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--- a/META/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/META/CHANGELOG.md
@ -1,10 +1,37 @@
- 2026-10-05T1731 · [[KGB]]
+- 2026-10-05T1740 · [[Richard Babayan]]
 - 2026-10-05T1739 · [[_FOIA_A1]]
 - 2026-10-05T1739 · [[Norwood Park]]
 - 2026-10-05T1739 · [[Jefferson Caffery]]
 - 2026-10-05T1739 · [[Saddam Hussein]]
 - 2026-10-05T1739 · [[_NOTES_A1]]
 - 2026-10-05T1738 · [[Iraq]]
 - 2026-10-05T1738 · [[David Kimche]]
 - 2026-10-05T1738 · [[Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini]]
 - 2026-10-05T1737 · [[Atomic Energy Commission]]
 - 2026-10-05T1737 · [[KGB]]
 - 2026-10-05T1737 · [[NSA]]
 - 2026-10-05T1737 · [[United States Army Intelligence and Security Command]]
 - 2026-10-05T1737 · [[Director of Central Intelligence]]
 - 2026-10-05T1736 · [[Annie Jacobsen]]
 - 2026-10-05T1736 · [[Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena]]
 - 2026-10-05T1736 · [[Psychokinesis]]
 - 2026-10-05T1736 · [[Richard Ober]]
 - 2026-10-05T1735 · [[Ingo Swann]]
 - 2026-10-05T1735 · [[Hal Puthoff]]
 - 2026-10-05T1735 · [[Operation CHAOS]]
 - 2026-10-05T1734 · [[_FOIA_A6]]
 - 2026-10-05T1734 · [[_NOTES_A6]]
 - 2026-10-05T1734 · [[Medellin Cartel]]
 - 2026-10-05T1733 · [[_NOTES_A3]]
 - 2026-10-05T1733 · [[Medellin Cartel]]
 - 2026-10-05T1733 · [[_FIX_Norwood Park_A6]]
 - 2026-10-05T1733 · [[_FIX_Iraq_A6]]
 - 2026-10-05T1732 · [[_FIX_Saddam Hussein_A6]]
 - 2026-10-05T1731 · [[_FIX_Yehoshua Sagi_A6]]
 - 2026-10-05T1731 · [[_FIX_David Kimche_A6]]
 - 2026-10-05T1730 · [[_FIX_Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini_A6]]
 - 2026-10-05T1729 · [[_FIX_Richard Babayan_A6]]
 - 2026-10-05T1729 · [[_FIX_Jefferson Caffery_A6]]
 - 2026-10-05T1728 · [[United States Army Intelligence and Security Command]]
 - 2026-10-05T1728 · [[NSA]]
 - 2026-10-05T1727 · [[Oliver North]]
 - 2026-10-05T1727 · [[Thomas Gates]]
 - 2026-10-05T1727 · [[John F. Kennedy]]
@ -17,14 +44,12 @@
 - 2026-10-05T1727 · [[Cocaine]]
 - 2026-10-05T1727 · [[Jose Santacruz Londono]]
 - 2026-10-05T1726 · [[_FOIA_A3]]
 - 2026-10-05T1726 · [[_NOTES_A3]]
 - 2026-10-05T1726 · [[Thomas Gates]]
 - 2026-10-05T1726 · [[John F. Kennedy]]
 - 2026-10-05T1725 · [[Cocaine]]
 - 2026-10-05T1725 · [[Jose Santacruz Londono]]
 - 2026-10-05T1725 · [[Gambino Crime Family]]
 - 2026-10-05T1724 · [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]
 - 2026-10-05T1723 · [[Medellin Cartel]]
 - 2026-10-05T1722 · [[Ronald Reagan]]
 - 2026-10-05T1721 · [[Fort Meade]]
 - 2026-10-05T1721 · [[Dimona]]
@ -57,7 +82,6 @@
 - 2026-10-05T1711 · [[Ron Robertson]]
 - 2026-10-05T1711 · [[Hella Hammid]]
 - 2026-10-05T1711 · [[Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena]]
 - 2026-10-05T1711 · [[Operation CHAOS]]
 - 2026-10-05T1710 · [[Hughes Aircraft Company]]
 - 2026-10-05T1710 · [[Shimon Peres]]
 - 2026-10-05T1710 · [[_FIX_JacobsenPhenomena_P14]]
@ -74,27 +98,3 @@
 - 2026-10-05T1658 · [[_NOTES_P11]]
 - 2026-10-05T1658 · [[Bermite Powder Company]]
 - 2026-10-05T1658 · [[Aerojet]]
 - 2026-10-05T1657 · [[_FOIA_P11]]
 - 2026-10-05T1650 · [[Babalon Working]]
 - 2026-10-05T1650 · [[Scientology]]
 - 2026-10-05T1650 · [[L. Ron Hubbard]]
 - 2026-10-05T1650 · [[Jack Parsons]]
 - 2026-10-05T1648 · [[Babalon Working]]
 - 2026-10-05T1648 · [[Scientology]]
 - 2026-10-05T1648 · [[L. Ron Hubbard]]
 - 2026-10-05T1648 · [[_DELTA_Jack Parsons_P9]]
 - 2026-10-05T1644 · [[_FOIA_P9]]
 - 2026-10-05T1644 · [[_NOTES_P9]]
 - 2026-10-05T1641 · [[GRU]]
 - 2026-10-05T1641 · [[Lee Harvey Oswald]]
 - 2026-10-05T1641 · [[Eduard Naumov]]
 - 2026-10-05T1641 · [[Augusto Pinochet]]
 - 2026-10-05T1640 · [[Agape Lodge]]
 - 2026-10-05T1640 · [[Ordo Templi Orientis]]
 - 2026-10-05T1640 · [[Aleister Crowley]]
 - 2026-10-05T1640 · [[Richard Ober]]
 - 2026-10-05T1639 · [[The Erotic Memoirs of a Male Chauvinist Pig]]
 - 2026-10-05T1639 · [[In the Year of the Pig]]
 - 2026-10-05T1639 · [[Black Mass (1975 film)]]
 - 2026-10-05T1639 · [[Wilson-Davis Memo]]
 - 2026-10-05T1639 · [[Nobody's Girl]]
--- a/PEOPLE/(A-G)/Jefferson
+++ b/PEOPLE/(A-G)/Jefferson
@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ Caffery was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Cuba on Fe
 Grau's government lasted until January 15, 1934, when Caffery coordinated its removal. While Grau nominally retained presidential authority, Batista as Army Chief of Staff was engaged in parallel negotiations with U.S. embassy personnel. On January 15, 1934, Colonel Batista, acting with Caffery's backing, forced Grau's resignation. Caffery communicated U.S. approval of [[Carlos Mendieta]] as provisional president, and the Mendieta government received formal U.S. recognition within days of taking power. The resulting arrangement was referred to by historians as the "Caffery-Batista-Mendieta" government, reflecting the degree to which U.S. embassy influence was constitutive of the new order rather than external to it.[^3]
-In 1934, four assailants attempted to assassinate Caffery in front of his home in Havana; he escaped because he had left earlier than usual to attend mass. From 1934 to 1937, Caffery and Batista maintained close personal contact, and Caffery consistently approved of the political direction Batista was taking in consolidating power within the Cuban military and political system.[^4]
+In 1934, according to the university's account of his life, Caffery narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in Cuba because he left earlier than usual to attend mass; clippings in his papers carry the headlines "Assassins' leader is Seized on Eve of Attempt to Shoot Down Caffery" and "Plot to Murder Envoy of U.S. in Cuba Balked."[^4]
 ### Brazil: Wartime Diplomacy and the Corridor of Victory (1937-1944)
@ -87,7 +87,7 @@ Caffery retired to Rome in 1955 with his wife Gertrude, where he served as honor
 [^1]: Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State, "Jefferson Caffery," People - Department History, history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/caffery-jefferson.
 [^2]: University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Dupre Library Special Collections, "Collection 45: Caffery, Jefferson (1886-1974) Papers, 1902-1974," finding aid (2014); Office of the Historian, "Jefferson Caffery," history.state.gov.
 [^3]: On the "Caffery-Batista-Mendieta" government (January 15, 1934 coup deposing Grau): FRUS 1934, Vol. V (The American Republics), Documents 10-14, documenting Caffery's active role; Irwin F. Gellman, *Roosevelt and Batista: Good Neighbor Diplomacy in Cuba, 1933-1945* (University of New Mexico Press, 1973), Ch. 4.
-[^4]: Prabook, "Jefferson Caffery (February 1, 1886 - April 13, 1974)," World Biographical Encyclopedia, prabook.com/web/jefferson.caffery/931756.
+[^4]: University of Louisiana at Lafayette University Libraries, "Did You Know ... The Reading Room Was Named After Ambassador Caffery?," April 13, 2022, https://library.louisiana.edu/node/2448; "Conspiracy to Assassinate Caffery," in "'Getting Things Done': Ambassador Jefferson Caffery's Life as a United States Diplomat," Scalar project, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Jefferson Caffery Collection clippings, https://scalar.usc.edu/works/ambassadorcaffery/media/conspiracy-to-assassinate-caffery
 [^5]: Caffery Collection, "Brazil (1937-44)," cafferycollection.wordpress.com/brazil-1937-44/.
 [^6]: Jefferson Caffery to Secretary of State, August 15, 1941, telegram no. 5152, FRUS 1941, The American Republics, Vol. VI, Document 534, history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1941v06/d534.
 [^7]: Caffery Collection, "Brazil (1937-44)," cafferycollection.wordpress.com/brazil-1937-44/; State Department, Office of the Historian, "Jefferson Caffery," history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/caffery-jefferson (posting dates and assignments).
--- a/PEOPLE/(A-G)/Richard
+++ b/PEOPLE/(A-G)/Richard
@ -4,9 +4,8 @@ tags:
  - Person
  - CIA
  - PROMIS
  - OctoberSurprise
  - Arms
-summary: "Richard Babayan was a CIA contract operative and arms broker who received a reported $6 million from Earl Brian on behalf of Hadron, Inc. and who appeared in overlapping accounts of the PROMIS software scandal, October Surprise allegations, and Robert Maxwell's Australian operations."
+summary: "Richard Babayan was a CIA contract operative and arms broker who received a reported $6 million from Earl Brian on behalf of Hadron, Inc. and who appeared in overlapping accounts of the PROMIS software scandal and Robert Maxwell's Australian operations."
 created: 2026-05-14
 updated: 2026-09-22
 ---
@ -16,18 +15,16 @@ Richard Babayan was a former arms broker and [[Central Intelligence Agency]] con
 Babayan was identified as a recipient of financial transfers from [[Earl Brian]], head of the government consultancy firm [[Hadron]], Inc. According to accounts assembled by researchers into the [[PROMIS]] scandal, Brian acted on behalf of Hadron - described as a CIA proprietary or cutout - in distributing a modified version of the PROMIS case-management software to foreign governments. Babayan reportedly received a check for approximately $6 million from Brian, an amount investigators connected to the commercialization of the PROMIS program.[^1]
-Babayan later stated that Brian played a central role in marketing PROMIS to the governments of Iraq, Libya, and Korea, with Babayan serving as an intermediary in at least some of those transactions.[^1]
+Babayan later stated that Brian played a central role in marketing PROMIS to the governments of Iraq, Libya, and Korea.[^1]
 The report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General (March 1993) stated that there was no credible evidence that Hadron had tried to acquire Inslaw or PROMIS, apart from claims by William Hamilton, and declined to pursue Ari Ben-Menashe's allegations of foreign distribution.[^2]
 ### Maxwell and Australian Connection
-[[Ari Ben-Menashe]] alleged that in 1987 the flow of funds from PROMIS sales extended to [[Robert Maxwell]]'s Australian business operations. According to Ari Ben-Menashe's account, a contribution to the West Australian Labor Party passed through one of Maxwell's Australian companies and was deposited by the Pergamon Press Trust Fund in Moscow, with Babayan and [[Earl Brian]] acting on behalf of Hadron in facilitating the transaction.[^2]
+[[Ari Ben-Menashe]] alleged that in 1987 the flow of funds from PROMIS sales extended to [[Robert Maxwell]]'s Australian business operations. According to Ari Ben-Menashe's account, a contribution to the West Australian Labor Party passed through one of Maxwell's Australian companies and was deposited by the Pergamon Press Trust Fund in Moscow, with Babayan and Earl Brian acting on behalf of Hadron in facilitating the transaction.[^3]
 ### October Surprise Context
 Babayan's name arose in investigators' research connected to the [[1980 October Surprise conspiracy theory|October Surprise]] allegations. He was among the Americans whose potential roles in Reagan campaign contacts with Iranian officials during the 1980 election were examined by congressional researchers and journalists covering the PROMIS cluster of cases. No formal finding established his direct involvement in the October Surprise negotiations.[^3]
 ### Footnotes
 [^1]: "Dirtier than Watergate," *New Statesman,* April 2011. https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2011/04/promis-government-inslaw
-[^2]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network.* TrineDay, 1992.
+[^2]: Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of INSLAW, Inc., March 1993, https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993
-[^3]: "1980 October Surprise conspiracy theory," Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Surprise_conspiracy_theory
+[^3]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network.* TrineDay, 1992.
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Annie
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Annie
@ -1,27 +1,70 @@
 ---
 category: "Authors & Journalists"
 aliases:
  - Annie M. Jacobsen
-category: "Authors & Journalists"
+  - Annie Jacobsen
 created: 2025-08-05
 updated: 2026-10-05
 tags:
  - Person
-summary: "Annie Jacobsen is an American investigative journalist and author, known for her non-fiction books focusing on government secrecy, national security, and warfare."
+  - Journalist
  - Author
  - Area51
  - OperationPaperclip
  - DARPA
  - Stargate
  - CIA
 summary: "American journalist and author of Area 51 (2011), Operation Paperclip (2014), The Pentagon's Brain (2015), Phenomena (2017), Surprise, Kill, Vanish (2019) and Nuclear War: A Scenario (2024); 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist in History."
 born: 1967-06-28
-location: "Middletown, Connecticut"
+location: "Los Angeles, California"
 relations:
  - type: employed_by
    with: "[[Los Angeles Times]]"
    role: "contributing editor, Los Angeles Times Magazine"
    fn: 1
 ---
 Annie Jacobsen is an American journalist and author. A graduate of [[Princeton University]], she was a contributing editor at the [[Los Angeles Times]] Magazine and lives in Los Angeles.[^1] Her books on American secret programs are *Area 51* (2011), *Operation Paperclip* (2014), *The Pentagon's Brain* (2015), *Phenomena* (2017), *Surprise, Kill, Vanish* (2019) and *Nuclear War: A Scenario* (2024); *The Pentagon's Brain* was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in History.[^1][^2]
-Annie Jacobsen is an American investigative journalist and author, known for her non-fiction books focusing on government secrecy, national security, and warfare. She is a graduate of [[Princeton University]].
+### Northwest Airlines Flight 327, 2004
-### Bibliography
+On June 29, 2004, Jacobsen, her husband and their son were passengers on Northwest Airlines Flight 327 from Detroit to Los Angeles, on which 14 Middle Eastern men were also traveling. On July 12, 2004 she published an account on the website WomensWallStreet.com, "Terror in the Skies, Again?," describing consecutive use of the lavatories, a McDonald's bag passed between men, and, as the plane prepared to land, seven men entering lavatories in turn; she wrote that one man drew a forefinger across his neck and mouthed "No." On arrival, the plane was met by officers of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]], the Los Angeles Police Department, the [[Federal Air Marshal Service]] and the [[Transportation Security Administration]].[^3][^4] Dave Adams, head of public affairs for the Federal Air Marshal Service, told her the 14 men were Syrian musicians hired to play at a casino, had been questioned at length by the air marshals, the FBI and the TSA, had no arrest records and were not on the FBI no-fly or most wanted terrorist lists. Asked why marshals had not acted, he said, "Our FAM agents have to have an event to arrest somebody."[^4] The story circulated widely and she expanded it in *Terror in the Skies: Why 9/11 Could Happen Again* (Spence Publishing, 2005), which the writer Anne Morse of *National Review* reviewed in October 2005, reporting that Jacobsen received more than 5,000 e-mails after the article, that her persistence angered higher-ups in the Federal Air Marshal Service, and that it led to her testimony to the House Judiciary Committee.[^3]
 *   [[Phenomena - The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis]] (2017)
 *   [[The Pentagon's Brain]]
 *   [[Operation Paperclip]]
 *   [[Area 51]]
-### Affiliations
+The Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General investigated the flight for about two years. A redacted report released in May 2007 after a Freedom of Information Act request by the *Washington Times* stated that the Syrians (12 musicians and their Lebanese-born promoter) were traveling on expired visas that had been extended a week after the flight, that a June 18, 2004 FBI National Crime Information Center check returned "positive hits" for criminal records or suspicious behavior for eight of the 12, and that the promoter was in a separate FBI database for acting suspiciously on a flight in January 2004. It found TSA's follow-up on the incident "inadequate" and said logging the matter with the Homeland Security Operations Center only after a July 22, 2004 *Washington Times* article undercut TSA's statement that it had been "determined to be unfounded, and not a terrorist threat."[^5]
 *   Los Angeles Times Magazine (contributing editor)
 *   Princeton University (alumna)
-### Notes
+### Area 51, 2011
-*   Her book "Phenomena" details the U.S. government's decades-long interest in anomalous mental phenomena, including extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis (PK).
+
-*   She conducted extensive interviews with scientists and psychics who worked on government programs for her book.
+*Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base* (Little, Brown, 2011), according to its publisher, rests on interviews with nineteen men who served at the base and fifty-five other military, intelligence, scientific and aviation personnel, thirty-two of whom lived and worked there, covering nuclear testing, supersonic aircraft and the war on terror. The *New York Times* review called it "cauldron-stirring" and "an assertive account."[^6] The book proposes that the 1947 [[Roswell Incident]] involved a Soviet aircraft crewed by surgically altered human children. *Publishers Weekly* (May 16, 2011) wrote that Jacobsen "demolishes her own credibility by proposing a novel conspiracy theory, sourced mainly to a nameless engineer," linking Roswell to Soviet-built flying saucers and a hoax in which "the 'aliens' were human children created by Josef Mengele," and concluded: "Let the reader beware."[^7]
-*   Her work often involves declassified documents and in-depth research into sensitive topics.
+
 ### Operation Paperclip, 2014
 *Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists to America* (Little, Brown, 2014) follows more than a dozen German scientists through their postwar lives, drawing on interviews with Paperclip family members, colleagues and interrogators, German archival documents, Freedom of Information Act files and dossiers found at Harvard University. The book is covered on the page for [[Operation Paperclip]].[^8]
 ### The Pentagon's Brain, 2015
 *The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top Secret Military Research Agency* (Little, Brown, 2015) is a history of the [[Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency]]. The Pulitzer Prize board named it a finalist in History for 2016.[^2]
 ### Phenomena, 2017
 *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis* (Little, Brown, 2017, 527 pages) treats government interest in ESP and PK, among them the [[Andrija Puharich]] theory, the [[Uri Geller]] testing at [[Stanford Research Institute]], the physicists [[Russell Targ]] and [[Hal Puthoff]], remote viewing and the GRILL FLAME and [[Stargate Project]] programs of the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] and the [[Central Intelligence Agency]]. Its chapter list includes a chapter on skeptics and the CIA, and the publisher's description states that it describes Soviet interest in the field, including the microwave bombardment of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.[^9]
 ### Surprise, Kill, Vanish, 2019
 *Surprise, Kill, Vanish: The Secret History of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators, and Assassins* (Little, Brown, 2019, 545 pages) concerns the Special Activities Division of the CIA, based on her interviews with members of its Senior Intelligence Service, counterterrorism chiefs, targeting officers and Ground Branch operators. J. R. Seeger, reviewing it in the CIA's *Studies in Intelligence* (September 2019), wrote that it presents vignettes of special operations from World War II to the present and that its biographical threads follow Billy Waugh and Lewis Merletti; he also wrote that Jacobsen places the British Special Operations Executive inside the Secret Intelligence Service in her first chapter, and that in fact the two were entirely separate.[^10]
 ### Nuclear War: A Scenario, 2024
 *Nuclear War: A Scenario* (Dutton, 2024) presents a minute-by-minute account of a hypothetical nuclear missile launch against the United States and the response decisions, based on interviews with military and civilian experts.[^11]
 ### Footnotes
 [^1]: "Annie Jacobsen," Hachette Book Group contributor page and "Area 51" title page, author biography ("A graduate of Princeton University"; "contributing editor at the Los Angeles Times Magazine"). https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/contributor/annie-jacobsen/
 [^2]: Hachette Book Group, "Area 51" title page, author biography ("the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Pentagon's Brain"). https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/annie-jacobsen/area-51/9780316202305/
 [^3]: Anne Morse, "Could It Happen Again?," *National Review Online*, October 26, 2005 (reprinted by CBS News), reviewing Annie Jacobsen, *Terror in the Skies: Why 9-11 Could Happen Again* (Spence Publishing, 2005). https://www.cbsnews.com/news/could-it-happen-again
 [^4]: Daniel Pipes, "Those Fourteen Syrians on Northwest Airlines Flight #327," July 13, 2004, quoting Annie Jacobsen, "Terror in the Skies, Again?," WomensWallStreet.com, and her conversation with Dave Adams of the Federal Air Marshal Service. https://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2004/07/those-fourteen-syrians-on-northwest-airlines
 [^5]: "Report Confirms Terror Dry Run; Government Handling Hit," *Washington Times*, May 31, 2007, reprinted by Aviation Pros, reporting the redacted Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General report on Northwest Flight 327. https://www.aviationpros.com/home/news/10388457/report-confirms-terror-dry-run-government-handling-hit
 [^6]: Hachette Book Group, "Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base," description and praise (quoting the *New York Times*). https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/annie-jacobsen/area-51/9780316202305/
 [^7]: Review of *Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base*, *Publishers Weekly*, reviewed May 16, 2011. https://publishersweekly.com/9780316132947 Sole source for the passages so cited on the Roswell proposal as characterized.
