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@ -28,19 +28,19 @@ relations:
role: "Navy officer assigned to a research billet; Project LIGHTNING (ultra-high-speed computers)"
start: 1960
end: 1963
fn: 5
fn: 6
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Bill Hamilton]]"
reverse: true
role: "worked for NSA in the 1960s according to NSA's statement to the Bua inquiry; personnel records purged"
fn: 13
fn: 14
- type: investigated
with: "[[Church Committee]]"
reverse: true
role: "hearings on SHAMROCK and the watch list activity, October 29 and November 6, 1975"
start: 1975
end: 1975
fn: 1
fn: 2
---
- type: head_of
with: "[[Bobby Ray Inman]]"
@ -48,75 +48,76 @@ relations:
role: "director"
start: 1977-07-05
end: 1981-02
fn: 2
The National Security Agency (NSA) was established by a presidential memorandum of October 1952, which directed the creation of the agency, designated the Secretary of Defense as the President's executive agent for communications intelligence, and set out the agency's missions. The agency's director, Lieutenant General [[Lew Allen]], described it in that form to the [[Church Committee]] on October 29, 1975.[^1] Its headquarters are at [[Fort Meade]], Maryland, where the Army's [[United States Army Intelligence and Security Command]] (INSCOM) also kept its remote viewing unit.
fn: 3
The National Security Agency (NSA) was established in 1952. President [[Harry S. Truman]] sent a memorandum on communications intelligence activities to the Secretaries of State and Defense on October 24, 1952; Major General [[Ralph J. Canine]] became the agency's first director on November 4, 1952; and a revised National Security Council Intelligence Directive No. 9 is dated December 29, 1952.[^1] The agency's director, Lieutenant General [[Lew Allen]], described the founding to the [[Church Committee]] on October 29, 1975 as a presidential memorandum of October 1952 that directed the creation of the agency, designated the Secretary of Defense as the President's executive agent for communications intelligence, and set out the agency's missions.[^2] Its headquarters are at [[Fort Meade]], Maryland, where the Army's [[United States Army Intelligence and Security Command]] (INSCOM) also kept its remote viewing unit.
### Director Bobby Ray Inman, 1977 to 1981
Bobby Ray Inman became director on July 5, 1977. In February 1981 he told the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] that he had served as director "since 5 July 1977."[^2] He told the committee that during his four years at the agency "this committee constantly pressed on the administration the question of the adequacy of the intelligence assets."[^2]
Bobby Ray Inman became director on July 5, 1977. In February 1981 he told the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] that he had served as director "since 5 July 1977."[^3] He told the committee that during his four years at the agency "this committee constantly pressed on the administration the question of the adequacy of the intelligence assets."[^3]
The BBC's Tim Harford wrote in 2017 that the agency's head "was genuinely puzzled about the academics' motives" in the public-key cryptography episode, and that he "soon accepted that the professor had a point and no prosecutions followed."[^3]
The BBC's Tim Harford wrote in 2017 that the agency's head "was genuinely puzzled about the academics' motives" in the public-key cryptography episode, and that he "soon accepted that the professor had a point and no prosecutions followed."[^4]
A Senate executive summary of January 1993 records that Inman testified that the NSA's signals intelligence collection in Southeast Asia was dismantled after the war and was not resumed until at least 1978.[^4]
A Senate executive summary of January 1993 records that Inman testified that the NSA's signals intelligence collection in Southeast Asia was dismantled after the war and was not resumed until at least 1978.[^5]
### SHAMROCK and the watch list activity
The Church Committee's statement of November 6, 1975 described SHAMROCK as a message collection program in which the government persuaded three international telegraph companies, [[RCA Global]], [[ITT World Communications]] and [[Western Union International]], to make their international telegraph traffic available, so that "for almost 30 years, copies of most international telegrams originating in or forwarded through the United States were turned over to the National Security Agency and its predecessor agencies." The committee found that the [[Army Security Agency]], later folded into INSCOM, was the first agency with operational responsibility for SHAMROCK; the [[Armed Forces Security Agency]] inherited it in 1949 and NSA assumed operational control when it was created in 1952. The committee added that no documents at NSA or the Department of Defense reflected the operational arrangements between the government and the companies.[^1] In his own testimony Allen separately described a "watch list activity" conducted by NSA between 1967 and 1973 in response to requirements levied by other government agencies, and the committee chairman's opening statement noted that NSA, like the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] and the [[Internal Revenue Service]], had maintained a watch list containing the names of United States citizens.[^1]
The Church Committee's statement of November 6, 1975 described SHAMROCK as a message collection program in which the government persuaded three international telegraph companies, [[RCA Global]], [[ITT World Communications]] and [[Western Union International]], to make their international telegraph traffic available, so that "for almost 30 years, copies of most international telegrams originating in or forwarded through the United States were turned over to the National Security Agency and its predecessor agencies." The committee found that the [[Army Security Agency]], later folded into INSCOM, was the first agency with operational responsibility for SHAMROCK; the [[Armed Forces Security Agency]] inherited it in 1949 and NSA assumed operational control when it was created in 1952. The committee added that no documents at NSA or the Department of Defense reflected the operational arrangements between the government and the companies.[^2] In his own testimony Allen separately described a "watch list activity" conducted by NSA between 1967 and 1973 in response to requirements levied by other government agencies, and the committee chairman's opening statement noted that NSA, like the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] and the [[Internal Revenue Service]], had maintained a watch list containing the names of United States citizens.[^2]
### Hal Puthoff at the NSA
[[Hal Puthoff]], later the principal investigator of the [[Stanford Research Institute]] remote viewing work, reported to active duty as a [[U.S. Navy|Navy]] officer in 1960 after taking a master's degree at the [[University of Florida]] and was assigned to a research billet at the NSA at Fort Meade. According to the biography SRI filed with its 1979 Grill Flame protocol, he pursued research and monitored contracts on the development of ultra-high-speed computers under Project LIGHTNING, started a program on the potential of lasers, fiber optics and related devices for optical computers, received a Department of Defense Certificate of Commendation, and won second prize for outstanding paper of the year in the NSA Technical Journal in 1963. He left active duty in February 1963 and remained a civilian (GS-13) until September 1963, when he entered [[Stanford University]].[^5]
[[Hal Puthoff]], later the principal investigator of the [[Stanford Research Institute]] remote viewing work, reported to active duty as a [[U.S. Navy|Navy]] officer in 1960 after taking a master's degree at the [[University of Florida]] and was assigned to a research billet at the NSA at Fort Meade. According to the biography SRI filed with its 1979 Grill Flame protocol, he pursued research and monitored contracts on the development of ultra-high-speed computers under Project LIGHTNING, started a program on the potential of lasers, fiber optics and related devices for optical computers, received a Department of Defense Certificate of Commendation, and won second prize for outstanding paper of the year in the NSA Technical Journal in 1963. He left active duty in February 1963 and remained a civilian (GS-13) until September 1963, when he entered [[Stanford University]].[^6]
### The 1973 West Virginia target
SRI's final report for the period January 1974 through February 1975 describes experiments "under the control of the sponsor," in which an SRI experimenter requested geographical coordinates of a site unknown to the experimenters and subjects from "the sponsor's group responsible for threat analysis." The coordinates received were 38 degrees 23 minutes 45 seconds to 48 seconds north, 79 degrees 25 minutes west, described only as being in West Virginia. On May 29, 1973 [[Puthoff]] relayed them by telephone to a first subject, designated S3 in the final report and named as [[Ingo Swann]] in SRI's October 1, 1973 proposal, whose sessions of May 29 and 30 described rolling hills, lawns like those around a military base, and "either some old bunkers around, or maybe this is a covered reservoir." On June 1, 1973 Puthoff gave the coordinates to a second subject, designated S1 and named as [[Pat Price]] in the proposal, whose written response of June 2 reported a peak in a mountain chain, a concealed road, a "former missile site" where underground rooms held records, microfilm and file cabinets under "Army 5th Corps Engineers," and, beyond them, bays "with computers, communication equipment, large maps" staffed by the Army Signal Corps. The report states that both West Virginia reports and the report on a Urals site that Price volunteered were "verified by personnel in the sponsor organization as being substantially correct."[^6]
SRI's final report for the period January 1974 through February 1975 describes experiments "under the control of the sponsor," in which an SRI experimenter requested geographical coordinates of a site unknown to the experimenters and subjects from "the sponsor's group responsible for threat analysis." The coordinates received were 38 degrees 23 minutes 45 seconds to 48 seconds north, 79 degrees 25 minutes west, described only as being in West Virginia. On May 29, 1973 [[Puthoff]] relayed them by telephone to a first subject, designated S3 in the final report and named as [[Ingo Swann]] in SRI's October 1, 1973 proposal, whose sessions of May 29 and 30 described rolling hills, lawns like those around a military base, and "either some old bunkers around, or maybe this is a covered reservoir." On June 1, 1973 Puthoff gave the coordinates to a second subject, designated S1 and named as [[Pat Price]] in the proposal, whose written response of June 2 reported a peak in a mountain chain, a concealed road, a "former missile site" where underground rooms held records, microfilm and file cabinets under "Army 5th Corps Engineers," and, beyond them, bays "with computers, communication equipment, large maps" staffed by the Army Signal Corps. The report states that both West Virginia reports and the report on a Urals site that Price volunteered were "verified by personnel in the sponsor organization as being substantially correct."[^7]
On a later date, the report says, S1 was asked to return to the site "with the goal of obtaining information on code words," and supplied the following: top of desk with papers labeled "Flytrap" and "Minerva"; a file cabinet labeled "Operation Pool"; folders labeled "Cueball," "14 Ball," "4 Ball," "8 Ball" and "Rackup"; a site name that "vaguely seems like Hayfork or Haystack"; and the personnel "Col. R. J. Hamilton, Maj. Gen. George R. Nash, Major John C. Calhoun (??)."[^6] The name Sugar Grove does not appear in the SRI report. An article by the former [[Time]] science correspondent John L. Wilhelm in [[The Washington Post]] (c. 1977) wrote that the coordinates were encoded and passed through an NSA monitor in the Washington area to a CIA scientist at [[Menlo Park]], that the site was a satellite interrogation station which "eavesdrops on Soviet space vehicles," that an officer exclaimed "Hell, there's no security left," and that a security investigation was launched to determine whether the information had leaked to Price. Wilhelm, who also names Sugar Grove in listing the explanations later offered, quoted a source as saying the security men "wouldn't buy the idea of remote viewing."[^7] An Army briefing script on the Grill Flame program, describing the same episode without naming the site, states that the viewer "actually entered the place, calling out names of people who were working there," that he "read" classified codewords on folders, some locked inside security containers, and that "the CIA later confirmed with NSA the validity of much of the subject's information."[^8]
On a later date, the report says, S1 was asked to return to the site "with the goal of obtaining information on code words," and supplied the following: top of desk with papers labeled "Flytrap" and "Minerva"; a file cabinet labeled "Operation Pool"; folders labeled "Cueball," "14 Ball," "4 Ball," "8 Ball" and "Rackup"; a site name that "vaguely seems like Hayfork or Haystack"; and the personnel "Col. R. J. Hamilton, Maj. Gen. George R. Nash, Major John C. Calhoun (??)."[^7] The name Sugar Grove does not appear in the SRI report. An article by the former [[Time]] science correspondent John L. Wilhelm in [[The Washington Post]] (c. 1977) wrote that the coordinates were encoded and passed through an NSA monitor in the Washington area to a CIA scientist at [[Menlo Park]], that the site was a satellite interrogation station which "eavesdrops on Soviet space vehicles," that an officer exclaimed "Hell, there's no security left," and that a security investigation was launched to determine whether the information had leaked to Price. Wilhelm, who also names Sugar Grove in listing the explanations later offered, quoted a source as saying the security men "wouldn't buy the idea of remote viewing."[^8] An Army briefing script on the Grill Flame program, describing the same episode without naming the site, states that the viewer "actually entered the place, calling out names of people who were working there," that he "read" classified codewords on folders, some locked inside security containers, and that "the CIA later confirmed with NSA the validity of much of the subject's information."[^9]
### NSA and the Army remote viewing program
An INSCOM staff paper of 1982, written when [[Congress]] was ending National Foreign Intelligence Program funding for the Army's Grill Flame project, listed among the options for its future a determination "if the Director, NSA would integrate the current INSCOM GRILL FLAME project into any NSA program."[^9] A September 22, 1982 memorandum from the 902d Military Intelligence Group set out the mechanics of NSA sponsorship: the psi personnel could be carried on the rolls of the CONUS MI Group, the housekeeping organization for Army personnel working at NSA, under a "Strategic Systems Planning Detachment" with funding provided by the NSA sponsor and tasking exercised by the INSCOM commander through an INSCOM liaison officer at the NSA.[^10] INSCOM's chronology records that Lieutenant General [[Lincoln D. Faurer]], director of the NSA, was briefed on the program on August 2, 1982.[^9]
An INSCOM staff paper of 1982, written when [[Congress]] was ending National Foreign Intelligence Program funding for the Army's Grill Flame project, listed among the options for its future a determination "if the Director, NSA would integrate the current INSCOM GRILL FLAME project into any NSA program."[^10] A September 22, 1982 memorandum from the 902d Military Intelligence Group set out the mechanics of NSA sponsorship: the psi personnel could be carried on the rolls of the CONUS MI Group, the housekeeping organization for Army personnel working at NSA, under a "Strategic Systems Planning Detachment" with funding provided by the NSA sponsor and tasking exercised by the INSCOM commander through an INSCOM liaison officer at the NSA.[^11] INSCOM's chronology records that Lieutenant General [[Lincoln D. Faurer]], director of the NSA, was briefed on the program on August 2, 1982.[^10]
On August 27, 1982 the Grill Flame project manager, Lieutenant Colonel [[Robert Jachim]], recorded a conversation with NSA personnel. The NSA people said the agency had "no active remote viewers," asked INSCOM how remote viewers were selected, what psychological battery was used, whether a screening questionnaire could be provided and what training SRI had offered, and were given copies of articles from Signal, [[Omni]] and an [[IEEE]] article by [[Robert Jahn]] of Princeton. Jachim wrote that Puthoff had telephoned an NSA contact to say that some of SRI's funding had not materialized and to invite NSA into the program, and that the NSA contact "was noncommittal." The memorandum gives an internal NSA designation for the agency's own parapsychology activity, which is redacted in the released copy.[^11] A 1984 INSCOM commanding general's memorandum lists the NSA among the agencies that had tasked remote viewing and says an evaluation from the NSA, with one from the CIA, was attached to it.[^12]
On August 27, 1982 the Grill Flame project manager, Lieutenant Colonel [[Robert Jachim]], recorded a conversation with NSA personnel. The NSA people said the agency had "no active remote viewers," asked INSCOM how remote viewers were selected, what psychological battery was used, whether a screening questionnaire could be provided and what training SRI had offered, and were given copies of articles from Signal, [[Omni]] and an [[IEEE]] article by [[Robert Jahn]] of Princeton. Jachim wrote that Puthoff had telephoned an NSA contact to say that some of SRI's funding had not materialized and to invite NSA into the program, and that the NSA contact "was noncommittal." The memorandum gives an internal NSA designation for the agency's own parapsychology activity, which is redacted in the released copy.[^12] A 1984 INSCOM commanding general's memorandum lists the NSA among the agencies that had tasked remote viewing and says an evaluation from the NSA, with one from the CIA, was attached to it.[^13]
### PROMIS
An NSA database named PROMIS appears in the [[Department of Justice]] inquiry into the INSLAW matter. The 1993 report of Special Counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] records that [[Ari Ben-Menashe]] told Bua's team that the "PROMIS" software [[Earl Brian]] distributed to the Israelis was an NSA program and not INSLAW's, that the NSA had developed it to translate Vietnamese into English, and that [[Bill Hamilton]] had worked on it while employed at the NSA before INSLAW existed. Ben-Menashe had earlier sworn affidavits for INSLAW stating that Brian told a 1987 Israeli meeting that the CIA, the NSA, the Department of Justice and Israeli intelligence had been allowed to use PROMIS since 1982; he told Bua that he had let the Hamiltons "assume" he meant INSLAW's product. The Bua report states that the NSA told the investigators Hamilton had worked for the NSA in the 1960s but that, because his personnel records had been purged, it could not say whether he had worked on such a program. The NSA also told them it used a commercial software package from [[Computer Corporation of America]] and that in 1974 and 1975, six years before INSLAW was incorporated, it had developed a database in the M204 language called PROMIS, an acronym for Product Related On-line Management Information System ("product" being the agency's term for its intelligence reports), which it said had no relationship to INSLAW's product and shared the name coincidentally. The NSA general counsel's office told the investigators that many NSA personnel knew of its PROMIS and that many had since moved to other agencies and private employers. The Bua report declined to credit the rest of Ben-Menashe's account.[^13]
An NSA database named PROMIS appears in the [[Department of Justice]] inquiry into the INSLAW matter. The 1993 report of Special Counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] records that [[Ari Ben-Menashe]] told Bua's team that the "PROMIS" software [[Earl Brian]] distributed to the Israelis was an NSA program and not INSLAW's, that the NSA had developed it to translate Vietnamese into English, and that [[Bill Hamilton]] had worked on it while employed at the NSA before INSLAW existed. Ben-Menashe had earlier sworn affidavits for INSLAW stating that Brian told a 1987 Israeli meeting that the CIA, the NSA, the Department of Justice and Israeli intelligence had been allowed to use PROMIS since 1982; he told Bua that he had let the Hamiltons "assume" he meant INSLAW's product. The Bua report states that the NSA told the investigators Hamilton had worked for the NSA in the 1960s but that, because his personnel records had been purged, it could not say whether he had worked on such a program. The NSA also told them it used a commercial software package from [[Computer Corporation of America]] and that in 1974 and 1975, six years before INSLAW was incorporated, it had developed a database in the M204 language called PROMIS, an acronym for Product Related On-line Management Information System ("product" being the agency's term for its intelligence reports), which it said had no relationship to INSLAW's product and shared the name coincidentally. The NSA general counsel's office told the investigators that many NSA personnel knew of its PROMIS and that many had since moved to other agencies and private employers. The Bua report declined to credit the rest of Ben-Menashe's account.[^14]
The House Judiciary Committee's 1992 report on the INSLAW affair had recorded a different claim: [[Juval Aviv]], a former Israeli intelligence officer and head of the investigative firm [[Interfor]], told committee investigators in January 1991 that Brian had sold INSLAW's Enhanced PROMIS to United States agencies outside the Department of Justice, including the CIA, the NSA, [[NASA]] and the [[National Security Council]], and to [[Interpol]], the [[Mossad]], the Israeli Air Force and the Egyptian government.[^14]
The House Judiciary Committee's 1992 report on the INSLAW affair had recorded a different claim: [[Juval Aviv]], a former Israeli intelligence officer and head of the investigative firm [[Interfor]], told committee investigators in January 1991 that Brian had sold INSLAW's Enhanced PROMIS to United States agencies outside the Department of Justice, including the CIA, the NSA, [[NASA]] and the [[National Security Council]], and to [[Interpol]], the [[Mossad]], the Israeli Air Force and the Egyptian government.[^15]
### UFO records and Citizens Against UFO Secrecy v. NSA
In [[Ground Saucer Watch]] v. CIA (D.D.C., Civil Action 78-859) the Central Intelligence Agency located documents that originated with the NSA and referred them to that agency in four separate referrals, the last on July 27, 1979. The attorney for the plaintiff, [[Peter A. Gersten]], then requested the documents from the NSA; by letters of January 9, 1979 and December 19, 1979 the NSA's policy staff chief, [[Roy R. Banner]], told him the records were classified in their entirety and exempt under 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(1) and (b)(3), the latter on the strength of 18 U.S.C. 798, 50 U.S.C. 403(d)(3) and Public Law 86-36. The NSA appeals authority affirmed on March 24, 1980, and in Citizens Against Unidentified Flying Objects Secrecy v. National Security Agency (D.D.C., Civil Action 80-1562) the agency's Chief of the Office of Policy, [[Eugene F. Yeates]], swore an affidavit that the withheld material consisted of communications intelligence reports that were "all based on intercepted foreign communications," whose disclosure would identify communications "successfully intercepted and processed," together with four non-COMINT records, and that he would supply a second affidavit classified Top Secret for the court's in camera consideration. A portion of one responsive document was declassified and released to plaintiff's counsel on September 15, 1980.[^15]
In [[Ground Saucer Watch]] v. CIA (D.D.C., Civil Action 78-859) the Central Intelligence Agency located documents that originated with the NSA and referred them to that agency in four separate referrals, the last on July 27, 1979. The attorney for the plaintiff, [[Peter A. Gersten]], then requested the documents from the NSA; by letters of January 9, 1979 and December 19, 1979 the NSA's policy staff chief, [[Roy R. Banner]], told him the records were classified in their entirety and exempt under 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(1) and (b)(3), the latter on the strength of 18 U.S.C. 798, 50 U.S.C. 403(d)(3) and Public Law 86-36. The NSA appeals authority affirmed on March 24, 1980, and in Citizens Against Unidentified Flying Objects Secrecy v. National Security Agency (D.D.C., Civil Action 80-1562) the agency's Chief of the Office of Policy, [[Eugene F. Yeates]], swore an affidavit that the withheld material consisted of communications intelligence reports that were "all based on intercepted foreign communications," whose disclosure would identify communications "successfully intercepted and processed," together with four non-COMINT records, and that he would supply a second affidavit classified Top Secret for the court's in camera consideration. A portion of one responsive document was declassified and released to plaintiff's counsel on September 15, 1980.[^16]
### The KH-11 and the Israeli access dispute
[[Seymour Hersh]] wrote in *The Samson Option* that a former NSA official told him the KH-11 satellite, launched in December 1976, was considered the most important advance of its time in reconnaissance photography, that every military and civilian intelligence agency had an urgent requirement for its imagery, and that the NSA, responsible for all communications intelligence, had a role in scheduling the satellite to maximize collection. Hersh wrote that [[Jimmy Carter]]'s decision in March 1979 to give [[Israel]] direct access to KH-11 photographs disrupted that scheduling and was unpopular within the NSA and other agencies, and that during the [[Ronald Reagan]] administration it was learned that Israeli military officers were permitted to attend Pentagon meetings where future KH-11 missions and orbital paths were discussed, which dismayed some NSA officials.[^16]
[[Seymour Hersh]] wrote in *The Samson Option* that a former NSA official told him the KH-11 satellite, launched in December 1976, was considered the most important advance of its time in reconnaissance photography, that every military and civilian intelligence agency had an urgent requirement for its imagery, and that the NSA, responsible for all communications intelligence, had a role in scheduling the satellite to maximize collection. Hersh wrote that [[Jimmy Carter]]'s decision in March 1979 to give [[Israel]] direct access to KH-11 photographs disrupted that scheduling and was unpopular within the NSA and other agencies, and that during the [[Ronald Reagan]] administration it was learned that Israeli military officers were permitted to attend Pentagon meetings where future KH-11 missions and orbital paths were discussed, which dismayed some NSA officials.[^17]
### USS Liberty intercepts, 2003 to 2007
The NSA released transcripts of intercepts made after the June 8, 1967, attack on the [[USS Liberty Incident|USS Liberty]] in July 2003, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by [[A. Jay Cristol]] filed April 26, 2001. The letter of July 2, 2003, enclosed three recordings of Israeli communications in Hebrew, three transcripts and two summary reports, and states that "No communications of the attacking aircraft or torpedo boats were available" and that an EC-121 aircraft had collected conversations between two Israeli helicopter pilots and the control tower at Hazor Airfield; it states that portions were withheld under Executive Order 12958 and under statutes including 18 U.S.C. 798 and Section 6 of Public Law 86-36.[^17] In January 2004 the agency's historian, [[David Hatch]], said the new material "doesn't settle much," according to the Financial Times, and that his reading of the air controller's conversations with two helicopter pilots "suggested strongly" that the Israelis did not know at first that the ship was American.[^18] On June 8, 2007, the NSA announced that it had finished its review of all material relating to the attack and had posted additional documents, stating: "It is not NSA's intention to prove or disprove any one set of conclusions, many of which can be drawn from a thorough review of this material."[^19] [[Oliver Kirby]], the NSA deputy director for operations/production in 1967, said in an interview of February 14, 2003 that within weeks of the attack he read transcripts of the Israeli pilots' conversations that made it "absolutely certain" the Israelis knew the ship was American.[^20] The Chicago Tribune reported on October 2, 2007 that the NSA's position was that it never intercepted the communications of the attacking Israeli pilots; quoted Kirby as saying "I'm willing to swear on a stack of Bibles that we knew they knew"; quoted Michael Prostinak, a Hebrew linguist aboard the EC-121, as saying "there were more tapes than just the three on the Internet"; and reported that the posted tape designated A1104/A-02 begins at 2:29 p.m. local time and that a preceding tape designated A1104/A-01 is absent. An NSA media adviser did not respond to the Tribune's question about the difference.[^21]
The NSA released transcripts of intercepts made after the June 8, 1967, attack on the [[USS Liberty Incident|USS Liberty]] in July 2003, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by [[A. Jay Cristol]] filed April 26, 2001. The letter of July 2, 2003, enclosed three recordings of Israeli communications in Hebrew, three transcripts and two summary reports, and states that "No communications of the attacking aircraft or torpedo boats were available" and that an EC-121 aircraft had collected conversations between two Israeli helicopter pilots and the control tower at Hazor Airfield; it states that portions were withheld under Executive Order 12958 and under statutes including 18 U.S.C. 798 and Section 6 of Public Law 86-36.[^18] In January 2004 the agency's historian, [[David Hatch]], said the new material "doesn't settle much," according to the Financial Times, and that his reading of the air controller's conversations with two helicopter pilots "suggested strongly" that the Israelis did not know at first that the ship was American.[^19] On June 8, 2007, the NSA announced that it had finished its review of all material relating to the attack and had posted additional documents, stating: "It is not NSA's intention to prove or disprove any one set of conclusions, many of which can be drawn from a thorough review of this material."[^20] [[Oliver Kirby]], the NSA deputy director for operations/production in 1967, said in an interview of February 14, 2003 that within weeks of the attack he read transcripts of the Israeli pilots' conversations that made it "absolutely certain" the Israelis knew the ship was American.[^21] The Chicago Tribune reported on October 2, 2007 that the NSA's position was that it never intercepted the communications of the attacking Israeli pilots; quoted Kirby as saying "I'm willing to swear on a stack of Bibles that we knew they knew"; quoted Michael Prostinak, a Hebrew linguist aboard the EC-121, as saying "there were more tapes than just the three on the Internet"; and reported that the posted tape designated A1104/A-02 begins at 2:29 p.m. local time and that a preceding tape designated A1104/A-01 is absent. An NSA media adviser did not respond to the Tribune's question about the difference.[^22]
### Footnotes
[^1]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Intelligence Activities, Senate Resolution 21*, Hearings, vol. 5, "The National Security Agency and Fourth Amendment Rights," 94th Cong., 1st sess., October 29 and November 6, 1975 (testimony of Lt. Gen. Lew Allen, Jr.; committee statement on SHAMROCK read November 6), https://archive.org/details/Church-Committee-Hearings-Volume5-National-Security-Agency (text at https://archive.org/download/Church-Committee-Hearings-Volume5-National-Security-Agency/Vol5-NSA_djvu.txt).
[^2]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Intelligence, Nomination of Admiral B. R. Inman to Be Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, hearing of February 3, 1981 (Washington: GPO, 1981). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/hearings/97inman.pdf
[^3]: Tim Harford, "Geeks v government: The battle over public key cryptography," BBC News, April 24, 2017. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39341663
[^4]: U.S. Senate, Report of the Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, S. Rept. 103-1, Executive Summary, January 13, 1993. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1993_rpt/pow-exec.html
[^5]: "Proposed Grill Flame Protocol: Proposed SRI International Applied Remote Viewing Protocol," SRI 9-4107, March 23, 1979, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300070001-1, biography of Harold E. Puthoff, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001300070001-1.
[^6]: Harold E. Puthoff and Russell Targ, "Perceptual Augmentation Techniques, Part Two: Research Report," final report covering January 1974 through February 1975, SRI International, December 1, 1975, section on "West Virginia Site (S3)," "West Virginia Site (S1)" and "Urals Site," CIA-RDP96-00788R001300030001-5, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001300030001-5; and SRI Proposal for Research ISH 73-146, "Perceptual Augmentation Techniques, Part One," October 1, 1973, CIA-RDP96-00787R000700100001-5, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000700100001-5, which names Price in the same passage.
[^7]: John L. Wilhelm, "The CIA, the Pentagon and the Russians: The Military Potential of Parapsychology," *The Washington Post* (c. 1977), as reproduced in CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001700360003-3.
[^8]: "Army's Role in a Sensitive, Close-Hold DoD Project," Army briefing script on psychoenergetics (undated), CIA-RDP96-00787R000200020023-5, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000200020023-5.
[^9]: Staff paper on termination of the Army Grill Flame program, 1982, and "Center Lane Historical Overview," CIA-RDP96-00788R001500180001-7, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001500180001-7 and CIA-RDP96-00788R000400060001-2.
[^10]: Memorandum, "Detachment G Reorganization," 902d Military Intelligence Group Security Support Detachment, September 22, 1982, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700350013-3, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001700350013-3.
[^11]: Memorandum for the record, "NSA Involvement in GRILL FLAME," Lt. Col. Robert J. Jachim, August 1982, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700230009-1, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001700230009-1.
[^12]: INSCOM commanding general's memorandum and talking paper, May 4, 1984, CIA-RDP96-00788R001500180001-7.
[^13]: Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc. (1993), pp. 73 to 80, released by the Department of Justice Office of Information Policy on September 30, 2013 (AG/13-00675 (F)), https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/nsa/DOJ-OIP-INSLAW_1993.pdf.
[^14]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, *The INSLAW Affair*, H. Rept. 102-857, September 10, 1992, pp. 67 to 68, https://archive.org/details/InslawAffairInvestigativeReport. The report records these statements as Aviv's account to committee investigators.
[^15]: Affidavit of Eugene F. Yeates, Chief, Office of Policy, National Security Agency, *Citizens Against Unidentified Flying Objects Secrecy v. National Security Agency*, Civil Action No. 80-1562 (D.D.C. 1980), https://www.nsa.gov/news-features/declassified-documents/ufo/assets/files/affadavit_yeates.pdf (archived copy: https://web.archive.org/web/2020/https://www.nsa.gov/news-features/declassified-documents/ufo/assets/files/affadavit_yeates.pdf).
[^16]: Seymour M. Hersh, *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy* (Random House, 1991). Hersh attributes the account of the KH-11 scheduling to an unnamed former NSA official.
[^17]: National Security Agency, letter from Louis F. Giles, Director of Policy, to A. Jay Cristol, FOIA Case 40039A, July 2, 2003. https://irp.fas.org/nsa/liberty.html
[^18]: Guy Dinmore, *Financial Times*, January 13, 2004, reprinted by the History News Network. https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/3027
[^19]: National Security Agency, "U.S.S. Liberty," release page (Wayback Machine 2007 capture). http://web.archive.org/web/2007/http://www.nsa.gov/liberty
[^20]: David C. Walsh, "Former NSA Officials Agree," *U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings*, June 2003. https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2003/june/former-nsa-officials-agree
[^21]: "New revelations in attack on American spy ship," *Chicago Tribune*, October 2, 2007. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2007/10/02/new-revelations-in-attack-on-american-spy-ship/
[^1]: Memorandum to the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, "Communications Intelligence Activities," October 24, 1952, and NSCID No. 9, December 29, 1952, National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 23, Documents 2a and 2b. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB23/ ; National Security Agency, "Origins of NSA" (Major General Ralph J. Canine first Director, November 4, 1952). https://irp.fas.org/nsa/oldind.html
[^2]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Intelligence Activities, Senate Resolution 21*, Hearings, vol. 5, "The National Security Agency and Fourth Amendment Rights," 94th Cong., 1st sess., October 29 and November 6, 1975 (testimony of Lt. Gen. Lew Allen, Jr.; committee statement on SHAMROCK read November 6), https://archive.org/details/Church-Committee-Hearings-Volume5-National-Security-Agency (text at https://archive.org/download/Church-Committee-Hearings-Volume5-National-Security-Agency/Vol5-NSA_djvu.txt).
[^3]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Intelligence, Nomination of Admiral B. R. Inman to Be Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, hearing of February 3, 1981 (Washington: GPO, 1981). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/hearings/97inman.pdf
[^4]: Tim Harford, "Geeks v government: The battle over public key cryptography," BBC News, April 24, 2017. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39341663
[^5]: U.S. Senate, Report of the Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, S. Rept. 103-1, Executive Summary, January 13, 1993. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1993_rpt/pow-exec.html
[^6]: "Proposed Grill Flame Protocol: Proposed SRI International Applied Remote Viewing Protocol," SRI 9-4107, March 23, 1979, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300070001-1, biography of Harold E. Puthoff, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001300070001-1.
[^7]: Harold E. Puthoff and Russell Targ, "Perceptual Augmentation Techniques, Part Two: Research Report," final report covering January 1974 through February 1975, SRI International, December 1, 1975, section on "West Virginia Site (S3)," "West Virginia Site (S1)" and "Urals Site," CIA-RDP96-00788R001300030001-5, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001300030001-5; and SRI Proposal for Research ISH 73-146, "Perceptual Augmentation Techniques, Part One," October 1, 1973, CIA-RDP96-00787R000700100001-5, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000700100001-5, which names Price in the same passage.
[^8]: John L. Wilhelm, "The CIA, the Pentagon and the Russians: The Military Potential of Parapsychology," *The Washington Post* (c. 1977), as reproduced in CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001700360003-3.
[^9]: "Army's Role in a Sensitive, Close-Hold DoD Project," Army briefing script on psychoenergetics (undated), CIA-RDP96-00787R000200020023-5, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000200020023-5.
[^10]: Staff paper on termination of the Army Grill Flame program, 1982, and "Center Lane Historical Overview," CIA-RDP96-00788R001500180001-7, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001500180001-7 and CIA-RDP96-00788R000400060001-2.
[^11]: Memorandum, "Detachment G Reorganization," 902d Military Intelligence Group Security Support Detachment, September 22, 1982, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700350013-3, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001700350013-3.
[^12]: Memorandum for the record, "NSA Involvement in GRILL FLAME," Lt. Col. Robert J. Jachim, August 1982, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700230009-1, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001700230009-1.
[^13]: INSCOM commanding general's memorandum and talking paper, May 4, 1984, CIA-RDP96-00788R001500180001-7.
[^14]: Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc. (1993), pp. 73 to 80, released by the Department of Justice Office of Information Policy on September 30, 2013 (AG/13-00675 (F)), https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/nsa/DOJ-OIP-INSLAW_1993.pdf.
[^15]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, *The INSLAW Affair*, H. Rept. 102-857, September 10, 1992, pp. 67 to 68, https://archive.org/details/InslawAffairInvestigativeReport. The report records these statements as Aviv's account to committee investigators.
[^16]: Affidavit of Eugene F. Yeates, Chief, Office of Policy, National Security Agency, *Citizens Against Unidentified Flying Objects Secrecy v. National Security Agency*, Civil Action No. 80-1562 (D.D.C. 1980), https://www.nsa.gov/news-features/declassified-documents/ufo/assets/files/affadavit_yeates.pdf (archived copy: https://web.archive.org/web/2020/https://www.nsa.gov/news-features/declassified-documents/ufo/assets/files/affadavit_yeates.pdf).
[^17]: Seymour M. Hersh, *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy* (Random House, 1991). Hersh attributes the account of the KH-11 scheduling to an unnamed former NSA official.
[^18]: National Security Agency, letter from Louis F. Giles, Director of Policy, to A. Jay Cristol, FOIA Case 40039A, July 2, 2003. https://irp.fas.org/nsa/liberty.html
[^19]: Guy Dinmore, *Financial Times*, January 13, 2004, reprinted by the History News Network. https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/3027
[^20]: National Security Agency, "U.S.S. Liberty," release page (Wayback Machine 2007 capture). http://web.archive.org/web/2007/http://www.nsa.gov/liberty
[^21]: David C. Walsh, "Former NSA Officials Agree," *U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings*, June 2003. https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2003/june/former-nsa-officials-agree
[^22]: "New revelations in attack on American spy ship," *Chicago Tribune*, October 2, 2007. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2007/10/02/new-revelations-in-attack-on-american-spy-ship/

