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---
category: "Military"
tags:
- Person
- CarlosPrats
- Chile
- DINA
- OperationCondor
- Assassination
- BuenosAires
alias:
- Carlos Prats González
- General Prats
summary: "Commander of the Chilean army under Salvador Allende, who recommended Augusto Pinochet as his successor and was killed with his wife by a secret police car bomb in Buenos Aires on September 30, 1974."
died: 1974-09-30
location: "Buenos Aires, Argentina"
created: 2026-09-21
updated: 2026-09-21
---
General Carlos Prats González became commander in chief of the Chilean army in October 1970, after the shooting of his predecessor, General [[Rene Schneider|René Schneider]], in a kidnapping attempt supported by the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]. He entered the cabinet of [[Salvador Allende]] in 1972 and served for a time as vice president. In June 1973 he put down the Tanquetazo, a coup attempt by junior officers and [[Patria y Libertad]]. Protests against his support for the government forced his resignation in late August 1973. He recommended General [[Augusto Pinochet]] to replace him, believing that Pinochet would defend the constitution.[^1]
### Exile
Four days after the coup of September 11, 1973, Prats and his wife, [[Sofía Cuthbert]], left for [[Buenos Aires]]. He "was living quietly," the CIA reported; "he was not permitted to make any public appearances or statements and had faithfully carried out the restrictive instructions pertaining to his exile." Six weeks after the coup Pinochet sent General [[Sergio Arellano Stark]] to Buenos Aires on a mission whose first purpose, a CIA source reported, was to "discuss with the Argentine military any information they have regarding the activities of General (retired) Carlos Prats" and to arrange for the Argentines to "maintain scrutiny over Prats and regularly inform the Chileans of his activities."[^1]
In June 1974 Pinochet met Colonel [[Manuel Contreras]], director of [[DINA]], and ordered him to eliminate Prats. A DINA captain, [[Juan Morales]], filed a surveillance report from Buenos Aires giving the couple's home and work addresses and the models of their cars, noting that Prats had no guards, and enclosing a drawing of the entrance to his garage. Four days before the killing the Chilean foreign ministry told its consul in Buenos Aires, Álvaro Droguett, that it would be "inconvenient" to issue the couple the passports they had requested to travel to [[Brazil]]. Droguett later gave the family a copy of the refusal with a handwritten note saying that he had learned of it only on September 30.[^1]
### September 30, 1974
The DINA station chief in [[Argentina]], [[Enrique Arancibia Clavel]], had been told to have Argentine paramilitaries do the killing. When that did not advance, Contreras's deputy, Colonel [[Pedro Espinoza]], gave the job to [[Michael Townley]], an American recently recruited by the service, who arrived with his wife, [[Mariana Callejas]], on September 10. Townley fixed two cartridges of C4 under the general's Fiat 125 in the garage of his building on September 29 and detonated them by remote control from a car across the street when the couple came home just after midnight. The CIA's weekly terrorism summary repeated a police report that a bomb had been thrown at the car. Ambassador [[David Popper]] cabled from [[Santiago]] that a [[Radio Moscow]] report that DINA had killed Prats because the junta feared he would draw the loyalty of disaffected officers "makes no sense to us. Nor do we see significant interest in killing Prats of any other Chilean group with capacity of doing so."[^1]
Weeks later a friend told the Prats daughters that the regime planned to "celebrate the coup" each September by eliminating a person it considered a threat. [[Bernardo Leighton]] was shot in [[Rome]] the following year and [[Orlando Letelier]] was killed in Washington on September 21, 1976.[^1]
### Prosecution
In 1983 Sofía and Angélica Prats went to Washington with Argentine lawyers to seek the extradition of Townley, who was by then in the [[Witness Protection Program|witness protection program]] after a short sentence for the Letelier bombing. A federal judge ruled that his plea agreement prevented it. A Chilean judge refused to extradite Callejas. The Argentine judge [[María Servini de Cubría|María Servini]] deposed Townley in the [[United States]] in 1999, and his testimony was sealed for some years. Arancibia Clavel was imprisoned in Argentina for almost two decades. In June 2010 Chilean courts convicted Contreras, Espinoza, and other DINA officers of the murders. Pinochet was never charged. At the viewing of his open coffin in December 2006 a grandson of the general, [[Francisco Cuadrado Prats]], waited in line and spat on the glass.[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. "The Pinochet Regime at 50: The Assassination of General Carlos Prats and Sofía Cuthbert," National Security Archive, October 1, 2024, with CIA and DINA documents and the 1999 deposition of Michael Townley. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2024-10-01/pinochet-regime-50-assassination-general-carlos-prats-and-sofia

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---
category: "Authors & Journalists"
tags:
- Person
- DanSmoot
- FBI
- FactsForum
- HLHunt
- JohnBirchSociety
- RadioRight
alias:
- Howard D. Smoot
summary: "FBI agent from 1942 to 1951 who became the voice of H.L. Hunt's Facts Forum and then an independent broadcaster, and whose resignation, described to the public as voluntary, followed censure, probation, and transfer."
location: "Dallas, Texas"
created: 2026-09-21
updated: 2026-09-21
---
Dan Smoot was the broadcasting name of Howard D. Smoot, a special agent of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] from March 23, 1942, to June 15, 1951, and afterward the commentator of [[Facts Forum]], the radio and television foundation of [[H.L. Hunt]], and the publisher of The [[The Dan Smoot Report|Dan Smoot Report]].[^1]
### Facts Forum
The masthead of [[Facts Forum News]] for June 1955 lists Smoot as commentator and [[Medford Evans]] as editor. On July 11, 1955, the former bureau officials [[Stanley Tracy]] and [[D. Milton Ladd|D.M. Ladd]] passed word to headquarters that Hunt "is withdrawing his support of Facts Forum," that he "was despondent over the recent death of his wife and that there was considerable dissension among the office staff," and that "former Special Agent Daniel Smoot is planning to leave the Facts Forum set up as of August 1, 1955." Smoot started his own newsletter and broadcast. A bureau memorandum of February 26, 1964, listed him with [[Robert E. Lee (FCC)|Robert E. Lee]] of the [[Federal Communications Commission]] and [[Gene Scudder|Milton Eugene Scudder]] as "former Agents associated with H.L. Hunt's right-wing groups."[^2][^3]
### The Bureau's Two Accounts
Through the 1960s members of the public wrote to the FBI about Smoot, most of them after hearing his commentary on the [[John Birch Society]]. The form reply stated that he had "voluntarily submitted his resignation" for personal reasons, that he had had no access to bureau files since, and that his views "do not represent this Bureau in any manner." An internal note in the same file reads: "Howard D. Smoot, former SA, resigned following censure, probation and transfer due to several unfounded charges made by him against his SAC."[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, headquarters file on Howard D. (Dan) Smoot, released under the Freedom of Information Act. https://archive.org/details/foia_Dan_Smoot_Report-HQ-3
[^2]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, headquarters file 62-94811, "Facts Forum," memorandum of July 11, 1955, and enclosed *Facts Forum News,* vol. IV, no. 6, June 1955. https://archive.org/details/FactsForumHQ6294811
[^3]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, headquarters file on H.L. Hunt, part 2, memorandum to C.D. DeLoach, February 26, 1964.

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10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/David Atlee Phillips.md
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---
---
created: 2026-05-15
updated: 2026-05-16
updated: 2026-09-21
title: David Atlee Phillips
aliases:
- David Phillips
@ -14,6 +14,12 @@ tags:
- Guatemala
- 1950s
- 1960s
- DavidAtleePhillips
- Chile
- ProjectFUBELT
- OrlandoLetelier
- AFIO
- Libel
category: "Intelligence & Government"
summary: "David Atlee Phillips was a CIA propaganda officer who ran La Voz de la Liberacion for the 1954 Guatemala coup, served as Chief of Cuban Operations at the CIA's Mexico City station during Lee Harvey Oswald's disputed September-October 1963 visit, and was identified in 2013 by Alpha 66 founder Antonio Veciana as the CIA officer 'Maurice Bishop' whom Veciana had seen with Oswald in Dallas two months before the Kennedy assassination - a claim Phillips denied under HSCA oath but that CIA officer Ron Crozier confirmed was a Phillips alias."
born: 1922-10-31
@ -25,9 +31,9 @@ David Atlee Phillips (October 31, 1922 - July 7, 1988) was a [[Central Intellige
### Early Career and PBSUCCESS
Phillips served as an Air Force nose gunner during [[World War II]] and joined the CIA in 1950. Early assignments included Mexico City and undercover work in [[Cuba]] beginning in 1959, where he monitored the emerging revolutionary government. He published one novel under his own name, *The Carlos Contract* (1978), and also wrote the memoir *The Night Watch* (Atheneum, 1977) covering his CIA career.
