its December 1988 report as "Eden Pastora's air force chief." In his deposition Aguado said that traffickers "took advantage of the anti-Communist sentiment which existed in Central America" and "undoubtedly used it for drug trafficking," and that "They fooled people."[^3][^4] Referring to the Contra resupply operations, he said the traffickers used "the same connections, the same air strips, the same people," and that the drugs "would later on go to the U.S."[^4]
Aguado was a key operative in Norwin Meneses's drug organization, identified as a business associate and logistics coordinator. Miranda testified that "Norwin was selling drugs and tunneled the benefits to the Contras with help of high-ranking military officials of the Salvadoran Army, especially with the help of the head of the Salvadoran Air Force and a Nicaraguan pilot named Marcos Aguado."[^1]
### The Morales aircraft
The subcommittee report reproduces a notarized purchase order dated October 1, 1984, under which a McDonnell-Douglas DC-3, the civilian designation for a C-47, was transferred to Aguado for one dollar, signed by [[George Morales]] as seller and by Aguado as purchaser.[^4] The subcommittee found that $10,000 had been given to Chamorro to cover the cost of moving the aircraft from [[Haiti]] to Ilopango.[^4] The CIA inspector general records a C-47 flown from Haiti to El Salvador by Aguado on October 16, 1984, under an agreement that Chamorro reached in Miami with an unidentified Cuban trafficker.[^1] The subcommittee identifies the trafficker as Morales.[^4]
Between October 18, 1984 and February 12, 1986, the subcommittee reported, some 156,000 pounds of material were moved from Ilopango to airfields in Costa Rica on 24 flights, eleven of them to [[La Penca]] on the Nicaraguan side of the San Juan River.[^4] A [[U.S. Customs Service|Customs]] document furnished to the subcommittee showed that Morales entered the United States from the [[Bahamas]] on October 13, 1984 with Aguado, [[Octaviano Cesar]] and Chamorro, and that the three declared $400,000 in cash and checks. They said the money had been returned to Morales after clearing Customs.[^4]
Webb quotes [[Jonathan Kwitny]]'s 1987 reporting in [[The Nation]] that the C-47 was "repeatedly piloted into and out of Ilopango Air Force Base in El Salvador by Marcos Aguado."[^2] Webb also reports that when Aguado quit the war in May 1986 he sold the aircraft for $30,000, to Meneses, and that in 1997 Aguado said the plane was still being used by Meneses in [[Venezuela]].[^2]
### Where Morales met the Contra leaders
The subcommittee report says that [[Marta Healey]] introduced Morales to Chamorro, Aguado and Cesar at a meeting in [[Miami]], and that Morales was then under indictment for marijuana smuggling. According to the report, each of the three Contra leaders denied knowing of the indictment when they first met Morales at Healey's house in Miami.[^4] Webb places a March 1984 meeting at Morales's offices in [[Fort Lauderdale]].[^2] The Justice Department Inspector General records Morales as saying that after Healey's May 1984 approach he met with Cesar, Chamarro and Aguado in Miami.[^5] [[Celerino Castillo]] writes that Healey, the former wife of Chamorro, approached Morales in 1984 after his second arrest and arranged a meeting with Chamorro, "Southern group air force chief Marcos Aguado" and Cesar, and that Aguado and Cesar told Morales they were CIA agents and asked for financial and military assistance.[^6] Morales told the subcommittee that he agreed to help the Contras "with their needs," and that "they in exchange would help me with my objective, which was solving my indictment."[^4]
The same debriefing places a June 1983 meeting at [[Opa Locka]] airport, attended by members of the [[Medellin Cartel]], which Morales said Aguado and Gerardo Duran had flown a group into. Morales said that Aguado refused to fly the cocaine shipments because of his "CIA connections."[^5]
[[Alan Fiers]], then chief of the agency's Contra program, told the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] on July 31, 1987 that Morales had seen [[John Hull]] in Morales's office with Aguado in 1983, but that Morales had not met Hull.[^7]
### Morales's testimony that they were CIA agents
In the July 15, 1987 hearing Morales testified that the Contra leaders "represent themselves as CIA agents," and that he "heard about they being CIA agents," naming Cesar and Aguado.[^8] At the April 7, 1988 hearing he gave the fuller account that "they told me that they were CIA agents. Two of them said they were," followed by the names of Cesar and Aguado.[^3]
### Cables from 1985 to 1988
A May 1985 cable stated that Aguado, then an FRS/ARDE pilot, could "easily" provide concrete evidence linking [[Karol Prado]], Pastora and other Southern Front Contras to drug trafficking.[^1] A January 1986 cable said that Aguado "should have knowledge of the recent arrest" of Gerardo Duran, which the cable tied to a 600-kilogram shipment of cocaine from Morales.[^1]
In April 1986, Adolfo Chamorro planned to denounce Carol Prado, Eden Pastora and Marco Aguado as being the ones involved in drug trafficking, and said he had the evidence to prove it. A DEA debriefing of Chamorro on April 25, 1986 produced no narcotics information, and the cable reported that "all Chamorro wanted to talk about were politics and war."[^1]
In April 1987 a station reported that an embassy officer had been told that Aguado, Prado, [[David Mayorga]], Chamorro and Duran "are presently involved in shipping cocaine from Nicaragua via Costa Rica to the United States."[^1] In July 1987 a message from Octaviano Cesar said that Aguado wanted to contact the CIA to provide information tying Pastora to "past drug trafficking." The station declined to meet Aguado because of counterintelligence concerns and passed the information to the local DEA office.[^1]
On July 31, 1987, Fiers gave the Senate Intelligence Committee an account of the narcotics allegations concerning Aguado, Cesar, Mayorga, Adolfo and Roberto Chamorro and Duran.[^9]
In March 1988 a station cable reported that [[Reyner Veliz Cruz]], a Guatemalan described as a suspected drug trafficker, had been traveling with Aguado, and that the two had flown twin-engine aircraft into Ilopango in February 1988 and again in March 1988, after customs officers had left. The cable said that Aguado "has bragged that he still works for CIA," that customs personnel at Ilopango "assume that Aguado has connections with drug trafficking," and that Aguado could not obtain a United States visa.[^1][^9]
The agency's own assessment reads: "No information has been found to indicate that CIA ever attempted to develop additional independent information that would confirm or refute the allegations against Aguado."[^1]
### Iran-Contra testimony
[[Robert Owen]], a courier for [[Oliver North]], testified in his [[Iran-Contra Affair|Iran-Contra]] deposition that Aguado was Pastora's pilot: "He was Pastora's pilot. There was concern about him."[^10] The subcommittee report says that Owen told the Iran-Contra committees he had told North that Prado was involved in trafficking drugs out of [[Panama]], and that Pastora's pilot, Marco Aguado, "was also involved." The subcommittee was unable to validate Owen's claims. Prado denied the allegations and said he believed the drug trafficking allegations against Pastora were the result of a CIA effort to discredit him.[^4]
### Costa Rica and the Hull ranch
Webb says Aguado was "formally accused" of cocaine trafficking in Costa Rica and was no longer welcome there.[^2] The CIA inspector general reports that in a March 7, 1989 summary, a Costa Rican judge had charged Hull with "hostile acts" and "drug trafficking." Costa Rican court documents claimed that planes piloted by Duran and Aguado had landed at Hull's airstrips carrying military supplies and, with Hull's knowledge, left loaded with drugs.[^7] Hull has said that the allegations of [[Gary Wayne Betzner]] are "not true, not true!"[^7]
### Ilopango
The Mercury News reported in 1996 that Meneses described Aguado as one of his oldest friends and said he worked for the Salvadoran air force high command.[^11] Webb states that Aguado made arrangements for Pastora's planes to be hangared at Ilopango from 1983 under an agreement with the [[Salvadoran Air Force]].[^2] Soon after North set up his resupply operation at the base, Webb writes, Aguado moved there permanently as an aide to a high-ranking Salvadoran air force commander.[^2] The [[Christian Science Monitor]] reported in October 1986 that the Contras had used Ilopango "at least since 1984," and that General [[Juan Rafael Bustillo]] "has been a major contact person for aiding the contra shipments, according to diplomats and other informed sources."[^12]
The Justice Department Inspector General glossary lists "AGUADO, Marcus" as "Contra pilot at Ilopango Airport, alleged drug trafficker, and reportedly Eden Pastora's representative in El Salvador."[^13]
### Enrique Miranda's account
Webb describes [[Enrique Miranda]] as a former Sandinista intelligence officer who became a CIA double agent during the Contra war. Webb dates Miranda's testimony to a 1992 trial in Nicaragua and quotes it: "Norwin was selling drugs and tunneled the benefits to the Contras with help of high-ranking military officials of the Salvadoran Army, especially with the help of the head of the Salvadoran Air Force and a Nicaraguan pilot named Marcos Aguado."[^2] Webb's notes date the testimony to a Nicaraguan case against Meneses filed in 1991.[^14] The Justice Department Inspector General dates the Nicaraguan trial to 1991 and records Miranda's sentence of fourteen years in August 1992.[^15]
The CIA inspector general summarizes Miranda's allegation that Aguado flew weapons to Medellín, Colombia, during the 1980s and returned with cocaine that he stored at Ilopango.[^1] Miranda told the Justice Department Inspector General's investigators in 1997 that Aguado had said he flew Salvadoran military planes from Ilopango to a military airport in [[Texas]], that Aguado frequently described flying to [[Colombia]] with weapons and returning with cocaine stored at Ilopango, and that American planes then came to El Salvador with weapons and went back to the United States with drugs.[^15] Webb quotes Miranda as saying that Aguado "became a colonel in the Salvadoran Air Force, sharing all the privileges of a high-ranking military officer in El Salvador and was accepted by subordinate ranks as Deputy Commander of the Salvadoran Air Force," and that "The flights he directed went as far as Colombia, where they were loaded with cocaine and then redirected to the United States, to a U.S. Air Force base located in the state of Texas."[^2] Webb reports that Miranda said Aguado and Meneses supervised the loading of cocaine at Ilopango onto U.S.-bound aircraft owned by the Salvadoran Air Force and, on occasion, by [[Southern Air Transport]], a Miami-based CIA contractor.[^2]
Webb reports that Miranda testified he had dined with Aguado at Meneses's mansion in [[Managua]] in 1991, where Aguado described flying for the Colombian cartels. Aguado is quoted as saying that he once took a Salvadoran Air Force bomber and leveled a warehouse of Medellín cartel cocaine on behalf of the rival Cali cartel, and that he planned to bomb the prison where [[Pablo Escobar]] had been briefly held.[^2] Webb reports that Miranda doubted Aguado's boast about flying weapons to the cartels until a Salvadoran Air Force colonel and his associates were arrested in 1992 for selling bombs and high explosives to Colombian drug dealers.[^2]
The inspector general's assessment is that "the failure to report such important information in 1996 makes it difficult to credit Miranda's account in 1997."[^15] The same chapter records that Miranda said Meneses had invited him to watch the Texas operation, but that when pressed he said he had not seen it occur, and that most of what he told the investigators came second-hand, mostly from Meneses.[^15] The CIA inspector general's summary states: "No information has been found to support Miranda's allegations."[^1]
Webb reports that Miranda and former Nicaraguan antidrug official [[Roger Mayorga]] placed the Texas base near [[Fort Worth]], without knowing its name. Webb says that the only air force base near Fort Worth at the time of the alleged flights was the now-closed [[Carswell Air Force Base]], home of a [[Strategic Air Command]] bomber squadron, and that the [[U.S. Air Force]] told a requester in a 1997 Freedom of Information Act case that the flight records for Salvadoran military aircraft in the mid-1980s had been destroyed years ago.[^2]
### The Meneses trailer and the 1991 seizure
The San Jose Mercury News reported on August 18, 1996 that during Meneses's 1991 trial in Nicaragua, Meneses testified that Aguado sold him an auto transport trailer that Meneses's men were stuffing with cocaine when Nicaraguan police arrived. Aguado was not charged, and the newspaper could not reach him for comment.[^11] Webb gives the price as $125,000, and writes that in an interview Aguado denied knowing how Meneses would use the trailer, although Miranda said he was present when Aguado and Meneses discussed drug trafficking one evening at Meneses's mansion.[^2] The Justice Department Inspector General records that Miranda and Meneses were arrested by Nicaraguan authorities in November 1991 in connection with the seizure of 764 kilograms of cocaine bound from Managua to the United States.[^15]
### The 1992 bomb case
In April 1992 [[Semana]] reported that Salvadoran authorities had uncovered a plan to kill Escobar in the [[Envigado]] prison. An immigration officer at San Salvador's airport noticed two Colombians who had changed their names to re-enter El Salvador, and detectives followed them to a February 22, 1992 meeting with [[Roberto Antonio Leiva Jacobo]], whom Semana identified as an army colonel. The Colombians were lost to surveillance on February 25. Semana reports that five 500-pound bombs were taken from a battalion at the San Salvador airport on February 26, that Leiva and his men were arrested on March 4 with one of the bombs, after a small aircraft they had used left with part of the cargo, and that Leiva and his associates confessed that they had been hired by members of the Cali cartel, which paid four million dollars for the bombs.[^16]
### Later record
Webb's cast of characters lists Aguado as "Currently in San Salvador," and describes John Hull as having worked closely with suspected drug traffickers Aguado and [[Dagoberto Nunez]] on Contra projects in Costa Rica.[^2] Webb also writes that Aguado was a close associate of Hull, and that Morales said in testimony that Cesar and Aguado made clear that if he assisted them they could make his legal problems disappear.[^2]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 13: "The wrong kind of friends"
[^1]: CIA Inspector General, *Allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States*, Volume II (October 8, 1998), section on Marcos Antonio Aguado in the Southern Front chapter, https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/south.html
[^2]: Gary Webb, *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion* (Seven Stories Press, 1998), Chapter 13, "The wrong kind of friends," and the Cast of Characters entry for Aguado. Sole source for the passages so cited.