 [^8]: Hachette Book Group, "Operation Paperclip" title page (description and sources). https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/annie-jacobsen/operation-paperclip/9780316221054/
 [^9]: Annie Jacobsen, *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis* (Little, Brown, 2017), publisher's description and table of contents as catalogued by library records and *Publishers Weekly*. https://catalog.sbplibrary.org/Record/34646
 [^10]: J. R. Seeger, review of *Surprise, Kill, Vanish*, *Studies in Intelligence* 63, no. 3 (extracts, September 2019), p. 73 ff. https://cia.gov/resources/csi/static/Review-Surprise-Kill-Vanish.pdf
 [^11]: Annie Jacobsen, *Nuclear War: A Scenario* (Dutton, 2024), publisher and library descriptions. https://catalog.washoecountylibrary.us/Record/757603
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ayatollah
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ayatollah
@ -20,21 +20,22 @@ Ruhollah Mostafavi Musavi Khomeini was born on May 17, 1900 (some sources cite 1
 Khomeini's public profile shifted in the early 1960s when he began delivering speeches condemning the rule of [[Mohammad Reza Pahlavi|Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi]]. He criticized the White Revolution land reforms, what he characterized as the selling of Iranian interests to foreign powers, and the subordination of Islamic law to secular governance. He was arrested in 1963 following an especially provocative speech and briefly jailed. The Shah's government exiled him in 1964; he spent the following years in Najaf, [[Iraq]].[^1]
-In October 1978, [[Saddam Hussein]]'s government, under pressure from Iran, expelled Khomeini from Iraq. He relocated to Neauphle-le-Chateau, a suburb of Paris, from which his circle distributed audio recordings of his speeches and coordinated the revolutionary movement inside Iran. The combination of labor strikes, mass demonstrations, and military defections in late 1978 forced the Shah to flee on January 16, 1979.[^2]
+In October 1978, [[Saddam Hussein]]'s government expelled Khomeini from Iraq. He relocated to Neauphle-le-Chateau, a suburb of Paris, from which his circle distributed audio recordings of his speeches and coordinated the revolutionary movement inside Iran. The combination of labor strikes, mass demonstrations, and military defections in late 1978 forced the Shah to flee on January 16, 1979.[^1]
-Khomeini returned to Tehran on February 1, 1979, greeted by an estimated crowd of up to five million people. Within weeks the revolutionary government had consolidated power and declared the Islamic Republic of Iran. He was formally designated Supreme Leader in December 1979 under the Constitution of the Islamic Republic, embodying the principle of velayat-e faqih - guardianship of the jurist - which he had articulated as a theological and political concept across decades of writing.[^1]
+Khomeini returned to Tehran on February 1, 1979, greeted by enormous crowds. Within weeks the revolutionary government had consolidated power and declared the Islamic Republic of Iran. He was formally designated Supreme Leader in December 1979 under the Constitution of the Islamic Republic, embodying the principle of velayat-e faqih - guardianship of the jurist - which he had articulated as a theological and political concept across decades of writing.[^1]
 ### Hostage Crisis and October Surprise
-On November 4, 1979, Iranian students seized the American embassy in Tehran and took more than sixty American diplomats and staff hostage. Khomeini endorsed the seizure. The crisis lasted 444 days and consumed the final year of President [[Jimmy Carter]]'s administration. The hostages were released on January 20, 1981, the day of [[Ronald Reagan]]'s inauguration - a coincidence that became the basis for the [[1980 October Surprise conspiracy theory|October Surprise]] theory, which alleged that Reagan campaign officials had secretly negotiated with Khomeini's government to delay the release.[^2]
+On November 4, 1979, Iranian students seized the American embassy in Tehran and took more than sixty American diplomats and staff hostage.[^2] A November 9, 1979 CIA report quoted a confidant of former Prime Minister [[Shahpour Bakhtiar]] in Paris as saying the occupation was "certainly a planned action authorized by Khomeini."[^2] The crisis lasted 444 days and consumed the final year of President [[Jimmy Carter]]'s administration. The hostages were released on January 20, 1981, the day of [[Ronald Reagan]]'s inauguration - a coincidence that became the basis for the [[1980 October Surprise conspiracy theory|October Surprise]] theory, which alleged that Reagan campaign officials had secretly negotiated with Khomeini's government to delay the release.[^3] The January 3, 1993 joint report of the House task force chaired by [[Lee Hamilton|Lee H. Hamilton]] and [[Henry Hyde|Henry J. Hyde]] examined the allegation.[^3]
 The [[Iran-Iraq War]], which began with Iraq's invasion in September 1980, provided the context for the subsequent arms channels to Iran that became the [[Iran-Contra Affair]]. Iran's need for weapons and spare parts during the war was the lever through which intermediaries including [[David Kimche]], [[Manucher Ghorbanifar]], and others brokered arms transfers in exchange for American hostages held in Lebanon by Iranian-linked groups.[^1]
 ### Death and Succession
-Khomeini died on June 3, 1989, in Tehran. The funeral drew an estimated ten million or more attendees, one of the largest in recorded history. He was succeeded as Supreme Leader by [[Ali Khamenei]]. *Time* magazine had named him its Man of the Year for 1979 following the revolution.[^1]
+Khomeini died on June 3, 1989, in Tehran. The funeral drew an estimated ten million attendees, one of the largest in recorded history. He was succeeded as Supreme Leader by [[Ali Khamenei]]. *Time* magazine had named him its Man of the Year for 1979 following the revolution.[^1]
 ### Footnotes
 [^1]: "Ruhollah Khomeini," *Encyclopaedia Britannica.* https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ruhollah-Khomeini
-[^2]: "Ruhollah Khomeini," Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhollah_Khomeini
+[^2]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980, vol. XI, part 1, Iran: Hostage Crisis, November 1979-September 1980, memorandum "Takeover of Embassy Tehran," November 4, 1979, and CIA comment of November 9, 1979. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v11p1
 [^3]: Joint Report of the Task Force to Investigate Certain Allegations Concerning the Holding of American Hostages in Iran in 1980, Lee H. Hamilton, Chairman, and Henry J. Hyde, Ranking Republican Member, January 3, 1993 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993). https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/003230365
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/David
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/David
@ -17,13 +17,13 @@ David Kimche was born on February 14, 1928, in London. He joined [[Mossad]] in 1
 ### Iran-Contra Role
-Kimche is consistently identified as the principal Israeli official who initiated and structured the arms-for-hostages channel between the United States and Iran that became the foundation of the [[Iran-Contra Affair]].
+Kimche is consistently identified as the principal Israeli official who initiated and structured the arms-for-hostages channel between the United States and Iran that became the foundation of the [[Iran-Contra Affair]].[^2]
-In mid-1985, Kimche, serving as director-general of the Foreign Ministry, approached U.S. National Security Advisor [[Robert McFarlane]] and pressed him to authorize the transfer of American weapons to Iran via Israel in exchange for the release of American hostages held in Lebanon. Kimche framed the proposal as a potential opening to moderate Iranian factions; McFarlane presented it to President [[Ronald Reagan]], who agreed. The arrangement violated an international arms embargo on Iran.[^2]
+Kimche met [[Robert McFarlane]] in Washington on July 3, 1985; McFarlane's later account of that meeting was that there was no request for arms and no linkage to the hostages, though Kimche mentioned that arms might be raised later, and that President [[Ronald Reagan]] approved a political dialogue. On July 7 and 8, 1985 Kimche, [[Yaacov Nimrodi]], [[Al Schwimmer]], [[Manucher Ghorbanifar]] and Adnan Khashoggi met in Geneva and Hamburg to discuss TOW missiles and hostages. On August 2, 1985 Kimche asked McFarlane whether it would be different if Israel delivered the TOWs, and McFarlane testified that Reagan then approved Israel's delivery with replacement sales to follow.[^3]
-Kimche operated as part of what contemporaneous accounts called a "troika" of Israeli facilitators alongside [[Yaacov Nimrodi]], a former military attache, and [[Al Schwimmer]], founder of Israel Aircraft Industries. The three managed the first three arms transfers to Iran in 1985, which consisted of TOW anti-tank missiles supplied from Israeli stocks in exchange for American replacement weapons.[^3]
+Nimrodi was a former military attache and Schwimmer the founder of Israel Aircraft Industries. Working through Nimrodi, Schwimmer and Ghorbanifar, Israel shipped 96 U.S.-made TOW missiles to Iran on August 20, 1985 and 408 more on September 14, 1985, after which one American hostage, Benjamin Weir, was released.[^3] Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger objected on December 7, 1985 that the United States embargo on arms sales to Iran would make such a sale illegal even if it were done through Israel.[^3]
-Kimche stepped back from the operation by late 1985, reportedly concerned about the growing complexity of the arrangement and its departure from the original policy rationale. By that point, the channel had been handed off to figures including [[Manucher Ghorbanifar]], [[Oliver North]], and the network that would produce the scandal's subsequent stages.[^1]
+Kimche met McFarlane on November 8, 1985, spoke with him about a HAWK missile shipment on November 18, 1985, and attended the London meetings of December 7 and 8, 1985 with McFarlane, [[Oliver North]], Richard Secord, Ghorbanifar, Schwimmer and Nimrodi. By May 1986 Amiram Nir had replaced Kimche as the Israeli official in the arms deals.[^3]
 ### Later Career
@ -33,4 +33,4 @@ After leaving the Foreign Ministry in 1987, Kimche served as Israel's ambassador
 [^1]: Ignatius, David. "David Kimche dies; Israeli spy involved in Iran-contra scandal," *Washington Post,* March 9, 2010. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/09/AR2010030903843.html
 [^2]: "David Kimche: Israel's Leading Spy and Would-Be Mossad Chief," *Washington Report on Middle East Affairs,* October 1991. https://www.wrmea.org/1991-october/david-kimche-israel-s-leading-spy-and-would-be-mossad-chief.html
-[^3]: "David Kimche," Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kimche
+[^3]: Lawrence E. Walsh, *Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters*, vol. I (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Division for the Purpose of Appointing Independent Counsels, 1993), chapter 1, "United States v. Robert C. McFarlane," account of the Iran arms sales, July 1985 to May 1986 (citing McFarlane, SSCI testimony, December 7, 1986; Israeli Historical Chronology, Part One, July 29, 1987; Weinberger and Hill notes). https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_01.htm
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Saddam
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Saddam
@ -13,33 +13,37 @@ born: 1937-04-28
 died: 2006-12-30
 location: "Al-Awja, Iraq"
 ---
-Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was born on April 28, 1937, near the town of Tikrit in central [[Iraq]], the son of a peasant family. He joined the [[Ba'ath Party]] in 1957. In 1959, he participated in a failed [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]-linked assassination attempt against Prime Minister [[Abd al-Karim Qassem]] and subsequently lived in exile in [[Egypt]].[^1]
+Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was born on April 28, 1937, near the town of Tikrit in central [[Iraq]], the son of a peasant family. He joined the [[Ba'ath Party]] in 1957. On October 7, 1959 Prime Minister [[Abd al-Karim Qassem]] was wounded in the shoulder in an assassination attempt.[^1] The journalist Richard Sale reported in 2003, citing unnamed former U.S. intelligence and diplomatic officials and the writer Adel Darwish, that Saddam Hussein was part of a "CIA-authorized six-man squad" tasked with killing Qasim and was later paid and trained by the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] in Beirut and watched over in Cairo, in [[Egypt]]; the CIA declined to comment, and the historian Bryan Gibson has cited declassified records showing that on October 1, 1959 [[Allen Dulles]] told the National Security Council only that an attempt might be made in the next two months.[^2]
 ### CIA and Ba'ath Rise to Power
-U.S. intelligence played a documented role in the 1963 Ba'athist coup that first brought the party to power in Iraq. Evidence that Saddam was on the CIA payroll in 1959 emerged in later investigations. After the 1963 coup, the CIA provided lists of suspected communists and leftists to the incoming Ba'athist government; those lists facilitated the killing of thousands of political opponents.[^1]
+A Defense Department memorandum of February 8, 1963 quoted White House aide Robert Komer's note to President [[John F. Kennedy]] that the Iraqi coup was "almost certainly a net gain for our side," and the State Department asked on February 9 for authority to recognize the new regime.[^3] Historians disagree about a CIA role in the coup: Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt cites "compelling evidence of an American role," while Bryan Gibson concludes the preponderance of evidence shows the CIA was not behind it.[^4] King Hussein of Jordan was reported in September 1963 as saying that a secret radio beamed to Iraq on February 8 supplied the coup plotters with the names and addresses of Communists, and Richard Sale reported in 2003, citing unnamed former U.S. intelligence officials, that the CIA gave Iraqi National Guardsmen lists of suspected communists; the same report quotes a former very senior CIA official as saying the Agency was "absolutely stunned" by the coup, and the CIA declined to comment.[^2][^4]
-The Ba'ath Party was ousted from government in the same year and returned to power in a 1968 coup. Saddam served as deputy to President [[Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr]] and was the de facto strongman of the regime through the 1970s. He forced al-Bakr to resign on July 16, 1979, formally assuming the presidency. Within days he convened a party congress at which he personally identified and had arrested dozens of alleged conspirators; hundreds of senior Ba'athists were executed in the following weeks.[^2]
+The Ba'ath Party was ousted from government in the same year and returned to power in a 1968 coup. Saddam served as deputy to President [[Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr]] and was the de facto strongman of the regime through the 1970s. He forced al-Bakr to resign on July 16, 1979, formally assuming the presidency. Within days he convened a party congress at which he personally identified and had arrested dozens of alleged conspirators; hundreds of senior Ba'athists were executed in the following weeks.[^5]
 ### Iran-Iraq War and Western Support
-In September 1980, Saddam launched an invasion of [[Iran]] following the instability created by the [[Iranian Revolution]]. The eight-year [[Iran-Iraq War]] (1980-1988) killed an estimated half million to one million people. Beginning in 1982, the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] began providing Iraq with satellite intelligence during the conflict. The Reagan administration extended credits, arms, and dual-use technology to Baghdad while simultaneously running the secret arms-for-hostages pipeline to Iran that became the [[Iran-Contra Affair]].[^1]
+In September 1980, Saddam launched an invasion of [[Iran]] following the instability created by the [[Iranian Revolution]]. The eight-year [[Iran-Iraq War]] (1980-1988) killed an estimated half million to one million people. A State Department memorandum of October 7, 1983 assumed that the United States was already providing tactical intelligence to Iraq, and on November 29, 1984 Secretary of State [[George Shultz]] told Tariq Aziz that superior intelligence must be an important factor in Iraq's defense.[^6] According to a January 31, 1995 affidavit by former National Security Council staff member Howard Teicher, Director of Central Intelligence [[William Casey]] led efforts to ensure that Iraq received weapons, financial credits, intelligence and strategic military advice.[^6] The administration meanwhile ran the secret arms-for-hostages pipeline to Iran that became the [[Iran-Contra Affair]].
-[[Donald Rumsfeld]] visited Saddam in December 1983 as a special envoy for President [[Ronald Reagan]], cementing the relationship at a moment when U.S. intelligence knew Iraq was using chemical weapons against Iranian forces. The arms and technology transfers to Iraq during the 1980s - including chemical and biological precursors - were later examined in congressional investigations and linked to the [[BNL scandal]] involving the [[Atlanta]] branch of [[Banca Nazionale del Lavoro]].[^3]
+[[Donald Rumsfeld]] visited Saddam in December 1983 as a special envoy for President [[Ronald Reagan]], cementing the relationship at a moment when U.S. intelligence knew Iraq was using chemical weapons against Iranian forces.[^6] The arms and technology transfers to Iraq during the 1980s - including chemical and biological precursors - were later examined in congressional investigations and linked to the [[BNL scandal]] involving the [[Atlanta]] branch of [[Banca Nazionale del Lavoro]].[^7]
 ### Arms Procurement Networks
-Iraq's weapons procurement during the 1980s passed through several networks that intersect with vault subjects. [[Carlos Cardoen]], a Chilean arms manufacturer with CIA connections, supplied cluster bombs to Iraq. Iraqi procurement agents operated through front companies in Europe, the United States, and the [[United Kingdom]], the exposure of which became known as the [[Arms-to-Iraq affair]] in Britain.[^3]
+Iraq's weapons procurement during the 1980s passed through several networks that intersect with vault subjects. [[Carlos Cardoen]], a Chilean arms manufacturer with CIA connections, supplied cluster bombs to Iraq.[^6] Iraqi procurement agents operated through front companies in Europe, the United States, and the [[United Kingdom]], the exposure of which became known as the [[Arms-to-Iraq affair]] in Britain.[^7]
-[[PROMIS]] software was among the products allegedly sold to Iraqi intelligence. [[Ari Ben-Menashe]] and other sources placed Iraq on the list of recipients of the Israeli-distributed, backdoor-equipped version of the software.[^4]
+[[PROMIS]] software was among the products allegedly sold to Iraqi intelligence. [[Ari Ben-Menashe]] and other sources placed Iraq on the list of recipients of the Israeli-distributed, backdoor-equipped version of the software.[^8]
 ### Gulf War and Fall
-Saddam invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990. The resulting [[Gulf War]] saw a U.S.-led coalition expel Iraqi forces in February 1991. The regime survived until the 2003 [[Iraq War]], during which U.S. and coalition forces invaded and captured Baghdad in April 2003. Saddam was captured in December 2003, tried by an Iraqi tribunal, and executed by hanging on December 30, 2006.[^2]
+Saddam invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990. The resulting [[Gulf War]] saw a U.S.-led coalition expel Iraqi forces in February 1991. The regime survived until the 2003 [[Iraq War]], during which U.S. and coalition forces invaded and captured Baghdad in April 2003. Saddam was captured in December 2003, tried by an Iraqi tribunal, and executed by hanging on December 30, 2006.[^5]
 ### Footnotes
-[^1]: "CIA activities in Iraq," Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Iraq
+[^1]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, vol. XII, Near East Region; Iraq; Iran; Arabian Peninsula, document 205 (editorial note on the October 7, 1959 attempt) and document 206 (CIA memorandum of October 13, 1959). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v12
-[^2]: "Saddam Hussein," *Encyclopaedia Britannica.* https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saddam-Hussein
+[^2]: Richard Sale, "Exclusive: Saddam key in early CIA plot," United Press International, April 10, 2003, https://www.upi.com/Exclusive-Saddam-key-in-early-CIA-plot/65571050017416/ ; Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, vol. XII, document 204 (NSC 420th meeting, October 1, 1959); Bryan R. Gibson, *Covert Relationship: American Foreign Policy, Intelligence, and the Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1989* (Praeger, 2010).
-[^3]: "US and British Support for Hussein Regime," Global Policy. https://archive.globalpolicy.org/iraq-conflict-the-historical-background-/us-and-british-support-for-huss-regime.html
+[^3]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963, vol. XVIII, Near East, 1962-1963, documents 153 (memorandum from Stephen O. Fuqua to Sloan, "Iraqi Coup," February 8, 1963) and 154 (Rusk to Kennedy, February 9, 1963). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v18
-[^4]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network.* TrineDay, 1992.
+[^4]: Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt, "Embracing Regime Change in Iraq: American Foreign Policy and the 1963 Coup d'Etat in Baghdad," *Diplomatic History* 35, no. 1 (2011); Bryan R. Gibson, *Covert Relationship* (Praeger, 2010); King Hussein's remarks as published in Al-Ahram, September 27, 1963.
 [^5]: "Saddam Hussein," *Encyclopaedia Britannica.* https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saddam-Hussein
 [^6]: Joyce Battle, ed., "Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein: The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 82, February 25, 2003, documents 22, 24, 26, 29, 31, 53, 60 and 61 (document 61 is the affidavit of Howard Teicher, United States v. Cardoen, S.D. Fla., January 31, 1995). https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/
 [^7]: Friedman, Alan. *Spider's Web: The Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq.* Bantam Books, 1993.
 [^8]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network.* TrineDay, 1992.
--- a/PEOPLE/(N-S)/Hal
+++ b/PEOPLE/(N-S)/Hal
@ -29,11 +29,11 @@ relations:
    with: "[[Advanced Theoretical Physics Working Group]]"
    start: 1985-05
    role: "named on Oke Shannon's attendee list; presented on remote viewing at the first meeting, according to the Loose Threads authors"
-    fn: 6
+    fn: 12
  - type: member_of
    with: "[[The Aviary]]"
    role: "membership as alleged: listed as Owl in a roster published by Richard J. Boylan"
-    fn: 10
+    fn: 16
 ---
 Harold E. "Hal" Puthoff (born June 20, 1936) is a physicist and engineer who co-founded the [[Stanford Research Institute]] remote viewing research program with [[Russell Targ]] in 1972 under [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] contract and served as its principal investigator through 1985. The program, which operated under the code names SCANATE, Gondola Wish, and [[Stargate Project|Grill Flame]] before consolidating as STAR GATE under [[Defense Intelligence Agency|DIA]] oversight, represented the primary [[U.S. government]] institutional effort to investigate anomalous cognition for intelligence applications over two decades. Puthoff subsequently contributed technical research to the [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program|AATIP]] [[Pentagon]] program and became a founding member of [[To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science|To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science]].