View file

@ -1,23 +1,336 @@
---
updated: 2026-10-03
tags: ["Organization", "Government", "USA"]
aliases:
- SEC
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
category: "U.S. Government"
summary: "The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is a U.S. government agency responsible for regulating the securities markets and protecting investors.[^1]"
tags:
- Organization
- Government
- USA
- Regulator
- SecuritiesEnforcement
- FCPA
- BCCI
- Vesco
- EDGAR
- JeffreyEpstein
- CryptoFraud
summary: "The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is a U.S. government agency responsible for regulating the securities markets and protecting investors."
start: 1934
location: "Washington, D.C."
updated: 2026-10-12
relations:
- type: head_of
with: "[[William J. Casey]]"
reverse: true
role: "chairman"
start: 1971-04-14
end: 1973-02-02
fn: 3
- type: head_of
with: "[[Jay Clayton]]"
reverse: true
role: "chairman"
start: 2017-05-04
end: 2020-12-23
fn: 3
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Stephen Cutler]]"
reverse: true
role: "director of the Division of Enforcement, October 2001 to April 2005"
start: 2001-10
end: 2005-04
fn: 27
- type: investigated
with: "[[International Controls Corporation]]"
role: "investigation of the 1970 purchase of control of Investors Overseas Services; injunctive action filed November 27, 1972"
start: 1972-11-27
fn: 2
- type: prosecuted
with: "[[Robert Vesco]]"
role: "civil injunctive action, Southern District of New York, November 27, 1972"
start: 1972-11-27
fn: 2
- type: investigated
with: "[[Jeffrey Epstein]]"
role: "insider-trading inquiry into St. Joe Minerals trading at Bear Stearns; testimony taken April 1, 1981"
start: 1981-04-01
fn: 16
- type: investigated
with: "[[Kamal Adham]]"
role: "inquiry under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act into Boeing and Lockheed arms sales to Saudi Arabia"
fn: 15
- type: investigated
with: "[[Faisal Saud al-Fulaij]]"
role: "inquiry under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act into Boeing and Lockheed arms sales to Saudi Arabia"
fn: 15
- type: prosecuted
with: "[[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]]"
role: "SEC v. Bank of Credit and Commerce International, Civil Action No. 78-0469 (D.D.C.), consent injunctions"
start: 1978-03-18
fn: 12
- type: prosecuted
with: "[[Bert Lance]]"
role: "civil action over the Financial General Bankshares stock purchases (permanent injunction March 18, 1978, per the News Digest; April 27, 1978, per the Senate report); separate N.D. Ga. action with the Comptroller of the Currency, April 26, 1978"
start: 1978-03-18
fn: 13
- type: investigated
with: "[[Lockheed Aircraft Company]]"
role: "review of Lockheed's disclosure of questionable overseas payments and sales commissions"
start: 1975
fn: 7
- type: investigated
with: "[[Ghaith R. Pharaon]]"
role: "ownership filings for CenTrust Savings, August 1987"
start: 1987-08-12
fn: 17
- type: investigated
with: "[[George W. Bush]]"
role: "late Form 4 filings for Harken Energy stock; investigation terminated October 1993"
start: 1991-04-09
end: 1993-10
fn: 21
- type: prosecuted
with: "[[James Guerin]]"
role: "joint announcement with the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania of an indictment of Guerin and twenty others, October 31, 1991"
start: 1991-10-31
fn: 22
- type: prosecuted
with: "[[Towers Financial Corporation]]"
role: "SEC v. Towers Financial Corporation, 93 Civ. 0744 (S.D.N.Y.), February 1993"
start: 1993-02
fn: 25
- type: prosecuted
with: "[[Steven Hoffenberg]]"
role: "SEC v. Towers Financial Corporation, 93 Civ. 0744 (S.D.N.Y.), February 1993"
start: 1993-02
fn: 25
- type: prosecuted
with: "[[Michael Rosoff]]"
role: "civil complaint, 96 Civ. 7064 (S.D.N.Y.), September 17, 1996"
start: 1996-09-17
fn: 25
- type: prosecuted
with: "[[Earl Brian]]"
role: "charged with inflating revenue and earnings of Financial News Network; settled without admitting or denying, July 1993"
start: 1993-07
fn: 26
- type: prosecuted
with: "[[Ralph Cioffi]]"
role: "SEC v. Cioffi and Tannin, Civil Action No. 08 2457 (E.D.N.Y.)"
start: 2008-06-19
fn: 31
- type: prosecuted
with: "[[Matthew Tannin]]"
role: "SEC v. Cioffi and Tannin, Civil Action No. 08 2457 (E.D.N.Y.)"
start: 2008-06-19
fn: 31
- type: prosecuted
with: "[[JPMorgan Chase]]"
role: "Enron-related charges settled; $135 million disgorgement, penalty and interest"
start: 2003-07-28
fn: 28
- type: prosecuted
with: "[[Citigroup]]"
role: "Enron and Dynegy-related charges settled; $120 million"
start: 2003-07-28
fn: 28
- type: prosecuted
with: "[[Goldman Sachs]]"
role: "SEC v. Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Fabrice Tourre, synthetic CDO; $550 million settlement in 2010"
start: 2010-04-16
fn: 33
- type: prosecuted
with: "[[Goldman Sachs]]"
role: "FCPA order over 1MDB bond deals; $606.3 million disgorgement and $400 million penalty"
start: 2020-10-22
fn: 35
- type: prosecuted
with: "[[Cantor Fitzgerald]]"
role: "blue sheet data order, $3.2 million"
start: 2020-04-06
fn: 38
- type: prosecuted
with: "[[Cantor Fitzgerald]]"
role: "SPAC disclosure order, $6.75 million civil penalty"
start: 2024-12-12
fn: 39
- type: prosecuted
with: "[[Samuel Bankman-Fried]]"
role: "civil complaint, December 13, 2022"
start: 2022-12-13
fn: 40
- type: prosecuted
with: "[[Caroline Ellison]]"
role: "civil complaint, December 21, 2022; bifurcated consent to judgment"
start: 2022-12-21
fn: 41
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[BDM Corporation]]"
reverse: true
role: "EDGAR system contract awarded January 3, 1989, estimated cost $52 million over eight years"
start: 1989-01-03
fn: 18
---
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is a U.S. government agency responsible for regulating the securities markets and protecting investors.[^1]
### Involvement in BCCI Scandal
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is a U.S. government agency responsible for regulating the securities markets and protecting investors. It was founded in 1934 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.[^1] It brings civil actions in federal court and administrative proceedings, receives registration statements and periodic reports from public companies through the EDGAR system, and receives exempt-offering notices from private issuers.
The SEC filed suit against [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International|BCCI]], [[Agha Hasan Abedi]], [[Bert Lance]], and others in connection with the purchase of [[Financial General Bankshares]] stock.[^1] The nominees used by BCCI to secretly acquire Financial General Bankshares were summarily sued by the SEC for failing to declare that they were acting as a group.[^2]
### Vesco and International Controls, 1972 to 1974
### EDGAR contract
On November 27, 1972 the commission filed an injunctive action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against [[Robert Vesco]] and 41 other corporate and individual defendants for violations of the antifraud, filing and proxy provisions of the federal securities laws.[^2] The complaint alleged that Vesco caused [[International Controls Corporation]] to transfer its investments in foreign companies to entities he controlled, and it described the early 1971 purchase of 6,000,000 shares of [[Investors Overseas Services]] (IOS) from [[Bernard Cornfeld]] for approximately 5,500,000 dollars.[^2]
The Baltimore Sun of January 5, 1989 reported that on Tuesday, January 3, 1989, after a delay of more than two years, the SEC awarded a 52 million dollar contract to build its electronic data gathering, analysis and retrieval system, EDGAR, to a consortium led by [[BDM Corporation|BDM Corp.]] of [[McLean, Virginia]], which the paper called "a subsidiary of the Ford Motor Co." The other members were [[Mead Data Central]], [[Sorg, Inc.]] and [[Bechtel Information Systems]]. The eight-year contract provided for BDM to design and install a computer to accept and disseminate all SEC filings by more than 11,000 publicly traded companies and 2,700 investment firms, and the SEC said EDGAR should provide more than 170 million dollars in savings.[^3]
The commission's chairman during the investigation was [[William J. Casey]], who held the post from April 14, 1971 to February 2, 1973.[^3] The [[Supreme Court of New Jersey|New Jersey Supreme Court]]'s disciplinary opinion on [[Harry L. Sears]], a former majority leader of the New Jersey Senate, records that Sears conveyed the requests of Robert Vesco, on behalf of International Controls, to [[John N. Mitchell]], then attorney general, in two letters and three meetings, and that Vesco hoped Mitchell could induce Casey "to monitor and limit the investigation." The opinion records that Mitchell telephoned Casey and arranged a meeting between Sears and the chairman, at which Sears received assurances that International Controls could respond to the investigation and that Casey would personally review its allegations of SEC harassment.[^4] Mitchell was acquitted in April 1974 of the charges arising from a secret cash contribution by Vesco.[^5]
### Corporate payments and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, 1976 to 1977
On May 12, 1976 the commission, under Chairman [[Roderick M. Hills]], submitted a report on questionable and illegal corporate payments and practices to the [[Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs]], in response to a March 18, 1976 letter to Chairman [[William Proxmire]]. The report stated that the commission's staff had analyzed the public disclosures of 89 corporations as of April 21, 1976, and that, with six companies that had submitted special reports as a result of enforcement actions, 95 companies had made disclosures; sixty-six of them were manufacturing companies. It stated that fourteen enforcement cases had been filed as of May 10, 1976, each ending in a consent to a permanent injunction without admitting or denying the allegations, and that in thirteen the consent decree required an independent special review committee of the company's board. It stated that about 25 formal, private investigations had not yet resulted in public enforcement actions.[^6]
The report described a voluntary disclosure program under which a company that might have a disclosure problem was to authorize an investigation by persons not involved in the activities in question, preferably reporting to outside directors, and to discuss the matter with the commission's staff before filing documents.[^6] In its summary of the enforcement action against Lockheed, the report stated that the commission had alleged secret payments of at least 25 million dollars to foreign government officials, 750,000 dollars deposited in a secret Swiss bank account, and over 200 million dollars disbursed to consultants and commission agents without adequate records.[^6] Testifying before the House Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Finance in April 1977, [[Gordon Adams]] of the [[Council on Economic Priorities]] said that more than 350 companies had made such disclosures under the SEC program. He said that [[Lockheed Aircraft Company|Lockheed]] had disclosed about 25 million dollars in questionable overseas payments, while the SEC had raised questions about nearly 200 million dollars in Lockheed sales commissions.[^7]
The same hearing record contains a statement by Representative [[Michael J. Harrington]]. Harrington wrote, "One day it is Lockheed. Another day it is Gulf. A third day it is General Tire," describing a run of American corporations that had disclosed bribery or other payments to foreign officials. He wrote that allegations that [[Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands|Prince Bernhard]] had received 1.1 million dollars in Lockheed payments had led to his resignation from his official posts.[^7]
Harrington's statement also placed corporate payments beside [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] funding. It cited the final report of the House Select Committee on Intelligence for a finding that the CIA passed 75 million dollars to Italian parties and politicians between 1948 and 1972. It reported that the [[The Wall Street Journal|Wall Street Journal]] had said government investigators were assembling "strong indications" that the CIA may have encouraged corporations to pay under-the-table cash to buy intelligence information for the U.S. government. Harrington wrote that after the disclosure of Exxon payments in [[Italy]] there was widespread press speculation that the payments were a covert mechanism for CIA funding. He quoted the same article's statement that the relationship between the intelligence community and corporate funding "has never been thoroughly examined."[^7]
Congress enacted the [[Foreign Corrupt Practices Act]] on December 19, 1977 as Title I of Public Law 95-213. The act amended the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to make it unlawful for issuers of registered securities to make certain payments to foreign officials, and required such issuers to keep accurate books and records.[^8]
### Financial General Bankshares and BCCI, 1978
In February 1978, [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International|BCCI]] orchestrated a hostile bid for [[Financial General Bankshares]] with the help of [[Bert Lance]].[^9] The SEC filed suit against BCCI, [[Agha Hasan Abedi]], Bert Lance, and others in connection with the purchase of Financial General Bankshares stock.[^9] The nominees used by BCCI to secretly acquire Financial General Bankshares were summarily sued by the SEC for failing to declare that they were acting as a group.[^10]
The Senate report on BCCI, by Senators [[John Kerry]] and [[Hank Brown]], states that on February 7, 1978 Lance told a meeting of Financial General shareholders that the BCCI group controlled 20 percent of the stock, and that the Middendorf group of shareholders immediately complained to the SEC and the [[Federal Reserve Board|Federal Reserve]]. The Middendorf group sued on February 17, 1978. The report dates the SEC's own complaint to March 17, 1978 (its note 12 prints the year as "1078").[^11]
The report quotes a January 30, 1978 memorandum by [[Abdus Sami]], in which he wrote: "We have already given the names of Sheikh Kamal Adham and Mr. Fulaig [sic]. We want two other names immediately."[^12] The report states that the SEC was "not looking for punitive action, merely corrective action." The report states that on April 27, 1978 a federal judge permanently enjoined Lance and ten other defendants from violating the securities laws.[^12]
The commission's News Digest of March 20, 1978, under the heading "Lance, others enjoined," reported that on March 18 the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia had entered permanent injunctions against eleven defendants for violations of Section 13(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the associated Schedule 13D rules, with the defendants consenting without admitting or denying the allegations. The complaint alleged that defendants acting together had acquired approximately 20 percent of the common stock of Financial General Bankshares through open market and privately negotiated purchases structured to avoid public disclosure, and that with other shares they held the defendants controlled approximately 28 percent. The defendants named included BCCI, Agha Hasan Abedi, Kamal Adham, Faisal Saud al-Fulaij, Sheikh Sultan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abdullah Darwaish, Eugene Metzger, J. W. Middendorf II, Stephens Inc. and Jackson T. Stephens. The digest cited the case as SEC v. Bank of Credit and Commerce International S.A., et al., Civil Action No. 78-0469 (D.D.C.), Litigation Release 8336, and reported that certain defendants represented that they intended to make a tender offer for all outstanding Financial General common stock at 15 dollars a share in cash.[^13]
On April 26, 1978 the commission and the Comptroller of the Currency announced a separate civil injunctive action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia against The National Bank of Georgia, The Calhoun First National Bank and Bertram Lance, alleging violations of the antifraud, reporting and proxy provisions of the securities laws. The court simultaneously entered final judgments of permanent injunction against the three defendants, who consented without admitting or denying the allegations (Civil Action No. 78-758). The digest of April 28, 1978 reported that Lance submitted a letter dated April 26 on his future plans in banking.[^14]
[[Clark Clifford]] wrote in written testimony to the Senate that four of the investors had bought stock in Financial General Bankshares "without filing certain disclosures with the Securities and Exchange Commission," and that his firm was retained to represent Lance, Abedi, BCCI, [[Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan|Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan]], [[Sultan bin Zayed Al Nahyan|Sheikh Sultan bin Zayed Al Nahyan]], [[Faisal Saud al-Fulaij]] and Abdullah Darwaish.[^11]
The original 1978 filing with the commission listed [[Mohammed Rahim Motaghi Irvani]] as a 5 percent shareholder of [[Credit and Commerce American Holdings]] (CCAH), the holding company through which the BCCI group bought Financial General shares.[^15] The Senate report describes Irvani as the principal partner of [[Richard Helms]], the former CIA director, in Helms's consulting firm Safeer, and as that firm's chief financier. It says that Helms advised Irvani on how to be protected from any liability in his role as BCCI's lead front man.[^15]
The report also states that the CIA, asked by the Federal Reserve in 1981 about the Middle Eastern shareholders of CCAH, reported no derogatory information on them. The shareholders included [[Kamal Adham]] and [[A. R. (Abdul Raouf) Khalil|Abdul Raouf Khalil]], the past and then-current Saudi intelligence liaisons to the United States. The CIA did not tell the Federal Reserve that Adham and Khalil were intelligence liaisons of the United States, and did not advise it that Adham and Faisal Saud al-Fulaij, a third FGB shareholder, had been the subject of a Securities and Exchange Commission probe under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act into violations by [[Boeing]] and Lockheed for arms sales to [[Saudi Arabia]]. The report states that Federal Reserve staff did learn of the intelligence contacts and of the probe in 1981.[^15]
### Bear Stearns and Jeffrey Epstein, 1981
[[Jeffrey Epstein]] resigned from [[Bear Stearns]] on March 12, 1981, the day after [[Seagram Company|Seagram]] announced a tender offer for [[St. Joe Minerals]]. The commission was investigating trading in St. Joe at Bear Stearns and other firms, had been told that Epstein had information about insider trading at Bear Stearns, and took his testimony on April 1, 1981 through staff attorneys [[Jonathan Harris]] and [[Robert Blackburn]]. The journalist [[Vicky Ward]] wrote in 2003 that Epstein told the commission he had found management's handling of a possible "Reg D" violation "offensive."[^16]
### Ghaith Pharaon and CenTrust, 1987
On August 12, 1987 [[Ghaith R. Pharaon]] filed disclosure statements with the commission stating that he had bought 16.9 percent of the common stock of [[CenTrust Savings]] and 24.4 percent of its Series One participating preferred stock. The Senate report describes the holding as just under the 25 percent that would constitute legal control of CenTrust, and concludes that "at the very time that BCCI was under indictment in Tampa, Florida for money laundering, it had secretly acquired and controlled the largest S&L in Florida, CenTrust."[^17]
### EDGAR contract, 1989
The commission's News Digest for January 4, 1989 announced that on January 3 it had awarded a contract to build the electronic data gathering, analysis and retrieval system to the [[BDM Corporation]], bidding with [[Mead Data Central]], [[Sorg, Inc.]] and [[Bechtel Information Systems]]. The digest gave an expected term of eight years and an estimated total cost to the government of about 52 million dollars.[^18] The [[Baltimore Sun]] of January 5, 1989 reported that, after a delay of more than two years, the commission awarded a 52 million dollar contract to a consortium led by BDM Corp. of [[McLean, Virginia]], which the paper called "a subsidiary of the Ford Motor Co." The eight-year contract provided for BDM to design and install a computer to accept and disseminate all SEC filings by more than 11,000 publicly traded companies and 2,700 investment firms, and the paper reported the commission's estimate of more than 170 million dollars in savings.[^19]
### Harken Energy and George W. Bush, 1990 to 1993
A commission memorandum drafted for the files on April 9, 1991, as the [[Center for Public Integrity]] reported it, noted that [[George W. Bush]] had on four occasions filed late Form 4 reports for [[Harken Energy]] stock transactions worth more than one million dollars. The tardiest, 34 weeks late, reported his June 22, 1990 sale of 212,140 shares.[^20] [[Salon]] reported that the commission did not receive the Form 4 for that sale until March 4, 1991.[^21] In an October 1993 memorandum the commission stated that the investigation had been terminated as to Bush's conduct and that no enforcement action was contemplated at that time, adding that the termination "must in no way be construed as indicating that the party has been exonerated or that no action may ultimately result."[^21]
### International Signal and Control and James Guerin, 1991
On October 31, 1991 the commission and the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania announced the indictment of [[James Guerin]] and twenty others in "a billion dollars in phony contracts," with laundering of 700,000,000 dollars and smuggling of weapons and restricted commodities.[^22] Guerin ran [[International Signal and Control]], whose special proxy board included [[Bobby Ray Inman]], a former CIA deputy director, according to a 1989 report in [[The Washington Post|Washington Post]].[^23] [[Kenneth R. Timmerman]] wrote that Guerin "claimed he had received quiet approval from the CIA."[^24]
### Towers Financial and Steven Hoffenberg, 1993 to 1996
In February 1993 the commission sued [[Towers Financial Corporation]], [[Steven Hoffenberg]], [[Mitchell Brater]] and [[Arthur J. Ferro]] before Judge [[Whitman Knapp]]. Towers filed for protection under Chapter 11 that March.[^25] On September 17, 1996 the commission sued Michael Rosoff, Towers' former chief legal officer, for participating in offering documents that described promissory notes as insured and fully collateralized. The commission described the Towers operation as a huge Ponzi scheme that ran for five years.[^25]
### Earl Brian and Financial News Network, 1993
In July 1993 the commission charged [[Earl Brian]] and three others with fraudulently inflating the revenue and earnings of the [[Financial News Network]], the [[Los Angeles]] cable channel controlled with [[United Press International]] by his holding company Infotechnology, Inc. He settled without admitting or denying the charges and consented to a permanent injunction.[^26]
### September 11 attacks, 2001
On September 19, 2001 the acting director of enforcement, [[Stephen Cutler]], stated that the commission had received reports that those associated with the [[September 11 attacks]] "may have sought to exploit our securities markets to profit from those activities," that it had "drawn no conclusions," and that speculation about its conclusions "has absolutely no foundation in fact."[^27]
### Enron settlements, 2003
On July 28, 2003 the commission settled with [[JPMorgan Chase]] and [[Citigroup]] over their roles in the manipulation of [[Enron Corporation|Enron]]'s financial statements. The commission stated that each institution had characterized what were essentially loan proceeds as cash from operating activities. JPMorgan Chase consented to a final judgment in a civil action in [[Texas]] requiring 135 million dollars in disgorgement, penalty and interest. Citigroup consented to an administrative order requiring 120 million dollars, of which 101 million related to Enron and 19 million to [[Dynegy]].[^28]
The commission announced on April 14, 2005 that Stephen Cutler would leave.[^29] He joined [[WilmerHale]] in October 2005 and was named general counsel of JPMorgan Chase in December 2006, effective February 2007.[^30]
### Bear Stearns hedge funds, 2008
On June 19, 2008 the commission charged two former [[Bear Stearns Asset Management]] portfolio managers, [[Ralph Cioffi]] and [[Matthew Tannin]], with fraudulently misleading investors about the financial state of the firm's two largest hedge funds before the funds collapsed in June 2007. The same day the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York announced their indictment on conspiracy and fraud charges.[^31] [[Fox Business]] reported in 2019 that Epstein had put about 60 million dollars into the Bear Stearns High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Fund, "making him one of its largest investors."[^32]
### Goldman Sachs, 2010 and 2020
On April 16, 2010 the commission sued [[Goldman Sachs]] and [[Fabrice Tourre]] over the structuring and marketing of a synthetic collateralized debt obligation.[^33] In July 2010 Goldman Sachs agreed to pay a record 550 million dollars to settle charges related to a subprime mortgage CDO.[^34]
On October 22, 2020 the commission ordered Goldman Sachs to disgorge 606.3 million dollars, deemed satisfied by a payment to the government of [[Malaysia]] and [[1Malaysia Development Berhad|1MDB]], and to pay a civil penalty of 400 million dollars. The order found that former senior Goldman employees had paid bribes and kickbacks to officials in Malaysia and the [[Abu Dhabi|Emirate of Abu Dhabi]], in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, in connection with the 2012 and 2013 bond deals.[^35]
### Jed Rakoff and the Citigroup settlement, 2011
On October 19, 2011 the commission sued Citigroup Global Markets Inc. in the Southern District of New York (No. 11 Civ. 7387) over a roughly billion-dollar collateralized debt obligation, Class V Funding III, and presented a proposed consent judgment at the same time. The complaint charged negligence under Sections 17(a)(2) and (3) of the Securities Act. The proposed judgment required Citigroup to disgorge 160 million dollars in profits plus 30 million dollars in interest and to pay a 95 million dollar civil penalty, without admitting or denying the allegations. On November 28, 2011 Judge [[Jed Rakoff]] refused to approve it. The opinion stated that investors had lost more than 700 million dollars, called the civil penalty "pocket change to any entity as large as Citigroup," noted that the commission's own account described Citigroup as a recidivist, and concluded that the court had not been provided with "any proven or admitted facts upon which to exercise even a modest degree of independent judgment."[^36]
### Apollo Global Management and the Dechert memorandum, 2020 to 2021
The conflicts committee of the board of [[Apollo Global Management]] retained [[Dechert]] as outside counsel to conduct an independent review of information concerning [[Leon Black]]. The Dechert report was attached to a Form 8-K filed with the commission on January 25, 2021.[^37]
### Cantor Fitzgerald, 2020 and 2024
On April 6, 2020 the commission announced that [[Cantor Fitzgerald]] & Co. had agreed to pay 3.2 million dollars over deficient "blue sheet" trading data. According to the order, for almost five years the firm's submissions contained missing or inaccurate data for approximately 35 million transactions.[^38] On December 12, 2024 the commission announced that Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. had agreed to pay a 6.75 million dollar civil penalty. The order found that negotiations with View and Satellogic had already commenced at the time of the disclosures concerning the Cantor-sponsored [[special-purpose acquisition company|SPACs]] CF Finance II and CF V.[^39]