Phillips served as an Air Force nose gunner during [[World War II]] and joined the CIA in 1950. Early assignments included Mexico City and undercover work in Cuba beginning in 1959, where he monitored the emerging revolutionary government. He published one novel under his own name, *The Carlos Contract* (1978), and also wrote the memoir *The Night Watch* (Atheneum, 1977) covering his CIA career.
For Operation PBSUCCESS in 1953-1954, the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]-organized coup against Guatemalan President [[Jacobo Arbenz]], Phillips ran the psychological warfare component alongside [[Tracy Barnes]] (the Washington coordinator) and [[Howard Hunt]] (chief of political action). Under the pseudonym "Paul D. Langevin," Phillips directed La Voz de la Liberacion (Voice of Liberation), the CIA's clandestine black radio network broadcasting from [[Honduras]] that fabricated reports of the Liberation Army's military progress and falsely attributed atrocities to the Arbenz regime. He distributed approximately 100,000 pamphlets titled "Chronology of Communism in Guatemala" and produced three films for cinema distribution.
For Operation PBSUCCESS in 1953-1954, the CIA-organized coup against Guatemalan President [[Jacobo Arbenz]], Phillips ran the psychological warfare component alongside [[Tracy Barnes]] (the Washington coordinator) and [[Howard Hunt]] (chief of political action). Under the pseudonym "Paul D. Langevin," Phillips directed La Voz de la Liberacion (Voice of Liberation), the CIA's clandestine black radio network broadcasting from [[Honduras]] that fabricated reports of the Liberation Army's military progress and falsely attributed atrocities to the Arbenz regime. He distributed approximately 100,000 pamphlets titled "Chronology of Communism in Guatemala" and produced three films for cinema distribution.
The PBSUCCESS radio campaign - combined with the cultivation of Guatemalan military officers to induce their defection from Arbenz - was the primary mechanism that induced Arbenz's resignation on June 27, 1954, despite the Liberation Army's modest actual military performance on the ground. Phillips later cited PBSUCCESS as a defining formative experience, and its propaganda model informed his subsequent Cuba work.[^1]
@ -35,7 +41,16 @@ The PBSUCCESS radio campaign - combined with the cultivation of Guatemalan milit
After undercover work in Havana in 1959-1960 and involvement in Bay of Pigs planning, Phillips worked at JM/WAVE, the CIA's large Miami station, on anti-Castro propaganda operations and directing exile organizations, including Alpha 66, during [[Operation Mongoose]].
In September 1963, Phillips was appointed Chief of Cuban Operations at the CIA's [[Mexico City]] station, working under station chief [[Win Scott]]. This appointment placed Phillips in charge of CIA operations targeting the [[Cuba|Cuban]] consulate and Soviet Embassy in Mexico City at precisely the time Oswald (or someone representing himself as Oswald) visited both installations in late September and early October 1963, seeking Cuban and Soviet visas. The HSCA's 350-page Lopez Report, which investigated CIA operations in Mexico City in this period, documented that information "was not reported to CIA Headquarters in an accurate and expeditious manner prior to the assassination" and that "all information in the possession of the CIA Mexico City Station was not reported to CIA Headquarters in an accurate and expeditious manner." The Lopez Report was completed in 1979 and remained classified until a 1996 partial release; a more complete version was released in 2003 and is available at history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/lopezrpt/.[^2]
In September 1963, Phillips was appointed Chief of Cuban Operations at the CIA's [[Mexico City]] station, working under station chief [[Win Scott]]. This appointment placed Phillips in charge of CIA operations targeting the Cuban consulate and Soviet Embassy in Mexico City at precisely the time Oswald (or someone representing himself as Oswald) visited both installations in late September and early October 1963, seeking Cuban and Soviet visas. The HSCA's 350-page Lopez Report, which investigated CIA operations in Mexico City in this period, documented that information "was not reported to CIA Headquarters in an accurate and expeditious manner prior to the assassination" and that "all information in the possession of the CIA Mexico City Station was not reported to CIA Headquarters in an accurate and expeditious manner." The Lopez Report was completed in 1979 and remained classified until a 1996 partial release; a more complete version was released in 2003 and is available at history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/lopezrpt/.[^2]
### Chile, 1970
After President [[Richard Nixon]] ordered the CIA on September 15, 1970, to prevent [[Salvador Allende]] from taking office in [[Chile]], the agency formed a task force under its deputy director for plans, [[Thomas Karamessines]]. Phillips ran it from day to day with [[William Broe]], chief of the [[CIA Western Hemisphere Division|Western Hemisphere Division]]. The operation had the cryptonym [[Project FUBELT]].[^3]
On October 16 headquarters cabled the [[Santiago]] station: "It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup." The work was to be done "clandestinely and securely so that the USG and American hand be well hidden." The cable added: "There is great and continuing interest in the activities of Tirado, Canales, [[Camilo Valenzuela|Valenzuela]], et al, and we wish them optimum good fortune." The releasing officer named at its foot is David A. Phillips.[^4]
On October 18 the station asked for "three .45 calibre machine guns (grease guns) with 500 rounds of ammo each" within 48 hours. Broe and Phillips approved the request, and in the same exchange raised and dropped the idea of "bomb drops in areas not likely to cause casualties." They instructed the station chief, [[Henry Hecksher]], to tell neither the army attaché nor Ambassador [[Edward Korry]] of the "impending coup," and if it came to "appear surprised and stonewall any and all queries." General [[Rene Schneider|René Schneider]], the army commander, was shot on October 22 and died on October 25. The Senate committee's 1975 report on the episode quotes the task force's officers without naming Phillips or Hecksher, and their names were attached to the cables only when the documents were declassified.[^3][^5]
Phillips was chief of the Western Hemisphere Division when Allende was overthrown on September 11, 1973.
### The Maurice Bishop Controversy
@ -57,6 +72,11 @@ HSCA chief counsel Robert Blakey stated the committee was "less than satisfied w
Phillips retired from the CIA in 1975 as head of the Western Hemisphere Division at GS-18 rank, the highest CIA position not requiring executive appointment. That year he founded the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO), which became a platform for publicly defending the CIA against the reform pressures generated by the [[Church Committee]] investigations.
### The Libel Suits
The writers [[Donald Freed]] and [[Fred Landis]], authors of *Death in Washington*, on the murder of [[Orlando Letelier]], held a press conference in Washington in 1980 with the journalist [[John Cummings]]. They alleged that Phillips and the [[Association of Former Intelligence Officers]] had been involved in the killing, and that Phillips had been Lee Harvey Oswald's case officer under the name Maurice Bishop. Phillips sued them, the publisher [[Lawrence Hill]], and [[William Pepper]] in the federal court in Washington (Civil Actions 81-1407 and 81-2578), asking more than 90 million dollars. The litigation was paid for in part by [[Challenge, Inc.]], "An Intelligence Officers' Legal Action Fund," which also supported the libel suit brought by three former embassy officials in Santiago against the makers of the film [[Missing (film)|Missing]], on the death of [[Charles Horman]].[^6]
After almost five years four of the five defendants settled in February 1986 for an undisclosed sum. Pepper could not be found. The retraction filed with the court said the authors and publisher "had no intention of charging or suggesting that Mr. Phillips played any role in the assassination of Orlando Letelier, that he was an accessory before or after the fact of that murder, or that he had any connection with Lee Harvey Oswald." Phillips said: "I certainly am satisfied because I believe it is a vindication." Of his former employer he said: "I have a feeling that the reaction of the CIA to former agents who file lawsuits is that they consider them something, perhaps, a cut above a gun smuggler or a narcotics smuggler." At the same press conference he said he had examined photocopies of papers from Letelier's briefcase showing that Letelier "had been cooperating with the [[Dirección General de Inteligencia|Cuban DGI]] intelligence service." "They existed," he said, though the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] "has claimed none exist."[^6]
### Later Statements and Death
Phillips died of cancer on July 7, 1988. HSCA investigator Kevin Walsh reported that Phillips told him before his death: "My final take on the assassination is there was a conspiracy, likely including American intelligence officers." Reports attributed to Phillips' nephew Shawn Phillips indicated that Phillips' brother James reported a deathbed exchange in which David answered "Yes" when asked "Were you in Dallas that day?" An undated manuscript passage attributed to Phillips states he "handled" Oswald with a mission involving Castro - though the provenance of this text has been treated with varying skepticism by researchers and cannot be verified as authentically from Phillips.[^1]
@ -70,4 +90,8 @@ In his 2017 memoir *Trained to Kill* (co-written with journalist Carlos Harrison
### Footnotes
[^1]: Veciana, Antonio, with Carlos Harrison. *Trained to Kill: The Inside Story of CIA Plots Against Castro, Kennedy, and Che.* Skyhorse Publishing, 2017. Fonzi, Gaeton. *The Last Investigation.* Thunder's Mouth Press, 1993. Phillips, David Atlee. *The Night Watch.* Atheneum, 1977.