@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ He published a standard textbook in his field, *Fundamentals of Quantum Electron
 ### Scientology Background
-Puthoff was a practicing member of the [[Church of Scientology]] for several years in the late 1960s. [[Ingo Swann]] and [[Pat Price]], the two most prominent early subjects in the SRI program, were also current or former Scientologists. This overlap attracted attention within the CIA's counterintelligence staff, who questioned in internal assessments whether the church was exploiting the program for its own intelligence or reputational purposes, and whether claimed psychic results reflected Scientology training methods rather than independently verifiable phenomena. The Scientology connection among the program's leading figures was flagged repeatedly but did not result in the program's cancellation.
+Puthoff joined [[Scientology]] in the 1960s and resigned his membership in the mid-1970s, according to [[Jim Schnabel]], who wrote that he afterward supported a group of anti-Scientologists, that [[Pat Price]] and Puthoff met at a Scientology course in Los Angeles, and that one of Puthoff's laboratory assistants was a Scientologist.[^1] The [[Time (magazine)|Time]] cover story of March 4, 1974 described Puthoff as a promoter of "the bizarre and controversial cult of Scientology."[^2] [[Ray Hyman]] wrote in *The Humanist* in 1977 that Puthoff "has made it to the level of a Class III Operational Thetan in the Church of Scientology" and had previously obtained funding to study the Backster Effect.[^3] In the Washington Post in 1977, [[John L. Wilhelm]] wrote that "one item that continues to trouble those in government who follow the SRI work is the unusually large number of Scientologists involved with the psychic tests there," and that their involvement "partially accounts for at least two government agencies pulling back from funding further work there."[^4] In a preliminary report on psychological testing of six subjects in the SRI study, an unsigned clinician wrote that "at least four of the subjects in this study describe to me an interest in scientology and two of them indicate that they have been involved in the Church of Scientology for some time," a commonality that "may account for the similarity described above."[^5] Puthoff, supported by Russell Targ, who was not a Scientologist, said that in the laboratory he was a scientist first, and Schnabel wrote that within a year or two of the Time article Puthoff left Scientology.[^1] [[Jon Atack]] wrote that Puthoff and [[Ingo Swann]] had each completed Operating Thetan section three, and that Puthoff replied that his involvement was trivial; [[Tony Ortega]]'s note on Atack's comments, citing [[Hugh Urban]], states that Puthoff "was OT VII by 1971."[^6]
 ### Initial Contact with CIA and SRI Experiments (1972)
@ -58,7 +58,7 @@ Puthoff hired Targ as a research colleague, and together they developed the remo
 ### The 1996 Account
-After the CIA declassified 270 pages of SRI reports in July 1995, Puthoff published his own account. In early 1972, doing laser research at SRI, he had written a proposal that Ingo Swann saw at [[Cleve Backster]]'s laboratory and wrote to him, and Puthoff invited him for a week in June 1972. He arranged access to "a well-shielded magnetometer used in a quark-detection experiment in the Physics Department at Stanford University," in a vault beneath the floor "shielded by mu-metal shielding, an aluminum container, copper shielding and a superconducting shield"; Swann "appeared to perturb the operation of the magnetometer" and then "went on to 'remote view' the interior of the apparatus, rendering by drawing a reasonable facsimile of its rather complex (and heretofore unpublished) construction." Within weeks "a pair of visitors showed up at SRI with the above report in hand. Their credentials showed them to be from the CIA. They knew of my previous background as a [[Office of Naval Intelligence|Naval Intelligence]] Officer and then civilian employee at the [[NSA|National Security Agency]]," and spoke of "increasing concern in the intelligence community about the level of effort in Soviet parapsychology being funded by the Soviet security services." An eight-month "Biofield Measurements Program" of 49,909 dollars followed, and Russell Targ joined; the second year, January 1974 to February 1975, was funded at 149,555 dollars. The first coordinate target, "the West Virginia Site," produced from one subject "a detailed map of the building and grounds layout" and from the other "information about the interior including codewords, data subsequently verified by sponsor sources"; Pat Price then "went on to scan the other side of the globe for a Communist Bloc equivalent and found one located in the Urals," also "verified by personnel in the sponsor organization as being substantially correct." The [[Semipalatinsk]] experiment of July 1974, "carried out in three phases," was "under direct control of the COTR," and "several details concerning the salient technology of the Semipalatinsk site appeared to dovetail with data from other sources, and a number of specific large structural elements were correctly described." The CIA "dropped out as a major player in the mid-seventies due to pressure on the Agency (unrelated to the RV Program) from the [[Church Committee|Church-Pike Congressional Committee]]," and Major General [[Edmund Thompson]], the Army's assistant chief of staff for intelligence from 1977 to 1981, said: "I had one or more briefings by SRI and was impressed. The decision I made was to set up a small, in-house, low-cost effort in remote viewing." One application, Puthoff noted, "yielded not only a published, statistically significant result, but also a return of $26,000 in 30 days in the silver futures market." The article does not mention [[Scientology]].[^1]
+After the CIA declassified 270 pages of SRI reports in July 1995, Puthoff published his own account. In early 1972, doing laser research at SRI, he had written a proposal that Ingo Swann saw at [[Cleve Backster]]'s laboratory and wrote to him, and Puthoff invited him for a week in June 1972. He arranged access to "a well-shielded magnetometer used in a quark-detection experiment in the Physics Department at Stanford University," in a vault beneath the floor "shielded by mu-metal shielding, an aluminum container, copper shielding and a superconducting shield"; Swann "appeared to perturb the operation of the magnetometer" and then "went on to 'remote view' the interior of the apparatus, rendering by drawing a reasonable facsimile of its rather complex (and heretofore unpublished) construction." Within weeks "a pair of visitors showed up at SRI with the above report in hand. Their credentials showed them to be from the CIA. They knew of my previous background as a [[Office of Naval Intelligence|Naval Intelligence]] Officer and then civilian employee at the [[NSA|National Security Agency]]," and spoke of "increasing concern in the intelligence community about the level of effort in Soviet parapsychology being funded by the Soviet security services." An eight-month "Biofield Measurements Program" of 49,909 dollars followed, and Russell Targ joined; the second year, January 1974 to February 1975, was funded at 149,555 dollars. The first coordinate target, "the West Virginia Site," produced from one subject "a detailed map of the building and grounds layout" and from the other "information about the interior including codewords, data subsequently verified by sponsor sources"; Pat Price then "went on to scan the other side of the globe for a Communist Bloc equivalent and found one located in the Urals," also "verified by personnel in the sponsor organization as being substantially correct." The [[Semipalatinsk]] experiment of July 1974, "carried out in three phases," was "under direct control of the COTR," and "several details concerning the salient technology of the Semipalatinsk site appeared to dovetail with data from other sources, and a number of specific large structural elements were correctly described." The CIA "dropped out as a major player in the mid-seventies due to pressure on the Agency (unrelated to the RV Program) from the [[Church Committee|Church-Pike Congressional Committee]]," and Major General [[Edmund Thompson]], the Army's assistant chief of staff for intelligence from 1977 to 1981, said: "I had one or more briefings by SRI and was impressed. The decision I made was to set up a small, in-house, low-cost effort in remote viewing." One application, Puthoff noted, "yielded not only a published, statistically significant result, but also a return of $26,000 in 30 days in the silver futures market." The article does not mention Scientology.[^7]
 ### Protocol Development and Pat Price
@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ Pat Price, a retired [[Burbank, California|Burbank]] police commissioner introdu
 Price died of a reported heart attack in [[Las Vegas]] in July 1975, under circumstances Puthoff considered potentially suspicious. His suitcase of remote viewing notes and CIA materials disappeared before Puthoff arrived in Las Vegas. No evidence of foul play was established.
-On September 26, 1977, Puthoff sent Dave Johnson, whose office the memorandum does not give, the reply of Senator [[William Proxmire]] to a letter from a Wisconsin-born colleague: "Since fear of the 'Proxmire Effect' is often cited in discussions with sponsors and potential sponsors, I asked a friend of mine in psychoenergetics research to query his senator with regard to this field."[^2]
+On September 26, 1977, Puthoff sent Dave Johnson, whose office the memorandum does not give, the reply of Senator [[William Proxmire]] to a letter from a Wisconsin-born colleague: "Since fear of the 'Proxmire Effect' is often cited in discussions with sponsors and potential sponsors, I asked a friend of mine in psychoenergetics research to query his senator with regard to this field."[^8]
 ### Published Research
@ -76,11 +76,11 @@ Puthoff and Targ published the SRI program's experimental results in two major p
 The *Nature* paper represented an unusual case of a mainstream scientific journal publishing parapsychology research; the editorial board attached a statement acknowledging the reviewers' uncertainty about publication. The IEEE paper presented data across multiple subjects and sessions, including [[Hella Hammid]], a German-American photographer included specifically to test whether anomalous results were limited to self-identified psychics.
-The Army's [[Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee]] of 1979 reviewed a paper of Puthoff's, "Potential Criticisms and Responses," setting out nine criticisms of the SRI work with his answers (experiment selection, data selection, cueing, "educated guess," target limitations, target generality, "read-in" matches, handling of judging materials, and post hoc photography), and found most "at least partially valid": SRI "ran 7000+ experiments with Swann" of which "only a fraction appear in the literature"; of the term "double-blind," "the word clearly does not apply in either the traditional, or in a meaningful, sense to the SRI protocol"; and "was the San Andres airfield photograph taken after the judging? Why do aspect angles of photographs always coincide with the direction from which the Subject 'views' the target?" Against the authors' claim to have "in five years of self- and other criticism... not found a way to fault either the experimental protocols or the conclusions derived therefrom," the annex answered: "I do not agree, and I believe that careful evaluation amply documents numerous such faults."[^3]
+The Army's [[Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee]] of 1979 reviewed a paper of Puthoff's, "Potential Criticisms and Responses," setting out nine criticisms of the SRI work with his answers (experiment selection, data selection, cueing, "educated guess," target limitations, target generality, "read-in" matches, handling of judging materials, and post hoc photography), and found most "at least partially valid": SRI "ran 7000+ experiments with Swann" of which "only a fraction appear in the literature"; of the term "double-blind," "the word clearly does not apply in either the traditional, or in a meaningful, sense to the SRI protocol"; and "was the San Andres airfield photograph taken after the judging? Why do aspect angles of photographs always coincide with the direction from which the Subject 'views' the target?" Against the authors' claim to have "in five years of self- and other criticism... not found a way to fault either the experimental protocols or the conclusions derived therefrom," the annex answered: "I do not agree, and I believe that careful evaluation amply documents numerous such faults."[^9]
-The 1979 evaluation by [[Harry Snyder|Harry]] and [[Arlene Snyder|Arlene]] Snyder of [[Systemetrics]], held by the CIA, reproduced his protocol "as described in a written communication from H. Puthoff to a sponsor in late 1977," noted that in the alphabet-letter experiments "Puthoff did the judging," quoted his letter of March 28, 1978, to Karnes and Susman of [[Denver]] ("We have found remote viewing to be extremely sensitive to the feedback parameters"), and of his and Targ's claim to have found no fault in five years, "we do not agree." To [[David Marks]] he wrote on July 10, 1978, that "neither the single judge ([[Arthur Hastings|Hastings]]) nor the panel of five judges were given the order; they were kept blind," in May 1979 that the transcripts could not be released "since premature disclosure would prevent further blind analysis work," and on August 25, 1980, that "the published list of the targets was in the order of target usage, and that, furthermore, when the target list was provided to the judge, it was inadvertently (through an error) given in the same order."[^4]
+The 1979 evaluation by [[Harry Snyder|Harry]] and [[Arlene Snyder|Arlene]] Snyder of [[Systemetrics]], held by the CIA, reproduced his protocol "as described in a written communication from H. Puthoff to a sponsor in late 1977," noted that in the alphabet-letter experiments "Puthoff did the judging," quoted his letter of March 28, 1978, to Karnes and Susman of [[Denver]] ("We have found remote viewing to be extremely sensitive to the feedback parameters"), and of his and Targ's claim to have found no fault in five years, "we do not agree." To [[David Marks]] he wrote on July 10, 1978, that "neither the single judge ([[Arthur Hastings|Hastings]]) nor the panel of five judges were given the order; they were kept blind," in May 1979 that the transcripts could not be released "since premature disclosure would prevent further blind analysis work," and on August 25, 1980, that "the published list of the targets was in the order of target usage, and that, furthermore, when the target list was provided to the judge, it was inadvertently (through an error) given in the same order."[^10]
-His "Standard Remote-Viewing Protocol (Local Targets)" with Targ, of November 1978, held by the CIA, prescribed a target list prepared "by an experimenter who will not interact with the subject after that," selection by "a [[Texas Instruments]] SR-51 hand calculator, which has a random-number function," fifteen-minute viewings, "no hypnosis, strobe lights, or sensory-deprivation procedures," feedback at the site "for each experiment to ensure success," and judging by direct matching or rank ordering. On August 3, 1979, he wrote to [[Manfred Gale]] that the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee had "all but skipped Part 2 on scientific questions" at its SRI visit and that "it is incumbent on the committee members to obtain a more thorough grounding in the technical details," enclosing a revised procedure with Targ and May; on March 19, 1980, he, Targ and May wrote to [[Walter LaBerge]] that "based on a recommendation of the Gale Committee, [[Office of the Director of Defense Research and Engineering|ODDR&E]] will not provide support for R&D efforts in the Grill Flame area," that "we were not mandated to undertake formal proof-of-principle research," and that their results had been described by clients "as being of vital importance to the national interests."[^5]
+His "Standard Remote-Viewing Protocol (Local Targets)" with Targ, of November 1978, held by the CIA, prescribed a target list prepared "by an experimenter who will not interact with the subject after that," selection by "a [[Texas Instruments]] SR-51 hand calculator, which has a random-number function," fifteen-minute viewings, "no hypnosis, strobe lights, or sensory-deprivation procedures," feedback at the site "for each experiment to ensure success," and judging by direct matching or rank ordering. On August 3, 1979, he wrote to [[Manfred Gale]] that the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee had "all but skipped Part 2 on scientific questions" at its SRI visit and that "it is incumbent on the committee members to obtain a more thorough grounding in the technical details," enclosing a revised procedure with Targ and May; on March 19, 1980, he, Targ and May wrote to [[Walter LaBerge]] that "based on a recommendation of the Gale Committee, [[Office of the Director of Defense Research and Engineering|ODDR&E]] will not provide support for R&D efforts in the Grill Flame area," that "we were not mandated to undertake formal proof-of-principle research," and that their results had been described by clients "as being of vital importance to the national interests."[^11]
 ### Transition and Departure from SRI
@ -90,28 +90,34 @@ After leaving SRI, Puthoff founded [[EarthTech International|EarthTech]] Interna
 ### UFO-Related Contacts, 1985 to 1996
-A page of handwritten notes by [[Oke Shannon]] of [[Los Alamos]], headed "Attendees" and placed by the authors of the [[Loose Threads Report]] at a meeting of August 7, 1985 labeled "ATP Ten," lists "Hal Puthoff" among participants in the [[Advanced Theoretical Physics Working Group]] convened by [[John B. Alexander]] in the [[BDM Corporation|BDM]] facility at [[McLean, Virginia]]; those authors write that Shannon's notes of the first meeting show Puthoff giving a presentation on remote viewing.[^6] [[Jacques Vallee]] recorded a 1989 telephone conversation in which Puthoff said that Alexander had briefed "the head of [[NORAD|Norad]], the head of the [[United States Space Command|Space Command]], the top guy at [[Strategic Defense Initiative|SDI]]" and that "a lot of people had been briefed and had agreed to cooperate"; Vallee's account has Puthoff conceding that the plan "may have been killed by someone deciding that the timing was wrong, or they were the wrong people, or the approach was bad."[^7] At the 2018 conference of the [[Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies]], asked about Alexander's conclusion that no program could be found, he answered that "somebody else [was] doing it" and that "if materials are being held in [[Special Access Programs]], a casual conversation even with high-level people, who know your interest, and they're interested too, won't necessarily reveal facts."[^6]
+A page of handwritten notes by [[Oke Shannon]] of [[Los Alamos]], headed "Attendees" and placed by the authors of the [[Loose Threads Report]] at a meeting of August 7, 1985 labeled "ATP Ten," lists "Hal Puthoff" among participants in the [[Advanced Theoretical Physics Working Group]] convened by [[John B. Alexander]] in the [[BDM Corporation|BDM]] facility at [[McLean, Virginia]]; those authors write that Shannon's notes of the first meeting show Puthoff giving a presentation on remote viewing.[^12] [[Jacques Vallee]] recorded a 1989 telephone conversation in which Puthoff said that Alexander had briefed "the head of [[NORAD|Norad]], the head of the [[United States Space Command|Space Command]], the top guy at [[Strategic Defense Initiative|SDI]]" and that "a lot of people had been briefed and had agreed to cooperate"; Vallee's account has Puthoff conceding that the plan "may have been killed by someone deciding that the timing was wrong, or they were the wrong people, or the approach was bad."[^13] At the 2018 conference of the [[Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies]], asked about Alexander's conclusion that no program could be found, he answered that "somebody else [was] doing it" and that "if materials are being held in [[Special Access Programs]], a casual conversation even with high-level people, who know your interest, and they're interested too, won't necessarily reveal facts."[^12]
-[[Mark Pilkington]] wrote in *[[Mirage Men]]* that at a Denny's restaurant "back in 1986" Kit Green, Puthoff and Vallee "distilled what they knew about the subject into what has become known as the 'core story.'"[^8] Shannon said in a 2022 interview that in 1999 Vice Admiral [[Thomas R. Wilson]] telephoned him to ask whether [[Eric Davis]] could be trusted and "may have even mentioned Hal Puthoff and one or two other people."[^6]
+[[Mark Pilkington]] wrote in *[[Mirage Men]]* that at a Denny's restaurant "back in 1986" Kit Green, Puthoff and Vallee "distilled what they knew about the subject into what has become known as the 'core story.'"[^14] Shannon said in a 2022 interview that in 1999 Vice Admiral [[Thomas R. Wilson]] telephoned him to ask whether [[Eric Davis]] could be trusted and "may have even mentioned Hal Puthoff and one or two other people."[^12]
-On October 17, 1996 [[Laurance Rockefeller]] wrote to [[John Gibbons|John H. Gibbons]] that an international conference on extraterrestrial intelligence and UFOs would be useful, and enclosed with a [[Carl Sagan]] letter a draft invitation to a small meeting on its feasibility. The attached list of suggested invitees, headed "Supplemental Suggestions" after a list from [[Julia Marton-Lefevre]] of the [[International Council of Scientific Unions]], includes Harold Puthoff, "Director, Institute for Advanced Studies," Austin, Texas, with [[Rodney Nichols]] ([[New York Academy of Sciences]]), [[Peter Sturrock]] (Stanford), [[William Golden]], [[Charles M. Vest]] ([[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]]), [[Daniel S. Goldin]] ([[NASA]]), [[Frank D. Drake]], [[Gordon Cooper]] and [[Harold Aspden]]. The letter describes the proposed meeting as "informal and off the record," of "6-10 people," in [[New York City|New York]] in the first quarter of 1997.[^9] [[Richard J. Boylan]] listed Puthoff as Owl in a roster of the [[The Aviary|Aviary]].[^10]
+On October 17, 1996 [[Laurance Rockefeller]] wrote to [[John Gibbons|John H. Gibbons]] that an international conference on extraterrestrial intelligence and UFOs would be useful, and enclosed with a [[Carl Sagan]] letter a draft invitation to a small meeting on its feasibility. The attached list of suggested invitees, headed "Supplemental Suggestions" after a list from [[Julia Marton-Lefevre]] of the [[International Council of Scientific Unions]], includes Harold Puthoff, "Director, Institute for Advanced Studies," Austin, Texas, with [[Rodney Nichols]] ([[New York Academy of Sciences]]), [[Peter Sturrock]] (Stanford), [[William Golden]], [[Charles M. Vest]] ([[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]]), [[Daniel S. Goldin]] ([[NASA]]), [[Frank D. Drake]], [[Gordon Cooper]] and [[Harold Aspden]]. The letter describes the proposed meeting as "informal and off the record," of "6-10 people," in [[New York City|New York]] in the first quarter of 1997.[^15] [[Richard J. Boylan]] listed Puthoff as Owl in a roster of the [[The Aviary|Aviary]].[^16]
 ### AATIP and Later Work
 Puthoff contributed as a scientific consultant to the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), the Pentagon program that investigated Unidentified Aerial Phenomena from approximately 2007 to 2012 under [[Luis D. Elizondo III|Luis Elizondo]]. His contribution included commissioning and reviewing Defense Intelligence Reference Documents (DIRDs) - theoretical analyses of advanced aerospace concepts including warp drives, traversable wormholes, negative energy, and exotic propulsion systems. His EarthTech research in zero-point energy physics made him the natural contractor for the theoretical physics studies that formed part of AATIP's research portfolio.