### FTX and Alameda Research, 2022
On December 13, 2022 the commission charged [[Samuel Bankman-Fried]] with orchestrating a scheme to defraud equity investors in [[FTX]], which it said had raised more than 1.8 billion dollars from equity investors since at least May 2019.[^40] On December 21, 2022 it charged [[Caroline Ellison]], the former chief executive of [[Alameda Research]], and Zixiao "Gary" Wang, FTX's former chief technology officer, for their roles in manipulating the price of the FTT token and in the undisclosed loans of customer assets to Alameda.[^41]
### Commission leadership and the Epstein matters, 2017 to 2025
[[Jay Clayton]] chaired the commission from May 4, 2017 to December 23, 2020.[^3] The Senate confirmed Clayton as a member of the commission on May 2, 2017 by a vote of 61 to 37 (nomination PN47).[^42] In June 2020 Attorney General [[William Barr]] announced that [[Geoffrey Berman]], the U.S. attorney for the [[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York|Southern District of New York]], was stepping down and that the president would nominate Clayton to replace him. Berman said he had no intention of resigning, and Barr then told him in a letter that he had asked the president to remove him, and the president had done so. New York Senators [[Chuck Schumer]] and [[Kirsten Gillibrand]] called on Clayton to withdraw his name from the nomination. CNBC reported these events on June 20, 2020.[^43] On November 14, 2025 The Washington Times reported that Attorney General [[Pam Bondi]] had tapped Clayton, then acting U.S. attorney, to probe Democrats' ties to Epstein.[^44]
### Regulation A and Form D filings
[[To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science]] filed an offering statement on Form 1-A with the commission on August 15, 2017, amended it on September 1 and September 18, 2017, and filed a Form 253G2 offering circular on September 29, 2017.[^45] The circular listed [[Tom DeLonge]] as president, chief executive officer and director; [[Jim Semivan|James Semivan]] as vice president of operations and director; [[Hal Puthoff|Harold Puthoff]] as vice president of science and technology and director; Louis Tommasino as chief financial officer; Kari DeLonge as chief content officer; and Lisa Clifford as secretary. It named an advisory board of [[Christopher Mellon]], Adele Gilpin, Norman Kahn, [[Colm Kelleher]], [[Garry Nolan]] and Paul Rapp, and stated that in May 2017 the company issued 12,500,000 shares of Class A common stock and 5,400 shares of Class B common stock to Gravity Holdings, LLC, JimSemI, LLC and Harold Puthoff.[^46] The company later filed further Regulation A offering statements on Form 1-A (February 12, 2019; June 23, 2020; March 16, 2022) and annual reports on Form 1-K, the latest on April 29, 2026. Its most recent filing in its EDGAR submissions is a semiannual Form 1-SA filed September 18, 2026.[^45]
Private issuers also file Form D notices of exempt offerings. Minerva Project, Inc. filed one on April 6, 2012 that listed [[Ben Nelson]] as an executive officer and director.[^47]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. *The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI*. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 12.
[^2]: Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. *The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI*. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 183.
[^3]: "SEC awards data pact," Business Briefly, Baltimore Sun (Baltimore), January 5, 1989, p. 1D, https://www.newspapers.com/image/378257935/
[^1]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "What We Do," https://www.sec.gov/about/what-we-do (founding in 1934 and mission statement).
[^2]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, News Digest, November 28, 1972 (announcement of the November 27, 1972 complaint against Robert L. Vesco and 41 other defendants; transfers from International Controls Corp.; purchase of 6,000,000 shares of Investors Overseas Services from Bernard Cornfeld for approximately $5,500,000 in early 1971). https://www.sec.gov/news/digest/1972/dig112872.pdf
[^3]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "Historical Summary of Chairmen and Commissioners" (William Casey, Chairman, April 14, 1971 to February 2, 1973; Jay Clayton, Chairman, May 4, 2017 to December 23, 2020). https://www.sec.gov/about/sec-commissioners/sec-historical-summary-chairmen-commissioners
[^4]: In re Sears, 71 N.J. 175 (1976) (Supreme Court of New Jersey disciplinary opinion; the request that Mitchell induce Casey "to monitor and limit the investigation"; the meeting Mitchell arranged between Sears and Casey). https://static.case.law/nj/71/cases/0175-01.json
[^5]: Associated Press, "Jury acquits Mitchell, Stans," State News (Michigan State University), April 29, 1974, p. 1. https://archive.lib.msu.edu/DMC/state_news/1974/state_news_19740429.pdf
[^6]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Report of the Securities and Exchange Commission on Questionable and Illegal Corporate Payments and Practices to the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, May 12, 1976, reproduced in Securities Regulation and Law Report No. 353 (Bureau of National Affairs), May 19, 1976, Special Supplement, pp. 1 to 45 (introduction; Part I, "The Voluntary Disclosure Program"; Exhibit B, Lockheed Aircraft Corporation). https://sechistorical.org/wp-content/uploads/1976_0512_SECQuestionable.pdf
[^7]: Unlawful Corporate Payments Act of 1977, Hearings on H.R. 3815 and H.R. 1602 before the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Finance of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, House of Representatives, 95th Congress, 1st session, April 20 and 21, 1977 (Serial No. 95-11). Statement of Gordon Adams, Director of Military Research, Council on Economic Priorities (beginning p. 26, including the passages on the voluntary disclosure program and Lockheed); statement of Rep. Michael J. Harrington (pp. 168-173, including the passages on Lockheed, Prince Bernhard, the House Select Committee on Intelligence, the Exxon payments and the Wall Street Journal report). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-95hhrg91391O/pdf/CHRG-95hhrg91391O.pdf
[^8]: Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, Pub. L. 95-213, Title I, 91 Stat. 1494 (December 19, 1977). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-91/pdf/STATUTE-91-Pg1494.pdf
[^9]: Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 12.
[^10]: Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 183.
[^11]: 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" (February 7, 1978 shareholder meeting; Middendorf group complaints and suit of February 17, 1978; the SEC civil complaint, which the report's note 12 dates to March 17, 1978; Clifford's written testimony). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/06early.htm
[^12]: Kerry and Brown, The BCCI Affair, ch. 6 (January 30, 1978 Sami memorandum and its description of the strategy to circumvent SEC disclosure rules; the SEC's "not looking for punitive action, merely corrective action" passage; the April 27, 1978 order enjoining Lance and ten other defendants and the consent decree issued with it). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/06early.htm
[^13]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, News Digest, Issue 78-54, March 20, 1978, "Lance, Others Enjoined" (SEC v. Bank of Credit and Commerce International S.A., et al., U.S.D.C. D.C., Civil Action No. 78-0469, LR-8336). https://www.sec.gov/news/digest/1978/dig032078.pdf
[^14]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, News Digest, April 28, 1978 (SEC and Comptroller of the Currency v. The National Bank of Georgia, The Calhoun First National Bank, Bertram Lance, U.S.D.C. N.D. Ga., Atlanta Division, Civil Action No. 78-758). https://www.sec.gov/news/digest/1978/dig042878.pdf
[^15]: Kerry and Brown, The BCCI Affair, ch. 11, "BCCI, the CIA and Foreign Intelligence" (Irvani and Helms; the CIA's reply to the Federal Reserve; the Adham and Fulaij Foreign Corrupt Practices Act probe; note 11: staff interview, Virgil Mattingly, Federal Reserve, June 1991, and review of Federal Reserve documents). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/11intel.htm
[^16]: Vicky Ward, "The Talented Mr. Epstein," Vanity Fair, March 2003 (the March 12, 1981 resignation, the April 1, 1981 SEC testimony taken by Jonathan Harris and Robert Blackburn, and Epstein's description of management's handling of a possible "Reg D" violation as "offensive"). https://vickyward.com/article/the-talented-mr-epstein/
[^17]: Kerry and Brown, The BCCI Affair, ch. 7, "BCCI in the United States: Later Acquisitions" (Pharaon's disclosure statements to the SEC of 16.9 percent of CenTrust common stock and 24.4 percent of its Series One preferred; the conclusion quoted on BCCI's control of CenTrust). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/07later.htm
[^18]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, News Digest, January 4, 1989, "SEC Names Contractor for EDGAR System" (Press Release 89-1): contract awarded January 3, 1989 to BDM Corporation, bidding with Mead Data Central, Inc., Sorg, Inc., and Bechtel Information Systems; expected term of eight years; estimated total cost to the government of approximately $52 million. https://sec.gov/news/digest/1989/dig010489.pdf
[^19]: "SEC awards data pact," Business Briefly, Baltimore Sun (Baltimore), January 5, 1989, p. 1D, https://www.newspapers.com/image/378257935/
[^20]: Knut Royce, "Bush violated security laws four times, SEC report says," Center for Public Integrity, October 4, 2000 (describing the April 9, 1991 SEC memorandum). https://publicintegrity.org/politics/bush-violated-security-laws-four-times-sec-report-says/
[^21]: Salon, "Harken," July 13, 2002 (the March 4, 1991 receipt of the Form 4 and the October 1993 SEC memorandum, including the statement that termination "must in no way be construed as indicating that the party has been exonerated or that no action may ultimately result"). https://www.salon.com/2002/07/13/harken/
[^22]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, News Digest, November 7, 1991 (Litigation Release LR-13077, announced October 31, 1991, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Crim. Nos. 91-601 and 91-602). https://www.sec.gov/news/digest/1991/dig110791.pdf
[^23]: Glenn Frankel, "British Firm Claims It Was Duped by Pa. Arms Maker," Washington Post, September 29, 1989 (the special proxy board including Bobby Ray Inman). https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1989/09/29/british-firm-claims-it-was-duped-by-pa-arms-maker/5b675f69-e5e0-4c25-9aee-ced8b8e07efa/
[^24]: Kenneth R. Timmerman, The Death Lobby: How the West Armed Iraq (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991), pp. 168 to 169.
[^25]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Litigation Release No. 15053, SEC v. Michael Rosoff, 96 Civ. 7064 (WK) (S.D.N.Y.), September 17, 1996 (describing the Towers scheme and cross-referencing Litigation Release No. 13514, SEC v. Towers Financial Corporation, Steven Hoffenberg, Mitchell Brater, and Arthur J. Ferro, 93 Civ. 0744 (WK) (S.D.N.Y.), February 1993). https://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/lr15053.txt
[^26]: Debra Gersh, "SEC Accuses Former UPI Chief of Fraud," Editor & Publisher, July 10, 1993; "Former UPI execs charged with fraud," United Press International, September 6, 1995. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1995/09/06/Former-UPI-execs-charged-with-fraud/3824810360000/
[^27]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "Statement by Acting Director of Enforcement Stephen Cutler," Press Release 2001-96, September 19, 2001. https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2001-96-statement-acting-director-enforcement-stephen-cutler
[^28]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "SEC Settles Enforcement Proceedings against J.P. Morgan Chase and Citigroup," Press Release 2003-87, July 28, 2003. https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2003-87.htm
[^29]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "Enforcement Director Stephen M. Cutler to Leave SEC," Press Release 2005-56, April 14, 2005. https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2005-56.htm
[^30]: JPMorgan Chase & Co., Form 10-K for fiscal year 2006, "Executive officers of the registrant" (Stephen M. Cutler: General Counsel since February 2007; partner and co-chair of the Securities Department at WilmerHale since October 2005).
[^31]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Litigation Release No. 20625, SEC v. Ralph R. Cioffi and Matthew M. Tannin, Civil Action No. 08 2457 (FB) (E.D.N.Y.), June 19, 2008. https://www.sec.gov/files/litigation/litreleases/2008/lr20625.htm
[^32]: Charles Gasparino and Lydia Moynihan, "The woes of Jeffrey Epstein: How he maintained Wall Street connections while downplaying child sex accusations," Fox Business, August 10, 2019. https://www.foxbusiness.com/features/jeffrey-epstein-wall-street-connections-child-sex-trafficking
[^33]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Litigation Release No. 21489, April 16, 2010, SEC v. Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Fabrice Tourre, 10 Civ. 3229 (S.D.N.Y.). https://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2010/lr21489.htm
[^34]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Press Release 2010-123, "Goldman Sachs to Pay Record $550 Million to Settle SEC Charges Related to Subprime Mortgage CDO," July 15, 2010. https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2010/2010-123.htm
[^35]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, In the Matter of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Release No. 90243, Administrative Proceeding File No. 3-20132, October 22, 2020 (disgorgement of $606,300,000 deemed satisfied by the payment to the Government of Malaysia and 1MDB; civil money penalty of $400,000,000). https://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2020/34-90243.pdf
[^36]: SEC v. Citigroup Global Markets Inc., No. 11 Civ. 7387 (JSR), 827 F. Supp. 2d 328 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 28, 2011) (Rakoff, J.). https://static.case.law/f-supp-2d/827/cases/0328-01.json ; https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/8710930/us-securities-exchange-commission-v-citigroup-global-markets-inc/
[^37]: Apollo Global Management, Inc., Current Report on Form 8-K, filed January 25, 2021, accession 0001193125-21-016405, Exhibit 99.1 (report of Dechert LLP provided to the Conflicts Committee). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1411494/000119312521016405/d118102d8k.htm
[^38]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "Cantor Fitzgerald Agrees to Pay $3.2 Million to Settle Charges for Providing Deficient Blue Sheet Data," Press Release 2020-81, April 6, 2020. https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2020-81
[^39]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "SEC Charges Cantor Fitzgerald Over Misleading SPAC Disclosures," Press Release 2024-199, December 12, 2024 ($6.75 million civil penalty; order finding that Cantor personnel had already commenced negotiations with View and Satellogic). https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2024-199
[^40]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "SEC Charges Samuel Bankman-Fried with Defrauding Investors in Crypto Asset Trading Platform FTX," Press Release 2022-219, December 13, 2022. https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2022-219
[^41]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "SEC Charges Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang with Defrauding Investors in Crypto Asset Trading Platform FTX," Press Release 2022-234, December 21, 2022. https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2022-234
[^42]: United States Senate, Roll Call Vote 115th Congress, 1st Session, Vote No. 118, May 2, 2017 (PN47, Jay Clayton, of New York, to be a Member of the Securities and Exchange Commission for a term expiring June 5, 2021; Nomination Confirmed, 61 to 37; cloture agreed to May 1, 2017, Vote No. 117, 60 to 36). https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1151/vote_115_1_00118.htm
[^43]: Spencer Kimball, "Attorney General Barr tells top Manhattan prosecutor Berman he is fired amid power struggle," CNBC, June 20, 2020. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/20/attorney-general-barr-tells-manhattan-us-attorney-berman-he-is-fired-amid-power-struggle.html
[^44]: "Bondi taps acting U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton to probe Democrats' ties to Epstein," The Washington Times, November 14, 2025. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/nov/14/bondi-taps-acting-us-attorney-jay-clayton-probe-democrats-ties/
[^45]: To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science Inc., EDGAR, CIK 1710274: Form 1-A filed August 15, 2017 (qualified September 29, 2017); Form 1-SA filed September 18, 2026. https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=1710274&type=1-A ; https://data.sec.gov/submissions/CIK0001710274.json
[^46]: To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science Inc., Form 253G2 (offering circular), filed September 29, 2017, accession 0001144204-17-050693, sections "Directors, Executive Officers and Significant Employees" and "Interest of Management and Others in Certain Transactions." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1710274/000114420417050693/v476177_253g2.htm
[^47]: Form D, Minerva Project, Inc., filed April 6, 2012, accession 0001546672-12-000001, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1546672/000154667212000001/primary_doc.xml

View file

@ -17,11 +17,11 @@ relations:
with: "[[Malcolm Wallop]]"
reverse: true
role: "chairman of the budget subcommittee"
fn: 4
fn: 5
- type: investigated
with: "[[BNL Scandal]]"
end: 1993-02
fn: 7
fn: 11
created: 2026-09-22
updated: 2026-09-22
---
@ -30,27 +30,30 @@ The Senate created the Select Committee on Intelligence in 1976 "to oversee and
### Letelier and the Charter
On September 29, 1976, eight days after the assassination of [[Orlando Letelier]] in Washington, Senator [[Daniel Inouye]] of the committee wrote to Director [[George H.W. Bush|George Bush]] asking what the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] knew of a reported high-level meeting in the Chilean government at which Letelier had been discussed.[^3] In April 1978 the former deputy director for plans [[Thomas Karamessines]] appeared before the committee to oppose its draft charter for the CIA, calling the investigations of the preceding years "an inexcusable exercise in political sensationalism."[^8]
On September 29, 1976, eight days after the assassination of [[Orlando Letelier]] in Washington, Senator [[Daniel Inouye]] of the committee wrote to Director [[George H.W. Bush|George Bush]] asking what the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] knew of a reported high-level meeting in the Chilean government at which Letelier had been discussed.[^3] In April 1978 the former deputy director for plans [[Thomas Karamessines]] appeared before the committee to oppose its draft charter for the CIA, calling the investigations of the preceding years "an inexcusable exercise in political sensationalism."[^4]
### Remote Viewing
At the end of fiscal 1982, according to the Army's Intelligence and Security Command, "the budget subcommittee of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (Senator Wallop) curtailed all psychoenergetic operational activities conducted by the Army in the National Foreign Intelligence Program"; its chronology records that on October 1, 1982, "NFIP funding terminated for Army GRILL FLAME collection operations project by Congressional directive," and the program continued under other funding as [[Center Lane]].[^4][^5] Senator [[Claiborne Pell]] invited eight members of the committee to a GRILL FLAME briefing in his Capitol office on September 29, 1982; "none were present."[^6] After a briefing of [[Malcolm Wallop]] on October 5, 1983, the Army's record states that "the Senator replied that he is only one person, and that perhaps the briefing should be presented to the entire SSCI Budget Subcommittee."[^4] Committee staff received status reports on the [[Stargate Project|Star Gate]] program in March and April 1995 and a briefing on June 1, attended by seven staff members, during its [[1995 transfer of Star Gate to the CIA|transfer to the CIA]].[^9]
At the end of fiscal 1982, according to the Army's Intelligence and Security Command, "the budget subcommittee of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (Senator Wallop) curtailed all psychoenergetic operational activities conducted by the Army in the National Foreign Intelligence Program"; its chronology records that on October 1, 1982, "NFIP funding terminated for Army GRILL FLAME collection operations project by Congressional directive," and the program continued under other funding as [[Center Lane]].[^5][^6] Senator [[Claiborne Pell]] invited eight members of the committee to a GRILL FLAME briefing in his Capitol office on September 29, 1982; "none were present."[^7] After a briefing of [[Malcolm Wallop]] on October 5, 1983, the Army's record states that "the Senator replied that he is only one person, and that perhaps the briefing should be presented to the entire SSCI Budget Subcommittee."[^5] Committee staff received status reports on the [[Stargate Project|Star Gate]] program in March and April 1995 and a briefing on June 1, attended by seven staff members, during its [[1995 transfer of Star Gate to the CIA|transfer to the CIA]].[^8]
### Later Inquiries
The CIA told the committee in April 1984 that it "was unable to confirm reports implicating high-level Sandinistas in drug trafficking."[^10] In 1986, after a member of Senator [[Jesse Helms]]'s staff was briefed by the CIA on the burning of Rodrigo Rojas by Chilean soldiers and the Chilean government learned of an American intelligence operation, the committee asked the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]] to investigate whether Helms or an aide had disclosed it.[^11] Its staff reported in February 1993 on the [[BNL Scandal]] that the intelligence agencies and the Justice Department had coordinated poorly and that the CIA's grounds for withholding its reports from prosecutors had "no legal support," without finding deliberate concealment.[^7] Its study of the CIA's detention and interrogation program, released in summary on December 9, 2014, concluded that the program had produced little intelligence not available by other means and that the agency had misled Congress, the [[White House]] and the public about it.[^12]
The CIA told the committee in April 1984 that it "was unable to confirm reports implicating high-level Sandinistas in drug trafficking."[^9] In 1986, after a member of Senator [[Jesse Helms]]'s staff was briefed by the CIA on the burning of Rodrigo Rojas by Chilean soldiers and the Chilean government learned of an American intelligence operation, the committee asked the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]] to investigate whether Helms or an aide had disclosed it.[^10] Its staff reported in February 1993 on the [[BNL Scandal]] that the intelligence agencies and the Justice Department had coordinated poorly and that the CIA's grounds for withholding its reports from prosecutors had "no legal support," without finding deliberate concealment.[^11] Its study of the CIA's detention and interrogation program, released in summary on December 9, 2014, concluded that the program had produced little intelligence not available by other means and that the agency had misled Congress, the [[White House]] and the public about it.[^12]
The staff report on the intelligence community's involvement in the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro affair, Committee Print S. Prt. 103-12 of February 1993, was prepared after the sentencing hearing of Judge [[Marvin Shoob]] in Atlanta. The staff recorded that CIA analysts concluded in January 1990 that "managers at BNL headquarters in Rome were involved in the scandal," and that CIA reports of November 1991 "confirmed press allegations that more senior BNL officials in Rome had been witting of BNL-Atlanta's activities." The staff found that "the evidence does not show that this failure was a deliberate attempt to withhold information from the Department of Justice," and that it "could find no legal support" for the CIA's guidance that unsent reports would not be discoverable.[^13]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, "About the Committee." https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/about-the-committee/
[^2]: Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. *Final Report,* S. Rept. 94-755, 1976, as cited on the Church Committee page.
[^3]: Inouye, Daniel K., letter to George Bush, September 29, 1976, CIA Reading Room, as cited on the Orlando Letelier page.
[^4]: Buzby, Brian, memorandum "Briefing to Senator Wallop, 5 October 1983," October 14, 1983, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700270015-0. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
[^5]: US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "Briefing - Project Center Lane," c. 1984, CIA-RDP96-00789R002100180002-8, and "List of Events from September 1977 to January 1986," CIA-RDP96-00788R001100020001-8. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
[^6]: Jachim, Robert J., memorandum "Information Briefing for Senator Clairborne Pell," October 6, 1982, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100320001-5.
[^7]: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. *The Intelligence Community's Involvement in the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) Affair,* staff report, S. Prt. 103-12, February 1993.
[^8]: Hailey, Jean R. "T. H. Karamessines, Ex-Chief of CIA Covert Work, Dies." *The Washington Post,* September 9, 1978, p. B4.
[^9]: "Star Gate Transfer Chronology: 1995," memorandum for the record, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200190017-9; Director of Research and Development, ORD-0520-95, memorandum for the Executive Director, "Star Gate - Final Response," September 27, 1995.
[^10]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998, as cited on the Sandinistas page.
[^11]: United Press International, report on the Justice Department inquiry into Senator Helms, August 2, 1986.
[^4]: Hailey, Jean R. "T. H. Karamessines, Ex-Chief of CIA Covert Work, Dies." *The Washington Post,* September 9, 1978, p. B4.
[^5]: Buzby, Brian, memorandum "Briefing to Senator Wallop, 5 October 1983," October 14, 1983, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700270015-0. Read in the archive.org copy of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
[^6]: US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "Briefing - Project Center Lane," c. 1984, CIA-RDP96-00789R002100180002-8, and "List of Events from September 1977 to January 1986," CIA-RDP96-00788R001100020001-8. Read in the archive.org copy of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
[^7]: Jachim, Robert J., memorandum "Information Briefing for Senator Clairborne Pell," October 6, 1982, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100320001-5.
[^8]: "Star Gate Transfer Chronology: 1995," memorandum for the record, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200190017-9; Director of Research and Development, ORD-0520-95, memorandum for the Executive Director, "Star Gate - Final Response," September 27, 1995.
[^9]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998, as cited on the Sandinistas page.
[^10]: United Press International, report on the Justice Department inquiry into Senator Helms, August 2, 1986.
[^11]: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. *The Intelligence Community's Involvement in the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) Affair,* staff report, S. Prt. 103-12, February 1993.
[^12]: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. *Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program,* S. Rept. 113-288, December 9, 2014.
[^13]: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *The Intelligence Community's Involvement in the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) Affair,* Committee Print S. Prt. 103-12, February 1993, pp. 4-5, 26, 28, 34. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/publications/10312.pdf