[^3]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy: The Cartel, Haiti and Central America*, Part 3, hearing of April 7, 1988, testimony of Jorge Morales (pp. 297-300) and the videotaped deposition of Marcos Aguado taken October 31, 1987 (pp. 277-286 as cited in the subcommittee report), https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152832_0005
[^4]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy*, S. Prt. 100-165 (December 1988), pp. 37, 50-52 and notes 74-84, https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras
[^5]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, *The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy* (December 1997), Chapter XI, section on the debriefing of George Morales, https://irp.fas.org/agency/doj/oig/c4rpt/ch11p1.htm
[^6]: Celerino Castillo III and Dave Harmon, *Powderburns: Cocaine, Contras and the Drug War* (1994), pp. 141 and 143 (p. 143 also reports that Aguado, Cesar and Karol Prado gave depositions to Senator Kerry in Costa Rica), archive.org lending copy powderburnscocai00cast_0.
[^7]: CIA Inspector General, *Allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States*, Volume II (October 8, 1998), chapter on other individuals (John Hull; March 7, 1989 reporting; July 31, 1987 SSCI briefing transcript), https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/other.html
[^8]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy: Hearings Before the Subcommittees ... May 27, July 15, and October 30, 1987*, Part 1 (1988), testimony of Jorge Morales, July 15, 1987, https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152832_0003 Gary Webb, in Dark Alliance (1998) and its chapter notes to Chapter 13, dates the "CIA agents" statement to "1986 congressional testimony" and gives the dates April 7, 1986 and March 27, 1987.
[^9]: CIA Inspector General, *Allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States*, Volume II (October 8, 1998), chapter on pilots, companies and other individuals (October 24, 1984 Nicaraguan Program Summary; July 31, 1987 Fiers briefing; March 23, 1988 cable on Reyner Veliz Cruz), https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/pilots.html
[^10]: *Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair*, Appendix B, Volume 20, deposition of Robert Owen, pp. 849-850, https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152840_0248
[^11]: San Jose Mercury News, August 18, 1996 (Gary Webb, "Testimony Links U.S. to Drugs-Guns Trade Dealers Got Their 'Own Little Arsenal,'" the Dark Alliance series; newspaper text as reproduced at the URL), https://people.duke.edu/~ldbaker/clippings/da1.html.
[^12]: "Salvador airport said to be transfer point for arms to contras," *Christian Science Monitor*, October 10, 1986, https://proof.csmonitor.com/1986/1010/omerc.html
[^13]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, *The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy* (December 1997), Appendix F (glossary of names), https://irp.fas.org/agency/doj/oig/c4rpt/appf.htm
[^14]: Gary Webb, *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion* (Seven Stories Press, 1998), chapter notes to Chapter 13 (notes on "they told me they were CIA agents" and the Morales hearing dates).
[^15]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, *The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy* (December 1997), Chapter VII, "Enrique Miranda-Jaime," sections A-E, https://irp.fas.org/agency/doj/oig/c4rpt/ch07.htm
[^16]: "¿Bombas contra Escobar?", *Semana*, April 12, 1992, https://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/bombas-contra-escobar/17208-3. Sole source for the 1992 bomb-case details in this section; the Cali cartel link is Semana's report of an unnamed Salvadoran government source and of the arrested men's statements.

23
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Meir Amit.md
View file

@ -2,6 +2,16 @@
aliases:
- Meir Amit
category: "Intelligence & Government"
relations:
- type: head_of
with: "[[Mossad]]"
fn: 2
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Six-Day War]]"
start: 1967-05-31
end: 1967-06-05
role: "Mossad chief; Washington visit and meeting with McNamara before the war"
fn: 2
tags:
- Person
summary: "Meir Amit was the former chief of the Mossad, Israel's national intelligence agency."
@ -12,5 +22,18 @@ location: "Tiberias, Mandatory Palestine"
Meir Amit was the former chief of the [[Mossad]], [[Israel]]'s national intelligence agency. He was one of the high-profile Israeli figures who met with [[Uri Geller]], with reports indicating that Geller bent a spoon for him[^1].
### Washington visit, May 31 to June 2, 1967
Major General Amit, then head of the Mossad, visited Washington from May 31 to June 2, 1967. On the afternoon of June 1 he met Secretary of Defense [[Robert S. McNamara]]. Vice Admiral [[Rufus Taylor]], the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, wrote the memorandum of the conversation, which carries the handling caption "Personal and Eyes Only for the Secretary of Defense and the Director of Central Intelligence."[^2] The memorandum records that Amit described the blockade of the [[Strait of Tiran]] as "window dressing" for a Soviet-backed grand design he called the "Domino Effect," said that time was against Israel, that Israel had mobilized 100,000 people and that a pre-emptive air attack by the United Arab Republic was a main worry, said "there were no differences between the U.S. and the Israelis on the military intelligence picture or its interpretation" and that the Russian story of a planned attack on Syria was "a sheer fabrication," and said his remarks were informal and not an official representation of the Israeli government. McNamara told him he would be seeing the President shortly and would convey his views. After the meeting Amit wondered aloud whether he should have tried to see the President and whether he should stay longer; Taylor told him to go back to Israel as soon as possible.[^2]
At a conference on the war in June 1992, Amit said his objectives had included "to tell the Americans, I, Meir Amit, am going to recommend that our government strike," and said that McNamara told him "it was all right, the president knows that you are here and I have a direct line to the president," and asked how long a war would last, to which Amit answered "Seven days."[^3] [[David S. Robarge]], the CIA's chief historian, writes that [[Richard 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 Helms wrote an "Eyes Only" letter to Johnson that morning forewarning that Israel would probably start a war within days.[^4]
On June 5, 1967, Amit met Ambassador [[Walworth Barbour]] and the presidential special counsel Harry C. McPherson, Jr. in Tel Aviv. [[Walt Rostow]] told Johnson that Amit argued there had been artillery fire on three Israeli villages and air incursions, and that the Israelis had then "punched all the buttons," and added: "At least that's his story."[^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]: 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
[^3]: 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), with the editors' note quoting Amit at the conference of June 3 to 5, 1992, in Richard B. Parker, ed., The Six-Day War: A Retrospective (University Press of Florida, 1996), pp. 139-140. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d124
[^4]: 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.
[^5]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 158, editors' note on telegram 3937 from Tel Aviv, June 5, 1967. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d158

41
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Moshe Dayan.md
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@ -5,12 +5,12 @@ tags:
- Stargate
- CIA
- Military
summary: "Dayan's rise to prominence began when David Ben-Gurion appointed him as the new army chief of staff in late 1953, with the strategic aim of ensuring that Moshe Sharett's dovish views on the Arab question would not go unchallenged."
summary: "Israeli chief of staff, Defense Minister during the 1967 and 1973 wars and Foreign Minister, associated with the nuclear weapons program and in office during the 1967 USS Liberty attack."
born: 1915-05-20
died: 1981-10-16
location: "Deganya Alef, Ottoman Palestine"
---
[[Moshe Dayan]] (1915–1981) was a highly prominent [[Israel|Israeli]] military leader and politician, famous for his signature black eye-patch and his pivotal role in shaping [[Israel]]'s military doctrine and nuclear policy. Throughout his career, he served in various high-level positions including army chief of staff, Defense Minister, and Foreign Minister, while also developing an unusual passion for archaeological treasure hunting.[^1][^2][^3]
Moshe Dayan (1915 to 1981) was a highly prominent [[Israel|Israeli]] military leader and politician, famous for his signature black eye-patch and his pivotal role in shaping Israel's military doctrine and nuclear policy. Throughout his career, he served in various high-level positions including army chief of staff, Defense Minister, and Foreign Minister, while also developing an unusual passion for archaeological treasure hunting.[^1][^2][^3]
### Early Military Leadership
@ -18,35 +18,37 @@ Dayan's rise to prominence began when [[David Ben-Gurion]] appointed him as the
### Major Military Campaigns and Nuclear Policy
As Defense Minister, [[Moshe Dayan|Dayan]] emerged as a hero of the 1956 [[Suez Crisis]] campaign, establishing his reputation as a formidable military strategist. His influence continued to grow, and in 1967, he became Defense Minister as part of the reconstituted coalition government under [[Levi Eshkol]]. In this capacity, he oversaw the capture of [[East Jerusalem]] during the 1967 [[Six-Day War]], cementing his status as one of [[Israel]]'s most celebrated military leaders.[^2]
As Defense Minister, Dayan emerged as a hero of the 1956 [[Suez Crisis]] campaign, establishing his reputation as a formidable military strategist. His influence continued to grow, and in 1967, he became Defense Minister as part of the reconstituted coalition government under [[Levi Eshkol]]. In this capacity, he oversaw the capture of [[East Jerusalem]] during the 1967 [[Six-Day War]], cementing his status as one of Israel's most celebrated military leaders.[^2]
Dayan's involvement in [[Israel]]'s nuclear program was extensive and controversial. He was Defense Minister when [[Israel]] agreed to show the [[Dimona]] to [[United States|American]] inspectors, and when [[Israel]] refused to sign a [[United Nations]] agreement not to test nuclear weapons. During the 1973 [[Yom Kippur War]], when [[Syria|Syrian]] forces penetrated the [[Golan Heights]], [[Moshe Dayan|Dayan]] made the dramatic decision to order the arming of all 13 [[Israel|Israeli]] nuclear bombs and put 24 [[B-52 bombers]] on standby, bringing the region perilously close to nuclear conflict.[^2]
Dayan's involvement in Israel's nuclear program was extensive and controversial. He was Defense Minister when Israel agreed to show the [[Dimona]] to [[United States|American]] inspectors, and when Israel refused to sign a [[United Nations]] agreement not to test nuclear weapons. During the 1973 [[Yom Kippur War]], when [[Syria|Syrian]] forces penetrated the [[Golan Heights]], Dayan made the dramatic decision to order the arming of all 13 Israeli nuclear bombs and put 24 [[B-52 bombers]] on standby, bringing the region perilously close to nuclear conflict.[^2]
His tenure as Defense Minister also included oversight of controversial military actions, including when [[Israel]] bombed the [[USS Liberty]] in 1967. Additionally, he managed [[Israel|Israel's]] efforts to develop its nuclear capabilities with new international partners, particularly [[South Africa]], after [[France]] severed relations following the 1967 war.[^2]
A telegram from the American embassy in Tel Aviv of June 27, 1967 reported that Dayan's popularity had increased in recent weeks and that he "has been associated with those favoring the nuclear weapons development," and that if his star, and that of his associates Peres and Ben-Gurion, "who made the decisions to build Dimona," continued to rise, Israel might be led closer to the nuclear route.[^4] Hersh reports, on the account of [[James H. Critchfield]], that after the war Dayan and [[Zvi Zamir]] joined Critchfield and [[James Jesus Angleton]] of the CIA in an attempt to open land-for-peace negotiations with King Hussein of Jordan, and that the effort was stopped at a White House meeting.[^5]
Dayan's drive for the bomb was heightened by his conviction that [[Israel]] could not depend on [[America]] to deter a Soviet attack. He believed that [[Moscow]] would be willing to come to the aid of the Arabs to protect its prestige and international interests, and that unless [[Israel]] armed itself fully, the superpowers would dictate events in the [[Middle East]]. In Dayan's view, [[Israel]]'s survival was dependent on its ability to mass-produce nuclear weapons and target them at the [[Soviet Union]], mirroring [[France]]'s *force de frappe*.[^4]
His tenure as Defense Minister also included the June 8, 1967 attack on the [[USS Liberty Incident|USS Liberty]], in which jet aircraft strafed the ship and torpedo boats torpedoed it.[^6] A CIA memorandum of June 21, 1967 states that IDF Headquarters had identified the ship "probably more than four hours before the attack"; the Israeli court of inquiry's preliminary findings, as read to the American naval attache on June 17, called the attack an "innocent mistake."[^7][^8] Additionally, he managed Israel's efforts to develop its nuclear capabilities with new international partners, particularly [[South Africa]], after [[France]] severed relations following the 1967 war.[^2]
Dayan's mission in late 1967 and early 1968 was to convince his fellow cabinet members that a credible Israeli nuclear threat would deter the Soviets from supporting an all-out Arab attack on [[Israel]] or supplying an Arab nation with nuclear weapons. He envisioned a scenario where Israeli intelligence agents would secretly inform their Soviet counterparts once [[Dimona]]'s assembly line went into full production, and when [[Israel]] developed its first bomb in a suitcase. For the rest of the world, including the [[United States]], there would still be studied ambiguity on the question of whether [[Israel]] had the bomb, thus giving birth to the argument for an Israeli "bomb in the basement."[^4]