-Puthoff became a founding member and scientific advisor to To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science (TTSA), the public benefit corporation established by [[Tom DeLonge]] in 2017, which published three unclassified [[United States Navy|Navy]] videos of UAP encounters that the [[Department of Defense]] stated on April 27, 2020 it had authorized for release after "unauthorized releases in 2007 and 2017,"[^11] and became a public vehicle for intelligence community-adjacent UAP disclosure.
+Puthoff became a founding member and scientific advisor to To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science (TTSA), the public benefit corporation established by [[Tom DeLonge]] in 2017, which published three unclassified [[United States Navy|Navy]] videos of UAP encounters that the [[Department of Defense]] stated on April 27, 2020 it had authorized for release after "unauthorized releases in 2007 and 2017,"[^17] and became a public vehicle for intelligence community-adjacent UAP disclosure.
 ### Footnotes
-[^1]: Puthoff, H. E. "CIA-Initiated Remote Viewing Program at Stanford Research Institute," *Journal of Scientific Exploration,* vol. 10, no. 1, 1996, pp. 63-76. Read in a mirror copy; the journal's own site refused the fetch.
+[^1]: Jim Schnabel, *Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America's Psychic Spies* (Dell, 1997), passage on Scientology following the Nature publication and Time cover story; chapter notes "Puthoff and Swann resign: Puthoff; Swann" and "Scientologists everywhere: Swann; Wilhelm 1976." https://archive.org/details/jim-schnabel-remote-viewers-the-secret-history-of-americas-psychic-spies_2
-[^2]: Puthoff, H. E., memorandum to Dave Johnson, "Proxmire Response Re Psychoenergetics," September 26, 1977, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200020042-4. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
+[^2]: Leon Jaroff, "Boom Times on the Psychic Frontier," *Time*, March 4, 1974 (CIA-RDP96-00787R000100030002-8). https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000100030002-8
-[^3]: *Report by the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee,* December 1979, Manfred Gale, chairman, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
+[^3]: Ray Hyman, "Psychics and Scientists: 'Mind-Reach' and Remote Viewing," *The Humanist*, May/June 1977 (CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080037-4). https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000200080037-4
-[^4]: Snyder, Harry L., and Arlene G. Snyder. *Summary and Critical Evaluation of Research in Remote Viewing,* Report RV-79-1, final technical report, contract 77F104420, Systemetrics, Inc., Blacksburg, Virginia, June 1, 1979, parts 1 and 2, CIA-RDP96-00791R000100440001-9 and CIA-RDP96-00787R000100260003-2. The sponsor of the contract is not named in the report. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Marks, David F. "Remote Viewing Revisited." *Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 6, no. 4, Summer 1982, pp. 18-29. https://cdn.centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/1982/07/22165420/p20.pdf
+[^4]: John L. Wilhelm, "The Scientology Link," *Washington Post*, 1977, in CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001700360003-3
-[^5]: Puthoff, Harold E., and Russell Targ. "Standard Remote-Viewing Protocol (Local Targets)." SRI International, November 1978, CIA-RDP96-00787R000500400001-4 (copy at CIA-RDP96-00788R001300050001-3). Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Puthoff, H. E., to Manfred Gale, "SRI/Gale Committee Meeting of 24-25 July," August 3, 1979, with the enclosure "Standard Remote Viewing (RV) Procedures: Local Sites," by H. E. Puthoff, R. Targ and E. C. May, August 1979, CIA-RDP96-00787R000100060001-6 (memorandum alone at CIA-RDP96-00788R002000240028-5). Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Puthoff, H. E., R. Targ and E. C. May, Radio Physics Laboratory, SRI International, to Walter B. LaBerge, Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, March 19, 1980, SRI 0-4132, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230031-1. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
+[^5]: "Preliminary Group Report for the Psychological Testing of Subjects from the Parapsychology Study at Stanford Research Institute," unsigned (CIA-RDP96-00787R000200140007-0; duplicate CIA-RDP96-00787R000700090021-5). https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000200140007-0
-[^6]: Elizondo, Daniel, and The Hermetic Penetrator, "The Loose Threads Report," Anomaly Archives, 2022, pp. 15, 25, 28-29, 57-58, https://anomalyarchives.org/wp-content/uploads/PDF-Loose-Threads.pdf. The Shannon page image was read directly; podcast and conference statements are quoted there at second hand. Sole source for the passages so cited.
+[^6]: Jon Atack, "The Central Intelligence Agency and the Church of Scientology," https://religio.de/atack/ciacos.html (the Operating Thetan III statement is Atack's assertion).
-[^7]: Vallee, Jacques. Journal, 1989 telephone conversation with Puthoff, as quoted in the Loose Threads Report, pp. 26-27 (volume not named there; the year falls in *Forbidden Science: Volume Three*).
+[^7]: Puthoff, H. E. "CIA-Initiated Remote Viewing Program at Stanford Research Institute," *Journal of Scientific Exploration,* vol. 10, no. 1, 1996, pp. 63-76. Read in a mirror copy; the journal's own site refused the fetch.
-[^8]: Pilkington, Mark. *Mirage Men.* 2010, chapter "The Man in the White Coat" (the Denny's statement is Pilkington's narration), https://avalonlibrary.net/ebooks/Mark%20Pilkington%20-%20Mirage%20Men%20-%20A%20Journey%20into%20Disinformation,%20Paranoia%20and%20UFOs.pdf. Sole source for the passages so cited.
+[^8]: Puthoff, H. E., memorandum to Dave Johnson, "Proxmire Response Re Psychoenergetics," September 26, 1977, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200020042-4. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
-[^9]: Rockefeller, Laurance S., letter of October 17, 1996 with "Suggested Invitees for the Meeting of Scientists," Clinton Presidential Library, Office of Science and Technology Policy FOIA 01-22, item 72, https://avalonlibrary.net/Grant_Cameron/Clinton_Presidential_Library_collection/OSTP%20-%20FOIA%2001%2022/ (file "1996 10 17_Laurance Rockefeller to John Gibbons"). The OSTP routing slip addresses the letter to Gibbons; the invitation text and invitee list are enclosures.
+[^9]: *Report by the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee,* December 1979, Manfred Gale, chairman, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
-[^10]: Boylan, Richard J. "UFO/ET-Disclosure Policy Splits Covert Network," *Perceptions,* http://web.archive.org/web/20130831033026/http://www.think-aboutit.com/ufo/aviary.htm. Sole source.
+[^10]: Snyder, Harry L., and Arlene G. Snyder. *Summary and Critical Evaluation of Research in Remote Viewing,* Report RV-79-1, final technical report, contract 77F104420, Systemetrics, Inc., Blacksburg, Virginia, June 1, 1979, parts 1 and 2, CIA-RDP96-00791R000100440001-9 and CIA-RDP96-00787R000100260003-2. The sponsor of the contract is not named in the report. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Marks, David F. "Remote Viewing Revisited." *Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 6, no. 4, Summer 1982, pp. 18-29. https://cdn.centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/1982/07/22165420/p20.pdf
-[^11]: U.S. Department of Defense. "Statement by the Department of Defense on the Release of Historical Navy Videos," April 27, 2020. https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2165713/statement-by-the-department-of-defense-on-the-release-of-historical-navy-videos/ (read through the Internet Archive capture, https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2165713/statement-by-the-department-of-defense-on-the-release-of-historical-navy-videos/). Greenewald, John, Jr. "Navy Officially Releases UFO/UAP Videos, Calls Them 'Historical.'" The Black Vault, April 27, 2020 (reproduces the statement and gives the GOFAST date). https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/navy-officially-releases-ufo-uap-videos-calls-them-historical/
+[^11]: Puthoff, Harold E., and Russell Targ. "Standard Remote-Viewing Protocol (Local Targets)." SRI International, November 1978, CIA-RDP96-00787R000500400001-4 (copy at CIA-RDP96-00788R001300050001-3). Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Puthoff, H. E., to Manfred Gale, "SRI/Gale Committee Meeting of 24-25 July," August 3, 1979, with the enclosure "Standard Remote Viewing (RV) Procedures: Local Sites," by H. E. Puthoff, R. Targ and E. C. May, August 1979, CIA-RDP96-00787R000100060001-6 (memorandum alone at CIA-RDP96-00788R002000240028-5). Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Puthoff, H. E., R. Targ and E. C. May, Radio Physics Laboratory, SRI International, to Walter B. LaBerge, Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, March 19, 1980, SRI 0-4132, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230031-1. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
 [^12]: Elizondo, Daniel, and The Hermetic Penetrator, "The Loose Threads Report," Anomaly Archives, 2022, pp. 15, 25, 28-29, 57-58, https://anomalyarchives.org/wp-content/uploads/PDF-Loose-Threads.pdf. The Shannon page image was read directly; podcast and conference statements are quoted there at second hand. Sole source for the passages so cited.
 [^13]: Vallee, Jacques. Journal, 1989 telephone conversation with Puthoff, as quoted in the Loose Threads Report, pp. 26-27 (volume not named there; the year falls in *Forbidden Science: Volume Three*).
 [^14]: Pilkington, Mark. *Mirage Men.* 2010, chapter "The Man in the White Coat" (the Denny's statement is Pilkington's narration), https://avalonlibrary.net/ebooks/Mark%20Pilkington%20-%20Mirage%20Men%20-%20A%20Journey%20into%20Disinformation,%20Paranoia%20and%20UFOs.pdf. Sole source for the passages so cited.
 [^15]: Rockefeller, Laurance S., letter of October 17, 1996 with "Suggested Invitees for the Meeting of Scientists," Clinton Presidential Library, Office of Science and Technology Policy FOIA 01-22, item 72, https://avalonlibrary.net/Grant_Cameron/Clinton_Presidential_Library_collection/OSTP%20-%20FOIA%2001%2022/ (file "1996 10 17_Laurance Rockefeller to John Gibbons"). The OSTP routing slip addresses the letter to Gibbons; the invitation text and invitee list are enclosures.
 [^16]: Boylan, Richard J. "UFO/ET-Disclosure Policy Splits Covert Network," *Perceptions,* http://web.archive.org/web/20130831033026/http://www.think-aboutit.com/ufo/aviary.htm. Sole source.
 [^17]: U.S. Department of Defense. "Statement by the Department of Defense on the Release of Historical Navy Videos," April 27, 2020. https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2165713/statement-by-the-department-of-defense-on-the-release-of-historical-navy-videos/ (read through the Internet Archive capture, https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2165713/statement-by-the-department-of-defense-on-the-release-of-historical-navy-videos/). Greenewald, John, Jr. "Navy Officially Releases UFO/UAP Videos, Calls Them 'Historical.'" The Black Vault, April 27, 2020 (reproduces the statement and gives the GOFAST date). https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/navy-officially-releases-ufo-uap-videos-calls-them-historical/
--- a/PEOPLE/(N-S)/Ingo
+++ b/PEOPLE/(N-S)/Ingo
@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ By the early 1970s, Swann was participating as a paid research subject in paraps
 ### Scientology Background
-Swann was a practicing member of the [[Church of Scientology]] from the mid-1960s through at least the early 1970s, reaching advanced levels in Scientology's training hierarchy. He subsequently maintained that his Scientology background was irrelevant to his remote viewing abilities, which he characterized as natural sensory phenomena rather than church-specific training. The CIA's internal program assessments flagged the Scientology affiliations of Swann, Price, and Puthoff as a counterintelligence concern, and the church's possible exploitation of the program was considered in internal reviews.
+Swann joined [[Scientology]] in the 1960s and "would later resign," according to [[Jim Schnabel]].[^1] The [[Time (magazine)|Time]] cover story of March 4, 1974 wrote that Hal Puthoff promoted "the bizarre and controversial cult of Scientology" and that Swann, "another psychic tested by S.R.I., also practices" it.[^2] In the Washington Post in 1977, [[John L. Wilhelm]] wrote that Swann "helped to establish Scientology's 'Celebrity Center' in Los Angeles, the headquarters recently raided by the FBI," and that at his original SRI testing Swann "revealed that there are 'fourteen Clears [a medium-high level of Scientology achievement], more than I would suspect,' working at SRI."[^3] [[Tony Ortega]] published a paper by Swann for the First Conference on Psychotronic Research in Czechoslovakia in 1973, titled "Scientological Techniques: A Model Paradigm for the Exploration of Consciousness and Psychic Integration."[^4] In a preliminary report on psychological testing of six SRI subjects, an unsigned clinician wrote that "at least four of the subjects in this study describe to me an interest in scientology and two of them indicate that they have been involved in the Church of Scientology for some time."[^5]
 ### SRI Magnetometer Experiment and CIA Contact (1972)
@ -49,11 +49,11 @@ After Price's death in 1975, Swann returned to SRI and worked with Puthoff to fo
 ### The SCANATE Sessions
-SRI's SCANATE report records that "as a result of the experimentation carried out on what might be termed micro-abilities, Swann expressed the opinion that the insights obtained had strengthened a macro-ability which had been researched prior to his joining the SRI program; namely, the ability to view remote locations." In a training series "100 targets on the earth's surface, ten per day for ten days, were chosen at random," Swann "being given a target location by latitude and longitude only," each run of ten finished "in less than thirty minutes"; the report itself cautioned that "an individual could, in principle, obtain good results on the basis of memory" or "subliminally from an experimenter who knows the target location." On May 29, 1973, at 4:34 in the afternoon, Hal Puthoff gave him coordinates supplied by the sponsor, 38°23'N, 79°25'W, "described simply as being in [[West Virginia]]," with no maps, on videotape: "This seems to be some sort of mounds or rolling hills. There is a city to the north (I can see the taller buildings and some smog). This seems to be a strange place, somewhat like the lawns that one would find around a military base, but I get the impression that there are either some old bunkers around, or maybe this is a covered reservoir. There must be a flagpole, some highways to the west, possibly a river over to the far east, to the south more city." The next morning: "Cliffs to the east, fence to the north. There's a circular building (a tower?), buildings to the south. Is this a former Nike base or something like that? I seem to get the impression of something underground, but I'm not sure." On July 21, 1973, given 49°20'S, 70°14'E, he said: "My initial response is that it's an island, maybe a mountain sticking up through a cloud cover," with buildings "rather mathematically laid out," one orange, "something like a radar antenna, a round disc," two white cylindrical tanks, and "to the northwest a small airstrip," and the next day mapped its coastline. Later, surprised in a New York hotel room with an abacus locked in the adjoining room, bought as "a target analogous to a cipher machine of particular interest," he drew its outline "in approximately one minute" and called it "a game box with little balls." The 1975 final report's West Virginia sessions are coded to subject S3.[^1]
+SRI's SCANATE report records that "as a result of the experimentation carried out on what might be termed micro-abilities, Swann expressed the opinion that the insights obtained had strengthened a macro-ability which had been researched prior to his joining the SRI program; namely, the ability to view remote locations." In a training series "100 targets on the earth's surface, ten per day for ten days, were chosen at random," Swann "being given a target location by latitude and longitude only," each run of ten finished "in less than thirty minutes"; the report itself cautioned that "an individual could, in principle, obtain good results on the basis of memory" or "subliminally from an experimenter who knows the target location." On May 29, 1973, at 4:34 in the afternoon, Hal Puthoff gave him coordinates supplied by the sponsor, 38°23'N, 79°25'W, "described simply as being in [[West Virginia]]," with no maps, on videotape: "This seems to be some sort of mounds or rolling hills. There is a city to the north (I can see the taller buildings and some smog). This seems to be a strange place, somewhat like the lawns that one would find around a military base, but I get the impression that there are either some old bunkers around, or maybe this is a covered reservoir. There must be a flagpole, some highways to the west, possibly a river over to the far east, to the south more city." The next morning: "Cliffs to the east, fence to the north. There's a circular building (a tower?), buildings to the south. Is this a former Nike base or something like that? I seem to get the impression of something underground, but I'm not sure." On July 21, 1973, given 49°20'S, 70°14'E, he said: "My initial response is that it's an island, maybe a mountain sticking up through a cloud cover," with buildings "rather mathematically laid out," one orange, "something like a radar antenna, a round disc," two white cylindrical tanks, and "to the northwest a small airstrip," and the next day mapped its coastline. Later, surprised in a New York hotel room with an abacus locked in the adjoining room, bought as "a target analogous to a cipher machine of particular interest," he drew its outline "in approximately one minute" and called it "a game box with little balls." The 1975 final report's West Virginia sessions are coded to subject S3.[^6]
-At [[Maimonides Medical Center]], in an experiment reported to the American Physical Society in February 1976, [[Edwin May]] and [[Charles Honorton]] had him attempt to influence a noise-driven binary random generator: 29 runs gave a mean of 493 against 500 expected (p = 0.011), improving as he was moved twelve feet away behind "two double steel walls," while a control run after he left gave 499.7. "We conclude that Mr. Swann was successful in exerting a psychokinetic influence on the instrument." The SRI final report's instrumented magnetometer series of 1974 and 1975, thirteen ten-trial runs on a Develco gradiometer at four metres giving p = 0.004, was run with subject S1, the code that matches Pat Price's sessions, not S3; the "early research (1972)" perturbation "of a Josephson effect magnetometer" is described there as a pilot study of "a few hours" that "prevented a proper investigation." He visited the [[Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity]] on October 17, 1978, and was still reporting to Puthoff as a consultant in April 1984.[^2]
+At [[Maimonides Medical Center]], in an experiment reported to the American Physical Society in February 1976, [[Edwin May]] and [[Charles Honorton]] had him attempt to influence a noise-driven binary random generator: 29 runs gave a mean of 493 against 500 expected (p = 0.011), improving as he was moved twelve feet away behind "two double steel walls," while a control run after he left gave 499.7. "We conclude that Mr. Swann was successful in exerting a psychokinetic influence on the instrument." The SRI final report's instrumented magnetometer series of 1974 and 1975, thirteen ten-trial runs on a Develco gradiometer at four metres giving p = 0.004, was run with subject S1, the code that matches Pat Price's sessions, not S3; the "early research (1972)" perturbation "of a Josephson effect magnetometer" is described there as a pilot study of "a few hours" that "prevented a proper investigation." He visited the [[Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity]] on October 17, 1978, and was still reporting to Puthoff as a consultant in April 1984.[^7]
-The report of the Army's [[Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee]] of December 1979 recorded that "in July 1978, DIA sponsored a series of four unique experiments" in which "the DIA Project Officer had prepared three sets of Soviet/Bloc target coordinates, and one US control set," and that "Swann provided a 'moderate to high', lengthy description of the last target, a Soviet strategic missile field east of Moscow... Swann passed through a silo cover, 'traveling' down until reaching a connecting tunnel. Going through this passageway he entered a command and control room. One comment, among many, stands out: 'The floors are paved in "white tiles".'" The same report put SRI's experiments with him at "7000+," "only a fraction" of them published.[^3]
+The report of the Army's [[Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee]] of December 1979 recorded that "in July 1978, DIA sponsored a series of four unique experiments" in which "the DIA Project Officer had prepared three sets of Soviet/Bloc target coordinates, and one US control set," and that "Swann provided a 'moderate to high', lengthy description of the last target, a Soviet strategic missile field east of Moscow... Swann passed through a silo cover, 'traveling' down until reaching a connecting tunnel. Going through this passageway he entered a command and control room. One comment, among many, stands out: 'The floors are paved in "white tiles".'" The same report put SRI's experiments with him at "7000+," "only a fraction" of them published.[^8]
 ### Training the Army Program
@ -67,6 +67,11 @@ Swann maintained an active painting career throughout his life, exhibiting abstr
 ### Footnotes
-[^1]: Stanford Research Institute, "Project SCANATE, Exploratory Research in Remote Viewing," 1973, CIA-RDP96-00791R000100480002-4. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Puthoff, Harold E., and Russell Targ. *Perceptual Augmentation Techniques,* final report, part two, research report, December 1, 1975, SRI Project 3183, 153 pp., CIA-RDP96-00791R000100410001-2. The report codes its subjects; S3 and S1 are identified as Swann and Price by matching their responses to the named sessions in the SCANATE report. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
+[^1]: Jim Schnabel, *Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America's Psychic Spies* (Dell, 1997), passage on Scientology following the Time cover story; chapter note "Puthoff and Swann resign: Puthoff; Swann." https://archive.org/details/jim-schnabel-remote-viewers-the-secret-history-of-americas-psychic-spies_2
-[^2]: May, Edwin C., and Charles Honorton. "A Dynamic PK Experiment with Ingo Swann," Maimonides Medical Center, abstract for the American Physical Society meeting of February 1976, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200130005-3. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Puthoff, Harold E., and Russell Targ. *Perceptual Augmentation Techniques,* final report, part one, executive summary, SRI Project 3183, covering January 1974 to February 1975, CIA-RDP96-00791R000100420001-1. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Puthoff, Harold E., and Russell Targ. *Perceptual Augmentation Techniques,* final report, part two, research report, December 1, 1975, SRI Project 3183, 153 pp., CIA-RDP96-00791R000100410001-2. The report codes its subjects; S3 and S1 are identified as Swann and Price by matching their responses to the named sessions in the SCANATE report. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. "Visit of Ingo Swann to AMSAA, 17 October 1978," CIA-RDP96-00788R001200240010-3, and "Memo to Dr. H.E. Puthoff from I. Swann, Consultant, Subject: Work Report," April 15, 1984, CIA-RDP96-00792R000100140033-6, titles only.