View file

@ -20,6 +20,14 @@ category: "Intelligence Operation"
summary: "Radio Free Europe was a CIA-funded broadcaster to the Soviet bloc, founded in 1949 and presented as privately funded until the CIA financing was revealed in 1967."
start: 1949
location: "Munich, West Germany"
relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[C. D. Jackson]]"
reverse: true
start: 1951
end: 1952
role: "president, Free Europe Committee"
fn: 2
---
Radio Free Europe (RFE) was an American radio broadcasting service directed at audiences in Soviet-controlled [[Eastern Europe]], established in 1949 and funded covertly by the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] through a series of front organizations until its CIA financing was publicly revealed in 1967. Paired with [[Radio Liberty]] (RL), which broadcast to the [[Soviet Union]] itself, the two services operated as [[RFE/RL]] and represented one of the CIA's most sustained and ultimately most transparent Cold War propaganda operations.[^1]
@ -28,6 +36,8 @@ Radio Free Europe (RFE) was an American radio broadcasting service directed at a
RFE was established under the auspices of the [[National Committee for a Free Europe]] (NCFE), a nominally private organization created in 1949 with initial support from [[Allen Dulles]], [[Frank Wisner]], and the CIA's [[Office of Policy Coordination]]. The NCFE conducted public fundraising through the "Crusade for Freedom" campaign, which solicited American citizens for small donations - creating the appearance of private funding while the CIA provided the actual operational budget.
The papers of [[C. D. Jackson]], a Time Inc. vice president who was later publisher of Life, record that he served as president of the [[Free Europe Committee]] from 1951 to 1952. The Eisenhower Library finding aid for those papers states that the Free Europe Committee directed Radio Free Europe, and the collection includes a folder on the Crusade for Freedom.[^2]
The concealment served both operational and legal purposes: the CIA's domestic authority was limited, and an organization explicitly labeled as a CIA propaganda arm would have been diplomatically and politically more complicated than one appearing to represent the voice of emigre communities and private American citizens concerned about Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.
RFE's Munich headquarters employed thousands of emigre journalists from the target countries - Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Romanians, Bulgarians, and others - who produced programming in their native languages. The editorial content was supervised by American CIA officers, but the actual broadcasts were produced by people with direct personal knowledge of the societies they addressed.[^1]
@ -36,7 +46,7 @@ RFE's Munich headquarters employed thousands of emigre journalists from the targ
The pivotal controversy in RFE's history occurred during the [[Hungarian Revolution]] of October-November 1956. RFE's Hungarian-language broadcasts during the uprising included material that, by later analysis, could have been reasonably interpreted by Hungarian listeners as implying that American military support would follow if they fought the Soviet occupation. No such support was contemplated by the [[Dwight Eisenhower|Eisenhower administration]], which had decided not to risk nuclear confrontation over Hungary.
When Soviet tanks crushed the revolution in November 1956, the gap between RFE's broadcast messages and American non-intervention was acute. The [[CIA]]'s Covert Action Staff reviewed the tapes of the entire Hungarian-language broadcasts in early 1957. A CIA memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence catalogued under March 4, 1962 and signed by [[Cord Meyer]] reports that the review found the broadcasts "generally consistent with U.S. policy," that RFE "did not incite the Hungarian people to revolt," and that RFE did not "directly or by implication offer hope that outside military assistance would be forthcoming to the Hungarian patriots, with one possible exception": portions of speeches by the U.S. Representative to the United Nations "which might have been interpreted as indicating some Western support for the Hungarian patriots."[^2] The same memorandum states that the UN Special Committee on Hungary found in June 1957 that "certain broadcasts by RFE helped to create an impression that support might be forthcoming for the Hungarians," while describing the revolt as a "spontaneous national uprising."[^2] In a book published in 1980, Meyer wrote that the tone of the RFE broadcast tapes was "more exuberant and optimistic than the situation warranted" and that the content of one script "clearly violated the basic policy guidelines and should never have been broadcast."[^3] Frank Wisner, whose Office of Policy Coordination was the organizational parent of RFE's CIA relationship, was in Europe during the Hungarian crisis and was deeply affected by the experience. The Hungarian Revolution's failure was a direct cause of his subsequent psychological breakdown.[^4]
When Soviet tanks crushed the revolution in November 1956, the gap between RFE's broadcast messages and American non-intervention was acute. The [[CIA]]'s Covert Action Staff reviewed the tapes of the entire Hungarian-language broadcasts in early 1957. A CIA memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence catalogued under March 4, 1962 and signed by [[Cord Meyer]] reports that the review found the broadcasts "generally consistent with U.S. policy," that RFE "did not incite the Hungarian people to revolt," and that RFE did not "directly or by implication offer hope that outside military assistance would be forthcoming to the Hungarian patriots, with one possible exception": portions of speeches by the U.S. Representative to the United Nations "which might have been interpreted as indicating some Western support for the Hungarian patriots."[^3] The same memorandum states that the UN Special Committee on Hungary found in June 1957 that "certain broadcasts by RFE helped to create an impression that support might be forthcoming for the Hungarians," while describing the revolt as a "spontaneous national uprising."[^3] In a book published in 1980, Meyer wrote that the tone of the RFE broadcast tapes was "more exuberant and optimistic than the situation warranted" and that the content of one script "clearly violated the basic policy guidelines and should never have been broadcast."[^4] Frank Wisner, whose Office of Policy Coordination was the organizational parent of RFE's CIA relationship, was in Europe during the Hungarian crisis and was deeply affected by the experience. The Hungarian Revolution's failure was a direct cause of his subsequent psychological breakdown.[^5]
### Disclosure and Transition
@ -51,6 +61,7 @@ RFE represented the largest sustained CIA propaganda operation of the Cold War p
### Footnotes
[^1]: Puddington, Arch. *Broadcasting Freedom: The Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.* University Press of Kentucky, 2000. Lucas, W. Scott. *Freedom's War: The American Crusade Against the Soviet Union.* New York University Press, 1999.
[^2]: Central Intelligence Agency, memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence, "Radio Free Europe (RFE) and the Hungarian Revolution," Cord Meyer, Jr., Chief, Covert Action Staff (catalogued 1962-03-04). CIA reading room document 0001409017. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001409017
[^3]: Central Intelligence Agency, memorandum "Re: Radio Free Europe and the 1956 Hungarian Uprising," April 20, 1990 (PAO 90-0152), quoting Cord Meyer, Facing Reality (1980), pp. 125-130. CIA reading room copy, CIA-RDP99-01448R000401630009-6. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp99-01448r000401630009-6
[^4]: Thomas, Evan. *The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared: The Early Years of the CIA.* Simon & Schuster, 1995. Mitrovich, Gregory. *Undermining the Kremlin: America's Strategy to Subvert the Soviet Bloc, 1947-1956.* Cornell University Press, 2000.
[^2]: Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, finding aid, "Jackson, C. D.: Papers, 1931-1967," A72-26, processed July 1973, biographical sketch and chronology. https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/finding-aids/pdf/jackson-cd-papers.pdf
[^3]: Central Intelligence Agency, memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence, "Radio Free Europe (RFE) and the Hungarian Revolution," Cord Meyer, Jr., Chief, Covert Action Staff (catalogued 1962-03-04). CIA reading room document 0001409017. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001409017
[^4]: Central Intelligence Agency, memorandum "Re: Radio Free Europe and the 1956 Hungarian Uprising," April 20, 1990 (PAO 90-0152), quoting Cord Meyer, Facing Reality (1980), pp. 125-130. CIA reading room copy, CIA-RDP99-01448R000401630009-6. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp99-01448r000401630009-6
[^5]: Thomas, Evan. *The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared: The Early Years of the CIA.* Simon & Schuster, 1995. Mitrovich, Gregory. *Undermining the Kremlin: America's Strategy to Subvert the Soviet Bloc, 1947-1956.* Cornell University Press, 2000.