Dayan's drive for the bomb was heightened by his conviction that Israel could not depend on [[America]] to deter a Soviet attack. He believed that [[Moscow]] would be willing to come to the aid of the Arabs to protect its prestige and international interests, and that unless Israel armed itself fully, the superpowers would dictate events in the [[Middle East]]. In Dayan's view, Israel's survival was dependent on its ability to mass-produce nuclear weapons and target them at the [[Soviet Union]], mirroring France's *force de frappe*.[^9]
During the 1973 [[Yom Kippur War]], Dayan's panic on Monday, October 8, was widely known among Israelis. He assessed the situation as desperate, stating, "Everything is lost. We must withdraw." This led to a dramatic meeting in [[Golda Meir]]'s office, where the Israeli leadership resolved to implement three critical decisions: rally its collapsing forces for a major counterattack; arm and target its nuclear arsenal in the event of total collapse and subsequent need for the [[Samson Option]]; and inform [[Washington, D.C.]] of its unprecedented nuclear action to demand an emergency airlift of replacement arms and ammunition.[^5]
Dayan's mission in late 1967 and early 1968 was to convince his fellow cabinet members that a credible Israeli nuclear threat would deter the Soviets from supporting an all-out Arab attack on Israel or supplying an Arab nation with nuclear weapons. He envisioned a scenario where Israeli intelligence agents would secretly inform their Soviet counterparts once Dimona's assembly line went into full production, and when Israel developed its first bomb in a suitcase. For the rest of the world, including the United States, there would still be studied ambiguity on the question of whether Israel had the bomb, thus giving birth to the argument for an Israeli "bomb in the basement."[^9]
Dayan's standing among his peers in the military and the upper echelons of the Israeli government declined due to his incessant womanizing, financial dealings, and propensity to talk. He was considered a "loose cannon" at a time when [[Israel]] was in a precarious situation. While he lost no authority, it was eventually made clear to him that he was no longer welcome at [[Dimona]], as he no longer had a military need to know anything about the Israeli nuclear program, which was being managed out of the prime minister's office.[^5]
During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Dayan's panic on Monday, October 8, was widely known among Israelis. He assessed the situation as desperate, stating, "Everything is lost. We must withdraw." This led to a dramatic meeting in [[Golda Meir]]'s office, where the Israeli leadership resolved to implement three critical decisions: rally its collapsing forces for a major counterattack; arm and target its nuclear arsenal in the event of total collapse and subsequent need for the [[Samson Option]]; and inform [[Washington, D.C.]] of its unprecedented nuclear action to demand an emergency airlift of replacement arms and ammunition.[^10]
His perspective on the Palestinian problem remained notably limited. Along with [[Golda Meir]], he believed the Palestinian issue would eventually resolve itself, a view that reflected the thinking of many [[Israel|Israeli]] leaders of his generation but would prove overly optimistic in the decades that followed.[^2]
Dayan's standing among his peers in the military and the upper echelons of the Israeli government declined due to his incessant womanizing, financial dealings, and propensity to talk. He was considered a "loose cannon" at a time when Israel was in a precarious situation. While he lost no authority, it was eventually made clear to him that he was no longer welcome at Dimona, as he no longer had a military need to know anything about the Israeli nuclear program, which was being managed out of the prime minister's office.[^10]
His perspective on the Palestinian problem remained notably limited. Along with Golda Meir, he believed the Palestinian issue would eventually resolve itself, a view that reflected the thinking of many Israeli leaders of his generation but would prove overly optimistic in the decades that followed.[^2]
### Archaeological Pursuits and Psychic Collaborations
Beyond his official duties, Dayan developed an illicit pastime of digging up archaeological treasures across [[Israel]] and the [[Sinai Desert|Sinai]] without a license or scientific oversight. His unconventional method for finding ancient sites often involved "visions" he experienced early in the morning. He would then drive to these sites, comb through the earth, and bring home relics for display in his home. The dangers of this unauthorized archaeological work became evident in 1968, when he was badly injured by a landslide while looting artifacts from a cave.[^1]
Beyond his official duties, Dayan developed an illicit pastime of digging up archaeological treasures across Israel and the [[Sinai Desert|Sinai]] without a license or scientific oversight. His unconventional method for finding ancient sites often involved "visions" he experienced early in the morning. He would then drive to these sites, comb through the earth, and bring home relics for display in his home. The dangers of this unauthorized archaeological work became evident in 1968, when he was badly injured by a landslide while looting artifacts from a cave.[^1]
In the summer of 1970, Dayan began an unusual collaboration with [[Uri Geller]], who was then becoming [[Israel|Israel's]] most famous psychic. Geller recalls spending hours over maps, using an ancient form of [[Clairvoyance|clairvoyance]] called [[Dowsing]] to help Dayan locate ancient artifacts and archaeological finds illegally. Reflecting on this period, Geller later stated, "I was young and naïve at the time. Here I was, talking to the Moshe Dayan."[^1]
In the summer of 1970, Dayan began an unusual collaboration with [[Uri Geller]], who was then becoming Israel's most famous psychic. Geller recalls spending hours over maps, using an ancient form of [[Clairvoyance|clairvoyance]] called [[Dowsing]] to help Dayan locate ancient artifacts and archaeological finds illegally. Reflecting on this period, Geller later stated, "I was young and naïve at the time. Here I was, talking to the Moshe Dayan."[^1]
This controversial partnership came to an end in 1971 after a group of twenty [[Israel|Israeli]] archaeologists signed a petition urging Dayan to give up his "legally questionable hobby." While Dayan discussed his illegally acquired collection in his 1978 memoir, _Living with the Bible_, he notably did not mention using Geller as a map dowser, perhaps seeking to distance himself from the more eccentric aspects of his archaeological pursuits.[^1]
This controversial partnership came to an end in 1971 after a group of twenty Israeli archaeologists signed a petition urging Dayan to give up his "legally questionable hobby." While Dayan discussed his illegally acquired collection in his 1978 memoir, _Living with the Bible_, he notably did not mention using Geller as a map dowser, perhaps seeking to distance himself from the more eccentric aspects of his archaeological pursuits.[^1]
### Diplomatic Career and Political Philosophy
In his later political career, [[Moshe Dayan|Dayan]] transitioned to diplomatic roles, serving as Foreign Minister and becoming a key figure who urged [[Menachem Begin]] to sign the [[Camp David summit|Camp David Accords]]. [[Menachem Begin|Begin]] reluctantly agreed to the accords under significant pressure from [[Jimmy Carter|Carter]], with Dayan's advocacy playing a crucial role in this historic peace agreement.[^2]
In his later political career, Dayan transitioned to diplomatic roles, serving as Foreign Minister and becoming a key figure who urged [[Menachem Begin]] to sign the [[Camp David summit|Camp David Accords]]. Begin reluctantly agreed to the accords under significant pressure from [[Jimmy Carter|Carter]], with Dayan's advocacy playing a crucial role in this historic peace agreement.[^2]
Despite his military prowess and diplomatic involvement, Dayan's perspective on the Palestinian problem remained notably limited. Along with [[Golda Meir]], he believed the Palestinian issue would eventually resolve itself, a view that reflected the thinking of many [[Israel|Israeli]] leaders of his generatzion but would prove overly optimistic in the decades that followed.[^2]
Despite his military prowess and diplomatic involvement, Dayan's perspective on the Palestinian problem remained notably limited. Along with Golda Meir, he believed the Palestinian issue would eventually resolve itself, a view that reflected the thinking of many Israeli leaders of his generatzion but would prove overly optimistic in the decades that followed.[^2]
### Publications
@ -57,5 +59,10 @@ Despite his military prowess and diplomatic involvement, Dayan's perspective on
[^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]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. _Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network_. TrineDay, 1992.
[^3]: Hersh, Seymour M. _The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy_. Random House, 1991. Chapter 3.
[^4]: Hersh, Seymour M. _The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy_. Random House, 1991. Chapter 13.
[^5]: Hersh, Seymour M. _The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy_. Random House, 1991. Chapter 17.
[^4]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 326, Telegram 4311 from the Embassy in Israel (Barbour) to the Department of State, June 27, 1967. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d326
[^5]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 14, p. 185, footnote. Sole source for the passages so cited.
[^6]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 284, Intelligence Memorandum, "The Israeli Attack on the USS Liberty," June 13, 1967, with source note on Helms's notes of the June 12 meeting and Rostow's covering memorandum of June 13. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d284
[^7]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 317, Intelligence Memorandum, June 21, 1967. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d317
[^8]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 307, Telegram from the Defense Attache Office in Israel to the White House, June 18, 1967, "Israeli Court of Inquiry in USS Liberty incident." https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d307
[^9]: Hersh, Seymour M. _The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy_. Random House, 1991. Chapter 13.
[^10]: Hersh, Seymour M. _The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy_. Random House, 1991. Chapter 17.

12
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Octaviano Cesar.md
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@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ title: Octaviano Cesar
aliases:
- Octaviano Cesar
created: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-10-08
category: "Organized Crime"
tags:
- Person
@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ Octaviano Cesar was the former social director of [[Norwin Meneses]]'s VIP night
### Drug Deals for the Contras
In March 1984, Cesar and two other Contra officials close to the CIA - ARDE logistics chief Adolfo "Popo" Chamorro and ARDE air force commander [[Marcos Aguado]] - met with Colombian drug trafficker [[George Morales]] at his offices in Fort Lauderdale and asked him to contribute to [[Eden Pastora|Eden Pastora's]] [[ARDE]] Contra army. "During our conversation they told me they were CIA agents. Two of them said they were, Octaviano Cesar and Marcos Aguado," Morales testified before Congress.[^1]
In March 1984, Cesar and two other Contra officials close to the CIA, ARDE logistics chief [[Adolfo Chamorro|Adolfo "Popo" Chamorro]] and ARDE air force commander [[Marcos Aguado]], met with Colombian drug trafficker [[George Morales]] at his offices in Fort Lauderdale and asked him to contribute to [[Eden Pastora|Eden Pastora's]] [[ARDE]] Contra army. "During our conversation they told me they were CIA agents. Two of them said they were, Octaviano Cesar and Marcos Aguado," Morales testified before the Senate subcommittee, on July 15, 1987 and again on April 7, 1988.[^1][^2][^3]
Cesar assured Morales that if he assisted the Contras, his pending cocaine indictment would be resolved through CIA intervention. Cesar "told me he had plenty of friends, being him, the CIA, can advise the superiors about my financial support and airplane and training and therefore they will finally, eventually, will take care of my problem, which they did," Morales testified.[^1]
@ -33,6 +33,14 @@ In a 1996 interview with the Washington Post, Cesar said the CIA was fully aware
When money from drug sales was collected, Carrasco delivered it to Cesar and Chamorro, "sometimes in the United States, sometimes in Costa Rica. . .I paid a lot of money, maybe millions." After the exposure of Pastora's involvement with drug dealers, Cesar quickly joined forces with the CIA's new Contra army replacing Pastora.[^1]
### The 1984 Bahamas Trip
A Customs Service record given to the Senate subcommittee showed Morales entering the United States from the [[Bahamas]] on October 13, 1984 with Cesar, Aguado and Chamorro, and the three declared $400,000 in cash and checks, which they said had been returned to Morales after clearing customs. Cesar's videotaped deposition of October 31, 1987 in San José was played at the April 1988 hearing; the subcommittee reported that Cesar, Aguado and Karol Prado each denied receiving more than $10,000 from Morales personally and each confirmed elements of Morales's account.[^4] In April 1987 CIA Security interviewed Cesar about his association with Morales. Cesar said the purpose of the Bahamas trip was to test Aguado's flying skills, and that he knew of no other purpose until the return flight, when Morales asked Cesar and Chamorro to claim several checks as theirs when clearing U.S. Customs. He said he had suspected Morales was involved with drug money, but that his wish to help the Southern Front drove him to work with Morales.[^5]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 11: "They were looking in the other direction"
[^2]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy: Hearings ... May 27, July 15, and October 30, 1987*, Part 1 (1988), testimony of Jorge Morales, July 15, 1987, https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152832_0003
[^3]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy: The Cartel, Haiti and Central America*, Part 3, hearing of April 7, 1988, testimony of Jorge Morales (pp. 297 to 300) and videotaped depositions of October 31, 1987, https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152832_0005. Gary Webb, in Dark Alliance (1998), dates the "CIA agents" statement to 1986 congressional testimony, and his chapter notes give April 7, 1986 and March 27, 1987.