[^2]: House Select Committee on Assassinations. Veciana executive session testimony, April 25-26, 1978. Available at latinamericanstudies.org/belligerence/veciana.htm. Lopez, Edwin, and Dan Hardway. "Oswald, the CIA, and Mexico City" (Lopez Report). HSCA Staff Report, 1979. Available at history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/lopezrpt/. Kinzer, Stephen, and Stephen Schlesinger. *Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala.* Harvard University Press, 1983.
[^2]: House Select Committee on Assassinations. Veciana executive session testimony, April 25-26, 1978. Available at latinamericanstudies.org/belligerence/veciana.htm. Lopez, Edwin, and Dan Hardway. "Oswald, the CIA, and Mexico City" (Lopez Report). HSCA Staff Report, 1979. Available at history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/lopezrpt/. Kinzer, Stephen, and Stephen Schlesinger. *Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala.* Harvard University Press, 1983.
[^3]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. "The CIA and Chile: Anatomy of an Assassination," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 728, October 22, 2020. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2020-10-22/cia-chile-anatomy-assassination
[^4]: Central Intelligence Agency, cable to Santiago station, October 16, 1970, Secret, Eyes Only. National Security Archive document 23596. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/media/23596/ocr
[^5]: Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders,* S. Rept. 94-465, 1975, and staff report, *Covert Action in Chile, 1963-1973,* 1975.
[^6]: Challenge, Inc., press release, February 14, 1986, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP90-00806R000100200056-7; Bruske, Ed. "Libel Suit Settled," *The Washington Post,* February 17, 1986, CIA-RDP91-00587R000200890014-0; "CIA agent winner in Letelier case," *The Washington Times,* February 1986, CIA-RDP90-00552R000403680003-9.

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---
category: "BCCI Scandal"
tags:
- Person
- JacksonStephens
- StephensInc
- BCCI
- Systematics
- WorthenBank
- LippoGroup
- Arkansas
- CampaignFinance
alias:
- Jackson T. Stephens
- Jack Stephens
summary: "Little Rock investment banker whose firm held the nominee account through which BCCI's clients bought into Financial General Bankshares in 1977, and whose Worthen Bank, owned with the Riady family, financed Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign."
born: 1923
died: 2005
location: "Little Rock, Arkansas"
created: 2026-09-21
updated: 2026-09-21
---
Jackson T. Stephens (1923 to 2005) ran the investment bank [[Stephens Inc.]] of [[Little Rock, Arkansas|Little Rock]] from 1957. He was a classmate of [[Jimmy Carter]] at the [[United States Naval Academy]], class of 1947, underwrote the first public offering of [[Walmart]], and was chairman of [[Augusta National Golf Club]] from 1991 to 1998. In 1977 he introduced the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] to the American bank it would secretly acquire. He and his firm gave to [[Ronald Reagan]], [[George H.W. Bush]], and [[Bill Clinton]].[^1][^2]
### Financial General
In 1977 Stephens Inc. held 268,400 shares, 4.9 percent, of [[Financial General Bankshares]] of Washington as part of a dissident group of investors. Stephens was alleged to want the bank's data processing for his subsidiary [[Systematics Inc.]], which he denied. He was also helping his friend [[Bert Lance]], who had resigned as Carter's budget director, to sell the [[National Bank of Georgia]]. On November 9, 1977, Lance, Stephens, and a Stephens officer, [[Curt Bradbury]], met [[Abdus Sami]] of the Bank of Credit and Commerce in Little Rock. The buyer of the Georgia bank was [[Ghaith Pharaon]], acting for the Pakistani bank. A federal court found that its founder, [[Agha Hasan Abedi]], became interested in Financial General "through his contact with Stephens on another matter," and that in November 1977 Stephens recommended the Washington lawyer [[Eugene Metzger]] to a foreign bank interested in the stock.[^2][^3]
Abedi retained Metzger at a Hilton hotel in Washington on November 30. The purchases for the bank's clients were run from day to day by [[George H. Davis]], "an officer of Stephens, Inc.," who was authorized to buy up to 10,000 shares a day so as not to move the price. The stock was placed in an account at Stephens Inc. opened under the name "Eugene J. Metzger, Agent," in the court's words "to shield the identity of the BCCI principals." On January 6, 1978, Stephens Inc. sold 70,000 of its own shares into the accumulation, which by the end of the month held nearly 20 percent of the votes. When the bank's officers were first asked, they "flatly denied making any purchases."[^2][^3]
Financial General sued on February 17, 1978, naming Lance, the bank, Abedi, Metzger, Stephens, Stephens Inc., and Systematics. The investors added in March were [[Kamal Adham]], described by the court as a minister of the Saudi government, [[Faisal Saud al-Fulaij|Faisal Saud]] al-Fulaij of [[Kuwait]], the crown prince of [[Abu Dhabi]], his younger brother, and the financial adviser to their family. Systematics was dismissed on March 22. [[Hillary Clinton|Hillary Rodham]] of the [[Rose Law Firm]] did legal work for it in the case. On March 18 Stephens and the other defendants consented to permanent injunctions in a separate suit by the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]], No. 78-0469. The court granted Stephens summary judgment on July 20, 1978. The remaining defendants settled in 1980, and the tender offer went through. "The [[Middle East|Middle Eastern]] investors are in control of Financial General Bankshares," the court of appeals noted in 1982. The company was renamed [[First American Bankshares]].[^2][^3]
### Worthen and Lippo
Stephens and the [[Riady family]] of [[Indonesia]], owners of the [[Lippo Group]], controlled [[Worthen Bank]] of Little Rock together in the 1980s. At the end of 1991 Lippo was the expected buyer of the Bank of Credit and Commerce's failed [[Hong Kong]] subsidiary, a plan dropped in February 1992. Worthen, under Bradbury, extended the Clinton presidential campaign a line of credit of about 3.5 million dollars at the start of 1992, the first million drawn on March 4. Stephens's wife, Mary Anne, had run Bush's 1988 campaign in [[Arkansas]], Stephens was a member of the Republican Team 100 of 100,000 dollar donors, and his firm gave 100,000 dollars to a Bush dinner in May 1991. A federal inquiry in 1992 examined Clinton's association with Stephens, according to unnamed government officials, in part to learn whether Clinton was connected with the Pakistani bank.[^3][^4]