View file

@ -2,11 +2,19 @@
aliases:
- BNL
- Banca Nazionale del Lavoro S.p.A.
- Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL)
- BNL-Rome
- BNL-Atlanta
category: "Private Organization"
tags:
- Organization
- BancaNazionaleDelLavoro
- BNLScandal
- Iraqgate
- CommodityCreditCorporation
- KissingerAssociates
- PropagandaDue
- MatrixChurchill
- Italy
- Iraq
- ItalianSocialistParty
@ -15,22 +23,239 @@ summary: "Italian state bank whose Atlanta branch lent Iraq billions off the boo
start: 1913
location: "Rome, Italy"
created: 2026-09-21
updated: 2026-09-21
updated: 2026-10-12
relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Christopher Drogoul]]"
reverse: true
start: 1985
end: 1989
fn: 3
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Luigi Sardelli]]"
reverse: true
start: 1987
end: 1989
fn: 8
- type: head_of
with: "[[Giacomo Pedde]]"
reverse: true
end: 1989
fn: 8
- type: head_of
with: "[[Nerio Nesi]]"
reverse: true
end: 1989
fn: 1
- type: head_of
with: "[[Giampiero Cantoni]]"
reverse: true
start: 1989
fn: 1
- type: funded
with: "[[Nassr State Enterprise]]"
start: 1989
end: 1989
role: "Danieli steel rolling mill loan booked through Atlanta"
fn: 8
- type: funded
with: "[[Matrix Churchill]]"
start: 1987
end: 1989
role: "Matrix Churchill Corporation among the beneficiaries of Atlanta financing; its Iraqi chairman Safa al-Habobi indicted"
fn: 21
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Commodity Credit Corporation Iraq Program]]"
start: 1983
end: 1990
role: "largest participant in the guarantee program used for Iraqi purchases"
fn: 35
- type: represented
with: "[[Kissinger Associates]]"
reverse: true
start: 1986
end: 1989
role: "consulting client; Scowcroft briefed the bank board three times 1986 to 1989"
fn: 33
- type: investigated
with: "[[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]]"
reverse: true
start: 1992
end: 1993
fn: 2
- type: investigated
with: "[[House Banking Committee]]"
reverse: true
start: 1992
end: 1993
fn: 31
- type: investigated
with: "[[Italian Senate]]"
reverse: true
start: 1991
end: 1994
role: "two commissions of inquiry into the Atlanta branch (Carta 1991 to 1992; Mora 1993 to 1994)"
fn: 6
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Therese Barden]]"
reverse: true
end: 1989
role: "Atlanta branch vice president and operations officer; indicted February 28, 1991"
fn: 20
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Amedeo DeCarolis]]"
reverse: true
end: 1989
role: "Atlanta branch operations assistant; indicted February 28, 1991"
fn: 20
- type: investigated
with: "[[Frederick Lacey]]"
reverse: true
start: 1992
end: 1992
role: "special review of the Justice Department's handling of the case"
fn: 29
---
Banca Nazionale del Lavoro is a bank in [[Rome]] that in 1989 belonged to the Italian state. A cable from the [[United States]] embassy described it as "an upstart bank by Italian standards, dating only to 1913 and owing its growth to its role as the key bank for the government in the 1920s and 30s," with the treasury as majority shareholder. Its branch in [[Atlanta]] was raided by the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] on August 4, 1989, in the affair described at [[BNL Scandal]].[^1]
Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) is a bank headquartered in [[Rome]] whose majority shareholder was the [[Italy|Italian]] treasury. A cable from the [[United States]] embassy in Rome, quoted on the House floor in 1992 by [[Henry B. Gonzalez]], described it as "an upstart bank by Italian standards, dating only to 1913 and owing its growth to its role as the key bank for the government in the 1920s and 30s."[^1] Its branch in [[Atlanta]] was searched by agents of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] on August 4, 1989, and the records they seized showed the loans that became the [[BNL Scandal|BNL affair]].[^2]
### The Atlanta Branch
The Atlanta branch was managed by [[Christopher Drogoul]]. A [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] memorandum of November 6, 1989 recorded that the branch had issued 2,500 unauthorized letters of credit for [[Iraq]] totaling $3.2 billion between February 1988 and July 1989, and that about $1.85 billion of that amount had been disbursed, including at least $800 million in letters of credit guaranteed by the [[Commodity Credit Corporation]] of the [[United States Department of Agriculture|Department of Agriculture]].[^3] The memorandum recorded that the branch had exceeded its allowable debt of $500,000 per customer, that it charged Baghdad an average commission of 0.2 percent where the usual rate for a poor credit risk was 15 percent, and that it funded the credits by borrowing from other banks for 90 to 180 days while allowing Iraq up to five years to repay.[^3] The same memorandum stated that BNL's North American headquarters in New York and the bank's directors in Rome publicly denied knowing about the letters of credit, "although a BNL official in Chicago claims he notified New York and Rome several times about the unusual activity in Atlanta, according to press reports," and that Rome "appears satisfied to date with the cooperation of the US investigating agencies and appreciates the low-key manner in which Washington has reacted."[^3] In the [[Los Angeles Times]] of November 13, 1992, Douglas Frantz described the investigation as concerning "$5 billion in secret loans to Iraq by the Atlanta branch."[^4]
Gonzalez put the total at $4 billion and said that $2.2 billion of the loans had gone to the Iraqi military technology procurement network.[^5] The [[Italian Senate]] commission of inquiry, in a preliminary report approved on December 21, 1991, put the exposures at about 4,000 billion lire, roughly a third of the bank's net worth, and recorded that facilities outside the official books, found after August 4, 1989, totaled $2,867.6 million against $991 million in credits registered at July 31, 1989.[^6] Two BNL-Atlanta employees went to federal authorities in July 1989 and reported the unauthorized loans. FBI agents raided the branch on August 4, 1989 and seized its records.[^7]
### What Rome Knew
The bank's internal auditor, [[Luigi Sardelli]], reported problems in the Atlanta branch in the fall of 1988. The director general, [[Giacomo Pedde]], told him that October that it was premature to discipline the branch manager, [[Christopher Drogoul]], and the report went unread in Rome until the raid. Pedde also telephoned the head of his financial division to say that a contract of the steel maker [[Danieli]] should get personal attention. Two days later Danieli signed to supply a rolling mill worth 140 million marks to the [[Nassr State Enterprise|Nassr enterprise]] in [[Iraq]]. The loan was originated by the bank's branch in [[Udine]] and booked through Atlanta. "Why not [[New York City|New York]]," Representative [[Henry B. Gonzalez]] asked, "especially since Sardelli had already reported problems in Atlanta to his superiors?" The chairman, [[Nerio Nesi]], and Pedde were forced to resign soon after the disclosure. Both refused to testify in the United States. By September 1992 Pedde had been indicted in [[Italy]] over transactions with [[Iran]].[^1][^2]
[[Luigi Sardelli]] was appointed executive vice president and managing director of BNL's North American operations in July 1987. Gonzalez reported that Sardelli audited the bank's American operations and found major problems in Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta. In August 1988 he found a poorly collateralized loan to [[Entrade International]], which Gonzalez described as one of Iraq's key procurement agents, and reported it to Rome. Two months later his superior praised the Atlanta manager, Drogoul, despite Sardelli's criticisms. In October 1988, according to Gonzalez, [[Giacomo Pedde]], the director general in Rome, told Sardelli that it was premature to chastise the Atlanta manager. A critical audit report that Sardelli sent to Rome in late December 1988 was in English and was not translated into Italian until July 10, 1989, less than a month before the raid.[^8]
At about the time that report was sent, the management of the [[Udine]] branch received a request to finance a steel plant in Iraq for the Italian steelmaker [[Danieli]]. On January 26, according to Gonzalez, Pedde telephoned the head of his financial division and told him that the Danieli deal should get personal attention. Two days later Danieli signed a contract for 140 million German marks, about $70 million, to supply a rolling mill to the [[Nassr State Enterprise]] in Iraq. The loan was originated at Udine but handled through Atlanta.[^8] "Why not [[New York City|New York]]," Gonzalez asked, "especially since Sardelli had already reported problems in Atlanta to his superiors in Rome?"[^8] Gonzalez reported that the Italian Senate believed the deal was routed through Atlanta to keep other Italian companies with claims against Iraq from freezing the account.[^8] The Senate commission's own report recorded that the offices of the central direction in Rome worked to have the DM 140 million operation carried out through the Atlanta agency, and that the Danieli operation had been moved from Udine to Atlanta "anche per dirette pressioni esercitate dalla Direzione centrale" (also through direct pressure exercised by the central direction).[^6]
The commission also recorded the history of the audit report prepared by the bank's auditor Messere after the inspection that Sardelli ordered in September 1988: the report was filed away by the competent office of the inspectorate in Rome instead of being forwarded, and when Sardelli later sent all the area's inspection reports to Rome, the Messere report, written in English, was translated only after August 4, 1989.[^6] No inspection of the Atlanta branch had been ordered directly by the central inspectorate in Rome before the raid.[^6] Sardelli wrote that when he directed a Rome chief inspector then working in New York to audit the Atlanta agency, the inspector answered that Pedde, then managing director, had instructed him to audit Sardelli's expense account instead.[^9]
The [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] staff recorded that CIA analysts concluded in January 1990 that "managers at BNL headquarters in Rome were involved in the scandal," and that in November 1991 CIA reports "confirmed press allegations that more senior BNL officials in Rome had been witting of BNL-Atlanta's activities."[^10] The staff wrote that "the evidence does not show that this failure was a deliberate attempt to withhold information from the Department of Justice."[^11] The staff also reported that it "could find no legal support" for the CIA guidance that a report not formally disseminated outside the agency would not be subject to discovery in a criminal case.[^12]
Gonzalez stated that the scandal forced the chairman, [[Nerio Nesi]], and Pedde, whom he there called vice chairman, to resign soon after the disclosure.[^13] Pedde was indicted in Italy by 1992 over transactions with [[Iran]].[^8] The Italian Senate commission recorded that no official of BNL in New York or Rome was among the defendants in the Atlanta prosecution, and that the thesis of a fraud by disloyal employees had proved "inconsistente" in light of the evidence the commission had gathered, which included confessions, testimony and documents.[^6] Of the thirteen Italian nationals whose depositions the government sought in Rome in 1993, six declared that they would testify in the United States and seven that they would not. The Eleventh Circuit's opinion lists the seven as Angelo Florio, "Nero Nesi" (the bank's chairman in 1989 was Nerio Nesi), Giacomo Pedde, Giovanni D'Ercole, Marco Lunazzi, Francesco Bignardi and Gerardo Ruggero, and records that Drogoul asserted that Pedde, Teodoro Monaco and Angelo Florio were the BNL officials who provided the authorizations he relied on.[^14]
### Cantoni and Secchia
Nesi's successor was [[Giampiero Cantoni]], whose ties to the [[Italian Socialist Party]] and to the former prime minister [[Bettino Craxi]] were, in the words of a [[State Department]] cable, a prerequisite for the appointment. The new director general, [[Paolo Savona]], was close to President [[Francesco Cossiga]] and to [[Guido Carli]]. A recapitalization begun under Nesi brought in the state insurer INA and the state pension system INPS and cut the treasury's direct holding from 75 to 56 percent.[^1]
Nesi's successor was [[Giampiero Cantoni]], whose ties to the [[Italian Socialist Party]] and to the former prime minister [[Bettino Craxi]] were, in the words of a [[State Department]] cable, a prerequisite for the appointment.[^1] The director general, [[Paolo Savona]], was close to President [[Francesco Cossiga]] and to [[Guido Carli]], the treasury minister. A capital increase already in preparation would bring in the state insurer INA and the state pension system INPS and reduce the treasury's holding from 75 percent to 56 percent.[^15]
Cantoni and Savona called on Ambassador [[Peter Secchia]] in October, having arranged the meeting on the flight home from Cossiga's visit to the United States. Cantoni said that his American lawyers were urging him to raise the matter to a "political" level, and that racketeering charges might be brought and assets frozen. On March 16, 1990, an executive vice president named DeVito told the embassy's economic officer that the bank might soon be indicted, that "the matter was urgent," and that he believed the [[Department of Justice]] had taken the investigation out of the hands of the United States attorney in Atlanta. On July 25, 1990, a week before the invasion of [[Kuwait]], Cantoni again "made a pitch for the U.S. government to go slowly before making indictments." Gonzalez told the House that "on numerous occasions Mr. Cantoni approached United States Ambassador to Italy, Peter Secchia, about achieving damage control," and that less than ten days after one such request the [[White House]] telephoned the prosecutor in Atlanta.[^1]
Cantoni and Savona called on Ambassador [[Peter Secchia]] on October 19, 1989, at Cantoni's request, made on the return flight from the United States with President Cossiga.[^16] Savona was concerned about losing the Commodity Credit Corporation guarantee on roughly $1 billion of the bank's three billion dollar exposure in Atlanta. Cantoni said that his American lawyers were urging him to raise the matter to a "political" level, and that they thought charges would be filed under the Rico Act and that BNL or Iraqi assets could be frozen.[^15] The cable reported that the two men wanted to achieve "some kind of damage control." Gonzalez told the House that "on numerous occasions Mr. Cantoni approached United States Ambassador to Italy, Peter Secchia, about achieving damage control," and that less than ten days after one such request the [[White House]] called the Atlanta prosecutor in charge of the case.[^17]
On March 16, 1990, an executive vice president named DeVito told the embassy's economic officer that the bank might soon be indicted in the United States, that "matter was urgent," and that he believed the [[Department of Justice]] had taken the investigation out of the hands of the United States attorney in Atlanta.[^18] On July 25, 1990, eight days before the invasion of [[Kuwait]], Cantoni again "made a pitch for the U.S. government to go slowly before making indictments."[^17] Frantz wrote in November 1992 that a White House lawyer had telephoned the prosecutor early in the inquiry.[^4] On October 24, 1989, Carli responded negatively to a request by opposition senators to conduct an investigation of the affair.[^15]
### The Indictment and Entrade
The indictment, No. 1:91-CR-078 in the [[United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia|Northern District of Georgia]], was returned on February 28, 1991, the day after President [[George H.W. Bush]] ordered the ceasefire in the [[Gulf War]]. It charged Drogoul on 347 counts with nine other defendants: two other branch officers, [[Therese Barden]] (vice president and operations officer) and [[Amedeo DeCarolis]] (operations assistant); Entrade International and its executive vice president, [[Yavuz Tezeller]]; the Iraqi state [[Rafidain Bank]]; and four Iraqi officials, [[Sadik Taha]], Abdul Rasheed, Raja Hassan Ali and [[Safa al-Habobi]].[^19] Two other Atlanta officers, Thomas Fiebelkorn and Leigh Ann New, were not carried into the indictment because they had negotiated plea agreements (New pleaded guilty on March 6, 1991 and Fiebelkorn on April 3, 1991), and the trade officer [[Paul Von Wedel]] pleaded guilty as a cooperating defendant; the five Atlanta employees were sentenced on August 24, 1993.[^20] Al-Habobi, described in the independent counsel's report as director general of the Al-Nasser Complex of the Iraqi Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization, was also chairman, president, director or vice president of Iraqi-controlled corporations in England and the United States, including the [[Matrix Churchill|Matrix-Churchill]] entities, and returned to Baghdad after the search of the Atlanta office.[^21]
Entrade was an affiliate of the Turkish conglomerate [[Enka]]. A January 9, 1990 Justice Department letter described Tezeller as someone who could "provide information regarding after sales services (a fancy word for bribes, kickbacks), unearned consulting fees, and other payments to Iraqis."[^22] Tezeller refused to return from [[Turkey]] after the raid. Gonzalez reported that the State Department would not allow the Atlanta investigators to travel to Turkey to question him, and that Entrade had been involved in 52 CCC-guaranteed transactions with Iraq and BNL, in which, he said, a Department of Agriculture investigation found no evidence that the commodities arrived in Iraq.[^22]
Gonzalez also reported that the Justice Department had placed the Jordanian businessman [[Wafai Dajani]] on its list of proposed indictments, and that a February 1991 State Department memorandum said it had "no objections to indictment of any individual on the list" but added a disclaimer on Dajani, describing him as "a Jordanian businessman, not a government official" and noting that he was "considered well connected" and that his brother had been a minister.[^23] [[Joseph D. Whitley]], acting United States attorney in Atlanta from June 1, 1990, recused himself from the case the same day, because his former law firm had represented Matrix Churchill, the Iraqi-owned machine tool company that the branch had financed.[^24]
### Judge Shoob, the Plea and the Lacey Review
Drogoul pleaded guilty to 60 counts in June 1992. At a sentencing hearing on September 23, 1992, [[Marvin Shoob|Judge Marvin Shoob]] asked to see the intelligence underlying Gonzalez's summary of CIA reporting. Shoob took the documents home and concluded from one of them that it did not support the summary's analytical comment.[^25] On October 1, 1992, Shoob orally allowed Drogoul to withdraw the plea and, on the government's motion, recused himself; the written order is dated October 5, 1992. The order stated: "The Court concludes that officials at BNL-Rome were aware of and approved Mr. Drogoul's activities." The order noted that Drogoul had testified "only that his superiors should have known."[^26]
A CIA statement of February 5, 1993 announcing the release of the Inspector General's BNL report said: "The CIA's Inspector General found no evidence of deliberate withholding of information or wrongdoing by any Agency employee in connection with the BNL case." The statement attached a memorandum of January 19, 1993 from the Director of Central Intelligence, [[Robert Gates]], to the Inspector General. Gates wrote that Gonzalez "was given summaries of CIA intelligence reports accompanied by analytical comments that led him to conclude that CIA had information confirming that BNL-Rome knew of illegal lending activity by BNL-Atlanta," and that "the intelligence reporting on which this analysis was based does not support such a definitive conclusion." In the same memorandum Gates wrote two sentences about the CIA reports: "None of the information available to CIA establishes that BNL-Rome did know of the activities of BNL-Atlanta that later became the subject of DoJ's investigation and prosecution." and "Nonetheless, several of the CIA reports clearly contain indications that BNL-Rome may have been aware of BNL-Atlanta's actions." He also wrote that "In retrospect, mistakes clearly were made by Agency officers in their handling of events related to the BNL matter, and there was carelessness and a number of instances of poor judgment."[^27]
On October 16, 1992, [[William Barr|Attorney General William Barr]] appointed the retired judge [[Frederick Lacey]] as an "independent counsel" under Justice Department regulations, rather than under the independent counsel statute.[^28] Lacey's own report gives October 27 as the date on which Barr authorized a preliminary investigation and asked for a report by December 8, 1992. The Senate staff recorded that Lacey submitted his report on December 9.[^28][^29] Lacey wrote that "I find Judge Shoob's specific charges against the USAO, and his concern about the interference of other agencies, to be inaccurate."[^30] Gonzalez called the review "the Lacey Job" and said that "at best Lacey's probe was a whitewash."[^31]
Lacey wrote of the national security adviser and the deputy secretary of state: "It is clear that, while at [[Kissinger Associates]], [[Brent Scowcroft|Scowcroft]] and [[Lawrence Eagleburger|Eagleburger]] came into contact with BNL management. I have seen nothing, however, to suggest that they knew of BNL-Atlanta's wrongful loans to Iraq or influenced the prosecution of this matter."[^32]
On November 13, 1992, the Los Angeles Times reported that Lacey had sent Barr preliminary findings sufficient to proceed to a second phase. Senator [[David Boren]], chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that the committee was trying to determine "whether a decision was made at some level of government that the gathering of information took precedence over the prosecution of any individuals."[^4]
### Kissinger Associates
According to Gonzalez, Kissinger Associates was set up in 1982 when [[Henry A. Kissinger]] and Scowcroft joined in founding it.[^33] Lacey recorded that Scowcroft had served as vice president of the firm and headed its Washington office, and that Eagleburger had served as its president, before each joined the government.[^32] Gonzalez said that Scowcroft worked on the BNL account, met BNL management on numerous occasions, and briefed the BNL board on three occasions between 1986 and 1989.[^33] He also reported that a former head of BNL's American operations attended a 1987 meeting in New York with [[Alan Stoga]], the head of BNL's Rome headquarters, and Kissinger, Scowcroft and Eagleburger, held to give BNL advice on doing business in several countries including India, after which Stoga and Scowcroft took the BNL officers to lunch.[^34] Gonzalez said that "Kissinger, Scowcroft, and Eagleburger maintain that they were unaware of the BNL loans to Iraq," and added: "I offer no definitive proof that they were aware of the BNL loans."[^35]
Drogoul testified before the [[House Banking Committee]] on November 9, 1993, with other former employees of the bank. He said that he was made aware of Kissinger's membership on the bank's international advisory board at a business meeting in Italy. "As we became involved in the medium-term lending," he said, "it became clear to us that the people at Kissinger and Associates were somehow assisting clients of Iraq in further developing business." He added: "By the time we moved into the 1988 period or early 1989 period, it was fairly clear to me that Kissinger and Associates' people were involved in some way in trying to enhance and develop a relationship between Iraq and the United States. I really shouldn't go farther than that, because the rest is probably speculation."[^36]
Gonzalez reported that the White House had intervened in late 1989 to make sure that Iraq received a $1 billion allocation of Commodity Credit Corporation credits, and that the NSC staff contacted the Department of Agriculture about a delayed second installment of $500 million after the Iraqi ambassador complained to Scowcroft.[^33]
### Commodity Credit Corporation Credits
The Commodity Credit Corporation guaranteed repayment to American banks that financed exports of farm products through its GSM-102 and GSM-103 programs. Gonzalez said that BNL was the largest participant in the program that Iraq used to purchase about $5 billion in American agricultural commodities between 1983 and 1990.[^35] The General Accounting Office reported in October 1990 that the CCC had paid out about $3 billion in claims, was at risk for approximately $2 billion in guarantees on loans that Iraq had stopped paying, and that the Justice Department was investigating irregularities at one bank that had made more than $2 billion in loans to Iraq, only a fraction of them properly authorized.[^37] A March 1991 GAO report found that export credit guarantees approved for Iraq rose from about $400 million in fiscal 1983 to about $1.1 billion in fiscal 1988 and fiscal 1989, and that the Department of Agriculture rated Iraq a high-risk market in fiscal 1989 and 1990 while continuing to approve guarantees.[^38]
On January 21, 1993, Gonzalez told the House that BNL had sued on December 15, 1992 in the United States Court of Federal Claims to recover over $340 million on defaulted Iraqi loans guaranteed under the program.[^39]
### Matrix Churchill and the Arms Network
In a January 1993 floor statement Gonzalez asked whether the British government had informed the United States that the exports of Matrix Churchill to Iran were being financed by the Atlanta branch of BNL.[^40] He said that as early as 1987 Matrix Churchill sources had told British intelligence that machine tools shipped to the Nassr and Hutteen state establishments in Iraq were used in armaments production, and that British officials approved export licenses for the company well into 1990.[^40] Gonzalez called the appointment of [[Scott Inquiry|Lord Justice Scott]] to review the matter "akin to the U.S. Government appointing Judge Lacey to investigate the BNL scandal."[^41]
### Italian Senate Commissions and the P2 Lists
The Italian Senate created a special commission and then, by resolution of February 19, 1991, a commission of inquiry under Article 82 of the constitution into the Atlanta branch and its connections, chaired by Senator [[Gianuario Carta]]. Its preliminary report, approved on December 21, 1991, stated that the thesis limiting the affair to a fraud by a group of unfaithful officials had proved inconsistent, that the Atlanta operations could not have been unknown in Rome and New York and were instead tolerated if not encouraged ("tollerata se non incoraggiata"), and that the Department of Justice had denied the commission access to documents and witnesses, invoking grand jury secrecy and national security.[^6] The commission took testimony in New York in June 1991. Its final report was approved on April 22, 1992 as Doc. XXII-bis n. 4.[^42] The final report stated that the severest of BNL's early-1980s crises was connected to "la accertata partecipazione di gran parte dei suoi alti dirigenti alla loggia massonica P2" (p. 6) and declined to fix the degree to which "Drogoul, i suoi complici e le stesse strutture superiori della BNL" knew of Iraq's military design (p. 8). It recorded that credits to Rafidain Bank before June 1987 had been reported to the Rome head office under an internal circular of June 23, 1983 (p. 20); that dissent existed inside the US administration over licenses and refinancing decisions taken "con il consenso del Consiglio per la Sicurezza Nazionale"; that President Bush had expressly admitted support initiatives for Iraq extending from the start of the Reagan presidency to shortly before the Gulf War; and that Lawrence Eagleburger (adviser to the Ljubljanska Banka), Brent Scowcroft and Henry Kissinger (both BNL consultants) were among those connected to the bank (p. 23). The report asked whether the development of Atlanta as the center for financing Iraq was "casuale e indipendente, anziché organicamente strumentale" to US policy toward Iraq (p. 25). It noted the coming House Banking Committee interim report on the intelligence services and the National Security Council, and the consultancy given to BNL by Kissinger Associates and by Scowcroft "anche diversi mesi dopo il 4 agosto 1989" (p. 34). On the coming Atlanta trial, the report stated that Drogoul could confirm what he had told the commission, "la consapevolezza e la tolleranza dei vertici di Roma della BNL e delle autorità federali a fronte della macchina finanziaria attivata a favore dell'Iraq" (pp. 34-35). A second commission, chaired by Senator [[Giampaolo Mora]], was created by resolution of November 17, 1992, was constituted on February 11, 1993, and approved its final report on February 23, 1994 as Doc. XXII-bis n. 1.[^43] Gonzalez told the House in January 1993 that the second commission's mandate was to probe whether Italian government bodies, possibly acting in concert with foreign governments, had aided Iraq's military industrialization.[^44]
[[Rinaldo Petrignani]], the Italian ambassador in Washington from 1981 to 1991, answered Gonzalez's questions in writing on January 31, 1994 and listed his meetings in 1990: with [[Robert Ross]], assistant to the Attorney General, on March 21, at which he expressed the Italian government's concern about a possible indictment of BNL as an institution and said it seemed possible that Drogoul and his associates would try to place part of the responsibility on BNL; with the State Department legal adviser [[Abraham Sofaer]]; and, briefly, with Attorney General [[Richard Thornburgh]] at a White House reception. Petrignani named the director general for economic affairs at the Italian foreign ministry and the ministry's director of cabinet as the officials who directed him to attend.[^45] The independent counsel's report recorded that on September 21, 1990 Urgenson, the prosecutor [[Gale McKenzie]] and others from the Justice Department met Petrignani, Senator Carta and Professor Zanelli, counsel to the Italian committee, and that Petrignani was reported to have asserted that "BNL was the victim of a terrible fraud" and that the "reputation of BNL was of great importance as the Italian State is a majority owner." A Justice Department memorandum of January 1, 1991 recorded that Carta expressed skepticism that only BNL-Atlanta was involved in the scheme.[^46] In his written answers Petrignani said he had no knowledge of the Italian government's use of BNL-Atlanta to finance the sale of military hardware such as Sidewinder missiles and attack helicopters.[^45]
Sardelli's written responses quoted testimony of the Italian foreign ministry's secretary general, B. Bottai, before the second Senate commission on September 23, 1993: "the behavior of the Embassy was the one suggested also by the Ministry of Treasury, guardian angel of BNL's," and "it was in the interest of Italy that the responsibilities remained circumscribed to the Atlanta Agency." Sardelli also quoted a hearing of August 4, 1993 at which the former foreign minister [[Gianni De Michelis]] said that only one loan to Iraq "had characteristics of irregularity."[^47]
Luigi Sardelli wrote that Professor A. Ferrari, then BNL's managing director, "had to resign in shame in 1981 because of his affiliation with Lodge P2," which he called an illegal lodge in Italy, and that on December 25, 1975 Ferrari had asked him to go to the Gulf area to explore a BNL merchant bank in partnership "with a group of BNL friends." Sardelli wrote that on his return he told Ferrari that the people he had met, Pakistani nationals connected to [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International|BCCI]], were Ferrari's friends and that he was the wrong man to lead the joint venture. He wrote that Ferrari and A. Florio, whom Ferrari had handpicked to head the International Division, organized a BNL financial affiliate in Luxembourg; that Ferrari was a close friend of [[Roberto Calvi]] of [[Banco Ambrosiano]]; that Ferrari, assisted by Florio, put deals that lost money on the books of the BNL affiliate Capitalfin; and that the relationship with BCCI, [[Ghaith Pharaon]] and [[Marc Rich]] was the exclusive domain of Ferrari, Florio and A. Conzara.[^48]
The membership lists of the Propaganda Due ([[Propaganda Due|P2]]) lodge seized at Castiglion Fibocchi in March 1981 and made public by the Italian government on May 21, 1981 include "dott. Alberto Ferrari (Roma, 520)," annotated "ex direttore generale BNL."[^49] The parliamentary commission of inquiry on P2 chaired by [[Tina Anselmi]] reported that among the banks represented in the lists the Banca nazionale del lavoro was one for which the presences were particularly significant for quality and representativeness: four members of the board of directors, the director general, and three central directors, one of them the board's secretary.[^50]
### Venice and Iran
Gonzalez reported in January 1993 that prosecutors in [[Venice]] had filed, in December 1992, a 523-page indictment, after three years of investigation, implicating former top-level BNL officers and Italian export licensing officials in a scheme to send arms secretly to Iran in the latter half of the 1980s, in violation of an Italian government ban on arms sales to either side in the Iran-Iraq war.[^44] He said the indictment charged that senior BNL executives in Rome, and BNL branch officials in Paris and Turin, provided over $100 million in financial support for the shipments, that it also implicated BNL employees together with Italian secret service agents and Ministry of Defense officials who helped disguise the shipments, and that in total 59 persons had been indicted.[^51] Gonzalez noted that some of the BNL Rome executives implicated in the Venice indictment were at the center of the Atlanta loans.[^51] He quoted the Venice prosecutor: "I'm not a politician, I'm a Judge. But my main impression is that it was all greed * * *. Nobody had a straight policy."[^51]
### Drogoul's Sentence
On September 2, 1993 the Eleventh Circuit reversed the district court's refusal to allow depositions of the Italian witnesses in Rome.[^52] Drogoul then pleaded guilty in September 1993 to three counts and was sentenced in December 1993 to 37 months in federal prison.[^53] Alan Friedman wrote that the loans were used by Iraq's government to finance purchases of weapons, weapons components and dual-use industrial equipment.[^54]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "The Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Scandal: High-Level Politics Try to Hide the Evidence," *Congressional Record,* House, September 14, 1992, p. H8349, reproducing State Department cables from Rome.
[^2]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "The BNL Case: Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil," *Congressional Record,* House, September 28, 1992, p. H9589.
[^1]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "The Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Scandal: High-Level Politics Try to Hide the Evidence," *Congressional Record,* House, September 14, 1992, pp. H8349-H8356, reproducing State Department cables from Rome, including the October 1989 cable at p. H8355. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/1992_cr/h920914g.htm
[^2]: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *The Intelligence Community's Involvement in the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) Affair,* Committee Print S. Prt. 103-12, February 1993, p. 9. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/publications/10312.pdf
[^3]: Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, "Iraq-Italy: Repercussions of the BNL-Atlanta Scandal," November 6, 1989, printed in House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, *Testimony of Former Employees of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro,* Serial No. 103-95 (Washington, 1994), pp. 194-195; CIA reading room document 0000491425 (NESA M# 89-20119, EURA M# 89-2002), pp. 2, 6, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/0000491425 ; also https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit
[^4]: Frantz, Douglas, "Probe of U.S. Aid to Iraqis Is Stepped Up," *Los Angeles Times,* November 13, 1992 (copy in the American Cybercasting archive). https://stuff.mit.edu/afs/net/user/tytso/usenet/americast/latimes/news/282
[^5]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "Efforts to Thwart Investigation of the BNL Scandal," *Congressional Record,* House, March 30, 1992, p. H2010 (in a passage stating $4 billion in unauthorized loans to Iraq, of which $2.2 billion went to the Iraqi military technology procurement network). https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/1992_cr/h920330g.htm
[^6]: Senato della Repubblica, X Legislatura, Commissione parlamentare d'inchiesta sul caso della filiale di Atlanta della Banca nazionale del lavoro e sue connessioni (established by resolution of February 19, 1991; Carta, President), *Rapporto preliminare,* approved December 21, 1991, Doc. XXII-bis n. 3, pp. 2-9 (no BNL New York or Rome official among the defendants, p. 2; testimony in New York in June 1991, p. 3; exposures of about 4,000 billion lire, p. 4; Messere audit report and translation, p. 6; $991 million and $2,867.6 million, Danieli routing and Matrix Churchill Corporation among the beneficiaries, p. 7; DM 140 million operation through Atlanta, p. 8; conclusions on the fraud thesis, Department of Justice denial of access, and operations "tollerata se non incoraggiata," pp. 8-9). https://www.parlamento.it/service/PDF/PDFServer/BGT/914635.pdf
[^7]: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, S. Prt. 103-12, February 1993, p. 9. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/publications/10312.pdf
[^8]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "The BNL Case: Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil," *Congressional Record,* House, September 28, 1992, pp. H9589-H9598; the Sardelli audit history, the Pedde call, the Danieli contract, the Udine origination, the Italian Senate's view and Pedde's indictment appear at pp. H9594-H9595. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/1992_cr/h920928g.htm
[^9]: Sardelli, Luigi, "Written Responses to Chairman Gonzalez's Questions," printed in Serial No. 103-95, p. 159 (answer to question 2: the Constantini inspection instruction). https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit
[^10]: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, S. Prt. 103-12, February 1993, p. 28 (CIA analysis of January 1990 and November 1991); the transmittal letter of January 31, 1990 is quoted at p. 47. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/publications/10312.pdf
[^11]: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, S. Prt. 103-12, February 1993, p. 34. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/publications/10312.pdf
[^12]: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, S. Prt. 103-12, February 1993, p. 26. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/publications/10312.pdf
[^13]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "The Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Scandal: High-Level Politics Try to Hide the Evidence," *Congressional Record,* House, September 14, 1992, p. H8351 ("The scandal forced BNL Chairman Nerio Nesi and Vice Chairman Giacomo Pedde to resign soon after public disclosure of the debacle"); Gonzalez, "The BNL Case: Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil," September 28, 1992, p. H9595 (Pedde, "the director general of BNL in Rome resigned in the wake of the scandal"). https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/1992_cr/h920914g.htm
[^14]: United States v. Drogoul, No. 93-8964, 1 F.3d 1546 (11th Cir. 1993) (the government's motion to depose thirteen Italian nationals in Rome; six declared they would testify in the United States, seven that they would not; the footnotes to the opinion name the seven and state that Pedde and Florio were among them, and that Drogoul asserted that Pedde, Monaco and Florio provided the authorizations). https://static.case.law/f3d/1/cases/1546-01.json
[^15]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "The Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Scandal," *Congressional Record,* House, September 14, 1992, p. H8355 (Cantoni and Savona's concerns, the Commodity Credit Corporation exposure, the Rico Act, the capital increase reducing the treasury's holding from 75 to 56 percent, and the October 24 response of Treasury Minister Carli). https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/1992_cr/h920914g.htm
[^16]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "The Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Scandal," *Congressional Record,* House, September 14, 1992, p. H8351 (cable reporting the October 19 meeting at Cantoni's request during the return flight with President Cossiga). https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/1992_cr/h920914g.htm
[^17]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "The Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Scandal," *Congressional Record,* House, September 14, 1992, p. H8351 (cable of October 26, 1989; White House call "less than 10 days" after Cantoni's request; cable of July 25, 1990). https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/1992_cr/h920914g.htm
[^18]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "The Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Scandal," *Congressional Record,* House, September 14, 1992, p. H8353 (cable of March 19, 1990 reporting DeVito's March 16 call). https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/1992_cr/h920914g.htm
[^19]: Lacey, Frederick B., Part I of the report of the Independent Counsel, printed in Serial No. 103-95, pp. 361-366 (defendants and cooperating individuals) and p. 413 (the February 28, 1991 indictment returned against Drogoul, Barden, DeCarolis, Entrade, Tezeller, Taha, Rasheed, Ali, Al-Habobi and Rafidain Bank); United States v. Drogoul, 1 F.3d 1546 (11th Cir. 1993) (347-count original indictment); General Accounting Office, T-NSIAD-91-13, March 14, 1991 (347-count indictment of 10 defendants); the criminal action number 1:91-cr-078 is cited in S. Prt. 103-12, February 1993. https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit
[^20]: Lacey, Frederick B., Part I of the report of the Independent Counsel, printed in Serial No. 103-95, pp. 362-363 (Barden and DeCarolis), p. 366 (Von Wedel as cooperating individual), and p. 411, note (Fiebelkorn and New "were dropped because they had negotiated plea agreements"; New pleaded guilty March 6, 1991; Fiebelkorn April 3, 1991); Judge Shoob's sentencing order of August 24, 1993 for five BNL-Atlanta employees (DeCarolis, Barden, New, Von Wedel, Fiebelkorn), printed in the same volume at pp. 200-201 (index) and 215 ff. https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit
[^21]: Lacey, Frederick B., Part I of the report of the Independent Counsel, printed in Serial No. 103-95, pp. 365-366 (Al-Habobi); Senato della Repubblica, Doc. XXII-bis n. 3, December 21, 1991, p. 7 (Matrix Churchill Corporation, $16.2 million, among the beneficiaries of the financing). https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit
[^22]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "Efforts to Thwart Investigation of the BNL Scandal," *Congressional Record,* House, March 30, 1992, p. H2009 (Justice Department letter of January 9, 1990; Entrade as an affiliate of Enka; State Department refusal of Turkey travel). https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/1992_cr/h920330g.htm
[^23]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "Efforts to Thwart Investigation of the BNL Scandal," *Congressional Record,* House, March 30, 1992, pp. H2009-H2010 (February 1991 State Department memorandum and disclaimer on Dajani). https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/1992_cr/h920330g.htm
[^24]: Lacey, Frederick B. "The Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Investigation: Report of the Independent Counsel," printed in *Testimony of Former Employees of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro,* Serial No. 103-95, pp. 514-515 (Whitley acting from June 1, 1990, recused the same day; his former firm had represented Matrix-Churchill). https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit
[^25]: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, S. Prt. 103-12, February 1993, p. 24 (Shoob opened the September 23 sentencing hearing and asked for the intelligence underlying the Gonzalez summary; Brill offered to discuss the reports ex parte, Shoob declined and asked that she bring them to chambers; he took them home and read one that evening). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/publications/10312.pdf
[^26]: United States v. Drogoul, Order of Judge Marvin H. Shoob, October 1, 1992, printed in *Testimony of Former Employees of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro,* Serial No. 103-95, pp. 205-206. https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit
[^27]: Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Public and Agency Information, "CIA Statement: Release of BNL-related Report," February 5, 1993, with Memorandum for the Inspector General from the Director of Central Intelligence, "BNL Investigation," January 19, 1993, pp. 1-2 (reading room document 0005617864). https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/0005617864
[^28]: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, S. Prt. 103-12, February 1993, p. 4 (Attorney General's appointment of Lacey on Friday, October 16, 1992 as an "independent counsel" under Justice Department regulations). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/publications/10312.pdf
[^29]: Lacey, Frederick B., report of the Independent Counsel, printed in Serial No. 103-95, pp. 344-345 (Barr's October 27 authorization of a preliminary investigation and request for a report by December 8, 1992); Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, S. Prt. 103-12, February 1993, p. 5 (report submitted December 9, 1992). https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit
[^30]: Lacey, Frederick B., remarks on the Shoob charges, printed in Serial No. 103-95, p. 473. https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit
[^31]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "Update on BNL Investigation," *Congressional Record,* House, January 21, 1993, pp. H132-H133 ("the Lacey Job"; "At best Lacey's probe was a whitewash"). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1993_cr/h930121-bnl.htm
[^32]: Lacey, Frederick B., Part I of the report of the Independent Counsel, printed in Serial No. 103-95, p. 514 (Kissinger Associates section). https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit
[^33]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "Kissinger Associates, Scowcroft, Eagleburger, Stoga, Iraq, and BNL," *Congressional Record,* House, April 28, 1992, pp. H2696-H2697 (Scowcroft's briefings of the BNL board; the late 1989 $1 billion allocation; NSC contact about the second $500 million installment). https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/1992_cr/h920428g.htm
[^34]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "Kissinger Associates, Scowcroft, Eagleburger, Stoga, Iraq, and BNL," *Congressional Record,* House, April 28, 1992, p. H2698 (1987 New York meeting as reported by Gonzalez from the former head of BNL's American operations). https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/1992_cr/h920428g.htm
[^35]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "Kissinger Associates, Scowcroft, Eagleburger, Stoga, Iraq, and BNL," *Congressional Record,* House, April 28, 1992, pp. H2694-H2695 (the three maintained they were unaware; "I offer no definitive proof"; BNL as largest participant in the program used for about $5 billion in purchases, 1983 to 1990). https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/1992_cr/h920428g.htm
[^36]: Testimony of Christopher P. Drogoul, House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, *Testimony of Former Employees of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro,* Serial No. 103-95, hearing of November 9, 1993, p. 14. https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit
[^37]: General Accounting Office, *Report on the Commodity Credit Corporation's GSM-102/103 Export Credit Guarantee Programs and Iraq's Participation in the Programs,* T-NSIAD-91-1, testimony of October 16, 1990 (summary of findings on CCC claims paid and exposure). https://gao.justia.com/department-of-agriculture/1990/10/report-on-the-commodity-credit-corporation-s-gsm-102-103-export-credit-guarantee-programs-and-iraq-s-participation-in-the-programs-t-nsiad-91-1
[^38]: General Accounting Office, *Iraq's Participation in the Commodity Credit Corporation's GSM-102/103 Export Credit Guarantee Programs,* T-NSIAD-91-13, March 14, 1991 (summary of findings on guarantees approved for Iraq). https://gao.justia.com/department-of-justice/1991/3/iraq-s-participation-in-the-commodity-credit-corporation-s-gsm-102-103-export-credit-guarantee-programs-t-nsiad-91-13
[^39]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "Update on BNL Investigation," *Congressional Record,* House, January 21, 1993, p. H134 (suit filed December 15, 1992 in the Court of Federal Claims for over $340 million in defaulted Iraqi loans). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1993_cr/h930121-bnl.htm
[^40]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "Update on BNL Investigation," *Congressional Record,* House, January 21, 1993, pp. H132 (question whether the British government informed the United States that Matrix-Churchill's exports to Iran were financed by BNL Atlanta) and H134 (1987 British intelligence sources on Nassr and Hutteen; export licenses approved into 1990). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1993_cr/h930121-bnl.htm
[^41]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "Update on BNL Investigation," *Congressional Record,* House, January 21, 1993, p. H135 (Lord Justice Scott appointment). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1993_cr/h930121-bnl.htm
[^42]: Senato della Repubblica, X Legislatura, Commissione parlamentare d'inchiesta sul caso della filiale di Atlanta della Banca Nazionale del Lavoro e sue connessioni, Doc. XXII-bis n. 4 (Relazione conclusiva, relatore Carta), April 22, 1992, pp. 6, 8, 20, 23, 25, 34-35. https://www.senato.it/documenti/repository/relazioni/archiviostorico/commissioni/X%20LEG_BNL.ATLANTA_DOC_RELAZ/X_%20LEG_BNL-ATLANTA_DOC%20XXIIBIS_4_22.4.92.pdf
[^43]: Senato della Repubblica, Archivio storico, repertorio of commissions, "Bnl Atlanta (monocamerale d'inchiesta)": X Legislature commission established February 19, 1991, constituted March 6, 1991, President Gianuario Carta, final report Doc. XXII-bis n. 4 approved April 22, 1992; XI Legislature commission established November 17, 1992, constituted February 11, 1993, President Giampaolo Mora, final report Doc. XXII-bis n. 1 approved February 23, 1994. https://patrimonio.archivio.senato.it/repertorio-commissioni/commissione/IT-SEN-COM001-000161/bnl-atlanta-monocamerale-d-inchiesta?t=sintesi
[^44]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "Update on BNL Investigation," *Congressional Record,* House, January 21, 1993, p. H133 (second Italian Senate commission; 523-page Venice indictment filed in December 1992). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1993_cr/h930121-bnl.htm
[^45]: Petrignani, Rinaldo, written response of January 31, 1994 to Chairman Gonzalez's questions, printed in Serial No. 103-95, pp. 154-157 (meetings with Ross, Sofaer and Thornburgh; the foreign ministry officials who directed his attendance; answer on Sidewinder missiles and attack helicopters). https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit; Italian embassy in Washington, list of previous ambassadors (Petrignani, ambassador from June 15, 1981; successor from August 31, 1991). https://ambwashingtondc.esteri.it/en/chi-siamo/lambasciatore/ambasciatori-precedenti/
[^46]: Lacey, Frederick B., Part I of the report of the Independent Counsel, printed in Serial No. 103-95, p. 400 (September 21, 1990 meeting with Petrignani, Carta and Zanelli; Lippman memorandum of September 21, 1990) and p. 407 (Lippman memorandum of January 1, 1991 on Carta's skepticism). https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit
[^47]: Sardelli, Luigi, "Written Responses to Chairman Gonzalez's Questions," printed in Serial No. 103-95, p. 162 (answer to question 4, quoting the August 4, 1993 and September 23, 1993 hearings of the Italian Senate committee). https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit
[^48]: Sardelli, Luigi, "Written Responses to Chairman Gonzalez's Questions," printed in Serial No. 103-95, p. 176 (answer on BNL's relationship with BCCI: Ferrari, Florio, Capitalfin, Calvi). https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit
[^49]: Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, "Elenco degli iscritti alla loggia P2," published May 21, 1981 (list of names as reproduced at https://www.stragi.it/archivio/doc/66.pdf, which includes "Dott. Alberto Ferrari"); entry "dott. Alberto Ferrari (Roma, 520) (ex direttore generale BNL)" as transcribed at https://unita2.org/lista-appartenenti-alla-p2/
[^50]: Camera dei deputati and Senato della Repubblica, IX Legislatura, Commissione parlamentare d'inchiesta sulla loggia massonica P2 (Anselmi, President), *Relazione,* Doc. XXIII n. 2, p. 116 (banks represented in the lists: Banca nazionale del lavoro, four members of the board, the director general, three central directors). https://www.archivioantimafia.org/p2/commissione_parlamentare/01.%20Relazioni%20Minoranza%20(0-005)/000-relazione-anselmi.pdf
[^51]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "Update on BNL Investigation," *Congressional Record,* House, January 21, 1993, pp. H133-H134 (indictment charges, $100 million in support, "In total 59 persons have been indicted," quotation of the Venice prosecutor). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1993_cr/h930121-bnl.htm
[^52]: United States v. Drogoul, 1 F.3d 1546 (11th Cir. 1993), decided September 2, 1993. https://static.case.law/f3d/1/cases/1546-01.json
[^53]: "Drogoul gets 37 months in BNL bank scandal," *United Press International,* December 9, 1993; "Was Banker Just Fall Guy in Loans to Iraq?" *Deseret News,* December 5, 1993.
[^54]: Friedman, Alan. *Spider's Web: The Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq.* Bantam Books, 1993.