[^4]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy*, S. Prt. 100-165 (December 1988), pp. 37, 50 to 52, https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras
[^5]: CIA Inspector General, *Allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States*, Volume II (October 8, 1998), Octaviano Cesar section of the Southern Front chapter, https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/south.html

6
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Richard DeLauer.md
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@ -9,11 +9,17 @@ summary: "Richard DeLauer was the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Eng
born: 1918-09-26
died: 1990-04-22
location: "Oakland, California"
updated: 2026-10-08
---
Richard DeLauer was the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. He was an alumnus of [[California Institute of Technology|Caltech]], the same institution where [[Qian Xuesen|H. S. Tsien]] had studied and co-founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory[^1].
DeLauer was aware of the power and influence wielded by Tsien, whom he called the "elder statesman" of Chinese scientific technology and development. After receiving [[Hal Puthoff]]'s sixty-page classified report, "Psychoenergetics Research in the People’s Republic of China (1982)," and a back-up briefing, DeLauer signed a memo allocating additional resources, Program Six funds, for the psychic research program [[Stargate Project|Grill Flame]] (later renamed Star Gate)[^1].
An INSCOM information paper of February 21, 1983 states that "The Under Secretary of Defense (Research and Engineering) Memo dated 19 Jan 83, has lifted the prohibition on the use of P6 funds in support of Project GRILL FLAME," that the Director of the GDIP Program, Mr. Hurwitz, "wrote the Memo for the Under Secretary," and that one of Hurwitz's objectives was to "Keep the SRI team intact - Use the Dr DeLaurer Memo to get funds to SRI." The paper states that, based on the memorandum, Dr. [[Jack Vorona]] of the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] had obtained or received a commitment of $200,000 from [[DARPA]].[^2] A paper of February 28, 1983 asks the assistant chief of staff for intelligence to clarify the wording of the "Dr DeLauer Memo," quoting it as stating "... Program 6 resources may be used to maintain the current Army INSCOM capability...", and whether it limits INSCOM to the five people authorized by Congress in fiscal 1982.[^3]
### 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]: INSCOM information paper IAOPS-H-S, "GRILL FLAME," February 21, 1983, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100350001-2. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00788R001100350001-2.pdf
[^3]: INSCOM information paper IAOPS-H, "Information for ACSI-INSCOM Meeting," February 28, 1983, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700030007-5. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00788R001700030007-5.pdf

15
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Richard S. Cesaro.md
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@ -7,9 +7,18 @@ tags:
- Person
- Researcher
summary: "Under Cesaro's direction, scientists with Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory constructed an elaborate facility inside the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research."
relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[DARPA|Advanced Research Projects Agency]]"
start: 1967
role: "Advanced Sensors office (acting director in September 1967)"
fn: 2
updated: 2026-10-08
---
Richard S. Cesaro was a scientist at the [[Advanced Research Projects Agency]] (ARPA) and was in charge of [[Project Pandora]], a classified program initiated by the [[Pentagon]] to duplicate the effects of the [[Moscow Signal]]. The Moscow Signal was a series of microwave beams aimed at the [[U.S. Embassy in Moscow]] by the [[Soviet Union]], believed to be an [[Electromagnetic Weapons|electromagnetic weapon]] designed to adversely affect the behavior of embassy personnel[^1].
Richard S. Cesaro was a scientist at the [[DARPA|Advanced Research Projects Agency]] (ARPA) and was in charge of [[Project Pandora]], a classified program initiated by the [[Pentagon]] to duplicate the effects of the [[Moscow Signal]]. The Moscow Signal was a series of microwave beams aimed at the [[U.S. Embassy in Moscow]] by the [[Soviet Union]], believed to be an [[Electromagnetic Weapons|electromagnetic weapon]] designed to adversely affect the behavior of embassy personnel[^1].
A declassified ARPA memorandum of September 27, 1967, ARPA-AS-TS-67-20, on Project BIZARRE, addressed to the Director of Defense Research and Engineering, is signed by Cesaro as acting director of Advanced Sensors. It refers to Top Secret memoranda of the Deputy Director, Advanced Sensors, of December 15, 1966 and June 28, 1967 on Projects PANDORA and BIZARRE, and to an Air Force Avionics Laboratory memorandum of August 15, 1967 addressed to "Mr. Cesaro." It reports that the latest embassy power levels "were always below 50 microwatts/cm2 (. 05 mw/cm2)," and states that "The ARPA test results have demonstrated the feasibility of causing adverse biological effects on the central nervous system of primates."[^2]
Under Cesaro's direction, scientists with [[Johns Hopkins University]]'s Applied Physics Laboratory constructed an elaborate facility inside the [[Walter Reed Army Institute of Research]]. There, in an anechoic chamber, primates were irradiated with microwave beams with a power density similar to that of the Moscow Signal[^1].
@ -20,4 +29,6 @@ Cesaro vehemently disagreed with those who insisted the Moscow Signal was harmle
In 1969, the [[Department of Defense]] quietly expanded ARPA's Project Pandora to include "the human," with highly classified studies code-named Big Boy and Project Bizarre projecting microwave beams at unwitting sailors stationed in the Philadelphia Naval Yard[^1].
### 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.
[^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]: ARPA memorandum ARPA-AS-TS-67-20, "Project BIZARRE," September 27, 1967, signed Richard S. Cesaro, Acting Director, Advanced Sensors, declassified copy, National Security Archive. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/sites/default/files/documents/rhwvuj-tzy4b/08.pdf

124
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Stephen Deckoff.md
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@ -1,7 +1,9 @@
---
aliases:
- Stephen H. Deckoff
- Stephen Henry Deckoff
- Steve Deckoff
- Deckoff
category: "Business & Finance"
tags:
- Person
@ -9,52 +11,134 @@ tags:
- HedgeFund
- VirginIslands
- JeffreyEpstein
- EpsteinLibrary
- Property
- EconomicDevelopmentCommission
summary: "Stephen Deckoff is the founder of Black Diamond Capital Management and a U.S. Virgin Islands resident since 2011 who bought Jeffrey Epstein's Little St. James and Great St. James from the estate in 2023."
- CampaignFinance
summary: "Stephen H. Deckoff is the founder of Black Diamond Capital Management, a Virgin Islands resident since 2011, whose entity SD Investments bought Jeffrey Epstein's Little St. James and Great St. James in 2023."
location: "St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands"
relations:
- type: founded
with: "[[Black Diamond Capital Management]]"
role: "founder and managing principal"
fn: 1
role: "founder, 1995"
start: 1995
fn: 3
- type: head_of
with: "[[Black Diamond Capital Management]]"
role: "managing principal (Form ADV Schedule A)"
fn: 4
- type: owned
with: "[[SD Investments]]"
fn: 1
role: "member, 75 percent or more (Form ADV Schedule B)"
start: 1997-02
fn: 4
- type: owned
with: "[[Little St. James]]"
start: 2023-05
role: "through SD Investments"
fn: 1
fn: 2
- type: owned
with: "[[Great St. James]]"
start: 2023-05
role: "through SD Investments"
fn: 1
fn: 2
- type: director_of
with: "[[KVH Industries]]"
start: 2026-08-20
role: "director (Form 4 dated August 20, 2026)"
fn: 20
- type: funded
with: "[[Emmer for Congress]]"
start: 2025-05-27
role: "two itemized contributions of 3,500 dollars each, 7,000 dollars total"
fn: 23
created: 2026-09-25
updated: 2026-09-25
updated: 2026-10-08
---
Stephen Deckoff is an American investor, founder and managing principal of the credit and distressed-investment firm [[Black Diamond Capital Management]], and a resident of the [[U.S. Virgin Islands]] since 2011. In May 2023 his firm SD Investments bought [[Little St. James]] and [[Great St. James]], the two islands off [[St. Thomas]] owned by [[Jeffrey Epstein]], from Epstein's estate for 60 million dollars, less than half the 125 million dollar asking price set in March 2022, announcing a 25-room luxury resort to open in 2025. As of February 2026 no resort had been built and the only construction permit he had sought was for a warehouse. Companies affiliated with Black Diamond have held tax benefits from the territory's [[Economic Development Commission]] since 2012, and a 2014 email in the [[Epstein Files|Epstein files]] shows Epstein's accountant [[Richard Kahn]] asking Epstein's pilot to look into the firm; Deckoff's name does not appear in the files, and it is unclear whether the two men had any association.[^1][^2][^3]
Stephen H. Deckoff is an American investor, the founder and managing principal of the credit and distressed-investment firm [[Black Diamond Capital Management]], and a resident of the [[U.S. Virgin Islands]] since 2011.[^1] In May 2023 his entity [[SD Investments]] bought [[Little St. James]] and [[Great St. James]], the two islands off [[St. Thomas]] that had belonged to [[Jeffrey Epstein]], from Epstein's estate for 60 million dollars, less than half of the initial asking price of 125 million dollars.[^1][^2]
### Black Diamond
### Early career
Deckoff founded Black Diamond Capital Management, and in the SD Investments announcement described his career as "crafting and executing plans to turn distressed situations into successful enterprises, across numerous companies and industries." Black Diamond has related companies including Black Diamond Advisors and Black Diamond Holdings, both of which have received Economic Development Commission tax-incentive benefits since 2012, the same program under which Epstein's [[Southern Trust Company]] received its certificate. SD Investments said Deckoff had supported the territory's economic development after the back-to-back hurricanes of 2017 closed several of its resorts.[^1][^2]
Forbes described Deckoff as a native of New York City who moved to the Virgin Islands in 2011. Forbes reported that he built a fortune in private equity, working his way up at several firms, including [[Drexel Burnham|Drexel Burnham Lambert]], [[Bear Stearns]] and [[Kidder, Peabody & Co.]], before striking out on his own in 1995 with Black Diamond Capital. Forbes estimated his net worth at 3 billion dollars and said the firm managed some 9 billion dollars in assets.[^1] The firm's website as archived in 2020 stated that it was founded in 1995 by Deckoff and managed more than 8 billion dollars across credit, distressed-credit and private-equity platforms.[^3] The May 2023 release described his career as "crafting and executing plans to turn distressed situations into successful enterprises, across numerous companies and industries," and said that after the back-to-back hurricanes of 2017 closed several territorial resorts he had supported the area's economic development.[^2]
### Epstein's Staff and Black Diamond, 2014
### Black Diamond Capital Management
On May 16, 2014, Kahn asked Epstein's pilot [[Larry Visoski]] to "poke around tonight about Black Diamond Trading," having heard that the company was trying to buy the St. Thomas Jet Center. "They appear to be an nyc hedge fund" with "an office in stt as an EDC company as well," Kahn wrote. "who are principals? type of plane? tail? anything else relevant." Visoski replied, "Here you go Rich ask and ye shall receive," supplied the tail number of the Black Diamond Learjet, said the aircraft would be arriving on St. Thomas soon, and asked, "can you ask if you want me to introduce myself?" Kahn forwarded the information to Epstein with links to Black Diamond Capital Management's website, told him that "Larry has obtained some good info on them," and asked whether Visoski should "meet the aircraft and poke around." Visoski was listed as sole manager of Plan D LLC, the Virgin Islands company that owned Epstein's Gulfstream, until a July 2019 filing named Epstein as its principal.[^2][^4]
The principal office of the firm, as given in its Form ADV filed with the [[Securities and Exchange Commission|U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission]], is 5330 Yacht Haven Grande in St. Thomas, with a mailing address in [[Stamford, Connecticut]]. Item 5.F of the filing reports total regulatory assets under management of 10,714,142,774 dollars. Schedule A lists Deckoff as managing principal and a control person with an ownership code of E, meaning 75 percent or more. Schedule B lists SD Investments, LLC, a domestic entity, as holding 75 percent or more of [[Black Diamond Capital Holdings]], and lists Deckoff as holding 75 percent or more of SD Investments. The firm's state notice filings are dated 2010 for Connecticut and April 1, 2013 for the Virgin Islands.[^4]
### The Islands
The Epstein estate listed the two islands in March 2022 at 125 million dollars. Under the estate's November 2022 settlement with the Virgin Islands government, half the proceeds of the Little St. James sale went to the territory, about 11 million dollars, and the estate was required to sell both islands to independent third parties and wind down its business in the territory. SD Investments announced the purchase on May 3, 2023. "I've been proud to call the U.S. Virgin Islands home for more than a decade and am tremendously pleased to be able to bring the area a world-class destination befitting its natural grace and beauty," Deckoff said.[^1][^3][^5]