[[James Riady]] pleaded guilty on January 11, 2001, to conspiring to defraud the [[United States]] by reimbursing campaign donors with foreign money, and paid 8.6 million dollars, the largest fine in a campaign finance case. The charge described funds wired to his account at [[LippoBank]] and handed to the Lippo executive [[John Huang]] in cash "shortly after Riady pledged $1 million in support of Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton's campaign." Huang had pleaded guilty in 1999. A Senate committee recorded that as a [[United States Department of Commerce|Commerce Department]] official in 1994 and 1995 Huang received 37 intelligence briefings from the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]], made more than 400 calls to Lippo, and used an office at Stephens Inc. in Washington. On June 23, 1994, James Riady had breakfast with [[Webster Hubbell]], the former Rose partner who had resigned as associate attorney general in April, at the [[Hay-Adams Hotel]], went with Huang and the Little Rock lawyer [[Mark Grobmyer]] to see the president at ten, and had lunch with Hubbell at the same hotel. By June 27 a Lippo company, [[Hong Kong China Limited]], had wired 100,000 dollars to Hubbell's account. Huang's appointment at the Commerce Department was approved at about the same time. Lippo also paid for a trip to [[Jakarta]] and [[Bali]] for Hubbell and his wife. "Both Riady and Hubbell refuse to describe what services, if any, Hubbell performed," House investigators wrote. Hubbell invoked the [[Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifth Amendment]]. An associate gave Riady's explanation: "Mr. Hubbell was our very close friend, when he left, we felt we should help him out." Hubbell received more than 700,000 dollars from friends of the president after leaving the department.[^5][^6]
### Harken
Stephens Inc. was the investment banker to [[Harken Energy]], of which [[George W. Bush]] was a director. In 1987 it arranged the company's refinancing through [[Union Bank of Switzerland]], the Pakistani bank's partner in its Swiss affiliate. When the Swiss bank withdrew, its shares went to the Saudi investor [[Abdullah Taha Bakhsh]], whose banker was [[Khalid bin Mahfouz]] and whose representative on Harken's board, [[Talat Othman]], attended three [[White House]] meetings on the Middle East. Two former Stephens bankers, David and Mike Edwards, introduced Harken to [[Bahrain]], which awarded it an offshore drilling concession on January 30, 1990, two weeks after the Bank of Credit and Commerce pleaded guilty in [[Tampa, Florida|Tampa]].[^3][^7]
### Systematics
[[Walter Smiley]] founded Systematics in 1968 with Stephens holding 80 percent. It ran the data processing of banks and was sold to [[ALLTEL|Alltel]] in 1990 for 528 million dollars.[^8] In 1995 a Forbes editor, [[James Norman]], wrote in an article his magazine declined to print that Systematics had been a conduit for the [[National Security Agency]]'s surveillance of bank transfers using [[PROMIS]] software and that [[Vince Foster]] had overseen the relationship for the Rose firm. Systematics and Alltel denied it. Representative [[Jim Leach]], chairman of the [[House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs|House Banking Committee]], asked the CIA. The agency's briefing paper stated: "We have found no record of any CIA contact or contracts with Systematics, Inc. of Arkansas." Its inspector general's staff and the inspector general of the [[NSA|National Security Agency]] briefed Leach in person on July 21, 1995. The search terms recorded in the memorandum were Systematics, [[Mena, Arkansas|Mena]], and [[Hadron]]. Director [[John Deutch]] ordered an inspector general's investigation on March 13, 1996, a report was completed that November, and Leach was still sending questions in 1998. Neither the House Judiciary Committee's 1992 report on the [[INSLAW]] affair nor INSLAW's own 1994 addendum on the distribution of PROMIS mentions Systematics, Stephens, or Arkansas.[^9][^10][^11]
### Arkansas
Stephens was born on August 9, 1923, on a farm near [[Prattsville, Arkansas|Prattsville]], the youngest of six children, worked as a boy at the Barlow Hotel in [[Hope, Arkansas|Hope]], and joined Augusta National in 1962. He gave 48 million dollars to the [[University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences]], 20.4 million to the [[University of Arkansas]] at Little Rock, 20 million to [[Episcopal Collegiate School]], and 10 million to the Naval Academy. He died on July 23, 2005.[^11]
Stephens's brother, [[Witt Stephens]], controlled [[Arkla|Arkansas Louisiana Gas]]. By the late 1960s seventeen of the thirty-five state senators were on the gas company's payroll or retainer. Told that a state supreme court ruling threatened his position, he said, "Well, hell, we'll just change the law." Witt Stephens bought the utility in 1954 and in 1957, after the state supreme court rejected its rate formula, had a replacement passed by both houses and signed in four days. His successor at the utility, [[Sheffield Nelson]], sold gas leases to [[Jerry Jones]] that the company bought back in 1986, under [[Mack McLarty]], for far more than it had received, and the transaction was the chief issue when Nelson ran against Clinton for governor in 1990. McLarty became Clinton's chief of staff. The brothers considered buying the [[Arkansas Gazette]] in 1991. The family's [[Stephens Media]] bought the [[Donrey Media Group]] newspapers, including the [[Las Vegas Review-Journal]], and sold them in 2015. It opened a bureau in Little Rock in 1996 to compete with the [[Arkansas Democrat-Gazette]], whose publisher, [[Walter Hussman]], said: "The Stephens people think of themselves as businessmen first and then journalists." In 1995 the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]] blocked its purchase of the [[Northwest Arkansas Times]]. His son [[Warren Stephens]] became ambassador to the [[United Kingdom]] in 2025.[^4][^11]
### Footnotes
[^1]: "Jackson Thomas Stephens (1923-2005)," *Encyclopedia of Arkansas.*
[^2]: Financial General Bankshares, Inc. v. Metzger, 523 F. Supp. 744 (D.D.C. 1981); 680 F.2d 768 (D.C. Cir. 1982).
[^3]: Truell, Peter, and Larry Gurwin. *False Profits: The Inside Story of BCCI, the World's Most Corrupt Financial Empire*. Houghton Mifflin, 1992, pp. 41, 428.
[^4]: Morris, Roger. *Partners in Power: The Clintons and Their America*. Henry Holt, 1996.
[^5]: Department of Justice, "James Riady Pleads Guilty, Will Pay Largest Fine in Campaign Finance History for Violating Federal Election Law," press release 01-17, January 11, 2001.
[^6]: Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, *Investigation of Illegal or Improper Activities in Connection with 1996 Federal Election Campaigns,* S. Rept. 105-167, 1998.
[^7]: Petzinger, Thomas, Peter Truell, and Jill Abramson. "How Oil Firm Linked to a Son of Bush Won Big Drilling Pact," *The Wall Street Journal,* December 6, 1991.
[^8]: *American Banker,* reporting on Systematics and its sale to Alltel, 1990.
[^9]: Central Intelligence Agency, "Briefing for Chairman Leach, House Banking Committee," and memorandum for the record, July 21, 1995, CIA Reading Room documents 0001289820 and 0001289686.
[^10]: Deutch, John, memorandum to the Inspector General, March 13, 1996; Hitz, Frederick P., to Rep. James A. Leach, 1998, CIA Reading Room.
[^11]: Ross, Mike. Tribute to Jackson T. Stephens, *Congressional Record,* vol. 151, July 27, 2005, p. E1655; "Witt Stephens (1907-1991)" and "Sheffield Nelson," *Encyclopedia of Arkansas*; "Following the Money," *Arkansas Times,* September 7, 2001; House Committee on the Judiciary, *The INSLAW Affair,* H. Rept. 102-857, 1992; INSLAW, Inc., "Addendum to INSLAW's Analysis and Rebuttal of the Bua Report," February 14, 1994.

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---
category: "Other"
tags:
- Person
- JamesRiady
- LippoGroup
- WorthenBank
- JacksonStephens
- CampaignFinance
- BillClinton
alias:
- James Tjahaja Riady
summary: "Indonesian banker, son of Lippo Group founder Mochtar Riady, who interned at Stephens Inc., ran Worthen Bank's international division in Little Rock, and in 2001 paid the largest campaign finance fine in American history."