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@ -38,9 +38,9 @@ The [[BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report|Kerry-Brown Senate Report]] set out mutuall
### Litigation and Approval
Financial General sued on February 17, 1978, after learning that Middle Eastern investors had acquired twenty percent of its shares; the Securities and Exchange Commission filed and settled its own action on March 18, 1978. The Senate report states that on April 27, 1978, a federal judge "permanently enjoined Lance and ten other defendants" from violating the securities laws and found that the BCCI clients had relied "heavily, if not exclusively" on Abedi and BCCI; the later opinion of the [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit|D.C. Circuit]] describes the order of that date as a preliminary injunction on the company's disclosure claim. On May 21, 1980, all the defendants except Metzger settled with the company, which agreed not to oppose the takeover in return for a premium price.[^4][^5]
Financial General sued on February 17, 1978, after learning that Middle Eastern investors had acquired twenty percent of its shares; the Securities and Exchange Commission filed and settled its own action on March 18, 1978. The Senate report dates the commission's complaint to March 17, 1978 (printed in the report's note 12 as "1078").[^4] The commission's News Digest of March 20, 1978 reported that on March 18 the court entered permanent injunctions, by consent, against eleven defendants including Lance (Civil Action 78-0469, D.D.C.), for failing to file Schedule 13D statements while acquiring about 20 percent of Financial General's common stock, with the group controlling about 28 percent.[^6] A separate civil action by the commission and the Comptroller of the Currency against The National Bank of Georgia, The Calhoun First National Bank and Bertram Lance, filed April 26, 1978 in the Northern District of Georgia, ended the same day in consent judgments of permanent injunction.[^7] The Senate report states that on April 27, 1978, a federal judge "permanently enjoined Lance and ten other defendants" from violating the securities laws and found that the BCCI clients had relied "heavily, if not exclusively" on Abedi and BCCI; the later opinion of the [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit|D.C. Circuit]] describes the order of that date as a preliminary injunction on the company's disclosure claim. On May 21, 1980, all the defendants except Metzger settled with the company, which agreed not to oppose the takeover in return for a premium price.[^4][^5]
The Virginia bank regulator Sidney A. Bailey objected that the acquisition "will be inimical to the convenience and needs of the community." After a hearing convened on April 23, 1981, the Federal Reserve approved the application of [[Credit and Commerce American Holdings]] (CCAH) on August 25, 1981, and at Altman's request sealed parts of the transcript. A year later the company changed the name of its banks to First American and of its holding company to First American Corporation; the holding company above the banks was later known as First American Bankshares, Inc.[^4][^6] The Federal Reserve found in 1991 that all four Middle Easterners who had appeared at the 1981 hearing had been BCCI nominees.[^4]
The Virginia bank regulator Sidney A. Bailey objected that the acquisition "will be inimical to the convenience and needs of the community." After a hearing convened on April 23, 1981, the Federal Reserve approved the application of [[Credit and Commerce American Holdings]] (CCAH) on August 25, 1981, and at Altman's request sealed parts of the transcript. A year later the company changed the name of its banks to First American and of its holding company to First American Corporation; the holding company above the banks was later known as First American Bankshares, Inc.[^4][^8] The Federal Reserve found in 1991 that all four Middle Easterners who had appeared at the 1981 hearing had been BCCI nominees.[^4]
### Footnotes
@ -49,4 +49,6 @@ The Virginia bank regulator Sidney A. Bailey objected that the acquisition "will
[^3]: Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. *The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI*. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 183.
[^4]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 6, "BCCI in the United States: Initial Entry." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/06early.htm
[^5]: *Financial General Bankshares, Inc. v. Metzger,* 680 F.2d 768 (D.C. Cir. 1982). https://openjurist.org/680/f2d/768
[^6]: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, consent order, *In the Matter of Clark M. Clifford and Robert A. Altman,* Docket Nos. 92-080, effective February 1998. https://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/press/enforcement/1998/19980203/Attachment.pdf
[^6]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, News Digest, March 20, 1978, "Lance, Others Enjoined" (SEC v. Bank of Credit and Commerce International S.A., et al., U.S.D.C. D.C., Civil Action No. 78-0469, LR-8336). https://www.sec.gov/news/digest/1978/dig032078.pdf
[^7]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, News Digest, April 28, 1978 (SEC and Comptroller of the Currency v. The National Bank of Georgia, The Calhoun First National Bank, Bertram Lance, U.S.D.C. N.D. Ga., Civil Action No. 78-758). https://www.sec.gov/news/digest/1978/dig042878.pdf
[^8]: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, consent order, *In the Matter of Clark M. Clifford and Robert A. Altman,* Docket Nos. 92-080, effective February 1998. https://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/press/enforcement/1998/19980203/Attachment.pdf

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@ -1,32 +1,202 @@
---
created: 2026-06-13
updated: 2026-06-13
updated: 2026-10-12
title: Harvard University
aliases:
- Harvard
- Harvard College
tags:
- Organization
- Academic
- USA
- AcademicInstitution
- CIA
- MKULTRA
- ColdWar
- TimothyLeary
- HenryMurray
- CenterForInternationalAffairs
- HarvardInternationalSeminar
- JeffreyEpstein
- ProgramForEvolutionaryDynamics
category: "Private Organization"
summary: "Harvard University is a Cambridge research university whose psychologist Henry Murray ran stress-interrogation experiments on undergraduates and whose lecturer Timothy Leary launched the Harvard Psilocybin Project, both entangled with the era's CIA interest in drugs and behavioral control."
summary: "Harvard University is a Cambridge research university whose psychologists, centers and programs appear in the record of CIA conduit funding, MKULTRA research and the Jeffrey Epstein donations."
start: 1636
location: "Cambridge, Massachusetts"
relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Henry Murray]]"
reverse: true
role: "professor of psychology"
fn: 1
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Timothy Leary]]"
reverse: true
role: "lecturer on clinical psychology, Center for Research in Personality"
start: 1959
end: 1963
fn: 6
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Richard Alpert]]"
reverse: true
role: "assistant professor of clinical psychology and of education, appointment terminated"
end: 1963-05-27
fn: 7
- type: employed_by
with: "[[William Yandell Elliott]]"
reverse: true
role: "professor of government"
fn: 26
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Martin Nowak]]"
reverse: true
role: "professor of mathematics and biology, director of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics"
fn: 34
- type: funded
with: "[[Jeffrey Epstein]]"
reverse: true
role: "gifts of about 9.1 million dollars, 1998 to 2008, per the 2020 Harvard review"
start: 1998
end: 2008
fn: 32
- type: funded
with: "[[Central Intelligence Agency]]"
reverse: true
role: "CIA conduit foundations channeled 456,000 dollars into the University, 1960 to 1966, per the Doermann faculty report"
start: 1960
end: 1966
fn: 22
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Clyde Kluckhohn]]"
reverse: true
role: "director of the Russian Research Center and of the Project on the Soviet Social System"
start: 1949
fn: 18
- type: funded
with: "[[Carnegie Corporation of New York]]"
reverse: true
role: "seed money for the Russian Research Center"
start: 1948
fn: 16
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[Human Resources Research Institute]]"
role: "Russian Research Center contract AF 33(038)-12909 for the Project on the Soviet Social System"
start: 1950
fn: 19
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Martin Orne]]"
reverse: true
role: "Medical School researcher, Studies in Hypnosis Project funded through the CIA's Human Ecology Fund"
fn: 12
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Stephen Kosslyn]]"
reverse: true
role: "chair of the Psychology Department, 2005, recommended Epstein's Visiting Fellow appointment"
start: 2005
fn: 32
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Project MKUltra]]"
role: "two research projects with Harvard involvement, disclosed by the University in October 1977"
start: 1977-10
fn: 10
---
Harvard University is a private research university in [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]], founded in 1636 and the oldest institution of higher education in the United States. Several of its mid-twentieth-century psychologists and their projects intersected with the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] research into drugs, personality, and behavioral control.[^1]
Harvard University is a private research university in [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]], founded in 1636 and the oldest institution of higher education in the United States. Its psychologists, research centers and visiting programs recur in the documented record of [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] behavioral research, CIA conduit funding and the donations of [[Jeffrey Epstein]].
### Henry Murray and the Stress Experiments
### Henry Murray and the OSS Assessment
The Harvard psychologist [[Henry Murray]], who had screened agents for the [[Office of Strategic Services|OSS]] during [[World War II]], conducted experiments between 1959 and 1962 in which undergraduates were subjected to intense, deliberately abusive interrogations designed to measure their responses to stress. One subject was the seventeen-year-old [[Ted Kaczynski]], later the Unabomber. Murray's wartime assessment methods fed directly into the personality-screening interests of postwar American intelligence.[^1][^2]
The Harvard psychologist [[Henry Murray]] served as a lieutenant colonel in the [[Office of Strategic Services]]. The assessment staff of the OSS wrote that the idea of a psychological-psychiatric assessment unit was presented at an executive staff meeting of [[William J. Donovan|General William Donovan]] in October 1943, that Murray and Donald K. Adams were invited as consultants to a two-day conference at a secluded intelligence briefing area known as The Farm, and that Murray was one of the six-member task force that received the first group of assessees at Station S, a country estate forty minutes outside Washington equipped to set up stressful situations to test the candidates. Harvard faculty on the assessment staff list included Murray, O. H. Mowrer, James G. Miller and Harvey A. Robinson. In the spring of 1945 Murray took part in the assessment of about 800 Chinese recruits for paratroop-commando units at Kunming.[^1]
### Timothy Leary and the Psilocybin Project
[[John Marks]] wrote that Donovan called in Murray to devise a system for testing the suitability of applicants to the OSS.[^2] [[Alston Chase]] added that Murray, according to [[Timothy Leary]], also monitored military brainwashing experiments during the war.[^2]
In 1960 the lecturer [[Timothy Leary]] founded the Harvard Psilocybin Project, administering [[Psilocybin]] and later [[LSD]] to graduate students, prisoners, and volunteers. Leary and [[Richard Alpert]] were dismissed in 1963 amid controversy over the experiments. The project unfolded against the backdrop of the CIA's [[Project MKUltra|MKULTRA]] program, which had been seeding psychedelic research across American universities through cut-out foundations for nearly a decade.[^2][^3]
### The Murray Stress Experiments and Ted Kaczynski
Chase wrote in The Atlantic in June 2000 that from the fall of 1959 through the spring of 1962 Harvard psychologists led by Murray conducted an experiment on twenty-two undergraduates in a house known as the Annex, then used by the Department of Social Relations as a laboratory for research on human subjects. The subjects were identified by code name. According to Chase, one of them, code-named "Lawful," was [[Ted Kaczynski]], who had entered Harvard College in the fall of 1958 at the age of sixteen and later became the Unabomber.[^2]
Chase described the procedure as a staged debate: each student was told he would debate his philosophy of life with another student, was seated in a brightly lit room before a one-way mirror with a motion-picture camera recording his expressions, and had electrodes attached to record heart and respiratory rates, while the opponent was a prepared confederate who attacked him. Chase quoted the participants' later recollections, including one code-named Cringle, who described "getting hit real hard" under the lights. Chase wrote that he first learned of the experiment from Kaczynski, with whom he corresponded from July 1998, that he found no evidence that [[LSD]] was used in the research, and that whether the research had a defense connection of some kind remained an open question.[^2][^3]
### Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert and the Psilocybin Project
The lecturer Timothy Leary and the assistant professor [[Richard Alpert]] worked at the [[Center for Research in Personality]]. Marks and Lee and Shlain each describe the project Leary founded in 1960 to give [[Psilocybin]] and later LSD to graduate students, prisoners and volunteers, set against the CIA's search for drugs that could be used in interrogation and behavioral work.[^4][^5] Chase, citing Lee and Shlain, wrote that Leary established the psilocybin project with the approval of Murray, then chairman of the Department of Social Relations, and that Murray took a psilocybin session himself.[^2]
Faculty concern about the program began in March 1962, when members of the Center for Research in Personality charged at a closed meeting that the drug experiments were being conducted in an unscientific and irresponsible manner. The [[Harvard Crimson]] reported in February 1963 that Leary had left the University for Mexico to establish a headquarters there.[^6][^7] On May 27, 1963 [[Nathan Pusey]], the University president, announced that the Corporation had terminated Alpert's appointment for giving hallucinogenic drugs to an undergraduate. Leary was relieved of his teaching duties and his salary was suspended for absenting himself from the University without permission.[^7] In March 1963 Leary told a radio audience that consciousness-expanding drugs should be available to anyone who seriously wanted to study them, citing experiments with more than 400 individuals, over 66 per cent of whom in his account recorded positive changes.[^8] Undergraduates signed a letter to President Pusey and the Corporation protesting the dismissal.[^9]
### The Two MKULTRA Projects
In October 1977 University officials disclosed that CIA financial records showed Harvard involvement in two research projects conducted under [[Project MKUltra]].[^10] The University's general counsel, [[Daniel Steiner]], said the two projects involved no drug experimentation and declined to name the individuals who took part or the nature of their relationship to the University.[^10] The Crimson noted that the disclosure came the week after [[Stanford University]] made its own extensive disclosure of MKULTRA connections.[^11]
In late January 1978 a University statement outlined Harvard's involvement in the CIA funding of an unidentified investigator. On February 1, 1978 [[Martin Orne]], then professor of psychiatry at the [[University of Pennsylvania]], identified himself as that investigator. Orne said the members of his Studies in Hypnosis Project at the [[Massachusetts Mental Health Center]] had unwittingly received approximately $30,000 from the CIA in the early 1960s through the [[Human Ecology Fund]], a foundation established by the CIA; the project also received funds from the [[United States Air Force|Air Force]] and the [[National Institute of Mental Health]]. Steiner said the University had no record of the second project mentioned in the CIA document. He had concluded in January that Orne's right to privacy outweighed the University's interest in full disclosure and the public's right to know, and asked in February whether the University would now release the CIA documents, he said he would like to think the situation over. The Crimson editorialized that the University should release the documents relating to its involvement in the MKULTRA projects.[^12][^13]
Earlier in 1977 the University had issued guidelines, the first of their kind in the country by the Crimson's account, regulating faculty dealings with intelligence agencies. Steiner was a member of the committee that drafted them, and he had not released particulars of the two projects by mid-November.[^14] In June 1977 CIA Director [[Stansfield Turner]] wrote to President [[Derek Bok]] that the guidelines could violate faculty members' rights to privacy and free association.[^15]
### The Russian Research Center, the Carnegie Corporation and the CIA
The [[Russian Research Center]] was founded at Harvard in 1948; the [[Carnegie Corporation of New York]] describes its own role as providing seed money that year.[^16] [[Sigmund Diamond]] wrote in his 1992 book Compromised Campus that Harvard's research for the Center was reported in a December 1947 newspaper account to be going to the State Department and other agencies, including the Central Intelligence Group, before publication.[^17]
Diamond wrote in 1994 that on June 13, 1949 [[Clyde Kluckhohn]], the Center's director, wrote to Provost [[Paul H. Buck]] that "in accord with previous conversations with you and Mr. Conant" he had arranged with Harrison Williams, "the head of CIA for the New England area," that a directive would be prepared requiring representatives of government agencies to clear through the Boston office of the CIA before requesting assistance from the Center. [[Louis Menand]], replying, wrote that he did not dispute the claim of Diamond and [[James G. Hershberg]] that President [[James B. Conant]] agreed to let the CIA vet members of the Center.[^18]
In the spring of 1950 the Center undertook the Project on the Soviet Social System under contract AF 33(038)-12909 with the [[Human Resources Research Institute]] of Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, with Kluckhohn as project director. Interviews with Soviet refugees were conducted in displaced persons camps in West Germany in 1950, and the digitized collection holds summary transcripts of 705 interviews.[^19]
[[Marshall D. Shulman]] was an associate director of the Russian Research Center from 1954 to 1962 before he was named head of the [[Russian Institute]] at [[Columbia University]].[^20]
### The Center for International Affairs and the Conduit Foundations
Robert R. Bowie organized the [[Center for International Affairs]] in 1958. The Crimson reported in February 1967 that the Center was then spending $761,000 on research, against $29,000 in its first year, 1958 to 1959. Foundation grants and government contracts accounted for more than 90 per cent of the funds in 1955 to 1956, when the University provided office space but no budget money.[^21]
In April 1967 [[Humphrey Doermann]], assigned by dean [[Franklin L. Ford]] to examine possible CIA influence, told the Faculty that CIA "conduit" foundations had channeled $456,000 into the University between 1960 and 1966. The Crimson wrote that conduit foundations, unlike "dummy" organizations, do not receive all their money from the CIA, so there was no proof that the agency's dollars reached the University, and that the aid carried no strings attached, so the government could not directly influence research or prevent publication.[^22]
In March 1967 [[Edwin O. Reischauer]], a trustee of the [[Asia Foundation]], affirmed his support for the foundation after it disclosed that it had indirectly accepted money from the CIA.[^23] The same spring the Crimson reported that [[Paul Sigmund]], Allston Burr Senior Tutor in [[Quincy House]] and instructor in government from 1959 to 1962, had organized in 1959 the Independent Service for Information on the Vienna Youth Festival, renamed the Independent Research Service, and directed it from the House. The Crimson, citing Congressional Quarterly, reported that the Service received $145,000 from a CIA front, the Independent Foundation. Sigmund had also taught an International Student Relations Seminar in the [[Harvard Summer School]] in 1954, which the Crimson described as supported by CIA money that Harvard apparently did not know about, and he had worked on his Harvard doctoral thesis on a grant from the Catherwood Foundation, which Congressional Quarterly listed as a CIA "cooperator."[^24]
### Henry Kissinger and the Harvard International Seminar
[[Henry A. Kissinger]] directed the [[Harvard International Seminar]], a summer program that brought foreign policy figures from Europe and Asia to Cambridge. [[Frank Donner]] wrote in 1980 that the seminar received funding from at least three CIA cutouts, among them the Asia Foundation, the [[Fairfield Foundation]] and [[American Friends of the Middle East]], the last of which channeled about $243,000 to the program.[^25]
### William Yandell Elliott and the National Security Council
[[William Yandell Elliott]] was a professor of government at Harvard. The list of persons in the [[Foreign Relations of the United States]] gives his posts as Assistant Director of the [[Office of Defense Mobilization]], 1952 to 1953, and Office of Defense Mobilization representative on the Planning Board of the [[National Security Council]], 1953 to 1954.[^26] The minutes of the 146th meeting of the Council, May 27, 1953, list "W. Y. Elliott, ODM Planning Board Member," and the minutes of the 155th meeting, July 16, 1953, name William Y. Elliott as Director of the Office of Defense Mobilization.[^27][^28] In July 1959 the Crimson reported that Elliott, as Director of the Harvard Summer School, had left for Moscow with Vice President [[Richard Nixon]] and had been a member of the National Security Council planning board since 1953.[^29]
[[Kenn Thomas]] and [[Len Bracken]] wrote in 1998 in the [[Steamshovel Press]] that [[Charles Marsh]] facilitated [[Marion Pettie]]'s tie to Elliott, whom they described as a Harvard professor on the National Security Council planning board and a [[Radio Liberty]] trustee.[^30]
### Jeffrey Epstein and the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics
Harvard's [[Office of the General Counsel]], with the firm [[Foley Hoag]], reviewed the University's ties to Epstein; the 27-page report was released on May 1, 2020, with a letter from the vice president and general counsel, [[Diane Lopez]]. The report found that before his 2008 conviction Epstein donated $9,179,000 to support Harvard faculty and programs, in gifts made between 1998 and 2007 that typically ranged from $10,000 to $200,000, and that the University accepted no gifts from him afterward; the Crimson and [[Harvard Magazine]] gave the total as about $9.1 million. Four gifts totaling $736,000 came after his 2006 arrest. [[Lawrence Bacow]], the University president, announced new donor guidelines in response.[^31][^32][^33]
Epstein's single largest gift, $6.5 million in 2003, created the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, directed by [[Martin Nowak]]. The report found that Epstein made more than 40 visits to the program's offices at [[One Brattle Square]] between 2010 and 2018, that Nowak had authorized proximity cards, a keypad code and a key to Office 610, which the program called "Jeffrey's Office," and that Nowak approved the posting on the program's website of flattering and false descriptions of Epstein's philanthropy. The [[Faculty of Arts and Sciences]] placed Nowak on paid administrative leave the day the report was issued.[^32][^33][^34]
The report found that Epstein held an appointment as a Visiting Fellow in the Psychology Department for 2005 to 2006, recommended by the department chair [[Stephen Kosslyn]], to whom Epstein had donated $200,000 between 1998 and 2002 for his work; Epstein paid $10,072 in tuition and fees, the report found no evidence that he engaged with Harvard students as a Visiting Fellow, and he was readmitted in February 2006 for 2006 to 2007 and withdrew in September 2006, after his arrest, at the University's request.[^32][^36] A November 2008 email from Kosslyn, then Divisional Dean for Social Sciences, written after he spoke with the Mathematics Department chair [[Benedict Gross]], stated: "If [President] Drew [Faust] weren't opposed to taking JEE's money, there wouldn't be a problem . . . but she is," a reference to President [[Drew Faust]].[^36] After 2008 Epstein helped steer money to Harvard faculty: WBUR reported that the report found he "facilitated" $7 million in gifts from [[Leon Black]] to Nowak and, in 2015, a $2 million gift from Black for [[George Church]]; the Globe reported that donors Epstein introduced to Nowak and Church provided $7.5 million and $2 million between 2010 and 2015, and the donors denied that Epstein directed their gifts.[^33][^35] The report's table of unrestricted gifts to Nowak that he said Epstein helped him obtain lists $500,000 from the [[Falconwood Foundation]] on September 10, 2010, $2,000,000 from Leon and Debra Black on November 22, 2011, $4,000,000 from Leon and Debra Black on December 29, 2014, and $1,000,000 from the [[Black Family Foundation]] on October 30, 2015, and the report states that Nowak "acknowledged that Epstein played a role in helping" obtain them. The report found it likely that Epstein visited the program's offices more than 40 times between 2010 and 2018, and its table of visits by year for 2010 through 2018 reads 4, 5, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 5 and 6 (46 in all); the visits ended after program researchers complained to Nowak.[^36]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Chase, Alston. *Harvard and the Unabomber: The Education of an American Terrorist*. W.W. Norton, 2003.
[^2]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control*. Times Books, 1979.
[^3]: Lee, Martin A., and Bruce Shlain. *Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond*. Grove Press, 1985.
[^1]: OSS Assessment Staff, *Assessment of Men: Selection of Personnel for the Office of Strategic Services* (New York: Rinehart, 1948), staff list and chapters on the origin and organization of the program and on the Station S and overseas assessments. https://wellcomecollection.org/works/z9va5p3c
[^2]: Chase, Alston, "Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber," *The Atlantic Monthly*, June 2000, quoting Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate* (1979), and Lee and Shlain, *Acid Dreams* (1985). https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/06/harvard-and-the-making-of-the-unabomber/378239/
[^3]: Chase, Alston. *Harvard and the Unabomber: The Education of an American Terrorist*. W. W. Norton, 2003.
[^4]: Marks, John. *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control*. Times Books, 1979.
[^5]: Lee, Martin A., and Bruce Shlain. *Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond*. Grove Press, 1985.
[^6]: "Drugs and the University," *The Harvard Crimson*, February 14, 1963. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1963/2/14/drugs-and-the-university-pthe-experiments/
[^7]: "Psilocybin, Senate Race Highlight Harvard Year," *The Harvard Crimson*, July 9, 1963. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1963/7/9/psilocybin-senate-race-highlight-harvard-year/
[^8]: "Leary Advocates Wide Availability Of Consciousness-Expanding Drugs," *The Harvard Crimson*, March 19, 1963. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1963/3/19/leary-advocates-wide-availability-of-consciousness-expanding/
[^9]: "Undergraduates Protest Decision to Fire Alpert," *The Harvard Crimson*, May 31, 1963. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1963/5/31/undergraduates-protest-decision-to-fire-alpert/
[^10]: "A CIA Test Tube," *The Harvard Crimson*, October 1, 1977. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1977/10/1/a-cia-test-tube-padd-harvard/
[^11]: "Harvard and the CIA," *The Harvard Crimson*, October 5, 1977. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1977/10/5/harvard-and-the-cia-peach-year/
[^12]: "CIA Grants Funded Hypnosis Research," *The Harvard Crimson*, February 2, 1978. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1978/2/2/cia-grants-funded-hypnosis-research-pthe/
[^13]: "Harvard And the CIA Continued," *The Harvard Crimson*, February 11, 1978. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1978/2/11/harvard-and-the-cia-continued-pbabnother/
[^14]: "Harvard and the CIA," *The Harvard Crimson*, November 17, 1977. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1977/11/17/harvard-and-the-cia-pbwbhen-the/
[^15]: "Harvard: A Threat To Privacy," *The Harvard Crimson*, December 3, 1977. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1977/12/3/harvard-a-threat-to-privacy-pcia/
[^16]: "Throwback Thursday: Back in the USSR," Carnegie Corporation of New York. https://www.carnegie.org/article/throwback-thursday-back-in-the-ussr/
[^17]: Diamond, Sigmund. *Compromised Campus: The Collaboration of Universities with the Intelligence Community, 1945-1955*. Oxford University Press, 1992, chapter "The Russian Research Center, 2: Scholarship and Intelligence." https://academic.oup.com/book/47341/chapter/422336543
[^18]: Diamond, Sigmund, letter in "Conant & the FBI," with reply by Louis Menand, *The New York Review of Books*, October 20, 1994, quoting Kluckhohn to Buck, June 13, 1949. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1994/10/20/conant-the-fbi/
[^19]: "Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System," Harvard Library research guide (705 interviews). https://library.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/static/collections/hpsss/about.html ; Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System schedules, project director C. Kluckhohn, contract AF 33(038)-12909. https://sites.harvard.edu/martin11/the-harvard-project-on-the-soviet-social-system
[^20]: "Shulman Named Head Of Russian Institute," *The Harvard Crimson*, April 15, 1967. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1967/4/15/shulman-named-head-of-russian-institute/
[^21]: "Harvard's International Affairs Center: New Emphasis Towards Research Projects," *The Harvard Crimson*, February 6, 1967. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1967/2/6/harvards-international-affairs-center-new-emphasis/
[^22]: "CIA Financial Links," *The Harvard Crimson*, April 15, 1967. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1967/4/15/cia-financial-links-phumphrey-doermanns-report/
[^23]: "Reischauer Calls Asia Fund Valid," *The Harvard Crimson*, March 25, 1967. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1967/3/25/reischauer-calls-asia-fund-valid-pedwin/
[^24]: "Former Quincy Senior Tutor Directed CIA-Supported Group from House," *The Harvard Crimson*, March 15, 1967. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1967/3/15/former-quincy-senior-tutor-directed-cia-supported/
[^25]: Donner, Frank. *The Age of Surveillance: The Aims and Methods of America's Political Intelligence System*. Alfred A. Knopf, 1980, pp. 312 to 315.
[^26]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954*, vol. II, part 1, list of persons, entry "Elliott, William Y." https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v02p1
[^27]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954*, vol. II, part 2, doc. 90, minutes of the 146th meeting of the National Security Council, May 27, 1953. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v02p2/d90
[^28]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954*, vol. II, part 1, doc. 79, minutes of the 155th meeting of the National Security Council, July 16, 1953. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v02p1/d79
[^29]: "Elliott Flies to Moscow With Nixon's Mission," *The Harvard Crimson*, July 23, 1959. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1959/7/23/elliott-flies-to-moscow-with-nixons/
[^30]: Thomas, Kenn, and Len Bracken, "The Finders' Keeper," *Steamshovel Press* no. 16, 1998.
[^31]: "Harvard Asked Its Lawyers to Review the University's Ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Here's What They Found," *The Harvard Crimson*, May 2, 2020. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/5/2/harvard-concludes-epstein-review/
[^32]: Rosenberg, John S., "Harvard Reports Jeffrey Epstein Gifts," *Harvard Magazine*, May 1, 2020, quoting the Office of the General Counsel report and the Lopez letter to President Bacow. https://www.harvardmagazine.com/print/71335
[^33]: "7 things to know about the report on Jeffrey Epstein's ties to Harvard," *The Boston Globe*, May 1, 2020. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/05/01/metro/7-things-know-about-report-jeffrey-epsteins-ties-harvard
[^34]: "FAS Places Prof. Nowak On Leave After Report Finds Epstein Used His Program to Rehabilitate Image," *The Harvard Crimson*, May 2, 2020. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/5/2/epstein-review-nowak-leave/
[^35]: Larkin, Max, "Even On Black List, Epstein Maintained A Presence At Harvard, Investigation Finds," WBUR, May 1, 2020. https://www.wbur.org/news/2020/05/01/epstein-harvard-report
[^36]: Office of the General Counsel, Harvard University (Diane E. Lopez, Ara B. Gershengorn and Martin F. Murphy, Foley Hoag), "Report Concerning Jeffrey E. Epstein's Connections to Harvard University," May 2020, pp. 3-4, 10-11, 13, 18. https://ogc.harvard.edu/file_url/208