### Business card in the Epstein Library
Deckoff applied in December 2025 for a Coastal Zone Management major permit to replace a metal-framed warehouse on Little St. James with an 8,800 square foot semicircular concrete warehouse over a cistern. The territory's Coastal Zone Management director, Marlon Hibbert, said in February 2026 that the application remained incomplete because no environmental assessment had been submitted. Attempts to reach Deckoff for comment were unsuccessful.[^2]
A business card for "Stephen H. Deckoff, Managing Principal" at Black Diamond Capital Management, L.L.C., with an office at One Sound Shore Drive in Greenwich, Connecticut, appears in the [[Epstein Files]] material released by the [[U.S. Department of Justice]] in Data Set 9 as document EFTA01204007, a single-page photograph of the card lying on a concrete surface, with the telephone and fax numbers redacted. The card is undated.[^5][^6] The document numbered immediately before it in the same data set, EFTA01204006, is a screenshot of the [[ForeFlight]] aviation application on an iPad on the AT&T network, with the device clock at 5:49 PM, a weather radar timestamp of 5:40 PM AST, and the route "TIST KEWR" (Cyril E. King Airport, St. Thomas, to [[Newark Liberty International Airport]]) entered in the search field and drawn on the map.[^7]
### Epstein's staff and Black Diamond, 2014
On May 16, 2014, at 5:15 PM, Epstein's accountant [[Richard Kahn]] wrote to Epstein's pilot [[Larry Visoski]]: "Can you poke around tonight about Black Diamond Trading as Danny says they are trying to buy Jet Center." Kahn added, "They appear to be an nyc hedge fund with an office in stt as an EDC company as well," and asked, "who are principals? type of plane? tail? anything else relevant.."[^8]
At 5:40 PM Visoski replied with a message reading "LearJet 60," "N114BD," and "Is Blackdiamond." At 6:08 PM he wrote, "Here you go Rich ask and ye shall receive," and "They arrived this evening at 7 PM in the Learjet, can you ask if you want me to introduce myself?"[^8][^9]
At 6:17 PM Eastern Daylight Time, according to the quoted header in the reply, Kahn forwarded the exchange to Epstein. He wrote, "after speaking with Danny it appears these are the black diamond guys trying to buy aircraft," linked two pages of the firm's website, wrote that "larry has obtained some good info on them," and asked, "should larry meet the aircraft and poke around with them tonight at 7:30pm?" A reply from the account "jeffrey E." to Kahn reads "yes why not?" and carries a header time of Friday, May 16, 2014, 10:35 PM. Kahn's forward of the same chain to Visoski carries a header time of 10:18 PM on the same date.[^9]
Visoski was listed in the original Articles of Organization of Plan D, LLC, filed October 19, 2012, and in its annual reports as the company's sole manager and member. The territory's Second Amended Complaint in the Epstein estate case states that the July 31, 2019 annual report named Epstein as the principal behind the company, which owned or operated some of the aircraft that Epstein used.[^10]
### The aircraft and the tail number
The FAA's releasable aircraft database, downloaded October 8, 2026, lists the mark N114BD as a 2009 Dassault Falcon 7X (serial number 42) registered to Black Diamond Aviation Group LLC, 1 Sound Shore Drive, Suite 200, Greenwich, Connecticut, with a certificate issued November 4, 2023.[^11] The deregistered-aircraft file of the same database lists a 1999 [[Learjet]] 60 (serial number 166) under the mark N112BD, with the registration cancelled on July 1, 2025 under the status "sale reported."[^11] A listing of FAA registry records for Greenwich, Connecticut shows N114BD on a 1999 Learjet 60 (serial number 166, certificate issued December 9, 2004) registered to Black Diamond Aviation Group LLC, and on the 2009 Falcon 7X (serial number 42, certificate issued December 12, 2017) registered to Bdag 7x LLC.[^12]
### The islands
The two islands went on the market in March 2022 with an asking price of 125 million dollars.[^13] The estate's settlement with the Virgin Islands government, announced in December 2022, required the estate to pay the territory 105 million dollars in cash, plus one half of the proceeds from the sale of Little St. James. It also required the estate to sell Little St. James and Great St. James to independent third parties and to wind down its business in the territory.[^14] SD Investments announced the purchase on May 3, 2023.[^2] The release quoted Deckoff: "I've been proud to call the U.S. Virgin Islands home for more than a decade and am tremendously pleased to be able to bring the area a world-class destination befitting its natural grace and beauty."[^2] Forbes reported that Deckoff said he had never met Epstein and had never set foot on the islands until they were marketed following Epstein's 2019 death.[^1] Forbes wrote that the settlement gives the government half the proceeds from the sale of the islands, which it put at about 30 million dollars, to be placed in a trust for counseling and other services for victims. Carlson reported that half the sale price of Little St. James came to about 11 million dollars.[^15]
The May 2023 release announced a five-star, 25-room luxury resort "anticipated to open in 2025," and Forbes reported that Deckoff said he planned to open it in about two years.[^1][^2] [[Suzanne Carlson]] of the [[Virgin Islands Daily News]] reported in February 2026 that no resort had been built and that the only construction permit Deckoff had requested was for an 8,800 square foot warehouse on Little St. James, and that the application for a Coastal Zone Management major permit was submitted in December 2025.[^15] Carlson wrote that the Daily News reviewed the application, which describes replacing an existing metal-framed warehouse with a single large semicircular concrete warehouse over a new concrete cistern. The [[Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural Resources]] coastal zone management director, [[Marlon Hibbert]], said that the application was still incomplete because no environmental assessment had been submitted. Carlson wrote that attempts to reach Deckoff for comment were unsuccessful.[^15]
### Economic Development Commission benefits
Carlson reported that Black Diamond Advisors and Black Diamond Holdings had received tax-incentive benefits from the [[Economic Development Commission]] since 2012.[^15] The territory's suit against the Epstein estate alleged that [[Southern Trust Company]], an Epstein company, made fraudulent misrepresentations to the authority about its qualifications for those benefits, and the 2022 settlement returns more than 80 million dollars in such benefits.[^14] The annual reports of the [[Virgin Islands Economic Development Authority]] name the firm's affiliates. Its fiscal 2016 report lists [[Black Diamond Advisors, LLLP]] and [[Black Diamond Holding, LLLP]] among the site visits for beneficiaries.[^16] Its fiscal 2023 report lists certificate orientations on February 7, 2023 for Black Diamond Advisors, LLC and Black Diamond Holdings, LLC, both recorded as modifications on St. Thomas.[^17]
### Jet Center
The 2014 email chain says that Black Diamond Trading was "trying to buy Jet Center." In November 2018, [[Signature Flight Support]] agreed to buy the [[St. Thomas Jet Center]] and its affiliate [[Alliance Aviation]], according to Aviation International News. The report says that [[Michael Hancock]] and [[Susan Hancock]] had owned the St. Thomas fixed-base operator for more than two decades and would remain with the business.[^18]
### PTC Alliance Acquisition, 2009
In October 2009, [[PTC Alliance]], a steel-tubing maker, filed a Chapter 11 petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. The company had signed an asset purchase agreement with funds managed by Black Diamond Capital Management, the pre-petition term lenders, to act as a "stalking horse" bidder for substantially all of its assets under Section 363. Deckoff, identified as managing principal of Black Diamond Capital Management LLC, said: "Our proposed transaction will establish a new corporation with a stronger balance sheet and lower cost structure that it will be well positioned now and in the future to provide PTC's customers with high-quality tubing products and precision components."[^19]
### Filings naming Deckoff
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lists Deckoff as a reporting person on Forms 3 and 4 for several issuers. A Form 3 with a reporting date of August 19, 2022, and a Form 4 dated August 20, 2026, record him as a 10 percent owner of [[KVH Industries]]. The 2026 Form 4 also marks him as a director.[^20] A Form 4 for [[Hawaiian Telcom Holdco]], with a reporting date of March 20, 2017, records him as a 10 percent owner. The EDGAR index also lists Forms 3 and 4 for [[Tropicana Entertainment]] (2010), [[Viasystems Group]] (2013 and 2015) and [[Consumer Portfolio Services]] (2021 and 2022).[^20]
### Schedule 13D and 13G filings
Black Diamond Capital Management, L.L.C. (CIK 0001282197) and Deckoff are joint reporting persons on Schedule 13D statements for two issuers in 2022 and 2023. In Amendment No. 3 to its Schedule 13D for Consumer Portfolio Services (event date March 10, 2022, filed March 14, 2022), the two reported shared voting and dispositive power over 4,647,042 shares, 22.05 percent of the class, bought for approximately 21,156,734.98 dollars from the capital of Black Diamond investment vehicles. The filing states that on March 10, 2022 the reporting persons told the company's chief executive officer and chief financial officer that they wished to propose two nominees for the board, Deckoff and James E. Walker III, and that a nomination letter was submitted on March 14, 2022.[^21] In Amendment No. 1 to its Schedule 13D for KVH Industries (event date February 3, 2023), the two reported shared power over 3,298,597 shares, 17.20 percent of the class. The filing states that on February 3, 2023 they entered a cooperation agreement with the company under which the board agreed to nominate and support Deckoff as a Class III director at the 2023 annual meeting and to waive the company's stockholder rights plan so that the reporting persons could acquire up to 25 percent of the shares; the amendment refers to an original Schedule 13D filed August 26, 2022.[^21]
The EDGAR full-text index also lists Schedule 13D filings by Black Diamond Capital Management for Hawaiian Telcom Holdco (February 25, 2016 and July 10, 2018), Schedule 13G filings for Hawaiian Telcom Holdco (2012 to 2015), Viasystems Group (July 8, 2015), Saratoga Investment Corp (2014 to 2024) and Canterbury Park Holding Corp (2022 to 2024), and Form D notices for funds including BDCM Opportunity Fund III, L.P. (December 21, 2010) and Black Diamond Credit Strategies, L.P. (2017 to 2026).[^22]
### Political giving and philanthropy
The [[Federal Election Commission]] records two itemized contributions of 3,500 dollars each, both dated May 27, 2025, from a contributor named Stephen H. Deckoff of Stamford, Connecticut, to [[Emmer for Congress]].[^23] Forbes reported that Deckoff had given more than 1.2 million dollars to nonprofits in the Virgin Islands, mostly to private schools and nature-preservation organizations.[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: "SD Investments Announces Acquisition of Great St. James and Little St. James Islands in the United States Virgin Islands." *PR Newswire,* May 3, 2023. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sd-investments-announces-acquisition-of-great-st-james-and-little-st-james-islands-in-the-united-states-virgin-islands-301815032.html
[^2]: Carlson, Suzanne. "Still no resort plans for Epstein's islands purchased by Deckoff." *Virgin Islands Daily News,* February 6, 2026. https://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/news/still-no-resort-plans-for-epsteins-islands-purchased-by-deckoff/article_84d776de-8427-4080-a1b5-6cf81418e23d.html (warehouse permit; Hibbert statement; Black Diamond Advisors and Holdings EDC benefits since 2012; May 16, 2014 Kahn and Visoski emails; Deckoff not named in the files).
[^3]: "Billionaire Stephen Deckoff buys Jeffrey Epstein's private islands." *CNBC,* May 3, 2023. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/03/jeffrey-epstein-private-islands-bought-by-billionaire.html ; "Financier buys Jeffrey Epstein's private islands, with plans to create a resort." *NPR,* May 4, 2023. https://www.npr.org/2023/05/04/1173956903/jeffrey-epstein-island-sold-st-james
[^4]: Government of the United States Virgin Islands v. Estate of Jeffrey E. Epstein, No. ST-20-CV-14 (V.I. Super. Ct.), Second Amended Complaint, paragraphs 33 to 34, filed as Exhibit 1 to Government of the United States Virgin Islands v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., No. 1:22-cv-10904-JSR (S.D.N.Y.), ECF No. 1-1 (December 27, 2022), ECF pp. 8 to 9. https://web.archive.org/web/20260117011558/https://www.justice.gov/multimedia/Court%20Records/Government%20of%20the%20United%20States%20Virgin%20Islands%20v.%20JPMorgan%20Chase%20Bank,%20N.A.,%20No.%20122-cv-10904%20(S.D.N.Y.%202022)/001-01.pdf
[^5]: "U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Settles Sex Trafficking Case Against Estate Of Jeffrey Epstein And Co-Defendants For Over $105 Million." *U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Justice,* December 1, 2022. https://usvidoj.com/u-s-virgin-islands-attorney-general-settles-sex-trafficking-case-against-estate-of-jeffrey-epstein-and-co-defendants-for-over-105-million/ ; Carlson, Suzanne. "Docs confirm Bryan pressed for special treatment of sex offender." *Virgin Islands Daily News,* February 2, 2026. https://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/news/docs-confirm-bryan-pressed-for-special-treatment-of-sex-offender/article_5e9483c9-38d2-406c-8bb0-e5757ce287f2.html (11 million dollars from the Little St. James sale).