+[^2]: Leon Jaroff, "Boom Times on the Psychic Frontier," *Time*, March 4, 1974 (CIA-RDP96-00787R000100030002-8). https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000100030002-8
-[^3]: *Report by the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee,* December 1979, Manfred Gale, chairman, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
+[^3]: John L. Wilhelm, "The Scientology Link," *Washington Post*, 1977, in CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001700360003-3
 [^4]: Tony Ortega, as cited on the vault page Scientology for the paper's title and the 1973 conference (not independently opened; coordinator should reopen before merging). Sole source for the passages so cited.
 [^5]: "Preliminary Group Report for the Psychological Testing of Subjects from the Parapsychology Study at Stanford Research Institute," unsigned (CIA-RDP96-00787R000200140007-0). https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000200140007-0
 [^6]: Stanford Research Institute, "Project SCANATE, Exploratory Research in Remote Viewing," 1973, CIA-RDP96-00791R000100480002-4. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Puthoff, Harold E., and Russell Targ. *Perceptual Augmentation Techniques,* final report, part two, research report, December 1, 1975, SRI Project 3183, 153 pp., CIA-RDP96-00791R000100410001-2. The report codes its subjects; S3 and S1 are identified as Swann and Price by matching their responses to the named sessions in the SCANATE report. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
 [^7]: May, Edwin C., and Charles Honorton. "A Dynamic PK Experiment with Ingo Swann," Maimonides Medical Center, abstract for the American Physical Society meeting of February 1976, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200130005-3. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Puthoff, Harold E., and Russell Targ. *Perceptual Augmentation Techniques,* final report, part one, executive summary, SRI Project 3183, covering January 1974 to February 1975, CIA-RDP96-00791R000100420001-1. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Puthoff, Harold E., and Russell Targ. *Perceptual Augmentation Techniques,* final report, part two, research report, December 1, 1975, SRI Project 3183, 153 pp., CIA-RDP96-00791R000100410001-2. The report codes its subjects; S3 and S1 are identified as Swann and Price by matching their responses to the named sessions in the SCANATE report. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. "Visit of Ingo Swann to AMSAA, 17 October 1978," CIA-RDP96-00788R001200240010-3, and "Memo to Dr. H.E. Puthoff from I. Swann, Consultant, Subject: Work Report," April 15, 1984, CIA-RDP96-00792R000100140033-6, titles only.
 [^8]: *Report by the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee,* December 1979, Manfred Gale, chairman, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
--- a/PEOPLE/(N-S)/Richard
+++ b/PEOPLE/(N-S)/Richard
@ -3,61 +3,105 @@ category: "Intelligence & Government"
 tags:
  - Person
  - CIA
-  - Operation_CHAOS
+  - OperationCHAOS
  - Counterintelligence
-  - Church_Committee
+  - ChurchCommittee
  - RockefellerCommission
  - Nixon
-  - Cold_War
+  - Watergate
-  - 1960s
+  - ColdWar
-  - 1970s
+aliases:
-summary: "CIA counterintelligence officer who directed Operation CHAOS (MHCHAOS) from its 1967 creation to its March 1974 termination, reporting to James Angleton."
+  - Dick Ober
-born: 1921-01-01
+  - Richard Ober
-died: 2001-09-11
+created: 2026-05-15
 updated: 2026-10-05
 summary: "CIA counterintelligence officer who headed the Special Operations Group that ran Operation CHAOS from August 1967, later Director for Intelligence Coordination at the National Security Council (1974 to 1976)."
 born: 1921
 died: 2001
 location: "Fairfax Station, Virginia"
 relations:
  - type: employed_by
    with: "[[Central Intelligence Agency]]"
    start: 1948
    end: 1980
    role: "career officer; Special Operations Group, Counterintelligence Staff, 1967 to 1972"
    fn: 1
  - type: head_of
    with: "[[Operation CHAOS]]"
    start: 1967-08
    end: 1972
    role: "chief of the Special Operations Group, Counterintelligence Staff"
    fn: 2
  - type: reported_to
    with: "[[James Jesus Angleton]]"
    start: 1967-08
    end: 1972
    role: "Chief of Counterintelligence, described by the Church Committee as Ober's immediate superior"
    fn: 2
  - type: employed_by
    with: "[[National Security Council]]"
    start: 1974
    end: 1976
    role: "Director for Intelligence Coordination"
    fn: 1
  - type: participant_in
    with: "[[Church Committee]]"
    start: 1975-10-28
    end: 1975-10-30
    role: "testified October 28 and 30, 1975"
    fn: 2
  - type: participant_in
    with: "[[Rockefeller Commission 1975]]"
    start: 1975-03-28
    role: "testified March 28, 1975"
    fn: 2
 ---
 Richard Ober (born 1921, New York City; died 2001, Fairfax Station, Virginia) was a career [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] counterintelligence officer. He headed the Special Operations Group of the Agency's [[Counterintelligence Staff]] from August 1967, the unit that ran [[Operation CHAOS]], the program that assembled files on American antiwar, student and Black militant groups. His papers are at the [[Hoover Institution]]. A 1979 book by [[Deborah Davis]] named him as [[Deep Throat]].[^1]
-Richard Ober (born approximately 1921; died September 11, 2001) was a [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] counterintelligence officer who directed [[Operation CHAOS]] (operational codeword MHCHAOS) from its creation in August 1967 until its formal termination in March 1974. He reported throughout this period to [[James Jesus Angleton]], the CIA's chief of counterintelligence. After CHAOS was exposed in December 1974 by Seymour Hersh's New York Times reporting, Ober was seconded to the National Security Council rather than dismissed, remaining within the intelligence establishment until his forced departure from the CIA in 1980. He died in Fairfax Station, Virginia, on September 11, 2001, of prostate cancer, aged approximately 80.[^1]
+### Education and CIA career
-### Career
+Ober received an A.B. from [[Harvard University]] in 1943 and served in the [[United States Army]] from 1943 to 1946. He joined the CIA in 1948, took an M.A. at [[Columbia University]], and graduated from the [[National War College]] in 1964 (his papers include a war college file on a student group trip to Africa).[^1]
-Ober was a graduate of Harvard (class of 1943 per Hoover Institution finding aid) who joined the OSS following graduation and served as a liaison with anti-Fascist underground networks in Nazi-occupied Europe. Following the dissolution of the OSS by Executive Order in October 1945, he joined the CIA in the late 1940s. He served for over two decades as a chief deputy to Angleton in the CIA's Counterintelligence Staff before being assigned to head the Special Operations Group (SOG).[^1]
+The Hoover Institution finding aid lists three assignments after 1967: chief of the CIA Counterintelligence Special Operations Group, 1967 to 1972; chief of the Counterintelligence International Terrorism Group, 1972 to 1974; and Director for Intelligence Coordination, [[National Security Council]], 1974 to 1976. He retired from the CIA in 1980.[^1]
-### Appointment to Head MHCHAOS
+### Special Operations Group, 1967 to 1972
-In August 1967, CIA Director [[Richard Helms]] received direct pressure from President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] to determine whether foreign powers were funding and directing the American antiwar movement. Helms tasked Angleton's Counterintelligence Staff with the inquiry; Angleton assigned Ober to head a new unit within the Counterintelligence Staff designated the Special Operations Group. The program's operational codeword was MHCHAOS. CHAOS's formal stated rationale was foreign influence assessment, a framing that gave it a constitutional basis (the CIA's statutory authority to collect foreign intelligence) while allowing it to accumulate domestic files.[^2]
+By early 1967 Ober was investigating possible links between foreign intelligence services and persons connected with [[Ramparts]] magazine, which had that year published an account of CIA relationships with private institutions. He had begun a computerized file on dissident activists connected to the magazine; by August 1967 he estimated he had indexed several hundred Americans and opened perhaps fifty files.[^2]
-### Scale and Operations
+On August 15, 1967, [[Thomas Karamessines]], Deputy Director for Plans, sent [[James Jesus Angleton]] a memorandum titled "Overseas Coverage of Subversive Student and Related Matters." It asked for the "establishment of some sort of system by Dick Ober (or whatever officer you select)." The [[Church Committee]] wrote that Angleton chose Ober to head what became the Special Operations Group within the Counterintelligence Staff. It described Angleton as Ober's immediate superior.[^2]
-The program expanded significantly under the Nixon administration from 1969. At peak operations in 1971, the MHCHAOS Special Operations Group employed 52 personnel. The principal outputs were:
+The Committee recorded Ober's testimony that his operation soon came to include antiwar activists as well as student radicals and Black nationalists, and that his participation in the CIA's October 1967 study for the President on the "International Connections of the United States Peace Movement" made Vietnam protest a major target. He coordinated the Plans Directorate contribution and the receipt of material from the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]]. He also supplied the [[Kerner Commission]] with 26 reports at the request of [[Richard Helms]], and prepared 34 "M" memoranda, reports on particularly sensitive items for the [[White House]], the Attorney General, the Secretary of State and similar officials.[^2]
- The HYDRA computerized database, which ultimately indexed approximately 7,200 American citizens with individual files and cross-referenced approximately 300,000 names and 1,000 domestic organizations
+The [[Rockefeller Commission 1975]] (which referred to him as the Chief of the Operation) found that the group was physically removed from the Counterintelligence Staff and that Angleton, though technically responsible in the chain of command, had little connection with CHAOS operations. It cited a May 1969 CIA memorandum recording that Helms instructed the chief of the operation to refrain from disclosing part of his activities to the Counterintelligence Chief. The Commission also reported that both men considered actual supervisory responsibility to rest with the Director of Central Intelligence.[^3] A memorandum by Ober dated May 29, 1969 set the restricted handling of MHCHAOS cable traffic and provided that none of it would be destroyed by divisions or sent to RID.[^4]
 - More than 5,000 reports disseminated to the FBI over seven years of operation (the Church Committee documented 4,400 memoranda and approximately 1,000 cable disseminations)
 - Six reports compiled directly for the [[White House]]; 34 disseminated to Cabinet-level officials
-Two subprograms fed directly into MHCHAOS: [[Project MERRIMAC]], which placed CIA infiltrators in domestic antiwar and civil rights organizations in Washington D.C., and [[Project RESISTANCE]], which compiled dossiers on radical groups near CIA facilities through coordination with campus administrators and local police. Both subprograms were run through the CIA's Office of Security rather than directly through the Counterintelligence Staff.[^2]
+Ober refused in early 1971 to approve a directive that would have given the [[Domestic Contact Service]] a secondary interest in domestic background, and its reporting to CHAOS was narrowed to information suggesting foreign involvement in American radical activities. A September 10, 1971 cable over his name told a station that named subjects "are not aware MHCHAOS and this subject should not be discussed with them."[^2][^5] His deputy testified to the Church Committee on October 14, 1975 under the alias "James Eatinger."[^2]
-### White House Access
+Ober testified that Helms never pressured him as to the findings reported by the CIA. Helms testified that the White House was dissatisfied with the reports because they did not show "enough foreign money and foreign influence in these dissident movements."[^2]
-One of the most operationally significant aspects of Ober's role was a covert office he maintained inside the White House, known within a restricted circle of Nixon administration principals: President Nixon himself, Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, domestic policy aide John Ehrlichman, and possibly National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger. This arrangement gave Ober direct access to senior White House staff bypassing normal CIA liaison channels, an arrangement that went substantially beyond CHAOS's nominal counterintelligence remit of tracking foreign influence on domestic movements.[^2]
+### Terrorism group and the end of CHAOS
-### Church Committee Investigation
+The Church Committee wrote that Ober had taken on the duties of coordinating the CIA's efforts against international terrorism in the summer of 1972, and that in 1973 CHAOS was transferred from the Counterintelligence Staff to a newly formed Operations Staff in the Plans Directorate. [[William Colby]] terminated CHAOS as a collection program in March 1974 (the Rockefeller Commission gave the date as March 15, 1974).[^2][^3]
-CHAOS was exposed on December 22, 1974 by Seymour Hersh's front-page New York Times article "Huge C.I.A. Operation Reported in U.S. Against Antiwar Forces." DCI [[William Colby]] had already dismissed Angleton on December 17, 1974, before the article appeared, having been warned it was imminent. The Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (the Church Committee) subsequently investigated CHAOS in detail. Ober testified before the committee on October 28, 1975. The committee's findings are documented in Book III of its final report, "CIA Intelligence Collection About Americans: CHAOS and the [[CIA Office of Security|Office of Security]]" (S. Rept. 94-755, April 26, 1976), available at aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/book3/pdf/ChurchB3_9_CHAOS.pdf. The [[Rockefeller Commission 1975|Rockefeller Commission]] also examined CHAOS in its Chapter 11, available at aarclibrary.org/publib/church/rockcomm/pdf/RockComm_Chap11_CHAOS.pdf.[^2]
+### Deborah Davis and Deep Throat, 1979 to 1983
-The committee found that CHAOS violated the CIA's legislative charter prohibiting domestic operations and characterized it as "unlawful." The Rockefeller Commission reported in 1975 that the CHAOS "files and computerized index are still intact."[^3]
+In *Katharine the Great* (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979), [[Deborah Davis]] wrote that Ober was "Angleton's deputy" and "one of the few" men in the CIA whom [[Richard Nixon]] trusted; that Ober "was given a small office inside the White House, where he was known only to Nixon, [[H. R. Haldeman]], [[John Ehrlichman]], and possibly [[Henry Kissinger]]"; and that his name was never recorded in White House logs. The passage is quoted in a biographical note on Ober published by the Spartacus Educational website. X[^2][^3]
-### Post-CHAOS Career
+Davis also wrote that Ober was Deep Throat, the [[Washington Post]] source of [[Bob Woodward]] and [[Carl Bernstein]] on [[Watergate]]. According to a 1983 account by Eve Pell in *The Nation* (clipped in CIA files), a lawyer for Ober wrote on the November 6, 1979 publication day that references to his client were "defamatory and libelous," called Davis's theory that Ober was involved in Watergate dirty tricks a "complete fabrication," and branded as false her assertion that he had been involved with the "Plumbers" group headed by [[E. Howard Hunt]] and [[G. Gordon Liddy]] or had helped plan the break-in at the office of [[Daniel Ellsberg]]'s psychiatrist. Davis agreed to delete the allegations about Watergate involvement; because the lawyer did not deny her claim that Ober was Deep Throat, she let that stand. [[Ben Bradlee]] separately wrote to her editor that she had made thirty-nine errors on thirty-nine pages where his name appeared. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich withdrew as publisher in early 1980, and in October 1983 paid Davis $100,000 to settle her breach-of-contract suit.[^7] The Hoover finding aid describes Davis as having "mistakenly named Ober as Deep Throat" and lists a potential legal case in which Ober figured as a potential plaintiff.[^1][^7]
-After CHAOS's public exposure, Ober was seconded to the National Security Council as its senior staff member for intelligence matters - a significant position suggesting continued institutional trust rather than a punitive reassignment. When the CIA subsequently sought to terminate his employment as public attention to CHAOS created institutional liability, Ober resisted the pressure and was not forced out until 1980, when he retired from what was described as "a counterintelligence post."[^1]
+### National Security Council and retirement
-After leaving the CIA he operated an herb farm at his Fairfax Station home. He died on September 11, 2001, the same day as the September 11 attacks, though his death from prostate cancer was unrelated to them.[^1]
+After CHAOS was reported by [[Seymour Hersh]] in the [[New York Times]] on December 22, 1974, Ober was seconded to the National Security Council as its senior staff member for intelligence matters (Director for Intelligence Coordination, 1974 to 1976). The finding aid states that the publicity prompted the Agency to seek severance of his employment, that he resisted, and that he was retired in 1980.[^1]
-### Papers
+### Testimony, lawsuits and papers
-The Richard Ober Papers, 1942-2001, are held at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives, Stanford University. The finding aid is accessible through the Online Archive of California (OAC), ark:/13030/c81z4b3g. The collection contains correspondence, writings, notes, personnel records, memoranda, reports, legal records, and printed matter relating to his CIA career and Operation CHAOS, including documentation of his Senate Select Committee testimony.[^1]
+Ober testified to the Rockefeller Commission on March 28, 1975, and to the Church Committee on October 28 and 30, 1975.[^2] The Hoover finding aid lists the Rockefeller Commission, [[Murphy Commission]], Church Committee and [[Pike Committee]] files, a Justice Department report file on the mail-opening component, and a legal-cases file concerning civil suits in which Ober was a defendant in all but one. The collection (Richard Ober Papers, 1942 to 2001, acquired by Hoover in 2018) also holds his Army, CIA and National Security Council personnel files.[^1]
 ### Footnotes
-[^1]: "CIA Officer Richard Ober, 80, Dies." Washington Post, September 12, 2001. Richard Ober Papers, 1942-2001, Hoover Institution Library and Archives, Stanford University. Finding aid: Online Archive of California, ark:/13030/c81z4b3g.
+[^1]: "Ober (Richard) papers, 1942-2001," finding aid (biographical note, scope and contents), Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Online Archive of California, ark:/13030/c81z4b3g, prepared by Dale Reed. https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c81z4b3g
-[^2]: Church Committee, "CIA Intelligence Collection About Americans: CHAOS and the Office of Security," Book III, S. Rept. 94-755, April 26, 1976. aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/book3/pdf/ChurchB3_9_CHAOS.pdf. Rockefeller Commission, "Special Operations Group - 'Operation CHAOS,'" Chapter 11. aarclibrary.org/publib/church/rockcomm/pdf/RockComm_Chap11_CHAOS.pdf. Rafalko, Frank J. *MH/CHAOS: The CIA's Campaign Against the Radical New Left and the Black Panthers*. Naval Institute Press, 2011.
+[^2]: Church Committee, *Final Report*, Book III, "CIA Intelligence Collection About Americans: CHAOS and the Office of Security," S. Rept. 94-755, April 26, 1976, pp. 679 to 730 (citing Ober testimony, October 28 and 30, 1975; Ober before the Rockefeller Commission, March 28, 1975; Eatinger testimony, October 14, 1975; Memorandum from Karamessines to Angleton, August 15, 1967). https://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/book3/pdf/ChurchB3_9_CHAOS.pdf
-[^3]: Rockefeller Commission, *Report to the President by the Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States* (June 1975), Chapter 11, "Special Operations Group, 'Operation CHAOS,'" pp. 130 to 151. https://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/rockcomm/pdf/RockComm_Chap11_CHAOS.pdf
+[^3]: Rockefeller Commission, *Report to the President by the Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States* (June 1975), Chapter 11, "Special Operations Group, 'Operation CHAOS,'" pp. 130 to 151, discussion of compartmentation and supervision. https://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/rockcomm/pdf/RockComm_Chap11_CHAOS.pdf
 [^4]: Richard Ober, Memorandum for the Record, "Procedures for Restricted Handling of RYBAT MHCHAOS Traffic," May 29, 1969, CIA Reading Room doc. C01475738. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-01475738
 [^5]: CIA cable from Richard Ober, September 10, 1971, "RYBAT MHCHAOS," CIA Reading Room doc. C01482292. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-01482292
 [^6]: Deborah Davis, *Katharine the Great: Katharine Graham and Her Washington Post Empire* (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979), as quoted in "Richard Ober," Spartacus Educational. https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKober.htm Sole source for the passages so cited on a White House office.
 [^7]: Eve Pell, "Private Censorship: Killing 'Katharine the Great,'" *The Nation*, November 12, 1983, as clipped in CIA-RDP90-00845R000201250018-9. https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP90-00845R000201250018-9
--- a/ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Medellin
+++ b/ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Medellin
@ -3,44 +3,140 @@ title: Medellin Cartel
 aliases:
  - Medellin Cartel
  - Medellín Cartel
  - Medellin Crime Syndicate
  - Medellin cocaine cartel
  - Medellín Cocaine Cartel
  - the Cartel
 created: 2026-05-17
-updated: 2026-09-22
+updated: 2026-10-05
 category: "Organized Crime"
 start: 1976-01-01
 end: 1993-12-31
 location: "Medellín, Colombia"
 tags:
  - Organization
  - DrugCartel
  - Colombia
  - 1980s
  - DarkAllianceInvestigation
-summary: "Colombian drug trafficking organization based in Medellín that dominated the international cocaine trade, driving down U.S. prices and creating conditions for the crack epidemic."
+  - IranContra
  - ContraWar
  - CIADrugTrafficking
  - Noriega
 summary: "The Medellín-based association of Colombian cocaine exporters whose pilots, money launderers, offers of amnesty and Central American routes recur in the Kerry subcommittee record, the Seal sting and the CIA Inspector General's Contra volumes."
 start: 1976-01-01
 end: 1993-12-31
 location: "Medellín, Colombia"
 relations:
  - type: member_of
    with: "[[Pablo Escobar]]"
    reverse: true
    role: "production; later the central figure of the group"
    fn: 1
  - type: member_of
    with: "[[Jorge Ochoa]]"
    reverse: true
    role: "processing and transportation; family leader"
    fn: 1
  - type: member_of
    with: "[[Carlos Lehder]]"
    reverse: true
    start: 1978
    end: 1987-02-04
    role: "distribution; leader of the Norman's Cay smuggling organization until his arrest in Colombia"
    fn: 2
  - type: investigated
    with: "[[DEA]]"
    reverse: true
    start: 1984
    role: "indictments of Escobar and Jorge Ochoa in July 1984 on the strength of Seal's cooperation"
    fn: 9
 ---
-The Medellín Cartel was a Colombian drug trafficking organization based in Medellín, [[Colombia]], that dominated the international cocaine trade during the late 1970s and 1980s. The cartel's massive increase in cocaine production and smuggling drove down wholesale prices in the [[United States]], creating the conditions for the [[Crack Cocaine]] explosion in American inner cities.