location: "Jakarta, Indonesia"
created: 2026-09-21
updated: 2026-09-21
---
James Tjahaja Riady is an [[Indonesia|Indonesian]] banker and the son of [[Mochtar Riady]], founder of the [[Lippo Group]]. His father met [[Jackson Stephens]] and [[Witt Stephens]] in 1976 while looking for a stake in an American bank, and the two families formed [[Stephens Finance Ltd.]] in [[Hong Kong]] in 1978. James Riady served an internship at [[Stephens Inc.]] in [[Little Rock, Arkansas|Little Rock]].[^1]
### Little Rock
The Stephens and Riady families both invested in the [[Worthen Bank|Worthen Banking Corporation]] in 1983, and James Riady moved to Little Rock to run its international division, with [[John Huang]] as his [[Far East]] manager from February 1985. That April the [[New Jersey]] securities dealer [[Bevill, Bresler and Schulman]] failed while holding 52 million dollars of [[Arkansas]] state funds that Worthen had placed with it. About 1987 the Riadys traded their Worthen shares for the Stephens interest in the [[Hong Kong Chinese Bank]]. Riady was chief executive of [[LippoBank]] in [[Los Angeles]] from 1986 to 1988. A memorandum in the family's files credited a five-minute car ride with Governor [[Bill Clinton]] as the start of its political giving to him. Through the end of 1991 the Lippo Group was expected to take over the Hong Kong subsidiary of the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]], paying depositors as much as forty cents on the dollar. The plan ended in February 1992 when investigators found 145 million dollars in unrecorded claims against the bank.[^1][^2]
### Hubbell
On June 23, 1994, Riady had breakfast at the [[Hay-Adams Hotel]] with [[Webster Hubbell]], who had resigned from the [[Department of Justice]] in April, met President Clinton at ten with Huang and [[Mark Grobmyer]], and had lunch with Hubbell. On June 27 Hubbell wrote to a director of [[Hong Kong China Limited]], a Lippo company, offering his services for 100,000 dollars a year, and the money was in his account by that day. "Both Riady and Hubbell refuse to describe what services, if any, Hubbell performed," a House committee reported. Lippo also paid for a trip to [[Jakarta]] and [[Bali]] for Hubbell and his wife. An associate of Riady told a reporter: "Mr. Hubbell was our very close friend, when he left, we felt we should help him out. We didn't like to see him without a source of income." Hubbell wrote in his memoir: "it wasn't hush money." The former managing partner of the [[Rose Law Firm]], [[C. Joseph Giroir]], incorporated the [[Arkansas International Development Corporation]] with Lippo capital in April 1993 and gave close to 200,000 dollars in 1996 in connection with fundraisers organized by Huang.[^1]
### Plea
On January 11, 2001, Riady agreed to plead guilty in the federal court in Los Angeles to a felony charge of conspiring to defraud the [[United States]] by reimbursing campaign donors with foreign corporate funds, and to pay 8.61 million dollars, which the Justice Department called the largest fine in the history of campaign finance law. LippoBank pleaded guilty to 86 misdemeanor counts covering 1988 to 1994. Indonesia has no extradition treaty with the United States, and Riady surrendered voluntarily after about six sessions with prosecutors. He agreed to 400 hours of community service and to stay out of the country for two years. The benefits the charge said he sought included "[[Community Reinvestment Act]] exemptions for LippoBank," "a repeal of the [[Glass-Steagall Act]]," and "Most Favored Nation status for [[China]]."[^3]
### Footnotes
[^1]: House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, *Investigation of Political Fundraising Improprieties and Possible Violations of Law,* H. Rept. 105-829, 1998, vol. 2. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CRPT-105hrpt829/html/CRPT-105hrpt829-vol2.htm ; Hubbell, Webster. *Friends in High Places*. William Morrow, 1997.
[^2]: Truell, Peter, and Larry Gurwin. *False Profits: The Inside Story of BCCI, the World's Most Corrupt Financial Empire*. Houghton Mifflin, 1992.
[^3]: Department of Justice, "James Riady Pleads Guilty, Will Pay Largest Fine in Campaign Finance History for Violating Federal Election Law," press release 01-17, January 11, 2001.

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---
category: "Law Enforcement & Legal"
tags:
- Person
- JohnSatterfield
- Segregation
- AmericanBarAssociation
- MississippiStateSovereigntyCommission
- WickliffeDraper
- CivilRightsAct
alias:
- John Creighton Satterfield
- John Satterfield
summary: "Yazoo City lawyer and president of the American Bar Association in 1961 who ran the Washington lobby against the Civil Rights Act on anonymous money from Wickliffe Draper passed through the Mississippi treasury."
born: 1904-07-25
died: 1981-05-05
location: "Yazoo City, Mississippi"
created: 2026-09-21
updated: 2026-09-21
---
John Creighton Satterfield (July 25, 1904 to May 5, 1981) was born in [[Port Gibson, Mississippi]], graduated from [[Millsaps College]] in 1926 and the law school of the [[University of Mississippi]] in 1929, and practiced in [[Jackson, Mississippi|Jackson]] and [[Yazoo City, Mississippi|Yazoo City]]. He sat in the [[Mississippi House of Representatives]] from 1928 to 1932, was president of the state bar in 1955 and 1956, and was president of the [[American Bar Association]] in 1961 and 1962, the only Mississippian to hold the office. Time called him "the most prominent segregationist lawyer in the country."[^1]
### Segregation
Satterfield belonged to the [[Citizens' Councils|Citizens' Council]], served on the [[Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission]], and was personal attorney to Governor [[Ross Barnett]] during the crisis over the admission of [[James Meredith]] to the University of [[Mississippi]] in 1962. In July 1963, after a month of talks with Senator [[James Eastland]], the commission's director [[Erle Johnston]], and [[Hugh V. White Jr.]] of the [[Virginia Commission on Constitutional Government]], he organized the [[Coordinating Committee for Fundamental American Freedoms]] and became its secretary and treasurer. He deposited its first contributions in a special account in the Mississippi state treasury. The commission paid him 2,000 dollars a month for the committee's first four months. More than 200,000 dollars of the committee's money came anonymously from [[Wickliffe Draper]] of [[New York City|New York]] through [[Morgan Guaranty Trust]]. An internal memorandum of his described the case against the civil rights bill as resting on "heredity" and on "the intelligence, criminality and immorality of the Negro."[^1][^2][^3]
After the bill became law he urged a new national organization to demonstrate that black southerners were inherently inferior, and Draper advanced 50,000 dollars for it on June 2, 1964. The murders in [[Neshoba County, Mississippi|Neshoba County]] that month cost the project its support, Governor [[Paul B. Johnson Jr.]] ignored it, and the money went back to an escrow account at the firm of Draper's lawyer, [[Harry Weyher]]. When Draper died in 1972 his estate left 1.7 million dollars to the [[Puritan Foundation]], whose address was that of Satterfield's law firm. It merged in 1978 into the [[Council School Foundation]], which financed the segregated private academies of the Citizens' Councils.[^1][^3]
In 1969 Satterfield volunteered to defend the school board of [[Holmes County, Mississippi|Holmes County]] in the case that became Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, in which the Supreme Court ordered the immediate end of dual school systems. Ill with Parkinson's disease, he killed himself on May 5, 1981.[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Hustwit, William P. "John C. Satterfield," *Mississippi Encyclopedia,* Center for the Study of Southern Culture, 2017.
[^2]: Lewis, George. "Coordinating Committee for Fundamental American Freedoms," *Mississippi Encyclopedia,* Center for the Study of Southern Culture, 2017.
[^3]: Blackmon, Douglas A. "Silent Partner: How the South's Fight to Uphold Segregation Was Funded Up North," *The Wall Street Journal,* June 11, 1999, p. A1.

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---
category: "Law Enforcement & Legal"
tags:
- Person
- JosephOster
- PrivateInvestigators
- NewOrleans
- GuyBanister
- SouthernResearchCompany
- DavidFerrie
- ARRB
alias:
- Joseph A. Oster Jr.