View file

@ -16,6 +16,13 @@ start: 1982
location: "New York, New York"
created: 2026-09-21
updated: 2026-09-21
relations:
- type: represented
with: "[[Banca Nazionale del Lavoro]]"
start: 1986
end: 1989
role: "consulting client; Scowcroft briefed the bank board three times 1986 to 1989"
fn: 3
---
Kissinger Associates is an international consulting firm founded in [[New York City|New York]] in 1982 by former [[United States Secretary of State|Secretary of State]] [[Henry A. Kissinger]]. Two of its officers, [[Brent Scowcroft]] and [[Lawrence Eagleburger]], left it in 1989 to become national security adviser and deputy secretary of state under [[George H.W. Bush]]. Between 1985 and 1989 the [[Atlanta]] branch of [[Banca Nazionale del Lavoro]], a firm client, lent [[Iraq]] more than four billion dollars that did not appear on the bank's books.[^1]
@ -26,15 +33,19 @@ Kissinger sat on the bank's international advisory board from 1985 until June 19
"Several Kissinger Associates clients had extensive dealings with Iraq," Gonzalez said, "including Volvo, [[Midland Bank]], [[Chase Manhattan Bank]], Fiat, and [[Asea Brown Boveri|Asea Braun Boveri]] and those same companies also were the beneficiaries of BNL loans to Iraq or were involved in some way with BNL-Atlanta." He added: "Kissinger, Scowcroft, and Eagleburger maintain that they were unaware of the BNL loans to Iraq. I offer no definitive proof that they were aware of the BNL loans." Kissinger replied to the committee in writing that he had no knowledge of the Atlanta lending.[^1]
Gonzalez reported that Scowcroft, while at the firm, worked on the BNL account, met BNL management on numerous occasions, and on three occasions between 1986 and 1989 briefed the BNL board.[^3] After Scowcroft joined the government, Gonzalez said, the White House intervened in late 1989 to make sure that Iraq received a $1 billion allocation of Commodity Credit Corporation credits, and the National Security Council staff contacted the Department of Agriculture about the delayed second installment of $500 million after the Iraqi ambassador complained to Scowcroft.[^3]
The Italian Senate commission of inquiry's final report of April 22, 1992 stated that the House Banking Committee's coming interim report would address "la collaborazione prestata per alcuni anni alla BNL dall'ex segretario di Stato Kissinger e attraverso la Ljublianska Bank dal sottosegretario Eagleburger," and the consultancy given "anche diversi mesi dopo il 4 agosto 1989" by Kissinger Associates and by the national security adviser, Scowcroft.[^4]
### Stoga in Baghdad
In June 1989 Stoga traveled to [[Baghdad]] with a delegation of the [[U.S.-Iraq Business Forum]] led by its chairman, the banker [[A. Robert Abboud]], and the group met [[Saddam Hussein]]. The forum's president, [[Marshall Wiley]], said on the television program 60 Minutes that Stoga went to advise the Iraqi government on restructuring its debt. Stoga told the Banking Committee he went "to get to know the country better." He spoke at the forum's symposium on American commercial and strategic interests in Iraq that November.[^1]
The manager of the Atlanta branch, [[Christopher Drogoul]], testified in 1993 that "it became clear to us that the people at Kissinger and Associates were somehow assisting clients of Iraq in further developing business." The special counsel appointed by [[United States Attorney General|Attorney General]] [[William Barr]], [[Frederick Lacey]], reported in December 1992 that Scowcroft and Eagleburger "came into contact with BNL management" while at the firm and that he had seen nothing to suggest they knew of the loans or influenced the prosecution.[^3][^4]
The manager of the Atlanta branch, [[Christopher Drogoul]], testified in 1993 that "it became clear to us that the people at Kissinger and Associates were somehow assisting clients of Iraq in further developing business." Drogoul added: "By the time we moved into the 1988 period or early 1989 period, it was fairly clear to me that Kissinger and Associates' people were involved in some way in trying to enhance and develop a relationship between Iraq and the United States. I really shouldn't go farther than that, because the rest is probably speculation." He also described a Kissinger Associates member who went to Iraq with a member of the Iraqi-American Business Forum to discuss business ties.[^5] The special counsel appointed by [[United States Attorney General|Attorney General]] [[William Barr]], [[Frederick Lacey]], reported in December 1992 that Scowcroft and Eagleburger "came into contact with BNL management" while at the firm and that he had seen nothing to suggest they knew of the loans or influenced the prosecution.[^6][^7] The exact text of Lacey's conclusion on the two former officers reads: "It is clear that, while at Kissinger Associates, Scowcroft and Eagleburger came into contact with BNL management. I have seen nothing, however, to suggest that they knew of BNL-Atlanta's wrongful loans to Iraq or influenced the prosecution of this matter."[^8]
### The State Department Certificates
On March 14, 1989, Secretary of State [[James Baker]] signed the documents certifying [[Matrix Churchill]] Corporation of [[Ohio]] as a validly chartered American company so that it could open a branch in Baghdad. Eagleburger, as acting secretary, signed a second set on May 10. Matrix Churchill was owned through [[London]] holding companies by the Iraqi military procurement organization and was financed by the Atlanta branch. "Unwittingly, in 1989 both James Baker and Lawrence Eagleburger helped Matrix-Churchill establish its Baghdad branch," Gonzalez said. "Pretty good."[^5]
On March 14, 1989, Secretary of State [[James Baker]] signed the documents certifying [[Matrix Churchill]] Corporation of [[Ohio]] as a validly chartered American company so that it could open a branch in Baghdad. Eagleburger, as acting secretary, signed a second set on May 10. Matrix Churchill was owned through [[London]] holding companies by the Iraqi military procurement organization and was financed by the Atlanta branch. "Unwittingly, in 1989 both James Baker and Lawrence Eagleburger helped Matrix-Churchill establish its Baghdad branch," Gonzalez said. "Pretty good."[^9]
### BCCI and the National Bank of Georgia
@ -44,6 +55,10 @@ The day after the [[Tampa, Florida|Tampa]] branch of the [[Bank of Credit and Co
[^1]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "Kissinger Associates, Scowcroft, Eagleburger, Stoga, Iraq, and BNL," *Congressional Record,* House, April 28, 1992, pp. H2694-H2701. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/1992_cr/h920428g.htm
[^2]: "The Scourge of 'Iraqgate,'" *The Christian Science Monitor,* October 26, 1992.
[^3]: Testimony of Christopher P. Drogoul, House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, *Testimony of Former Employees of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro,* Serial No. 103-95, November 9, 1993. https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit
[^4]: Lacey, Frederick B. "The Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Investigation: Report of the Independent Counsel," reproduced in Serial No. 103-95, pp. 514-15.
[^5]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "Details on Iraq's Procurement Network," *Congressional Record,* House, August 10, 1992. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/1992_cr/h920810g.htm
[^3]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "Kissinger Associates, Scowcroft, Eagleburger, Stoga, Iraq, and BNL," *Congressional Record,* House, April 28, 1992, pp. H2694-H2698. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/1992_cr/h920428g.htm
[^4]: Senato della Repubblica, X Legislatura, Doc. XXII-bis n. 4 (Relazione conclusiva, relatore Carta), April 22, 1992, pp. 23, 34. https://www.senato.it/documenti/repository/relazioni/archiviostorico/commissioni/X%20LEG_BNL.ATLANTA_DOC_RELAZ/X_%20LEG_BNL-ATLANTA_DOC%20XXIIBIS_4_22.4.92.pdf
[^5]: Testimony of Christopher P. Drogoul, hearing of November 9, 1993, Serial No. 103-95, p. 14. https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit
[^6]: Testimony of Christopher P. Drogoul, House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, *Testimony of Former Employees of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro,* Serial No. 103-95, November 9, 1993. https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit
[^7]: Lacey, Frederick B. "The Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Investigation: Report of the Independent Counsel," reproduced in Serial No. 103-95, pp. 514-15.
[^8]: Lacey, Part I of the report of the Independent Counsel, printed in Serial No. 103-95, p. 514. https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit
[^9]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "Details on Iraq's Procurement Network," *Congressional Record,* House, August 10, 1992. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/1992_cr/h920810g.htm

View file

@ -9,18 +9,35 @@ summary: "The Lockheed Aircraft Company is an USA aerospace manufacturer that de
start: 1926
end: 1995
location: "Burbank, California, USA"
relations:
- type: investigated
with: "[[Securities and Exchange Commission]]"
reverse: true
role: "review of the company's disclosures of questionable overseas payments and sales commissions; about 200 million dollars in commissions questioned, per 1977 testimony"
start: 1975
fn: 3
---
The [[Lockheed Aircraft Company]] is an [[United States|American]] aerospace manufacturer that developed advanced military aircraft and became involved in a bribe scandal affecting [[Israel|Israeli]] politics.
### U-2 Spy Plane Development
Lockheed built the revolutionary [[U-2 Spy Plane]] under cover in Burbank, California. This aircraft was capable of flying and gliding for almost eleven hours at heights greater than 65,000 feet, covering more than five thousand miles, while utilizing only one thousand gallons of fuel. Special lenses, cameras, and thin film were developed for the U-2, enabling it to photograph a path from [[Moscow]] to [[Tashkent]] in one take.[^2]
Lockheed built the revolutionary [[U-2 Spy Plane]] under cover in Burbank, California. This aircraft was capable of flying and gliding for almost eleven hours at heights greater than 65,000 feet, covering more than five thousand miles, while utilizing only one thousand gallons of fuel. Special lenses, cameras, and thin film were developed for the U-2, enabling it to photograph a path from [[Moscow]] to [[Tashkent]] in one take.[^1]
### Israeli Bribery Scandal
In 1976, a telegram intercepted by [[Unit 8200]] revealed details of bribes paid by a [[Lockheed Aircraft Company|Lockheed]] representative in [[Israel]] to Defense Minister [[Shimon Peres]]. The sum involved was $3.5 million, deposited in one of [[Shimon Peres|Peres's]] brother's business accounts in [[Europe]]. This information, discovered by [[Ari Ben-Menashe]], was subsequently covered up by [[Israel|Israeli]] military intelligence superiors, including [[Yoel Ben-Porat|Col. Ben-Porat]] and [[Sasson Yishaek|Lt. Col. Yishaek]].[^1]
In 1976, a telegram intercepted by [[Unit 8200]] revealed details of bribes paid by a Lockheed representative in Israel to Defense Minister [[Shimon Peres]]. The sum involved was $3.5 million, deposited in one of Peres's brother's business accounts in [[Europe]]. This information, discovered by [[Ari Ben-Menashe]], was subsequently covered up by Israeli military intelligence superiors, including [[Yoel Ben-Porat|Col. Ben-Porat]] and [[Sasson Yishaek|Lt. Col. Yishaek]].[^2]
### Disclosures to the Securities and Exchange Commission, 1975 to 1977
In testimony to the House Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Finance in April 1977, [[Gordon Adams]] of the [[Council on Economic Priorities]] said that Lockheed had disclosed about 25 million dollars in questionable overseas payments, while the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] had raised questions about nearly 200 million dollars in Lockheed sales commissions.[^3]
The subcommittee's record also contains a statement by Representative [[Michael J. Harrington]], who wrote: "One day it is Lockheed. Another day it is Gulf. A third day it is General Tire." He wrote that allegations that [[Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands|Prince Bernhard]] had received 1.1 million dollars in Lockheed payments had led to his resignation from his official posts.[^3]
The commission's May 12, 1976 report to the Senate Banking Committee on questionable and illegal corporate payments and practices summarized its enforcement action against Lockheed: it alleged secret payments of at least 25 million dollars to foreign government officials, at least 750,000 dollars deposited in a secret Swiss bank account, and over 200 million dollars disbursed to consultants and commission agents without adequate records.[^4]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. _Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network_. Sheridan Square Press, 1992 (TrineDay reprint, 2015).
[^2]: Hersh, Seymour M. _The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy_. Random House, 1991. Chapter 4.
[^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. _The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy_. Random House, 1991. Chapter 4.
[^2]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. _Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network_. Sheridan Square Press, 1992 (TrineDay reprint, 2015).
[^3]: Unlawful Corporate Payments Act of 1977, Hearings on H.R. 3815 and H.R. 1602 before the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Finance of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, House of Representatives, 95th Congress, 1st session, April 20 and 21, 1977 (Serial No. 95-11). Statement of Gordon Adams (beginning p. 26); statement of Rep. Michael J. Harrington (pp. 168-173). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-95hhrg91391O/pdf/CHRG-95hhrg91391O.pdf
[^4]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Report of the Securities and Exchange Commission on Questionable and Illegal Corporate Payments and Practices to the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, May 12, 1976, Securities Regulation and Law Report No. 353 (BNA), May 19, 1976, Special Supplement, Exhibit B (Lockheed Aircraft Corporation). https://sechistorical.org/wp-content/uploads/1976_0512_SECQuestionable.pdf