+The Medellín Cartel was the name given to an association of Colombian cocaine exporters centered on [[Medellin|Medellín]], [[Colombia]], whose principals in the Senate record were [[Pablo Escobar]], the [[Jorge Ochoa|Ochoa]] family and [[Carlos Lehder]], and in later [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] and [[Central Intelligence Agency]] reporting also José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha.[^1]
-### Revolutionizing Cocaine Smuggling
+### Formation and organization
-By early 1982, the Medellín cartel had perfected its logistics using special airplanes, radar avoidance techniques, and specially designed speedboats to bring in unheard-of amounts of cocaine, mostly through the [[Bahamas]]. The sheer scale of operations was revealed in March 1982 when Customs agents in [[Miami]] searched an airplane owned by a tiny Colombian air cargo company that had flown in from Medellín. Workers were unloading dozens of boxes labeled "jeans," but when an inspector stuck a screwdriver into one, white powder came pouring out. The seizure topped out at 3,906 pounds, nearly four times the previous U.S. cocaine seizure record. Authors Guy Gugliotta and Jeff Leen wrote in *Kings of Cocaine* that it was the [[DEA]]'s "first look at the shadow of the beast." Key architect of the cartel's smuggling revolution was [[Carlos Lehder]].[^1]
+The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations subcommittee chaired by [[John Kerry]] reported that cocaine had been exported from Colombia since the late 1960s by a small Cuban-American group in [[Miami]] using couriers carrying a few kilograms on commercial flights, and that Escobar, Jorge Ochoa and Lehder took over the distribution networks in the 1970s during a period it called the "Cocaine Wars." According to the subcommittee, the separate Colombian organizations joined in 1982 after the guerrilla group [[M-19]] kidnapped a member of the Ochoa family. Jorge Ochoa called a meeting of traffickers at his restaurant outside Medellín, and each who attended reportedly contributed $7 million to an organization called "Death to Kidnappers" (MAS). The subcommittee, citing the testimony of the money launderer [[Ramon Milian Rodriguez]], reported that this group raised a force of 2,000 men, defeated M-19, and then made an alliance with its remnants, who thereafter protected narcotics shipments in return for money and weapons.[^1]
-### Impact on U.S. Drug Prices
+The subcommittee described a division of labor in which Escobar handled production, the Ochoas processing and transportation, and Lehder, before his arrest, distribution, with "underbosses" making arrangements with North American "transportation organizations." It reported law enforcement estimates of more than 8,000 members and annual earnings of about $8 billion, and noted that *Forbes* had listed Ochoa and Escobar among the richest men in the world. It described the Ochoa family ranch, Hacienda Veracruz, as encompassing several towns between Barranquilla and Cartagena.[^1]
-As the cartel's massive loads got through, wholesale cocaine prices in the U.S. began dropping. Between 1979 and 1982, kilo prices fell from around $75,000 to around $60,000. But retail prices remained high (gram prices fell only slightly, from $321 to $259) meaning the cartel's increased supply enriched importers and top-level dealers far more than it made cocaine accessible to low-income users. That gap would later be closed by the invention of crack.[^1]
+### Norman's Cay and the smuggling volume
-### Connection to the Contra Network
+Lehder led a cocaine organization from early 1978 through 1981 whose main base was Norman's Cay in the [[Bahamas]]. According to the Eleventh Circuit, planes carried loads of 150 to 500 kilograms from Colombia to the island, then on to Florida or south Georgia, from where the cocaine was driven to stash houses in Miami; the cash returned through Fort Lauderdale or Miami and was deposited in Bahamian banks or flown elsewhere. Lehder was indicted on September 18, 1981, arrested in Colombia on February 4, 1987, extradited to Jacksonville, convicted on all eleven counts on May 13, 1988, and sentenced on July 20, 1988 to life without parole on the continuing criminal enterprise count plus 120 years on the others.[^2] The Kerry report recorded that [[Robert Vesco]] had arrived in the Bahamas after fleeing the United States in 1972, that Vesco and Lehder became regular companions, and that Lehder used Norman's Cay for smuggling during a period in which Bahamian officials were accused of complicity. It added that the cartels let the Colombian government know they would not object to Lehder's extradition, because according to unnamed sources in the drug world his colleagues thought he talked too much, used cocaine heavily and attracted too much public attention.[^3]
-[[Barry Seal]] was one of the biggest cocaine and marijuana importers in the southern United States, flying loads directly for the Medellín cartel while simultaneously working as a [[Central Intelligence Agency]] and DEA contract agent. Seal moved to [[Mena, Arkansas]] in 1982 and ran drugs and weapons through Intermountain Regional Airport.[^2] [[Danilo Blandon|Danilo Blandón]] told CIA inspectors that he had been to Colombia with [[Ronald Lister]] and observed Lister negotiating drug deals with the Colombians.[^3] The journalist Gary Webb described [[Norwin Meneses]] as the [[Cali Drug Cartel]]'s representative in [[Nicaragua]], and his organization operated in parallel to the Medellín cartel's distribution networks.[^4]
+[[Gary Webb]], citing *Kings of Cocaine* by Guy Gugliotta and Jeff Leen, wrote that by early 1982 the Medellín group moved loads by specially equipped aircraft and boats, mostly through the Bahamas, and that in March 1982 [[U.S. Customs]] agents in Miami opened boxes labeled "jeans" aboard a plane from a small Colombian air cargo company and seized 3,906 pounds of cocaine, nearly four times the previous record; Gugliotta and Leen called it the [[DEA]]'s "first look at the shadow of the beast." Webb gave wholesale kilogram prices as falling from about $75,000 in 1979 to about $60,000 in 1982, with gram prices falling only from $321 to $259.[^4] [[Ronald Lister]] told the CIA Inspector General that the kilogram price he saw went from about $60,000 in 1982 to about $20,000 in 1986.[^5]
-### Arms-for-Drugs Allegations
+### Panama
-During the 1980s, the U.S. Justice Department received at least three reports from reliable informants detailing arms-for-drugs swaps involving the Medellín cartel, the [[Contras]], and elements of the U.S. government. Colombian trafficker [[Allen Raul Rudd]] told Justice Department officials in 1988 that cartel boss [[Pablo Escobar]] claimed the cartel had made a deal with Vice President [[George H.W. Bush]] to supply American weapons to the Contras in exchange for free passage for cocaine deliveries to the United States. Escobar claimed there were "photographs of the planes containing the guns being unloaded in Columbia" and a picture of Bush posing with Medellín cartel leader [[Jorge Ochoa]] in front of suitcases full of money. By 1993 Escobar was dead and Ochoa was in jail; the photos were never heard from again.[^5]
+The pilot [[Floyd Carlton]] told the Kerry subcommittee that in mid-1982 Escobar and Gustavo Gaviria asked him to fly cocaine from Colombia into [[Panama]], that [[Manuel Noriega]] told him the first offer was too low, and that Noriega was paid $100,000 for the first flight, $150,000 for the second, $200,000 for the third and $250,000 for the fourth. Carlton testified that he heard the Ochoa brothers contract the killing of the Colombian Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, who was shot on April 30, 1984, and that Cartel leaders came to Panama in May 1984 to ask for protection from former president Alfonso López Michelsen, with Noriega telling associates the Cartel paid between $4 million and $7 million. The subcommittee's account of the later rift was that Noriega raided a Cartel laboratory in the Darien province in June 1984 after accepting $5 million to protect it, and that, according to [[Jose Blandon|José Blandón]], the Cartel decided to kill Noriega and he turned to Cuba's [[Fidel Castro]], who mediated. The report also recorded Blandón's statement that Noriega's liaison to the DEA, Luis Quiel, was used to turn rivals of the Cartel over to the United States.[^6]
-Former Meneses aide [[Enrique Miranda]] testified that [[Marcos Aguado]] boasted of flying weapons from the [[El Salvador|Salvadoran]] military to the Colombian cartels - claims Miranda doubted until a Salvadoran Air Force colonel and associates were arrested in 1992 for selling bombs and high explosives to Colombian drug dealers.[^5]
+Milian Rodriguez, arrested in May 1983 with $5.4 million in cash as he tried to leave Fort Lauderdale for Panama on his Lear jet, was sentenced to 43 years. He told the subcommittee that currency pallets were flown to Panama on commercial airlines whose station managers were in Noriega's employ, and that Noriega held an interest in the armored-car company that met the flights.[^7]
 ### Seal, the indictments and the Washington disclosure
 [[Barry Seal]] was a pilot for the Cartel, known to its members as "McKenzie," earning as much as $500,000 per flight, according to the Louisiana Court of Appeal. After an indictment in Florida and a ten-year sentence he approached the DEA and became an informant in March 1984. The United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida testified that the indictments of Escobar and Jorge Ochoa in July 1984 resulted from his cooperation. Ochoa was arrested in Spain shortly afterward, and Seal supplied the affidavits for the extradition request. In November 1984 a Baton Rouge television station aired a documentary on Seal's career, and the cartel figure Max Mermelstein testified that in December 1984 he was given the contract to kidnap Seal (for $1,000,000) or kill him (for $500,000), authorized by telephone by Fabio Ochoa and Escobar. Seal was shot to death with a machine gun on February 19, 1986 in the parking lot of a Salvation Army halfway house in Baton Rouge, and Miguel Velez, Bernardo Antonio Vasquez and Luis Carlos Quintero-Cruz were convicted of first-degree murder.[^8]
 The Kerry subcommittee reported that Seal flew to Nicaragua, where cameras on his aircraft photographed Escobar and a man U.S. authorities identified as a Nicaraguan government official, [[Federico Vaughn]], loading the plane; that the material became central evidence for official claims of Sandinista involvement in narcotics; and that Vaughn then disappeared. It reported that the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime found the telephone number Vaughn used to call Seal was a number controlled by the U.S. Embassy since 1985. It also reported DEA testimony that in June 1985 Lieutenant Colonel [[Oliver North]] suggested that $1.5 million in drug money carried on a plane piloted by Seal during the sting be given to the [[Contras]], and that the DEA rejected the suggestion. Its conclusion on the sting was that an administration official, identified as North, leaked the operation to the press to influence a pending congressional vote on Contra aid, endangering agents, and that grand jury probes of Seal's associates at the airport in [[Mena, Arkansas]] were dropped over the strong protests of state and federal law enforcement officials, with the apparent reason being that a prosecution might reveal national security information although the crimes preceded Seal's work as an informant.[^9] The State Department's Narcotics Control Strategy Report stated that it had "no evidence" of Nicaraguan use for drug shipments to the United States since the allegations of 1984 connected with the Seal case.[^9]
 ### Extradition, surrender and the Palace of Justice
 The Kerry report stated that an extradition treaty between the United States and Colombia entered into force in 1982, that the Cartel responded with a public court challenge and with the attack on the Palace of Justice in [[Bogota|Bogotá]] on November 6, 1985, in which eleven sitting justices were killed and the files on pending extradition cases were burned, and that Ochoa was indicted in 1984 for narcotics smuggling, with DEA officials estimating that he moved nearly sixty tons of cocaine into the United States from 1982 to 1987. The first extradition attempt, from Spain, ended when Spain sent Ochoa to Colombia, where a judge released him. Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Gregorie testified to the subcommittee that the embassy in Madrid had a secretary as the person most knowledgeable about the matter and that Attorney General [[Edwin Meese]] did not ask the prosecutors for a briefing. Ochoa was rearrested in Colombia in November 1987 and released by a Colombian judge.[^10] The Louisiana court places Ochoa's arrest in Spain shortly after the July 1984 indictments, while the Kerry report dates it to 1985; an affidavit described in a 1997 federal opinion states that Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela was arrested in Spain in November 1984 and extradited to Colombia in 1986.[^8][^11]
 A 1997 statement by DEA Chief of Operations Donnie Marshall described the later course: Lehder extradited and serving life terms; the Ochoa brothers arrested but given "ridiculously short jail terms" and recently released; Rodríguez Gacha and Escobar killed in gunfights with the Colombian National Police; and, during that campaign, the Cali group led by [[Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela]], [[Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela]] and [[Jose Santacruz Londono]] building what he called the most prolific criminal enterprise in history.[^12]
 ### Offers to the United States
 In October 1986 a Miami lawyer told the FBI and DEA that a Bogotá lawyer for the Cartel had said early in 1986 that the Cartel wanted a deal with the government for immunity from prosecution in exchange for help in stopping the flow of cocaine, and that Jorge Ochoa financed "both Sandinista and anti-Sandinista forces in Nicaragua by setting up drug operations there." The lawyer met Ochoa and other principals in Medellín, where, according to the subcommittee, Ochoa said the Cartel held information of national security interest on Nicaragua, Cuba, Mexico, Panama and Colombia, had "worked with the Communists in the past," and proposed to collect intelligence on guerrillas for six months to a year in exchange for amnesty or an end to extradition proceedings. The lawyer passed a polygraph; the DEA and FBI broke off contact, and the material was not investigated in connection with Nicaragua or the Contras. The subcommittee separately recorded that Milian Rodriguez said Escobar had asked him to explore starting drug operations in Nicaragua, documenting them and using the information to bargain with the United States for amnesty.[^13]
 Milian Rodriguez also told the subcommittee in a closed session on June 25, 1987 that he had offered, through a meeting arranged by the Miami investigator Raoul Diaz, to give drug money to the Contras and that [[Felix Rodriguez]] accepted, with $10 million provided by couriers; he said he also offered to help entrap the Sandinistas, in return for dropping his charges. Felix Rodriguez denied that version and said he reported the offer to the FBI, the CIA and other agencies, which took no action. Diaz did not respond to a subpoena, and the subcommittee recorded that it could not resolve the question.[^13]
 ### Records on the Contra network
 An FBI cable to the CIA dated March 7, 1986 relayed an allegation by [[Jack Terrell]] that before February 1985 the Miami Cuban exile [[Frank Castro]] had presented himself as the representative of Ochoa who wanted a U.S. ambassador assassinated and offered $1 million. A February 13, 1987 FBI cable stated that Castro was alleged to have offered, as drug king Jorge Luis Ochoa's representative, $1 million to kill Ambassador [[Lewis Tambs]], that he had "very good connections with [the] Medellin Cartel Ochoa brothers," and that unsubstantiated allegations existed that he and others used a Contra camp as a front to traffic drugs between Colombia and the United States. The complaint in *Avirgan and Honey v. Hull*, filed May 29, 1986 by [[Daniel Sheehan]] of the [[Christic Institute]], alleged an overt act of a conspiracy to bomb the U.S. embassy in San José, Costa Rica and to kill Tambs "for the purpose of obtaining a $1 million 'bounty' offered for the death of Lewis Tambs by Defendant PABLO ESCOBAR."[^14]
 A November 8, 1988 cable to CIA headquarters forwarded an FBI Miami request for comment on information about a 1984 agreement between the Medellín figures Lehder, Escobar and Rodríguez Gacha and the Nicaraguan government under which they would be allowed to stay in Managua, establish a base and be secure from Colombian and U.S. authorities, with $3 million given to [[Tomás Borge]] and drug flights using Los Brasiles airport; the cable further reported that the cartel used Vesco's services in October or November 1984.[^15] A U.S. Coast Guard report from Miami in December 1986 cited sources that named the owner of Hyde Shipping of Miami, Hyde (see [[Hyde Shipping]]), as master of the fishing vessel *Bobby* in 1985 "as a favor to Pablo Escobar."[^16]
 The CIA Inspector General's second volume recorded that a Colombian pilot testified at the trial of a Medellín drug lord that he flew arms to Contra forces and cocaine to Florida, and that the Miami Herald in October 1990 linked the Nicaraguan consul [[Adolfo Chamorro]] to that network; that analysts of the Directorate of Intelligence described the counternarcotics effort of the mid-1980s as "consumed" with the Medellín Cartel, with Central America "just a blip on the scope"; and that an independent contractor said that if there was trafficking from Nicaragua it was "probably" by the Medellín cartel.[^17] The convicted trafficker [[Enrique Miranda]] told investigators that [[Marcos Aguado]] flew weapons to Medellín and returned with cocaine stored at Ilopango; the Inspector General reported that no information was found to support the allegation, and that no information was found indicating that CIA tried to develop independent information on Aguado.[^18] Lister told the Inspector General he went with [[Danilo Blandon|Blandón]] on trips to Colombia and was present when Blandón dealt with Colombian suppliers Roger Sandino and Aparicio Moreno.[^5]
 Webb reported that Colombian trafficker [[Allen Raul Rudd]] told Justice Department officials in 1988 that Escobar claimed the Cartel had made a deal with Vice President [[George H.W. Bush]] to supply U.S. weapons to the Contras in return for free passage for cocaine to the United States, and that Escobar said photographs existed of planes with guns being unloaded in Colombia and of Bush with Jorge Ochoa in front of suitcases of money; Webb wrote that by 1993 Escobar was dead and Ochoa jailed and the photographs were not heard of again. Sole source for the passages so cited. Webb also reported that Meneses's organization ran parallel to the Medellín distribution networks and that Miranda said Aguado boasted of flying weapons from the Salvadoran military to the Colombian cartels, a claim Miranda doubted until a Salvadoran Air Force colonel and associates were arrested in 1992 for selling bombs and high explosives to Colombian dealers.[^19]
 ### The Seal aircraft, the CIA records and the Mena inquiries
 The Kerry report stated only that Seal obtained photographs "by using cameras installed in a plane he flew as part of an undercover operation."[^20] On October 10, 1986, five days after the shootdown, *The New York Times* reported that a Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman in Miami, Jack Hood, said "we believe that the C-123 that was shot down in Nicaragua was the same plane that was used in the Barry Seal operation," and that Seal had flown the plane to Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base in Ohio, where Central Intelligence Agency experts installed hidden cameras in 1984; Seal returned from Nicaragua with 1,472 pounds of cocaine, and the cameras filmed Vaughn helping to load it. According to the same report, [[Eugene Hasenfus]], the survivor of the crash, said he had worked with CIA employees in El Salvador and made covert flights into Nicaragua, and the retired general John Singlaub, named by administration officials as the sponsor of the flight, denied involvement.[^21] The independent counsel's report recorded that [[Southern Air Transport]], a Miami charter company, was used by the Enterprise run by [[Richard Secord]] in the Contra and Iran operations, receiving $1,935,596 in 1985 and 1986 for contra-related services including the purchase of a C-123 cargo plane, and that the Hasenfus shootdown on October 5, 1986 "settled irrevocably the question of CIA assumption of Enterprise assets."[^22]
 The CIA's own file copies show how its position on Seal developed. A memorandum of September 8, 1995 from the DCI Crime and Narcotics Center said the Center had no documents or records on the installation of cameras on Seal's C-123, but that "to the best of our understanding, CIA's OTS may have installed cameras on the aircraft used in the 1984 operation," and suggested the Directorate of Operations check with the Office of Technical Service.[^23] A memorandum for the record on a briefing of Representative [[James Leach]], chairman of the House Banking Committee, on July 21, 1995 recorded the statement that "the Agency was aware of Barry Seal, but had no relationship with him nor any records regarding his activities in Mena," and listed as an open question whether the CIA "had any connection to Seal's cargo plane (serial number 54-0679)." A briefing outline prepared for that meeting stated that no records of any contact with Seal had ever been discovered in several searches, most recently in June 1995 at the request of the House intelligence committee.[^24] On March 13, 1996 Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch asked the Inspector General to report on the extent of CIA's "contact or relationship" with Seal and whether CIA had carried out any activities in Mena or in Nella, Arkansas.[^25] The Inspector General's unclassified summary of November 1996, as reported by the *Arkansas Democrat-Gazette* on November 9, 1996, stated that CIA personnel had "limited contact" with Seal during the DEA sting, providing "technical support" in the form of cameras mounted in his plane and instruction on where to place and operate them, and that there was "no evidence" CIA knew his "true identity" at the time; it also stated that CIA ran "a joint training operation with another federal agency at Mena Intermountain Airport," described as a "two week exercise" never publicly disclosed, and used Mena for "routine aviation-related services" on agency-owned equipment, with the companies that did the work not knowing the client was CIA, while finding no evidence of CIA involvement in "money laundering, narcotics trafficking, arms smuggling or other illegal activities at or around Mena."[^26] A December 24, 1996 memorandum in the Inspector General's Mena case file (96-0036-IG) examined whether Seal's C-123K (N4410F, "Fat Lady") had a Vietnam-era link to CIA, as suggested by a CIA officer whose name is redacted; the review of the Iran-Contra files, Southern Air Transport files from the 1960s and 1970s and other records found no document indicating a CIA link with N4410F or that Southern Air Transport owned, operated or leased a C-123K, and listed as remaining actions a review of further Southern Air Transport files and a reinterview of the officer.[^27] A 1998 letter from the Inspector General to Chairman Leach stated that all information developed on Mena and Seal was set out in the November 1996 Report of Investigation.[^28]
 Named witnesses made claims that Seal worked for the CIA or in a CIA-linked operation. The former Arkansas state trooper L.D. Brown told R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. of *The American Spectator* (August 1995; a copy was sent to the Acting DCI on July 19, 1995) that he flew with Seal from Mena to Tegucigalpa on October 23, 1984 on a C-123K from which pallets of M-16 rifles were pushed out by parachute, that Seal gave him $2,500 and later showed him a kilogram of cocaine, and that he had been recruited in 1984 by CIA representatives Ken Cargile and Dan Magruder. Tyrrell wrote that "the CIA does not talk about these things, and so Brown's exact relationship with the agency may never be known." Tyrrell also reported that [[Terry Reed]] said he trained Contra pilots under Seal's supervision at Nella and that the state trooper Larry Patterson said in a March 1995 deposition he overheard talk of "large quantities of drugs being flown into Mena airport, large quantities of guns."[^29] The CIA's Public Affairs office told the Acting DCI that "there is no reason to believe any of the allegations," and a CIA review of a 1996 documentary featuring Brown and the former state police investigator Russell Welch said the credibility of Reed's book *Compromised* "was questioned somewhat."[^29][^30] The 1995 briefing outline said a Lawrence D. Brown applied for CIA employment in 1988 and was rejected in November 1988; the Inspector General's summary, as reported, confirmed that Brown was a candidate for CIA employment in 1984 and that the agency decided that December not to hire him.[^26][^24]
 The Kerry report recorded that grand jury probes of Seal's associates who operated aircraft service businesses at the Mena airport were dropped, despite evidence sufficient for an indictment on money laundering charges and over the strong protests of state and federal law enforcement officials, with the apparent reason being that a prosecution might reveal national security information, although all the crimes preceded Seal's work as a federal informant.[^9] The inquiries by Leach's committee followed in 1995 and 1996.[^24][^25]
 ### Footnotes
-[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 7: "Something happened to Ivan"
+[^1]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy* (Committee Print, December 1988), Colombia chapter, "Origin of the Cartels," pp. 27-30 (testimony of Ramon Milian Rodriguez, Part 2, February 11, 1988, p. 248, and Leigh Ritch, February 8, 1988). Scan: https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras. The FBI and CIA reporting that names Rodríguez Gacha is cited at footnote 15.