- Joe Oster
summary: "New Orleans private detective who left Guy Banister's agency to manage the local office of Southern Research, investigated David Ferrie for Eastern Air Lines, and went to Ferrie's apartment with the district attorney's men on November 22, 1963."
born: 1928-11-18
location: "New Orleans, Louisiana"
created: 2026-09-21
updated: 2026-09-21
---
Joseph A. Oster Jr. was born in [[New Orleans]] on November 18, 1928, attended [[Nichols High School]], served in the armed forces after the [[World War II|Second World War]], and spent six years as a detective in the [[New Orleans Police Department]] before going to the [[Pendleton Detective Agency]]. A credit report of July 25, 1960, copied into a [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] security file, lists him as an associate of "[[Guy Banister Associates|Guy B------ Associates]], Inc." and as vice president for the past year and a half of "Southern Research, Inc., whose home office is in [[Shreveport, Louisiana|Shreveport]]," a firm of ten or twelve employees. The [[Metropolitan Crime Commission]] held a report on him dated April 5, 1960.[^1]
### Interview of 1996
[[Philip Golrick]], a lawyer for the [[Assassination Records Review Board]], telephoned Oster on January 18, 1996, in search of the files of [[Guy Banister]], of the [[David Ferrie]] investigation, and of the [[Clay Shaw]] defense. Oster had none of Banister's papers. "If you got hold of those, you'd really have something," he said, and added that it would have taken a moving van to carry them. He named as possible holders Banister's employee [[Delphine Roberts]], the investigator [[Joe Marlborough]], [[William Gurvich]], the city police, and the local office of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]]. He called Banister "the Chief" and described him as polished and articulate and not a heavy drinker. He said he had left him for the [[Southern Research Company]] "because Banister was getting more involved in controversial political causes, to the detriment of attracting paying clients."[^2]
Oster said he had investigated Ferrie for [[Eastern Air Lines]] in 1962 and 1963, and that on the night of the assassination he went with the district attorney's investigators [[Raymond Comstock]], [[Louis Ivon]], and [[Lynn Loisel]] to Ferrie's home, where they found [[Layton Martens]] and another young man. Ferrie had gone to [[Houston]]. He said he once saw [[Lee Harvey Oswald]] handing out his [[Cuba]] leaflets in the summer of 1963, and that the police sergeant who arrested Oswald and [[Carlos Bringuier]] that August was a good friend. He left Southern Research in the middle 1960s. He "stated that neither he nor Southern Research had worked for the Clay Shaw defense team," which the records of Shaw's lawyer contradict. He had given the [[House Select Committee on Assassinations]] "everything they wanted" from his files, on both the Kennedy and the [[Martin Luther King Jr.|King]] cases, and the committee had returned the papers.[^2]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Central Intelligence Agency, report of investigation, September 13, 1960, JFK record 104-10109-10379, p. 14; Assassination Records Review Board, memorandum on records of the Metropolitan Crime Commission of New Orleans. Mary Ferrell Foundation archive.
[^2]: Golrick, Philip D. Memorandum to David G. Marwell, "Phone Conversation with Joseph Oster," January 19, 1996, Assassination Records Review Board electronic files (OSTER.WPD). Mary Ferrell Foundation archive.

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---
category: "Law Enforcement & Legal"
tags:
- Person
- PaulRothermel
- FBI
- HLHunt
- HuntOil
- Wiretapping
- Dallas
alias:
- Paul M. Rothermel Jr.
- Paul Rothermel Jr.
summary: "FBI agent who resigned in 1954 to become H.L. Hunt's assistant and security chief, kept up a correspondence with Hoover, and in 1969 was wiretapped by Hunt's sons, who accused him of embezzling millions."
born: 1926-03-24
location: "Dallas, Texas"
created: 2026-09-21
updated: 2026-09-21
---
Paul M. Rothermel Jr. was born on March 24, 1926, in [[Burton, Texas]], attended [[Blinn College]], and took a law degree at the [[University of Texas School of Law|University of Texas]] in January 1951. He entered the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] as a special agent on December 11, 1950, and resigned on December 31, 1954, his services rated satisfactory.[^1]
### Hunt Oil
On February 22, 1955, he wrote to [[J. Edgar Hoover]] on the letterhead of [[Hunt Oil Company]]: "I have become permanently located in [[Texas]] and am now associated with the Hunt Oil Company at [[Dallas, Texas|Dallas]]." He described [[H.L. Hunt]] as one "who, like yourself, has long been a tireless foe of Communism," and thanked the director for an autographed gift. The bureau's later summaries give his title as administrative assistant to Hunt. The press called him chief of security. When an informant told the bureau in December 1961 that Hunt was financing a group called "The Third Party" that "plans to take over the government," and that guns were cached in a house in Dallas, agents interviewed Rothermel, who "knew nothing about it." The Dallas office closed the matter on January 12, 1962, describing the informant as "emotionally unstable."[^1][^2]
### The Wiretaps
Rothermel resigned on November 15, 1969, and became a business consultant. That November and December and the following January, private detectives placed taps on his telephone and those of other Hunt Oil executives. One of them, [[Jon Joseph Kelly|Jon Kelly]], was arrested by the bureau's Dallas office on January 16, 1970. The bureau recorded: "Rothermel claimed wiretapping was done at the instigation of two sons and a nephew of H.L. Hunt in an effort to obtain information for use in declaring H.L. Hunt incompetent. However, during our investigation, Dallas learned from a private detective firm employed by the Hunts that Rothermel and two other former Hunt employees may have defrauded [[HLH Products|H.L.H. Products Company]], a Hunt enterprise, out of between $8 and $10 million. We conducted no investigation concerning that alleged fraud as there is no Federal investigative interest in that allegation."[^1]
On February 3, 1970, [[Cartha DeLoach]] reported to [[Clyde Tolson]] a call from Senator [[James Eastland]], whom the sons of H.L. Hunt had telephoned. They told the senator that they were trying to have their father declared incompetent, that the company had lost about 80 million dollars in several years, and that Rothermel, paid 20,000 dollars a year, lived in a 65,000 dollar house and kept two Cadillacs. In 1971 an intermediary told Senator [[John Tower]] that Rothermel believed "some influential individual" had the bureau "bought off" in the case. Rothermel wrote to Tower on April 22 denying that he had said so and praising the investigation, with a copy to Hoover. Kelly and [[Patrick McCann]] were convicted and then named [[Nelson Bunker Hunt]] and [[William Herbert Hunt]] as their employers.[^1][^2][^3]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, headquarters file on Paul M. Rothermel Jr., released under the Freedom of Information Act. https://archive.org/details/RothermelJr.PaulM.HQ1
[^2]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, headquarters file on H.L. Hunt, part 2, memoranda of February 3, 1970, and April 22, 1971; Fagnant, Marie. "Summary of Dallas Figures," memorandum, Assassination Records Review Board, July 31, 1997, summarizing file 105-90385.
[^3]: Porterfield, Bill. "H.L. Hunt's Long Goodbye," *Texas Monthly,* March 1975; United States v. McCann, 465 F.2d 147 (5th Cir. 1972).

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---
category: "Military"
tags:
- Person
- ReneSchneider
- Chile
- ProjectFUBELT
- CIA
- Assassination
- HenryKissinger
alias:
- René Schneider
- René Schneider Chereau
- General Schneider
summary: "Commander of the Chilean army who held that the military must respect the 1970 election and was shot on October 22, 1970, by officers whom the CIA had paid, armed, and encouraged to kidnap him."
died: 1970-10-25
location: "Santiago, Chile"
created: 2026-09-21
updated: 2026-09-21
---
General René Schneider was commander in chief of the Chilean army from 1969. In an interview with [[El Mercurio]] on May 8, 1970, he stated that the army would respect the constitutional process and the outcome of that year's presidential election, a position that became known as the [[Schneider Doctrine]]. He was shot in [[Santiago]] on the morning of October 22, 1970, two days before the [[National Congress of Chile|Chilean Congress]] was to confirm [[Salvador Allende]], and died on October 25.[^1]
### The Obstacle
After Allende's plurality on September 4, Ambassador [[Edward Korry]] cabled that Schneider "would have to be neutralized, by displacement if necessary." On September 15 President [[Richard Nixon]] ordered the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] to organize a coup, in the operation later known as [[Project FUBELT]]. On October 13 headquarters asked the Santiago station: "What is to keep Schneider from making statement in early hours which will freeze those military leaders who might otherwise join Viaux?" The station answered that the retired General [[Roberto Viaux]] meant to kidnap Schneider within 48 hours.[^1]
[[Henry Kissinger]], [[Alexander Haig]], and the deputy director for plans, [[Thomas Karamessines]], met at the [[White House]] on October 15. The memorandum of the meeting records the judgment that Viaux "did not have more than one chance in twenty" and a decision to send him a message warning him against acting alone. It refers to "the use of false flag officers." The cable that went to Santiago the next day, released by [[David Atlee Phillips]], stated that "it is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup," and added: "There is great and continuing interest in the activities of Tirado, Canales, Valenzuela, et al, and we wish them optimum good fortune."[^2]
### The Guns
On October 18 the station asked headquarters for "three 45 calibre machine guns (grease guns)" with "500 rounds ammo" for the group of General [[Camilo Valenzuela]] and raised the concern that the weapons might be "identified by serial numbers." They came by diplomatic pouch. The army attache, [[Paul Wimert]], delivered them at two in the morning on October 22, with authority to pay Valenzuela 50,000 dollars. Valenzuela's group had tried and failed to seize Schneider on October 19 and 20.[^1][^2]
Six hours after the delivery Schneider's car was blocked on his way to work. He drew his pistol and was shot with handguns. A Chilean military court found that two groups of officers, active and retired, had conspired to kidnap him and bring about a coup, and "that the two Generals had been in contact throughout the coup plotting." Viaux was sentenced to twenty years as "intellectual author" of the attempt. Valenzuela was sentenced to three years in exile. Martial law was declared on the day of the shooting and Valenzuela was given command of Santiago province. The CIA's task force log recorded: "The attack on General Schneider has produced developments which closely follow Valenzuela's plan." Director [[Richard Helms]] concluded the next day that "a maximum effort has been achieved." The agency later paid 35,000 dollars to members of the group that had attacked Schneider. Wimert retrieved the machine guns and threw them into the Pacific. General [[Carlos Prats]] succeeded to the command.[^1][^3]
### Schneider v. Kissinger
René and Raúl Schneider and other members of the family sued Kissinger and the [[United States]] in the federal court in Washington on November 12, 2002. The complaint alleged that on September 15, 1970, Nixon ordered that the CIA "play a direct role in organizing a military coup d'etat in [[Chile]]," said he was "not concerned" about the risks, authorized ten million dollars, and required a plan within 48 hours. The district court dismissed the case in 2004, and the [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit|court of appeals]] affirmed in 2005, holding that the decision to support a coup in a foreign country was a political question that courts could not review.[^4]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders,* interim report, S. Rept. 94-465, November 20, 1975, part III.F.