[^1]: Chang, Richard J. "Exclusive: Billionaire Investor Buys Jeffrey Epstein's Private Islands For $60 Million." *Forbes,* May 2023. Copy filed as Exhibit 29 to document 226-30, *Government of the United States Virgin Islands v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.,* No. 1:22-cv-10904-JSR (S.D.N.Y.), filed July 24, 2023; U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02810216. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/Court%20Records/Government%20of%20the%20United%20States%20Virgin%20Islands%20v.%20JPMorgan%20Chase%20Bank,%20N.A.,%20No.%20122-cv-10904%20(S.D.N.Y.%202022)/EFTA02810216.pdf. Sole source for the passages so cited (the statement that Deckoff never met Epstein, and the Forbes figure for the government share of sale proceeds). Suzanne Carlson of the Virgin Islands Daily News wrote on February 6, 2026 that Deckoff's name did not appear to be in the files and that it was unclear whether the two men had any association before Epstein's death.
[^2]: "SD Investments Announces Acquisition of Great St. James and Little St. James Islands in the United States Virgin Islands." *PR Newswire,* May 3, 2023. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sd-investments-announces-acquisition-of-great-st-james-and-little-st-james-islands-in-the-united-states-virgin-islands-301815032.html
[^3]: Black Diamond Capital Management, "About," archived page, Wayback Machine snapshot dated 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/2020/http://www.bdcm.com/about.html
[^4]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Investment Adviser Public Disclosure, firm record for Black Diamond Capital Management (firm ID 154495, Form ADV filing dated July 13, 2026), including Form ADV Part 1A Items 1.F, 1.G, 5.F, Schedule A, Schedule B and Schedule D Section 1.F, and the state notice filing records. https://api.adviserinfo.sec.gov/search/firm/154495 and https://reports.adviserinfo.sec.gov/reports/ADV/154495/PDF/154495.pdf
[^5]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01204007, DataSet 9, photograph of a Black Diamond Capital Management, L.L.C. business card. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01204007.pdf
[^6]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library. The only other library document naming Deckoff is EFTA02810216, a copy of the Forbes article cited in note 1, filed as a court exhibit.
[^7]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01204006, DataSet 9, screenshot of an aviation application, undated. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01204006.pdf
[^8]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02383246, DataSet 11, email chain headed "Jeffrey Epstein," May 16, 2014, including the message from Richard Kahn at 5:15 PM and the reply from Larry Visoski at 5:40 PM. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02383246.pdf
[^9]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02583238, DataSet 11, email chain headed "Re: Barn," May 16, 2014, including Richard Kahn's forward (quoted as sent at 6:17 PM), Visoski's message at 6:08 PM, and the reply headed "jeffrey E." (header time 10:35 PM, header times as printed in the release). EFTA02383246 is Kahn's forward of the chain to Visoski with the subject line "Jeffrey Epstein" (header time 10:18 PM), also cited in note 8. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02583238.pdf
[^10]: *Government of the United States Virgin Islands v. Estate of Jeffrey E. Epstein*, No. ST-20-CV-14 (V.I. Super. Ct.), Second Amended Complaint, paragraphs 33 to 34, filed as Exhibit 1 to *Government of the United States Virgin Islands v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.,* No. 1:22-cv-10904-JSR (S.D.N.Y.), ECF No. 1-1 (December 27, 2022). https://web.archive.org/web/20260117011558/https://www.justice.gov/multimedia/Court%20Records/Government%20of%20the%20United%20States%20Virgin%20Islands%20v.%20JPMorgan%20Chase%20Bank,%20N.A.,%20No.%20122-cv-10904%20(S.D.N.Y.%202022)/001-01.pdf
[^11]: Federal Aviation Administration, Aircraft Registry, Releasable Aircraft Database, MASTER.txt entry for N-number 114BD and DEREG.txt, downloaded October 8, 2026. https://registry.faa.gov/database/ReleasableAircraft.zip
[^12]: City-Data.com, "FAA Registered Aircraft, Dealers and Manufacturers in Greenwich, Connecticut" (listing derived from FAA registry data; undated snapshot, retrieved October 8, 2026). https://www.city-data.com/aircraft/air-Greenwich-Connecticut.html
[^13]: NPR, "Financier buys Jeffrey Epstein's private islands, with plans to create a resort," May 4, 2023. https://www.npr.org/2023/05/04/1173956903/jeffrey-epstein-island-sold-st-james
[^14]: U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Justice, "U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Settles Sex Trafficking Case Against Estate Of Jeffrey Epstein And Co-Defendants For Over $105 Million," December 1, 2022. https://usvidoj.com/u-s-virgin-islands-attorney-general-settles-sex-trafficking-case-against-estate-of-jeffrey-epstein-and-co-defendants-for-over-105-million/
[^15]: Carlson, Suzanne. "Still no resort plans for Epstein's islands purchased by Deckoff." *Virgin Islands Daily News,* February 6, 2026. https://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/news/still-no-resort-plans-for-epsteins-islands-purchased-by-deckoff/article_84d776de-8427-4080-a1b5-6cf81418e23d.html ; Carlson, Suzanne. "Docs confirm Bryan pressed for special treatment of sex offender." *Virgin Islands Daily News,* February 2, 2026, reporting that half the sale price of Little St. James came to about 11 million dollars. https://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/news/docs-confirm-bryan-pressed-for-special-treatment-of-sex-offender/article_5e9483c9-38d2-406c-8bb0-e5757ce287f2.html.
[^16]: Virgin Islands Economic Development Authority, *FY 2016 Annual Report,* Table 3, Site Visits, p. 30. https://usvieda.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/2016_EDA_Annual_Report_FINAL.pdf
[^17]: Virgin Islands Economic Development Authority, *FY 2023 Annual Report,* Certificate Orientations, pp. 24 to 25. https://usvieda.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2023-Annual-Report_Revised-Apr-4-2025.pdf
[^18]: "Signature Acquires Virgin Islands Bases." *Aviation International News,* November 1, 2018. https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2018-11-01/signature-acquires-virgin-islands-bases
[^19]: "PTC Alliance Files for Chapter 11 Protection." Association for Iron & Steel Technology, posted October 2, 2009, quoting the company's announcement and Deckoff's statement. https://www.aist.org/ptc-alliance-files-for-chapter-11-protection
[^20]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR filing index for reporting person Deckoff Stephen H (CIK 0001486844), including the Form 4 for KVH Industries Inc. (period August 20, 2026), the Form 3 for KVH Industries Inc. (period August 19, 2022), and the Form 4 for Hawaiian Telcom Holdco, Inc. (period March 20, 2017). https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001486844
[^21]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR, Schedule 13D/A Amendment No. 3, Consumer Portfolio Services Inc., accession 0001140361-22-009441; Schedule 13D/A Amendment No. 1, KVH Industries, Inc., accession 0001140361-23-004863. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/889609/000114036122009441/brhc10035210_sc13da.htm and https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1007587/000114036123004863/brhc10047604_sc13da.htm
[^22]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR full-text search, query "Black Diamond Capital Management," forms SC 13D, SC 13G and D, run October 8, 2026 (filer CIK 0001282197 for the adviser). https://efts.sec.gov/LATEST/search-index?q=%22Black%20Diamond%20Capital%20Management%22
[^23]: Federal Election Commission, Schedule A itemized individual contributions, contributor "DECKOFF, STEPHEN H.", recipient committee C00545749 (Emmer for Congress), two entries dated May 27, 2025, 3,500 dollars each. https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?contributor_name=DECKOFF&committee_id=C00545749

36
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Thomas Gates.md
View file

@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ aliases:
- Special Agent Thomas Gates
- Thomas Gates (FBI)
created: 2026-10-05
updated: 2026-10-05
updated: 2026-10-08
category: "Law Enforcement & Legal"
tags:
- Person
@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ relations:
start: 1992-03-25
end: 1992-03-26
role: "gave a sworn statement on Danny Casolaro and Nichols in the INSLAW investigation"
fn: 4
fn: 7
---
Thomas Gates was a special agent of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] assigned to its [[Los Angeles]] Division, where in September 1987 he began leading the investigation of [[Robert Booth Nichols]], who was suspected, "acting through Meridian," of involvement in organized crime.[^1] The Ninth Circuit's opinion in the later civil suit records that Gates learned Nichols "had potential illegal contacts with individuals in both Japan and Australia" and pursued those leads through the Japanese and Australian legal attaches.[^1] He is not the same person as [[Thomas S. Gates]] (Thomas S. Gates Jr.), the Secretary of Defense under [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]].
@ -49,34 +49,42 @@ On June 16, 1989, Nichols's company [[Meridian International Logistics]] sued Ga
On July 20, 1989, the [[United States Attorney]] certified that Gates had acted within the scope of his FBI employment, which removed the case to federal court and substituted the United States as sole defendant. The government filed declarations from Gates, his supervisor and a [[Department of Justice]] attorney, which the district court sealed on an ex parte application and reviewed in camera. Meridian filed a declaration from the former FBI special agent [[Ted Gunderson]], who stated that the types of foreign contacts Gates made "would never, under FBI policies, be initiated by an agent assigned to the Los Angeles field office." On September 25, 1989, the district court found that Gates had at all material times acted within the scope of his employment and dismissed the action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under the Federal Tort Claims Act. On July 19, 1991, the [[Ninth Circuit]] (Judge Wiggins) reversed the dismissal and remanded.[^1]
### The MCA wiretap, as described by Seymour
The Ninth Circuit (No. 90-55281) held the sealed ex parte procedure proper, limiting its holding "to the precise facts of this case," but reversed because the FBI declarations "only assert generally that Gates' investigation was proper" and "do not address the specific factual allegations of Meridian's complaint with regards to the foreign contacts"; it directed the district court to take further documentary proof on remand.[^1] Meridian's brief states the case was removed as CV 89-4383 RG (Kx) before Judge Richard A. Gadbois, Jr., and quotes the alleged statements: a $500,000,000 "share fraud," a Sydney-based confidence scheme, and involvement with the Gambino family and the [[Yakuza]].[^3] [[Spy (magazine)|Spy]] reported in January 1993 that the case had recently been dismissed.[^4]
The writer [[Cheri Seymour]] wrote that Gates conducted a wiretap of [[Music Corporation of America]] under the supervision of the Los Angeles Organized Crime Strike Force prosecutors [[Marvin Rudnick]] and later [[Richard Stavin]] (both Department of Justice attorneys, not United States Attorneys), and that the three believed on the basis of the recorded calls that MCA had been penetrated by organized crime. In Seymour's account the calls were between Nichols and [[Eugene Giaquinto]], then president of MCA's home entertainment division, and showed connections to [[La Cosa Nostra]], including the [[Gambino Crime Family]] and the [[Bufalino Crime Family]]. Seymour wrote that the Department of Justice sealed the wiretaps, that no prosecutions followed, that the Los Angeles Strike Force was disbanded, and that Gates closed the FBI investigation.[^3] Seymour is the sole source for the passages so cited.