-[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 6: "They were doing their patriotic duty"
+[^2]: *United States v. Lehder-Rivas*, 955 F.2d 1510, 1511-12 (11th Cir. 1992). https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F2/955/955.F2d.1510.88-3596.88-3344.html
-[^3]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 6: "They were doing their patriotic duty"
+[^3]: Kerry report, The Bahamas chapter ("Growth of Official Corruption with Vesco and Bannister," Norman's Cay) and Colombia chapter (extradition of Lehder), pp. 15-17 and 32 (see footnote 1 for the scan).
-[^4]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Cast of Characters
+[^4]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998, Chapter 7. Webb cites Guy Gugliotta and Jeff Leen, *Kings of Cocaine* (1989). Not re-verified against customs records.
-[^5]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 13: "The wrong kind of friends"
+[^5]: CIA Office of Inspector General, *Report of Investigation: Allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States* (96-0143-IG), Volume I: The California Story, January 29, 1998, Findings, individual statements of Lister. https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine/findings1.html
 [^6]: Kerry report, Panama chapter, "Noriega's Rift With the Cartel," testimony of Floyd Carlton (deposition of December 4, 1987) and Jose Blandon (Part 2, February 9, 1988); Cuba, Panama and the Cartel section (Castro as mediator).
 [^7]: Kerry report, money-laundering chapter ("One Money Launderer's Experience") and the Panama chapter, citing Milian Rodriguez, Part 2, February 11, 1988, and the closed session of June 25, 1987.
 [^8]: *State v. Velez*, 588 So. 2d 116, 120-21 (La. Ct. App. 1991). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1767808/state-v-velez/
 [^9]: Kerry report, Cuba and Nicaragua chapter (Seal, pp. 68-69), narcotics traffickers and the Contras chapter (DEA testimony before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, July 28, 1988), and National Security chapter, "Barry Seal and the Cartel," p. 121.
 [^10]: Kerry report, Colombia chapter, "Extradition," pp. 31-33, citing testimony of Richard Gregorie, Part 4, pp. 144-45.
 [^11]: *United States v. Abbell*, 963 F. Supp. 1178, n. 22 (S.D. Fla. 1997). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1645124/united-states-v-abbell/
 [^12]: Statement of Donnie Marshall, Chief of Operations, Drug Enforcement Administration, Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs and Criminal Justice, July 9, 1997. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1997_hr/h970709m.htm
 [^13]: Kerry report, Cuba and Nicaragua chapter, pp. 67-69 (DEA debrief of the Miami attorney, October 21 and November 13, 1986; closed testimony of Ramon Milian Rodriguez, June 25, 1987, pp. 53-55) and section "Ramon Milian Rodriguez and Felix Rodriguez."
 [^14]: CIA Inspector General, Volume II: The Contra Story, October 8, 1998, Appendix (cables of March 7, 1986 and February 13, 1987 on Frank Castro; description of the *Avirgan and Honey v. Hull* complaint). https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/append.html
 [^15]: CIA Inspector General, Volume II, Appendix (cable of November 8, 1988 on the 1984 agreement and Los Brasiles airport). https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/append.html
 [^16]: CIA Inspector General, Volume II, Pilots, Airlines and Shipping Companies section (Hyde; U.S. Coast Guard Miami report of December 1986). https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/pilots.html
 [^17]: CIA Inspector General, Volume II, sections on Chamorro (https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/south.html), the analytic environment (https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/pilots.html) and the independent contractor interview (https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/findings.html).
 [^18]: CIA Inspector General, Volume II, Marco Aguado section. https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/south.html
 [^19]: Webb, *Dark Alliance*, Chapter 13, "The wrong kind of friends" (Rudd, Escobar and Bush; Miranda and Aguado) and Cast of Characters (Meneses). Neither Rudd's statement nor the photographs appear in the Kerry report, the CIA Inspector General volumes or the Justice Department Inspector General report.
 [^20]: Kerry report, Cuba and Nicaragua chapter, p. 68 (see footnote 1 for the scan).
 [^21]: Richard Halloran, "Plane Downed in Nicaragua Was in a U.S. Drug 'Sting,'" *The New York Times*, October 10, 1986 (copy in CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP90-00965R000402690007-7). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000402690007-7
 [^22]: Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters (Lawrence E. Walsh, August 4, 1993), chapter 8 (Southern Air Transport; the Hasenfus shootdown). https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_08.htm
 [^23]: CIA, DCI Crime and Narcotics Center, memorandum "Records Searches: Mena, Arkansas and Related Topics," September 8, 1995, paragraph 7 (CIA Reading Room 0001289705). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289705
 [^24]: CIA, Office of Congressional Affairs, memorandum for the record, member briefing of Rep. Leach, July 21, 1995 (CIA Reading Room 0001289686), and briefing outline "Briefing for Chairman Leach, House Banking Committee," items 6 and 7 (0001289820). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289686 and https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289820
 [^25]: Memorandum, Director of Central Intelligence to Inspector General, "Allegations of Money Laundering and Other Activities in Mena, Arkansas," March 13, 1996 (CIA Reading Room 0001289824). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289824
 [^26]: Kathy Kiely, "CIA admits training at Mena," *Arkansas Democrat-Gazette*, November 9, 1996, pp. 1A, 12A (summarizing the declassified summary of the Inspector General's Report of Investigation on Mena). Copy: https://archivesspace.wilkes.edu/files/normanmailer/65.9_HG2_HarlotsGhostSequelResearch_ArkansasDemocraticGazetteArticles_1996November9.pdf
 [^27]: CIA Inspector General, memorandum for the record, "C-123K - Review of Additional Records," December 24, 1996, case Mena 96-0036-IG (CIA Reading Room 0001289850). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289850
 [^28]: Letter, CIA Inspector General to Rep. James A. Leach, 1998 (CIA Reading Room 0001289865). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289865
 [^29]: R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., "The Arkansas Drug Shuttle," *The American Spectator*, August 1995, pp. 16-18 (copy attached to the CIA Public Affairs note to the Acting DCI, July 19, 1995, CIA Reading Room 0001289860). Sole source for Brown's account of the flights and for the Reed and Patterson statements as reported there. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289860
 [^30]: CIA memorandum for the record, "Video Tape Review: National Empowerment Network, American Investigator, 'Mena, Arkansas Under Investigation,' aired February 8, 1996," February 22, 1996 (CIA Reading Room 0001289764). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289764
--- a/PROJECTS/INTELLIGENCE_OPERATIONS/Operation
+++ b/PROJECTS/INTELLIGENCE_OPERATIONS/Operation
@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ tags:
  - ChurchCommittee
  - RockefellerCommission
 category: "Intelligence Operation"
-summary: "CIA counterintelligence program run by Richard Ober's Special Operations Group from August 1967 to March 1974, which indexed some 300,000 names in the HYDRA system and kept about 13,000 files on dissident Americans."
+summary: "CIA counterintelligence program of the Special Operations Group headed by Richard Ober, run from August 1967 to March 1974, which indexed some 300,000 names and kept about 13,000 files on Americans."
 start: 1967-08-15
 end: 1974-03-15
 location: "Washington, D.C."
@ -31,8 +31,8 @@ relations:
    with: "[[Richard Ober]]"
    reverse: true
    start: 1967-08-15
-    end: 1974-03-15
+    end: 1972
-    role: "chief of the Special Operations Group, Counterintelligence Staff"
+    role: "chief of the Special Operations Group, Counterintelligence Staff (1967 to 1972, per the Hoover Institution finding aid for his papers)"
    fn: 2
  - type: investigated
    with: "[[Rockefeller Commission 1975]]"
@ -149,7 +149,7 @@ Hersh wrote in *The Samson Option* (1991) that Angleton "was a sponsor, through
 ### Charles Manson
-In *Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties* (2019), [[Tom O'Neill]] wrote that [[Charles Manson]] was released from [[Terminal Island]] federal prison on March 21, 1967, left [[Los Angeles]] for Berkeley within days in violation of his parole, was transferred to the supervision of the federal parole officer Roger Smith, and afterward met Smith at the [[Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic]]; O'Neill places the MKULTRA psychiatrist [[Louis Jolyon West]]'s "hippie crash pad" laboratory on nearby Frederick Street. O'Neill wrote that he focused on the FBI's COINTELPRO and the CIA's CHAOS as operations then under way in Los Angeles, that he "had reliable sources suggesting that he was an informant, or at least hanging around with others who could've been," that he was "only speculating," and, in the epilogue, "I don't know" what happened, adding: "My goal isn't to say what did happen—it's to prove that the official story didn't." The book cites no CHAOS record naming Manson.[^14] The Rockefeller Commission and Church Committee chapters on CHAOS do not mention Manson.[^1][^2]
+In *Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties* (2019), [[Tom O'Neill]] wrote that [[Charles Manson]] was released from [[Terminal Island]] federal prison on March 21, 1967, left [[Los Angeles]] for Berkeley within days in violation of his parole, was transferred to the supervision of the federal parole officer Roger Smith, and afterward met Smith at the [[Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic]]; O'Neill places the MKULTRA psychiatrist [[Louis Jolyon West]]'s "hippie crash pad" laboratory on nearby Frederick Street. O'Neill wrote that he focused on the FBI's COINTELPRO and the CIA's CHAOS as operations then under way in Los Angeles, that he "had reliable sources suggesting that he was an informant, or at least hanging around with others who could've been," that he was "only speculating," and, in the epilogue, "I don't know" what happened, adding that his goal was not "to say what did happen" but "to prove that the official story didn't." The book cites no CHAOS record naming Manson.[^14] The Rockefeller Commission and Church Committee chapters on CHAOS do not mention Manson.[^1][^2]
 ### Relation to MERRIMAC and RESISTANCE
--- a/TECHNOLOGY/PSI_PHENOMENA/Psychokinesis.md
+++ b/TECHNOLOGY/PSI_PHENOMENA/Psychokinesis.md
@ -1,22 +1,59 @@
 ---
 created: 2025-07-22
 updated: 2025-07-22
 title: Psychokinesis
 tags:
  - concept
  - psi
  - parapsychology
 description: Psychokinesis (PK) is a claimed psychic ability allowing a person to influence a physical system without physical interaction.
 category: "Psi Phenomenon"
-summary: "Psychokinesis (PK), also known as telekinesis, is a claimed Psi ability allowing a person to influence a physical system without physical interaction."
+title: Psychokinesis
 aliases:
  - Psychokinesis
  - PK
  - Telekinesis
  - Micro-PK
  - Macro-PK
  - Bioenergetics
  - Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis
  - RSPK
 created: 2025-07-22
 updated: 2026-10-05
 tags:
  - Concept
  - Psi
  - Parapsychology
  - Psychokinesis
  - Stargate
  - SovietParapsychology
  - DefenseIntelligenceAgency
 summary: "Psychokinesis (PK, telekinesis) is the influence of a mind on a physical system without known physical interaction, studied by the DIA, SRI, Princeton and Soviet laboratories under the names bioenergetics and psychoenergetics."
 ---
 Psychokinesis (PK, also telekinesis) is the reported influence of a person on a physical or biological system without contact or known physical interaction. The term covers visible movement of objects, effects on instruments and living preparations, and (in the vocabulary of [[Robert G. Jahn]]'s 1978 survey) poltergeist cases. It is one of the two core subjects of [[Parapsychology]], alongside extrasensory perception, and the word the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] used for what Soviet and Czechoslovak laboratories called bioenergetics.[^1][^2]
-[[Psychokinesis]] (PK), also known as telekinesis, is a claimed [[Psi|psychic]] ability allowing a person to influence a physical system without physical interaction. This can include phenomena such as bending metal, moving objects, or affecting electronic equipment with the mind. PK is one of the core phenomena studied within [[Parapsychology]].[^1]
+### Soviet and Czechoslovak research, 1960s to 1975
-In the context of the *Remote Viewers* narrative, PK was a subject of intense interest, particularly in relation to [[Uri Geller]]'s demonstrations of metal bending and his apparent ability to scramble electronic equipment. While Geller's psychokinetic displays often occurred under less controlled conditions, leading to suspicions of sleight of hand, his feats spurred scientific investigation into the phenomenon at institutions like [[Stanford Research Institute|SRI]] and [[Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory]].[^1]
+A July 1972 [[Defense Intelligence Agency|DIA]] document, "Controlled Offensive Behavior - USSR" (ST-CS-01-169-72), written by Captain [[John LaMothe]] for the Medical Intelligence Office of the Army Surgeon General, devoted a section to ESP and psychokinesis. It reported that [[Genady Sergeyev]] of the Ukhtomsky Institute in Leningrad had conducted several years of laboratory work on [[Ninel Kulagina]] (the report's spelling is Nina Kulagina, with the pseudonym "Nelya Mikhailova"); that she was reported to have moved clock pendulums, bread, matches and large crystal bowls under scientific control; that Sergeyev recorded heightened luminescence at her eyes during object movement; and that Western scientists had been unable to observe her after February 1971, "a veil of secrecy" having been placed on Sergeyev and Kulagina. Paragraph 11, marked C/NFD, stated that scientists reported she had stopped the beating of a frog's heart in solution and restarted it, "perhaps the most significant PK test done," whose "military implications in controlled offensive behavior, if true, are extremely important." The bibliography lists observations of Kulagina by J. G. Pratt and C. Ransom and by M. Ullman.[^1]
-Experiments were conducted to test PK, including attempts to affect magnetometers, clock pendulums, and even laser beams. The 1972 [[Controlled Offensive Behavior - USSR]] report highlighted Soviet interest in telekinetics as a potential military application. Despite the challenges in scientifically proving PK, its potential implications for military and intelligence applications, such as influencing enemy equipment, made it a subject of continued, albeit controversial, research.[^1]
+A September 1975 DIA study, "Soviet and Czechoslovakian Parapsychology Research" (DST-1810S-387-75), by Louis F. Maire III and Major LaMothe, again prepared under the Army Surgeon General's medical intelligence office, gave PK its own part. It defined PK as influence on animate or inanimate objects at a distance "by means of uncontrolled or controlled biological energy fields," and listed motion, apparent levitation, changes in physiological processes, creation of measurable fields around target objects, and images on shielded photographic emulsions. It reported that Soviet researchers worked with a small number of "gifted" subjects, while Czechoslovak researchers held that most people could produce PK effects. The leading Soviet theorists it named were Viktor Adamenko of the Moscow Institute of Radiophysics, Viktor Inyushin of Kazakh University and Sergeyev; Sergeyev and Inyushin proposed a "bioplasma" energy, and the biophysicist Aleksandr Dubrov of the Institute of Earth Physics proposed "biogravitation." Dubrov cited tests at Moscow University in 1973 and 1974 in which the psychic Boris Ermolayev kept an object suspended between his hands. According to Sergeyev, Kulagina stopped a frog heart preparation 24 feet away in five minutes in 1970, imprinted images on film sealed in black envelopes, and lost 1.5 to 2.0 pounds in weight after sessions. Adamenko's subject Alla Vinogradova produced similar effects with less physiological stress, and the Czech inventor Robert Pavlita's "psychotronic generators" were described as devices meant to make PK demonstrable by nearly anyone.[^2]
---
+### SRI International, 1972 to 1974
-[^1]: Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers*. Dell, 1997.
+[[Stanford Research Institute]] (SRI) personnel observed what the March 12, 1974 SRI progress report called one of "the first psychoenergetically produced physical effects" in early 1972: an apparent perturbation of a Josephson effect magnetometer, in a pilot study too short for statistical analysis. [[Hal Puthoff]] and [[Russell Targ]] wrote the same report. On [[Uri Geller]], it stated: "Although metal bending by Mr. Geller has been observed in our laboratory, we have not been able to combine such observations with adequately controlled experiments to obtain data sufficient to support the paranormal hypothesis." The sentence was repeated in the Puthoff and Targ paper in *Nature* of October 18, 1974, as quoted in an SRI fact sheet answering a book by [[James Randi]].[^3][^5]
 The October 31, 1974 progress report (covering April to August 1974) described a series of tests, made "at the suggestion of the client," on a client-supplied Develco superconducting second-derivative gradiometer, with the subject four meters from the probe. For the subject it called Subject 1, in 13 ten-trial runs (64 activity and 66 no-activity periods), 63 signal events were recorded, of which 21 fell in the activity periods and 2 in the no-activity periods; the report gave p = 0.004 and concluded "a highly probable cause-effect relationship," with the generation of a magnetic field "most probable" as the mechanism, and cautioned that an electronics interference effect could not be ruled out. Subjects 2 and 6 produced nonsignificant results. The report also described a laser-monitored torsion pendulum in a sealed bell jar.[^4]
 ### Princeton, McDonnell and the academic laboratories, 1977 to 1983
 In the spring of 1977 an undergraduate, Carol Kay Curry, asked [[Robert G. Jahn]], Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at [[Princeton University]], to supervise independent work in psychic phenomena. Jahn's report in the *Princeton Alumni Weekly* of December 4, 1978 divided PK by energy scale: macroscopic effects (Geller's spoon bending, the salt-shaker movements attributed to Kulagina, the self-levitations attributed to the Frenchman Girard), which "to the best of our knowledge have evaded well-controlled, systematic experimentation"; small-energy effects registered on magnetometers, torsion pendulums and strain gauges; microscopic effects on radioactive decay and random generators; and recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis in poltergeist cases, for which he cited surveys by J. G. Pratt and [[William G. Roll]]. The report was filed in the STARGATE collection of the CIA.[^6]
 In 1979 the chairman of McDonnell Douglas, James S. McDonnell, made a $500,000 grant that established a parapsychology laboratory at Washington University in St. Louis, with the physicist [[Peter R. Phillips]] as director, according to the Parapsychological Association's newsletter of October 1979.[^7] Two teenage subjects tested there over a period of about three years were, according to Randi, his plants. A January 28, 1983 press conference by Randi made the arrangement public ("Project Alpha"). A SECRET DIA background paper dated March 4, 1983 and approved by [[Jack Vorona]], prepared in case Congress asked about a connection to the DoD project GRILL FLAME, stated that the McDonnell researchers "never claimed nor published anything that remotely indicated these teenagers had valid psychic ability," that the laboratory had ended work with them in July 1982, and that Randi was "solely interested in promoting his image as a clever magician." It also stated that "the types of experiments receiving the most severe attack by Mr. Randi involve psychokinesis (PK), an aspect of parapsychology that is not examined under the SRI contract," and that "PK experiments of the type conducted at the McDonnell Laboratory are inherently more difficult to fraud-proof than the investigations involving long distance remote viewing pursued at SRI."[^8]
 ### SRI psychoenergetics program, 1985 to 1986
 An SRI interim report of December 1986 by [[Edwin May]], Beverly Humphrey and C. M. Pleass of the University of Delaware, prepared for the contracting officer's technical representative, Peter J. McNelis, treated PK-type data from algae. Pleass claimed that individuals could change the velocity of single Dunaliella cells; SRI formulated a different hypothesis, "Intuitive Data Sorting," in which the individual initiates a run at a moment when the algae will naturally swim at the required velocity, and the report proposed a test of that model.[^9]
 ### Footnotes
 [^1]: Defense Intelligence Agency, "Controlled Offensive Behavior - USSR (U)," ST-CS-01-169-72, July 1972, author Capt. John D. LaMothe, Section IV "ESP and Psychokinesis," paragraphs 9 to 11 and references 111 to 113 (CIA-RDP96-00787R000100120001-9). https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000100120001-9
 [^2]: Defense Intelligence Agency, "Soviet and Czechoslovakian Parapsychology Research (U)," DST-1810S-387-75, September 1975, authors Louis F. Maire III and Maj. J. D. LaMothe, Part III "Psychokinesis Research" (CIA-RDP96-00787R000500420001-2). https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000500420001-2
 [^3]: Stanford Research Institute, Project 3183, "Perceptual Augmentation Techniques," Progress Report No. 1, covering January 28 to March 1, 1974, March 12, 1974, objective section and reference notes (CIA-RDP96-00787R000700100004-2). https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000700100004-2
 [^4]: Harold E. Puthoff and Russell Targ, SRI Project 3183, Progress Report No. 3, covering April 1 to August 1, 1974, October 31, 1974, "Experiments with Develco Superconducting Differential Magnetometer (Gradiometer)" and "Laser-Monitored Torsion Pendulum" (CIA-RDP96-00787R000700100006-0). https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000700100006-0
 [^5]: Unsigned fact sheet correcting errors about SRI work with Geller in James Randi, *The Magic of Uri Geller*, quoting Targ and Puthoff, *Nature* 252, no. 5476 (October 18, 1974), pp. 602 to 607 (CIA-RDP96-00787R000500240021-0). https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000500240021-0
 [^6]: Robert G. Jahn, "Psychic Process, Energy Transfer, and Things That Go Bump in the Night," *Princeton Alumni Weekly* special report, December 4, 1978 (CIA-RDP96-00787R000500380004-4). https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000500380004-4
 [^7]: "McDonnell Establishes Laboratory for Psychic Research," *PSI News* (Parapsychological Association) 2, no. 4 (October 1979), by Peter R. Phillips (CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080029-3). https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000200080029-3
 [^8]: Defense Intelligence Agency, Background Paper S-15,083/DT-5A, "Recent Adverse Publicity on Parapsychological Research," March 4, 1983, approved by Jack Vorona, with enclosures (Washington Post, March 1, 1983; McDonnell Laboratory statement of September 1, 1981) (CIA-RDP96-00788R001100360001-1). https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001100360001-1
 [^9]: Edwin C. May, Beverly S. Humphrey and C. M. Pleass, "Measuring Remote Action Influence on the Vertical Component of Dunaliella Velocity," SRI Project 1291, Interim Report, Objective E, Task 9, December 1986 (CIA-RDP96-00789R002200030001-4). https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00789r002200030001-4
--- a/TECHNOLOGY/SCIENTIFIC_THEORIES_&_TECHNOLOGIES/Unidentified
+++ b/TECHNOLOGY/SCIENTIFIC_THEORIES_&_TECHNOLOGIES/Unidentified
@ -1,24 +1,49 @@
 ---
 category: "Scientific Theory & Technology"
 title: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena
 aliases:
  - UAP
  - Unidentified Aerial Phenomena
  - Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena
  - Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon
  - Unidentified Flying Objects
  - UFO
  - UFOs
  - Flying Saucers
 created: 2025-08-20
 updated: 2026-10-05
 tags:
  - Concept
  - UAP
  - UFO
  - Pentagon
-category: "Scientific Theory & Technology"
+  - AARO
-summary: "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) is the official designation used by the U.S. government to refer to objects or phenomena in the atmosphere, in space, or underwater that cannot be immediately identified."