[^2]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. "The CIA and Chile: Anatomy of an Assassination," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 728, October 22, 2020, documents 23595 (memorandum of conversation, October 15, 1970), 23596 (cable, October 16, 1970), and 23598 (cable, October 18, 1970). https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2020-10-22/cia-chile-anatomy-assassination
[^3]: Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Covert Action in Chile 1963-1973,* staff report, 1975.
[^4]: Schneider v. Kissinger, 310 F. Supp. 2d 251 (D.D.C. 2004), affirmed, 412 F.3d 190 (D.C. Cir. 2005); complaint, November 12, 2002, National Security Archive document 23606.

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---
category: "Extremism & Violent Networks"
tags:
- Person
- RogerPearson
- NorthernLeague
- WorldAntiCommunistLeague
- PioneerFund
- MankindQuarterly
- HeritageFoundation
- NewRight
alias:
- Dr. Roger Pearson
summary: "British anthropologist who founded the Northern League, brought European fascist parties into the World Anti-Communist League as its chairman, published Mankind Quarterly on Pioneer Fund money, and received a letter of thanks from President Reagan."
location: "Washington, D.C."
created: 2026-09-21
updated: 2026-09-21
---
Roger Pearson is a British-born anthropologist and publisher who settled in the [[United States]] in 1965. He took a degree in anthropology at the [[University of London]] in 1951 and a master's in economics in 1954, and wrote [[Eugenics and Race and Race and Civilization]], the second of which names the Nazi racial theorist [[Hans F.K. Günther]] as its inspiration. From Washington after 1975 he ran the [[Council on American Affairs]], the [[Institute for the Study of Man]], and the journals [[Mankind Quarterly]], the [[Journal of Indo-European Studies]], and the Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies, in which members of Congress and staff of the [[Heritage Foundation]] appeared. He received more than half a million dollars from the [[Pioneer Fund]].[^1][^2]
### The Northern League
In 1957 Pearson helped found the [[Northern League]] for Pan-Nordic Friendship, which made contacts in [[Sweden]], [[Denmark]], and [[West Germany]] and opened a branch in [[Sausalito, California]]. Its first conference, at [[Detmold]], was attended by the British Nazi [[Colin Jordan]] and by [[Wilhelm Landig]], a former SS officer. German authorities described the program as "national socialism revived." In 1965 [[Willis Carto]] of the [[Liberty Lobby]] brought Pearson to the United States to edit [[Western Destiny]]. After what both called an amicable parting he taught anthropology at [[Queens College, Charlotte|Queens College]] in [[North Carolina]] and at the [[University of Southern Mississippi]] and was dean of academic affairs at the [[Montana College of Mineral Science and Technology]].[^1]
### Washington
Pearson founded the Council on American Affairs in Washington in 1975. Senators [[Jake Garn]] of [[Utah]] and [[Carl Curtis]] of [[Nebraska]] wrote for its monographs, and Senator [[Jesse Helms]] and Representatives [[Jack Kemp]] and [[Philip Crane]] contributed to its journal. He shared a house with [[John Carbaugh]], Helms's legislative aide and a liaison between the American right and [[Roberto D'Aubuisson]] of [[El Salvador]]. His lawyer, [[Sam Crutchfield]], also represented the [[International Association for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics]] and several of Helms's organizations, and later incorporated the Institute for Democracy, Education and Assistance for [[Oliver North]] and his courier [[Robert Owen]]. The Pioneer Fund's tax return for 1976 lists 4,000 dollars to the Institute for the Study of Man for a "study of American Anglo-Saxon school children." A ledger compiled from the fund's returns records 568,000 dollars to Pearson between 1981 and 1991. He took over Mankind Quarterly from [[Robert Gayre]] in 1978. [[Anthony Bouscaren]] of [[Le Moyne College]], a director of the American league chapter who wrote for Pearson's journals, sat on the committee that distributed [[Wickliffe Draper]]'s grants.[^1][^2][^3]
### The World Anti-Communist League
When the [[American Council for World Freedom]] withdrew as the United States chapter of the [[World Anti-Communist League]] in 1976, the league turned to Pearson's council. Over three years he brought in the remnants of the Northern League and the followers of the Swedish fascist [[Per Engdahl]]. The ousted head of the Dutch chapter wrote in March 1979 that Pearson had sponsored "an organization of 300 to 400 former Dutch SS-traitors." At a meeting in [[Vienna]] in November 1978 he introduced seventeen new European groups, seconded by [[Donald Martin (British publisher)|Donald Martin]] of the Liberty Lobby. He was chairman of the league and host of its conference in Washington that year, which [[Washington Post|The Washington Post]] reported under the headline "The Fascist Specter." The 1979 conference in [[Asuncion]] drew [[Blas Piñar]] of the Spanish [[Fuerza Nueva]], [[Giorgio Almirante]] of the [[Italian Social Movement]], and [[Elio Massagrande]] of [[Ordine Nuovo]], wanted for the 1974 bombing of the Italicus express and living in [[Paraguay]] under the protection of General [[Alfredo Stroessner]].[^1][^2]
Pearson was asked to resign at an executive board meeting in 1980. He told interviewers he had left because the league was becoming anti-Semitic. Asked about reports that he had helped [[Josef Mengele]] escape, he said he had never heard the name, and added that during his visit to Paraguay "a couple of people had been nosing around for him and their bodies had been fished out of the river." General [[John Singlaub]], who took over the American chapter's successor, said Pearson was "not at all welcome in any activity." His immediate successor as head of the American chapter was [[Elmore Greaves]], an organizer of the [[Citizens' Councils|Citizens' Council]] of [[Mississippi]].[^1][^4]
### The Reagan Letter
Pearson sat on the editorial board of the Heritage Foundation's [[Policy Review]] when he organized the 1978 conference, and his name left the masthead after the Post article. [[Stuart Butler]], Heritage's director of domestic issues, and [[Ernest van den Haag]] of [[National Review]] later joined the board of Pearson's own journal. On April 14, 1982, President [[Ronald Reagan]] wrote to him on [[White House]] stationery: "You are performing a valuable service in bringing to a wide audience the work of leading scholars who are supportive of a free enterprise economy, a firm and consistent foreign policy and a strong national defense. Your substantial contributions to promoting and upholding those ideals and principles that we value at home and abroad are greatly appreciated." Pearson used the letter in his fundraising. When [[The Wall Street Journal]] asked about it in 1984, the assistant press secretary, [[Anson Franklin]], said the president opposed racial discrimination and added: "But that's a general statement; I'm not addressing Dr. Pearson specifically." The [[Anti-Defamation League]]'s [[Justin Finger]] said the White House "ought to repudiate this bird."[^2][^4]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Anderson, Scott, and Jon Lee Anderson. *Inside the League: The Shocking Exposé of How Terrorists, Nazis, and Latin American Death Squads Have Infiltrated the World Anti-Communist League*. Dodd, Mead, 1986, pp. 93-104.