### The MCA wiretap
Stavin gave the House Judiciary Committee a 72-page affidavit that Gates had submitted to a federal court, containing the results of an FBI wiretap on individuals in the entertainment industry suspected of ties to organized crime.[^4] The committee wrote that it "takes no position on any of Gates' assertions or suppositions vis-a-vis Nichols, except to note again that they were duly sworn statements."[^4]
Gates's continuation affidavit states that he had been an FBI agent for 10 1/2 years and had worked organized-crime cases since 1981. It covers intercepts of [[Martin Bacow]], [[Eugene Giaquinto]], Angelo Commito, [[Edward Sciandra]], Michael Del Gaizo, [[Joseph Garofalo]] and Nichols through September 1, 1987, and incorporates his affidavits of March 27, May 20, June 25, July 15 and August 3, 1987 as exhibits. Its list of matters the intercepts of Giaquinto and Garofalo were to establish under the controlled-substance offenses includes "The source of funding for the purchasing of narcotics/controlled substances and the allocation and use of the proceeds from its trafficking"; the stock-fraud offenses in the same paragraph name Nichols.[^5]
The writer [[Cheri Seymour]] wrote that Gates conducted a wiretap of [[Music Corporation of America]] under the supervision of the Los Angeles Organized Crime Strike Force prosecutors [[Marvin Rudnick]] and later [[Richard Stavin]] (both Department of Justice attorneys, not United States Attorneys), and that the three believed on the basis of the recorded calls that MCA had been penetrated by organized crime. In Seymour's account the calls were between Nichols and Eugene Giaquinto, then president of MCA's home entertainment division, and showed connections to [[La Cosa Nostra]], including the [[Gambino Crime Family]] and the [[Bufalino Crime Family]]. Seymour wrote that the Department of Justice sealed the wiretaps, that no prosecutions followed, that the Los Angeles Strike Force was disbanded, and that Gates closed the FBI investigation.[^6]
Stavin gave the House Judiciary Committee a 72-page affidavit that Gates had submitted to a federal court, containing the results of an FBI wiretap on individuals in the entertainment industry suspected of ties to organized crime.[^7] The committee wrote that it "takes no position on any of Gates' assertions or suppositions vis-a-vis Nichols, except to note again that they were duly sworn statements."[^7]
### Danny Casolaro
[[Danny Casolaro]], the writer investigating what he called [[The Octopus]], was found dead in a Martinsburg, West Virginia hotel room on August 10, 1991, with his wrists cut numerous times. The Martinsburg Police investigation concluded in January 1992 that the death was a suicide.[^4] Three separate people (Riconosciuto's attorney, a private investigator and an FBI agent) told House Judiciary Committee investigators that Gates likely had information on Casolaro's efforts to investigate the INSLAW matter; Director [[William S. Sessions]] agreed to let Gates give a sworn statement, which the committee described as the first time it knew of that the FBI permitted a field agent to do so, after "initial resistance from the Bureau."[^4]
[[Danny Casolaro]], the writer investigating what he called [[The Octopus]], was found dead in a Martinsburg, West Virginia hotel room on August 10, 1991, with his wrists cut numerous times. The Martinsburg Police investigation concluded in January 1992 that the death was a suicide.[^7] Three separate people (Riconosciuto's attorney, a private investigator and an FBI agent) told House Judiciary Committee investigators that Gates likely had information on Casolaro's efforts to investigate the INSLAW matter; Director [[William S. Sessions]] agreed to let Gates give a sworn statement, which the committee described as the first time it knew of that the FBI permitted a field agent to do so, after "initial resistance from the Bureau."[^7]
Gates gave the statement on March 25 and 26, 1992, after Rudnick and Stavin had given theirs on March 13 and 14. According to the committee's summary, Gates stated that Casolaro claimed to have found a link between the [[INSLAW]] matter, the activities at the [[Cabazon Indian Reservation]], and the federal investigation of organized crime influence in the entertainment industry in which Gates had been involved; that Casolaro had several conversations with Nichols in the weeks preceding his death; and that Casolaro called Gates several times beginning approximately four weeks before his death. Gates said Casolaro sounded "upbeat" in conversations held even days before the death, that a phone book of Casolaro's containing Gates's number had not been located in the police investigation, that Martinsburg police told him the wounds were "hacking" wounds inconsistent in his view with a self-inflicted wrist cut, and that an open bottle of wine had been reported in the room but not tested when he spoke to the local authorities. He called the Martinsburg authorities and the local FBI office with his suspicions, and concluded under oath that "there is cause for suspicions to be raised."[^4]
Gates gave the statement on March 25 and 26, 1992, after Rudnick and Stavin had given theirs on March 13 and 14. According to the committee's summary, Gates stated that Casolaro claimed to have found a link between the [[INSLAW]] matter, the activities at the [[Cabazon Indian Reservation]], and the federal investigation of organized crime influence in the entertainment industry in which Gates had been involved; that Casolaro had several conversations with Nichols in the weeks preceding his death; and that Casolaro called Gates several times beginning approximately four weeks before his death. Gates said Casolaro sounded "upbeat" in conversations held even days before the death, that a phone book of Casolaro's containing Gates's number had not been located in the police investigation, that Martinsburg police told him the wounds were "hacking" wounds inconsistent in his view with a self-inflicted wrist cut, and that an open bottle of wine had been reported in the room but not tested when he spoke to the local authorities. He called the Martinsburg authorities and the local FBI office with his suspicions, and concluded under oath that "there is cause for suspicions to be raised."[^7]
Throughout the statement Gates tied several strands of his conversations with Casolaro to Nichols, and acknowledged that Nichols had sued him over another crime investigation centered in southern California; he maintained that important information on Nichols's past remained in sealed wiretap and confidential grand jury investigations that by law he could not disclose without a subpoena.[^4] Seymour wrote that Casolaro told Gates that Nichols had warned him to drop his investigation of the Octopus, and that Gates spoke with Casolaro until three days before his death.[^3] The House report places the start of the calls at about four weeks before the death.[^4]
Throughout the statement Gates tied several strands of his conversations with Casolaro to Nichols, and acknowledged that Nichols had sued him over another crime investigation centered in southern California; he maintained that important information on Nichols's past remained in sealed wiretap and confidential grand jury investigations that by law he could not disclose without a subpoena.[^7] Seymour wrote that Casolaro told Gates that Nichols had warned him to drop his investigation of the Octopus, and that Gates spoke with Casolaro until three days before his death.[^6] The House report places the start of the calls at about four weeks before the death.[^7]
### Faith Burton and the Department's transcripts
At the March 25 statement Gates and his attorney Richard Bauer said that Faith Burton of the Department of Justice's Office of Congressional Affairs had told them the committee routinely gave the Department copies of all depositions in the INSLAW investigation, and that "to date, the Department has reviewed all transcripts and no wrongdoing has been found." The committee wrote that the implication was that the Department would know everything Gates said, that this may have had a "chilling effect" on his testimony, and that its policy in fact barred giving the confidential statements to anyone but the witness or the witness's attorney. On March 26 Burton told committee investigators the allegation was "totally false" and that Gates and Bauer must have misunderstood her, which she attributed to their long flight; asked whether he could have misunderstood, Gates answered "It's always possible, but it was fairly clear to me, what she said." Bauer said there had been a clear indication of receipt and review of transcripts. The committee listed the episode under the heading "Department Official May Have Attempted to Influence a Key Witness."[^4]
At the March 25 statement Gates and his attorney Richard Bauer said that Faith Burton of the Department of Justice's Office of Congressional Affairs had told them the committee routinely gave the Department copies of all depositions in the INSLAW investigation, and that "to date, the Department has reviewed all transcripts and no wrongdoing has been found." The committee wrote that the implication was that the Department would know everything Gates said, that this may have had a "chilling effect" on his testimony, and that its policy in fact barred giving the confidential statements to anyone but the witness or the witness's attorney. On March 26 Burton told committee investigators the allegation was "totally false" and that Gates and Bauer must have misunderstood her, which she attributed to their long flight; asked whether he could have misunderstood, Gates answered "It's always possible, but it was fairly clear to me, what she said." Bauer said there had been a clear indication of receipt and review of transcripts. The committee listed the episode under the heading "Department Official May Have Attempted to Influence a Key Witness."[^7]
### After the House report
Seymour wrote that in early 1992 [[John Cohen]] began communicating closely with Gates, and that in October 1992 Gates and Cohen learned of [[Michael Riconosciuto]]'s statement to the FBI implicating Nichols, [[Glenn Shockley]], [[Jose Santacruz Londono]], [[Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela]] and [[Michael Abbell]] in illicit financial activities.[^3] Seymour is the sole source for the passages so cited.
Seymour wrote that in early 1992 [[John Cohen]] began communicating closely with Gates, and that in October 1992 Gates and Cohen learned of [[Michael Riconosciuto]]'s statement to the FBI implicating Nichols, [[Glenn Shockley]], [[Jose Santacruz Londono]], [[Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela]] and [[Michael Abbell]] in illicit financial activities.[^6] Seymour reproduced reports she attributed to Cohen of conversations with Gates, in which Gates is recorded as saying that high-level Department of Justice officials had a close working relationship with the MCA board, that a wiretap showed Nichols warned by a Justice Department official of the FBI investigation, and that the FBI regarded Casolaro's death as an ITAR murder.[^8]
The Department of Justice's 1993 report by Special Counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] concluded that Casolaro's death was a suicide, that the physical evidence in the hotel room supported that conclusion, and that there was no evidence of any Justice Department influence on the West Virginia authorities' investigation; the report does not name Gates.[^5] The House committee, for its part, wrote that "the suspicious circumstances surrounding his death have led some law enforcement professionals and others to believe that his death may not have been a suicide" and that further investigation was "imperative."[^4]
The Department of Justice's 1993 report by Special Counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] concluded that Casolaro's death was a suicide, that the physical evidence in the hotel room supported that conclusion, and that there was no evidence of any Justice Department influence on the West Virginia authorities' investigation; the report does not name Gates.[^9] The House committee, for its part, wrote that "the suspicious circumstances surrounding his death have led some law enforcement professionals and others to believe that his death may not have been a suicide" and that further investigation was "imperative."[^7]
### Footnotes
[^1]: *Meridian International Logistics, Inc. v. United States*, 939 F.2d 740 (9th Cir. July 19, 1991) (Wiggins, J.). https://static.case.law/f2d/939/cases/0740-01.json ; also https://openjurist.org/939/f2d/740
[^2]: Same, Facts and Procedural Background (complaint filed June 16, 1989; certification July 20, 1989).
[^3]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010. Sole source for the passages so cited.
[^4]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, *The INSLAW Affair: Investigative Report*, H. Rept. 102-857, September 10, 1992, sections "Additional Questions," "Possible Connection Between Earl Brian, Michael Riconosciuto, Robert Booth Nichols and the Cabazon Indian Reservation," "Department Official May Have Attempted to Influence a Key Witness," and notes 214 to 217 and 323 (citing Gates's sworn statement of March 26, 1992, pp. 10, 56, 61). https://archive.org/details/InslawAffairInvestigativeReport
[^5]: U.S. Department of Justice, *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua*, March 1993, section "The Death of Joseph Daniel Casolaro," pp. 246 to 248. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993
[^3]: Appellant's Opening Brief, *Meridian International Logistics, Inc. v. Gates,* No. 90-55281 (9th Cir.), certificate dated June 27, 1990 (case removed as CV 89-4383 RG (Kx), C.D. Cal.). https://archive.org/details/MeridianV.Gates
[^4]: Connolly, John. "The Story That Killed Danny Casolaro." *Spy,* January 1993. https://archive.org/details/SpyMagazine
[^5]: 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." https://archive.org/details/casolaro-notebooks (file Gates.pdf), paragraphs 1-5. Seymour, *The Last Circle,* p. 356, paraphrases the narcotics-funding wording as describing Meridian International Logistics; the affidavit places it under the controlled-substance offenses of Giaquinto and Garofalo.
[^6]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010. Sole source for the passages so cited.
[^7]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, *The INSLAW Affair: Investigative Report*, H. Rept. 102-857, September 10, 1992, sections "Additional Questions," "Possible Connection Between Earl Brian, Michael Riconosciuto, Robert Booth Nichols and the Cabazon Indian Reservation," "Department Official May Have Attempted to Influence a Key Witness," and notes 214 to 217 and 323 (citing Gates's sworn statement of March 26, 1992, pp. 10, 56, 61). https://archive.org/details/InslawAffairInvestigativeReport
[^8]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010, pp. 347-349 ("Report No. 5" and "Report No. 6"). Sole source for the passages so cited.