View file

@ -2,43 +2,240 @@
aliases:
- "Time (magazine)"
- "TIME"
- "Time magazine"
- "TIME magazine"
- "Time Inc."
- "Time, Inc."
- "Time Incorporated"
- "Time-Life"
- "Time Life"
category: "Private Organization"
tags:
- Organization
- Media
- ContraWar
summary: "American news magazine, first published in 1923, which ran Beaty and Gwynne's 1991 BCCI exposé and was sold by Meredith to Marc and Lynne Benioff in 2018 for 190 million dollars."
- CIAMedia
- Stargate
- BCCI
- Zapruder
- LSD
- MKUltra
summary: "American news magazine, first published in 1923, whose 1991 cover story on the Bank of Credit and Commerce International was later disputed in a Senate subcommittee report."
updated: 2026-10-12
start: 1923
location: "New York City, New York"
relations:
- type: founded
with: "[[Henry Luce]]"
reverse: true
start: 1923
fn: 1
- type: founded
with: "[[Briton Hadden]]"
reverse: true
start: 1923
fn: 1
- type: employed_by
with: "[[C. D. Jackson]]"
reverse: true
start: 1940
end: 1964
role: "vice president, publisher of Life from 1960 until his death"
fn: 9
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Hedley Donovan]]"
reverse: true
start: 1959
role: "editorial director of all Time Inc. publications, later editor-in-chief"
fn: 4
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Raji Samghabadi]]"
reverse: true
role: "Middle East correspondent; first hired as a stringer"
fn: 38
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Henry Grunwald]]"
reverse: true
role: "editor-in-chief when the May 1986 Samghabadi material was declined, per Ben-Menashe"
fn: 37
- type: owned
with: "[[Marc Benioff]]"
reverse: true
start: 2018
fn: 3
fn: 58
- type: owned
with: "[[Lynne Benioff]]"
reverse: true
start: 2018
fn: 3
fn: 58
---
Time magazine covered the [[Dark Alliance]] story, calling it "the hottest topic in black America" during the height of the public reaction in 1996. The magazine's coverage was part of the initial wave of media attention that preceded the establishment media counterattack.[^1]
Time is an American weekly news magazine whose first issue carries a cover date of March 3, 1923. It was founded by [[Henry Luce]] and [[Briton Hadden]], and it became the flagship of [[Time Inc.]], which also published [[Life (magazine)|Life]] and [[Fortune (magazine)|Fortune]]. In 2018 [[Meredith Corporation]] sold the brand to [[Marc Benioff]] and [[Lynne Benioff]].[^1]
### Coverage of Dark Alliance
### Covert relationships with the Central Intelligence Agency
Time's characterization of the Dark Alliance series reflected the genuine public interest and outrage that the story generated in African American communities across the [[United States]]. The magazine's coverage came during the brief window between the series' publication in August 1996 and the October 1996 counterattack by the [[New York Times]], [[Washington Post]], and [[Los Angeles Times]]. After the establishment papers attacked [[Gary Webb]]'s reporting, coverage of the story's substance largely disappeared from mainstream media outlets including Time.[^2]
In "The CIA and the Media," a 25,000-word cover story published in [[Rolling Stone]] on October 20, 1977, [[Carl Bernstein]] listed the executives who lent their cooperation to the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]. The list included [[William S. Paley]] of the [[Columbia Broadcasting System]], Henry Luce of Time Inc., and [[Arthur Hays Sulzberger]] of the [[New York Times]]. Bernstein wrote that, according to CIA officials, the most valuable of these associations had been with the New York Times, CBS and Time Inc.[^2]
Bernstein wrote that [[Allen Dulles]] "often interceded with his good friend, the late Henry Luce, founder of Time and Life magazines, who readily allowed certain members of his staff to work for the Agency and agreed to provide jobs and credentials for other CIA operatives who lacked journalistic experience." He wrote that Luce "made it a regular practice to brief Dulles or other high Agency officials" after his trips abroad, and that Time's foreign correspondents attended CIA "briefing" dinners in the 1950s and early 1960s.[^3]
Bernstein described [[C. D. Jackson]] as "Luce's personal emissary to the CIA." He wrote that Jackson "approved specific arrangements for providing CIA employees with Time-Life cover," and that some of these arrangements were made with the knowledge of [[Clare Boothe Luce]]. [[Hedley Donovan]], who took over editorial direction of all Time Inc. publications in 1959, denied in a telephone interview that he knew of any such arrangements. Bernstein wrote that, according to CIA officials including those who dealt with Luce, other arrangements for Time cover were made with Donovan's knowledge. Bernstein also wrote that Jackson, while a Time executive, coauthored a CIA-sponsored study recommending the reorganization of the American intelligence services in the early 1950s. "I was never approached and I'd be amazed if Luce approved such arrangements," Donovan said. "Luce had a very scrupulous regard for the difference between journalism and government."[^4]
The [[Church Committee]] took up the same subject in Book I of its final report. The committee recorded that on February 11, 1976 the CIA announced: "Effective immediately, CIA will not enter into any paid or contractual relationship with any full-time or part-time news correspondent accredited by any U.S. news service, newspaper, periodical, radio or television network or station." The committee counted approximately 50 CIA relationships with U.S. journalists or media employees at the time of that announcement, of which fewer than one-half would be terminated under the new guidelines. It found that more than a dozen U.S. news organizations and publishing houses had provided cover for CIA agents abroad. The committee wrote that the use of American journalists and media organizations for clandestine operations "is a threat to the integrity of the press."[^5]
The minutes of the CIA Deputies' Meeting of July 21, 1952 record [[Frank Wisner]] as having "Noted that we were prepared to talk to Mr. Luce's representative any time he came to Washington and that we had sufficient material on hand which would allow TIME and/or LIFE to publish an exclusive story on the Duclos affair over and above the information already made public." In response to a query from the Director, [[Walter Bedell Smith]], on authenticity, Wisner stated that "(1) we were 90% positive that the information in question was authentic; (2) he would, however, pass this along to the TIME and/or LIFE representative; (3) we now have in our possession a photostat copy of Duclos' diary which was written in longhand; (4) he believed we were on safe ground in our '90% estimate' since the Communists had already vociferously decried publicity given so far to the Duclos papers."[^6]
A 2024 article by [[Simon Willmetts]], "The CIA and Time Magazine: Journalistic Ethics and Newsroom Dissent," is listed in the research output of [[Leiden University]]. The listing states that the article provides evidence of a systematic policy of direct collusion between Time Inc. and the CIA, including access by the agency to Time Inc.'s foreign dispatches and to the photographic archive of Life.[^7]
### C. D. Jackson and the psychological warfare apparatus
Jackson's papers at the [[Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library]] list him as a Time Inc. vice president from 1940, as president of the [[Free Europe Committee]] from 1951 to 1952, as a special assistant to President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] for international affairs from 1953 to 1954, and as publisher of Life from 1960. A Central Intelligence Agency biographical sheet on Jackson states that he joined Time Incorporated in 1931 as Assistant to the President, became General Manager of Life in 1937 and Vice President of Time Incorporated in 1940, became Publisher of Fortune in February 1949, went on leave in February 1951 to become President of the [[Free Europe Committee|National Committee for a Free Europe]], returned to Time Inc. in February 1952, and in October 1952 was on leave to head the Eisenhower headquarters speech-writer group.[^8] The finding aid states that the Free Europe Committee directed [[Radio Free Europe]]. Jackson died in New York City on September 18, 1964. The papers include a folder on [[Crusade for Freedom]].[^9]
The finding aid sets a condition on use. It records that "Permission of Time Incorporated is required to cite or quote materials originated by any individual in his capacity as an official of Time Incorporated," which applies to the Time Inc. file covering Jackson's career from 1931 to 1964.[^10]
Jackson was one of eleven members of the Quantico Vulnerabilities Panel, which met at [[Quantico, Virginia|Quantico]] from June 5 to 10, 1955. [[Walt Rostow]] of [[MIT]] chaired the panel, which was convened to explore methods of exploiting Communist bloc vulnerabilities. Its other members included [[Frederick Dunn]], [[Ellis A. Johnson]], [[Max Millikan]] and [[Hans Speier]].[^11] The Eisenhower Library holds a folder titled "Quantico Vulnerabilities Panel 1955," and Jackson's papers include a 1955 log entry titled "From Quantico to Geneva."[^12]
The [[Center for International Studies]] at MIT, which had emerged from [[Project Troy]], appears in the Time record for February 24, 1967. That issue reported "$300,000 to finance M.I.T.'s topflight Center for International Studies," and quoted Millikan, then the center's director, as saying that "the number of my friends around here who have swallowed this 'invisible government' line is disturbing."[^13]
### Clare Boothe Luce and Roald Dahl
[[Jennet Conant]] documents that [[Roald Dahl]] received explicit assignments to cultivate well-connected women for political intelligence during the Second World War. Dahl was assigned to romance the Republican congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce, the wife of Time-Life publisher Henry Luce. Dahl later described the assignment as the worst of the war, reportedly saying that Luce "talked too much both before and after."[^14]
### Life and the Zapruder film
After the assassination of [[John F. Kennedy]], [[Abraham Zapruder]] took his camera film to a Dallas processing plant, had three copies made, gave two to representatives of the [[United States Secret Service|Secret Service]], and kept the original and one copy.[^15] [[Richard Stolley]], Life's Los Angeles bureau chief, was the first journalist to reach him. Life obtained the print rights on November 23, 1963 for $50,000. On November 25, 1963 Time-Life bought all rights, including the motion picture rights, for $150,000 in total, paid in six installments. Accounts of the purchase credit C. D. Jackson with approving the purchase of the motion picture rights and with limiting what Life's mass-market magazines would show.[^16] Zapruder told the [[Warren Commission]] that he had received $25,000, which he gave to the family of [[J. D. Tippit]]. The Assassination Records Review Board staff noted that this $25,000 apparently was the first of six payments for the film and its copy, and reported the sale price as $150,000.[^17]
At the commission's request a representative of Life brought the original to the commission's offices and screened it several times, because "the original had considerably more detail and more there to study than any of the copies, since in the photographic process each time you copy you lose some detail." The board's letter of April 21, 1995 to the general counsel of Time Warner records that the commission's report shows Life cooperating closely with the commission's investigation.[^18]
In October 1974 [[Lawrence Layburne]], a vice president of Time Inc., informed the [[National Archives and Records Administration|National Archives]] that transfer of the original film to the government was proposed. On April 9, 1975 Time Inc. assigned the copyright to Mrs. Zapruder for "$1 and other valuable consideration," and on the same date deeded first and second generation copies of the film to the federal government. The original was placed at the archives at the Zapruders' request for storage, and no deed of gift transferring the original was ever executed. In 1978 Henry Zapruder asked the archives to hold and administer the original.[^15][^18]
The review board's letter of May 1, 1995 to [[E. Gabriel Perle]], a former general counsel of Time Inc., reports that from Time Inc.'s files "it appears that the Zapruders do have legal title to the original film as well as ownership of the copyright." The letter adds that, according to the documents, Time Inc. was constrained by terms in the original contract.[^19] Under the 1992 JFK Records Collection Act the original film was transferred to the JFK Records Collection at the National Archives on August 1, 1998. On August 3, 1999 the Justice Department announced that an arbitration panel, chaired by the former Third Circuit judge Arlin M. Adams, had voted two to one to award the heirs of Abraham Zapruder $16 million for the film. The LMH Company, the film's former owner, had asked for $30 million, and the arbitrator Walter Dellinger dissented, writing that $3 to $5 million would have been enough. The company kept the copyright.[^20]
The review board's executive director, [[T. Jeremy Gunn]], wrote to Time Inc. asking for early reproductions of frames from the film, for any further documentation of the film's chain of custody, and for information from Life's inquiry of 1966 and 1967. The letter states that during the autumn of 1966 Life and [[Bernard Geis Associates]] had jointly retained [[Josiah Thompson]] to research the assassination.[^21]
### LSD and the Luce magazines
Time's first article on LSD, "Dream Stuff," appeared in 1954. It reported that "LSD 25, while it has no direct curative powers, can be of great benefit to mental patients." The historian [[Stephen Siff]] wrote that Time covered the drug earlier and more often than other magazines, and that its stories were longer and largely sympathetic. His examples include the 1960 Time piece "The Psyche in 3-D," on celebrities who took LSD under medical supervision, and the 1966 Life editorial urging regulation rather than prohibition.[^22]
Siff also wrote that both Luces reviewed the 1963 Life article "The Chemical Mind-Changers" before publication, and that Clare Boothe Luce's papers at the [[Library of Congress]] contain letters and acid-trip journals. Time's 1966 article "An Epidemic of Acid Heads" blamed a wave of psychotic illness on recreational LSD use.[^22]
[[Alan Brinkley]], in his biography of Henry Luce, describes Henry's first trip, taken at Clare's urging. He read Lionel Trilling's biography of Matthew Arnold while the drug took effect, and Brinkley's account gives Henry one or perhaps two doses against Clare's repeated trips. Clare later said that LSD "saved our marriage."[^23]
[[Andrew Heiskell]], a former Life publisher and Time Inc. chairman, recalled in a Columbia University oral history that Luce announced at a New York hotel banquet, "Without any preamble," that he and Clare "were taking LSD!"[^24] The writer [[Abbie Hoffman]] wrote in his 1980 memoir that Henry Luce "did much more to popularize acid than Timothy Leary."[^25]
[[Martin A. Lee]] and [[Bruce Shlain]] wrote in Acid Dreams that Henry Luce took LSD about half a dozen times in the late 1950s and early 1960s under the supervision of the Los Angeles psychiatrist [[Sidney Cohen]], and that Cohen also gave the drug to Clare Boothe Luce. They quoted Clare Boothe Luce on The Dick Cavett Show on April 9, 1982: "Oh, sure, we all took acid. It was a creative group, my husband and I and Huxley and Isherwood." They cited [[W. A. Swanberg]]'s Luce and His Empire and [[Wilfrid Sheed]]'s Clare Boothe Luce for the number of Luce's sessions.[^26]
Life published [[R. Gordon Wasson]]'s account of a 1955 mushroom ceremony in [[Huautla de Jimenez]], Mexico, as "Seeking the Magic Mushroom" in its issue of May 13, 1957, as part of its Great Adventure series.[^27] [[Annie Jacobsen]] wrote that the [[Geschickter Fund for Medical Research]] gave Wasson $2,000 for his 1956 return expedition, designated MKUltra Subproject 58, and that Wasson did not mention the CIA in the article.[^28]
### Flying saucers
Life published "Have We Visitors from Outer Space?" by [[H. B. Darrach Jr.]] and [[Robert Ginna]] in its issue of April 7, 1952. The article reviewed the [[United States Air Force|Air Force]]'s handling of sightings under [[Project Saucer]], and it described a series of green fireball sightings over the southwestern United States.[^29]
### Psychic research coverage
Time's March 12, 1973 article "The Magician and the Think Tank" reported that the [[Stanford Research Institute]] "has been seriously investigating the so-called psychic powers of a questionable nightclub magician," meaning [[Uri Geller]]. The article described [[Ray Hyman]] as "a psychology professor from the University of Oregon who is used frequently by DOD as a consultant." It reported that [[George Lawrence]], a Department of Defense projects manager for the [[Advanced Research Projects Agency]], was accompanied to the institute by [[Robert Van de Castle]], and that "neither Lawrence nor Hyman was impressed."[^30]
The March 4, 1974 cover story, "Boom Times on the Psychic Frontier," described [[Hal Puthoff]] as a promoter of "the bizarre and controversial cult of Scientology."[^31] A letter to the editor published on March 25, 1974 responded to the piece.[^32] John L. Wilhelm, a former Time national science correspondent, later wrote in The Washington Post on the military potential of parapsychology.[^33]
In January 1984 Time reported that the Pentagon denied any interest in parapsychology and quoted the retired lieutenant general [[Daniel O. Graham]].[^34] Time's August 26, 1974 report on [[Walter Levy]] said that [[J. B. Rhine]] had hired him as a full-time researcher after he graduated from the Medical College of Georgia.[^35]
### Remote viewing and the Iran hostage crisis
On November 23, 1979, according to a memorandum by [[Murray Watt]], the INSCOM officer [[Jackie Keith]] gave Watt "a set of coordinates and a copy of TIME magazine (dated 19 Nov 79)" with a picture of two hostages, and the unit held its first two sessions that day.[^36]
### Iran-Contra and the spiked story
[[Ari Ben-Menashe]] wrote in his 1992 book Profits of War that in May 1986 he gave the Time correspondent [[Raji Samghabadi]] detailed information about the [[Oliver North|North]]-[[Amiram Nir|Nir]] operation, which became known as the [[Iran-Contra Affair]]. Ben-Menashe wrote that Samghabadi considered it a major scoop, and that Time declined to print it, a decision attributed to editor-in-chief [[Henry Grunwald]].[^37] Samghabadi had first been hired as a stringer for Time by [[Bruce van Voorst]], a former CIA officer.[^38] Ben-Menashe described the decision as an example of media control in the United States.[^37]
### BCCI and the 1991 cover story
On July 29, 1991, Time published "B.C.C.I.: The Dirtiest Bank of All" by [[Jonathan Beaty]] and [[S. C. Gwynne]] on the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]], which regulators in 62 countries had shut down earlier that month. The article called BCCI "the $20 billion rogue empire" and stated that "never has a single scandal involved so much money, so many nations or so many prominent people." The archived copy carries the byline "TIME Staff."[^39]
The article stated: "But the CIA may have used B.C.C.I. as more than an undercover banker: U.S. agents collaborated with the black network in several operations, according to a B.C.C.I. black-network 'officer' who is now a secret U.S. government witness." It reported that the bank had bought clandestine control of three American banks through loans, including [[First American Bankshares]] in Washington, and that the latter two were bought officially by [[Ghaith Pharaon]], whom Time called Abedi's front man.[^39] It reported that Guatemalan officials suspected that part of a $30 million loan from the bank had gone to pay bribes to stifle an investigation of the coffee smuggler and arms merchant [[Munther Ismael Bilheisi|Munther Bilbeisi]].[^39] Time also reported that "the department's main probe of B.C.C.I. itself is being handled by a sole Assistant U.S. Attorney in [[Tampa, Florida|Tampa]]."[^39]
In September 1991 Time quoted the imprisoned arms dealer [[Arif Durrani]] as saying that "Asaf is B.C.C.I.'s man in the weapons business," referring to [[Asaf Ali]].[^40] Time also described a reclusive Saudi, [[Abdullah Taha Bakhsh]], who bought an 11 percent stake in [[Harken Energy]], and it reported that [[James R. Bath]] said in 1991 that his friendship with [[George H. W. Bush|George H. W. Bush]] dated from their service in the Guard.[^41]
The Senate subcommittee report on BCCI, issued in December 1992 by [[John Kerry]] and [[Hank Brown]], responded to the article. It stated that "none of the BCCI officers interviewed by the Senate claimed to have knowledge of a 'black network' of intelligence operatives, arms dealers, drug traffickers, burglars, or assassins employed by BCCI, as described in a Time magazine cover-story on BCCI on August 15, 1991." The officers, the report said, "declared, to a person, that they did not believe such a network existed at the bank." Several suggested that if the black network were recharacterized as a team of officials carrying out Abedi's most secret missions, it could exist on a smaller scale than Time had described.[^42]
Beaty and Gwynne's 1993 book, The Outlaw Bank, records that Bill White, whom Beaty had flown in for debriefing during his research for the Time story, alleged that his former business partner Bath "was a CIA agent with strange ties to both BCCI and President George Bush."[^43]
### The Octopus and Danny Casolaro
[[Danny Casolaro]] was investigating what he called the Octopus, an alleged network linking the [[PROMIS Software Scandal|PROMIS]] affair, BCCI and other matters, when he died in Martinsburg, West Virginia on August 10, 1991. On August 5, 1991 he told a retired Army CID officer that Time had assigned him a story on the Octopus and that [[Little, Brown and Company]] had made him an offer.[^44]
### Dark Alliance and later coverage
On September 30, 1996, Time published "Dividing Line: Crack, Contras and Cyberspace" by [[Jack E. White]], written after the San Jose Mercury News ran its three-part [[Dark Alliance]] series by [[Gary Webb]]. The column ran on September 30, 1996, in the weeks before the October articles on the series in the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. It stated that "the hottest topic in black America, bar none, is whether the CIA was responsible for introducing crack cocaine to the ghetto."[^45] Webb described the response of the three newspapers to his series in chapter 27 of Dark Alliance.[^46]
### Other coverage
Time described the response to [[Claude Kirk]]'s experiment as "anguished cries of 'Nazism!' and 'Dictatorship!'"[^47] Time reported in 1929 that a witness named Stewart had testified before the Senate on the [[Continental Trading Company]] bonds that "I never had anything to do with the distribution of any bonds."[^48] Time described the decision of Israeli Chief Justice [[Shimon Agranat]] in the case of [[Meyer Lansky]] as unanimous and precedent-setting.[^49] In March 1988 Time reported that the [[Alcor Life Extension Foundation]] coroner had classified a death as a homicide.[^50] In July 1977 Time reported that [[Ernst Kuhrmeier]], manager of the [[Credit Suisse]] branch at Chiasso, was in jail awaiting trial.[^51] In 1939 Time called the London bank whose American subsidiary, the J. Henry Schroder Bank, had Allen Dulles on its board "an economic booster of the Rome-Berlin Axis."[^52]
In a letter to Time in January 1982, [[John H. Holdridge]], Assistant Secretary of State, wrote that George H. W. Bush had confirmed during a visit to Australia that there had been no CIA involvement in the [[Nugan Hand Bank]].[^53]
Time reported in 1974 that at the trial John Dean testified that beginning about July 14, 1972 he made eight to twelve telephone calls to Casey at [[John N. Mitchell]]'s behest.[^54] Time Inc. also appears in the record of the Khrushchev memoirs. [[Terence Smith]] noted that Time Inc., which acquired the material, had refused to shed light on how it reached the West.[^55] The columnist [[Stewart Alsop]] wrote in December 1970 that the Moscow correspondent [[Victor Louis]] negotiated the sale to Time-Life for about $600,000, and that the deal was concluded with the Life executive [[Murray Gart]].[^56]
In December 2025 the Semafor media reporter [[Max Tani]] wrote that Time had had four fellows from the [[Tarbell Center for AI Journalism]] on staff.[^57]
### Ownership
On September 16, 2018, the [[Meredith Corporation]], which had acquired Time Inc., announced that it would sell the Time brand to [[Marc Benioff]] and [[Lynne Benioff]] for 190 million dollars in cash. The purchase was personal to the Benioffs and "unrelated to Salesforce.com," and the couple were not to be "involved in the day-to-day operations or journalistic decisions," which remained with the editor-in-chief, Edward Felsenthal. Citigroup and Cooley advised Meredith; BDT & Company and [[Goodwin Procter]] advised the Benioffs. Meredith applied the proceeds to reducing its debt. "TIME has always been a trusted reflection of the state of the world," the Benioffs said.[^3]
### BCCI Reporting
On July 29, 1991, Time published "B.C.C.I.: The Dirtiest Bank of All," by [[Jonathan Beaty]] and [[S. C. Gwynne]], which the two reporters later expanded into *The Outlaw Bank* (1993).[^4]
On September 16, 2018, the Meredith Corporation, which had acquired Time Inc., announced that it would sell the Time brand to Marc Benioff and Lynne Benioff for 190 million dollars in cash. The purchase was personal to the Benioffs and "unrelated to Salesforce.com," and the couple were not to be "involved in the day-to-day operations or journalistic decisions," which remained with the editor-in-chief, [[Edward Felsenthal]]. [[Citigroup]] and [[Cooley]] advised Meredith; BDT & Company and [[Goodwin Procter]] advised the Benioffs. Meredith applied the proceeds to reducing its debt. "TIME has always been a trusted reflection of the state of the world," the Benioffs said.[^58]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Ch. 27.
[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Ch. 27.
[^3]: Meredith Corporation, "Meredith Corporation To Sell TIME Media Brand To Marc And Lynne Benioff," PR Newswire, September 16, 2018. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/meredith-corporation-to-sell-time-media-brand-to-marc-and-lynne-benioff-300713440.html
[^4]: "B.C.C.I.: The Dirtiest Bank of All," *Time,* July 29, 1991. https://time.com/archive/6718229/b-c-c-i-the-dirtiest-bank-of-all/
[^1]: Time, "The First Issue of TIME Magazine: Read It Here," time.com. https://time.com/4684747/first-issue-vault/ (cover dated March 3, 1923).
[^2]: Carl Bernstein, "The CIA and the Media," *Rolling Stone*, October 20, 1977. Reprint at carlbernstein.com, http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php (passage on the cooperating executives and the New York Times, CBS and Time Inc.).
[^3]: Bernstein, "The CIA and the Media," reprint (passage on Allen Dulles, Luce's briefings of the Agency, and Time's correspondents at CIA briefing dinners).
[^4]: Bernstein, "The CIA and the Media," reprint (passage on C. D. Jackson, Time-Life cover, and Hedley Donovan's denial).
[^5]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Final Report, Book I: Foreign and Military Intelligence*, S. Rep. No. 94-755 (1976), Chapter X.B, "Covert Relationships with the United States Media," pp. 191-201. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94755_I.pdf
[^6]: Central Intelligence Agency, Deputies' Meeting, July 21, 1952, p. 1. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/1952-07-21.pdf
[^7]: Simon Willmetts, "The CIA and Time Magazine: Journalistic Ethics and Newsroom Dissent," Universiteit Leiden, research output listing, August 19, 2024. https://universiteitleiden.nl/en/research/research-output/governance-and-global-affairs/the-cia-and-time-magazine-journalistic-ethics-and-newsroom-dissent
[^8]: Central Intelligence Agency, "Charles D. Jackson," biographical sheet, CIA-RDP75-00001R000200140002-9, p. 1. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp75-00001r000200140002-9
[^9]: Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, finding aid, "Jackson, C. D.: Papers, 1931-1967," A72-26, processed July 1973, biographical sketch and chronology. https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/finding-aids/pdf/jackson-cd-papers.pdf
[^10]: Eisenhower Library, "Jackson, C. D.: Papers," A72-26, special restriction note: "Special Restriction: Permission of Time Incorporated is required to cite or quote materials originated by any individual in his capacity as an official of Time Incorporated."
[^11]: Eisenhower Presidential Library, finding aid, "Richard M. Bissell Jr. Papers, Walt and Eugene Rostow Series," Boxes 1-3. https://eisenhower.archives.gov/sites/default/files/finding-aids/pdf/bissell-richard-m-jr-papers/walt-and-eugene-rostow-series.pdf
[^12]: Eisenhower Presidential Library, subject guide, "The Cold War in the Early Fifties: 'Open Skies' and the 1955 Geneva Summit," listing the C. D. Jackson Papers, Box 56 ("From Quantico to Geneva") and the Miscellaneous Series folder "Quantico Vulnerabilities Panel 1955." https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/research/subject-guides/pdf/cold-war-open-skies-1955-geneva-conference.pdf
[^13]: Time, February 24, 1967, vol. 89, no. 8, passage on the Center for International Studies, CIA reading room document CIA-RDP84-00161R000400210135-8. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp84-00161r000400210135-8
[^14]: Jennet Conant, *The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington* (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008).
[^15]: Assassination Records Review Board, Sheryl Walter, memorandum, "Zapruder film update," April 6, 1995, NARA JFK Collection, ARRB file ZP45MT. https://documents3.theblackvault.com/documents/jfkfiles/NARA-Oct2017/ARRB/SWALTER/WP-DOCS/ZAPRUDER/ZP45MT.WPD.pdf
[^16]: Richard Stolley's purchase of the Zapruder film for Life, as described in "The Zapruder Film Comes to Home Video," kennedysandking.com, October 15, 1998. https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/333
[^17]: Walter memorandum, April 6, 1995, note 1 (Zapruder's Warren Commission testimony and the $25,000 payment).
[^18]: Assassination Records Review Board, letter to Harry M. Johnston III, general counsel, Time Warner Inc., April 21, 1995, ARRB file TMLF421. https://documents3.theblackvault.com/documents/jfkfiles/NARA-Oct2017/ARRB/SWALTER/WP-DOCS/ZAPRUDER/TMLF421.WPD.pdf
[^19]: Assassination Records Review Board, letter to E. Gabriel Perle, May 1, 1995, ARRB file ZPTHXGP. https://documents3.theblackvault.com/documents/jfkfiles/NARA-Oct2017/ARRB/SWALTER/WP-DOCS/ZAPRUDER/ZPTHXGP.WPD.pdf
[^20]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, press release on the Zapruder film arbitration award, August 3, 1999. https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/1999/August/339civ.htm
[^21]: T. Jeremy Gunn, letter to Laury M. Frieber, Time Inc., ARRB file FRIEBER.E29, National Archives JFK Collection. https://documents3.theblackvault.com/documents/jfkfiles/NARA-Oct2017/ARRB/SWALTER/WP-DOCS/ZAPRUDER/FRIEBER.E29.pdf
[^22]: Time, "Dream Stuff," 1954, as quoted in Jack Shafer, "The Time and Life Acid Trip," *Slate*, June 2010. https://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/press_box/2010/06/the_time_and_life_acid_trip.html ; Stephen Siff, "Henry Luce's Strange Trip: Coverage of LSD in Time and Life, 1954-68," *Journalism History* (2008), as summarized in Shafer.
[^23]: Alan Brinkley, *The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century* (2010), as summarized in Shafer, "The Time and Life Acid Trip," *Slate*, June 2010.
[^24]: Andrew Heiskell, oral history, Columbia University Oral History Research Office, as quoted in Shafer, "The Time and Life Acid Trip," *Slate*, June 2010.
[^25]: Abbie Hoffman, *Soon To Be a Major Motion Picture* (1980), as quoted in Siff, "Henry Luce's Strange Trip," as summarized in Shafer, *Slate*, June 2010.
[^26]: Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain, *Acid Dreams: The CIA, LSD, and the Sixties Rebellion* (New York: Grove Press, 1985), ch. 3, "Under the Mushroom, Over the Rainbow," section "Manna from Harvard," and chapter notes citing W. A. Swanberg, *Luce and His Empire*, p. 463, Wilfrid Sheed, *Clare Boothe Luce*, p. 125, and Clare Boothe Luce on *The Dick Cavett Show*, April 9, 1982.
[^27]: R. Gordon Wasson, "Seeking the Magic Mushroom," *Life*, vol. 42, no. 19, May 13, 1957, pp. 100-102, 109-120. https://archive.org/details/Life-1957-05-13-Vol-42-No-19
[^28]: Annie Jacobsen, *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis* (Little, Brown, 2017).
[^29]: H. B. Darrach Jr. and Robert Ginna, "Have We Visitors from Outer Space?" *Life*, April 7, 1952.
[^30]: "The Magician and the Think Tank," *Time*, March 12, 1973. CIA reading room STARGATE collection, CIA-RDP96-00787R000400100023-4.
[^31]: "Boom Times on the Psychic Frontier," *Time*, March 4, 1974, cover story. CIA-RDP96-00787R000100030002-8. https://documents3.theblackvault.com/documents/stargate/pdfs/CIA-RDP96-00787R000100030002-8.pdf
[^32]: Letters to the editor, *Time*, March 25, 1974, responding to "Boom Times on the Psychic Frontier."
[^33]: John L. Wilhelm, "Psychic Spying?" *The Washington Post*, c. 1977, identifying the author as a former national science correspondent for Time.
[^34]: "An E.S.P. Gap: Exploring psychic weapons," *Time*, January 23, 1984, p. 17, CIA reading room CIA-RDP96-00791R000200230025-5.
[^35]: "Science: The Psychic Scandal," *Time*, August 26, 1974. https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,944971,00.html
[^36]: Murray B. Watt, memorandum, "INSCOM GRILL FLAME Involvement in Iran," December 3, 1979.
[^37]: Ari Ben-Menashe, *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network* (Sheridan Square Press, 1992).
[^38]: Ben-Menashe, *Profits of War* (1992), account of the Samghabadi material and of Bruce van Voorst's hiring of Samghabadi as a stringer.
[^39]: Jonathan Beaty and S. C. Gwynne, "B.C.C.I.: The Dirtiest Bank of All," *Time*, July 29, 1991, archive copy, byline "TIME Staff." https://time.com/archive/6718229/b-c-c-i-the-dirtiest-bank-of-all/
[^40]: "Scandals: Not Just a Bank," *Time*, September 2, 1991. https://time.com/archive/6718475/scandals-not-just-a-bank/
[^41]: Richard Behar, "Global Intrigue: The Wackiest Rig in Texas," *Time*, October 28, 1991. https://time.com/archive/6718865/global-intrigue-the-wackiest-rig-in-texas/ ; Jonathan Beaty, "A Mysterious Mover of Money and Planes," *Time*, October 28, 1991. https://time.com/archive/6718843/a-mysterious-mover-of-money-and-planes/
[^42]: John Kerry and Hank Brown, *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate* (December 1992), ch. 4, "BCCI's Criminality." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/04crime.htm
[^43]: Jonathan Beaty and S. C. Gwynne, *The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI* (New York: Random House, 1993). Internet Archive catalogue record, https://archive.org/details/outlawbank00jona.
[^44]: James Ridgeway and Doug Vaughan, "The Last Days of Danny Casolaro," *Village Voice*, October 15, 1991.
[^45]: Jack E. White, "Dividing Line: Crack, Contras and Cyberspace," *Time*, September 30, 1996. https://time.com/archive/6729685/dividing-line-crack-contras-and-cyberspace/
[^46]: Gary Webb, *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion* (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1998), ch. 27.
[^47]: "Florida: I, Claudius," *Time*, 1967. https://time.com/archive/6631431/florida-i-claudius/
[^48]: "Rockefeller v. Stewart," *Time*, January 28, 1929. https://time.com/archive/6656828/rockefeller-v-stewart/
[^49]: "The World: Non-Returnable Lansky," *Time*, September 25, 1972. https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0%2C33009%2C903591%2C00.html
[^50]: "California: How Mama Lost Her Head," *Time*, March 7, 1988. https://time.com/archive/6711741/california-how-mama-lost-her-head/
[^51]: "Banking: Less Go-Go in Switzerland," *Time*, July 18, 1977. https://time.com/archive/6848888/banking-less-go-go-in-switzerland/
[^52]: *Time*, 1939, on the J. Henry Schroder banking house.
[^53]: John H. Holdridge, letter, "Australian Intrigue," *Time*, January 3, 1982, CIA reading room CIA-RDP90-00806R000200820017-1. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00806r000200820017-1
[^54]: "Trials: What, Never? No, Never, Never," *Time*, April 8, 1974. https://time.com/archive/6842371/trials-what-never-no-never-never/
[^55]: Terence Smith, "U.S. Experts on Soviet Find Khrushchev Memoirs," Washington dispatch, January 20, 1971, CIA reading room CIA-RDP88-01314R000300180017-6.
[^56]: Stewart Alsop, "Who Is Moscow's Mr. X?," column, late December 1970, CIA reading room CIA-RDP88-01314R000300180018-5.
[^57]: Max Tani, "AI critics funded AI coverage at top newsrooms," *Semafor*, December 7, 2025. https://www.semafor.com/article/12/07/2025/ai-critics-funded-ai-coverage-at-top-newsrooms
[^58]: Meredith Corporation, "Meredith Corporation To Sell TIME Media Brand To Marc And Lynne Benioff," PR Newswire, September 16, 2018. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/meredith-corporation-to-sell-time-media-brand-to-marc-and-lynne-benioff-300713440.html