[^2]: Bellant, Russ. *Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party*. South End Press, 1991, pp. 60-64.
[^3]: Mehler, Barry, comp. "Pioneer Fund Grants, 1971-1996," Institute for the Study of Academic Racism, compiled from Internal Revenue Service Forms 990, as cited in Mahler, Jonathan. "Forbes Waffles on Ellis; Brooks Blasts Buchanan," *The Forward,* February 1996.
[^4]: "It's 1985, and Ronald Reagan Is Paying His Respects to Nazis," *The Village Voice.*

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---
category: "Other"
tags:
- Person
- SheffieldNelson
- Arkla
- WittStephens
- Arkansas
- BillClinton
- JerryJones
- PublicUtilities
alias:
- Edward Sheffield Nelson
summary: "Protégé of Witt Stephens who became president of Arkla at thirty-two, broke with the Stephens family in 1975, sold gas leases to Jerry Jones that the utility bought back at a large markup, and lost to Bill Clinton in 1990."
born: 1941
location: "Little Rock, Arkansas"
created: 2026-09-21
updated: 2026-09-21
---
Sheffield Nelson was hired by [[Witt Stephens]] as his executive assistant at [[Arkla|Arkansas Louisiana Gas]], rose as a salesman and executive while attending law school at night, and in 1973, on Stephens's retirement and at his choice, became president of the utility at thirty-two.[^1]
"A major split occurred between Nelson and his predecessor when, in 1975, Nelson refused to renegotiate old gas contracts with [[Stephens Production|Stephens Production Company]]." He also lobbied against a bill that would have made Arkla carry gas from Stephens wells for a rival utility. "Witt Stephens never got over his resentment."[^1]
In the early 1980s Arkla sold a half interest in its leases in the [[Arkoma Basin]] to [[Jerry Jones]], whose Arkoma Production Company was to supply the utility's industrial customers. The property "was bought back by Arkla for far more than it was sold to Jones." [[Arkansas Business]] put the sale to Jones at 15 million dollars and the repurchase in 1986 at 175 million, under a contract that obliged Arkla to take three quarters of Arkoma's gas. It reported that the old contracts on the Stephens family's own Cecil and Aetna fields, at 16 and 55 cents per thousand cubic feet, were broken on April 28, 1983, and that Arkoma and Stephens then shared in gas sold to Arkla at three dollars. Nelson retired on December 31, 1984, and named [[Mack McLarty]] as his successor.[^1][^2]
Nelson joined the Republican Party in 1989 and ran for governor of [[Arkansas]] in 1990. He won the primary with 54 percent against Representative [[Tommy Robinson]], whom the Stephens family supported. "Arkoma continued to dominate the fall campaign, and [[Bill Clinton|Clinton]] won his fifth term with fifty-seven percent of the vote." McLarty became Clinton's first [[White House Chief of Staff|White House chief of staff]].[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: "Sheffield Nelson (1941-)," *Encyclopedia of Arkansas.* https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/edward-sheffield-nelson-2479/
[^2]: "Oily Deals: Pattern Emerging in Questionable Arkoma Gas Transactions," *Arkansas Business,* April 9, 1990.

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---
category: "Other"
tags:
- Person
- WittStephens
- StephensInc
- Arkla
- Arkansas
- PublicUtilities
- PoliticalPatronage
alias:
- W.R. Stephens
- Mr. Witt
summary: "Arkansas bond dealer who founded the Stephens investment house in 1933, controlled Arkansas Louisiana Gas from 1954, had the legislature undo a state supreme court ruling in four days, and was the state's kingmaker."
born: 1907-09-14
died: 1991-12-02
location: "Little Rock, Arkansas"
created: 2026-09-21
updated: 2026-09-21
---
Witt Stephens (September 14, 1907 to December 2, 1991) was the founder of the firm that became [[Stephens Inc.]] and the elder brother of [[Jackson Stephens]]. He was born at [[Prattsville, Arkansas|Prattsville]] in [[Grant County, Arkansas|Grant County]], the second of six children, and left school after [[Sheridan High School (Arkansas)|Sheridan High School]]. He sold jewelry on the road from 1927, began trading municipal bonds in [[Little Rock, Arkansas|Little Rock]] in 1932, and in 1933 founded the W.R. Stephens Investment Company, which bought defaulted [[Arkansas]] bonds "for as little as ten cents on the dollar."[^1]
### Gas
Stephens paid 1.2 million dollars for the [[Fort Smith Gas Company]] in 1945 and 6.5 million for the Oklahoma Producing Company in 1953, renamed [[Stephens Production]], which has paid the family an estimated billion dollars in dividends. In 1954 he bought [[Arkla|Arkansas Louisiana Gas]] from [[Cities Service]]. Its earnings rose from 1.8 million dollars in 1954 to 7.2 million in 1956, when he became president and chairman. In 1957 the [[Arkansas Supreme Court]] rejected the formula by which the utility passed its gas costs to customers. A replacement bill went through both houses of the legislature and was signed in four days. "Well, hell, we'll just change the law," he is reported to have said. He was elected to the [[Arkansas House of Representatives]] in 1961 and served two terms while running the utility it regulated. By the late 1960s seventeen of the thirty-five state senators drew salaries or retainers from the company.[^1][^2][^3]
He retired from Arkla in 1973 in favor of his executive assistant, [[Sheffield Nelson]], then thirty-two. In 1975 Nelson refused to renegotiate the old contracts under which Stephens Production sold gas to the utility, and lobbied against a bill that would have made Arkla carry gas from Stephens wells for a rival. "Witt Stephens never got over his resentment." In the early 1980s Nelson sold a half interest in Arkla leases in the [[Arkoma Basin|Arkoma basin]] to [[Jerry Jones]], who joined the utility's board, with a commitment that Arkla would buy the gas at the highest lawful price. Nelson retired on December 31, 1984, naming [[Mack McLarty]] to succeed him, and under McLarty Arkla bought the properties back in 1986 "for far more than it was sold to Jones." The final cost was put at 174.8 million dollars. A ratepayers' class action filed in January 1990 called it an insiders' arrangement that had overcharged Arkansas gas customers 80 million dollars. Nelson called it the "best deal" the utility ever made. His opponent in the Republican primary, Representative [[Tommy Robinson]], by then a protégé of the Stephens family, said Nelson had tried to "stuff his pockets so full of money his pants fell down." Nelson became a Republican in 1989 and ran for governor in 1990 against [[Bill Clinton]]. The Arkoma transaction was the main issue of the campaign, and Clinton won a fifth term with 57 percent. McLarty became his [[White House]] chief of staff.[^4][^5]
### Politics
For thirty years after the [[World War II|Second World War]] Stephens was called the kingmaker of Arkansas. He backed [[Sid McMath]] for governor in 1948 and took part in the campaigns of [[Orval Faubus]], Senator [[J. William Fulbright]], and Senator [[John L. McClellan]]. In the 1966 primary for governor he backed [[J. Frank Holt]], for whom the young Bill Clinton worked. He and his brother met [[Mochtar Riady]] of [[Indonesia]] in 1976 and considered buying the [[Arkansas Gazette]] in 1991. He died of complications of a stroke and is buried at Prattsville.[^1][^3][^6]
### Footnotes
[^1]: "Witt Stephens (1907-1991)," *Encyclopedia of Arkansas.* https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/witt-stephens-1773/
[^2]: "Stephens Inc.," *Encyclopedia of Arkansas.* https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/stephens-inc-6985/
[^3]: Morris, Roger. *Partners in Power: The Clintons and Their America*. Henry Holt, 1996.
[^4]: "Sheffield Nelson," *Encyclopedia of Arkansas.* https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/edward-sheffield-nelson-2479/
[^5]: "Oily Deals: Pattern Emerging in Questionable Arkoma Gas Transactions," *Arkansas Business,* April 9, 1990, republished March 31, 2014 (opening section; remainder behind a subscription wall).
[^6]: House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, H. Rept. 105-829, 1998, vol. 2; "Following the Money," *Arkansas Times,* September 7, 2001.