[^9]: U.S. Department of Justice, *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua*, March 1993, section "The Death of Joseph Daniel Casolaro," pp. 246 to 248. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993

14
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Uri Geller.md
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@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
---
created: 2026-05-15
updated: 2026-09-21
updated: 2026-10-08
title: Uri Geller
aliases:
- Uri Geller
@ -39,13 +39,21 @@ In the winter of 1975, Geller was tested by a group of nuclear physicists and en
On January 23, 1973, Russell Targ and Hal Puthoff showed a CIA audience a film of their experiments with "Uri Geller, an Israeli magician with claimed capabilities in ESP." The Office of Research and Development's memorandum of the next day recorded that "the SRI work with Geller has been supported by Edgar Mitchell's foundation, by something with a name like Mind Science Institute of Los Angeles, and by TSD," the [[Technical Services Division]]. The film showed Geller reproducing sealed drawings, calling dice, finding metal or water in one of twelve containers, "and bending spoons by touching them with apparently much less force than would be required normally." The writer added: "On the basis of meetings I have attended at ARPA, whose Drs. Austin Kibler and George Lawrence have been to SRI to observe Geller, Puthoff and Targ in action, there is serious doubt that Geller's accomplishment transcends the range of activities a skillful magician can perform and much concern that Puthoff's and Targ's own experimental bias in favor of successful outcomes is undermining their objectivity in designing properly controlled experimental procedures. Geller's connections with Dr. A. Puharich, with whom many unsavory reports have been linked, also is disturbing." He recommended asking TSD about "their plans for future research at SRI, both with Geller and with other subjects such as Ingo Swann," and noted that one manager in the science and technology directorate had said he was "humbled" by the film. A further file, "Experiments - Uri Geller at SRI, August 4-11, 1973," is in the same collection.[^3]
### The ARPA team, 1972 to 1973
[[Ray Hyman]] wrote that he visited SRI on December 8, 1972 with [[George Lawrence]] of [[DARPA|ARPA]], and that Geller sent everyone out of the room except Lawrence and Hyman.[^4] [[Roger A. Beaumont]] wrote that in 1972 the agency sent a team headed by Lawrence, including Hyman and [[Robert Van de Castle]], and that the team's report was totally negative.[^5] According to Schnabel, the agency's corporate stance was not to pursue Geller further, while Van de Castle was impressed by Geller's abilities.[^1] Time reported in 1974 that Hyman, accompanied by Lawrence, caught Geller in some outright deceptions, and quoted Hyman as calling the SRI tests conducted with "incredible sloppiness."[^6] [[David Suter]], in an undated Washington Post article, wrote that DARPA consultants concluded that SRI's work with Geller was conducted with "incredible sloppiness," and quoted Van de Castle, "a member of the DARPA team that investigated Geller," on two CIA men who visited him: "One thing they wanted to know was if Geller could jam computers."[^7]
### August 1973
Targ's log of the sessions of August 4 to 11, 1973, in an "electrically shielded room" once used for EEG research, records that on August 5 for the target word "fuse" (a firecracker) Geller "saw 'a cylinder with noise coming out of it'" and drew a drum; for "bunch" (grapes) he drew grapes, and "both the target picture and Geller's rendition had 24 grapes in the bunch"; that evening he could not draw a devil with a trident, producing "Moses' Tablets" and an apple with a snake, Targ noting "the inability on Geller's part to draw the devil may be culturally induced." On August 6, with a target drawn "by a scientist of whom Geller is not fond," he "got no clear impression and passed," but named the artist. On August 7, with EEG electrodes, he passed twice; on August 8 he passed on a camel and the Golden Gate Bridge and drew a flying gull correctly. "Good results were obtained on the four days when there was no openly skeptical observer (except the experimenters whom Geller has learned to accept)." On August 9, 150 feet from a kite drawn on a computer terminal, "his first drawing was a good representation of the actual target picture"; on August 10 he passed on a church stored in computer memory and drew "an arrow inside a suitcase" for an arrow through a heart, Targ allowing either "clairvoyant perception of information stored in the computer, or telepathy since there were several people in the computer room who knew the nature of the target." Of two long-distance trials with East Coast scientists, Targ called the first "suggestive of communication but not conclusive" and left the second unjudged. "In our detailed examination of the shielded room and the protocol used in these experiments no sensory leakage has been found."[^4]
Targ's log of the sessions of August 4 to 11, 1973, in an "electrically shielded room" once used for EEG research, records that on August 5 for the target word "fuse" (a firecracker) Geller "saw 'a cylinder with noise coming out of it'" and drew a drum; for "bunch" (grapes) he drew grapes, and "both the target picture and Geller's rendition had 24 grapes in the bunch"; that evening he could not draw a devil with a trident, producing "Moses' Tablets" and an apple with a snake, Targ noting "the inability on Geller's part to draw the devil may be culturally induced." On August 6, with a target drawn "by a scientist of whom Geller is not fond," he "got no clear impression and passed," but named the artist. On August 7, with EEG electrodes, he passed twice; on August 8 he passed on a camel and the Golden Gate Bridge and drew a flying gull correctly. "Good results were obtained on the four days when there was no openly skeptical observer (except the experimenters whom Geller has learned to accept)." On August 9, 150 feet from a kite drawn on a computer terminal, "his first drawing was a good representation of the actual target picture"; on August 10 he passed on a church stored in computer memory and drew "an arrow inside a suitcase" for an arrow through a heart, Targ allowing either "clairvoyant perception of information stored in the computer, or telepathy since there were several people in the computer room who knew the nature of the target." Of two long-distance trials with East Coast scientists, Targ called the first "suggestive of communication but not conclusive" and left the second unjudged. "In our detailed examination of the shielded room and the protocol used in these experiments no sensory leakage has been found."[^8]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America's Psychic Spies.* Dell, 1997.
[^2]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis.* Little, Brown and Company, 2017.
[^3]: Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Research and Development, memorandum ORD-413-73, "Briefing by Stanford Research Institute," January 24, 1973, CIA-RDP96-00787R000400070029-2. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. "Experiments - Uri Geller at SRI, August 4-11, 1973," CIA-RDP96-00787R000700110003-2.
[^4]: Targ, Russell. "Experiments: Uri Geller at SRI, August 4-11, 1973," memorandum of August 13, 1973, CIA-RDP96-00787R000700110003-2. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
[^4]: Ray Hyman, "Psychics and Scientists: 'Mind-Reach' and Remote Viewing," *The Humanist*, May/June 1977, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080037-4. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080037-4.pdf Jim Schnabel, *Remote Viewers* (Dell, 1997), p. 138, dates the visit of the agency's three-man team to early 1973.
[^5]: Roger A. Beaumont, "On the Strategic Potential of ESP," clipping reproduced in the 1983 Center Lane staff study, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3.pdf
[^6]: "Boom Times on the Psychic Frontier," *Time*, March 4, 1974, CIA-RDP96-00787R000100030002-8. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00787R000100030002-8.pdf
[^7]: David Suter, article for *The Washington Post*, undated clipping reproduced in CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3.pdf
[^8]: Targ, Russell. "Experiments: Uri Geller at SRI, August 4-11, 1973," memorandum of August 13, 1973, CIA-RDP96-00787R000700110003-2. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.

21
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Walworth Barbour.md
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@ -10,20 +10,27 @@ died: 1982-07-21
location: "Cambridge, Massachusetts"
---
Walworth Barbour was the American ambassador to [[Israel]] from 1961 to 1973, serving longer in one post than all but three other American ambassadors. He was a compelling presence, described as a tall, shy, hugely overweight diplomat with a gluttonous appetite and acute emphysema. He constantly sprayed his throat with a vaporizer, wore yellowing white suits with brown-and-white shoes, and walked with a shambling gait. Barbour spoke no Hebrew and rarely attended educational, cultural, or social events, yet he was beloved by [[Israel]]'s leadership.[^1]
Walworth Barbour was the American ambassador to [[Israel]] from 1961 to 1973, serving longer in one post than all but three other American ambassadors. He was a compelling presence, described as a tall, shy, hugely overweight diplomat with a gluttonous appetite and acute emphysema. He constantly sprayed his throat with a vaporizer, wore yellowing white suits with brown-and-white shoes, and walked with a shambling gait. Barbour spoke no Hebrew and rarely attended educational, cultural, or social events, yet he was beloved by Israel's leadership.[^1]
Barbour's long assignment was a testament to his understanding of when and when not to accept every Israeli assertion at face value, and his willingness to operate the American embassy as a subsidiary, if necessary, of the Israeli foreign ministry. He often reminded his questioning subordinates that he was a President's man with a personal mandate, not a servant of the [[State Department]].[^1]
In his first six years as ambassador, Barbour rarely interfered with the job of those working in his embassy, and some of the most accurate reporting on [[Dimona]] was forwarded to [[Washington, D.C.]]. However, these reports had no impact and disappeared into the bureaucratic maze. After the 1967 [[Six-Day War]], he ordered his staff to stop reporting on nuclear weapons in [[Israel]], over the objection of one key aide. His primary assignment was to insulate President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] and his men from facts that would compel action regarding [[Israel]]'s nuclear program.[^1]
In his first six years as ambassador, Barbour rarely interfered with the job of those working in his embassy, and some of the most accurate reporting on [[Dimona]] was forwarded to [[Washington, D.C.]]. However, these reports had no impact and disappeared into the bureaucratic maze. After the 1967 [[Six-Day War]], he ordered his staff to stop reporting on nuclear weapons in Israel, over the objection of one key aide. His primary assignment was to insulate President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] and his men from facts that would compel action regarding Israel's nuclear program.[^1]
Barbour's closest associates were senior officials of the Israeli government, including [[Golda Meir]] and Major General [[Aharon Yariv]]. He shared the taboo of not discussing nuclear weapons with outsiders. However, it was Barbour's men who reported before the June 1967 war that [[Israel]] had completed its basic weapons design and was capable of manufacturing warheads for deployment on missiles.[^1]
On June 5, 1967, Barbour and the presidential special counsel Harry C. McPherson, Jr. met Major General [[Meir Amit]] in Tel Aviv; [[Walt Rostow]]'s covering note to Johnson reported Amit's argument that there had been artillery fire on three Israeli villages and air incursions and that the Israelis had then "punched all the buttons," and added: "At least that's his story."[^2] Hersh writes that Barbour spent much of the war in the Israeli war room, and quotes a cable he sent hours after the attack on the [[USS Liberty Incident|USS Liberty]]: "Urge strongly that we too avoid publicity."[^3]
In 1970, Barbour made a rare public appearance, sharing a podium with Prime Minister [[Golda Meir]] at the opening of an American school in [[Tel Aviv]]. After his retirement in 1973, he became a board member of the American branch of Bank Leumi, the Israeli state bank, a move that confounded and distressed many of his former colleagues in the Foreign Service who saw it as a conflict of interest.[^1]
On June 27, 1967, Barbour sent telegram 4311 from Tel Aviv, answering a State Department request of June 24 for an estimate of the war's effect on Israeli nuclear and missile policy. He wrote that the embassy had not discussed the subject with Israelis since the crisis began, that Israeli officials had not raised it in his many talks with them, and that there had been no press speculation. He wrote that Israelis "who have technical capability to build bomb, would, it may be argued, be foolish not to produce extra-conventional weapons against enemies whose total conventional military capabilities conceivably could outstrip Israel's within another decade," that if Israel achieved a durable peace "any reason for, and indeed any rationale for, going nuclear would be undermined," and that he did not believe there was "any compelling reason at present time for change in" the government's policy of abstinence from nuclear weapons and missile production.[^4]
Upon the inauguration of President [[Richard Nixon]] in January 1969, Barbour became even less interested in [[Dimona]], effectively exorcising the issue. He famously told a senior American intelligence officer who briefed him on [[Israel]]'s nuclear weapons program, "Gentlemen, I don't believe a word of it," explaining that if he acknowledged it, he would have to go to the President, and the President did not want bad news.[^1]
Barbour's closest associates were senior officials of the Israeli government, including [[Golda Meir]] and Major General [[Aharon Yariv]]. He shared the taboo of not discussing nuclear weapons with outsiders. However, it was Barbour's men who reported before the June 1967 war that Israel had completed its basic weapons design and was capable of manufacturing warheads for deployment on missiles.[^1]
Barbour's support for [[Israel]] was profound and heartfelt. He remained on the board of Bank Leumi until his death, seemingly unconcerned with his peers' opinions.[^1]
In 1970, Barbour made a rare public appearance, sharing a podium with Prime Minister Golda Meir at the opening of an American school in [[Tel Aviv]]. After his retirement in 1973, he became a board member of the American branch of Bank Leumi, the Israeli state bank, a move that confounded and distressed many of his former colleagues in the Foreign Service who saw it as a conflict of interest.[^1]
Upon the inauguration of President [[Richard Nixon]] in January 1969, Barbour became even less interested in Dimona, effectively exorcising the issue. He famously told a senior American intelligence officer who briefed him on Israel's nuclear weapons program, "Gentlemen, I don't believe a word of it," explaining that if he acknowledged it, he would have to go to the President, and the President did not want bad news.[^1]
Barbour's support for Israel was profound and heartfelt. He remained on the board of Bank Leumi until his death, seemingly unconcerned with his peers' opinions.[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 12.
[^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 12.
[^2]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 158, editors' note on telegram 3937 from Tel Aviv, June 5, 1967. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d158
[^3]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 12, pp. 167-168, quoting a declassified cable in the LBJ Library. Sole source for the cable text.
[^4]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 326, Telegram 4311 from the Embassy in Israel (Barbour) to the Department of State, June 27, 1967. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d326