+  - Robertson
  - NationalDefenseAuthorizationAct
  - CIA
 summary: "Unidentified anomalous phenomena is the term fixed in federal statute in December 2022 for airborne, transmedium and submerged objects that are not immediately identifiable, replacing the 2021 term unidentified aerial phenomena."
 ---
-[[Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena]] (UAP) is the official designation used by the U.S. government to refer to objects or phenomena in the atmosphere, in space, or underwater that cannot be immediately identified. The term has largely replaced the more colloquial term "Unidentified Flying Object" (UFO) in official government and military discourse.[^1]
+Unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) is the term used in United States federal law since December 23, 2022 for three classes of objects: airborne objects that are not immediately identifiable; transmedium objects or devices; and submerged objects or devices that are not immediately identifiable and display behavior or performance characteristics suggesting a relation to the airborne objects. It succeeded "unidentified aerial phenomena," the term of the 2021 [[Office of the Director of National Intelligence]] preliminary assessment, and the older "unidentified flying objects" and "flying saucers."[^1][^2]
-### Characteristics and The Five Observables
+### CIA Scientific Advisory Panel, January 1953
-UAP are characterized by their ability to perform maneuvers that are far beyond the capabilities of any known aircraft or technology. The [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program]] (AATIP) identified five key performance characteristics, known as [[The Five Observables]], that are commonly associated with UAP encounters: hypersonic velocity, instantaneous acceleration, low observability, transmedium travel, and antigravity. A sixth observable, biological effects on human witnesses, has also been noted.[^1]
+A panel convened by the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] Office of Scientific Intelligence met January 14 to 18, 1953 (the [[Robertson Panel]]). Its members were [[H. P. Robertson]] of the California Institute of Technology (chairman), [[Luis W. Alvarez]] of the University of California, [[Lloyd V. Berkner]] of Associated Universities, [[Samuel Goudsmit]] of Brookhaven National Laboratory and [[Thornton Page]] of Johns Hopkins University; its associate members were [[J. Allen Hynek]] of Ohio State University and Frederick C. Durant of Arthur D. Little, Inc. Its signed report of January 17, 1953 concluded that the evidence showed "no indication that these phenomena constitute a direct physical threat to national security," that there was no "residuum of cases" attributable to hostile foreign artifacts, and recommended that national security agencies "strip the Unidentified Flying Objects of the special status they have been given and the aura of mystery they have acquired" through a program "designed to reassure the public."[^3]
-### National Security Implications
+The longer report of the meetings described the proposed educational program as having "two major aims: training and 'debunking,'" the second to reduce "public interest in 'flying saucers'" through "mass media such as television, motion pictures, and popular articles," and to reduce "the current gullibility of the public and consequently their susceptibility to clever hostile propaganda." It recorded that Hynek suggested using Walt Disney animated cartoons. A section on unofficial investigating groups named the "Civilian Flying Saucer Investigators" (Los Angeles) and the "Aerial Phenomena Research Organization" (Wisconsin), stating that "such organizations should be watched."[^4]
-The UAP issue has been increasingly recognized as a serious national security concern. The repeated incursions of UAP into sensitive military airspace, their apparent interest in nuclear facilities and capabilities, and their ability to outperform the most advanced U.S. military aircraft have raised alarms within the [[Pentagon]] and Congress. The potential for a technological surprise from a foreign adversary, or the existence of a non-human intelligence with unknown intentions, has driven the recent legislative efforts to increase transparency and oversight of the UAP issue.[^1]
+### ODNI preliminary assessment, June 25, 2021
-### Government Investigation
+The Office of the Director of National Intelligence assessment of June 25, 2021, drafted by the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force ([[UAP Task Force]]) and the National Intelligence Manager for Aviation with input from the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, [[Defense Intelligence Agency]], [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]], National Reconnaissance Office, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, [[National Security Agency]], the Air Force, Army, Navy, Office of Naval Intelligence and [[DARPA]], reviewed incidents from November 2004 to March 2021. Of 144 reports from U.S. government sources, 80 involved observation with multiple sensors; one was identified "with high confidence" as a large deflating balloon, and "the others remain unexplained." The assessment stated that some UAP "appeared to remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, maneuver abruptly, or move at considerable speed, without discernable means of propulsion," that the task force held "a small amount of data that appear to show UAP demonstrating acceleration or a degree of signature management," that there were 11 reports of documented near misses between pilots and UAP, and that "sociocultural stigmas" impeded reporting. It stated that UAP "probably lack a single explanation," proposed five explanatory categories (airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, U.S. government or industry developmental programs, foreign adversary systems, and "other"), and stated that the task force lacked data to indicate any UAP were part of a foreign collection program or a breakthrough by a potential adversary.[^2]
-The U.S. government has a long and secret history of investigating UAP, dating back to at least the [[Roswell Incident]] in 1947. This has included programs such as [[Project Blue Book]], the [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program]] (AATIP), the [[UAP Task Force]], and the current [[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]] (AARO). However, these efforts have been hampered by a culture of secrecy, stigma, and internal opposition.[^1]
+### Public Law 117-263, December 23, 2022
 Section 6802 of the Intelligence Authorization Act portion of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 (Public Law 117-263) rewrote section 1683 of the fiscal 2022 Act to create the [[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]] (AARO) to carry out the duties of the task force "including those pertaining to unidentified anomalous phenomena," reporting to the Deputy Secretary of Defense and the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence. It added the statutory definitions of "transmedium objects or devices" (objects observed to transition between space and the atmosphere, or between the atmosphere and bodies of water, and not immediately identifiable) and of unidentified anomalous phenomena. The same section required the AARO director to submit a written report on the historical record of the United States government on UAP, focusing on the period beginning January 1, 1945, including "any program or activity that was protected by restricted access that has not been explicitly and clearly reported to Congress" and "any efforts to obfuscate, manipulate public opinion, hide, or otherwise provide incorrect unclassified or classified information about unidentified anomalous phenomena or related activities."[^1]
 Section 1673 of the same Act (50 U.S.C. 3373b) directed the Secretary of Defense, through the AARO head, to establish a secure mechanism for authorized reporting of any event relating to UAP and of "any activity or program by a department or agency of the Federal Government or a contractor of such a department or agency relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena, including with respect to material retrieval, material analysis, reverse engineering, research and development, detection and tracking, developmental or operational testing, and security protections and enforcement." The mechanism was to prevent "unauthorized public reporting or compromise of classified military and intelligence systems, programs, and related activity," including special access and compartmented programs, and required notice to the congressional defense and intelligence committees and congressional leadership within 72 hours of a disclosure relating to a restricted access program not explicitly and clearly reported to them.[^1]
 ### Footnotes
-[^1]: Elizondo, Luis. *Imminent*. William Morrow, 2024.
+
 [^1]: Public Law 117-263 (James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023), 136 Stat. 2395, December 23, 2022, sec. 1673 ("Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Reporting Procedures," 50 U.S.C. 3373b) and sec. 6802 ("Modification of Requirement for Office to Address Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena," amending sec. 1683 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022, 50 U.S.C. 3373, including subsections on historical record and definitions). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-117publ263/html/PLAW-117publ263.htm
 [^2]: Office of the Director of National Intelligence, *Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena*, June 25, 2021, including Appendix A, "Definition of Key Terms." https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf
 [^3]: "Report of the Scientific Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects," January 17, 1953, signed by H. P. Robertson, Luis W. Alvarez, Lloyd V. Berkner, Samuel A. Goudsmit and Thornton Page (CIA-RDP80B01676R004000110022-4). https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp80b01676r004000110022-4
 [^4]: "Report of Meetings of Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects Convened by Office of Scientific Intelligence, CIA, January 14-18, 1953," sections "Educational Program" and "Unofficial Investigating Groups" (CIA-RDP79B00752A000300100010-4). https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp79b00752a000300100010-4
--- a/PLACES/CITIES/Norwood
+++ b/PLACES/CITIES/Norwood
@ -4,25 +4,26 @@ tags:
  - Place
  - Illinois
  - JohnWayneGacy
-summary: "Norwood Park is a township on the northwest edge of Chicago, Illinois, where John Wayne Gacy lived and committed at least 33 murders between 1972 and 1978, burying most of his victims beneath his house at 8213 West Summerdale Avenue."
+summary: "Norwood Park is a community area on the northwest side of Chicago, Illinois, where John Wayne Gacy lived and committed at least 33 murders between 1972 and 1978, burying most of his victims beneath his house at 8213 West Summerdale Avenue."
 created: 2026-05-14
 updated: 2026-05-17
 location: "Cook County, Illinois, USA"
 ---
-Norwood Park is an unincorporated township in Cook County, Illinois, situated on the northwest edge of the Chicago metropolitan area. The community occupies a residential stretch of bungalows and ranch-style homes between the city of Chicago and its northwest suburbs.[^1]
+Norwood Park is a Chicago community area (Community Area 10) on the city's northwest side, originally an 1870s railroad suburb whose village incorporated on July 25, 1874 and voted on November 7, 1893, by 124 to 27, to be annexed to Chicago. Its homes include Victorian, Tudor, bungalow and ranch styles. The separate Norwood Park Township, created in 1873 and 1874, survives as the unincorporated part of the township together with the villages of Harwood Heights and parts of Norridge and Park Ridge, which share some government services.[^1]
 ### John Wayne Gacy
-Norwood Park is the location where [[John Wayne Gacy]] lived and carried out all of his known murders. Gacy operated a construction contracting business and maintained a visible public profile in the community - hosting annual neighborhood parties attended by hundreds of residents, politicians, and business associates, and volunteering as a community entertainer in a clown costume under the persona "Pogo."[^1]
+[[John Wayne Gacy]] lived at 8213 West Summerdale Avenue, in the unincorporated part of Norwood Park Township with a Norridge address, and the murders for which he was convicted were committed there.[^2] He operated a construction contracting business, PDM Construction Company.[^2]
-Gacy's home at 8213 West Summerdale Avenue was the site of at least 33 murders committed between 1972 and 1978. His victims were predominantly young men and teenage boys whom he lured to the house, often under the pretext of offering construction work. He would dupe victims into placing handcuffs on themselves as part of a supposed magic trick, then rape, torture, and kill them by asphyxiation or strangulation. He buried 26 victims in the crawl space beneath his house, three elsewhere on the property, and discarded four in the Des Plaines River.[^1]
+Gacy was charged with 33 counts of murder. The Illinois Supreme Court recorded that he told police he had killed about 30 people, that excavation of the crawl space and the area around the house recovered 29 bodies (from the crawl space, under the driveway and under the garage), and that four bodies were recovered from the Des Plaines and Illinois rivers, downstream from where he said he had thrown them. The record describes a "rope trick" with a rosary used to strangle victims and testimony that victims were tricked into handcuffs; six bodies were found with ligatures around the neck and 13 with cloth or other material in the mouth and throat.[^2]
-Gacy was arrested in December 1978 following the disappearance of 15-year-old [[Robert Piest]], the final victim. Police traced the last known contact to Gacy, and the subsequent investigation uncovered the bodies in the crawl space. He was convicted on 33 counts of murder and sentenced to death on March 13, 1980. He was executed by lethal injection on May 10, 1994.[^1]
+Gacy was arrested in December 1978 following the disappearance of 15-year-old [[Robert Piest]], the final victim, who had told his mother he was going to see a building contractor about a summer job. Police traced the last known contact to Gacy, and the subsequent investigation uncovered the bodies in the crawl space. He was convicted of 33 counts of murder, with death sentences on 12 counts and natural-life terms on the other 21, the death verdict returned on March 13, 1980; the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed on June 6, 1984.[^2] He was executed by lethal injection on May 10, 1994.
-The house at 8213 West Summerdale was demolished after Gacy's arrest. A new structure was built on the lot.[^2]
+The house at 8213 West Summerdale was demolished after Gacy's arrest. A new structure was built on the lot.[^3]
 ### Footnotes
-[^1]: "John Wayne Gacy," Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne_Gacy
+[^1]: Norwood Park Historical Society, "Defining Norwood Park" and "History of Norwood Park," https://norwoodparkhistoricalsociety.org/defining-norwood-park/ and https://norwoodparkhistoricalsociety.org/about-chicagos-norwood-park-neighborhood/
-[^2]: "What Happened to John Wayne Gacy's House?" *Newsweek,* 2022. https://www.newsweek.com/john-wayne-gacy-house-now-what-happened-location-1701023
+[^2]: People v. Gacy, 103 Ill. 2d 1 (1984) (Illinois Supreme Court, No. 53212, opinion filed June 6, 1984), https://static.case.law/ill-2d/103/html/0001-01.html
 [^3]: "What Happened to John Wayne Gacy's House?" *Newsweek,* 2022. https://www.newsweek.com/john-wayne-gacy-house-now-what-happened-location-1701023
--- a/PLACES/COUNTRIES/Iraq.md
+++ b/PLACES/COUNTRIES/Iraq.md
@ -17,15 +17,15 @@ Iraq occupies the territory of ancient [[Mesopotamia]] between the [[Tigris Rive
 ### CIA and the Ba'ath Party
-Qassem's government included significant participation by the [[Iraqi Communist Party]], which alarmed [[Central Intelligence Agency]] planners during the Cold War. CIA support for the [[Ba'ath Party]] in Iraq was documented in subsequent investigations. In 1959, a young [[Saddam Hussein]] participated in a failed CIA-linked assassination attempt against Qassem.
+Qassem's government included significant participation by the [[Iraqi Communist Party]], which alarmed [[Central Intelligence Agency]] planners during the Cold War. CIA support for the [[Ba'ath Party]] in Iraq was documented in subsequent investigations. On October 7, 1959 Qassem was wounded in the shoulder in an assassination attempt. The journalist Richard Sale reported in 2003, citing unnamed former U.S. intelligence and diplomatic officials and the writer Adel Darwish, that a young [[Saddam Hussein]] was part of a "CIA-authorized six-man squad" tasked with killing Qasim and was later paid and trained by the CIA in Beirut and watched over in Cairo; the CIA declined to comment, and the historian Bryan Gibson has cited declassified records showing that on October 1, 1959 [[Allen Dulles]] told the National Security Council only that an attempt might be made in the next two months.[^2]
-The Ba'ath Party seized power on February 8, 1963, in a coup that the CIA had advance knowledge of and facilitated. The incoming Ba'athist government received from the CIA lists of suspected communists and leftists; those lists were used to direct the killing of thousands of political opponents in the weeks following the coup. The Ba'ath lost power later in 1963 but returned in a second coup on July 17, 1968, establishing the regime that would govern until 2003.[^2]
+On February 8, 1963 Qassem was overthrown and killed in a coup led by the Ba'ath Party. White House aide Robert Komer told President [[John F. Kennedy]] the Iraqi revolution was "almost certainly a net gain for our side," and Secretary of State [[Dean Rusk]] asked on February 9 for authority to recognize the new regime. The role of the CIA is disputed: Roger Morris, a former National Security Council staff member, said the CIA chose the Ba'ath Party "as its instrument" and was behind the coup; a former very senior CIA official told United Press International the Agency was "absolutely stunned"; and the same report cited unnamed former U.S. intelligence officials as saying the CIA gave Iraqi National Guardsmen lists of suspected communists, who were then shot.[^2] The Ba'ath lost power later in 1963 but returned in a second coup on July 17, 1968, establishing the regime that would govern until 2003.[^1]
-Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr served as president until [[Saddam Hussein]] forced his resignation on July 16, 1979. Saddam assumed the presidency and within days held a party congress at which he personally identified and had arrested dozens of alleged conspirators; hundreds of senior party figures were subsequently executed.
+Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr served as president until Saddam Hussein forced his resignation on July 16, 1979. Saddam assumed the presidency and within days held a party congress at which he personally identified and had arrested dozens of alleged conspirators; hundreds of senior party figures were subsequently executed.
 ### Iran-Iraq War and Western Support
-Iraq invaded [[Iran]] in September 1980 following the instability created by the [[Iranian Revolution]]. The eight-year [[Iran-Iraq War]] (1980-1988) killed an estimated half-million to one million people and devastated the economies of both countries. The [[Reagan administration]] tilted toward Iraq from 1982, providing CIA satellite intelligence, agricultural credits, arms, and dual-use technology to Baghdad - while simultaneously running the covert arms-for-hostages pipeline to Iran that became the [[Iran-Contra Affair]].[^2]
+Iraq invaded Iran in September 1980 following the instability created by the [[Iranian Revolution]]. The eight-year [[Iran-Iraq War]] (1980-1988) killed an estimated half-million to one million people and devastated the economies of both countries. The [[Reagan administration]] tilted toward Iraq from 1982. A State Department memorandum of October 7, 1983 stated that the policy of strict neutrality had been modified, except for arms sales, since the summer of 1982, and assumed that tactical intelligence would continue; a presidential directive of April 5, 1984 (NSDD 139) ordered a plan to prevent Iraq's defeat; and on November 29, 1984 Secretary of State [[George Shultz]] told Tariq Aziz that superior intelligence must be an important factor in Iraq's defense. Meanwhile the administration ran the covert arms-for-hostages pipeline to Iran that became the [[Iran-Contra Affair]].[^2]
 [[Donald Rumsfeld]] visited Saddam Hussein in December 1983 as a special envoy, cementing the relationship at a moment when U.S. intelligence knew Iraq was using chemical weapons against Iranian troops. The financial structure supporting Iraqi arms procurement implicated [[Banca Nazionale del Lavoro]]'s [[Atlanta]] branch in what became the [[BNL scandal]]. Chilean arms manufacturer [[Carlos Cardoen]] supplied cluster munitions to Iraq through CIA-connected channels. [[PROMIS]] software was allegedly sold to Iraqi intelligence in backdoor-equipped form.[^3]
@ -42,5 +42,5 @@ The subsequent occupation produced the [[Abu Ghraib]] prisoner abuse scandal and
 ### Footnotes
 [^1]: "Iraq," *Encyclopaedia Britannica.* https://www.britannica.com/place/Iraq
-[^2]: "CIA activities in Iraq," Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Iraq
+[^2]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963, vol. XVIII, Near East, 1962-1963, documents 153 and 154 (February 8 and 9, 1963), https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v18 ; Richard Sale, "Exclusive: Saddam key in early CIA plot," United Press International, April 10, 2003, https://www.upi.com/Exclusive-Saddam-key-in-early-CIA-plot/65571050017416/ ; Joyce Battle, ed., "Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein: The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 82, February 25, 2003, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/
 [^3]: Friedman, Alan. *Spider's Web: The Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq.* Bantam Books, 1993.